CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library B1646.J63 E7 1920 Essays In common-sense philosophy, by C. olin 3 1924 029 046 840 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029046840 ESSAYS IN COMMON SENSE PHILOSOPHY ESSAYS IN COMMON-SENSE PHILOSOPHY BY C. E. M. JOAD Scholar of Balliol College^ Oxford* John Locke Scholar in Mental and Moral Philosophy at Oxford University* Author of " Robert Owen, Idealist" NEW YORK : HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC 1920. t\ A^"A\^\ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ----- 7 I. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF SENSIBLE OBJECTS - I3 II* MONISM IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENTS - - 47 ni. THE MEANING OF TRUTH - - " 79 yfC THE OBJECTIVITY OF THE CONCEPT OF BEAUTY - ^ - - - - 106 V* UNIVERSALS AS THE BASIS OF REALISM - I^I VI* COMMON SENSE AND THE THEORY OF THE STATE - - - - - "159 Vn» THOUGHT AND TEMPERAMENT - - 221 INTRODUCTION THE essays in this book are an attempt to present the cardinal points of a common sense philosophy. The quarrel between the " plain man " and the philosopher is of long landing. The " plain man " regards the philosopher as a spinner of academic sophiflries which have no relation to the world, as h&— the plain man — knows it, or as a ^udent in blinkers who overlooks the truth under his nose, and goes into the byways and hedges to find unintelligible evidence for his complicated theories of Reality, The philosopher regards the "plain man" as an unrefledling fool, shut up within the walls of his five senses, who refuses to admit the exigence of anything of which his superficial under^anding does not inform him, and who glibly uses words such as gdodness, beauty, truth and reality, without the vague:^ notion of the meanings he attaches to them« If the philosopher lights a torch to see the sunrise, the plain man sees the refledlions of a. half-penny dip and calls them the sun. The following essays are, I suppose, sufficiently philosophic to seem singularly like nonsense to the plain man. At the same time they are suffic- iently akin in spirit and conclusions to the plain man's view of the everyday world as we know it, to appear pedeiSlrian and unsatisfying to moil philosophers. The hi^ory of philosophy has been, on the whole, the hiilory of an attempt to synthesise and unify 8 Introduction the multitudinous confliding appearances of the world of sense into a correlated self-explanatory whole, which can preferably be regarded as the embodiment of a deliberate design and purpose* Philosophy has found a world of scattered bricks and has heroically tried to supply the mortar to fit them into a house* In the opinion of the writer this attempt has been on the whole a failure, and it has been a failure because Reality is not a synthesised organic whole, but simply a colle6lion or aggregate of different things without apparent design or flru(5ture* The world undoubtedly presents to the plain man such an appearance* It is possible, and to the writer it appears probable, that this appearance does not belie its real nature* If this is the true ^ate of the case a very great deal of the philosophy that has been written is beside the point* Philosophy becomes simpler if less sufficing, and the salient matters can be treated of more shortly and less ambitiously than mo^ philosophers have treated them* Much Philosophy has been little more than a clever essay in imperceptibly varying the meaning of well-known words* Once the meaning of im- portant words such as sensible objedls, truth, and beauty has been ascertained, or rather once we have determined in what resped it cannot be ascertained, our task is done* For we have not to represent a sy^em* There is no syiflem in the commonly accepted sense of Introduction 9 the word to present* We have only to flate what seems to us the truth about some of the mofl im- portant matters that philosophers have discussed* And this is the explanation of a question which might easily present itself to the reader of these essays, namely why in the world ju^ those par- ticular subjedls are discussed which are discussed, in^ead of and in preference to a number of others* Why for in^ance is there an essay on the meaning of truth and no essay on the meaning of causality i The answer, as suggeifled above, lies in the pre- sumption that if the world is not an interrelated teleological whole serving some definite end, if con- sciousness is not a uniquely significant phenomenon within it, the number of things to be ascertained and the number of remarks to be made both about the world and consciousness is considerably reduced* And as metaphysics consiiSs in the endeavour to ascertain the truth about the world, and logic in the endeavour to ascertain the truths about consciousness or human knowledge of the world, the scope both of logic and metaphysics becomes very largely confined to pointing out why the claims of philosophers to have found out important truths tending as a rule to indicate syiilem and purpose in the world and in our knowledge of it, are inadmissible claims* On the positive side there remain certain impor- tant que^ions about which something fairly definite muft and can be said, if only to juflify the assertion 10 Introduction that nothing more and nothing more definite can be said* These important que^ions seem to the writer to be the following* Firil, the nature of our knowledge of physical objeds, whether there are indeed physical objeds to be known^ and whether we can ever know more than our own knowledge about them* Secondly, the que^ion of the relations that appear to exi^ between these objecfls, and whether those relations are real or imaginary; whether in fad: the Universe is ultimately to be regarded as a perfed indivisible whole, or rather as a box containing many different and separate contents* Thirdly, the meaning of truth, the teift by which our knowledge is to be judged. Fourthly, the nature of beauty and of aeShetic enjoyment* Fifthly, the nature of those entities other than physical objedls that have their place in the con- flitution of the Universe, entities variously called concepts, universals, and forms, and the nature of out knowledge of these entities* I have also attempted to apply what I would call the common sense method in philosophy to current theories as to the natture of the State, with the objedl of discrediting that German theory of the State which idealises the entity called the State at the expense of other associations* The final essay discusses the extent to which our thought and knowledge is free, how far our Introduction ii reasons operate unchecked according to their own hvfs, and how far they are slaves to the re^ of the man, being given us only to enable us to invent plausible theories, excuses and ju^ifications for what we in^n(flively wish to do« It is not pretended for one moment that even on the writer's premises the above comprise all the subje<3s about which something of importance can be said. They present however the salient features of a philosophy of which the main fundlion seems to be to throw doubt on the conclusions of others. The New Realism I am afraid seems a pedeflrian and commonplace affair enough after the ambitious edifices reared by the Ideali^ syi^ems againi^ which it is very largely a readion. In attempting to square with the fa(5ls and to give countenance to the beliefs of common sense, it loses much of the dignity and comprehensiveness of other philosophies, and is termed unphilosophicah And there is no doubt that it has taken much of the buffing out of philosophy ; it confines it in scope and fun£lipn, it regards many of the problems it has attempted and even claimed to solve as insoluble,at any rate by philosophy ; it even reiftridls the number of que^ons about which philosophy may claim to have a say. As a consequence it is regarded by adherents of the old syilems as at-be^ devoid of intere^, and at woriSt as something of a traitor to the cause* 1 2 Introduction PhUosophy has a hard time enough of it in these days, when men tumble over each other in their admiration for its old enemy science, and that philosophers themselves should belittle the im- portance and reflridl the fundlions of philosophy, seems like treachery within the gates. But philosophy is, after all, only one of the means by which we seek for truth, and truth is more important than the manner of our search of it. If therefore we come to the conclusion that the road which has been followed by moil philosophers is not the road which we should follow, our defedlion mufl be regarded not so much as an affront to philosophy, but rather as one more sacrifice on that altar of truth which philosophy herself professes to serve. Chapter L OUR KNOWLEDGE OF SENSIBLE OBJECTS BY sensible objedls I mean the common objedls of the every day world, tables, chairs, eggs, roses, etc*, which the plain man believes to exi^, and with which he believes himself to be acquainted by means of his five senses* Many philosophers, perhaps the majority, have doubted whether such objedls can be said to exi^ at all except as affedlions of mind, or at leail of some divine mind* Pradlically all philosophers have believed that even if such obje(fts can be said to exist independently of any mind, and to be non-mental in ^rudlure, we can nevertheless have no knowledge of them as th^y really are : we know in fafl: only their appearances, and their appearances may be quite different from the real nature of the objedl* A few philosophers, in- cluding those who are called the '* New Reali^s " believe that these objedls exiil independently of us^and that we know their nature approximately as it really is. I propose in this essay to iSate what appear to me to be the main alternatives in regard to the problem of our knowledge of external objedls, and to indicate certain arguments in favour of the view that sensible objedls cxiit independently and that the knowledge of them given by our senses is not illusory ; that they exifl in fadl very much as we know them* 14 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy The views which philosophers • have taken of this problem appear to be reducible to three main attitudes^ commonly known as Representationalism, Subjective Idealism^ and Realism* Innumerable modifications of these views exiii, but all these modifications appear to me on analysis to reduce themselves to one or other of these three main theories* It v/ill be convenient to examine each of these theories separately* L Representationalism is a view prominently advocated in the Philosophy of Descartes* Locke also was a representationaliiSl ; and I shall try to show later that the views of such different philo- sophers as Bradley, Lot^e and Stout, all resolve themselves into forms of this supposedly outworn and discredited theory as regards their attitude to our knowledge of sensible objedls* The theory of Representationalism is based upon a certain psychological theory of sensation* From objecfls which are perceived there emanate modes of energy, called in the language of modem scienti^s, transverse vibratory motions propa- gated longitudinally, or eleflro-magnetic waves; these impinge upon the optical nerve and through it imprint upon the brain a pidlure or image of the objedl causing the waves. The mind, which is passive throughout the whole process, perceives these pidtures or images Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 15 thrown as it were upon a bright screen in a dark room, and it is these images which form the subjedt matter of all sensory knowledge. Each of these images, which are commonly called ideas, is di^indl and isolated* " All our di^indl perceptions are di^indl exigences, among which the mind never per- ceives any real connedlion,'^ said Hume, who also believed in this psychological account of the machinery of sensation* Now it is to be noted that this theory of per- ception involves three dirndl entities : The knowing mind (A), the idea or image known (B), and the physical obje<5l which is regarded as being the cause of the idea or image (C)* (A) knows (B), but does not, and never can know (C)* Now although (A) cannot know (C), mo^ representationaliiis agree in regarding (C) as like (B). Descartes believed in what he calls " the agree- ment of our ideas with reality " apparently on the ground that the truftworthiness of God warrants our believing in the exigence of what we clearly conceive, and we conceive an apple to be like our idea of an apple. Locke regarded our ideas as more or less exadt copies of the things to which they refer, the world of ideas con^ituting a body of representations of real things* The defedl of this view is obvious* All Representation^li^ theories have this in common, that they conceive of a third entity, a 1 6 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy tertium quid as it is called, intervening between the knowing mind and the physical objedl* What is known is never the physical objeft but always the idea or image. But if we do not know the physical obje(S we do not know anything about it* We do not know its attributes, its qualities or its powers* We do not know that it has the quality of being like the image, or even the power of causing the image, and we can only assume that it exi^ : we cannot know this* Berkeley saw this clearly* " How can we possibly know,'' he asked, " whether our ideas agree with what ex hypothesi cannot be known at all ^ " Locke himself, although maintaining at times that physical objects were like ideas, felt there was a^flaw somewhere, and evolved his idea of " sub- ^ance," which by bowdlerising the world of objedts of all knowable qualities, made his view that the mind can never know them less improbable. According to this view, all secondary qualities, such as colour and heat, are Gripped from the physical world, and all that we are left with is some support or sub^ratum to the qualities in the objed which produce ideas in us* We can never know what this support is, and it mu^ of necessity be featureless, being " the same everywhere," but Locke conceives that we are driven logically to the assumption that it mu^ exiil. As a matter of fadl we are driven logically Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 17 to no such assumption* It is a cunning move fir^ to ^ip matter of all sensible qualities and then to say that it mu^ exi^ as pure extension* It is interei^ng to note that Descartes took the same ,view* " Nothing remains/' he says> " in the idea of body except that it is something extended in length, breadth and depth ; and this something is comprised in our idea of space, not only of that which is full of body, but even of what is called void space/' But as we can never know sub^ance or body, we have no right to assume that it exifls as pure extension* Our ideas might just as well be self- created, or spring from God, as be caused by an unknown and unknowable matter, and the logical outcome of the atomi^ic psychology is the complete destruction of the world of physical obje(fls and the adoption of subjeftive idealism* Thus all representationali^ theories in positing the exiflence of a terttum quid between the mind and the physical world, make an unwarrantable assumption in assuming that there is a physical world at all* And yet the number of philosophical theories which make this assumption at some flage or other in their explanation of perception is surprising* Before considering the more modern theories which appear to reduce themselves to the Repre- sentationali^ type, we mu^ briefly consider the logical alternative to it, namely, Subjedlive Idealism* 1 8 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy IL Subjedtive Idealism is the logical development of Representationalism* Locke left on the scene three entities, knowing mind, ideas known, and sub^ance or matter as the physical support or sub^atum of the qualities causing the ideas* Berkeley perceived, as we saw above, that as the third entity could not be known there was no reason to suppose that it exited. Matter is therefore abolished in his philosophy^ and we are left only with the knowing mind, and the idea known* The position is familiar enough. We experience only our own ideas* We have* therefore, no ground for supposing either that our ideas are caused by a material world, or that they exifl when we are not perceiving them. " For can there be a nicer strain of abilra<5lion," says Berkeley, *' than to di^inguish the exiilence of sensible obje<5ls from their being perceived, so as to conceive their exiffing unperceived/^ From which it is but a step to the famous con- clusion, " That all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which com- prise the mighty frame of the world have not any subilance without a mind— that their being is to be perceived or known*" If we ilart from the atomize psychology described above this conclusion is logically in- evitable* It is, moreover, irrefutable* As set forth by Berkeley, however, it has two weak spots* He does not believe that the ideas Oar Knowledge of Sensible Objects 19 cease to exi£t when we cease to perceive them. They continue to exifl because they are ^11 known by mind, though not by our minds* They are known by the mind of God, who puts them into our minds* How does Berkeley arrive at God S* We have no experience of God, and no idea of Him* There- fore we can only know God a priorL But this conclusion is logically inadmissible on Berkeley's premiss which is that we can only know what we experience* Similarly, with the self, Berkeley assumes that it is the same " I " which at different times knows different ideas* But we do not experience any idea of the continuity of self* Therefore the self also is known a priorL Berkeley says that we have a " notion " of the self* The " notion " is not an idea but an inference from ideas* But Berkeley started with the assumption that we know only our own ideas* One more flep, therefore, was required to carry the position to its logical conclusion* This was taken by Hume* Berkeley knocked out Locke's sub^ance or matter* Hume knocked out Berkeley's two illogical populates, namely, God and The Self* We are then left with known ideas only, con- tinually flowing modifications of a discontinuous consciousness, and we come to Solipsism or the belief that an individual's given psychical iftate is the only thing that exi^s in the Universe* Like all extreme theories this has a gratifying 20 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy simplicity and on the psychological premises from which it ^arts is logically irrefutable* There is, however, not the slighted reason to suppose it to be true* Again^ it may be urged the fundamental axiom of the reali^ position that the " adl of knowing necessarily involves an objecft to be known, which is other than the knowing of it*" I will, however, return to this point when I come to consider what I have called the Realifl alternative to the above position* III* It has been said above that pracflically all the theories which have been advanced as to the nature of our knowledge of sensible objedts reduce themselves to one of the three main types of Representationalism, Subjedlive Idealism, or Realism* This may appear to be a somewhat extreme flatement* I believe, however, that a very large proportion of modern Ideali^ theories exhibit on analysis the fundamental Representationaliift or tertium quid attitude, that Representationalism dogs the foot^eps of psychologies like Mr* Stout, and that the Pragmatical Bergsonian view of perception founded upon the new psychological view of sensation as a continuum which in William James* writings supersedes the psychological atomism of Hume and Berkeley is also tainted with Representationalism* Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 21 The typical attitude of the modern Ideali^ with regard to perception is admirably expressed by Lot^e, " The entire flow of sense presentations/' says Lot^e, " is an inner occurrence in our mind, and all sound and brightness are forms of the appear- ance under which we are conscious of the effedls of ^imuli quite otherwise con^ituted/* Now by sense presentations Lot^e meant what is before the mind in the a£t of knowing or perceiv- ing* The machinery of perception involves for him in the fir^ place an excitation of the nervous sy^em by presumably external ^muli, followed by an impression produced by this excitation upon the souh This impression upon the soul becomes or is identical with, I am never quite sure which, a mental ^ate, which is, or becomes in the long run, the mental adlivity which we call perceiving* The mind, however, never knows or perceives the presumably external £iimulu The " appearances*' which form the subjedl matter of knowledge are the excitations of the nervous sy^em* This is Representationalism unblushing* Once again we have the three entities, knowing mind (A), excitation of nervous syiftem which is known, (B) ; and ^imuli which cause excitation, but which are not known, (C)* But, as before, if we cannot know (C), how can we know that (C) causes (B), or indeed that (C) exiiSs at all S* ♦ ♦ * Consider the views of a later representative of this school* 23 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy It is an admitted fa<5t that we think we perceive books, and the more we consider a book the fuller does our knowledge of the book perceived appear to us to become* For Mr* Joachim, however, ** The more adequate knowledge of a book is not an accu- mulation of judgments of perception, but a revo- lution in which the book is swept away, and determinate connedlions between determinate universal concepts are subiftituted*'' This may be so* I do not wish to deny the truth of this flatement, but if it is so, then it does not appear that the reality which is assumed to underlie the book is ever perceived by the senses* Once more we have three entities* Knowing mind (A), certain sensations which appear to us to be those caused by a book, and are known (B), and determinate connections between determinate universal which underlie and are the cause of these sensations (C)* But if we perceive (B) by means of the senses, knowing (B) to be illusory and never perceive (C), but infer its exigence by a priori reasoning, how are we to link on (C) to (B), and how in particular are we to know that the supposed reality (C) causes the appearance (B) $* This difficulty appears to me to be involved in all Moni^ic theories of perception* According to these theories, according to Mr* Bradley's view, for in^ance, the appearances of things that are known to us through the senses, Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 23 are as different as they can be from the Reality which underlies and causes them* This reality is in point of fadl always one and the same, namely the Absolute, but we have no diredl knowledge of the Absolute* We know it partially, inferring itsexiflence and nature by means of logical reason- ing* But if we do not know the Absolute, how do we know that the objedts presented to sense are appearances of it ?* When we assume the exiiftence of the Absolute, we assume among other things, that it has the power of causing the ap- pearances with which we are acquainted by means of our senses* But this mu^ remain an assumption, ju^ as Locke's '*subiftance"remained an assumption, while the Absolute is unknown or only partially known, and the Absolute is, in point of fadl, only dragged in, because the appearances presented to the senses, being regarded as illusory, cannot therefore exiit in their own right, and require a substratum or support in some unknown Reality in order that the otherwise inexplicable fa6l of their being presented to us may be explained* We experience never the Absolute but always its appearances* Until, however, we know the nature of the latter we cannot know that it has the quality of causing the appearances which we experience* Let us now turn to an entirely different account of perception, that given by Mr* Stout* Mr* Stout's account of perception as given in the Third Edition of the Manual, is briefly as follows : The physical objects of sense as we know them 24 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy appear to be di^inguished by qualitative differ- ences* That is to say coal and cream appear to us to be diflinguished among other things by the fa<5t that the coal is black and the cream whitCt Mr* Stout believes that the objedls in que^ion are in fa6l di^inguished by these qualitative differences of colour, i.e., that the coal is black and the cream white> but that the blackness and whiteness of these objedls is not identical with the blackness and whiteness perceived by us* The blackness inherent in coal in fadl, Mr* Stout calls a ** sensible quality." The quality of blackness we perceive when wedlock at the coal, is called a " sensation*" This dis- tin it is obvious that a red rose which we will call R, will appear in different ways to an arti^, a botaniil, and a colour-blind person* Those different appearances we will call ri, ra, and r3* Now these different appearances are brought into being by the fa6l that we discriminate from the presented whole, and emphasise certain features at the expense of others* Thus ri will contain only a certain percentage of all the attributes of the presented rose R, and r3 will present a different percentage* ri and ra therefore become that part of the presented whole which is adtually perceived ; the percentage of attributes perceived forms the con- tent apprehended, and this forms a contr^^ with the complete content of the physical objedt from which we have seledled* This does not mean that ri, r2> and r3 exi£i independently of being per- ceived* R exists independently of the adl of perception, but ri, r^, and r3 are seledlions from R, which are only called into being by that aft* Thus we never sense reality completely, but are always direftly in touch with a seledled part of it* The way in which we make this discrimination or seledlion, which coniftitutes a large part of the aftive fundlion of the mind in perception, depends upon our general mental make up* As a rule, we seledl, as the psychologic would say, according to syiftems which intereC the perceiver* Differ- ences of mind, of bodily equipment, and above 33 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy all, of inteteSi, will condition the kind of r which we shall carve out from the whole R» This difference of " direflion of attention " accounts for what are sometimes called the different appearances which the same objetfl exhibits to different persons. As regards (3) it would seem that the peculiar function which mind possesses of going out beyond the adlual data of the given is called into play in pradlically all adls of perception. That portion of Reality of which our senses make us diredlly aware in perception is small, ** Psycholo- gies have made us aware," says Mr, Russell, " that much of what at firfl sight seems to be given is really inferred," Thus when we think we see a table, we may in reality see diredlly only two legs and the surface of one horizontal plank of wood without actually per- ceiving the place where they join. We do not see the other two legs, and we do not see the imder- side of the table, but from the incomplete portion which we do see we con^rucft the whole table. It is the business of Mind, however, to go out beyond these fragmentary appearances known to the senses, in which alone we are diredlly in touch with Reality, and to^ piece them together so that a complete physical objedl emerges as the result. We get a discontinuous and fragmentary view of Reality in all perception, but by seledting from the given whole those aspects that intere^ us, and at the same time synthesising and piecing to- Our KnovAedge of Sensible Objects 33 gether the aspefls seledted^ we contract what is to form the content of our consciousness for our- selves, a content which is not other in sub^ance than the content of Reality, but seledled from it and, it may be, arranged differently. In this sense it is true that all perception involves an element of judgment : there is in fadl, no such thing as pure awareness of the given. In all perception we go beyond what we actually per- ceive, and it is in this adtivity of going out beyond it, that we provide an opportunity for the operation of what is called judgment* When we are aware, for in^ance, of a patch of red colour, a noise of crackling and a sensation of warmth, we judge that these sensations together indicate a fire, and we say that we perceive a fire. Now it is this element of judgment in perception involving the synthesis of the fragmentary seledled appearance of physical objects that accounts for the phenomenon of error* It has commonly been urged again^ Reali^ views of perception that their machinery does not admit of the possibility of Error, The New Realism has perhaps in its anxiety to avoid attributing too much to mental con- §ts\x&xon, over-emphasised the passive attitude of the mind in perception. Mind has rightly been regarded as diredlly in touch with the given Reality, but it has also been assumed that the only fundlion of mind was to become aware of or to know the given. Mind 34 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy could not create for itself, and the be^ informed mind was that which knew mo^ of the Reality spread before it. How then does it come about that mind makes mi^akes $' Clearly mind cannot know what is not there> and if its only fundlion is to know what is there, it cannot create error for itself* Whence then does error come 5* It is essential, if we are to account for the possi- bility of error to credit the mind in perception with some acflive fundtion, which it may perform wrongly. It may perform this fundlion when, in going out beyond the adlual given in perception as described above, it puts together various frag- mentary data into a completed objeft which is not warranted by the data, or which is warranted nine times out of ten, and is lacking in the tenth* The peculiar feature of error seems to be, that sense data which are taken by mind to indicate a certain kind of physical objedl, adl as cheats and in point of fa6l signify a different objefl* This is seen mo^ clearly in cases where sense data are deliberately made to aft as cheats, as for in^ance for the purpose of deceiving the mind of an opponent in a game* Thus at tennis the flight of the ball is commonly taken by the receiver to afford an indication of the way in which it will bounce* Mind, in fad, con^rudls in advance the bounce of the ball from the sense data afforded by its flight* There comes an occasion, however, in which the server, by Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 35 imparting a screw to the ball, causes the same flight to produce a different result, whereby the mind falls into error through ju^ this adlivity of going out beyond the sense data afforded by the given and making a false coniftrudtion from them* Turning to an examination of other Realiil views of perception, we shall see that the difficulty of accounting for error has always dogged their foot- ifteps* This difficulty has been brought as an objedlion againift Mr* Russell's famous view of knowledge by acquaintance, to a consideration of which I will now proceed as a possible alter- native to the view advocated above* This theory owes its celebrity as the be^- known of all the New RealiiS theories largely to the extreme simplicity and coherence of the account it gives of perception* Mr* Russell is sceptical as to the exigence of sensible objedls as we know them* " I think it muil be admitted," he says, " as probable that the immediate objeds of sense depend for their exiiSence upon physiological conditions in our- selves, and that, for example, the coloured surfaces which we see cease to exifl when we shut our eyes*" All we may legitimately assume to exi^ are what Mr* Russell calls the hard sense data, which are the immediate objefls of sensation* " When I speak of the sensible objedl," says Mr* Russell, ** it 36 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy mu^ be underilood that I do not mean such a thing as a table, which is both visible and tangible, can be seen by many people at once, and is more or less permanent* What I mean is ju^ that patch of colour which is momentarily seen when we look at the table, ju^ that particular hardness which is felt when we press it, or ju^ that particu- lar sound which is heard when we rap it* Each of these I call a sensible objedl and our aware- ness of it a sensation*" This being so, one wonders what right Mr* Russell has to speak of the table at all* The table appears not to be perceived, but to be inferred from the exigence of the sense data on some a priori principle* Mr* Russell ilates somewhere as an axiom that " our sense data have causes, other than themselves," but such a ^atement is scarcely sufficient on Mr* Russell's premises, by itself, to warrant our speaking of all the familiar objedsof the world as if they exited, especially as Mr* Russell warns us againfl the acceptance of any but purely empirical knowledge when we en- deavour to describe the machinery of sensation* (See " Our Knowledge of the External World," by the Hon* Bertrand Russell* Lecfture III*) Is it true, moreover, either that we do perceive these isolated sense data such as rays, and patches of colour, or that they exiSt by themselves as objedts of sense independently of the mind that perceives them i Let us consider these que^ions separately* Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 37 Is it true then in the firit place that in per- ception we perceive not tables, roses and elecflric bells, but patches of colour, particles of smell and sound vibrations ^ Take the case of the table* It is true that, as Mr* Russell says, in walking round a table we do see successive patches of colour which are continually changing, but we see other things as well* We see the shape of the table, we see two at le^ift of its legs, we see the oblong top, and so on, we get in fadl a partial and incomplete view of the whole, upon which the mind operates, inferring the unseen parts of the table from the seen and so conilrudting the whole in the manner described above. This appears even more clearly in the case of sound* When a note is ^ruck on the piano it is not a full account of one*s sensations to say simply that we are aware of a sound vibration : we are aware of the whole note* We may hear it badly and in- accurately, or we may hear it out of tune, and different people may hear it in different ways, but these differences depend upon psychological conditions in ourselves* The important point is that it is always the note itself that is heard as a whole, not a few vibrations arbitrarily selecfled from the whole body of sound waves which con- flitute the note, and the note being recognised as a whole which is different from other wholes, is charadterised by a certain name*^ If, as a matter of fadl, the things we do perceive, however im- perfedly,. were not physical objedls, but were, as 38 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy Mr, Russell would have us believe, raps of sound, patches of colour, and other isolated data, it is a little difficult to underhand why-we should think we see tables and hear notes* Even if we agree with Mr* Russell that such data muil have causes other than themselves, why if we never know these causes should we all mentally conftrudl the same obj edls without apparent provocation and then call them causes S* These sense data, according to Mr* Russell, exi^ ob- jedtively : they form a world which we know as it exifls, and which, diredlly we become acquainted with it, we proceed, in Professor Dawes Hicks' words, " for some inexplicable reason to convert into another*" The theory appears in fatSl to be another form of Representationalism* We have the knowing mind (A), the sense data, patches of colour, raps of sound, etc*, (B), which are known, and a third class of entities, (C), which are inferred to exi^ on the principle that our sense data mtx^ have causes other than themselves which are conceived of as the chairs, tables, notes and smells of the everyday world* But as we know always, (B), and not (C), how can we know either that (C) exifls, or that (C) is the cause of (B) f Professor Dawes Hicks passes what appears to be a jufl criticism on this view, when he derives it from the " natural illusion to which analytic treat- ment of experience is always liable*" Experience, Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 39 as we know it, tells us of the exigence of chairs, tables and other physical objedls* We can by analysis split up our experience into a number of different items, among which we can di^inguish the patches of colour, raps of sound, etc*, which form Mr* Russell's sense data* This does not necessarily mean that our experience was built up as an hi^orical process, by putting together these items, or that the patches of colour, etc*, which analysis reveals exi^ as separately exigent, com- ponent parts of the total sum which is known* The fadl that we can multiply together the fadtors 3 and 8 and arrive at a total of 34, which can also be split up into fadlors of 6 and 4, does not neces- sarily mean that we were ever separately aware of the facflors 6 and 4, or that they figured in the process by which we arrived at the produdl: 24* In the words of a recent writer : " It is almoil a universal belief among psychologies that the child experiences colour,., hears sounds, feels pressure long before he sees balls, hears voices or feels solid objedts*" Mr* RusseU's view puts the cart before the horse* Our firift perception of an objedl may be blurred, indiflindl, and misleading, but we do perceive however incompletely, the whole objedl* It is only afterwards when we ^analyse it or try to describe it, that we can split the total " perception " into the various sense data which go to make it up* We do not perceive the sense data seriatim, add them together, and then 40 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy hail the total, Le., the table, as a gratifying produd of mental arithmetic* Secondly, have the sense data which Mr, Russell recognises as the immediate obje<5ls of perception an independent exigence i All objefls known to sense have for Mr, Russell an equal degree of reality, " There are no such things," he says, " as * illusions of sense/ Objefts of sense even when they occur in dreams are the moSt undoubtedly real objedls known to us ♦ • ,J in themselves they are every bit as real as the objedts of waking life/* The hardihood necessary for the following of Mr, Russell into this extreme of Realism has proved beyond the present writer. Here we have a ^atement which is tantamount to an assertion that all the appearances a thing can possibly have, possess an equal degree of reality ; that the shape of a penny, for in^ance, inasmuch as it more often appears to us to be elliptical than round, is really as much an ellipse as a circle, in fact more so. Furthermore, if Mr, Russell means by an " objeft " what is usually meant by the word, namely, a concrete entity which continues to exiS whether we are perceiving it or not, we are driven to the conclusion that the three-headed dragon of our dreams possesses an exigence in his own right, and continues to txi£l interminably when once we have dreamt of him, and that the snow which we perceive to be blue when we put on blue spe Moore> for some reason which it is rather difficult to underhand, calls Mr* Russell's sense data " sensations*" In a paper recently read before the Ariflotelian Society, Dr* Moore took the line that what he calls " presented sensations " cannot be shown to be a£fe<5lions of the mind, unless it can also be shown that they only exifl while they have the relation of being presented to the mind, unless it can be proved in fadt that the assertion that they cease to have this relation is equivalent to the assertion that they have ceased to exi£i^ Dr* Moore asserts that he has never been able to elicit such a proof from those who do regard " sensations " as affedlions of the mind, and proceeds to adduce one or two considerations tend- ing to show that it is quite within the bounds of possibility, to put it at its milde^, that such sensations do continue to exi^ when they have ceased to be presented* He takes the following illustration* "If I am watching a firework display I can aflually see a given localised visual sensation — ^the sensation of a spark from a bomb, for ini^ncc,— come into exigence and then cease to exiSt, and in such cases I know not only that the sensation in que^ion has ceased to be presented, but also that it has ceased to exi^*" In other cases, however, the cessation of the presentation may be due, not to the extindion of Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 43 the spark, but to my turning away my head* Dn Moore argues thait there is clearly a difference between these two classes of cases, and that in the latter we have no right to say that the sensation ceases to exiit, because it has ceased to be presented* Therefore we do not know that it is an aifedlion of the mind* Therefore it may exifl independently, just as Mr* RusselFs patches of colour and raps of sound may exi^ independently* It appears to me that it is impossible to say whether we agree with Dr* Moore or not, until we know what he means by " presented sensations*" I, for one, cannot underhand the meaning which he appears to ascribe to the term throughout his paper* Thus in the inflance quoted above, Dr* Moore speaks of seeing the sensation of a spark, and it is clear that he is using the word in a similar sense throughout* But it is at once a misuse of language and a pitfall in philosophy to talk about seeing the sensation of a spark* We see a spark, and the a6l of seeing or sensing it con^itutes the sensation* I do not believe, however, that Dr* Moore^s " sensations " exiil at all, in the commonly accepted sense of the word sensations* If they do, they are simply in the way* We have in fadl come back to Representationalism again* There is the adl of seeing (A), the sensation of a spark seen, (B), and the spark which presumably causes the sensation (C)* But if we see always (B) and 44 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy never (C), how can we know that (C) exi£is at all, or even that it causes (B) i The " sensation " of the objedl which we are said to see only differs from the " ideas " and images (the tertium quid of Locke and Berkeley) in this, that Dr» Moore is inclined to endow it with ob- je6live exiiilence apart from the mind to which it is presented* If, however, mind in perception came into contadl with a world of " sensations " which exifl (Dr* Moore is not sure of this, but sees no reason to suppose that they do not exifl) both before and after they have been presented, what conceivable reason can it have for transforming this world into another world, namely the world of physical objedls i Dr* Moore believes, I imagine, that the spark exifls as well as the sensation of it, but the spark might jufl as well be a mental invention for all the empirical evidence we have of its exiilence* For my own part I find it very difficult to believe that our sensations do exi^ after we have ceased to experience them. A sensation is physiologically speaking a dis- turbance of the nerves, and it seems absurd to suppose that our nerves are disturbed before we are brought into contadt with the obje<5t that diflurbs them, or that the diflurbance continues to exi^ in its own right after the contadl has ceased* If, however, Dr* Moore is using sensation in the much less usual, and rather misleading sense of Our Knowledge of Sensible Objects 45 that part or aspedl of the objedl which is actually before the mind in perception^ it becomes equiv- alent to Mr* RusseH's " patch of colour " or " r^p of sound/* and we have to suppose that the patch of colour seen when I look at the table is a separate entity exiting independently both of myself and the table, since it is very doubtful whether the table exifls at all, and in any case " all objedls known to sense have an equal degree of Reality/* To avoid peopling the world with permanent hoiSs of exi^ential entities, call them sensations, raps, patches, or what you will, every time one of my senses fundlions, of which the only objedl is to come between me and the physical world, I prefer to think with Professor Dawes Hicks that in per- ception only two fadlors are involved, these fadlors being the knowing mind, (A), and the presented objedt, (C)* I fail to see any warrant for assuming the exigence of an intermediate exigence (B), whether it be called " idea," as by Locke and Berkeley, " sensible quality," as by Stout, ** sense datum," meaning patch of colour or rap of sound as by Mr* Russell, or ** presented sensation " as by Dr. Moore. Such an intermediate entity can only serve the purpose of intervening between the mind and Reality, and preventing our having any diredl knowledge of the latter, any knowledge of Reality at all, that is to say, except what is arrived at by inference. I prefer to think that we are in perception in contadt with Reality itself, that 46 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy the divergent perceptions of the same objeft which are experienced by different people and by one person at different times, are due to the varying contents of the same whole to which we diredl our attention* That these contents are part of the whole content presented, and are arrived at by the pro- cesses of selection and discrimination on the part of the percipient being called, as it were, into exigence in their own right, simply by our a6l of perceiving them* That these contents have no independent exigence apart from their being perceived, but that the whole objedl from which the seledlion is made has such an indepen- dent exigence ; that it is the peculiar fundlion of mind to know in this way things other than itself, a function which is unanalysable and, if you like, inexplicable, and that error and illusion creep in through the tendency of mind continually to go out beyond and to piece together the fragmentary views of Reality given by the senses* Chapter IL MONISM IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PHILOSOPHY L MONISM seems to have gone out of fashion* Certainly, since Mr* Bradley published Appearance and^ Reality, the Absolute has not loomed so large as heretofore in philosophical discussion* Under the influence of M* Bergson and the New Reali^s, the centre of philosophical interei^tseems rather to have moved away from and beyond that queiSion which fifteen years ago occu- pied the chief place on the flage, the que^on of the contending merits of Monism and Pluralism, a que^ion which seems not so much to have received final adjudication in favour of one side or the other, as to have \oSt intereiit and faded into the background* When I say loifl " interefl," I am referring only to the peculiar form in which the controversy then presented itself* The funda- mental points in dispute are ^ill in dispute ; and the New Realifls wage war on Monism in all its forms* Only the clear-cutness of the old issue seems to have become blurred, and in particular Monism in the old sense of the word seems to have loift in repute* It is the objed of this essay to sketch some of the chief lines of argument which in quite recent years have led to what I might call the deposition of Monism from its enthronement on the philosophical chair, and to consider the chief alternative sugge^ed* 48 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy For if the reconciliation between Philosophy and common sense is not to be irretrievably endangered. Monism must be denounced* The lines of attack which occur to one as having most endangered the Moniflic ^onghold in recent times, are those initiated by William James and the Pragmatics, and by Mr* Russell and the New RealiCs* The characfler of the former is familiar, and may be traced briefly and without detail* The latter is to my mind more significant, and has not yet received the full attention it deserves* When I said that Monism had loil in repute, I did not, of course, mean to imply that its influence is not extensive* On the contrary, it is paramount in Oxford and may £011 be termed the orthodox philosophy in the Scottish Universities* It does appear, however, that a real contra^ is presented between the position of Monism to-day, and that indicated a do2;en years ago, by the follow- ing quotation from Professor Henry Jones, cited by William James, as evidence of the exigence of foemen worthy of his SteeL ** It is hardly to be denied that the power exercised by Bentham and the Utilitarian School has, for better or for worse, passed into the hands of the Idealists* * The Rhine has flowed into the Thames * is a warning note rung out by Mr* Hobhouse* Carlyle intro- duced it, bringing it as far as Chelsea* Then Jowett, Thomas Hill Greene, and William Wallace, Lewis Nettleship, Arnold Toynbee, and David Ritchie, to mention only those teachers whose Monism and Recent Developments 49 voices now are silent, guided its waters into those upper reaches known locally as the Isis* John and Edward Caird brought them up the Clyde, Hutchinson Stirling up the Firth of Forth* They have passed up the Mersey, Severn, Dee, and Don, They pollute the Bay of St, Andrews and swell the waters of the Cam, and have somehow crept overland into Birmingham, The ^ream of German idealism has been diffused over the academical world of Great Britain* The disaster is universal. " Such was the weight of authority William James set himself to challenge. The Moni^ic docftrine as he conceived it was grounded on a combination of four main presuppositions, I call them presuppos- itions because, although they are cardinal points in the finished ^rudure, they indicate at the same time the lines of reasoning which originally led men to a belief in the Absolute and the points of vantage from which its ascent appears lea^ difficult. They are : (i) That things cannot interact if they are in any sense separate ; (2) That knowledge is impossible between two things which are in any sense separate : and that in consequence there is no independence of being apart from being known j (3) A belief that truth is coherent ; and (4) the belief that mind can only cognise the mental and, therefore, that the Real is mental. The demon- ilrations of (i) and (2) are briefly as follows, (i) is Lot2e*s famous proof of Monism, To a6l, says Lotse, is to exert an influence. If, therefore. 50 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy (A) and (B) are two obje6ls,(A's) interadtion with (B) becomes the influence exercised by (A) over (B)* This involves the influence on (B) of the influence exercised by (A) over (B)^ which involves the further influence of the influence of the influence of (A) over (B), and so on ad infinitum. So that if (A) and (B) were really separate to begin with, an infinite regress of influences looms between them before any change in (B) can take place* Therefore, they were not separate to begin with* Further, the faft that the chain of influences exercised by (A) hits upon (B), and not upon (C), involves the supposition that (B) was somehow more fitted to receive them than (C)* This fitness is interpreted as some kind of kinship with (A) ; and the facfl: that the influences produce a change in (B) implies a response on (B's) part which can be interpreted as sensitiveness to the influences of (A)* Instead, therefore, of (B) isolated and different from (A), we now have (B) exhibiting kinship to (A) and sensitiveness to its influences in advance^ before interaction can be supposed possible* Original connection is thus inferred* (3) This is one of Professor Royce*s proofs that the only alternative to the complete disunion of things between which knowledge is impossible, is their complete union in the one* (I am here giving only the general drift of the argument The illu^rations are not Professor Royce*s)* Knowledge, he argues, is impossible if things are separate* For consider the sentence, " The cat Monism and Recent Developments 51 smells fish*" If the cat and the fish are originally independent^ the smelling of the cat coniftitutes a connexion between them* A third connexion between this connedtion and the fish is thereby involved, and we have an infinite regress as before* Further, if the fish and the cat exiiSed entirely independently and without foreknowledge of each other, it would never be possible for the cat to transcend the space of pure otherness between them and come at the fish* If each being is isolated to begin with, each is shut up entirely in its own isolation and is unable to pass beyond it in the sense that having knowledge of something else requires. Some intimacy muift already e.xi£t between them in virtue of which the cat can know the fish, and this intimacy is due to the fadt that they both partake of and are known by a higher mind* (3) The view that truth is coherent* This involves a rather different que^ion, and will be considered in the next chapter* It is sufficient to say here that the view that the criterion of truth is coniftituted by its coherence with the general mass of our other knowledge, involves the con- clusion that all knowledge conflitutes one single truth, and that truth is not attainable short of that whole* (4) The belief that Mind can only cognise the mental and, therefore, that the Real is mental, seems to me to veSt upon three di§tin€t lines of argument, though they are not always diiftinguished as such in MoniiSic writings* 52 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy Firii, there are two considerations affedling the nature of intelligibility, (a) It is thQ|^t that a thing to be intelligible mu^ be concrCTi; This position is the exadl antithesis of Plato's. For the question as to whether we speak of the iiSrt as concrete or abitradt (and they are spoken of in both terms) is purely a matter of words. The ilS-n are not^ at any rate, concrete in the sense in which moni^ic idealifls interpret concrete* They are mathematical truths,^ scientific laws, moral axioms, and so forth, and these are regarded as abiflradlions by the ideali^ — universal ab- ^ratflions, that is, formed from observation of their inflances. As such they are said to point forwaf d to these inflances, and are felt to be not quite real or intelligible without them, (b) To be intelligible a thing must be self- sufficient. In this connexion it is to be noted that the ordinary objecfls of sense are not in- telligible. For the reasons given by Plato, and again by Berkeley, they are to be judged mis- leading, if taken by themselves, giving rise to changing and contradidory sense-data, and pointing on to other things beyond themselves. Thus, no water is so hot that it does not sugge^ to the mind hotter water, and no sky so blue that it does not admit the possibility of greater blueness. Thus, things of sense, though concrete, are not self sufficient: they point forward. The kind of entity on the other hand which does begin to be Monism and Recent Developments 53 intelligible is a piece of music* A piece of music is both concrete like sensible objedts, and it is a self sufficient whole like the et'S??* It is a unity admitting diversity* Yet evefldj^ is not in- telligible through and through* It appears to be divisible into diflin(5t parts, and isolated notes with relations one to another* It is true that these notes are not in isolation what they were in the completed whole : they have lo£i significance : it is doubtful, indeed, whether thus isolated they can be considered the same notes at all, so that it is doubtful whether the analysing process could ever legitimately have been made* But it is un- deniable that this process of separating up into notes can, in point of fadl, be applied, and thus leads to confusion* Similarly, consciousness is a self-sumSent^ concrete unity admitting of diversity, and though apparently possessing parts in the same irritating way as the piece of music, it mufl be adjudged, at any rate, to be more intelligible than anything which is entirely non-mental* A divine con- sciousness, however, would be without the defedls that self-confeciousness exhibits* From this it is but a ^ep to the assertion that only the mental is really intelligible* (c) Thirdly, a familiar theory of perception tells us that we know directly only our own sensations* Given the" psychological atomism of Locke and Berkeley, for our basis, we soon dispose of Locke's illogical " subflance," and are left with only the 54 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy mental as a possible objecSl of knowledge* Not only is there no need then to drag in an alien matter, but it cannot, we are told, even be con- ceived how mind could come to know anything so alien in sub^ance as matter is assumed to be, even if it did txiSt* Therefore, as the Real muS be intelligible, an assumption which hardly seems to a Monist to call for que^ion, the Real must be mental, while, for it to be thoroughly intelligible, it must admit of no inward diversity like the piece of music, but must be an unindividuated whole, " One through and through/' In the four dodlrines outlined above, mo^ of the paths leading to the familiar Absolute are, I think, indicated* I do not of course pretend that I have so far even touched upon many of the subjedls involved in that conception, and I hope to go further into some of them in a moment, but I think that the above beliefs, the belief that there can be no interaction and no knoMedge among separate things, the coherence theory of truth, and the belief that the Real is mental, may fairly be considered as the ground- work upon which the whole strudlure is based. William James attacks the Moni^c position root and branch* For the mo^ part his attack is a criticism of intelledlualism as such* He accuses the Absoluti^s of a double rationalisation and falsifica- tion of the continual flux of sensible experience* There is, he says, " a loyal clinging to the Monism and Recent Developments 55 Rational!^ belief that sense-data, and their asso- ' ciations are incoherent, and that only in subifti- tuting a conceptual order for their order can truth be found* The sub^ituted conceptions are treated intellectuali^ically, that is as mutually exclusive and discontinuous, so that the fir^ innocent continuity of the flow of sense experience is shattered for us without any higher conceptual continuity taking its place* Finally, since this broken ilate of things is intolerable, the absolute deus ex machina is called on to mend it in his own way, since we cannot mend it in ours/* Experience, he asserts, is really a continuous process* Its alleged atomic con^ituents are the result of a falsifying psychological analysis* Monies firft break it up by means of concepts, and then introduce the Absolute, to put it to- gether again* For the superior method we are referred to Bergson's subordination of concepts, limitation of their application, and recognition of the continuity of our experience* W* James pleads again^ the false ab^radions of Monism, and the quality of extremeness that charadlerises the Moni^ic arguments*! It is plain that much of his objedlion to this Philosophy is temperamental* He speaks of the " block '* Universe, he dislikes its through and throughness, its severity on individuality, and its perfedlions* His disdain of intelledluali^ logic is,- in fadl, so great that he rarely condescends to * A Pluraliitic Universe, p. 73* t ^^i^f PP* 60, 74. 56 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy meet the enemy with his own weapons, and to go into a detailed logical examination of the matters that lie at the root of the issue* He really gets down to the crux of the matter, however, when he realises the importance of the que^ion of " Relations " in this controversy between Monism and Pluralism, The result of supposing that there can be no such entities as Relations between things is, Mr. Russell tells us,* " Either that there can be only one thing in the Universe, or, if there are many things, that they cannot possibly interadl in any way, since any interadlion would be a relation, and relations are impossible/* Now William James is very anxious not only that the existence of relations should be realised, but that the vahdity of our experience of them should be eiftablished. The central dodtrine of his Essays in Radical Empiricism is that, ** The relations between things conjunctive as well as disjunctive are ju^ as much matters of direCl particular experience, neither more so nor less so than the things themselves,"! The generalised conclusiofl is that ** the parts of experience hold together from next to next by relations that are themselves parts of experience. The diredlly apprehended universe needs, in short, no extraneous trans-empirical connedlive support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous ilruifture," * Problems of Philosophy, p. 148, t See also A Pluralistic Universe, p. 380. Monism and Recent Developments 57 I pass more rapidly, however, over William Jameses criticism of Monism because, in my opinion, Mr* Russell has come much more closely to grips with the real difficulties on this very qiie^on of what he calls the externality of Relations. This que^ion I now propose to consider. II. The most convenient iftarting point for discussion is afforded by a remark of Berkeley's to the effeifl that " Relations are diflinfl from the ideas or things related, inasmuch as the latter may be perceived by us without perceiving the former." Putting aside for a moment the queffion of whether relations are di^indl from the things related, it is at lea^ clear that the second ^atement, namely, that things may be perceived independently of their relations, is untrue. Were it true, any connedled scheme of knowledge would become impossible. Such a flatement would imply that we could perceive a thing entirely by itself, that is without distinguishing it from its surroundings, for in so doing we should be perceiving the relations which separate it from them. But I cannot perceive the pidlure in my room, without also perceiving that it is on the wall, and, there- fore, related to something which is not the pidlure. If I perceive two pictures together, I can only perceive them as being some di^ance apart, that is, as related in space. It is quite true that I 58 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy may not perceive the relation in the same way as I perceive the pidure, and that the being of the relation may be a different kind of being from the being of the pidture* It is a fadl> however, that the relation is perceived* This conclusion does not alter the inference that we can perceive things without perceiving all, or even the majority, of their relations* Everything mnSl, for inflance, have a relation of likeness or unlikeness to every- thing else in the universe, yet it is not necessary to perceive all these relations to perceive the thing* If a knowledge of all a thing's relations were neces- sary before we could know the thing, we could never attain to a complete knowledge of anything this side of the Absolute* Now this is precisely what the Moni^c theory maintains* By denying the externality of relations and explaining them away as ^ates of the terms related, Moni^ are logically driven to the position that there is only one thing in the universe, the Whole or Absolute, and that we can have no complete knowledge until we know the Absolute* Now this view is closely bound up with the traditional subjeft predicate logic upon which it is based* If we accept, for in^ance, Mr* Bradley's definition of judgment, as *' the adt which refers an ideal content to a reality beyond the adt," and hold that all propositions are of the type which ascribe a predicate to a subjedt, that subjedl being continuously the same, namely Reality, we shall tend to regard this combination of subjecft with Monism and Recent Developments 59 predicate as some sort of organic unity* By this will be meant among other things that the unity is a whole, the nature of which is such that it determines and conditions the nature of its parts, juS because they are its parts^ In fadl, it may be urged, the relations of each part to the whole modify the part to such an extent that its nature is entirely determined by them, and to analyse the whole, in the sense of breaking it up into its com- ponent parts, isolating the parts from their relations and considering them separately, as we certainly can do for pradlical purposes, is to falsify the parts* We cannot, in fad, consider parts as such, ue., di^inguished from the whole of which they are parts, without destroying the nature of the parts by the process* Thus everything is deter- mined by its relations to everything else* Whereas the Pluraliil would admit that each thing has a place in the whole, the Moni^ goes on to assert that it only is what it is because of that place* Thus this book upon the table is not the same book as it is upon the floor, for its relations are an integral part of it, and its relations are changed, and the clock upon the mantelpiece will be altered, however slightly, every time a tiger is shot in the jungle* The main criticism which Mr* Russell makes upon this reasoning is his detection of an ambiguity in the meaning of the phrase " nature of*" *' The whole point of view turns," he says " upon the notion of * the nature of the thing,' which seems (z*e*, according to the Monies) to mean * all the 6o Essays in Common Sense Philosophy truths about the thing/ It is, of course, the case that a truth which connedls one thing with another could not subsifl if the other thing did not subsi^» But a truth about a thing is not part of the thing itself, although it mu^ according to the above usage be part of the ' nature ^ of the thing/' Herein lies the crux of the matter* The Monies seem to me to confuse two di£lin£t propositions* It may be agreed that a thing is what it is, because it has a place in the Universe, and because of its relations to other things in the Universe, but also because those relations are not the thing* To assert this latter ^atement involves a second and quite di^indt proposition* Thus the table is what it is because it has a place in Reality ; an incorrefl way of putting this truth is to say that the re^ of Reality mufl be assumed and co-impli- cated in the proposition in order that the table may be what it is. But Reality is not assumed, it is given. The table indeed presupposes Reality and its own connections with Reality, juil as our apprehension of the truth about the table presupposes Reality, But when we assert that the table is what it is because of its connexions with.Reality, we do not mean that the table is its connexions. They condition it, but it is separate from them. Similarly it is a truth about an egg that if it is kept too long it will smell. But this truth about the egg is only true because the egg is an egg independently of the truth. The Monism and Recent Developments 6i egg is in facfl not an egg because it is true that it will at some future period smelh The egg conditions the truth, not the truth the egg* The other main Moniflic argument mentioned above was to the effedl that the ultimate Real, being one and indivisible,, all analysis by means of which we arrive at a world composed of things and relat- ions was a false abilradlion of thought, which led us away from Reality* Admitting that this argument embodies a real truth, Mr* Russell insi^s that its application should not be unduly extended* It is true that a whole, although created by and formed of its parts, is more than their arithmetical sum* By a whole as opposed to an aggregate, we mean a unity, a new entity which has come into being by their synthesis* Thus a proposition has obviously an import, meaning, value, call it what you will, quite independently of the grammatical words and phrases of which it is composed* Hence when we analyse a whole of this kind, falsification of some kind obviously takes place* But what is falsified i The Whole, the unity, the new entity which came into being as the result of the combination of parts* The parts themselves are not falsified* If a whole is really a whole and not a unit, it clearly has parts which it cannot be a fidlion to di^inguish from one another* The fadl that analysis of a whole into its parts deflroys the whole, does not mean that it also deflroys the parts, or that the parts are 63 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy not really its parts, or that they cannot eidSl as di^inguished from one another. This conclusion appears very plainly if we consider a numerical whole such as ten. Ten is a whole composed of parts two, three and five* But the iz£t that these integers are parts of ten does not mean that they are any less real than the ten of which they form part, or that, when we abolish ten by dividing it up into component parts, the parts are in any way invalidated in the process, Ju^ as in the former in^ance, Monies, having discovered the truth that a thing is what it is, because of its relations with the refl of Reality, pushed its application too far, by going on to confuse the thing with its relations, so in the present case the do(flrine of the falsification of wholes by analysis is extended to comprise a denial of the validity of parts. There does, therefore, seem to be some case for the exigence of objedls independently of other objedls, and of parts independently of wholes. Such an independent existence presupposes the further exiiSence of relations to connefl any particular objed with other objefls, which, as the objedl may or may not have the connedlion in queiftion, cannot be explained away as inherent flates or modifications of the objeft. It may appear that an undue amount of time has been expended over the arguments which have led us to this conclusion, nor have we Monism and Recent Developments 63 yet arrived at any indication as to the nature of the being of relations, and as to the sense, if any, in which they are independent of the things they relate* So far I have tried to e^ablish only their externality* What, then, is the nature of their being i Tradition is of great importance in Philosophy, and either directly through its influence or indireiflly ^through reaction to its influence, plays a large part, not so much in discovering what are the really fundamental queiftions, as in determining those which, in point of fadl, get discussed* In the present inflance it was the extreme position taken up by Berkeley and his followers in asserting not only that relations exited independently, but that relata could be perceived independently of them, that led to the Moni^ic readtion which denies the independent exigence of relations altogether* Berkeley and Hume went so far as to maintain that any one term of a relation could be perceived by itself* " All our diiSinct perceptions are diiSindl exigences, among which the mind never perceives any real connexion," says Hume, whose objedl in taking up this position was mainly to deflroy the need for believing in external space* The rela- tions by means of which, as we noticed above, we diiftinguish one thing from another are mainly spatial relations, and if it is maintained that a perception of such relations is not necessary to the perception of the thing, one of the reasons 64 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy for believing in the exigence of external space disappears* Furthermore, while holding relations to be inde- pendent of the things they relate, Berkeley natur- ally regarded them as mental creations. This view of their nature arose very readily from the atomize psychology mentioned above. If we hold that sensible obje(fls, whether they be conceived as material or mental, make diilindl disconnefled impressions upon the brain, and that the mind then apprehends these disconnedled impressions and apprehends these only, it is a natural corollary to assume that the relations and connedlions, which we think of as exiting between them, are the work of the mind, which arranges and groups them together according to certain laws (the nature of those laws being, by the way, unexplained, and a rather tough proposition for the English empiriciSs had they ever tried to explain it). The Realiil answer to this position takes the form of a simple queflion. Unless objedls are originally presented to the mind in some juxtaposition, why should the mind supply certain relations and not others ^ If (A) is not given to the left of (B) in reality, why should the mind supply the relation " to the left of," iniftead of the relation " to the right of," between them S* This is a que^ion I have never been able to answer, and if the slight digression may be pardoned, it may be observed that it appears to apply equally pertinently to the modern psycho- logical, pragmatical, Bergsonian, theory of Monism and Recent Developments 65 sensations as a continuum which has so triumph- antly shattered and displaced the discredited theory of atomism (see above page 26). William James may lay iflress on the importance of realising that relations are given in experience. His theory of perception^ however, tells us of a Reality that comes to us in experience as a con- tinual flow, or change, without individuation or diflinflion of any kind. Upon this, as we have seen, the mind operates, carving out of it concepts and relations for the purposes of life or self-intereft* But if Reality is really presented as this enormous blur, as void of di^indlion as a piece of white paper, why do we carve out of it such and such objedls and not others ?* For inflance, when I see a chair, it must clearly be in virtue of some dis- tinftive mark in Reality that I carve out a chair and its Relations, and not an elephant and its Relations, The truth would seem to be that our perceptions are not purely arbitrary, but depend upon and are conditioned by differences within our field of presentation, differences which account for relations as well as for relata. These differences may be given in a rudimentary and embryonic form, but they are given. It is the funilion of mind to make them clear and di^indl. Thus, although mind may be said to con^ru<5t relations in the sense that it groups and pieces together, elaborates and defines, the crude sense-data which form the material from which the relation is 66 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy evolved, it does not create them in the sense of arbitrarily imposing diflindlions and conne the more false it progressively becomes, as an account of the nature of Reahty* Other syflems indeed become false too, but in proportion as the Philosophy of the Absolute has laid claim to more complex and profound thought than any of its rivals, in jxxSi that proportion, if the considerations advanced above be right, it becomes more misleading than any of them* I have tried to deal, up to the present, with two views as to the nature of relations which seem to me to be untrue, and to bring forward arguments which seem to operate in favour of their reje(5lion. These views are (a) that relations are not inde- pendent of the terms they relate, but are modi- fications of them* That things are not separate and brought into connexion by entities which are also separate, but derive their intera(!^ion and know- ledge of one another from mutual participation in the Absolute, in virtue of which they were interconnefted from the beginning* And (b) that Relations though independent of relata are mental, either because they are divine ideas, put into our mind by God, as Berkeley thought, or because they are created by our own mind to bring into connexion our atomiflically di^inft sensations, as Hume and the later Empiri- cists thought. If it be true then that relations cannot be explained away, either as iSlates or parts of relata, or as creations of the knowing mind, it seems to follow that they xtmSt have some kind of being of 68 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy their own and form a valid exigence as part of Reality* The que^ion then arises as to the nature of their being* IIL This important queflion has not^ perhaps, received sufficient recognition among Philosophers* The exigence of external relations has been so generally disbelieved, that few have paused to consider its possible nature* The following is Mr* Russeirs theory, which is given as briefly as possible* Mr* Russell divides, or used to divide, all Reality into two classes of terms, objedls and concepts* The word term is used in the wide^ possible sense* Anything which can be an objecft of thought, or can occur in any proposition, is a term* As such it is immutable and self-identical* Of objedls, we say that they " exiit " ; of concepts, that they " have being*" For in^ance, exigence is itself a concept, and, as such, has being* Existence does not exi^ in the same way that obje(fls exiit, but this cannot mean that it is nothing, for if it were nothing it could not significantly be ascribed to anything* To show the extent of the implica- tions of this dodlrine, we mu^ mention the corollary (though this takes us on to dangerous ground, from which the existence of objedive falsehood is not a far cry), that in order to make the denial of the exigence of any term significant, the term mufl itself be ; for as Mr* Waterlow remarks in a paper Monism and Recent Developments 6g on Mr* Russell's theory, " If Jupiter had not being, * Jupiter does not exi^/ would be an empty sound*" The whole trend of thought is, in fadl:> an elaboration of a suggeiflion in the Parmenides (diredled again^ the supposition that the iidrj are mental creations), to the effedl that we cannot have a vorifia of what does not exifl* In order to be thought of at all, a term muift have some sort of being* Now Relations are terms of the kind which have being yet do not exifl* Mr* Russell considers the in^ance, " Edinburgh is to the north of London*" It seems plain, he says, that " the relation * to the north of,* subsifls independently of our knowledge of it*" The fact apprehended was there before we knew it* Something else is more- over asserted and known beyond Edinburgh and London* " To the north of " obviously ^ands for something and conveys some meaning additional to the meanings sugge^ed by Edinburgh and London* This " something additional " is the relation " to the north of/^ and the " being " of this relation is independent both of Edinburgh and of London* The above theory conftitutes in many ways a fresh departure in Philosophy, maintaining as it does the independent being of prepositions, and of verbs* Much remains to be done before its validity has been sufficiently tefted to establish its truth ; in the meantime, however, it claims respedl as the beil explanation yet advanced of the 70 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy externality of Relations, a dodlrine which, as I have tried to show, is the essential corner stone of any form of Pluralism, and the only alternative to Monism* The following possible objedlions, however, present themselves : (i) The fir^ objection is one that, as we have seen, operates very strongly againfl all forms of Realism ; I mean, the difficulty of accounting for error. According to the above view, the mind does not create ideas of fatfts for itself : its fundlion is to apprehend fails exiting independently of it. If, therefore, everything that the mind can perceive, objedls as well as relations, already exiSis in Reality, if the mind does not even put in con- nexions between disconnecSed sense data, for these connexions are already given, the only duty left to mind is to become more and more aware of the Reality presented to it. Now the mind cannot become aware of what is not there, and, on the hypothesis that its only fundlion is to become aware and not to create, it cannot create error for itself. We may evade this difficulty by resorting to the Spino^i^ic view that error is due to our partial apprehension of the given Reality, and would disappear as our apprehension became more complete. But the theory of external relations is essentially and fundamentally opposed to any aspefl of Spinoza's philosophy, which it can scarcely invoke in its own support, A better solution of the difficulty is suggeiSed Monism and decent Developments 71 by that activity of mind in going out beyond the given, and, by intelligent but sometimes un- warranted anticipation, putting in relations which are not there, already referred to (see page 34)* (3) The infinite regress of secondary relations involved every time two obje<5ts are brought into relation, and mentioned above as one of Lot^e's. proofs of Monism, mufl be admitted as a necessary implication, some would say a defe<5t, of the theory* If the- relation (R) holds between (A) and (B), this flatement implies that (A) has a certain relation (C) to (R), and (R) a certain relation (D) to (B)> The relations (C) and (D) involve other relations, and so on perpetually* Thus we populate the world with ho^ of exi^ential entities every time a relational state- ment or proposition is made* Mr* Russell boldly accepts this implication of his theory* The fad that the truth of one relational proposition involves the truth of an infinite number of others does not invalidate the truth in queflion, or infringe upon its isolation as a single definite entity* This imphcation, diflurbing as it may at firfl sight seem, is really on a par with the exigence of an infinite number of integers, or of the infinite regress involved in halving which can always occur, however minute the firfl number with which we begin the process* Nobody, however, interprets this infinite regress as a reason for supposing that we may not validly halve any number we please* 73 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy (3) The moift serious difficulty is occasioned, however, by the nature of the being of relations* To begin with, the di^indtion between having being and exigence may seem to some merely a di^indlion of words* The di^indlion * is so peculiarly vulnerable to the type of argument employed by the early Greek Cynics and Meg- arians* They would point out to us the necessity of asking ourselves whether we are really asserting anything in any true proposition we may make* For in^ance, there is Mr* Russell^s own ^tement, that the concept " exigence " has being* Now if exigence really has being, you are, they would say, simply asserting an identical relation* But if the two are not the same, how can it be said that the one is the other, that is, that exiftence has being i Suppose, however, the di^indlion to be a real one : what is meant by ** has being " S* Is a relation, in fa6l, a true universal $* If the cat is on the wall, and the egg on the table, what is the relation between the two ** ons*" Mr* Russell is, in many of his beliefs, a Platonic* One way out of the difficulty then would be to take the Platonic bull by the horns and poiftulate an etSos for every relation* This would solve the problem as to how all the different in^ances, say of " on, " come into being, and assert the common relation between them all, in virtue of which we call them all "on*"' This solution rather savours of cutting the Gordian knot with a bludgeon, for all the familiar difficulties Monism and Recent Developments 73 of the Platonic etSos rise to confront us* Is the c^Sds of "on " transcendent s' If so, what are the relations of its iniftances to it ; are they relations of {jLifiTio-is or of participation f Is there any diSindlion between the being of " on-ness " and the being of a more orthodox eiSos, such as that of goodness S* And so on to all the other diflfi- culties with which the writings of Professors Stewart and Jackson have made us familiar* With some of these difficulties I shall deal in a later chapter* Mr* Russell, however, rejedls the Platonic cZSos view altogether* Transcendence in any form is repellent to him, and, like most my^icism, simply a device to avoid hard thinking, ^deus ex machina invoked to get us out of the difficulties into which our deficiencies of thinking have landed us* " Relations," he says somewhere, " are unlike mo^ concepts in that they have no iniSances*" A relation is one and the same in all the pro- positions in which it occurs* Ju^ as the same " cat " may be employed in two different pro- ^ positions — " the cat is on the table," and " the cat is drinking milk " — at the same time, so it is the same " on " which both relates the cat and the wall, and the egg and the table* This is not sufficient, however, to quiet all our perplexities on the subjedt, a study of which reveals certain considerations which may help to clear the issue* It is important, I think, to di^inguish the fludy 74 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy of spatial relations from the observation of the in^ances of these relations* If we consider the relation " on " in abilradlion, it is quite clear that the being of ** on " is in no way affected by the nature of the things it relates* In this sense, it is independent of them* Thus it is possible to study quantitative relations, quite independently of the qualitative difference of the things they relate* The proposition two plus two equals four, to take an analogy, is quite unaffected by the particular objects you take as the units of two* Yet it does imply and is conditioned by the possibility of there being such objedls* You cannot, in facft, think of any mathematical relations except as relations between terms* Similarly, although the meaning of " on " is not affedled by the terms it relates, it has no meaning whatsoever, except with reference to the possibility of there being such terms* The problem is, in fadt, exactly analogous to the position taken up by Kant with regard to space and time* We cannot think of space as a separate thing exiting by itself : it would be juil nothing* Similarly a relation divorced from the possibility of relata, what Mr* Russell calls a '* bare relation," would be meaningless* This does not, however, to continue the analogy, mean that space is only a relation between sensible objedls, for it is implied in every perception of objedls and not derived from the fludy of them* Similarly, the relation " on " is already given in Reality, and not in any Monism and Recent Developments 75 way arrived at by an analysis of the terms it relates* It is, in h6t, the presupposition of there being such termst Here the problem muift, at present, be left* It will be discussed more generally when we come to consider the nature of universals in a later chapter* But the unsatisfacftoriness attending the nature of the being of relations should not induce us to doubt its reality* Relations are fleeting; they change much more rapidly than relata* They are mainly spatial, and, ' as perception, at lea^, is concerned mainly with spatial relations, we tend to fancy that we do not perceive them, for empty space cannot be perceived, and a line mu^ be drawn between two spatially connedled obje Now if Reality can be regarded as a sy^ematic, ^ organic whole, the parts of which are related teleologically to it, if no one fadl can be under- wood by itself, but only in relation to the whole of which it forms a part, it is quite obvious thM judgments about any part of reality cannot be^ known to be true, unless we know what the^/ whole means. As^ this is humanly impossible, it would seem that judgments involving such concepts as truth, juWice and beauty cannot ever be known to be completely true* The conclusion is the same if we believe in the exigence of the Platonic Forms of truth, juiftice and beauty* The Forms themselves can never be completely known, so that judgments^ about particulars which partake of these Forms and which thus comprise an ultimately unknowable element, cannot be known to be quite true* This conclusion squares with pradlical experi- ence* I do not for inflance believe that it is possible to pass a true judgment about the mean- ing of truth, and it is in part the objecfl of this chapter to show that no satisfactory account of this meaning whatever it may be, has yet been arrived at* Similarly in matters of artiWic judgment the differences of opinion that exiift are chaotic* Ques- tions of taWe are notoriously unsuitable for dogmatic 94 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy decision, and it seems impossible to predicate absolute truth or falsehood for any artiflic judgment* It is however argued, and I think juflly, that the te^ of Coherence is useful in arti^c judgments, not for the purpose of predicating for them absolute truth or falsehood, but as a means by which to discriminate those judgments which are more true from those which are less true* Although it may be urged that there is no external ^andard, by an appeal to which the judgment of the Chinaman who regarded the preliminary tuning-up as more beautiful than the concert, can be pronounced false, his judgment may be regarded as less likely to be true than that which prefers the concert on the ground that it is admit- tedly inconsiiSent with the general consensus of exiting opinion on the matter* But even if the superior truth of the consensus as eflablished by the te^ of coherence be admitted, it conflitutes at befl a very weak argu- ment in favour of coherence* A consensus of ae^hetic opinion is an elusive thing, and not capable of arithmetical summation* Moreover the consensus of any one age has frequently been shown to be wrong by the consensus of the next, which seems to indicate that a judgment which was once true would become false by sheer lapse of time* Even therefore if we allow the te^ of coherence in aesthetic judgments, we mu^ safe- guard ourselves by the proviso that the teift is The Meaning of Truth 95 an equivocal one, and the judgments which it seeks to e^ablish are for ever wavering between the true and the false* The truth of judgments involving a priori concepts such as goodness and beauty, which are known, in so far as they are known at all, indepen- dently of experience, cannot in fa6t be e^ablished by any te^* The correspondence theory breaks down, as we have seen, when applied to them : the coherence theory, even if the validity of its application be admitted, is an uncertain guide, and admits a latitude of scepticism as to its con- clusions, which does not attach to judgments of which the truth is e^ablished by correspondence* In Plato's language the etS?? all spring from the tSea rov ayaOov from which they derive their meaning and their exiiSence, and as we can never completely know the tSIa rov dyadov, the «Sos of aX7j^€ta mufl itself b„e involved in some of that obscurity which shrouds its source* It has been urged that on the coherence theory, and on that theory alone, are we able significantly to deny exigence to creatures of the imagination such as centaurs, purple quadratic equations, and triangles whose interior angles are greater or^less than two right angles* We refuse to believe in these things, it is said, because a moment's refledlion shows that their exigence is incompatible with the re^ of Reality as we know it* But the words " as we know it " give the game away* It is an important and frequently emphasised 96 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy contention of those philosophers who urge the coherence theory of truths that we do not know the whole of Reality* We know it partially only and imperfecflly. If therefore we knew Reality completely, it might be found as Mr* Russell has pointed out, that centaurs, purple quadratic equations and the refl were not really incompatible with it* The coherence theory of truth which asserts the unreality of centaurs asserts also the unreah'ty of that Reality with which they are supposed to be incompatible* When we know Reality as it is, when, that is, we know the real Reality, we may discover that the real Reality includes real centaurs* The argument that until we know reality as a , whole we can never know absolutely the truth of any particular judgment, applies equally to the coherence theory of truth. On its own premises we can never know that the coherence theory of truth is really true, and for that reason its appli- cation should be used with the greater caution, and only as a te^ of practical judgments where absolute truth is not required, or at leaft not required by the coherence theory of truth* And yet it is as applied to pra6lical judgments that, as we have noticed, the coherence theory is mo^ palpably a failure, for we have seen that it despises the truth of isolated judgments of facfl, and deems truth in such matters to be of less importance than " significance*" Now it is a little difficult to understand what the meaning of the The Meaning of Truth 97 word " significance " in this connc we could cease to regard it as a theory and could contemplate it in its real nature as part of that indivisible syflem with which it asserts it is related by relations which are themselves parts of it and of the sy^em, we might find it asserting that there are several truths all of them true, and that complete truth may be found short of the Absolute* IV. If there is any force in the above arguments, it would appear that neither of the orthodox theories oftruthissatisfadtory in its entirety* Correspon- dence suits the ordinary fails of experience, while coherence fits into the conception of reality as a syflematic teleological whole. As it is urged that it is only on this latter view of reality that concepts or universals can have a definite meaning, coherence provides a ^andard whereby, although we can- not predicate absolute truth for a judgment involv- ing concepts, we can at lea^ claim greater truth for one judgment than for another* By combining the two theories we may cover the deficiencies of each* Such a combination may work well enough in pradlice but philosophically it is unsatisfacHiory* There cannot be two equally true meanings of truth, ju^ as there cannot be two equally true criteria of it, and until we know wherein truth lies, we cannot tell which of its possible meanings is the true one* This leads us to the suggeflion that the coherence and correspondence theories both 104 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy prove inadequate, because proceeding on the assumption that truth is one and the same, they endeavour to discover a meaning for it which will fit all the senses in which it is used* But truth is an ambiguous word, and it is not difficult to see that the theories with which we have been dealing are concerned with different aspedls of it. Coherence is clearly concerned with The Truth, whatever that may be, and despises as untrue whatever falls short of it. When considering a judgment such as " This book is red," it asserts truly enough that this ^atement does not contain all the truths that there are about the book. It then proceeds to the further assertion, that, because there are other truths about the book, besides the truth that the book is red, therefore the truth that the book is red is not true. This reasoning presents in another form the dodtrine considered in the previous essay, that because a whole is something more than the sum of its parts, the parts are therefore not really its parts, and have no real exiiftence apart from the whole. We saw that there were good reasons for doubting this conclusion, and the same reasons would now lead us to agree with the correspondence theory that the truth, that the book is red, may be itself true, although it is only a part of all the truths about the book. Whatever be our opinion about this point, there is no room for doubt that the truth that the book is red is different from The Truth about the The Meaning of Truth 105 book, and it is with these different obje on the one hand, the ^flegting_niultiplicity of the-, things of sense upon which Heraclitus had laid iSlress, and, on the other, the germanence and ' oneness ^ niathematical and other enfities empha- sised by Parmenides* The approach to the dodlrine in Plato is purely ^ logical, and, as Professor Taylor has pointed out, -Hlato always speaks of the forms- in clear-cut and precise /language "as devoid of mythical traits_ as the multiplication table*" The doflrine muil not therefore be condemned by the false interpret- ations given to it^by myilically-minded people; who have been anxious to find in the philosophical \ respedlability of Plato a sandlion for their own fanciful speculations, and it is as a Sin£tiy logical theory that it will be considered here* / lao Essays in Common Sense Philosophy^ Supporters of the view that beauty can be resolved into subjedlivc appreciation or mental relations with physical objeds, should be asked to consider the following position* There can be no such thing as beauty, they say, unless there can be mind to conceive it* Let us suppose then that all the people in the world were abolished but one* Let the sole survivor of humanity — and for the moment we will assume that there is no such thing as a divine mind — be confronted with the Si^ine Madonna of Raphael*'^ This pi But it is not possible for a sunset to be both beautiful and not beautiful^at the same moment* The answer- to those who think it not beautiful, if any, being simply the (j^rngtig^one, that they are blind;* ^ If we "now put the queiliori, " What do we mean b^ sayifig that the sunset is beautiful i"" ** the- answer will be, according to Plato — and in my view it is the true answer — because it partakes of the « 3os of beauty*^ Now it is aT curious thir^g that teflimony to the truth of the theory of Forms is continually being -offered by modern writers who would probably -hesitate to subscribe to it iiijts orthodox forni, The feeling that there is rometmng behind the manifold things of sense and beauty that we see, 134 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy something more real than they, something which be^ows on them that amount of beauty which they do possess, is apparent, to a remarkable degree, in the works of noveli^s, writers, and thinkers of to-day« I will take two examples — that I may not cite philosophers whose views are well-known and in certain cases deliberately founded on Plato — from the v/ritings of men of widely different schools of modern thought, both of whom have given considerable attention to the queilion of aeifthetics, Mr/ H, G* Wells and. Mr, Edward Carpenter, In Mr, ,Wells*s novel ** Tono-Bungay " we find him saying : " I tumble and flounder, but I know that over all the many immediate things — there are other things that are great and serene, very high, beautiful things — the reality, I haven't got it, but it's there never- theless, I'm a spiritual guttersnipe in love with unimaginable goddesses, Fve never seen the goddesses, nor ever shall — but it takes all the fun out of the mud, and at times I fear it takes all the kindliness too," And again, ** All my life has been -at bottom, seeking, disbelieving always, dissatisfied always with the thing seen and the thing believed, seeking something in toil, in force, in danger, something whose name and nature I do not clearly underhand, something beautiful, worshipful, enduring,- mine profoundly and fundamentally, and the utter redemption of myself," ' Mr, Wells, of course, is very much of 3 Platonifl in his love.- of order, purpose and Objectivity of the Concept of Beauty 125 definition ; but these passages might be a colloquial translation of the aspirations of the Platonic philosophers of the Sixth Book of the " Republic," so clearly do they indicaf^TRcTiSfivmg^af^ the apprehension of the Forms which Plato was the firfl to emphasise* Edward Carpenter maintains on the whole a subjedliviil attitude towards Art* He is too convinced a^emocrat pot to mi^r ufl the value of article productions' which do not inspire the enthusiasm of the common people, and like Tolfloy is frequently led to take the further flep of making the criterion of value depend upon the effedt produced* Attimes^TteWeverVand somewEitlncon- si^ntly, he quotes with approval passages from the works of great arti^s which bear teSimony to the ex- iilence of what Plato would call th e obje<5li ve form of Beauty * The following significant passage is quoted in " Angels* Wings " from a letter by Beethoven to Wegeler : " Every day^ I come nearer to the obje<5t which I can feel, though I cannot describe it, and on which alone your Beethoven can exi^*" Now what precisely Beethoven meant by this objeft it may^ be difficult to say* But the following interpretation both of the ciriterion and purpose of arti^c production, which is also an interpretation oFhis remark, seems to me to present at once the fewe^ difficulties and to square beil with the fa(^ as we know them* ^ (The Form of Beauty exifls independent and transcendent* ' It is neither in space nor time, and 126 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy is therefore eternal and immutable* It is the cause of all the beauty that attaches to the perishable obje to think of nothing but the music, which is unique, and cannot b^ analysed into any set of emotions, reminiscences^ or pleasurable feelings* Second class music, however, of the sentimental type may cause ^^biographical reminiscences in the liifleners* miMTand is frequently intended to cause them**^' The criterion of beauty is in all cases the extent to which thcefSosof Beauty manife^s itself in the. 130 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy finished produdl* Whether it will do so appears to depend in no way upon any aim, inspiration, or ideal of the arti^, but on nothing so much as a purely incalculable element of chance* '' It is not in the artifl to command beauty* He is in the position of the lover who solicits his mistress's favours, with the disadvantage of not knowing, except in a very preliminary sort of way, any of the avenues to success^ Chapter V. LFNIVERSALS AS THE BASIS OF REALISM THE previous essays provide, I hope, in rough outline a sketch of the kind of Realism I am trying to advocate* I purposely refrain from speaking of this sketch as a sy^em, because, as L pointed out in the in- troda£tion, it is of the very essence of this view of the Universe that there is no syiftem, in the ordinary Philosophical sense* The realism advocated in these pages is, in fadl^ not so much a view of the world as a method of looking at it* It is not even a method in the technical sense of that word so much as an attitude of mind, and I shall try to show in the next two essays that as an attitude of mind it can be applied to two such widely different subjedts as the relation of thought to temperament, and the philosophical theory of the ^ate, as well as to ithe-more orthodox objedts of metaphysical enquiry* It will, however, serve the purpose both of filling in the outline given in the preceding chapters, arid of bringing what I have said into relation with other Reali^ sy^ems, if some general remarks are made on the subjedt of that vexed philosophical entity the " universal*" It will be sufficiently clear from the preceding chapter on the concept of beauty, that I follow very closely the Platonic view of universals, or in Plato's 133 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy language " Forms/* Certain additions mufl, however, be made to his account, and certain di^indtions pointed out, in order that the theory of universals, which I should regard as the basis of common sense Realism, may be brought into line with modern philosophy* With the gi^ of the Platonic argument as it appears, for instance, in the "Republic," I should agree* All juil a6ls mu^ partake of a common nature, in value of which they are all ju^» This common nature is other than any or all of the individual a<5ls which may be called ju^* It is, in fadl, an objecft of thought, that which is btfore the mind when we think of juiftice* In saying /that it is an objedl of thought I do not mean that it is a mental conitru6lion. It is known by mind as a fadl subsiding independently in the universe, I and this fadl is not modified by the circum^ance 'that mind knows it* Let us assume, for in^ance, that " X " is a juft adlion which took place in the year 1918 ; let us also assume that " X " is known by " Y," an individual who contemplates the adl. In 1919 " Y ** dies, so that " X '* ceases to be known by " Y:* Is " X," or the qualitative nature of " X," an adt committed in the pa^, modified or altered by " Y's " ceasing to know it ; It would seem not, for the fadl cannot be altered by an event happening a^^year later* Let us further assume that in 1920 the earth collides with a comet, and is reduced again to Universals as the Basis of liealism 133 chaos, all mind tipon the earth being de^royed in the process* The adlion '* X " now ceases to be known by any mind. Does this involve any modification in the qualities of " X " beyond the subtraction of the one quality of being known by mind ; I conclude not, and conclude therefore that the justice of " X " is not a mental quality dependent for its e^iiftence on mind, but an in- herent attribute of " X " arising from its part- icipation in the Form of ju^ice itself. A similar argument may be applied to prove the exigence of the Form of ju^ce, and we arrive at the Platonic conclusion that the forms are eternal, non-mental, immutable entities, known by mind, but not owing to mind the f adl of their exiilence. Difficulties in the theory occur when we begin to examine the nature of the forms or universals themselves. Three types may be diiftinguished. Firift, the universal which exi^s for each class of sensible particular, e.g., the universals horse, table, man. Secondly the universal which exi^s for each class of mathematical entity, e.g., square, triangle, two. Thirdly the mofl complete form of universal, such as the universals goodness, truth and beauty. Universals of the firift class are often called pseudo-universals, because they are regarded as a mere abilra<5l of the class they denote. It is therefore denied by many that the universal 134 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy man exifls* Berkeley and Hume for example said that when we think of " man " we form the image of some particular man* This contention I believe to be psychologically untrue, I believe that what is denoted to mind by the expression " man " is the universal man. This seems to me to be so because the word " man " would ftill retain some meaning if no individual men exited to be thought of. Nor is that meaning a mental con^udtion or mental image created by my mind only, for it is clear that the word man would continue to have a meaning even if I ceased to be alive to think of that meaning. Similarly the meaning which it has, whatever that may be> would ^ill continue to be its meaning even if no mind wer^ left to think of it. Therefore the meaning of the word man is neither any particular man, nor one of my thoughts, nor one of anybody*s thoughts, it is the universal man which is an obje6l of thought. This point may be seen more clearly by con- sidering the universals which exi^ for classes of particulars which are themselves not real, e*g., the universals griffin, unicorn or chimsera. The que^ion may be asked how can t^e universal griffin appear to the mind or be thought' of unless it is there to appear to the mind or be thought of, and in these cases we cannot answer by saying with Hume that we are thinking of an individual griffin, because no one has seen an individual griffin. Universak as the Basis of Realism 135 As Dr» Moore has pointed out, when I am thinking of a unicorn^ what I am thinking of is certainly not nothing : " if it were nothing then when I think of a griffin I should also be thinking of nothing, and there would be no difference between thinking of a griffin and thinking of a unicorn. But certainly there is a difference ; and what can the difference be except that in the one case what I am thinking of is a unicorn, and in the other a griffin," Therefore a unicorn mu^ be there to be thought of, and it mu^ further be thought of as being something different from a griffin. Therefore, the universal " unicorn " exi^s, even if its only ascertainable attribute is its property of being thought of by me. This diiftinguishes the universal unicorn from the universals of real entities, such as the uni- versal man, which possesses , other attributes besides the property of being thought of by me. The next class of universal is the class of mathe- matical universals. These possess this peculiarity among universals, that they have perfedl partic- ulars or instances, and these universals mufl be carefully di^inguished from the perfect specimens of their iniftances. The exiiftence of a perfect instance of a mathe- matical universal may be shown in this way. When we demonflrate with the help of a figure a geometrical proposition we are not really thinking about the figure we have drawn. As Plato pointed out, the figure we have drawn is in- 136 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy accurate in many particulars* Its lines are not iftraight lines^ they have breadth as well as length, and its points of intersecflion occupy palpable spaces* Therefore many of our conclusions are not true of the figure as drawn* On the other hand we are not making our con- clusions about the universal or Form itself. The Form of a square or a circle is squareness or circularity, and it is not for in^ance possible for circularity to intersedl with circularity, whereas the circles before us do intersefl* What is in fadl before our mind is the perfedl square and the perfect circle, of which there exi^s one for every imperfedt square and circle we draw* PerfecSl squares are many, and therefore di£tin&. from the universal squareness, which is one* They are, however, perfedl, and therefore dirndl from the ordinary particular, which is imperfe<5l* This circum^ance of their perfection makes it possible for us to have ** a priori " knowledge about them, and thereby differentiates them from particulars o£ universals of the fir^ class, about which our ^owledge is empirical only* Plato^s view,, ex- pressed in modern language, and it is a view which I should accept, is that all a priori knowledge deals with universals and the relations of universals* But from the very fa(Sl of their resemblance to universals in this matter of per- fedion, particulars of mathematical universals are also included in the scope of a priori knowledge* An in^ance will make the point plainer* It Universats as the Basis of Realism 137 will be observed that there is a difference in kind between the judgment " All red-haired men are quick tempered/' and the judgment " All ilraight lines coniSitute the shorted distances between any points*" The fir^ judgment deals with a particular of a universal of the firift class* It is an empirical judgment, and is made without certainty, the proviso being implied that there may always be red-haired men who fall outside it* The mind therefore makes a definite jump beyond the evidence of known in^ances of red- haired men to the unsupported general proposition* In the second case the judgment is known to to be true a priori* Although all the inflances of straight lines can never be examined, it is never- theless known that they will conform to the general proposition* Our convi6lion in the second case is not i^engthened by the evidence of additional in^ances, and although in^ances may in the early stages be necessary for the realisation of the truth of the proposition, the truth is known to be in- dependent of the existence of inflances* This is because in^ances of mathematical universals being perfedl are the subjecH: of certain a priori knowledge ; hence the certainty of mathematical propositions* Relations such as " between " or " on " share the peculiarity of mathematical universals in having perfedl iniftances* This point brings us to a further diflindlion between universals of the second class on the one hand, and of the firil and third classes on the 138 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy other, a di^indlion which illu^ates the nature of the being of universals* Many commentators on Plato have di^inguished what they call a later theory of ideas from Plato^s earlier view. The chief point of difference between the two theories lies in the different ways in which the relation between the Form and the particular are conceived* As a rule, in the " Republic " for instance, Plato regards the particular as partici- pating in the Form, and owing such being as it possesses to the presence of the Form in it* The verbs /ierexw and Koivoiv^ are used to denote the relationship* There are certain classes of Forms and particu- lars, however, in connexion with which this conception of relationship is clearly inappropriate* In particular, numbers and other mathematical entities seem to evade this terminology* Plato held that there was a Form of number, and his followers, according to Ari^otle, regarded those numbers which are also Forms, e*g*, two-ness as opposed to two, as being the only real kind of number, although for some inexplicable reason they held that there were only ten of such numbers* Ariflotle, in criticising this theory, points out that the Forms of numbers are not on all fours with the Forms of other entities* In the first place, they are not real numbers because they will not add ; two may be added to three, but two-ness cannot be added to three-ness* In the second place, they cannot be regarded as the source of the exiilence Universals as the Basis of Realism 139 of their particulars ; nor indeed does Plato so regard thein, for in speaking of the relation between the Forms of numbers and their particulars he drops the language of participation and speaks of the relation as one of imitation* The Form is a TrapdSecyfia, a model, and the relation between it and the particular is a relation of fitfMTjo-ts* Hence Ariiftotle argues that the Forms of number and of other mathematical entities are not true Forms* Numbers are essentially only relations between entities* They imply a standard, and they imply nothing more* They do not, for injftance, imply their own real exigence, and Plato, it is urged, on the assumption that they were analogous to other kinds of Forms, has gone aflray by proceeding to endow them with sub^antive exiiftence* Thus, and here Ari^otle is in line with mofl modern criticism, two-ness is simply the relation between a member of a class of entities and the class to which it belongs* It has no independent exigence* By putting together the various iftatements that occur in Plato's own writing, and considering them in the light of Ari^otle's criticisms in the " R^eta- physics " it becomes fairly clear that two di^indl classes of Forms or universals are here being dealt with by Plato* On the one hand there are forms such as those of horse and man ; on the other the forms of mathematical relations, such as number, equality, 140 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy re^ and motion. Forms of the second type belong to the later theory of Ideas, and by his attempt to endow the Form of number with individual substance, thereby treating it as if it belonged to the firfl type, it is urged that Plato is confusing the two typps* I should prefer to call both types of universal legitimate universals, recognising, however, a difference in their nature, this difference not being always clearly defined in Plato* Universals of the firft type, and their particulars, possess an individuality that cannot be expressed 'in terms of anything else* We come to know the nature or form of the horse from examples of individual seen horses, and our knowledge is individual in the sense that it cannot be analysed into any other form of knowledge or method of expression* Universals of mathematical relations, universals such as likeness, measure, size and motion, are essentially different* Every iftatement which gives a scientific account of them gives an account, the essence of which is, that it expresses one thing in terms of another* This di^incflion between the two types of uni- versal is, for modern thought, expressive of two di^nd ways by which we arrive at knowledge* The fir;^ expresses itself in special sciences such as hi^ory and biology, which teSt upon the fundamental assumption of the qualitative differ- ences and individuality of their subjedl matter* The second, assuming only quantitative differences Universals as the Basis of Realism 141 in the subjedl matter with which it deals, issues in the mathematical sciences of which the assump- tion is that everything can be expressed in terms of something else* Plato makes iftatements which apply to uni- versals of one class only, and not to universals of the other, in different parts of his writings without specifying which class he is considering. In the famous seventh letter, for in^ance, he ^ates that definition can only tell us what kind a thing is, can in fa6t only tell us what it is in relation to something else* The Forms therefore cannot be described in language at all, their indi- vidual and peculiar essence being lo^ in any attempt to iftate them in terms of other entities* This flatement applies clearly to universals of the fir^^ class* Equally clearly it is inapplicable to mathematical universals, which are definable in the sense in which Plato is using the word definition* Where, however, Plato insi^ on the community and the connexion between the " apxa* " or foundations of the sciences, he clearly has universals of the second type in mind. It would seem, therefore, that the very fadl that universals of the second type have particulars whose differences are quantitative only, and not qualitative, makes it possible to regard them as, in a sense, abflradions from their in^ances, devoid of full individuality, and therefore not so full or complete as universals of the third type, such as truth, goodness and beauty* 143 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy These latter are concrete^ though not in the sense in which the universal of the Ideali^ is concrete ; they are concrete in the sense that they incorporate and contain within themselves all the individual qualitative differences which their particulars exhibit* Whereas it is possible, though erroneous, to regard the mathematical universal as a mere copy of its particulars, the universal of goodness is not a copy of any good adt* It is, as Plato says, that which makes the a<5l good, that which, by attaching itself to the adlion is the cause of its exigence as a moral entity. Whereas the relation between squareness and the perfe(fl square may be described as one of imitation, that of the good adl to its universal is one of participation* I have treated somewhat at length the diflinflion between the different types or kinds of universal, because the fail of the difference has been chiefly provocative of the criticism which has been urged again^ the theory* It mu^ be admitted that Plato himself rather invites criticism on this head* He implies that the Forms are homogeneous in charadler, or at any rate fails to describe their differences, and then proceeds to make observations about them, which are clearly applicable to some types of universals and not to others* If, however, the difficulty is fairly faced, and the fadl of the difference admitted, I do not see that it con^itutes any reason for supposing Universak as the Basis of Realism 143 because there are several kinds of universals, that therefore universals do not exi^> or are not very much as Plato described them* To me the exigence of universals, eternal, immutable and separate, seems to be the ' only basis on which the pluralism I have advocated in the previous chapters is possible* And the theory is not without iftriking confirm- ation from modern scientific developments* One or two inflances may serve to show how modern scientific conclusions fit into and imply a theory of fundamental and ^atic universals* Let us assume that the modern scientific pos- ition which describes the ultimate constitution of matter as a number of atoms, electrons, molecules, or what not in a continual ^ate of flux, is corredl* How are we to conceive of their nature < The scientific ele(nTon is diverted of all sensible qualities* It is not cold or sweet or green* The qualities of coldness, sweetness and greenness are said to arise from the moyements of the eledlrons in certain ways and at certain speeds* They are not qualities of the eledlrons* The motions of the fledtrons being of such importance, we may proceed to ask why the eledlrons move as they do* Now, if they are themselves featureless and unchangeable, the fa(Sl of their motion is unintelligible* The motion of the eledtrons, which is the result of the attrac- tions and repulsions of the eleftrons, is unin- telligible on the assumption that the eledlrons 144 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy are without individuation* If they were featureless they could not attracfl or repel one another, Attra6lions, repulsions, Presses and so on would seem, therefore, to be not so much movements of the electrons as flates of the eleflrons, and the eleflrons mu^ accordingly be thought of as capable of changing their flate. If, therefore, neither the iSate nor the position of the eledlron is unchangeable, where are we to look for an ultimate and abiding reality i The answer would seem to be in the figure or scheme according to which the ele6lrons move* They move according to fixed and universal laws, and these," being the cause of the movements of the eledlrons, are in turn responsible for all the. change and variety of the world as we know iU These laws, which may be regarded as ultimate and universal, are not different in conception from Plato's mathematical universals, and the considerations which have led us to ascribe being to the mathematical universal will apply equally to the syjslem whereby the movements of the elecflrons are arranged* Modern biology suggests a further argument for the exigence of Forms as the underlying reality of the changeful world of particulars* No scientific dotSlrine commands more universal acceptance than the theory of the evolution of species* Yet many scientiifts. Sir Ray Lankeifter for instance, in developing this theory seem to affirm the reality of something which is not a particular thing* Universals as the Basis of Realism 145 The que^ion may be asked, what is the subject to which the changes and developments in any particular species are ascribed $* This subjedl is not any one of the individuals of the species which successively appear, and the gradual diver- gence of which from the supposed type is regarded as evidence of the theory ; nor on the other hand is it the aggregate of all the individuals of the species* Perhaps the be^ way of -describing the divergence would be not so much as alteration of the type, as the gradual revelation of a type until then imperfedlly known* The Form of the species, by their approximation to which individuals belong to the species at all, imperfedlly revealed in the earlier generations, becomes more clearly manife^ in the later* Evo- lution only reveals the universal of the type ; it does not alter the type* The later theory of " sports " held by De Vries and the Mutationi^s can be interpreted on the same lines* Admitting that the conditions which govern the produdlion of a " sport " in any partic- ular generation are unknown, the conclusion that they are purely " fluke " manife^ations of which no account can be given is not the only one to be drawn* Sports may be manifestations of the Form of the species whose nature, not being fully known, has remained unsuspecfted, at any rate in that aspetSt of itself which has manifeifted itself in the " sport*" And in general it mu^ be admitted that the 10 146 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy Platonic theory of universals provides as good an account of the problem of change, or becoming, as any explanation that has been advanced* An inftance will perhaps illuflrate that problem in the briefed way. When a child takes a ball of putty and moulds it into a square, whatexadlly has changed, and how has it changed s* As a preliminary diilindlion we may divide the ball of putty into form and matter, — circularity and putty* It is clear that the child does not alter the matter in the process, the mass of putty remaining con^ant* Nor does he alter the shape* One shape cannot become another shape, a circle cannot cease to be a circle and become a square* What he does alter is the whole thing, the material in which the diilindlion between matter and form is made* As the whole thing alters, it is seen that one form replaces another in it* The only account that can be given of this process is that a form which is present at one time, at another time is not present, the change taking place without process of generation or de^rudlion* The material body, therefore, which changes, points on to something unchanging which is behind the material body, but is not the material body* This unchanging something is the form which remains con^ant, and is at one time ex- hibited in the body and at another is absent* Similarly, all change may be accounted for by the presence or absence of a form, which is at one Universals as the Basis of Realism 147 time manifeSed in the changing objedl and at another absent from it* From the above account it will be seen how fundamental is the position, and how important the function of universals in the kind of dodlrine I have been advocating. They are a part of reality, as real as minds, as real as objects, known ultimately by the mind, and not by the senses ; the objedls of all ** a priori " knowledge. Our senses, though needful as an introdudlion to the knowledge of universals, are a hindrance to full comprehension of them, a comprehension which can be realised by mind alone* IL The divergence of this view from many current forms of Realism becomes manifest if the position and kind of being I have assigned to universals is compared with the place they occupy in other systems, I should like to take this opportunity of con- tracing this view with a syCem of Realism so widely known, as for inflance, Professor Alex- ander's, With the greater part of Professor Alexander's philosophy I should find myself in complete agreement. It is a philosophy which embodies in a high degree those qualities of sanity and common sense which critics have professed to find so conspicuously lacking in many philosophers. It is, in the main, non-technical in charadler, and 148 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy does not in its conclusions involve any great flrain on the credulity of common sense. Professor Alexander denies to mind the peculiar and unique position in the universe which Ideali^s have attributed to it. Mind is for him simply an object in a world full of objecfls, with a power of knowing which is dependent on the existence of the relation of physical com- presence between itself and the objedl known. The adlual process of knowing is one in which " the mind enjoys itself in contemplation of the objecfl," and Professor Alexander thus carefully avoids the introdudlion of any third entity between the mind and the known objedl. Objecfls are known by mind as they exi^, that is to say the fa(5l that they are seledled from their environment by mind does not mean that they are vitiated in the process, or that they owe any of their charadleri^cs to mental con^udion or seledlion. ** Objedts are not dependent for their charadlers on the mind which apprehends them, and have those charadlers where there are none to apprehend." Thus the validity of parts is affirmed, as di^n<5l from the whole of which they are the parts. Inflead of merging the parts in the whole, and denying them exigence short of it, the que^ion is asked whether even the whole can be self-exigent in- dependently of its parts. Space and Time are not appearances, as they are for Idealism : they are as real as the objects which they contain. Universals as the Basis of Realism 149 More than that — and here we approach a more controversial issue — they are for Professor Alex- ander at the foundation of reality, " holding the world together, so that whatsoever exi^s, exiles in them/* Space and Time are not separate and diflincfl* There is one reality — Space-Time — ** a ^uff which is the simple^ form of reality out of which all exiilents are made, as it were, cryflals within the matrix*" Objedls, including mind, " are special modi- fications of Space-Time, eddies in the sy^em of motions, and are, in their ultimate expressions, groups of motions." Things are divided into categories because of their fundamental spatio- temporal charadter ; identity is occupation of the same Space-Time, diversity occupation of other Space- Time, and so on, Universals are no exception to the rule that all entities are configurations of Space-Time, ** Universality as a category is the conflancy of a spatio-temporal configuration/' A universal is more particularly a plan of configuration in the sense that individuals, e*g*, individual dogs, follow the plan of con^rudlion, which is the universal " dog," varying from it only within limits. This does not mean that a universal is only a plan or arrangement of particulars having no exigence apart from them. It is also a di^indl entity, an individual which repeats itself being made of the all pervading Space-Time ^uff. It is not proposed here to discuss Professor 150 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy Alexander's conception of Space-Time as the one, ultimate, real reality* We are only concerned with the bearing of his conception on the problem of universals* The fir^ thing to notice is that there is no difference in kind of being between Professor Alexander's universal and his particular* " It will be clear/* he writes, " that the controversy as to whether universals are separate from par- ticulars, or in them disappears for us, because universals and particulars are made of the same ^uff, namely Space-Time, the particular being the specialised configuration, the universal the plan of it*" Space-Time being the continuum in which both universals and particulars are eddies, it is clear that the sub^ance of both is the same* It further appears on refledtion that universals and partic- ulars are not di^indt or separate, nor is universal separate from universal, or particular from par- ticular* They are united by the fadl that they not only draw their being from the same source but partake of the same essence* For Professor Alexander's relations are not external in the sense of being separate from their terms* Relations also are configurations of Space-Time* If Professor Alexander had said there is Space, and there is Time, and universals and particulars exi^ in them, it would be possible for them to be di^indl from another, and to be related by relations di^indt from their terms* But by Universals as the Basis of Realism 151 saying there is one Space-Time, and universals and particulars and the relations between them are not so much in it, as made of it, Professor Alexander approaches a conception which is not far removed from that of the moniiftic Absolute* He does not, it is true, .deny reality to the con- figurations because they fall short of the whole, nor does he insi^ that his Absolute mu^ be in essence mental, but in its all-absorbingness, its power of endowing with common being and unity of origin all the features of the world of sense, including mind and objedland relations, his Space- Time simply duplicates the fundlions of the Absolute* If this analysis of the implications of Professor Alexander's Space-Time theory be correal, his claim to present a thorough-going Pluralism, or Singularism, as he calls it, cannot be sub^an- tiated* It is essential for Pluralism that the universal should be diilindl from its particular ; that it should, moreover, be immutable and ^atic (Pro- fessor Alexander's universal, be it noted being made of Space-Time, is a plan of movement, therefore eminently alive, and therefore presum- ably capable of change) ; that it should be able at one time to clothe an individual by its presence, and at another to be absent from it ; and that it should not be ultimately identifiable with its particulars and with other universals in a common 153 Essays in Common Seme Philosophy entity to which both owe their being, and of which both are made. As regards the relation of the universal to Space and Time^ it would seem that, so far from all universals being made of Space-Time, some universals are Timeless, and others non-spatiaL Plato, regarding Time as unreal, sought always for an abiding reality which would be outside time* His inditSlment of the validity of physical objefts known by the senses, was largely influenced by his convidtion of the unreality of things which change. He therefore sought ultimate, reality in things which are ultimately timeless such as mathematical relations. The universal of a circle is, for in^ance, quite independent of the coming into being of its instances, and when Plato was thinking and writing of the second class of uni- versals described above, he regarded all reality as approximating to the type of being they dis- played, Universals of this type, therefore, are timeless. This does not mean, however, that all universals are timeless, although Plato, who frequently, as we have seen, attributed to all universals quaUties which attached to some only, often writes as if they are, Plato*s indicftment of the changing nature of sensible things will not hold as an indidment of Time itself. Admitting the truth of Plato's indictment of the unreality of changing things Universals as the Basis of Realism 153 on the ground that at any given moment they are not wholly real, but always in process of becoming something else, there remains open another road to an ultimate reality besides the road that leads to timeless mathematical relations taken by Plato* While we may agree that our apprehension of the world of becoming is not a complete appre- hension, the reason for its incompleteness may be sought not in the fadl that the world of becoming is in Time, Time therefore, being the culprit that taints with unreality, but in the fa importance and absolutism of the State and the tendency to endow it with a personality, and in Hegel, with something of the divine. The second ^rand in the thinking which has gone to produce the German theory of the State is also derived from the Greeks* It arises from the Greek notion of v(ris* Many Social Contrafl writers regarded the essential nature of the individual as that which he may be considered to have possessed in some hypothetical ^ate of nature before his primitive ego was impaired and submerged by the influences of Society* The Greeks took the opposite view* For them, a man*s essential <^vcrts or nature was not that which he possessed as a savage, but that to which he could only attain when living in Society* A man in fadl was not a man, not wholly in possession of his full nature unless or until he lived in Society ; he was only an animal* It was the funtflion there- fore of Society to bring out the latent potential- ities of his nature, and to con^itute him a real individual* It was only by living in the State that a man could realise all that he had in him to be* It was only by intercourse with his fellows, by the realisation of social duties and the fulfilment of social obligations, that he could develop his full nature and attain to his real <^u(rts* 164 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy The individual therefore owes to the State a debt for the fadt that he is the highly developed civilised being that he is* Besides the obvious benefits that a citizen of a civilised society receives from the State, free education for his children, and that security from violence which the law guarantees, he also owes the State gratitude for its beflowal upon him of his own individuality in all its richness and potentialities* This conception of the State as the developer and guardian of the individuality of its members was taken over and developed by German philo- sophers* Kant, believing the State to be based on contraft, describes what he conceives to be the im- plicit padl between the State and the individual in the following terms* " Men abandon their wild lawless freedom, in order to substitute a perfedl freedom, a freedom undiminished because it is the creation of their own free legislative will, but a freedom which nevertheless assumes the form of lawful dependence because it takes place in a realm of right, or law*" Hegel extended this peculiar notion of the nature of freedom* It is for him something adlive and objedlive, manife^ng itself, firfl, in law, second, in the rule of inward morality, third, in the whole sy^em of in^itutions and influences that make for freedom in the modern State* In the State man has fully raised his outward self to the level of his inward self of thought* The State represents the sum of the contractual wills of all the citi2:ens in it who have consented to belong Common Sense and Theory of State 165 to the State, and by so summing the wills of its individuals it causes to come into exiiftence a new entity over and above that sum, namely the State's will and the State's personality, in which the in- dividual will is made to transcend itself ♦ The State is thus regarded as being an individual, and as an end in itself* Now as the State is, and is more than the sum of the consenting wills of all the individuals who compose it, its adlions mu^ always be irreproachably right in the sense that they represent those wills* The result is twofold, and somewhat paro- doxical. Fir^ the State cannot afl: unrepresentatively. Thus the policeman who arreils the burglar, and the magi^rate who subsequently locks him up, are really expressing the burglar's own free will to be arreted and to be locked up, the policeman and the magi^rate being simply the officials of a State which represents and expresses the burglar's will as being a conflituent member of it* Secondly, the individual cannot adt purely as an individual, but only as a representative of the State, and he cannot will with a purely individual will, but only with a piece of the State's will* Thus, according to Mr* Bosanquet, even in rebelling againil the State the individual does not really rebel with an individual will which has a different source from the communal will, but with a piece of will which he has obtained from the State, a 1 66 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy piece in facft of the State's will, the State being divided again^ itself. From this it is but a ilep to the complete dodrine of the Absolute State* The State comes to be endowed with a number of fundtions which elevate it into the nature of the divine. Thus " it carries back," says Hegel, " the individual whose tendency it is to become a centre of his own into the life of the universal sub^ance." Thus it enlarges the individual's personality, purging it of petty aims, and enabling it to transcend itself by devotion to something outside itself. Godlike attributes of irresponsibility and amorality are further bestowed upon it. For inflance the State is the expression of the social morality of all its citizens ; it cannot therefore itself be bound by moral relations. For relations imply two parties, and there can be no other party besides the State which is the sum of all. This I take to be the meaning of Mr. Bosanquet's remarkable statement, '* the State has no deter- minate fundlion in a larger commimity, but is itself the supreme community; the guardian of a whole world, but not a fadlor within an organised moral world." The State being above morality it follows in Mr. Bosanquet's words that " it is hard to see how the State can commit theft or murder in the sense in which these are moral offences." It is not surprising that on this view of the nature of the State the normal relation between one State Common Sense and Theory of State 167 and another, when indeed the exigence of other States is admitted, should be regarded as one of ho^ility* For the view of the State outlined above is by no means confined to German philosophers* Since T* H. Green popularised it at Oxford, and Mr* Bradley and Mr* Bosanquet elaborated its doflrines, it has become an integral part of that idealifl philosophy which may be regarded as embodying the orthodox tradition in English philosophical thought to-day* It is popular at Oxford and at the Scotch Universities, and has only been seriously attacked in England during the present century* Since the war dissatisfaction with the theory has grown* For it is in the omnipotence of the State in time of war that the theory finds its moift flriking logical development* " The State of war," writes Hegel, " shows the omnipotence of the State in its individuality ; country and father- land are then the power which convidls of nullity the independence of individuals*" In the hands of writers like Niet:3sche and Bernhardi, who have pushed the State's claims with ruthless logic, the theory develops aspedls so revolting that political philosophy has for once been dragged down from the clouds, and the so-called German theory of the State become a byword for execration to the man in the ilreet* It is true that some, if not moiit, British thinkers have refused to accept, at any rate in theory, the implications of the Absolutist view of the State as 1 68 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy applied to the State in time of war. The State's paramountcy in time of war conflidled for Green with his " right to hfe " theory, and he concluded that war could at mo^ be relatively right, nevef absolutely right* War is not for him an attribute of the perfedl State, it is the attribute of a particulat State in its imperfedt adtuality* Green never, however, seems fully to have thought out the particular queiftion of the extent to which the State on his theory is j unified in claiming the unwilling services of its members in a war it has chosen few: itself, without provocation, how far the State's decision to declare war does in fafl necessarily represent the " common will " of individuals, or how far an individual may be allowed to judge for himself to what extent any particular war is, in Green's words, " relatively right/* Notwith^anding this refusal on the part of Green to accept the full implications of the theory, the dodlrine of the paramountcy of the State has found as much acceptance in England as in other countries, and has provided an intelledlual background and implicit juflification for the foreign politics of Statesmen* The dodlrine that the State is not bound in its external adtions by the canons of the moral law has had considerable influence on the actual pracflice of ^atesmen and diplomats* Our reasons are mainly useful for the purpose of providing intellec- tual j unification for our in^indtive bent, and Salesmen in all countries have liked the theory Common Sense and Theory of State 16$ well, because of the sandlion it gave to the apparent unscrupulousness of their foreign policies^ Hence the philosophy described above has too frequently found concrete expression in the utterances of ^atesmen, and in the actual dealings of States* Germany's adtion in 19 14 in violating the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium was a perfedl exposition of this philosophy in adlion> England's attack on Copenhagen in 1807 without a formal declaration of war, on the ground that the " interefl of the State " and the " immediate security of the people" juflified the absorption or deflru6lion of the Danish Navy, was another* Hence it is obvious that if amoral expediency is the guiding principle of State a6lion in foreign affairs, any scheme for a League of Nations based on mutual tru^ after the war is chimerical* The mutual tru^ and reliance demanded by such a scheme would be impossible if each nation were to believe that its neighbour was only awaiting the opportunity afforded by weakness or diflradtion on its own part to indulge in a policy of aggressive Imperialism* We mufl therefore try to show that the con- ception of the State of Hegel, of Mr* Bradley, and of Mr* Bosanquet can be exposed to serious criticism, and that this criticism may be mo^ powerfully diredled upon that part of the dodlrine which, in the realm of adtion, urges the exemption of the State from moral con- siderations, and in the sphere of obligation I70 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy juflifies the absolute claims of the State upon the allegiance of its members* II, The .traditional political philosophy described above is, in my opinion, fallacious. It is untrue in the principles which it assumes, and it is based on a fanta^ic disregard of the fails, (A)» The chief false principles upon which it refls are the assumption of the identification of the State, remarked on above, with the sum of human society and the assumption of its truly representative characfler* As regards the fir^ of these assumptions, if it were so identified, the queSion of how far it should be bound by moral considerations in dealing with bodies other than the State would not arise, for there would be no such bodies. Similarly, if it were truly representative of the wills of all its citizens, the que^on of the extent to which it was ju^ified in imposing obligations upon them again^ their wills would not arise, for it would not be possible for the State to a<5l otherwise than in accordance with their wills. Neither of these conditions is, however, true of the State as we know it, and it is with the State as we know it that common sense is concerned. Let us fir^ consider the que^ion of the relations of the State to other States involved by the firil of these principles. Let us assume for the moment that the para- Common Sense and Theory of State 171 mountqr of the will of the State over the wills of the individuals who compose it is a sound principle. Now it mufl be remembered that this paramountcy is based on the doctrine that the State's will is the sum and representative of the wills of its members. Individuals in the State coerced by the State may thus be regarded as coercing themselves. But once the exigence of individuals and bodies outside the State is admitted, it is clear that the same justification cannnot be found for the irrespons- ibility of the State in dealing with them. The State in no sense represents or expresses the will of bodies outside the State, It cannot therefore urge the quasi-moral juflification for coercing them which it asserts in dealing with its- own members. Forcible adlion by a State agzinSt the citizens of another State has, in facfl, no moral basis. Political theory has endeavoured to overlook this fa<5l by talking always of The State as such, a con- ception which involves the presumption that no citizens exi^ other than its own, with regard to whom it is possible for the State to ad amorally, Mr, Bosanquet, in a recent paper, read to the Ari^otelian Society defends the pradlice of considering The State as such, as though it were an all compre- hensive isolated entity, on the ground that the State is a class name intended to denote any member of the class of States, The State is considered as a representative of its class, and in Mr, Bosanquet's words, " is a brief expression for ' States qua States,' Would my critics," asks Mr, Bosanquet, 172 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy " find the same difficulty in the title of a book on * the heart * or * the ifteam engine i * " But this analogy will not hold* The nature and functions of the heart are not modified by the existence of other hearts* The nature and flru', possessing a will of its own, representing the wills and claiming the allegiance of all its members. Why then cannot philosophers do the further addition sum of " State plus State equals human society," and why cannot they admit that the moral obligations which are considered binding upon other social units in Common Sense and Theory of State 175 their dealings^ are binding also upon States in their dealings < It may, of course, be argued that the individual is not in point of fa6l guided by moral motives in his dealings with other individuals ; why then should States be so guided s* But few, I think, seriously doubt that the in- dividual does acknowledge a moral code, even if he fails to pradlise it* It is not true that the individual is adluated by purely selfish motives as the artificers of that figment ** the economic man " would have us believe, any more than it is true that he is guided by purely altrui^ic motives* The truth seems to be that the individual is far more attached to the intere^ of one person or group of persons than to those of others* He may, for in^ance, be the representative of a company or a college, or the truilee of certain property* People in such a position are frequently paid to look after other people*s interefls* Such men have no right to be generous for other people, and in this sense and in this capacity they are continually a(5ling as the so-called " economic man " would adl, since they are concerned more for the good of certain particular people, than for that of society as a whole. But though mo^ individuals as regards some part, at lea^, of their acflions, z£t in a typically economic way, such a procedure does not mean that they are adling purely selfishly, or that their adtions are exempt from moral considerations* Ti']^ Essays in Common Sense Philosophy The queflion of selfishness or the reverse has nothing to do with the particular considerations which influence the adtions of a man who is definitely adling on behalf of others. The Foreign MiniiSer of a State is in this position. He is bound to consider the intere^s of his own State as of primary importance* But he is not bound to allow those interefls to blind him to all considerations of a moral right and wrongs on the ground that he is the representative of an all em- bracing body which by its very nature is precluded from the possibility of ailing immorally in its relations with other bodies. If, as we have seen above, the allegiance which individuals have owed to certain social units, such as family and tribe, has not exempted their adlions from moral considerations when adling on behalf of their family or tribe, there is no reason to inve^ with such an exemption an individual adling on behalf of a State, The allegiance and loyalty which such a man owes and is expefted to owe to the State for which he a6ls, involves the sub- ordination of his own interefls to those of his State, Such loyalty is called patriotism, " Pat- riotism " in this sense, says Mr, Russell, " contains an element at once noble and open to attack, an element of worship, of willing sacrifice, of joyful merging of the individual life in the life of the nation," But once we admit that it is a valuable thing for the individual to recognise a good other than his own good, namely the greater good of Common Sense and Theory of State ijj the community to which he belongs, there is no logical reason for iftopping short of the human race* Ju^ as the individuars allegiance to tribe or family has become merged in and transcended by allegiance to the nation State, the community which has grown up out of the amalgamation of these smaller units, so allegiance to nation may " logically be expedled to merge into allegiance to the community of nations which may one day transcend the nation*" I have endeavoured to show in this sedtion that there is no peculiar charadteri^ic attaching to the nation State as we know it to-day of such a kind as to render it alone of all the social units which have marked the flages of the organisation of society, entitled to dispense with the ordinary principles of morality in dealing with its neighbours* The State on this conception is not the all- embracing unity subsiding in amoral isolation, and marking an ultimate ^age in social development envisaged by the traditional political Philosophy ; it is rather a unit, and not necessarily an ultimate unit marking a definite ilage in social progress, exiting in a world containing a number of other such units to which it is related by the ordinary principles of moral intercourse* It is, in short, a fadlor in a moral world outside itself, even if that moral world is not as yet a highly organised one* It is not simply the amoral guardian of the moral world constituted by itself. (B)* The traditional political philosophy is 12 178 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy based on a fantaflic disregard of fads. It dis- regards fir^ the exigence of the large numbers of associations of individuals formed for non- political purposes both inside and outside the nation flate, and it disregards in the second place the adlually exiting amicable relations between different States, (i), A common sense view of modern society provides- us with a very different pi6lure from that painted by theories of the omnipotent State, The Political State has not at any time been the only form of organisation known to man. At no time, how- ever, were its boundaries cut across by so many other organisations as during the years before the war. For this there were several reasons^ The exigence of the State as a unity depended upon what may be called the general principle of cohesion among its members. In order that it might be a nation and not an agglomera- tion of individuals, a certain power of gettmg on together was required of all its members. This power, from which it derived its unity, depended in its turn very largely upon the exigence of common cufloms and common traditions. It could only be built up after a considerable lapse of time, and the -growth of the political organisation called the nation State was consequently a slow and difficult affair. Also the stability of that organisation would depend in a large part upon the maintenance of that community of cu^om and tradition which character ised its members and guaranteed its cohesion. Common Sense and Theory of State 179 During the la^ century^ as the result largely of the invention of machinery, the spheres of cuiSom and tradition in the individuals life have shrunk* At the beginning of the nineteenth century the way of life which was followed by the citizens cf we^ern flates, had with unimportant modifications remained the same for centuries pa^* People per- formed the ordinary operations of life in a traditional manner, and the operations which they performed were themselves traditional. Consequently, a general basis of cuflomary be- haviour among citizens could be assumed to remain conflant, and it was on this basis that the State re^ed* The coming of the Industrial Revolution, and increased facilities for communication brought at^out a rapid change in social life* Big towns grew up, faflory life came into exigence, money was made rapidly, and fresh social flrata appeared bringing with them fresh manners and cu^oms* Local cu^oms ceased as a result to be di^inguishable as such in definite diflridts ; people*s lives in general re^ed less on habit and cuflom and more on idiosyncracy and income, and no general way of life could, as was formerly the case, be taken for granted by the State, As a result, that part of the individuals behaviour which was bound up with the political organisation to which he belonged, being the part which was identical with the sphere of habit and custom shared by other inhabitants of the same State, but not by i8o Essays in Common Sense Philosophy the inhabitants of other States^ decreased both in importance and extent* On the positive side, other and new ways of behaviour came to take its place* As a result of the individuali^ thinking of the nineteenth century, aided by the rapid change of circumflances in- dicated above, the old Greek notion that one good life could be definitely and universally predicated for all individuals in the State, it being the business of the statesmen to define and promote this good life among the citi2;ens by means of the laws, came to be abandoned* For the Greeks there had been a definite contra^ between the ^atesman and the ordinary citizen, the former setting the moral flandard, the latter following it unqueflioningly. We hold on the contrary that inspiration and insight into moral goodness may come from any member of society, that there is no one good life applicable to all individuals, and that it is vital to leave to the individual the power of judging for himself within limits the kind of good life he should lead. Thus it is not now possible to formulate for the indi- viduals of a modern State any one theory which will define and govern their relations to the State comparable with the theory of Natural Rights, or the Law of Nature of the Middle Ages; theories which remained con^ant, independently of considerations of change* Freedom of contrail is now populated universally for the individual, and this freedom finds concrete expression in the Common Sense and Theory of State i8i formation of numerous associations of individuals for non-political purposes which have no necessary relationship with the State* These associations are mainly of two kinds ; asso- ciations of individuals for economic purposes^ and associations of individuals for ethical purposes. They may be of world-wide extent, embracing citizens of many States, such as the Roman Cath- olic Church, or they may lie wholly within the boundaries of one particular State* In no case however do they contain all the inhabitants of one local territorial division* Having for their objedl either the produflion of wealth or the encourage- ment of ethics and religion, they include all that is of mo^ importance in the relations of the individual with society, and they were before the war squeezing the State out of the life of the ordinary man to such an extent that almo^ the whole of his adtivities were carried on in associations non- co-terminous with the State* The State, in fadl, only entered into the life of the ordinary man when he had to pay taxes, serve on a jury, or vote* These associations cutting, as they did, right across the bounds of the nation State, were coming pro- foundly to modify its ^rudlure, presenting in their possible ultimate development an alternative to the perfedlion of the nation State ideal indicated by Hegel and Mr. Bosanquet ; and yet they receive pradlically no attention from orthodox political philosophers who continue to describe the nature of the State as if the State remained unaffedted i83 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy by these organisations, as if, in fad, such organis- ations did not exi^» Let us examine a little more closely the nature of these associations. The largeil are economic associations for the production of wealth* Being economic in aim, their methods and objefls are different from those of political associations* The diflindlion between so-called economic adion and political adlion is not so much one of insight and method as of ends* Economic acftion is dictated by individual ends ; political adtion by the ends of a Society as a whole* The disregard displayed by economic adlion for the interefls of all save the authors of that adlion produces the effedl of blindness, charadteriilic of economic law. It is not, however, true to say as many philo- sophers of the Norman Angell school have held, that the economic conception represents the behaviour of tnoSl men. If this were true, if, in fadl, everybody was primarily selfish, appeals to the good of society at large would fall on deaf ears, whereas if no other in;ftance were forthcoming, the exigence of the self-sacrificing patriotism that marked the opening of the war proves that indi- viduals are influenced by the welfare of society as a whole* A truer conception is that which regards all men as economic men as regards certain of their acftions and certain of their aspecSls, those adlions and those aspedls being precisely those which arise from the fadl that, as remarked above, individuals care more for the interests of some Common Sense and Theory of State 183 people than they do for those of others* It is to this fadl, and not to the fadl that mofl men are always selfish, that we may attribute (in the modern State) the growth of associations of economically adding individuals for the production of wealth. These associations have seemed to some to be so important that they were at one time regarded as making war between States improbable if not impossible* Cobden's famous ideal of Free Trade depended on and was conditioned by an amicable society of free nations affording a background of security for international trading companies and financial associations. To increase the maximum of available wealth was his chief objedl, and he thanked God " that Englishmen live in a time when it is impossible to make war profitable/' Norman Angell describes a society so enmeshed by the interweaving of financial organisations that the economic welfare of almo^ any part of it is dependent upon the economic welfare of the re^ " The telegraph," he says, " involves a single syflem of credit for the civilised world; thatsy^em of credit involves the financial interdependence of all States/' Although we may not agree with all of Mr* Angell's conclusions, we mufl recognise that the synchronised bank rate and international financial associations on which he lays ^ress con^itute an element of great significance for, and some hoflility to, the Absolute State ideal* He shows that " It pays men better to think and feel as members of the 184 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy universal society/' i.e., as if territorial State bound- aries did not exiSi, or would shortly be superseded* " In banking, and for that matter in other economic things also, the world is one Society* Politically it is several diflindl societies tending to compete with one another* Of these two fails the former is more important, and determines adlion to a greater extent/* When it is remembered that these economic associations cut right across the bounds of the nation State, it will be seen that they afford the possibility of a division of society based on economic intere^s, alternative to the State division of society based on territorial proximities* In pradlice, what was happening before the war, was that the member of a company whose objeft was the production and importation of oranges from Brazil was much more concerned in the intere^s and welfare of the Brazilians who sent over the oranges, than in those of his next door neighbour in a London suburb whom he probably did not know* Here we have the gradual subfti- tutionof an economic international bond based on money-making, for the old local and national bond based on the chances of birth in the same square mile* A common sense fadt of this kind making clearly againfl the influence of the nation State, and pointing on to an order which may possibly supersede it, is ignored by political philosophers, who continue ideal State building oblivious of the pradtices of individuals* Common Sense and Theory of State 185 The case of associations for ethical purposes is somewhat similar* Since the time of the Greeks the moral and religious side of the individual's adlivities has become more and more dissociated from the State, and it is no longer the business of the law-giver to decide what the good life for the individual shall be* It is only during the lafl century, however, that great ^ress has come to be laid on the importance of individual choice in ethical matters* Mill firift emphasised the fa6l that in matters of condudl and belief the spontaneity of the individual is of great value, and ought not to be cramped* " If all mankind minus one were of one opinion and only one person was of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more juiftified in silencing that one person, than be, if he had the power, would be juflified in silencing mankind*" It is now recognised that it is only through individuals that the vague aspirations and religious insight of any particular age gain expression, and these individuals may be and usually are, dissociated from and hoiftile to those who hold political power* We are no longer pre- pared to accept authority in these matters unless it is self-chosen, and the reason why Utopias produce as a rule such a feeling of repulsion is because the average reader does not happen to want to live the kind of life which their authors advertise as the be^* "Mankind," says Mill again, "are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, 1 86 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy than by compelling each to live as seems good to the re^/' Now as the State is not concerned with the good life, but only, as we shall try to show later, with the background necessary for the maintenance of the good life, it becomes clear that in matters of ethics the State's concern is rather with criminals than with honefl citisjens* The ordinary citizen accordingly ceases to find satisfacftion for his ethical needs in the political organisation and State controlled Church to which he belongs, and seeks to form independent, and often international, associations for the purpose of satisfying his soul in his own way* Under the continually increasing ^ess and ^rain of modern life, the individual finding himself endowed with an increasingly complex moral, or more cynically, nervous syitem, has tended to found increasingly esoteric and variegated associations for its satisfaction. People are heard to complain that politics is, on the whole, a dirty game into which they do not wish to enter, a game which observes in public life a lower flandard ofcondudl than that which they maintain in private* Mere outward observance of the laws of the State does not demand a high degree of morality* A law- abiding citi2;en is not necessarily a moral man, and a law-making citizen is frequently an immoral man* No man would dream of voluntarily submitting his intimate personal relations to the handling of the law, and it is widely felt that the morals Common Sense and Theory of State 187 of the individual are not only outside the Staters business, but above its leveL " Why should I," argues the individual, " who have a high ideal of life and personal relations conform to the law, which has a low one 5* " Hence have arisen all kinds of associations of individuals for ethical purposes which take no account of the State, and transcend its barriers* Theosophy, Chri^ian Science, Spiritualism, and the High Church Party, are all representative movements which tend to sub^tute a loyalty to groups for a loyalty to individuals, and make claims upon their members other than, and sometimes antithetic to, the State*s claims* Associations of these two classes embrace all that is mo^ intimate in the individual life* Every aftivity that fills his pocket or enriches his soul, goes on in associations non-coterminous with the State* Thus individuals engaged in the pursuit of material or spiritual satisfaction pay no heed to the boundaries of the nation State, and in facft ignore the divisions upon which it is based* It is inevitable, therefore, that when the claims imposed by human society upon the individual are increasing both in complexity and intensity, there should come a clash* And the clash between the claims of the State and those of other associations is but symbolic of the clash between the philosophy which regards the perfedlion of the State ideal as the only legitimate development of social organisation, and that which regards the State as only one, and not necessarily the 1 88 Essays in Common Sense Philosophy moft important one, of the forms which the more complete organisation of society may take* The difference between the view I am trying to put forward and the traditional political philosophy is mo^ sharply brought to light in ju^ this matter of the conflidl of claims* On this point Mr. Bosanquet writes as follows : — " It is an error, I think, reding on a confusion regarding the sphere of the State, to sugge^ that obedience to it can conflidl with the exigence of loyalty to associations* • ♦ * at home or abroad. The State's peculiar fundlion is in the world of external adlion, and it does not enquire into the sentiments of men and women further than to e^ablish the bona fide intention which the law includes in the meaning of the adl* But whatever loyalties may exiSi in the mind, the State will undoubtedly, when need arises, of which it through conflitutional methods is the sole judge, prohibit and prevent the expression, in external adts, of any loyalty but that to the community which it represents* Absoluteness in this sense is inherent in the State**' It is here laid down that when the conflidt of claims referred to above has to be decided in the field of external adlion, the State is in all cases at its discretion entitled to enforce obedience to its claims as opposed to the claims of other associations, and furthermore it is, and mufl necessarily be, the State's nature so to do* Now it is precisely this proposition which is Common Sense and Theory of State 189 emphatically denied* It muiS be remembered that of all the associations to which the individual belongs, the State is the only one which he does not join by his own voluntary a