fyxmll mmvtxmty § tag THE GIFT OF iO/jd/93 Cornell University Library B945.C23 F9 1891 Fundamental problems: the method of phll olin 3 1924 029 063 712 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029063712 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY AS A SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT OF^ KNOWLEDGE THE- c® afcu s/rp SECOND EDITION" >H1fcOS0PHICAL REVIEW No Agnosticism but Positive Science, No Mysticism but Clear Thought, Neither Super-naturalism nor Materialism But a Unitary Conception of the World No Dogma but Religion, No Creed but Faith. CHICAGO : The Open Court Publishing Company iSci. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Almost all of the essays of this book first appeared as editorial articles in The Open Court, where they had the gopd fortune of being exposed to the criticism of thoughtful readers. The ideas presented could thus be tested, and the views of the author re- ceived an opportunity of being further elucidated, not in futile battles against men of straw, but in discussions with thinkers who had found difficulties in understanding the solutions proposed, here publicly acknowledge my indebtedness to the gentlemen who have favored me with criticisms. * * The author's endeavor has been to avoid originality. While working out in his mind this book on the Fundamental Problems of philosophy, he has endeavored to introduce as little as possible of his personality and his private sympathies with, or antipathies against, other solutions. The brain of the philosopher should be a mental alembic to clarify ideas, to analyze them, to extract their essence. His brain should work with the regularity of a machine. And among machines the philosophical mind must be compared to the so-called precision machines, the work of which is not measured by horse-power, but by minute exactitude. The article "Form and Formal Thought" discusses a subject which is of fundamental importance. A correct conception of form and the laws of form will clear away many mysteries ; it will afford a satisfactory explanation of causality and shed a new light on all the other problems of philosophy. vi PREFA CE. The view here presented, in spite of all our differences with Kant, may be considered as the natural outcome of Kant's phi- losophy. But it would be wrong to represent it as Kantism. It is rather the historical development of Kantism broadened by later enquiries, matured by criticisms, and adapted to the needs of our time. It is a protest against the halfness of agnosticism and a rejection of the perverted ethics of hedonism — of that view so popular now, which bases the rules of conduct upon man's desire for happiness, The view here presented unites two qualities which may ap- pear contradictory at first sight. It is radical, and at the same time conservative. It is radical because it fearlessly presents the issues of philosophic thought in their stern rigidity without trying to conceal the consequences to which the argument leads. The old and long cherished errors are not passed over in silence, but are confronted and critically explained. The view propounded is at the same time conservative because it preserves its historical connection with the work of our ancestors ; it'does not hope for a progress by a rupture with, but through a development from, the past, and does not come to destroy but to fulfill. * * The purpose of philosophy has often been misunderstood. It is not grand and beautiful air castles, not ontological systems of pure thought, not new original ideas of what the dreamland of the Absolute might be like, that is wanted in philosophy. Phi- losophy is not a profitless intellectual gymnastics, not a mere playing with words and subtle distinctions for the gratification of a few beaux esprits who delight in metal somersaults. Philosophy is the most practical and most important science, because its prob- ems lie at the bottom of all the single sciences. It is the science of science. Philosophy is more than that. It is the foundation of the rules of our conduct. Those conceptions of the world which have PREFA CE. vii become the popular philosophy of the age— the so-called Zeitgeist —will permeate the whole atmosphere of the time and will influ- ence the actions of men for good and for evil. The fates of indi- viduals, as well as of nations, their prosperity and their ruin, always depended, and in future times will depend, upon their fundamental conceptions of the world, in accordance with which men naturally regulate their conduct in life. It may be objected that Religion and Ethics, not Philosophy, are the regulating factors of morality. But are not Religion and Ethics expressions of certain fundamental conceptions of the world; are they not applieH philosophy ? As a matter of fact history teaches that the self-same religion under the influence of dif- ferent philosophies has developed into practically different sys- tems of morality. Mohammedanism in the golden days of the Caliphate of Cordova was different from that of Bagdad, and still more from Mohammedanism as it exists to-day in Constantinople, And Christianity, the most powerful religion in the world, shows as many different phases as it has been influenced in the different ages by various philosophies. We know of no decline of any nation on earth unless it was preceded by an intellectual and moral rottenness, which took the shape of some negative creed or skepticism, teaching the maxim that man lives for the pleasure of living, and that the purpose of our life is merely to enjoy ourselves. The fashionable freethought of to-day is so closely connected with negativism and hedonism that most people are accustomed to identify freethought with these its excrescences. In this book, however, is proposed a philosophy of most radical freethought, that is no negativism, no agnosticism, and no metaphysical mys- ticism, but a systematic arrangement of positive facts. On the ground of positive facts, it equally opposes hedonism as well as asceticism, propounding a humanitarian ethics which, if obeyed, will keep our nation healthy and must lead us not on the easy viii PREFA CE. path of "least resistance," but on the thorny and steep road of progress onward and upward to ever higher and nobler states of existence. Our fundamental conceptions of world and life, therefore, for practical purposes— for our individual welfare, for the destiny of our nation and for that of humanity — are of greatest importance. On the philosophy of our age depends the health of our religious, our scientific, our industrial, our mercantile, our political, and our social development. THE AUTHbR. AUTHOR'S NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The alterations embodied in this second edition of Funda- mental Problems consist mainly in the insertion of an introductory chapter, " Ontology and Positivism," and of an appendix contain- ing the author's replies to his critics. Among them : Dr. Francis E. Abbot, Miss Mirabeau Brown, Dr. George M. Gould, Dr. Robert Lewins, Professor Ernst Mach, Dr. Edmund Montgomery, Madame Clemence Royer, Col. Paul R. Shipman and others. A few passages (on pages 66, 129, 131, 134, 185, 187) have been re- cast, because they did not seem to convey clearly the ideas of the author, and because they will be less liable to be misunderstood as they now read. The bulk of the book has remained unchanged. P. C. IX TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. Preface to the First Edition v Author's Note to the Second Edition viii Table of Contents ix # * Gems from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus i Ontology and Positivism 3 Sensation and Memory 9 Cognition, Knowledge, and Truth 15 -The Foundation of Monism 21 Form and Formal Thought 26 1. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 26 11. The Origin of the ' ' A Priori " 34 in. The Order of Nature 46 iv. The Basis of the Economy of Thought 52 v. Conclusion 58 The Old and the New Mathematics 61 ^.Metaphysics : The Use and Meaning of the Word .....' 74 The Problem of Causality 79 Matter, Motion and Form 92 Unknowability and Causation 96 Causes and Natural Laws 105 Is Nature Alive ? no 1. The Universality of Life no 11. Can the World be Mechanically Explained ? 115 in. The Elements Explainable by form 122 iv. Machines and Organisms 125 v Organised and Psychical Life 127 vi. Conclusion 13 1 x FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. PAGE Cause, Reason and End J 34 The Idea of Absolute Existence 135 I. The Veil of Maya 135 ii. Agnosticism and Phenomenalism 137 m. Goethe's Monism 14 1 iv. Phenomena and Noumena 14 2 v. The Oneness of the Phenomenal and the Noumenal. 148 vi. God as the Moral Law 151 The Stronghold of Mysticism 154 1. The Unknowable 154 11. The Fashionable Mysticism of To Day 157 in. The Infinite a Mathematical Term 159 iv. Is the Infinite Mysterious ? 161 v. Space and Time 163 vi. Infinitude and Eternity 169 Agnosticism and Positivism 173 Idealism and Realism 176 Hedonism and Asceticism 188 Causation and Free Will 191 Formal Thought and Ethics 197 The Oneness of Man and Nature 207 Ethics and Natural Science 216 Christ and His Ethics 227 No Creed but Faith 229 The Importance of Art 234 Tragedy and the Problem of Evil 239 Classical and Romantic Art 248 Retrospect 252 Definitions and Explanations 254 APPENDIX. IN REPLY TO CRITICISMS OF FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. PAGE. Agnosticism and Monism 259 The Sin Against the Holy Ghost 1265 The Modesty of Agnosticism 269 A Reviewer's View of Dogmatism 273 Odd Views of Monism 276 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi PAGE. In Reply to a Criticism of Col. Paul R. Shipman 280 I. Sensations, Things, and Knowledge 280 11. Words 281 in. Relativity of Knowledge 281 jv. The Thing and Its Properties 282 v. The Absolute and the Impossible 282 vi. The Insolvable Problem 283 vii. The Agnostic's Problem 285 viii. Whence Come Facts 2 7iavr\ axoG fxia ;-iv . 27. [Either it is a cosmos or a chaos, driven together — but still a cosmos. But can a cosmos subsist in thee and disorder in the All ?] lldvra aXXi/Xois iTtinXixerai xal ?} GvvSeGis iepa, nai GxeSov ri ovdkv aXXorpwv aXXo dXXoo. 2vy- xararkraxrai yap, nai Gvyxoaptsi rov avrov xoG/tov. Kogjuos T£ yap iis iS, dnavroov, xaiSeos els Sid ndv- roov, nai ovGia fxia, xal vo/uos sis, Xoyos xoivds ndv- ■tcov robv vospdjv Zcpwv, nai aXr]§£ia jxia --vn. 9. [All things are connected with one another andthe^bond is holy. There is hardly anything foreign to any otner thing. For things have been coor- dinated and they combine to form one and the same cosmos. For there is one cosmos made up of all things and one God who pervades all things and one substance, one law, one common reason in all intelligent animals and one truth.] "H re yap ovoia oiov norajxoz iv Sirjvsxei pvasi ■ xal ai ivepysiai iv GvvexiGi juera/JoXaiz, nai rd airia iv /uvpiais rponais- xal ax^Sov nvdtv iarwS xal to napsyyvS'-v. 23. [Substance is like a river in a continual flow ; the energies undergo con- stant changes, and causes work in infinite varieties. There is hardly anything that stands still or remains the same.] Ais\e Kiti ptipiGov to vnoxsipievov sis to anidZdsS nal vXiHor.-vn. 29. [Separate and divide the object in the formal and the material.] ES ahioodovs nai vkinov GvvEGT??Ma ■ ovStTspov de to-jtcov sis to fAr) ov cp$apr)GSTai • cbanep ovde ek TOV JUT? 0VT0S V7TEGTTJ.-V. 13. t I consist of the formal and of the material. Neither will be lost in noth- ing nor did either come from nothing.] "Evdov /3Xe7t£. "Evdov 1} nrjyj] tov ayaSov, nai asi avafiXveiv 8vvap.Evq, sav asl Gxa7rTr)S.-vu. 59. [Look within I Within is the fountain of good and it will ever well up if thou wilt ever dig.] Aijgt?}; npoaipeaeoos ov yivETai- to tov Em- MT7fT0V.-Xl. 36. [No one can rob us of our free will, says Epictetus.] "EnaGTOv npns ti ytyovev • 2v OVV TtpOS Tl ; TO rjdsGSiaij i'de, si avixETai r) i'vvoia.-viu. 19. [Everything exists for some end. For what end, then, art thou ? To en- joy pleasure ? See whether common sense allows this.] 'Hdovwv nai novwv na^vnEpTEpEiv i'£;£GTiv-xm.l [Thou canst master pleasure and pain.] Ovrs apa xpr/GijAOV, ours ayaSov r/Sovij.—viu. 10. [Pleasure is neither useful nor good.] TJav poi GvvapfA08,ei, o Goi Evapp.0GTOv egtiv, a> hog/xe. OvSiv fAoi npowpov, ov6e OlpljXOV, TO goi EVHaipov. TLav jaoi uapnos, o qiipovGn ai Gat abpai, go (pvais ■ em gov navTa, ev goi navTa is ge navTa. -iv. 23. [Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Cosmos. Nothing for me is too early nor too late which is in due time for thee. Every- thing is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature. From thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return.] ONTOLOGY AND POSITIVISM. The basal idea of Positivism or Positive Monism is that it takes its stand on facts ; and there is unquestion- ably no thinker of the present age, who is imbued with the scientific spirit of the time, that would offer any objection to this principle. Yet former philosophies did not take the same ground. They tried to find a footing in empty space ; they attempted to explain facts by deriving them from some abstract conception that they postulated. Their favorite starting point was the idea of abstract existence. Hence their method is called ontology, which may be translated as meaning "thought-structures of abstract existence. " The vaguer the broader, the more general and metaphysical this abstract conception was, the deeper and profounder an ontological system appeared to be, and the more it was appreciated by the astonished public. One of the. ablest, and certainly the most famous, among ontologists was Hegel. Hegel started with the abstract idea of being or existence in general, and claimed that this concept in its emptiness was iden- tical with nonexistence. Abstract being, he said, is at the same time an absolute negation of concrete being ; it is pure nothingness. These two concepts accordingly are in one respect absolutely identical, in another respect absolutely contradictory. Each one disappears immediately into its opposite. The oscil- 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. lation between both is the pure becoming, das reine Werden, which, if it be a transition froni non-existence to existence, is called Entstehen. "growing, originating, waxing," and if it be a transition from existence to non-existence, is called Vergehen, "decrease, decay, waning." Having arrived, by this ingenious method of philosophical sleight of hand at the concept of Becoming, Hegel's ontology touched bottom. From the Utopia of non-existence, above the clouds, he got down to the facts of real life; and here he applies to everything the same method of a thesis, an antithesis, and the combination of both. We would be obliged to go into detail if we in- tended to show how truly grand was the application of his method to logic, to history, to natural science, to art, to aesthetics, to religion, and to theology. Here is not the place for doing this. Yet, while ob- jecting to the ontological method, we wish incidentally to emphasize the fact, that Hegel was one of the greatest, boldest, and most powerful thinkers of all times, whatever his mistakes may have been, and from whatsoever standpoint we choose to look upon his phi- losophy. Ontology starts from abstract ideas and comes down to facts. Positivism, on the contrary, starts from facts and rises to abstract ideas. Abstract ideas, according to the positive view, are derived from and represent certain general features of facts. Ontology is bent upon explaining the existence of facts from non- existence, and ontologists therefore regard it as their duty to bridge over in their imagination the chasm between nothingness and something. Positivism does not require such mistaken procedure. It takes the facts as data and possesses in their existence the mate- ONTOLOGY AND POSITIVISM. 5 rial out of which rise the sciences and philosophy. Philosophy is no longer a pure thought-structure of abstract being, but a general survey of the sciences as a conception of the universe, based upon experience. Ontological systems did not disappear and lose their influence over mankind suddenly, but dissolved them- selves first into a state of philosophical despair. The uselessness and sterility of the ontological method were more and more recognized and found their philo- sophical expression in agnosticism. Agnosticism is the most modern form of the ob- solete method of ontological philosophy. The agnostic philosopher has discovered a concept that is broader and vaguer even than that of "existence in general." This concept is the Unknowable. Something that is real and at the same time absolutely unknowable is a self-contradiction. But never mind. That makes the idea the vaguer and it will thus be more easily turned to advantage. Agnostics are never afraid of arriving at self-contradictory statements, at unknowabilities, or at insolvable problems — these three terms mean the same thing — for they are just the things they be- lieve in.* Positivism regards the construction of philosophy upon abstract ideas as idle effort. Instead of coming * Agnosticism blindfolds us in clear daylight. I wish every agnostic would read the following passage from our great American Logician, C. S. Peirce : " One singular deception, which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought for a character of the object we are thinking. Instead of perceiving that the obscurity is purely subjective, we fancy that we contemplate a quality of the object which is essentially mys- terious ; and if our conception be afterward presented to us in a clear form we do not recognize it as the same, owing to the absence of the feeling of un- intelligibility. So long as this deception lasts, it obviously puts an impassable barrier in the way of perspicuous thinking; so that it equally interests the opponents of rational thought to perpetuate It, and its adherents to guard against it." — \The Illustrations of the Logic of Science. {See Popular Science Monthly, 1877, p. 291.)] 6 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. down from an abstract conception as if it were out of a balloon to the solid ground of facts, positivism takes facts as its data. It starts from facts and arranges them properly in good order. It derives its abstract conceptions not by a theological revelation nor by in- tuition and metaphysical inspiration, but by the method of mental abstraction. And it discards all those abstract conceptions which have not been derived from facts. Philosophical knowledge is not at all a going beyond facts, but it is the proper and systematic arrangement of facts, so that they do not appear as incoherent single items without rhyme or reason, but as one intelligible whole in which every part appears in concord with every other. * * The principle of Positivism, certainly, is very simple, but its application is by no means easy. Even the mere statement of facts requires much care and exactness, while their systematic arrangement as sci- entific knowledge is the privilege only of a few ex- ceptional thinkers. What are facts? Facts are all the events that take place ; the thoughts and acts of living beings as well as the motions of not-living things, great and small ; the oscillations of atoms and the movements of suns ; in short all natural processes that happen. The central fact among all other facts is to every one the activity of his own consciousness. This central fact, however, must not be supposed to be either the ulti- mate fact or the simplest fact. To call any fact ulti- mate is not justifiable, because if any single fact among facts is ultimate, all facts are ultimate. Facts, if they are facts at all, are equally real ; their reality cannot be regarded as of a greater or less degree. To ONTOLOGY AND POSITIVISM. 7 look upon consciousness as a simple fact would imply that it is eternal, which is contrary to our experience. Consciousness is a very complicated fact ; it is the sum of many smaller facts and must be supposed to be the result of a co-operation of innumerable pro- cesses. This, however, is stated only incidentally in oppo- sition to certain philosophers who believe in the sim- plicity of consciousness and build upon this hypothe- sis a grand philosophical system called idealism. For our present purpose, in considering consciousness as the central fact among all other facts, it is of no con- sequence. It is here sufficient to state that conscious- ness being to every one of us the basis of our knowl- edge of facts, need not at all be the originator of facts; being the centre of our intellectual world, it need not at all be an indivisible unit or a mathematical point. Facts are stated as facts when they are rep- resented in consciousness, and the means by which facts are represented in consciousness are sensations. This is to say: The philosophical problem according to positivism is the arrangement of all knowledge into one harmonious system which will be a unitary conception of the world and can serve as a basis for ethics. A unitary conception of the world implies and pre- supposes the idea of a continuity of nature, which, it is true, has not as yet been proved in all its details. Nevertheless, it is more than simply probable. The continuity of nature is the indispensable ideal of sci- ence; every progress of science is, rightly considered, nothing but an additional evidence of the truth that nature does not contradict herself ; she is continuous and self-consistent. There are no facts, proven to be 8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. facts, that can overthrow the ideal of a continuity of nature. Therefore, the solution of the problem to construct a unitary system of knowledge, we most em- phatically declare, is not only possible, it is also ne- cessary, it is an indispensable duty of man as a think- ing being ; and its realization is the very life_ of sci- ence. If a systematization of knowledge were im- possible, science would become impossible, and phi- losophy-would be resolved into useless vagaries. To sum up. The philosophical problem, accord- ing to ontology, is to derive existence from non-exist- ence. Agnosticism, finding the problem of deriving something from nothing insoluble, declares it to be an inscrutable mystery. Positivism maintains that the problem is illegitimate. Taking its stand upon tacts, positivism can dispense with the salto mortale of ontology. SENSATION AND MEMORY. The primal condition of knowledge is sensation. All knowledge has its root in sensation, and without sen- sation there could be no knowledge. Sensation is a process which, under certain circum- stances, takes place in living matter when influenced by its surroundings. Take for instance a moner which you may keep on a watch crystal in a drop of water. Expose the moner to light and the light will excite its activity; touch it with a pin, dipped before in acetic acid, it will flee from the offensive object. Throw something in its way on which it can feed and it will seize it. It will be affected differently by different things, but similarly under similar conditions, and will react accordingly. Sensation is a psychical phenomenon. When a moner is affected by and responds to irritations, it be- haves in such a way as to leave no doubt that there is on a small scale and in a very simple condition the self- same po.wer at work which we feel active in our con- sciousness. Like ourselves, the moner is a sentient be- ing, a creature that is endowed with feeling. ' Psy- chical,' accordingly, we call all phenomena of sensa- tion from the simplest feeling of pleasure or pain, or indifferent perceptive impressions to the most com- plex states of conscious thought and purposive will. Mr. G. J. Romanes consider^ as the characteristic io FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. feature of psychic acts the faculty of choice.* This may be true. In making a special selection, in giving pref- erence to one kind of food or another, a micro-organ- ism will best show its psychical qualities; but the es- sential feature of psychic life, it appears, is sensation or the property of feeling which we must suppose to accompany certain movements of a creature and which is most plainly recognized in the way a creature makes a choice. A sieve certainly discriminates also between the coarser and finer particles which are thrown on its wires, but no one will call the selection made in this way a psychical act on the part of the sieve. Of the existence of feeling, we have the most inti- mate and immediate knowledge, for we ourselves are feeling. Feeling is a fact; it is the most indubitable fact of all; and all knowledge rests on it. Psychology accepts this fact as the basic datum of its investiga- tions and must attempt to reduce all more complicated phenomena of psychic life to simple feelings. Every single feeling appears to us most simple, but this does not exclude that, in fact, it is a very complicated phenomenon. The question as to the origin of feeling is an un- solved problem still, and, we cannot so soon hope for a satisfactory solution. This much, however, can be safely stated, that we must expect the solution of this problem from biological investigations. Feeling does not come into the protoplasma of organisms from transcendent spheres. The conditions of feeling must exist in the inorganic matter of our world, and the ap- pearance of the phenomena of sensation, will be found * See Alfred Binet, "The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms," p. 109. Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 111. SENSATION AND MEMORY. n to depend upon a special form in which the molecules of protoplasma combine and disintegrate. If the same irritation, in a moner, is repeated, the animalcule will show a greater ability to respond to the occasion. In other words, the moner possesses memory. A previous sensation has predisposed it to react more readily to the second and third irritation and we must ask, How is that possible? We can observe that the irritation affecting the moner produces certain chemical changes in its sub- stance, and also the motions of the animalcule are in the same way accompanied by such changes in the protoplasma. The process of life, even if the creature is at rest, is an unceasing activity. Oxygen is con- stantly being absorbed and food assimilated while the waste products are excreted in the form of carbonic acid and in other decompositions. The rebuilding of the life-substance by assimilation takes place in such a way as to preserve the old arrangement of mole- ' cules. Even on the skin of the hand a scar remains visible years after the wound is healed, because the form and arrangement once produced is preserved: it is transmitted from the old substance to the new growth of cells developing therefrom. This preserva- tion and transmittance of form is the physiological condition of memory. If certain changes which take place in living substance are accompanied by sensa- tion, the preservation of certain physiological forms, produced by such changes, will preserve the corre- sponding forms of sensation also. They are registered in the protoplasma similarly as a speech is recorded on the tin-foil of the phonograph. If the physiological forms of sentient matter are called into activity by " some stimulus, it will reproduce in a weaker form the 12 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. corresponding sensation just as the phonograph will reproduce the speech. Memory, therefore, is the psychological aspect of the preservation of physiological forms in sentient sub- stance and is as such the conditioning factor in the de- velopment of knowledge from sensation. The arrangement of the molecules becomes more and more adapted to the impression of their surround- ings. Thus under the constant influence of special irritations, special senses are created. Given ether- waves of light and sensation, and in the long process, of evolution an eye will be formed; given air-waves of sound and sensation, and in the long process of evolu- tion an ear will be formed. Thus sensation, with the assistance of memory adapting itself to its conditions, produces the different sense-organs. The different sense-organs possess their "specific energies," as Johannes Miiller calls their inherited memory* of reacting in a special and always the same way upon irritation. Irritations of the eye produce in the optic nerve sensations of light, and irritations of the ear produce in the auditory nerve sensations of sound, even if there be neither light nor sound, but other causes, as, for instance, electric currents. The percepts of vision are felt as images which we project outside of ourselves to places where, by the experience of touch, we have become accustomed to expect their presence. A new percept of a thing that has been perceived before, will, under ordinary conditions, be recognized as the same. The new percept producing in the, sen- sory nerves the same form of motion as the old per- * See Open Court, Nos. 6 and 7: Ewald Hering, "Memory as a General Function of Organized Matter." SENSA TION AND MEM OR Y. 1 3 cept of the same thing, finds certain brain-structures predisposed to receive it. Being p'roduced in struc- tures shaped by all the former percepts, it at the same time re-awakens their memories. All living bo- dies have thus become store-houses of innumerable memories, which are treasured up since organized life ■ began on earth and are transmitted and added to from generation to generation. The percepts of our senses, being specialized acts of feeling, are the elements of our psychic life. They are the facts (or if you so please the ultimate facts) given by reality; and it is from them that we derive all the knowledge we have. From them all our abstrac- tions grow, our concepts, our formal thought, our ideas, and even our ideals. All the higher intellectual and spiritual life of man's consciousness, the schemes of the inventor, the fancies of the poet, and the theories of the philosopher, blossom forth from, and can be reduced to, the simple data of perception. The simple phenomenon of sensation has in the long process of evolution grown highly complex. The nerves of animals being centralized in the brain, their feelings form a multifarious unity which is called conscious- ness. The unity of consciousness is not (as has been supposed in former centuries) the life-principle, nor is it the soul of the animal, and still less is it a sub- stance existing independent of the body of that crea- ture. On the contrary it is the product of the whole organization. Consciousness is a very complex and un- stable state, consisting of many half-conscious and _sub-conscious feelings, which in a healthy state of mind are focused in the present object of attention. The whole organism with its structures and forms, in so far as we consider its psychical side, is called the i 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. soul of that organism. Soul, therefore, we define as the psychical aspect of all the organic forms of our body. Mind is a synonym of soul. However, the word soul is used with special preference when we refer to our emotional life, while mind rather denotes the intel- lectual activity of the organism. When we speak of spirit, we think of soul-life without having any ref- erence to the bodily forms in which it manifests it- self. In the same way we speak of "the spirit of a book " and " the spirit of the age." If " spirit " is sup- posed to have an independent existence of itself, the word becomes synomynous with "ghost." We sum up: Memory is the preservation of psychic forms. From simple sensations it has produced sensory per- ceptions in well-organized sense-organs, and then from the perceptions of the sense-organs the concepts of the mind. In the further progress of evolution we reach the domain of knowledge represented in ab- stract ideas with all their rich and varied forms of thought, which lead man into the provinces of science, art, religion, and philosophy. l 5 COGNITION, KNOWLEDGE, AND TRUTH. Cognition in its simplest form is the act of feeling a percept to be the same as another percept perceived before. Cognition thus is founded in the relations of our percepts among each other. A single impres- sion cannot as yet constitute cognition; two or several percepts of the same kind are needed in order to feel their identity. Cognition consists of two elements; it has a sub jective and an objective phase. The objective phase is that the object now perceived is the same (or at least in some respect the same) as the object per- ceived before; and the subjective phase is that it is also felt to be the same. The new percept fitting itself into the form produced in the brain by the former per- cept, is, in the literal sense of the word, re-cognized: it is cognized again. The condition of knowledge ac- cordingly, in its simplest form, is ' the sameness of two or more percepts.' Cognition of the higher and more complicated kind remains at bottom the same. It is always the act of recognizing a unity or a sameness in two or several phenomena. Cognition always presupposes a certain stock of experience, and to understand a phenomenon or to explain it means to recognize its identity with other phenomena with which we are familiar. The fall- ing of stones to the ground is a familiar occurrence with 1 6 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. us, and to show in how far the motion of the moon about the earth is the same kind of motion as that of the falling stone, only under other conditions, is an explanation of this phenomenon. Knowledge is the formulated stock of experiences in which we have discovered common features, so that their identity even under different conditions has been and will always again be recognized. Knowledge in animals is simple in comparison with knowledge in man. Animals easily recognize concrete things and persons, but they are not able to sum up their knowledge in abstract formulas; they cannot name things, they cannot speak, they cannot think in abstract ideas. Man's knowledge rises into the realm of ab- stract thought where he creates a new world of spirit- ual existence. The data of the natural sciences are always certain phenomena of which we are aware by sensation. We classify these phenomena so as to embrace them by the same law in innumerable and, in many respects, ap- parently different processes. Take, for instance, the tiny luminous specks in the nocturnal sky which we as well as many animals perceive by our visual organs. To the animal the stars are meaningless,* to the savage they are mysterious beings of an undiscoverable origin; but the astronomer by the aid of computing, and measuring, and calculating, with the additional help of telescopes, arranges in his mind the phenomena of the starry heaven in such a way as to make of his luminous sensations a well-ordered whole, standing in unison with all the other facts of our experience. * Incidentally may be mentioned, that to the higher animals natural phe- nomena gain in impressiveness. The monkeys of the Sunda Isles, we are in- formed, gather shortly before sunrise in the highest tree-tops and salute the first rays of the rising sun with clamorous shouts. COGNITION, KNOWLEDGE, AND TRUTH. 17 Abstract ideas, generalizations, and conceptions of natural laws are the most important factors of human existence proper. By the help of abstract thought only has man become man. By the help of abstract thought only can he realize that he is a part of the whole of All- existence: he becomes religious. By the help of ab- stract thought he can regulate his actions according to maxims of universal applicability, so that he remains in harmony with the cosmical order of the Universe — with God: he becomes a moral being. By the help of ab- stract thought he can formulate his experiences in the rigid forms of arithmetical, geometrical, mechanical, or logical expressions, so that he comprehends the im- manent necessity of the order of nature: he becomes scientific. When he finds that his abstract concep- tions, his ideas, are realized in certain regular or characteristic instances, he acquires artistic taste; and when he begins to express his ideas in a vis- ible or audible form, in colors, in sounds, or in words so that his creations represent single instances, incarnations as it were, of his ideas, he becomes an artist, — a painter, a musician, or a poet. If man suc- ceeds in unifying all his knowledge on a scientific ba- sis, so that it is systematized as a unitary conception of world and life and the aim of life, he becomes a philosopher. Thus abstract thought is the basis of all Jiigher, intellectual, human, and humane aspirations. It raises man high above all the rest of animal crea- tion and makes him their master. It is the corner- stone of humanity and produces Religion, Ethics, Science, Art, and Philosophy. Abstract thoughts do not on the one hand repre- sent absolute existences, nor on the other are they mere air castles; they are built upon the solid ground of 1 8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. reality.- The facts of nature are specie and our abstract thoughts are bills which serve to economize the pro- cess of an exchange of thought. We must know the exact value in specie of every bill which is in our pos- session. And if the values of our abstract ideas are not ultimately founded upon the reality of positive facts, they are like bills or drafts for the payment of which there is no money in the bank. Reality is often identified with material existence, as if matter were an exhaustive term for all that is real. Matter is an abstract; matter of itself, absolute mat- ter, does not exist. Matter cannot even be conceived as real unless it is possessed with some kind of force (or motion, or energy); forceless matter is a non-en- tity. Further, every single particle of matter must ap- pear in some special form. Formless matter is a non- entity also. Matter, force, and form are abstracts only, which we have made for our own convenience of comprehending the phenomena of the world. Reality itself is one undivided and indivisible whole. The most important abstraction among the three (matter, force, and form), we do not hesitate to say is, neither matter nor force, but form. Matter is a general conception abstracted from things material; it indicates their property of possessing mass and volume, but excludes all special or individual features' of material bodies. At the same time, ac- cordingly, it is an extremely poor and empty concept. Generalizations naturally are the more void, the higher they are. The same may be said of motion as well as of force. Motion means change of place; force signi- fies that which is productive of a change of place. In order to know matter, we must become familiar with all kinds of matter, and in order to know the forces of COGNITION, KNOWLEDGE, AND TRUTH. 19 nature we must study the natural phenomena, viz., the actual motions that are taking place. The concept 'form' is not so barren as the general- izations ' matter ' and 'force.' We cannot create new matter, neither can we create new force or motion, but we can create new forms. We can in our mind construct new combinations; and if they have been correctly ar- ranged in our thoughts, they will (when an attempt at their execution is made) be seen to be realizable. The laws of form laid down in the formal sciences (in mathematics, arithmetic, pure logic, etc.), can be ascer- tained by self-observation. While we create new forms in our mind we evolve the more complex combina- tions from the simple ones and can thus comprehend them. We can, by methodical generalization, as well as consistent application of generalizations to different cases, exhaust the possibility of instances and thus for- mulate universal rules. Form constitutes the order of the world, its cogniz- ability and intelligibility. It imparts to the universe the spirituality of its existence. Form and the change- ability of form make evolution possible. The evolu- tion of forms brings sense and meaning into the forces of nature; it affords a direction to their movements and determines the progressive character of all growth, Form, a special kind of form, constitutes mind and human intelligence, and the establishment of the sciences of formal thought is the basis of exact philos- ophy. Form gives purpose to life and the problem of ethics finds in it its solution. We now ask that often repeated question of Pilate, "What is truth?" Tradition says that Pilate was a skeptic; like the agnostic of modern days, he did not consider it worth his while to wait for a reply. And 20 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. the gospel informs us that Jesus did not deign to an- swer him. There have been complaints that we never can know 'absolute truth'; and indeed 'absolute truth' is unknowable because such a thing as 'absolute truth' does not exist. Cognition is a relation, and truth, if it has any meaning at all, means true cogni- tion. Therefore the very essence of truth is a relation; and this relation is neither mysterious, nor inscrutable, nor unknowable, nor a profound secret; it can be ascertained perfectly well. A conception, or a cognizance, or a formula of a number of experiences, or an abstract idea is true if it is in unison with all facts of reality; it is not true if in any way it conflicts with or is contradicted by facts of reality. The facts of reality remain the ultimate data of all our knowledge; truth is the unison of our con- ception of single facts with the whole system of all facts, and science as well as philosophy is our as- piration to realize the unity of nature 21 THE FOUNDATION OF MONISM. The very nature of cognition, we have learned, is unification, and through cognition our percepts, our concrete concepts, and our abstract ideas arrange themselves into a unitary system of knowledge. We cannot help searching for a unitary conception of the different phenomena, and our mind will never be at ease unless we at least feel convinced that we have found it. The disposition of our mind must thus nat- urally lead us to a monistic philosophy which at- tempts to understand all the single phenomena of the universe, as well as the whole of reality, by one uni- versal law or from one all-embracing principle. The constitution of the human mind, in this way, predisposes man for monism. The want of a unifica- tion of knowledge is the subjective condition out of which monism originates, but in itself it would have no value if it were not justified by experience. We can construct a monism a priori by pure reason, but must ratify it a posteriori through scientific investiga- tion. The objective condition of monism is founded in the character of our actual experiences. All the natural phenomena which ever came within the grasp of human apprehension, were such as conformed di- rectly or at least showed a possibility (if they were but better known) of conforming, by and by, to a unitary law. The regularity of the course of nature, and the rigidity of natural laws indicating their irrefragable 22 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. universality, are the objective arguments in favor of the oneness of the All, as assumed by monism. The more science has progressed, the more has this truth of the oneness of nature been corroborated, and we cannot doubt but that it will be more and more con- firmed. It is a KTij/ia if ad — an intellectual possession of humanity that has come to stay for good. It will easily be understood that the oneness of na- ture (the regularity which pervades the universe and which can be formulated in natural laws — die Gesetz- massigkeit der Natur), must be considered as the ground of, or ultimate raison d'etre for, the principle of one- ness which is found in our mind. Our cognition, with the help of sensation, only mirrors in our con- sciousness the phenomena of nature in their regu- larity; so that knowledge in its entirety must become a S3'stematic representation of the world in our brain. Knowledge is not a useless efflorescence of the mind, as has been supposed by some one-sided ideal- ists; nor does it exist for its own sake simply; it serves the very practical purpose of orientation in this world. So far as our knowledge reaches, thus far do we intellect- ually own nature, and can hope- to rule its course in the interest of humanity by accommodating ourselves and natural events to nature's unalterable laws. The unitary conception of the world has become a postulate of science. Indeed the single sciences, each one in its province, have always worked out and en- deavored to verify the principles of monism. Every fact which seems to contradict the principle of unity must be, and indeed it is, considered as a problem until it conforms to it. As soon as it is found to be in unison with all the other facts the problem is solved. Monism, being equivalent to consistency, is that THE FOUNDATION OF MONISM. 23 view to realize which almost every philosopher aspires. Dualists, from principle, are inconsistent thinkers; yet even they attempt to construct at least a sham unity of their systems. Thus, supernaturalists look upon matter as a product of mind and materialists, vice versa, upon mind as a product of matter. The latter believe that life was created by dead matter, and the former that an extramundane God, the prin- ciple of life, created matter. They cannot help striv- ing after a monistic view of the world; for the unifica- tion of all knowledge is the inherent principle of cog- nition. Dualism appears to be a state of transition. It emerges from the more chaotic state of many single unifications of knowledge, that were systematized un- der two opposite and apparently contradictory princi- ples. Plutarch says in his book, De liide et Osiride, chap. 45 : ' ' The world is neither thrown about by wild chance without in- telligence, reason, and guidance, nor is it dominated and directed by one rational being with a rudder or with gentle and easy reins as it were; but on the contrary, there are in it several different things, and those made up of bad as well as good; or rather (to speak more plainly) Nature produces nothing here but what is mixed and tempered. There is not, as it were, one store-keeper, who out of two different casks dispenses to us human affairs adulterated and mixed together,* as a landlord doth his liquors; but by reason of two contrary origins and opposite powers — whereof the one leads to the right hand and in a direct line, and the other turns to the contrary hand and goes athwart — both human life is mixed, and the world (if not all, yet that part which is about the earth and below the moon) is become very unequal and various, and liable to all manner of changes. For if nothing can come without * Plutarch alludes to Homer, who feigns Jupiter to have in his house two differing jars, the one rilled with good things, and the other with bad. See II. XXIV. 517. 24 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. a cause, and i£ a good thing cannot afford a cause of evil, Nature then must certainly have a peculiar source and origin of evil as well as of good." Good and evil, light and darkness, heat and cold, appear, at first sight only, as contradictory principles. As soon as we grow more familiar with the facts which we comprehend by these names, and when we attempt to reduce them to exact expressions by measuring their degrees, we perceive that, in reality, they are one and the same principle which can be viewed from opposite standpoints. After the invention of the ther- mometer the dualism of heat and cold was abolished forever, and a monistic view is firmly established on the basis of exact data, expressed in figures. Every dualism is, upon principle, an inconsistency of thought; but it will peacefully die away as soon as the illogical character of its inconsistency is discovered. Monism is different from the other philosophical views in so far as it is not so much a finished system, but a plan for a system. It admits of constant real- ization and further perfection, in all the many branches of knowledge. The plan, however, can be sketched in outline and we need not fear of its being overthrown by unexpected discoveries. Other systems, as a rule, set out with objective principles to which their up- holders try to adjust the facts of reality. Some hypoth- esis is formed and facts are interpreted by this hypoth- esis. Monism, however, is a subjective principle, a rule informing us how to unify knowledge 'out of our experiences, a plan how to proceed in building our conception of world and life from facts. We need fear no collision between our pet theories and facts, for it is a matter of principle that we have to take our stand on facts. Monism in this sense, i. e., the formal THE FOUND A TION OF MONISM. 25 principle of unity, is the only true philosophy, and we can repeat of monism the same words that Kant said of his Criticism: "The danger is not that of being refuted but merely that of being misunderstood." 26 FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. In the introduction to his "Critique of Pure Rea- son," Immanuel Kant proposes the question: How are synthetical judgments a priori possible? On the so- lution of this problem the whole structure of his phil- osophy rests, which he characterizes as Transcendental Idealism. 'A priori' means ' beforehand,' and its opposite ' a posteriori ' means 'afterwards.' To know something a priori means to know something before any experi- ence thereof has been had. When we- know that the specific gravity of ebony is greater than that of water, we can declare a priori, that ebony will not float, but sink to the bottom (the physical law being also con- sidered known). We can even know it before the ex- periment is made. The experiment will afterwards, i. e. a posteriori, verify our knowledge. This is the general meaning of the terms ' a priori ' and ' a posteriori.' But Kant uses the words in a more limited sense. In Kant's' language the term 'experience' is em- ployed to signify sense-perception. It is not ex- actly limited to that meaning throughout, but cer- tainly it is always used in opposition to non-sensory or FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 27 mere formal knowledge. That which produces expe- rience, and which as a reality outside of us and inde- pendent of our sensation corresponds to sensory im- pressions, Kant calls 'matter.' Therefore, we have knowledge of the existence of matter and its different properties ' a posteriori,' or from experience, i. e. from sense-perception only. There is another kind of knowledge, however, which is not sense-knowledge, but formal knowledge. Formal knowledge can be gained by abstraction. The form of things, such as globes, cubes, statu'es, and other bodies, can be abstracted from their material reality. We can, for instance, think away all things in the world. (We abstract from their material existence. - ) What is left is ' empty space ' ; and this conception of purespace is the postulate of a science that is called mathematics. We can abstract, also, from all processes which take place in the world; what is left is the idea of duration only; it is ' empty time,' in which these processes might have taken place. The conception of time, pure and simple, can be conceived as a progress through empty units without reference to real phenomena. Such empty units are called numbers, and by adding one unit to another, we start a process that is known as counting. Counting is the basis of arithmetic. If, again, we abstract from the substance of our thoughts, the mere forms of thought remain, which, treated as a science, are called formal logic. It must be remarked in passing that Kant calls space and time 'pure perceptions' {reine Anschauun- gen), while the categories are treated as 'pure con- ceptions ' {reine Verstandesbegriffc). This distinction is justifiable for certain purposes, and should not be slurred over by commentators of Kant's philosophy. 28 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. However, our present purpose is not to explain or popularize the Critique of Pure Reason, but to use its more prominent ideas for propounding our own views which grew out of a study of Kant's Transcendental- ism. We may add that every perception, as soon as it is named and clearly denned, becomes a conception. Space can be the basis of mathematics, and time of arithmetic only when both have grown to be clear con- ceptions. Formal knowledge is called by Kant a priori, because, if any truth of these formal sciences is established, it will be known to be true for all possi- ble cases of experience, even before the experiments have been made. The rules of mathematics, of arith- metic, and logic, possess rigid necessity and absolute universality. They are the condition of all scientific investigation; for rigidity and universality {Nothwen- digkeit und Allgemeinheif) in experimental sciences can be realized only through the assistance of the formal sciences. Astronomy and chemistry, for instance, have become sciences only by the application of mathemat- ics and arithmetic; and where can any kind of science be found that could dispense with logic? A priori, as used in the limited sense by Kant, is purely formal knowledge, while a posteriori is iden- tical with experience. Marks of a priori truths are, ac- cording to Kant, absolute rigidity and universality {Nothwendigkeit und Allgemeinheif). Kant has been represented as a philosopher who teaches by his doctrine of the a priori, that man has innate ideas ready in his consciousness. Pure reason, he was supposed to believe, wells up in us as some mysterious power coming from trandescendent and most probably supernatural regions. This is absolutely FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 29 unfounded, as can be learned from the very first sen- tence in the introduction to his "Critique of Pure Reason" : That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no ■• doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should " be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects " which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce repre- sentations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, ' ' to compare, to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert "the raw material of our sensory impressions into a knowledge of "objects, which is called experience?* In respect of time, there- " fore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins " with it." In order to show that formal knowledge must be distinguished from sensory experience, Kant con- tinues: " But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by " no means follows, that all arises out of experience, f For, on the "contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a " compound of that which we receive through impressions, and " that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensory "impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we " cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till "long practice has made us attentive to, and skillful in, separating "it. It is, therefore, a question" which requires close investiga- " tion, and is not to be answered at first sight— whether there ex- " ists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even " of all sensory impressions? Knowledge of this kind is called a "priori, in contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which has its " sources a posteriori, that is, in experience." Formal knowledge is independent of sensory experience in so far as we purposely exclude all sensory experience. But, after all, inasmuch as sen- sory experience is the beginning of all knowledge, a posteriori as well as a priori, to that extent formal * The word ' experience ' is here used in the popular acceptation, being taken as the result of sensory impressions fashioned by pure thought. + Here the word is used in the limited sense, as sensory Experience. 3 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. knowledge is dependent upon sensory experience (as Kant emphatically declares). Experience is antece- dent in time, and from it alone formal knowledge can originate, which — not until a certain height of mental development has been reached — will be separated from the raw material of sensory impressions. Kant, using the word experience in the limited sense of sensory experience, declares that investiga- tion must go beyond experience in order to find the laws of formal knowledge, or pure thought. He, there- fore, called all formal knowledge transcendental, and speaks of transcendental logic, transcendental dialec- tic, transcendental mathematics, and transcendental arithmetic. Transcendental is by no means transcendent. Transcendent means unknowable, or what transcends knowledge; transcendental, according to Kant, means what transcends experience. It is not unknowable, but, on the contrary, the basis of all knowledge, and the transcendental sciences treat such subjects as de- mand (if treated with accuracy) axiomatic certainty. The mysterious has no place in the realms of the transcendental. The question ' How are synthetical judgments a priori possible? ' is to the same purpose as another question of Kant's, propounded in his Prolegomena, § 36, where he asks: "How is nature possible?" When Kant speaks of nature, he refers to our concep- tion of reality, in so far as it is, or can become, the ob- ject of science representing the cosmical order of na- ture. We do not now intend to enter into the details of the problem, as to how far we agree with the sage of Konigsberg, and how far we do not agree. But it seems necessary to point out the importance of the FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 31 problem, on the solution of which the possibility of scientific knowledge depends. The faculty of thinking in abstracto is called rea- son; and reason (which on earth man alone possesses by virtue of language) can become the basis of sci- ence, if by a critical method fallacies and vagaries of reason are prevented. Kant says in the introduction to his " Critique of Pure Reason : " "The critique of reason leads at last, naturally and neces- " sarily, to science; and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of "reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against " which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending un- ' ' avoidably in skepticism. " The whole book is devoted to this critique. It shows that pure reason (formal thought) is limited to formal truths only and cannot contain revelations as to the substantial (the sensory or material) contents of our conceptions. This should have been self-evident; but as a matter of fact, philosophers before and even after Kant have most confidently asserted much about God and the world, the human soul, innate ideas, and other things, while their whole reasoning rested upon unwar- ranted a priori arguments. Such philosophers Kant calls dogmatical. Wolf (1 679-1 754), who had most methodically systematized the metaphysical doctrines of his time, is the most representative dogmatic phi- losopher. If we compare our cognition to building material, Kant said, our transcendental knowledge has been em- ployed by dogmatical philosophers for erecting a lofty dome that should reach to Heaven. For this purpose the " Critique of Pure Reason " has found the materi- als insufficient. Nevertheless, our transcendental cog- nition is most valuable; certainly it is unfit for the 32 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. airy castles of supernatural systems; but if employed for its proper purpose, Kant continues, " it very well suffices for a mansion here on earth spacious enough for all our purposes and high enough to enable us to survey the level plain of experience." Formal cognitions, or conceptions a priori, are of themselves " empty; " and sensory impressions of themselves are " blind." If we had only unconnected sensory impressions, we would be worse off than the lowest animalcula or even plants, and the materials of our experience received through our sensory organs would be of no avail. Our formal cognitions furnish the mortar, as it were, of a synthetic method which will enable us to arrange sensory impressions in compre- hensively arranged systems. Formal cognition and sensory experience, therefore, are the warp and woof of scientific knowledge. The warp as well as the woof, each by itself, consists of single threads, but in their combination they will furnish a well-woven fabric. If a philosopher limits his method to sensory experi- ence alone, he will never attain scientific certainty; he can never make definite and positive statements, but will only propose opinions which may be overturned on the slightest occasion. Such a one-sided' empiri- cal, or naturalistic, philosopher would be guilty of the opposite error of the dogmatist, and while the dogma- tist ultimately must arrive at futile assertions, the em- piricist's mere opinions must lead directly to skepticism. As the representative philosopher of skepticism, Kant mentions David Hume, David Hume does not recog- nize the difference between formal knowledge and sensory experience. To him, therefore, all knowl- edge consists of single, unconnected threads of knowl- edge. FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 33 On the last two pages of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," we read the following passages: ' ' We may divide the methods at present employed in the field "of enquiry into the naturalistic and the scientistic." 'Naturalistic' here means what is commonly called " common sense philosophy," which, repudiating all speculation, does not feel the need of a critical method. Kant continues:' ' ' The naturalist of pure reason lays it down as his principle, " that common reason, without the aid of science — which he calls ' ' sound reason, or common sense — can give a more satisfactory ' ' answer to the most important questions of metaphysics than spec- ' ' ulation is able to do. He must maintain, therefore, that we can ' ' determine the content and circumference of the moon more ' ' certainly by the naked eye than by the aid of mathematical rea- ' ' soning. But this system is mere misology [contempt of rational "thought] reduced to principles; and, what is the most absurd ' ' thing in this doctrine, the neglect of all scientific means is paraded "as a peculiar method of extending our cognition. As regards ' ' those who are naturalists because they know no better, they are " certainly not to be blamed. They follow common sense, with- ' ' out parading their ignorance as a method which is to teach us the ' ' wonderful secret, how we are to find the truth which lies at the ' ' bottom of the well of Democritus. " 'Scientistic' denotes here the method of one-sided scientists. The original German text reads scienti- fisch, which has been coined by Kant in opposition to wissenshaftslich, i. e. scientific in its usual sense. This scientistic, or one-sided scientific, method lacks cri- tique; it does not distinguish between formal and sen- sory (between a priori and a posteriori), and must either undervalue the importance of formal cognition, by not properly employing it as a synthetic principle, or overvalue the importance of formal cognition by at- tributing to it the power of a supernatural revelation. Kant continues, and concludes his " Critique of Pure Reason " as follows: 34 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ' 'As regards those who wish to pursue a scientistic method, they "„have now the choice of following either the dogmatical or the ' skeptical, while they are bound never to desert the systematic 1 ' mode of procedure. When I mention, in relation to the former, " the celebrated Wolf, and as regards the latter, David Hume, I " may leave, in accordance with my present intention, all others "unnamed. "The critical path alone is still open. If my reader has ' ' been kind and patient enough to accompany me on this hith- " erto un traveled route, he can now judge whether, if he and oth- " crs will contribute their exertions towards making this narrow "foot-path a high-road of thought, that, which many centuries "have failed to accomplish, may not be executed before the close "of the present — namely, to bring Reason to perfect contentment "in regard to that which has always, but without permanent re- " suits, occupied her powers and engaged her ardent desire for " knowledge." II. THE ORIGIN OF THE 'A PRIORI.' Kant answers the question ' How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?' by showing that such synthetic judgments undoubtedly exist. A synthetic judgment is different from an analytic judgment. An analytic judgment merely analyses knowledge and contains nothing but an explanation or elucidation of what, in an involved form, we have known before, but a synthetic judgment really ampli- fies our knowledge; it adds to the stock of our knowl- edge something new, which we have not known be- fore. In proving that the exterior angle of a triangle is' equal to the sum of the two opposite interior angles of the same, we amplify our knowledge of the triangle by mere ratiocination, a priori. ' Kant uses even a sim- pler instance. The judgment 7 + 5 = 12 is not analytic FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 35 but synthetic. Th,e concept twelve is neither con- tained in seven nor in five, but is something entirely new. Kant leaves the subject here and is satisfied with the fact that synthetic judgments a priori are possible. He might have ventured a step further by pro- posing another question: 'What is the origin of the a priori?' Only by answering this question could he have shown, how synthetic judgments a priori are possible. This he did not do, and the omission* has produced great confusion among German, French, and English thinkers. The word ' a priori ' is undoubtedly an old-fash- ioned and awkward expression, which has not yet lost the savor of 'innate ideas.' It was readily accepted in England by philosophers of a theological bias who were little aware of the dangerous properties concealed in this Kantian idea. It sounds so scholarly Latin, almost ecclesiastical; for it is an expression handed down from mediaeval times. But when they drew this clumsy wooden horse within the walls of their dog- matic stronghold, they unwittingly admitted an army of bellicose warriors — Kant's critical thoughts — who are sure to conquer and destroy the citadel of dualistic orthodoxy. "The- old fashioned a priori in science, in morals, and religion," a reviewer in Science* somewhere re- marks "used to be represented as an arrogant and in- tolerant thing, mysterious in its manner of speech, vi- olent and dogmatic in the defense of its own claims. The English Empiricists used to hate this aristocratic a priori and they shrewdly suspected it to be a hum- bug. What they gave us in its place, however, was a ♦Science. Vol. V, p. 202. 36 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. vague and unphilosophic doctrine of science that you could only seem to understand so long as you did not examine into its meaning." J. S. Mill's philosophy moved in a circle. " He had founded all inductive in- terpretation of nature on the causal principle and the causal principle again on an inductive interpretation of nature." Kant, as we have stated, calls the a priori truths 'formal knowledge,' and this indicates that the gen- eral -postulates of the transcendental sciences, the ax- iomatic conceptions from which they start, are ab- stracted from reality by thinking away, as it were, their material existence, which is represented in our sensory impressions. Kant suggests this conception of the a priori, but he nowhere pronounces it. On the contrary, he makes statements which may be taken to exclude this interpretation of his conception. According to our view, form is a property of re- ality as well as of our cognition. Formless matter does not exist. ' Form and matter, as they exist in reality, are inseparable. What is called formless matter is either uniform or lacking that kind of form which, in our opinion or according to our wishes, it should have. Knowledge also in its primitive shape, when it is, so to say, natural and crude, is an intimate combination of sense-perceptions and formal cognition. The sense-perceptions are the real substance of knowl- edge, while formal cognition is the principle which ar- ranges and systematizes sense-experience. As soon as a living being develops the ability to think in abstracto, a state which is attained by means of language, he can think of different qualities inde- pendent of things. He can think of whiteness, of great- ness, of smallness, of courage, and of cowardice. And FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 37 soon after that, he will be also able to think one, two, three, four, five units in abstracto without the as- sistance of his fingers; he will count. Counting is a most important step in the development of humanity, for it is the first purely formal thought. It abstracts from the objects counted and refers exclusively to the unit numbers which then may be employed for any kind of things. Physiologically considered the growth of abstract and formal ideas must have developed in the following way: Irritations in the amoeba can only produce vague feelings. Light and darkness, heat and cold, moist- ure and aridity, abundance and scarcity of food, ex- ercise a certain influence upon the animalcule; they act upon it in a certain way and produce more or less favorable or unfavorable effects in the living substance which may ultimately result in reactions of some kind. In higher animals irritations are reacted upon differently in different organs. Sensitiveness has been differentiated, and a ray of light is perceived on the nerves of the skin as warmth and in those of the eye as light. The same process of differentiation and speciali- zation takes place in the brain. If a horse is seen, its image appears on the retina of the eye, whence the irritation is transmitted through the optic nerve to the interior parts of the brain. There it is perceived as a horse. According to Hering* and other physiologists, there is no doubt but that every new perception of a horse is registered on the same spot in the brain as previously. Every single brain-cell has a memory of its own, which makes it more fit to be irritated by *See Ewald Hering; Memory as a General Function of Organized Matter The Open Court, p. 143. 3 8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. that perception to which it has adapted itself. Thus, the conception of a horse is the sum total of all per- cepts of a horse. It is, as Mr. Hegeler * most appro- priately expresses it, like a composite photograph. The common features of a certain group of same things are preserved, while the individual traits be- come blurred and are lost sight of. Thus the many varying images of the eye, and all sensory impressions, as well as motory exertions, are registered somewhere in the brain, each kind in its place. The special memory of the different fibres and cells naturally arranges all percepts and concepts in a proper order. Moreover, a repeated simultaneous- ness of different sensations which are produced by same causes in different sense-organs, produces asso- ciations between certain percepts. We think of the rose and at the same time of its smell and its color. We see a bird and think of his song, and the dog who sees the whip feels at once in his recollection the pain caused by its lash. Horses have been perceived which are different in size, and color, and temper, etc. These differences are occasionally of importance. A horse may attract attention because it is as white as snow. The horse is perceived and also its whiteness. Thus a new con- cept is created, the concept of a quality which does * Mr. .E. C. Hegeler, in his essay, "The Soul," (see The Open Court, p. 393) says: " If an abstraction is made, many things having something in common are put together, and what they have in common is specified in words. It is' then forgotten that what they do not have in common disappears in the generaliza- tion. The same takes place in Galton's composite photographs of the mem- bers of a family. Only that remains of the several faces what they have in common. This implies that the composite photograph is entirely contained in each of the single photographs of each member, each is the complete com- posite with additions. So in reality the composite photograph is an abstrac- tion—a part — of each of the single photographs." FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 39 not correspond to, but has been abstracted from, con- crete objects. White roses, white snow, white stones (as lime or chalk), and while horses have been per- ceived, and the percept of 'whiteness' is produced, to which again a special province of the brain must be ascribed, which of course must be connected by nerve fibres with all white things, more so with things that are always white than with those that appear so only occasionally. The psychical connection of such con- cepts is called association. Suppose we are in a library where the books are well arranged by a number of librarians who have dif- ferent but each one his own special interests. Many books are being constantly delivered. There are books about horses, and dogs, and flowers, and stones, etc., etc. Every librarian takes the books of that subject with whose study he is specially en- gaged and places it in his alcove. The library would be in the best order, and yet so long as the different al- coves were not named, most of its treasures would be inaccessible for many most important purposes. Such is the arrangement in animal brains. A dog knows what a cat is. Every new perception of a cat awakens in his mind with more or less vividness all the many previous percepts of a cat with their different associations, mostly memories of pursuit, perhaps also of resistance and combat. But all these memories are single percepts. They have not yet coalesced into a unitary and clear conception of catdom. If the sum total of the cat-percepts in his memory is to be called a conception, it is certainly a very imperfect kind of conception. A conception becomes distinct only by being named. This is the truth which has been so splendidly elucidated by our best philological authori- 4 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ties, namely, that thought (the abstract thought of reasonable beings) is only possible by the help of lan- guage. Man thinks because he speaks. The name of a thing is, as it were, a string tied around all the many percepts of that thing, thus comprehending them all in one concept. Concept is derived from con and capio and means, according to its etymology, a taking or grasping together, a gathering into and holding in one. The act of naming is therefore an enormous economy in mental activity; it is the mechanical means by which abstract ideas or generalizations are formed; and the faculty of thinking in abstracto is called reason. Reason, therefore, in its elementary origin, is abstracting and combining. Abstracting is a kind of separation. We separate the quality of white from white objects and combine allthe different white- sensations into one concept by the name of 'whiteness.' Both processes, that of separation and of combination, are essential features of reason; but they are the es- sential features, and all functions of reason can be reduced to these two processes.* Our brain is like a workshop in full and unceasing activity. In its operation, we must distinguish three things: *F. Max Mtiller defines Reason as "addition and subtraction." Weliave repeatedly given our full assent to the great philologist's views with the re- mark, that we should substitute for " addition and subtraction " the terms used above, z. t., "combination and separation." The terms " addition and sub- traction " are confined to arithmetic; and to our mind they are different from "combination and separation" in so far as "subtraction" is used of units that are taken away from other equal units, while "separation " takes a'part from something that appeared as a unit (an integral whole) before the separation. Similarly an addition sums up units of the same kind (or at least those which for the purpose of addition are considered as being of the same kind) into a larger number, while a combination unites parts into one consolidated whole. We believe that there is no substantial difference between Prof. Max MiUler's view and our own. FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 41 J. The activity which is called life; it is a special kind of energy. Its presence makes itself felt as mo- tion, which is a change of place and could be, if all de- tails were known, mechanically expressed. 2. The material of which the whole workshop of the brain consists, and which is used to keep it in working order; viz., the matter which is constantly combining and decomposing in the protoplasm of the brain-substance. 3. The form in which life operates in the nervous substance. Every brain-cell has a special form, the groups of cells are arranged in special forms and the whole system of the different cerebral organs is built up in a special form. We distinguish these three things, but in reality they are inseparably united. If our percepts and con- cepts are to be physically considered, they should not be represented as the activity only of the brain, nor as brain-substance, nor as their mere form. They are ac- tivity, and matter, and form united; being a special form of the activity in brain-substance. It goes without saying that the form of a special energy depends upon the form of that substance in which the process takes place. The form, of a motion and the form of the sub- stance in which the motion takes place, are not only interdependent, they are identical. A certain percept, being a special form of motion in living brain substance, leaves in those cells in which it takes place, such vestiges as to produce a disposition adapted not only to receive the same or similar per- cepts, but even to reproduce that percept spontane- ously, if the cells, nourished by the blood-circulation, are stimulated into activity through some inner pro- cess by association. This disposition ("called by He- 42 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ring Stimmung, which is produced by the special mem- ory of organized matter), becomes stronger by repe- tition and thus imparts more and more stability to that special form. Physiologically considered, percepts and concepts are very complicated structures which in their asso- ciations may resemble a kind of three-dimensional net- work, showing interfacings of innumerable star-shaped knots, the threads of which interradiate and combine the various sensory percepts belonging to the same idea. But for the sake of simplicity let us suppose that perceptions and conceptions grew in a brain like cells and groups of cells simply; they would naturally and mechanically arrange themselves in systematic order. One of the first steps in the evolution of living matter is that of giving stability to its outer form by enveloping itself in a membrane. Form, as we under- stand the term, is not only the outside shape, but also the inner disposition and arrangement of atoms. How- ever, for the sake of simplicity again, and as a matter of crude illustration, let us for a moment use the mem- branes of cells as an example of their forms. The- membranes of cells are also organic substance and their material particles are constantly changing. Never- theless, they possess a relative stability which rep- resents the shape of the cells, i. e., their outer form. If we would take out of such a brain the living sub- stance without destroying the membranes in which the cells have enveloped themselves, it would afford an aspect of divisions and subdivisions not unlike that of the departments, shelves, and pigeon holes of a library from which the books are removed, and we would have an anatomical representation of a system of formal thought. FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 4? It is understood that this explanation is a simile only to show that form grows pari pass u with its sub- stance, and mere form, if abstracted from its sub- stance, is, for purposes of thought, by no means value- less; it is of greatest importance for a proper orien- tation among the enormous mass of sense-perceptions that crowd upon the mind. An animal and a man may have the very same sen- sory impressions; their brain substance consists of the same combinations of nervous matter; sensations (the basis of all mental activity) are produced by the same kind of organs and in the same way. Yet there is a difference of form bet-ween the animal and the human brain in so far as the many different impressions of same percepts have not yet attained in the an- imal brain that stability and unity which they pos- sess in the human brain. In the human brain the sub- divisions are more marked, the furrows are deeper as well as more numerous; and from recent investigations we know that every class of same perceptions has ac- quired an additional and closely associated brain structure which embodies its name.* The whole group of certain percepts together with their name repre- sents what in logical and psychological language is called a concept. Let us now suppose that the chief librarian of the library of our brains for the sake of arranging a cat- alogue takes an inventory of all the books arranged in the different alcoves. He would find the same prin- ciple of arrangement applied everywhere. The differ- * Compare the map and explanations of the human brain in Der Mensch, by Dr. Johannes Ranke, Vol. I, p. 530 et seq. The chapter, " Lokaltsation in der Grauen Grosshirnrinde," explains Broca's, Hitzig's, and Fritsch's inves- tigations. It takes into consideration the arguments proposed by adversaries of the localization theory (Goltz, etc.), and adopts Exner's view which, it ap- pears, reconciles seemingly irreconcilable principles. 44 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ent alcoves would have separate departments and these again would be found to possess subdivisions. This kind of arrangement, which, as we stated above, grew naturally, became first apparent when the process of naming took place. Many different names were con- ceived in our consciousness to be special kinds of one general kind so that they together formed one_ system of ideas. Logicians call it genera and species. The librarian (we now suppose) arranges an office (perhaps for the purpose of reference) in which a gen- eral plan of the whole library can be found. This ref- erence room contains no books. The visitor finds there no substantial information; the information to be gained there is purely formal and serves the purpose to find one's way .easier in the many different depart- ments of the alcoves. This reference room in our brain is called logical ability, or mathematical reasoning, or calculation, and we need not say that its establishment " marks another important step in the development of reason; it is formal thought. It is the beginning of scientific thought by the help of which we gain in- formation about the methodical arrangement of our conceptions. Logic does not create order and system in our brain, but it makes us conscious of the order that naturally grew in our mind. The difference between the library and our mind is, that in a library the shelves have been put up be- fore the books were stored, but in our brains the different notions form (or rather grow) their own categories. The notions of our minds are like living books that build their own shelves and pigeon-holes, similar to the way in which ceilulizing protoplasm covers itself spontaneously with a membrane. If we abstract from the protoplasm, which constitutes the FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 45 contents of cells, we retain the empty membranes, and if we abstract from the sensory material of percepts and concepts, we retain their mere forms, which, re- duced to rule, are called formal thought, i. e., arith- metic, mathematics, mechanics, and logic. Knowledge of objects has been gained by sensory impressions, but knowledge of logic can be acquired only by a process of self-observation. It is a kind of internal experience which is quite different from that of external experience; the latter takes place by, and can never dispense with, the instrumentality of the senses. If the rules of pure logic are to be established, we must carefully exclude from this process of inner self-contemplation the interference of the senses, for it is only the form of things, and thoughts, and mo- tions, with which in purely formal thought we are con- cerned. The importance of these forms becomes at once apparent if we bear in mind that as they are in one case they must be in all others also. The rules by which we generalize our knowledge of formal con- ditions (of mathematics, arithmetic, logic and mechan- ics) possess universality and necessity. The process of scientific enquiry will be seen to be everywhere the same. Science classifies sensory ex- perience according to the categories of formal thought. In so far as we succeed in reducing the data of a certain subject to mechanical, mathematical, arithmetical, or logical principles, we solve its problems and recognize why the different phenomena which are subject to our special enquiry must be such as they are. Science .traces necessity everywhere; and science can do so only by the help of the formal truths, which, holding good for all imaginable cases, show single instances under the aspect of universal and irrefragable rules. FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. » in. THE ORDER OF NATURE. Formal thought represents the mere laws of thought in their abstractness, and has been acquired by ab- straction. The mere forms of thought exhibit a won- derful regularity which excites our admiration all the more from the great advantages man derives from it. This regularity of formal thought, which is expressed in all logical laws, arithmetical calculations, and in all mathematical conceptions, has naturally grown in our mind as the psychical expression of a physical regu- larity in the arrangement of the various brain-struct- ures and their combinations. The arrangement of brain-structures in certain reg- ular forms has been effected in accordance with the same laws that govern the development of forms gen- erally. Therefore, the problem " why man happens to be a logical and reasonable being," turns out to be the same as that "why are the cells in plants arranged in a certain order?" and as that "why do crystals possess a certain regularity?" The problem common in these three questions is: "Why is the world a cos- mos (an orderly arranged whole) and not a chaos?" It is the same problem that Kant proposed when he asked: "How is Nature possible at all?" The problem has been solved differently by dif- ferent philosophers, and there is no mark that better characterizes a philosophy than the answer it pro- poses as an explanation of the order of the world. Supernaturalism says: The order of the world is due to a special ukase of a Creator. Materialism, on the FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 47 other hand, declares that order is the product of chance. Both views have much more in common than appears at first sight. Materialism and supernaturalism are an- tagonistic and their explanations are irreconcilable. Nevertheless, both start from the same supposition which, from the monistic standpoint, appears to be er- roneous: both are dualistic in so far as they consider the world as one thing, and order as another. Order, they declare, has been imposed upon the world either by a transcendent legislator or by a blind chance. Supernaturalism teaches that in the beginning there was tohuvabhohu, ' the earth was without form and void,' and materialism similarly begins the history of the world with chaos. Theological dogmatists anthropomorphize God to such an extent that they compare him to a watch- maker, and the world to a watch. The order of the world, they imagine, has been fashioned to his designs. It is not in itself necessary, but posited by his will. It is necessary only in so far as his intention makes it so. On the other hand, materialistic thinkers similarly ex- plain the order of the world, if not as the result of a wilful act, yet as the fortuitous outcome of blind chance. One of them expresses his opinion as follows: "The first elements, after testing every kind of po- sition and production possible by their mutual unions, at length settled in the form and way they now present." In opposition to both views, the monistic concep- tion considers the world as a cosmos, i. e. an orderly arranged whole. Monism says: "The world and the phenomena of the world are orderly arranged, accord- ing to mechanical laws." Consider how many billions of other combina- tions of the atoms in an amoeba are possible, or at 48 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. least thinkable! And nature should have tried all these infinite possibilities, or part of them, before cre- ating the amoeba, and then the hydra, and then the worm, and so forth! Oh no! The order of the world is no hap-hazard effect, it is no fortuitous outcome of chaos. There is no chaos and never has been a chaos. Even in the gaseous nebula there is order and law, and it appears as chaos only in comparison to the more evolved state of a planetary system. Thus the barbaric stage of savage life appears to us as lacking in social order; and our present state of civilization, it is to be hoped, will appear to future generations as the chaos out of which their better arranged society emerged. Kant says on this subject: "The aforementioned expositors of the mechanical theory of cosmic genesis (Epicurus, Leucippus, and Lucretius) derived every arrangement perceptible in the cosmic system from fortuitous accident, which caused the atoms so to hit together that they made up a well-ordered whole. Epi- curus, indeed, was so presumptuous, as to require the atoms to swerve from their direct motion without any cause at all, in order to be able to meet one another. Everyone of these philosophers carried this nonsensical principle so far, as to ascribe the origin of all animate 'creatures to this same blind concurrence of atoms, and actually derived reason from what is not reason ( Ver- nunft from Unvernunff). In my system of science, on the contrary, I discover matter joined to certain ne- cessary laws. In its complete dissolution and disper- sion I see a beautiful and orderly whole naturally arising. This does not occur through accident or at hap-hazard, but it is seen that natural properties necessarily bring it about." Kant argues that this ne- FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 49 pessary order is a proof of the existence of God. We argue from our standpoint that this order is due to the laws of form. It can be ascertained and comprehended by an application of the laws of formal thought. This order produces, on the one hand, the intelligibility of the world and, on the other, the intelligence of rational beings. In its highest stage this order appears as a moral law to which rational beings voluntarily con- form so as to be in unison with the whole cosmos. This order, we maintain, is immanent in the universe and, in fact, it is God. Human reason mirrors this order in the sentient brain of a living being and thus the sacred legend is justified in declaring that man has been created in the image of God. The laws of order, are omnipresent and eternal. The omnipresence and eternity of these laws does not denote transcendency, or unknowability, or supernat- uralness. Nothing of the kind! It simply means that as they are in one case, so are they rigidly in all others. In their most simple shape, the laws of formal thought (logical, arithmetical, mathematical, etc. rules) are recognized as self-evident and necessary, so that we at- tribute to them absolute certainty and universality. The more complicated processes of higher algebra, higher mathematics, of highly involved logical ratio- cinations, appear less absolute to those who are not familiar with abstract reasoning, but are after all just as absolute. We are, by reason of their complexity, liable to be easily mistaken, but, errors on our part excluded, they in themselves are quite as certain and universal, rigid and necessary, as those simple rules which are generally accepted as axioms. Kant solves the problem " How is Nature possible at all? " in the following way. The highest or most 5 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. general laws of Nature, he argues, are within us and can be stated a priori, independent of sensory experi- ence. He thinks it is a strange and wonderful fact that our formal thought (the rules of arithmetic, mathematics, logic, etc., which are a priori) agrees so precisely with the highest (i. e., the most general) laws of nature, which can be ascertained and verified a posteriori by experience. Kant sees only two ways of solution. Either the laws of pure reason, he says, have been gathered by experience from nature, or, on the contrary, the laws of nature have been deduced from our a priori rules. The former solution is impos- sible, since the formal sciences are proven to have been formulated with the exclusion of all sensory experience. "Therefore," says Kant, "the second solution only re- mains. Reason dictates its laws to Nature"; i. e. our reason is so constituted that it conceives every- thing in the forms of space, time, and the categories of pure reason. Space, time, and the categories are a part of the thinking subject, which cannot but think in these forms, and must thus transfer them to the objects. Our surroundings affect us by what we call sensory impressions. The sensory impressions are the raw material only from which the well-ordered whole of nature, as an object of science, is created by the synthetic faculty of reason. Reason with the help of formal thought shapes this intellectual world in our minds, which is, so to say, projected outside of our- selves into our surroundings. Kant has taken into consideration two ways only. He overlooked the third and most obvious explana- tion. His explanation, therefore, will be seen to be one-sided and insufficient. The third possibility is that which has been propounded in the foregoing pages. FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 51 According to our explanation, the formal (the highest or most general) laws of Nature and the formal laws of thought are identical. Their agreement is not won- derful but inevitable as both are expressions of the forms of existence in general. Kant's explanation is one-sided, because if the for- mal laws of Nature have been dictated by the thinking subject, it does not explain why the formal thought (our knowledge, a priori) is so precisely verified by experience. If we see, as it were, the order into na- ture, how is it that this imposition upon nature is not frustrated? Nature is by no means pliant to any fic- titious dictation of subjective laws a priori. It frus- trates incorrect a priori reasoning; but tallies with correct and exact calculations. Therefore we conclude, that the form of nature is the same as that of our reason. The forms of thought agree with the forms of existence for the reason that the forms of thought are only a special kind of the forms of existence. Kant's explanation is, further, insufficient; it does not explain how formal thought originates. And this in- sufficiency of Kant's explanation, we believe, has given rise to many errors. This gap in Kant's philosophy, we think, has been the place in which mystical follow- ers of Kant have been enabled to construct their ontolog- ical or supernatural illusions. The transcendental con- ceptions of pure reason have been declared by them to be of transcendent* origin. The opposition of John Stuart Mill and his school to Kant's conception of the a priori arose, as Mr. Mill confesses in his auto- biography, from his considering the transcendental philosophy as an imposition of this kind — an impo- *We have repeatedly called the reader's attention to the difference Kant makes between transcendent (unknowable) and transcendental (formal). 5z FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. sition by which inveterate beliefs and deep-seated pre- judices could be consecrated. According to our solution, the radical difference obtaining between formal and material (between what Kant defines as a priori and a posteriori) is not ne- glected; on the contrary, its fundamental impoitance is fu"lly recognized and firmly established. The con- ception of necessity which is the basis of all science, has found its justification as attaching everywhere to form — the laws of form being everywhere the same. The order of the Universe is thus recognized as an immanent necessity. This necessity can be traced with the assistance of formal thought everywhere, as shaping or having shaped the forms of exist- ence. The laws of form being the same everywhere, our reason can, if not properly dictate, as Kant says, yet inform us about the form of existence in the whole universe. The laws of formal thought being absolutely and universally applicable, are our guide which like the thread of Ariadne safely leads us through the labyrinth of the manifold sensory experiences. It is this method, and this is the only one, which frees philosophy of mysticism, be it the mysticism of super- naturalists or of agnostics. IV. THE BASIS OF THE ECONOMY OF THOUGHT. Mathematics, as still taught in our schools, is, after the example of Euclid, unfortunately constructed on axioms. The introduction of axioms still gives to mathematics an air of mysteriousness which should be absent in this most reliable and wpll pctahKcl-io/l o^;_ FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 53 ence. This doctrinal method of teaching mathematics, by starting from authoritative axioms, which have to be accepted on good faith, is unphilosophical and should give place to a more rational method. It induced Schopenhauer to declare that the whole science, being based upon non-proven truths, remains non-proven. He considers mathematical certainty to be ultimately a part of intuition and thus reaches a point where mysticism can have full play. Hermann Grassmann in his "theory of extension" {Ausdehnungslehre) avoids the faults of Euclid's meth- od. Grassmann throws a new light upon Kant's idea of the a priori by formulating a science of pure mathe- matics. Our space has three dimensions (Ausdehnun- gen, or extensions), and plane geometry is a mathe- matics of two dimensions. Grassmann's idea was, to propound mathematics as it would appear if absolutely abstracted from dimensions of any number. This science of pure mathematics must be the most ab- stract formal thought.* The "theory of forms in general" {Allgemeine For- menlehre), Grassmann says, should precede all the special branches of mathematics. By a theory of forms in general he understands "that series of truths which *The ingenious attempts of Boiyai and the Russian geometer Lobatschewsky (discussed in C. F. Gauss's 'Briefwechsel mit Schumacher,' Vol. II. pp. z68 to 271), to erect a geometrical system which would be independent of the Euclid- ian axioms in regard to parallels, and Riemann's meritorious essay " On The Hypotheses Of Geometry," have called the attention of mathematicians and scientists to a remarkable problem which finds its natural and most simple solution in Grassmann's theory of pure mathematics. Hamilton's method of Quaternions is contained in it also, since Grassmann takes into account the length and direction of lines. For brief information on the subject see Helmholtz's lucid sketch Ueber die Thatsachen, die der Geometric zu Grunde liegen (Upon the Facts that lie at the Basis of Geometry), J. B. Stallo, "The Concepts and Theories/of Modern Physics," pp. 208 seqq., and 248 seqq., and compare also with Hermann Grassmann: Ausdehnungslehre, Ankang I. and III. pp. 273 seqq., and 277 seqq. 54 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. refers equally to all branches of mathematics and which presupposes only the general concepts of identity and difference, of combination and separation. * * Products of thought can originate in two ways, either by a simple creative act (that of positing) or by the double act of positing and combining. The product of the former kind is a constant form or magnitude in a narrower sense, that of the latter kind is a dis- crete form or a form of combination." On the concepts of the identity and difference of po- sited acts of thought by mere combination and separa- tion, Grassmann builds his magnificent structure of a theory of forms in general, of which arithmetic, geom- etry, algebra, mechanics, phoronomics, and logic appear to be applications only of special kinds. He is in need of no axioms whatever. The only postulates are such as these: Arithmetic is a system of first degree; plane geometry is a system of second degree; and space is a system of third degree. Plane geometry has two di- mensions, and, therefore, if we have one point fixed, two magnitudes are required for the determination of any other point. Space has three dimensions, so that taking a fixed point three magnitudes are necessary for the determining of any other point. Colors, it ap- pears, are another system of third degree; they can be reduced to three primary colors: red, orange, and blue. Accordingly three magnitudes are required for deter- mining any kind of tint. A distinguished scientist has invented a method of graphic representation of colors by triangles. We cannot have any intuitive conception of a space having four dimensions. Nevertheless, pure mathemat- ics, being independent of dimensions, applies just as much to systems of four and more degrees as to the FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 55 actual space of three dimensions. The regularity of every system is fixed a priori by the elements posited for that system. The elements, positing themselves or being posited by us according to the rigid rule of strict consistency, will necessarily form a regular and order- ly arranged system. We can therefore state with ab- solute precision all the formal laws by which bodies of four or five dimensions, if they existed, would be gov- erned.* The chief difference between the numbers of arithmetic, geometrical planes, mathematical space, * As an example we may use the instance, that the product of two magnitudes in a system of second degree can be algebraically expressed by (a + b) 2 = a 2 + aab + b 2 , in a system of third degree, by (a + b) 3 = a 3 + 3 a 2 b + 3 ab 2 + b s in a system of fourth degree, by (a + b) 4 = a 4 + 4 a s b + 6a 2 b 2 + 4 ab 3 + b 4 . Accordingly, a cube or any parallelopipedon which is the product of two magnitudes consists of eight tri-dimensional parts. This fact cannot only be proven a priori by mathematical or alge- braical demonstration of purely formal thought, it can be ascer- tained by experience also. A cube that is cut in all its three di- mensions, according to the ratio of a + b, will afford an example, and a body formed by two magnitudes (a + b) in four dimensions, if it were possible, would consist of the following 16 four-dimensional parts: 1. A regular body which in all four directions measures a (= a 4 ). 2. Another regular body which in all four directions measures b (=b 4 ). 3. Four bodies which in three dimensions measure a (= a 3 ), and in one b 4. Four bodies which in three dimensions measure b (=b 3 ), and in one a. 5) Six bodies which in two dimensions measure a (= a 2 ), and in two b (= b 2 ). 5 6 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. on the one hand, and Grassmann's systems of i, 2, 3, or n dimensions on the other, is, that numbers, planes, and actual space are accepted as given; they are the data of arithmetic, geometry, and mathematics, while the systems constructed by Grassmann's "theory of forms in general" are conceived as products of thought. They are posited by a progress of thought and can be considered as data only if their parts, once posited, are further used as such for combinations among them- selves. It is obvious that the only condition of all kinds of such systems of formal thought is consistency. Truth with regard to our knowledge of reality is the agree- ment of our concepts with the objects represented; but truth in the domain of pure formal thought is the agreement of all posited forms of one and the same system among each other. This consistency is the basis of all law, regularity, and order; and whatever system of forms may be selected, its rules and theo- rems will be developed by our mind with the same wonderful harmony and precision as can be observed in mathematics, arithmetic, logic, and mechanics. Ac- cordingly, if the world were otherwise than it is, if space had only two, or if it had four dimensions, the laws of the world would be otherwise, but none the less regular than at present — they would be strictly gesetz- massig, i. e., conforming to, and explainable by, law. Consistency must be considered in the empire of form as the counterpart of inertia* in the realm of mat- ter. So long as nothing interferes to produce a change, ♦Inertia in German is sometimes called TrSgheit, sometimes Beharrung. TrSgheit is the literal translation of inertia; it is a negative term which de- notes the non-appearance of new energy, or motion, or activity. Bekarrung is the better term; it a,££ords a positive expression for " inertia," denoting the ur.changed continuance of the energy in existence. FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 57 everything will remain as it is. Consistency therefore, the very root of order, from which all order of form in every possible system of forms finds its explanation, is the natural state. Consistency like the law of inertia and the law of identity explains itself. Wherever we meet with it, it need not be accounted for; an expla- nation becomes necessary only where consistency is lacking. From this consideration it is apparent that to whatever system the form of reality belonged, it could in no case be devoid of order. The world could not be a chaos, but of necessity must be a cosmos. Grassmann's theory of 'forms in general' throws a new light upon Kant's doctrine of the a priori, since it exhibits a science of pure form in its most generalized abstractness. Thus the a priori has lost the last ves- tige of mystery and we can easily understand how the cosmical order is due to the formal laws of nature. While Kant's reasoning has been correct in the main, it is apparent that real space is not quite so purely formal as he imagined. A system of form of the third degree can be posited a priori by formal thought; but the fact that real space is such a system of the third degree can be ascertained by experience only. We have used the word order in the sense of ob- jective regularity which of necessity results from a consistency of form throughout one and the same sys- tem. This regularity of forms enables us to think many samenesses by one idea and thus makes an economy of thought possible, which as Ernst Mach de- clares is the characteristic feature of science. Ernst Mach (who I must suppose has attained to his ideas quite independently of Grassmann, although there is no doubt that both have been strongly influenced by Kant), points out, by a happy instinct as it were, the S 8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. most practical application of the theory of formal thought in general. The regularity of form being repe.ated in the phy- siological arrangement of the nervous cells and fibres in our brain, produces in man an economy of feeling and thinking which the more it is realized and prac- ticed, gives him the greater power over nature. CONCLUSION. Although Kant's Transcendental Idealism cannot be considered as a final solution 01 the basic problem of philosophy, it nevertheless pursues the right method and has thus actually led us to a solution which, we hope, will in time be recognized as final. In Kant's time, it seemed as if the key to the mysteries of cos- mic order should be sought for in nature's manifesta- tions outside of the human mind. Kant, a second Co- pernicus, reversed the whole situation and pointed out that the key to the problem: "How is nature pos- sible at all?" is to be found in the human mind. And yet the natural sciences, inquiring into the secrets of nature by the observation of natural phenomena, were after all not on a wrong track. Kant and the natural sciences seemed to exclude each other, but they were complementary. Schiller who in so many respects fore-felt and fore-told future events in the prophetic spirit of his poetry, said in one of his Xenions, re- ferring to Transcendental Philosophy and Natural Science : " Both have to travel their ways, though the one should not know of the other. Each one must wander on straight, and in the end they will meet." Two truths may at first appear contradictory, FORM AND FORMAL THOUGHT. 59 though they are not. Let us not distort the one for the sake of the other, but let each be presented with- out regard to the other, and let every point of diver- gency be brought out fully. Theory and practice, formal thought and experience, the thinker and ob- server, will at last agree better if they boldly take the consequences of their views and combat those of the other. About the relation of transcendental philoso- phy to natural science in his time, Schiller said: " Enmity be between both, your alliance would not be in time yet. Though you may separate now, Truth will be found by your search." There has been enmity enough between philosophy and natural science. Philosophers looked with scorn upon the specialists who confined their labors to nar- row circles,- and scientists, confident of their positive results, smiled about the phantastic dreams of theo- retic speculations. However, in the progress of time, philosophers learned to prize the valuable researches of natural science, and the scientists felt the necessity of a philosophical basis for their investigations and methods of investigation. At present the want of a close contact between philosophy and the sciences is a fact that is freely acknowledged by both, philosophers and scientists. In Kant's and in Schiller's time an alliance be- tween philosophy and natural science would have been premature. How many futile attempts have been made in the mean time! Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer in Germany, the two Mills and Herbert Spencer in England, Auguste Comte in France, have appeared with their systems, partly opposing, partly repeating Kantian ideas in other and original ways of presentation, partly combating his very method, partly popularizing, and at the same time opposing his views. 6o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. But none of them (not even Comte*) succeeded in creating a well-established positivism that could dis- pense with the mystical element altogether, whether it appear as the Transcendent, the Unknowable, or the Supernatural. We have attempted in these essays on " Form and Formal Thought " to lay the cornerstone of such posi- tivism, which, it is to be hoped, will prove to be the only true Monism, i. e., a philosophy free from contra- dictions and in accordance with reality, thus offering a basis for a unitary and harmonious conception of the world. * See foot-note on page 67. 6i THE OLD AND THE NEW MATHEMATICS; In mathematics, just as in all sciences and in relig- ion, we have an orthodoxy sanctioned by the authority of many centuries. This orthodoxy represents a con- ception of things, which in the past, to some extent, has proved sufficient for our needs. It is presented in the most direct, and for its purpose therefore in the best method — namely in the shape of dogmatism. Thus matters are, we are told, and it suffices to know that they are so. The representatives of orthodoxy are opposed by a class of heretics, who claim that humanity would have progressed more rapidly but for the impediments of dogmatism. The ideas of dogmatism, they say, are fun- damentally erroneous, and must be overturned. Room must be made for doubt. Humanity, up to the date of the appearance of heretical views, it is held, has been erring under the dominance of orthodoxy, and we must commence to live the life of mankind over again. These heretics, tearing down and criticizing the old dogmatism, are by no means useless, or nefarious, or dangerous men, although they are very often looked upon as acting the role of Mephistopheles and al- though, as a rule, they exhaust their power in mere ne- gations without being able to build anew. Voltaire said: "If God did not exist, we should invent him." Sim- * Written in answer to a criticism of Dr. Edward Brooks, of Philadelphia. 6a FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ilarly we can say: "If the devil did not exist, we should invent him." "The spirits who deny" play a very important part in the household of nature. " Man's aspiration flagging seeks too soon the level, Unqualified repose he learns to crave ; Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave Who works, excites, and must create as Devil." The negative criticism of heresy leads the orthodox conception to a higher plane of development, not by tearing down, but by forcing us to remould it, to elim- inate its errors, and thus to unify its tenets with the other facts of reality. If we really had to commence to live the life of humanity over again, we would again have to start with the old or a similar dog- matism, until we were sufficiently matured to enlarge our views to a broader conception, in which our former orthodoxy is notsomuch destroyed asoutgrown. Dr. Brooks represents the orthodox standpoint of mathematics. He dogmatically believes in the finality of mathematical axioms; he says: "To know how we know the axioms to be true would be equivalent to proving them to be true." But he does not believe that we can know this how. "There is no 'how,' he says. * * We just know that they are true and that is the end of it. * * To prove a truth is to establish it by some other truth; but there are no truths back of or before these axiomatic truths which authenticate them. They are absolutely first truths, underived and self-existent, and as such are cognized by the mind." This standpoint of orthodox dogmatism in mathe- matics may be called the intuitive method. In oppo- sition to it John Stuart Mill proposes his heterodox views, which are best characterized as the empiricist method. Mr. Mill says in his System of Logic (2, V. Sec. 1): THE OLD AND NE W MA THEM A TICS. 63 "The points, lines, circles, and squares which any one has in his mind, are (I apprehend) simple copies of the points, lines, circles, and squares which he has known in his experience. The idea of a point I apprehend to be simply our idea of the minimum visibile, the smallest portion of surface which we can see. A line as denned by geometers is wholly inconceivable." If Mr. Mill's empiricism were correct, mathemat- ics would be an experimental science, like chemistry and the other natural sciences. There would be no difference between formal sciences and experimental sciences, and such things as necessity or necessary truths would be illusions. Mr. Mill accepts this con- sequence and tries to eliminate "necessity." He says: "This character of necessity, ascribed to the truths of mathe- matics, and (with some reservations to be hereafter made) the peculiar certainty, attributed to them, is an illusion. * * * " When, therefore, it is affirmed that the conlusions of geom- etry are necessary truths, the necessity consists, in reality, only in this, that they correctly follow from the suppositions from which they are deduced. Those suppositions are so far from being nec- essary that they are not even true; they purposely depart, more or less widely, from the truth. The only sense in which necessity can be ascribed to the conclusions of any scientific investigation, is that of legitimately following from some assumption, which, by the conditions of the inquiry, is not to be questioned." According to Mr. Mill, our mathematical concep- tions "are not even true; they purposely depart, more or less widely, from the truth." They certainly would depart from the truth if mathematics were an experi- mental science, if mathematical lines were images of material lines, perhaps of lead-pencil lines, if the math- ematical point were truly a minimum visibile, etc. Math- ematical concepts depart from the real diagrams which we draw for the purpose of assisting our mathematical imagination, but they do not, therefore, depart from the truth. 64 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. If Mr. Mill's theory were correct, if mathematics were not a creation of pure formal thought, invented for properly comprehending the laws of pure form, if it were based upon the inaccurate, unreal, and, there- fore, untrue images of material points, lines, circles, planes, etc., we would have to remodel the whole science of mathematics so as to make our conceptions of points and lines and planes "true." But an ex- perimental mathematics of that kind, it need not be said, would lose all its value, its certainty, and its ex- actness. Indeed, as a system of purely formal laws, it would be "untrue"; for it would conflict with the principle of mathematical conceptions that limits the field of mathematics to pure forms and excludes from it any kind of material existence. The basis of mathematics is pure formal thought. The pure form of a thing is the spacial relation of its parts among themselves. The pure form of a leaden ball is its globular shape. Mathematics, accordingly, deals with the laws of spacial relations purely, without taking into consideration anything else. All other qualities, especially those relating to matter and force, are rigidly excluded. Dr. Brooks says: "Some things not only exist but their existence is a necessity. They exist independ- ently of all conditions and are subject to no contin- gencies." Among these things, time, and space, and axiomatic truths are classed. The paper, he says, "has length, breadth, and thickness; length, breadth, and thickness are possible only in space, therefore space also exists." Certainly space exists, but it does not exist of it- self. It has no absolute existence. It exists as a prop- erty of reality, and our conception of space has been THE OLD AND NE W MA THEM A TICS. 65 abstracted from reality. ' Length, breadth, and thick- ness,' we propose to say, ' are space.' If we say with Dr. Brooks, they "are possible only in space," thedu- alistic error is near at hand, that space is not a mere abstract idea representing the quality of extension ab- stracted from extended things, but that it is something existing of itself; something which is the condition of extension, which makes it possible that things can have length, breadth, and thickness. Space being an abstract and not a thing of itself has been supposed by some philosophers to be a non- entity. Descartes says,* that if that which is in a hol- low vessel were taken out of it without anything to fill its place, the sides of the vessel, having nothing be- tween them would be in contact. This is erroneous. Space is not a non-entity, but a real property of tilings. The spacial relation between two sides of a hollow vessel remains the same whether there is or is not any matter between them. If we could succeed in annihilating the whole world, all spacial relation would be destroyed with it. But let there be one atom only, or one given point, where in our imagina- tion we may place ourselves, and we will therewith establish a possibility of motion in all directions, and the possibility of constructing in our imagination other points in different distances or relations : we would have space — not a part of space, but space entire. Space being the possibility of motion, is determined by measurable relations, in which existences or pos- sible existences or points can be arranged. A part of space, alone and absolute, can neither be created nor can it be annihilated; for space being of itself a mere possibility of relations, is always entire. Thus the min- *Princip. Phil. II. 18. 66 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. utest part of a parabola contains- the law of the whole parabolic curve into infinity, and so with the slightest part of space the whole of space is determined. The old orthodox view of mathematics takes its stand on axioms (such as "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points"), which are accepted as self-evident truths. Among the simplest mathematical theorems is one stating that "the cor- responding angles of parallels cut by a straight line are equal." Since an exact proof of this theorem was impossible, it has found a place among the axioms, and is in our textbooks usually treated as such. Some mathematicians, however, did not rest satis- fied with this solution and attempted to develop geometrical conditions in which the theorem of corres- ponding angles should not be accepted as an axiom. They succeeded in establishing a new kind of geom- etry different from Euclid's. The sum of the angles in a triangle according to Euclid is exactly 180 . In the new geometry it is less than 180 . Further investi- gations showed that there was still another possibility of geometrical conditions which would make the sum of the angles in a triangle more than 180 .* The new geometry has been called that of curved space, because its figures could be represented in lines possessing a constant curvature, f Two kinds of curvature could be distinguished, the positive and the negative ; and the Euclidian theorems now ap- peared as special instances of this geometry. They * Further details in a popular form will be found in Helmhaltz, "On the Origin and Significance of Geometrical Axioms," and in Dr. Victor Schlegel, " Ueber den sogenannten vier-dimensionalen Raum." t The shortest distance between two points is called in the new geometry "straightest Una" to distinguish it from the "straight line" of Euclidian space. Professor Lindemann of Kfjnigsberg, one of the best living authorities* on the subject, calls my attention to an error made in the first edition of this book, viz:, that "two straightest lines in curved space, if sufficiently prolonged, can inclose a space." The same error appears also in Prof. Helmholtz's other- wise excellent essay, and has even slipped into some mathematical works. THE OLD AND NEW MATHEMATICS. 67 can be considered as constructed in a plane the cur- vature of which is zero. We learn from the attempts made in this direction that the mathematical axioms are by no means " abso- lutely first truths, underived and self-evident." They depend upon the special condition that the space cur- vature is zero, which (however justified for practical purposes) has been tacitly assumed. * * * We can generalize the concept space and consider the line as a space of one dimension, the plane as a space of two dimensions, and actual space as a space of three dimensions. It is impossible to form any intui- tive conception of a space of four and, still less, of more than four dimensions. Nevertheless, we can abstract from dimensions altogether and conceive of such ab- solute space as 'Form, pure and simple.' In doing so we can lay down the laws which are equally valid for all kinds of spaces, whether of three, or four, or n di- mensions. Algebra, indeed, is an abstraction of that kind, and algebraic laws are equally valid whether their symbols indicate lines, or planes, or solid bodies, or other things, as for instance logical concepts. The ultimate step which can be taken in this di- rection is that of establishing a "theory of pure forms," as has been done by Grassmann. Grassmann recog- nizes no axioms whatever. He builds his " system of pure forms in general" and finds that Euclid's geom- etry, as well as the actual space of three dimensions, are special cases only of innumerable other possibili- ties, the laws of which are all contained in his " theory of forms in general." What Euclid called axioms are a few characteristic features which can be derived from the supposition that plane geometry is a system 68 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. of second degree. Far from being first, or absolute, or independent truths, the axioms depend upon this sup- position, and are applicable only for cases where it is avowedly accepted or at least tacitly assumed. Grassmann no longer stands alone in the position he has taken; he has found followers who more and more realize that he has been the pathfinder of a new and fertile field of mathematical investiga- tion. The ultimate basis of mathematics is no longer the intuition of space but the conception of "abstract form in general." The apriority of the mathematical laws of actual space has to be limited to the extent that we can know by experience only that actual space has three dimensions, and we have learned to consider the world-space as one actual instance among many theo- retical possibilities: it is a formal system of third degree. Actual space, abstracted from reality, is a quality of real things representing their relations, the relations of their parts, and the possible directions of their mo- tion. But actual space, as we can ascertain by ex- perience, is at the same time a system of third degree. As a system of third degree, it is a creation of our mind, it is purely formal thought, to which all the rigid- ity and universality of formal laws is attached. The sentence "space, is a system of third degree," is as little tautological, or begging the question, as that the earth is a spheroid; and it is at the same time just as much a matter of experience. The laws of a system of third degree apply to actual space with the same necessity as the principles of mathematical geogra- phy apply to the earth. Dr. Brooks says: "Some truths are not only true, THE OLD AND NEW MATHEMATICS. 69 but they are necessarily true," and "the mind has the power of knowing that they are necessarily true." That gunpowder explodes is true; but it is not necessarily true. In damp weather it may not ex- plode; the explosion depends upon certain conditions. But if all the conditions upon which, according to our experience, the result is contingent are fulfilled, we assume that it will explode. It ought to and very likely it will; but must it necessarily explode? Cer- tainly not! There may be one condition which in all former cases was always fulfilled without our knowing it. If this one condition were absent in ah eventual experiment the usual result would not take place. The results of experimental sciences are never neces- sary in this rigid sense. Rigid necessity does not de- pend upon conditions; it is intrinsic and we must be able to verify it as a necessity; we must know why or how it is a necessity, not by intuition, but by proof. All formal truths are rigid necessities. Propositions, as for instance 2x2 = 4, and (a + b) 2 = a z + 2 ab + b 2 , possess intrinsical truth; for they do not depend upon external conditions, and hold good everywhere and for all possible cases. For the sake of distinction, the truths of purely formal thought are called correct, and the truths of a well-ascertained experience real. Correct, according- ly, signifies that which is true in a mere formal sense, and real (in this limited sense) signifies that which has a material existence. Mr. Mill, therefore, in the above quoted passage, should have said that the math- ematical suppositions are not realities {viz., realities in the limited sense). They are not material existences. But that is no reason for declaring that they depart from the truth. If they are but correct, they are true; 7 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. they are true so far as their form is concerned. By correctness we cannot gain substantial knowledge of things, but the correctness of our formal thought alone can afford that necessity, by means of which any kind of truth is established. Without the assistance of arith- metic, mathematics, mechanics, and logic, scientific knowledge cannot be obtained. The assumption of Dr. Brooks that there are neces- sary truths, of which the mind has the power of know- ing by intuition that they are necessarily true, would lead us back to the conception of "innate ideas." If we are not bound to explain why or how certain ideas are true, there is no means of discriminating between inveterate or inherited errors, and genuine truths. The existence of the material universe is by no means necessary; nor is it necessary that actual space has three dimensions. We can imagine that we did not exist and that the whole world did not exist; we can imagine that a world existed, the space of which would possess two dimensions. But we cannot think . it possible that 2x2 = 5; an d we can positively under- stand why the laws of form in general must hold good under all conditions and in all possible worlds. If they were never realized in actual existences, they would nevertheless remain what they are — correct. * * In the province of mathematics we move in an at- mosphere of abstract thought. The simplest mathe- matical conceptions are by no means so absolutely simple as they appear; they are simple only in com- parison with other mathematical ideas, definitions of, and theorems about, complex- figures. A bright little boy of six years may have very clear conceptions as to dogs, horses, and even engines or other concrete THE OLD AND NEW MATHEMATICS. 71 things, but there is little probability of his understand- ing the meaning of a mathematical point. That simple idea is too complex for his immature comprehension. Dr. Brooks says: " A derivation of one truth from one or more other truths is called reasoning. * * * All reasoning can be traced back to truths which cannot be derived from other truths, and hence are not the result of reasoning." According to our view the basic conceptions of mathematics and the axioms so-called, are the result of reasoning. They are not first truths from which we start quite from the beginning; they are not self- evident in the sense that there are no truths back of or before them; but we acquire them after a long ex- ercise in me'ntal work only. They are based upon a well-directed and disciplined discrimination. This dis- crimination between form and matter, simple though it appears to us now, is most subtle, and its import- ance is invaluable. It enables us to construct systems of, and to evolve the laws pertaining to, formal thought. This discrimination between form und matter is, there- fore, the commencement of a higher development; it makes scientific thought possible. The correctness of formal knowledge was formerly based on axioms which had to be taken on faith. But as long as the certainty of axioms is based upon intuition, mathematics (and all other formal sciences) must appear to hover in the air and have no connec- tion with the solid facts of reality. Mathematicians, it is true, rarely were inclined to foster mystic views (Cabalistic and Neoplatonic mathematicians are ex- ceptions), and Dr. Brooks also repudiates any kind of mysticism. Nevertheless as long as a science is ultimately based on intuition, there" is room for any 72 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. degree of mysticism. Grassmann's broader concep- tion of mathematics has made all mysticism impos- sible. He has taught us to dive down to the bottom of the problems, where we can understand the origin and whole growth of mathematics and where they are seen to be in connection with the other facts of reality. * * * For our present purpose we are satisfied with hav- ing pointed out the connection which obtains between mathematics and the other facts of reality; but we may add for those interested in. the philosophy of math- ematics, that from Grassmann's standpoint the connec- tion, also, that exists between the different mathemat- ical theorems and solutions is more readily under- stood. Hamilton's quaternions and the significance of imaginary quantities have been anticipated by Grassmann and appear in their connection with his system in a new light. Grassmann's method allows a survey of the whole field and thus gives to the stu- dent that easy freedom which a traveler feels who constantly keeps in sight the point towards which he is journeying, as well as the road on which he ap- proaches it. Grassmann says*: " Since both mathematics and philosophy are sciences in the strictest sense of the term, the methods employed in each must accordingly have something in common, which gives them their peculiar scientific character. Now, we give a scientfic character to a method of treatment when the student, on the one hand, is of necessity led by it to the recognition of every single truth, and on the other hand is placed in a position wherefrom he is enabled, at every point in the development, to survey the course of further progress. * Grassmann, "Die lineale Ausdehnungslehre, ein neuer Zweigder Mathe- matik," Introduction, page xxxi. THE OLD AND NE W MA THEM A TICS. 73 " The indispensableness of the first requirement, viz., scientific rigidity, every one will admit. As to the second, the same remains a point that is not as yet sufficiently recognized by the majority of mathematicians. Demonstrations are frequently met with, where, unless the theorems were stated above them, one could never originally know what they were going to lead to ; here, after one has followed every step, blindly and at haphazard, and ere one is aware of it, he at last suddenly arrives at the truth to be proven. A demonstration of this sort, perhaps, leaves nothing more to be desired in point of rigidity. But scientific it certainly is not. The second requisite is lacking — namely, the power of survey. A person, therefore, that goes through such a demonstration, does not attain to an untrammelled cognizance of the truth, but he remains — unless he afterwards, himself, acquires that survey — in entire dependence upon the particular method by which the truth was reached. And this feeling of constraint which is at any rate present during the act of reception, is very oppressive for him who is wont to think independently and unimpededly and who is ac- customed to make his own by active self-effort all that he re- ceives. If, however, at every point in the development, the stu- dent is put in a position to see at what he is aiming, he remains master of his material, he is no longer bound to the particular form of presentation, and his assimilation of what he attains becomes actual reproduction. 1 ' 74 Metaphysics: The Use and Meaning of the Word. Kant calls every transcendental (or a priori) judg- ment 'metaphysical,' and the science of pure (or a priori) conceptions 'metaphysics.' Metaphysical no- tions, accordingly, are such as are true even if not confirmed by practical experiment, such as can not be refuted by experience. They are rigidly necessary and. universal. Kant might have called metaphysics the mathematical or formal aspect of things. The metaphysics of natural sciences is what Kant calls "pure natural science" (Reine Naturwissenschaff), and the law of Causation is one of the most important truths of pure natural science. The doctrine of the ' Conservation of Matter and Energy,' although it has been discovered with the assistance of experience, can be proved in its full scope by pure reason alone. 'And therefore it would be, ac- cording to Kant's terminology, a metaphysical cog- nition. Other philosophers have used the word metaphys- ics in a different sense. Perhaps misguided by a wrong etymology or at any rate under the influence of the literal meaning of the word, they attached to the term the idea of a science that investigates into that which lies behind nature. This unknown something was considered as the source and origin of natural phe- nomena. Schopenhauer says: "By metaphysics I understand every pretended cognition which goes beyond experience and therefore beyond nature or the given appearance of things in order to give information about that upon which nature somehow is dependent, popularly expressed ME T A PHYSICS. 7 5 what is behind nature and makes nature possible." (Translated from il Weltals Wllle und Vorstellung," Vol. II.- 2d ed. p. 180.) The term metaphysics has become popular in the sense conceived by Schopenhauer. No wonder that Comte, from the standpoint of positive philosophy, de- nounced metaphysics as radically erroneous. Before he was acquainted with Kant's works, he considered him as the representative metaphysical philosopher. Later on when he had read one of Kant's writings, he acknowledged in a, letter to a friend,* that at every point Kant showed the spirit of positivism. A repub- lication of the letter is found in the preface to Max Muller's translation of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." The name metaphysics is due to a misunderstand- ing. Aristotle teaches that natural science (v<™«7 tXoaotf>ia) must be treated according to ceartain principles (apxaiy, * ' J'ai lu et relu avec un plaisir infini le petit traite" de Kant (Ideenzu einer allgemeinen Geschickte in iveltbitrgerlic/ier Absickt, if 84); il est prodigieux pour repoque, et m§me, si je l'avais connu six ou sept ans plus tdt, il m'aurait epargne de la peine. Je suis charme" que vous l'ayez traduit, il peut tres-effi- cacement contribuer a preparer les esprits a la philosophie positive. La con- ception generate ou moins la m£thode y est encore metaphysique, mais les de- tails montrent a chaque instant 1' esprit positif. J'avais toujours regarde" Kant non-seulement comme une trfes-fortetSte, mais comme le m£taphysicien le plus rapproch^ de la philosophie positive.... Pour mois je me trouve jusqu'a pre- sent, apres cette lecture, d'autre valeur, que celle d'avoir systematise et arrSte la conception ebauche" par Kant h mon insu, ce que je dois surtout k I' educa- tion scientifique; et meme le pas le plus positif et le plus distinct que j'ai fait apres lui, me semble seulement d'avoir dficouvert la loi du passage des id£es humaines par les trois £tats th£ologique, metaphysique, et scientifique, loi qui me semble 6tre la base du travail dont Kant a conseille" l'execution. Je rends grace aujourd'hui a mon defaut d'erudition ; car si mon travail, tel qu'il est maintenant, avait e"te" precede chez moi par l'dtude du traite de Kant, il aurait i mes propres yeux beaucoup perdu de sa valeur. Auguste Comte par E. Littre. Paris, 1864, p. 154. Lettre de Comte a M. d'Eichthal, 10 Dec. 1824.' We must add, that to our conception Comte was more metaphysical even than Kant, for he still believed in the Unknowability of what he called " first and final causes," and considered only " the middle between them " accessible to cognition. His conception of positivism was to limit science to the positively knowable; but he did not succeed in entirely freeing his philosophy from mys- ticism — which after all is the primary object of all philosophy. 7 6 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. therefore it is no independent science. He calls the science of these principles the first, and natural sci- ence the second philosophy* (wpiiTJi nal Sevrepa ipttoootpia). The first science, the philosophy of principles, is treated in a book which in the collection of Aristo- telean works had been placed immediately after the books on physics, and some ingenious commentator or copyist, unable to find a proper title, inscribed the essays on the first science rd fiera to. 113 but there is no reason to consider the problem beyond the reach of science. The characteristic feature of life in general is self- motion or spontaneity. The spontaneous action of a man originates in his mind and represents his will. Spontaneity or self-motion, however, being the most general feature of life, will be found not only in the organized forms, but also in that kind of life which we call life in a broader sense. By self-motion, or spontaneity, we do not mean a motion to which there is no prior motion and which thus originates out of itself without a cause, or with- out another motion. Self-motion is used in contradis- tinction to a movement by push. Suppose, for instance, that the sun in its progress happens to cross the path of a comet, and, being the greater mass, attracts the lonely wanderer. If the attraction of the comet is due to the nature of the comet and of the sun, it is self- motion or spontaneous motion; but if both bodies are inert (inactive), it may be due merely to the push of ether. In either case, whether the motion is spontan- eous, i. e., due to an intrinsic quality, or whether it is transmitted by a pressure from without, it could never originate without a cause. A motion of some kind, a change of position, must have happened. This change of position, in this instance the progress of the sun, is according to our conception the cause of the comet's self-motion. Spontaneity is a quality inherent in all matter and if spontaneously moving bodies have to be called alive we must acknowledge that nature throughout is alive. In this sense Heraclitus said, ndvra TtMipn de&v* * Literally: " All things are full of Gjds " and the saying has always been taken in the sense that all things are beseelt, ' en-soul-d '; all things are alive. ii 4 • FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. The world-substance is not acted upon by pressure, but it acts spontaneously and of itself. Our scientists have attempted in vain to explain the origin of life from dead matter. The truth is that life in a broader sense, i. e., the self-motion of matter, never originated. Life is as eternal as the world, and to search for a beginning of life is as wrong as to search for the ori- gin of matter. We must well distinguish this kind of life in a broader sense (which is an inherent quality of matter) from the vegetable and animal life of organisms. The former is elementary and eternal; the latter is complex and unstable, because produced by a combination of the former. The life of elementary-atoms must be con- sidered as uniform and most simple, that of organisms as manifold and highly complicated. The word life, however, as commonly understood, is applied to organized life only. Organized life of plants and animals must be recognized as a special form of the universal life, viz., of life in a broader sense. In addition to spontaneity organized life must possess special features which should find their explana- tion from their special forms. But if there is an essential difference between both it is certainly not that of spontaneity, or self-motion*; the essential dif- ference is, the absence of organic growth and psychic life in the one, and its presence in the other. f * Spontaneity is generally pointed out as the essential and characteristic feature of psychic life in treatises on Free Will, where, as a rule, we meet with the vague expression that man is a " first cause." Those who employ this phrase mean, I suppose, that certain qualities of a man are the ground or rai- son d'ttre why to certain motives he responds, according to his character, with certain actions, so that all his actions must find their ultimate explanation (their ultimate raism d'ltre) in his character. This is true hut the same holds good of all matter. The quality of being an acid is the ground why a certain substance combines with a base. t Prof. Bunge, of Basel, and with him Alfred Binet, of Paris, call these IS NA TUREuALIVE ? 1 1 5 11. CAN THE WORLD BE MECHANICALLY EXPLAINED ? If causation is a law of motion every phenomenon of nature must have a mechanical aspect, and its pro- cess can in so far be reduced to mechanical laws. This being agreed upon, the question arises: "Can the world as a whole, and the life of the world, the actual existence of motion in the universe, be mechanically explained?" Mechanics is the science of motion. Every mo- tion can be expressed in terms of time and distance, i. e., every motion is determined by its direction and velocity. Accordingly it can be computed with the assistance of mathematical and especially arithmetical rules. There is no motion, neither that of live organisms nor that of dead machines, which does not comply with mechan- ics: self-motion, as well as the transmitted motion of merely mechanical movements, is determined by the laws of mechanics. But this truism is not identical with an explanation of life from mechanical laws. Mechanics is not the scientia ultima, the ultimate raison d'etre of natural phenomena. A mechanical explanation of the world would be possible, if the world consisted of purely mechanical phenomena. But purely mechanical phe- nomena do not even exist. Mechanical laws like pure mathematics have been abstracted from reality, ul- timately resting upon the discrimination between form and matter, and represent one aspect only of real pro- cesses, viz., the forms of motion. Purely mechanical special features of organized life " vitalism." This usage of the word is fully justified if it is well distinguished from the old vitalism. n6 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. processes exist as little as mathematical points and lines. The question so often proposed whether the exist- ence of the world can be mechanically explained is - therefore not justified. The question itself is wrong. A mechanical explanation is possible for every mo- tion, for every single process that takes place. In all natural phenomena the transference of motion can be traced, the change from one form of motion into an- other can be shown. But a mechanical explanation is not applicable to solve the problem of the existence of motion. Existence, the existence of the world and the existence of motion, the sum total of the energy in the system of the universe, is a generalized statement of the fact of reality, — and the attempt to explain this fact mechanically as if existence at large were one special form or a single phenomenon, is based on a misconcep- tion. Science explains the different forms of existence, how one arises from the other, but not existence itself. Thus, also, mechanics explains the different forms of motion, how by t-ransference one kind of motion originates from another kind; but motion itself can not be explained by mechanics. Mr. Salter asks: "How can a body move itself?" The fact is, the body moves, whether it be some orga- nized substance or an inorganic lump of matter; and our problem is: Does the body move because it pos- sesses a certain quality which is intrinsic in the body, or does it move because it is pushed by a pressure from without? The problem is by no means defi- nitely solved, so as to be verifiable by experiment; but there is no reason why in time it should not be solv- able. The most consistent solution from the standpoint IS NA TURE ALIVE ? Il7 of materialism is perhaps the proposition of Le Sage and Mann.* Le Sage and Mann attempt to explain the chemical and physical motions of the atoms by the pressure of an all surrounding ether. The ether-hypothesis of Le Sage is based on the consideration that matter is dead and the world a life- less mechanism which must be set in motion by a pres- sure from the outside. It was invented in order to ac- count for motion in inanimate masses. Le Sage thought to get rid of the idea of self-motion and of an animated universe. He attempted to explain the Universe me- chanically and did not see that a mechanical explana- tion was impossible. Our chief objection to Le Sage's mechanical ex- planation of life by a vis a tergo is, that it leaves the problem for the solution of which it was invented, un- touched. If all the atoms of our body acted only because they are set in motion from the outside by the pressure of ether, feeling as well as consciousness would remain unexplained. In that case the ether would possess spontaneity, and not the atoms. If it were so, the ether around us and within us might feel and become conscious, but not the atoms that build up our body, and the problem of the origin of psychical life would be obscurer than ever. The origin of life would not be explained. On the contrary, by the assumption of dead and inert matter, life would become an impos- sibility. Our opinion is, that the atoms possess spontaneity or the property of self-motion, which is akin to what in the higher forms of natural phenomena in the or- ganic kingdom is called life. Self-motion is, therefore, * In his pamphlet, Der Atomaufbau in den ckemischen Verbindungen. Berlin: 1884. Heinicke. n8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. life in a broader sense, and the phenomena which are exhibited in protoplasm must ultimately find their ex- planation from the form of protoplasm as a special and complicated instance of the simpler self-motions of in- organic substances. The indisputable truth, that the universe with its life and motion cannot be mechanically explained, has induced some philosophers to speak of "hypermechan- ical" processes in nature as if motions existed that could not be computed by mechanics. The word "hy- permechanical " conveys the idea that it has to do with mechanics of a higher degree, where the usual laws of motion are annihilated and some incomprehensible mysticism takes their place to account for certain pe- culiar phenomena of motion. The problem under discussion will find further elucidation by a comparison of mechanics with other formal sciences — especially logic. Logic is also an abstract science. It treats of formal thought abstractly. Thought has to comply, and does comply, with the laws of logic. Of course thought does not always com- ply with the rules of logic; it drops often into illogical fallacies. But that is no exception to the rule that logic expresses the laws of formal thought abstractly; for every error in real thought, every wrong concep- tion in our mind, even every material disorder in our brains, will lead to wrong conclusions which appear to sound thinkers as illogical. This exception is no other than that of a machine which is out of order so that its mechanical result, in full accordance with the laws of mechanics, is not what it ought to be. Great philosophers have tried to understand the IS NATURE ALIVE ? n 9 universe logically. They were confident of construct- ing a universe out of pure thought and deducing ex- istence (or being) from reason. This kind of philoso- phy, obviously erroneous and yet so natural in its time, is called ontology (from iir, ovaa, 6v, bmoq, being), because real being or reality was derived from abstract being. The most famous, and perhaps most consistent and grandest, system of ontology is that of Hegel, who be- longs to the generation following the era of Kant. Yet so little was Kant understood at the time, that Hegel grew prominent and more renowned than Kant ever had been during his life. But the spirit of Kantian criticism grew also; it grew like an oak, slowly but strongly, and one sentence in his " Critique of Pure Reason" so shook the system of Hegelian ontology that it tumbled together like a house of cards. This sentence of Kant's declares that "all knowledge a priori is empty and cannot give information about things." Knowledge a priori Kant calls in other places 'for- mal' or 'transcendental' knowledge, and 'transcen- dental' in Kant's terminology does not denote any- thing transcendent or mysterious. Transcendental logic, or pure logic, treats of the form of thought only, and ab- stracts form from the contents of thought altogether. Therefore, pure reason, useful as it is for its purpose if employed for criticism and as a regulator of correct thinking, is useless for the purpose of ontology. In opposition to the futile method of the ontologist, those thinkers that instinctively felt that logic could not answer the ultimate question about the existence of the world — such men as understood the depth of the problem, yet were unable to solve it — denounced reason as altogether insufficient and even erroneous. i2o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. They spoke of a superior and divine reason in oppo- sition to our weak human, reason; as if reasons of dif- ferent kind could exist. The idea of ' hyper-mechanical motions ' is shaped after the pattern of such ' supernatural reason,' which is conceived to stand in opposition to human reason. Hyper-mechanical is just as self-contradictory as hy- per-logical, hyper-arithmetical, or hyper-mathematical, and all attempts to construe Rieman's ingenious idea of a curved space into a hyper-mathematical space- conception are vagaries. If we meet with processes of motion which are so complicated that we cannot with our present knowl- edge discover in them the general law of motion, we need not despair of explaining them, by and by, from mechanical principles; even if they seem to con- tradict our basic concepts of mechanics, we must at last be able to find out that they are fundamentally the same phenomena and subject to the same laws. Suppose that a man unfamiliar with the spirit of mathematics chanced to become acquainted with log- arithms. Would he not be inclined to say that the rules of logarithms flatly contradict those of common arithmetic? Addition and substraction in the one system are represented by multiplication and division in the other; and again multiplication and division in the one represent raising the powers and extracting roots in the other. Logarithms will appear to him a kind of hyper-mathematics in which the theorems of common mathematics no longer hold good but are annihilated and substituted by other laws. Being in possession of the clew to the origin of logarithms from numbers, we know that this view is not justifiable. Logarithms are only one special and complex form of IS ATA TURE ALIVE t 121 arithmetic in which the common laws and basic con- cepts of arithmetic are not annihilated but modified and specialized. The unitary conception of the world keeps equally aloof from ontology, which is an overvaluation of rea- son, and from mysticism, which is an undervaluation of reason. Comprehension has always to deal with forms. Exclude from a conception form or the formal aspect of things, and you exclude comprehensibility itself. The order and form of the universe can be compre- hended and investigated; but the universe, in its ex- istence as a living whole, is not a special form of ex- istence. There is, accordingly, nothing to be compre- hended in existence in general. It is a matter xA ex- perience simply, to be stated as a fact. By the form, for instance, of planets, we understand their shape as gl6bes (or rather as spheroids); by the form of their motions we understand their paths, which are conic sections. We cannot comprehend why plan- ets materially exist, and why force exists inseparably connected with matter. The material existence of plan- ets, that their mass endowed with motion exists at all, is a fact; but their existence as planets, why they exist as spheroids, and why they travel in paths of conic sections can very well be comprehended. Intelligibility involves regularity of form, or order. Chaos is unintelligible, but order can be comprehended. The form of the universe being regulated by the laws of form is the condition of its cosmical order and of its intelligibility. If the existence of matter and force in general cannot be mechanically explained, because this pro- blem is not included in the province of mechanics, we 122 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. are sure that every motion, every change of form can, at least theoretically, be explained from mechanics, the science of motion. Mechanical laws explain mechanical phenomena, and mechanics is applicable to processes of motion only. Since existence at large, the existence of the world, is not a mechanical phenomenon, the question whether it can be mechanically explained, is not ad- missible. in. THE ELEMENTS EXPLAINABLE BY FORM. The materialistic, kinetic, and atomic conceptions of the world, as a rule, look upon matter as dead, and under the influence of this view the force of gravity has received the name of inertia. But matter is not dead or inert; its most generic quality is that of spontaneous motion and all the specific qualities of matter will eventually find their explanations from their special forms. We may fairly suppose that matter in its most elementary shape is homogeneous. The world-sub- stance, very probably, is continuous, and may in its very simplest form be identical with what our physi- cists call ether. The tenuity of ether is such that we cannot with our most delicate instruments verify its presence, and can only infer its existence from such physical phenomena as light and electricity. Whether it consists of discrete units we do not know; it is pos- sible that it does. But if it indeed consists of minute units, single and uniform (I should call them with Leibnitz monads'), it is certain that the world-sub- IS NATURE ALIVE ? I23 stance possesses at the same time a continuity which places all these monads in relation to each other. By continuity of the world-substance we mean that quality which binds all the ultimate units together so that the innumerable monads are not single inde- pendent individuals, but integral parts of the whole world — parts which by their positions mutually influ- ence one another according to laws which can be as- certained and mathematically accounted for. Two or more ether-monads combine into what is known as atoms, two or several atoms into molecules. The ether-monads are uniform, the atoms of the same combination of monads are uniform, and also the mol- ecules of the same combination of atoms are uniform. The combination of ether-monads into elementary atoms, I take to be comparable to the process of crys- tallization of minerals. Certain it is that it must take place according to mathematical laws. The atom must have a regular, perhaps a crystal-like shape; it must form a geometrical figure consisting of two or more monads. This explanation of the problem seems to me the only possible solution which agrees with Mendelj eft's law of the periodicity of atomic weights. If the atoms possessed an individuality of their own, ultimately due to material qualities, if their properties were not due to their form but to their substance, it would be very strange if not miraculous that one atom of oxygen is so exactly like unto every other atom of oxygen. What can be the cause of this, so far as we can judge, abso- ute identity of all atoms of the same element? Can it really be an ultimate and substantial quality which inheres in it from all eternity ? If it were, we should be disposed to believe a priori (if we did not know anything to the contrary) that no two atoms would be i2 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. exactly like each other, and that innumerable elements would be found in nature. Facts disprove this. The absolute identity of two atoms of the same element can be reasonably explained only if we con- sider their identity as a sameness oiform. Let us sup- pose that several (perhaps two) uniform monads of the homogeneous ether, by a certain pressure, at a certain degree of heat, and under other certain conditions yet unknown, crystallize, as it were, into a certain geo- metrical figure which chemists now call an atom of Hydrogen. Under other conditions thirty-two monads (2X 16=32) will combine into another geometrical figure, which would be an atom of Oxygen. The sub- stance in the two monads of the Hydrogen atom and the thirty-two monads of the Oxygen atom is sup- posed to be the same ether; but the combinations are different. If we knew what the geometrical shapes of the atoms were, we would be able to state why in the one case two and in the other thirty-two monads are required to make up one atom. If a difference of the various elements is a differ- ence of form only, we can account for their uniformity in all regions of the universe as easily as we account for the spheroidal shapes of the heavenly bodies and for their paths in conic sections. Moreover, if such is the case, we understand why the number of the elements is so limited, and why the atomic weights of the ele- ments are so regular and invariable. Perhaps if we had a sufficiently powerful lense we could arithmetic- ally compute and geometrically demonstrate why the atomic weight of sodium, for example, is exactly 23, why at the same time an element of one or a few unit- weights more or less cannot exist, and why the pe- riodicity of the atomic weights cannot be otherwise. IS NATURE ALIVE ? I2S Perhaps such a demonstratio ad oculos of the funda- mental chemical law would be as simple as to show that the tetrahedron has four, the octahedron eight, the tetrahexahedron twenty-four equal faces of equi- lateral triangles, that the cube's faces are squares and those of the dodecahedron, pentagons. We, then, should see why the atomic weights 6f the elements form progressive series, as 7.02, 23, 39.14, 63", 85.2; why the elements can be classified in families as it were, and why in the same family atoms of intermediate weights are as impossible as, e. g., a heptahedron with congruent faces is a geometrical impossibility.* While the combinations of the monads into atoms are limited to the comparatively small number of about seventy elements, it is natural that the possibil- ities of molecular combinations increase immeasur- ably; and the possible combinatiops of molecules into specific substances must be infinite. IV. MACHINES AND ORGANISMS. While we are compelled to recognize in the atomic combinations of molecules the features of living sponta- neous action, we would not consider a conglomeration or a chemical mixture, as an interaction of live rela- tions. A piece of marl, or sandstone, or granite, is an unorganized mixtum compositum of parts that possess a mere fortuitous coherence without a living interac- tion among themselves. A piece of stone as such is not a living thing. It is a dead aggregate, whatever life its parts may possess. * For further explanation of the Periodic Law compare Wurz, "The Atomic Theory," Eng. Transl., pp. 158, T50, 163 and 170; and Dr. Lothar Meyer, Die Modernen Theorien der Chemie, pp. 139-141. i26 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Similarly a machine, although its parts are sys- tematized for a special purpose, cannot be said to be alive. It does not possess the life of an organism. Its particles, the wood and the iron, will, under certain . conditions, exhibit the same self-motion of which all matter is possessed. The molecules of wood, for in- stance, will embrace the oxygen of a flame as fervidly as a lover rushes into the arms of his mistress. But the machine as a whole does not possess the life of an organism. Its motion is no spontaneity of an organic interaction of its parts, but a mere transference of movement by push and pressure. Living bodies have been compared to machines because the motions of life-structures take place according to the same me- chanical laws as the motions of machines. And, in- deed, living bodies are mechanisms just as much as machines. But there is a difference. The difference is that they are living machines. In a machine the mo- tion is transmitted by expansive pressure from the fire- place and boiler to other parts of the machine. In an organism the smallest particle has afire-place and boiler of its own from which it derives motor power. Its parts possess a spontaneous and mutual interaction, pro- ducing a systematic communication among them, which grows out of their own intrinsic qualities into a natu- ral unity; whereas the unity of a machine is that of an artificial composition. IS NA TURE ALIVE ? I27 v. ORGANIZED AND PSYCHICAL LIFE. It is contended that while the problem of the De- scent ot Man may have been solved, the problem of Life remains unsolved, because the origin of proto- plasm is not yet demonstrated. This is true; but it must be remarked that the prob- lem to be solved is rather the " origin of the form of protoplasm " than the " origin of life." The spontan- eity of living substance is found in the kingdom of inorganic nature also. A base and an acid rush to- ward each other and combine in the form of a salt. As soon as we know what the molecular forms of bases and acids are like, we can hope to be able to compre- hend why they combine into substances of a new form, which have the properties of salts. If the science of molecular chemistry (which does not yet exist) should succeed in a discovery of this kind, the problem of the formation of salt crystals would be solved and the affinity of bases and acids would have found its ex- planation. But the problem why the atoms of a cer- tain shape fit to atoms of another shape, is different from the other problem: Why do the atoms rush to- wards each other at all? Although the origin of organized life has not yet been sufficiently explained, the characteristic feature of organized life is to some extent determined. In the vegetative kingdom it has been called constructive met- abolism in so far as plants through the process of os- mose convert the relatively simple compounds of in- organic substances into protoplasm, in the complex i 2 8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. structure of which energy is stored. The character- istic feature of animal life is not only the procreation of protoplasma freighted with energy, but chiefly the expenditure of this energy. The process of life in the cells of animal organisms therefore exhibits two essen- tial phases — the one is constructive of energy (anabol- ism), the other by a process of decomposition sets en- ergy free (katabolism) and is thus productive of the special features of animal life, particularly heat, free motion, and sensation. Animal life is a continuous process, a constant building up and breaking down. " There are two series of events, two staircases, as it were, of chem- ical transformation, — one an ascending staircase of synthetic, anabolic processes through which the pabu- lum, consisting of several substances, some of them already complex and unstable, is built up into the still more complex and still more unstable protoplasm; the other a descending staircase, consisting of a series of katabolic processes giving rise to substances of decreasing complexity and increasing stability."* The origin of psychic life has always been the greatest stumbling-block to scientists and philosophers. It appeared so totally'different from other natural phe- nomena that it was considered as something that must have been introduced from other, unknown and more spiritual, spheres. The existence of psychic life is indeed the corner-stone of dualism. Dualism will pre- vail so long as feeling, sensation, and consciousness are considered as something foreign to our world — something that has not grown from, and does not stand in connection with, the elements of reality. But" if we * Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. xix, p. ip, Physiology, where Prof. E. He- ring's theory is explained. IS NATURE ALIVE ? 129 bear in mind that physical and chemical processes can lot be explained as inert movements produced through some machine-like, mechanical transference by press- ure or outward push upon dead particles of matter — if physical and chemical processes are recognized (as they actually are) to be live spontaneous self-motions — we can see no theoretical difficulty (however great the practical difficulties may be) to the assumption that biological processes originate from the same elements and are a special and more complex form merely of natural phenomena in general. When we observe some very simple process in nature, e. g. the fall of a stone, we represent it as a motion and must assume it to be a self-motion. We formulate the operation of the stone's fall into a law, describing its mode of action as it holds good in all cases of the same kind. But the motion observable and representable in our mind is not all that takes place. There m ust be some additional feature which in a further development will appear as man's consciousness.* The question arises, If the life of organisms is a special form of life in a broader sense, why did our scientists fail to produce organisms artificially, or at least the organized life of protoplasm ? The answer is obvious if we bear in mind that all organized life is the result of memory. Our most powerful microscopes, even if they were a thousand times improved, would be still insufficient to discover even the grossest vestiges that constitute, in proto- plasm, the physiological aspect of memory. To read a sonata from the tinfoil of a phonograph must be easy in comparison with a discovery of the traces of memory * The problem of the procreation of psychic life is discussed in the first two chapters of my " Soul of Man." See also page 185 of this book. 130 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. produced in organized substance. And if our scientists were able to produce living substance in which at least the process of metabolism took place and which pre- served the traces of memory, the discovery would be grand, but we should be in possession of the mere potentiality of organized life. In order to produce an organism as low in the scale of life as a moner, we should have to expose it to all the irritations and ex- periences through which the moner has naturally passed ; and we are not sure as to how many thousand years are required for this process, and whether, if it were artificially abbreviated, the same result could be attained. All organized life and especially all psychical life has evolved through form combinations from the gen- eral life of the universe. The development from the most primitive life of self-moving matter, which ob- tained in the igneous state of our planet, to the ex- pression of intellectual human activity, forms one great and uninterrupted continuity. The ground and basis of this continuity is the conscious and still more so the unconscious memory of organized matter in all its many differentiated forms. Science has solved many problems of psychology, physiology, and biology, but the solutions have always been such as account for certain forms of life. The evolution-theory, so far as it goes, explains how the human form and other animal forms have developed from the simplest forms of pro- toplasm. Every living particle of man's body is pro- toplasm of a certain form ; and science, when showing how the human form must have developed, has solved the problem of the Descent of Man. It is a very strange fact that protoplasm, being a very complex compound, exhibits in its first stage a IS NATURE ALIVE? 131 singular sameness wherever it is found. This indicates that here also the solution of the problem must be looked for in the structure (i. e. the form) of proto- plasm. The shaping of forms follows mathematical modes ; and unalterable regularity is always dependent upon the laws of form. And the development of feel- ing from the not-feeling elements of feeling with which all natural processes are alive, can depend only upon the action of special form-combinations. Functions of a certain kind are accompanied with psychical phenomena. CONCLUSION. The existence of life being a fact, and all super- natural or dualistic theories being inadmissible, we see no simpler solution of the problem than that of con- sidering life in its broadest sense as an immanent property of matter. As such, it remains what it ever has been — a fact ascertainable by experience. All ex- planations of the higher life of plants and animals will have to be confined to demonstrating how the higher forms of life originate from uniform life by showing the continuity of all life and the development from its simplest forms of spontaneous motion to its highest form, which in the human will, rises to heroic heights. Monism, by accepting the idea that nature is alive, does not return to the old mythological standpoint. The characteristic feature of mythology is the fact that things are considered as animated like ourselves. The savage has sufficient power of generalization, as Mr. Spencer would express it, to see the similarity be- tween ourselves and things. But he lacks the power of discrimination, which is indispensable to scientific in- vestigation. He cannot appreciate the difference be- 132 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. tween the babbling brook and a prattling girl: in the murmur of the water he hears the voice of a nymph. Monism, by explaining the truth that lies at the bottom of mythology, will afford the only means of liberating our minds from its errors; for mythological errors, it is true, are lurking everywhere in our conceptions and in our words. It would be impossible to clear lan- guage of mythological comparisons and similes with- out sweeping it entirely out of existence. If we tried to use language that is free from mythology, we would be obliged to invent a new Volapiik — a language that has no historical development, that is not infected with the errors of the past, yet will be understood nowhere. Is it necessary to create such a language, a philo- sophical Volapiik? Probably not. It is sufficient to show the traces of mythology and to explain their ori- gin. We still speak of sunrise and yet we know it is the earth by its rotation that causes the appearance of the sun on special parts of its surface. We know it, and every child now knows it, without taking offense at the inadequacy of the expression. We make bold to say that there is no word in any language which is not from some point of view an in- adequate, or a mythological, or a dualistic expression. If we employ the term life in its broadest sense as spontaneity or self-motion, we are conscious of using a mythological expression. The same is true of "such words as affinity in Chemistry, attraction and repul- sion in Physics, of the sexes in Botany and of innu- merable other cases. Anthropomorphism is not only allowable and jus- tifiable, it is even indispensable to a proper compre- hension of phenomena external to us. Man is a part of nature and man's whole existence must be under- IS NATURE ALIVE? 133 stood as a special form and combination of certain natural phenomena. A direct knowledge of nature is given to us in our consciousness only; and this con- sciousness must be used in order to interpret the other phenomena of nature. Accordingly, the natural devel- opment of human comprehension will lead us through anthropomorphism, of which science will free us step by step, from which, however, we never shall nor can be severed entirely; for there is a truth in anthropo- morphism which is fully explained by the doctrine of monism that Nature is one great and living whole of which man is a part — such a part as contains in its form the quintessence of nature's life. Psychical phenomena, such as take place in our consciousness, so far as we are now familiar with them, must be limited to organized life. But since the atoms, in spontaneous self-motion, exercise the faculty of choice, it seems that a time will come, although it is not near, at hand, when we shall find ourselves obliged to use the term 'psychical' in a broader sense and speak of a psychology of atoms and molecules. 134 CAUSE, REASON, AND END. Every phenomenon has a cause (atria), which is a motion that starts the whole process ; every phenom- enon takes place according to a certain law (vopios), which explains its raison d'etre, the reason why the process takes place. Every phenomenon takes a cer- tain course, and its motion results in a new state of things. This result is called the aim or end (tsXoS) of the phenomenon. If the motion is a conscious will, the aim or end pursued is called the purpose. Ac- cordingly there are three aspects under which phe- nomena may be considered ; the inquiry into their causes is the cetiological, into their laws the nomological, into their ends the teleological method. None of them is sufficient by itself ; thorough investigations have to employ all three. Teleology is a most fruitful method. Observing the direction whither an arrow flies, we are helped to determine the direction whence it came. Teleology, however, must not be identified (as it mostly is) with the idea that the aims or ends of physical processes have been determined beforehand by an omniscient demiurge. The teleological method, in so far as it is employed for teaching the ought of aspirations to rational beings, is called ethological (from e'S-os character, morality). As such it investigates the course of phenomena and the state of things to which they lead ; and in order to pro- duce higher forms of life and further the progress of hu- manity it lays down certain rules or maxims which ap- pear to us as religious commandments or ethical norms. r 35 THE IDEA OF ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. THE VEIL OF MAYA. The Hindoo Sages compared the world, as it ap- pears to our senses, to a veil — the veil of Maya — which lies upon our eyes and thus shrouds the true aspect of things. And the same view, with compar- atively slight modifications, is repeated in the phi- losophy of Plato. In a poetical passage in the " Re- public," the Grecian philosopher compares human knowledge to the condition of men who sit in a cavern facing the wall opposite the entrance; being bound to the spot since birth by chains about their feet and neck. They cannot look around, they cannot see the persons and things passing by behind them, but they see their shadows on the wall opposite and imagine that these appearances are the real things. The view that natural processes are not actual realities, but mere shadows of invisible existences be- hind them, has been revived often since, and must be considered even to-day as the philosophy of our time; and only gradually a new conception of the world is rising that looks upon natural processes, the phe- nomena so-called, as the positive facts of knowledge. The expression ' phenomenon ' means ' appearance ;' the word has been introduced and is now generally 136 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. employed as a synonym of 'natural process ' because the Hindoo conception of the sham-existence of re- ality was, some time ago, all but universaj. Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, often speaks of " the thing of itself," and he says that we cannot have any positive knowledge of it. This was very discouraging, but it afforded those who paraded a Faust-like thirst for knowledge yet did not have the strength to devote a life of patient labor to earnest thought and research, an easy means of satisfying their yearning. Our knowledge is but relative, they said to themselves, and it is impossible to conceive the Ab- solute; the Absolute is the Unconditioned, and to our limited cognition it must be unknowable. If we could comprehend it, we would be omniscient like God, but as matters are, we are limited to the phenomenal world and must confess with Faust: " That which one does not know, tine needs to use; And what one knows, one uses never." If the absolute is incomprehensible, all our knowl- edge is vain, and worst of all, we can never hope to know anything about God and about our soul. Is not our soul our absolute self, the thing of itself which manifests itself in our existence? And is not God, the absolute of the universe, manifested in all the innu- merable phenomena of nature? God and soul viewed from this standpoint, are unknowabilities. Kant goes beyond this standpoint. The concepts ' Soul ' and ' God,' as absolute existences or things of themselves, are paralogisms of pure reason. We have arrived at these ideas by a fallacy. We experience in our consciousness a consecutive series of sensations or thoughts, but from this fact we cannot infer the exist- ence of a ' consciousness without its contents ' as a thing THE IDEA OF ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. 137 of itself. The world is an orderly arranged whole, but from this fact we cannot infer that a transcendent God is the author of ihis order. Kant adds in his Critique of Practical Reason, that although the ideas of God and soul are paralogisms, we should regulate our lives as if they existed; we should act as if we had a soul and as if a God existed — a just judge to reward the good and punish the evil. These ideas of Kant have become popular and the unknowability of the thing of itself contributed greatly to the growth of agnostic thought in England. 11. AGNOSTICISM AND PHENOMENALISM. The name ' agnostic ' was invented by Professor Huxley for the avowed purpose of appeasing obtrusive persons, who bored him with questions as to his belief or disbelief in the existence of God, and the immor- tality of the soul. Prof. Huxley states the facts as follows: * "Some twenty years ago, or thereabouts,*' I invented the word ' Agnostic ' to denote people who, like myself, confess them- selves to be hopelessly ignorant concerning a variety of matters, about which metaphysicians and theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, dogmatize with the utmost confidence; and it has been a source of some amusement to me to watch the gradual acceptance of the term and its correlate, Agnosticism. * * * Thus it will be seen that I have a sort of patent right in 'Agnostic' It is my trade-mark and I am entitled to say that I can state authentically what was originally meant by Agnosticism. Agnosticism is the es- sence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that- a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has * These lines were written by Prof. Huxley in 1884. 138 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe. * * * I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove destructive to the forms of supernaturalism which enter into the constitution of ex- isting religions. On trial of any so-called miracle, the verdict of science is ' not proven.' But Agnosticism will not forget that ex- istence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies and that there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the intelligible universe, which ' are not dreamt of in our philosophy.' The theological ' gnosis ' would have us believe that the world is a conjurer's house; the anti-theological ' gnosis ' talks as if it were a ' dirt-pie ' made by 'two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism simply says that we know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena"* In another passage the great -English biologist states his views concerning the immortality of the soul: "If anybody says that consciousness cannot exist except in relation of cause and effect with certain organic molecules I must ask how he knows that; and, if he says it can, I must put the same question. And I am afraid that, like jesting Pilate, I shall not think it worth while (having but little time before me) to wait for an answer." f If, with the Hindoo, we regard natural phenomena as a veil, we may compare the scientist to a man who dares to lift that veil, and reveals to us part of the hidden truth. But even so, many Agnostics say, our knowledge must remain incomplete. While we inquire into the manifestations of forces, while we ob- serve how they operate, we shall never be able to know what Matter is and what Force is. Their rela- tions in the phenomenal world may be knowable, but their absolute existence is unknowable. In answer to this view we must state that there is no absolute force, no force of itself. The so-called 'phenomena ' of forces are the realities, and the differ- * The italics are ours. t Prof. Huxley in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1886. THE IDEA OF ABSOL UTE EXISTENCE. 1 39 ent forces, such as heat, electricity, etc., are abstract conceptions in which we embrace all the natural pro- cesses of one kind. Not ' force ' and ' matter ' are things to be comprehended; they in their turn have been invented to comprehend phenomena. They do not go beyond phenomena but simply classify and ar- range them, in order to comprehend them all together, if possible, in one unitary and consistent system. Prof. Huxley, while confessing himself to be an Idealist, in an address on Descartes's 'Discourse,' in- troduces at the same time the mysticism which natu- rally follows from the principle of Agnosticism that "we know nothing of what may be beyond phe- nomena." Prof. Huxley says: " If I say that impenetrability is a property of matter, all that I can really mean is that the consciousness I call extension and the consciousness I call resistance, constantly accompany one another. Why and how they are thus related is a mystery; and if I say that thought is a property of matter, all that I can mean is that, actu- ally or possibly, the consciousness of extension and that of resist- ance accompany all other sorts of consciousness. But as in the former case, why they are thus associated, is an insoluble mystery ."* The concepts ' Impenetrability,' 'Extension,' and 'Resistance,' as they appear in our consciousness, are abstracts which denote certain qualities to be met with in our experience. If the spheres of two abstracts cover, either entirely or in part, the same ground, then as a matter of course the two ideas will always (either entirely or in part) appear to be associated. We form the abstract idea of matter by noting the qualities of all the different kinds of matter, dropping their individual features and retaining those only which they possess in common. Two qualities of matter (the two features which all matters have in common) are generalized * Italics are ours. i 4 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. under the names of mass and volume. Mass and vol- ume, both being abstracts of the same object, viz., of matter, it is but natural that they will always be asso- ciated, the one with the other. According to Prof. Huxley's method we should say: Why the conscious- ness I call ' mass ' and the consciousness I call ' vol- ume ' constantly accompany one another is an insoluble mystery. If we take the agnostic standpoint, the whole world becomes enigmatic and even such a fact as that the con- sciousness we call ' liquid ' constantly accompanies the consciousness we call 'fluid' would appear as a pro- found mystery. Professor Bain shows in his " Practical Essays,"- p. 56, that the word 'mysterious' has sense only if used in opposition to what is plain and intelligible :'■ ' ' When we are told * * * that everything is mysterious; that the simplest phenomenon in nature — the fall of a stone, the swing of a pendulum, the continuance of a ball shot in the air — are won- derful, marvelous, miraculous, our understanding is confounded; there being then nothing plain at all, there is nothing mysterious. * * * If all phenomena are mysterious, nothing is mysterious; if we are to stand aghast in amazement because three times four is twelve, what phenomenon can we take as the type of the plain and the intelligible?" Prof. Huxley in answer to two onslaughts on his position (one by Dr. Wace from the standpoint of or- thodox theology, the other by Mr. Harrison, the de- fender of the Comtean Positive Philosophy), most ably and, indeed, successfully defends his agnosti- cism.* It is almost superfluous to state that we concur * Nineteenth Century February, 1889. Prof. Huxley informs us in this arti- cle that Sir William Hamilton's essay " On the Philosophy of the Uncondi- tioned " which he read when a boy had stamped upon his mind the strong con- viction that the limitation of our faculties in a great number of cases renders real answers to certain questions not merely actually impossible but theoreti- cally inconceivable. THE IDEA OF ABSOL UTE EXIS TENCE. 1 4 1 with him wherever he objects to the antiquated belief of demonology. When he characterizes agnosticism as the principle ' Try all things and hold fast by that which is good' and when he identifies it with "the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him," we heartily and fully agree with his ag- nosticism; our objection holds only in so far as Professor Huxley says "that we know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena." in. GCETHE'S MONISM. Agnosticism, in so far as it declares that we know nothing of what lies beyond phenomena, divides the world into two parts: One of them consists of know- able phenomena, and the other is the realm of the ab- solute, of the unknowable. The former are things as they appear, and the latter, things of them- selves. The phenomenal is merely the outside ap- pearance of some mysterious inside kernel. The fa- mous naturalist Haller expressed this opinion in the following lines: " Nature's ' within ' from mortal mind Must ever lie concealed. Thrice blessed e'en he to whom she has Her outer shell revealed." Goethe who could not be reconciled to this view which splits nature in twain and places us outside of nature as if we were' locked out from her secrets for- ever, replied to Haller's verses with the following poem : 1 42 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ' Nature^s ' within ' from mortal mind ' ' Philistine, sayest thou, ' ' Must ever lie concealed? 1 ' To me, my friend, and to-my kind Repeat this not. We trow Where'er we are that we Within must always be. il Thrice blessed e* en he to whom she has Her outer shell revealed?' 1 This saying sixty years 1 heard Repeated o'er and o'er, And in my soul I cursed the word, Yet secretly I swore. Some thousand thousand times or more Unto myself I witness bore: " Gladly gives Nature all her store, She knows not kernel, knows not shell, For she is all in one. But thou, Examine thou thine own self well Whether thou art kernel or art shell." IV. PHENOMENA AND NOUMENA. Kant's philosophy and especially his doctrine of the unknowability of i things of themselves ' have given, it is true, a great ascendency to agnosticism and at the same time to the mysticism of antiquated orthodoxy. Nevertheless the spirit of Kantian thought is far from both, and it leads neither to the one nor to the other of these deadly antagonists, but to a unitary conception of the world on the ground of positive facts — a conception which may be called Positiv- ism,* or Monism. * The introduction of the word " Positivism " into philosophy is the merit of M. Auguste Comte. Although we cannot accept M. Comte's conception of Positivism, we gratefully adopt the name, which, as a synonym of Monism, is a strong and expressive term. THE IDEA OF ABSOL UTE EXISTENCE. 1 43 Kant's philosophy, we must bear in mind, is not a system but a method. He tried to avoid the faults of Wolf's Dogmatism on the one side, and of Hume's Skepticism on the other. Thus, he proposed what he called Criticism. He did not offer a plain and out- spoken solution of the problems, but he did the work to enable others to solve them: he formulated the problems. Kant discusses (in Chap. Ill of the Transcendental Doctrine of the Faculty of Judgment) the " discrimina- tion of all objects as phenomena and noumena." Phe- nomena are the natural processes which affect our senses {Sinnesweseri). They are the data of our ex- perience and provide the building materials out of which we create our conceptions of things. Noumena, in contradistinction to phenomena, are pure ideas (Verstandesweseri). Kant used the word "noumenon " in its original sense. It is the present passive par- ticiple of votiv 'to think' and means 'something thought' or 'a creation of our mind.' The word noumenon is not only wrongly used by many philosophers of to-day, but our dictionaries also present a wrong definition. Webster says: ' ' Nou'-vie-non [Gr. vovfievov, the thing perceived, p. pr. pass. of voeiv, to perceive, vovg, the mind,] (Metap/i.) The of itself un- known and unknowable rational object, or thing in itself, which is distinguished from the phenomenon in which it occurs to apprehen- sion, and by which it is interpreted and understood: — so used in the philosophy of Kant and his followers.'' "vobjuevw," here, is a misprint for voobfievov. Accord- ingly the pronunciation no-oo'-menon is preferable to Webster's pronunciation noo'-me-non. The latter is commonly used, but the former is the only correct pronunciation. i 4 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Webster's translation of the original Greek word as " the thing perceived " is wrong. The noumenon is the thing thought, while the phenomenon must be called the thing perceived. The Greek verb voeiv does not mean "to perceive," as Webster states, but to think. Such concepts as God, World, and Soul are pure ideas according to Kant, therefore he calls them nou- mena. Things of themselves (whether they exist or not) are not objects of sensation, they are creations of our mind; therefore they are noumena. Accordingly, not the noumenon is a thing in itself, as Webster states, but just the opposite is true: The thing of itself is a noumenon. In other words, Kant does not say: Pure ideas (such as God and Soul) are things of themselves; but on the contrary he says: All things of themselves, the concepts God and Soul included, are pure ideas; they are not objects of sense percep- tion.* Concerning noumena or pure thoughts Kant em- phatically declares that they have no significance unless they have reference to the phenomenal, i. e., to the real sensations of our experience. Kant says: f " Everything which the understanding draws from itself, without borrowing from experience, it nevertheless possesses only for the behoof and use of experience. * * * ' ' That the understanding, therefore, cannot make of its a priori principles, or even of its conceptions, other than an empirical use, is a proposition which leads to the most important results. ' 'A transcendental use is made of a conception in a fundamental * We discuss Webster's mistake thus fully because the errors that are per- petuated in dictionaries are highly misleading and injurious. One wrong idea of fundamental importance imbibed in younger years produces a great confu- sion, of which weaker minds will never perhaps be able to free themselves. tTranslation by Meiklejohn. — " Intuition " is the German " Anschauung." It might have been more appropriately translated by " perception.*' THE IDEA OF ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. 145 proposition or principle, when it is referred to things in general and. considered as things in themselves ; an empirical use, when it is referred merely to phenomena, that is, to objects of a possible ex- perience. That the latter use of a conception is the only admis- sible one, is evident from the reasons following. " For every conception are requisite, firstly, the logical form of , a conception (of thought) in general; and, secondly, the possibility of presenting to this an object to which it may apply. Failing this latter, it has no sense, and is utterly void of content, although it may contain the logical function for constructing a conception from certain data "Now an object cannot be given to a conception otherwise than by intuition, and, even if a pure intuition antecedent to the object is u priori possible, this pure intuition can itself obtain objective validity only from empirical intuition, of which it is itself but a form. All conceptions, therefore, and with them all principles, however high the degree of their a priori possibility, relate to empirical intuitions, that is to data towards a possible experience. Without this they possess no objective validity, but are a mere play of imagination or of understanding with images or notions. * * * "The conceptions of mathematics would have no significance, if we were not always able to exhibit their significance in and by means of phenomena (empirical objects). * * * "The pure categories are of no use at all, when separated from sensibility." In the second edition of his Critique of Pure Rea- son, Kant has inserted a few paragraphs, in which he discusses " the causes why we (not yet satisfied with the substratum of sensation) have added the noumena to the phenomena." "We have learned," be says, " that sensation does not perceive things of themselves, but as they appear to us in accordance with our sub- jective condition." Now, as they cannot be appear- ances of themselves, we suppose that something must correspond to it, something which is independent of sensation. Kant distinguishes two kinds of noumena. Nou- mena, in the positive sense, he defines to be those that 146 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. are supposed to have originated in a non-sensuous in- tuition, and declares that they are inadmissible: "We in this case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an intellectual intuition, to wit, which does not, however, belong to us, of the very possibility of which we have no notion." Noumena, in the negative sense, Kant calls things in so far as we abstract from sensation altogether; they are pure ideas, merely formal thought. They are not only admissible but for certain purposes ne- cessary. ' ' A noumenon considered as merely problematical, is not only admissible but even indispensable. * * * It is a negative exten- sion of reason. * * * We limit sensation by giving to things of themselves (in so far as they are not considered as phenomena) the name of noumena." " The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite inadmissible in a positive sense (although conceptions do certainly admit of such a division); for the latter class of noumena have no determinate object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective validity. * * * " After all, the possibility of such noumena -is quite in- comprehensible, and beyond the sphere of phenomena all is for us a mere void. * * * What, therefore, we call noumenon, must be understood by us as such in a negative sense." Thus the question whether our reason, in addition to its admitted empirical use, can be employed in a transcendental way to noumena as objects, is answered by Kant in the negative. The root of false noumenalism, it seems to us, must be sought in language. It is a misconception of the nature of words which leads us to think that things are absolute existences, being independent of, and distinct from their qualities. If we keep a clear con- ception, however, of the way words have arisen, and of the purpose they serve, we shall not fall into this THE IDEA OF ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. 147 dualism that believes in an absolutely unknowable world supposed to be hid behind the knowable world of sense-phenomena. "Words are, so to speak, bundles of percepts. If we pull single percepts out, the bundle is still a bundle; but if we take away all, there is no bundle left, there is nothing remaining that made the bundle a bundle; we have left only an empty nothing. If we take away from a thing all the properties that we are accustomed to comprehend by a word, there is left the meaningless word, a mere sound, the bare string with which the bundle was tied together. The world is not in a rigid unchangeable state, but in a continuous flux. Yet knowledge becomes possi- ble only when we fix certain percepts and give them relative stability. The faculty of fixing and retaining percepts, namely memory, is therefore the ladder that leads us upwards to a higher spiritual existence; it affords the mechanical means of gaining a firm foot- hold in the course of eternal changes. It is as if we sat in an express train and were look- ing at the landscape flitting by us. The picture, taken as a whole, swims indistinctly before our eyes. If we wish to get a clear idea of the situation, we must allow the eye to rest on some one object, neglecting the others. This we do, in viewing nature, by the concept, i. We are little helped if we are told that we can never know anything about the causes and essences of things and that the Unconditioned is an inaccessible province which we should not attempt to enter. This view which is so excellently and adequately called agnosticism, appears from our conception of positivism, as a transition from the metaphysical to a truly posi- tive phase. It is the last remnant of dualism. In the philosophical conception of agnosticism, the meta- physical essences have faded into vague unknowabil- ities and will disappear entirely as soon a.s the idea of absolute existence is recognized as untenable ground — as soon as philosophy is conceived as a unitary con- ception of the facts of reality. 176 IDEALISM AND REALISM. The old opposition between Idealism and Realism has, from the standpoint of monism, become immate- rial. Both are right in their way, and, in so far as they are severally insufficient, both are wrong. Idealism starts from thought and sensation, from the subjective aspect of phenomena, and in its most consistent form, as spiritualism, denies the existence of matter. Realism starts from real existence, from the objective aspect of phenomena, and in its most consistent form, as materialism, denies the existence of spirit. Now, as a matter of fact, neither spirit nor matter exist of themselves: they are abstracts. Realism is right in so far as the facts of reality cannot be consid- ered as sham. Idealism, on the other hand, is also right, in as far as the building-stones of all knowledge are our sensations; they are the facts of reality. However, the processes that within our body produce the sub- jective feeling of sensations, can not be considered as essentially different from the phenomena of the outer world; since science, the classified system of obser- vations, shows that the former not only are most in- timately interwoven with and conditioned by the latter, but that they must have grown from them in the pro- cess of natural evolution. IDEALISM AND REALISM. i 77 Idealism pretends that sensations are radically different from the phenomena perceived. The sensa- tion of light is different from ether-waves, the sensation of sound different from the vibrations of the air. In his excellent essay, " Sensation and the Outer World," M. Alfred Binet says : " Suppose that, my eyes being closed, I lay my hand upon my table, and that I feel a pin rolling .about beneath my fin- ger ; I experience a sensation of a tactile kind, which excites in me a series of inferences, conscious, sub-conscious, and uncon- scious, and the whole occurrence is comprised in the following judgment: I touch a pin. In this way, through external percep- tion, we possess knowledge of objects by the sensations they pro- duce in us. * * * "That which has produced our sensation of a pin, is not directly the pin ; it is the nervous modification which that object has produced, in acting upon our sense of touch ; our sensation follows this nervous modification. * * * " Nothing resembles less the external object than the excita- tion it propagates in our nervous substance. What resemblance is there, for example, between the head of a pin that lies beneath my finger, and the physico-chemical phenomenon that passes through the sensitive fibers of my hand and that reaches my brain through the spinal marrow, where it gives rise to the conscious perception of a pin. Plainly, here are phenomena entirely dis- similar. It follows, therefore, that if there is a fact, at the pres- ent day, firmly established, it is that the sensations we experience upon contact with external objects are in no particular the copy of those objects. There is nothing outside of my eye that is like color or light, nothing outside of my organ of hearing that is like noise or sound, nothing outside of my sense of touch that is like hardness or softness or resistance, nothing outside of my sense of smell that is like a perfume, nothing apart from my sense of taste that is like a flavor." * * * Sensation and the phenomena of the outer world are different. Sensations are not the real copies or images proper of things. The nervous system is not actually a mirror to reflect phenomena just as they 178 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. are. Yet we may justly compare it to a mirror. For, after all, certain features of the phenomena are pre- served. They are consequently not so entirely different as is maintained. A certain form of a phenomenon corresponds to a certain form of sensation. The phe- nomena being different among themselves produce sen- sations that in their turn also are different among them- selves. And the difference suffices to distinguish them. The electric current in the wire of a telephone is entirely different from the air-waves of sound. Never- theless the form of air- waves produced by spoken words can be translated, as it were, into the electric current and from the electric current back again into air- waves. Both can adapt themselves to the same form and thus become messengers of information. Must we declare that all communication through the telephone is im- possible because electricity and sound-waves, wire and air, are entirely different ? It is true that the pin on the table does not re- semble the physico-chemical phenomenon that takes place in our nerves. But it is true nevertheless that this physico-chemical phenomenon of our sensation to- gether with the memories of other sensations, especial- ly those of touch and sight, produces in our mind the conception of a pin. In spite of all difference be- tween the outer world and sensation, the pin as we conceive it to be, is the net result of such sensations. This is possible as in the example of the telephone by a transference of motion from one medium to an- other through the preservation of form. The same is true of the whole world. Our conception of the world, in order to be true, must ultimately be based on the facts of sensation — not on the subjective aspect of sensation only, but also and especially on its objective IDEALISM AND REALISM. 179 aspect as motions of a special form. In this way only can we acquire a conception of the objects, as they must be supposed to be independent of the subject. The difference between the phenomena of the outer world and sensations, appears more striking than it really is, because, in order to understand a process fully, we must reduce it to some form which can be expressed in mathematical symbols or figures. For- mal thought is always the basis of a scientific com- prehension, and in order to comprehend a phenome- non, so as to measure and calculate it, we must in many cases translate it, as it were, into the language of that sense which is the organ of measurement and calcu-. lation. Therefore audible sound-phenomena are rep- resented as visible air-waves. Hence the growing im- portance of the sense of sight. Cognition never alters the data of sensory expe- rience, although the invention of instruments may en- large its reach. The Copernican system differs from the naive view, that the earth is a flat disk, not be- cause it denies or contradicts the facts of sensation, but because it arranges them more systematically with the assistance of mathematics (J. e. the method of formal thought). It is a misconception of knowledge to demand that it should be something different than a methodical arrangement of facts. Our cognition, although it may translate one sensation into another, never indeed goes, nor need it go, beyond sensation. But if cognition is merely the arrangement of the data of sense-perception, if the thinking subject can- not go beyond his sensations, are we not indeed limited . 180 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. to the subjective aspect of phenomena and does not their objective aspect remain to us a book with seven seals? This objection is made, indeed and that too, by most subtle thinkers; it is based upon a deep insight into the nature of cognition; but it is nevertheless er- roneous, because it overlooks one most important point. The subjective aspect of sensation which we call feeling, and the objective aspect of sensation which is a physiological phenomenon, and as such a process of motion, are actually one and the same thing. They are two aspects only of one and the same indivisible fact. Professor Bunge, of Basel, says in his pamphlet "Vitalism and Mechanism" :* ' ' True, the eye is a physical apparatus, an optical mechanism, a camera obscura. The image on the retina is produced at the back of the eye, in conformity with the same immutable laws of refraction that regulate the production of an image on the photog- rapher's plate. But — surely that is no psychical phenomenon. The eye plays purely a passive part in that operation. The retinal image, moreover, may be prod uced in an eye that has been re- moved from its socket — in a dead eye. " The evolution of the eye— that is a psychical phenomenon ! How has this complicated optical apparatus been formed? Why do the cells of the tissues so unite with one another as to produce this wonderful structure? That is the great problem, to the solu- tion of which the first step has not as yet been taken. Undoubt- edly, the succesion in which the evolutionary processes have taken place, admit of observation and description ; but of the reasons we know absolutely nothing. * * * " All processes in our organisms, I maintain, that admit of mechanical explanation, are just as little psychical phenomena as the movements of the leaves and the branches on a tree, shaken by the blasts of a storm. * * * " In activity lies hidden the mystery of life. The notion of * Leipsic . F. C. W. VoRel. JDEALISM AiYD HEAL ISM. 181 activity, however, has not been derived from sensory perception, but from self-observation — from the observation of the will, as it strikes our consciousness, as it is revealed to the inward sense. And when this self-same thing meets the outward senses, we do not again recognize it. We see perfectly well what it does and what is done to it — mechanical processes. But the pith of the matter we cannot get at." * * * Professor Bunge contradicts himself when stating that we know absolutely nothing of the reasons. He says in another passage of the same pamphlet : " Our cognition must proceed from the known of our inner world to the unknown of the outer world." We can indeed get at the pith of the matter. The solution of the problem as to the "activity " of life is contained in another sentence of Professor Bunge that follows in the very same paragraph. He says : ' ' If this self-same thing meets the outward senses, we do not again recognize it," That mysterious activity in the outer world, that kernel within, which is supposed to be unknowable, is the self-same thing that we ourselves are. And Schopenhauer, the admirer of Hindoo philos- ophy, is correct in so far as he says that we can indeed look behind the veil of Maya, not in natural phenom- ena, but in ourselves. The phenomenon of our exist- ence, he says, is our body in all its knowable relations and manifestations, the kernel is that something which Schopenhauer calls • Will.' However, this something (the Will of Schopen- hauer) can be analyzed, and is found to be of a very complicated nature which grows in a process of evolu- tion from the simplest conditions to more and more complicated combinations. While analyzing it, we experience that the kernel supposed to be behind its 182 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. phenomenal manifestation is inseparably connected with it — yea, it is identical with it. Now, in analyzing the phenomena of nature we ap- prehend them as manifestations, the motions of which can be mechanically traced. If their motions are not actually explained, they are at least explainable. The residuum which is left is the spontaneity that per- vades all processes of nature. Nature is not passive, it is no dead machine acted upon from the outside by push. Its manifestations must be considered as active processes of self-motion. This conception of nature is corroborated by the fact that the psychical and physiological life of organ- isms must have developed from non-organized sub- stances. The phenomena of non-organized nature, ac- cordingly must contain the conditions and possibilities of all higher organized life. Thus the objective aspect of sensation, which is a phenomenon of motion, is, at least in theory, me- chanically explainable. Not so the subjective aspect of sensation, which we designate as feeling that accom- panies the process. Feeling (in so far as we under- stand by the word the psychical phenomenon only, and not its physiological basis) being no motion, it would be absurd to look for a mechanical explanation of feeling in this sense. The motion of every muscle and nerve is deter- mined so that it might be expressed in definite figures, but the subjective aspect, alone and by itself, to the exclusion of its objective manifestations, cannot be ex- pressed in mathematical terms. In order to know what this "activity," the spontaneity of willing and perceiving, is, we must experience it ourselves. We can measure the intensity and duration of feel- IDEALISM AND REALISM. 183 ing in its objective aspect as a motion, but its sub- jective aspect can only be felt. The mental feeling is, so to say, the inseparable 'within ' of the physiological phenomenon, which corresponds to the emotion. The note C major can be mathematically explained as a special form of motion in our auditory nerve; but the living feeling that apprehends it as a sound, can not; it is nevertheless a fact of experience; and there is no other possibility than to consider them both as one: — as two aspects of one reality. In the old quarrels of the schools, idealism in its ex- treme form had one great advantage over materialism. It took its stand on the given facts of sensation. Thus it could not be refuted on its own grounds. Baron Holbach says: ' ' What shall we say of Berkley who endeavors to prove that everything in the world is a chimerical illusion and that the uni- verse exists only in ourselves and in our imagination. He makes the existence of all things doubtful by means of sophisms -which are unanswerable to those who accept the spirituality of the soul." In a similar way Lord Byron acknowledged the validity of Berkley's arguments. He said:* " When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,' And proved it — 'twas no matter what he said. They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head, And yet who can believe it? I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone and lead. Or adamant, to find the world a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it. •' What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the Universe universal egotism! That all's ideal — all ourselves; I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schism." *Don Juan XL i, 1. 1 84 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Idealism, while it cannot be beaten on its own ground, is nevertheless unable to account for the facts of reality. It cannot be refuted, yet it explains noth- ing. Materialism on the other hand is weakest at home. As a philosophy it is poor, but as a theory for practical explanations it is strong. Materialism has been very successful when applied to natural phenomena, even to the explanation of psychological or other problems. But it could not be defended if attacked in its own province. Matter itself remained unexplained and, as a matter of consequence, materialists dropped into mysticism, declaring that matter itself was the ultimate mystery unsolved and unsolvable. The weak point of materialism is that it identifies matter and reality. It starts with the assumption that all phenomena must be explained from the me- chanical motion of inert matter. Man is a mere ma- chine, an aggregate of molecules, the movements of which are produced through a vis a tergo, by push. Since, in the natural sciences, mechanical explana- tions prove of great value, Professor A. Lange pro- posed in his "History of Materialism" that science should continue to work out the solutions of problems as if materialism were correct, but at the same time we should know that from a critical and philosophical standpoint it is untenable ground. The reason of this strange opnosition between Idealism (or rather Spiritualism) and Materialism must be sought for in the consistency of one-sidedness which is found in both views. Neither spiritualism, i. e. idealism in its most advanced shape, nor materialism (the exaggeration of realism) can properly combine the parts of subjective and objective existence. Both IDEALISM AND REALISM. 185 views are deficient in their explanation of the element- ary data of psychical life. Spirit is declared to be a mere function of matter by materialists, and matter is declared to be a mere illusion of spirit, by idealists. The unitary conception of the world alone can bridge over the chasm between the subjective and the objective. The motions of the world cannot be explained as mere changes of place, produced by push only. Wherever we look into nature's laboratories, we are confronted with self-motion. There are of course some motions which are produced merely by push : We call them "purely mechanical." But these purely mechanical motions presuppose spontaneous motions as their causes. Nature must be alive in the sense that it is a self-moving mechanism, carrying a rich stock of energy. The construction of a perpetuum mobile is an impossibility because we cannot separate one part of the world from the rest. But the world as a whole is a perpetuum mobile. The work done in one part is transmitted to another part ; yet it is not lost, so far as the whole world is concerned. The sum total of all energy remains constant in the universe. Nature is alive also in another sense. It contains in its elements the germs of feeling ; or, as Clifford expresses it, the world consists of "mind stuff" — not of actual mind, but of a stuff that can become, and under certain conditions does become mind. To regard the fall of a stone as only a very sim- ple instance of essentially the same process that takes place when a man does an act, i. e. performs a mo- tion accompanied with consciousness, appears at first sight strange or even absurd. But we cannot escape the assumption that it is the same. We are obliged to adopt this monistic conception of things by inexor- 186 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. able logical arguments ; and we are supported in it by the observation of natural processes. Human action develops by degrees out of other natural processes, and we have sufficient evidence to believe that humanity with its civilization, science, art, and all its ideals is but a differentiation of natural forces that has come to pass upon the cooled off surface of the earth under the influence of solar heat. Man is transformed solar heat. All the forces animating the planetary system are differentiations from the heat of which our solar system was possessed when in a nebu- lar state. We ask further, What is the heat of which nebular masses are possessed ? It is the motion of celestial bodies, of comets, or of so called world-dust, changed by collision into molecular motion. Gravity attracts mass to mass. The more gravity there is, the more mass we have. It is but an artificial explanation of gravity, to suppose that it is something outside of and independent of mass. The simplest conception is to consider attraction as an intrinsic property of mass. In other words, gravity is mass itself ; and the most elementary motions are not so- called purely mechanical, caused by push, by a vis a tergo, they are spontaneous, they are a vis viva or self- motion. They are mechanical, however, in the sense that they conform strictly to the laws of mechanics. When we declare that nature is alive, we mean more still than that the world is a self moving mechan- ism. There is some additional element in the pro- cesses of nature, which in its full development appears as feeling and reaches its highest stage known to us in the consciousness of man. And this additional ele- ment is the properly psychical feature of life. The fall of a stone we do not believe to be accompanied IDEALISM AND REALISM. 187 with actual feeling, but we cannot help assuming that it is animated by or accompanied with a potentiality of feeling, containing in an elementary form the germs from which actual feeling and consciousness can be transformed, similarly as its motion may reappear in the cerebral activity and muscular exertions of man. Idealism confines its world to the phenomena of feeling; materialism cannot explain their origin. Mo- nism sees in actual feeling a process that, like other natural processes, takes place under certain conditions and disappears if these conditions disappear or are counteracted. Our feelings are only part of our existence. They are the subjective part of it. The other objective part is our activity, presenting itself as motions. And again our conscious feelings are only part of our sub- jective existence. They are as it were the surface only, where many things appear that have their origin in the unknown depths. Many results come to light, of processes that never enter into the range of man's individual consciousness. Man's consciousness is like a light that illumines the world of his existence, but does not create it. Our body, not otherwise than a plant, grows - and forms itself without the interference of consciousness. So our social institutions grow, so our religions, and phi- losophies, and ideals develop independently of pur- posive interference and often contrary to directions consciously imparted. Let us use the light of our consciousness as best we can. It serves the purpose of orientation. In the dark we can only grope, but where a light is lit we can survey our paths and need not go astray. HEDONISM AND ASCETICISM. A systematic conception of the universe is the the- oretical, and ethics the practical aspect of philosophy. It is obvious that both are closely associated; the one is the basis of the other, and we cannot properly judge of the problems of the latter unless we have grasped the main truths of the former. By "morals" we understand the proper conduct of life, and by "ethics " the science of morals. Now, it is true that a man can instinctively lead a moral life without having any knowledge of the theoretical basis and the practical application of ethics. Morals are, as a rule, very stable, and a moral man who in later years happens to believe in a wrong system of ethics is not liable to change much of his good habits of life. It is also true that a man who has inborn, perhaps hereditarily ingrained, immoral tendencies will by theoretical instruction in ethics most likely not be greatly improved. Nevertheless, as a rule, philosophy and ethics go together, and a wrong philosophy will produce a wrong ethics, and a wrong ethics -will, if not in the present, certainly in the next generation, corrupt the morals also. The details of a philosophy, or a religion (which lat- ter, after all, is but a popular philosophy, a philosophy of the heart) may be, and, indeed, are, quite indifferent as to the ethical inferences that can be drawn from it. But the main truths are not. The main truths of a re- HEDONISM AND ASCETICISM. 189 ligion or philosophy lend the color to the ethics that grows therefrom. And we find in the history of phi- losophy that materialism, with a great regularity, pro- duces hedonism or utilitarianism; for it places the ul- timate object of life in material existence and its well being, viz. in happiness. Spiritualism, on the other hand, as a rule, leads to asceticism; it renounces the pleasures of the world, for it seeks the object of life in the deliverance of the soul from the fetters of the body. Monism rejects both views; it finds the purpose of existence in the constant aspiration of realizing a higher and better, a nobler, and more beautiful state of exist- ence. Life is a boon so far only as it offers an occasion to improve that which lies in our power to change — the forms of things and the modes of life. It is not pleasure' or happiness that gives value to our days, but the work done for the progress of our race. Moses ex- presses this truth most powerfully in a passage of his grand psalm, which we quote according to the forci- ble translation of Luther: " Man's life will last three score years and ten, or, at the best, four score; but if it was precious, it was of labor and sorrow." Mere happiness will leave the heart empty, and the aspiration for happiness will make of man a shallow trifler. Asceticism, on the other hand, will prove de- structive and suicidal. But if we consider the punct- ual performance of our daily duty, every one in his province, as the object of our lives, which must be done to enhance our ideals and help mankind (be it ever so little) to progress, we shall find occasion to unite the truths hidden in both, — the materialistic and spiritualistic ethics. We shall find sufficient occasion to practice abstinence, to exercise self-control, and to set aside the fleeting pleasures of the moment. At i 9 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. the same time, while the pleasure-seeker will be wrecked in his vain endeavors, we shall experience that a noble satisfaction, which is the highest kind of happiness imaginable, follows those who are least con- cerned about enjoyment, and steadily attend to their duty. I 9 I CAUSATION AND FREE WILL. Two views have ever stood opposed to each other in the realm of religious and philosophical questions: the one claiming absolute determinism in the province of causation as a matter of course for all phenomena of nature and life, human actions not excluded; the other maintaining that whatever be the claim of deter- minism in the province of physical science, man's ac- tions are not determined, for man is endowed with free will. The former opinion is generally considered as the scientific, the latter as the moral or religious view. It is apparent that the very existence of morals and religion depends upon man's having a free will, and at the same time that determinism full and unrestricted, without any exceptions, is the condition of all science. The conciliation of both views is indeed the fun- damental problem of all ethics. The idea of a free will in contradiction to the necessity of natural law is the last and perhaps the strongest redoubt of dualism. Two well-established truths here face one another, and appear irreconcilable, — for the ought- in our breasts, our moral consciousness, we gladly confess, is an undeni- able fact. And this ought, or, as the great sage of Konigsberg calls it, "the categoric imperative" in us, postulates that man is a moral being, and that he has a free will. This free will, men of a dualistic bias think, is irreconcilable with the idea of the unison of all truths, which is the basic doctrine of monism. 1 92 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Dualism (i. e., spiritual dualism) which takes the view that two worlds exist independent of each other, — the spiritual world and the material world, — does not object to determinism in the material world, but it vigorously asserts that free will obtains in the spiritual world. Materialism, in opposition to spiritual dualism, claims that freedom of will is a sham, that man has no free will, because his actions are determined through- out by law. If spiritual dualism is right, scientific truth has very little value; for science exists only in so far as natural phenomena are, by strictest necessity, determined with regularity, and do not happen according to hazard or chance. If materialism is right in saying that man's freedom of will is a self-delusion, it would be ridicu- lous to speak of morals, and ethics (the science of mor- als) would be a self-contradiction. Prof. James, of Harvard University,* accepts the du- alistic view as best adapted to a moral teacher. He says: " We postulate indeterminism in the interests of the reality of our moral life, just as we postulate de- terminism in the interests of that of our scientific life." Monism accepts determinism wholly and fully. But from the same standpoint of monism, free will must also be accepted as the basis of moral life. We deny that the issue is determinism or free will. In opposi- tion to spiritual and material dualisms, we propound de- terminism andiree. will. We maintain that moral truth and scientific truth, that religion and science, regular- ity according to law and free will, are not irreconcil- able contradictions. They are oppositions complement- ary to and explanatory of each other. If one is con- * In a letter to The Open Court, published in No. 33, page 889. CAUSATION AND FREE WILL. 193 ceived without taking the other into consideration, our view will be one-sided and insufficient. Both together form the monistic view, in which science and religion find their reconciliation. Religious teachers usually adhere to the dogma of free will, while the philosophers of " matter and mo- tion" do not accept this doctrine, but proclaim it to be in contradiction to the unyielding law of causality. The religious teachers know, that if there were no free- dom of will, ethics would not exist; for it is freedom that implies responsibility for one's actions. On the other hand, Materialism as a rule annihilates ethics at its root and establishes in its stead such rules of con- duct as will ensure the greatest amount of happiness. Now, according to the law of causality, the actions of man result through the same necessity as any event or phenomenon. It is a strange confusion to make of ne'cessity and freedom a contradictory opposition, so that either would exclude the other. If a man can do as he pleases, we call him free; but if he is prohibited from following motives which stir him, if by some restraint or compulsion he is limited, he is not free. But every man, whether under certain conditions he be free or restrained, under exactly these and no_ other circumstances must will, of necessity, just as he does will, and not otherwise. As to this there is no doubt, if causality is truly the universal law of the world. The actions of free will are just as much regulated by law as any other natural phenomena. The moral ought certainly involves a can. Two men under the very same conditions can act differently; but a man of a certain character and under certain conditions, if he is free, will necessarily act in accordance with his char- acter and not otherwise. i 9 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Those who maintain that free will and determinism are irreconcilable contradictions start from the appar- ently slight but important error that compulsion and necessity are identical. They think that what hap- pens from necessity proceeds from compulsion some- how. They overlook the fact that there is a necessity imposed from without as well as a necessity operating from within: the former acts by compulsion, from outward mechanical pressure as it were; while the latter works spontaneously, though necessarily, in ac- cordance with the character of the man, constituting his free will. For instance, a man delivers to a highwayman his valuables because he is compelled to do so by threats or even blows; he suffers violence; his action is not free. But if a man, seeing one of his wretched fellow-beings suffering from hunger and cold through extreme poverty, and overpowered by compassion gives away all he has about him, this man does not act under compulsion. He acts from free will, but being such as he is, he so acts of necessity, in accordance with his character. Where compulsion exists, free will is annihilated; but necessity need not be compulsion. Whoever is un- able to make this distinction between compulsion and necessity, will never get a clear insight into the theory of free will. Necessity is the inevitable sequence by which a certain result follows according to a certain law. It is the internal harmony and logical order of the world. Compulsion, however, is an ex- ternal restraint, and a foreign pressure exercised to check and hinder by violence. Give the magnet free- dom on a pivot, and it will, of necessity, turn toward the north, according to the qualities or properties of magnetism. But if you direct it by a pressure of CAUSATION AND FREE WILL. 195 the finger to some other point, you will exercise some compulsion, which does not allow it to show its real nature and quality. Were the magnet endowed with sentiment and gifted with the power of speech, it would say in the first case: " I am free, and of my free will I point toward the north." In the second case, how- ever, it would feel that it was acted upon and forced into some other direction against its nature, and would declare its freedom to be curtailed. It is the same with man; and the moral worth of a man depends entirely upon what motives direct his will. An ethical estimate of moral actions is not pos- sible, except under the condition that they are the expression and realization of free will. Freedom is the sine qua non of morality and moral responsibility. But the best action would amount to nothing if it were a mere chance result which, like a throw at dice, might have occured otherwise. And if the free actions of man were not regulated by law, if free will meant that a man of certain character under certain conditions could act otherwise than he does, if free will were identical with chance, if, in a word, free will were in- determinism, this kind of free will would not only de- stroy science but morals and ethics also. The whole value of any moral deed rests on the fact that the man could not, under the conditions, act otherwise than thus, that it was an act of free will, and, at the same time, of inevitable necessity. The interests of " moral life" and of " scientific life " thus appear from the standpoint of monism as two as- pects of one truth, in which both find their explanation. The dualistic solution of the problem will prove de- structive of both views; for dualistic science and du- alistic ethics must in mutual annihilation play the parts 196 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. of the famous Kilkenny cats. Monism teaches that the moral view and the scientific view are two differ- ent aspects, although their object may be. one and the same thing. A psychologist, a physician, or a lawyer may view the actions of a man from a scientific stand- point; and a clergyman, a preacher of morals, or a his- torian, or a biographer, or the critic of an author, may contemplate the very same actions from a moral stand- point. Should we then, in the former case, take to de- terminism, and in the latter to indeterminism, — or shall we, by excluding human actions from the province of determinism, entirely annihilate ethics as a science? Indeterminism is unthinkable in science as well as in morals; it would make every action a morally in- different andscientificallyindeterminable phenomenon. Free will and determinism do not exclude each other. Free will is the postulate of morals, determinism is the postulate of science. The actions of a free will are not irregular or without law; they are rigidly de- termined by the character of the man that acts. i 9 7 FORMAL THOUGHT AND ETHICS The most remarkable treatise on ethics as a sci- ence is Immanuel Kant's "Foundation of the Meta- physics of Morality." (Gru/idiegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten.) He attempts in this little book to show- that the rules of moral conduct can be based on an unalterable principle, which by rational beings can and must be recognized as being of universal application. Kant says : "As pure mathematics is distinguished from applied mathe- matics and, pure Jogic from applied logic, so may the pure philoso- phy (the metaphysics) of ethics be distinguished from the applied philosophy of ethics, that is, as applied to human nature. By this distinction of terms it at once appears that ethical principles are not based upon the peculiarities of human nature, but that they must be existent by themselves a priori, — whence, for human na- ture, as well as for any rational nature, practical rules can be derived." We prefer to call Kant's Metaphysics of Morality* "Formal Ethics." Formal ethics is as truly the basis of applied ethics as for instance geometry is the basis of geodesy. Formal ethics is a science as demonstra- ble and plain as logic or arithmetic, and like the other formal sciences will find its verification and applica- tion in experience. * We here briefly review Kant's ethics in so far only as we agree, and abstain from a discussion in so far as we do not agree. Some of Kant's ideas, and more so his terminology admit of criticism. For instance, his con- ception of freedom is vague, and his discrimination between man as homo noumcnon or a moral being, and man as homo phenomenon ov a physical being, can not be conceded in the sense he puts it, 198 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Kant says : " Will is conceived as a power of determining itself to ac- tion in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a power can only be met with in rational beings. Now it is the end that serves the will as the objective ground of its self-de- termination, and this end, if fixed by reason alone, must hold equally good for all rational creatures. * * * ' ' To know what I have to do in order that my volition be good, . requires on my part no far-reaching sagacity. Unexpe- rienced in respect of the course of nature, unable to be prepared for all the occurrences transpiring therein, I simply ask myself : Canst thou will, that the maxim of thy conduct may become a universal law ? Where it can not become a universal lav/, there the maxim of thy conduct is reprehensible, and that, too, not by reason of any disadvantage consequent thereupon to thee or even others, but because it is not fit to enter as a principle into a possible enactment of universal laws." ' Kant formulates his maxim in the following way : " Act so as if the maxim of thy conduct by thy volition were to become a natural law." If a maxim of conduct is fit to enter as a princi- ple into a possible enactment of universal laws, it will be found in harmony with cosmical laws ; if not, it must come in conflict with the order of things in the universe. It then cannot stand, and will, if persist- ently adhered to, lead (perhaps slowly but inevitably) to a certain ruin. A will that as a matter of principle determines it- self to be guided by reason alone, and thus to remain in unison with the order of the universe, Kant calls a good will. The command prescribed by pure reason is the " categoric imperative." He calls it " categoric " because its behests admit of no exception, and are to be applied with rigid universality. Since there is only one kind of reason, there is only one measure or standard of morality, which must be the same for FORMAL THOUGHT AND ETHICS. 199 all rational beings. A "person" according to Kant, is an individual who can be held responsible for his acts. A person can by the power of his reason regulate his action according to principles, and the subject-matter to which in special cases the categoric imperative obliges or binds us, is called " duty." The enormous practical importance of formal thought appears here in its full significance. All for- mal truths are necessary truths ; they possess univer- sality, and therefore they can be employed as norms. In other words, they are ethological ; they can be used as rules and constitute a categorical ought. Ethics is, as it were, the logic of man's conduct, and vice versa; logic may be considered as the ethics of thinking. Geometry is the ethics of measuring and arithmetic the ethics of calculation. Without formal thought and without the rigidity of the laws of formal thought, we could have no constitutive norms whatever, no basis for scientific investigation, no guidance for invention, and no foundation of ethics. Before Kant arrived at his ethics, he had tried to explain morality from man's desire for happiness.* But he abandoned this idea entirely ; and certainly, morals can not be identified with our desire for happi- ness, although it is true that immorality always causes much misfortune, and will, as a rule, lead to unhappi- ness. In fact, morals are preached in order to counter- act the dangers, of our desire for happiness. The high- road of virtue does not appear at all pleasurable, nor does it promise ever to become so, while the by-paths of vice are extremely pleasant to look upon, and many * Werke viii, p. 676, and iii, p. 392, 200 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. of them will continue to be so for a long time, perhaps even to the end ; and the end may be a sudden and painless death. Happiness is like a shadow ; if pursued it will flee from us ; but if a man does not trouble himself about it, and strictly attends to his duties, pleasures of the best and noblest kind will crop out everywhere in his path. If he does not anxiously pursue it, happiness will follow him. Happiness in itself, the quickened pulse of joy, the gladness of heart, and the laughter of our lips is a shallow and empty thing ; it has no value, and the man who attended to~ his duty for the mere pleasure of having the consciousness that he has done his duty, would find his reward poor. He must attend to his duty for the sake of his duty, and he will realize that it is not happiness itself that blesses us, but the object which causes our happiness ; it is not the joy- ous thrill as such, but the ideas, the hopes, the aspira- tions that joyfully thrill through the fibres of our men- tal existence. Accordingly, we should not so much care for happiness and for a great amount of happiness, but that our desire for happiness be satisfied with, and respond to, such motives only as possess moral value — such as are in harmony with the universal order of things. * * Although we accept Kant's formal ethics as the basis of morality, thus attributing the highest authority in matters of conduct to reason, we do not in the least undervalue the importance of experience as a source of information concerning our moral aspirations. And although we maintain that, as there is but one reason so there is but one standard of morality, we do not FORMAL THOUGHT AND ETHICS. 201 deny that there are many different stages and innumer- able aberrations in the moral development of mankind. The abstract conception of a good will is always one and the same, being the unison of will with reason, but the conception of that which is to be looked upon as good, must necessarily vary not only with the kind and amount of reason we possess, but also with the changeable demands of the circumstances in which we live. Different conditions require different duties ; and to different duties different moral ideals correspond. Usually we are inclined to judge the actions of men of past times from the standpoint of the moral ideals of to-day. But that is entirely wrong, and many ap- parently barbarous deeds are justifiable — even right, with regard to the circumstances and requirements of their era. If some hero of olden times had acted ac- cording to the higher and better ideal of these latter days, it would have been considered (and sometimes perhaps justly so) as weakness on his part. For though the ethical tendency is the same throughout, yet the evolution of ethical ideals shows different stages. * * The innate qualities and talents with which nature endows certain individuals, and which therefore are justly called gifts, according to the theory of evolution, are faculties inherited from ancestors. The labor of for- mer generations is not lost ; its fruit has been preserved and- handed down to the generation now living. This fact has a profound ethical import ! There is nothing without work in this world. That easy and apparently effortless production which we ad- mire in genius, is possible only through the inherited abilities acquired by the labor of ancestors. 202 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. The single individual, therefore, ought to be con- scious of being the product of the labor of ages. And what he does, be it evil or good, will live after him in so far as his individuality impresses itself and influences his contemporaries. In consideration of this fact, man will think with reverence of the past, with regard for the future, and with earnestness of the present. The categorical imperative of Kant appears as a norm or a regulative law which is of universal validity just as much as the norms of arithmetic or logic. All the rules of formal sciences have a normative, i. e., a regulative value. If they are rigidly applied, they will in all cases be found to be correct and to lead us to true results. The categoric imperative, however, (not unlike the norms of the other formal sciences,) is more than a mere regulative law; it is a natural law which rules the development of the world and is the cause of all progress in the history of evolution. We can verify its presence through an impartial observation of facts by experience. Human society could not even exist, nor could it ever have risen into existence, if the moral ' ought ' did not constantly prompt the majority of human minds to obey the behests of the categoric imperative. No society is possible unless it is founded upon the basis of morality. Morality, although in a broader" sense of the word, extends far beyond the province of rational beings. It does not only regulate the relations among them, it also creates the conditions from which they originate. Cells possess all properties of organized beings : FORMAL THOUGHT AND ETHICS. 203 alimentation, growth, and propagation. A mother- cell, having reproduced itself by repeated divisions, is still connected with its filial cells. All cells in their union are more fit to encounter the struggle for existence. Henceforth the work to be done for their preservation is divided and dispensed in such a way that some cells perform one, other cells an other function for the unity thus created. It is division of work, accord- ing to a general plan; and that is what constitutes an organism. The single organ or limb of a body does no longer exist for itself but serves the idea of a larger unity of which it feels itself to be a part. The purpose, aim, and end of its existence is forthwith not in itself but in something higher than itself. This principle pervades all organized nature. Organisms cannot exist but under this condition. The relations of the different organs of an organism among themselves de- mand special kinds of work to be done, which, if the organs were conscious, we would not hesitate to call their duties. The organs of an organism, if in a state of health, obey this principle, and this principle is essentially a moral principle. The same principle which produced organisms and animals, guides them in their further development ; and only so far as any creature is animated by this ethical guidance, is it able to develop into some higher being. The moral principle is the star of Bethlehem that guides the foremost men of all human races to the cradle where a new truth and new duties are born and where the germs of new ideas are thriving. The human body and the organism of society both rest on the same principle. The first higher unity is the family ; families grow into tribes, and tribes form 2o 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. nations. The love of parents has broadened into pa- triotism, and no doubt the next higher ideal will be that of humanity. The next higher stage to which natural development ever tends is its ideal, and there will be no rest in the minds of the single individuals until this ideal is real- ized. After that, new ideals arise and lead us onward on the interminable, infinite path of progress, not as Darwin says, merely driven by the famous law of the struggle for life, but prompted by the strife for the ideal. The ethical principle is no mere constitutional law, proposed by a legislature as fitted to serve the majority. It is, as we have learned, a natural law pervading the universe ; and a scientist must be blind to facts if he does not discover it. Even in the inor- ganic world, I venture to say, this law prevails, though in a broader sense. Gravitation out of a whirlpool of gaseous materials forms well-arranged solar systems. It is the law of order and unity which dispenses to different bodies the different parts to be performed. The law of gravity, as formulated in mathematical terms by Newton, is the ethical rule of primordial mat- ter ; and if the single atoms of a nebula which are still rushing in different directions, could tell us their ideal, it would be that of a harmoniously regulated solar system. The chaos will clear, according to sim- ple mechanical rules ; the ideal will be realized, and the general turmoil will give way to order. This world is not a world of happiness, but of eth- ical aspiration. The essence of all existence is evolu- tion or a constant realization of new ideals. True, it FORMAL THOUGHT AND ETHICS. 205 is the struggle for life; but if you look at it more closely, is it really life that the progressive part of humanity is striving for? No, they sacrifice even their lives for some higher purpose, for their ideal. If we look upon the martyrs of progress, it would indeed be a strange contradiction to say that people are consci- ously sacrificing and losing their lives in a struggle for life. The ideal is erroneously supposed to be an imag- inary nonenity ; or the illusion of an enthusiastic — per- haps even a morbid brain. An ideal, however, is a part of our soul, and it is such as prompts us to ac- tion, and can regulate all our conduct in life. The power and importance of ideals is greatly increased because it can easily be imparted to others in a few words. A martyr may die, but his heroism can at the same time be impressed on the minds of his very hangmen, so that the best part of his soul is implanted into their souls, and triumphs through the sacrifice of his life. Ideals are the most intense realities imaginable. Physically considered, they are certain organized structures in a living brain. The mechanical work done by the combustion of the oxygen in a few drops of blood is extremely small, and how great, incalculably great, is the result obtained ! Here is the fSof fioi not o-£> ml Kivijau rijv yfp>* of which Archimedes spoke. The thinking of an ideal may not cost more expenditure of energy than 0.001 foot-pound, and yet it may rev- olutionize the world. The ideal is no mere fiction, it is a power of real- ity, pervading the universe as a law of nature ; and * Translated : Give me a place to stand on and 1 will move the world. 206 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. with regard to humanity it points out to man the path of progress. Progress, if it is guided by the ideal, will produce new and better eras for humankind. And if a moral tendency were not the fundamental law of nature, there could not be any advancement, develop- ment, or evolution. 20J THE ONENESS OF MAN AND NATURE.* According to Monism man is a part of Nature, a part of the one great All, and the ethical import of Monism is based on the recognition of this idea of one- ness. The barrier which in the opinion of dualistic systems existed between the ego and the rest of the world is broken down. The individual belongs to the whole as an integral part of it. The more fully, the more correctly and truly the cosmosf of the Universe is mirrored in a consciousness, the closer will be the union of the ego with the All, and the more moral the individual must become. The better a man under- stands the true connection of his soul with the souls of his fellow-beings, and the better he comprehends his right relation to the great whole of all-existence, the more will he conform to what he calls the laws of so- ciology and the moral rules of conduct. And the more he conforms to these ponditions, the fitter he will be to survive in the struggle for existence. This is, in outline, the ethical aspect of Monism, and this is the character of evolution also. The ethics of Monism can fitly be named Evolutionism, for evolution is possible only because the laws of the world in which we live, are a moral power. The Cosmos itself, the order of the world, is the foun- dation of morality. Properly speaking, we cannot say that the Cosmos, or the All, or God, is moral. This is an * Written in answer to an essay of Mr. Moncure D. Conway, t Cosmos literally translated means order. 2o8 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. anthropomorphic expression, which, in poetic speech, may be allowable, but is not correct. The truth is in- dividuals are moral in so far as they conform with the Cosmos, in so far as they become one with the All and conform to its order, or humanly speaking, as they obey the laws of the whole. Mr. Conway says: " Where is any moral law found in nature except in man ? Except in man, and in so much of the world as man has partly humanized, nature seems predatory, and cruelly impartial be- tween good and evil, brier and the fruit — if not, indeed, favorable to the brier. May it not be more truly said that there is a moral law in man to which nature must conform in order to live well and be blessed ? " From the monistic standpoint man is the highest product of the All. Man is the blossom on the tree of nature, and humanity is its fruit. Man is grander and nobler than the rest of nature, as the blossom is a higher stage of evolution than the leaf. But a flower and a leaf, though they may be contrasted as the higher and lower stages of one and the same plant, cannot be considered as two essentially different be- ings. Thus human civilization, and the vegetable and animal kingdoms, can be viewed under the aspect of opposites, but not as contradictories. Both are pro- ducts of the same tree, both are natural, and we shall find that in human society the same fundamental laws are at work as in the other natural kingdoms. Man by his higher qualifications conforms more quickly and readily to these laws. There is more truth in his conception of the universe than in the im- perfect percepts of animal brains. Therefore he is more powerful, therefore he is more moral, and there- fore fitter to survive in the struggle for existence. THE ONENESS OF MAN AND NATURE. 209 These facts cannot be denied when we observe how man takes possession of the earth and how brutes and wild beasts are extirpated; how also among men the savage races die out, while the civilized nations con- quer the world. And yet it is an every day's expe- rience that the morally bad triumph over the good, and that the honest are worsted by the wicked. The pos- sibility of falling into error is greater than that of hit- ting the truth: accordingly while one truth is born, hundreds of errors have occasion to arise. Errors mul- tiply quicker than truth and the briers seem more fertile than the useful fruit-trees. The truth of this is obvious, although the potency of wickedness seems to contradict flatly the former statement that morality makes man fitter to survive. Similarly, the fertility of error seems irreconcilable with the fact that truth is stronger than error and must sur- vive in a world where the fittest will finally conquer. And if we experience, ourselves, the power of iniquity, if we personally suffer from the advantages which the wicked gain by their very unscrupulousness, we are but too much inclined to lose all confidence in the moral order of the world. There have been and still are times of trial and tribulation in the development of entire nations as well as of single individuals, when it takes all our strength not to lose faith in ethics and in the worth of ethics. Even Christ cried out, in the agony of death, his Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " All the sages of humanity agree that it takes a strong character and the moral power of purpose, faithfully to endure in temptation and constantly to trust in truth and righteousness. There is sufficient cause for a lack of faith, and enough 2IO FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. occasion for following the path of vice and wrong- doing. Almost all aberrations from truth and justice appear pleasant and full of promise at the start, and the warnings of parents and teachers are easily for- gotten. Nevertheless these aberrations lead to inevit- able ruin, and although the righteous path may be thorny now and then, perhaps too often for our taste, we should nevertheless, difficult though it may be, never lose faith in the final triumph of truth and justice. The spirited shepherd boy who became king of Judea sings in one of the psalms: The wicked in his pride doth prosecute the poor. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud; under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it. And in another song the royal Hebrew poet gives an answer to his anxious doubts as to the apparent lack of justice in the order of the world. He says: Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they will soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. ■- For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. THE ONENESS OF MAN AND NA TUJ?E.. 2 1 1 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight them- selves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plotteth against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their ■ bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken, A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the right- ous showeth mercy, and giveth. I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him but he could not be found. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore. The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever. David finds comfort in observing the eventual fate of the prosperous evil-doer, — for " a little while " and " he passed away and, lo, he was not." The triumph of truth and virtue, however, is not such as to make their devotees wander through the pleasant vales of perpetual happiness. Just the con- trary; the path of virtue and truth is often not easy to find and difficult to walk upon. " Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it." Similarly the Greek poet says: Ti7f S'apeTijq iSpurra dcol ■KpofTa.poi.9tv Z&TjKav 'Afiavaroi • p.anpbQ 6i na'i t>pdi.OQ ol/wg in' amtp. [Toil before Virtue is placed by judicious decrees of Immortals. Steep is the path to her heights and rugged the road to the summit. ] The evil consequences of error, folly, and crime, it is true, often come so slowly that it appears as if the 212 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. sinner would escape punishment. They come late, yet they are sure to come, as a Greek sage has said: oipe &e&v dXiovGc fivXoc, oXtovat tie 'Ketttcl* ' ' Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, With exactness grinds he all."f The simple narrative of the crucifixion of Christ has impressed humanity so deeply because of the moral lesson is conveys. The most touching and sympa- thetic features of the holy legend must be found in the suffering which the God in man has to undergo. The divinity of man is a source of intense pain and tribula- tion. Our very ideals lead us into trouble and temp- tation and even into the darkness of death. And yet we should not despair; we should preserve our faith in truth and righteousness. It is this lesson which made of the tragedy of Golgotha, a gospel and glad tidings to the struggling and despairing human race. It is true, that with the new revelation of Chris- tianity per crucem ad lucem, which showed that the path of righteousness leads through suffering, and that only a crown of thorns can become a crown of glory — errors arose which retarded or seemed to retard the general progress of truth. The same had happened to Buddhism. Its true ethical idea was soon over- grown and smothered by errors. Buddha himself, and in a similar manner Christ himself, opposed the dual- istic and pessimistic conceptions of their forerunners, * Sextus Empiricus. ^ ' IThe English version by Longfellow is a translation of Friedrich von Logau's epigram: Gottes Miihlen mahlen langsam, Mahlen aber tr^fflich klein; Ob aus Langmuth er sich saumet, Bringt mit Schaif' er Alles ein. THE ONENESS OF MAN AND NATURE. 213 the one of the Sankya philosophy, the other of the Essenes. Both for a time observed the prescripts of the sects from which they arose. Then both opposed the Asceticism practiced by their predecessors without falling into the error of hedonism. Both rejected fast- ing as injurious to body and soul, both left the abodes in deserts and abandoned monkish habits. They lived as men among men, they sat down at table and ate and drank with the sinners. The disciples of St. John therefore began to grow doubtful as to the divine mission of Jesus. They sent word to him and asked: " Art thou he that should come or do we look for another." Christ, as well, as Buddha, represents a reaction against pessimism. It was the start of a new faith, a new hope, a new religion, a religion that should bear the features of meliorism. These melioristic features in Christian ethics, which beam forth in Faith and Hope and Charity, have been the strength of Chris- tianity and did most for its propagation. It is the Christian faith that conquered the . world, not the pessimistic and world-despising despair of its dualism. The tares grow with the wheat, and errors freely sprout where a new truth is conceived. Errors multiply and increase more luxuriantly than truth does. And yet it is only for a while ; they will pass away and truth will stand forth victorious. It was again the Christian faith, the melioristic feature of Christianity, that proved a regenerative power in the time of the Reformation and led hu- manity one step nearer to a monistic, a unitary, and a harmonious conception of the All. It is faith in ethics and confidence in our ideals that, by an abandon- ment of creed, will lead humanity to the purer heights 2i 4 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. of a nobler conception of life and a more elevated ex- istence on earth. The ethical aspect of Monism has been brought to light more strongly by the recent investigations of ex- perimental psychology, which have been instituted in France by M. Th. Ribot and other investigators. The modern psychology of M. Ribot agrees well with the monistic view that has been propounded by Ger- man scientists. The dualistic conception, that there is at the bottom of the soul such a thing as an ego, has been proved to be wrong. The ego, or the state of consciousness, is not an entity which produces our mental life; on the contrary, it is the result of the in- numerable and complicated nerve-organisms in our body. The thoughts we think are the elements of which our mental life consists. Our mind is de facto a republic of ideas, of which now the one and now the other is called into activity. The unity of mental ac- tivity is no proof of Descartes's view that the soul is a simple being ; for the unity of the mind is now con- sidered as resulting from a rich and complicated sys- tem. The ego of our consciousness is concentrated and centralized, according to M. Ribot, in a similar way as our sight is focused in the lenses of our eyes. Prof. Mach compares the personality of an individual to an indifferent symbolical thread on which are strung the valuable pearls of our real existence.* These pearls are the ideas which that entered into our brains. The ideas that live in us are our true Self. These ideas we have received from others and we communicate to others. These ideas, in so far as they are ideals, warm *Pro£. Ernst Mach, "Transformation and Adaptation in Scientific Thought." The Open Court, Nos. 46 and 48. THE ONENESS OF MAN AND NATURE. 215 our hearts and keep aglow our enthusiasm so as to make life worth living; for life is only worth living if we aspire towards something that is greater and nobler than our limited ego. These ideas in so far as they are the essence of what we call humanity, make of every single man a representative of mankind. Thus the barrier between the ego and the great whole of the All is broken. Prof. Mach* says : " Hu- manity in its entirety is like a polyp-plant. The ma- terial and organic bonds of individual union have, in- deed, been severed ; they would only have impeded freedom of movement and evolution. But the ultimate aim, the psychical connection of the whole, has been attained in a much higher degree through the more luxuriant development which has thus been made possible." The individual man is ethical by his Oneness with humanity, and humanity is ethical by its Oneness with Nature. If humanity would cut itself loose from Na- ture in which its origin lies and which affords the con- dition of its existence, it would die away and wither like a tree that is severed from its root. Humanity as a whole, as well as the single man, can live and grow, advance and prosper, only by remaining one with the All, by being moral ; i. e., by observing and conform- ing to the cosmical order of Nature. ETHICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. The beginning of ethics is thought. The animal who cannot think or reason cannot be called an ethical being. When man begins to think, he commences to understand his relations to others and thus learns his duties. He formulates his duties in general principles and regulates his actions according to maxims of uni- versal application. In this way only can he place him- self and his life in harmony with the order of All- ex- istence. When we reflect a moment upon what we owe our ancestors, we shall soon find that we owe them all we have and even more : we owe them all we are. What are we but the accumulated activity of all our ances- tors from the very beginnings of life, the moner and the moner's struggles for existence included? Our nineteenth century civilization is not a revolution which has introduced any new idea that inverts or de- stroys the thoughts, ideas, or aspirations of former cen- turies. The most advanced view, however different from the old views, is a further evolution of the past. The recognition of this truth is the essence of his- torical research, and those who are most advanced in the culture of true progress, who acknowledge the principle of scientific investigation in ethics and re- ligion, those who are decided to modernize their mor- ETHICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 217 als and adapt themselves to the spirit of the dawning future, should be the first to understand this truth. Yet many radical thinkers overlook it. Through their opposition to the errors of the past they become blind to its merits. Only by understanding the connection of the present with the past will they be able to do justice to the cause which they defend, for they can gain justice for themselves only by doing justice to others, and the just claims of the present can only be established by showing that they are the logical out- come of the past. Ethics is not, as some modern philosophers try to make us believe, an arithmetical example by which to calculate how we can purchase, at least sacrifice, the greatest amount of happiness. This barter morality of hedonism is a pseudo-ethics which indeed would make true ethics impossible. The pseudo-ethics of hedonism starts from the wrong idea that man lives solely for being or becom- ing happy. If this were true, the great pessimist Schopenhauer would be right in saying that life is a failure and that existence is not desirable because a life without trouble and pain, a victory without battle, a conquest without wounds and anxiety, are impossible. Ethics is so much at variance with man's craving for happiness that if man lived merely to be happy there would be no ethics whatever. Ethics indeed is taught to counteract the dangerous, although perhaps inborn and natural, craving for happiness. The beginning of ethics is to reflect upon our- selves, our surroundings, and our actions. Before we act we must stop to think. The brute animal follows his impulses; so does the savage. The thoughtful man takes into consideration all possible results of his 218 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. action ; and however dimly at first, he soon learns that his person is intimately connected with his surround- ings, with his fellow-beings, and with nature. Even a savage knows that he is no absolute entity, no unit by himself. His very existence is the product of his parents, and his life is sustained through certain natural conditions by a constant struggle in which he is aided or hindered by his fellow-men. His relation to his fellow-men, and his dependence upon nature which yields to him substance that maintains his life, teaches man that he has some duties to perform, which if neglected will prove disastrous to himself and his fellow-beings. The relations in which man stands to others imply duties ; and the man who attends to these duties is moral. When man earnestly attends to what he recognizes as his duties, he will progress and in consequence thereof his comfort and prosperity will increase. His pleasures will be more refined ; his happiness, his en- joyments, and recreations will be better and nobler. The increase, or rather refinement of happiness, however, cannot be considered as the ultimate aim of ethics, for pain and affliction increase at the same rate, because man's irritability, his susceptibility to pain, grows with the growth of his intellectuality. The pain of a more civilized man will be more in- tense than that of a savage, and it is an undeniable fact that people of a lower degree of culture are as a rule merrier than the more educated classes. There is sufficient occasion in this country to observe the glad and hearty happiness of the negro, who is so easily satisfied. In comparison with the African the more cultured American of European ancestry must appear morose. ETHICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 219 If all the advancement of our civilization had no other object than to produce a greater amount of hap- piness, the anthropoid's would have better remained in their forests and have lived upon the tropical trees, subsisting on their fruit. They would thereby have better attained this end. Therefore we maintain that the elevation of all human emotions, whether they are painful or happy, the elevation of man's whole exist- ence, of his actions and aspirations, is the constant aim of ethics. * * * The hostility which prevails between scientists on the one side and moral teachers on the other is pro- duced through a misunderstanding. The moral teacher, and especially the clergyman, is afraid lest^ science undermine the principles of ethics. The doctrine of the survival of the fittest appears to contradict the principle of morality. And the scientist in his turn does not find the moral law as it is commonly preached in the pulpit, justified in nature. Professor Huxley says : " From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight — whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. * * * " In the cycle of, phenomena presented by the life of man, no more moral end is discernible than in that presented by the lives of the wolf and of the deer. * * * 'As "among these, so among primitive men, the weakest and stupidest went to the wall, while the toughest and shrewdest, those who were best fitted to cope with their circumstances, but not the best in any other sense, survived. * * * Professor Huxley undervalues the use of morality in the struggle for existence. Man survived not be- cause of his toughness, or his shrewdness, but because 2 2o' FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. of his moral qualities. The antediluvial fox was per- haps shrewder, and the lion or bear tougher, than the prehistoric savage or man-ape * but they were lacking in the moral faculties which bind single individuals together with the ties of love, of family, and of friend- ship. Moral feelings, or rather the capacity and con- ditions of the growth of moral feelings, the tendency to reveal moral "qualities, made the primitive man sociable. A social animal develops more morality than solitary beings, and the shrewdness of a social being becomes intelligence Intelligence is more powerful as a weapon in the struggle for existence than shrewdness, because it does not lack in morality; it is more in unison with the cosmic order. Human speech is the product of intel- ligence and not of shrewdness. Man was able to de- velop speech only because he was moral enough to be social, and this morality elevated man above the rest of the animal world. Among savage tribes the most intelligent and not the shrewdest survived. It is an undeniable fact that in any given district the tribes who were lacking in morality, even when the very shrewdest and toughest, had to go to the wall, while in the end the more moral remained vic- torious. It is a wrong historical view to 'imagine that the Romans conquered the world because they were shrewder, stronger, and more ferocious than their neighbors. They conquered the world because they possessed in addition to strength a rare moral quality — the quality of justice. With regard to their exercise of justice, indeed, they were by no means perfect ; but they were more advanced, more moral, and better in this respect than any other nation of their time, cul- ETHICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 221 tured Greece not excepted. Yet even the strength of the Romans was not the physical force of a ferocious bull ; it was the moral strength of courage. It will thus be seen that morality affords the power to survive, and if the primitive savage was not moral in the present acceptation of the word, he was in his time relatively the most moral being on earth, and this gave him more strength than toughness or shrewdness could ever afford. Prof. Huxley declares in other passages of the same essay : " The history of civilization — that is, of society — on the other hand, is the record of the attempts which the human race has made to escape from this position. * * * " But the effort of ethical man to work toward a moral end by no means abolished, perhaps has hardly modified, the deep-seated impulses which impel the natural man to follow his non-moral course." * * * Professor Huxley adds with special reference to the civilization of the English nation of to-day : "We not only are, but, under penalty of starvation, we are bound to be, a nation of shopkeepers. But other nations also lie under the same necessity of keeping shop, and some of them deal , in the same goods as ourselves. Our customers naturally seek to get the most and the best in exchange for their produce. If our goods are inferior to those of our competitors, there is no ground compatible with the sanity of the buyers, which can be alleged, why they should not prefer the latter. And, if that result should ever take place on a large and general scale, five or six millions of us would soon have nothing to eat. We know what the cotton famine was ; and we can therefore form some notion of what a dearth of customers would be. "Judged by an ethical standard, nothing can be less satis- factory than the position in which we find ourselves. In a real, though incomplete, degree we have attained the condition of peace which is the main object of social organization (and it may, for argument's sake, be assumed that we desire nothing but that which 222 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. is in itself innocent and praiseworthy — namely, the enjoyment of the fruits of honest industry). And lo ! in spite of ourselves, we are in reality engaged in an internecine struggle for existence with our presumably no less peaceful and well-meaning neighbors. We seek peace and we do not ensue it. The moral nature in us asks for no more than is compatible with the general good ; the non- moral nature proclaims and acts upon that fine old Scottish family motto, 'Thoushalt starve ere I want.' Let us be under no il- lusion, then." If the unitary conception of the world is true, that all existence is but one great continuous whole ; that all difference is but variety in unity ; that one truth is in harmony with all other truths as every part of ex- istence is related to the whole existence of the One and All : — if this is true, how can there, be a difference be- tween the moralist's and the naturalist's views? Should we not declare a priori that there can be no contra- dictory truths? Either the naturalist or the moralist, perhaps both, are wrong. With all due respect to the facts presented by Professor Huxley, we must object to the conclusion at which he arrives. Professor Huxley's view of morals is based on the error that the wolf is immoral while the sheep is moral. The strong one is supposed to be an evil-doer, simply on account of his strength, while the weak one is supposed to be good simply on account of his weakness. Not the hero is glorified that " fights the good fight of faith," but the martyr that allows himself to be slaughtered without resistance. This ethics has long been fostered by Christian moralists, because unfortunately Christ was compared to a lamb that is sacrificed, and because, in one of his allegories, Christ compares the good to sheep whom he will place at the right hand. The allegory is mis- interpreted. It is not the weakness, not the inactivity, ETHICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 223 but the purity of the sheep that is approved by Christ. How much is blamed, in another parable, the inactive and cowardly servant who buried the talent that was entrusted to him ! This ovine morality has detracted much of the pith and strength from Christian ethics. It has made it tame and weak and even despicable. Morality is not as many lamb-souled moralists pretend, the negative quality of suffering ; morality according to modern ethics is the positive virtue of energetic activity. Ours is, as the scientist correctly states, a struggle for ex- istence ; and those who consider it meritorious to suc- cumb to injustice and violence justly go to the wall. Their enemies, unjust though they may be, are com- paratively more moral, for they are their superiors in the virtue of courage which gives them strength and power. Prof. Huxley describes how the moralist, in the effort to restore harmony, tries to account for the in- iquities in this world. He says : " From the theological side, we are told that this is a state of probation, and that the seeming injustices and immoralities of Nature will be compensated by and by. But how this compensa- tion is to be effected, in the case of the great majority of sentient things, is not clear. I apprehend that no one is seriously pre- pared to maintain that the ghosts of all the myriads of generations of herbivorous animals which lived during the millions of years of the earth's duration before the appearance of man, and which have all that time been tormented and devoured by carnivores, are to be compensated by a perennial existence in clover ; while the ghosts of carnivores are to go to some kennel where there is neither a pan of water nor a bone with any meat on it." * * * This would indeed be a consistent consequence of a soft-brained and weak-hearted system of ethics, which praises the innocence and meritoriousness of 224 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. mere suffering, and depicts as the ideal of morality a millennium of eternal peace, where the struggle for ex- istence is unknown, where no labor or painstaking is necessary and all time is spent in the glorification of an all-wise Creator. Such a state of absolute perfection is impossible and we niust smile at the ingenuousness of those phi- losophers who pretend to teach modern ethics and still adhere to the old millennium idea of a life of perfect adaptation where universal happiness will prevail. The error in this Utopian idea is easily seen if we understand that the struggle for existence is inherent in nature. The struggle for existence is not only not in contradiction to ethics, it is on the contrary its most important factor, which must be taken into considera- tion and is taken , into consideratien by the monistic view of ethics. The old ethical view demands that man shall not resist evil ; that he shall leave off fighting and humbly allow himself to be trodden under foot. But the ethics of monism does not make man un- * fit for life, it renders him fitter in the struggle for ex- istence. It teaches that so long as we are in harmony with the One and All of nature, so long as we remain in accord with natural laws, we shall be best able to resist evil. And this we can only do by constantly ex- ercising our faculties and strengthening brawn and brain for the continued struggle, — which will cause us, it is true, much trouble and uneasiness, but at the same time will raise us to a higher level ; it educates us. and enhances the work of our existence. The moral lawis a natural law, it may be con- trasted to, but does not stand in contradiction with, the other natural laws of a lower order. The deeper we investigate the more we shall be convinced that ETHICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 225 benefits acquired by injustice will prove to be injurious in the end : very often they are even the beginning of ruin. Truth and justice are the most powerful weap- ons in the struggle for existence. Truth and justice will always conquer in the end. It often takes more time than the life of a single individual to see the triumph of truth ; but we can be sure, even if the defenders of truth and justice die, if they succumb to their immoral enemies, that truth and justice will survive. It is the belief in truth and justice which lies at the bottom of the old religious and ethical views. This belief was a faith, but took the shape of a creed. The moral quality of a religious virtue soon ossified as a system of dogmas. It was mixed with supersti- tious notions, with anthropomorphic ideas, and with unwarranted phantastical expectations of a compensa- tion in a supernatural Utopia. It grew powerful be- cause, after all, it was more in harmony with truth than the views of those who saw only the surface of natural facts and could detect no order and no moral law in nature. But it became intolerable through the errors taught and the wrongs committed. If, now, new ideas triumphantly break their way, let us remember that the new ethics and the religion of the future do not come 'to destroy, but to fulfil.' The present is the product of the past and the future will be the product of the present. A Latin proverb says, Sic nos non nobis! It is we who stand here as the rep- resentatives of humanity, but it is not for ourselves, nor for the gratification of personal vanity. It is we of the nineteenth century, but not by the wisdom of the nineteenth century, which would not exceed the wisdom of former ages if it were not benefited by their 226 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. experience. Nor do we work and struggle to benefit ourselves. As our ancestors worked and struggled for us, so we have to struggle and fight for future genera- tions. Sic vos non vobis! Bear in mind it is you who work for the advancement and elevation of the human mind. But it is not you or you alone that you aspire for ; it is humanity which is represented in you. All life on earth forms one great, unbroken chain, one continuous whole, the unity and law of which we comprise in the formula of evolution. Let us regard ourselves as the representatives of this great whole, let us faithfully act according to this view and we need not trouble for the rest. Our actions will be moral and we shall at the same time be allied to those powers of nature which grant the strength of survival and represent advancement, progress, and the elevation of humanity. This ethics is in harmony, not at vari- ance with natural science, and this is not the destruc- tion but the fulfilment of the old religious faiths and their ethical aspirations. 227 CHRIST AND HIS ETHICS. Christ and Christianity are radically different ; and if the Christ of the Gospel were to come unto his own, his own would receive him not. Christ was the Copernicus of Ethics. Naturally man believes that his ego is the centre around which the world revolves. The heathen hope by prayer and offerings or abject worship to gain the favor of God, as if they could deflect the sun and the stars from their paths in order to gratify their wishes. Christ re- vised the apparent order of things and taught that the ego was not the centre of existence ; we cannot make God conform to us, but we ourselves must conform to God. He forbade therefore " the vain repetitions as the heathen do,'' and ordained a prayer the tenor of which is characterized in the sentence ' Thy will be done.' Our relation to the sun and centre of our moral life, Christ conceived under the allegory of a child to a father. Him we should imitate, and as he acts, so we should act. " Be ye therefore perfect even as your father which is in heaven is perfect." Christ did not teach (as did at his time the Essenes and afterwards anchorites and ascetic monks) the annihilation of the ego, but he did teach resignation of all egotistic pretensions. He demanded unreserved surrender of self not for death but for life, not to de- stroy the souls of men into everlasting perdition but 228 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. to preserve them, to comfort and heal them, to sai; them. The question of worship, whether God is to be adored in the Jewish or Samaritan fashion, had become immaterial to him. God, he said, is spirit,* and those who worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth. The worship in spirit and in truth is no self- humiliating cult of adoration. Christ recognizes as his disciples not those who say, ' Yes, Lord,' but only those who do the will of his father in heaven. It seems to be the fate of great men that their fol- lowers dwarf their ideas in proportion to the homage paid to their persons. It is certainly easier to worship Christ than to obey his commands. It is, however, our duty not to obey blindly, but to prove everything, to discard erroneous notions, and to hold fast to that which is good. This Copernican transfer of the centre of our ac- tions from the ego to the moral law, it seems, was the basis of Christ's doctrines. In the strength of this le- gitimate demand we must find the key to the success of Christianity, and we trust that it will be seen to be its surviving truth. *The original text reads "God is spirit," Trvev/xa 6 v?£(Jf, not as our trans- lators have it, " God is a spirit." The introduction of the article "a" per- verts the whole passage and changes a most radical conception of God into a spiritualistic view, making God a ghost. !29 NO CREED BUI FAITH. By creed we understand a summary of the articles of religious belief, and by faith a trustful confidence in something or some one that we are convinced is good and true. Creed is dogmatic ; faith is moral. The creeds of the world are contained in the many Credos in the doctrines of the different religions ; faith is en- shrined in human hearts. Creeds are dead letters ; faith is the quickening spirit. The religious problem of to-day will find its simple solution in the sentence : No creed, but faith. Let us have faith in the moral order of the world, the faith of a grain of mustard seed, and without swerving live and grow accordingly. Let us have faith in our ideals of Truth and Beauty and Goodness. If we have no faith, how can our ideals be realized ? How can the tree grow if the seed be dead ? Faith in Hebrew is amunah, which means firmness. No credulity is wanted, but steadiness of character. Faith in Greek is nia-r^, which is etymologically the same word as the Latin fides and the English faith. The verb ■Kiartvuv does not signify to believe, but to trust. So long and in so far as Christianity was a living faith, it was truly human and progressive. But as soon as priestcraft prevailed and identified creed with faith, the religious spirit lost its life ; it became a reactionary power, for it was fossilized into the letter that killeth ; and instead of faith credulity was enthroned as the 2 3 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. basic virtue of a religious life. Not truth ascertain- able and verifiable by scientific investigation was ac- cepted as the basis of religion, but certain unveri- fied and even absurd doctrines, which were established as self-evident axioms. Science was pooh-poohed like Cinderella as worldly and ungodly, whereas by rights it should hold the torch to faith lest it walk in the path of superstition or other errors. Three days after the crusaders had taken Antioch (June 3, 1098), Kerbogha, the Emir of Mosul, arrived with an army which was in almost every respect, and especially in numbers, superior to the Christians. He invested the city and cut off all supplies. Famine and sickness caused great havoc, and many goodly knights, among them even prominent leaders, such as Count Stephen of Blois, deserted in great despair. The whole army seemed to be doomed to die by the sword of the Moslem or to be starved. In this plight Peter Bartholomew, a Provencal of low birth, came to Count Raymond and declared that St. Andrew had shown him the holy lance that had pierced the side of Christ, and that it lay buried in St. Peter's Church of Antioch. The search began at once ; twelve men dug a whole da3', and in the evening a lance was really found not far from the altar. The lance being found, the crusaders began to have confidence again. Under the command of the circumspect and brave Boemund, they went out to do battle. Although worn out by fatigue and famine, they were confident that the holy lance would lead them to victory, and full of enthu- siasm they beat the Emir so that his great army was soon scattered to the winds. The story of the holy lance, it was soon discovered by the more sober Normans, was an imposture, but NO CREED BUT FAITH. 231 among the sanguine-minded Provencals the belief in it had worked wonders of prowess and made the ap- parently impossible an actual fact. There may be a living faith concealed in a foolish superstition. It is not the error, not the superstition that works wonders, but the faith that lives in it. No victory, no virtue, no strength, without at least a grain of faith, be it ever so much mixed with false notions. False notions are a disastrous ingredient in faith, and unless in time discarded, they will and must lead into danger. For weak souls, an alloy of truth and error may serve as a substitute for pure truth ; but it is truth alone that can make us strong and free. Creed rarely can stand criticism, but faith can not only endure and survive criticism, it should even in- vite it. Criticism may destroy all creeds, but it will never destroy faith, and if it could, it would take out of life that which alone gives value to it. It would take away our ideals, our hopes, our aspirations, and t;he purpose of life. Life would be empty and meaning- less. Christ said : "Verily I say unto you: If you have faith as a grain cf mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." The instance of the crusaders' victory over Ker bogha is an example of how powerful faith can be, even though closely interwoven with superstition. It was not the superstition, however, that gave strength to the crusaders, but the moral faculty of confidence closely connected in this case with superstition. Great minds can exercise the same self-control and perform the same deeds, even greater deeds, without the 232 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. , assistance of superstition. It can be said of weak minds only, that superstition serves as a support to faith. It is true, that if well directed, it can give to a child the self-confident strength of a man. But woe unto us if we mistake superstition as genuine faith. Our faith must not be blind, but rational ; it must be based on exact knowledge, and it is our duty to purify it by critique and to harmonize it with science. The reconciliation of moral ideals to knowledge, of religious faith to science is not of to-day nor of yester- day. Ever since humanity has aspired to progress and to increase in wisdom as well as in power, there has been a constant readjustment of the relation of these two factors. The prophet Hosea says : ' ' Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel : * * * My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee." It is lack of knowledge, or as we would now say, of science, that threatens to be destructive. If our clergy do not cease to preach creed, if they oppose science because it is in conflict with their creed, they will no longer remain priests of the Almighty, i. e., of the moral power that leads humanity onward on the path of pro- gress. They will deteriorate into a caste of time-servers and hypocrites, for they are lacking in the faith of the grain of mustard seed, which is the power of growth and progress. Superstitions have under exceptional conditions, in the days of man's childhood, served as substitutes for faith ; but we should learn that they are not the living faith itself nor do they add to the strength of faith. They rather detract from its vigor, its purity, and its nobility. Superstitions and the lack of knowledge will ultimately lead to perdition. On the other hand we NO CREED BUT FAITH. 233 should learn that our faith, our confidence in the truth of moral ideals, is by no means subverted if the super- stitions incidentally connected therewith are recog- nized as illusions. Science of late has done away with many errors which had grown dear to us, but it has not and never will do away with our ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. It has rather taught us the laws according to which they can more and more be re- alized. Ideals evolve and change and, upon the whole, they progress and are improved. If the grain rots in the earth we no longer fear that it is lost. We now know that the transformation is no sign of decay but of growth and as the husks of our superstitious notions are breaking, a new faith bursts forth which will be wider and broader, purer and greater than all the old creeds with their narrow sec- tarian convictions. Dogmas will be forgotten, but Re- ligion will remain. All the creeds will die away, but Faith will live forever. 234 THE IMPORTANCE OF ART. Many scientists and, to a great extent, business people also look upon art and poetry with a certain contempt. There are philosophers even who have no room for art in their systems or consider it as useless play — as a sport which properly should not exist, as it does not serve any real purpose. This view of the subject is entirely erroneous and does not agree with the facts of real life. Art, and especially poetry, serve a real and go'od purpose in life, and are, almost as much as religious impulses, ex- ceedingly strong. Religious sentiment induces men to sacrifice their lives for an idea, and poetical enthusiasm, in extraordinary cases, lacks very little of attaining a similar power. Religion and patriotism have no better ally than poetry. When the Spartans waged a luckless war with the Messenians, they sent to the oracle at Delphi and requested help from their patron God, the God of light and of poetry. Apollo sent from Athens, as the legend goes, a lame school-master. But this man of seemingly little promise proved a great power, — for he was poet. The famous verses of Tyrtaeus, fragments of which are still preserved, became the leading motto of all the patriotic battle hymns in later ages, which inspired thousands and hundreds of thousands of warriors to sacrifice their lives for their country. To a great THE IMPORTANCE OF ART. 235 extent the sacrifices must be accounted for by a love of home and freedom. But these sentiments, no doubt, were often kindled by the glowing flame of poetry. The influence of poetry in almost all domains of human life cannot be doubted. It is the very soul of our emotional aspirations in love, in patriotism, in re- ligion. Poetry possesses a power directive of human passions, which may and often does lead to the eleva- tion of human souls. Poetry is the natural vehicle for ideals. An ideal is a conception or idea of such a state of things as does not yet exist, but the realization of which is fostered in our aspiration. Poetry contains in the crystalized shape of verse certain ideas which appeal to our hearts and stir our emotions as well as our sympathies. The harmony which obtains in versified speech makes it more impressive, so as to enter more easily into and to remain better fixed in our brains. In this way certain ideas, poetically formed and conveyed, may attain such a wonderful power as to make people stake their lives for their realization, and accordingly it is not strange that poetry was credited with potentiali- ties and qualities that are superhuman. Poetry in a certain sense is indeed superhuman, although it is not supernatural. The ideas often take hold of the poet, they arise in him and he seems aware of the fact that it is not he who governs them, but that they govern him. Poetry is a formative power by which the views of whole nations are built up. 'Homer and Hesiod,' as an old verse declares, 'have given Greece her gods.' They shaped the Greek myths, and ideals and exercised a decisive influence upon the literature, religion, ethics, and politics of their nation. Goethe's and Schiller's 236 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. poetry told more powerfully on the formation of modern German thought than the works of all scien- tists and philosophers. Kant's influence on the masses is greatly due to Schiller, who confessed himself a disciple of the great thinker of Konigsberg and allowed himself to be swayed by his philosophy. If poetry is not sound, its influence is harmful. It is a fact, that after Goethe's Werther was published and eagerly read in Germany, suicides increased to an annual average never before reached ; and this was due to the weakening sentimentality of this one novel, which in spite of many great features is morbid to the root. Woe to the nation whose poetry is rotten ! If poetry has grown immoral, it is the worst symptom of as peedy decay. Germany's literature was full of promise in a time when her political prospects were extremely poor and almost hopeless. But those who saw more than the outside of things predicted her future glory. The German oak was stripped of its leaves, but the sap was sound and thriving. There are wonderful prophesies in the German folk-lore legends, of the renewal of the German Empire and the resurrection of Frederic Barbarossa. There are prophetic poems by Riickert, Geibel, and others, which have been fulfilled beyond expectation almost literally. There is a passage in Heine's works, published in the Salon, originally written in French and for the French, in which the German poet tells his friends in France what the German nation will be like, if she should again be provoked to fight for her homes, her liberty, and her ideals. If she is roused, Heine said, her energy THE IMPORTANCE OE ART. 237 and warlike spirit will swoop down upon her enemy like a thunderstorm. The poet is prophetic, not only because the finer nerves of his mind are quicker to understand the signs of his time, but also because his poetry is going to tell on the development of the nation. It is a strange fact, that Schiller's dramas severally forboded the events of his time. He wrote the Rauber, characterizing the rebellious spirit of an entire overthrow of society, and the French Revolution ensued. Then he wrote Fiesco, which depicted the powerful mind of a princely' usurper his daring boldness and final failure, and a figure like Napoleon appeared in Europe. After Fit-sto, he wrote Willie I m Tell, the drama of national fraternity and liberty, and the Jungfrau von Orleans, in which he praises the marvelous delivery of a nation from a foreign yoke. Also these dramas prophetically proclaimed the suppression and the rising of the Ger- man nation, her wars in 1813-1815 and even the foundation of the Empire in 1870. Such verses as: Seid eintR, einig, cinig 1 and : So lasst uns sein Ein einig Volk von Brtldern In keiner Noth uns trennen und Gefahr. (Let us unite like brothers, as one nation That undivided stands in time of danger.) exercised on incalculable influence on the German mind, which as long as this influence lasts will keep her strong and healthy and which is of greater import than her bayonets and guns. Washington Irving has somewhere said, that it is easier to fight many battles than produce one na- tional poem. And certainly the procreation of a healthy national literature, impregnated with great 238 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ideals and a moral spirit, is the most essential desid- eratum for the future welfare, growth, and progress of our nation. America is famous for her wealth and the American often boasts of it. Wealth is a good thing in good hands but it is a dangerous and doubtful boon in the hands of indeliberate persons, it is certain ruin and poison in the hands of libertines and slaves of passion. More important than wealth is the store of ideas, especially those ideas which are ideals, those which serve to lead us onward on the path of progress. 2 39 TRAGEDY AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. Art is no mere trifling and playing; attractive and charming though its works may be. Its object is grand and serious, and its aim is not inferior to that of science. Art and science both reveal the secrets of nature, but they adopt different methods. While science in- quires into the various provinces of nature under the guidance of induction and deduction, art, intuitively grasping the idea of the whole and representing nature in single examples, gives a clew to the enigma of the world. Every object of art is a microcosm — a little world in itself, which means, it forms an orderly arranged unity. Unity is the first and principal rule of art, which by all variety should never be neglected in any artistic production. The rule of unity teaches us that there is law and order in the microcosm of an artistic representation and at the same time suggests that the same order can be found in the macrocosm. In the creations of his imagination the artist explains the problem of the world. In his works every part must be understood through the whole, and the whole is revealed in its parts. Thus in the world and in life every single thing or being, its form, its aspect, its purport, must be interpreted as a part of the whole or as one 2 4 o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. phase in the development of All-existence. With this in mind, the Romans called a poet vatcs, seer or prophet. The poet is a priest of humanity. And, truly, of every real artist and poet one must aver, as Goethe makes Wilhelm Meister sa) r about Shakespeare, "It is as though he revealed all the secrets of life, and yet one cannot say that this or that passage contains the solu- tion of the riddle.' Poetry is generally considered as the highest art, if a gradation of the arts is admissible at all. Music and Dancing, Painting and Sculpture, with other arts, exhibit a harmonious order in the rhythm of sounds or movements and in the harmony of colors or figures; they are most powerful and effective, but they do not rise to the clear conceptions of poetry, which expresses human sentiments in words and thoughts. The drama is again considered as the highest kind of poetry and among dramas the tragedy takes precedence as the profoundest, the most dignified, and most philosophic representation of human life. Not every tragical drama is a tragedy. German aastheticians make a distinction between a Trauer- spiel and a Tragodic. The tragical drama is any representation on the stage which produces mourn- ful and inauspicious actions, while the essential feature of a tragedy must be found in the psychical development of the acting persons. The complication of the plot brings about an entire change of situation (what Aristotle calls the wepnri~eia), leading to the catas- trophe. By the crisis, however, a psychical change takes place also. The acting persons, especially the hero of the drama, take another and a higher view of life and of their ideals. While the hero suffers and even dies, his ideals grow and expand. A tragical drama • Tragedy— the problem of evil. 2 ' 4 i may represent the disastrous consequences of vice of folly only; a tragedy reveals the law of evolution which leads through toil and sacrifice to the victory of a lofty idea. From the time of Aristotle the tragedy has been' considered as the highest kind of art, perhaps because the tragic poet delves down to the deepest problem of human life: Why must the innocent suffer and why are the heroes of humanity martyrs of human ideals? One of the greatest problems of aesthetics has been the question: How can we derive pleasure — and the noblest kind of pleasure, too — from observing, on the stage, representations of tragic events? We condemn cock fights and gladiator shows; but it is a noble pas- time to witness the sufferings of a hero in a theatre. Is it not because the hero suffers for a cause, and the spectators learn from him how to live, to suffer and to struggle? There is a law of life and of the evolution of life; and we cannot understand one phase of life without taking into consideration the law which pervades the whole. The three chief stages of psychical growth are designated by the three views of life: i, optimism; 2, pessiviism; and 3, meliorism. The human being in his youth is optimistic; but when a man encounters worldly evils, when care preys upon him, sorrows worry him, and want and ill- ness harass him, when the solemnity of death im- presses his soul with fear of the unknown future, then a crisis arises in his psychical development: the catas- trophe of pessimism destroys the optimistic delu- sions of early years, and it is but with heartrending struggles that man regains the lost balance of his aspi- j 4 j! FCNPAMEATAL PKOPfJ-WS. rations in establishing a purified, a higher view of life, which we call m?li\>rism. In the phase of optimism, man enjoys life and ac- cepts it as a boon which has value in itself. We live simply for the pursuit of happiness. Optimism is the ingenious conception of the child and of childlike natures. In the phase of pessimism, man despairs of ever being successful in his pursuit of happiness. Man learns that if happiness is the sole purpose and aim of life, life is a failure and life is not worth living'. But pessimism is not the end of all worldly wisdom. Jfeliorism is taught by the martyrs of truth who suffer at the stake and the heroes of progress who die on the field of battle; they have lived a life that was well worth living. It is not life but the contents of life, our actions done, our deeds performed, and our ideas thought, that have value. Lite is valuable because it is an occasion to work and to struggle, to advance and to progress. The phase of meliorism recognizes that the purpose of life lies beyond the narrow sphere of the ego; the value of life lies in our ideals, which will live after us, which, indeed, are worth living and toil- ing and striving for. The philosophers of matter and motion look upon the world as a dead machine that works even in the nerves of human beings, ^to use Mr. Spencer's ex- pression), in "the line of least resistance." Monism recognizes the living spontaneity of nature which per- vades the whole universe and conies to the front in God-like beauty in the moral character of man. Life, accordingly, is not a chase for pleasure but the mani- festation of an effort; and Meliorism recognizes the truth "that 'the line of progress in human affairs ' is very far from being the 'line of least resistance' and TRAGEDY— THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 243 that in fact no great advance in some directions is possible among men without considerable work in lines of strong resistance."* The highest art represents man as struggling for and aspiring to noble ideals, it exhibits the develop- ment from a naive, childlike existence through the crucial tests of evil, error, and failure, through misery and terror of death to the conscious and manly stand- point of meliorism. Such a representation is the tragedy. It is not essential that the hero should die, but it is necessary that he should pass through a pro- cess of trial and purification. Thus the hero has be- come another man. In spirit he is new-born, and takes a new and deeper view of life and its import. The crisis of pessimism has matured his mind, and even should he die, his ideal lives; vanquished, his ideal is victorious ! In this manner the doctrine of meliorism sheds a new light on Tragedy and explains most clearly the complete sense of the Greek term, katharsis, or puri- fication of the hero, which Aristotle teaches us to be the purpose of a tragedy. The katharsis should be infused into the souls of the audience through the me- dium of pity and fear (&C 'OJkov nai 0o/?ou) : pity for the hero and fear in the auditor for himself lest he may meet with the same fate. The audience should be led through the same ordeal of purification. Without positive suffering, but merely by witnessing the suf- fering of the hero, they attain a higher, a purer, and a more ideal conception of life. It is the destruction of the egotistic passions (Ka&apaiq tuv Kadr/fiaruv), and the construction of a lofty philanthropic temple of altru- * Quoted from Prof. Cope's essay: Ethical Evolution, in No. 82 of The Open Court. 244 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ism. The hero no longer lives for himself; he lives for his ideals. His ideals live in him and his life is subservient to his ideals. In listening to a tragedy we are overawed; our souls are full of a sentiment which is best expressed in the ecclesiastical term of edification. According to Schopenhauer and his pessimistic adherents, the purpose of a tragedy is to preach pes- simism; the hero has to turn his back upon life. In the school of misery he must learn to resign and deny his will. Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Mainlaender declare that negation jaf will is the only aim worthy of religion and philosophy. It is this negation, they declare, that tragedy has to exhibit. But Schopen- hauer did not find one instance among the ancient tragedies in which the hero really denies his will. Ajax commits suicide'in order to atone for his errors, yet there is nothing of negation of will. Neither is it to be found in CEdipus. Hippolytus when dying is consoled by Artemis, who promises, after his death, to bestow upon him the highest honors in Thebes. From these instances Schopenhauer does not con- clude that his theory is wrong, as probably Lessing would have done, to whom the ancients were the standard of good taste; he argues that classical trag- edy is shallow and inferior to the Christian dramas, which rank higher owing to the fact of their heroes expiring with enthusiasm. Lessing in his Dramaticr- gie, mentions Christian dramas in which the heroes sometimes rush into death with the confidence of finding a higher and a' happier existence in another world. We should not, however, call this a pessimis- tic negation of life. They love life, but they prefer eternity. It is the aspiration toward some higher, TRA GED Y— THE PR OBLEAI OF E VI L. 245 loftier state of existence which allures them to their fate. Among our standard works of pessimistic art there is not any pessimistic tragedy, except the operas of Wagner, and particularly Die Gbtterddmmerung, in which Wodan terminates the existence of the world, and, tired of life, commits suicide. Wagner, strongly biased by Schopenhauer's philosophy, intentionally created his works in a pessimistic spirit; he is an ex- ception. Dramas by other poets are free from pessi- mism, as, for instance, Faust, Egmont, Marie Stuart, Romeo and Juliet; the minds of the chief characters exalted by their sufferings even to death, are elevated to a higher range. They do not attain a negation of will or annihilation of the ideal to which they aspire. Just the contrary. While Romeo and Juliet die, their love lives and restores peace between the hostile houses of their parents. In a word, our standard tragedies are melioristic and not pessimistic; for, otherwise, in their development, we should miss the solace which alone is able to afford us consolation for the misfortunes of our heroes. The auditors profit by the experience of the hero. They grow spiritually, intellectually and morally, while he grows through his struggles. White he gains in breadth of mental grasp and in intensity of feeling, the spectators also gain. The purification of our souls, the intellectual and moral gain, in a word, the growth of our minds, is what exerts a beneficial influ- ence and constitutes the pleasure of listening to a tragedy; for all growth is a pleasure: it is the only solid pleasure in life. Schiller finds " the cause of the pleasures we derive from tragic objects " in "our admiration of moral pro- 246 FUXDAMESTAL PROBLEMS. priety, which is never more vividly recognized than it is when found in conflict with personal interest and still keeps the upper hand." Schiller says: " We here (in some tragedy) see the triumph of the moral law. It is such a sublime experience that we might even hail the calamity which elicits it; " and, further on, " How noble to violate natural interests and prudence in order to be in harmony with the higher moral law. If, then, the sacrifice of life be the way to do this, life must go." Schiller's explanation is profound and grand, but it does not exhaust the subject. The tragedy is more than a conflict between moral propriety and prudence. Such a conflict might happen in a tragedy, but need not happen. The tragedy is rather the solution of the problem of evil. The questions, What do we live for? What do we struggle and suffer for? are answered in a tragedy. We do not live for the pursuit of our happiness only, but for the struggle after, and the re- alization of, our ideals. Thus the law of life and evolution is disclosed. In growing we must ultimately encounter the ca- tastrophe and endure the hour of trial. It cannot be evaded by any one who is arriving at maturity. Our mental development starts from optimism, and, pass- ing through the inevitable crisis of pessimism, it reaches the manliness of meliorism, which extends our life beyond the narrow limits of our Ego. The problem as to what is the purpose of our ex- istence is solved as soon as we recognize that man is one with humanity and that the evolution of the whole universe is at work in his aspirations. The barrier between the Ego and the All is broken and man's truest self is found in his ideals. We can find no satisfaction in the attainment of our personal well-being merely. TRAGEDY— THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 247 We must live and struggle and strive onward, not be- cause we chose to do it, but because Nature thus works out her plans in our souls. We must, because evolution is a cosmical law. We are a part of the All, a part in which the All works and shapes its ends. The All works in us as it works everywhere. Man is the highest stage of evolution on earth, and he there- fore is the most representative part of the Ail we know of. Man is the first born son of Nature, and human- ity with its holiest ideals is on earth the grandest, the most perfect, and most beautiful revelation of the All. Man's life is a constant struggle for progress, a strife for the ideal and an advance to loftier heights on the infinite path of great possibilities. This idea is the keynote which vibrates through the highest works of art and which thrills through the universe as the law of cosmical evolution. 248 CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC ART. In art and poetry we meet with different concep- tions similar to those in religion and philosophy, al- though they appear under other names. There are factions and partisans also in the domain of artistic taste, and the most prominent oppositions are the clas- sical and romantic schools. These Whigs and Tories of poetry fight with no less zeal than political parties. The contrast is obvious and striking and you can hear classical and romantic art spoken of everywhere. In music and in painting, in sculpture and in architecture the same opposition is noticeable. What the terms classical and romantic mean, has been interpreted very differently and often correctly, but its relation to philosophy has never been sufficiently explained. Classical, it is commonly said, is that concep- tion of art which takes the Greek of old as a standard, but the romantic does not acknowledge either their superiority or their taste. Classical authors acknowl- edge rule in the domain of art, romantic authors from a matter of principle banish rules and judge products of art from the effect produced. Classical authors on the contrary have often shown a certain contempt for effect and think it below their dignity to stoop to pop- ular taste for the sake of effect. Romanticism had al- ways a hankering after that kind of poetry which is to be met with so frequently in the Romance nations CLASSICAL AXD ROM AX TIC ART. 249 that are prominently good Roman Catholics. Accord- ingly some literary writers of protestant Germany identified both, declaring that Romanticism is a return or at least the desire of returning to Catholicism. And it is true that many Authors of the Romantic School in Germany turned Roman Catholics. Nevertheless Romanticism has only a kinship to Roman Catholic- ism, but should not be identified with it. This may be proved by the fact that Victor Hugo the head of the Romantic School in France was bitterly opposed to the Roman Church. Among classic schools we must carefully distinguish between pseudo-classic and real classic authors. The Greeks must be recognized as that nation who natur- ally produced the classic taste for poetry as well as art in general. Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire under the reign of Louis XIV and Louis XV of France were the first who attempted to establish classical taste in mod- ern poetry. But they must be designated as pseudo- classic; they were imitators of the Greek taste as it had been codified by Aristotle. They did not under- stand the principle of classic art; they applied Aris- totle's rules, but failed to recognize the spirit of Greek poetry. True classic poetry was produced in German}' when Klopstock began what Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing carried into effect with the grandest perfection ever realized in modern literature. Beethoven's appear- ance at about the same time was no incidental coinci- dence among these German aspirers. The classic spirit of Greek antiquity was revived and resuscitated. Theirs was no slavish imitation of the Greeks; they like the Greeks and like Shakespeare, whom they rec ognized as the model and standard of dramatic poetry 250 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. just as much as Sophocles, imitated nature. But the}' did not imitate nature in the sense of M. Entile Zola and the modern naturalists of France according to whom the dirt of nature is privileged with special attention. Their imitation is an imitation of nature as a whole, as one great entirety, as a Cosmos, which in its laws is one and the same throughout. Their poetry is per- meated by the same unity and unison which pene- trates the universe. Thus they represent in art the ethical law of justice which rules impartially, met- ing out to men the fates they shaped for themselves. And in the highest form of poetry in the tragedy, this justice bestows victory upon the idea which is repre- sented in its hero. The hero dies, he sacrifices his life for what is greater than himself, for his ideal. He is conquered, the individual man with his faults and imperfections perishes, but his ideal is tri- umphant. The classical principles are those of monism, while romantic art is dualistic. Classic art bears the feat- ures of serene and majestic truth, of simplicity, of real- ' ity; it is lucid and intelligible. Romantic art is artificial, complex, unreal, and fictitious; it is obscure, hazy, and mystic. Classic art has a high purpose, its aim is holy to the artist, his art is a religion to him. Romantic art attempts to fly from this world into a beyond, it is a play of fiction, a dream. Either the artist considers art as a sport, a fictitious, unreal fancy, or if he is se- rious, he usually is a fanatic and his poetry is not so much a religion as a superstition. Romantic poets and artists have biased our popu- lar views to such an extent that they succeeded to implant in the popular meaning of the word " art and poetry " the idea of romanticism, that of fictitiousness. CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC ART. 251 It is for this reason that art and poetry are character- ized as a 'useless and superfluous exercise of human faculties ' (as Spencer says), and that it is to be com- pared to sport and its value measured according to its complexity. Art and poetry are so far from being su- perfluous and useless that they are the most important treasures of the human race, for they contain the intel- lectual, the spiritual, and emotional wealth of human ideas, not of single thinkers but of whole nations, in a popular and harmonizing form so that they can easily be communicated even to the larger, broader, and less educated masses. Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing did much to enhance and advance the idea of monism. Their poetry was the bud from which the monistic philosophy was the full grown fruit. Classicism and Romanticism are not confined to Art. Religion also is either classical or romantic; it is either based upon clear and definite principles or upon a hazy mysticism. If Religion is not in agree- ment with science, it is founded upon the brittle basis of superstition. If it is in contradiction with a unitary conception of the universe, it will develop the world-de- spising dualism whose ideal is the oppression of na- ture and of all that is natural in us. Monism in the province of philosophy means per- spicuous simplicity. It is the systematic and clear conception of an intelligible reality. In opposition to the diverse dualistic conceptions of the universe in their romantic, phantastic, supernatural, or mystic garbs, monism is the classical philosophy. 2 5 2 RETROSPECT. The fundamental problems of Philosophy can be classified under two headings: i. What is the origin, the foundation, and the law or method of our cognition ; and, 2. What is its purpose? What is its use and ap- plication ? The former question is theoretical, the latter prac- tical. The former demands as an answer a conception of world and fife, a theoretical philosophy, i. the same." And in another passage; ' 'The parallelism stands to reason, since every- thing is parallel to itself." I grant most willingly that the term "accompany" is inade- quate; and I admit that a certain feeling and a certain motion form one inseparable process. There is no duality of feeling and 338 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. motion, both are different abstractions made from one and the same reality. I do not say that feeling and motion are identical, not that they are one and the same; but I do say that they are one There is no such thing as pure feeling; real feeling is at the same time motion. Feeling by itself does not exist in reality. Pure feeling is a mere abstraction. And whenever the expres- sion parallelism between feeling and motion has been used, it can mean only a parallelism between'the two spheres of abstraction. Professor Mach continues: "They [motion and feeling] are not two sides of the same paper (which latter is invested with a metaphysical rSle in the simile), but simply the same thing. For the same reason Professor Mach objects to Fechner's comparison. Yet it seems to me that Fechner hit the mark when he compared feeling and motion to the inside and the outside curves of a circle; they are entirely different and yet the same. The inside curve is concave, the outside curve is convex. If we construct rules relating first to the concave inside and then to the convex outside, we shall notice a parallelism in the formulas; yet this parallelism will appear only in the abstractions which have been made of one and the same thing from different standpoints and serving different purposes. The abstract conceptions form two parallel systems, but the real thing can be represented as parallel only in the sense that it is parallel to itself. If we consider the real thing, it represents a parallelism of identity. There is but one line, and this one line is concave if viewed from the inside, it is convex if viewed from the outside. The simile which I introduced of the two sides of one and the same sheet of paper was devised to convey no other meaning than this construction of Fechner's comparison. The paper is inves- ted with a metaphysical rSle only in the case where the simile*is otherwise construed, There is no page which exists of itself as a mere mathematical plane independent of the paper of which it forms a side. Thus there can never be in reality a page without its counterpage. The paper, its size and color, belong to the page and constitute its properties. Thus the abstraction 'feeling' represents my- looking at the one side of reality. I leave, and from the subjective standpoint I have to leave, the other side out of account. Yet the other side of the sheet is inseparable from the one at which I am now look- ing, just as much as feeling is inseparable from motion. And I QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS. 339 am constrained to admit the truth of the reverse also: motion is inseparable from feeling, but with the limitation that motions need not be on their subjective side actual feelings; they may be only elements of feeling which under certain conditions become actual. I am aware that my comparison of feeling and motion to the two sides of one sheet of paper may be easily misinterpreted. But is not that a danger to which all comparisons are subject? A comparison is always imperfect, or as the Romans used to say, it limps: "Omne simile claudicat." And is not reality liable to be misinterpreted in the same way? Have not some philosophers thus introduced the metaphysical explanation of the unknowable- ness of things in themselves? Such philosophers conceive the two sides of a sheet of paper (the abstract mathematical planes of the pages) as phenomenal and the paper as their metaphysical essence. The size of the sheet, the color of the paper, and all its other qualities are in a metaphysical world-conception represented as properties of which the thing is possessed — not as constituting the thing, but as essentially different from it. It appears to me that Professor Mach in spite of his opposi- tion to Fechner's simile and fo the expression that feeling and motion are two aspects of one and the same reality, entertains the same view. At least his words: "Only the relation in which we consider them makes them at one time physical elements, at another time feelings," are to that effect. III. SENSATIONS AND THOUGHTS. The difference between Professor Mach's view and mine may appear greater than it is, because the problem which Professor Mach treats in his article "The Analysis of the Sensations,*" lies in quite a different field from that of the problem of the relation of feeling to motion. The problem being different, the same and similar terms are not only used for different purposes but demand also different comparisons. I introduced the symbols ABC. for representing motions, and afiy for representing feeling or the elements of feeling. Professor Mach's symbols ABC and a P y . represent a contrast different from that of feeling and motion. They represent the contrast of sensations and thoughts. * The Monist, No. i. 340 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Sensations such as green and hard, are colors, pressures, tastes, etc ; thoughts are memory-images, concepts, volitions, etc. Professor Mach says: "How the representative percepts of im- agination and memory are connected with sensations, what rela- tions they bear to them, as to this I dare venture no opinion . Monism, as yet, I cannot thoroughly follow out; because I am lacking in clearness with regard to the relation of afiy to ABC . ; but I believe that the first step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that the same ABC. are both physical and psychical elements. My symbols ABC.. and afiy represent the con- trast of physical and psychical elements, not of sensations and thoughts. Concerning thoughts, Prof. Mach says he is much in- clined to co-ordinate them with sensations so that his Greek sym- bols might differ from his Italic symbols not otherwise than the latter, viz. ABC. ., differ among themselves. Taking this ground, I believe it would be preferable to symbolise them accord- ingly among the Italic letters, perhaps as X Y Z. In the diagrams on page 342 they are called M/i, Nv, S6. According to my terminology, feeling, as explained above, is the most general term expressing any kind and degree of subject- ive awareness. A sense-impression is a single irritation of one of the senses, the irritation being a special kind of motion plus a special and correspondent kind of feeling. A sensation is a sense- impression that has by repetition acquired meaning. A later sense-impression, when felt to be the same in kind as a former sense-impression, constitutes, be it ever so dimly, an awareness of having to deal with the same kind of cause of a sense- impression; thus giving meaning to it. By sensation, accordingly, I under- stand sense-impression which has acquired meaning. And feel- ings that have acquired meaning, I should call mental states. Representative feelings (feelings that have a meaning) are the elements of mind. By thinking I understand the interaction that takes place be- tween representative feelings. Such are the comparisons of sen- sations with memory-pictures, or of memory-pictures among them- selves, the experimenting with memory-pictures so as to plan new combinations, etc. The products of thinking are called thoughts; and by thought in the narrower sense is commonly understood abstract thought which on earth is the exclusive privilege of man. QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS. 341 If I am not mistaken Prof. Mach understands by sensations (represented by him as A B C . .) what I should call sense-im- pressions; while thoughts, memories, and volitions (represented by him as afiy . . ) form what I should call mind, or all kinds of mental states, that is, the domain of representations. -The higher spheres of thought, or representative feelings, grow out of and upon the lower spheres. Sense-impressions, as I have attempted to explain in the article "The Origin of Mind" (The Monist, No. 1 and The Sotil of Man pp. 23-46), are the data which are worked out into concepts and ideas; they are the basis upon which the whole structure of mind rests. The reflex motions of simple irritations, being modified in higher spheres by the rich material of experience consisting of memory-images, and by the possibility of forethought created through experience, become volitions. A monistic explanation of the rise of mind from elements that are not mind is possible only on the supposition that the objective processes of motion are not mere motions but that they are at the same time elements of feeling. Is this not the same position as Professor Mach's where he says that "the first step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that the same ABC. . . are both physical and psychical elements"? and again: "The same A B C are both elements of the world (the 'outer' * world namely) and elements of feeling.' IV. THE ELEMENTS OF MIND AND THE ELEMENTS OF THE WORLD. Considering the two last-quoted sentences of Professor Mach, it appears to me that all differences vanish into verbal misunder- standings. Yet since I am not at all sure about it, I may be par- doned for becoming rather too explicit. The adjoined diagram may assist me in making my ideas clear. * Professor Mach here says " outer world." I should prefer to replace it by the expression " objective world," because the motions of a man's brain be- long to the outer world of all other men. To make sure of including the actions of my own body in this outer world, I should prefer the term " ob- jective world," making feelings alone (to the exclusion of the subject's own motions) the constituents of the subjective world. 342 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Let the large circle of both figures represent a sentient being, a man. The periphery is his skin. The small circle enclosing K and 1. is a sensory organ; the other small circle enclosing M and N represents the hemi- spheres of his brain. A and B are processes taking place outside of the skin of this man. A produces an effect in IC; B in L. The line R represents a reflex motion. M and N are concepts and abstract ideas derived from such impressions as K and L. The line 5 represents an act of volition All these symbols repre- sent motions in the objective world. We know through physio- logical investigations that K, L, M, and N are motions; in our individual experience they appear as feelings. The second figure rep- resents in agreement with my system of symbols the states of awareness, in Qreek letters. Certain physiological processes (A' LR, MN S of Figure i) appear subjectively as states of awareness (i. e. K A. p, ju v 6 of Figure n). Yet A and B remain to the thinking subject mere motions. If they possess also a subjective side, although only in the shape of potential feeling, it does not and it cannot appear. Professor Mach calls green, hard, etc., which in a certain re- lation are our sensations, "the elements of the world." These processes characterised as "green," "hard," etc., are in my opin- ion too specia! and at the same time too complicated to be con- Fig. II. QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS. 343 sidered elementary. I grant that they are elements of mind, be- cause if further analysed, they cease to be mental phenomena. But they are not elements per se, not elements of the world. It remains doubtful to me whether Professor Mach understands by his term ' 'sensation" only K x and L X or the whole relations A K x, and B L X. Taking it that he represents ABC .as both ele- ments of the world and sensations, it almost appears certain to me that his term "sensation" stands for the whole process A Kx, and that he considers the scientific analysis of this process into A the outside thing, into K the nerve vibration corresponding in form to the outside thing, and x the feeling that takes place in experiencing the sense-impression A A", as an artificial procedure that serves no other purpose than that of familiarising us with certain groups of elements and their connections. The processes A K x, B L X, in that case would be considered by Professor Mach as the actual facts, while the A and B, the A~and L, the x and X represent mere abstract representations without real existence, invented by scien- tists in order to describe the realities A K x, B LX, etc., with the greatest exactness as well as economy of thought. In their sepa- rate abstractness they are the tools of science only and we must not take them for more than they are worth. If this be so, I understand Professor Mach very well, and I agree with him when he looks upon all /1/and jVwith their re- spective // and v as being "noumena, Gedankendinge, things of thought." They are mental tools. Sense-impressions are real- ities, but mental representations are implements; they are auxil- iaries for dealing with realities; they are "the augers and saws" employed in the different fields of cognition. The elements of mind are realities, but the elements of the world are noumena, abstract ideas which serve as mental tools. Professor Mach says in his article ' 'The Analysis of the Sen- sations": "When I (the ego) cease to perceive the sensation green, when I die, then th3 elements no longer occur in their customary, common way of association. That is all. Only an ideal mental economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist." The term sensations, it appears to me, can in this passage be interpreted neither as K x only, nor as the whole relations A K h, but as any ABC... relations; and since Professor Mach has not excluded from them the element of feeling, I should have to represent them by A a, B /3, C y Sensations as I under- 344 fc xdamj:xtal problems stand the term (viz. A K v. h L A), are elements of mind; if they are further analysed they cease to be mental states. S.iys Profes- sor Mach: "If I close my e\e (K) withdraw my feeling hand (.£.). A B C. . . disappear. In this dependence .4 B C. . ■ are called sensations." Should we not rather say they cease to be sensa- tions, if this dependence ceases' Accordingly, sensations and sense- impressions are for this and for other reasons not indecomposable, not ultimate atoms. The elements of mind can be further analysed into the elements of the elements of mind. The elements of mind do not persist; but the ultimate elements of the elements of mind, whatever they are, do (or at least tiuv) persist. V. NOfMKNA AS MENTAL TOOLS. When speaking of the elements of the elements of mind we cease to deal with objects of actual experience as much as a physi- cist or chemist does who speaks about atoms. Nevertheless the analysis is as legitimate in our case as it is in the chemist's. If in the above quoted passage I am allowed to replace lYofessor Mach's term "sensations" by " elements of sense-impressibns, " 1 should not hesitate unreservedly to accept his idea. These ele- ments of sensations would be all kinds of natural processes, all kinds of motion. They would be physical actions which are not mere motions but also and at the same time elements of feeling It is true that abstract concepts, and especially scientific terms and theories, are mere contrivances to understand the connec- tions among, and the qualities of, real things. Ideas are not the real things, but their representations, and some ideas are not even representations; they are solely of an auxiliary nature and com- parable to tools. They are used as working hypotheses wherever the real state of things is in part hidden from us, until we have found the actual connections. As soon as the actual connections are found we can and must lay down our tools. In a certain sense all words and concepts are tools for dealing with the realities they represent. But some words are tools in a special sense. They have been invented for acquiring a proper representation. Professor Mach says: "The implement is not of the same dignity or reality as .1 B C. . ." It appears to me that these implements (if they are of the right kind) have almost a higher dignity (although not reality) than the material to which thev are QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS. 345 applied. My respect for tools is very great, for tools are the most important factors, perhaps the decisive factors in the evolution of man. The usage of tools has matured, nay created the human mind, and words, — scientific and abstract terms and theories not excluded, — are the most important and most sacred tools of all. Some ideas, it is true, have to be laid aside like tools that are no linger wanted; but there are other ideas which we cannot lay aside, because they have more value than the ideas of a mere working hypothesis. Some ideas are indispensable and will remain indispensable; we shall always have to employ them in order to represent in our mind the connection between certain facts. If we see a train pass into a tunnel and emerge from it at the other end, we will connect in our mind these two sensations by the thought of the train's passage from one end to the other. This idea is not a sensation; it is a noumenon. Shall it therefore be called a men noumenon, a tool that has to be discarded as soon as we are accustomed to expect a train to emerge from the one end of a tunnel soon after it has disappeared into it at the other end? There are scientific concepts which, for some reason or other, can never become objects of direct observation; they can never become sensations. • Nevertheless we must think them together with certain sensations as indispensable connecting events taking place behind the stage and hidden from our eyes. Our conception of a train hidden from sight in a tunnel, it is true, is a noumenon, but it is a legitimate noumenon, it represents a reality. So also many scientific ideas, although undoubtedly things of thought are legitimate noumena. If they contain and in so far as they do con- tain nothing but formulated features of reality or inevitable con- clusions from verified and verifiable experiences, these things of thought represent something real, which means that if we were in possession of microscopes of sufficient power, or if we could look behind the veil that hides them from our sight, we should see them, just as we should see the train if the rock through which the tunnel leads were transparent. VI. THE ORIGIN OF FEELING. Concerning the origin of feeling Professor Mach says: " The question how feeling arises out of the physical element has for me no significance." I agree that we cannot ask how feeling arises out 346 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. of the physical element. But feeling being a fleeting phenomenon, to propose the problem of the origin of feeling has a significance. Some physical elements — namely, those of our own body— are indubitably possessed of the subjective phenomena of feeling. And as to certain other physical elements, observable in our fellow creatures, that is in men and animals, no one would think of de- nying their presence either. But there are physical elements which we regard as bare of all feeling. The wind that blows, and the avalanche that plunges into the valley are not supposed to be feel- ings. Yet the energy of the wind and the energy of the avalanche ..may be utilised and ultimately stored up in food. The food may be changed into human energy and then the element of feeling ap- pears as if called forth out of the void. We agree that feeling has not been changed from motion. But if feeling was not motion be- fore, what was it? Feeling cannot be a creation from nothing. Consequently it must in its elements have existed before. Feeling, namely actual feeling, must be regarded as a special mode of action of the elements of feeling. If all that which we can observe in motion, all that which the term motion comprises, constituting the objective changes taking place in nature, contains nothing of feeling or of the elements of feeling, we must yet attach to every motion the presence of this element of feeling. That the potential subjectivity of the physical elements, namely the elements of feeling, cannot be seen, as motions can be seen and objectively observed, is not a reason that militates against this view; for it is the nature of all subjective states to be felt only by the feeling subject. If all feelings are objectively unobservable except by their correspondent motions, the elements of feeling can form no exception to the general rule. VII. THE ANIMATION OF ALL NATURE. Professor Mach says: " Some years ago I should have agreed in tolo with the passages in which Dr. Carus speaks of the ani- mation of all nature and of the feeling that accompanies every motion. Let me here emphasise that I have termed nature " alive" not in the sense that every motion is supposed to be accompanied with sensation, nor with any kind of feeling, but with an element of feeling only. I am aware that the term element of feeling may be easily misunderstood, and it seems advisable to guard against QUESTIONS OF- PSYCHO-PHYSICS. 347 such misconceptions. Actual feeling I suppose originates from the elements of feeling similarly as an electric current originates under special conditions. Sulphuric acid dissolves zinc and sets energy free which appears in the copper wire as electricity. It is an instance of the transformation of potential energy into kinetic energy. To use the expression ' ' elements of feeling " is no more or less allowable than to speak of the stored up^energy from which elec- tricity is produced, as elements of electricity. The latter ex- pression is inappropriate, because we are in possession of better terms, because our range of experience in the subject is wider. But suppose that among all molar and molecular motions we were only acquainted with electricity and knew nothing of potential energy, could we not for want of a better word form the term " elements of electricity"? The elements- of feeling should not be supposed to be feelings on a very small scale. The elements of feeling may be and for aught we know are as much unlike actual feelings as mechanical motion, or chemical dissolution is unlike electricity. The essential features of feeling may be, and I believe they are, produced through the form in which their elements co-operate. Similarly the differ- ent pieces of a clock and the atoms of which it consists contain noth- ing of the clock; and if we should call the heaviness of a weight, the swinging property of the pendulum, the tension of the spring, etc., etc., elements of chronometry, it might appear ridiculous, because we know so many other processes, viz. : all different ways of per- forming work, for which these qualities can be used. The action of a spring, of a suspended weight, of a mere pendulum are not by themselves elements of chronometry; they become a chronometri- cal arrangement only by their proper combination with a dial and hands attached, and by being correctly regulated in adaptation to temperature and many other conditions. ' VIII. VITAL. ENERGY A UNIQUE FORM OF ENERGY. The kinetic energy liberated in our actions, in brain-activity as well as muscular motions, is produced from the potential energy stored up in our tissues. This energy, qua energy, is the same energy which we meet everywhere in nature. All kinds of energy are interconvertible. Yet we must bear in mind that the vital energy displayed in animal organisms is a special and indeed a 348 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. unique form "of energy. It is as different from other forms of energy as is, for instance, electricity from molar motion. In former times physics and chemistry were considered as ap- plied mechanics, and physiology as applied chemistry. This position, however, is wrong and had to be abandoned. Me- chanical, chemical, physiological, and psychical processes ex- hibit radically different conditions. The student of mechan- ics, the chemist, the ^physiologist, the psychologist, each one ' of them attempts to solve a different problem. They accord- ingly deal with different sets of abstractions. The processes which constitute the subject-matter of the physiologist's and psycholo- gist's work are different from those of the mechanical philosopher and of the chemist. The abstraction of the so-called purely me- chanical excludes such processes as chemical combinations; it is limited to molar mechanics only. The term molecular mechanics is an attempt at widening the domain of mechanics. But the terms of neither molecular nor molar mechanics contain anything of the properly physiological nature observed in vegetal and ani- mal life. The latter is a very complicated process which may briefly be described as assimilation of living forms. The laws of molar and molecular motions are not annulled, yet they are superseded; they remain, yet some additional important traits ap- pear. Different conditions and complications show different fea- tures and the characteristics of organised life are not the molar or molecular mechanics of their motions but their properly physi- ological features. Mechanical laws accordingly cannot explain physiological action, and still less have they anything in common with ideas, or thoughts, or feelings. Accordingly, the attempt to apply me- chanics to any other than mechanical considerations is prima facie to be rejected. We must never forget that all our scientific inquiries deal with certain sides of reality only. The abstractions of the mechanical philosopher as well as those of the physiologist and psychologist are one-sided aspects only of reality. Yet it is quite legitimate to take a higher standpoint in order to classify our notions so that the general views comprise the special views and to determine the relations among the several in their kind most general views. In this way we can shape our entire knowledge into an harmonious world-conception represent- ing the whole as a whole. This I tried to do when, following the QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS. 349 precedent of Fechner and Clifford, I proposed the problem of the origin of actual feelings from the non-feeling elements-of-feeling, the former depending upon a special combination or form of action of the latter, and the latter being a universal feature of reality. The mechanism of the motions that take place in human or- ganisms is on'e aspect only of the reality, called man. The other aspect is a subjective state of awareness. But the mechanism of gravitating things is no less a limited view of one special ab- straction. This special abstraction represents one feature only, and we can be sure that this one feature does not cover the whole of the real processes. There must be some additional feature which in a further development will appear as man's conscious- ness. 350 THE ERROR OF MATERIALISM. IN ANSWER TO A CRITICISM BY COL. PAUL R. SHIPMAN, IN SECULAR THOUGHT. * Colonel Paul R. Shipman wields a vigorous pen, and his onslaughts appear overwhelming. Yet I do not see that his crush- ing verdicts have any reference to me, since the monism criticised by him is not my conception of monism. Accordingly, in spite of my best intentions to enjoy another philosophical tilt with a man whose name is so honorably known among the authors of this country, I cannot rise in self-defence because my views have not been attacked at all. Did I ever speak of the ' ' duality of atoms ? " I rarely speak of atoms, and if I do I am careful in pointing out that the term "atom " is a mere symbol to denote chemical equivalents whereby to describe the proportions in which the elements combine. The existence of real atoms, i. e. of ultimate indivisible units, is not only unproved but even unthinkable. The philosophical idea of atoms is as untenable as, for instance, that of a round square, for it contains_in itself contradictions. Rejecting atoms (not in a chemical but in a philosophical sense) still more must I consider " dual atoms " as an absurdity. • Col. Shipman charges me with crude dualism, because I reject the idea that feeling is material. I do reject the idea that feeling- is material, but did I ever declare (as Col. Shipman repeatedly maintains) that "consciousness is immaterial, and will material ?" The contrast of these two propositions is just as nonsensical as Col. Shipman's criticism appeared in February and March, 1891, THE ERROR OF MATERIALISM. 351 each proposition in itself. There is no sense in calling conscious- ness and will either material or immaterial. Neither consciousness nor will has anything to do with matter ; both are non-material. We might just as well propose a discussion of the problem whether ideas are green or blue. Any issue concerning the color of ideas would be no less futile than to speak of the materiality or imma- teriality of the will or of consciousness. It appears to me that the difference between Col. Shipman and myself is primarily a difference of reasoning rather than of opinion. The Colonel overlooks the fundamental rules of philo- sophical propaedeutics, and this oversight produces as a secondary symptom a difference of opinion, Col. Shipman propounds a few very strange maxims which have been held for some time as axioms by the materialist school, but are now only to be found in the lumber-room of the history of human thought or in the curiosity shops of philosophy. Col. Shipman, speaking of the "omneity of matter," says among other curious things : — " Mind is material." " Immaterialise consciousness and you abolish matter." " With immaterial things, if there are such things, science has nothing to do ; to deny this is to cut loose from the sheet anchor of fact." " Matter is the sheet anchor of fact." Col. Shipman's propositions about the ' ' omneity " of matter and the materiality of mind remind mecjf a most interesting epi- sode in the history of philosophy. Feuerbach, the enthusiatic prophet of an idealised materialism, confounded thought with the phosphorous substance of the brain. His dictum has become famous. Without phosphorus, no thought. He declared that man is what he eats. Der Mensch ist was er isst. The elevation of the soul, accordingly, should not be expected to be accomplished by the church, but by the kitchen ; die Kiiche and not die Kirche will save us. Why not feed on fish if in that way man can become a genius ? The progress of mankind would depend on more phos- phoric diet than meat. This was a queer perversion of thought in a brilliant mind which was aglow with a holy fervor for a religion of mankind ! Yet Feuerbach's materialism was outdone by Carl Vogt, one of the most ingenious, witty, and sarcastic writers of the nineteenth century, if not of all ages. Carl Vogt had a peculiar knack of being pointed in all his utterances, and he formulated his philosophy in words which stuck in the minds of the people, and 352 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. have become famous all over the world. He said : Thought is a secretion of the brain. Thought stands in the same relation to the brain as gall to the liver and urine to the kidneys." Lotze wittily remarked in answer to this comparison, he had not known that the origin of thought was so unpoetical. Wolf- gang Jdenzel, however, a champion of the darkest orthodox Chris- tianity, but no less sarcastic than Carl Vogt, and often even more malevolent in his criticisms (for instance, of such men as Goethe and Schiller), declared he did not wonder that kidney secretions and thoughts were equivalent, at least in Carl Vogt, and he called him an untranslatable name which, mildly expressed, reminds of the famous fountain-statue in Brussels behind the Hotel de ville — so shocking to the English lady travellers. Incidentally it may be mentioned, that Carl Vogt's idea had been expressed in almost the same words by Cabanis, who spoke of the brain as producing " la secretion He la pensee." Before we expose the absurdity of this proposition, we must recognise its truth. Thinking, objectively considered, is as much as any other activity of the human organism, a physiological pro- cess. When a man thinks, we know that at the same time some material particles of his brain are in motion. Herein lies the correctness of Vogt's comparison, and herewith it ceases. For thought, unlike gall, is not a secretion. Gall is a substance, but thought is not a substance. Gall is a special kind of organised matter, but thought is no matter. If it were, we might bottle it or preserve it in tin cans. What a fine prospect to buy canned thought at the grocer's ! • The fact is that thoughts are the subjective states of aware- ness which are felt when certain physiological processes take place in the brain. A pain which I feel when my skin is pricked is not a material thing ; it is not substance. Pains, pleasures, sensations, perceptions, thoughts, cannot be handled like pebbles or other material objects. It is true that pleasures and pains do not exist in absolute abstractness. There are no pains hovering in empty space like the ghouls and ghosts of old legends ; there are no ideas- flying about in immaterial nudity. All the ideas, the pains, the pleasures we know of are certain states of mind in real and actual creatures. We must not forget that our method of cognition rests on ab- straction. All our concepts, matter and mind included, are only THE ERROR OF MATERIALISM. 353 symbols to represent certain features abstracted from the facts of experience. Our abstract concepts are not realities but ideas, mere noumena, things of thought, invented for the sole purpose of comprehension. When making abstractions, we limit our atten- tion to one special feature of a thing and exclude other features. When speaking of the matter of a thing, we exclude all its other properties. By the matter of which a human body consists, we do not understand its form, nor its life, the display of its activity, nor the feelings which ensoul its active brain, but simply the ma- terials of which it consists. If we speak of matter, we do not mean force. If we speak of force we do not mean matter. If we speak of form, we mean nothing but relation. If we speak of consciousness, or of feeling, or of thought, we have no reference to either matter or force nor even to form. All these terms are different abstractions of one and the same indivisible reality. There is no force without matter, no matter without force, but matter is not force and force.is not matter. A motion is a change of place ; and force is expended wherever a change of place oc- curs. The thing moved is material, but the motion itself is not material. When we speak of a man's ideas, we mean his ideas and not the material particles of his brain. If science had noth- ing to do with immaterial things, psychology would be no science, mathematics would be no science, logic and arithmetic would not either. And what is Col. Shipman's sheet-anchor of fact, as he is pleased to call matter, but a mental symbol for certain features of our experiences ? It appears to me that mental apprehension, the most immaterial part of man's experience, is after all the "sheet-anchor of fact." To speak of the omneity of matter, to declare that force and feeling and consciousness and thought are material does not prove the boldness of freethought, it betrays an immature mind. To define matter as an all-comprehensive term which has to include all features of reality is an unjustifiable li- cense. Wherever this license is indulged in, it will be followed by a confusion of thought ; for it is an oversight of the most ele- mentary rules of philosophical propaedeutics. It is for this reason that one of the greatest chemists, a man who should know what matter is, (Baron Justus Liebig), desig- nated the materialists as philosophical dilettanti. And this judg- ment is partial in so far only as the same is true of the spiritual- 354 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ists who make spirit, and the Platonists who make pure forms, the all-embracing realities of the world. Matter, force, mind, spirit, form, feeling, are mere abstrac- tions. To look upon any of these in their kind most general terms as something else than terms or mental symbols, to look upon them as "omneities" or all-comprehensive realities, is a self- mystification and will lead either to occultism or to agnosticism. Indeed Col. Shipman's materialism is agnosticism. He looks upon matter as a mystery, and the mystery of matter, he says, is absolute. Yet this absolute mystery is to him the condition of knowledge ; it is the "sheet-anchor of fact." 355 THE ORIGIN OF ORGANISED LIFE.* Dr. George M. Gould's proposition is contained in the fol- lowing: " Certain confused and confusion-breeding philosophers, in the interests of a theoretical monism or pantheismt pretend to find, or to believe, that the organic is born out of the inorganic, that the physical world shows evidence of design, that life and mentality were implicate and latent in pre-existent matter. Yet they will accept the evidence against spontaneous generation de- rived from the fact that if you kill all organic life by intense heat and then ex- clude life from without you will never find life to arise. But it is plain that in the condensation of the dust of space into suns and planets, all organic life was killed in the hottest of all conceivable heat. But as the planets cool, life appears. It must have come from without, and must therefore be a universal self-existent power." The idea that "life must have come from without" is not quite clear. Does Dr. Gould mean "from without our planetary system, out of other planetary systems"? If so, the same objection holds good: In other planetary systems also when they were in a nebular state "all organic J life was killed in the hottest of all conceivable heat." Shall we perhaps consider the cold interstellar regions as the place whence life does come? And if "from without" means * Written in answer to Dr. George M. Gould's article "Immortality" in The Monist, No. 3. t My position has often been characterised as Pantheism; this, however, is not correct. I do not accept pantheism and should prefer to designate my view as entheism. I do not propose to worship the All or to confer the honors of Deity on the Universe as the totality of all existing things. The abstraction "God" is not the All, not Nature, not the Universe. God is the All, or Nature, or the Universe in its ethical importance. God is the unalterable world-order as the ultimate authority for the regulation of moral conduct. Worship and adoration, no less than sacrifices, are a pagan phase in the development of re- ligion. The only true worship in pure religion is obedience to the laws of God. X Dr. Gould does not seem to make a distinction between "organic" and "organised." We should here prefer the expression "organised life." Car- bon is an "organic substance" but not an "organised substance." A cell and its protoplasm, however, are "organised substance." 356 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. "from without the whole universe," we should be driven back to the old supernaturalistic dualism which regards nature as dead and life as a foreign element that has been blown into the nostrils of material forms so as to animate them. Dr. Gould proposes his theory of the external origin of life, with great confidence, in the name of modern science. Must we add that modern science is very far from sustaining his view? Pro- fessor Clifford touches the subject of spontaneous generation in his article "Virchow on the Teaching of Science.'' He says: "Why do the experiments all 'go against' spontaneous generation? What the experiments really prove is that the coincidence which would form ^.Bacterium —already a definite structure reproducing its like-does notoccur in a test-tube during the periods yet observed. . . . The experiments have nothing whatever to say to the production of enormously simpler forms, in the vast range of the ocean, during the ages of the earth's existence. . . We know from physical reasons that the earth was once in a liquid state from excessive heat. Then there could have been no living matter upon it. Now there is. Conse- quently non-living matter has been turned into living matter somehow. We can only get out of spontaneous generation by the supposition made by Sir W. Thompson, in jest or earnest, that some piece of living matter came to the earth from outside, perhaps with a meteorite. I wish to treat all hypothe- ses with respect, and to have no preferences which are not entirely founded on reason; and yet whenever I contemplate this simpler protoplasmic shape Which came down in a fire-escape, an internal monitor, of which I can give no rational account, invariably whis- pers 'Fiddlesticks! ' " Suppose, however, Dr. Gould's assumption were accepted, suppose that life had come from without, matter were of itself lifeless, and life, the "self-existent power, "had ensouled some dead organic substances so as to cause their organisation, would we be any wiser through this hypothesis? The assumption instead of diminishing the difficulties in the problem of life, would increase them. New questions arise: What must this "self-existent power" be conceived to be? Does it exist without a physical basis (to use Prof. Huxley's phrase)? How does it differ from energy? Is not all power energy of some kind? And are not all kinds of energy interconvertible? Has this self-existent power the faculty of changing other energy into itself, into life, or is it only supposed to utilise it? In the latter case it would be a Ding an sic/i, not in but behind the functions of organisms; and in both cases it would form an exception to the law of the conservation of energy, for "the self-existent power of life" would bean ever increasing power. THE ORIGIN OF ORGANISED LIFE. 357 One life-germ only may have come from spheres unknown into the universe, and by utilising the mechanical energy of the material world has animated at least our earth, and may animate in a sim- ilar way all the globes in the milky way. That life-germ, however — if it was anything like a real life-germ, such as our naturalists know of, — must have consisted of organic substance. What a strange coincidence, that outside of the world also organic sub- stances are found! Life-germs are not simple substance, but highly complex organisms. Accordingly, the question presents itself, how has this life-germ been formed? What conditions in another world radically different from ours have moulded it and combined its parts into this special life-germ so extraordinarily adaptable to our material universe? Or must we suppose that the first life-germ was formed out of the cosmic substance of our universe by a non- material spark of life (whatever life may mean,) that had dropped in somehow into the material world from without? If life is a self-existent power, why does it always appear de- pendent upon, and vary with the organisation which it is supposed to have formed? Why has life never been observed in its self- existence? So far as we have ever been able to observe life, it is matter organised and organising more matter. All the difficulties disappear if we say, Life does not produce organisation, it is or- ganisation. * * * Dr. Gould, in appealing to the latest scientific researches as proving "the dependence of all organisation upon life," especially mentions his friend Dr. Edmund Montgomery and also Profes- sor Frommen's article "Zelle" (Eulenburg's "Realencyclopadie der gesammten Heilkunde," 1890). Now it is true, as Dr. Gould says, that "the body of animals is not an aggregate of cells." It is as little a mere aggregate of cells as a watch is a mere aggregate of metal, or as a hexagon a mere aggregate of lines. The body of animals is an organism; which means, it is an interacting whole of a special form built of irritable substance. A highly complex organism is not and cannot be considered as a compound of its diverse organs, but as a differentiation. Its unity is preserved in the differentiation, yet this unity does not exist outside of or apart from the differentiated parts. I fully assent to Professor Huxley's proposition, approv- 358 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. ingly quoted by Dr. Gould, that "materialism is the most base- less of all dogmas.'' I also believe in the omne vivum ex vivo; but I do not consider it with Dr. Gould as "an axiom," nor can I accept the consequence which Dr. Gould derives from it, "that life [viz. organised life] is more certain and enduring than mat- ter, soul than sense." It is true that "matter and life" are "as far apart as heaven and earth." Farther indeed, for they are two abstractions of an entirely disparate character. No passage through spacial distance, be it ever so large, could bring both concepts together. They are and remain as different, as is for instance the idea expressed in a sentence from the ink with which it is written. Ideas contain no ink and ink contains no ideas. Yet this does not prove that ideas exist by themselves in a ghost- like abstractness apart not only from ink, but also from feeling brain-substance. Nor does the disparity of the terms life and matter prove the abstract or independent existence of life outside of matter. If life for some such reasons as hold good only in so far as they refute the old-style materialism, could or should be con- sidered as being some self-existent power having come into the world "to bite" at matter, we might also consider the hexagon as a something that came into the mathematical world from without. The hexagon cannot be explained as a mere aggregate of lines, accordingly hexagoneity must be a self existent power; it must have come from without, utilising lines for its hexagonic existence. Organised life must have originated from non-organised ele- ments by organisation, and thus a new sphere is created which introduces new conditions. The laws of organised life are not purely mechanical laws, nor physical laws, nor chemical laws, but they are a peculiar kind of laws; just as different as chemical laws are from purely mechanical laws (the latter not including such phenomena as are generally called chemical affinity). Natural laws are formulas describing facts as they take place under certain conditions. Accordingly if special conditions arise we shall have a special set of laws. Monism assumes that all the laws of nature agree among themselves; there is no contradiction among them possible. Yet there may be an infinite variety of applications. The processes of organised life are not mere mechanical processes. The abstractions which we comprise under our mechanical terms do not cover certain features of vital THE ORIGIN OF ORGANISED LIFE. 359 activity and cannot explain them. Physiology is not merely applied physics; it is a province of natural processes that has con- ditions of its own and the physiological conditions are different from physical conditions. This however does not overthrow monism. We believe none the less in the unity of all natural laws and trust that if the constitution of the cosmos were transparent in its minutest details to our inquiring mind, we should see the same law operating in all the different provinces; we should see in all instances a difference of conditions and consequent there- upon a difference of results that can be formulated in different natural laws, among which there is none contradictory to any other, 361 INDEX. Abbot, Dr. F. E., 315-323. Absolute, the — an attitude, 283. Absolute and impossible, 282. Absolute being, 76, 269. Absolute certainty, 49. Absolute existence, 135-153. 173, 254, Absolute knowledge, 155. Absolute perfection, 224. Absolute (see also Ontology). Absolute, the dreamland of the, vi. Absolute truth, 20. Abstract, 3-8. Abstract concepts, 344. Abstract ideas, factors of human ex- istence, 17. Abstracts, nonentities, 109. Abstracts, qualities, 38, 39. Abstracts, spirit and matter, 176. Actions and other processes of nature, 185, 186. Active, 182. Activity, life is unceasing, 11. Activity, the mystery, 180, 181. Actual feeling, 346. Actual space (real space), 57, 67, 68. Additional feature in motions, 129, 186. Aetiological, 134, Agnosticism, 3-5, ioi, 111, 137 sq. p 256, 259, 270, 283, 288, 289, 291, 293, 294, 307. 354- Agnosticism, Huxley's, 137. Agnosticism and Goethe, 141, 142. Agnosticism and qualities, 139. Agnosticism and positivism, 173 sq. Agnosticism and optic illusion, 271. Agnosticism, sole objection to, 281, 282. Aim of ethics not happiness, 218. Airy castles, vi, 32. Alembic, v, Algebra, 67. Allegheny, 279. Altruism, 325. Amunah, 229. Anabolism, 128. Analytic judgments, 34. Ancestors, what we owe our, 216. Animals' bodies not an aggregate oi cells, 356. Animation of all nature, 346. Anselm, 316. Anschauung, 144. Anthropomorphism, 47, no, 132, 133. Aposteriori, 26, 50, Apostle, 262. Appearance, 135. A priori, 26, 35, 50, 119, 262, 274, 312. A priori, origin of, 34-43. Archimedes, 205. Ariadne, the thread of, 52. Aristocratic, the a priori, 35, Aristotle, 75, 76. Aristotle, on time, T70, 242, 249. Arithmetical and ethics, 217. Arithmetics, 27. Arrangement of the data of sense- perception, 179. Arrogance and modesty, 270. Arrogant, the a priori, 35. Art, 17, 234-251. Artistic taste, 17, 248. Asceticism, 188-igo. Ascetics, 333. Assimilation of living forms, 348. Association, 39. Astronomy, 16. Atheism, monism, 267. 362 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Atomic weights, 123 sq. Atoms, form of, 122-125. Attraction, 100, 113, Avelanche, 108. Axiomatic truths, 62. Axioms, 49, 52, 53. 66. Axioms, non-proven, 53, 66. Axioms and Grassmann, 67, 68. Axioms, the result of reasoning, 71. Baal, 154. Bain, Prof., 140. Baptist, 265, 267. Barah, 261. Barter morality, 217. Bartholomew, Peter, 230. Bascom, John, 277, 278. Basis of mathematics, 28, 68. Basis of order, 56. Basis of the economy of thought, 52-53. Beaux esprits, vi, Beethoven, 249. Beginning of all knowledge, 29. Beginning of life, 114. Beginning of ethics, 217. Beharrung, 56. Berkeley, 163. Berkeley, Holbach on, 183. Beseelt, 113. Bible, 267. Binet, Alfred, 10, 114, 177. Blackness and fluidity, 296. Blind sensory impressions, 32. Blind chance, 47. Bodies of four or five dimensions, 55. Bodies, our bodies parts of the All, 149. Boemund, 32. Bolyai, 53. Brain, a workshop, 40, 41. Broca, 43. Brooks, Dr. Edward of Philadelphia, 61, 62, 64, 68, 70, 71, Brown, Miss Mirabeau, 259. Blichner, Prof. Ludwig, 86, 94. Btichner, Prof. Ludwig, quotations from, 87, 88. Buddha, 212, 325. Building material of cognition, 31. , Bunge, Prof., of Basel, on vitalism, 114, 180, 181. Byron, quotation on idealism, 183. Cabanis, 352. Cannibalism, 305. Catastrophe, 241. Categoric imperative, 191. Categories, 44, 45. Causa sui, 79, go, no. Causality, 79, 91, 312. Causality, wrong conceptions of, 88. Causality, immanent, 91, 155. Causation, examples of, 79. Causation, law of, 74. Causation and unknowability, 96-104. Cause, 82 sq., 134, Cavern, Plato's simile, 103, 135. Cessante causa, 83, 89. Changing, we are, 149. Chaos, 46, 47, 48, 57, 91, 121. Chemistry, 348. Chess-board problem, 284. Choice, faculty of, 10. Christ (Jesus),' 158, 209, 212, 213, 222, 227, 228, 231, 317, 323, 325, 329. Cinderella, 230. Circumstances, 83. Circle, inside and outside curves of a, 338. Circle, squaring of the, 283. Circle, vicious, 291. Classical, 248 sq. Clifford, W, K., 185, 300, 306, 337, 349, 350. Cognition, 15, 31, 254. Cognition, tridimensional, 168. Cognition never goes beyond sensa- tion, 179. Cognition, ourmethodof rests on abstraction, 352. Colors, 54. Complex organisms, 356. Composite photograph, 38. Comprehending and eating, 281. Comprehension, ior. Comprehension and etymology, 102. Comprehension and form, 121. Compulsion and freewill, 193, 194, Comte, Auguste, 59, 60, 142, 324. INDEX. 363 Comte's letter on Kant, 75. Concept, 43, Concepts, abstract, 353. Concept, etymology of the word, 40. Conceptions of animals, 39. Conditions, 83. Conduct and discovery of law, 306. Conforming to nature, 305. Confucius, 325. Consciousness, g, 13, 112, 133, 1S5, 187, 303. Consciousness nothing to do with matter, 351. Conservation of energy, 105. Consistency, 22, 56, 254. Continuous, 122, 123, 226. Conway, Moncure D., 208. Cope, Prof. E. D., 243. Copernican system, 179. Copernicus and Christ, 227, 228. Copies, sensation not, 177. Corneille, 249. Correct, 69, 70. Counting, 27, 37. Cosmic order, 30. Cosmic emotion and religion, 306. Cosmic problems, 292, 293. Cosmos, 46, 57. Creator, 46-49. Creed, 229 sq. Critic and reviewer, 275. Criticism, 279. Critique of Pure Reason, 26, 28, 29, 31. Crucifixion, 212. Crude dualism, 350. Crusaders, 231. Curvature of space, 66. Darwin, 269. Data of experience, 254. Data of the natural sciences, 16. David, 210, 2ir. Decimal, a recurring, 160. Definitions, 254. Demiurge, 134, 155. Democritus, 33. Descartes, 65, 139. 214, 312. Descent of Man, 127. Determinism, 191-196. Determinism and Dualism, 192. Determinism and Fatalism, 306. Devil, 62. Difference between formal and ma- terial, 52. Difference of form, 43. Difference of reasoning, 351 Dilettanti, materialists as philosophi- cal, 353. Dimensions, three, 53, 67, 165, 166. Dimensions, four, 54, 55, 67, 165. Ding an sich % 356. Discrimination and Generalization, 103. Disparate, 296. Dogmas, 274. Dogmatist, error of the, 32, 310. Dogmatism, 61. Dogmatism in mathematics, 62. Du Bois Reymond, 324. Dualists, 23. Dualism, a state of transition, 23. Dualism, inconsistency of thought, 24. Dualism, psychical life and, 128, Duality of atoms, 350. Duties, 218. Dynamism, 93. Eating and comprehending, 281. Eckhart of Augsburg, 157. k Economy of thought, 40, 52, 57, 58, 255. Economy of thought, the basis of, 52- 57- Edification, 244. Edison, 288. Effect, 80-82. Ego, 148, 214. Ego, renunciation of, 331. Eiffel Tower, 288, Elements of chronometry, 347. Elements of electricity, 347. Elements of feeling, 185. Elements of mind, 34 I_ 344- Elements of the world, 341, 342, 343- Elements, explainable by form, 122- 125. Elephant and tiger, 274. Elevation and Ethics, 219 Empiricism, 62. 364 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Empiricist method, 62, 63. Empiricus, Sextus, 212. Empty, formal cognition, 32. End, 134. Energy, all kinds of are intercon- vertible, 347. Energy, Kinetic and potential, 105 sq. Engine, part of engineer, 150. Entheism, 355. Entwerden, 158. Epicurus, 48. Errors, wrong conceptions of causa- lity, 88-91. Errors, multiply, 209, 210, 232. Errors of the old religious views, 225. Essenes, 213, 227. Eternal, the, 160. Ether, 123. Ether, hypothesis, 117. Ethics, 17, 19, 188, igi, 257, 320. Ethics, arithmetical, 217. Ethics and happiness, 217, 218 sq. Ethological,. 134. Euclid, 52, 66, 67. Evil, the problem of, 239 sq. Evolution, ig, 130. Evolution of man, 345. Evolution, possible, 19. Examples of causation, 79, Existence and manifestations, 155, Existence, factors of human, 17. Existence, tridimensional, 168. Exner, 43. Experience, 26, 68, 312, 314, 320. Extramundane source, 261. Facts, 6. Facts, ultimate, 6, 13. Facts, ultimate data, 20. Facts, monism stands on, 24, Facts of reality, 72. Facts, whence come, 286. Faith, 22g. Fatalism and Determinism, 306. Faust, quotations from, 78, 136, 152, 328. Fechner, 349, Fechner's comparison, 338. Feeling, 9, 10, 182, 183, 336-340. Feeling, origin of, 186, 298. Feeling, condition of, 10. Feeling, conscious, 336. Feeling, elements of, 341. F elings, actual, 339~347' Feuerbach, 351. Fiat, 261. Fichte, 59. Final cause, 79, 90, 91. First cause, 79, 88, 89, 99, 101. Fluidity and blackness, 296. Flux, the world, 147. Force, 353. Form, 18, 42, 254. Form admits of change, 95. Form, a property of reality, 36. Form, changeability, 19. Form, elements explainable by, 122 sq. Form grows with its substance, 42. Form, information and preservation of, 178. Form, matter, and motion, 92 sq. Form not barren, 19, Form, preservation of, n. Form, pure, 64. Formal and material, difference be- tween, 52. Formal cognitions, 32. Formal knowledge, 28. Formal laws hold good for all pos- sible worlds, 70. Formal laws of nature and of thought identical, 51. Formal thought, 26-60, 254. Formal thought, abstracted from re- ality , 36. Formal thought and ethics, 197-206. Formal thought, empty, 32. Formal truths necessarily true, 6g. Formal the — and pure reason, 313, 314. Formation of water, 79, 81, 84 sq. Fortuitous, 47, 48, gi. Four-dimensional (see dimensions). Free will, 191 sq. Free will and violence, ig4. Fritsch, 43. Frommen's article, 356. Gaus, 53, 66. INDEX. 365 Geibel, 236. General cause, 89. Generalization and discrimination, 103, 131. Generalization, power of, 131. Generalization, the higher, the more void, 77, 102. Generalizations, 17, 18. Genesis, 261. Gesetzm&ssigkeit der Natur, 22, 56. Ghost, 14. Ghosts, 151 sq., 154 sq. God, 265, 315, 316, 322, 323, 326, 333, 355- God as the All, 261. God, a moral law, 49, 151 sq. God, is moral, 321. God, a materialist, 88, 89. God, Huxley on, 137. God a noumenon, 144, 145, 152. God cannot be said to be moral, 207. God, the source, 262. Goethe on God, 152, 153. Goethe, 76, 77, 78, 236, 241, 249, 328. Goethe and monism, 142. Golgatha, 212. Goltz, 43. Gould's proposition, 355. Gould's theory of the external origin of life, 356. Graphic formulas, 87. Grassmann, Hermann, 53, 265. Grassmann's theory of forms, 54, 57. Grassmann's 'systems' recognize no axioms, 67, 68. Gravitation, 89, 100, 108, 112. Gravity, 107, 112. Ground (grund, raison d'etre), 89, go. Ground, qualities and reasons, 112. Haeckel, 269. Haller, i4r. Hamilton, 53, 72. Hamilton on the unconditioned, 140. Happiness and ethics, 218, 246. Happiness, mere happiness, empty, igg, 217. Happiness, relative, 258. Harrison, 140. Hebbel, 291. Hedonism, 188, 276. Hegel, 3, sg, 156, 26g. Hegel on Space, i6g, Hegel on Time, 170. Hegelian ontology, ug. Hegeler, Edward C., 8g, 301. Hegeler, Edward C. , quotation oni composite photograph, 38. Heine, Heinrich. 236. Helmholtz, 53, 66. Henism, 253. Heraclitus, 113. Heresy, in mathematics, 64 Heresy, negative criticism of, 62. Heretics of orthodoxy, 61. Hering, Ewald, 12, 37, 41, 42, 128. Hesiod, 235. Hindoo philosophy (see Veil of Maya). Hitzig, 43. Holbach, Baron on idealism, 183. Holy Ghost, 263, 266. Holy lance, 230. Homer, 23, 236. Homogeneous, 122. Horizon, 271. Hosea, 232. Hugo, Victor, 249. Human, factors of human existence,. i7- Human speech and morals, 220. Humbug, the apriori, 35. Hume, David, 32, 34, 262. Hume, on general causes, 89. Huxley, on God and immortality, 137. Huxley's agnosticism, 256. Huxley's agnosticism, versus positiv- ism, 173. Huxley, quotations on ethics, 210-223 Hydrogen, 124. Hylo-Idealism, 334. Hypermechanical, 118, 120, 301, 302. Iconoclast, 154. Idea of God, 333. Ideal, 204, 205. Ideal, definition of, 235. Ideals, 334. Idealism, 93, 94, 176, 255. Idealism, loftier than Materialism, 94. 366 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Idealism, Byron, and Holbach on, 183. Idealism and realism, 176-186. Ideals and wealth, 238. Ideas, 344, 357. Identity, 57. , Ignorabimus, 289, 324. Ignis fatnus, 266. / Illegitimate, 283, 285. Imaginary, 159. Immanence of life, in, 131. Immanence of transcendency, 102, 104. Immanent, 49, gi, 102. Immanent, God, 152, 153. Immeasurable and infinite, 170. Immortality, Huxley on, 137. Impossible, 281, Inconsistency, 24. Inconsistent thinkers, 23. Indeterminism, igi-196. Indifferent, form not, 297. Indirect apprehension, 97. Indivisible, reality is, 18, 93. Inert, 113. Inertia, 56. Infinite things, 287. Infinite, the, 159, 160, 169 sq. Infinitude, 169 sq., 286, 287. Infinity, 66. Innate ideas, 28, 35, 70. Insolvable problems, 283. Intelligent and shrewd, 220. Intelligibility of the world, 49. Intelligibility of nature, 156. Intelligence of rational beings, 49. Intrinsic, 69. Intuition, 144, 145. Intuition, certainty of axioms based upon, 71. Intuitive method, 62. Irrational, 159. Irrelevant problems, 292, 293. Irving, Washington, 237. Ives, Mr. L. T., 161. 162. James, Prof, of Harvard, 192. Jesus, 20. John, St., 267. Kant, 25, 26, 30, 49, 50, 59, 262, 274, 277. 297, 298, 299, 320. Kant, categoric imperative, 191. Kant not interpreted, 28. Kant on matter, 27. Kant on metaphysics, 74 sq. Kant on noumena, 144-146. Kant one-sided and insufficient, 51, 58, 59- Kant on skepticism, 31. Kant on space and time, 163-165. Kant's error, 319. Kant's prolegomena, 30, 318, 3ig. Kant's question, 30. Kant, quotations from, 29, 33, 34, 48, 144. 145. 146. Kantism, vi. Katabolism, 128. Katharsis, 243. Kepler, 165. Kerbogha, 231. Keynote, 247. Kilkenny cats, rg6. Kinetic (see energy). Kineticism, 93. Kirchhoff, Prof. Gustav, quotation from, 103-104. Kismet, 306. Klopstock, 249, Knowledge, 179, 255, 281. Knowledge and reflection in a glass, 280, 281. Knowledge, description of facts, 104. Knowledge developed from sensa- tion, r2, 16. Knowledge, not useless efflorescence, 22. Kronos, 172. Laing, S., 273. Lamb, the morality of a, 222. Lance, the holy, 230. Lange, Prof. A., 184. Language, 146, 147, 150. Law, 134. Law, no contradictory to another, 358. Laws describe, 288, Laws, natural laws and causes, 105. Least resistance and morals, viii, 243 sq. Lesage(orLe Sage), 117. INDEX. 367 Lessing, 249. Leibnitz, 300. Leucippus, 48. Lewins, Dr. 333. Liberalism, 270. Library, 39 sq. Library, reference room of, 44 sq. Liebig, Baron Justus, 353. Life and motion without a cause, 298 sq. Life, process of, 11. Life, immanent, 131. Life in a broader and narrower sense, 112, 114, 118. Life is organization, 356, Life must have come from without, 355- Life substance, in. Life principle (see vitalism), 112. Life, origin of psychical, 185, 186. Life, all continuous, 226. Life-germ, how has this been formed ? 356. Light, ether waves of, 12. Lindemann, Prof. F., 66, 283. Lobatschewsky, 53. Locke, 300, 311, 313. Logarithms, no. Logan, Friedrich von, 212. Logic, 118. Logos, 267. Longfellow, 212. Lotze, 352. Luther, 266. Mach, Prof. Ernst, in Prague (see also economy of thought), 57, 99. Mach, Prof. Ernst, on personality, 214. Mach, Prof. Ernst, poly-plant, 215. Mach's views, 339. Machines and organisms, 125, 126. Macrocosm, 239, 335. Magnet and free will, 195, Man, 334. Man, factors of human existence, 17. Man's consciousness, 349. Man and animals, 16, 43. Manifestation of existence, 155, 182. Mann, L., 117. Material processes, 337. Materialism, 46, 85, 88, 91, 93, 94, 183 184, 255- Materialism the most baseless of all dogmas, 357. Mathematics, 53, 61, 63, 68, 72, 92. Mathematics, rules of, 28. Matter, 18, 92, 176, 185, 279, 353. Matter, tridimensionality of, 165, 166. Matter, philosophers of matter and motion, 193. Matter and life as far apart as heaven and earth, 357. Maudsley, Dr, H., 301, 305, Maya, veil of, 135, 136, 181. Mechanical, 115, 122, 298-301. Mechanical explanation, 115-122. Mechanical laws, 348. Mechanics compared to logic, 118. Mechanics, not scientia ultima, 1 15. Mechanics, molecular, 348. Mechanicism, 180, 301. Mechanism of the motions, 349. Meliorism, 241, 242, 257. Memory, 10. Memory and sensation, 9-14. Memory, preservation of form, n, 12, 14. Mendeljeff's law, 123. Mensch, der ist was er isst, 351. Menzel, Wolfgan?, 352. Mephistopheles, 61. Metabolism, 130. Metaphysicism, 78, 104. Metaphysics, 74, 75, 76, yy. Methodically arranged, 100. Meyer, Dr. Lothar, 125. * Microcosm, 239, 335. Mill, John Stuart, 36, 51, 59,63, 64, 69 262, 274, 312. Mind, 341. Mind and soul, 14. Mind stuff, 135. Mind substance, in. Mirror and the brain, 177, 178, Modesty of agnosticism, 269. Monad, 122. Moner, 9, ir, 130, 216, Monism, 185, 256, 259, 278, 279, 34a 350. 357- 368 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Monism, apian and subjective prin- ciple, 24. Monism and cosmical order, 47, 48, 91. Monism and idealism, 185. Monism and mythology, 131. Monism, classical, 250. Monism, consistency of, 22. Monism, ethical aspect of, 207. Monism, man predisposed for, 21. Monism realized, 100. Monism, religion of, 157. Monist, The, 284. Monkeys, 16. Monongahela, 279. Montgomery, Dr. E., 295, 307, 356. Moral being, 17. Moral faculties and survival, 220. Moral teachers, 219. Moral, the moral law a natural law, 224. Morality and Fatalism, 306. Morals, 188, 257. Mortar, 32, Moses, 270, Motion, 82, 92, g3, 336-339. Motion a change of place, 353. Movement-by push, 113. Mtiller, Johannes, 12. Mtiller, Prof. Max, of Oxford, 40, 75, 305.- Mysteries, key to, 58. Mysterious, 119. Mysterious, Bain on the word, 140. Mysterious beings, 16. Mysterious, nature not, 156, 157. Mystery, 20, 169, 180. Mystic, 98. Mysticism, 52, 71, 75, 84, 103, 155 sq., 157 sq., 184. Mythology, no, 131, 132. Mythological, 131, 132. Naden, Miss C. W., 333. Name, a string, 40. Naming and concepts, 3g. Natural laws, 357. Natural laws and causes, 105-109. Natural phenomena, 135. Natural processes, 135. Naturalistic, 33, 34, Natural science, 59. Nature alive, 186, 300. Nature and life, 110-114. Nature and morality, 304. Nature and ethics, 327-332. Nature, oneness of, 22. Nature, how is nature possible, 30, 46, 49. 58. Nature, intelligible, 156. Nature, imitation of, 250. Nature, order of, 46-52. Necessarily true, 69. Necessity, 28, 45, 52, 63, 64, 68, 69, 263,. 3i3. Necessity, compulsion and, 194. Newton, 108, 26g. Nineteenth century,. 216, 225. Nominalism, 316. Non-entity, 65. Non-liquet, 285. Non-moral, 315, 321. Noumena, 343. Noumena as mental tools, 344. Noumenal, oneness of the noumena! and phenomenal, 148. Noumenalism, root of, 146 sq. Noumenon, 143, 345. Numbers, 27. Object of philosophy (end of foot- note), 75. Occultism, 354. Ohio, 279. Omega, 100. Omneities, 354. Omneity of matter, 351, 353. Ontne vivum ex vivo, 357. Omnipresence, 49. Oneness, i48 sq., 207 sq. Oneness and unity, 279. One-sided, Kant's explanation, 51. 0*ntology (see also absolute), 3-8, 70^ 119 sq. Open Court, 308. Optic illusion, agnosticism, 271. Optimism, 242, 257. Order, 254. Order, immanent, 4g, gi, 121. Order of nature, 46-52, INDEX. 369 Order, proof of the existence of God, 49. Organisms and machnes, 125, 126, Organized life, 355, 357. Organized life, a special form of uni- versal life, 114. Organized life, feature of, 12S. Organized life, result of memory, 129. Organized life and potential energy, 2g9- Orientation, 22, 43, yy, 14S. Origin of feeling, 183, 345, 346. Origin of the apriori, 34. Origin of the organized life from the inorganic, 112. Origin of psychical life, 185. Orthodoxy in mathematcs, 62, 66. Outer world, 341. Overvaluation of reason, 121. Ovine morality, 203 sq. Owen, John, 273. Oxygen, 124. Pain not a material thing, 352. Page, no without its counterpage, 338. Parallels, the problem of, 66. Parts of the whole, 150. Paul, St., 262. Pe'rce, Charles S., on agnosticism, 5. Pe.xepts, elements of psychic life, 13. Perceptions, data, 254. Perfection, the idea of, 224. Periodicity of atomic weights, 124, 125- Person, is God a ? 315, 322, 323. Pessimism, 241, 242, 257. Phenomena, 103, 135, 142. Phenomena, Kant on, 143-146. Phenomenal, 94. Phenomenal, oneness of the and noumenal, 148. Phenomenalism, 137 sq. Philo, 267. Philosopher and scientist, 272. Philosophical propedeutics, 353. Philosophy, 17, 25, 255. Philosophy of indolence, 298, 299. Phlogistam, 326. Phonograph, n, 129, 288, 301. Physics, 348. Physiological growth of abstract ideas, 37. Physiology not merely applied phy- sics, 35S. Physiology of percepts, 42. Piano and the soul, 301, 302. Pigeon holes of a library (concepts), 42. 4+- Pilate, 19. Pin and sensation, 177. Plato, 94, 103, 135, 255, 262, 316. Plutarch on dualism, 23. Poetry, 235 sq. Poetry and suicides, 236. Polynesian, 297. Pond, Adeline V., 271. Positing, 53, 56. Positivism, 3-8, 78, 324. Positivism, Kirchhoft's, 103. Positivism of Comte, 173. Positivism or monism, 142. Positivism and agnosticism, 173. Positive facts, 135. Positive philosophy, 173. Positiveness, 311. Potentiality of feeling, 187. Present from the past, 217. Preservation of form, 178. Principle of positivism, 6. Problem, 22. Problem of life, 356. Problem, the philosophical, 7, 8. Pronunciation of noumenon, 143. Prolegomena, 318. Properties of a thing, 282. Prophetic poetry, 237 sq. Psalms, quotations from, 210, 211. Pseudo ethics, 217. Psychical, elements of psychical life, 13. Psychical, origin of psychical life, 185. Psychical, sensation the feature of, 9, 10. Psychical, the cornerstone of dual- ism, 128. Psycho-physics, 336. Psychology of atoms, 133. Pure Reason, 311, 399. 37o FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Purpose, 134. Push, movement by, 113, 116, 1S2. Qualities, abstracts, 38, 3g. Qualities as raisons d'etre, repre- sented in natural laws, 108, 109. Quaternions, 53, 72. Racine, 24.9. Raison d'etre, 8g, 90. Raison d'etre, qualities and, 108. Ranke, Johannes, 43. Real, 69. Real space (see actual). Realism, 176-186, 255. Realism of Bishop Anselm, 316. Reality, 254, 263. Reality, definition, 254. Reality and material existence, 18. Reality and time, 170. Reality, basis of abstract ideas, 17, 18. Reality, indivisible, 18, 93, 297. Reality, not devoid of order, 57. Reason, abstracting and combining, 40. Reason and cause, 134. Reason, divine, 120, 265. Reason, human, 266. Reason and mechanical explanation, 298. Reason, dogmatical use of, 31. Reason, erroneous, 119. Reason, faculty of comprehending, 96. Reason, faculty of making abstracts, 3i- Recognized, 15. Reflection and ethics, 216. Reflection in a glass and knowledge, 280, 281. Regularity, 46, 57. Relative, 136. Relativity, 97, 155, 254, 281. Religion, 17, 256. Religion and the Unknown, 28g. Reverent agnosticism, 289. Renan, 329. Renunciation of the ego, 331, Religion, classical, 251. Religion of monism, 157. Reviewer and critic, 275. Revue de Belgique, 324. Ribot, Th., 186,214. Riddle, the unanswerable, 291. Riemann, 53, 120. Rigidity (see necessity). Roman justice, 220. Romanes, G. J., 9. Romantic, 248 sq. Romeo and Juliet, 245. Roscellinus, 318. Root, the monistic, 395, 3g6, 307. Round square, 350. Royer, Madame Cldmence, 324, 332. Rtickert, 237. Rule in art, 248. Salter, W. M., g6, g8, 105, 106, no 116. Sankya philosophy, 213. Schelling, 59. Schiller, 58, 59, 76, 245, 246, 249. Schiller, poems of, yy, 237, 264, 319, Schlegel, Dr. Victor, 66. Scholastic dictum ; a., 83, 89. Schoolmen, go. Schopenhauer, 59, 74, 75, 181, 217,244. 258, -271, 312. Science, 17, 28, 255. Science, quotation from, 35. Sciences, single, 22. Sciences, monistic, 22. Scientific, 17. Scientific concepts, 345. Scientific knowledge, warp and woof of, 32. Scientist and philosopher, 272. Scientists and moral teachers, 2ig. Scientistic, 33, 34. Secretion^ la de la pensee, 352. Selective faculty, 303. Self, 333. Self-evident, 67. Self-evident, conceptions of mathe- matics, not, 71. Self-evident power of life, 356. Self-motion, no, 113, i2g. Sensation, 9-13, 112. Sensation and a pin, 177. INDEX. 37i Sensation and things, 2S0, 281. Sensations, 339, 340, 343. Sense, organs of, 13. Sense, created, 12. Sense-impression, 340, 341, 343. Sensory experience, 29. Sensory impressions, blind, 32. Sensory impressions, the raw mater- ial, 50. Sentimentality, 236. Shakespeare, 240, 305. Sham existence, 136. Sheep, supposed to be moral, 222. Sheet-anchor of fact, 351, 353, 354. Sheol, 266. Shipraan, Col. Paul R., 280-2S1, 350. Sic nos non nobis, 225. Sic vos non vobis, 226. Sieve, 10. Sight, importance of the sense of, 179. Simple, the simplest mathematical truths complex, 70. Simple, nature, 157. Sin, 265. Skepticism, 31, 33, 34, 256. Smoke, 99. Solipsisms and Hylr-Idealism, 335. Solomon, 288. Soul, 14, 136. Soul compared to a piano, 301, 302. Soul, a noumenon, 144, 214. Soul? What is the human, 335. Sound, airwaves of, 12. Source, the unknowable, 259, 260. Space, actual, 68. Space and time, 163-169. Space, a property of reality, 64. Space, a system of third degree, 57. Space, always entire, 65. Space, empty, 27, 32. Space, existence of a necessity, 64. Space, generalized, 67. Space, Kant on, 167, 168. Space, length, breadth and thickness are, 65. Space, not a box, 287. Space, possibility of motion, 168. Space worshiped, 172. Spacial relation, 65. Specific energies, 12. Speculation, 33. Speech and morals, 220. Spencer, Herbert, 59, 86, 93, ioj, in, 131, 251, 256, 269, 270, 277, 301. Spinoza, 90. Spirit, 14, 176, 185, 279. Spirit, God is, 228. Spiritism, 93, 255. Spiritualism, 255. Spirituality, form is, 94, 317. Spontaneity, no, 113. Spontaneity, life and, 117, 127, 129, 1S2. Sport, 251. Squarify the circle, 283. Stallo. J. B., 53. Stone's fall, 106, 107, 108. Straight and straightest lines, 66. Struggle for existence and morals, 220 sq. Subject, a part of nature, 287 sq. Subjective phenomena of feeling, 346 Subjective side, 342. Subjective state of awareness, 349. Sufficient cause, 105. Sunda Isles, monkeys of, 16. Super and hyper, 308, 309, Supernaturalism, 46 sq. Supernaturalistic dualism,j356. Superhuman, 235. Superscientific, 308 sqq. Survey, the power of, 73. Survival of the fittest and ethics, 219 Swabians, the nine, 304- Symbol, the infinite a, 160. Synthetic judgments, 34. Tangle, 265, 268. Taste, artistic, 248 sq. Tauler, of Strassburg, 157- Teleological, 134- Telephone and transference of form, 178. Terms, every philosopher a right to use his own, 335. Thought, beginning of ethics, 216. Thought, economy of, 343- Thoughts, 339, 340. Thoughts, abstract, 18, 340. 372 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. Theoretical and practical, 252. Theory of forms, 67. Theory of the external origin of life, 356.. Thermometer and monism, 24. Thing of itself, 78, 136, Things and sensations, 280, 281. Thinkers, inconsistent, 23. Thinking, 340. Thinking a physiological process, 352 Tiger and elephant, 274. Time and infinitude, 287. Time, empty, 27. , Time, Kant on, 167 sq. Time, pure, 27. Time, worshiped, 172. Tohuvabohu, 47. Tolerance, 270. Tools, most important factors, 345. Tools of science, 310, 343. Tragedy, 236, 240. Tragheit, 56, Tragodie and Trauerspiel, 240, 241. Train in a tunnel, 345. Transcendent, 30, 51, 78, 96-101, 102, 104, 119. Transcendental, 30. Transcendental idealism, 26, 58. Transformaton of potential energy into kinetic energy, 347. Tridimensionality, 165. True in a formal sense, 69. Truth, 19, 20, 254. Truth, a relation, 20, 56, 63. 64. Truth and mathematics, 6g, 70. Truths, first, 62, 67. Tyrtaeus, 235. Ultimate aim of ethics not happiness, 218. Ultimate cause, 79, 89. Ultimate raison d'etre, 101, 102, 115. Unconditioned, the — and Hamilton, 140. Undervaluation of reason, 121. Uniform monads and molecules, 122. Unification of knowledge, 21. Unitary conception (see also Mo- nism), 257. Unity, rule of art, 239. Unity and oneness, 279. Universality, 28,45, 49, 313, Unknowable, 96, 98, 102, 154 sq., 254, 263, 307. Unknowable and relativity, 155. Unknowable and the unknown, 156. Unknowability, 99, 102, 136, 137, 154, 173. Unknowability and causation, 96- 104. Unrealizable, 159. Unvernunft, Vernunft from, 48. Utilitarianism, 276. Utopian, the idea of perfection, 224. Value of form, 269. Vanity of knowledge and agnosti- cism, 288. Veil, behind the, 260. Veil of Maya, 135, 181. Verbal misunderstandings, 34'. Violin, part of player, 150. Virtue, sweat before, 211. Vis a tergo, 117, 184, 186. Vicious circle, 291, 312. Vital energy a unique form of energy, 347- Vitalism, 112, 181. Volapuk, 132. Vogt, Carl, 351. Voltaire, 61, 249. Wagner, Richard, 245. Wake, C. S., 289. Wakenstein, 264. Warp and woof of cognition, 32. Water, formation of, 79, 84, 85. Watt, 288. Wealth and ideals, 238. Webster, 143. Wirklichkeit, 254, 263. Wolf (the German philosopher), 31 34- Wolves and morality. 222 sq. Wooden horse, 35. Words and concepts are tools, 344. Words, bundles of perceptions, 147. Words, for orientation, 148. Words, construction of, 281. Words, purport of, 296. INDEX. 373 World, 334. World, a flux, 147. World-conception harmonious, 348. World space (see actual space). World substance, 114. World, homogeneous and continuous, 122, 123. World order, 315. Worship, no of the Unknown, 159, 228. Worship, true is obedience to the laws of God, 355. Worshiped, space, time, \j-\ Workshop, the brain a , 40, 41. Xenions, 58, 59, 76, 319. Zeitgeist, vii Zola, Emile, 250. Zulu, 297. ERRATA. Page 60, line 13, read yj and 142 instead of ' 67.' Page 75, line 17, read certain instead of ' ceartain.' Page 75, line 19, read Ansicht instead of ' Absicht.' Page 155, line 16, read identity instead of ' indentity.' Page 205, line 15, read they can instead of ' it can.' Page 236, line 16, read a speedy instead of ' as peedy.' Page 121, line 20, read need not instead of ' cannot.' Page 214, line 29, omit ' which.' Page 237, line 28, read an instead of ' on.' Publications of the Open Court Publishing Co. 163-175 LA SALLE STREET, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. THREE LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. By Prof. F. Max Muller. With a Supplement " MY PREDECESSORS." Cloth, 75 Cents. THREE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. By F. Max Muller. (London Publishers : Longmans, Green, & Co.) 1. The Simplicity of Language ; 2. The Identity of Language and Thought ; and 3. The Simplicity of Thought. Cloth, 75 Cents. EPITOMES OF THREE SCIENCES. 1. COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. By Prof. H. Oldenberg. 2. COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. By Prof. J. Jastrow. 3. OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. By Prof. C. H. Cornill. Cloth, 75 Cents. THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF MICRO-ORGAN- ISMS. By Alfred Binet. (London Publish- ers : Longmans, Green, & Co.) Authorised Transla- tion. Cloth, 75 Cents. ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. New Studies in Experimental Psychology. By Alfred Binet. Price, 50 Cents. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTENTION. By Th. Ribot. (London Publishers : Longmans, Green, & Co.) Authorised Translation. Cloth, 75 Cents. WHEELBARROW. ARTICLES AND DISCUS- SIONS ON THE LABOR QUESTION. C'oth, Si. 00 FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. By Dr. Paul Carus. (London Publishers : Longmans, Green, & Co.) Cloth, Si.oo. THE ETHICAL PROBLEM. By Dr. Paul Carus. Three Lectures Delivered at the Invitation of the Board of Trustees be- fore the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago, in June, 1890. Cloth, 50 Cents. THE IDEA OF GOD. By Dr. Paul Carus. A disquisition upon the development of the idea of God. Paper, 15 Cents. THE SOUL OF MAN. An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psy- chology. By Dr. Paul Carus. With 152 illustrative cuts and diagrams. 474 pp. Cloth, S3-°o- THE LOST MANUSCRIPT. A Novel. By Gustav FREYTAG. Authorised translation. Elegantly bound, S4.00. THE OPEN COURT. A WEEKLY MAGAZINE Devoted to the Conciliation of Religion with Science. THE OPEN COURT does not understand by religion any creed or dogmatic belief, but man's world-conception in so far as it serves him for a regulation of his conduct. Although opposed to irrational orthodoxy and narrow bigotry, it does not attack the properly religious element of our various religions. The religion of The Open Court is the Religion of Science, that is the Religion of verified and verifiable truth ; and there being but one truth, not two or sev- eral contradictory truths, The Open Court stands on the ground of Monism — namely, a unitary conception of the world. The current numbers of The Open Court contain valuable original articles from the pens of distinguished investigators and litterateurs. Accurate and authorised translations are made in Philosophy, Science, and Criticism from the periodical literature of Continental Europe, and reviews of all noteworthy recent investigations are presented. It is the pronounced object of The Open Court to Harmonise Religion with Science ;- and the philosophical problems that bear upon this important question are editorially treated in its columns. A wide range of discussion is allowed all who will participate. TERMS : Two dollars a year throughout the Postal Union ; Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, S2.50. Single Copies, 5 Cents, THE MONIST. A NEW QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. THE MONIST is intended to complement The Open Court, and it rep resents, therefore, the more special and the more formal phase. Its articles are of the highest scientific and critical'character ; not, however, abstruse, for the greatest possible lucidity and plainness are sought in the presentationnof philosophical and scientific doctrine. Although editorially, and therefore in tendency, The Monist lays the greatest stress on the ethical and religious aspects of the teachings of modern science, it is on this account by no means exclusive, is not a revue fermkc in any sense of the word, but offers a place in its pages to competent thought of all kinds. Positive science and positive philosophy of the highest type, however, predominate in its columns. Among its contributors are : Charles S. Peirce, Prof. Joseph Le Conte, Prof. E. D. Cope, M. D. Conway, Prof. F. Max Muller, Prof. G. J. Romanes, James Sully, B. Bosanquet, Dr. A. Binet, Prof. C. Lombroso, Prof. E. Mach, Prof. F. Jodl, Prof. H. Hoffding, Dr. F. Oswald. Per Copy, 50 Cents ; in Cloth, 75 Cents. Yearly, $2.00 ; in Cloth, S3. 00. In England : Per Copy, 2s. 6d, Cloth, 3s. 6d. Yearly, gs. 6d ; in Cloth, 13s. 8d. CHICAGO: LONDON: The Open Court Pub. Co., Messrs. Watts & Co., 169— 175 La Salle Street. 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E. C. ■ >:k',