However, no matter what may be one's opinion of the actual results attained by these German philosophers, one must frankly admit that no one who wishes to understand clearly the development of speculative thought can afford to dispense with a careful reading of them. Much even of the English philosophy of our own day must remain obscure to those who have not looked into their pages. Thus, the thought of Kant and Hegel molded the thought of Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) and of the brothers Caird; and their influence has made itself widely felt both in England and in America. One cannot criticise intelligently books written from their standpoint, unless one knows how the authors came by their doctrine and out of what it has been developed.
63. CRITICAL EMPIRICISM.—We have seen that the trouble with the rationalists seemed to be that they made an appeal to "eternal truths," which those who followed them could not admit to be eternal truths at all. They proceeded on a basis of assumptions the validity of which was at once called in question.
Locke, the empiricist, repudiated all this, and then also made assumptions which others could not, and cannot, approve. Kant did something of much the same sort; we cannot regard his "criticism" as wholly critical.
How can we avoid such errors? How walk cautiously, and go around the pit into which, as it seems to us, others have fallen? I may as well tell the reader frankly that he sets his hope too high if he expects to avoid all error and to work out for himself a philosophy in all respects unassailable. The difficulties of reflective thought are very great, and we should carry with us a consciousness of that fact and a willingness to revise our most cherished conclusions.
Our initial difficulty seems to be that we must begin by assuming something, if only as material upon which to work. We must begin our philosophizing somewhere. Where shall we begin? May we not fall into error at the very outset?
The doctrine set forth in the earlier chapters of this volume maintains that we must accept as our material the revelation of the mind and the world which seems to be made in our common experience, and which is extended and systematized in the sciences. But it insists that we must regard such an acceptance as merely provisional, must subject our concepts to a careful criticism, and must always be on our guard against hasty assumptions.
It emphasizes the value of the light which historical study casts upon the real meaning of the concepts which we all use and must use, but which have so often proved to be stones of stumbling in the path of those who have employed them. Its watchword is analysis, always analysis; and a settled distrust of what have so often passed as "self-evident" truths. It regards it as its task to analyze experience, while maintaining that only the satisfactory carrying out of such an analysis can reveal what experience really is, and clear our notions of it from misinterpretations.
No such attempt to give an account of experience can be regarded as fundamentally new in its method. Every philosopher, in his own way, criticises experience, and seeks its interpretation. But one may, warned by the example of one's predecessors, lay emphasis upon the danger of half-analyses and hasty assumptions, and counsel the observance of sobriety and caution.
For convenience, I have called the doctrine Critical Empiricism. I warn the reader against the seductive title, and advise him not to allow it to influence him unduly in his judgment of the doctrine.
64. PRAGMATISM.—It seems right that I should, before closing this chapter, say a few words about Pragmatism, which has been so much discussed in the last few years.
In 1878 Mr. Charles S. Peirce wrote an article for the Popular Science Monthly in which he proposed as a maxim for the attainment of clearness of apprehension the following: "Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."
This thought has been taken up by others and given a development which Mr. Peirce regards with some suspicion. He refers[4] especially to the development it has received at the hands of Professor William James, in his two essays, "The Will to Believe" and "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results." [5] Professor James is often regarded as foremost among the pragmatists.
I shall not attempt to define pragmatism, for I do not believe that the doctrine has yet attained to that definiteness of formulation which warrants a definition. We seem to have to do not so much with a clear-cut doctrine, the limits and consequences of which have been worked out in detail, as with a tendency which makes itself apparent in the works of various writers under somewhat different forms.
I may roughly describe it as the tendency to take that to be true which is useful or serviceable. It is well illustrated in the two essays to which reference is made above.
Thus, Professor James dwells upon the unsatisfactoriness and uncertainty of philosophical and scientific knowledge: "Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?"
Now, among those things regarding which it appears impossible to attain to intellectual certitude, there are matters of great practical moment, and which affect deeply the conduct of life; for example, the doctrines of religion. Here a merely skeptical attitude seems intolerable.
In such cases, argues Professor James, "we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will."
It is important to notice that there is no question here of a logical right. We are concerned with matters regarding which, according to Professor James, we cannot look for intellectual evidence. It is assumed that we believe simply because we choose to believe—we believe arbitrarily.
It is further important to notice that what is a "live" hypothesis to one man need not tempt the will of another man at all. As our author points out, a Turk would naturally will to believe one thing and a Christian would will to believe another. Each would will to believe what struck him as a satisfactory thing to believe.
What shall we say to this doctrine? I think we must say that it is clearly not a philosophical method of attaining to truth. Hence, it has not properly a place in this chapter among the attempts which have been made to attain to the truth of things.
It is, in fact, not concerned with truths, but with assumptions, and with assumptions which are supposed to be made on the basis of no evidence. It is concerned with "seemings."
The distinction is a very important one. Our Turk cannot, by willing to believe it, make his hypothesis true; but he can make it seem true. Why should he wish to make it seem true whether it is true or not? Why should he strive to attain to a feeling of subjective certainty, not by logically resolving his doubts, but by ignoring them?
The answer is given us by our author. He who lives in the midst of doubts, and refuses to cut his knot with the sword of belief, misses the good of life. This is a practical problem, and one of no small moment. In the last section of this book I have tried to indicate what it is wise for a man to do when he is confronted by doubts which he cannot resolve.
Into the general question whether even a false belief may not, under some circumstances, be more serviceable than no belief at all, I shall not enter. The point I wish to emphasize is that there is all the difference in the world between producing a belief and proving a truth.
We are compelled to accept it as a fact that men, under the influence of feeling, can believe in the absence of evidence, or, for that matter, can believe in spite of evidence. But a truth cannot be established in the absence of evidence or in the face of adverse evidence. And there is a very wide field in which it is made very clear to us that beliefs adopted in the absence of evidence are in danger of being false beliefs.
The pragmatist would join with the rest of us in condemning the Turk or the Christian who would simply will to believe in the rise or the fall of stocks, and would refuse to consult the state of the market. Some hypotheses are, in the ordinary course of events, put to the test of verification. We are then made painfully aware that beliefs and truths are quite distinct things, and may not be in harmony.
Now, the pragmatist does not apply his principle to this field. He confines it to what may not inaptly be called the field of the unverifiable. The Turk, who wills to believe in the hypothesis that appeals to him as a pious Turk, is in no such danger of a rude awakening as is the man who wills to believe that stocks will go up or down. But mark what this means: it means that he is not in danger of finding out what the truth really is. It does not mean that he is in possession of the truth.
So I say, the doctrine which we are discussing is not a method of attaining to truth. What it really attempts to do is to point out to us how it is prudent for us to act when we cannot discover what the truth is.[6]
[1] "An Essay concerning Human Understanding," Book II, Chapter I, section 2.
[2] Book I, Chapter I, section 4.
[3] Book I, Chapter I, section 1.
[4] "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology," article "Pragmatism."
[5] Published in 1897 and 1898.
[6] For references to later developments of pragmatism, see the note on page 312.
V. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES
CHAPTER XVI
LOGIC
65. INTRODUCTORY: THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES.—I have said in the first chapter of this book (section 6) that there is quite a group of sciences that are regarded as belonging peculiarly to the province of the teacher of philosophy to-day. Having, in the chapters preceding, given some account of the nature of reflective thought, of the problems touching the world and the mind which present themselves to those who reflect, and of some types of philosophical theory which have their origin in such reflection, I turn to a brief consideration of the philosophical sciences.
Among these I included logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. I did not include epistemology or "the theory of knowledge" as a separate discipline, and my reasons for this will appear in Chapter XIX. I remarked that, to complete the list, we should have to add the philosophy of religion and an investigation into the principles and methods of the sciences generally.
Why, it was asked, should this group of disciplines be regarded as the field of the philosopher, when others are excluded? The answer to this question which finds the explanation of the fact to lie in a mere historical accident was declared unsatisfactory, and it was maintained that the philosophical sciences are those in which we find ourselves carried back to the problems of reflective thought.
With a view to showing the truth of this opinion, I shall take up one by one the philosophical sciences. Of the history of philosophy I shall not speak in this part of the work, but shall treat of it in Chapter XXIII.
66. THE TRADITIONAL LOGIC.—Most of us begin our acquaintance with logic in the study of some such elementary manual as Jevons' "Lessons in Logic."
In such books we are shown how terms represent things and classes of things or their attributes, and how we unite them into propositions or statements. It is indicated at length what statements may be made on a basis of certain other statements and what may not; and emphasis is laid upon the dangers which arise out of a misunderstanding of the language in which we are forced to express our thoughts. Finally, there are described for us the experimental methods by which the workers in the sciences have attained to the general information about the world which has become our heritage.
Such books are useful. It is surely no small profit for a student to gain the habit of scrutinizing the steps by which he has come into the possession of a certain bit of information, and to have a quick eye for loose and inconsistent reasonings.
But it is worthy of remark that one may study such a book as this and yet remain pretty consistently on what may be called the plane of the common understanding. One seems to make the assumptions made in all the special sciences, e.g. the assumption that there is a world of real things and that we can know them and reason about them. We are not introduced to such problems as: What is truth? and Is any knowledge valid? Nor does it seem at once apparent that the man who is studying logic in this way is busying himself with a philosophical discipline.
67. THE "MODERN LOGIC."—It is very puzzling for the student to turn from such a text-book as the one above mentioned to certain others which profess to be occupied with the same science, and which, yet, appear to treat of quite different things.
Thus, in Dr. Bosanquet's little work on "The Essentials of Logic," the reader is at once plunged into such questions as the nature of knowledge, and what is meant by the real world. We seem to be dealing with metaphysics, and not with logic, as we have learned to understand the term. How is it that the logician comes to regard these things as within his province?
A multitude of writers at the present day are treating logic in this way, and in some great prominence is given to problems which the philosopher recognizes as indisputably his own. The term "modern logic" is often employed to denote a logic of this type; one which does not, after the fashion of the natural sciences generally, proceed on the basis of certain assumptions, and leave deeper questions to some other discipline, but tries to get to the bottom of things for itself. The tendency to run into metaphysics is peculiarly marked in those writers who have been influenced by the work of the philosopher Hegel.
I shall not here ask why those who belong to one school are more inclined to be metaphysical than are those who belong to another, but shall approach the broader question why the logicians generally are inclined to be more metaphysical than those who work in certain other special sciences, such as mathematics, for example. Of the general tendency there can be no question. The only problem is: Why does this tendency exist?
68. LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY.—Let us contrast the science of arithmetic with logic; and let us notice, regarding it, the following points:—
It is, like logic, a general science, in that the things treated of in many sciences may be numbered. It considers only a certain aspect of the things.
Now, that things may be counted, added together, subtracted, etc., is guaranteed by the experience of the plain man; and the methods of determining the numerical relations of things are gradually developed before his eyes, beginning with operations of great simplicity. Moreover, verification is possible, and within certain limits verification by direct inspection.
To this we may add, that there has gradually been built up a fine system of unambiguous symbols, and it is possible for a man to know just what he is dealing with.
Thus, a certain beaten path has been attained, and a man may travel this very well without having forced on his attention the problems of reflective thought. The knowledge of numbers with which he starts is sufficient equipment with which to undertake the journey. That one is on the right road is proved by the results one obtains. As a rule, disputes can be settled by well-tried mathematical methods.
There is, then, a common agreement as to initial assumptions and methods of work, and useful results are attained which seem to justify both. Here we have the normal characteristics of a special science.
We must not forget, however, that, even in the mathematical sciences, before a beaten path was attained, disputes as to the significance of numbers and the cogency of proofs were sufficiently common. And we must bear in mind that even to-day, where the beaten path does not seem wholly satisfactory, men seem to be driven to reflect upon the significance of their assumptions and the nature of their method.
Thus, we find it not unnatural that a man should be led to ask; What is a minus quantity really? Can anything be less than nothing? or that he should raise the questions: Can one rightly speak of an infinite number? Can one infinite number be greater than another, and, if so, what can greater mean? What are infinitesimals? and what can be meant by different orders of infinitesimals?
He who has interested himself in such questions as these has betaken himself to philosophical reflection. They are not answered by employing mathematical methods.
Let us now turn to logic. And let us notice, to begin with, that it is broader in its application than the mathematical sciences. It is concerned to discover what constitutes evidence in every field of investigation.
There is, it is true, a part of logic that may be developed somewhat after the fashion of mathematics. Thus, we may examine the two statements: All men are mortal, and Caesar is a man; and we may see clearly that, given the truth of these, we must admit that Caesar is mortal. We may make a list of possible inferences of this kind, and point out under what circumstances the truth of two statements implies the truth of a third, and under what circumstances the inference cannot be made. Our results can be set forth in a system of symbols. As in mathematics, we may abstract from the particular things reasoned about, and concern ourselves only with the forms of reasoning. This gives us the theory of the syllogism; it is a part of logic in which the mathematician is apt to feel very much at home.
But this is by no means all of logic. Let us consider the following points:—
(1) We are not concerned to know only what statements may be made on the basis of certain other statements. We want to know what is true and what is false. We must ask: Has a man the right to set up these particular statements and to reason from them? That some men accept as true premises which are repudiated by others is an undoubted fact. Thus, it is maintained by certain philosophers that we may assume that any view of the universe which is repellant to our nature cannot be true. Shall we allow this to pass unchallenged? And in ethics, some have held that it is under all circumstances wrong to lie; others have denied this, and have held that in certain cases—for example, to save life or to prevent great and unmerited suffering—lying is permissible. Shall we interest ourselves only in the deductions that each man makes from his assumed premises, and pay no attention to the truth of the premises themselves?
(2) Again. The vast mass of the reasonings that interest men are expressed in the language that we all use and not in special symbols. But language is a very imperfect instrument, and all sorts of misunderstandings are possible to those who express their thoughts in it.
Few men know exactly how much is implied in what they are saying. If I say: All men are mortal, and an angel is not a man; therefore, an angel is not mortal; it is not at once apparent to every one in what respect my argument is defective. He who argues: Feathers are light; light is contrary to darkness; hence, feathers are contrary to darkness; is convicted of error without difficulty. But arguments of the same kind, and quite as bad, are to be found in learned works on matters less familiar to us, and we often fail to detect the fallacy.
Thus, Herbert Spencer argues, in effect, in the fourth and fifth chapters of his "First Principles," as follows:—
We are conscious of the Unknowable,
The Unknowable lies behind the veil of phenomena,
Hence, we are conscious of what lies behind the veil of phenomena.
It is only the critical reader who notices that the Unknowable in the first line is the "raw material of consciousness," and the Unknowable in the second is something not in consciousness at all. The two senses of the word "light" are not more different from one another. Such apparent arguments abound, and it often requires much acuteness to be able to detect their fallacious character.
When we take into consideration the two points indicated above, we see that the logician is at every turn forced to reflect upon our knowledge as men do not ordinarily reflect. He is led to ask: What is truth? He cannot accept uncritically the assumptions which men make; and he must endeavor to become very clearly conscious of the real meaning and the whole meaning of statements expressed in words. Even in the simple logic with which we usually begin our studies, we learn to scrutinize statements in a reflective way; and when we go deeper, we are at once in contact with philosophical problems. It is evidently our task to attain to a clearer insight into the nature of our experience and the meaning of proof than is attainable by the unreflective.
Logic, then, is a reflective science, and it is not surprising that it has held its place as one of the philosophical sciences.
CHAPTER XVII
PSYCHOLOGY
69. PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.—I think I have said enough in Chapter II (section 10) about what we mean when we speak of psychology as a natural science and as an independent discipline. Certainly there are many psychologists who would not care to be confused with the philosophers, and there are some that regard philosophy with suspicion.
Nevertheless, psychology is commonly regarded as belonging to the philosophical group. That this is the case can scarcely be thought surprising when we see how the psychologist himself speaks of the relation of his science to philosophy.
"I have kept," writes Professor James[1] in that delightful book which has become the common property of us all, "close 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. Psychology, the science of finite individual minds, assumes as its data (1) thoughts and feelings, and (2) a physical world in time and space with which they coexist, and which (3) they know. Of course, these data themselves are discussable; but the discussion of them (as of other elements) is called metaphysics and falls outside the province of this book."
This is an admirable statement of the scope of psychology as a natural science, and also of the relations of metaphysics to the sciences. But it would not be fair to Professor James to take this sentence alone, and to assume that, in his opinion, it is easy to separate psychology altogether from philosophy. "The reader," he tells us in the next paragraph, "will in vain seek for any closed system in the book. It is mainly a mass of descriptive details, running out into queries which only a metaphysics alive to the weight of her task can hope successfully to deal with." And in the opening sentence of the preface he informs us that some of his chapters are more "metaphysical" than is suitable for students going over the subject for the first time.
That the author is right in maintaining that it is not easy to draw a clear line between philosophy and psychology, and to declare the latter wholly independent, I think we must concede. An independent science should be sure of the things with which it is dealing. Where these are vague and indefinite, and are the subject of constant dispute, it cannot march forward with assurance. One is rather forced to go back and examine the data themselves. The beaten track of the special science has not been satisfactorily constructed.
We are forced to admit that the science of psychology has not yet emerged from the state in which a critical examination of its foundations is necessary, and that the construction of the beaten path is still in progress. This I shall try to make clear by illustrations.
The psychologist studies the mind, and his ultimate appeal must be to introspection, to a direct observation of mental phenomena, and of their relations to external things. Now, if the observation of mental phenomena were a simple and an easy thing; if the mere fact that we are conscious of sensations and ideas implied that we are clearly conscious of them and are in a position to describe them with accuracy, psychology would be a much more satisfactory science than it is.
But we are not thus conscious of our mental life. We can and do use our mental states without being able to describe them accurately. In a sense, we are conscious of what is there, but our consciousness is rather dim and vague, and in our attempts to give an account of it we are in no little danger of giving a false account.
Thus, the psychologist assumes that we perceive both physical phenomena and mental—the external world and the mind. He takes it for granted that we perceive mental phenomena to be related to physical. He is hardly in a position to make this assumption, and then to set it aside as a thing he need not further consider. Does he not tell us, as a result of his investigations, that we can know the external world only as it is reflected in our sensations, and thus seem to shut the mind up within the circle of mental phenomena merely, cutting off absolutely a direct knowledge of what is extra-mental? If we can know only mental phenomena, the representatives of things, at first hand, how can we tell that they are representatives? and what becomes of the assumption that we perceive that mind is related to an external world?
It may be said, this problem the psychologist may leave to the metaphysician. Certainly, it is one of those problems that the metaphysician discusses; it has been treated in Chapter IV. But my contention is, that he who has given no thought to the matter may easily fall into error as to the very nature of mental phenomena.
For example, when we approach or recede from a physical object we have a series of experiences which are recognized as sensational. When we imagine a tree or a house we are also experiencing a mental phenomenon. All these experiences seem plainly to have extension in some sense of the word. We appear to perceive plainly part out of part. In so far, these mental things seem to resemble the physical things which we contrast with what is mental. Shall we say that, because these things are mental and not physical, their apparent extension is a delusion? Shall we say that they really have no parts? Such considerations have impelled psychologists of eminence to maintain, in flat contradiction to what seems to be the unequivocal testimony of direct introspection, that the total content of consciousness at any moment must be looked upon as an indivisible, part-less unit.
We cannot, then, depend merely on direct introspection. It is too uncertain in its deliverances. If we would make clear to ourselves what mental phenomena really are, and how they | differ from physical phenomena, we must fall back upon the reflective analysis of our experience which occupies the metaphysician (section 34). Until we have done this, we are in great danger of error. We are actually uncertain of our materials.
Again. The psychologist speaks of the relation of mind and body. Some psychologists incline to be parallelists, some are warm advocates of interactionism. Now, any theory of the relation of mind to body must depend on observation ultimately. If we had not direct experience of a relation between the physical and the mental somewhere, no hypothesis on the subject would ever have emerged.
But our experiences are not perfectly clear and unequivocal to us. Their significance does not seem to be easily grasped. To comprehend it one is forced to that reflective examination of experience which is characteristic of the philosopher (Chapter IX).
Here it may again be said: Leave the matter to the meta-physician and go on with your psychological work. I answer: The psychologist is not in the same position as the botanist or the zoölogist. He is studying mind in its relation to body. It cannot but be unsatisfactory to him to leave that relation wholly vague; and, as a matter of fact, he usually takes up with one theory or another. We have seen (section 36) that he may easily adopt a theory that leads him to overlook the great difference between physical phenomena and mental phenomena, and to treat them as though they were the same. This one may do in spite of all that introspection has to say about the gulf that separates them.
Psychology is, then, very properly classed among the philosophical sciences. The psychologist is not sufficiently sure of his materials to be able to dispense with reflective thought, in many parts of his field. Some day there may come to be a consensus of opinion touching fundamental facts, and the science may become more independent. A beaten track may be attained; but that has not yet been done.
70. THE DOUBLE AFFILIATION OF PSYCHOLOGY.—In spite of what has been said above, we must not forget that psychology is a relatively independent science. One may be a useful psychologist without knowing much about philosophy.
As in logic it is possible to write a text-book not greatly different in spirit and method from text-books concerned with the sciences not classed as philosophical, so it is possible to make a useful study of mental phenomena without entering upon metaphysical analyses. In science, as in common life, we can use concepts without subjecting them to careful analysis.
Thus, our common experience reveals that mind and body are connected. We may, for a specific purpose, leave the nature of this connection vague, and may pay careful attention to the physiological conditions of mental phenomena, studying in detail the senses and the nervous system. We may, further, endeavor to render our knowledge of mental phenomena more full and accurate by experimentation. In doing this we may be compelled to make use of elaborate apparatus. Of such mechanical aids to investigation our psychological laboratories are full.
It is to such work as this that we owe what is called the "physiological" and the "experimental" psychology. One can carry on such investigations without being a metaphysician. But one can scarcely carry them on without having a good knowledge of certain sciences not commonly supposed to be closely related to psychology at all. Thus, one should be trained in chemistry and physics and physiology, and should have a working knowledge of laboratory methods. Moreover, it is desirable to have a sufficient knowledge of mathematics to enable one to handle experimental data.
The consideration of such facts as these sometimes leads men to raise the question: Should psychology affiliate with philosophy or with the physical sciences? The issue is an illegitimate one. Psychology is one of the philosophical sciences, and cannot dispense with reflection; but that is no reason why it should not acknowledge a close relation to certain physical sciences as well. Parts of the field can be isolated, and one may work as one works in the natural sciences generally; but if one does nothing more, one's concepts remain unanalyzed, and, as we have seen in the previous section, there is some danger of actual misconception.
[1] "Psychology," Preface.
CHAPTER XVIII
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS
71. COMMON SENSE ETHICS.—We may, if we choose, study the actions of men merely with a view to ascertaining what they are and describing them accurately. Something like this is done by the anthropologist, who gives us an account of the manners and customs of the various races of mankind; he tells us what is; he may not regard it as within his province at all to inform us regarding what ought to be.
But men do not merely act; they judge their actions in the light of some norm or standard, and they distinguish between them as right and wrong. The systematic study of actions as right and wrong yields us the science of ethics.
Like psychology, ethics is a special science. It is concerned with a somewhat limited field of investigation, and is not to be confounded with other sciences. It has a definite aim distinct from theirs. And, also like psychology, ethics is classed as one of the philosophical sciences, and its relation to philosophy is supposed to be closer than that of such sciences as physics and mathematics. It is fair to ask why this is so. Why cannot ethics proceed on the basis of certain assumptions independently, and leave to some other discipline the whole question of an inquiry into the nature and validity of those assumptions?
About half a century ago Dr. William Whewell, one of the most learned of English scholars, wrote a work entitled "The Elements of Morality," in which he attempted to treat the science of ethics as it is generally admitted that one may treat the science of geometry. The book was rather widely read a generation since, but we meet with few references to it in our time.
"Morality and the philosophy of morality," argues the author, "differ in the same manner and in the same degree as geometry and the philosophy of geometry. Of these two subjects, geometry consists of a series of positive and definite propositions, deduced one from another, in succession, by rigorous reasoning, and all resting upon certain definitions and self-evident axioms. The philosophy of geometry is quite a different subject; it includes such inquiries as these: Whence is the cogency of geometrical proof? What is the evidence of the axioms and definitions? What are the faculties by which we become aware of their truth? and the like. The two kinds of speculation have been pursued, for the most part, by two different classes of persons,—the geometers and the metaphysicians; for it has been far more the occupation of metaphysicians than of geometers to discuss such questions as I have stated, the nature of geometrical proofs, geometrical axioms, the geometrical faculty, and the like. And if we construct a complete system of geometry, it will be almost exactly the same, whatever be the views which we take on these metaphysical questions." [1]
Such a system Dr. Whewell wishes to construct in the field of ethics. His aim is to give us a view of morality in which moral propositions are "deduced from axioms, by successive steps of reasoning, so far as to form a connected system of moral truth." Such a "sure and connected knowledge of the duties of man" would, he thinks, be of the greatest importance.
In accordance with this purpose, Dr. Whewell assumes that humanity, justice, truth, purity, order, earnestness, and moral purpose are fundamental principles of human action; and he thinks that all who admit as much as this will be able to go on with him in his development of a system of moral rules to govern the life of man.
It would hardly be worth while for me to speak at length of a way of treating ethics so little likely to be urged upon the attention of the reader who busies himself with the books which are appearing in our own day, were it not that we have here an admirable illustration of the attempt to teach ethics as though it were such a science as geometry. The shortcomings of the method become very evident to one who reads the work attentively.
Thus, we are forced to ask ourselves, have we really a collection of ultimate moral principles which are analogous to the axioms of geometry? For example, to take but a single instance, Dr. Whewell formulates the Principle of Truth as follows: "We must conform to the universal understanding among men which the use of language implies";[2] and he remarks later; "The rules: Lie not, Perform your promise, are of universal validity; and the conceptions of lie and of promise are so simple and distinct that, in general, the rules may be directly and easily applied." [3]
Now, we are struck by the fact that this affirmation of the universal validity of the principle of truth is made in a chapter on "Cases of Conscience," in a chapter concerned with what seem to be conflicts between duties; and this chapter is followed by one which treats of "Cases of Necessity," i.e. cases in which a man is to be regarded as justified in violating common rules when there seems to be urgent reason for so doing. We are told that the moralist cannot say: Lie not, except in great emergencies; but must say: Lie not at all. But we are also told that he must grant that there are cases of necessity in which transgressions of moral rules are excusable; and this looks very much as if he said: Go on and do the thing while I close my eyes.
This hardly seems to give us a "sure and connected knowledge of the duties of man" deduced from axiomatic principles. On what authority shall we suspend for the time being this axiomatic principle or that? Is there some deeper principle which lends to each of them its authority, and which may, for cause, withdraw it? There is no hint of such in the treatment of ethics which we are considering, and we seem to have on our hands, not so much a science, as a collection of practical rules, of the scope of which we are more or less in the dark.
The interesting thing to notice is that this view of ethics is very closely akin to that adapted unconsciously by the majority of the persons we meet who have not interested themselves much in ethics as a science.
By the time that we have reached years of discretion we are all in possession of a considerable number of moral maxims. We consider it wrong to steal, to lie, to injure our neighbor. Such maxims lie in our minds side by side, and we do not commonly think of criticising them. But now and then we face a situation in which one maxim seems to urge one course of action and another maxim a contrary one. Shall we tell the truth and the whole truth, when so doing will bring grave misfortune upon an innocent person? And now and then we are brought to the realization that all men do not admit the validity of all our maxims. Judgments differ as to what is right and what is wrong. Who shall be the arbiter? Not infrequently a rough decision is arrived at in the assumption that we have only to interrogate "conscience"—in the assumption, in other words, that we carry a watch which can be counted upon to give the correct time, even if the timepieces of our neighbors are not to be depended upon.
The common sense ethics cannot be regarded as very systematic and consistent, or as very profound. It is a collection of working rules, of practical maxims; and, although it is impossible to overestimate its value as a guide to life, its deficiencies, when it is looked at critically, become evident, I think, even to thoughtful persons who are not scientific at all.
Many writers on ethics have simply tried to turn this collection of working rules into a science, somewhat as Dr. Whewell has done. This is the peculiar weakness of those who have been called the "intuitionalists"—though I must warn the reader against assuming that this term has but the one meaning, and that all those to whom it has been applied should be placed in the same class. Here it is used to indicate those who maintain that we are directly aware of the validity of certain moral principles, must accept them as ultimate, and need only concern ourselves with the problem of their application.
72. ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY.—When John Locke maintained that there are no "innate practical principles," or innate moral maxims, he pointed in evidence to the "enormities practiced without remorse" in different ages and by different peoples. The list he draws up is a curious and an interesting one.[4]
In our day it has pretty generally come to be recognized by thoughtful men that a man's judgments as to right and wrong reflect the phase of civilization, or the lack of it, which he represents, and that their significance cannot be understood when we consider them apart from their historic setting. This means that no man's conscience is set up as an ultimate standard, but that every man's conscience is regarded as furnishing material which the science of ethics must take into account.
May we, broadening the basis upon which we are to build, and studying the manners, customs, and moral judgments of all sorts and conditions of men, develop an empirical science of ethics which will be independent of philosophy?
It does not seem that we can do this. We are concerned with psychological phenomena, and their nature and significance are by no means beyond dispute. For example, there is the feeling of moral obligation, of which ethics has so much to say. What is this feeling, and what is its authority? Is it a thing to be explained? Can it impel a man, let us say, a bigot, to do wrong? And what can we mean by credit and discredit, by responsibility and free choice, and other concepts of the sort? All this must remain very vague to one who has not submitted his ethical concepts to reflective analysis of the sort that we have a right to call philosophical.
Furthermore, it does not seem possible to decide what a man should or should not do, without taking into consideration the circumstances in which he is placed. The same act may be regarded as benevolent or the reverse according to its context. If we will but grant the validity of the premises from which the medieval churchman reasoned, we may well ask whether, in laying hands violently upon those who dared to form independent judgments in matters of religion, he was not conscientiously doing his best for his fellow-man. He tried by all means to save some, and to what he regarded as a most dangerous malady he applied a drastic remedy. By what standard shall we judge him?
There can be no doubt that our doctrine of the whole duty of man must be conditioned by our view of the nature of the world in which man lives and of man's place in the world. Has ethics nothing to do with religion? If we do not believe in God, and if we think that man's life ends with the death of the body, it is quite possible that we shall set for him an ethical standard which we should have to modify if we adopted other beliefs. The relation of ethics to religion is a problem that the student of ethics can scarcely set aside. It seems, then, that the study of ethics necessarily carries us back to world problems which cannot be approached except by the path of philosophical reflection. We shall see in Chapter XX that the theistic problem certainly belongs to this class.
It is worthy of our consideration that the vast majority of writers on ethics have felt strongly that their science runs out into metaphysics. We can scarcely afford to treat their testimony lightly. Certainly it is not possible for one who has no knowledge of philosophy to understand the significance of the ethical systems which have appeared in the past. The history of ethics may be looked upon as a part of the history of philosophy. Only on the basis of some general view as to nature and man have men decided what man ought to do. As we have seen above, this appears sufficiently reasonable.
73. AESTHETICS.—Of aesthetics, or the science of the beautiful, I shall say little. There is somewhat the same reason for including it among the philosophical sciences that there is for including ethics.
Those who have paid little attention to science or to philosophy are apt to dogmatize about what is and what is not beautiful just as they dogmatize about what is and what is not right. They say unhesitatingly; This object is beautiful, and that one is ugly. It is as if they said: This one is round, and that one square.
Often it quite escapes their attention that what they now regard as beautiful struck them as unattractive a short time before; and will, perhaps, when the ceaseless change of the fashions has driven it out of vogue, seem strange and unattractive once more. Nor do they reflect upon the fact that others, who seem to have as good a right to an opinion as they, do not agree with them in their judgments; nor upon the further fact that the standard of beauty is a thing that has varied from age to age, differs widely in different countries, and presents minor variations in different classes even in the same community.
The dogmatic utterances of those who are keenly susceptible to the aesthetic aspects of things but are not given to reflection stand in striking contrast to the epitome of the popular wisdom expressed in the skeptical adage that there is no disputing about tastes.
We cannot interpret this adage broadly and take it literally, for then we should have to admit that men's judgments as to the beautiful cannot constitute the material of a science at all, and that there can be no such thing as progress in the fine arts. The notion of progress implies a standard, and an approximation to an ideal. Few would dare to deny that there has been progress in such arts as painting and music; and when one has admitted so much as this, one has virtually admitted that a science of aesthetics is, at least, possible.
The science studies the facts of the aesthetic life as ethics studies the facts of the moral life. It can take no man's taste as furnishing a standard: it must take every man's taste as a fact of significance. It is driven to reflective analysis—to such questions as, what is beauty? and what is meant by aesthetic progress? It deals with elusive psychological facts the significance of which is not easily grasped. It is a philosophical science, and is by no means in a position to follow a beaten path, dispensing with a reflective analysis of its materials.
[1] Preface.
[2] section 269.
[3] section 376.
[4] "Essay concerning Human Understanding," Book I, Chapter III.
CHAPTER XIX
METAPHYSICS
74. WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?—The reader has probably already remarked that in some of the preceding chapters the adjectives "metaphysical" and "philosophical" have been used as if they were interchangeable, in certain connections, at least. This is justified by common usage; and in the present chapter I shall be expected by no one, I think, to prove that metaphysics is a philosophical discipline. My task will rather be to show how far the words "metaphysics" and "philosophy" have a different meaning.
In Chapters III to XI, I have given a general view of the problems which present themselves to reflective thought, and I have indicated that they are not problems which can conveniently be distributed among the several special sciences. Is there an external world? What is it? What are space and time? What is the mind? How are mind and body related? How do we know that there are other minds than ours? etc. These have been presented as philosophical problems; and when we turn back to the history of speculative thought we find that they are just the problems with which the men whom we agree to call philosophers have chiefly occupied themselves.
But when we turn to our treatises on metaphysics, we also find that these are the problems there discussed. Such treatises differ much among themselves, and the problems are not presented in the same form or in the same order; but one who can look beneath the surface will find that the authors are busied with much the same thing—with some or all of the problems above mentioned.
How, then, does metaphysics differ from philosophy? The difference becomes clear to us when we realize that the word philosophy has a broader and looser signification, and that metaphysics is, so to speak, the core, the citadel, of philosophy.
We have seen (Chapter II) that the world and the mind, as they seem to be presented in the experience of the plain man, do not stand forth with such clearness and distinctness that he is able to answer intelligently the questions we wish to ask him regarding their nature. It is not merely that his information is limited; it is vague and indefinite as well. And we have seen, too, that, however the special sciences may increase and systematize his information, they do not clear away such vagueness. The man still uses such concepts as "inner" and "outer," "reality," "the mind," "space," and "time," with no very definite notion of what they mean.
Now, the attempt to clear away this vagueness by the systematic analysis of such concepts—in other words, the attempt to make a thorough analysis of our experience—is metaphysics. The metaphysician strives to limit his task as well as he may, and to avoid unnecessary excursions into the fields occupied by the special sciences, even those which lie nearest to his own, such as psychology and ethics. There is a sense in which he may be said to be working in the field of a special science, though he is using as the material for his investigations concepts which are employed in many sciences; but it is clear that his discipline is not a special science in the same sense in which geometry and physics are special sciences.
Nevertheless, the special sciences stand, as we have already seen in the case of several of them, very near to his own. If he broadens his view, and deliberately determines to take a survey of the field of human knowledge as illuminated by the analyses that he has made, he becomes something more than a metaphysician; he becomes a philosopher.
This does not in the least mean that he becomes a storehouse of miscellaneous information, and an authority on all the sciences. Sometimes the philosophers have attempted to describe the world of matter and of mind as though they possessed some mysterious power of knowing things that absolved them from the duty of traveling the weary road of observation and experiment that has ended in the sciences as we have them. When they have done this, they have mistaken the significance of their calling. A philosopher has no more right than another man to create information out of nothing.
But it is possible, even for one who is not acquainted with the whole body of facts presented in a science, to take careful note of the assumptions upon which that science rests, to analyze the concepts of which it makes use, to mark the methods which it employs, and to gain a fair idea of its scope and of its relation to other sciences. Such a reflection upon our scientific knowledge is philosophical reflection, and it may result in a classification of the sciences, and in a general view of human knowledge as a whole. Such a view may be illuminating in the extreme; it can only be harmful when its significance is misunderstood.
But, it may be argued, why may not the man of science do all this for himself? Why should he leave it to the philosopher, who is presumably less intimately acquainted with the sciences than he is?
To this I answer: The work should, of course, be done by the man who will do it best. All our subdivision of labor should be dictated by convenience. But I add, that experience has shown that the workers in the special sciences have not as a rule been very successful when they have tried to philosophize.
Science is an imperious mistress; she demands one's utmost efforts; and when a man turns to philosophical reflection merely "by the way," and in the scraps of time at his disposal after the day's work is done, his philosophical work is apt to be rather superficial. Moreover, it does not follow that, because a man is a good mathematician or chemist or physicist, he is gifted with the power of reflective analysis. Then, too, such men are apt to be imperfectly acquainted with what has been done in the past; and those who are familiar with the history of philosophy often have occasion to remark that what is laid before them, in ignorance of the fact that it is neither new nor original, is a doctrine which has already made its appearance in many forms and has been discussed at prodigious length in the centuries gone by.
In certain sciences it seems possible to ignore the past, to a great extent, at least. What is worth keeping has been kept, and there is a solid foundation on which to build for the future. But with reflective thought it is not so. There is no accepted body of doctrine which we have the right to regard as unassailable. We should take it as a safe maxim that the reflections of men long dead may be profounder and more worthy of our study than those urged upon our attention by the men of our day.
And this leads me to make a remark upon the titles given to works on metaphysics. It seems somewhat misleading to label them: "Outlines of Metaphysics" or "Elements of Metaphysics." Such titles suggest that we are dealing with a body of doctrine which has met with general acceptance, and may be compared with that found in handbooks on the special sciences. But we should realize that, when we are concerned with the profounder investigations into the nature of our experience, we tread upon uncertain ground and many differences of opinion obtain. We should, if possible, avoid a false semblance of authority.
75. EPISTEMOLOGY.—We hear a great deal at the present day of Epistemology, or the Theory of Knowledge. I have not classed it as a distinct philosophical science, for reasons which will appear below.
We have seen in Chapter XVI that it is possible to treat of logic in a simple way without growing very metaphysical; but we have also seen that when we go deeply into questions touching the nature of evidence and what is meant by truth and falsity, we are carried back to philosophical reflection at once.
We may, for convenience, group together these deeper questions regarding the nature of knowledge and its scope, and call the subject of our study "Epistemology."
But it should be remarked, in the first place, that, when we work in this field, we are exercising a reflective analysis of precisely the type employed in making the metaphysical analyses contained in the earlier chapters of this book. We are treating our experience as it is not treated in common thought and in science.
And it should be remarked, in the second place, that the investigation of our knowledge inevitably runs together with an investigation into the nature of things known, of the mind and the world. Suppose that I give the titles of the chapters in Part III of Mr. Hobhouse's able work on "The Theory of Knowledge." They are as follows: Validity; the Validity of Knowledge; the Conception of External Reality; Substance; the Conception of Self; Reality as a System; Knowledge and Reality; the Grounds of Knowledge and Belief.
Are not these topics metaphysical? Let us ask ourselves how it would affect our views of the validity and of the limits of our knowledge, if we were converted to the metaphysical doctrines of John Locke, or of Bishop Berkeley, or of David Hume, or of Thomas Reid, or of Immanuel Kant.
We may, then, regard epistemology as a part of logic—the metaphysical part—or as a part of metaphysics; it does not much matter which we call it, since we mean the same thing. But its relation to metaphysics is such that it does not seem worth while to call it a separate discipline.
Before leaving this subject there is one more point upon which I should touch, if only to obviate a possible misunderstanding.
We find in Professor Cornelius's clear little book, "An Introduction to Philosophy" (Leipzig, 1903; it has unhappily not yet been translated into English), that metaphysics is repudiated altogether, and epistemology is set in its place. But this rejection of metaphysics does not necessarily imply the denial of the value of such an analysis of our experience as I have in this work called metaphysical. Metaphysics is taken to mean, not an analysis of experience, but a groping behind the veil of phenomena for some reality not given in experience. In other words, what Professor Cornelius condemns is what many of the rest of us also condemn under another name. What he calls metaphysics, we call bad metaphysics; and what he calls epistemology, we call metaphysics. The dispute is really a dispute touching the proper name to apply to reflective analysis of a certain kind.
As it is the fashion in certain quarters to abuse metaphysics, I set the reader on his guard. Some kinds of metaphysics certainly ought to be repudiated under whatever name they may be presented to us.
CHAPTER XX
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
76. RELIGION AND REFLECTION.—A man may be through and through ethical in his thought and feeling, and yet know nothing of the science of ethics. He may be possessed of the finest aesthetic taste, and yet may know nothing of the science of aesthetics. It is one thing to be good, and another to know clearly what goodness means; it is one thing to love the beautiful, and another to know how to define it.
Just so a man may be thoroughly religious, and may, nevertheless, have reflected very little upon his religious belief and the foundations upon which it rests. This does not mean that his belief is without foundation. It may have a firm basis or it may not. But whatever the case may be, he is not in a position to say much about it. He feels that he is right, but he cannot prove it. The man is, I think we must admit, rather blind as to the full significance of his position, and he is, in consequence, rather helpless.
Such a man is menaced by certain dangers. We have seen in the chapter on ethics that men are by no means at one in their judgments as to the rightness or wrongness of given actions. And it requires a very little reflection to teach us that men are not at one in their religious notions. God and His nature, the relation of God to man, what the religious life should be, these things are the subject of much dispute; and some men hold opinions regarded by others as not merely erroneous but highly pernicious in their influence.
Shall a man simply assume that the opinions which he happens to hold are correct, and that all who differ with him are in error? He has not framed his opinions quite independently for himself. We are all influenced by what we have inherited from the past, and what we inherit may be partly erroneous, even if we be right in the main. Moreover, we are all liable to prejudices, and he who has no means of distinguishing such from sober truths may admit into his creed many errors. The lesson of history is very instructive upon this point. The fact is that a man's religious notions reflect the position which he occupies in the development of civilization very much as do his ethical notions.
Again. Even supposing that a man has enlightened notions and is living a religious life that the most instructed must approve; if he has never reflected, and has never tried to make clear to himself just what he really does believe and upon what grounds he believes it, how will it be with him when his position is attacked by another? Men are, as I have said, not at one in these matters, and there are few or none of the doctrines put forward as religions that have not been attacked again and again.
Now, those who depend only upon an instinctive feeling may be placed in the very painful position of seeing no answer to the objections brought against them. What is said may seem plausible; it may even seem true, and is it right for a man to oppose what appears to be the truth? One may be shocked and pained, and may feel that he who makes the assault cannot be right, and yet may be forced to admit that a relentless logic, or what presents itself as such, has every appearance of establishing the repellent truth that robs one of one's dearest possession. The situation is an unendurable one; it is that of the man who guards a treasure and recognizes that there is no lock on the door.
Surely, if there is error mixed with truth in our religious beliefs, it is desirable that we should have some way of distinguishing between the truth and the error. And if our beliefs really have a foundation, it is desirable that we should know what that foundation is, and should not be at the mercy of every passer-by who takes the notion to throw a stone at us. But these desirable ends, it seems clear, cannot be attained without reflection.
77. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.—The reflection that busies itself with these things results in what is called the philosophy of religion. To show that the name is an appropriate one and that we are concerned with a philosophical discipline, I shall take up for a moment the idea of God, which most men will admit has a very important place in our conception of religion.
Does God exist? We may feel very sure that He does, and yet be forced to admit that the evidence of His existence is not so clear and undeniable as to compel the assent of every one. We do not try to prove the existence of the men we meet and who talk to us. No one thinks of denying their existence; it is taken for granted. Even the metaphysician, when he takes up and discusses the question whether we can prove the existence of any mind beyond our own, does not seriously doubt whether there are other minds or not. It is not so much what we know, as how we know it, that interests him.
But with the existence of God it is different. That men do not think that an examination of the evidence can be dispensed with is evident from the books that are written and lectures that are delivered year after year. There seem to be honest differences of opinion, and we feel compelled to offer men proofs—to show that belief is reasonable.
How shall we determine whether this world in which we live is such a world that we may take it as a revelation of God? And of what sort of a Being are we speaking when we use the word "God"? The question is not an idle one, for men's conceptions have differed widely. There is the savage, with a conception that strikes the modern civilized man as altogether inadequate; there is the thoughtful man of our day, who has inherited the reflections of those who have lived in the ages gone by.
And there is the philosopher, or, perhaps, I should rather say, there are the philosophers. Have they not conceived of God as a group of abstract notions, or as a something that may best be described as the Unknowable, or as the Substance which is the identity of thought and extension, or as the external world itself? All have not sinned in this way, but some have, and they are not men whom we can ignore.
If we turn from all such notions and, in harmony with the faith of the great body of religious men in the ages past, some of whom were philosophers but most of whom were not, cling close to the notion that God is a mind or spirit, and must be conceived according to the analogy, at least, of the human mind, the mind we most directly know—if we do this, we are still confronted by problems to which the thoughtful man cannot refuse attention.
What do we mean by a mind? This is a question to which one can scarcely give an intelligent answer unless one has exercised one's faculty of philosophic reflection. And upon what sort of evidence does one depend in establishing the existence of minds other than one's own? This has been discussed at length in Chapter X, and the problem is certainly a metaphysical one. And if we believe that the Divine Mind is not subject to the limitations which confine the human, how shall we conceive it? The question is an important one. Some of the philosophers and theologians who have tried to free the Divine Mind from such limitations have taken away every positive mark by which we recognize a mind to be such, and have left us a naked "Absolute" which is no better than a labeled vacuum.
Moreover, we cannot refuse to consider the question of God's relation to the world. This seems to lead back to the broader question: How are we to conceive of any mind as related to the world? What is the relation between mind and matter? If any subject of inquiry may properly be called metaphysical, surely this may be.
We see, then, that there is little wonder that the thoughtful consideration of the facts and doctrines of religion has taken its place among the philosophical sciences. Aesthetics has been called applied psychology; and I think it is scarcely too much to say that we are here concerned with applied metaphysics, with the attempt to obtain a clear understanding of the significance of the facts of religion in the light of those ultimate analyses which reveal to us the real nature of the world of matter and of minds.