\^ -.-"■^ ....x.-.-j.. ....?. .-..s.... CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY arV13880 Scientific theism. Cornell University Library olin,anx 3 1924 031 216 157 a Cornell University B Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 21 61 57 SCIENTIFIC THEISM SCIENCE. £ Be '1 mondo laggifi ponesse mente Al fondamento clie Natura pone, Seguendo lui, avria buona la gente. DANTE: Paeadiso, VIII, 140-142. And If the world below would fix its mind On the foundation which ia laid by Nature, Pursuing that, 't would have the people good. Longfellow's TBANSLATioif. THEISM. La gloria di Colul che tutto muove Per 1' universe penetra, e risplende In una parte piil, e mono altrove. DANTE: Paeadiso, I. 1-8. The glory of Him who moveth everything Doth penetrate the universe, and shine In one part more and in another less. LOKOPELLOW'S TRAHSLATIOK. ORGANIC SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY SCIENTIFIC THEISM BY FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT, Ph.D. THIBD EDITION. BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1888 -'^ Copyright, 1885, By Fbancis ELLinewooo Abbot. All rights reserved. COB UN UBRAB.' University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. of SEtnSer anil trae, imtlj Inbt's Seep toisBnm fatse, Slljnu taugijt'st tjje CijilD tlje toe, putt Srutf) to trabe, iWore tljan earth's plB t{)e golB of ffioB to pttje; ^nli nofaj tlje iWan, faiija tnlg SutneB to Ijabe STJjB jog for Ijis reinatU, ijJttf) blintieB egcs ILass tije toon jgolB, un{(ceBeB, on tfjp gtabe. . NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION. I DESIRE to express my acknowledgments to the public, botli at home and abroad, for the favor with which it has received a book so abstruse as this, and so condensed in thought as to be intelligible only by very thoughtful and patient readers. If the call for a third edition had not been so sudden and unex- pected, I should have added an appendix, contain- ing further explanations in connection with certain really valuable criticisms, — such as those of Dr. J. F. Clarke, in the " Unitarian Eeview " of March, 1886 ; Professor H. A. P. Torrey, in the " Andover Eeview " of May, 1886 ; Ex-President John Bascom, in the "New Englander" of April, 1887; M. Eenouvier, in "La Critique Philosophique " of Dec. 31, 1887; and M. Ludovic Carrau, in Chapter IX. of his " La Phi- losophie Eeligieuse en Angleterre " (Paris, 1888). But perhaps it is better as it is; A larger and fuller treatise, to be eventually completed and published if vm PEEFACK persistently adverse circumstances do not forbid, will furnish the needed explanations in the only form satisfactory to my own mind, — that of a constructive philosophical system, founded on the theory of uni- versals which lies latent in the scientific method, and which is strikingly illustrated by the practical work- ing of Darwinism in modern science. That nothing short of such a philosophy can effectually oppose the agnostic tendencies of the unscientific but widespread modern phenomenism, or furnish an adequate founda- tion for the profounder and better-instructed theism which will inevitably replace it, is my strongest con- viction, — a conviction only deepened by the failure of so many of my critics to understand what they were trying to criticise. For instance. Prof. Josiah Eoyce, in " Science " of April 9, 1886, represents the main purport of this book to be "the well-known idealism of Plato," — the "objective idealism . . . which we all know so well." No answer could be made to such a criticism as that, except the answer which Kant made to a like critic: "A glance at this line soon showed me the sort of criticism likely to ensue, much as though some one who had never seen or heard of geometry, having found a Euclid, and coming upon various figures in turning over its leaves, were to say, on being asked his opinion of it: 'The book is a systematic guide PREFACE, ix to drawing ; the author uses a peculiar language, in order to give dark, incomprehensible directions, which in the end teach nothing more than what every one can effect by a fair natural accuracy of eye, etc' " Until a new and better book can be got ready, the present one may as well go out once more for what it is reaUy worth. F. E. A. Cambbidge, March 1, 1888. PREFACE. The foundation and immediate occasion of , this little book, whose size, I trust, is no necessary measure of its usefulness, was a lecture given before the Concord Summer School of Philosophy, July 30, 1885, in a " symposium" on the question : " Is Pan- theism the Legitimate Outcome of Modern Science?" The other lecturers on this subject were Mr. John Fiske, Prof. WiUiam T. Harris, , Eev. Dr. Andrew P, Peabody, Prof. George H. Howison, and Dr. Edw;ard Montgomery; — the lectures of the last two gentle- men being read by Mr. Thomas Davidson. The contents of my own lecture, entirely re-written from the first page, constitute less than one third of, what is here printed. The real origin of the book, however, was two articles published in 1864 in the Nm-th American Beview, whUe it was still under the scholarly care and joint editorial management of Professors , James Eussell Lowell : and .Charles Eliot Norton, — one in the July number on " The Philosophy .of Space xil PREFACE. and Time " and the other in the October number on "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned." Some of the criticisms here made on Mr. Herbert Spencer's philosophy, for much of which I have the highest admiration, were embodied in a general arti- cle on his First Principles, entitled "Positivism in Theology," and published in the now discontinued Christian Examiner in Boston, March, 1866 ; and in a special and elaborate review of his Principles of Biology, published in the North American Eeview for October, 1868, under the caption " Philosophical Biology." To both of these articles Mr. Spencer made replies, which to my mind were eminently in- adequate and unsuccessful, — to the former, through Prof. E. L. Youmans, in a subsequent issue of the Christian Examiner, and to the latter in a special pamphlet, entitled Spontaneous Generation, and pub- lished by D. Appleton and Comparny in 1870. I make these references in fairness to Mr. Spencer, that those who wish may investigate the subject more fully. The theory of Phenomenism versus the theory of Noumenism ; the theory of Idealistic Evolution versus the theory of Eealistic Evolution; and the Mechanical theory of Eealistic Evolution versus the Organic theory of Eealistic Evolution, — these are the vital philosophical problems of our century, and their solution must determine and decide that of the vital religious problem of Theism, Atheism, and Pantheism. The discussion ot these problems con- PREFACE. xiii stitutes the substance of this hook; and I must express my belief (not, I trust, without becoming modesty, for I submit my own belief unreservedly to the final verdict of the universal reason of man- kind) that it formulates a philosophical revolution, since it substitutes the philosophized scientific method for the now accepted phenomenistic method, in the settlement of all philosophical questions. In the opening lecture of the "symposium" above men- tioned, Mr. Fiske referred to the " revolution effected by the influence of modern science upon modern philosophy" (I quote from memory only), but did not show what this revolution is. To show what it is, and to what it leads in the sphere of religious belief, is the special object of my book. For a quarter of a century it has been my growing conviction that the solution of all the problems named can only be accomplished by the principle of the Objectivity of Eelations, together with its correlative and derivative principle of the Pee- oeptive Undeestanding. In my article on " The Philosophy of Space and Time," published (as already stated) in the North American Beview for July, 1864, occurs the following passage, which not obscurely hints at these two fundamental principles of a reformed modern philosophy : — "Now the five modifications of extension above described [magnitude, form, position, distance, and direction] are all relations among the limits of ex- tension ; and, inasmuch as relations cannot possibly XIV PREFACE. be objects of sensuous perception, but only of a higher faculty, it foUows that extension alone, and not its modifications, is immediately cognized by sense. Whether these relations can in any way be cognized immediately, or only by a process of infer- ence, it is unnecessary here to inquire ; suffice it to say that, if we really hiow the objective relations of things, there must be some faculty of pure and immediate cognition of relations." The novelty of this book lies in its acceptance, on the warrant of modern science and the scientific method, of the fact that we do " know the objective relations of things," and in its attempt to develop the necessary philosophical implications and- conse- quences of this fact, which phenomenistic modern philosophy steadily denies. From 1864 to the present time, I have followed the clew of the two fundamental principles above emphasized, and have been guided by them to results which, if true, must prove to be of incalculable importance and influence, not only in philosophy, but also ia religion. This thin volume was written at Nonquitt Beach in five summer weeks; but it took five times five years to think it out. It is a mere resume of a smaU portion of a comprehensive philosophical system, so far as I have been able to work it out under most distract- ing, discouragmg, and unpropitious circumstances of many years ; and for this reason I must beg some indulgence for the unavoidable incompleteness of my work. It is not the last word I hope to say on PREFACE. XV philosophy, if this word is kindly welcomed ; but that remains to be proved, and in the afternoon of life the time is growing short. Hegel argues that, just as the other sciences start with the subjective presupposition, or postulate, of the existence of their object-matter, so it would seem that philosophy must start with the subjective pre- supposition, or postulate, of the existence of its own object-matter, thought. But he denies the parallelism of the two cases. He maintains that, though phi- losophy must start with some initial position or " immediate standpoint," this immediate standpoint must, m the course of the science, be converted into a final result; and that in this manner philosophy exhibits the form of a closed or " self-returning circle " {ein in sich zurilckgehender Kreis), whose curve sweeps back to its starting point, and, by meeting, effaces it. " The only end, act, and aim of philosophy is to attain to the notion of its own notion, and thus to its own self-return and self- satisfaction." ^ I might perhaps claim that, even by this Hegelian canon, Scientific Kealism may be adjudged to be a true philosophy, notwithstanding Hegel's other canon that " every true philosophy is Idealism." ^ For the existence of the Eeal Universe, which the scientific method in its empirical use apparently presupposes 1 Werke, VI. 25, 26. 2 "Jede wahrhafte Philosophie ist deswogen IdeaJismus." ( Werke, VI. 189.) xvi PREFACE. as a mere postulate, and which I adopt as my own initial position on the warrant of the scientific method, is at the end (§ 87) explained as a specu- lative final residt in the Eternal Creative Act: " The absolute ' full-filling ' of Thought-in-itself, there- fore, or the embodiment of the Ideal in the Eeal, is the eternal self-legislation of Thought-in-itself into Thought-in-Being — of the subjective relational sys- tem into the objective relational system of the Eeal Universe." In thus " attaining to the notion of its own notion," my philosophy may be justly said to constitute a closed or " self -returning circle." But the apparent postulate of the scientific method is no postulate, no " subjective presupposi- tion," at all. On the contrary, the presuppositions of the scientific method are formulated objective perceptions ; they are made on the authority of the perceptive understanding (§ 50), which is every whit as valid as that of the philosophic reason, is itself " presupposed " bj^ the latter, needs no higher sanc- tion than itself, and at last, as the supreme organon of Verification, summons the philosophic reason it- self to its own tribunal for the judicial valuation of its " final results." Here lies the profound difference between scientific realism and philosophical idealism, stated as follows in the text (§ 69) : " Hegel sub- limely disregards the distinction between Finite Thought and Infinite Thought: the latter indeed creates, while the former finds, its object. And, since human philosophy is only finite, it follows PREFACE. xvii that no true philosophy is Idealism, except the In- finite Philosophy or Self -Thinking of God." I call attention to these points here, that the Hegelian antipathy to "presuppositions" may not lead any of my readers, when they see that scien- tific theism rests ultimately on the presuppositions of the scientific method, to lay down my book in disgust. I venture to ask them to read it through to the end, and to consider thoughtfully whether there may not be truth, after all, in results which are undeniably at variance with current philosophic opinions. In conclusion, I would say to my critics : " May you be fair and just enough to take pains to under- stand before you criticise! For then I shall be only too glad to profit by your criticisms." And, believing that there are innumerable minds in this age which have lost faith in the old with- out finding faith in the new, I would say to my readers: "May the hard-won thought of my little book be so clearly truth to your minds, that it may bring you renewed peace, serenity, and repose in the Infinite Soul of All!" P. E. A. Cambhidgb, Massachusetts, September 16, 1885. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 PART I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. THE PRESTTPPOSITIONS OP THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. § 1. Science a Totality of Established Truths .... 59 § 2. These Truths rest on the Scientific Method ... 60 § 3. The Scientific Method rests on its Presupposed Realism 62 § 4. Its Realistic Presuppositions Stated 64 § 5. Scientific Realism not the "Philosophy of Common Sense" 65 § 6. Scientific Realism not a "Begging of the Question" . 67 § 7- Scientific Realism Opposed by Philosophical Idealism . 70 § 8. Issue between Philosophy and Science as Phenome- nism and Noumenism 71 XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER n. THE THEOKT OF PHENOMENISM. PAGE § 9. Statement of the Theory 74 § 10. Its Principle the Subjectivity of Relations .... 76 § 11. Its Method the "Immanent Method," or Analysis of Subjective Representation 77 § 13. Criticisms of Phenomenism 79 § 1.3. Pirst Objection : PhenomenismDisproved by Science 79 § 14. Reply of Phenomenism: Science is Knowledge of Phenomena Alone 79 § 15. This Reply a Misrepresentation of Science ... 80 § 16. Phenomenism is Scepticism and a Secret Poe to Science 82 § 17. Second Objection: Phenomenism contradicts itself 84 § 18. It gives a Noumenon-Universe 84 § 19. It gives a Noumenon-Representation 85 § 20. It gives a mere Hypostasis of Thought-Functions . 86 § 21. It gives au Impossible Principle, since "Phenomena Alone " instantly become Noumena 87 CHAPTER in. THE TEEOET OP NOTJMENISM. § 22. Kanf s Two Oppositions 89 § 23. Kant Subjectivized Relations 89 § 24. Kanf s Inversion of the Meaning of " Noumenon " 90 § 25. Greek Objectivism 93 CONTENTS. xxi § 26. Tlie Inversion Explained 97 § 27. The Insep£trability of Noumenon and Phenomenon . 99 § 28. The Intelligibility of Things 101 § 29. The Fimdamental Opposition between Phenomenism and Noumenism 102 § 30. True Meaning of "Phenomenon," "Noumenon/' and " Experience '' 102 § 31. The Noumenon no Unintelligible " Substratum," — 105 § 32.' But the Intelligible and Immanent Relational Con- stitution of the Thing-ia-itself 107 § 33. Necessity of a Perceptive Understanding .... 108 § 34. Theory of Noumenism Stated 109 § 35. Synoptical Tables : — Table I. Kant's Two Oppositions .... 113 Table II. Phenomenism 114 Table III. Noumenism 115 PART II. THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. CHAPTER IV. THE PBINCIPLBS OF SCrENTIFIC THEISM. § 36. The Coming Philosophy of the Scientific Method . 119 § 37. The Noumenistic Conception of the Universe . . 120 § 88. The Noumenal Universe Known by Science . . . 121 \ 39. The Universe Infinitely Intelligible 123 § 40. Infinite Intelligibility of the Universe the Corner- stone of Scientific Theism 125 xxii CONTENTS. PAGE § 41. Unscientific Character of Pheaomenism . . . . 125 §42. WhatisIntelligibiHty? 128 § 43. Nothing is Intelligible but Relations 128 § 44. The Thing-in-itself, and its Principle of Individuation 128 § 45. Chaos an absolute Unreality 130 § 46. Infinite Intelligibility of the Universe lies in the System of Nature . 132 § 47. What is Intelligence ? 133 § 48. How to Answer this Question 133 § 49. The Understandmg is the Faculty of Relations . . 134 § 50. The Perceptive Understanding 135 § 51. The Conceptive Understanding 138 § 52. The Creative Understanding 143 § 53. Intelligence is either the Discoverer or the Creator of Relational Systems 144 § 54. Identity of Intelligence h^ all Forms and Degrees . 147 §55. The Universe Infinitely Intelligent 150 § 56. The Universe an Infinite Self-Conscious Intellect . 155 CHAPTER V. THE TJNIVEESE: MiCHDfE OE OEGAU ISM ? I 57. Scientific Discovery is Divine Revelation . . . . 157 I 58. Nature a Perfect System I57 I 59. Monadology and Materialism conceive Nature as an Imperfect System 158 60. The Organism the One Perfect System .... 160 61. Man creates Machines — the Universe creates Or- ganisms lei CONTENTS. xxiii §62. The Organism— Pinite and Infinite 163 § 63. The Fact of Evolution 165 § 64. God does not " Come to Consciousness in Man " . 166 § 65. God does not "Exist Outside of Space and Time " . 168 § 66. Idealistic Evolution 169 § 67. Soliloquy of the " Consistent Idealist " ... 171 § 68. Inconsistent Idealism 177 § 69. Science Rejects Idealism, and is itself Verified Eealism. 178 § 70. Realistio Evolution : Mechanical or Organic ? . . 180 § 71. The Mechanical l"heory Partial, the Organic Theory Universal 181 § 72. Their Coincidence and their Divergence .... 181 § 73. Machine and Organism 182 § 74. Nature either Wholly Organic or Wholly Inorganic 185 § 75. Both Machine and Organism Teleologically Consti- tuted Systems 186 \ 76. Concept of the Machine 187 § 77. The Mechanical Theory Destroys itself by Denying Teleology and Refusing to be Dualistio . . . 189 § 78. Concept of the Organism 190 § 79. The Organic Theory finds the One in the Many . . 193 § 80. The Mechanical Theory only Exists by Begging the Question, and Presupposing the Truth of Teleology 194 § 81. Illustration in Herbert Spencer 194 § 82. Illustration in Ernst Haeckel 196 § 83. Inevitable Decadence of the Mechanical Theory, and Inevitable Rise of the Organic Theory .... 199 xsiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. THE GOD 03? SCIBNCB. PAOE § 84. The Infinite Creative Life of God 202 § 85. His Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Will 203 § 86. His Infinite Beatitude and Infinite Love .... 204 § 87. His Infinite Moral Rectitude and Holiness ... 205 §88. The Problem of EvU 207 §89. Condensed Review of the Argument 208 § 90. The Scientific Idea of God 209 §91. Is it Pantheism? 210 § 92. Personality of God 211 § 93. The Transcendence and the Immanence of God . . 213 §94. "Head" and "Heart" in Religion 214 §95. The Lament of Ralph Waldo Emerson 215 § 96. The Essential Religiousness of Scientific Theism . 216 GENERAL SYNOPSIS ARGUMENT FOR SCIENTIFIO THEISM. I. The Foundation of Scientiflo Theism is the Philosophized Scientific Method. II. The Ground-Principle of the Philosophized Scientific Method is the Infinite Intelligibility of the Universe per se. 1. What is Intelligibility ? Atis. Intelligibility is the Possession of an Imma- nent Kelational Constitution. 2. What is Intelligence ? Alts. Intelligence is — (1) The Sole Discoverer of Immanent Relational Constitutions. (2) The Sole Creator of Immanent Relational Constitutions. (3) Identical in all Forms, and in all Teleo- logical. XXvi SYNOPSIS OF ARGUMENT. III. The Infinite Intelligibility of the Universe proves its Infinite Intelligence, because only an Infinite Intelli- gence could create an Infinite Belational Constitution. rV. The synchronous Infinite Intelligibility and Infinite Intel- ligence of the Universe prove that it is an Infinite Subject-Object, or Infinite Self-conscious Intellect. v. The Immanent Relational Constitution of the Universe- Object, beiug Infinitely Intelligible, must be an Abso- lutely Perfect System of Nature : therefore — 1. Not Chaos, which would be no System at all. 2. Not a mere Multitude of Monads or Atoms, which would be an Unintelhgible Aggregate of Systems. 3. Not a mere Machine, which would be an Imper- fect System. 4. But a Cosmical Organism, which is the only Absolutely Perfect System. VI. The Infinitely Intelligible and Absolutely Perfect Organic System of Nature proves that the Universe-Object is the Eternal, Organic, and Teleological Self-Evolution of the Universe-Subject — the Eternal Self-Realization or Self.Pulfilment of Creative Thought in Created Being — the Infinite Life of tJie Universe per se. VII. The Infinite Organic and Organific Life of the Universe per se proves that it is Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Will — Infinite Beatitude and Infinite Love — Infinite Rectitude and Infinite Holiness — Infinite Wisdom, SYNOPSIS OF ARGUMENT. xxvii Groodness, aaid Power — Infinite Spiritual Person — the Living and Lipe-Giving God pbom Whom All Things Proceed. VIII. Therefore, the Philosophized Scientific Method creates the only Idea of God which can at once satisfy both Head and Heart ; and Scientific Theism creates the oiJy Real Reconciliation of Science and Religion. INTRODUCTION/ I. In the Preface to the Second Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant has this remarkable passage : — "It has hitherto been assumed that our cognition must conform to the objects ; but all attempts to as- certain anything about these a priori, by means of conceptions, and thus to extend the range of our knowledge, have been rendered abortive by this as- sumption. Let us, then, make the experiment whether we may not be more successful in metaphysics, if we assume that the objects must conform to our cognition. . . . We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When be found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved around the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest. We may make the same experiment with regard to the intuition of objects. If the intuition must conform to the nature of the 1 Beprinted from the London Mind for October, 1882, where it appeared with the title, "Scientific Philosophy: A Theory of Human Knowledge." 1 2 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. objects, I do not see howwe can know anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then easily conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge. . . . This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philoso- phers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Eeason." Lange, in his History of Materialism (II. 156), thus alludes to the foregoing passage, and correctly states the conclusions logically deducible from it : — "Kant himself was very far from comparing him- self with Kepler; but he made another comparison that is more significant and appropriate. He com- pared his achievement with that of Copernicus. But this achievement consisted in this, that he reversed the previous standpoint of metaphysics. Copernicus dared, 'by a paradoxical but yet true method,' to seek the observed motions, not in the heavenly bodies, but in their observers. Not less 'paradoxical' must it appear to the sluggish mind of man, when Kant lightly and certainly overturns our collective experience, with all the historical and exact sciences,^ by the simple assumption that our notions do not regulate themselves ■ according to things, but things according to our notions. It follows immediately from this that the objects of experience altogether are only our objects; that the whole objective world is, in a word, not absolute ob- jectivity, but only objectivity for man and any simi- larly organized beings, while, behind the phenomenal world, the absolute nature of things, the 'thing-in- itself,' is veiled in impenetrable darkness." 1 The italics are ours. INTRODUCTION. 3 Fo-w when the great Kant, Whose towering and consummate genius there is no one to dispute, founded the Critical Philosophy on this cardinal doctrine that " things conform to cognition, not cognition to things," and when he claimed thereby to have created a mighty " revolution " in philosophy comparable only with that of Copernicus in astronomy, did he really occupy a new philosophical standpoint, or really adopt a new philosophical method ? No. On the contrary, he merely completed, organ- ized, and formulated the veritable revolution which was initiated in the latter half of the eleventh cen- tury by EiOScellinus the Nominalist, — which was condemned in his person by the Kealist Council of Soissons, revived in the fourteenth century by William of Occam, and finally made triumphant in philosophy towards the end of the fifteenth century, not so much by the inherent strength of Nominalism as by the weakness of its expiring rival. Scholastic Eealism. The essence of Nominalism was the doctrine that universals, or terms denoting genera and species, correspond to nothing really existent outside of the mind, but are either mere empty names (Extreme Nominalism) or names denoting mere subjective concepts (Moderate Nominalism or Conceptualism). Nominalism distinctly anticipated the Critical Phi- losophy in referring the source of all general concep- tions (and thereby of all human knowledge), not to the object alone or to the object and subject together, but to the subject alone ; it distinctly anticipated the doctrine that "things conform to cognition, not cogni- tion to things." Since genera and species are classifi- cations of things based on their supposed resemblances and differences, the denial of all objective reality to 4 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. genera and species is the denial of all objective real- ity to the supposed resemblances and differences of things themselves ; the denial of all knowledge of the relations of objects is the denial of all knowledge of the objects related; and this denial is tantamount to the assertion that things-in-themselves are utterly unknown. Wrapped up in the essential doctrine of Nomi- nalism, therefore, was the doctrine that things-in- themselves are utterly unknown ; that the knowledge of their supposed resemblances and differences is de- rived only from the supposing mind ; that "things conform to cognition, not cognition to things;" in short, that the only knowledge possible to man is the knowledge of the a priori constitution of his own mind, and the relations which it imposes upon things (if they exist), totally irrespective of what things really are. Nothing can be plainer, then, than that the Critical Philosophy did but logically develop the prime tenet of Nominalism, formulate it successfully, and expand it to a self-consistent philosophical system. This, and this alone, was the true merit of Kant. The "revolution" by which philosophy was made to trans- fer its fundamental standpoint from the world of things to the world of thought, and in consequence of which modern philosophy in both its great schools has inherited an irresistible tendency towards Ideal- ism, had been substantially effected and definitely established some four hundred years before. Kant did but bring to flower and fruitage the seed sown by Eoscellinus, and his Critical Philosophy was only the logical evolution and outcome of Mediseval Nominalism. INTRODUCTION. 5 By Kant's masterly development of Nominalism into a great philosophical system, it has exercised upon subsequent speculation a constantly increasing power. In truth, all modern philosophy, by tacit agreement, rests upon the Nominalistic theory of uni- versals. Hence alone can be explained the fact, so patent and so striking, yet so little understood or even inquired into, that both the great schools of modern philosophy, the Transcendental and the Asso- ciational, equally exhibit in its full force the tendency to Idealism latent in that theory. Nominalism logi- cally reduces all experience, actual or possible, to a mere subjective affection of the individual Ego, and does not permit even the Ego to know itself as a nou- menon. The historical development of the Critical Philosophy into the subjective idealism of Eichte, the objective idealism of Schelling, and the absolute idealism of Hegel, only shows how impossible it is for that philosophy to overstep the magic circle of Egoism with which Nominalism logically environed itself. No less striking is the inability of the Eng- lish school to escape from the idealistic tendencies in- herent in its purely subjective principle of Association — one of the innumerable aliases by which Nominalism eludes detection at the bar of contemporary thought ; for Locke's successors, Berkeley, Hume, Hartley, the Mills, Bain, Spencer, and others, drift towards Ideal- ism as steadily as Kant and his successors. It is, in fact, logically impossible to draw any but idealistic conclusions from the premises of Nominalism — and those, too, idealistic conclusions which cannot stop short of absolute Solipsism. That modern philosophy in both its great branches irresistibly tends to Idealism is a position that will 6 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. scarcely be disputed. Dr. Krauth, in Ms admirable edition of Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge (p. 122), thus sums up the grounds of this general and admitted tendency, while yet not perceiving that in the last analysis they are all reducible to the almost universal acceptance of the Nominalistic view of genera and species, with its implied negation of the objectivity of relations : — "It [Idealism] rests on generally recognized prin- ciples in regard to consciousness. Its definition of consciousness is the one most widely received : the mind's recognition of its own conditions. It main- tains that the cognitions of consciousness are abso- lute and infallible, and that nothing but these is, in their degree, knowledge. In all these postulates the great mass of thiakers agree with Idealism. The foundation of Idealism is the common foundation of nearly all the developed philosophical thinking of all schools. Idealism declares that, while con- sciousness is infallible, our interpretations of it, on which we base inferences, may be incorrect; and nearly all thinkers of all schools agree with Idealism here. No inference, or class of inferences, in which a mistake ever occurs is a basis of positive knowledge. Hence, says Idealism, only that which is directly in consciousness is positively known, and nothing is directly in consciousness but the mind's own states. Therefore we know nothing more. So com- pletely has this general conviction taken posses- sion of the philosophical mind, that even antagonists of Idealism, . who would cut it up by the roots if they could cut this up, have not pretended that it could be done.?' (The italics are all Dr. Krauth's.) INTRODUCTION. 7 The " strengtli of Idealism," thus described by Dr. Krauth, is the strength of Nominalism — no more, no less. If all the general and special relations of things, conceived by the mind and expressed by general terms, exist in the mind alone, nothing is known of things themselves ; for knowledge of things is knowledge of their relations. Nominalism, there- fore, is the original source of the definition of knowl- edge adopted by Idealism, as shown above : that is, the contents of consciousness alone. Inasmuch, more- over, as the notion of a common consciousness is itself a general notion, and consequently destitute of all objectivity, nothing is "knowledge," so defined, that' is outside of the individual consciousness. Beginning with Nominalism, therefore, Idealism must end in Solipsism, on penalty of stultifying itself by arbitrary self-contradiction. This was the path marked out for the Critical Philosophy by inexorable logic, and Fichte was more Kantian than Kant himself when he reso- lutely pursued it. Solipsism is the very reductio ad aisurdum oi Idealism,. yet it is the rigorously logical consequence of its own definition of knowledge, which again is the rigorously logical consequence of the Nominalistic view of universals. On this point, a further quotation from Dr. Krauth will be extremely pertinent : — "While Idealism has here a speculative strength, which it is not wise to ignore, it is not without its weakness, even at this very point, for its history shows that it is rarely willing to stand unreservedly by the results of its own principle as regards con- sciousness. If it accept only the direct and infallible knowledge supplied in consciousness, it has no com- mon ground left but this — that there is the one train 8 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. of ideas, whicli passes in the consciousness of a par- ticular individual. A consistent Idealist can claim to know no more than this — that there exist ideas in his consciousness. He cannot know that he has a sub- stantial personal existence, or that there is any other being, finite or infinite, beside himself. And as many Idealists are not satisfied with maintaining that we do not know that there is an external world, but go further, and declare that we know that there is not an external world, they must for consistency's sake hold that an Idealist knows that there is nothing, thing or person, beside himself. Solipsism, or absolute Egoism, with the exclusion of proper personality, is the logic of Idealism, if the inferential be excluded. But if inference, in any degree whatever, be allowed, not only would the natural logic and natural inference of most men sweep away Idealism, but its own principle of knowledge is subverted by the terms of the suppo- sition. Idealism stands or falls by the principle that no inference is knowledge. We may reach inferences by knowledge, but we can never reach knowledge by inference" (p. 123). Against both schools of modern philosophy, there- fore, committed as thejr both are to the definition of knowledge drawn from Nominalism and ending in Solipsism, the charge of logical inconsistency and self-contradiction may be fairly brought, just so far as they hesitate to follow up the path to cloudland which begins with that definition. But any philosophy which hesitates to be logical forfeits aU claim to the respectful consideration of mankind. The great Eoscellino-Kantian " revolution " by which Nominalism was made to supplant Scholastic Eealism, and philosophy to transfer its fundamental INTRODUCTION. 9 standpoint from the world of things to the world of thought, was a revolution which logically contracts " human knowledge " to the petty dimensions of indi- vidual self -consciousness — renders it valueless as to things themselves and valuable only as to the d, priori constitution of the individual's own mind — and in effect reduces it to a grand hallucination. Like the French Kevolution, the Nominalistic revolution can live only by the guillotine, and decapitates every per- ception which pretends to bring to the miserable solipsist, shut up in the prison of his own conscious- ness, the slightest information as to the great outside world. Defining knowledge as the mere contents of consciousness, it relegates to non-entity, as pseudo- knowledge, whatever claims to be more than that. Under its sway, philosophy is blind to the race, and beholds the individual alone. What wonder that, in the hands of those who insist on their right to reduce theory to practice, philosophy is so often found pan- dering to the moral lawlessness of an Individualism that sets mere personal opinion above the supreme ethical sanctities of the universe ? In human so- ciety, individual autonomy is universal antinomy ; for the law that binds only one binds none. Yet, with Nominalism for its root. Idealism for its flower, and Solipsism for its fruit, how can modern philosophy, teaching in both its great schools that the individual mind knows nothing except the states of its own con- sciousness, discover any law that shall have recog- nized authority over all consciousnesses ? For such a discovery it is hopelessly incompetent. So far, there- fore, as the social and moral interests of mankind are concerned, the present philosophioal situation has become simply intolerable. 10 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. Fortunately for the future of society, however, the principle of cognition embodied in the Nominalistio definition of knowledge has never obtained general assent outside of the circle of purely speculative thought. The protest of " common sense " against it was even taken up by the Scotch school in the name of philosophy itself ; but the same Nominalism which paralyzes all modern philosophy paralyzed the Scotch school, and the protest died on its tongue. Without any conscious protest, however, though with an in- stinctive hostility to " metaphysics " and to the phi- losophy which it confounds with " metaphysics," physical science has immovably planted itself on a new definition of knowledge, and fortified it impreg- nably against all comers ; and, on the principle of cognition which it establishes, universal science, car- rying up the physical and the mental into the higher unity of the cosmical, is even now beginning to build a temple of truth destined to be coeval with the human race. 1. Modern Philosophy defines knowledge as the recognition by the Ego of its own conscious states. 2. Modern Science defines knowledge as twofold, — individual knowledge, or the mind's cognition of its own conscious states plus its cognition of the Cosmos of which it is a part, and universal knowledge, or the sum of all human cognitions of the Cosmos which have been substantiated by verification and certified by the unanimous consensus of the competent. This latter definition may never have been formu- lated before, but it is tacitly assumed in all investigar tions conducted according to the scientific method; and the results of that method would be completely invalidated, if the definition itself should be essen- INTRODUCTION. 11 tially erroneous. Science does not present its truths as anybody's "states of consciousness," but as cos- mioal facts, acknowledgment of -vrhich is binding upon all sane minds. The principle of cognition on which it proceeds is utterly antagonistic to the Nomi- nalism which denies all objectivity to genera and species : it is drawn from Eealism alone, not the Scholastic Eealism of the Middle Ages, but the Scien- tific Realism or Eelationism which will be explained below. Nominalism teaches that things conform to cognition, not cognition to things ; Scientific Eealism teaches that c6gnition conforms to things, not things to cognition. It is futile to seek a reconciliation of these positions ; the contradiction is absolute and insoluble. Modern philosophy counts nothing as " known " whigh ^ ia^putside of _ the individual con- sciousness ; modern science presents as "known" a vast mass of truths, of which only an insignificant fraction can be to-day comprised within the narrow limits of a single consciousness, and which in their totality can be contained only in the universal mind of man. Under the influence of the all-prevailing Nominalism of the present day, philosophy has, and must have, its beginning-point in the individual Ego ; under the influence of its own unsuspected Eealism, science begins with a Cosmos of which the individual Ego is merely a part. The one is exclusively and narrowly subjective, just so far as it is logically faith- ful to its own clearly proclaimed principle of cogni- tion J the other is objective, in a sense so broad as to include the subjective within itself. In truth, so far was the old battle of Nominalism and Eealism from being fought out by the end of the fifteenth century, that it is to-day the deep, underlying problem of 12 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. problems, on the right solution of which depends the life of philosophy itself in the ages to come. But let it not be forgotten that the old Kealism of Scholasti- cism is by no means the new Realism of Science ; the former perished as rightfully before Nominalism as Nominalism itself will perish before the latter. ' ''That the scientific point of view is a thoroughly objective one, and that the cosmical facts discovered by science can by no means be made to vanish in the universal solvent of Nominalistic subjectivism, easily appears. One or two illustrations will sufiice. Prof. Jevons, in the Principles of Science (3d ed., pp. 8, 9), thus speaks of the objective validity of mathematical formulae : — " A mathematician certainly does treat of symbols, but only as the instruments whereby to facilitate his reasoning concerning quantities ; and as the axioms and rules of mathematical science must be verified in concrete objects in order that the calculations founded upon them may have any validity or utility, it follows that the ultimate objects of mathematical science are the things themselves. . . . Signs, thoughts, and ex- terior objects may be regarded as parallel and analo- gous series of phenomena, and to treat any one of the three series is equivalent to treating either of the other series." Prof. Tyndall, in his Light and Electricity (pp. 60, 61), thus illustrates the unhesitating and uncondi- tional objectivity with which the science of physics presents its truths, as facts of a veritably existent and actually known Cosmos : — " The justification of a theory consists in its exclu- sive competence to account for phenomena. On such a basis the Wave Theory, or thq Undulatory Theory INTRODUCTION. 13 of Light, now rests, and every day's experience only makes its foundations more secure. . . . This sub- stance is called the luminiferous ether. It fills space ; it surrounds the atoms of bodies ; it extends, without solution of continuity, through the humors of the eye. The molecules of luminous bodies are in a state of vibration. The vibrations are taken up by the ether, and transmitted through it in waves. These waves impinging on the retina excite the sensation." Prof. Cooke, in his New Chemistry, illustrates the same point still more strikingly and emphatically, with reference to the atomic theory : — "The new chemistry assumes as its fundamental postulate that the magnitudes we call molecules are realities ; but this is the only postulate. Grant the postulate, and you will find that all the rest follows as a necessary deduction. Deny it, and the 'New Chemistry' can have no meaning for you, and it is not worth your while to pursue the subject further. If, therefore, we would become imbued with the spirit of the new pHlosophy of chemistry, we must begin by believing in molecules ; and, if I have succeeded in setting forth in a clear light the fundamental truth that the molecules of chemistry are definite masses of matter, whose weight can be accurately determined, our time has been well spent." Eemembering that the weight of the hydrogen- atom is taken as the unit of molecular weight, or microcrith, and that, according to calculations based on the figures of Sir William Thomson, this atom weighs approximately, in decimals of a gramme, 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,109,312, or 109,312 oc- tillionths of a gramme, one can easily perceive the impossibility of construing this utterly unimaginable 14 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. quantity under any terms expressive of human con- sciousness. To consciousness it is equivalent to abso- lute zero; but the « New Chemistry " demands belief in it as an actual quantity in Nature, an objectively existent reality in a Cosmos not resolvable into con- sciousness by any Nominalistic legerdemain. It would be superfluous to cite further passages in order to illustrate the thoroughly objective spirit, method, and results of modern ■ science, as contrasted with those of modern philosophy. All scientific in- vestigations are founded on a theory__diametrically opposed to that of Kant: namel^ that_things can be known, though incompletely known, as tSe;^]^^n themselves, and that cognition must conform itself to them, not they to it. This is the philosophical trans- lation of the principle of verification. The Nomi- nalism that inculcates the contrary doctrine is an excrescence upon modern philosophy, a cancerous tumor feeding upon its life. Science ha^ achieved aU its marvellous triumphs by pfaclibiffy denyingjbhe fundamental principle laid down by Kant, and by practically proceeding upon its exact opposite; and it is a scandal to philosophy that she has not yet legitimated this practical procedure, overwhelmingly justified as it is by its incontrovertible results. The time has come for philosophy to reverse the Eoscel- lino-Kantian revolution, and give to science a theory of knowledge which shall render the scientific method, not practically successful (for that it already is), but theoretically impregnable The present article is the beginning of an attempt in that direction. A glance at the course of speculation in the past will render clearer the nature of the problem which philosophy has now to solve. INTRODUCTION. 15 II. The pre-Sooratio philosophy of Greece was unquali- fied Realism, of a naive and primitive type. The earlier Ionic philosophers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, sought only to generalize the phenomena of the outer world, as products of a single original cause or principle (oipx^) — water, undifferentiated chaotic matter (to airupov), air, — but they never dreamed of doubting its objective existence. The Pythagoreans sought the causal unity of the viniverse in its most general relations, as number, proportion, harmony, order, law, which they conceived as at once the abstract and concrete directive force of nature; their cosmology -was no less objective than that of their predecessors. The Eleatics, Xenophanes, Par- menides, Zeno of Elea, Melissus, maintained the principle of objective Monism ; their h/ koX irav was illimitable and immutable Being, devoid of every positive attribute save that of thought, while the manifold appearances under which it presents itself to man were only mere seeming and delusion. But there was no element of subjectivism in their cos- mology ; they attributed to the Cosmos permanence without change, imity without multiplicity, as its constitutive objective principle. Heraclitus taught that the principle of all things was fire, as the type of ceaseless and universal change (vavra x"P")) ^ oppo- sition to the Eleatics ; but his cosmology was none the less objective because he discovered in it only change without permanence, multiplicity without unity. Empedocles sought to mediate between the Eleatic and Heraclitean views by positing four change- less elements, air, earth, fire, and water, with two con- 16 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. stant forces, love and hate, and by conceding endless change in the combinations and mutual relations of these permanent factors of creation; but he was wholly as realistic and objective as his predecessors. The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, offered a strictly mechanical explanation of Nature, attributing independent objective reality to the atoms which alone remained changeless in the midst of eternal change. Anaxagoras in a certain sense summed up all the preceding philosophies in his own, by means of his theory of o/wiofiepetai or semina rerum, while he introduced a new principle in the assumption of an immaterial voSs as the moving and guiding cause of the universe ; and he, too, was unreservedly objective in his cosmology. With the Sophists, however, appeared the first symptoms of true subjectivism ; and they may be regarded as the forerunners of Nominalism, though only in a feeble, crude, and undeveloped sense. The Sophists had no system, no school, no determinate principle save that of scepticism as to objective truth and paradoxical acquiescence in all opinions as equally true or equally false. Their movement was the de- structive distillation of all fixed conviction in the heats of logomachy and interminable word-quibbling. They had nothing in common save a certain unity of spirit and method — a spirit of universal scepticism, and a method of adroit disputation by the employ- ment of double meanings and ambiguous middle terms. Sceptics in philosophy, anarchists in ethics, their greatest historical merit is that of having polar- ized and called into activity the noble intellect of Socrates. They held no definite theory of subjectiv- ism at all ; but the manner in which they evacuated INTRODUCTION. 17 general terms of all fixed meaning and all objective validity challenged and arrested the attention of Socrates, as the true secret of their plausibility and bewildering success in debate. It was this fact that fixed and determined the direction taken by this mighty genius. The Sophists practically, though not theoretically, anticipated the Nominalists in conced- ing only subjective validity to generic and specific terms, which constitute the very alphabet of knowl- edge ; and Socrates, piercing to the ulterior conse- quences of this procedure in the dissolution of all intellectual verity and all moral obligation, rose, like a giant in his strength, to combat a great tendency of his time which threatened to cause the fatty degener- ation of Greek civilization, the melancholy decay of Greek thought and life. The astounding success of Socrates in this great struggle is the most splendid monument to the power of individual genius that the history of philosophy can show. Alone and unaided, he checked and re- versed the Nominalistic revolution already far ad- vanced, annihilated the Sophists as a practical power in philosophy, and determined the course of specula- tion for a millennium and a half in the direction of Eealism. No other victory such as this was ever won in the annals of human thought ; and yet what histo- rian of philosophy has perceived, much less celebrated it ? It will never be appreciated until the dominant Nominalism of modern philosophy has given place to the dawning New Eealism of modern science — a day perhaps less distant than now appears. What gave success to Socrates in this vast encounter was the fact that he planted himself on an immovable rock, the objective significance and validity of general terms, 2 18 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. as opposed to their purely subjective import and value. Even Scliwegler, blind as lie is to the enor- mous importance of the struggle between Nominalism and Realism (to -which in his History of Philosophy he devotes less than one page !), says of Socrates that "there begins with him the philosophy of objective thought" (p. 38, Stirling's translation — the italics are his). Aristotle explicitly declares in the Metor physics (XII. 4) that " Socrates was engaged in form- ing systems in regard to the ethical or moral virtues, and was the first to institute an investigation in regard to the universal definition of these. . . . There are two improvements in science which one might justly ascribe to Socrates — I allude to his employ- ment of inductive arguments and his definition of the universal. . . . Socrates did not, it is true, constitute universals a thing involving a separate subsistence, nor did he regard the definitions as such ; the other philosophers, however, invested them with a separate subsistence." But Socrates did attribute universal objective authority to the virtues he defined; he refuted the Sophistic construction of them as merely subjective ; he repudiated the Sophistic notion that nothing is good or bad by nature {tjiva-tC), but only by statute (vo/io)), and vindicated the objectivity of general terms in some sense, without reaching that luminous doctrine of the objectivity of relations which alone explains it clearly. That Socrates con- ceived of universals as objective realities, without arriving at any definite conclusions as to the mode of this reality, sufl&ciently appears from the subsequent course of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom inherited from Socrates the undefined objectivity of universals, and each of whom proceeded to define it in his own INTRODUCTION. 19 way. The point to be here specially noted is the fact that Socrates rolled back the advancing tide of Nomi- nalism let loose by the Sophists, accomplished the feat by means of the definition of nniversals as objec- tively valid and real, and stamped the thought of fifteen hundred years with the impress of his own Realism. The impending Nominalistio revolution having been thus definitely arrested by Socrates, — the great ques- tion of universals having been bequeathed by him to succeeding generations for a full and final solution, — the existence of an objective outer world was a com- mon and undisputed premise among his followers. In particular, the assumption of the objective reality of genera and species, as necessarily involved in that of a cognizable outer world, and as constituting the objective ground of all general terms, became a com- mon point of departure to Plato and Aristotle. But, while Plato erected on this assumption his theory of Ideas, Aristotle erected on it his opposing theory of Essences or Forms — to which reference will be more paiticulai-ly made below. Both the Platonic and Aristotelian points of view were fundamentally and equally objective, and equally alien to the point occupied by modern philosophy since the triumph of Nominalism over Eealism, when the tides of thought began to set irresistibly in the direction of subjectivism. The Stoics betrayed to some extent the influence of the Sophists in their theory of universals. They dis- carded alike the Platonic theory of Ideas and the Aris- totelian theory of Forms, and were apparently the first to proclaim distinctly the doctrine of subjective con- cepts, formed through abstraction. This doctrine, 20 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. however, did not attain in their hands a full logical development into the theory of Nominalism ; in fact, it did not at all prevent the Stoics from advancing to the construction of a positively objective cosmology and theology of their own; and, although with a serious logical inconsistency, they maintained on the whole an objective point of view. The Epicureans, with their doctrine of the atoms and the truth of all perceptions of matter, may be considered quite free from the tendency to subjectiv- ism, so far as the present discussion is concerned. The Sceptics — the earlier with their " Ten Tropes," and the later with their " Mve Tropes " — did not so much deny the existence of an outer world as the trustworthiness of human knowledge of it, and ad- vanced no definite doctrine respecting universals. They occupied mainly negative and critical ground, and exerted no great influence in that controversy. Their arguments mostly rest on the assumption of Kealism. During the third great period of Greek philosophy, including the Grseco-Judaic, the Neo-Pythagorean, and the Neo-Platonic schools, the predominant ten- dency was pre-eminently objective, since the mystical or theosophical contemplation of a Divine Transcen- dent Object by means of the " ecstatic intuition " is incompatible with an exclusive subjectivity. Theoso- phy, in fact, tends to reduce the subject to a state of pure passivity, and to absorb him completely in con- templation of the Object of worship. In no period of Greek philosophy, therefore, did the Kominalistio tendency gain much force or head- way after it had once been checked by Socrates. Its hour had not yet come. INTRODUCTION. 2l Passing now to the Christian Era, it may be said that the Patristic period was devoted to the develop- ment of systematic or dogmatic theology, without interference from pagan philosophy after the closing of the School at Athens, in a.d. 529, by edict of the emperor Justinian. Since dogmatic theology, by the very nature of its conceptions, is unqualifiedly objec- tive, the Patristic and in main the Scholastic periods ai-e chiefly noticeable here as having carried the prin- ciple of objectivity to so abnormal and oppressive a degree of development as to cause speculation to rebound to the opposite extreme. The creation of a great body of doctrine held by the Catholic Church to be the absolute and unmixed truth of God, and the terrible intolerance with which the Church stamped out all dissent from this fixed standard of belief, in- evitably tended to excite a reaction against it, in pro- portion to the mental activity of the age. Moreover, the Church had planted itself in philosophy upon the Realism of Plato and Aristotle ; and it was equally inevitable that the reaction should be against this, no less than against the theology of the Chui-ch. There is no room for wonder, then, at the fact that the cause of Nominalism came to be identified with the cause of intellectual and religious freedom, and the triumph of the one with the triumph of the other. Consequently it is to the Scholastic period, and to the rise of the great controversy between Realism and Nominalism — the former representing Catholic orthodoxy and the latter heterodoxy, — that must be traced the begin- ning of the general subjective movement of modern philosophy, although this movement did not gain full headway till after the downfall of Scholasti- cism, when victorious Nominalism had time to de- 22 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. velop unrestrained all the latent tendencies it involved. Tennemann has significantly and truly said that this momentous controversy was "never definitely settled." The reason is that both sides were right, yet neither wholly so; they did but bequeath to later times a problem they could not solve. Disguised as it is by new forms and new names, the immeasurably impor- tant issue between objectivism and subjectivism in- volved in that ancient controversy survives to-day. Nominalism, by virtue of the truth it contained and the freedom it represented, conquered Eealism in philosophy, and culminated in the splendid genius of Kant ; Eealism, by virtue of the truth it too con- tained, conquered Nominalism in science, created an army of experimental investigators of Nature, and culminated in the establishment of the scientific method, which, though as yet purely practical and empirical, demands with increasing emphasis from philosophy a theory of knowledge that shall justify it in all eyes. Here is the explanation of the wide divergence, the virtual divorce and even antagonism, which is so patent a fact to all who look beneath the surface of things, between science and philosophy. All the intellectual interests of mankind must suffer greatly, until the breach is effectually healed; and the first step to the reconciliation so much to be desired must be a clear comprehension of the causes which have created the division. Hence the necessity of surveying the ancient battle-field of Scholasticism. The proximate origin of the great mediaeval dispute over the nature of universals seems to have been a pas- sage at the commencement of Porphyry's Introduction to Aristotle's treatise on the Categories, known at the INTRODUCTION. 23 time only through tlie Latin translation of Boethius, in which these three problems were stated, but not elucidated, with respect to genera and species : — " 1. Whether they have a substantive existence, or re- side merely in naked mental conceptions. 2. Whether, assuming them to have substantive existence, they are bodies or incorporeals. 3. Whether their substantive existence is in and along with the objects of sense, or apart and separable." Neglecting minor distinctions, refinements and subtilties, and without following the long and tedious course of the dispute, it will amply suffice for present purposes to state concisely the five leading positions maintained by different philosophers of the Scholastic period, as follows : — 1. ExTEEME Realism (Universalia ante rem) taught that universals were substances or things, existing in- dependently of and separable from particulars or indi- viduals. This was the essence of Plato's Theory of Ideas, and Plato was the father of Extreme Eealism as held in the Scholastic period. Scotus Erigena, who died A.D. 880, was the first to revive this doctrine in the Schools, borrowing from the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. 2. Moderate Eealism (Universalia in re) also taught that universals were substances, but only as dependent upon and inseparable from individuals, in which each inhered; that is, each universal inhered in each of the particulars ranged under it. This was the theory of Aristotle, who held that the roSe n or individual thing was the First Essence, while universals were only Second Essences, real in a less complete sense than First Essences. He thus reversed the Platonic doctrine, which attributed the fullest reality to uni- versals only, and a merely " participative " reality to 24 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. individuals. Until Scotus Erigena resuscitated the Platonic theory, Aristotle's was the received doctrine in the Schools ; and the warfare was simply between those two forms of Eealism prior to the advent of Eoscellinus. 3. ExTEEMB Nominalism (Universalia post rem) taught that universals had no substantive or objective existence at all, but were merely empty names or words (nomina, voces, flatus vocis). Though probably not the absolute originator of this sententia vooum, as the doc- trine came to be called, Eoscellinus, Canon of Com- piegne, was the first to give it currency and notoriety, and the Council of Soissons, under the influence of the Realist Anselm of Canterbury, his chief oppo- nent, forced him in the year 1092 to recant the tri- theistic interpretation of the Trinity, which he had consistently and courageously avowed. The theory of Extreme Nominalism was thus put under the ecclesiastical ban. 4. MoDBKATE Nominalism or Concepttjalism (Universalia post rem) taught that universals have no substantive existence at all, but yet are more than mere names signifying nothing; and' that they exist really, though only subjectively, as concepts in the mind, of which names are the vocal symbols. Abailard is claimed by some, but probably incorrectly, as the author of this modifi.cation of the Nominalistic view ; William of Occam, who died in 1347, seems to have been the chief, if not the earliest, representative of it. The Encyclopmdia Britannica (XVI. 284, 8th ed.) says : " The theory termed Conceptualism, or concep- tual Nominalism, was really the one maintained by all succeeding Nominalists, and is the doctrine of ideas generally believed in at the present day." INTRODUCTION. 25 5. Albertus Magnus (died 1280), Thomas Aquinas (died 1274), Duns Sootus (died 1308), and others, fused all these views into one, and taught that universals exist in a three-fold manner : Universalia ante rem, as thoughts in the mind of God ; Universalia in re, as the essence (quiddity) of things, according to Aristotle; and Universalia post rem, as concepts in the sense of Moderate Nominalism. This is to-day the orthodox philosophy of the Catholic Church, as opposed to the prevailingly exclusive Conceptualism of the Protes- tant world. Thus both Extreme Realism and Moderate Realism maintained the objective reality of genera and species ; while both Extreme Nominalism and Moderate Nomi- nalism maintained that genera and species possess no objective reality at all. In contrast with all the views above presented, an- other and sixth view will now be stated, which, taken as a whole and with reference to the vitally important consequences it involves, is believed to be both novel and true. 6. Relationism or Scientific Realism (of which universalia inter res may be adopted as an apt formula) teaches that universals, or genera and species, are, first, objective relations of resemblance among objectively existing things; secondly, subjective concepts of these relations, determined in the mind by the relations themselves; ajid, thirdly, names representative both of the relations and the concepts, and applicable alike to both. This is the view logically implied in all scientific classifications of natural objects, regarded as objects of real scientific knowledge. But, although empirically employed with dazzling success in the investigation of Nature, it does not 26 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. appear to have been ever theoretically generalized or stated. This view rests for its justification upon a broader principle ; namely, that of the Objectivity of Relation s, as opposed to the principle oiths^Sub^ec^vityqfBeki^ tions, which is the essence of the Noromaus^ic^octrine . of nniversals inculcated by modem philosophy. Kant distinctly made "Eelation" one of the four forms of the logical judgment which determine the twelve "categories of the understanding;" i.e., the a priori forms of thought, totally independent of "things-in- themselves," and applicable to them only so far as they are objects of a possible "experience," which, however, reveals nothing of their real nature. This doctrine that relations do not inhere at all in "thinga- in-themselves," but are simply imposed upon them by the mind in experience as the purely subjective form of phenomena, is strictly deducible from the Nomi- nalistic doctrine that general terms, by which rela- tions are expressed, correspond to nothing objectively real ; and Kant's master-mind is nowhere more clearly apparent than in the subtilty and profundity with which he thus seized the prevalent but undeveloped Nominalism of the modem period, and erected it into the most imposing philosophical system of the world. By this doctrine of the Subjectivity of Rela- tions, Kant reduced the outer world to utterly un- known Dingeravrsich, "and paved the way for Ms still more thorough-going disciple, Fichte, to deny their very existence, and thereby to take a great stride in conducting Nominalism to its only logical terminus. Solipsism. The principle of Eelationism, however, rests on these self-evident propositions : — INTRODUCTION. 27 1. Eelations are absolutely inseparable from their terms. 2. Tlie relations of things are absolutely insepar rable from the things themselves. 3. The relations of things must exist where the things themselves are, whether objectively in the Cosmos or subjectively in the mind. 4. If things exist objectively, their relations must exist objectively; but if their relations are merely subjective, the things themselves must be merely subjective. 5. There is no logical alternative between affirm, ing the objectivity of relations in and with that of things, and denying the objectivity of things in and with that of relations. For instance, a triangle consists of six elements, three sides and three angles. The sides are things; the angles are relations — relations of greater or less divergence between the sides. If the sides exist ob- jectivelj^ the angles must exist objectively also ; but if the angles are merely subjective, so must the sides be also. To affirm that the sides are objective reali- ties, even as incognizable things-in-themselves, while yet the angles, as relations, have only a subjective existence, is the we plus lUtra of logical absurdity. Yet Kantianism, Nominalism, and all Nominalistic philosophy (if they admit so much as the bare possi- bility of tlie existence of things-in-themselves) are driven irresistibly to that very conclusion. In short, it is because modern philosophy rests ex- clusively on the basis of Nominalism, of which the only logical terminus is absolute Egoistic Idealism or Solipsism, and because modem science rests exclu- sively, on the basis of Eelationism, that we affirm 28 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. unqualifiedly an irreconcilable antagonism between tbe two just so long as their respective bases remain unchanged. It seems needless, but may be neverthe- less advisable, to point out explicitly that Eelationism carefully shuns the great error of Scholastic Realism, i.e., the hypostatization of universals as substances, entities, or things ; it teaches that genera and species exist objectively, but only as relations, and that things and relations constitute two great, distinct orders of objective reality, inseparable in existence, yet distin- guishable in thought. The philosophic value of the principle of Eela- tionism is strikingly illustrated in the ease with which, applied as a key, it unlocks the secret and lays bare the signification of the ancient and still unfinished controversy between Eealism and Nominalism. 1. It shows that Extreme Eealism was right in upholding the objectivity of universals, but wrong in classing them as independent and separable sub- stances or things. 2. It shows that Moderate Eealism was right in upholding the objectivity of universals, but wrong in making them inherent in individuals as indi- viduals {in re) rather than in individuals as geoups (inter res). Eelations do not inhere in either of the related terms taken singly, but do inhere in all the terms taken collectively, 3. It shows that Extreme Nominalism was right in denying the objectivity of universals as sub- stances or things (the great error of its opponent), and right in affirming the existence of universals as names ; but wrong in denying their objectivity as relations and their subjectivity as concepts. INTRODUCTION. 29 4. It sho-ws that Moderate Nominalism or Conoeptu- alism was right in denying the objectivity, of uni- versal as substances, and also right in affirming their subjectivity as concepts ; but wrong in deny- ing their objectivity as relations. Thus every element of truth is gathered up, and every element of error is eliminated, by rejecting the four historic theories already recapitulated, together with the merely syncretistic fifth theory, and by sub- stituting in their place the propounded sixth theory of Eelationism. Its precision, lucidity, comprehen- siveness, and adequacy to account for all the facts, will become so evident to any one patient enough to master it fully in all its bearings, as to warrant the indulgence of a hope that it may permanently solve the great problem declared by Tennemann to have never been "definitely settled." III. When Scholasticism fell, the theory of Eelationism had occurred to no one. Each of the competing theories discerned the weakness of its rivals, yet could not discern its own, and was therefore unable to arrive at the real truth respecting universals. Consequently, as has just been pointed out, the truth was divided among them. Nominalism gradually won the ascendency among philosophers in the form of Conceptualism ; while Eelationism became, not indeed a received theory, since as a theory it did not yet exist, but yet the unformulated and empirical prin- ciple of the actual practice of scientific observers, ex- perimenters, and investigators of nature. Philosophy divorced itself from a true objectivity, and surren- 30 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. dered itself to subjectivism in the form of Moderate Nominalism; while science, ceasing to philosophize, turned its back upon the barren metaphysics of the schools, because they could yield no objective knowl- edge, and learned the sad lesson of contempt for philosophy itself. A period of transition followed the downfall of Scholasticism, full of confusion and conflicting ten- dencies. Spasmodic resuscitation of various ancient philosophies — Aristotelianism in a more accurately known form, Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, Epi- cureanism, &c. — ensued ; but these revived systems did not materially contribute to the growth of the subjective tendency, since, as has been shown, ancient philosophy in the post-Socratic periods had been pre- vailingly objective in all its forms. The true origin of the increasing subjectivism of philosophy, and therefore the true secret of the increasing repugnance of science for philosophy itself, lay in the triumph of Nominalism over the relatively inferior Eealism of the Middle Ages, in its denial of all objective knowl- edge save of particulars as isolated and unrelated, and in its claim of a strictly subjective genesis for uni- versals as concepts or names alone. Philosophy in this manner stripped the objective world of every- thing that was really intelligible — genera, species, relations of all kinds ; while science, bereft of all phi- losophical aid, took refuge in a rude sort of common sense and fortified itself in a spirit of defiance to all speculative thought. Bacon's popularity rested really on no stronger foundation : he merely headed an un- reasoning revolt against Nominalism, hardly knowing what he did, yet practically rendering an immense service by rallying the enterprising and curious spirits INTRODUCTION. 31 of the time aboxit the standard of "induction." He too joined in the wide-spread outcry against Aristotle and his followers, mistakenly believing that Aristotle was really responsible for the Nominalism of the age which he vaguely felt to be the chief obstacle to science. The results of this open feud between sci- ence and philosophy were disastrous to both in the end; for, while the latter tended steadily towards Idealism and Solipsism, the former as steadily tended towards Materialism. For the time being, however, the revolt of science against philosophy was most salutary. While science adopted a purely empirical objective method, took Nature for granted, investigated things and their relations by observation and experiment on the hypothesis of their equal objectivity, and entered on a cai-eer of dazzling conquest, without troubling itself to invent any philosophical justification for a method so prolific of discoveries as to silence all criticism or cavil by the brilliancy of its achieve- ments, philosophy had already entered upon a path which led indeed to the construction of numerous subjective systems of unsurpassed ability, yet to none that could eiidure. The history of philosophy has been for three centuries only a succession of gayly- colored pictures, each more startlingly beautiful than the last, yet each doomed to disappear at the next turn of the kaleidoscope. While science can proudly point to a vast store of verified and established truths, which it is a liberal education to have leai-ned and the merest lunacy to impugn, philosophy has achieved nothing that is permanently established. The cause of this vast difference in result is a radical difference in method. Objectivism, albeit solely empirical, has 32 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. created the glory of science; subjectivismj^albeit elaborately and ostentatiously reasoned, has created the shame of philosophy. And philosophy can never fedeein itself from this shame of utter barrenness until it repudiates subjectivism with Kominalism, its cause. The epoch of Scholasticism is regarded by some as closed by the death of Gabriel Biel, the " last Scho- lastic," in 1495, when Nominalism had acquired almost undisputed sway. Now the essential method of Scholasticism had been, as Tennemann well expresses it, to "draw all knowledge from conceptions." So long as Realism flourished, and universals, as entities, were held to possess substantial objective existence, the analysis of concepts, independently of experience or verifica- tion, was held to yield real knowledge of their objec- tive correlates — a mistake impossible to the New Eealism or Eelationism. But when Nominalism had destroyed the objectivity of universals, it had also destroyed the possibility of deriving objective knowl- edge from concepts. A dilemma thus arose : either objective knowledge is unattainable, or it must be attained otherwise than by the mere analysis of con- cepts as such. But how ? In this manner was developed a new and momen- tous problem, that of the Origin of Knowledge, which now displaced the old and still unsolved problem of the Nature of Universals — not at all fortuitously, but logically and inevitably as a direct result of the triumph of Nominalism. Nominalism had answered the old question after its own manner by resolving universals into merely subjective notions ; and this answer, false as it was, was accepted as satisfactory. INTRODUCTION. 33 But the acceptance of it involved some awkward con- sequences. If objective knowledge cannot be derived from concepts, whence can it be derived ? Or is there no such thing as objective knowledge? Science met these questions by boldly adopting the principle of Objective Verification — a principle de- pending absolutely for its philosophical justification on the theory of Eelationism, but adopted by Bacon and the inductionists in general as a purely empirical method, in utter indifference to such justification. From that time forward, scientific men have quietly assumed the objectivity of relations, and steadily pursued the path of discovery in total disregard of the disputes of metaphysicians — not, however, with- out a serious loss to science itself, in the growth and spread of the false belief that science can legitimately deal only with physical investigations, and that the scientilic method has no applicability in the " higher sciences." But philosophy met the same questions by dividing into two hostile camps. The sufiiciency of the Nomi- nalistio answer to the question of universals — that they are exclusively of subjective origin — was taken for granted by both parties ; genera, species, relations of all kinds, were unanimously conceded to possess no objective validity whatever. Logically, this is the total surrender of all objective knowledge; and in the long run modern philosophy has come to accept this result, as shown by the almost entire unanimity of modern philosophers in the opinion that things- in-themselves, or noumena, are utterly incognoscible. But it is impossible to maintain this opinion in logi- cal consistency, and on this point not a single logically consistent philosopher can be pointed out ; if he can 3 34 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. be found, he will prove to be an inexorably rigorous Solipsist, not afraid to deny the existence of all minds save his own, no less than that of the material world. It would be refreshing to meet with a subjectivist possessed of the courage of his opinion ; but he would be the terror of all his br other-sub jectivists, perhaps a candidate for premature interment. The division that now arose and separated modern philosophy into two great contending parties did not concern the question whether knowledge originated in the object or in the subject, — for both parties agreed in the Nominalistic answer to this question, — but whether, in the subject mind itself, it originated in the senses or in the intellect. That was the great new question started at the recognized dawn of modern phi- losophy by Descartes and Locke ; and both parties to the controversy, both the a priori and the a posteriori schools, were equally switched off upon the false track of Nominalism that conducts to Egoism or to nothing. Descartes' theory of " innate ideas " encountered a vigorous rival in Locke's theory of experience as limited to the data of "sensation and reflection;" and thus the two armies took position for the long warfare that is resultless still. There is not the slightest occasion, for the purposes of this paper, to follow the course of this dispute, or to repeat the argumentation and counter-argumentation by which it has been maintained. The point of view here taken is that both these famous schools have logically im- mured themselves in the dungeon of subjectivism, and are utterly powerless to release themselves ; that the one is just as incompetent as the other to explain the "origin of knowledge " about which they have been contending so long ; and that, like Venus and Mars INTRODUCTION. 35 suspended in Vulcan's cage to provoke the "inextin- guishable laughter " of the Odyssean gods, they do but enact a farce at which philosophy hangs her head. Travelling round the same circle of subjectivism in opposite directions, these two schools are fated to re-unite on the farther rim in one identical point the stand-point of Absolute Egoistic Idealism. That is the only possible terminus of a subjectivism that, beginning with the definition of knowledge as only the miad's recognition of its own states, dares to obey the logic of its own fundamental principle ; and what is the philosophy worth that contradicts itself ? No sequent thinker who begins with the Ego as sole starting-point will fail to end with the Ego as sole terminus, unless he stoops to unworthy tricks or evasions; and that is the suicide of philosophy. The triumph of Nominalism did indeed force upon thought a new problem in the question of the " origin of knowledge ; " but great is the delusion of the two schools which imagine the solution of that question to lie with one of themselves. The a priori school started with Descartes' Cogito ergo sum ; that is, with an original positing of the Ego as an individual thinking being. The a posteriori school started with Locke's " sensation ; " that is, with an original positing of the Ego as an individual feeling being. That is essentially the only difference — the difference between beginning with individual thought or individual feeling as the prior element of individual consciousness, — both_beginnings being equally and incontrovertibly egoistic. But this is a triviaT difference indeed, compared with the abysmal difference between both these egoistic schools, on the one hand, and modern science, on the other ; for here 36 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. the issue is a broad, deep, fundamental one — namely, whether the real " origin of knowledge " is in the Ego or in the Non-Ego, or in both. Knowledge itself, in the conception of both these Nominalistic schools, is confined to the series of changes that go on in con- sciousness ; and all their mutual discussions are mere child's-play, compared with the discussions that await philosophy the moment she comes abreast of the time. S cienc e is to-day challenging emphatically the very foundation of both a priori and a posteriori philoso- phies ; and the challenge is none tKe less menacing or deep-toned, because it has been hitherto uttered in deed rather than word. She denies, not by a theory as yet, but by the erection of a vast and towering edifice of verified objective knowledge, that genera and species are devoid of objective reality, or that general terms are destitute of objective correlates; she denies that Nominalism has rightly solved the problem of universals, when that solution would in an instant, if conceded, sweep away all that she has won from Nature by the sweat of her brow. Her very existence is the abundant vindication of Eelationism, as the stable and solid foundation of real knowledge of an objective universe. As the case now stands, philosophy has two great schools, equally founded on a reasoned subjectivism which denies the possibility of knowing, in any degree, an objectively existent cosmos as it really is ; while science rests immovably on the fact that she actually knows such a cosmos, and proves by verification the reality of that knowledge which philosophy loudly and emphatically denies. Science must be all a huge illusion, if philosophy is right; philosophy is a sick man's dream, if science is right. INTRODUCTION. 37 One or the other must speedily effect a total change of base ; and it is safe to predict that the change will not be made by science. Three answers are given, therefore, to the question as to the Origin of Knowledge ; two by Nominalism, with its two schools of modern philosophy, and one by Eelationism, interpreting the silent method of science. They are substantially as follows : — 1. The a priori school teaches that knowledge has two ultimate origins, the experience of the senses and the constitution of the intellect — the senses contribut- ing its a posteriori "matter" and the intellect con- tributing its a priori " form ; " that the intellect is the source of certain universal and ante-experiential principles of knowledge which cannot be in any manner derived from the senses ; that these prin- ciples or "forms" are themselves an object of pure a priori cognition, independently of experience ; that experience consists solely of sense-phenomena, and sense-phenomena give no knowledge of their merely hypothetical noumenal causes, i.e., of " things-in- themselves." In other words, things (if they exist — which is at least dubious) conform themselves to cognition ; the subject knows only its own subjective modifications, arranged in a certain order according to a priori laws of knowledge which are only sub- jectively valid. This is Nominalistic Subjectivism of the a priori type. 2. The a posteriori school teaches that knowledge has only one ultimate origin, the experience of the senses ; that the intellect is indeed the source of certain universal constitutive principles of knowl- edge, but that these were originally derived from the senses, having been slowly organized and con- 38 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. solidated,' by the law of the " asaooiation of, ideas," into hereditarily transmissible "forms" of experience; that there is no such thing as " pure a priori cogni- ' tion," independent of experience; that experience consists solely of sense-phenomena, that the intellect itself has been slowly evolved out of it, and that sense-phenomena give no knowledge of their merely hypothetical noumenal causes. In other words, things-^ in-themselves (if they exist — which is equally dubious by this theory) conform themselves to cognition ; the subject knows only its own subjective modifications, arranged in a certain order according to a posteriori laws of knowledge, which are only subjectively valid. This is Nominalistic Subjectivism of the a posteriori type. Thus both of these dominant schools thoroughly agree in planting themselves upon the foundation of Moderate Nominalism or Conceptualism ; they agree that universals, the genera and species by which alone sense-phenomena are reducible to intelligible order, are merely subjective concepts without objective cor- relates. They agree that things-in-thera selves are unknown and unknowable, and that the subject knows its own conscious states alone. By both schools, consequently, the principle of Eelationism is either unknown or ignored ; relation itself is by both re- duced to a merely subjective category, valid only as the subjective order imposed on subjective sense- phenomena, and utterly meaningless as applied to noumena; and noumena — intelligible objective reali- ties, as presented by the various sciences — are totally incognoscible. But when the vitally pertinent question is put : " Why should the series of sense-phenomena, or sensations, or consciousness in general, be what INTRODUCTION. 39 it is ? Why should the senses and understanding conspire to give a coherent appearance of objective knowledge, when no objective knowledge is possible ?" neither school has any reply to make. The only re- ply consistent with their common premises would be Fichte's reply, that the apparent objects of knowledge are given by the subject to itself, according to some inscrutable law working subtly beneath consciousness itself. This reply has at least the mejit of consistency with the ground-principles of subjectivism, and does not flinch from landing philosophy in Solipsism undis- guised. But few subjectivists possess sufficient hardi- hood to make this consistent reply; they prefer to "have their cake and eat it too." 3. The theory of Scientific Philosophy (by which is meant simply the philosophy that founds itself theoretically upon the practical basis of the scientific method) teaches that knowledge is a dynamic cor- relation of object and subject, and has two ultimate origins, the cosmos and the mind ; that these origins unite, inseparably yet distinguishably, in experience, i.e., the perpetual action of the cosmos on the mind plus the perpetual reaction of the mind on the cosmos and on itself as affected by it; that experience, thus understood, is the one proximate origin of knowledge; that experience has both an objective and a subjective side, and that these two sides are mutually dependent and equally necessary ; that the objective side of ex- perience depends on the real existence of a known universe, and its subjective side on the real existence of a knowing mind ; that experience includes all mutual interaction of these, whether sensitive or cognitive, and is utterly inexplicable even as subjective sensa- tion, unless its sensitive and cognitive elements are 40 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. equally recognized; that this extended conception of experience destroys the distinction of noumena and phenomena, as merely verbal and not real ; that "things-in-themselves" are partly known and partly unknown; that, just so far as things are known in their relations, they are known both phenomenally and noumenally, and that the possibility of experi- mentally verifying at any time their discovered rela- tions is the practical proof of a known noumenal cosmos, meeting every demand of scientific certitude and furnishing the true criterion and definition of objective knowledge. In other words, science pro- ceeds upon a principle diametrically opposite to that of Nominalism, already explained under the name of Eelationism. It assumes that cognition conforms itself to things, not things to cognition, — that being determines human thought, not human thought being, — that the subject knows not only its own subjective modifications but also the objective things and relations which these modifications reveal. Kant did but " assume " the counter-principle ; and if he considered his assumption as at last " demonstrated " by his system as a whole, science equally considers its assumption as demonstrated by the actual exist- ence of its verified and established truths as a body of objective knowledge. These three answers to the question as to the origin of knowledge show how vast is the divergence between modern philosophy and modern science. Philosophy has never yet entirely shaken off the blighting influ- ence of Scholasticism, even while fancying itself wholly emancipated from it ; for Nominalism, no less than the old Realism, was the legitimate offspring of Scholasticism. It was only one of the two great INTRODUCTION. 41 answers, both one-sided and botli wrong, whicli Scho- lasticism gave to the question of universals. Phi- losophy is still Scholastic to-day ; it has never yet modernized itself in any true sense, and it never will do so until it sits modestly at the feet of science, imbues itself thoroughly with the spirit of the scien- tific method, and applies the principle of Eelation- ism to the reconstitution of the moral sciences and the total reorganization of human knowledge. This, though a vast revolution for philosophy herself, will be simply giving in her adhesion to the revolution which science made long ago, and has rendered irre- versible. But it will also be putting herself at the head of that revolution, and conducting it to conquests in regions of the highest truth of which science her- self has never yet dreamed. IV. Aristotle taught, with truth, that the proper object of science is the universal rather than the particu- lar or individual. Although it was his doctrine that individuals are First Essences, while species are Sec- ond Essences, and genera Third Essences, real only in a lower sense than the former, nevertheless it was also his doctrine that the universal inheres in each individual substance and constitutes its conceptual or intelligible essence (19 Kara tov Xoyov ova-la). The uni- versal and the individual were inseparable, and must therefore be known together : yet the universal, being the essence of the individual, was itself the only proper and real object of scientific cognition. Translating the Moderate Kealism of Aristotle into the more accurate language of Eelationism, and not 42 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. forgetting to correct its capital error of making the universal inhere in each individual as an individual (in re) rather than in all the individuals as a group (inter res), the meaning of his doctrine is that science is concerned with the general relations of things rather than with the things themselves — with general laws rather than with the peculiarities or accidents of individual objects. Modern science proceeds uniformly according to this incontestable principle. Says Prof. Jevons : — " There is no such process as that of inferring from particulars to particulars. A "careful analysis of the conditions under which such an inference appears to be made shows that the process is really a general one, and what is inferred of a particular case might be inferred of all similar cases. All reasoning is essen- tially general, and all science implies generalization. In the very birth-time of philosophy this was held to be so : ' IfuUa scientia est de individuis, sed de solis universalibus,' was the doctrine of Plato, delivered by Porphyry. And Aristotle held a like opinion: OiSefiM 8e T^)(yri ckottv, to Kaff (.koxttov . . . to 8e Ka6' eKCiOTov aireipov /cat ovk eirurrrp'ov. ' No art treats of par- ticular cases, for particulars are infinite and cannot be known.' No one who holds the doctrine that reason- ing may be from particulars to particulars can be sup- posed to have the most rudimentary notion of what constitutes reasoning and science." It is, in truth, impossible to study even a particular case without generalizing; all knowledge consists in the seizure of the relations of things, and every name of a relation is of necessity a general term. Prof. Jevons correctly quotes both Plato and Aristotle as concurring in this fundamental principle, since both INTRODUCTION. 43 pf them occupied the standpoint of objectivism ; and Prof. Jevons himself, aS a scientific man, can occupy- no othei", although, as a thinker more or less infected with the subjectivism of modern philosophy, he has not succeeded in occupying it always or with entire consistency. Now subjectivism reduces all science to the knowl- edge of one individual, the Ego, — which, as just shown, is no science at all. If its fundamental defi- nition of Imowledge means anything, or is faithfully adhered to, subjectivism teaches that -the intelligent subject has no intelligence save of itself — has no warrant for believing in the existence of anything save itself — knows nothing but the inexplicable order of its own sensations and thoughts. It reduces all existence to an unrelated One, while of an unre- lated One no science is possible. In a word, subjec- tivism, if logical, annihilates science at a blow. There is no logical escape from this inference, drawn directly from the subjectivist definition of knowledge. Subjectivism cannot concede the kiiowl- edge of any existence except that of the subject itself; it cannot concede any knowledge of the sub- ject, except that of its seriated Conscious states ; it cannot concede any knowledge of these conscious states as a series, but only as single and unrelated ; and it thus lands us ultimately in the scepticism of Hume. Tor to generalize a series of thoughts as thought, or a series of sensations as sensation, is to use a general term, which, ex hypothesi, corresponds to no existent correlative in an objective sense ; the gen- eral terms, thought, sensation, consciousness, on the principle of Nominalism; denote nothing real in the thoughts, aensationsy or consciousnesses which are 44 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. generalized, but express only an act of the subject as generalizing. Apply the very same principle to the knowledge of the subject itself which subjectivism, applies to the knowledge of the outer world, — refuse that objective validity to general terms as applied to the world of consciousness which is refused to general terms as applied to the world outside of conscious- ness, — and it is shown irresistibly that subjectivism does not permit "knowledge" even of the subject's own " conscious states." " Consciousness " is a gen- eral term ; " state " is a general term ; every such term denotes a relation among certain related objects ; and if this relation must be separated from the related objects when they are outside of the subject, why must it not be separated from the related objects when they are within? Subjectivism necessarily destroys itself by its own definition of knowledge ; it cannot exist an instant except by denying the very principle it asserts; it escapes self-annihilation only on the hard and humiliating condition that it shall perpet- ually contradict itself. The sword with which it slays science pierces its own heart. Nothing is more astonishing than the utter indif- ference of subjectivists to their own innumerable self- contradictions on these vital points — self-contradic- tions all the more amusing in view of their insistence that objectivism shall be rigorously and consistently reasoned. Let a few instances be here noticed. Berkeley's idealism (a direct product of the Nomi- nalistio revolution) is usually praised to the skies as unerringly logical and self-consistent. Yet the same reasoning which leads him to deny the existence of a material world ought to lead him to deny the exist- ence of other human minds — of which there is no INTRODUCTION. 45 proof except sight, hearing, and touch of the material bodies by which these minds manifest themselves. Berkeley's great paralogism on this point is pointed out even by his own editor, Dr. Krauth (p. 400), as follows : — "Berkeley is a realistic idealist, holding that the realistic inference is invalid as regards matter, but conceding it as regards mind. He holds to real substantial spirits, God and man. Hence, too, his monism is only generic. He holds to a monism of genus, — to spirit alone ; but he concedes a dualism of species, — infinite Spirit, the cause of ideas, and finite spirits, the recipients of them. But this his strength is also his weakness. Every moral advan- tage of his Idealism over its successors is secured at the expense of its development and of its logical consistency." Dr. Shadworth II. Hodgson, in his Time and Space (Introduction, p. 5), says : — " By the term consciousness, in this Essay, is always meant consciousness as existing in aj\ individual con- scious being ; and proofs drawn from such a con- sciousness can have no validity for other conscious beings, unless they themselves recognize their truth as descriptions applicable to the procedure and phe- nomena of their own consciousness. Doctrines, if true, will ultimately be recognized as such by all individuals whose consciousness is formed on the same type, that is, by all human beings." Here is luminously presented tlie cai-dinal and univc^rsal contradiction in all non-solipsistic forms of subjectivism; (1) The assumption that the Ego knows only the changes of its own consciousness ; and (2) the assumption that the Ego knows other Egos to 46 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. exist that are "formed on the same type." One of these assumptions necessarily destroys the other. There are countless similar self-contradictions scat- tered all through the writings of subjectivists, some amusing by their naivete, some ingenious in their subtUty, some amazing by their evident unconscious- ness, but all sufficiently humiliating and mortifying to those who would fain see philosophy comport her- self with the dignity of science rather than with the agility of a circus-clown. One further illustration will suffice. Prof. Clifford, in his Lectures and Essays (11. 71), takes the ground of the most uncompromising subjec- tivism at the outset, and then coolly proceeds to break loose from it in the most violently illogical style, yet apparently without the least suspicion of the exhibi- tion he thereby makes of himself as a philosopher : — "The objective order, qua order, is treated by ph3'sical science, which investigates the uniform rela- tions of objects in time and space. Here the word object (or phenomenon) is taken merely to mean a group of my feelings, which persists as a group in a certain manner; for I am at present considering only the objective order of my feelings. The object, then, is a set of changes in my consciousness, and not anything out of it. . . . The inferences of physi- cal science are all inferences of my real or possible feelings; inferences of something actually or poten- tially in my consciousness, not of anything outside of it." Bald and unblushing as is the egoism of this passage, it is entirely clear; and it is quite possi- ble to build up on this basis an idealistic Solipsism which shall at least tolerably cohere with itself. But INTRODUCTION. 47 Prof. Clifford immediately proceeds to crucify Ms own subjectivism in this manner: — " However remote the inference of physical science, the thing inferred is always a part of me, a possible set of changes in my consciousness bound up in the objective order with other known changes. But the inferred existence of your feelings, of objective group- ings among them similar to those among my feelings, and of a subjective order in many respects analogous to my own, — these inferred existences are in the very act of inference thrown out of my consciousness, recog- nized as outside of it, as not being a part of me. I propose, accordingly, to call these inferred existences ejects, things thrown out of my consciousness, to dis- tinguish them from objects, things presented in my consciousiiess, phenomena. . . . How this inference is justified, how consciousness can testify to the exist- ence of anything outside of itself, I do not pretend to say : I need not untie a knot which the world has cut for me long ago. It may very well be that I am myself the only existence, but it is simply ridiculous to suppose that anybody else is. The position of ab- solute idealism may, therefore, be left out of count, although each individual may be unable to justify his dissent from it." This airy distinction of " object " and " eject " does not in the least disguise the cardinal contradiction into which Prof. Clifford, in common with all sub- jectivists who shrink back from Solipsism, falls. Ejects, as he proceeds to define them, are simply " other men's minds ; " but other men's minds are only known through their bodies, and their bodies are " objects " like trees or stones ; while trees and stones are just as truly " ejects " from consciousness 48 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. as are other men's minds. In a word, ejects are objects, and objects are ejects; there is absolutely no distinction between them, on Prof. Clifford's own showing ; objects and ejects must be both objective or both subjective. Yet Prof. Clifford arbitrarily (it would almost seem wilfully) objectifies ejects and subjectifies objects ! He flatly refuses to " untie a knot" which contains the whole point in dispute, and which the "world" has "cut" just as effectively for objects as for ejects ; he coolly begs the whole question, and repudiates the Solipsism from which his own principles permit no rational escape. These illustrations of the self-contradiction of sub- jectivism are typical, not sporadic; they show how deep-seated is the disease under which modern philo- sophy is suffering. Whenever (if ever) subjectivism shall dare to be rigorously logical, it will be the reduc- tio ad ahsurdum of Nominalism, and compel philosophy to adopt Eelationism and the scientific method in gen- eral. All science is of the universal ; all sequent sub- jectivism abolishes the universal, and leaves only the individual; a solitary, unrelated, incomprehensible Ego. It avails nothing to create a phantom-science of the universal in a world of sensations alone ; true philosophy, no less than true science, demands an explanation of that series of sensations which sub- jectivism can accept only as an unintelligible fact. Diogenes commanded a certain respect so long as he actually lived in his tub; but if, having fastened to his forehead a placard, "I am Diogenes, and I live in this tub," he had then tied the tub to his back, lived in a house, slept in a bed, and behaved like ordinary mortals, he would have been pelted with a storm of pitiless gibes from the keen-witted Athenians. INTRODUCTION. 49 And when philosophiy, having tied the tub of subjec- tivism to its back, lives and lectures in a world of "ejects," and expounds to them a science of the objective relations they bear to each other and to an intelligible cosmos, human nature must have radi- cally changed if philosophy fares any better. It all comes to this ; either the truth of subjectivism or the truth of science is a pure illusion. The possi- bility of tlie one is the impossibility of the other. The conclusion just stated finds abundant corrobo- ration in contemporaneous thought. Subjectivism in p hilosophy has c reated a new type oF~BCepticiimin science. Urged as it were by a consciousness that it can only maintain its own truth by discrediting the truth of science, philosophy does not hesitate to under- take the task. Hence it has formulated a law of philo- sophical scepticism under the name of the " relativity of knowledge," founded upon a truism, but distorted into a falsity. Unable to shake the conviction of the reality of a known objective universe, and therefore unable to take the field in its only logical form of Solipsism, subjectivism nevertheless covertly saps the truth of science in a manner which hides its own fatal inconsistency. It declares that all knowledge is merely relative to human faculties, and it adroitly pushes this principle as if relativity were unreality. A quotation from Mr. Frederic Harrison's essay on "The Subjective Synthesis" wiU well illustrate the mode dJ its attackT^ "The truly relative conception of knowledge should make us habitually feel that our physical science, our laws and discoveries in Nature, are all imaginative creations — poems, in fact — which strictly correspond within the limited range of phenomena we have before 4 50 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. Tis, but which, we never can know to be the real modes of any external being. We have really no ground whatever for believing that these our theories are the ultimate and real scheme on which an external world (if there be one) works, nor that the external world objectively possesses that organized order which we call science. For all that we know to the contrary, man is the creator of the order and harmony of the universe, for he has imagined it." This subjectivistic scepticism, be it remembered, has its root in tlie_ Nominalism which universally prevails in philosophic circles, and which has pro- foundly affected those scientific men who, being more than mere specialists, have felt their influence ; and it shows exactly where science must seek aid from a renovated philosophy, if it is to escape suffocation by the fire-damp of scepticism engendered by its own operations. "If every genus is only a mere word," says a writer in the Uncyclopcedia Britannica, "it follows that individuals are the only realities, and that the senses are at bottom the only sources of knowledge. And not only so, but on this theory no absolute affirmation respecting truth is possible, for such an affirmation involves of necessity a general idea, which ex hypothesi is destitute of real validity. Hence we have scepticism at the next remove." Mr. Harrison is an illustration of the literal accuracy of this statement. But the case is not bettered if the genus is " only a mere " concept, instead of " only a mere word ; " for Extreme Nominalism and Conceptu- alism (the latter of which this writer accepts) are equally sceptical in their implications, since they equally disown the objectivity of relations. Only the theory of Eelationism fully meets the case. INTRODUCTION. 51 The doctrine of the "relativity of knowledge," under cover of which subjectivism makes its attack on the objective truth of science, uijdoubtedly rests on a truism : namely, that knowledge is"ilself "a" rela- tion between the knowing and the known, and that nothing can be known except as it is known by the knowing faculties. This, surely, is a very innocent proposition. It simply means that man cannot know everything ; it does not at all mean that he does not know what he knows. That human knowledge of the cosmos is incomplete, partial, inadequate, could be con- troverted only by a consistent subjectivist, to whom the cosmos is simply the sum of his own sensations or consciousness, which, again, exist only as they are known. But the doctrine of the relativity of knowl- edge, properly construed, has a real validity and pro- found significance to the objectivist, since it states the fact on_ which the total activity of science rests — the fact that human knowledge is small, and can be increased. There Is" nothing whatever in this doc- trine to discourage science or impugn the solid char- acter of its acquisitions. From the very nature of the case, nothing but relative knowledge is possible. Increase the number and scope of man's, cognitive faculties till hi^ science becomes omniscience : his knowledge will stilfBe' relative, being the relation of knowing and known, and that unconditionally. In fact, " non-relative knowledge " is a contradiction in adjecto. As Prof. Ferrier puts it in his Eemains: '"To know a thing per se, or sine me, is as impossible and contradictory as it is to know two straight lines enclosing space; because mind by its very law and nature must know the thing cum alio, i.e., along with itself knowing it." The doctrine of the relativity of 52 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. knowledge, therefore, is a truism so far as _it_asserts the co-essentiality of subject and_object to the rela- tion of knowledge ; it is a falsity and absurdity so far as it asserts the non-knowableness of the object by the subject in that very relation of knowledge. And the blade of subjectivism is shivered in its very grasp by the adamantine shield of science. Nevertheless it remains true that the progress of science is retarded and embarrassed by the preva- lence of a philosophy which secretly undermines its results, controverts its fundamental postulate of the knowableness of the objective universe, and dooms it to an imperfect comprehension of the principles which alone justify its practical procedure. A philosophical vindication of those principles which should establish the scientific method, so resplendently successful in its empirical employment, upon an impregnable rational theory, could not fail in ten thousand ways to pro- mote the advancement of knowledge, and dissipate that cloud which hangs over the deeper thought of our own age — the cloud of an intellectual conscious- ness at war with itself. Every attempt in this direction should be greeted with a hearty welcome. Let us review the situation, and state the problem distinctly which philosophy has now to solve. Subjectivism in philosophy takes its stand, con- sciously or unconsciously, on Nominalism. Its fun- damental principle is the law, accepted by both the Transcendental and Associational schools, that things conform themselves to cognition, not cognition to things. The necessary corollary of this law is the separability of phenomena and noumena, phenomena having their existence solely as modifications of the individual consciousness, and noumena either having INTRODUCTION. 53 no existence at all or else existing solely as the unknown and unknowable causes of phenomena. Of these two alternatives, the former alone is logically consistent with the premises of subjectivism; for, since "cause" is a universal term to which Nomi- nalism denies all objective validity or significance, it is a term patently inapplicable to anything beyond the sphere of subjective consciousness. Hence the final outcome of all thoroughgoing subjectivism is absolute egoistic Idealism or Solipsism — a mere cosmos of objectively causeless dreams. Objectivism in science takes its stand, consciously or unconsciously, on Eelationism. Its fundamental principle is the law of Objective Verification, — that cognitionjnust conform itself to thingSj.not things to cognition. The necessary corollary of this law is the inseparability of nouniena and phenomena, phenomena being the "appearances" of noumena, and noumena being that which "appears" and is partially under- stood in phenomena ; and they have their inseparable existence, not only in the mind, but also in the cosmos which the mind cognizes. The only utility in retain- ing the distinction at all is to mark the distinction between complete and incomplete knowledge — nou- mena being taken to denote things-in-themselves as they exist in all the complexity of their objective attributes and relations, and phenomena being taken to denote these same things-in-themselves so far only as they are known in their objective attributes and relations. The final outcome of scientific objectivism is a constantly growing knowledge of the real cosmos as'Tl is, in which the human mind has its proper place and activity in entire harmony with cosmical laws. 54 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. This is the unequivocal issue between the two modes of viewing the universe which are confusedly and half- consciously struggling for supremacy in the modern mind. Philosophy is prevailingly subjective, but not wholly so; there are occasional symptoms of secret restiveness among philosophers under the iron yoke of Nominalism, such as the appeal of the Scotch School to "Common Sense," the "Natural Eealism" of Hamilton, the " Eeasoned Eealism " of G. H. Lewes, the " Transfigured Eealism " of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the " Inferential Eealism " of Eev. J. E. Walter and many others, the unmistakably objective tendencies of the historian Ueberweg — who explicitly declares that "the objective reality of relations can be affirmed with at least as much reason as it can be disputed " {Hist. Fhil. I. 374), and that "the demonstrative reasoning by which we go beyond the results of iso- lated experience, and arrive at a knowledge of the necessary, is not effected independently of all experi- ence through subjective forms of incomprehensible origin, but only by the logical combination of ex- periences according to the inductive and deductive methods on the basis of the order immanent in things themselves" {Ibid. II. 162), — as well as of others that might be named in this connection. But no one, even among these uneasy insurgents against the estab- lished tyranny of Nominalism, seems to comprehend exactly what the tyranny or who the tyrant is ; no one of them seems to have traced back the origin of his oppression to the half-forgotten decision, arrived at centuries ago by the now despised Schoolmen, as to the nature of universals ; and no one seems to com- prehend precisely what will free him from fetters that are invisible, yet strong as steel. Hence every one of INTRODUCTION. 55 them continually falls into concessions whicli rivet the fetters more closely about his limbs. The hos- tility secretly existing and working between the sub- jectivist and objectivist methods, even in one and the same mind, is one of the curious and striking features of contemporaneous thought, and will not fail to arrest the attention of the future historians of philosophy. Yet this antagonism between science and philosophy is really unnatural and injurious in the last degree, for they are the natural complements and allies of each other. Science needs the intellectual order- liness and systematic unity which philosophy alone can create ; philosophy needs the verified basis and thoroughly objective spirit of science. Hence our age presents no problem more profound in its nature, or more wide-reaching in its bearings upon the intel- lectual interests of mankind, than this : — How to identify science and philosophy, by making the foundation, method, and system, of science philo- sophic, and the foundation, method, and system of philosophy scientific. The theory of knowledge which is predominant in both the Transcendental and Associational schools of modern philosophy has been clearly set forth in the preceding pages, traced to its source in the wrong answer given by mediaeval Nominalism to the questions of universals, and shown to impart even to so-called modern philosophy a thoroughly Scho- lastic character. The_ theory of knowledge which underlies the practical grocedure of modern science has'^arso been clearly set forth, although only so far as its fundamental principle is concerned, under the name of SQJfiB|i£c_Eea^m or_Eelationism, — the full development of which will involve the creation 56 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. of a new and comprehensive philosophical system. The irreconcilable antagonism of these two theories, the disastrous consequences of it both to philoso- phy and science, and the necessity of a profound revolution in the method of philosophy in order to bring it into harmony with the now thoroughly es- .tablished scientific method, have likewise been shown, together with the precise nature of the problem which philosophy has now to solve, in order to modernize itself in a true sense. All that is here possible is simply to state the problem and the general principle on which alone it can be solved ; a, full solution of itjs^he great desid- eratum of science and philosophy alike.' For a full solution of it wUl permanently heal the breach which now disastrously divides them, and for the first time render possible the harmonious co-operation and con- centration of all the powers of the human mind for the discovery, establishment, and application of cos- mical truth. What has been here done is to show that this greatest of modern problems is only, under a new f orm,._that,. ancient _an,d_ never satisfactorily answered (yaestion of JCTniversals which, ios hundreds of years, absorbed the bright^ intellects of Europe, — to submit to the bright inteUeots of our own time, together with the old half-answers to that problem historically known as the theories of Nominalism and Eealism, a third, new, and full answer in the theory of Eelationism, — and to inquire whether this theory will not suffice to bring about the greatly needed identification of Science and Philosophy. PART I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. PART I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. THE PEESUPPOSITIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. § 1. Modern science consists of a mass of Pro- positions'^ respecting the facts, laws, order, and general constitution of tlie universe. It is a pro- duct of the aggregate intellectual activity of the human race, and could no more have been produced by an individual than could the language in which its propositions are expressed. These propositions incorporate the results of universal human expe- rience and reason, from which all elements of per- sonal eccentricity, ignorance, or error have been ^ "The answer to every question which it is possible to frame must be contained in a Proposition, or Assertion. Whatever can be an object of belief, or even of disbelief, must, when put into words, assume the form of a proposition. AU truth and all error lie in propositions. What, by a convenient misapplication of an abstract term, we call a Truth, means simply a True Proposition ; and errors are false propositions. . . . Tlie objects of all Belief and all Inquiry express themselves in propositions." (John Stuart Mill, System of Logic, 1. 18-19, London, 1872.) 60 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. gradually eliminated in the course of ages ; they are the winnowed grain of knowledge, from which the chaff of individual mistake has been blown away by the wind of universal criticism, and comprise the total harvest of truth thus far garnered by man in the study of Nature. All propositions respecting the universe, whether in its physical or psychical aspect, which at last command the unanimous assent of all experts in the subjects to which they relate, take rank as Established Scientific Truths — not neces- sarily as infallible truths, but as truths which stand unchallenged until the progress of discovery com- pels a revision, correction, and re-establishment of them as stQl larger truths. Infallible truths are not for fallible man, and modern science is no more infallible than ancient science ; yet science is man's nearest approximation to the absolute truth itself, since it rests on no individual or dubious authority, but on the highest possible authority which the nature of the case permits : namely, the universal experience and reason of mankind, voiced in the unanimous consensus of the competent. § 2. Now all the established truths which are formulated in the multifarious propositions of sci- ence have been won by use of the Scientifi,c Method. This method consists essentially in three distinct steps : (1) observation and experiment, (2) hypothesis, (3) verification by fresh observation and experiment. Observation and experiment consist in the dis- covery, by actual perception, of things and relations THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 61 objectively existent in the universe, and constitute that original experience of the universe in which all human knowledge begins. Hypothesis, or the rational interpretation of the results of observation and experiment, is the ideal or subjective anticipa- tion of further possible experience of the universe ; in its legitimate scientific use, it is the work of reason and imagination combined, elaborating the data of experience both inductively and deductively, and inferring from already known relations other relations which may objectively exist in the uni- verse, and which, therefore, may be experientially discovered there. Verification is the conversion of sagacious hypothesis into theory and scientific law, by means of fresh and corroborative experience ; what is verified is hypothesis, proved to have been well-founded as inference, whenever the set of rela- tions inferred is discovered by actual experience to be identical with the corresponding set of relations in the objective universe ; ^ and the perception or discovery of this identity, which is the essence of all verification, proves that the constitution of the universe and the constitution of the human mind are fundamentally one. Experience, therefore, is the beginning and the end of the scientific method, mediated by reason and imagination; and experi- ence itself is the actual meeting, the dynamic cor- relation, the incessant action and reaction, of the 1 This is sutstantiaJly Spinoza's test of truth : " Idea vera debet cum suo ideato conyenire." (Etkica, I. Ax. 6.) 62 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. human mind and its cosmical environment. The scientific method, therefore, is a living organic pro- cess, the true and only organon for the discovery of truth ; and the proof of its validity is the rapid progress of actual discovery in the experiential study of the universe. § 3. Now the scientific method logically implies a very definite Philosophy, which it does not stop to prove, but takes for granted and presupposes at every step. In the course of many generations of individual investigators, it has produced, as I have said, a vast mass of propositions or established scien- tific truths, dealing directly with the facts and laws of the universe itself, — not at all with men's ideas of the universe, as ideas. For instance, astronomy and physics make known various real relations among real masses moving in real space, in absolute independence of man, his existence, and his con- sciousness ; physics and chemistry make known various real relations among real molecules and atoms, likewise moving in real space ; biology makes known various real relations among real living organisms; physiological psychology (which sometimes mistakes itself for philosophy, but is in fact one of many special sciences) makes known various real relations between the physical system and psychical activities of the individual organism ; sociology, political economy, jurisprudence, ethics, make known various real relations among human individuals co-existing in a state of society. In THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 63 other words, the same scientific method, variously applied in the various sciences, makes known (if the word knowledge denotes anything but an im- possible dream) a vast mass of objectively real rela- tions among objectively real things — things and relations which, although undeniably known by consciousness alone, do not, for all that, depend upon it in the least for their existence, inasmuch as many of them ai-e known to have existed mill- ions of ages before human consciousness began. An " objective," or " objectively real," or " objec- tively existent " relation must be understood simply as a relation which subsists in the real universe itself, and is not a mere conception of the human mind. A relation may be known to exist objec- tively, whenever the proposition asserting it is proved by experience to be true. For instance, " the earth and the moon revolve about their com- mon centre of gravity '' expresses an objectively real relation, because the scientific method has discovered that such is the fact, independently of man, — that the proposition is true. But the relation must not be misconceived as a " thing," nor the affirmation of the objectivity of the relation as an affirmation that the relation is an entity apart from the things it relates. The liiown ohjcctirity of a rdation is simply the hwwn ob/Wtive truth of the proposition which states it. But the relation itself was objectively real before the pi'oposition which states it was conceived ; it de- termined the proposition, not the proposition it. 64 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. § 4. It is evident, therefore, that the validity of the scientific method, and the objective truth of the results won by its use, depend unconditionally on the truth of the following philosophical presupposi- tions, which are never formally mentioned in any particular scientific investigation, or formally stated as part of any particular science, simply and solely because they are the common ground on which all science must stand, if it is to stand at all, and be- cause they constitute the universal condition of the possibility of experience itself: — Presupposition I. An external universe exists per se, — that is, in complete independence of human consciousness so far as its existence is concerned; and man is merely a part of it, and a very subordi- nate part at that. Presupposition II. The universe per se is not only knowable, but known — known in part, though not in whole. Presupposition III. The "what is known" of the universe per se is the innumerable relations of things formulated in the propositions of which science consists ; consequently, these relations objec- tively exist in the universe per se, as that in it which is knowable and known. I repeat : the validity of the scientific method, the validity of the results won by its use, and the valid- ity of these philosophical presuppositions, all stand or fall together ; for the presuppositions are nothing but a general explicit statement of what lies logi- THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 65 cally implicit in each of the numberless particular truths which constitute the body of science itself. It is not at any one's option to accept these particu- lar truths, and at the same time reject the general statement -which merely sums them up in brief. The actual existence of a universe independent of human consciousness, its actual intelligibility, and the actual existence in it of relations in which its intelligibility consists, — these, I maintain, consti- tute fundamental principles of a Scienttjio Ontology, presupposed at every step by the scientific method. Talcen together and systematically developed, these principles will found ft philosophy of science, em- bracing not only a radically new theory of knowl- edge, but also a radically new theory of being. The rapid disintegration of old plvilosophies, the wide- spread and growing confusion of religious ideas, and the universal mental restlessness which character- izes our ago, are but the birth-throes of this new philosophy of science. § 5. It would be a very shallow criticism which should charge me here with returning to the old and unsatisfactory realism of the Scotch school, known as the " philosophy of common sense." Prof. Huxley, it is true, has described science as merely the extension aaid enlargement of " common sense," and he is not wrong in conceiving them as botli realistic ; but, if he had tlie Scotch school in mind, he disregarded the profound difference of the two with respect to the sources of their realism. 5 66 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. The Scotch school derived the conviction of the existence of an external world, not from scientific experience, but from a fundamental principle or " natural belief " originally implanted by God in the constitution of the human mind, and thus assigned to it a strictly d priori or subjective origin.^ But the philosophy of science mil derive it, not from any cb priori constitution of the human mind, but from experience alone, corrected by reason, recast and elaborated by the scientific imagination, and verified by fresh experience, and wUl thus assign to it a strictly d posteriori or objective origin. Further- more, the Scotch school held, not only that the things which we perceive exist, but also that they exist as we perceive them ; ^ whereas the philosophy of science will hold that the crudities of sense-per- ception and the confused inferences of iminstructed 1 " All the arguments urged bj Berkeley and Hume against the existence of a material world are grounded upon this principle, that we do not perceive external objects themselves, but certain images or ideas in onr own minds. But this is no dictate of com- mon sense, but directly contrary to the sense of all who have not been taught it by philosophy." (Reid, Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay VL chap. V.) "In the order of nature, belief always pre- cedes knowledge. . . . Even the primary facts of intelligence, — the facts which precede, as they afford the conditions of, all knowl- edge, — would not bfe original, were they revealed to us under any other form than that of natural or necessary beliefs." (Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, p. 32, Amer. Ed.) " The doctrine which has been called The Philosophy of Common Sense is the doctrine which founds all our knowledge on belief." (Id. Lectures on Logic, p. 383.) 2 " Another first principle is, That those things do really exist which we distinctly perceive by our senses, and are what we per- ceive them to be." (Reid, I. c.) THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 67 "common sense" are to be corrected by scientific discovery, and will therefore present, as the veritable outward fact, the subtile and often recondite rela- tions which her formulated laws express. Lastly, the Scotch school taught the mediaeval doctrine of Conceptualism or Nominalism,^ which logically im- plies that of the merely subjective reahty of rela- tions ; whereas the philosophy of science will teach the great principle of Eelationism, which posits the objective reality of relations as the cosniical corre- late of universal concepts in the human mind — an innovation sufficient of itself to revolutionize and modernize the falsely so called " modern philosophy." These, not to mention other important differences, are quite enough to signalize tlie vast divergence be- tween the philosophies of science and of " common sense," and to show that scientific realism is of a type wholly distinct from that of the Scotch school. § 6. Still more shallow, however, would be the criticism that scientific realism is a mere groundless assumption, an unreflective and untutored begging of the question, a naive taking for granted by " com- mon thinking " of the whole point at issue : namely, whether or not an external universe can be known as independent for its existence upon human con- 1 "The Dootriuo of Nominalism has, among others, been em- braced by Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Principal Campbell, and Mr. Stewart ; while Conceptualism has found favor with Locke, Keid, and Brown. . . . This opinion [Nominalism] . . . appears to me not only true, but self-evident." (Sir W. Hamilton, Lect. on Met., p. 477.) 68 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. sciousness. On the contrary, scientific realism has an inexpugnable rational foundation in the trium- phantly successful use of the scientific method by the separate sciences, and points out that this incon- trovertible success has settled the question experi- mentally, decisively, and forever; it grounds itself avowedly on the truth of the discoveries which the scientific method has made; it declares that the truth of these discoveries, once admitted, demon- strates that experience cannot be the product of consciousness alone, but must be the product of con- sciousness and an external universe endlessly acting and reacting upon each other — cannot be the sole activity of the subject, but must be the co-activity of the subject and the object in dynamic correlation ; and it declares that this interpretation of experience must be unreservedly conceded, or else the validity of the scientific method itself must be unreservedly, boldly, and frankly denied. The sharp issue is this : either an external world independent of human consciousness is known to exist, or else all human science is false. By no logical subterfuge can this issue be escaped. If the discoveries made by science are real or true discov- eries, if the relations they reveal in the non-human universe are real or true relations, then scientific realism is no assumption, no begging of the question, no taking for granted of the point at issue, but the most absolutely proved truth which the intellect of man has ever wrested from the mystery in which THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 69 he dwells. The claim of science to be real knowl- edge of a real and intelligible universe is the voice of the collective experience and reason of mankind ; it is a claim so solidly grounded that the hardiest sceptic durst not call in question the particular truths of which that knowledge is the sum. It is only when these particular truths are gen- eralized as I have generalized them, — only when the generalization is put into the form of a definite philosophical principle of Scientific Ontology, — that the sceptic's voice is heard. But, if he would success- fully challenge scientific realism as a philosophical first principle, he must first overthrow all the par- ticular truths of which scientific realism is a mere re- statement in general terms. Scientific realism is no more an assumption than is science itself ; the two are one and the same. The ground here taken is that tM Successful Use of the Scientific Method is the Veri- fication and Demonstration of Scientific Bealism ; that scientific realism can be overthrown only by overthrowing the scientific method itself; and that it is time for speculative philosophy to recognize this position, to appreciate its tremendous strength, and to adopt it as its own foundation and point of departure. UntU it shall do so, speculative philoso- phy will never become the creator of any deep or world-wide human conviction, never mould the faith of mankind, never command the religious allegiance of the many, but must remain what it is to-day — the closet-amusement and intellectual luxury of the 70 ^ SCIENTIFIC THEISM. few. So long as it persists ia denying that expe- rience is actual knowledge of a universe independent of human consciousness, — so long as it persists in seeking a knowledge of Being which shall be deeper or higher than experience can give, — just so long will mankind at large consider philosophy itself as an ingenious boy in the backwoods inventing a machine for perpetual motion, when all the civilized world knows that a machine for perpetual motion is impossible. § 7. " But," it will be asked, " do you seriously mean to defend the exploded doctrine that the uni- verse is known as a Thing-in-itself, a Ding-aTirsich, a Noumenon ? " That is exactly what I mean. But I deny that the doctrine is exploded, and I also deny that it has ever yet been set forth in its true light. The realism of science is assuredly no invention of mine; and it can no more be exploded without exploding the whole fabric of science, than the foundation could be blown from beneath the Washington Monument without bringing the whole majestic column in ruins to the ground. For the last two or three centuries, the most fashionable philosophy has played the part of a Japanese juggler or acrobat, and performed logi- cal feats requiring no small agility and dexterity, yet not conducing in any marked degree to the advancement of civilization. Beginning with Des- cartes's famous " I think, therefore I am," — that is, with the certainty of individual human conscious- THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 71 ness as the one first fact and starting-point in all speculation, — and assuming, as regulative principle of procedure, that nothing can be certainly known except the contents of individual human conscious- ness, modern philosophy would, if it reasoned well, arrive at the conclusion that nothing can be either known, or inferred, or conceived, as existent outside of individual human consciousness. With such a point of departure and such a rule of procedure, the only logical conclusion is absolute solipsism, or the sole existence of the individual thinker; every form of inferential realism relies on a logically worthless inference (§ 67). But modem idealism tries in a thousand ways, ingenious as they are futile, to es- cape from the imavoidably solipsistic outcome of its own principles, to withdraw all attention from this its great intellectual sin against the first laws of logic, and to arrive at some mode of liviug amicably with the external world which it can neither suppress nor master: all of which is commendably amiable, but not quite satisfactory as a substitute for clear thinking. § 8. Now the root of modern idealism, whether in its transcendental or experiential form, is the theory of Phenomenism — the theory that nothiag can be known except "phenomena," and that all phenomena depend for their existence on individual human consciousness alone. It is this theory of phenomenism, the life-principle of modern philoso- phy, which most formidably opposes the theory 72 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. of Noumenism (scientific realism or scientific ontol- ogy), the life-principle of modern science. This pro- found and fundamental issue between Phenomenism AND Noumenism lies at the bottom of all other issues of modem thought ; it is the " previous question " in all philosophical controversies ; it is the imperfectly seen, yet uneasily and vaguely felt turning-point, or strategical centre, in the movement and self- marshalling of all warring tendencies in the dis- tinctively modem mind ; it is the pitched battle-field in a struggle which must end in a vast intellectual revolution, wrought by the influence of modern science upon so-called modem philosophy, by which philoso- phy will become truly modernized — taught, that is, to exchange its old, worn-out, and merely traditional Scholastic Method of sterile subjectivism for the new Scientific Method so prolific of objective discoveries. For Phenomenism is the historical product of the Kantian " Apriorismus ; " the Kantian " Aprioris- mus" is the historical product of mediaeval Nomi- nalism ; and mediaeval Nominalism is the historical product, by a violent and extravagant reaction ex- plicable as historical polarization, of the earlier mediaeval Eeahsm, which the Catholic Church had borrowed from Plato and Aristotle, and had rendered intolerable in the Eenaissance by abusing it to the service of oppressive and unintelligible dogmas.^ This indisputable genealogy of phenomenism shows that the issue between it and noumenism is, in 1 See the Introduction. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 73 truth, the everlasting issue between the past and the present, and that all the interests of modern in- tellectual progress are involved in its right decision. Consequently, it is necessary to devote considerable attention to it, although it will be impossible here to do more than touch on a few salient points of so vast a subject. 74 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. CHAPTEE IL THE THEOET OF PHENOMENISM. § 9. Steipped of unessential particulars, the most advanced and fully developed form of phenomenism may be tersely stated in these five main positions: — 1. The universe is only a phenomenon, and not a noumenon or thing-in-itself. 2. This phenomenon-universe, like every minor phenomenon, is only a mental conception or repre- sentation, deriving its whole existence from the representing consciousness alone, and determiaed by and depending upon absolutely nothing which is external to that consciousness. 3. For philosophy, the sphere of Being is strictly identical with the sphere of the phenomenon-universe, and therefore with the sphere of human representa- tion; no inference either to a noumenal subject or to a noumenal object is philosophicaUy permissible. All the categories, even those of Eeality, Existence, and Being itself, are mere forms of relation within the actual content of human representation, and have neither validity nor application beyond it. The sole legitimate aim of philosophy, limiting its scope THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 75 botli as Theory of Knowledge and Theory of Being, is to investigate these immanent relations of repre- sentations as such, and rigorously to exclude all hypotheses ns to possible i-oalities not actually con- tained witliin them. 4. Since all the categories by which representa- tions are intonially detei-mmed, including the cate- gory of Eelatiou, are themselves determined d priori by (and hence deducible from) tlie nature of the human understanduig,^ all possible relations ai-e merely immanent detormiuations of human repre- sentations, sclieuiatized by the pure understanding and the tmaiscendental imagination acting in concert In otlier words, no relations are possible in any noumenal world which may be external to the rep- I'esentations. Hence, even if a noumenal world exists, it must possess in itself a non-relational or diaotic constitution, and therefore remain forever imintolligible jn-r se. 5. The existence of a noumenon-universe, how- ev(>r, even if an abstract possibility, is an utterly inconceivable, groundless, and useless assumption. The noumenon is a mere hypostasis of the abstract unity of the " tiling," which abstract unity is nothing 1 "i(vi7 dfr Vrrstand drs }fi>nschen nin Natiir so oi-ifonhiri wirrf, dass," u, .fosses to despise ; for it rests .it hist, no less than the Scotch scltool, on the assumption of an ultimately inscrutable constitution of the knowing focolty. 76 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. but the d p%ori form of representation in general 5 by hypostasis, this mere d priori form of thought is illegitimately converted into a self-subsistent entity or "thing-in-itself." Consequently, there is and can be no perceptive understanding or intellectual in- tuition (intellectuelle Anschauwug) by which this non- entity may be cognized. § 10. In short, phenomenism is the theory which teaches that the universe is a phenomenon without a noumenon, existing in the act of the individual consciousness which represents it, and while it repre- sents it, but otherwise having no existence which can be either known, inferred, or conceived; and, consequently, that science is valid only in the realm of actual experience — valid, that is, only as explain- ing the order and connection of actually existent representations, whose true explanation must be sought only in themselves, and not in a self-existent universe. In other words, all the relations formu- lated in the propositions of science are absolutely created by the mind which formulates them, and exist only in that mind ; they do not exist in any universe independent of it, but have their whole ex- istence in the human representations of which they themselves are merely immanent determinations.^ The rational foundation of this whole theory, then, lies in the principle that relations have no objective 1 "Materialism . , . builds its theories upon the axiom of the intelligibility of the worid, and overiooks that this axiom is at bottom only the principle of order in phenomena." (Lange, Bis- lory of Materialism, II. 166, Boston, 1880.) TEE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 77 reality whatever, hut exist solely and exclusively as the creative ivorh of the human understanding. This ex- clusive Subjectivity of Belations is the genetic and essential principle of phenomenism, although not distinctly laid down as such by phenomenists, and evidently not discerned by them to be the funda- mental logical ground of phenomenism itself, for the reason that it has been inherited by all schools of modern philosophy from mediaeval Nominalism, and hence has never been subjected hitherto to a closely critical examination.^ It constitutes, for all that, the whole pith and substance of phenomenism and its chief future significance in the history of philosophy; for it is the germinal presupposition from which all the other principles of phenomenism have been logically derived, and without which they would have no inner coherence or even intelligible meaning. § 11. Taken in the advanced form which has been presented above, the theory of phenomenism is based substantially, though with various modifications and improvements, on the Kantian philosophy; and it 1 Even M. Fr. Paulhan, who writes an article on " La B€alit^ des Rapports " in Zo Critique Philosophique for April 30, 1885, has to destroy his own argument by taking his stand on phenomenism : " Nous nous plapons ici sur le terrain du phdnom&isme qui voit dans les faita, quels qu'ils puissent Stre, non pas I'ombre changeante et fuyante d'uue substance inconnaissable, mais une r(Jalit(S vraie, la seule r(Jalit^ dont on puisse, en somme, s'occnper." It is mani- fest enough that M. Paulhan is defending only the phenomenal reality of relations in the representation, not their noumenal reality in the thing-in-itseU. 78 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. meets us everywhere in the philosophical literature of the day. Prof. Windelband says of it: "This thought, that outside of representation there is nothing with which science has to deal, is Kant's gift of the gods to man ; although to common think- ing, to which nothing is more familiar than the dis- tinction of representation and thing-in-itself, it must appear to be what Jacobi, the champion of common thinking, called it — Nihilism." And again: "This Immanent Method of the theory of knowledge is now justly considered to be Kant's supreme achieve- ment." Eiehl goes so far as to declare that the Kantian philosophy essentially consists in this " im- manent method" of discarding both noumenal sub- ject and noumenal object as mere metaphysical dreams, and refusing to consider aught beyond the bare representation itself. Fortlage, on the other hand, formulates this method as an attempt " to resolve all cognitions into the process of cognizing," and characterizes it as "completed scepticism." ^ Just as the Scientific Method rests on the presupposition of the Objectivity of Eelations, so the Immanent Method rests on the presupposition of the Subjec- tivity of Eelations ; both presuppositions are assumed without proof, and constitute the rational ground of their respective methods, the pivotal principles of Noumenism and Phenomenism as rival theories of 1 See the valuable article by Prof. W. Windelband, of Ziirich, " Ueber die verschiedenen Phasen der Kantischen Lehre vom Ding- an-sich," in the Vierteljahrsschnft fir wissenschaftliche Philosophie, I. 224-266, Leipzig, 1877. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 79 knowledge. What, then, shall be said of the theory of Phenomenism ? Is it true ? § 12. I consider the theory of phenomenism false, root and branch, — false in relation to the opposite theory of noumenism, which is proved true by the existence of science as actual and indisputable knowl- edge of a noumenal universe, and false in itself, be- cause it contradicts itself in a most astounding way. Omitting here all other criticisms, and reserving these for another occasion, I rest my case for the present on these two objections, either of which, if substantiated, is overwhelmingly decisive. § 13. The first objection to phenomenism is that science is actual knowledge of a noumenal universe, and therefore refutes by its bare existence the phe- nomenism which denies the possibility of such knowl- edge, — on the sound principle of the old logical maxim : "Ah esse ad posse valet, a posse ad esse non valet, consequentia." § 14. To break the force of this argument, phe- nomenism, of course, maintains that science is, and claims to be, nothing but knowledge of phenomena alone, — that it neither has, nor professes to have, any knowledge of noumena. It denies that "the discovery of new relations between phenomena with- in the sphere of consciousness '* can " either prove or disprove the existence of that noumenal something which was the object of the keen Irish Bishop's brilliant polemic." It strenuously contends that Nature is nothing more than a "system of sense- 80 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. ideas : " that is, a merely subjective synthesis of real sensations mutually related and reduced to order in representation by means of the schematism of the pure understanding, and not at all an objective syn^ thesis of real relations in a universe independent for its existence on human consciousness. It asserts that "investigation of the laws of Nature proceeds upon a basis of observation and experiment, and observation and experiment have to do with the immediate object of knowledge" {i.e., as evidently here intended, not the objectively existent thing, but the purely subjective mental representation of the thing, the Vorstellung), " and in no case with the 'substratum' or ' thing-in-itself .' " It affirms that "the only difference in the views of Nature taken by the ordinary scientific realist and the consistent idealist is, that the one regards objects as actually existing between the intervals of his perception, while the other attributes to them a merely poten- tial existence" (i.e., regards them as actually non- existent, the perception absolutely creating them and the cessation of perception absolutely annihilating them as actual existences, — which is, of course, the only possible meaning of the Berkeleian principle that the esse of objects is percipi)} § 15. Now the conception of science here pre- sented, if it were not so common in phenomenistic 1 The quotations in this paragraph are all taken from an in- genious article by Prof. G. S. Fullerton, entitled " The Argu- ment fronj Experience against Idealism," in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, October. 1884. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 81 literature, and if it were not unfolded -with such evident gravity, seriousness, and nwiveU, would be aptly characterized as mere caricature, travesty, or broad burlesque. Every one of the propositions which formulate the results of the scientific method, and constitute in their totality the body of science, is, if valid at all, valid of " things-in-themselves," — that is, states relations among objective realities which have indeed been discovered by human perception, yet no more depend upon human perception for their existence than the coach in the fable depended on the fly for its motion. That, and that only, is what every scientific man means by his statements, and he would be indig- nant, if told to his face he did not mean it.^ By means of consciousness, science discovers permanent relations among permanent things which depend ou consciousness for nothing whatever, except for the discovery itself. Phenomenism may deny the dis- covery, if it will, but not distort it ; it has no right to pervert facts and misrepresent science by pre- 1 The " order of Nature " is never understood by strictly scien- tific men in the sense of the " mere order of my representations," which is the interpretation put upon it by phenomenism. Prof. Virchow, in ScMiemann's New Tlios, refers to his own '" Gewohnheit der kaltesten Objectivitat." Prof. W. B. Taylor, in his masterly essay on " Kinetic Theories of Gravitation," published in the Smith- sonian Report {or 1876, says: "Our beliefs should always be based upon, and conform to, the observed order of Nature.'' Prof. L. E. Hicks, who fills the chair of geology in Denison University, says in his Critique of Desif/n Arguments, p. 17 ; " The external order ex- isted before the science which is based upon it." Volumes could be filled with precisely simUar statements. 6 82 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. tending that the discovery relates merely to subjec- tive human representations, when it relates in truth to an objectively real and self-existent universe. § 16. It is solemn trifling or elegant pleasantry of this sort which has degraded philosophy from its once proud rank of scientia scientiarum, and threatens to degrade it stiU further to that of ignorantia scientiarum. The friendship which phe- nomenism professes for science is a false and treach- erous friendship'; for phenomenism is the modernized form of the ancient Greek scepticism, and has merely given to the crude Pyrrhonic formula of the "un- intelligibility of all things " (aicaTaXrjifria, iravra eaiveTai,) in order to avoid even negative dogmatism, declared to be tlie ground-principle of scepticism (dpxv rri<; cr/ceTTTt/c^?). It was, therefore, only on the naively conceded reality of actual and perceptible rela- tions in the intelligible world, as objectively existent and really discoverable, although curiously enough claimed to be undiscoverable, that the Pyrrhonists inculcated abstinence from all assertion (aipaaia) and suspense of judgment (e'jro-xrj) respecting the constitution of things as they are. The Academics Arkesilaos and Kameades sub- stantially agreed with Pyrrhon, but, in order to escape an absolute deadlock in the world of action, allowed probability (■7ri6av6Tr]<;) as a practical guide in common life. Ainesidemos brought the " Skepsis '' to its highest pitch of perfection by conceiving it not as denial, or even as mere doubt, but rather as inves- tigation. The true sceptic does not permit himself to maintain, like the Academics, that there is no certainty, but only probability; that would be a dogma; he affirms not, denies not, doubts not, but investigates ; the essential thing is to maintain noth- ing at all, and to permit to oneself the 'use of no expressions more dogmatic than "perhaps," "I do not decide," "it is possible," "it may be or may not be," and so forth. This settled hostility to that fixedness of conviction which is the inevitable result of all positive experience and scientific verification is, perhaps, the chief point of union between the Missing Page 96 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. tical investigation : the result of which investigation being to find equal strength (la-oa0eveia) in opposite conclusions as to both, the " Skepsis " conducts to the desired suspense of judgment and consequent peace of mind {drapa^ia). Nothing can be plainer, therefore, than the fact that the Greek scepticism itself, — much more, then, the other schools of Greek philosophy, — were all founded upon the principle, assumed rather than criticised and proved, of the objectivity of relations and the intelligibility of noumena no less than of phenomena ; and that this principle of objectivism or noumenism is the profoundest distinction between Greek and modern philosophy, inasmuch as the latter is almost universally based on the principle of subjectivism or phenomenism. Alike to tran- scendental idealism, experiential idealism, and all other forms of nominalistic philosophy in general, relations have become mere subjective realities, in- herent in the representations and absolutely dis- severed from the world in itself, — which, like a decapitated trunk, is now so far gone in decay as to be indistinguishable from absolute nonentity. While, however, modem philosophy has well-nigh unanimously followed in Kant's footsteps, aban- doned the old Greek foundation of the objectivity of relations, and adopted the mediaeval foundation of scholastic nominalism or the subjectivity of relations, modem science still stubbornly occupies the old Greek ground of realism, and by her amazing, ever- THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 97 multiplying discoveries has already rendered it an absolutely impregnable fortress for the philosophy of tlie future. § 26. We are at last, therefore, in a position to understand how it happened that Kant, confessedly the greatest genius in philosophy since Aristotle, cnmo to confound the true opposition between the phenomenon and the non-phenomenal, on the one hand, with the totally false opposition between the phenomenon and the noumenon, on the other hand. In both the Greek and the German philosophies, the phenomenon is the Apparent, to which the Non- apparent is a true opposite ; in tlie Greek philosophy, however, the noumenon is tlie Objectively Belated and Intelligible, while in the German philosophy it has become, as I have just explained, the Objec- tively Unrelated and Unintelligible. Consequently, in the Greek philosophy, there is no fundamental opposition between the phenomenon and the noumenon, since the Apparent and the Intelligible are quite compatible predicates of Being- in-itself ; in fact, they are indispensable and insepa- rable predicates of it, inasmuch as only the Apparent can be intelligible and only the Intelligible can be apparent, — inasmuch, furthermore, as there is no contradiction, but perfect compatibility, between Be- ing and Appearance or between Being and Thought But, in the German philosophy, the noumenon hav- ing become identified with the Objectively Unrelated and Unintelligible, or "thing-in-itself," the phenome- 98 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. non became naturally and inevitably identified with the merely Subjectively Eelated and Intelligible, or "representation;" in other words, phenomena be- came wholly detached from the world of Intelligible Being and wholly transferred to the world of Ideal •Thought. Nothing could be further from the truth, as modern science interprets it; but that, never- theless, is the history of German idealism in a nutshell. In this manner an unavoidable opposition, — false in itself, but logically drawn from the premises latent in Nominalism, the mediaeval and scholastic philosophy grounded on the assumption of the sub- jectivity of relations, — has grown up and become established in Germany between Being and Appear- ance, thing-in-itself and representation, noumenon and phenomenon. Kant's second opposition between the phenomenon (Urscheinung) and the noumenon (Bincf-anrsich) was, therefore, logical enough in his own system and quite legitimate in his own use of words — interchangeable, therefore, with his first opposition between the phenomenon {Erscheinung) and the non-phenomenal {Nicht-Erscheinende). None the less unfortunate, however, have been the con- sequences of the grave error originated by his crea- tion of this false opposition between the noumenon and the phenomenon ; for it has deepened the chasm between modern philosophy and modern science, and prevented the incalculable good which would have resulted from their cordial co-operation. For, in THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 99 both the Gteek and the scientific conceptions of the universe, there is no opposition whatever be- tween the noumenon and the phenomenon; on the contrary, they are absolutely inseparable predicates of Being-in-itself, or the universe as both self-existent and intelligible. And philosophy itself can never recover its ancient influence and position as the supreme intellectual power in civilization and cul- ture, until it has thoroughly revolutionized and modernized itself by adopting unreservedly the nou- menism of modern science. § 27. While phenomenism, therefore, cleaves to the German conception, and views the universe as phenomenal only, — that is, as a purely subjective representation without any noumenal object, — nou- menism cleaves to the old Greek conception, and views the universe as both phenomenal and noume- nal. Here is brought out with perfect distinctness and clearness the fundamental difference between phenomenism, or German subjectivism, and nou- menism, or ancient Greek and modern scientific objectivism. The former assumes, utterly without warrant in reason or experience, the actual separa- lility of the phenomenon and noumenon, resolves the phenomenal universe into the merely subjective representation ( Vorstellung), and denies all objective reality to the noumenal universe (Ding-nnsich); while the latter assumes, as a datum guaranteed by both reason and experience in the scientific method, the actual inseparability of tlie phenomenon and the 100 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. noumenon, and finds them to be not only compatible, but co-existent and necessary, predicates of the uni- verse per se. And the ultimate origin of this funda- mental difference lies in the difference between the subjectivity and the directivity of relations, as the only two possible forms of the Theory of Universals, upon which must rest at last the Theory of Knowledge. According to noumenism, therefore, the noumenon is Intelligible Being, the mundns intelligibilis ; the phenomenon is Apparent Being, the muvdus sen- sibilis; and these two are different yet entirely com- patible conceptions of the one universe per se which is actually known by science. Phenomenism, being essentially an affirmation of the incompatibility of Eeal Being and Ideal Appearance, is the victim of the false opposition between the two which the Kantian philosophy derived from medieval Scho- lasticism; and philosophy can never become truly modernized until it discards phenomenism altogether, thereby ridding itself of the numberless contradic- tions latent in this mistaken theory. Eestore the true opposition between the phenomenon and the non-phenomenal; restore the Aristotelian principle of the necessary inseparability of the phenomenon and the noumenon; restore the universal Greek prin- ciple, unconsciously assumed rather than consciously comprehended and critically justified, of the objec- tivity of relations ; add to these the incontrovertible discoveries achieved by the scientific method in con- sequence of its adoption of these very principles,— THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 101 and the whole of modern phenomenism collapses with its cause, philosophy revives, and man is once more at home in a universe which he can increas- ingly know. § 28. For whatever exists is intelligible, because it is or may be apparent; only Non-Being is unintel- ligible, because it must forever remain non-apparent. There jure, and can be, no "unintelligible things-in- themselves ; " so far phenomenism is unquestionably right. But things-in-themselves ai-e necessarily in- telligible : and so far phenomenism is as unquestion- ably wrong. So undei-stood, the dictum of Hegel would be true: "Wliatever is real is rational." ^ There exists no " Unknowable," Spencer to the con- trary notwithstanding; the only "Unknowable" is the non-existent. Human intelligence is a light in the midst of a boundless darkness; its rays shoot indefinitely far in all directions, and its brightness grows, fed by a marvellous internal source of illu- mination whose limits have never yet been ascer- tained. Whoever presumes to set impassable bounds, whether deduced from the nature of the darkness per se or from the nature of the glia-mering light per sf, to the area over which it may shine, is guilty ot that worst vice in philosophy — dogmatism, or the conceit of knowledge without the reality. In- crease the light infinitely, and it would expel the 1 •' Wns vemiinftig ist, das ist wirklich ; nnd >vns wirklicJi ist, das ist vemiinftig." (Hegel, Iferie, VIII. 17. In his fVerixi, TI. 10, Hegel himself miikes a mistikken lefeience to this passage, quoted from himself as " S. XIX." instead of p. 17.) 102 SCIENTIFIC THEISM. infinite darkness : the only reason why the infinite darkness is not absolutely expelled by the light of human intelligence is that the light is so small. The existence of the Unknown is a legitimate in- ference from the fact of the constant increase of human knowledge; but to af&rm the existence of that which is per se the " Unknowable " is to affirm and deny knowledge of it in one and the same breath j and, of all dreary inventions of human pedantry, Agnosticism is the dreariest, when it elevates this self-destructive concept of a Known Unknowable into a mock deity, and founds upon it a mock religion. Is it not time to lay this "Cock-lane Ghost" of the Unknowable, and return to the grand seriousness and simplicity of Greek objectivism? § 29. From all this it follows that phenomenism, on the one hand, is founded upon the Subjectivity of Relations and the Separability of Noumenon and Phenomenon ; while noumenism, on the other hand, is founded on the Objectivity of Relations and the InseparaMlity of Noumen/m and Phenomenon. § 30. This last principle is involved in the bare definitions of the words phenomenon and noumenon, as respectively " that which is apparent " and " that which is knowable or known." That which iS' appar- ent must be so far known ; that which, is known must be so far apparent. Consequently, noumenon and phenomenon reciprocally contain each other; they are merely dififerent determinations of that which is; and these determinations are as insepa- THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 103 rable as color and form in an object of vision. What- ever appears must exist; the phenomenon without the noumenon is at once an impossibility and an absurdity.^ The case of dreams, hallucinations, in- sane delusions, and so forth, occasions no difficulty whatever, for nothing is ever the object of an illusion which has not, at least in its separate elements, been noumenally as well as phenomenally experienced. The dream or, delusion, therefore, in no wise differs from the picture created by the sane waking imagina- tion, except that the dream-synthesis is not, as is the case with the picture-synthesis, regulated by the in- tellect. A false appearance is no real appearance ; by the very terms of the hypothesis, it is false, unreal, ideal only, — not Urscheinung, but Schein. What dis- tinguishes appearance from apparition or delusion, Urscheinung from Schein, is congruity with the en- tirety of experience ; there is no positive test of knowledge or criterion of truth save universal hu- man experience, which constitutes the final appeal of science itself. But appearance may be either real or ideal. Eeal appearance is the appearance of the noumenon-object in experience ; ideal appearance is the appearance of the noumenon-subject in consciousness; in either case, noumenon and phenomenon are inseparable, and the phenomenon depends upon the noumenon, since every appearance must be of that which is I