\ \ \ \ H '\,\ ^ \ \ \ x^-^ V* \ \ \\ ANCIENT AND MODERN SIR T. D. ACLAND. BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HenrQ W. Sag* 1891 A.:JA..a:i.^. z^/^/f-;^- I arVI 3497*^°"*®" ""'™«"y Ubrary olin.anx 3 1924 031 245 065 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031245065 KNOWLEDGE, DUTY, AND FAITH. SUGGESTIONS FOE THE STUDY OF PEINCIPLES / TAUSHT BT TYPICAL THINKEES ANCIENT AND MODERN. BY THE Eight Hon. Sie THOMAS DYKE ACLAND, Baet. Addressed to Students in University Extension Classes. LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TEENCH, TEUBNER & CO., Limited. 1896. LONDON : PBINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAUFORD STKEET AND CHARING CBOeS. TO THE EIGHT HONOUEABLE W. E. GLADSTONE, IN EBM-EMBKANCE OF HIS PEESONAL EXAMPLE AND PEOFODND STUDY AT OHRISTCHUBCH, OXFOED, SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, AND OF HIS CONSTANT FRIENDSHIP EVER SINOE^ THIS HUMBLE ATTEMPT TO INTEREST STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITY EXTENSION CLASSES IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY NOTICE. The following pages were suggested by a brilliant University Extension Lecture on Bacon depreciating Aristotelian Logic, pointing to the works of Spencer and Lotze as tlie rival philosophies of the present day ; and by questions consequently addressed to the writer by young friends. Tliis is not a history of philosophy, still less an original treatise. The intention is to indicate some of the questions now attracting interest, and especially to show the assumptions taken for granted by typical writers, who in successive periods have endeavoured to firfd answers to the questions : " What can we know ? " and " What ought in to do ? " It wOl be mj- endeavour in every case in which I have ventured to express an opinion on an important point to confess my indebtedness to writers of acknowledged authority. I must gratefully acknowledge the assistance ;I have had from friends; specially from a young relative, a cranddaughter of Dean Hook, not only in preparing the manuscripts for the printer and revising proofs, but in making the whole more intelligible for the young IV NOTICE. readers to whom I appeal. I am also indebted to the Eev. W. David, a disciple of Coleridge (having had long experience as a teacher), for encouragement and valuable suggestions. Dr. Merz, a pupil of Lotze, author of the book on Leibniz in Blackwood's series, has helped me in the endeavour to explain the position of Lotze with reference to philosophy and theology. As to the general bearing of philosophical questions, ancient and modem, I am especially indebted to Maurice's 'Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,' and to Bowen's ' Modern Philosophy.' * I regret that, with failing health, and at my advanced age, I have been unable to enter more thoroughly into some of the subjects now occupying the minds of thoughtful persons. But I hope that I may have been able to assist young students in arriving at a clear conception of those questions and theu* bearing on faith, and by indicating books of moderate size written by authors of high reputation. A list of books relating to the different periods of thought, of small cost, will be found at the end of this volume. * 'Modern Philosopby, from Descartes to Sohopenliauer and Hartmann,' by the late Francis Bowen, Professor of Harvard College, U.S. ; published in London, by Sampson Low and Co. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. General Questions. What is Philosophy ? 1 What do we know of the world without ? . . . . 3 What do we know of our own minds ? . 3 What do we know of a higher Spiritual Being ? . . . 3 Historical Sketch — ^The preparation for Christianity 6 The Grecian Philosophy, the Roman Empire and the Jewish Religion 6 Greek Thought in the first centuries ..... 9 Latin influence of Augustine 9 CHAPTER I. Introduction to Logic ....... 11 Deductive Logic 14 Syllogism . 15 Definition and Classification 37 Inductive Logic .... U Modern Systems of Logic . . 53 Laws of Thought . 59 Limits of Logic on Spiritual Subjects 03 CHAPTER 11. Plato 66 Socrates .......... tit' Personality of S^icrateo T3 VI CONTENTS. Gorgias and Thesetetus The Republic ..... Platonic Ideas : their different Meaning . Influence of Plato on successive Thinkers FAOS 78 81 89 96 OHAPTEB III. Aristotle's Ethics Rational or Intellectual excellence Standard of Moral Virtue . The Will or Voluntary Action Lessons from the Ethics 105 111 120 126 129 CHAPTER IV. Mediseval Principles of Thought Aristotle's Categories . Realism and Nominalism Realism and Idealism . . 131 132 i;'.3 137 CHAPTER V. Modern Principles of Thought . liacun and Descartes .... Two lines of Thought in a Tabular form Classification of Modern Writers . . 139 . 139 146, 147 . 148 CHAPTER VI. Locke His Doctrine of Ideas 149 152 CHAPTER VII. Berkeley ..... His Three Impuitimt Diecoveries . 155 157 CONTENTS. vil CHAPTER Ylir. TAGK Hume 161 Philosophy based on Psychology , . . . . .164 Hume's Distinction between Facts and Relations between Ideas. 169 CHAPTER IX. Theism Three Stages of Revelation . 174 179 CHAPTER X- Scotch Reaction . . , Grerman Reaction S. T. Coleridge . Understanding, Reason, and AVill Spiritual Philosophy . 185 187 183 189 191 CHAPTER XI. Kant The Categories . Practical Reason Post-Kantians . Green's Spiritual Principle 199 204 215 217 CHAPTER XII. Butler CHAPTER XIII. Herbert Spencer. Persistent Force . On Education Miss Shirreff on Moral Training 230 232 233 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PA OB Lotze Validity and Reality . Doctrine of Worth The MicrocosmuB Philosophy of Religion Criticism of Lotze CHAPTER XV. . 234 . 236 . 237 . 239 . 240 . 242 Result of the Retrospect Conclusions . 244 . 247 List of Books . . 249 Chronological Table of Modem Philosophers . facing page 250 ( 1 ) INTEODUCTION. General Questions. In offering suggestions for the study of principles on the foundations of Knowledge, Duty, and Faith, I am inviting students to enter on what is now called Philosophy; though I hardly like to use that word for anything I can say. It is needful, however, to enquire into the meaning of the word Philosophy, which may be said to date from Socrates, and is now in common use. In the last century it was usual to speak of what is now called physical science as natural philosophy. Science in those days was limited to mathematics and other branches of knowledge, which were supposed to admit of logical demonstration. In Scotland, the phrase "philosophy of the human mind " was adopted by the common-sense school-=Eeid, Stewart, and Brown — ^to take the place of metaphysicF. This phrase is now superseded by the term psychology. Various systems of philosophy ia Germany may be described, or denoted rather than defined, by the epithets, rational, sceptical, critical, transcendental. Rant's critical philosophy was followed by what are called philosophies of the absolute. More recently, reaction against Germany has given rise to the positive philosophy. Now the syn» thetical philosophy of Mr. Spencer claims the definition of " perfectly unified knowledge." Perhaps the simplest account of philosophy is that it aims at discovering the general princ pies which regulate 2 INTRODUCTION. the action of the mind in the search for truth, both intellectual and moral. It is distinguished from all other studies by the difference that it is not occupied with any- special province of things. Ueberweg gives as his definition, " philosophy is the science of principles." We shall see further on that a great English philosopher,* speaking through an eminent member of the medical profession, said that "principles are the postulates of science and the problems of philosophy." t It is, I think, generally admitted that every system of philosophy has grown out of the thoughts of previous ages, and been modified by more recent influences. In this sense it must be admitted that the principle of evolution especially applies to philosophy. It follows that to understand philosophy in our own time we must try to know something of its history. There are now many histories of philosophy of acknow- ledged authority in the English language; to some of them I shall have occasion to refer. But I wish to make it quite clear to my young readers that I am not going to attempt to give a critical history of the different systems put forth by the teachers of philosophy in successive periods ; I am not competent to such a task, and, if I were to give a summary of what I have endeavoured to gather from historians and critics, I should only serve up a meal of dry bones which, to drop metaphor, would be neither interesting nor instructive. All that I can attempt is to state fairly the questions which at the present day are brought before the rising generation in popular literature, * Coleridge. t ' Spiritual Philosophy." Green. Vol. 1. p. 167. THEEE MAIN QUESTIONS. 3 and then to try tack (as sportsmen say), and see what we can learn from the searchings of heart and head which are to be found in classical, mediseval, and modern records. Stated in a very general form, the following three questions present themselves to all who begin to reflect on the principles of knowledge, duty, and faith : — (1) Is there any fundamental and permanent truth or reality which can be known, as distinct from transitory opinion ? The reality which we are asking for being twofold : reality of what is, as truth to be known ; reality of what ought to be, as duty to be done. (2) Is the knowledge of such reality and is the standard of truth or of practice to be found in the human mind, or in the study of things around us — that is, in logically consistent thought, or in verified experience ? (3) Is there any source of light other than the mind of man, and the world of experience, on which reliance can be placed ? And does the answer to this question depend on facts historically recorded (if not within present experience), or on principles inherent in our mental and spiritual constitution, or on facts and principles combined ? These questions may be put in a different form. I wiil^ use tlie words of two writers of great authority. Dr. Martineau says, " The speculative curiosity of men moves about through the circle of three great objects, God, Nature, and the Soul, and is ever attempting to determine the relations subsisting between them." * • ' Types of Ethical Theoiy,' i. p. 123 ; ii. p. 122. B 2 4 INTRODUCTION. Mr. Lewes opens his History of Philosophy with these words : — "Theology, Philosophy, and Science constitute a spiritual triumvirate." In the second page he adds: ♦' While Theology claims to furnish a system of religious conceptions, and Science to furnish conceptions of the order of the world. Philosophy (abstracting their widest conceptions from both) furnishes a doctrine which contains an explanation of the world and of human destiny." * The writer of these last quoted words was avowedly a (^isciple of Comte. He considered that theology and philosophy are both absorbed in modern science ; theology, whether in the form of mythology, or of the Hebrew belief in a Creator and Lawgiver, he regarded as suited to the infancy of the race ; philosophy, as struggling to emancipate itself from theology during the later middle age and succeeding in the sixteenth century. Dr. Martineau points out that from the first dawn of human thought Man found himself in presence of Nature and of God, understanding by Nature the totality of perceptible phenomena ; and by God the Eternal Ground and Cause Whose existence those phenomena express. These two, Nature and God, are ever present to man ; the questions what they are and what they have to do with man cannot but affect the decision of what man ought to be.t Dr. Martineau shows clearly that the difference between ancient and modem philosophy turns on the question whether man begins by looking out of himself to Nature and Nature's God, or whether he begins by looking into the human mind and its own working, » uevrea vol. i. xvil. f ' Types pf Ethical Theory,' i. p. 2. ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS. 5 The ancient Greeks were occupied with the Cosmos, or the order of the world around them, distinguishing between existence and appearance, between being and phenomena. The moderns begin by introspection of what passes in the mind, and distinguish between inward sensation, impressions, or states of consciousness on the one hand, and, on the other, reaKty apart from the mind; or between self and not self, subject and object. I must not anticipate the consequences to be drawn from this dis- tinction between ancient and modem thought. But I may suggest that owing to the advance of modern thought, both in the study of psychology or the working of the mind, and in the study of physical sciences, two questions besides those already mentioned present them- selves to thoughtful persons. The first is from the subjective point of view ; How do we know that impressions, ideas, or states of conscious- ness enable us to know anything of reality outside or beyond or above our minds ? The second question arises from the great progress of physical science, especially in reference to the action of the nervous system and the brain ; How do we know that we have minds and souls distinct from our bodily organism ? I do not at present offer any suggestion as to the answers to be given to these questions ; I mention them only that I may not seem to pass them unnotieed. They are, in fact, implied in the three questions already stated. If full and satisfactory answers can be given to those three questions, they will cover the ground marked out by these twa ( 6 ) HiSTOEiCAL Sketch. Before we enquire what is to be learned at the present time from the special leaders of thought during successive periods, it may be well to attempt a general sketch of the influences at work on a large scale before the Christian era, and, in special directions, since that unique crisis. Whatever doubts on physical or literary subjects may have been suggested by science or by criticism in recent years, as to the infallible authority of documents generally accepted by Christians, no one, however agnostic, doubts that the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, followed by that of Paul of Tarsus and other Apostles, i ntrod uced new elements into the moral conditions of human society over a large part of the civilized world. The development of intellectual activity and of political influences in successive ages has led to the embodiment of those new ideas in institutions and schools of thought and feeling which are now the subject of critical study. Before the Christian era there were three nations, the Greek, the Koman, and the descendants of Abraham, each of which has left its mark on the history of the world. The Greeks developed a perfect language, grammar, and literature, and traced the outlines of human reasoning and the fundamental laws of thought. The Eomans built up a gigantic Empire, based on prin- ciples of administration and law which are still in force. The Israelites received through their ancestors an unique account of the origin of the visible universe, and the first clearly recorded writing on the Unity of God and His ISRAELITES, GEEEKS, AND ROMANS. 7 government of tlie world. This may be said without entei'ing into the question of the authorship of Moses, or the date of the written record, as it has come down to the present time. As to the influence of Greece, authentic records are of later date. How far Greece may have been influenced by previous learning in Egypt, or by Aryan speculation in the further East, is a subject for interesting enquiry, which has only a distant relation to modern convictions or aspirations. From the age of Socrates, or rather from the earlier speculations of his predecessors, there was a constant progress of thought, on tlie foundations of knowledge, and the principles of duty, both as regards the individual and the social state, with anxious searching into the ideal of the universe. It is worthy of note that the learning of Alexandria, and the connexion of the Jewish race with that city, led to a tremslation of the Old Testament into the Greek language, which had become (like French in modern times) the common speech of educated Europeans. Thus a lan- guage somewhat different from the old Attic Greek had been prepared for the reception of the Gospel, and its transmis- sion as a treasure for all time.* At a later period Alex- andria became the headquarters of Christian philosophy. The whole of the Mediterranean Sea, and of the lands around it, were under the Imperial rule; consequently * The change in the Greek by the introduction of Hebrew thought, is shown in detail in an interesting and instructive book, 'Biblical Study, its Principles, Methods, and History,' by Dr. Briggs, Professor in the Union Theological Seminary, New York; chapter iii. on the languages of the Bible, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, pp. 42-7i. 8 HISTORICAL SKETCH. communication was uninterrupted, and the dispersion of the Jews throughout the Empire prepared the way for the spread of the Gospel. But while the intellect of Greece, the political adminis- tration of Rome, and the strict monotheism of the Jewish- race, combined, contributed in the way of preparation to the spread of an universal religion, it was evident that these three forms of human thought and action had all proved their inability to find an adequate response to the wants of mankind. Grecian philosophy had sub-divided itself into various Schools, and it may be said that the result was general scepticism. The Roman Empire had fallen into a state of social corruption, which ended in military despotism and ultimate anarchy. The Jewish nation, with its intense tenacity of exter&al traditions, had lapsed into Pharisaic formalism or Saddu- cean rationalism. The destruction of Jerusalem which followed within the first century of the Christian era, put an end to the public influence of the nation, though the Stubborn adhesion of the race to its traditions and future expectations is to the present day a standing witness to the belief of one Creator and Governor of the world, from the earliest historic times. The outcome of this short historical retrospect, from the Christian point of view, may be stated to be that the "fulness of time" was the result of Providential prepara- tion for an universal religion ; and that the insufficiency of speculative thought and social prudence, without faith EARLY CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. 9 in a personal God, and in His relation to man, had been made evident. If after this retrospect we look forward from the same point of time, we shall see that the Greek mind directly influenced the formulation of Christian Theology for at least three centuries. In the fourth century the freshness of Greek thought was cramped in the Latin language by the powerful intellect of Augustine. About the same time, when hordes of uncivilized races had overwhelmed the Western Empire, a new power arose at Eome, in the hands of its Bishop, and of the Diocesan liierarchy under his control. The lofty aspirations of Greek thought showed them- selves in various tendencies during the earlier middle ages. But in the thirteenth century the logical philo- sophy of Aristotle took possession of the minds of the educated men in the Western World, while the East became stagnant, and has so remained. The Eenaissance awakened interest in Plato, but Aristotle again in a Latin garb dominated over Europe, as was shown in the development of TTltramontanism in the Latin races, with the highly wrought Jesuit education, and of Calvinism (in a wide sense of the word) among the Protestant communities, chiefly Teutonic. Nor can the divinity of the Established Churches of England and Scotland be said to have been otherwise than afiiected by this Latin and logical atmos- phere, especially during the eighteenth century. I have ventured to offer to the young reader this super- ficial sketch of thought in former times, for two reasons. 10 INTRODUCTION. I wish to show that questions, which are now interest- ing thoughtful persons, have in some form or other occu- pied the human mind for nearly three thousand years; and to suggest that we can hardly understand them as they are now presented to ourselves, unless we take into account the steps which have brought us to our present position. The study of Plato and Aristotle may help us to form a better judgment on the principles which are assumed in modern thought and science. But I must also ask the indulgence of my readers for inserting a short introduction to the subject of Logic, as understood in the present day, before I attempt to state the lessons now to be learned from Plato and Aristotle. The progress of physical, mental, and moral science in the present century, though it has not altered the funda- mental principles of reasoniag, has compelled us to re- consider some of the deductions from those principles, and has taught the need for more caution in the pre-supposi- tions to be taken for granted. What follows on the subject of logic was written nearly two years ago, in response to the questions of friends, and has been submitted in type to competent instructors and intelligent students, to whom I am much indebted for encouragement and for suggestions. I hope I may have succeeded in directing attention to the need for caution in the use of language as an in- strument of thought, to the lessons to be derived from experience, and above aU, to the limits imposed on finite minds, in reasoning about what is infinite or spiritual. ( 11 ) CHAPTEE I. INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. Before we attempt to consider what are the foimdations on which knowledge rests in the present day, whether the superstructure be science or duty, or even faith (if that wonderful spiritual power may be included), I propose to say a few words about Logic. We have heard in the lectures of a very able teacher Bacon's depreciation of the syllogistic or deductive Logic of the ancients, and his praise and partial anticipation of the inductive path of the moderns in quest of new powers over Nature to be gained by first submitting to its laws. But Logic in some form, whether deductive or inductive, is not dead. Our language is full of logical phrases. Everyone is inclined to say when he takes up what he deems an impregnable position that it " stands to reason," or tlmt some doctrine which he dislikes is " iUogical." I have been asked by several of my young friends. What is the difference between deduction and induction ? What is a syllogism ? What are the major and minor premisses ? What is the difference between arguments a priori and a posteriori 1 What are generalization and abstraction? and, worst of aU, what is the meaning of synthesis, which seems to be in the hands of some persons the wand to charm with in cases where ideal or spiritual 12 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. convictions are to be put aside as obsolete ? These are all logical terms on which I hope to throw some light. There is another family of words such as sensation, perception, conception, ideas, concepts, notions, essences, each of which is a monument of long controversy, rather perhaps metaphysical than purely logical ; but such words need to be defined and arranged in some sort of order and relation, before we can even state the problems of thought and life which are now exercising young minds, to say nothing of the attempt to find solutions. It may suf&ce before going into more detail as to the meaning of technical words — to say generally that there are two modes of reasoning, or drawing conclusions from what is already admitted. We sometimes assume certain general principles and apply them to particular cases ; at other times we appeal to facts of experience and from particular cases draw some general conclusion. The first kind of reasoning is called deductive, and sometimes a prion. The reasoning from particular cases is called reasoning a posteriori or inductive. As this mental process involves the distin- guishing between particular facts, and finding in what respects they agree and in what respects they differ, inductive reasoning is sometimes called analytical. De- ductive reasoning, such as that in Euclid, is called synthetical, as bringing together admitted truths, and so adding to our previous knowledge; but both the terms synthetical and a priori will require further explanation.* Whatever opinion some persons may entertain as to the * See page 44. TWO MODES OF EEASONING. 13 barren results of Logic as the means of discovering truth, I tliink no one who has the very slightest acquaintance with the principles of reasoning will deny that accumte reasoning requires the clear definition of the meaning of words. Words have much to do not only with expressing thoughts, but with creating and perpetuating impressions of tilings whether fanciful or real. It is to this function of Logic, as defining the meaning of words, that I wish to direct special attention. I will avoid as far as possible a number of technicalities, which, I confess, are to me most wearisome, and wliich, I venture to think, are, except as a gymnastic exercise for tlie brain, very unprofitable. Logical treatises are generally arranged under three heads, including the treatment of — 1. Words or terms. 2. Propositions or judgments. 3. Eeasoning or inference. A fourth head is sometimes added, called Method or Metliodology, but that runs into Philosophy or Meta- physics, and for the present may be left out of sight. K I were so imprudent as to attempt to write a new text book in addition to the excellent treatises already in use, I must begin in the regular way, first, vnth names or terms, then go on to the junction of subject and predicate in propositions, and thirdly, grapple with the barbarous nomenclature of all the possible forms of syllogism. But I have no such intention. I will refer to the traditional account of reasoning only so far as to indicate a few lead- ing principles, which are implied in the exercise of our 14 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. reasoning powers, and, in some sense, also of our moral powers and responsibilities ; and finally I will endeavour to point out the due limits of Logic with reference to the realities of our material and spiritual life. In teaching children to read, it is sometimes found expedient to begin by showing them a familiar word (with a graphic illustration) and then to lead them from the word to the letters of which it is composed. I propose to select a few ordinary arguments, to take them to pieces, and then to put the pieces into logical order. In othier words, I will offer an analytical outline of the method of reasoning, for which course I am able to quote the high authority of a kind friend of my youth. Archbishop Whately, of whom John Stuart Mill generously said " That he had done more than any (then) living person to restore logic to the rank from which it had fallen in the estimation of the cultivated class in this country." As I proceed I hope to refer my young readers to portions of the best modern books in which they may find full information. We will begin by examining one or two common forms of speech and argument such as might occur in ordinary conversation. We shall see that in order to state the arguments fully enough to distinguish between what is asserted, or taken for granted, as the basis of the argu- ment, and the conclusion, we must have three sentences or propositions. The two first are called Premisses, dis- tinguished as Major and Minor (for a reason to be explained further on*) and the third is a Conclusion. The first or Major premiss usually assumes a general truth or • See page 25. MEANING OF SYLLOGISM. 15 principle. The second or Minor premiss asserts a fact, showing that a particular case comes iinder that principle. The three sentences taken in regular order are called a Syllogism. Syllogism. Whenever anyone argues or reasons in the ordinary way, provided he does so correctly, he states a conclusion for which he gives a reason, "What I say is true lecav^ something else is true," or "A certain proposition is admitted to be true, therefore my conclusion is true." But there is generally another statement which connects the conclusion with the reason given; this connecting proposition is usually implied and not expressed. The value of the argument in either case mainly depends on whether the proposition which connects the two statements is really binding, and especially on whether some impor- tant word which occurs in the two premisses is used in precisely the same sense in both. Some words in domestic economy are especially liable to be used in a double sense. Food is spoken of as "light," or "rich," or "nourishing," when feeding power and digestibility are hopelessly mixed up in the mind of the speaker. By way of illustration let us begin with an argument on the utility of Logic. One person says, " Logic is useful because it teaches the art of reasoning." This argument may be formally stated thus : — Major. — ^An Art which teaches us to reason well is useful. 16 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. Minor. — Logic is an Art which teaches us to reason well. Conc/wsioM..— Therefore Logic is useful. Here we have a general principle and its application to the subject in dispute, namely Logic. Supposing some one to raise an objection to the second statement and to reply that Logic is not an Art, but a Science; then the conclusion does not, in his opinion, follow from the principle. This objection admits the principle but denies its application to Logic. Let us try again. Major. — A Science which theoretically explains the laws of argument or of thought is useful. Minor. — Logic is such a Science, Conclusion. — Therefore Logic is useful. Another objector may now say, " Logic no doubt is a grand Science ; but I don't see any use in theorising about what comes by nature." This objector denies the truth of the general principle, so the argument falls to the ground. The first two sentences in each of these arguments are, as we have said, the premisses — ^the principle is the Major Premiss, the application the Minor Premiss, and the three sentences taken together form the Syllogism, Let me now interpose a few words as to the use of Logic, a point which our disputants have left undecided. For our present purpose we need not settle whether Logic is an Art or a Science. Archbishop Whately, in the opening sentence of his Elements of Logic, a book which used to be considered as a model of clearness, says. MEANING OF SYLLOGISM. 17 " Logic, in the most extensive sense which the name can with propriety be made to bear, may be considered as the Science, and also as the Art, of Eeasoning. It investi- gates the principles on which argumentation is conducted, and furnishes rules to secure the mind from error in its deductions." * It may be worth while here to introduce Whately's explanation of the difference between a Science and an Art: — "It is to be observed that a scieiice is conversant with knowledge only ; an Art is the application of know- ledge to practice; hence Logic (as well as any other system of knowledge) becomes, when applied to practice, an Art; wldle confined to the theory of reasoning, it is strictly a science. It is as such that it occupies the higher place in dignity, since it professes to develop some of the most interesting and curious intellectual phenomena." t Sir W. Hamilton treated Whately with sublime con- tempt, and accused him of self-contradiction, because he laid stress on the fact that Logic is specially conversant with language; but language is undoubtedly the instru- ment of thought and of reason. Sir W. HamUtou considered Logic as a science conversant with thought as thought (rather a forced expression), by which he meant the form of thought as distinct from the matter thought about. Sir W. Hamilton was a man of prodigious learning in Logical Literature. Whately may not have been a * Whately's ' Logic,' Introduction, p. 1. t Ibid., p. 56, note. 18 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. learned man, but he was a man of -wonderful shrewdness and good sense, with a keen interest in the practical affairs of life. Perhaps the opinion of Mill as to the value of Whately's work wUl be considered nearer the truth than that of Hamilton. It may be well to state at this point that Logicians attach great importance to what they call laws of thought — that is, formal rules having no reference to special facts, but assumed to be the test of all true reasoning. These laws are stated further on.* It may suffice to state here that the main principle of these laws is that statements which are contradictory cannot both be true. Consistency or absence of contradiction is to a certain extent a test of truth. This principle is quite distinct from the principle of judging or verifying by experience. I will not here pursue the discussion of the province of Logic any further, except to say that the reciprocal bearings of Language and of Logic cannot be doubted. It will be to the value of Logic in promoting the accurate use of language as the instrument of reason that I shall direct special attention. I trust this short digression on the nature of Logic referred to in the first illustration may not have been useless. I do not think it desirable to add to the many attempts to give a definition of Logic in relation to Psychology, Metaphysic, or any other Science, but rather to illustrate its various applications. The first proposition of Euclid may be taken as our next illustration of the Syllogism. It is a clear case of * See page 59. ILLUSTRATIONS OF SYLLOGISM. 19 demonstrative reasoning, because it is impossible to dispute either the truth of the premisses or the correct- ness of the conclusion. Draw a straight line AB of any length: take a pair of compasses and first put one leg of the compasses on one end of the line as the centre, and describe a circle passing through the other end of the line ; then place the leg of the compasses on the other end of the line as the centre, and describe another circle, which of course will be of the same size as the first. Mark one of the points where the circles intersect by the letter C. Then draw the lines AC, BC, from the two ends of the line to the point C. Of course you can see that all the three lines, AB, AC, BC, are of the same length, being radii, or rays, of two equal circles. iThe proof may be expressed as follows in the form of a Syllogism : — Major. — Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. MiTwr. — ^The Hnes AC, BC, are both equal to AB. Therefore the lines AC, BC, are equal to one another. Thus all the three lines are proved to be equal, and the triangle is proved to be equilateral In German metaphysics the Syllogism is in frequent requisition, as wUl appear when we come to speak of modern philosophy. But at this point it may not be amiss to give as a third illustration an example of the use of the Syllogism as formally set out by John ITorris, a Platonic thinker and divine, who was a contemporary of Locke. He is arguing against the idea that moral truth C 2 20 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. is either the effect of an arbitrary act of Divine will, or inde- pendent of, and therefore prior to, the Divine existence.* He then gives the followiag Syllogism : — Major. — "The Divine ideas are the same with the Divine essence." Minor. — "Eternal truths are the same with Divine ideas." Conclusion. — "Eternal truths are the same with the Divine essence." I make no comment here on the metaphysical doctrines of Norris, to whom I may refer again in connexion with Locke. But, in order to show that he had some respect for reason f as such, I may quote another of his arguments which is not so strict in its form. " The conclusion can never be more certain than its principle. " But reason is the principle of Faith. " Therefore Faith cannot be more certain than reason." I have given three illustrations of Deductive reasoning, showing — 1. How an ordinary argument in conversation may be set out in the form of a Syllogism. 2. How a strict mathematical proof implies a similar state- ment of a principle and its application to the particular case. 3. How a scholar and divine imbued with the traditional ideas of Plato and the Aristotelian forms of argument dealt with spiritual subjects, selecting the form of Syllogism as what he thought most conclusive. * J. Norris, ' Ideal World,' vol. i. p. 336. t (bid., vol. i. p. 215. ILLUSTRATIONS OF SYLLOGISM. 21 I will now give some instances of the way in which, even in modern times — I mean witliin the present century — it has been customary in elementary treatises on Logic to illustrate the principle of reasoning or inference as set out in the form of Syllogism. The instances wiU seem trivial, but they have been consecrated by long usage; and perhaps in teaching they have one advantage, that they are very simple, and fix the attention easily on the form of the argument rather than on the matter. In elementary books on Logic such examples as the following are to be found : — Major. — Quadrupeds are animals. All men are mortal. Minor. — Horses are quadrupeds. Caius is a man. Gonclusum. — Horses are animals. Caius is mortal. These are affirmative arguments. I may remark, by the way, that such examples as these, where the two premisses assert mere palpable facts, appear to justify the objection to the Syllogism, that the truth of the conclusion is obviously known before the general principle can be asserted. I think the Logicians who wish to depreciate the Aristotelian Syllogism are very fond of these examples ; but as we shall see,* the minor premiss, or the application of the principle to the matter in hand, is in many cases just the point in dispute which has to be made good. The instances above given, though identical in form, differ in one particular. In the first case the major premiss says that one class of things, "quadrupeds" is included * See page 49. 22 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. in the larger class " animals " ; and the conclusion drawn is that horses, which are a smaller class than quadrupeds (but included therein) are of course included in the larger class animals. In the second instance the major premiss asserts a certain quality or attribute (viz., mortality) of a whole class, namely men. The minor premiss asserts that Caius is a man, and therefore that the attribute in question attaches to him. Both these arguments are affirmative, the lesser being included in the greater or the narrower in the wider. But some arguments are negative, the object being to prove the exclusion of some individuals from some class or from some attribute common to a whole class: — the following are instances : Major. — Kuminants are not carnivorous animals. Minor. — Horned cattle are ruminants. Conclusion. — Horned cattle are not carnivorous animals. Major. — Uncharitable men are not happy. Minor. — Selfish men are uncharitable. Conclusion. — Selfish men are not happy. The general principle of reasoning, which has been so far illustrated, is thus stated by MiU : — " Whatever can be affirmed (or denied) of a class may be affirmed (or denied) of everything included in the class. This axiom, supposed to be the basis of the Syllogistic theory, is termed by Logicians the dictum de omni et nuUo." Mill goes on to show that in his opinion this celebrated dictum of Aristotle was suited only to a system of Metaphysic, generally con- sidered for the last two centuries as finally abandoned. PEOPOSITIONS AND TEEMS. 23 Be that as it may, it is for my purpose needful that the principle should be explicitly stated as the priaciple on which Scholastic Logic proceeded for more than a thousand years, in order that we may understand the old thinkers : and, as I said at starting, the old Logic is not dead yet. Further details and references are given in a footnote.* Propositions and Teems. The introduction of symbols and letters instead of con- crete examples does not seem to me to help the young • " The Dictum de omni et nullo " is tlius given by Aldricli and Whately : " Wliatever is predicated of a term distributed, whether affirmatively or negatively, may be predicated in like manner of everything contained under it." Or it may be thus stated : " Whatever is affirmed or denied of a whole class, may be affirmed or denied of any individuals in that class." Jevons prefers to state the fmidamenbU axiom of reasoning thus : (1) "Two terms agreeing with one and the same third term agree with each other ; " and (2) " Two terms, of which one agrees and the other does not agree, with one and the same third term, do not agree with each other." Thomson takes nearly the same view. See what is said below, p. 32, on the Copula. A clear and fair account of the different views of the axiom of the Syllogism may be found in Bain's 'Logic' (Deductive) B. 11. chapter i. § ii. pp. 155-164. The word " distributed " requires some explanation, a Term is said to be distributed when it is so used as to apply to all the individuals included in that " Term." It may be illustrated thus in an affirma- tive proposition, " all men are mortal " ; the subject is distributed, the predicate is not, because other beings are mortal besides men. In a negative proposition, no men are immortal ; both terms are said to be distributed as they exclude each other entirely. The Technical rules of Logic (on which I do not enter) turn very much on the word distributed; it will be better for the reader to refer to any good manual. 24 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. student, so I shall generally avoid that plan. But it is desirable at this point to make plain to the eye the position of the link between the principle and the conclusion, and to fasten attention on the /orm of the Syllogism as distinct from the matter. The Syllogism, as we have seen, consists of three Propositions, in each of which there is a Subject and a Predicate. These words in their grammatical sense are nowadays familiar to scholars in elementary schools, but the logical predicate differs from the grammatical predicate. In Logic no verb is recognised except what is called the substantive verb, " is " or " are," and " is not," or " are not." In Logic we do not say " the sun shines," but " the sun is shining." Every logical proposition is a sentence with a Subject, a Copula, and a Predicate. The Copula may be either " is " or " is not ; " that is, the proposition may be Affirmative or Negative. The Subject and the Predicate are caUed the terms (Latin terminus or boundary) of the proposition. There is always in a Syllogism one term which does not appear in the conclusion, but does enter into both of the premisses. This term is called the Middle Term, as it is the link between the premisses. It is of the utmost importance that this Middle Term should have one well-defined meaning. Most fallacies depend on ambiguous middle terms. Whately gave a long list of such terms used in different senses. A proposition may also assert or deny the Predicate of all the things or thoughts expressed by the Subject, or only of some or only of one of them. PEOPOSITIOKS. 25 Universal affirmative All men are mortal. Universal negative No man is immortal. Particular affirmative Some men are wise. Particular negative Some men are not wise. Singular affirmative John is clever. Singular negative Thomas is not clever. Universal, particular, and singular are technical terms wliich define the quantity of a proposition. Affirmative and Negative define the quality. These distinctions are of great importance in settling Technical Eules for Logic as an Art ; but, as I have said, I do not tatend to deal with those rules. In the regular form of Syllogism hitherto spoken of the general principle, or Major Premiss, always contains the Middle term for its Subject. The Minor Premiss, or the application of the principle, has the Middle term for its Predicate ; the subject of the Minor premiss, which is the subject of the conclusion, therefore shows that the final subject is included in the Middle term if the argument is af&rmative, and is excluded from it if the argument is negative. We will use M. for the middle term wherever it may be placed, S. will stand for the subject of the conclusion, P. for the predicate of the conclusion ; S. and P. will also appear in the premisses. The form of such a Syllogism then is : — Major M. P. Minor S. M. Conclusion S. P. 26 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. This form is called the Jirsi figure of Aristotle. It was ia his opinion the only satisfactory form, to which all other forms ought to be reduced. I may here interpose a remark on the different use made of the two premisses. In practice one is almost always suppressed. Lotze* truly points out that there are two common modes of fallacious thought. The first is dodrinairism, the second is narrow-mindedness, or parochialism. The doctrinaire has his mind full of some general principle which may be right in the abstract, but which is liable to limitation or modification by circumstances. He dwells on the major and shirks the detail of the miuor. The practical man is wrapped up in details of his own experience, and is apt to take no interest in generalization, which he regards with suspicion as mere theory. Popular orators, and, with all respect for the cloth, I must say also, clerical speakers of all denominations, are much in the habit of declamation on general principles. Nothing is so popular with an excited audience as an unqualified assertion of justice in the abstract, or of other truisms. The trained statesman, on the other hand, taking oertaia principles for granted, generally limits himself to applying them to the circumstances he has to deal with. I remember hearing the late Earl Grey, then Lord Howick, define a political principle, some fifty years ago, in the House of Commons — " What is a principle but a rule of high expediency which aU parties are agreed not to call in * ' Logic,' vol. ii. p, 5. PEINOIPLE AND APPLICATION. 27 question, such, for instance, in England, as the Monarchy?" A friend suggests that perhaps in the present day the instance given would hardly be accepted as a good illus- tration. Let us hope that the Monarchy is, at least generally, still accepted as a principle of the Constitution. There are, however, other forms of argument in common use besides the regular Syllogism in the first figure, with its general principle and application. I wUl give examples of two forms, which are known as the second and third figures. Arguments which are easily set out in these forms are in very common use, especially when the object is to show that some one has made a statement too hastily or without due qualification. We may take an illustration from the recognised divi- sion of foods into two classes; those which can form flesh and bone, called flesh-formers, and those which supply only fat and warmth. It is well known that the flesh-formers require nitrogen as one of their constitu- ents, so they are called Nitrogenous ; whereas the body warmers, such as starch and sugar, contain only carbon and the elements of water, and are called Carbonaceous. Supposing anyone says that arrowroot, which is nearly pure starch, is highly nutritious, meaning thereby that it wUl repair the waste of the body generally, the argument in reply may be put into a Syllogism : — Major. — All flesh-formers contain nitrogen. Minor. — Starch and sugar do not contain nitrogen. Conclusion. — Therefore starch and sugar cannotform flesh. 28 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. In the diagnosis of disease, by noting the absence of certain symptoms one after another, it may be settled that the case is not what it was at first supposed to be, and so the decision may be narrowed, thus : — Major. — A supposed disease has certain symptoms. Minor. — This patient has not those symptoms. Conclusion. — He has not the supposed disease.* It will be observed that in both these arguments the Middle term is the Predicate of both the Major and the Minor Premiss. It will be noticed, also, that the con- clusion is negative, and that one premiss is affirmative the other negative. If both premisses were either affirmative or negative nothing would be proved, because any number of things might belong to the same class or have the same attribute, or they might be excluded from the same class, or be devoid of the same attribute, and yet they might have nothing else in common. The Syllogism, therefore, must take the following form : — Major — affirmative or negative, P. M. Minor — always opposite to the Major, S. M. Conclusion — always negative, S. P. This form of Syllogism is called the second figure. The conclusion in this figure is always negative. It is known as the dictum a diverso. There is another form called the third figure. This figure includes arguments which prove that two qualities * " This form is useful for showing the differences of things, and preventing confusion of distinct conceptions." — 'Thomson's 'Logic,' p. 173, note. DIFFFEEENT FORMS OP SYLLOGISMS. 29 are not necessarily inconsistent by showing that they both belong to the same person or thing. If, for example, any one asserts that strictness of discipline is inconsistent with kindness of heart, the answer might be — Major. — All good officers, or good schoolmasters, are strict disciplinarians. Minor. — All such persons take a kindly interest in those under them. Conclusion. — Therefore some kind persons are very strict, or kindness and strictness are not incompatible. The argument does not prove that the two qualities go together in all cases. We may take another illustration from the doctrine of food. Liebig held that in all muscular effort the Mtro- genous tissues were more or less used up. I saw many years ago a letter from the late Lord Spencer to the late Mr. Pusey, in which he said, "I am sure Liebig is wrong, and further scientific enquiry will prove it." The eminent Army Surgeon, Dr. Parkes, proved conclusively that Carbonaceous food alone would enable a man to use great muscular exertion, as coal developes power in the steam engine. The proof, of course, was not obtained by formal logic, but by careful experiment. But the argument may be put into logical form, thus — Major. — Fat, sugar and starch are force-producers. Minor. — Fat, sugar and starch are onLy carbonaceous. Therefore some carbonaceous foods can produce force. This form of argument may also be negative. 30 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. Major. — ^The Apostles did not seek earthly reward. Mirwr. — The Apostles were zealous in their work. Therefore some persons who are zealous do not seek earthly reward.* This form of argument is useful for disproviag some general assertion by an example ; but it can never prove a universal conclusion. It is known as the dictum ab exemplo. It is in the following form : — Major — af&rmative, M. P. Minor — affirmative, M. S. Conclusion — never universal, S. P. ' The three figures of Aristotle may now be thus repre- sented by symbols : — Fig. 1. Pig. 2. Fig. 3. M. P. P. M. M. P. S. M. S. M. M. S. .-. S. P. .-. S. P. .-. S. P. There is a fourth figure invented by Galen, but Arch- bishop Thomson gives a good reason for dismissing any consideration of this figure. It is only an awkward inversion of the first figure. I do not give the rules which govern each case, because it would be necessary to enter into details about pro- positions for which the ground has not been so far made clear. It will be better for the reader to consult a good text book.t * This illustration is taken from Thomson, p. 174. t See ' Special Canon of the Figures.' — ^Thomson, p. 175. SUBJECT, COPULA, AND PEEDICATE. 31 In some treatises on Logic there is an , account of ^ty-four possible forms of Syllogism, which seems to be for the most part a work of useless ingenuity. Sir W. Hamilton's tabular scheme of notation looks more like a back-gammon board than part of a philosophical work.* Subject, Copula, and Predicate. I will not pursue further the account of the Syllogism as a means of stating in due form and connexion the elements of an argument. We must now turn to the consideration of those elements, namely Propositions; that is to say, assertions or denials, more or less general or particular. Every Proposition in Logic consists of a Subject, a Predicate, and a Copula. The proposition asserts some sort of relation between the subject and the predicate. Sometimes this relation is said to consist either in agree- ment or disagreement. Those who so define the relation between subject and predicate say also that in a Syllogism the Subject and Predicate of the conclusion agree or disagree with the Middle Term. This description of a Proposition and of a Syllogism is rather vague.t But first we must * ' Logic,' vol. iv.. Appendix. It is also given in Thomson's ' Logic,' p. 188. See what is said on the " Quantification of the Predicate," p. 35, inf. t George Moterly, Tutor of Balliol, afterwards Bishop of Salisbnry, one of the clearest-headed of men, protested strongly against the theory of predication, based on the agreement of subject and predicate, as equals. Introduction to ' Logic,* published 1835. 32 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. say a word about the Subject and Predicate, and then refer more specially to the Copula. In ordinary language we speak of persons or things in the form of substantives, and of attributes in the form of adjectives — John is honest, or John is an honest man. We can also speak about attributes themselves as substantives — Honesty is the best policy, or honesty is praiseworthy. The adjective "honest," as used above, is said to be concrete, and to denote the kind of man. The substantive " honesty " is said to be abstract, and to connote the attribute of John.* Then we express relations by verbs, " The fire boils the water;" but as in Logic there is no verb except some part of the verb " to be," we say, " the fire is boiling the water," " boiUng the water " being the predicate, " is " being the copula. If we say, " it is necessary to boil the water," the form in Logic wiU. be, " to boil the water is necessary." The infinitive mood thus becomes a substantive, and stands for the subject. When a sentence begins "it is" or " there is," that is a signpost to look further on for the subject. * I give these very simple illustrations of the use of the words " abstract " and " concrete," "denotation" and " connotation." I do not attempt to give a scientific definition of any of these words, on which many pages have been written. An account of the different doctrines is given fully and concisely in « Formal Logic,' by Mr. Keynes, of Cambridge, chap. i. and ii. See also Dr. Fowler's 'Deductive Logic,' chapter ii. p. 19. MEANINa OF COPULA. 83 The copula requires a little more consideration, thougli at first sight it may seem plain enough. Mr. Mill calls the copula simply the "sign of pre- dication ; " he says " confused notions about the copula have spread mysticism, and perverted speculation into logomachies." He specially objects to the doctrine that the copula is supposed to signify existence. We shall see that in some of the most recent specu- lations of advanced logicians the idea of existence is considered an essential of predication, and Mr. Mill himself states that among the five kinds of matters of fact which, according to him, propositions can assert, existence comes first. I think that many of the controversial doctrines about predication really turn on the meaning to be attached to the copula. The copula may be said to have three meanings, according to the intention of the person who asserts any proposition. 1. It may affirm or deny that the Subject, as the name of a class or of an individual, is included in a wider class. Horses are animals. Dobbin is a cart horse. 2. It may affirm or deny that the Subject has some attribute or quality. Eoses are sweet. Socrates is wise. An equilateral triangle is equiangular. 3. It may affirm or deny the identity of the Subject with the Predicate or the equality of two quantities. An equilateral triangle is a rectiliaear figure with three equal sides. 34 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. The three angles of any triangle are [equal to] two right angles. Or, Twice two are four. Mr. Mill objects especially to the first view of predi- cation, and to the use of the word judgment for proposi- tion, because he considers that use equivalent to " putting two ideas together," "bringing one idea under another," or "perceiving the agreement or disagreement between two ideas ; " he especially objects to these views as the basis of the celebrated dictum de omni et nuUo* and to the practice of dividing things into classes and referring everything to its proper class. These statements are made with Mr. Mill's usual clearness and fairness. They depend, however, on his metaphysical principles which may be noticed hereafter. Mr. Mill's own view is probably most nearly expressed by the second view of predication, viz., that the predicate expresses an attribute which belongs to the subject. The third view, that of a relation of identity between the subject and the predicate, is connected with a doctrine called the Quantification of the predicate. It is said that when we assert that horses are animals, we do not mean " all horses = all animals," but " all horses = some animals." This, which was considered a great discovery when struck out by Sir W. Hamilton, has been further developed by Mr. Jevons into what is called the Equa- tional system or the system of Substitution of similars. That system is noticed in his "Elementary Lessons," No. XXII., and fully developed in his " Principles of * See above, p. 22. QUANTIFICATION OF THE PEBDICATE. 35 Science." It may be said to be an attempt to bring Logic into the position of Mathematics, and to treat all pro- positions as equations. Lotze says * " the Quantification of the predicate, which was the starting-point of recent English Logic, was no new discovery, but the superfluous inflation of a familiar idea to an excessive importance." Mr. Mill also says in a very able notet that this invention is of singularly small importance. It may, perhaps, not be quite wide of the mark to say that each of the three views of the function of the copula is worthy of consideration in different cases according to the matter in debate. But the first view, that of referring the subject to a class, however incomplete, deserves special attention, although it is so much objected to by Mr. Mill, because it was the foundation of Aristotelian and Scholastic Logic, and held its ground for two thousand years. The old Logicians attached great importance to a distinction between the various kinds of terms or attributes which can be predicated of any subject. These were called the Predicables. They took the place of Aristotle's ten Categories, and were five in number, namely: Genus, Species, Differentia, Property, and Accident. Even as late as Whately we find that a " predicable which expresses the whole essence of its subject was called the species," and that which expresses "a part of the essence was called either Genus or Differentia." * ' Logic,' vol. ii. p. 206. t ' System of Logic,' vol. i., B. II. chap. ii. p. 195. D 2 36 •' INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. Peedicables. I think we may now simplify the matter of predication by saying that the predicate, when the proposition is affirmative, always expresses either a class which includes the subject, or an attribute which attaches to the subject ; when the proposition is negative, of course it expresses the contrary. It may be sufficient at this point to say that genus is the name of a class which has smaller classes included under it ; and species the name of a class which is included in a larger class. As regards the other titles of predicates, or predicables, they are names of attributes more or less intimately connected with the subject in hand. A very clear statement of the old doctrines may be found in the appendix to Dr. Fowler's ' Deductive Logic' We shall see that Logical Definition turns on connecting with a subject attributes, by which it is distinguished from other subjects included in the same class, one or more of those distin- ^ guishing attributes being called its differentia. But before we can deal with Definition, something more must be said about the doctrine of Logical Classification ; and then the importance of the terms Genus and Differentia wUl be more obvious. Enough, perhaps too much, has been said in order to show that ordinary arguments generally admit of being stated in the form of a syllogism, and that when the argument turns on some general principle, both the principle and its application are thus fully set out. In DEFINITION. 37 practice, however, the one or the other, being assumed or taken for granted, is usually not expressed. It has also been shown that special attention is required to be given to the connexion between the subject of any proposition, and the predicate, or term expressing what is affirmed or denied of the subject. We may now pass on. to the consideration of the words of which affirmations or denials consist. Definition. It has been already stated that one of the chief uses of Logic is to fix attention on the right (and therefore exact) meaning of words, We want to know precisely what we are talking about, and what it is that we are saying about the thing named. A great deal of thought and discussion has been expended on the question. What is Definition ? I think it may be possible, without following these acute reasonings in detail, to put the matter clearly enough for the purpose of understanding what old Logicians took for granted, and what modern science requires. Wesley, quoted by Pro- fessor Green,* says, " Definition is such an explanation of a term as' separates it, like a boundary, from everything else ; " this only indicates the purpose of a Definition. Kant, also quoted by Green, states what are the requisites of a good Definition — " Conceptus rei adaequatus in minimis terminis complete determinatus " — the adequate conception of a thing fully determined in the fewest terms. * ' Spiritual Philosophy,' i. p. 31. 38 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC, Mr. Mill finds great fault with a distinction (which was current in Logical manuals at the Universities) between Nominal Definitions, which limited the meaning and current use of words or names according to the purpose of the speaker or writer, and Beat Definitions, which were supposed to explain the nature of a thing. The distinction (especially if improperly applied) may be hardly satis- factory in view of the requirements of modern science. But the necessity for a definition of the sense in which a word is used in argument is obvious. On the other hand, what used to be called a Real Definition is rather a description, which may be more or less complete. Unless it includes every property or attribute of the thing defined it cannot be complete.* A certain completeness or pre- cision is attainable in Mathematical Definitions, but it is impossible, in the case of facts of experience, that we can be sure that we know all that is important to be known of the facts, still less all that might possibly be known. The Mathematical process in Geometry is sometimes called synthetical. (See below, p. 44.) In the case of spiritual realities it is stiU more neces- sary to remember that finite minds cannot be sure that they know the whole which they attempt to define. With the ancient philosophers a Definition was the starting-point. Disputants used to assume or feel their way towards a verbal definition, and then to develope or analyse it into detail by deduction. This was, and in fact still is, * " The Definition in its full import is the sum of all the properties connoted by the name. It exhausts the meaning of a word." Bain's ' Deductive Logic,' chap. ii. § 511, p. 71. CLASSIFICATION. 39 the practice, especially in moral and theological discussion. A notable instance of this mode of treatment will appear when we deal with Aristotle's Ethics. In modern physical science, on the other hand, Defini- tion is not the starting-point, but the end to be arrived at by observation of facts, comparison, and discrimina- tion ; this process is sometimes called analytical. Mr. Bain in the preface to his Logic, says that for the fijst time he has brought the department of Definition under a methodical scheme. He says that the mode of defining is a generalizing process, and that the scholastic definition contains no reference to a generalizing process. I think this statement can hardly be maintained. The scholastic definition referred to a genus, which presumes an act of generalization whether consciously performed or only inherited in the current language. The Logical Definition of any scientific term or of any mental or moral conception presumed a classification. Some of the ancients regarded this classification as a reality of existence. We know now that classification is the work of the mind itself dealing with the phenomena presented to it. To this mental function I must ask special attention. Classification. Classification implies two processes of the mind. (1.) The fijrst step is to assinaUate (or observe points of likeness in) things, or in our conceptions, so as to give a name to a group of things which appear to be, in some 40 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. respects at least, alike; (2.) The second act of the mind is to distinguish between things or groups which seem alike by noticing the points in which they respectively differ. These two actions of the mind correspond to what the Greeks called finding the one in the many, and the many in the one. We may say that science dates from the perception of this fertile germ of reason. This process, or at least its results, may be illustrated by what is usually called Porphyry's tree, which Mr. Bain says may be better described by the Greek name Porphyry's ladder (KXi/jba^ climax).* Substance = Being I some definite existence = corporeal + not corporeal Body = animate + not animate Mmerals Living organism = sensitive + not sensitive Plants Animal = Rational + not rational Brutes Man = Socrates, Plato, and others. As we ascend the ladder, at each step we enlarge the class by taking in other classes (one or more) which have some point in common with the class already named. In other words we generalize, that is, we include a species in a genus. As we come down the ladder, we note at each * I borrow the form of the ladder from Mr. Bain's ' Logic,' part ii. 432, but I have not copied it exactly. CLASSIFICATION. 41 step some distinction, fixing on some characteristic (one or more) called a| Differeviia — we shut out by a distinct negative all things that do not agree in possessing the attribute indicated by the differentia, and so we contract the class and limit the number of individuals contained in it. In fact, from a previous generalization we pass to what is called a specific difference or characteristic of the things or persons we include ; wherebj-, at the same time, we exclude all things or persons which do not have that attribute. With the word generalization it may be well to connect the word dbstractio7i, a word which requires definition. Sometimes it seems to be used as equivalent to elimina- tion (or casting out some factor in a sum). At other times it is used (and this is its proper use) in the sense of drawing out of a tangled skein some important thread which requires our special attention, and leaving the rest out of our view.* Now if we look again at the ladder we may see, JFirst, at the top, what used to be called the Summum genus, which admits of no further abstraction (nor counter- part, unless we enter on the Platonic or Hegelian speculations about not-being). Secondly, in gradations of genera, each genus is narrower in extension (that is containing fewer imits in nrmiber) than the class above it. Thirdly, we note that an additional attribute or mark • Mr. Bain says abstraction means separately viewing one point of agreement and leaving all other accompaniments in the shade. ' Deductive Logic,' p. 399. 42 INTEODUCTIOlf TO LOGIC. enters into each conception as we descend, increasing the intension (content, or meaning, or number of attributes) of the word in the next line below it. Lastly, we come to what was called the Infima Species or whole essence of the thing defined. The Infima Species was supposed to contain only complete units called individuals, because the species could no longer be logically divided (that is, the logical class could not be divided into smaller classes). This is obviously not true except in a limited sense. Of course the species man as a class includes many kinds of men, clergymen, doctors, civil servants, employers, labourers, or, as Mr. Jevons shows, many races. Man Ary Aryan not Aryan c r 71.. Semitic not Semitic I Turanians not Turanians. This figure illustrates another logical process called Division. It will be observed that both in Porphyry's ladder and Mr. Jevons' figure the division at each step is exhaustive. It is effected by one distinctive mark or characteristic, to which is opposed the absolute contrary : A and not A. This is in character with the general principle of Logic, which mainly depends on what is called the law of contradiction; as will be explained further on,* * Page 60. LOGICAL DEFINITION. 43 There is however one point in reference to classification and definition which it may be well to notice. The old Logical idea, that every Species, being a reality, is itself equivalent to the essence of each individual, is abandoned as untenable. Therefore no one attribute of a Species can be called its absolute differentia, because principles of classification are the work of the mind, and vary according to the purpose of the classifier. StUl, as Lotze points out, there may be a great difference in the importance of attributes and in their relation to one another.* Lotze speaks of constitutive concepts, by which term he implies, I think, a type which has some relation to the Platonic Idea. He gives as an illustration the fact that "Analytical geometry possesses in its equations, by which it expresses the nature of a curve, just that constitutive concept which we are looking for." " This privileged group of essential marks can only be found by a comparison of the given concepts with those which resemble it, and thus we are driven to systematic forms of grouping different things, and primarily to classification." f We have now arrived at a point at which the usual form of Logical Definition may be clearly understood. Mansel says, "The only proper definition in the strict sense of the word is by genus and differentia, or more correctly by differentiae," differentiae meaning any number of distinguishing characteristics. It follows that the * Lotze ' Logic,' i. p. 153. t IWd. i. p. 157. 44 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. summum genus " Being " can have no definition, as there is no higher class, and that individuals cannot be defined because their name is not the name of any class. It is also true, though perhaps on different grounds, that our personal perceptions at any one moment do not admit of ' definition ; we cannot define the perception of blue, red, or yellow, nor of sweet or sour. The ordinary illustration of a definition is that, as a man belongs to the genus animal, and is distinguished from aU other animals by reason, man may be thus de- fined : — Man is a rational animal. Further information is clearly given in Fowler's ' Deductive Logic,' chap, vii Induction. We have seen that the Deductive reasoning of Aristotle is concerned with the application of principles to cases, which can be shown to be included within (or, as the case may be, excluded from) the range of those principles. It therefore does not (speaking generally) add to our know- ledge of facts ; though this can hardly be said to be true of Mathematical reasoning. For Mathematics have, from a few defined terms and self-evident axioms, deduced, by what is called a synihetieal process, conclusions which, as regards measurement or number, define the cases of an infinity of facts. It follows that the principles of syllogisms, where they are not absolutely self-evident, are either derived ultimately from external experience, or are due to the spiritual INDtCTION. 45 enlightenment of the mind from some source other than experience. It may therefore be stated generally that the principles of deductive reasoning, as regards matters of fact, are based on induction. We have now to consider what is called the Inductive process of reasoning. That method has laid the foundation of the vast super- structure of modern science ; the word science being taken as meaning accurate knowledge of the facts of the Universe and its laws, or of phenomena and their causes. So much has been written on the subject of Induction of late years by the most subtle thinkers, with so many different explanations and distinctions, that it would be useless to attempt to give even a summary of the theo- retical doctrines laid down as explanatory of a process which, in some form or another, is in daily use among practical men. I think it best, therefore, to confine myself to a merely popular explanation of Induction, after shortly pointing out some obvious errors which have passed current in academical lecture-rooms within living memory. Dean Aldrich and Archbishop Whately both regarded the syllogism as the universal type of reasoning. They desired, therefore, to put Inductive reasoning into the form of the syllogism. Aldrich gave as an example the following syllogism : — Major. — This, that, and the other magnet attract iron. Minor. — All magnets are this, that, and the other. Conclusion. — Therefore all magnets attract iron. 46 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. He supposed Induction to be an argument, in which the minor, as thus stated by him, is suppressed ; but this minor proposition is obviously false. Archbishop Whately, seeing the error of Aldrich, pro- posed to explain the argument by saying that, when from known cases we draw an inference as to unknown cases, we suppress or imply the major premiss, namely : " What belongs to the individuals we have examined, belongs to the whole class under which they come." But Whately properly pointed out " that the settlement of the question, whether the cases examined are really sufficient or typical, is a matter which does not fall within the province of pure or formal logic ; and therefore such a principle cannot be assumed without a competent knowledge of the nature of the subject, and this," he says, "is not a matter of reasoning, but of investigation." This, however, was tantamount to the admission that Logic would teach nothing as to the proper method of investi- gation into the laws of Nature. But since those words were written, a new science, whether called Applied Logic or In- ductive Logic, has out-grown its time-honoured predecessor. The object I have in view, which is to give a sound but simple exposition of the purpose and principle of Induction, may be best attained by a quotation from the work * of the great surgeon, of whom I shall have more to say further on, Joseph Henry Green, the first Presi- dent (after Sir Benjamin Brodie) of the Council of Medical Education, and the expounder of the philosophy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. • ' Spiritual Ptilosopliy.' INDUCTION. 47 "The term 'Induction' does not mean merely the record of the results of experience,* but the process of inferring, of inducing upon our empirical knowledge the apprehension and insight of the causes and laws which govern the universe, moral and physical." He reminds his readers that, " wherever the human mind attributes unity to a manifold of facts, the first step is to note the Uke in the different and the different in the like, so as to generalise particulars into universals and to distinguish between classes." This may recall to the reader the one in the many and the many in the one of Plato.t He also states that Induction has three main objects, viz. : — . 1. To find the right attribute for a subject. 2. To find the right cause for an effect. 3. To find the right principle of the interdependence of the parts of a whole. The statement of these three objects has a certain archaic flavour ; but it is not amiss to show how a great thinker in the medical profession connected old thoughts with modern experience. Professor Green then asks his reader to consider the rules laid down by the best authorities (among whom he mentions Sir J. Herschel, Mr. J. S. Mill, and Dr. Whewell), for conducting investigations in behalf of Inductive Science. To these rules I will refer presently. ' Such a record is well called by Mill a " short-hand registration of facts."—' Logic,' i. p. 298. t ^ the Greek classification, p. 40. 48 INTRODtJCTlON TO LOGIC. But first let me show how Professor Green states the general form of reasoning implied in this Inductive process. He agrees with Archbishop Whately that in the process of Induction from the particular to the universal (or from facts to laws), we do virtually suppress a major premiss. But he adds that " Mr. Mill, after offering unanswer- able objections to Whately's view, fails himself to solve the logical problem," and Mr. Green offers the following solution : — Major. — " Whatever has been the result of invariable experience, may be regarded as the uniform course of nature." Minor. — " That aU. men are mortal has been the result of invariable experience," therefore — Conclusion. — "That all men are mortal may be regarded and anticipated as the uniform course of nature." Professor Green suggests that " this form of statement is in strict uniformity with the canon which Mr. Mill affects to despise." A very wrong impression of Professor Green's compre- hensive treatment of Induction would be given if it were not added that he illustrates the subject by an account of some of the most important discoveries of Natural Laws in Physics, in Chemistry, in Biology, and Astronomy. He specially shows the connection between the facts re- corded by Kepler and the deduction of Newton, as together establishing the Law of Gravity and of the motion of the Heavenly Bodies. INDUCTION. 49 It is clear that if the Syllogistic form of statement given above by Professor Green be correct, so far as it serves to connect the Inductive with the Deductive process, the main stress of the work remains to be done in ascertaining the truth of the minor premiss, as was stated above, page 21. Is the particular proposition of which it consists in accordance with invariable experience ? or (as I should prefer to say) in accordance with expe- rience unvaried, as far as experience has gone and has been duly recorded ? This brings us to the question how is this experience to be estimated. Mr. Mill is generally acknowledged as the writer who was the first to work out this question completely. He has laid down four canons for Inductive investigation.* I must content myself by giving a very short statement of the principle of these canons. The great object to be aimed at is to discover, among the multitude of facts and conditions of any observed phenomenon, the one governing cause of any effect, or, if there be more than one cause, the concurrent causes or conditions. This object may be attained by two different processes. 1. We may ascertain that, in a number of cases differing in various details, one fact is never absent. This fact probably is a cause, but not necessarily the only cause. Indeed, it might not be in any sense a cause, but only a concomitant effect of some undiscovered cause. This mode of enquiry is called the method of agreement. 2. Another process is called by way of contrast the method of difference. The principle of this method is the * Book III., chap. viii. 50 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. endeavour to isolate some one invariable fact, showing that all the other facts of the case may be removed or disregarded, and yet that the effect will remain ; and that one particular fact is always present, or that, if that fact is removed, the effect will cease. This process is that usually pursued in scientific experiment. It is especially adopted in chemical analysis. The subject of Induction in connexion with modern science is so extensive, that I must not attempt to follow it further. For the same reason the subject of Natural Classifi- cation, as in Zoology and Botany, must be passed by with the remark that it is much more complete than the Logical classification already described ; a clear account of the difference may be found in Dr. Fowler's 'Inductive Logic.'* This subject has more relation to Physical Science than to the questions discussed in this volume. Different Schools of Logic. I have endeavoured thus far to explain without much technical detail, or much distinction between different systems or schools, some of the principles of Logic which are implied lq the common conversation of the present day, or rather, I should say, which are recognized in books still used for education, or spiritual instruction. But I think I am bound to add that, in the opinion of some recent writers on logic, the activity of whose minds is evident, " Logic is ret where it was, and cannot * Chapter ii. § 2. DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF LOGIC. 51 remain where it is," " Both in England and Germany that subject is in motion." It may therefore not be iminteresting if I first refer shortly to the different schools which have hitherto dealt with Logic in England.* The first was characterised by the doctrine that Logic has only to do with language or the names of things. This view of reasoning only by names was originally put forward by Hobbes. In more recent times Aldrich and Whately maintained that doctrine, but in a different form, and with a very different purpose. Whately said : — " Logic is concerned with language only when employed for the purpose of reasoning ; " he adds, that Logic under- takes to guard against the use of " indistinct terms," " false propositions," and " inconclusive arguments " by the prosper use of lariguage ; and in a note he says, " In introducing the mention of language previously to the definition of Logic, I have departed from established practice in order that it may be clearly understood that Logic is entirely con- versant with language." f This School may be called the Verbal or Grammatical School of Logic. A second School was also connected with Oxford, but was specially represented in Scotland. The primary object of Logic, according to Dean Mansel and Sir W. * For this classification of the three Schools of Logic, I am indehted to a friend who allowed me to .see his notes of Lectures delivered by Prol'essor Plummer, of the University of Durham. t Whately, ' Logic,' p. 56. E 2 52 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. Hamilton, was to lay down the laws of thought, or, as they expressed their definition, laws of thought as thougU.* According to this view, Logic is an a priori Science concerned with laws of thought prior to experience, but regulated by reason. The materials of thought were "called "concepts," which have some distant relation to what were called by Locke " abstract ideas." This School of Logic may be called the Conceptual School. The third School proceeds on the principle that Logic is concerned, not with words only, nor with ideas or concepts as such, but with words and ideas simply so far as tilings are represented by words and ideas. This School is specially represented by Mr. Mill, who regarded logic chiefly as the instrument for collecting and testing evidence. It is hardly fair to call this school Materialist ; but perhaps the word Empirical may describe it. Mr. Mill's aim throughout is obviously to build up a system of extended knowledge based on experience. These schools all respectively rest on certain meta- physical or philosophical pre-suppositions, of which it would be premature to speak at present. Besides these three schools must be noticed that of the late Professor Jevons, which has been referred to above as the Mathematical or Equational SchooLf His works and those of Lotze, though very different, have exercised much influence on the modern views of Lo"ic in England. A few words must be said with reference to contemp o- • See abpve, p, 17. f See above, p. 34. MODERN LOGIC. 53 raneous endeavours to produce a consistent system of logic in harmony with recent philosophy. The key note of this school is sounded in the following words : — " The task before us is the removal of certain mistaken ideas. And the first to go must be the major premise. .... An effete superstition will be doomed." * " The major premise is a delusion, and this augurs ill, we may think, for the syllogism. Our suspicion is well founded, for the syllogism itself, like the major premise, is a mere superstition." f "Like some other chimseras that have had their day, the syllogism is effete, and its realm is masterless." t "In their ordinary acceptation the traditional subject, predicate, and copula, are mere superstitions." § The writer of these epigrams says somewhere that he is a Protestant in Philosophy or Logic. These utterances might suggest premisses for a syllogism in the third figure, II tending to the conclusion that some persons who oppose superstition are not indisposed to claim infallibility ; a conclusion which, if true, is not new, either in theology or in philosophy. Mr. Bosanquet, to whom English readers owe a deep debt of gratitude for liis excellent translation of Lotze's Logic and Metaphysics, follows the Writer just quoted in frequent reference to Lotze, though not always agreeing with him. But Mr. Bosanquet's sympathy with advancing thought and methodical unity does not hinder his admira- tion of those who first led the way; as the following • ' Principles of Logic,' Bradley, p. 227. t Md. p. 228. t Ibid. p. 245 § Ibid. p. 22. || See above, p. 28. 54 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. quotation shows: — "It is probable that we think too little, rather than too much, of Naming as a first step in knowledge. To give names which endure is, with few exceptions, the prerogative of genius. The number of terms which we inherit from Plato and Aristotle is among the most striking proofs of the immense advances which they won for the human intellect. These two great minds mapped out the world of knowledge in its essential features, much as we have it before us now, and gave to its main divisions the names which they still retain. Or again, what a gigantic advance was made by the work of Linnaeus, though it now serves as the stock example of an artificial classification." * I must confess that I do not feel competent to interpret the theory of this new development of Logic in England, of which Mr. Bradley and Mr. Bosanquet may be taken to be the representatives. But as they both strongly dissent from generally received doctrines, of which I have endeavoured to give a popular illustration, I am bound, as far as I am able, to inform my readers what are the points to which they specially object. They repudiate the doctrines of Genus and Species t on which Logical classification has long rested, and also that of Abstraction, as defined above ; with this goes the doctrine of Intension and Extension.} Of course these objections affect the whole view taken * Bosanquet's ' Logic,' p. 9. t " An obsolete conception belonging to purely fonnal Logic." — Bosanquet, 1, 65. i See above, page 41. MODERN LOGIC. 55 by these authors of proof or inference; but I need not go farther in tracing their divergence from the old Logic, As far as I am able to grasp the aim and guiding principles of these writers, I think I may venture to say tliat their aim is to bridge over the chasm between the old formal logic and the modern logic of fact. They start by assuming that Truth implies an agreement of what is in our minds with reality. They reject the idea that truth ever means only consistency of words or absence of seK-contradiction,* "Logic has no criterion of truth, nor test of reasoning." " The truth of a judgment," f they say, means " that it is fact or infact'' A judgment or proposition must say something about some fact or reality. This sounds in a way reasonable. But it is difficult to define what is a fact. t In this objection to the doctrine that in all propositions the subject and predicate express two ideas, many writers concur. § They/ say that judgment does not follow, but rather precedes the formation of ideas or concepts, — differing herein widely from Lotze, — and also that " it is not true that every judgment has two ideas." They conclude that every judgment impKes that some- thing eidsts, and that it has some characters of its own. If we say — " Fir trees are evergreens, or evergreen [either class or attribute] " || — they hold that we assert that such • Bosanquet, p. 3. t Bradley, p. 11. t For one explanation of what is a fact, see Mill's ' Logic,' Book I. cb, iii. § See above, p. 36, || Tbis illustration is mine. 56 INTROCUCTION TO LOGIC. trees exist, and that the evergreenness is inherent in those trees, and that it is not another idea added to the idea of a tree. Mr. Bradley, in difficult language, explains what he means by a judgment. As I understand him he means that what has hitherto been considered a predicate (what he calls an " ideal content ") is referred to some existing reality. " The ideal content is the logical idea. It is recognised as such when we know that by itself it is not a fact but a wandering adjective. In the act of assertion we transfer this adjective to and unite it with a real substantive." * I do not see that, after all, this throws so much light on the ordinary view of subject, copula, and predicate as to bring down such fulminating excommunication on our old acquaintances. But the " wandering adjective " seems a good illustration. It is, I believe, admitted by competent judges in the Universities, Scotch and English, that these works are suggestive, and that they may tend rather to widen our traditional and insular view of logic. If they should lead the students of the rising generation to study Lotze's works for themselves, they will have done good service. Thb Province of Logic. The few hints which I have given as to the use of Logic may suffice to show how Logic partly explains the * Bradley, p, 10. THE PROVINCE OF LOGIC. 57 ordinary modes of reasoning, whether in deducing the application of genera] principles to particular conse- quences, or in discovering general principles from the comparison of particular facts, or, as Mr. Mill would say, in inferring particulars from particulars. It has been shown that Logic is more useful as a test of correct reasoning than as a means of extending knowledge, and that it is specially useful in defining the meaning of words. I wish now to suggest that the domain over which Logic reigns is limited ; that there are subjects to which logical rules can be applied only with caution, and with due regard to other functions or operations of the human soul and mind. Logic shows us how the mind of man in reasoning uses as its instruments words or names of things. These names are generally considered as representing thoughts called " concepts " in modern philosophical language. Concepts are formed from the impressions made on our minds by things from without, those impressions being combined in some unit or whole, by the activity of the mind. Such units consist of groups of visible or tangible marks, and are used as metaphors or signs of our inward feelings, emotions and thoughts. As examples may be taken such words as head, heart, and bowels — for reason, will, and feelings — ^in old English; or as perception, conception, apprehension, comprehension — in modern language; with which may be compared such homely phrases as, " I take it in," " I make it out," " I see it," " I have it." 58 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. But, from the earliest records of self-conscious thought and speech it is evident that there is in human nature a capacity, or, it may be said, only a longing and craving for some satisfaction with reference to what may be called spiritual realities, as distinct from matters of everyday material or even mental experience. Further on I shall endeavour to show how far Logic can venture to go in the endeavour to establish or to define truth on such subjects. The Postulates of Logic. As all reasoning, whether deductive or inductive, must start from some assumption prior to all arguments, I must endeavour to indicate what are the assumptions or postulates which are taken for granted, as conditions of knowing truth, and judging of the successive stages of the proof of truth or of the search after trutL It is assumed prior to all reasoning (to speak generally) — 1. That there is such a reality* as truth ; that we have some power of knowing truth, and of detecting error. 2. That truth can be expressed in words, and that the meaning of words can be defined with approximate accuracy, allowance being made both for their etymology, * The word reality must here be taken in a general or popular sense, and not in the sense insisted upon by some recent writers as specially opposed to appearances or phenomena. Lotze attaches great importance to the distinction between validity and reality — validity as between ideas or concepts in the mind— reality as to facts, or to some being independent of the mind. LAWS OF THOUGHT. 59 and also for their subsequent history and usage, which involve constant change. 3. That there is a truth of or between words, and a truth in the relation between our words on the one hand, and realities independent of our minds on the other. 4. In the process of reasoning, it is also assumed that there are relations between truths or propositions such tliat if one is true, others may be inferred. To sum up, it is assumed that the accuracy of the definition of words, the consistency of words with words, the consistency of propositions with propositions, can be tested by Formal Logic. It is maintained by some and disputed by others, that agreement of words or proposi- tions (representing our thoughts) with facts or reality (material or spiritual) may be established or disproved by applied Logic* Laws of Thought. With reference to the assumptions of Formal Logic, it is desirable to notice that the test of consistency between words was of old embodied in three laws of thought; Those laws were recognized throughout the middle ages, and are frequently referred to in modern Philosophy. Mr. Jevons says f : " These^ laws describe the very • As to the Postulates of Logic, the student may do well to consult the opening chapters of Dr. Venn's ' Empirical Logic,' a title by which ihe author emphasizes bis belief that such ultimate objective certainty as Mill attributes to the results of induction, is not attainable by the exercise of the human reason. The book consists of lectures given for several years at Cambridge. t ' Elementary Lessons,' xiv. p, 117. 60 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. simplest truths in which all people must agree, and at the same time apply to all notions of which we can conceive." He calls them " the Primary Laws of Thought," which may be stated as follows " : 1. The Law of Identity. Whatever is, is. 2. The Law of Contradiction. Nothing can both be AND NOT BE. 3. The Law of Excluded Middle. Evekything must EITHEK BE OE NOT BE. These laws were ridiculed by Locke, but they frequently occur in English writers, both before and since the time of Locke. Jevons attaches great importance to their meaning being understood by students. They are con- stantly recognized in German Philosophy. Thomson gives an interesting account of these laws, taking them in a different order, which is, 1 think, more easy to follow.* 1. The principle of contradiction. " The same subject cannot have two contradictory attributes," or, " the same attribute cannot be at the same time affirmed and denied of the same subject." This is Aristotle's mode of stating the law. Kant states it thus — " The attribute cannot be contradictory of the subject.'' 2. The principle of Identity. " Conceptions which agree can be united in thought or af&rmed of the same subject," or, a thing is what it is and nothing else.f 3. The principle of the middle being excluded. " Either • Thomson.—' Laws of Thought,' p. 211. t Some Logicians consider this law as unmeaning Tautology ; but it cannot he left out of sight in dealing with old writers, or even with some moderns of great authority. LAWS OF THOUGHT. 61 a given judgment muat be true, or its contradictory ; there is no middle course." On this principle I will only venture to remark that before we can apply it to moral and spiritual thought we must be sure that in our judgment (or conception) we have the whole of the reality within our grasp, and not only one side of it; to this I shall refer hereafter. Thomson mentions a fourth law. 4. Tlie principle of sufficient reason, " Whatever exists or is true must have a sufficient reason why the thing or proposition should be as it is, and not otherwise." This principle was brought into special notice by Leibniz, and has had great influence in Germany. Indeed, it was held to be a necessary law by Lotze, who attached great importance to it in connection with the Law of Identity. It may perhaps not be far wrong to suggest that it is the same as the Law of Cause and Effect, which presumes that for every effect there must be an adequate cause. In applied logic it is always presumed that there is some relation between our thoughts and the things repre- sented by our thoughts ; and that thus we can gather general principles from the comparison of facts — especially that we can learn the causes of effects. The great assumption of Inductive Logic is the Uniformity of the Laws of Nature, including the Law of Universal Causation or sequence according to law. There is another subject of great importance — I mean the rules of evidence in connection with historical records — of which I say nothing at present, except that in the present century, notably since Niebuhr, stricter principles 62 INTEODUCTION TO LOGIC. of interpretation have been recognised in dealing with old documents. We may by experience and examination arrive at new canons of criticism, but no assumption of the absolute invariability of events according to the laws of modern experience can be held to be self-evident or conclusive, as a negative against a contemporary and personal relation of events. Such an assumption over- looks the important qualification that the invariability of laws holds good only when the circumstances or conditions are identical. There are then two questions to be answered by Logicians. 1. How can we test the truth of words ? 2. How can we test the truth of facts, that is of the relation between our words and actual facts ? The test of the first kind of truth was in the old logic considered to consist chiefly in the avoidance of contradiction and of ambiguity in the use of words. The test of the second kind of truth, which rests on. experience and seeks to explain experience, and also to forecast experience, is verification by subsequent experience. In the first case there are Laws of thought which, ever since Aristotle, have been more or less recognised as self-evident, By self-evident it is meant that they cannot be contradicted, but also that they cannot be proved. In the second case there is a principle of the uniformity of nature which, when the circumstances are identical (a most important condition) is assumed to be invariable. This principle has been recognised only in modern times. So far the questions are simply intellectual or specula- tive. Further questions remain which (in the opinion at THE LIMITS OF LOGIC. 63 least of some great thinkers) are not matter for Pure Eeason, but rather for what has been called Practical Eeason to deal with ; such are questions of feeling, (pleasure and pain) of Moral action (right and wrong) and of Spiritual faith. On such subjects it may be admitted that Logic in both departments, formal and applied, (or deductive and inductive) may contribute to reasonable conclusions, especially by promoting the accurate use of words. As to the source of the Data for such use of our reasoning powers on these subjects it is premature to speak in this place. The Limits of Logic. I have thus far endeavoured, though I fear it may be, in the judgment of some, at tedious length, and, of others, with superficial disregard of difficult questions (purposely kept out of present reference) to give some account of Logic. I have done so because some knowledge of the principles and terms of Logic seems indispensable for the understanding of those types ol thought which have piarked out the foimdation of knowledge from the time of Socrates to the present day. Logic has also a bearing of a special kind on the moral relations of duty, and on the spiritual realities of each individual soul. I wish, however, before I proceed to deal with these last-named subjects, knowledge and duty, to suggest for consideration what appears to me a principle of paramount importance in regard to the Limits of Logic, The principle to which I refer depends on the recognition 64 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC. of the essential difference between the nodon of any existing Being (person or thing) and the reality represented by the notion. I use the word notion (a vague word) advisedly, in order to avoid the technical words — idea, concept, impression, or sensation, not to mention other terms of doubtful import. In reference, then, to Logic I will iirst endeavour to express the principle in simple language which I have long been in the habit of using, and will then give my authority. Logical deductions from moral and spiritual truths (however those truths may have been arrived at or accepted) have not the same certainty as those, moral and spiritual truths themselves merely on account of the logical coherence of those deductions with the assumed premisses and definitions. On the contrary, it is quite possible (indeed, I think, certain) that there are some, perhaps many, spiritual realities, as presented in the intellect, which cannot be seen, as a whole, from one point of view ; and therefore the notions of them, in which alone they are present to the finite intellect from different points of view, are apparently liable to logical inconsis- tency. The word contradiction I purposely avoid. This principle I learned from the great spiritual thinker, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, half a century ago, when his ' Friend ' and his ' Aids to Eeflection ' and other sugges- tive fragments of unfinished work seemed to cast a bright beam of light into the minds of many young men and some fresh-minded old men, amid the expiring embers of the cold Deism of the eighteenth century, and the hardly less cold orthodoxy of the opening of the nineteenth. THE LIMITS OP LOGIC. . 65 I must postpone to a later page any reference to Coleridge's metaphysical doctrines, and their relation to the great thinkers of Germany. I confine myself here to a short quotation of his own words from the ' Aids to Eeflection.' "The following may, I think be taken as a safe and useful Eule in religious enquiries." " Ideas that derive their origin and substance from the Moral Being, and to the reception of which as true objectively (i.e., as corresponding to a reality out of the human mind) we are determined hj a, practical interest ex- clusively, may not, like theoretical or speculative positions be pressed onward iuto possible logical consequences." * In a note to this passage he gives a mathematical illustration, and adds " Eeasoning from finite to infinite, or from infinite to finite will lead to apparent absurdity although the basis be true; and is not such apparent absurdity another expression for ' Truth unintelligible by a finite mind ? ' " In words sacred to me from a still closer bond with their author "How can the finite comprehend or define the infinite ? " I cannot refrain from quotiug in addition the following passage from Jevons : — " We perpetually find ourselves in the position of finite minds attempting infinite problems ; and can we be sure that where we see contradiction an Infinite Intelligence might not discover perfect logical harmony." f * 'Aids to Eeflection,' p. 155, Ed. 1831, t ' Principles of Science,' p. 768. P ( 66 ) CHAPTEE II. PLATO. Although Logic as a system, whether we regard it as the science or as the art of reasoning, was first put by Aristotle into that definite form which it has maintained to the present time, we must go back to Socrates for the impulse given to human thought and reasoning both on knowledge and duty. Especially as regards duty or the branch of Philosophy called Ethics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle may be regarded as holding, in the words of Professor Sidgwick, a quite unique place in the development of Moral Philosophy. " There is no other philosopher from Aristotle to the present time, with the doubtful exception of Kant, who, in the general view of the modern world, is as important as any one of the three." I venture to add that in the view of Englishmen an exception hardly doubtful might be made for Bishop Butler. Maurice opens his history of ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy ' with these words : " Philosophy means literally the love of Wisdom. It is the love of a hidden treasure. Therefore it comes to mean a search after Wisdom."* He goes on to show that this search may be carried on among things that can be seen and handled, that is, among Physical things. But before the search * ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosopliy.' New edition, 1882 : Intro- duction, p. xliii. PHILOSOPHY THE SEAECH FOR WISDOM. 67 has gone far, man learns that he himself differs from Physical things, and his search for wisdom leads him into Moral and Metaphysical enquiries, "The Philosopher seeks for wisdom everywhere that he may know where it is not." All nations show by their institutions and arts that they are in pursuit of wisdom. The Philosopher engages deliberately in the search and traces out a tnethod in it. " Such a man interprets the less conscious striving of his contemporaries." In the spirit of these words I invite my reader to search for wisdom at the fountain head of European thought. It is generally admitted that we must look to Greece for the origin of Philosophy, and unquestionably Socrates is the central figure. There were earnest thinkers before his time both in Asia Minor and in the south of Italy. They also were Greeks ; but, suggestive as their efforts were, we chiefly know their aims through the records of what took place after the Persian and Peloponnesian wars at Athens, the very name of which city is derived from that of the Goddess of Wisdom. To attempt any account of these pre-Socratic Schools in a short space would only be to give a catalogue of names. But it may be well to quote Mr. Maurice's advice to his readers that theiy should study Greek Philosophy in its infancy, if they wish to have a clear understanding of Philosophy between the age of Socrates and that of Aris- totle as well as during the age of servility which followed. " Let them not hope," he says, " to understand Plato or Aristotle . . . if they have begun with despising Hera- clitus, Pythagoras, and Papipenides. Nay, we might go r 2 PLATO, further and say, that we should greatly doubt the pre- tensions of any one professing to have a real acquaintance with Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, or Kant, who could dis- cover nothing but confusion and barrenness in these early inquiries."* SOCEATES. Socrates does not appear to have taken an active part in his character as a philosophical enquirer till he was forty- two years old, after he had given proof of great physical courage in battle ; and of still greater moral courage in bold resistance to the illegal acts of unscrupulous politicians in power. It is remarkable that the only two occasions on which his name appears in political history prove that his actions were governed by his high ethical principle, that no outward violence could make a good man do wrong or break the law, and that to act unjustly was a greater evil than to suffer injustice. Athens had been much demoralized by its supremacy over its allies, and by subsequent internal changes in its constitution. There was much active discussion in political and judicial life. Ambitious men were seeking power and influence. A class of teachers called Sophists had become an important profession, giving instruction in Ehetoric for high fees. In this state of Athenian society Socrates appears, as delineated by Plato, with an earnest desire to find his own way to true wisdom, including both love of truth and moral earnestness ; and to help the young men of his • Ibid, vol* u page 114. SOCEATES. 69 time to rise above the paltry influence of fashion, and the dishonest arts of politicians. Maurice says, " Nowhere but in the Sacred Oracles do we find an author so cognisant, of his own perplexities ; so little anxious to hide them from us ; so anxious to awaken us to the consciousness of them, in order that we may be delivered from them, "Herein lies the art of Plato. Most consummate art it is, superior in the depths of insight which must have led to it, and in the influence which it exerts, to that which is displayed in almost any human composition."* This estimate of Plato is in accordance with much that has been written by Mr. Grote, on the value of the negative conclusion of some of the Dialogues of Plato. In many of them, after a long and closely reasoned argument, we reach no affirmative conclusion, no dogmatic doctrine. But a difficult subject has been threshed out, gratuitous or conventional assertions are shown to have no real meaning, and the reader is left to profit by a lesson in thinking out difficulties. The Dialogues which are of this character are classified by Mr. Grote as Dialogues of Search, in contradistinction to Dialogues of Exposition, which may be supposed to set forth some positive doctrine. His Method and Waitings. We may turn then to Plato for information on two points ; as to what was the teaching of Socrates, and also for * Ibid, page 142. 70 PLATO. guidance in the search for truth which the pupil carried on after his master's death in his name. The student of Plato must distinguish between the living Socrates as he appears in Xenophon and in some of Plato's writings, and the dramatic Socrates who is made the exponent of Plato's own enquiries and expositions. For the living Socrates I , may at once refer the reader to a little volume published by Mr. Church in the Golden Treasury Series, ' The Trial and Death of Socrates.' It contains several dialogues which are closely connected with the last days of the philosopher passed after condemnation, in the view of certain death, for which he had to wait thirty days. It contains also his apology or defence of himself before the judges, that is, a jury of 600 chosen by lot, and open to the prejudices of a mob misled by unscrupulous and jealous orators. Sophists and Theorists. In order to place before the reader some of the lessons to be drawn from the teaching of Socrates and Plato, reference must be made to two classes which are represented in the writings of Plato — namely, the Sophists and the Philo- sophical Theorists. Plato's writings are essentially dramatic, the speakers are not lay figures set up as the representatives of opinions under discussion. They were real living men. At the same time it must be borne in mind that in some cases we have Plato's view of his opponent's opinions, rather than the speaker's own arguments. This applies especially to Protagoras, a Sophist, but a respectable and honest man. THE. SOPHISTS. 71 The Sophists. I may take it for granted that any reader of Greek history at the present time is aware of the defence of the Sophists by Mr. Grote. The use of the word Sophistical was formerly associated with a class of men who were supposed to be perverters of truth, and corrupters of the young men of Athens. Mr. Grote's definition of the Sophist is that he was a " professor of wisdom, he taught men to speak, tliink, and act." Many of them were highly respectable, but their professional abilities were placed at the services of their young countrymen only in order to enable their pupils to obtain influence in the active democracy of Athens. As Mr. Maurice says, " the young Athenians wanted to learn how to think, act, and speak upon all subjects, that they might guide the people according to their pleasure. For this purpose they sought the aid of a Sophist or a Professor." Perhaps we might find a parallel in the Press of the present day ; against one section of which Mr. Maurice maintained a life-long, perhaps an exaggerated, protest. The Sophists did not profess to be scientific enquirers after truth. The speculations of the early thinkers, already referred to, on the physical and material con- stitution of the world, were not attractive to the citizens. Nor was there much speculation on Eeligion. Eeligion was a matter of mythical or poetical tradition, as embodied in the great dramatic performances. There was also some 72 FLATO. regard to national acts of worship, sacrificial, festal, and social, maintained by the Government on the basis of local customs. In the midst of such social life Socrates appears as an essentially original person. He had a strong feeling of religion — of morality as justice between man and man — and of morality as the rule of conduct in the control of appetite. But he was most prominent as a questioner in pursuit of reality and truth, as distrusting all conventional pre- tension to knowledge, professing all the while, with inimitable humour and irony, his own ignorance of matters about which his respondents seemed quite sure. The Philosophical Theoeists, It may suffice without attempting any systematic' classification of Schools, to select one or two typical cases specially dealt with in the Platonic dialogues. There were two tendencies among the theorists in Plato's time. The first tendency was in the direction of individual or personal desire and sensible perception, as distinct from any fixed standard of truth or of knowledge. Protagoras appears in Plato's writings as the type of this tendency. He '' appUed the doctrine of Heraclitus, respecting the eternal flux of all things, to the individual or knowing subject, and asserted, ' man is the measure of all things/ ' just as each thing appears to each man so it is to him.' All truth is relative." * * Ueberweg, ' History of Philosophy,' vol. i. par. 27, p. 72, THE ELEATICS. 73 The Eleatics. In strong contrast with the tendency of the Sophists, though of earlier date, was the Eleatic School, of which Parmenides is a conspicuous type in the writings of Plato. " The foundation of the Eleatic doctrine of unity, was laid in theological form by Xenophanes of Colophon, metaphysically developed as a doctrine of Being, dialec- ticaUy defended, in opposition to the vulgar belief in a plurality of objects, and in revolution and change, by Zeno ofElea."* It will of course be obvious that there was more sympathy on the part of the Sophists with the philosophical doctrines represented as those of Protagoras, than with those of Parmenides and Zeno. It will also appear that the Philosophicdl doctrines of Plato passed on from mere criticism of the Sophistical doctriaes by Socrates, to the serious discussion of the transcendental doctrines of Parmenides. Personality of Socrates. , I cannot put before my reader a more vivid portrait of Socrates, as depicted by Plato, than that given in an extract from a remarkable Article in the ' Quarterly Eeview ' f on Plato, Bacon, and Bentham. * Ueberweg, I. par. 17, p. 50. t ' Quarterly Beview," vol. Ixi. p. 487 : 1838. 74 PLATO. The Article was written by my late intimate friend Philip Pusey, himself a profomid philosophical thinker and an accomplished scholar, with considerable knowledge of science, who devoted a great part of his time for the last sixteen years of his life to the service of agricul- tirrists, tiU he died broken hearted by the neglect and ingratitude of those among whom he lived, and for whom he had worked so hard. After giving a short account of Socrates, he says, " we cannot do justice to the affection and veneration which his memory claims from us. But read of him. " Eead of him in Plato. Eead of him in the Phsedrus, sitting at high noon under the plane-tree, which Cicero says he has immortalised, by the banks of the Illissus, and led to recite, as if by inspiration, that beautiful mythos, in which he represents the soul of a lover, seated in a car drawn by two horses, the black one, earthly desire, striving earthward ; the white one, heavenly affection, struggling aloft ; and then if the better feeling prevail, the blessedness of pure and undivided attachment. " Eead of him. in the Gorgias, courteously, yet with sarcastic power, confuting the Sophists, who maintain that the height of ambition is the superiority over public justice, and telling them that he at least will keep hia soul white and pure for the scrutiny 'of Ehadamanthus. " Eead of him again in the genial table of the Banquet, gay and witty, yet rising to the earnest strain in which he depicts the progress of the mind, from the love of indi- vidual beauty, to the love of all beautiful objects, then to PERSONALITY OF SOCEATES. 75 the love of honourable and worthy exertions, next to that of right and virtuous contemplations, lastly, of Him who is all that is good, and just, and true. " Eead of him in his defence before his judges, avowing the object of his life, rather than palliating his conduct, and parting from them, as he is led away, with the beau- tiful words, ' You go to life, and I to death : which of us for the better part, the Gods only know.' " See him with Crito, who has bribed the gaoler to connive at his escape, refusing to accept a life which could only be preserved by renouncing his moral commission, and showing how the personified laws of his country would rebuke him, if, having during his previous course sup» ported their authority and enjoyed their protection, he should now refuse to submit to their award. " Listen to him, lastly, in the cell which is his last day's lodging, bidding his weeping followers look forward to a brighter existence, telling them when Cebes asks where he would be buried — telling them with a smile, that Cebes is incredulous, but that before Cebes can bury him, Cebes must catch him; answering, when they inquire his dying commands, that if they govern their minds according to his precepts, they will certainly act in accordance with his wishes — if otherwise that their utmost promises will be unavailing; and after he has received the fatal cup with an unchanged eye, behold him lying down for the last time with words of religious thankfulness. " Eead this in Plato, and then you wiU know, and value, and love the brave, and great, and affectionate 76 PLATO. philosopher of Athens, to -whoin Erasmus, as he heard the flames of Christian saints recited from a Litany, added the invocation, ' Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis ! ' " Such was the man who under the bright sunshine of Athens endeavoured to awaken in his fellow-countrymen a power of discerning between truth and falsehood, good and evil, between what is lovely, beautiful, and noble, and what is base and foul, and also to see in appearances or phenomena and in the never-ceasing flow of events in time, indexes and finger-posts pointing to some self-sub- sisting unity, eternal in the heavens, or above the heavens, virep ovpavia, so far as we can conceive the idea of heaven, In this same Athens three centuries later a Hebrew, trained in Greek knowledge at Tarsus, "the greatest University* of the West," and claiming the civil right of a Eoman citizen, proclaimed to the seekers after some- thing new, the Gospel that the UNKNOWN GOD had made the world and all things therein, that He made of one blood aU the nations of the earth, that they should seek after Him if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being. And now some twenty centuries after the awakening of thought and enquiry at Athens, there issues from Kensington the Gospel of the Unknowable, * We have it on tlie authority of Strabo, a contemporary of St. Paul (says the late Bishop Lightfoot), " that Tarsus surpassed all other Universities, such as Alexandria and Athens, in the study of Philo- sophy and Educational Literature in general." — 'Biblical Essays,' p. 208 : published 1893, METHOD OP PLATO. 77 Mothers are studying a work on Education, which, in cautious language, excludes all reference to a personal God, and teaches that devotion to science ig the only religion. * Method of Plato. I must not attempt to explain the system of Plato's philosophy as a whole, nor even to describe the three classes under which the dialogues have generally been arranged. What is valuable to us is not so much to under- stand how Plato's theory was developed from the teaching of Socrates, as to learn the lesson taught by his method. Plato wrote dialogues because he did not aim at expounding a logical system, but was rather trying to understand the working of the minds of living men. Though he represents Socrates as finding fault with poets, he was himself in the highest sense a poet, seeing into the thoughts and feelings of men, and expressing in beautiful works of imagination what seemed to him the inner life of thoughts and things. But his method af teaching was essentially that of the dialogue, or critical conversation from opposite points of view. He was not so anxious to impress any particular truth on his readers, as to show that in the dialogue, or dialectic method, we have the "induction to principles." f Wfe might also say we have the destruction of superficial conventionalities. " His dialogues are literally an education." t * See below, p. 233. t Maurice, ' Moral and Metaphysical PhilosopLy,' vol. i. p. 141. t Ibid. p. 142. 78 PLATO. Eeference has already been made to some beautiful dialogues, showing the personal character of Socrates, and expressing types of the Beautiful and the Noble. For our present purpose two dialogues may be first selected.. The important questions to be answered are : — (1.) What ought we to do, and what do we mean by the words ought, and doing or acting ? (2.) What can we know, and what do we mean by the word knowledge? Whence is the origin of knowr ledge, and on what does it rest ? Two dialogues deal with these questions. The Gorgias treats of the first, and may therefore be considered as .ethical or moral, in its main purpose. The^Thesetetus ,deals with the second question, and , is therefore intel- lectual. In the great work called the Eepublic both questions are dealt with. The Gokgias. The Gorgias is one of the dialogues of Search. It is specially directed against the popular standard of life, as represented by the teaching of the Sophists or Professors of Ehetoric. Gorgias, an eminent Professor, is made to admit that his aim is not truth, but only persuasion ; that although the subject in debate may be what is just, the knowledge of what is really just is unimportant. Socrates is nowhere represented as more deeply in earnest, yet nowhere are his humour and irony more striking. He THE GOBGIAS. 79 encounters first a celebrated and successful Professor of this popular art; then one of his Professor's zealous pupils; and finally, a hardened man of the world, a cynical man, like some habitues of the Clubs who believe in nothing chivalrous or noble. In opposition to them he maintains that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil to others ; better to be punished for doing wrong than to escape punishment ; and that no statesman is worthy of the name who accepts the popular standard of praise and blame as that by adopting which he is to reach influence and power over others. As Mr. Jowett says, the standard held up by Socrates is that the consequences for good or evil cannot alter by a hair's breadth the morality of actions which are right or wrong in themselves. " Because politics and perhaps human life generally are of a mixed nature, we must not allow our principles to sink to the level of our practice." The remarks of Mr. Jowett on the duty of the statesman to discern not only what is expedient but what is right, and on the difiiculty of the true statesman who tries to combine governing for the people with the indispensable condition in these days of governing by the people or through the people, will repay the study of those who believe that Plato is a true teacher for us in these days. The The^tetus. In the dialogue called by the name of Theaetetus the ■ question is discussed, What is knowledge ? It, represents Protagoras as maintaining the doctrine 80 PLATO, that all knowledge is derived from sensation or sensible perception of passing tilings, combined with another idea, that all things are in perpetual transition or state of becoming, and not to be dealt with as actual realities. This doctrine is represented by the phrases, " Man is the measure of all things,", and " What seems true to each man is true for him." Socrates is represented as showing these doctrines to be quite Untenable, and that, if true, they would practically make any real knowledge impossible. No conclusion is come to in this dialogue ; but the door is left open for the introduction of the theory of Ideas as the types of all reality ; the passing appearances perceived by the senses being regarded as copies or reflections of these primary truths or realities. As, in the Gorgias, Socrates was represented as seeking for the ground of his undoubtedly high standard of morals, so in this charming dialogue, called by the name of an open-minded pupil, Thesetetus, he is searching into the nature of knowledge. In this, as in several other cases, he ends by confessing his own ignorance ; but throughout the enquiry it is clear that he has in view some guiding principle as to the reality of truth. An old teacher, Theodorus, who has been training These- tetus, describes him as a most promising scholar. So Socrates asks him what he has learnt, and after a few words about Arithmetic, Socrates says. But I want you to tell me, if you can, what is knowledge ? Socrates says his mother was a midwife, and that he foUows her prO"' f ession in bringing forth the produce of the mind ; that THE THE^TETUS. 81 having no mental children of his own he is qualified to assist the birth of ideas in young minds. We see the beginning of that process by which the mind of man gathers a conception, and from a number of particulars reaches a general principle, and how from observing the changes of appearances and the fact that one event grows out of another, we arrive at the con- viction of some underlying certainty. The perception of the sense is not knowledge; nor is crude or popular opinion, nor even is a correct opinion, knowledge of any certaiQ truth. The case of the boy in the Meno, who is led by a series of questions to prove an important problem in Geometry, was intended to prove the reminiscence of truth known in some preceding state of existence. But it also tends to show something of absolute certainty of knowledge, so far as regards arithmetical number and geometrical quan- tity; and also that erroneous opinion or confusion of thought can be brought to a definite test. The EEPUBLie. I must confess that in my younger days I was repelled from the Study of the Kepublic by what seemed the unpractical, if not actually shocking, treatment of family life in relation to the State. The disregard of the instinc- tive modesty of young women, the exclusion of them from the blessedness of wedded union, and from the happy duties of mothers to their own children, seemed incon- sistent with the fundamental principles of human society. 82 PLATO. I could not see that treating this Eepublic as an Ideal, was a sufficient justification for regarding such a violation of the family life as the principle of a perfect state of society. More recent study, aided by the masterly exposition and criticism which are now available for all students, whether of the original Greek or of the admirable transla- tions into English, has led me to see that what Mr. Maurice calls " the huge and hideous blot " of the " community of wives and children " must not prevent us from studying Plato's " ideal of subordinating individual selfishness and ambition " to the " unity of the Commonwealth ; " not to speak of the bearing of the whole on the moral, intellectual, and spiritual training of the individual man and woman. The ' Eepublic of Plato ' is generally acknowledged to be his greatest work. The title of the book hardly conveys a correct impression of its purpose, and very different views have been expressed as to what its main purpose is. Some regard it as a metaphysical treatise, some as a theory of education. Maurice, who is always anxious to connect enquiry into philosophical questions with the practical life of man, perhaps best expresses the truth by saying that the relations between the mind of man and the con- stitution of society are especially dealt with in this treatise. Plato did not regard the wants of our " social being as of a secondary or accidental character. He found them so embedded in the constitution of man that be could not investigate the law of each man's internal life without also investigating that by which he is related to his fellows." * * Maurice, ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,' I. p. 159. THE REPUBLIC. 83 Mr. Grote says that " Plato insists on the parallelism between the individual and the State: he talks of 'the polity ' or republic in each man's mind, as of that in the entire city. The Eepublic, or Commonwealth, is intro- duced by Plato as being the individual man ' writ large,' and therefore more clearly discernible to an observer." The ostensible subject of the dialogue at its opening is, What is justice ? and what is the connection between justice and happiness ? The actual definition of justice is discussed. Without entering into the detail of this argu- ment, we may say that Justice, as regarded by Socrates, is equivalent to the whole duty of man in his social rela- tions with his fellow-creatures. Eeligion, or the relation of man to God, hardly enters into the discussion. Socrates was essentially a religious man, but his sense of truth and moral goodness was' too deep for him to be content witli the tales of the gods, their passions and their enmities, as related by the poets. He conformed to the religious observances of his country as a matter of law, but as far as I am aware, there is no trace of idol-worsliip in his teaching. In the second book occur some striking words which are actually called theology. " God is truly good," and " God, if He is good is not the author of all things." "Few are the goods of human life ; many are the evils : and the good alone is to be attributed to God." " Of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere^ and not in Him." " God and the things pf God are in every way perfect." "It is impossible that God should ever be wUling to change, being, as is supposed,' the fairest and best that is conceivable." a 2 84 PLATO. He also says in the strongest manner that God is per- fectly true both in word and deed, and abhors untruth and deceit. I have quoted these detached sentences because good- ness and truth are the foundation on which the whole theory of the Eepublic is built, and these words, though introduced indirectly, show the connection, in the mind of Plato, of the philosophy of truth and morals with the Creator of the imiverse. I do not propose to follow the details of the ideal State. In the Eepublic we find the foundation of morals and of truth, namely, the union, in the constitution of human nature, of the ethical and intellectual principles. This uhion, after all, is the keystone of the arch by which Plato bridges over the chasm between the spiritual and material world, or the iutelligible and sensible conditions under which we exist as finite beings. When we come to speak of Kant we shall find that he adopts in a modern form a similar doctrine. The Eepublic begins by discussing what is the definition of Justice. It is first suggested, To speak the truth and give everyone his due. This abstract principle is shown to be insufficient, because the circumstances of each case must be taken into account, both as regards the intention to deceive, and the rights of another person — suppose an enemy in battle — to be entitled to correct information. Justice, however defined, is a virtue or excellence of conduct on the part of a rational individual or a right- minded person, in relation to a]\ other persons in social lifei THE REPUBLIC. — FIFTH AND FOLLOWING BOOKS. 85 Therefore Plato discusses the theory of a State or Polity, that is, a political constitution. His Polity is rather an ideal, than an actual or even possible constitution, The State of Plato consists of three constituent classes or ranks. Pirst. — The Governing Body, carefully selected from the next rank. Secondly. — An Executive Body, called Guardians or soldiers, trained for the defence of the State against enemies. Thirdly. — Ordinary workers and producers. Of the slaves no notice is taken in this theoretical con- stitution; but there are indications that kind treatment of old servants and slaves is approved. The Eepublio. — Pifth and Pollowing Books, " It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the ' summit of speculation ; ' and these, although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work." * The fifth book of the Eepublic opens with an appeal to Socrates to show how his ideal State can be realised in practice with special reference to the question of family life and the position of women. On the position of women in the Eepublic I will say no more than this ; that the whole question of private family * Jowett's ' Introduction to Republic.' Third edition, p. ix. 86 PLATO. life is regarded as subordinate to the principle which is the foundation of all that is best in Plato's Ideal Society ; namely, that the Governors of the Body Politic must be absolutely unselfish and devoted to the good of the whole ; that they must lead simple lives, without riches, and without seeking domestic comfort. He embodies his principle in the paradoxical saying, that none but philosophers are fit to be kings. What then did he mean by Philosopher ? * With regard to the question how far the principles of the State as explained in the earlier books can be practically applied, Mr. Maurice says, " the Eepublic is not an enquiry respecting the condition of a particular State. Phrases may occur in it again and again which seem to define this as its object ; but others, far more pregnant in their meaning, and oftentimes uttered unconsciously, show that another and grander aim was present to the mind of the writer, and was haunting him when he could not realise it. He felt that there should be some body. which expresses not the law of a confined, definite national Ufe, but the law of society itself, the principle of its unity. He felt that such a body as this is implied in the existence of every national community, but yet transcends it, and is not subject to its limitations. " We could easily produce proofs of this feeling from every book of the Eepublic, but we know none in which it comes forth more strikingly than in that fifth book of which we are now speaking. " The idea of a universal Greeh society is there formally put forth, yet it is evident that this does not satisfy the mind of Plato ; he has the dream of something more com- * See below, p. 89. THE REPUBLIC.— FIFTH AND FOLLOWING BOOKS. 87 prehensive. A feeble Sophist would have tried to express the dream in big words ; he is content to suggest the nearest practical approximation to an expression of it that his circumstances made possible. But with this universal society Plato does not see how distinct relationships are compatible. Perfect community seems the very law of its being; whatsoever interferes with this seems to frustrate its intention. " Here, then, we see at once the ignorance and know- ledge of Plato. How such a universal society as this could grow out of a national community, out of a family, and could preserve uninjured, in harmony with itself, both those holy institutions which had been its cradle, this he did not know ; this wisdom was reserved for the shepherds c£ Palestine." * These shepherds (and fishermen) inherited from the earliest records of history the idea of a polity based on morality in direct relation to the Creator of the World, guided by prophets who spoke in His N"ame, and who led the people to look forward to a further message from Heaven. A small number of these humble natives of Palestine believed that this Heavenly forecast was fulfilled in the life of One who taught them that their national polity was to find its purpose and full meaning in a kingdom of Heaven, which should be co-extensive with humanity. This kingdom was to be a city not made with hands. They believed at the cost of their lives that this teaching was not only an Ideal manifested ia One Life, but that it was guaranteed by one great fact, namely, the resurrection * Vol. i. p. 166. 88 PLATO. of their Teacher ; that after that event they were placed in spiritual communication with the invisible under one Eternal Head ; and that, so far from family life being suppressed, the idea of Fatherhood and the union of married life would be the very types of a universal polity and brotherhood. We may now pass on from the doctrine of the Ideal State to its bearing on the education of the individual human being in real life. The parallel between the individual and the political society having been assumed, and the ideal of the State having been sketched in detail, Plato proceeds to show how the three constituent functions of the State are to be found in the human life. Man has three functions or Faculties : Eeason, Action,* Feeling, or Desire. The conditions of harmonious life in the State are, that the Governors must be wise, the Guardians brave and capable of endurance, and the rest of the people temperate and obedient. Thus a united and prosperous state depends for its well- being on three virtues : wisdom, courage, and temperance. And these three virtues taken together constitute the Ideal of Justice which was the original problem. This is the origin of the doctrine that there are four cardinal virtues, namely, wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. In the Eepublic it is specially shown that the harmony of a State depends on each section of the Community doing its own proper duties, in fact, minding its own business. So it is contended that the unity or just balance * The word Action is not a literal translation of Plato's word ^S/tot, which means high spirit, Bometimes anger or resentment. THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. 89 of Character in a man depends on the regulation of each of the faculties in its proper duty under the guidance of Eeason. We left a question unanswered in a former page. If the Governors of the Ideal State must be philosophers, what do we mean by a philosopher ? - Another question naturally follows. If the individual man is to govern himself by wisdom, what do we mean ^y wisdom ? These two questions lead us to the central principle of the doctrine which Plato, speaking in the person of Socrates, teaches as the key to all truth, intellectual and moral, we may almost say, spiritual. The true philosopher is one who loves wisdom and desires to come face to face with absolute truth, absolute goodness, and absolute beauty. This we shall see is the Platonic Idea of the good. The Platonic Idea. What then is the meaning of the Platonic Idea ? To give an accurate account of Plato's doctrine of Ideas would involve a critical comparison of the various dis- cussions in different dialogues, wliich probably represent the gradual formation of his own views. I may give some references to works of undoubted authority for such a critical estimate ; I do not feel competent to attempt it myself. But I wish to show generally that the Socratic and Platonic view of our relation to the visible and ideal 90 PLATO, world is suggestive at least of a belief, or say, even only a hope, that there is a reality more essential and abiding than any opinion resting on the facts of our finite experience ; and also to show how strong was the Platonic conviction that moral good is one main element of intel- lectual knowledge. , It may possibly assist those who are not familiar with the technical terms used in discussing speculative questions, if we begin by a short, popular statement in ordinary language of matters of every-day experience. We finite beings find ourselves in this world surrounded by things and persons distinct from ourselves. The heavenly bodies have always seemed to imply a perfect order, with the exception of an occasional ecKpse. On this earth we are in contact with land and water, and the atmosphere, and various forces which are known only by tiieir effects. We are surrounded by living things, vegetable and animal; and are in relation to human beings like ourselves, in family and national life ; and all these things and persons are known to us by their different appearances, qualities, or characters. What do we really know about them ? We call them by names, and we also call their qualities by names, such as weight, heat, Hght, pleasure and pain, virtue and vice, liberty, and character. We also desire to know the causes and effects of dif- ferent forces and modes of action, such as motion, life, growth, decay. The writers on Philosophy have varied much in ancient and modern times as to the relation between these objects THE DOCTEINE OF IDEAS. 91 of observation or of thought, and the observing or thinking mind. Socrates was the first, as Aristotle allows, to teach the importance of induction from particulars to general groups, and of definition. The early Greek Philosophers sought for the principles of N^ature in the four elements, earth, water, air and fire ; wliich correspond to what we now call the different states or relations of matter, solid, liquid, gaseous, and im- ponderable. Socrates, finding no satisfaction in these theories, or rather guesses, spent his life -in trying to find out the meaning of the names which were given to things, persons, and thoughts. Heraclitus had taught that every- thing was in a state of flux, becoming and decaying, or coming and going. Socrates felt sure that all the names of things implied some unity or principle common to the things so named : and on the other hand he was equally anxious to draw clear distinctions where names were used without any accurate or weU-defined meaning. He tliought that true knowledge depended especially on these two principles of Unity and Distinction ; or finding the one (concept) in the many, or the many particulars in the one (general).* Plato also, speaking in the name of Socrates, maintained that useful productions or works of art must all have reference to some permanent type. He even went so far as to assert that the beds and tables of the carpenter were copies of ideal beds and tables in an Unseen world. He appears to have thought that nothing visible could be self-subsistent, but must depend on an Idea in the * Called in later philosopliy or logic " the universal." 92 PLATO. unseen world. So that knowledge meant referring every individual thing to its general idea. He does not appear to have formed any theory of causation. That was left for Aristotle to formulate. Thus in all the relations of man to his surrounding circumstances, and in all his actions, Plato found the necessity of looking above experience to some higher mental or spiritual world of thought. We must, there- fore, consider the Platonic Idea to be, not a mere general term or abstraction, but a standard of perfection and of reality. Things and persons either participated in these higher Ideas, or they were copies of the same. How the human mind or moral sense came into contact with these Ideas was not so clear ; but one . doctrine was strongly maintained, that the inward eye of the soul must be cleared from the mist of sense and appetite, in order to open itself to the higher light. The conviction so obtained may not have been actual knowledge, but rather aspiration leading up to truth through faith. As regards knowledge, the absolute certainty of mathe* matics, and even the harmony of music, gave some pledge that the faith in higher light for the attainment of absolute truth was not unreasonable. And so, along with the doctrine of Ideas, it might be presumed that there are relations between those Ideas of the nature of Uni- versal and Eternal Truth. Some such aspirations or con- victions have never wholly disappeared since Plato's, time. Although strongly opposed to the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, Aristotle himself, building his system on practical observation and experience, established for a thousand THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. 93 years and more a doctrine of Essence of things which is not far removed from at least one meaning of Plato's Ideas. The enquiry into the origin or formation in the human mind of any ideas* or names of things or .of any asser- tions about them, belongs to a stage of human thought later than the times of Socrates and Plato or of Aristotle, But if from our modern point of view we look back to Plato's Ideas, we may find three meanings of a word so often referred to in the history of thought. 1. Some modern critics regard Plato's Idea merely as a poetical word for a general term, which may be applied to many individuals, that is, the one in the many. This general term (siiice Locke's day at any rate) is an abstrac- tion derived from particular impressions on our senses by an act often called conception as distinct from perception. 2. A second meaning of the word Idea is that it expresses the Archetype or perfect model of which all individual things are only imperfect copies. 3. A third meaning is that the Ideas are in some sense creative or causative, giving truth or existence to some quality in sensible objects ■within our experience. Besides these several attempts at a reasonable but simple explanation of the Platonic Ideas, I must ask the reader to bear in mind that Plato seemed to regard these Ideas as having a real existence, as substantive units in some region higher than either this world or the human mind, which he called heavenly or superheavenly. This doctrine of existence, as implied in whatever can * The word ideas is here used in the common every-day sense. 94 PLATO. be thought, has been a fertile source of rather unprofitable metaphysical speculations. Another question of great importance in reference to the more or less qualified acceptance of Plato's Ideal teaching, at certain stages of Christian philosophy, ia whether the Ideas or Forms of finite Being, and of various excellences or Forms of Good, are created by the supreme Being : or whether they exist, so to speak, in the Eternal nature of things, and are not to be considered as dependent on the will of God. To this question I will refer later on. But I must first show how in the Eepublic the Doctrine of Ideas rose to its highest point in the Idea of the Good. For this purpose I will take the liberty of copying an extract from Professor Jowett's masterly introduction to the Eepublic. On the " Idea of the Good " he says : " It meant Unity in which all time and existence were gathered up. " It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelli- gences, human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the Maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness or goodness apart from God. The God of the Timseus is not really at THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. 95 variance with the idea of good ; they are aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression or language of mythology, the other of philosophy." * Professor Jowett adds in the third edition, " This or something like this is the meaning of the idea of Good as conceived by Plato. . . . The paraphrase which has just been given goes beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of Philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at better than he did himself .... " We should not approach his meaning more nearly by attempting to define it further. In translating him into the language of modern thought we might insensibly lose the spirit of ancient Philosophy — it is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first prin- ciple of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in his 'writings except in this passage." Professor Jowett concludes the great work of his Intro- duction, after noticing other ideals which have floated before the minds of men in former days and in our own day, by a " reverent reference to the great ideal which has a place in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of Christ, and in which men seein to find a nearer and more familiar truth, the Divine Man, the Son of Man, the Saviour of Mankind, who is the firstborn and head of the whole family in Heaven and earth, in whom the divine and human, that which is without and that which . * Jowett's ' Introduction to EepubliOj' p. xcvii. 96 PLATO. is within the reach of our earthly faculties are indisaolubly united." * Influence of Plato on Succeeding Thinkers. It has been noticed on a former page that in successive ages there have been indications of the abiding influence of Socrates and Plato on human thought. Aristotle owed much to Plato, as is shown by Sir Alexander Grant in his Essays introductory to Aristotle's Ethics. We may pass over the regard paid to Plato at Eome and Alexandria just before the time of the Christian Era. But the influ- ence of Plato was very strong on the great leaders of Christian theology as shown in the writings of Clement, Justin Martyr, and (especially, though indirectly) of St Augustine, who impressed a Latin form on what he had derived from the great Greeks. A last effort of Greek Philosophy outside the Christian Church was made by what is called E"eo-Platonism, a pantheistic system chiefly represented by Plotiuus. Dr. Hampden in his Bampton Lectures, which were so fiercely and unjustly attacked, gave very full information as to the conflict between the Greek Fathers of the Church, who were inspired by a Platonic spirit, and the practical Latiu influence which prevailed in the establishment of the Scholastic Logic concurrently with the rise of the political power of the Bishop of Eome after the fall of the Eoman Empire. But a struggle between Eeason and Authority still continued, which was strongly developed in the ninth ♦ Jowett's 'Introduction to Republic,' p. ccxxx. HIS INFLUENCE ON SUCCESSIVE THINKERS. 97 ■centmy by John. Scotus Erigena, of whom Mr. Maurice speaks as fhs Metaphysician of the ninth century, and one of the acutest Metaphysicians of any century. Mr. Maurice devotes to that remarkable man twenty-five pages of his history, which I may venture to say will be found most interesting to any reader who desires to understand the relation of philosophy to Christianity in the Middle Ages. Mr. Maurice shows (in opposition to Mons. Guizot) that the pantheism of the Keo-Platonists had little to do with the real Platonic element in the mind of that great •thinker. " He desired deliverance from the tyranny of Logic ; he aimed at bearing testimony to the Absolute and Eternal ; he put forth no claim to originality ; he adopted the doctrine of Augustine and asserted the superiority of God to all categories ; God is neither genus, nor species, -nor accident." ' His view of God and Man and ITature was Platonic, not ■Aristotelian. "Nowhere," says Mr. Maurice, "does the difference appear more conspicuous than in his doctrine of primordial causes in contrast to formless matter." Thus John Scotus speaks of those causes : " Primordial causes being, as I said before, what the Greeks call Ideas, that •is, species and forms, the eternal and unchangeable reasons, according to which and in which the visible and invisible world are formed and ffoverned; and therefore by the wise men of the Greeks were rightly called proto- types, that is, the primary examples which the Father made in the Son, and by the Holy Spirit divides and multiplies into their own effects." " The primordial causes, then, which wise men call the u 98 PLATO, principles of all things, are Goodness in itself, Essence in itself, life in itself, Wisdom in itself, Truth in itself, Intellect in itself, Eeason in itself, Virtue in itself. Justice in itself, Health in itself. Magnitude in itself, Omnipo- tence in itself, Eternity in itself. Peace in itself, and all -virtues and reasons which the Father once and at once made in the Son, and according to which is established the order of all things from the highest to the lowest, that is, from the intellectual creature that is next to God, to the farthest order of things in which bodies are contained," * On these words of John Scotus, Mr. Maurice says: " Here is the Christian Platonism of the ninth century in its most complete form, exceedingly unlike the Alexan» drian Platonism from which it has been supposed to be derived, equally unlike the pure Socratic Platonism of which that was the conception, different in most im- portant respects from the Augustinian Platonism, or from that of the Greek Fathers with which it stands in much closer af&nity.'' Influence of Plato on Modern Thought, It is usual with historians of philosophy to speak of the Scholastic writers after the ninth century as simply sub» ordinate to Theology, and guided by the logic of Aristotle as the only test of truth and reality. The revival of classical literature in the fifteenth century was specially remarkable for the return to the study of Plato, whose works were translated by Eicinus, at Florence, * ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' Maurice^ pp. 489, 490. INFLUENCE ON MODEEN THOUGHT. 99 tinder the patronage of tlie Medici, But that study of Plato was rather literary than religious or philosophical. The prime movers in the German Eeformation, though protesting against Aristotelian dogma in connection with Eomanism, did not imbibe the spirit of Plato. Luther seems to have owed nothing to Plato. The Calvinistic or Genevan form of Divinity was then, as now, fast bound in the fetters of Logic. There are not wanting indications in the first book of Hooker's ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' that his grand conception c£ Law was in accordance with Plato's Ideas. It was not till the later reaction in England against the Puritans that Plato's influence on Christian thought became evi- dent. Cudworth, who preached in 1647 one if not two remarkable sermons in the face of the House of Commons, against the narrow divinity of the time, was one of a notable Cambridge School, including Henry More and the lofty-minded John Smith. Cudworth's small but im- portant work on Immutable Morality, published after his death, is in parts a translation, or at any rate an ex- position, of the Thesetetus of Plato. Later in the seventeenth century, indeed in the earlj part of the eighteenth, John Norris, of All Souls' College, Oxford, published what is perhaps the most complete English work on Platonic principles, prior to the modern critical study of Plato, called the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, He also wrote, besides a number of religious tracts, a small volume called ' Eeason and Faith,' which is entirely founded on Platonic principles. ■ I shall have occasion to H 2 100 PLATO. refer to him again in connection with his contemporary Locke, whom (although differing from him entirely) he treated with marked respect and almost admiration. In his theory of the Ideal world he dealt specially with the question already referred to — what is the foundation of the Idea ? He argues strongly against Descartes, who taught that the Ideas of Good were the creation of God, for that doctriae, he said, would make them arbitrary ; on the other hand, he denied their Eternal independent existence ; this, he said, would be to assert that there is something above God. He therefore argues that aU Ideas of Per- fection are in the Being or Essence of God Himself. He maintained that that doctrine is implied in the opening words of the Fourth Gospel, in which the Logos is spoken of as a Person, as active in Creation and as enlightening all human beings. He also quotes some thirty or more passages from St. Augustine in support of his doctrine of the Ideas as being of the Essence of the Divine Being. He says, " My opinion is, that if the Schools had fol- lowed St. Augustine more than they have done, and Aristotle less, they would have left us another system of both Physical and Metaphysical doctrine than what the world now possesses." Norris was a great admirer of Malebranche, yet it can hardly be maintained that he held the doctrine of innate ideas, which Locke opposed. Norris was not unfrequently quoted by Anglican divines in the eighteenth century, and he is referred to in philosophical works of the present day in connection with Locke. IKFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT. 101 The revival of the study of Plato of late years in England may, unless my memory deceives me, be 'chiefly taced from Cambridge through Coleridge and Words- worth, Hugh James Eose, and Julius Hare to Oxford, where Maurice (about 1830) interested some under- graduates, much his juniors, in Coleridge and Plato. Sewell, some time Professor of Moral Philosophy, con- tinued the interest by his lectures and articles in a quarterly Review. What Oxford, and, indeed, aU Eng- land owe to Professor Jowett for his teaching durtag fifty years, no words of mine can adequately express. Professor Jowett would have been one of the first to acknowledge the value of Mr. Grote's work. The present influence of Plato (as distinct from the critical study of his opinions) with reference to modern thought may, with advantage, be studied in Lotze's writings, for the translation of which we are specially indebted to Mr. Bosanquet in Oxford, and Miss Constance Jones in Cambridge. Lot2e devotes a whole chapter of his Logic to the " world of ideas " being part of his third book, entitled ' Knowledge or Methodology ' (the two first books being on pure logic and applied logic). In the eighth book of the ' Microcosmus ' there is a chapter of nearly sixty pages on "Truth and Science." The spirit of Plato pervades both of these chapters. Lotze* finds great fault with a traditional statement about Plato's doctrine of Ideas as having an independent existence apart from things. He says if Plato had held so absurd an opinion we should have to abandon our admira- . • 'Logic,' Book JII, chap. ii. § 317. 102 PLATO. tion of him. He states that the truth which Plato taught was (what he calls) The Validity of Truths as such, apart from the question, whether they can be established in rela- tion to any object in the external world as its mode of being. Lotze attaches the greatest importance to the word Validity, as expressing a reality of truth, or relation, dis- tinct from any reality of being or existence. Ideas are always what they are, no matter whether or no there are things which manifest them in the world, He speaks of these ideas as eternally self-identical. By eternal he means that they are independent of time. Lotze's criticism of the popular impression about Plato's Ideas, turns on his own theory of the concept (notio, con- ceptus), by which he means " a composite idea, of which we think as a connected whole." It may contain a number of marks (nofee) ; some marks may be specially constitutive of the meaning of the concept. He holds that concepts are always self-identical, being acts of the mind, under which natural things may be brought according to varying circumstances. If we are justified in accepting this doctrine that the "Validity which belongs to Ideas and to Laws (of Nature and Mind) may be distinguished from the Eeality which belongs to things embodied as matters of experience, s6me important inferences may be drawn as to modern specvdations. One suggestion is, that we must be very careful and self-restrained in drawing logical conclusions as to matters of fact from Ideas in our minds, especially on moral and spiritual realities, the bearing or rela«tions of which we PERMANENT VALUE OP PLATO. 103 may only imperfectly grasp by the intellect. We may feel confident that Ideas or conceptions in our minds involve some preceding conditions, or some succeeding conclu- sions. But we cannot infer the reality of such conclusions ' — ^though they may correspond to our limited thoughts — especially when they take a negative form,* On the other hand, while experience brings home to our minds a conviction of the reality of certain facts as known to us by their appearances or phenomena, and further teaches us that facts follow one another (as far as our experience goes) in a regular order, we shall do well to remember that no length of experience amounts to demonstration, still less to the disproof of spiritual convic- tions' resting on grounds beyond our experience. Permanent Value of Plato and Akistotle, I cannot better conclude my attempt to show the value of the study of Plato at the present day than by a quota- tion from a volume f written by the translator of Lotze's dictated lectures. Professor Ladd, in his sixth chapter on "Dogmatism, Scepticism, and Criticism," thus speaks of Plato : — " This great thinker (Plato) extended the results of analysis so as to include many subjects hitherto treated by * See ' Limits of Logic,' p. 63. t ' Introduction to PMlosophy,' an enquiry after a rational system of scientific principles in their relations to ultimate reality. By George Trumbull Ladd, Professor of Philosophy in Yale UniTersity. London : Fisher Unwin. 1891. 104 PLATO. the philosophy of morals only very imperfectly, and upon these results he founded, as a best explanation of the Socratic doctrine of concepts, a grand system of an ideal- istic nature, the central point of which lies on the one side in the intuition of ideas, on the other in inquiries about the nature and duties of man. He thus gave to the world the first body of positive propositions arrived at by the method of philosophical reflection, — this reflection being conducted through the stages of scepticism and criticism to a stage of reconstructed dogmatism, Plutonism has therefore a permanent and absolute value in the evolution of speculative thinking." On Aristotle the Professor says : — "His attitude towards Platonism was sceptical and critical, especially upon the central point of the doc- trine of ideas. But notwithstanding this he gave both to the conclusions and to the methods of the Platonic Philosophy an uncalculably great and positive expansion and reconstruction. More especially Aristotle founded several of the particular sources on which corresponding departments of philosophy are dependent ; and he laboured with amazing skill and success to create a philosophical terminology, and to place his synthetical philosophy upon a basis of comprehensive empirical knowledge. Aristotelianism is therefore the second great system which has a permanent and absolute value in the evolution of speculative thought." -( 105 ) CHAPTER IIL ARISTOTLE. 1 Aristotle's Ethics treat of man as he is knovm to experi- ence, that is, as a practical free agent in a social state, with relations of family affection, personal friendship and, political responsibilities and claims. In all this practical life it appears that every one has an aim, an object or end in view. There are immediate aims and ends, but they may aU be resolved into one ultimate end — an end in itself final and complete, which admits of no addition, and is there? fore called rekeioi (teleios), a word which has a double, meaning ; the one finality as an end itself, and the other perfection. These two meanings are apt to run one into another. This end then is not health, nor wealth, nor pleasure, but what Aristotle calls euSat/[iovia(eudaimonia), commonly rendered happiness. Dr. Cardwell translated it beatitude or blessedness. The word Bai/jicov may indicate some reference to a higher power ; or sometimes good fortune seems intended, but it is contrasted to evrv^ia, or luckl- We may then take the usual English word Happiness, or Well-being, as in Aristotle's view the end of aU human practical action and motive, established by an inductive process from the observation of the usual practice of men. Then comes the question what is • the definition of this: 106 ARISTOTLE, word evSaifiovia, or happiness. Starting from the point that the ultimate end of all human action is happiness or well-being, which point has been arrived at by a short process of induction from the common facts of human experience, Aristotle proceeds to give a logical definition of the end to which the name is given, Before giving such a definition, however, he puts aside in few words the Ideal of an absolute good which he con- sidered to be Plato's central thought. He insists first on the finality and completeness, or self* sufficient character, of his ultimate end. Next he asks what is the proper function of man, by which he is distinr guished from the rest of the living creation, whether plants or animals ; and shows that the function of man is not to be found in mere nutrition, nor in the life of sense. Int Cidentally, but also emphatically, he treats of man as a Social being ; and especially in the Greek sense, as a member of a political body. We must, however,.remember that in Greece the idea of the political body included only the free men ; slaves were in every State, but of no account in the political sense, they were mere chattels; neither were women recognised as having political rights or status, Social relation as implied in the Ethics of Aristotle (though part of the larger science of politics) did not approach the Christian idea of the brotherhood of humanity. But we shall see that Aristotle devoted two books of the Ethics to an elaborate treatment of friendship or love. These books are most interesting, and show a deep sympathy with human affection in the personal relations of domestic life, and in private society. TWO VIEWS OF VIRTUE. 107 The function of man was regarded by Aristotle as partly intellectual, having truth for its end, partly practical, as dealing with feelings and matters of choice. But Aristotle assumed a postulate, which, though not specially stated, must be carefully noticed. He assumed that the function of man must be capable of an excellence or perfection. This postulate of excellence involves some apparent inconsistency with the position from which the Ethics start, The first principle taken for granted implied an object or end to be aimed at, because it was regarded as the object of desire ; in defining the happiness or well- being so desired we pass to another principle, that of excellence in the abstract. I may be excused if I relate as an illustration of this 8,pparent inconsistency, a circumstance which occurred to me as a student at Oxford more than sixty years ago. I -tefer to it, as it' may throw light on the influence of the Ethics in the formation of religious opiiiion in a former generation. It was my privilege to be indebted to two very dis- tinguished men whom, for reasons which I need not explain, I will call Junior and Senior. In the long vacation I was private pupil of the Junior, a brilliant scholar, and . a great mathematician. He was about to abandon a distinguished position, and to go forth as a missionary on what were then called high Calvinistic principles. If I remember right he spoke in this wise : " Observe how this heathen philosopher, the most eminent of logicians, could not. get through his first book of Ethics 108 AEISTOTLB. without a complete fallacy; he starts with proposing to find the summum homim, as the object of desire, and he is obliged to introduce a wholly different principle of abstract ' right, or excellence ; this shows the insufficiency of reason without revelation." . On mentioning this statement to the Senior, whose religious doctrines were opposed to those of the Junior; as far as I can remember he said : " Very true, Aristotle was inconsistent; but, don't you see, his faith was stronger than his logic." Both my kind teachers made great sacrifices of position and friendship for conscience' sake ; and both were led by their own reason, or by some more powerful influence, though in opposite directions, to different religious conAdctions from those they then held: I may venture to suggest that in both cases, logic had an undue influence on their practice, sincere and conscientious as it was. I have referred to these opposite views of the re- lation between intellectual and moral faculties, because I think they throw some light on the remarkable con- nection between the ethical doctrines of Aristotle as taught in some Oxford lecture rooms more than half-a- century ago, and the growth of religious influences which are now, both in the way of action and reaction, telling upon the education of the present generation. I now return to the teaching of the Ethics, still keeping in mind their bearing on modern thought. Well-being and well-doing (or happiness) being a function of the living principle or soul of man, according to a standard .of excellence, . that living principle ia CONDTJCT FORMS CHAEACTEE, 109 regarded as having both an intellectual and ah emotional or practical function. But those functions must be in :either case active — not merely passive or receptive. Accordingly a word of great importance ia introduced in the fundamental definition of the end of human action — that word is ivepyeiia (energeia), often translated energy — an English word which does not accurately represent the Greek conception. The Greek word ordi- -narily stands in opposition to Swafm (dynamis) capacity ; as an actuality to a bare possibility. But Sir Alexander Grant has shown in a very full discussion* that the word as used in the Ethics has a much wider signification. It includes both practical activity and consciousness ; we may safely consider it as showing that true well-being is not a mere comfortable state of self-satisfaction ; but is a really energetic active state in the case of the virtuous man. Thus the definition of the end of human nature rightly -considered is an action or . function— energy according to the highest excellency of a living beijag both intellectual and emotional, - The subject of Ethics or Moral Philosophy, being human conduct, is practical ; yet conduct is not chance work, but is connected with reality, and that requires knowledge or reason. Action has effects; and acts depend in soruie : degree at least on precedent facts, whether causes or motives. » Aristotle begins by assuming that all action has some Te\o? (telos), end or purpose. It also has some apxh (arche) or starting-point. There is an intimate connexion » Essay IV. p. 242. 110 ABISTOTLE- between the apxv and the riXo';, as between the seed of the tree and its branches and fruit,, the result of its fuU development. This apxv is sometimes what we call a first principle. The central truth or principle of the Aristotelian system, especially in the form it has taken in connexion with Christianity, is that conduct or repeated fiction forms the charcucter or moral state. Of course the /ormec^ character has a reacting influence on action. This principle is also vital in the view of the Ethics, The relation of pleasure to action is also a point of great importance. It cannot be denied that the desire to avoid pain and to feel pleasure, influences action. Aristotle holds that a man is not really good (or say just) who does not feel pleasure in good or just conduct. But he does not admit that pleasure is the true end of action included in happiness, or well-being, or well-doing, all which three words are intimately connected. His doctrine is " do what is good and right, and pleasure will be added to your acts." To this doctrine we shall refer again, Aristotle deals with his standard of excellence, perfec- tion, or virtue, under two heads, moral and intellectual. Everyone who has heard of Aristotle's Ethics knows that he taught how a moral virtue results from, or may be defined as, a habit of right action; and also that his standard of what is right was a mean, or moderation between two extremes of excess or defect of some instinct or emotion. But the question arose " how is that mean point to be determined ? " To this question his answer, as commonly INTELLECTUAL' EXCELLENCE OB VIRTUE. 'JU -translated, was that the " prudent man would' &iL it." This raises another question which in part at least is an ■intellectual one, " what is this quality of Prudence ? " Aristotle describes the different moral virtues as inteii- ■ mediate between the opposite vices or faults before he explains what this prudence is. The moral virtues are .described in the second and three following books; the intellectual excellence in the sixth book, , It is now agreed by critics that the sixth book which deals with the intellectual functions was not written by Aristotle. It is attributed to his pupil Eudemus, and supposed to be based on the pupil's recollection of his master's teaching. It is written not without some con* fusion of the two questions, what is intellectual excellence, and what is the relation of sound reason to the ethical standard of practice, 1 shall venture to deviate from the order in which the moral and intellectual functions of the human mind are treated in the Ethics as they have come down to us, I propose to refer shortly to the intellectual functions or excellences discussed in the sixth book, before dealing with, the moral virtues described in the previous books, II. to V. It seems desirable on general grounds to consider the faculties we have for knowing what is true, before we seek for a standard of what it is right to do, But more specially when we study the Ethics of Aristotle we find that the ultimate standard of mora;! virtue, which he gives us, is that it is the mean between opposite faults or vices — ficcording to right reason; And 112 Ams^OTLE. for the definition of that mean we are to look to the man who is called ^poVt/io? [phronimos] a word which is usually translated as prudent ; but by some ■writers more xsorrectly the man of thought and sound judgment. ' The description of the functions of the intellect by the author of the Sixth Book may not be as profound as that which is contained in the authentic works of Aristotle, which laid the foundation of abstract thought for more than a thousand years, nor is it on a level with the higher speculation on the theory of knowledge, now called Epistemology, as that subject has been treated since Locke and Kant. But it seems to me to give a fair popular account of the action of the intellect in the practical affairs of life. There is another reason for treating first of the intellectual excellence or qualification for practical judgment of the affairs of life. In the Ethics we frequently meet with the expression to Beov or what ought to be done, by which is meant what is praiseworthy or fitting. That only is praiseworthy which is voluntary, as we shall see when we come to speak of the will ; and the phronimos or man of vsound judgment is the judge of what is praiseworthy. It has been already pointed out that Aristotle's Ethical •system depends on the principle that, in practice at least, if not in theory, all human functions have an end, whether that end be an object of desire, or a state of perfection in itself. This end' is sometimes expressed as a final cause. This idea of an end implies also the idea of a beginning or first principle. It was stated in the Chapter on Plato, that although be INTELLECTUAL EXCELLEJJCE OR VIRTUE. 118 held strongly the ideal of perfection as the end of man, he had no theory of causation ; and that this was left for Aristotle to work out. It may therefore not be out of place to mention here that Aristotle, in his general philosophy, held that there are four principles common to reality of every kind. These principles were all called causes. He took it for granted that all existing things must have been directly caused ; this general origin of existence was held to be due to what was called an efficient cause. Biit it was also assumed that the causing power which is efi&cient, and presumably intelligent, must have a purpose or design ; this was called a final cause. Both these conceptions of causation have been much debated in modern philosophy; and the views taken of them have led, as we shall see further on, to two diverging systems of thought. But Aristotle held that there were two other causes of all things ; these were distinguished as Matter and Form. The word Form is very common in the standard books of old English Divinity, as meaning the essence of anytliing, that principle by which it is what it is, and not some- thing else. The word Matter in Aristotle's use of the word vXt] (hyle), was not exactly what we mean now as something which occupies space, and has weight and other properties perceptible by the senses. We should say now that the block of marble would be the matter of the statue ; the Form would be the outcome of essential thought or plan of the Sculptor; but the word Matter as used by Aristotle was rather only a potential condition in I 114 ARISTOTLE, ■ relation to Fonn, and was not regarded as an independent substance, Eational oe Intellectual Virtues. The author of the Sixth Book reminds the reader that in the First Book it was laid down that the soul may be divided into two parts, namely — (1) The rational, that which is or has reason. (2) The irrational, or rather that which is not or has not reason. This is nearly what we call instinct, neither the issue of thought nor of will. We are here concerned with the action of the soul (or living being) which is thinking or desiring consciously. It is then stated that we are guided in practice by three functions : Sensation, Reason (in a wide sense),* and Desire, The first of these. Sensation, does not influence moral action directly. Therefore sensation may be omitted in the study of the Ethics, as it is only the occasion of emotion ; also because in considering the intellectual functions as understood by the Greeks, it must be borne in mind that the question of the origin of knowledge from sensation (which dates from Locke) had not then entere4 into the enquiries of philosophers. It remains therefore only to consider how reason and desire are related in the origin and regulation of human, action, and to a certain extent of thought also. The author of the Sixth Book having dravm attention to the distinction between the rational and irrational part of * Not merely intuitive reason, as we shall see further on. RATIONAL OB INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 115 the soul> or living principle, goes further and says that' he must make a distinction in the rational part, and assume that there are two rational faculties corresponding to two classes of things in the world. By the one we contemplate things that cannot be otherwise than they are, by the other we contemplate things which can be otherwise. This distinction has been recognized for two thousand years in the logical opposition between necessary matter or absolute truth, and contingent matter or probable truth. The one is capable of certain demonstration, as in the case of Mathematics. The other can only be the result of probable calculation, as in matters of observation or deliberation, commonly called matters of fact or experience.* We may possibly be disposed to see in this distinction some anticipation of the Kantian distinction between the two faculties Eeason and Understanding. The functions of intellect which may rise to a sta»dard of excellence (or virtue) are in the Ethics five : — Art (or technical skOl), Science (or Knowledge). (Intuitive) Intellect. (Speculative) Wisdom. (Practical) Wisdom (or Prudence). But reaUy it is only the two last which have much bearing on the question of duty in the way of defining moral virtue, As regards the theory that there are five intellectual * See p. 169, I 2 116 AEISTOTLE. virtues or excellences, Mr. Stewart,* quoting important German authorities, shows that there are only two virtues in the list, the two last, namely. Speculative Wisdom, which has to do with necessary or general truths, and Practical Wisdom, which deals specially with contingent truth and particular facts. This limitation of intellectual Excellence may be substantially true as regards Ethics ; but, looking at the matter as regards the intellect apart from morals, I think' we must admit that technical skill is a real excellence. A skilful artizan, especially if he is conscientious, is called a good workman. We also speak of good artists, good generals, masters of the art of war, and good ministers or great statesmen, who must excel in the adaptation of means to ends. We also speak of good scholars and of great men in science, on the ground of their knowledge, though perhaps we include some consideration of their moral industry, and conscientious pursuit of truth for its own sake. We may now take the five intellectual Excellences shortly in their order as they are treated in the 6th Book of the Ethics. Art and Science go together naturally in the present day ; but modem science based on experimental enqviiry is very different from what was called Science in Aristotle's time. Art does not find its end or purpose so much in the happiness of the artist, artificer, or husbandman, as in the productive result of their respective works. The statue, or the tool, or the food, is the end. • ' Notes on the Ethics,' vol. ii. p. 32. RATIONAL OR INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES, ll7 It may, however, be said that the artist or the poet does find enjoyment in the exercise of his literary ability, or in the ideal beauty which he tries to clothe in words. And the same may be said of the skilful artisan. The second intellectual function is Science, eirto-Tj;/*?; (Episteme). Science in Aristotle's day meant deductions from principles which were previously admitted to be true; whether intuitive, or gathered from experience by induction. Aristotle's science may be described as systematic and consistent knowledge in the form of atfirmation or negation, free from self-contradiction, but also wanting the test of verification by experience. In Oxford Lecture rooms early in the present century this was held to be the true meaning of Science. I remember being told, by a tutor lecturing on the Ethics, that Political Economy could not be a science because it did not admit of demonstrative certainty. But that was before the existence of the British Association, which held its second meeting in Oxford. The third intellectual function, the source of first principles, is called vou? (nous). In one point of view this faculty seems to have some similarity to Pure Eeason in the sense of modern German philosophy; that is, Reason a priori, or rather prior to experience. Mr. Grote, however, says that, although the nous or noetic soul of Aristotle is the highest intellectual faculty, the special faculty of the gods, and the faculty in man which apprehends principles, he certainly did not mean a source of new general truths independent of experience. Perhaps we may ijow say the same of l^ant's Pure Beagon, which 118 AEISTOTLE. is regulative of experience and suggestive of Ideals, rather than an intuitive faculty of perceiving truths of real existence. In connexion with nous there is another function or operation of the intellect, Sidvota (dianoia), which may be called, as by Milton,* discursive reason. Eaphael says of the Soul : "Eeason is her being Discursive or intuitive: discourse Is oftest yours; the latter most is ours." Aidvoia is the Understanding or discursive intellect as distinguished from vov? or Eeason or the intuitive intellect.t Mr. Stewart describes it as " The power of thinking out the steps to an end for their purpose. The solution of a scientific problem, the attainment of a practical good, or the construction of a work of art." The fourth of the five intellectual functions or virtues is a-o^ia (Sophia), commonly translated Wisdom; but I think that word, standing alone, does not give the true meaning. I have ^entured to give it a second name, and caU it Speculative Wisdom. It is, in fact, nearly the same as philosophy in one of its modem senses, namely, the science of principles, the master-key to all other special depositaries of knowledge. It may not be amiss here to note that Sophia is the word used in the Septuagint, both in the Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon. It may, therefore, be held that in the opinion of some Greek • ' Paradise Lost,' v. 486. t Stewart, ii. 23. PRUDENCE OE MORAL THOUGHTFULNESS. 119 Writers it included a moral element, or depended on moral character. We now come to what in referring to Ethical doctrine is the main point of the 6th Book. , The fifth intellectual function or virtue is - S '5.2 o St>P 8 2 § Hi ss a e 'B !| OS I , Cs !l ' is-- a 'S f£ ■-SI-:! CE P an? 1 '.a .a 3 > -2 g « S fens ^>5 .8 o 2 -S = 1'^ ill 3 "q 0) 0) P ( 149 ) CHAPTEE VI. LOCKE. It has been shown that Bacou, by his brilliant power a? a writer on the increase of Physical Knowledge, and Descartes, by his introspection of consciousness in the Human Mind, had each given a fresh impulse to European speculation. We may now endeavour to trace the course which those speculations took, and how we are affected by them in modern thought. If I were attempting to write a history of philosophy, Hobbes should be specially noticed, who said, " that the original of all the thoughts of men is that which we call sense. Eor there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or in part, been begotten by the organs of sense." But I think that the best course will be to proceed at once to the trio of great thinkers, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Their immediate influence prevailed throiigh nearly the whole of the eighteenth century ; and some of their thoughts, notwithstanding the reaction at the be- ginning of the nineteenth century, enter into the common stock of literature and science at the present day. It will hardly be an exaggeration to say that no writer since Plato and Aristotle has exercised so abiding an influence on modern thought as Locke has maintained during the two centuries since the publication of his 150 LOCKE. «ssay on Human Understanding; directly by his clear common sense, and indirectly by the scepticism of his followers, and further by the reaction against that scep- ticism in Scotland and Germany, and more recently in Trance and America. Locke not a Mere Sensationalist. It has often been said that Locke was a sensational philosopher as regards knowledge, and that he was the teacher of a low system of morality. It is true that materialist and utilitarian doctrines were maintained in England, and more especially in France, during the eighteenth century ; and that the advocates of these doctrines professed to found their materialism on Locke's appeal for facts to experience, through the senses, as the basis of all knowledge; and their utilitarianism on his doctrine that, " Things are good and evil only in reference to pleasure and pain." * But Locke, in his account of Eeflection on the ideas derived from the senses, did, in a manner, take into account the action of the mind on the materials presented to it from external objects as necessary for experience. He was earnest in his belief in the existence of God, though he did not accept that belief as an innate idea. He thought it was involved in the principles of reason or reasoning which are inherent in our nature or in the con- sciousness of our own personality.f * 'Epsay Concerning Human Understanding,' Book II., chap. IX. § 2. t Book I., chap. iii. ; Book IV., chap, xvi. HIS EELIGIOUS AND MORAL DOCTRINES. 151 He also took for granted the necessary relation between cause and effect, or the principle of causality. He only devoted two short sections to this relation between things ; assuming that when anything begins to exist, it must be held by the mind to stand in relation to some other being, denoted as its cause, by a necessary connection. It re- mained for Hume to develope the modern theory of causa- tion which, as Professor Fraser says, "melts down the necessity into an issue of custom." * As regards morality, Locke says, " I am bold to think that moraKty is capable of demonstration as well as Mathematics." t He adds that this depends on defining words accurately in moral discourses, as " thereby moral knowledge may be brought to logical clearness and certainty," and that "discourses on morality are about ideas in the mind, which have no external beings for the archetypes which they are referred to and must corre- spond with." t He says that a great part of mankind might be in Egyptian darkness on moral questions, "were not the candle of the Lord set up by Himself in men's minds which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish." § I have so far only intended to show that Locke's own convictions were not sensational, nor opposed to Christian ' doctrine or moraUty ; nor can he be called a sceptic. * Note on Book II., chap. xxvi. § ] , 2. t Book m., chap. xi. § 16 ; Book IV., chap. iii. § 18. t Book IV., chap. iii. § 17. § Book IV., chap. iii. § 20. 152 LOCKE., What concerns us now is to notice the consequences of his teaching as bearing on the thought of the present day. Locke's main objects in writing the Essay on Human Understanding were to protest against the use of words without corresponding reality, and to oppose the assump- tion of logical principles, such as the laws of thought. Locke's Doctrine of ideas. The central principle of Locke's system was that the human mind does not deal directly with things, but only arrives at knowledge by reflecting on what he calls ideas, derived from experience through the senses, and not innate. His meaning of the word idea has no (fcnnection with the Platonic Idea, but includes whatever we are conscious of : (1) contact with tangible things, impressions of colour, sound, taste or flavour; (2) all manner of emotions, feelings, and thoughts. He thinks that the term idea serves best to " stand for whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks." But the idea is in no case the reality ; it comes between the personal self and all other things and beings. Locke presumes that it will be easily granted that there are such ideas in men's minds. Every one is conscious of them in himself, and men's words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others. His first enquiry is, how do they come into the mind ? All his arguments go to prove that neither ideas of things nor principles about things OPPOSED TO INNATE IDEAS. 153 are innate in man. By innate he means, already in the mind at the time of birth. He uses many unnecessary arguments to prove that this is impossible ; the real question being, whether men are or are not so constituted that as their experience increases, some elements or principles of truth will be called into action in all healthy minds. Such truths, though not innate in Locke's sense of the word, were called connatural by a contemporary writer. Locke had an unreasonable prejudice against the ordinary terms of logical classification, such as genus and species, because they seem to suggest some meaning not represented in the mind by any idea derived from without ; yet he constantly spoke of Nominal Essences and Eeal Essences, of which the first i? equivalent to the logical definition of the meaning of words. His Eeal Essence in some degree corresponds to the descriptive definition advocated by Mr. Bain. " Definition in its full import is the sum of all the properties connoted by a word." But Locke says that the real essence of a thing is some texture of parts which we are unable with pur senses to see. This almost seems to imply the doc- trine of Kant as to the " thing in itself," Ding an Sich, a product of the mind, which only perceives by experience phenomena or qualities of things, but not things themselves. Locke ' attached much importance to the distinction between primary and secondary qualities of things : primary being such as are known by touch, as form and solidity ; secondary, those which are known by conscious sensation 154 LOCKE. without contact with the thing perceived, as light in the eye, sound in the ear, flavour or odour by taste or smell. " Such qualities are nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colours, sound, tastes, etc. These I call secondary qualities." * This supposition of a power in things of sense seems a strange use of the word power. The qualities and powers of bodies are treated in a chapter concerning our simple idea of sensation. The subject of Power in a wider sense, including the action of the will, is mentioned in a very important Chapter, xxi., of the second book. It-may not be amiss to close this chapter with the well-known addition of Leibnitz to the old scholastic maxim, which in fact corresponds to Locke's opinion : — "Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu" (There is nothing in the intellect which has not been first in the senses); to which Leibnitz added, "Nisi ipse intellectus " (except the intellect itself). "We shall see in the following chapters that the question. What is the intellect ? or, in other words, What are the contents of the mind ? issued in the scepticism of Hume, and that the reaction in Scotland and Germany rested on the principle that there is a relation between the mind and the senses, based on fundamental laws. * Book II., chap. viii. § 10. ( 155 ) CHAPTER VII. BERKELEY. Locke's doctrine that we only have knowledge by com- paring ideas in our mind, those ideas not being things, but representations of things, led to Berkeley's counter theory, that the ideas do not represent material objects having existence separate from our perception. Berkeley was apprehensive that Locke's limitation of all knowledge to comparison of ideas derived from or suggested by the bodily senses tended to materialism, and to the denial of personal spiritual existence. Berkeley's main object was to establish the principle that the only true reality is spirit. He accepted Locke's doctrine of ideas perceived in the mind, but he protested against the theory that these ideas were produced by any power or substance existing apart from spirit. He did not deny the existence of sensible things ; but he contended that the existence of unthinking things without their being perceived is unintelligible. He said that "esse est percipi" — "to exist is to be 'perceived." These words seem to say that things have no existence out of the minds which perceive them. But he maintained tha,t his belief in the existence of things so perceived was more real than the abstract notions of current philosophy. 156 BEEKELEY. Berkeley's Influence on Modern Thought. If it be admitted that Locke gave the tone to the thought of educated men in the eighteenth century, it will be recognised by all students of philosophy at the present time that to Berkeley is mainly due the transition to modern thought. MUl says that of all the great men from Plato to Kant, Berkeley was the greatest philosophical genius ; that of him alone can it be said that we owe to him three first-rate discoveries, which are entitled to a permanent place among positive truths. 1. The first is his theory of vision, that what our eyes tell us of space, distance and form, are not direct percep- tions, but judgments of the mind arrived at by experience. If in sketching we see a tower or mountain at an un- certairi distance, we judge of its height by its distinctness or faintness ; if the sun shines bright on a portion of a view the objects look smaller. In a fog on a hill figures of men or animals are magnified. In judging an unknown distance for rifie-shooting, the height of a man being nearly known, the distance is partly estimated by the angle subtended by the object, partly by the distinctness or the reverse of the object aimed at. In either case it is obvious that there is a mental estimation of height and distance, not merely a sensation. 2. Berkeley's second principle was that we cannot present to our imagination an abstract idea, but that aU general notions, say of trees or horses, are concrete ideas of individual objects as representatives of classes. HIS THEEE IMPORTANT DISCOVEEIES. 157 3. His third point was the denial of matter as some- thing underlying the qualities perceived by our senses. I will not attempt to explain or to defend Berkeley's theory of perception and of reality or existence. It is intelligible enough that we know only the phenomena or qualities which we perceive or discover by scientific investigation ; but I must confess that I find it very difficult to understand how the heavenly bodies or the solid masses on this earth are to be considered as non- existent except in so far as they are perceived in the mind which sees them. It may suffice to repeat that Berkeley's object was to maintain the reality of spirit in opposition to materialism, and then to point out what has been the ieffect of his writings on subsequent philosophy. But along with his early theory of vision and perception, we must take into account his later writings, in which he almost identifies himself with Plato, as the teacher of all perfection, of supreme reason, and of the spirit which quickens and inspires finite beings. His writings led to the distinction between the idealism and realism which so constantly pervades modern dis- cussions on subject and object, on mind and matter, spiritual intuition and sensible experience, and every form of appearances and realities. Philosophy, as understood at the present time, deals with the " essential dependence of what is known on the power of knowing." * We can know nothing of things or persons, of what is material or what is spiritual, except as we are conscious in our own minds of some thought or feeling. * Fraser on Berkeley in Blackwood's serie.s, p. 19. 158 BERKELEY. For this consciousness or function (active or passive) various names arelemployed in different Schools or systems. Sensations, perceptions, ideas or impressions have been long in use. The term much in favour at the present time, specially since MUl's ' Logic,' which has had wide influence, is " states of consciousness," for all that passes in the mind, whether imaginary or real. Professor Fraser, after a lucid explanation of various terms, says that — " On the whole, with Berkeley, he will use the word phenomenon of sense in explaining Berkeley's theory of the material world." * He adds — " The adoption of the mental attitude, pre- supposed in all Philosophy, which the term idea expresses for Locke, is the first and indispensable philosophical lesson. It is a hard lesson to learn, and most of us never learn it at all." "Philosophy is the discovery that a thing receives a part, if not the whole, of what it seems to be composed of — part, if not all, of its phenomenal existence in becoming the object of a sentient percipient imagining mind." t Berkeley's Forecast of Modern Thought. The concluding chapter of Professor Fraser's short volume on Berkeley is most interesting, as showing how in Berkeley's works may be found a prelude or suggestion of the different systems of philosophy which have been developed in Europe, f These may be indicated as (1) the * Fraser on Berkeley in Blackwood's series, p. 2L t 1**28 20. t Part III., cliap. iv. PREDICTED TENDENCIES QF PHILOSOPHY. 159 English and French association psychology followed by Positivism ; (2) the common-sense psychology of Scotland ; and (3) the transcendental philosophy of Germany developed by the pure reason in connection with experience. Towards the close of the chapter Professor Praser shows more definitely that the two divergent tendencies of philosophy, as it presents itself now, were foreshadowed in Berkeley's writings, namely. Agnosticism and Gnosticism. The first must not be confused with mere scepticism, as it rests mainly on physical science, and only denies the possibility of knowledge of the invisible or spiritual. The second, Gnosticism, professes to find a fundamental basis of reality in pure reason on which a perfect unity of creative thought may be established. Of this system Professor Praser says, we ask for intellectual relief from moral difficulties, and we are offered the organisation of thought. Professor Fraser goes on to show that both before and since Hume there have been those who have had faith in the reasonableness of the universe, without a conviction that the human mind can reach the transcendent thought in which this reasonableness consists. Such a philosophy, founded on faith, was the teaching of Eeid in Scotland, and more correctly of Kant in Germany, in the moral solution offered in his practical Eeason. Before we can speak of such a philosophy of faith we must consider what Hume taught. Though the name of Hume is connected in general literature, and specially in theological books, with scepticism or infidelity, on account of his well-known objection to miracles, it is hardly possible 160 BERKELEY for the young student to understand our present position without some knowledge of the effect of Hume's writing on modern thought. In the first place, it was in consequence of Hume's ioctrine of causation that Kant was roused from what he called a dogmatic slumber, to give an entirely new impulse to European thought. Secondly, at the present day some of the most popular writers on the relation of science to morality and religion consider that we are indebted to Hume for laying the foundations of knowledge and duty on the same basis as that of physical science. (161 ) CHAPTER VIII, HUME. If any of my readers desire to learn how Hume's philosophy has influenced, and still affects, modern thought directly (not indirectly or by reaction, as in the cases of Eeid and Kant), they will find a clear statement of Hume's principles, written by Professor Huxley, in a Volume of the series of English men of letters. But in referring a young reader to that lucid exposition of one phase of modern Philosophy I must endeavour to make plain the assumptions from which it draws conclusions. Mr. Huxley begins his subject by a reference to Kant's saying, "that the business of philosophy is to answer three questions : What can I know ? what ought I to do ? and for what may I hope ? " * Mr. Huxley also draws a distinction between the questions, what do we know, and what can we know ; Science telling us what we do know. Philosophy enquiring into the foundations on which the possibility of knowledge rests, and showing what we cau know. As to what we ought to do, it may be remarked, by the way, apart from any question of Ethical theory, that our conduct in practice does not always depend on knowledge ; but often on some vague anticipation of the consequences of our action, or even gratification of mere feeling. Mr. Huxley lays down a broad principle as the basis both of knowledge and conduct : * ' Hume,' Part II., chap. i. p. 48 M 162 HUME. " Eational expectation and moral action are alike based upon beliefe ; and a belief is void of justification unless its subject matter lies within the boundaries of possible knowledge; and unless its evidence satisfies the con- ditions which experience imposes as the guarantee of credibility." This principle involves two assumptions ; it identifies faith or beKef with knowledge and experience. It denies the reality of faith in the unseen ; it also practically denies that the inner experience of Christians, regarded individually or collectively, can be accepted as any guarantee of credibility. If, then, knowledge is necessary for belief, what is knowledge ? The answer is, Science, Philosophy, which enquires into the foundation of principles, is treated as a branch of Science (not as the regulating theory of the principles of science). What, then, is the Science which is to be our guide ? The answer is. Psychology, which is a " part of the science of life or Biology." * CONIIICT BETWEEN SUPERSTITION AND SCIENCE, Mr. Huxley quotes a warlike passage from Hume jn which he speaks of the " craft of popular superstitions," and false metaphysic, likening them to robbers " who fly into a forest and lie in wait to break in upon every unguarded avenue of the mind and overwhelm it with religious fears and prejudices," and suggests that the • Page 50, OmEFLY INFLUENCED BY LOCKE. 163 philosophers should "carry the war into the recesses of the enemies' retreat." Mr. Huxley carries on Hume's military declaration of war as follows : " Near a century and a half has elapsed since those brave words were shaped by David Hume's pen; and the business of carrying the war into the enany's camp has gone on but slowly. Like other campaigns, it long languished for want of a good base of operations. But since physical science, in the course of the last fifty years, has brought to the front an in- exhaustible supply of heavy artillery of a new pattern, warranted to drive solid bolts of facts through the thickest skulls, things are looking better." * I will not be so imprudent as to venture into the battle-field under fire of heavy artillery with ammunition pranted by so great a marksman as Professor Huxley. But as I feel some sympathy with the thick skulls I may venture on the pacific observation that some skulls seem so heavily loaded with Physical Science that they have no room for Metaphysical or Spiritual truths, whether developed from within, or received by faith from some higher source of light. Hume may have been influenced in some degree by the acute writings of Berkeley; and encouraged to call in question the traditional dogmas inherited from the medi- aeval scholastics. But Professor Knight says that it was Locke beyond all question who chiefly influenced Hume. Certainly there was a wide divergence between the doctrines developed from Locke by Berkeley and Hume • Page 59. M 2 1^4 HUME, respectively. The late Professor Thomas Hill Green, of BaUiol, whose early death was so great a loss to Oxford, traced the progress of thought from Locke to Hume in his massive introduction to Hume's Treatise on Human Xature ; his introduction being, as he calls it, a treatise, extending to 300 pages, published in 1874. This work of Green's, and also his 'Prolegomena to Ethics,' published by Mr. Bradley, after the author's death, in 1882, have had great influence in training the young men of the present generation. The 'Prole- gomena' begins with the Metaphysics of knowledge, including a spiritual principle, and leads to the Will and the Moral Ideal of Good (see below, page 222). Hume's Fundamental Principle. It may be well to direct attention at once to what appears to have been the cardinal point on which Hume's sceptical system hinges. That is the isolation of the " unites " (as Hume writes) of sensation. Professor Fraser, in the historical prolegomena * to his most instructive edition of Locke's "Essay on Htiman Understanding," recently published, gathers into one sentence, as it seems to me, the objections to Hume's fundamental principle : " According to the historians of philosophy, and philo- sophical critics, including Green, the latest and most elaborate of Hume's critics, the nescience of the Treatise * Page cxxx. PHILOSOPHY BASED ON PSYCHOLOGY. 165 and the Inquiry is a legitimate reductio ad absurdum of the account of human knowledge in the Essay; for knowledge begins (Locke is made to say) in simple ideas or sensations taken in isolation, and is thus emptied at the beginning of all reality." The position of Locke as developed by Hume was that all the perceptions resolve themselves into two distinct kinds : impressions directly made through the senses, and ideas derived from those impressions, as separate copies of those impressions. Hume did not admit what some of the greatest writers on philosophy in ancient and in modern times deem eissential to knowledge, namely, the necessity for the active exertion of the mind or subject in dealing both with, the^impressions derived from external objects, and also with the relations between those impressions. The distinction between impressions and ideas, according to Hume, was that impressions were vivid, and ideas only faint images of impressions or of antecedent ideas.* This distinction is made much of at the present day by Mr. Spencer, though differently applied, I shall endeavour to quote, in Mr. Huxley's own words, some of the most suggestive passages in which he traces the tafluence of Hume on modern thought, and shall generally leave it to the reader to decide whether he is content to follow his guidance or not. " It is assuredly one of Hume's greatest merits that he clearly recbgnised the fact that philosophy is based upon psychology ; and that the enquiry into the contents and * Huxley, page 64. j 166 HUME. the operations of the mind must be conducted upon the same principles as a physical investigation, if what he calls the " moral philosopher " would attain results of as firm and definite a character as those which reward the '' natural philosopher.' " * " Hume fully adopted the conclusion to which all that we know of psychological physiology tends, that the origin of the elements of consciousness, no less than that of all its other states, is to be sought in hodily changes, the seat of which can only be placed in the brain." t " ... As a further set-off to Hume's credit, it must be noted that he grasped the fundamental truth, that the key to the comprehension of mental operations lies in the study of the molecular changes of the nervous apparatus by which they are originated. J "Sui-ely no one who is cognisant of the facts of the case, nowadays, doubts that the roots of psychology lie in the physiology of the nervous system. What we call the operations of the mind are fimctions of the brain, and the materials of consciousness are products of cerebral activity." § Mr. Huxley follows this last passage by a very remark- able and candid admission : " On the other hand, it must no less readily be allowed that, for anything that can be proved to the contrary, there may be a real something which is the cause of all our impressions ; that sensations, though not likenesses, are symbols of that something; and that the part of that something, which we call the nervous system, is an * Huxley, p. 53. f Page 76. J Page 79. § Page 80. THE CONTENTS OP THE HUMAN MIND. 167 apparatus for supplying us with a sort of algebra of fact, based on those symbols. A brain may be the machinery by which the material universe becomes conscious of itself." * What is the meaning of the last sentence I am at a loss to discover. It seems to be a materialist version in some physical region of what used to be called the anima mundi. "If," says Mr. Huxley, "aU mental states are effects of physical causes, it follows that what are called mental faculties and operations are, properly speaking, cerebral functions, allotted to definite, though not yet precisely assignable, parts of the brain." f "The upshot of all this is, that 'the collection of perceptions ' which constitutes the mind, is reaUy a system of effects, the causes of which are to be sought in antecedent changes of the matter of the brain." J Mr. Huxley, though an admirer of Hume, criticises his imperfect statement of the contents of the human mind, and goes so far as to say that when he deals with the relations of ideas he falls into a chaos of confusion and self-contradiction. But Mr. Huxley is more severe on the pure metaphysicians for declaring that the simplest act of sensation consists of two terms and a relation ; the sensitive subject, the object, and that masterful entity, the Ego ; and says, that " from this triad, as from a Gnostic Trinity, emanates a procession of shadows, from philoso- phic dreamland." § * Huxley, p. 81. f Page 89. % Page 78. § Page 73. 168 HUME. If we are to enquire into the " contents and operations of the mind," we may be allowed, I suppose, to ask what the miad is. Mr. Huxley, as quoted above, says that "the collection of perceptions constitutes the mind." Hume held that it is " nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain rela- tions." * Huxley observes that in this Hume goes too far. Though we may know nothing more of the mind than is- contained in this definition, we cannot prove that this is all. " Hume's views respecting necessary truths, and more particularly concerning causation, have, more than any other part of his teaching, contributed to give him a prominent place in the history of philosophy. "All the objects of human reason and enquiry may naturally be divided into two lands, to wit, relations of ideas and matters of fact." f Tliis distinction is of the utmost importance, because matters of fact are known only by experience. They do not admit of Demonstration. Pure Geometry, which deals with the relations of ideas clearly defined and axioms, is demonstrable, its conclusions cannot be contradicted. But what has been observed uniformly by experience might not occur again ; the continuance can only amount to a probability, however great. Dr. Hutchison Stirling, in his note to Schwegler's 'History of Philosophy,' after complaining of the meagre treatment of Hume in the history, and quoting Hegel's opinion on the importance of Hume's deductions from • Huxley, p. 63. f Page 116. DISTINCTION BETWEEN FACTS AND IDEAS. 169" Locke, says that " Hume's distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas lies at the bottom of the whole German philosophical movement." It may not be amiss to notice that this distinction in another form is contained in Aristotle's ethics ; he distin- guished between things which we know dTrXw?, "simply," absolutely, and things known ij^w, "to us," that is matters of experience, as they appear to us. It is true that the distinction does not turn on relations of ideas as opposed to matters of fact. Huxley on Butlee. Mr. Huxley speaks with great respect of Bishop Butler's defence of Christian Theology against'the a priori scepticism of Freethinkers in the 18th century. Those sceptics argued that the revealed scheme of Salvation is inconsistent with the attributes of the Deity. Mr. Huxley writes as follows: "If you tell me, says Butler in effect, that any part of revealed religion must, be false because it is inconsistent with the divine attributes of justice and mercy, I beg leave to point out to you that there are undeniable natural facts which are fully open to the same objection. Since you admit that nature is the work of God, you are forced to allow that such facts are consistent with His attributes. Therefore you must also admit that the parallel facts in the scheme of orthodoxy are also consistent with them, and all your arguments to the contrary fall to the ground. — Q. E. D." * * 'Hume,' p. 154 170 HUMK. " In fact the solid sense of Butler left the Deism of the Freethinker not a leg to stand upon." Mr. Huxley says, " Hume appears to have accepted two fundamental conclusions of the argument from design ; firstly, that a Deity exists; secondly, that it possesses attributes more or less allied to those of human intelli- gence." * Mr. Huxley thinks that Hume expresses his own senti- ments in the closing speech with which he concludes one of his dialogues. If we cannot go further than the belief in divine intelligence, " the most natural sentiment which a well-disposed mind will feel, ... is a longing expecta- tion that Heaven would be pleased to dissipate or at least to alleviate this profound ignorance by affording some more particular revelation to mankind and making dis- coveries of the nature, attributes, and operations of the Divine object of our faith." f But Mr. Huxley adds further on, " To all attempts to make any practical use of his theism or to prove the existence of the attributes of infinite wisdom, benevolence, justice, and the like, which are usually ascribed to the Deity, by reason, Hume opposes a searching critical n^ation." J In the chapter on " Volition, Liberty, and Necessity," Mr. Huxley uses these remarkable words : " So far from necessity destroying moral responsibility, it is the founda- tion of all praise and blame ; and moral admiration reaches its climax in the ascription of necessary goodness to the Deity." § * 'Hume,' p. 144, t Page 146. t Page 153. § Page 193. HUXLEY ON THE DIVINE ATTEIBUTES, 171 But he goes on to state another consequence of the necessitarian doctrine, " that if there be a God, He must be the cause of all evil as well as of all good ; Hume gives no real reply, probably because none is possible. . , , If God is the cause of all things. He must be the cause of evil among the rest ; if He is omniscient He must have the foreknowledge of evil; if He is Almighty, He must possess the power of preventing or extinguishing evil." * I will not quote more as to the intellectual and moral bearing of these logical arguments, but I may venture, without presumption I hope, to say that the line of argu- ment as to the logical inconsistency of the attributes of the Supreme Being, only confirms the warning which I offered at the close of the Introduction to Logic, against attempting to apply the principles of our finite Logic to our imperfect conceptions of the Absolute or the Infinite. Perhaps the mere heading of two chapters of Butler's Analogy may suggest the best line of thought in reply to Professor Huxley's criticism of the omniscience and omnipotence of God. "The Government of God considered as a Scheme or Constitution imperfectly comprehended." Butler taught that we could not be judges of part of a system without understanding the whole and the relation between the parts. In this we may see an anticipation of the doctrine of relations so elaborately developed by Green in his introduction to Hume. A further confirmation of the protest which I have miade against the logical treatment of our finite con- * Page 193. 172 HTJME. ceptions of the infinite realities, may be found in the following statement of Coleridge's doctrine as expressed by his son Derwent : "That a truth of reason may be inadequately repre- sented ia terms supplied by the understanding, and that an ctpparent contradiction may result, is but another way of affirming that the absolute and infinite cannot be measured by the relative and finite. This is not a matter of opinion ; it is a determination of science. It . will follow from this, that two [apparently] contradictory statements may, in certain cases, suggest a higher truth, in which they both are reconciled. But this truth will bring with it its own proper evidence, and wUl be confirmed, not by the contradiction, but by the reconcilement." Peofessoe Knight on Hume. Profesdor Knight's volume in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics contains a clear account of Hume, written after the Professor had edited all the principal volumes of the series from Descartes and Bacon to HegeL He traced the course of thought in modem philo- sophy which preceded Hume. It is evident that he had before him Professor Huxley's volume on Hume; as, although he does not mention the Professor's name, he marks as quotations more than one of his pointed sayings; Professor Knight brings out strongly the effect of Hume's psychology as the basis of metaphysics. He shows that his doctrine of unconnected impressions (excluding the action of a Self) is destructive of all PROFESSOR KNIGHT .ON SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 173 knowledge ; that we must admit or assume the existence of a self to be impressed. Self-consciousness cannot be got out of mere isolated sensation; the repetition of sensation does not by itself even give the principles of custom,. Professor Knight sums up the argument in the following ■striking conclusion : A stream of phenomena cannot become conscious of itself* Hume. Ethics and Eeligion. I do not propose to enter into further details as to Hume's speculations on Ethics and Eeligion which are explained in Mr. Huxley's volume. His theory of Morals as based on feelings of pleasure and utility has had less direct influence than his other opinions ; because the Utilitarian principle has been more fully worked out by subsequent writers, especially by Paley, Bentham, and MUl. There is little in Hume which sustains the sense of moral obligation. He placed the will in the list of impressions along with other mental phenomena; he reasoned about volition, a word which empirical thinkers prefer to will, as expressing a state of consciousness following natural law rather than a self-determining power of choice in practical action. As regards religion Hume appears to have had a certain Theism of his own. He attached some importance to the * ' Hume,' Professor Knight, p. 139. 174 HUME, evidence of design in the natural world, and to the idea of a cause of all existing things. But his doctrine of causation as being only derived from custom reduced his Theism to a shadow with hardly any substantial reality. Hume's influence on the religious feeHng and thought of the eighteenth century tended to substitute the con- ception of an abstract Being termed " the Deity " for the belief in one Personal Living God, as the Moral Governor of the World. It was still more opposed to the belief in the Divine relation of God to man in the person of Christ, and in the action of the Divine Spirit on the inner life of man. NoTE. — It will be obvious that this chapter was written before the lamented death of Professor Huxley, with a full consciousness of his critical power and love of truth. On a former occasion when I made a remark on the doctrine of miracles in his small volume of Intro- duction to Science, his communication with me was one of much kindness. ( 175 ) CHAPTER IX. MODERN VIEWS ON THEISM. Hume's Philosophy, both directly, and indirectly by re- action, marks a turning-point from which two paths diverge with especial reference to the belief in the exist- ence of an infinite, but nevertheless personal, Being as the Creator, Sustainer, and Moral Governor of the Universe, It may, therefore, not be out of place at this point to refer shortly to the arguments which have been used in reference to the existence of God in forbier ages, and the grounds of Theism, in a wide sense, at the present day. Professor Knight, in Chapter VII. of the volume referred to already, traces very clearly the different stages of Hume's Theory of Theism. He admits that "Hume's destruc- tive criticism of the a priori proofs of Theism is irrefra- gable"; but he adds, that " he never dealt with the deeper arguments on which belief in God rests, from which it derives all its strength . . , namely, the moral argument from conscience, and that which arises from the intellectual intuition of the Infinite." * After Professor Knight wrote the words which I have g^uoted, he published a more complete work on the Aspects of Theism, in which he reviewed the several theories, from * Knight on ' Hume,' p. 214, 176 THEISM. Augustine and Anselm to the present time, which have endeavoured to give a philosophical proof of the Divine Existence. He enumerates five arguments : — (1.) The ontological argument, which endeavours from our conception of the greatest possible perfection to prove that the existence of God alone fulfils this conception. (2.) The cosmological, which is commonly known as the belief in a first cause of all effects, or simply as causality. (3.) The teleological theory of an end or purpose in nature, commonly called the argument from design. (4) and (5.) Two other arguments are based on intui- tion ; the one intellectual, the other moral. These doctrines, which in various forms have been maintained by some of the greatest theologians, may be reduced to three general lines of thought : — (1.) Logical or Deductive, from conceptions or principles in the human mind. (2.) Scientific or Inductive, from experience of the phenomena or laws of Kature open to our observation. (3.) Intuitional, partly intellectual, partly moral, or both combined, but not admitting of syllogistic statement. The Deductive arguments are open to an objectioii which is now admitted by some of the most thoughtful theologians. They assume that certain notions in thfe human mind must find a definite corresponding reality, co-extensive with and explanatory of the Universe, material and spiritual The liiductive argument, which looks out of our own minds on the natural or visible world, rests on the ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OP GOD. 177 appearance of an adaptation of adequate means to the ends of existing things, inanimate, animate, and mental. It was rendered very popular by Paley in his work on Natural Theology. But it fails to account for or to explain the great amount of suffering and of evil in the world. It also proceeds on a supposition that the Divine Artificer has to devise plans to bring about results from the needs of that very nature of which he is himself the creator. The argument based on design is much affected by the recent discoveries of the great age of the world, as shown by geological strata, and of the gradual develop- ment of organisms, vegetable and animal, by Evolution or Natural Selection. Asa Gray, however, a friend of Darwin, in his interesting work on Science and Eeligion, showed that belief in an Almighty and intelligent Creator is not seriously affected by the fact — if it is a fact — that creation has been gradually developed or evolved. Perhaps it may be admitted that though the attempt to demonstrate the existence of God logically, or to establish it on experience of natural laws, is not successful, still these considerations have some value, especially when followed by an intuitive conviction of infinite being and goodness, as impUed in our finite and imperfect personality, and so leading to an aspiration for a revelation from some Source superior to our reason. But much depends on what is meant by Personality. Some logical writers have maintained that personality is necessarily limited; that Ego cannot be conscious of N 178 THEISM. its own existence except by distingidshing itself from non-Ego. I venture to maintain that self-conscious personality in man is the main basis of human thought. This prepares man for the reception, on moral and historical grounds, of a revelation through persons who believed they were inspired in old times to speak iii the name and with the authority of one personal God. What is Eevelation? If it be admitted that the existence of a personal self- existent God cannot be proved by mere argument, it remains to be considered whether there has been a revelation ; and the further question must be asked, " "What is revelation," and what is its authority ? A curious illustration of the influence of Locke's philosophy at the beginning of the present century may be found in a course of lectures * by a very learned divine, Dr. Van Mildert, afterwards Bishop of Durham. After a volume tracing the different forms of infidelity in the eighteenth century, he begins his defence of Christianity by an argument that man has never been able, by the light of nature, to attain a competent knowledge of religious truth. "From a consideration of the powers and faculties of the human imderstanding it is demonstrable [!] that it * Boyle Lectures, an historical view of tte rise and progress of Infidelity, printed in the years 1802 to 1805, third edition, 1820. WHAT IS EEVBLATION? 179 cannot attain to knowledge of any kind without some external communication. " It cannot perceive, unless an impression be made on the organs of perception; it cannot form ideas; without perceptions, it cannot judge; without a comparison of ideas, it cannot form a proposition ; without the exercise of its judgment, it cannot reason, argue, or syllogize without the previous formation of propositions." He goes on to show what are the inlets of knowledge, either sense or inspiration, and practically maintains that as the idea of God could not enter the mind through the sense, it must have been derived from revelation. He argues that the revelation was given to our first parents.* During the present century the discoveries of physical science as to the age of the world and the Evolution of its contents, and the modern criticism of historical documents, have considerably modified the doctrine of Eevelation and Inspiration as now taught by theologians of unquestionable authority. The Bampton Lectures of Dean Mansel, an eminent logician, and one of those who first brought German philosophy into the teaching of the Universities, led to an earnest protest from Frederic Maurice, in his volume of sermons and letters entitled " What is Eevelation ? " His answer to the question he asks is twofold : first, he shows negatively, Eevelation does not rest on arguments to convince the understanding, that it must suspend its * Page 77. N 2 180 THEISM. own proper exercise, or even rest on what are commonly called evidences.* But lie affirms strongly, Eevelation is rather an unveiling or manifestation of a Person appealing to moral faith.t Theee Stacks of Eevelation. I propose to trace the stages of revelation which are recorded in history, without taking into account any records of miracles, which might be urged as evidence accompanying such revelation. On the other hand, I may claim that the books, which record these steps in revela- tion, should not be considered as imhistorical because they record events at variance with some modern views of the laws of Nature. Without ignoring the alteration in the interpretation of sacred writings caused by the progress of physical science, and by the more recent recognition of a human element in those writings, we may take it as certainly true that Moses declared to the Israelites the unity of one God whose name, I AM, implied both absolute Self-existence and Personality. This truth was never lost sight of for a thousand years, notwithstanding frequent lapses into idolatry. Moses taught, that the Hebrew nation was in special relation to the one God. He was followed by a succession of prophets who taught that the one God was also a Controller of the surrounding nations, and they * ' "What is Eevelation ? ' page 57, f Page 54. THREE STAGES OP EEVELATION. 181 looked forward to some future establishment of a Universal Kingdom. The Book of Psalms, written in successive ages, which perhaps cannot be defined, keeps up continuous reference to one living God as King of the World, as also in direct communion with the soul of man. The contrast between the Psalms as a revelation and the sacred poetry of other early religions is beautifully shown in a small book called " The Sacred Poetry of Early Eeligions," by the late Dean Church. The ancient relics of the primitive Indian religion, called the Vedas, the sacred books of the Brahman religion, may be nearly as old as some of the Psalms^ but they have little personal religion. Speaking generally, they may be called " Worship of Nature," or more precisely worship of various supposed gods of the different powers of Nature, Light, Storms, and Eire. There was not wanting some moral element, but it was vague, and tended to irretrievable idolatry. But if the teaching of the Hebrew Psalms rose out of the law, as taught by Moses, it went on to the higher teaching of the Prophets and thence to the Gospel. The Psalms to the present day are the expression of the deepest feeHngs of Christian worship of the one living God, of the depth of human sin, and of the infinite goodness and mercy of God. As Dean Church says, "The Vedic hymns are dead remains, known in their real meaning to a few students, and they have no history. The Psalms are as living now as when they were written, and they have never ceased 182 THEISM. to be what they are to-day to hundreds and thousands of the most earnest of souls now alive." The second and central Eevelation begins with the life recorded in the four Gospels ; that Life was in itself a revelation. Jesus of Nazareth is first spoken of as a Galilean peasant, increasing in wisdom and stature during thirty years, of which few details are given. His life during three years is recorded as one of intense sympathy with suffering, tenderness towards penitent sinners, and marvellous self-sacrifice. The central idea of His teachkig may be said to be His reference to God as a Father in Heaven, and to His own Unity with the father, of whom He said, " I and my Father are one." He also taught His disciples to pray, as Christians have done ever since, to our Father in Heaven. A third stage of Eevelation was the doctrine, taught by the Apostles, of the Holy Spirit, whose proceeding from the Father and the Son had been promised by Christ. This spiritual Eevelation has been believed by Christians to be a living reality as a response to faith, or rather as stimulating faith in the human spirit, and also awakening the conscience. This Eevelation of the Holy Spirit pervades the teaching of the Apostles, especially St. Paul's Epistles. It has been, next to the doctrine of forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, the governing principle of life in all forms of Christianity. Dr. Fairbaim * points out (as in another form Alexander Knox did early in this century), that the spiritual life has * ' Christ and Modem Theology.' MODERN VIEW OF EVIDENCE. 183 taken (to speak broadly) two forms, one specially con- nected with Institutions or forms of Church organization, sacramental, and other ordinances of authority presumed to be divine ; the other, individual faith and conversion resting chiefly on doctrine and consciousness of repent- ance, and peace resulting from belief in the inward influence of the Holy Spirit. It will be noticed that in what has been so far said of Eevelation in its successive stages no reference has been made to Miracles, or to the historical fulfilment of pre- dictions in bygone ages as constituting the staple of the evidence for the truth of Eevelation. Considerable change has of late years entered into the treatment of the two subjects, Miracles and History. It is now generally recognised that the bare statement of the fact of a miracle, that is, an event supposed to be at variance with the laws of Nature, as those laws are discovered by experience, does not necessarily prove any interference from a Divine power. It is rather now maintained, that belief in the power, to which the miracle is attributed, must be assumed first. The miracle thus is regarded as a sign or manifestation of the action of such higher power. This view of the subject may be summed up in a few words which I heard delivered from the pulpit of the University of Oxford, by Bishop Moberly, to whose clear- ness of mind I have already referred. He said, " perhaps the time is come when it may be more true to say that the Gospel proves the miracles than to say that miracles prove the Gospel." 184 THEISM. On the whole question of evidence from the record of facts in connexion with Christianity, we must bear in mind the great change of opinion, which has taken place with reference to historical writings since the publication of Niebuhr's ' History of Eome,' which reached us in England through such earnest men as Hare, Thirlwall, Arnold, and Liddell, not to speak of the wide influence of Bunsen, who was Niebuhr's secretary, and subsequently resided in England as Prussian Ambassador. We have now to distinguish between historical litera- ture or the compilation of traditions, and the testimony of contemporary witnesses of the facts related. It is needless to say any more to show how the interpretation of the records received as the Word of God by inspiration of human writers has to be reconsidered. There are four documents as certainly written by a man called Paul as the Commentaries of Caesar by Csesar, or the history of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. In those four undisputed Epistles it is evident that the writer was convinced of the fact of Christ's resurrection, and that those to whom he wrote were equally convinced of the fact. As to four other documents, the Gospels, we cannot so certainly be sure of their date, or of the personality of the writers; but those documents are in harmony with the contemporary Pauline Epistles. I am indebted to Bishop Temple for the statement I have made as to the importance of the evidence of St. Paul's principal Epistles to the truth of the Gospels. He has stated this very clearly in an address delivered to an Association of Lay Helpers, and published by the Christian Knowledge Society under the title, ' The Word of God.' ( 185 ) CHAPTEE X. EEACTION IN THE EiaHTEENTH CENTURY. Scotch Eeaction. I HAVE thought it desirable to refer by anticipation to some of the more recent doctrines with respect to Theism, as opposed to Hume's Deism, before entering on the reaction against his sceptical teaching in Philosophy. The reaction in Germany did not reach England till some time after the Scottish Philosophy had developed its opposition to the Scepticism of Hume ; ■while in Scotland the reaction may be said to date from 1764, in which year Eeid's answer to Hume was published. Eeid was a Doctor of Divinity and a Minister in the Established Church of Scotland. The main point against which he protested was the theory of ideas, developed by Hume from Locke. By this theory, as we have seen, ideas are regarded as unconnected units ; our relation to persons or things taking the form of an intermediate sequence of these ideas or impressions. That theory is now called the Theory of Eepresentative Perception. Eeid maintained, on the contrary, that we are conscious of external objects, directly, as realities ; not as ideas representing objects. He also strongly maintained that men are universally 186 SCOTCH EEACTION. conscious of certain faculties or principles of truth : these were called first truths; that is, truths which must be taken for granted, but which also cannot be proved. Hume had denied the existence of any such innate or connate principles. He and some of his followers traced these presuppositions to association and custom. Dugald Stewart, Eeid's pupil and successor, called them Punda- mental laws of Belief. Stewart delivered his lectures chiefly during the time when the Continent was in a great measure closed. He knew very Little of the progress of thought in Germany ; and did not sympathize with what he only partly knew. His graceful style caused his writings to be generally popular in the literary world, but they were wanting in the earnest search for principles. He rather took for granted certain laws of belief, the foUowing list of which was given by Dr. Abercrombie in a small book published some years later. Laws of Belief. " 1. A conviction of our own existence as sentient and thinking beings, and of mind as something distinct from the functions of the body. " 2. A confidence in the evidence of our senses in regard to the existence and properties of external things; or a conviction that they have a real existence independent of our sensations. " 3.' A confidence in out own mental processes ; that LAWS OF BELIEF, 187 facts, for example, which are suggested to us by our memory, really occurred. " 4. A belief in our personal identity, derived from the combined operation of consciousness and memory; or a remembrance of past mental feelings, and a comparison of them with present mental feelings, as belonging to the Same sentient being. " 5. A conviction that every event must have a cause, and a cause adequate to the effect. " 6. A confidence in the uniformity of the operations of nature ; or that the same cause, acting in the same circum- stances, will always be followed by the same effect." * Dr. Abercrombie was a man of considerable repute in the Medical profession. His short treatise marks a high sense of the need for a morally well regulated mind in order to arrive at truth, but he did not in thaj; book enter into any discussion of ethical questions. German Eeaction. The German reaction against the philosophy of Hume dates from the publication of Kant's ' Critik of Pure Eeason ' in 1781. But German Philosophy did not reach England till much later. The German Philosophy is generally very different from that of the Scotch Philosophers, who so far followed * 'Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers.' By J. Aber- crombie, p. 71. 5th edition, 1835. 188 GEEMAN BBACTION. Locke as to rest upon facts of experience as their starting points. The German method has generally been to assume some hypothesis a priori, and endeavour to use it as the expla- nation of all the facts of the visible world, and to build up an ideal speculation as to the Universe, or, in other words, of all Thought, Knowledge, and Being. It has been said that every German Professor carries in his pocket a new scheme for the whole Universe. Coleridge. It was to Coleridge that we in England were, after a long interval, indebted for the indication of the course ol thought in Germany. He had visited Gottingen in 1794. He issued the 'Priend' as a periodical in 1810, It was reprinted in three volumes in 1818. This publication contained very valuable thoughts on the true basis and aim of Civil Government, in opposition to the abstract doctrine of rights of man then prevalent in France. It is evident that Coleridge, who visited Gottingen in 1794, became acquainted with the Philosophy of Kant and his immediate successors ; and that he did not attach much importance to the 'Philosophy of the Human Mind ' as treated in Scotland. Coleridge did not profess to found a system of philo- sophy. He always assumed the truth of the Christian TJNDBESTANDING, REASON, AND WILL. 189 Eeligion. He did not belong to any special theological school; his favourite expression was the religion of the " great fathers of the Eeformation." But he was well acquainted with the thoughts of the mediaeval Divines. He also criticised severely some of the divinity which passed current early in the present century, such as theories about original sin and the Atonement. He had great reverence for some of the Divines of earlier days, especially Leighton, Hooker, Bull, and Waterland. I cannot recall any reference to the great authority of Bishop Butler. Two leading principles are maintained in all Coleridge's writings : (1) the distinction between the Understanding and the Eeason, and (2) the conviction that the Will is the essential basis of human Personality. By the Understanding he meant that action of the human mind which receives impressions, through the senses, combines them in relations and distinguishes them in classes by generalisation. This Leighton called "the faculty judging according to sense.'' But Coleridge maintained that man is a partaker by the gift of God of a higher and regulating faculty, the Logos or Eeason, which enlightens every human being, and that this faculty combined with the will is the basis of morality. It is very interesting to trace in Coleridge's earlier publications how this principle pervaded his writings on the progress of Physical Science from Bacon to Sir Humphrey Davy, who was his special friend. But the 'Aids to Eeflection,' published in 1818, 190 COLERIDGE. brought out strongly Ms views of the relation of Philo- sophy to Christianity. He opens the third division of the ' Aids to Eefiection ' * by two preliminary aphorisms : " If there be aught Spiritual in Man, the Will must be such." " If there be a WiU there must be a Spirituality in Man." It is not, I think, too much to say that the two main principles of Coleridge's thought nearly cover the ground of the modern tendencies of Science (including Psychology) and Ethics, or knowledge and duty. As regards the first, the doctrine that we can only know phenomena, which is called the relativity of knowledge, and excludes any conviction of spiritual reality, is dealt with by the distinction between the Understanding and the Eeason (Speculative and Prac- tical). As regards the second principle, it is obvious that the doctrine that there is in man an initiative and responsible power of will, coupled with the practical Eeason or con- science, must have an essential bearing on the theory of Ethics. I hope, therefore, that my readers wUl not think it out of place, if, before speaking of Kant, I offer some account of Coleridge's philosophy, written by one of the greatest masters of Physical Science, who devoted the latter years of his life to expounding the Spiritual Philosophy which he had learned as a pupil of Coleridge. • Page 130. KANT'S PHILOSOPHY MODIFIED BY OOLEEIDGB. 191 Coleridge and Joseph H. Geeen (King's College, London). The late Professor T. Hill Green (Oxford) said that the last generation took its notions about Kant chiefly from Coleridge, and that Coleridge did little more than convey to his countrymen a grotesquely false impression of Kant's doctrine of the Eeason as distinct from the Understanding. In this statement Green hardly did justice to Coleridge, who did not profess to be an interpreter of Kant. In his 'Biographia Literaria,' published in 1817, after treating of Hartley and the doctrine of Association, Coleridge speaks most strongly of what he owed to Kant, but he goes on to refer to Pichte and ScheUing. It is evident that Coleridge thought out for himself the problems suggested by the Germans ; although he never produced the work which he so often promised under the name of ' Logosophia.' In this chapter I will endeavour to state shortly the outcome of Kant's Philosophy: as modified by Coleridge and expounded by Joseph Henry Green, his devoted pupiL But as Professor Green died in 1863, 1 may be excused if I give some account to the younger generation of his qualifications for the task to which he devoted the last years of his life, after the death of Coleridge in, 1834. "What follows is taken from the excellent account of his nfe written by Sir John Simon, who edited Joseph Green's ' Spiritual Philosophy ' in 1865. l^r. Green was 192 COLERIDGE AND JOSEPH H. GEEEN. bom in 1791. After a liberal education he became a dis- tinguished surgeon, filling very responsible professional offices ; he was a Professor of King's College, London ; he was twice appointed to deliver the Hunterian Oration, Shortly after the Establishment of the Council of Medical Education, he was elected to the Chair of that important Body, following the first President, Sir Benjamin Brodie. He was an earnest promoter of a liberal scientific and philosophical training of medical men for their noble pro- fession. To the youths who first heard Mr. Green lecture as a Professor, it was " as the opening of a new world." When he was a young man, aged twenty-six, he visited Berliu for the purpose of attending a special course of philosophy. Tieck, in introducing him to a Professor at Berlin, said, " I made acquaintance in London with a young man, who sought me out and fastened on me with a fine kind of faith. He is full of a noble eagerness for knowledge, and has been studying German Philosophy as far as his youth permits." His first course of lectures, delivered at the College of Surgeons in 1824, was spoken of in glowing terms by Professor Owen " as the work of a great and noble intel- lect," describing, for the first time in England, the com- parative anatomy of the whole animal kingdom, a vast array of facts linked by the underlying Unity. Green illustrated in this grand course the dawning philosophy of Anatomy in Germany rather than the teleology, " which others had given as Hunterian, not knowing their master." Owen said of Green's Anatomical Lectures at the Eoyal SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 193 Academy that they were the greatest intellectual treat he had ever experienced. I have ventured to say so much of the great writer on human philosophy in order that in these days of physical philosophy, if such a phrase may be used, it may be understood how profound a thinker and master of Biological Science was the man, who devoted many years to the assimilation and exposition of the Spiritual Philosophy of Coleridge, which was as the breath of life to young men half a century ago. Mr. Green says that the aim of Philosophy is to attain to the iasight of first principles ; he calls these principles Ideas, by which term he means (not ideas in Locke's sense, but rather) a causative energy predetermining the realities and facts of our Being ; these Ideas being in another point of view Laws of Nature. He considers the Will as the link or Union (also as involving the distinction) between the Speculative and the Practical Eeason. The Speculative Eeason is Intelligence considered abstractedly from the agency of the WUl. The Practical Eeason is thg intelligence which is neces- sary, in Union with the Will, to guide and direct its purposes. In other words, it is the Enlightened Will, and so constitutes the Conscience. In this doctrine there is much in common with the Ethical principles of Aristotle and Butler, though they were neither of them Platonic Idealists. Like Kant, Green, expounding Coleridge, distinguishes between the Understanding and the Eeason ; and speaks 194 COLERIDGE AND JOSEPH H. GEEEN. of the universal forms or Categories as indispensable to the acqiiirement of experience or of Scientific knowledge founded on faith in the law of nature. In dealing with the Categories or necessary laws of forming conceptions, he does not follow Kant's symme- trical and cumbrous table of twelve categories, but speaks of " Cause and Effect," " Substance and Attribute," " Whole and parts." I have stated in a dry form some of the Elements which enter into Green's exposition, avoiding the antique and scholastic phraseology in which Coleridge was apt to indulge and which his pupil evidently relished. These definitions are preparatory to a very clear, and, as it seems to me, masterly exposition of the Aristotelian or Deductive Logic, in which he explains generalization, abstraction, definition, judgment, and reasoning. On this subject he quotes Whately, De Morgan, Wesley, and Watts. On Classification he refers specially to Whewell, and Cuvier. He then treats fully, or, rather I should say, lucidly the principles of Baconian or Inductive Logic, quoting Herschel and Mill, and giving striking instances of the discovery of Laws in Nature. As I have already stated, Coleridge, as interpreted by Green, in reply to the question, " What is the end and aim of Philosophy ? " answers, Its object is to discover " First principles," in other words, Ideas or primary truths of Eeason. In Green's Hunterian Oration, after asserting that Intellectual Unity is supplied by Science, namely, a scheme of knowledge connected as a chain of necessarily dependent truths giving to its possessor the power of PHILOSOPHY OF REALITY. 195 predicting results in given cases, — he enunciates this important dictum : " Principles are the postulates of Science and the problems of Philosophy." Coleridge, as Maurice says,* referring to the ' Friend,' had one main purpose, whether he discussed questions of Art or Ethics, or questions of politics, " he was seeking to distinguish between those principles which are universal, which belong to one man as much as to another, and those rules and maxims which are generalized from experience. Having this end in view, he accepted Kant's distinction between the Understanding and the Eeason as of in- estimable worth." Coleridge had been under the influence of Priestley the Unitarian, and Hartley and Spinoza. The aspiration of the Germans after Freedom, Immortality, and God came home to him. But he could not rest satisfied till he could connect these Ideas of the Eeason with a living person, who had revealed himself to the Spirit of man. He therefore believed in the fact of an individual will enlightened by the Divine Eeason, the Logos, a person who is both life and light to his creatures.f I now return to Green as the more systematic inter- preter of Coleridge. In Green's second Hunterian Oration (Mental Dyna- mics) he enumerates the difficulties, which have opposed themselves to a sound philosophy of reality, which ought to be the complement (or the foundation) of Common- * • Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,' ii. p. 665. t ' Spiritual Philosophy,' vol. i. p. 171. 2 ^96 COLERIDGE AND JOSEPH H. GEEEN, sense. I will quote only a passage wMch appears to me to touch a vital principle (already referred to in the chapter on Hume) explained by Professor Knight. " One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a true jDhUosophy ... is and has been the position maintained by Hume and Kant, that we have no proper self-conscious- ness or knowledge of a self, and that what we caU Self-con- sciousness is the cognizance only of the mental presenta^ tions of that which we may infer indeed to be a one mind, but of which we have no knowledge beyond its manifesta- tions in the consciousness — ^its appearances or phenomena. In other words, that consciousness is a looking-glass in which we see ourselves reflected, but only as the images which the looking-glass presents ; or that the conscious mind consists merely of a multiform flux of thoughts, of the supporter, substance and inherent connexion of which, we are utterly ignorant. Thus all reality of a mind or self, a substance or spirit, is at once destroyed, and the soi-disant philosopher is left to deal only with thoughts, with a representative shadow or image of the thinker himself, or of a mind which, according to this view, is beyond the limits of knowledge,"* Mr. Green mentions a second dif&culty, namely, the view oi perception, which he regards as a pernicious error, one which has "pressed sorely on philosophy, namely, that we do not perceive external objects, but that we are only cognisant of certain affections of our being of the causes of which we are ignorant." Eeferring to the first principle that I must be cognisant * ' Spiritual PJuiosophy,' vol. i. p. 172. IDENTITY OF BEING AND KNOWING^. 197 of the SeK as will, Mr. Green says, " What a world of false philosophy is thus got rid of can only be appreciated by those who have been bewildered by the Scepticism of Hume and Kant." * And further on he says, " in every complete act of self-consciousness .... I recognise in myself the identity of Being and knowing; I have reached the point in which I find my personal being in affirming, nay, realising that ' I am.' " t " A third important defect common to all schemes of philosophy is the want of any living organic principle, any Source of reality causative of Being. We are con- tinually referred solely to the Intellect, and the method of Philosophy dwindles into Logic and logical processes. Now the mere intellect, essential though it be in consti- tuting Forms and Relations, contains in itself no life or cftusativeness. This defect has been supplied, and perhaps only it may be said by Coleridge, in the Fundamental principle of Ms pMlosophy, Will is deejaer than and inclu^ give of Intellect." $ Perhaps Coleridge's view, as presented by Green, may be summed up in a short contrast to the famous dictum of Descartes, Cogito ergo sum, ordinarily translated, I think therefore I am, or rather in the act of thinking I become conscious of my own existence. Coleridge's doctrine might be expressed by Volo ergo sum, ot paraphrased, as in the case of Descartes, In the act of willing or choosing I am conscious of my personality. Green considers that the Speculative reason especially postulates Unity in the phenomena of which it becomes * 'Spiritual Philosophy,' vol, i. p. 185. t Page 190. t Page 174. 198 COLERIDGE AND JOSEPH H. GREEK. conscious, and that it cannot feel satisfied unless it can find the fundamental and permanent cause of this Unity. Causation, permanence as underlying aU the changes, reality as underlying all appearances, are in his view postulates of Science, principles established by philosophy, The great principle, combining power and intelligence, he calls an Idea.* Green's grand view of Nature as one Ideal whole has to be considered now in relation to the laborious and patient examination of facts by Mr. Darwin. But it is not really inconsistent with Darwin's facts to maintain that the adaptation of the species of natural organized beings hag been fore-ordained all through the work of time. Everyone with a slight knowledge of Geology has known, since Buckland, and Sedgwick, and Lyell, that the strata of the Globe have been gradually formed, and that veget- ables and animals have come into existence, and some have become extinct in the course of ages. But that does not involve the denial of an Almighty and foreseeing creator, as shown in a very interesting workf by Asa Gray, a special friend of Darwin. * 'Spiritual Philosophy,' p. 200. t 'Natural Science and Religion.' Two Lectures by Asa Gray. New York, 1880. ( 199 ) CHAPTER XL KANT. I HATE thought it desirable to insert the foregoing sketch of the Spiritual Philosophy of Coleridge, through whom modern German Philosophy was chiefly introduced to English students, before speaking more definitely of Kant and his successors. Early in the century Coleridge evoked among some of the younger men aspirations for something in opposition to the cold classical criticism which ridiculed German thought as mysticism, and said of Wordsworth's Excursion, " this will never do." Coleridge laid great stress on the distinction between the Eeason and the Understanding, and certainly gave the impression to some of his disciples, that, while the Understanding dealt with earthly and material interests, the Eeason, when united with moral excellence, gave certainty or reality to Eaith. Such, if I remember right, was the impression given by the teaching of Maurice, when, after being a pupil of JuL'us Hare at Trinity, Cambridge, he came to Oxford inspired with the spirit of Plato, and was dissatisfied with the current teaching of Aristotle's Ethics and of Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind, and of its Active and Moral powers. But in his history, Maurice speaks with more critical accuracy of Kant. 200 KANT. Since those days Kant and his German successors have been seriously studied in England. There is an extensive literature on the subject of the Kantians, and of his Pantheistic successors. I can only attempt to state in a popular form what appears to me the practical bearing of Modem German thought on questions interesting to English students. In order to understand the effect of Kant's writings on modem thought, it is necessary to bear in mind the principles which were current during part of the eighteenth century in England and on the continent of Europe. Those principles, as we have seen, may be traced to two sources, to Hobbes and Locke in England (followed as they were, though in different directions, by Berkeley and Hume) ; in France and Germany to Descartes and Leibniz. In England the eighteenth century was under the influence of a cold Deism and Scepticism, followed by the utilitarian Ethics of expediency taught in Paley's text book, which held its ground at Cambridge not very long ago, till, thanks to the influence of Hugh James Eose and Whewell, Butler may be said to have replaced it. In France there prevailed the lowest sensationalism in thought and morals tiU the abstract theories of Rousseau awakened appeals to Eeason. X)n the other hand, the teaching of German professors had taken the form of a Dogmatic Rationalism, with a certain semblance of what has been called dead orthodoxy in the religion of the Lutheran churches. KANT'S EBACTION AGAINST HUME. 201 We may take it to be generally admitted that Locke's Essay on Human Understanding marks the great tumingr point of philosophy in modern Europe, on the question relating to the origin of human knowledge and the limits of our intellectual powers. Locke's teaching that all our ideas are derived from sensation led, especially in France, to materialistic views of intellectual questions ; and ia England to utilitarian principles in morals. Berkeley and Hume were closely connected with Locke. Berkeley taught that if we could, according to Locke, deal only with ideas, we could know nothing of matter, and that Spirit was the Only reality. Hume, starting from the same doctrine of Locke, drew sceptical conclusions; especially as to Causation, which he regarded as mere sequence of ideas or phenomena. ' The reaction against sceptical philosophy in Scotland, led by Eeid, is well known to English readers. In Germany the sensational doctrines were not current as they were in France during the eighteenth century. "Following on Leibniz, a great thinker, came a hard, cold, rational dogmatism, represented by Wolff. Kant said that he was roused from " dogmatic slumber " of this kind by Hume's doctrine that Causation was nothing more than sequence of ideas, or rather, as Hume called them, impressions, such impressions beiag regarded as unconnected units. This succession of "states of con- sciousness " as the only basis of knowledge took the form of association in England, and is now the prmciple underlying MiU's logical teaching (which, owing to its wonderful clearness, has still much influence), and 202 KANT. Mr. Herbert Spencer's encyelopssdic compilations of the work of scientific enquirers reduced to his general formula of evolution, and the unknowable cause of all phenomena. My object is not to expound, nor to criticise, nor to defend, the elaborate system of Kant's philosophy ; but to show how it bears on our modern English thought. As we have seen, there were, in the eighteenth century, two sources of principles : — 1st. The Empirical ; from Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, in England. 2nd. The Dogmatic; from Leibniz, and Wolff, in Germany. To say that Kant protested against both these tenden- cies of scepticism and dogmatism would perhaps not truly describe his purpose. To say that he mediated between two systems of empiricism and idealism might suggest the idea of Electicism. Whatever deficiency there might be in his system of thought, it did not fall short of completeness for want of independent searching into the foundations of truth for himself. Perhaps his wjsist fault was idolatry of system and of formal consistency. It may be well to begin by pointing out in what respects the two Epoch Makers, Locke and Kant, agreed. (1) Both aimed at laying a solid foundation for human knowledge, and also at defining the limits of knowledge. (2) Both thought it necessary to begin by enquiring into the powers of the mind for knowing. Locke wrote of " Human Understanding." Kant still more definitely entered on a " criticism of Pure Eeason." KNOWLEDGE FOUNDlfcD ON EXPEEIENOE. 203 (S) Both considered experience the first step chrono- logically in gaining knowledge. Locke announced as the fundamental thesis of his Essay, that " the human mind gathers aU the materials of its knowledge from experience ; that on that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it all derives itself." Kant begins his introduction, " That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt." The difference is shown in their theories of the meaning' of experience, or rather, of the conditions necessary to make experience possible. Locke, after a rather over-strained argument against the doctrine of innate ideas, which doctrine was inherited from Descartes and Malebranche, contented himself with assuming that our first step in knowledge was to receive impressions by the action of our senses, to which impres- sions he limited the name of ideas : and that any further knowledge consisted in the comparison of these ideas with one another, and in the work of reflection carried on in the mind. Kant considered that "intuitions," as he called the perceptions of external things, would not form the material of knowledge without the active working of the mind; which working he called the Understanding as distinct from pure Eeason. He taught from a priori considerations that the Pure Eeason required certain forms as a sme qua non of experience. These forms he called categories (in a different sense from Aristotle's classification of predicables), and he laid the greatest stress on the fact which he considered 204 KAKT. indisputable, that no information from without could reach the mind except under the limitations of these categories, which may be illustrated as follows : — "We may make an assertion about one thing, or several things, or the whole of any class — say, a flock of sheep. These he calls categories of quantity. We may assert of any subject or substance that it has a special quality, or we may deny it, or state it with som6 limitation, according to circumstance. These are categories of quality. The things of which we form mental conceptions may be related to each other in three ways. We may simply say, " the weather is fine " : that is a subject and its predicate. Or we may say, "fine weather gives us a good harvest " : that is cause and effect. Or, as in mechanics, we may have forces working one on the other : this is action and reaction. And so we have the categories of relation. With regard to matters of observation, we speak of what can or cannot be, what is or is not, what must be or what may be. These are categories of modality. These are assumed by Kant to be the conditions of experience or knowledge, and are arranged in the following tabular form : — Qvmdity. Quality. BelaUon. Modality. 1. Unity. 4. Reality. 7. Substance 10. Possibility— 2. Plurality. 5. Negation. and Aooi- Impossibility. 3. Totality. 6. Limitation. dent. 11. Existence— 8. Cause and Non-existence. Effect. 12, Necessity— " 9. Action and Contingency. Beaction. KANT'S , PHILDSOPHT. 205 Peeliminaey Questions, Before we attempt to learn what Kant has to teach u9 now, we must try to understand a few of the technical words which he constantly used. ■ "Btm Reason = Eeason independent of experience. a, priori — (not the old meaning — -from cause to effect ; nor from general principles to particulars, but) presup- positions, not derived from experience. Synthetic implies that the predicate adds a fact to the subject — (Gold is heavy and fusible). Analytic, that the predicate is contained in the subject (as Gold is a metal). Transcendental = prior to experience,. Transcendent = going beyond experience. Inasmuch as Kant admits that " our knowledge must begin chronologically with experience " (though this does not " imply that it is all derived from experience "), three questions have to be answered : 1. What is the action of the mind (intellect or reason in the usual sense of the word) in acquiring knowledge ? 2. Can we by the action of our intellect alone learn anything about what lies beyond experience (tran- scendent) in what is called the supersensible or unseen world ? 206 KA.NT. 3. Inasmuch as we human beings are not merely engaged in acquiring knowledge, but have feelings and desires, and are obliged in various ways to act ; a third question is, "What guide have we as to the diiference between good and bad, in reference to our desires, and between right and wrong in reference to our actions ? " It is very important throughout the study of the first two questions to bear in mind that Kant attaches the greatest importance to the third question, and therefore that his system must be considered as a whole. His theory of knowledge, especially in the judgment of reality as distinct from speculative thought, will be found to be affected by the Ethical considerations involved in the third question. 1. As to the first question, on the conditwns of knowledge or experience. It is stated in almost all the commentaries on Kant's greatest work, the "Critique of Pure Eeason," that his object was to show how experience is possible. It may show my own ignorance, or want of clearness of thought, if I say I do not understand what is meant by the possibility of experience. We are finite beings, with minds and bodies, placed in a material world. I cannot see what is the difficulty of believing that we are bom with faculties adapted to the circumstances in which we find ourselves — whether the adaptation be the design of a Creator or the result of Evolution. Experience begins as soon as those faculties are called into action. TESTS OP A PRIORI TRUTH. 207 Probably the difficulties may be traced to the mediaeval assumptions as to the essential difference between mind as, a simple substance and matter as composite. There were in old times theories about material species passing into our minds from visible objects; and there are modern enquiries of a biological kind into the physical action of the nerves on the mind ; but I do not see that the possibility of experience is affected by these questions. I think that it will be most reasonable to say, instead of enquiring into the possibility of experience, that we should simply ask what are the conditions under which in fact we gain knowledge through experience. I shaU assume that any readers for whom I write believe in their own personal existence, and their personal identity ; so that we may avoid the hazy atmosphere of a '^universal consciousness," or an "absolute," or even the " Spiritual principle," on which T. H. Green lays stress — at any rate these matters may be postponed till we come to Kant's successors. This does not, however, exclude the acceptance of Kant's tests of a priori truth, viz., necessity and univer- sality; two principles which are repudiated by the empirical school of Mill, Bain, and Lewes. Kant's whole system rests on a priori truth in the form of critical examination of the action of mind on facts ; of the Subject on the Object. His a ^priori basis is really founded on the deductive logic of Aristotle. The impressions made on our minds by external objects, that is, by whatever we see or touch, or whatever gives us sound, taste, or smell, must be met by and combined 208 KANT. with the action of the miud, in order to constitute any knowledge, or even perception. It is Kant's claim to have been the first to make it quite clear " What are the powers (or mental forms) inherent in all men," and to state the necessary conditions under which this combined action of the mind and the senses takes place. What is essential is that sense (receptibility) and understanding (spontaneity) be combined in one act. This is the " synthetic unity of apperception." The first condition of our experience is that it takes place in Time and Space. It is commonly supposed that Kant taught that Time and Space are non-existent except in the human mind. I think this supposition is hardly correct ; it is, at any rate, exaggerated. Professor Bowen * gives in a tabular form a list of the primitive axioms which show the curious parallelism which exist between our notions of space and time. The list was made out by Schopenhauer, containing twenty- eight items, from which I extract a few of the most important. Time. Space. 2. Different times are not co- 2. Different spaces are not suo- existent or simultaneous, but cessive, but are co-existent or successive. simultaneous. 3. Time cannot be thotight 3. The same, away, but everything in Time can be thought away, or imagined as non-existent. * 'Modem Philosophy, from Des Cartes to Schopenhauer and H^rtmann,' p. 179. AXIOMS OP TIME AND SPACE. 209 Time. i. Timehas three divisions, Past, Present, and Future ; and these three form two directions (before and after), with one point of in- difference, one invisible Now, at their juncture. In this respect. Time may be compared to a magnet, with its north and south poles, and point of indifference half way between them. 5. Time is infinitely divisible. t. Time has no beginning or end; but every beginning and end are in Time. 8. By means of Time, we count. 12. Time has no persistence, but no sooner exists than it vanishes. 13. Time has no rest. 14. Everything in Time hag duration. 17. In equal spaces, swiftness is in inverse proportion to the Time. 24. Now, the present moment, is without duration. Space, 4. Space has three divisions, Length, Breadth, and Thickness, 5. The same. 7. Space has no limits or boun- daries, but all limits are in Space. 8. By means of Space, we measure. 12. Space can never pass away, but persists for ever. 13. Space has no motion. 14. Everything in Space has position. 17, In equal times, swiftness is in direct proportion to the Space. 24, The mathematical point is without extension. , At any rate, it seems more reasonable to say, that Time and Space are the conditions under which we as finite beings (having bodies and souls united) are obliged to think of whatever is presented to our thoughts, as an existing reality of experience. We can think away any thing or occurrence, but we cannot think away the P 210 KANT. time in which it was supposed to exist or to take place, nor the space which it seemed to occupy. We cannot set a limit (beginning or ending) to Time, nor a boundary to Space ; nor yet, on the other hand, can we present to our minds any image of Eternity of Time, nor of Infinity of Space; though we may speak of them in words as infinite. Whether disembodied spirits perceive things under different conditions is beyond our finite knowledge. Another condition of our experience is, that we have to distinguish, or group, the elements of experience, which are given from without, under certain laws of distinction, comparison, and relation ; especially the relation of Cause and Effect. This relation of causation could not have entered into our minds by any of the senses (Hume, as we have seen thought it grew up by custom). It may be doubtful whether the theory that we gradually group sensations of form (or extension), colour, weight, etc., so as to make up a unit, say an animal or a plant, is consistent with fact. A child', on its first sight of a rolling ball or a playful kitten, surely at once treats it as a new thing, or unit, and in fact many of us go through life without distinguishing the details of objects with which we are familiar, say flowers. But accurate know- ledge involves observation, distinguishing as well as uniting. The Categories, or mental forms, are the governing regulators (so to speak), imposed, according to Kant, by the Pure Eeason (i.e. Season prior to experience) on the Action of the Understanding over the whole domain of UNION OF CONCEt'TS AND INTUITIONS. 211 experience, and applicable only to that. As is his way, he calls into Action a Faculty for every department. The Pure Eeason having constituted the Categories, he uses the faculty of the^ Imagination to apply them to the elements of knowledge given as data of Experience. We may draw the conclusion that, for experience to be intelligent, or for the appearances brought before us to be intelligible, there must be a power in the mind to establish links between different events, or to determine the agreement or difference between our impressions. On the other hand, if we have in our mind certain types or forms into which appearances may fall, still the forms will tell us nothing unless they have something from without to teU us about. These two principles are forcibly expressed by Kant. " Concepts without intuitions are empty ; Intuitions without concepts are blind." It is only by the union of the two that Experience is possible. But we have not yet arrived at a firm ground for certain knowledge of reality. What do we know about the essential reality of the things with which we have made acquaintance in our minds ? We have noticed certain appearances ; we have what Locke called ideas of those appearances; our first ideas may turn out not to be correct. In making a sketch I see a faint blue between some green masses of colour. At first I think it is a distant mountain ; it may be a slate roof jnuch nearer, or even a blue piece of cloth still nearer. But even supposing I make no mistake of this kind, I am looking at a mass of green colour. I see certain V 2 , 212 KANT. forms and contours of leaves and stems. They are simply impressions on my eye. I learn more about the tree, the characteristic forms of its branches, of leaves or fruits. Science tells me that these come chiefly out of the air ; the microscope reveals their cellular structure. But, after all, do I know what is the essence, or the combining Link, of that which presents itself as a group of sensations or observed qualities in the one conception of tree ? Some philosophers, like Berkeley, have gone so far as to say that there is only a spiritual reality. Kant says we know nothing of the thing in itself, but he implies that the mind creates such a principle of unity and reality which he calls " Ding an Sich," thing in itself, or " noumenon," creation of mind, as opposed to the old idea of the essence of each thing ; he goes so far as to say that the " mind makes nature." On this doctrine of the Ding an Sich, a charge of scepticism or subjective idealism is brought against Kant. He says we only know appearances or phenomena — ^what in Scholastic times were called accidents as distinct from substance — and that these phenomena are in our mind. There may be something behind these appearances, a creation of the mind not received from without, which he called " noumenoiu" Are these nou- mena anything real, or only imaginary ? Kant repudiated the accusation of his being a mere idealist, He does not doubt, where we see all the appear- ances of a tree, and have learnt all that science can tell us about its growth or nourishment, that these facts are qualities of something real, He says, " I )jpo^ that now, THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE. 213 and here, there is a thing. I only say that all that my mind has in it are its appearances or qualities." I do not see how this can be denied. What Kant wishes to make clear is that the mind is acting, and acting under certain conditions which limit the sphere of our knowledge. Now the mental process wMch we have been con- sidering is conducted by the Understanding (Verstand), a name restricted by Kant. But he considers it to be regulated by an operation of the mind which he calls Pure Eeason. The mind thus acting is able to define its own notions or conceptions with sufficient accuracy for the purpose of comparison. This is the foundation of mathematics, which begins by defining a few thinkable forms, points, lines, and surfaces, angles, triangles, and circles. I only mention Mathematics to show that the human mind has the power of discerning absolute truth which, according to our reason, cannot possibly be contradicted; and although it may in one sense only unfold analytically the contents of certain ideas, it can certainly add marvellously to our knowledge, and therefore this knowledge is called also synthetical. 2. The second question, — the limits of knowledge, — derived from experience. What are the limits of our intellectual powers ? Can our Eeason form any conception of supersensible or spiritual things ? How far can our knowledge go, and why no further ? 214 KANT. Stated shortly, the doctrine of Kant is, that the intellect cannot extend actual knowledge beyond what can be matter of experience under the categories. This branch of his system then is primarily negative or restrictive. But in a certain positive and expanding sense, he admits that pure Eeason can form Ideas or Ideals that may be suggestive of real truth beyond. They may be regulative, they cannot be constitutive. He suggests that Eeason has Ideas of the Soul and of God, but it cannot prove the existence of God. " It is necessary," he says, " to be convinced of God's existence ; it is not necessary to demonstrate it." la the negative part of his argument he exhibits Paralogisms and Antinomies, showing that diametrically opposite conclusions can be drawn as to the " origin of the world," as to " Freedom," and " necessity." These arguments are subtle ; they have to do with ancient dogmatic assumptions, which cannot be taken for granted, about ideas or conceptions not realised in experience. It is not of much use to dwell on these contradictory theses and antitheses, intended only to show the limits of Pure Eeason which must be connected with experience to give Eeality. He refers to Plato's Ideas. He had no natural leaning to Plato ; rather, to Aristotle. " He arrives at the conclusion that Ideas (in the sense that they are not identical with the conceptions of the Understanding, but are principles underlying the con- ceptions), must be recognised." PRACTICAL EEASON. 215 "He makes this grand distinction. In respect to Nature experience presents us with the rule, and is the foundation of knowledge. But in respect of Moral Laws, experience is, alas, the mother of delusion ! " " It is in the last degree contemptible to deduce laws concerning what I ought to do from, or to seek to limit them by that which is done." 3. The third point to he learned from Kant — the existence of a moral law or authoritative guide for our actions. Kant employs the same method in approaching the consideration of moral action that he used in dealing with knowledge. He proceeds on the fundamental distinction between a priori or transcendental principles, and the results of experience, and is wholly opposed to those theories which treat the results of action known by experience as the foundation of ethics. The great prin- ciple or law of morality he finds in that to which he gives the rather cumbrous title of the Categorical Imperative : " So act that thy rule of conduct could be taken as a guide for all mankind." The special faculty which was thus to regulate human action without any reference to consequences, he called the Practical Eeason, He regarded the imperative law with which it deals as inherent in the constitution of the human being, and callfed it autonomous ; that is, a self-recognised law having supreme authority. This absolute law of duty he held to involve the action of the free wiU as an unconditionedor first cause. Though 216 KANT. freedom in this sense may not be capable of scientific ptoof, yet our feeling of responsibility assumes that it is real : " You ought, therefore you can." Kant's moral philosophy further implies an end or summum bonum, not, like pleasure, an object of sense. This may remind the reader of Aristotles's doctriue of an end, and of pleasure or happiness as the result of right action rather than the motive. Immortality was also held by Kant as implied in the perfect law of duty, since in the limits of time finite beings cannot attain to perfection: and in the doctrine of spiritual freedom and possible perfection is involved that of the existence of a personal God. There remains one important point in connection with the Practical Eeason; that it tends to give reality or integration to those ideas which, though imposed by the pure Eeason on the Understanding, were not to be assumed as realities, or conceptions to be defined in the Categories of experience. " The most striking peculiarity of Kant's moral theory is its connection with his metaphysical system. It is in the moral law that he finds the means of establishing the existence, and, to some extent, the nature, of the supersensible realities," * I venture to offer a suggestion which I have not met with in the commentaries on Kant. J£ we recognise the law of moral duty, of justice as opposed to injustice, as a general principle of our nature, expressed by Kant as * Quoted from the Introduction to Kant's 'Theory of Ethics.' Transkted by J. K. Abbott, B.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. 4th edition, 1889, page Ixiii. A very Taluable book. THE AIM OP KANT'S SUCCESSOES. 217 Practical Eeason, by Butler as Couscience, by the Scotch followers of Eeid as Moral Sense, there remains a function for the Understanding or the faculty of experience to form a judgment in detail of the effect of particular acts, intended to be in obedience to the general law or obligation, Post-Kantians. Kant's doctrine of the double action of the mind in experience, in sensibility and understanding, is called Dualism. The post-Kantian schools have been unwilling to rest without straining the mind in quest of a transcendent unity. The names of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel have been long well known in England through the different histories of Philosophy, and in more recent times by the series of Philosophical Classics and other books written by some of the most competent instructors in the TJniversities, especially in Scotland and America. As far as I am able to express in ordinary words the objects aimed at, and the course pursued, by the post- Kantians, they are as follows : — Kant's successors were dissatisfied with the division of experience in two parts, the impressions on the senses and the action of the mind; matter and formj object and subject; a posteriori and a priori. They were in quest of unity of thought and of reality ; they were not satisfied with Kant's conditions limiting thought, and they yearned after what they called the unconditioned, or the Absolute, 218 POST-KANTIANS. Also they were not content to find this sought-for principle in the minds of individual beings; they imagined some collective spiritual intellect pervading the universe, of which human beings might be partakers. It was suggested by Fichte that thought alone (or the subject) constituted the only possible reality. In this his doctrine partly resembles that of Berkeley. The creative Ego is not the individual but the Absolute, according to this theory. Schelling propounded a system of Identity, including nature and spirit in some mysterious unity with two poles — The negative or real pole — nature. The positive or ideal — spirit. A hint of this system is given in Coleridge's ' Aids to Eeflection.' * It is probable that Wordsworth's Poetry of nature was in part the result of ScheUing's thought through Coleridge. Hegel's system, strange and paradoxical as it seems, had for some time more influence in Germany than any other of those pantheistic theories which followed Kant : and it was accepted where it could hardly have been ex- pected to be so — namely, among theologians of the high dogmatic school at Oxford, who endeavoured to strengthen the case of patristic or mediaeval traditions by calling in the aid of German metaphysics. Hegel was dissatisfied with the fundamental maxims of the Aristotelian Logic, such as that " A thing cannot be * Page 134 of "Ward, Lock and Co.'s Edition, 1854. PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSOLUTE. 219 and not be " ; or that contradiction between terms is a proof of untruth. He accordingly invented a new liOgic, which has been translated by Professor Wallace, of Oxford, who has also written an explanation of Hegel's philosophy. Professor Edward Caird, now Master of Balliol, has written one of Blackwood's series, which gives a lucid explanation of this system, especially in dealing with the opposites in Logic. Hegel based his system on the importance of considering the relation between apparent opposites, and worked his theory out from a practical study of life and history. His system was one of Logical Evolution. Each principle recognised in any age had to be modified by regard to other principles. He developed the principle of Identity postulated by ScheUing, subjecting it to the development of Fichte, and created a System of Absolute Idealism as distinct from Subjective Idealism. He regarded phenomena not as existing only in our consciousness, but as having by their very nature a real being, not in themselves, but in the Universal Divine Idea: while the Absolute Keason is revealed both in Nature and Spirit. Jowett says in his introduction to the Sophist of Plato, that he was at one time disposed " to think Hegel, if not the greatest philosopher, certainly the greatest critic of philosophy who ever lived." But he seems to have modified this opinion later. Hegel, however, did not entirely depend on a specu- 220 POST-KANTIANS. lative doctrine, a priori; but he worked it out thi-ough the whole course of recorded history, showing that when- ever a principle was acted upon, or realised in the life of the world, a contrary principle had to be taken into account, and some new form of unity developed. This Unity in its turn had to develope itself in face of its own Opposite. Hegel endeavoured to establish a unity of thought and reality. In fact, he taught that all reality was made by thought. But what is thought? We should naturally suppose that thought implies a thinker, and that thought is his action. But no ; Hegel talks of thought as we talk of Eeason, or sometimes of the Nature of things. When we, say that it stands to reason that some assertion is true or false, we do not think of a person making the assertion or contradicting it; in fact, we consider reason what is called " absolute " truth. Dr. Hutchinson Stirling, a most able writer, has been the chief expositor of Hegel's system. In his annotations to Schwegler's short history of Philosophy, he strongly defends the system, and in his " Secret of Hegel " he ventures on the following prophecy : — " Hegel, indeed, so far as abstract thought is concerned, and so far as one can see at this moment, seems to have closed an era, and has named the all of things in such terms of thought as will, perhaps, remain essentially the INFLUENCE OF HEGEL. 221 same for the next thousand years. To all present out- ward appearance, at least, what Aristotle was to ancient Greece, Hegel is to modern Europe." Dr. Stirling's estimate of the influence of Hegel on European thought is not accepted so generally as the passage now quoted seems to anticipate. Monsieur de Pressense, a French Protestant minister, in his "Study of Origins," a very clearly written book, to which I shall refer with reference to English Philo- sophy, says : " That after exercising a great influence on the thought of the age at the commencement of the century, Hegelianism is become in our day all but com- pletely obsolete. Although in our opinion it is in- finitely superior in the boldness of its new physical system to the gross materialism of the day, it has so little influence now on thought that it is not necessary to enter into a prolonged discussion of it." Professor Bowen devoted two chapters to the explana- tion of Hegelianism, which, he said, on its native ground was dying out, It would be vain for me to attempt to discuss Hegel'a theory, but I may state that it rests on two general principles. The first and main ground is the doctrine that the only reality is thought, impersonal thought, which has no beginning that we can express, and which has gradually developed the whole universe by logical Evolution. The idea of a Personal God, who in the beginning created all things, is not recognised by Hegel. 222 POST-KANTIANS. His second principle is that, if thought developes reality in a form which admits of statement, we must always take into consideration the opposite (if not exactly contradictory) statement. A third principle pervades the mental work of Hegelians, namely, that Personality, whether Divine or Human, is one universal consciousness, sometimes calldd a Spiritual principle. The late Professor Veitch, in a small work called 'Knowing and Being,' dealt specially with this third principle, which he attributed to Professor T. H. Green, of BalUol. Since the foregoing pages have been in print, an inte- resting work has been published by Mr. Fairbrother, Lecturer on Philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford, ' The Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green.' The object of the book is two-fold : the first is to help young students to study Green. He says that Green's Philosophy is not found to be easy reading, because his method is so thorough and exhaustive. But Mr. Pairbrother adds an examination of the chief criticisms which have been brought against Green. These criticisms have regard chiefly to Green's doctrine that a spiritual principle is an essential element in the study of Knowledge and of Morality. Mr. Pairbrother says that the best statement of thp objections to Green's doctrines is to be found in Professor Seth's 'Hegelianism and Personality.' He also replies to the criticisms of Professor Veitch and Professor Sidgwick. GEEKN'S DOCTRINE OF A SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE. 223 Professor Seth says that Green identifies the Self which the theory of knowledge reveals, the " single active self- conscious principle, by whatever name it may be called," with the universal or divine Self-consciousness. Green calls it himself most frequently a spiritual priuciple, Seth goes so fax as to say that Green's doctrine of the Universal self is a " thorough going Pantheism." Without attempting to follow the arguments of Green and his critics, I venture to say that the " Spiritual Principle " is a term easily misunderstood; and certainly, as used by Green, it cannot be called the principle of Pantheism. Green, as I understand him, starts with a clear statement that man has a self of which he is conscious, and his self is not merely a succession of states of consciousness, nor -T^ihe result of any natural law,, understanding by nature the Phenomena of experience. The term implies that God, Who is the Author and Centre of all reality, has, as we are told in the 1st chapter of Genesis, made man in His own Image.* This involves no confusion between the Consciousness of the Eternal Being and the consciousness of His rational and also spiritual creatures. But the use of the term Spiritual principle is a protest against the Empirical theory of the mind, and against the Doctrine of Evolution pf man from lower irrational beings. * See also St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, viii. 16. ( 224 ) CHAPTEE XII. BUTLEE. In the chapter on Hiune reference was made to Butler's Analogy, directed against the Scepticism and Infidelity of the eighteenth century, as resulting from the Psy- chology of Locke. But Butler's influence on the teaching of Ethics has been of much later date. What he wrote on that subject was in the form of Sermons, which consequently seem not to have had any effect on Continental thought. It is not, I think, too much to say that his three sermons on the Nature of Man, are now recognised as the most solid foundation for the doctrine of morals opposed to the Utilitarian doctrine which was for more than half a century recognised by the University of Cam- bridge in Pale/s Moral^Philosophy as a standard work in Education. Butler, in his preface to his Sermons, admits their obscurity, but maintains that it is inevitable in the nature of the subject. He then shows that " there are two ways in which the subject of morals may be treated. One begins from enquiry into the abstract relations of things ; the other from a matter of fact, namely, what the parti- cular nature of man is, its several parts, their economy or constitution ; from whence it proceeds to determine what SERMONS ON HUMAN NATUEE. 225 course of life it is, which is correspondent to the whole nature. In the former method the conclusion is expressed thus : that vice is contrary to the nature and reason of things : in the latter that it is a violation or breaking in upon our own nature." He goes on to say that his Sermons " proceed on the latter way. The first three wholly." Butler, in the words quoted, indicates the two prin- ciples of modern philosophy, one based on metaphysics or pure reason a priori, which is the principle of Kant's work — ^the other based on induction from experience. Kant's fundamental principle of Ethics is, as we have seen, the Practical Eeason. Butler's principle is what he called sometimes Eeflection, and sometimes Conscience; meaning by both terms a regulating faculty which approves or condemns the exercise of the will with reference to various emotions. Butler's Eeflection or Conscience, like Kant's Practical Eeason, deals with general principles, such as justice, benevolence, even resentment called forth by the unjust action of others. But it does not authoritatively pro- nounce judgment on each particular action. As I suHgested in the case of Kant, Butler's Conscience pronounces decidedly on the general principle or major premiss ; but the particular application or minor premiss is the result of experience. Butler says it is manifest that " great part of common language, and of common behaviour over the world is formed upon supposition of such a moral faculty (as he had described) whether called conscience, moral reason, Q 226 BUTLEE. moral sense, or divine reason; whether considered as a sentiment of the understanding or a perception of the heart, or which seems the truth as including both." * Dr. Whewell, professor of Moral Philosophy at Cam- bridge, who published in 1848 an edition of Butler's three Sermons on Human Nature, and his Dissertation on Virtue, had no doubt that these words of Butler's were a misprint, and ought to have been printed "perception of the Understanding" and "sentiment of the heart,'' and on his own judgment altered the text. It has always appeared to me that the words as printed by Butler were a remarkable indication of his conviction that the moral faculty of man is intimately connected with and influences the action of the intellect. I cannot close this chapter on Butler without express- ing my admiration of Mr. Gladstone's wonderful industry in his splendid edition of Butler's works, which will be a monument to posterity of his deep and sober religion, which gained the respect of his contemporaries at College, and has been the underlying foundation of his political life for more than half a century. * ' Dissertation on tlie Nature of Virtue,' § 2, p. 399 Mr. Gladstone's Edition. Note. — ^Bishop Butler's three Sermons on Human Nature, and seven other Sermons, are printed separately by C'absell, price 6d. in boards, or 3d. in paper covers. There is also an edition of the Sermons on Human Nature, with a critical introduction on Ethical doctrine, and on Butler in particular, and instructive notes, by Rev. T. B. Kilpatrick, Jliriister at Aberdeen, published by Clark, Edinburgh, crown 8vo , Is. Gd. ( 227 ) CHAPTER XIII. HEEBEET SPENCBE. As I have already said, it was a suggestion, made in a lecture addressed to University Extension students, that Herbert Spencer and Lotze represented the prevailing thought of the present day, which first induced me to make the present attempt. The name of Lotze was new to me, and I carefully studied his treatises on Logic and Metaphysics, and his more general work the Microcosmus. I had some years before formed a general opinion of the Synthetic Philosophy. Mr. Herbert Spencer's "First Principles " satisfied me of the truth of Mr. Maurice's forecast that Dean Mansel's Bampton Lectures on the Limits of Eeligious Thought would lead to Scepticism, for Mr. Spencer quotes four pages from the Dean's lectures as a main element in the proof that God is unknowable by man. As far as I am aware, Mr. Spencer's philosophy has not awakened much interest in Germany. In Ueberweg's history it is slightly described in less than two pages. In Erdmann's it is not mentioned, but thirty pages are devoted to Lotze, the principal part of which chapter is introduced into the translation of Ueberweg's history. I cannot refer the reader to a better account of the bearing of Mr. Spencer's theories than to a book written by the late M. de Pressense, a Minister of the French Q 2 228 HEBBEBT SPENCEE. Protestant Church,* who was well known for his historical works on the life of Christ and on the early Church. " Herbert Spencer, the author of ' First Principles,' has made the most powerful effort known to us, to construct, by the mere play of mechanical forces, a world utterly without mind. He has not only attempted to build up an abstract system upon purely speculative bases ; he has also applied his first principle to all the spheres of exist- ence with an unparalleled fulness of exact detail. He has tried to include in it all living creatures, man, society, morality, religion. His system is unfolded with masterly clearness, he has illuminated science by his wonderful insight, without, however, succeeding, as it appears to us, in explaining the starting-point and the harmonious progression of Natural evolution." I am unable to do more than endeavour to put before my readers the principal assumptions from which Mr. Spencer's powerful logic draws its conclusions. He says that all our experience, and, by implication all our knowledge, consists of phenomena produced by some unknown and unknowable cause which developes itself by evolution from an origin indefinite in time, that is to say, to which no beginning can be assigned.. This speculative doctrine is made to rest on an abstrac- tion or residuum which is assumed to be common to science and religion. But it may be asked, What, in * Mods, de Pressens^'s book is called a "Study of Origins," or the problems of knowledge of being and duty, It shows a consider- able acquaintance with English writers and with modem science. Its tone is that of candid appreciation of the work of authors with whom, as a Chiistian minister, he does not agree. EVOLUTION, 229 Mr. Spencer's philosophy, is religion ? It is in no sense a revelation of a personal Being. It is the outcome of evolution from a presumed state of human life such as exists amongst the lowest order of savages. Mr. Spencer, having declared that the cause of all things is unknow- able, rather inconsistently discusses the consciousness of God as if it was a matter within his knowledge; he maintains that God, if there be a God, cannot have two states of consciousness at the same time, and therefore that his knowledge cannot be infinite. Mr. Spencer's first assumption, then, is that we can know nothing but phenomena, and that all knowledge enters the mind in the form of states of consciousness which must follow each other apparently without relation except that of succession. The second assumption is that all phenomena or states of consciousness have some cause, which is not only unknown but unknowable, which he calls Persistent Force. This persistent force implies motion, it is mechanical, and it does not include any end or purpose. The Persistent Force acts in two ways which he calls homogeneity and heterogeneity. These two words may be illustrated perhaps in the following manner : Suppose we plant a few acorns in a spot of an old forest where the trees have decayed — these acorns will grow with a certain similarity in the forms of leaves and acorns, yet no two trees "will be exactly alike in all their branches and shapes. The force by which they are evolved is therefore so far heterogeneous. 230 HERBERT SPENCER. But these trees derive their substance from two sources which are respectively uniform. The bulk of the tree which is combustible is mainly derived from the carbonic acid in the air which is a uniform substance, in Mr. Spencer's words, homogeneous. The tree derives also mineral matter from the soil, which soQ, as before remarked, is mainly the decay of former trees. This decayed organic matter is therefore inert and homo- geneous. In fact, these two words, heterogeneity and homogeneity, only mean growth and decay, or life and death. Professor Iverach says, that, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, " The Task of philosophy is to set forth the passage of the universe from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. What homogeneousness is, how we know it, and where we are to find it, is not shown or illustrated at all. Here, without apparently recognising it, Mr. Spencer is face to face with the problem which perplexed the Schools of Greece. Homogeneousness and heteroge- neousness are only big words for the one and the many." I will not attempt to place before my readers any explanation of the working of Evolution, the one persistent force, maiuly mechanical, by which Mr. Spencer thinks he can explain the universe. But I may quote from Mons. de Pressense some pas- sages which are clearer than any statement I could offer. " In any case there is one thing which Herbert Spencer cannot explain, namely, the transition from the inorganic to the organic world, the production first of life, and then PERSISTENT FORCE. 231 of thought and consciousness, which he treats as merely transformations of motion." * " The transformation of force fails also to render an account of those transformations which have no analogy with the varieties of motion, namely, life and thought. We can very well understand, then, that in spite of its admirable arrangement, Herbert Spencer's system ends in its own destruction, for the last term of evolution, according to him, is a return to the primordial diffusion."t " It seems as if the great English thinker partially accepts .... the spiritualistic view. He says, when speaking of the reconciliation between Eeligion and Science, ' Very likely there will ever remain a need to give shape to that indefinite sense of an ultimate existence, wLich forms the basis of our intelligence.' In the con- clusion of his ' First Principles ' he admits, as at least a permissible hypothesis, the possible existence of an intelli- gent and conscious causation, though it eludes scientiiie research, beneath the impenetrable veil of efficient and purely mechanical causes. " We can but ask why in all Ms later writings the illus- trious author seems to ignore this lofty intention, and, in repudiating the idea of God, to reject the only adequate explanation of the evidences of design in nature." t I have made these few quotations from Mons. Pressense, because the translation, by A. H. Holmden (4th Edition), is out of print, and I fear there is not a present prospect of its being reprinted. I will further only refer the reader to two .smaU. tracts * ' Study of Origins,' page 207. t Page 209. t Page 210. 232 HEEBEET SPENCER. which appear to me masterly, by Professor Iverach, pub- lished by the Eeligious Tract Society, under the title, Present Day Tracts.* Professor Iverach's small book, entitled, " Is God Knowable," is full of information as to the tendency of speculation in recent times. Mr. Herbert Spencer's book on " Education " has had too wide a circulation to be passed over. It has been translated into thirteen languages, and many thousand copies of the English editions have appeared. In this book are to be found wise suggestions, which have long been acted upon by the best parents and teachers. But the principle on which the work is established is that children should be taught, not that their conduct depends on obedience to authority and punishment for disobedience, but rather that they should find out for themselves by experience what will be the result of their actions on their own happiness and that of others. This experience must rest on a knowledge of natural laws; in fact, on science. Thus science is put in the place of religion ; or rather, as Mr. Spencer expresses it, " true science is essentially religious." Mr. Spencer is, indeed, such an enemy to authority that he objects to the learning of languages as a part of education, on the ground that the dictum of the teacher, the grammar, or the dictionary must be accepted as final, and so "tends to increase the already undue respect for authority" in the young mind. * 'The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer Examined;' and 'The Ethics of Evolution Examined.' ON EDUCATION. 233 On this subject a remarkable address, which deals with the principles of Mr. Spencer's book, was delivered before the Froebel Society by the venerable Miss Shirreff, who has done so much to promote kindergarten work in schools. It was my privilege to bring about the pub- lication of this address, entitled ' Moral Training." * Miss Shirreff says that " Spencer lays down the admirable maxim that 'the aim of our discipline should be to produce a self-governing being, not to produce a being governed by others.' But he who is governed by fear or prudential regard to consequences is governed by the least worthy of external authorities, superior force." She points out that this system does not give " a know- ledge of right and wrong, but of prudent and imprudent conduct" only; and compares Ms teaching with that of Froebel in these words : " the system of Spencer teaches submission to the inevitable, to an inexorable outer law of force; that of Froebel to an inner law of right, growing more and more clear as the restraints of authority are withdrawn." * Published by G. Philip & Son, 32 Fleet Street. Price, M. ( 234 ) CHAPTEE XIV. LOTZE. Before we pass on to Lotze as the last word in favour of knowledge and faith, and the relation between them, it may be well to take a look back at the successive stages of thought. In Plato we found that beyond our thought (or above all that is perceptible) are Ideas of Goodness and Beauty, and the basis of Truth. This is a central principle of Lotze' s, which he calls " werth." Aristotle — who as Plato's pupil respected him — could not believe in Plato's "Ideas." He invented Logic, of which the basis is Definition, statement of essence and qualities; and the test, absence of contradiction. This governed all thought for nearly two thousand years. The Eenaissance gave fresh life to the Platonic Ideas, but they soon had to give way to knowledge based on experience — first, in Physical Science, as that of Bacon and Newton; but secondly, in Psychology, of which mental phenomena, like any other facts, are the basis. Here was the great turning-point. We have seen that Locke (and in a certain sense Descartes) opened a road for thinking minds, based exclusively on impressions made on them by (assumed) realities from without. OPPOSED TO MONISM. 235 Tliis led to enquiry |in various forms as to the relations between things and impressions. By Hume was laid the path of scepticism in modern thought. There followed various endeavours in the form of wearisome theories as to appearances and realities. We are now much influenced by Scotland and Germany, by Eeid, Kant, and their successors, and the exaggeration of mere reason by Hegel. Last of aU, we have the attempt at Unification of aU. science, or Logic in excelsis and profundis, by the substitution of an Unknowable force in the place of God. With ^Lotze, on the other hand, the central point or climax of view is the personality of God, and not the " ego and non-ego " of man. One special characteristic quality of Lotze's writings is his modesty in drawing conclusions from speculative assumptions, especially from any kind of Monism. Monism means an attempt to explain the Universe and all our relations as finite beings to — what it is now the fashion to call — our environment, by some one principle. He specially protested against Hegel's theory of impersonal Eeason, self-developed from an unknown beginning. He therefore made it clear that pure logic in the form of the Aristotelian syllogism, only dealt with the concepts formed in our minds, showing the agreement or discre- pancy between defined words or .thoughts. He main- tained that this action of the mind does not deal directly with reality, that is, the being or existence of real persons or things. 236 LOTZE. He was equally opposed to the monism of materialism, ■whicli ■would derive all our sense of moral or spiritual reality from our experience, or physical perception, or impressions. He assumed as his starting point our own personal conscious life, in opposition to Hume's doctrine of suc- cessive impressions. But he attached great importance to what he calls mechanism, which includes not only force of weight and motion, but the chemical or other action of the particles of matter in relation to one another. He showed that our personal life is in constant relation to this mechanism, or what we may term natural law. WhUe he put aside the monism of reason and of matter, he specially dealt with our relation to natural laws. As Lotze considers Logic only as dealing with forms of thought, his work on Metaphysics is devoted to reality. He distinguishes between what he calls validity (geltung) of truth, and reality (wirklichkeit). He also in his meta- physic shows that we are to seek for the good as well as the true. He goes so far as to say, " that which should be is the ground of that which is " ; or, " the true beginning of metaphysic lies in Ethics." * With reference to the theory of Evolution, which he does not dispute, he says: "Man esteems himself according to what he is, and not according to that whence he arose. It is enough for us to feel that we are now not apes." t In addition to what we can learn either from tangible experience or valid thought in logical form, he attached the * 'Metaphysic,' ii. 319. t Ibid., ii. 158. VALIDITY AND REALITY. 237 greatest importance to what he called worth (werth), which is partly response to feeling, partly a decided ethical law. It includes both goodness and beauty ; and the consideration or feeling of these matters of worth he held to be an essential element in the attainment of truth. A convenient summary of Lotze's general principles bearing on science and religion will be found in a small book, the last of the dictated portions of Lotze's lectures, translated by Professor Ladd. The book is entitled ' Outlines of Logic,' but it also contains a few pages, 145 to 184, called ' Encycloptedia of Philosophy.' He points out that there are two views of the way in which we may arrive at truth and unity. According to the first it is possible to divine one Seal Princijple on which the world depends. The second view, of which Lotze approves, is that the search, for truth sets forth from many paints of departure, and is bound only by laws of thought. The whole Philosophy of Lotze culminates in the Personality of God. The idea of personality is generally understood as including intellect, emotion, and will. Perhaps it might be better to say intellect, feeling, and wUl, so that the feeling may include being loved as well as active love. Lotze protested against a definition of personality, as involving necessarily a distinction between self and not-self, or ego and non-ego, which distinction was maintained by Mansel in his Bampton Lectures. Lotze therefore teaches that the personality of God, so far as our finite minds can define it, implies that His Being is its own object. 238 LOTZE. It has been one of the main objects of this book to induce young students to study Lotze ; because his philo- sophy is based on a comprehensive view of all former thought, and is built neither on physical science, nor on piu?e logic, alone. It may be convenient to those who have followed me so far to be told what are the works of Lotze which are accessible to English readers. The three principal books are the Logic, the Metaphysic, and the Microcosmus. Of these. Professor Ladd says that the Logic and the Metaphysic are both technical and difficult : not, I presume, that he thinks them deficient in clearness ; but that they go into great detail as to the principles and the application of both of those subjects. Professor Ladd has translated five small volumes of Lotze's dictated lectures, besides another small work called the "Philo- sophy of Eeligion." He advises the readers of the dictated lectures to begin with the little book on "Metaphysic," because that purports especially to define the presupposi- tions or assumptions which lie at the root of all other branches of philosophy. I confess that I do not quite agree vidth this advice, for the dictated lectures on tMs subject are necessarily dry, full of technical phrases, and require considerable knowledge in order clearly to follow the arguments in their shortened form. I have already suggested that in the small volume on " Logic " will be found a general introduction to Lotze's thought. On the whole I am inclined to think that the " Micro- cosmus," the fourth edition of the English translation of which appeared last year, though it is a large book in two volumes, will be found the most interesting and readable. HIS PRINCIPAL WORKS. 239 The " Microcosmus " begins with a careful account of the animal or bodily life of man, and the working, so far as we can understand it, of the nervous system and the brain. Lotze gives as much attention to the physical part of man's nature as do those writers who treat man from a purely material standpoint. He discusses very fully the relations between the body and the mind, and the mystery in which these, in the present state of our knowledge, are hidden. From this point he passes on to consider the relation of the whole man, body and soul, to the universal laws which reign in the world. During the course of his argument he often has occasion to refer to the nature of things, and this leads him to state his conviction that all reality implies self-existence, in vary- ing degrees of intensity, from the enjoyment of that which we are inclined to look upon as lifeless matter in the fulfilment of its functions, to " the self-consciousness of the being that knows itself as an Ego." This, which to many readers will seem rather fanciful, seems to have been derived by Lotze from Leibnitz's theory of monads. The development of mankind through history, leading up to Christianity, is traced in the " Microcosmus ; " and Christianity is said to be a matter of character, not, in itself, either of knowledge only, or of government. The new life, founded on truth, established by revelation, is possessed only " when it pervades the whole man as the prevailing tone and temper of his life." Lotze sums up his arguments iu the statement of what he calls his "philosophic faith:" that all things truly are but one, "one real power appearing to us under a three-fold 240 LOTZE. image;'' of a Good to be desired, -wMcli forms our standard of worth; of a Eeality, the facts of which we perceive intuitively ; of Laws or necessarily valid truths. The One Supreme Principle which combines these three he finds in " living love : " true reality is not matter, still less Idea, but " the living personal Spirit of God and the world of personal spirits which He has created." At the same time it must be remembered that Lotze did not consider it to be his business to teach people Theology, but rather to teach them to think. He saw considerable difficulty in stating some of the great doctrines of the Church in philosophical language ; but he held dogmas to be essential to the unity of such a society as that of Christianity, composed of nations which have little besides in common with each other; and these dogmas must of necessity be more or less the work of man's reason. He accepted, however, in the most devout spirit the account in the Gospels of the historical Christ, and showed that there is no reason for objection to miracles worked by Him. If we turn to the " Philosophy of EeUgion," we find that Lotze considers that Philosophy or Human Reason has two functions. The first is to lead the mind from the manifold surroundings of the world up to the idea of a Personal God and of Pievelation. The second is to embody in a rational and intelligible form the doctrines of Pievelation. He says in the strongest terms that Chris- tianity is the manifestation of the love of God for His creatures, and that through Christ He brings Himself into contact with humanity ; but he has evidently some PHILOSOPHY OF EELIGIOX. 241 difficulty in seeing how the relation of Christ as Son to the Father can be expressed in human words. The subject of evil, that subject which, as he says, is the " insurmountable difficulty " standing in the way of a perfect system of philosophy, is dealt with by Lotze. He discusses the various theories about it, and shows how unsatisfactory these are : whether they lay stress on the harmony of the world as a whole, and in so doing lose sight of the miseiy to be found in it in detail ; or whether they regard it as a means of education, overlooking the suffering, both physical and mental, which seems to lead to no such end. He quotes Leibnitz, who, when the goodness and the omnipotence of God appeared to be irreconcilable, decided for His goodness, and concluded that His power is limited. Lqtze then sums up his own belief in these words : — "Let us alter a little the canon of Leibnitz, and say that where there appears to be an irreconcilable contradic- tion between the omnipotence and the goodness of God, there our finite wisdom has come to the end of its tether, and that we do not understand the solution which yet we believe in." Postscript. Since the short account of Lotze's teaching contained in the foregoing pages has been received from the printer and approved by a disciple of Lotze, himself a very able writer on philosophy, my attention has been drawn to a work which takes a different view of Lotze's doctrines. K 242 LOTZE. It is entitled " A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Lotze," by Mr. Henry Jones, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Though with failing health I have not been able to study the whole book, I feel - bound to add a few words with reference to the criticisms fif Professor Jones. I think I have gathered the general principle of his book and its conclusions. He expresses very high admiration of the tone and moral tendency of Lotze's writings, and of their influence on modem thought. But he objects to his mode of dealing with thought, or formal logic, as not involving reality, but only what Lotze calls validity of conceptions. Mr. Jones himself agrees with the theory of modern logic in the works of Mr. Bradley and Mr. Bosanquet, which I have noticed in my chapter on Logic (page 53), as the Logic of objects or facts, not only of formal con- ceptions, Mr. Jones regards Lotze's doctrine of Logic as merely subjective or ideal. He describes it as teaching that " Knowledge begins with an inner world of sub- jective states, and then strives to find a way outwards ; " he holds that such a theory which " endeavours to step from thoughts to things " is one that no logic can justify."* I am not able now to discuss this general question, but I venture to ask, Is this a just account of Lotze's doctrine of conceptions, which are formed by the mind out of the materials furnished by the senses ? Lotze attached the greatest importance to the doctrine of Eeality, as deeper or higher than mere logical concep- tions. He taught that, with reference to subjects included ' Paae 369. CRITICAL ACCOUXT OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 243 in this Eeality, we must take into account what he called "Worth, including the Essential Good in the Universe. This worth is not included in logical conceptions, nor in Science. It is known to us by moral convictions, or Faith, as implied in the Unity of the Universe. It is partly known by feeling, but feeling which involves thought, though not logical conceptions. This feeling, or Faith, has some resemblance to the Practical Reason of Kant, or to the faculty which Bishop Butler called a " sentiment of the Understanding or a perception of the heart." Mr. Jones's conclusion is that " there are indications that the main contribution of Lotze to philosophic thought, the only ultimate contribution, consists in' deepening that Idealism which he sought to overthrow." * As it may not be obvious to all readers what is intended by this Idealism and its opposite Eealism, I may add that Lotze's view of the two systems is explained in the small book of Logic (dictated lectures) to which I have already referred.f Mr. Jones's book shows his power of thought, and his comprehensive knowledge of modern philosophy, in its relation to Science. His language is also remarkably clear ; his book may perhaps help the readers of Lotze's works to understand better his system of thought. * Preface, page xii. t P*g6 236. ( 244 ) CHAPTEE XV. Eesult of the Eeteospect. Ix the introduction to this volume some general questions were indicated as presenting themselves to all who reflect on the principles of knowledge, duty, and faith. It has been my endeavour to place before my reader the means of answering these questions. I have not followed the usual course of histories of Philosophy by classifying different writers under the heads of Idealism subjective or objective, or Eealism simple or transfigured. I have rather endeavoured to indicate certain marked points in the course of thought ; from which we may now learn, or take warning, as to their bearing on the funda- mental truths of religion. Plato, as regards knowledge, taught that the human mind has some Ideal aspirations beyond what can be gained by sensible experience, Aristotle, on the other hand, laid the foundation of moral duty as a reality of experience which has endured to our day, and been reproduced in the solid teaching of our o^vn Bishop Butler. Some modem writers have endeavoured to base all know- ledge and duty on the same foundation as the science o^ KNOWLEDGE AND DUTY. 245 material nature; but, as Lotze said in his last writing,*^ "Psychology, even if we possessed it in perfection, can never be the foundation of our whole philosophy." f Lotze adds : " There appears to me no doubt that the analogy of experience is decisively in favour of the postu- late of intellectualism, in favour of the innate activity with which the mind acts upon external impressions and by which it produces the representations, and combina- tions of representations which constitute our thought about the world." J I have not, under the head of knowledge, discussed in detail the question, "what do we know about the reality of phenomena or appearances of which we are conscious?" This question enters into all systems of philosophy, whether idealist or realist. It may be stated as admitted now by leading writers that our knowledge of persons or things depends on our minds, as taking into account the relations of which we are conscious between things themselves, and between them and our conscious selves. As to faith, it was suggested in Chapter IX., on modern views of Theism, that faith is a spiritual response to Eevelation rather than an intellectual assent to arguments of the understanding. It may be well here to introduce a few quotations from the ' Thoughts on Eeligion ' by the late George Eomanes, • Article in the 'Contemporary Eevieiv' (January, 1880), on " Philosophy in the last Forty Years," headed as a first article. . Unhappily Lotze did not live to write the second article. t Page 146. t Page 143. 246 FAITH. edited by Canon Gore. Mr. Eomanes was well known for Ms elaborate work on Science — he gained a prize at Cambridge in 1872 for an essay on a Christian subject ; but it appears that in 1874 his devotion to Science as a follower of Darwin, and his intense desire for the dis- covery of truth in Nature and in history, led to a great change in his line of thought. "Already in 1876 he had written a work with a sceptical conclusion, ' a candid examination of Theism;'"* and for fifteen years he called himself a pure Agnostic ; but aU the time he was thinking of the relation between science and religion, and writing notes on this subject- It appears from his notes that modem Biblical criticism removed some of Eomanes' difi&culties about belief in the Bible. He became deeply impressed with the history of the life of Christ, as unparalleled by any record of a human life. At the same time he reflected on the meaning and foundation of Faith ; which he described in his notes in several passages, of which the two following extracts are samples : — " Faith in its religious sense is distinguished not only from opinion (or belief founded on reason alone) in that it contains a spiritual element ; it is rather distinguished from belief founded on the affections, by needing an active co-operation of the will. Thus aU parts of the human mind have to be involved in faith — intellect, emotions, will" f "It is a fact that Christian belief is much more * Canon Gore's Preface, page 9. f Page 131. CONCLUSIONS. 247 due to doing than to thinking, as prognosticated in the New Testament, 'If any man will do His wiU, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God"' (St. John vii. 17).* In the third volume of T. Hill Green's works, edited, with a Memoir, by Mr. Nettleship, is a Sermor^, or Address to his pupils, on Faith, in which he sh6ws that in the Gospels, and in the Epistles of St. Paul, Faith never appears in the sense often used now, of opposition or superiority to Eeason, both by theologians and men of science. "But we find the true or highest faith represented as that which by a purely spiritual act takes Christ, as the manifestation of God, into the soul without waiting for conviction by sensible sign." t "Faith is not an acceptance of revelation itself, it is the first stage of the revelation itself, of which love and knowledge are to be the completion." J Two Conclusions. Two conclusions I venture to suggest as the result of the retrospect. 1. In the search for knowledge, especially as regards practical action, the will acts with the intellect, and influences its conclusions. Thought is not a mere succession of impressions derived from nature, nor of states of consciousness within the mind ; but the act of a • Page 168. t Page 253. t Page 256. 248 CONCtUSIONS. responsible personal being, which should lead to faith in a personal God. In the words of T. H. Green, " the will is simply the man." * 2. We have seen that, according to some of the most powerful reasoners, pure logic does not enable us to draw conclusions with reference to spiritual realities (of which we can form but imperfect conceptions) without apparent incongruities, the reconciliation of which can only be given by faith. * ' Prolegomena to Ethics,' page 158. LIST OF BOOKS. At low prices. of Socrates.' F. J. Church, M.A. s. d. W. Grundy. ' Trial and Death Macmillan • Plato.' C. W. CoUins, M.A. Blackwood '. ' Aristotle.' Sir Alexander Grant. Blackwood ' Aristotelianism.' Rev. J. G. Smith and Rev. Christian Knowledge Society .... 'Leibniz.' Dr. Merz. Blackwood .... Dr. Merz, a pupil of Lotze, shows how Leibniz aimed at a spiritual harmony of all created beings and things, and anticipated in some degree the comprehensive riews of Lotze. ' Locke.' Professor Eraser. Blackwood ' Locke.' Professor Fowler. Macmillan ' Berkeley.' Professor Fraser. Blackwood ' Hume.' Professor Knight. Blackwood ' Hume.' Professor Huxley. Macmillan ' Kant.' Professor Wallace. Blackwood • Aids to Reflection.' S. T. Coleridge. Ward, Lock & Co. ' Scottish Philosophy.' Professor Seth. Blackwood This book may be recommended as giving in a small coin* pass an account of Modern Philosophy, beginning with Locke, with the sceptical consequences deduced by Hume, and the re-construotion of knowledge by Reid and Kant. Professor Iverach's 'Tracts on Herbert Spencer,' referred to in page 232. Religious Tract Society . . . each Lotze's ' Philosophy of Religion.' Dickinson, London Through whom may be obtained the other dictated Lectures, published by Ginn, Boston, U.S., about the same price. 3 6 2 6 3 6 3 6 2 6 3 6 2 5 4 2 6 I must add to the above list of books a hook of a different kind (which has been recently brought under my special notice), because it was delivered in the form of lectures to University Extension Classes, by Mr. Bosanquet. It is called the 'Essentials of Logic; or, Ten ' Lectures on Judgment and Inference.' The author begins with a metaphysical explanation of the relation between the ideas in the mind and the world built up in those ideas, as treated by the common-sense theory, and by subjective Idealism. He states that Psychology treats of the course of ideas and feelings ; and that Logic treats of the mental construction of Reality. Mr. S 250 LIST OF BOOKS. Bosanquet's system of Logic does not deal muoli with the Syllogism ; but rests on the Judgment, which I may, perhaps, venture to call a condensed proposition, in which subject, copula, and predicate are not set out in detaU. Judgment is the starting-point ; what follows is called Inference. I believe Mr. Bosanquet's doctrine of Logic Has much weight in Oxford, in connection with the Theory of Ejiowledge, which now, I am told, specially occupies the attention both of teachers and students in the University. There can be no doubt of the great ability of the author, but I think I may venture to say that the Old Formal Logic is not dead yet, if it is confined within its proper limits ; while modem science calls for difi'erent methods of thought, and inquiries into subjects unknown to Aristotle and. his successors for many ages. If I may venture to recommend to my readers besides the books on different stages of thought, one book which deals with the whole subject of Philosophy in a comprehensive manner, and also in a clear and interesting style, it is the work of Professor Trumbull Ladd, of Yale College, U.S., the translator of Lotze's Dictated Lectures. The name of this work is " Introduction to Philosophy, an inquiry into a rational system of scientific principles in their relation to ultimate reality." I may attempt to indicate the scope of the book as follows : Philosophy in one ix)int of view is an endeavour to answer the question, " What is Reality ? " and this not merely what is but what ought to ie. In another sense it is the science of, or rather the search for, rational knowledge. At any rate Philosophy is not a mere science, though it is affected more or less by the progress of the sciences. " Philosophy seeks a unity not only for the realities of thought, but also for the ideals of moral conduct, art, and the religious life." Consequently the Professor deals with the Theory of Knowledge, the Philosophy of Nature and of Mind, Ethics, or the Ideal of Conduct, Esthetics or Beauty, and the Supreme Ideal, the Philosophy of Religion. He reviews the works of typical writers both Ancient and Modem. The book is royal 8vo., pp. 428 ; publisher, Fisher Unwin. Price, 12s. LOXDOX : PEISTED ET WILLIAH CLOWES AKB SONS, IHOTED, STAMFOED STEEET AND CHAEIKG CROSS. Missing Page « j\\\ ,iS.-N ,^ *