Ilodl ^ L.1DKHK1 Ur \-UIMUrccoo 029 815 249 6 J Hollinger Corp. P H8.5 mum mi in ■" iiiiiimiiiiiiu 1 1 ill uwi in II iiiiuiii Will I II II JOHN STUART MILL and the Philosophy of Mediation H. K. GARNIER Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University PUBLISHED BY W. D. GRAY 106 SEVENTH AVE , NEW YORK 1919 JOHN STUART MILL and the Philosophy of Mediation H. K. GARNIER Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University PUBLISHED BY W. D. GRAY 106 SEVENTH AVE . NEW YORK : ^- : -;:''^K'^;-r- ''^ :, yy-^y: 1 // ^, ^; : l:-:.-^ m GHf* ■^Tniveraity I. PHILOSOPHIA MEDIATRIX This expression smacks of limitation; but the object of the following discussion is not to circumscribe that inquiry which, on account of its comprehensiveness and its depth, is the greatest reflective effort of the human mind. The purpose is rather to claim for philosophy complete emancipation and enfranchisement as a perfectly free inquiry, capable of moving without let or hindrance whithersoever there is any medium, how- ever tenuous, which will make motion at all possible. We do not recog- nize for philosophy any limitations as a particular science ; for it there are no necessary presuppositions whatever. No postulates exist, no so-called fundamentals, no ends or aims, which are not part of itself, developments of its own characteristic activity. There are no necessary principles, there is no necessary order of its development ; for philosophy is princi- ple, and is order, in its very essence. Philosophy is as it were organism expressed in terms of thought. The underlying presupposition of this essay may be briefly stated. It is, that philosophy, despite its air of sophistication, is still (like Paul's Athen- ian audience) "too superstitious"; or, if one prefer the RV, "very re- ligious" ; either phrase will serve here. Political liberty was at least pro- moted by the separation of church and state. Full liberty of speculation can only come as the result of the separation of philosophy and religion. This statement is made in the interest alike of both these activities. What is needed is an irreligious philosophy and an unphilosophical religion. Or, to state the problem somewhat dfferently, we desiderate a philosophy and a religion which are both undogmatic, — except indeed where there is question of a fact ; facts always announce themselves dogmatically, that is to say, categorically, and they are entitled to this privilege. To put it in still another way, it is the theological element, now blending with religion properly so-called, now with "philosophy," which brings not a little confusion into our thought concerning both these ancient and prec- ious expressions of the spirit of man. Time is undoubtedly assisting in the rather rapid elimination of the confusion; modernity is anti-theologi- cal. But, to descend to the vernacular, "One's afraid, and t'other daresn't!" An influential school of thought is still frankly apologetical in method, sometimes unctuous in manner, and visibly suprarational in aspiration. And religion, while getting rather cold comfort from phi- losophy, still has the habit of craving rational foundations, and feeling ashamed of the mysticism which is its power and life, apart, that is, from its practical expressions. 3 Historically a certain ambiguity has attached to the character, position and function of that universal speculation which we call philosophy. This situation reflects the problem arising from the conflict of two points of view, made inevitable by the existence of two interests, between which philosophic speculation functions as in some sense a mediatrix. The problem has been, whether philosophy should assimilate to theosophy or to science ; whether it should assume the character of a technic and reve- lation of divine mysteries, or that of an instrument of human knowledge and wisdom ; not scorning practical ends, — if only those ends be compre- hensive, and adapted to fit into a comity of all human ends. The problem was and is, whether philosophy is to be a method of theology, or a higher synthesis of the principles of the sciences, and so of "science" in general, — that is, of knowledge in the widest sense ; and thus to become eventually the method of universal science. Or again, — formulating the problem in terms of Comte's wellknown "three stages" of man's intellectual evolution, — Is philosophy to remain in the "theological" stage, — which for the archpriest of Positivism meant virtually superstition, and even "animism" ; or, in the "metaphysical" stage, in Comte's narrow sense of Platonic realism, the stage of a purely abstract philosophy, or an "existential logic"; or, is philosophy to be the "positive" science of positive sciences, a system of the implications and of the general laws of thought, knowl- edge, nature and life itself, — culminating in a science of man's own life in relation to his natural environment, and also to his social environment or place and function in the social "organism." Before the Christian era philosophy, under the spell of Egyptian sun- shine, became intoxicated with divinity, and the divine afflatus has not yet evaporated. She was thus found a meet handmaid for Religion during many centuries. And Catholicism heaped much honor on her faithful handmaid; for having chosen to establish dogmatically historical and scientific foundations for the Church, she sorely needed a philosophic apologetic. Pre-Christian neo-Platonism, the original handmaid, in proc- ess of time led to the same service ancient philosophy, as brought to its apogee by the master of them that know and untainted with Oriental mysticism ; and this new handmaid was even more honored. But she was more sober and sophisticated, and in due time injected the virus of sceptic- ism into certain who thenceforth labored to emancipate philosophy, adum- brating more or less dimly that philosophy was the higher concept, the larger context, the genus of intellectual activity in general ; while religion was a species of experience, a technic of salvation, though an all-pervading influence. Philosophy being a sort of presiding genius of science has direct rela- tion to religion thru the relation of the latter to certain of the special sciences. For instance sociology studies religion as historically a very important factor in social evolution. Above all, as James showed so sym- 4 pathetically and with such penetrating analysis, the phenomena of relig- ious "experience" are a varied and important field for psychological inquiry and speculation. But philosophy and religion, if both should be emancipated, would be contrasted in that the former would be an inquiry of the reason and senses and powers of the mind; while the latter would be a quest of the spirit, a suprarational realization, or rather direct appre- hension of something incommunicable, undemonstrable ; an elevation, en- thusiasm, chastening mood, private to the individual soul. Thruout its history philosophy has occupied a more or less ambiguous position. As the most intelligent attempt to understand the world, it was at first identical with science, and as such came into opposition with relig- ion. For religion was born in the emotional and imaginative and instinc- tive simplicity of family life, and was essentially the noblest expression of the consciousness of blood kinship. The opposition was the opposition between intelligence and instinct. It may be said that early Greek philoso- phy was a kind of naturalism, and as such, an antithesis to the religion of the hearthfire ; just as it continued to be antithetical to the imaginative nature-cult which grew out of, and was simply a more imposing form of, primitive ancestor-worship. Now in a sense both this religion and this philosophy are what we term "natural/' — and by this we mean spontaneous and unconscious — at any rate not self-conscious. What we know as the existential question was unthought of, would perhaps have been deemed irrelevant, in reference to the imaginative objects of religious reverence. What we know alas too well as the epistemological problem had not laid its ghostly hand on the cool brow of a philosophy which thought of itself only as "science," if it thought of itself at all ; certainly it never thought of itself "subjectively." Again, both this religion and this philosophy were what we term imag- inative also; but both were so unconsciously. The opposition that grew up between them was due to the difference in scope, in distinterestedness, in dispassionateness; between a work of cosmic imagination, and the idealism of love and filial veneration. Thus wisdom becomes divorced from worship, and the seeds are sown of the later warfare of science and religion, or (more suitably expressed) of science and dogmatic the- ology ; which we may venture to call the conflict of knowledge with super- stition and ignorance ; the immediate question of the hour being, for the- ology and apologetic philosophy, just what is included in the term "super- stition." Presumably the archaic character which religion retains so persistently, its ultarconservative tendency, is due in indefinite measure to the fact that its ideal objects of reverence have provoked in abundant extent artistic expression. Even among our American Indians, whose religion is the only one we know as indigenously Occidental, we find a folklore which en- shrines their cultus, and at the same time constitutes their literature. 5 This reactionary spirit of religion is usually attributed apologetically to a reverence due to a feeling of the extreme value attached to the concep- tions. But it is a fair question whether the natural permanence of the works of art created so spontaneously in the days of its youthful vigor — including literature, as well as architecture and sculpture and painting — has not been about equally accountable. But this is a digression. The discussion is as to the historically ambiguous place of philoso- phy, which has not yet been made out. We have seen it suggesting by implication the criticism of religion. Now religion enshrined in art had transfixed religious conceptions in their naivete ; and unhappily for them, time revealed them not alone in their anthropomorphism but in their im- morality. Meanwhile the sceptical movement in philosophy discredited metaphysics (and that meant or included, "science") and threw interest upon man, — that is, upon ethical problems. But so wide had become the breach between philosophy and religion that the ethical philosophers in- curred suspicion of "atheism." His moral idealism could not save, in fact destroyed, a Socrates. We are dealing in this situation of course with a decadent religion, and one which was state-sanctioned and bigoted. But the hostility seen is characteristic; and the fact also, that just because the ethical inquiry took a more or less rational, that is to say scientific, form, this was enough to identify it with philosophy, and to condemn it as critical of sacrosanct tradition. It is a fact passing strange that what we know as science, natural science, grew not from the roots of early Greek naturalism, — altho it may well be regarded as a revival of that physical speculation, controlled however by an experimental method, — but arose out of the last stage — and lowest — of an expiring religion. For there came a time when religion turned for aid to philosophy. This was the period of the Egyptian episode alluded to above. The noble efforts of a Philo and of a Plotinus to fuse philoso- phy and religion could only result in a theosophy which, while it exercised a notable influence as a mystical element in the new Christian cult, has hardly been esteemed philosophy, at least by the Western world. More- over, on what we may call its native heath, this theosophy, by an ever- increasing emphasis of its greatest exponents upon the realism credited to Plato, passed in a few generations from physics to theurgy or magic, — a form of religion so sinister as to confuse as it were heaven and hell. Magic persists not merely in certain wellknown religious ceremonies, but in certain common notions and habits as well. But as to its origin honors are even for altho magic is primitive in appearance and found among tribes of low culture, it was used with all solemnity by the antique civilizations, and indeed only in the era of strictly modern science has become formally discredited. When philosophy and the ancient religion 6 however descended hand and hand into the witches' cavern, their recon- ciliation and their degradation were, alike complete. Yet magic, which considered as a religious practice is coercion of the gods, has a quasi-scientific aspect ; it is essentially experimental in method ; it proceeds by trial and error ; it seeks to imitate nature and produce nat- ural results under conditions artificially arranged and controlled. In a word, magic is a method of investigation. Split into astrology and alchemy this character became emphasized in the pseudo-science of the mediaeval period. The idea of control is implicit in the search for the philosophers' stone, while the conception that the stars operate in human destiny is not wholly mythological. Given a young, vigorous and highly supernatural religion on the one hand, and a science claiming to be natural and becoming progressively so, and which was almost as clearly differentiated from philosophy in the higher sense of that term, as from religion itself, — we have the conditions of a renewed antithesis, and the ambiguity of philosophy's position is revealed. It is clear that in the history of modern philosophy she has had to mediate between a supernatural religion and a natural science. Her office has been in some way to explain and reconcile an inevitable antag- onism. But thruout its history an analogous situation may be descried. Now there was an obvious solution for this situation. For we need only change the terms in order to see that philosophy was to mediate between old knowledge and new ; and that means that its office was to acknowledge the new additions to science and give them their place in the sun, or guar- antee their logical validity in relation to the comity of knowledge. In- cidentally to declare a truce for the purpose of burying the dead! For philosophy is the judicial attitude per se ; it fortunately has no interests to serve in the way of harmonizing by any tour de force facts or theories to a characteristic content or subject-matter of its own. It is as disin- terested as a trained nurse. Philosophy is the arbiter, and is well satisfied with the judges' seat. Philosophy is not truth ; it is the judge of truth, and acknowledges the suzerainty of science, in the sense of knowledge genuinely verified or verifiable experimentally. It would seem to be inevitable that the authority of a knowledge which rests securely on the method of observation, should be mediated by the judgment of philosophy even to that most treasured inheritance and pos- session of mankind — religion. But this judgment will not reflect the authority of the narrowly scientific and often purblind specialist, who is really interested not in scientific truth, but in the facts of a particular science only. The comprehensiveness of view and impartiality of philoso- phy, its depth and sobriety, guarantee religion in all its just claims. But first this trinity, this triune manifestation of the restless quest of man's spirit, must be differentiated; and that task is seemingly incomplete. 7 But to return to the question why philosophy did not make the (as we may see) obvious solution of its ambiguous position. The loyalty of philosphy cannt be impugned. But an imperial Church holding not alone the keys of spiritual destiny, but the sword of tem- poral power, decreed a supernatural philosophy of history. Such a power was able to bend the intellect of man to its will ; by virtue of certain invaluable services to political society, and to mankind in treasuring the vestiges of antique culture, the Church became the heir of the ages. And by holding philosophy in thrall, by confining speculation within the charmed circle of authoritative dogma, she held science at bay for a millen- nium. So mighty was her spell that in certain realms of inquiry science has become enfranchised only within the memory of living men. Having thus ventured the opinion that philosophy has always suffered from the dubiety of its character and function, and attempted to account for the endurance of that disadvantage, one may remark quite simply that philosophy, naturally representing the summit of man's knowledge, rather than the mystic vision of his faith and spiritual aspiration, has been too partial to religion. The Mediatrice sometimes wears the mien of high-priestess. This is an evident survival from the historic situation, and especially the long Scholastic subjection. A millennium of ecclesiasti- cal monopoly of education could not fail to produce a characteristically religious, or rather, theological, philosophy; one, religious in interest and in subject-matter, and theological in method. Now these words are not meant to imply any denunciation of this theological philosophy but merely attempt to picture and account for its character. It has represented truth and reality, and has been a great force in molding social organization and institutions. Speaking pragmati- cally, it has been true, — is true still, — and is still a great social force. Wherever it has been or is effective, its validity as the expression of a certain type of experience is a simple matter of fact. But if, from what we can only regard as a more modern and scientific point of view, this philosophy appears more or less a picturesque ruin, it is without irony that we say, it is more beautiful thus ; we would not have it restored, — tho its aspect is not devoid of pathos. But better a ruined Parthenon than a "restored" one ! One of the most striking things in the history of modern philosophy has been the oft-repeated situation in which the thinker has started with a very conscious revolt against dogmatism, and with scientific presupposi- tions and purposes, and speedily back-slidden to a scholastic and theologi- cal position and technic. Old metaphysical habits of the tribe seem to have regained a disappointing ascendancy. Had philosophy remained aware of its ambiguous position, and that the solution of the problem lay in its acting as mediator between religion and science, what confusion might have been avoided. Even when based on the rejection of the supernatural, 8 and conceived with practical ends in view, thought was generally domin- ated by an impracticable ideal of rationality. And this produced meta- physical conceptions as unfruitful as those of the older theological dog- matism. Indeed it may be questioned whether any rational system of ethics (on any principle of "rationality" known to traditional logic, at any rate) can become and remain a permanent and developing force in shaping conduct. Such a system shares the formalism of its deduction and becomes fixed, artificial and at length archaic, and takes its niche in the museum of philosophical heirlooms. If philosophy is to become scientific in character it must make an entente with common sense. For it is the character of scientific truth when for- mulated, to be accessible to common intelligence, — at least where general education (however faulty) has reached the average and attained the social scope it has at present. Scientific truth is clear and obvious in the main, and common sense has an avidity for such truth. Science realizes the ideals of common sense, in a manner fulfils, and will yet more greatly fulfil, its hopes, and verify its judgments and discernments. The conven- tional antithesis of philosophy versus common sense ought to become dis- credited along with dogmatic and transcendental philosophy. One means in this connection by "common sense," not that misnamed common sense which credulously receives all manner of time-honored superstitions, relig- ious, political and philosophical ; but the up-to-date, sophisticated, perhaps over-positivistic and sceptical common sense, which gives ungrudging credence and unprejudiced moral support to scientific discovery and effort, and abhors superstition ; the "common sense" which unconsciously created the pragmatical method. It is true that the doctrines presented and defended by apologetic phi- losophy are too anaemic to be deemed religiously, or even theologically, adequate, except by the most rationalistic schools of theology, most op- posing them thru a true instinct of self-preservation, as most subtilly undermining faith. Still, a philosophy of the Absolute, or an "idealistic" system, is an apologetic weapon of a sort against types of criticism and empiricism or of scientific materialism, which are more menacing to super- natural faith, — in as far as its alleged rational and historical, or scientific, basis is concerned. It is not for philosophy to deny to faith its legitimate objects, its spiritual or ideal realities. But in as far as faith asserts exist- ences, claims historical foundations staged with a certain definite cosmo- logical background, these data become subject-matter of special sciences, and thru the medium of these are reflected in the domain of philosophy as logical and ontological problems. Similarly with dogma ; considered as a system of existential or metaphysical formulae, corresponding to, repre- senting, and attempting logical expression of, the ideals of faith, with a view to propagating and conserving these ideals, thru the medium of rea- son, — religious dogma enters the purview of philosophy, and may con- 9 ceivably from a metaphysical and logical standpoint be invalidated, as in- compatible with the general state of human knowledge. With regard to the "postulation" by philosophy of certain religious "truths," either as ideals of pure reason, after the Kantian technic, or as working assumptions (certainly much preferable), according to the method suggested by early pragmatism, — it may be doubted whether this will not delay the emancipation of philosophy, and postpone its assuming a truly scientific character. The object of such postulation is of course the attainment of moral ends ; but it may be asked, and has yet to be proved, whether results would differ for the worse if nothing were "postulated," but the desired ends consciously proposed. For if these ideals are thus set up as reals, it must needs be upon some kind of dialectical support, where they remain inaccessible to "observation" ; and we have once more the apologetic question and the old problem of their reality. What the dogmatists forget apparently is, the originally supposed empirical founda- tions of belief in types of reality we are now asked to accept on dialectical evidence alone. Philosophy may claim to be emancipated from supernat- uralism in its sanctioned theological forms, but this type of dialectic throws us back at least to the position of metaphysical realism. The fundamental fallacy of transcendental dialectic is, that it appears to disregard the fact — which history reveals — that originally the trans- cendence of itself by the mind rested on an empirical basis. The feat was performed by the primitive imagination, which deemed that it had concrete evidence of the existence of beings it dimly conceived from the supposed manifestations of certain powers, characters, purposes and rela- tions to mankind. The loftiest pantheism, the most mysterious and ob- scure theosophy, the "blindest" speculative dogmatism, have the same humble origin, — the origin we may presume, — of all religion, — the general animistic or spiritualistic outlook of primitive man. Positive science has transformed the primitive "facts." Today, no transcendental dialectic can be an adequate substitute for the earlier empirical proofs. It only reveals (as critical philosophy shows) the mind's limitation to the sphere of experience. "Experience" however is (may we not assert?) more than "phenom- enal." That is, phenomena, — barring inaccurate observation and experi- ment, and false inference, — present directly reality; for a "reality" or being the mind cannot know is meaningless. To posit the unknowable is to indulge in a fruitless mysticism. To take as postulate somewhat un- known, to which is attributed by hypothesis characters for which the mind has "categories" or analogies, properties in some degree or manner related to known reality, — this process is as it were the salient in the firing-line of advancing thought. But to seek the unknowable is indeed to plunge into the utter darkness of unreality, with no possibility of a rational result. It is thinking in empty concepts ; it is talking a solemn nonsense. Not with- 10 out a true instinct did theologians of the XlXth century denounce "agnosticism." Its modest attitude, its doctrine that God is unknowable, was as deadly to theism — far more deadly in fact, than the militant atheism which was ever uncongenial to the temper of scholarship — especially to that of philosophy. Truly an unknowable being is non-existent. It is inconceivable that the mere name of the "Being" should be revealed by some dialectical hocus-pocus transcending reason, and nothing or nothing definite, of its character or nature be knowable. People justify "faith," that is, belief in the existence and relation to themselves, of supernatural beings and a supernatural world, on the ground that belief controls conduct. But is not the very opposite a truer account? Religion is made apologist for the status quo. It commonly does not judge movements, which are the judges of it, rather; but it is wont to be "interpreted" in terms of the movements, — in so far as these prove irresistible to an opposition often none too heroic. Historically, the West has formed its views, its ideals, especially its economic ideals, and forced Christianity to conform. The Occidental ideals of so-called suc- cess, of business, of imperialism, of "materialism," refuse to be related save by a veritable tour de force to the religion which is supposed to have created the civilization of the West. The social forces of the West, even in the pre-Renaissance period, were too strong and "positive" for a religion of passive Oriental detachment and other-worldliness to cope with very successfully. Nothing is more amazing, as nothing is more picturesque, than the mediaeval blend of anarchic feudal confusion and violence, and the Church of the Nazarene sweeping on in the most superb pride ever mortal or mortal estate assumed, to the greatest power, wealth and osten- tation among the world's institutions. The extraordinary thing is, that the West ever accepted to the extent that it did, the pessimism of Christianity ; but the Church had created sacraments which should mitigate its rigors. Originally, it is apparent that "faith" was by no means based on moral grounds. Mere belief was the all-important thing. Belief must be jus- tified in itself ; it was conceived as the very essence of spiritual life. The fact that moderns attempt to justify it by something else, shows vividly how they have lost the original position, and forgotten the original dialectic. But in that age-long strife which it is the mediating office of philosophy to reconcile, science has been wont to meet dogmatism with dogmatism. Science, properly uncompromising where fact and theory strictly veri- fied or verifiable are concerned, sharing the eager habit of human thought, of pressing on to ultimate "unity" and systematization, became almost inevitably and unconsciously dogmatic in its own characteristic way; it tends to create its own kind of transcendental illusion, and generate its own species of faith. Faith often very short-sighted and narrow, and sufficiently bigoted, — not to say unsympathetic. It must be noticed how- 11 ever that scientific belief appeals to only one kind of evidence; and does not hesitate to yield ground when that evidence is really against it. Its dogmatism is the result of an exuberant optimism, leading to a premature generalizing and universalizing of its deductions. It has the nature of primitive "faith" in that it is due to vision, and not to mere tradition and the authority of the dead hand. There is another sharp distinction, also, between the two types of dogmatism, and that is, — that the objects about which science makes affirmations are verifiable in their nature, their character, even if not in their universality. As for example the force of gravitation ; the existence of this force can certainly be asserted, its properties investigated, and its operations formulated as scientific and ''natural" law ; altho its presence thruout the indefinite extension of space cannot be actually or immediately known. Its laws however are not con- tingent on such universal verification. Another very important fact to remember is, — that aside from the ob- vious unverifiability in a scientific sense of the "objects" of theological dogmatism, theology, in making use as an apologetic defense of philosophic systems of the a priori or intuitive type, is leaning on a broken reed. For while it is true that God may be identified with the "Absolute" or the "Infinite," and so an apparent philosophic verification of theological dogma appealed to, the theologian is obliged to ignore the fact that the reverse is impossible. Sir Leslie Stephen in the third volume of his English Utili- tarians points this out, as well as the further truth that the metaphysical absolute and infinite are incompatible. The author is discussing J. S. Mill's Examinaiton of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. This philosophy was especially abhorrent to Mill, because of its implications for educa- tion and the science of morals, on which his hopes for social and human improvement were placed. To base morality on intuitive foundations was to transport the ethical problem beyond the possibility of scientific treat- ment and solution. Mr. Stephen speaks we presume as an "Agnostic," but his remarks are instructive. To be sure, the discussion is purely "dialectical," — a fact however, due to the nature of the subject, and itself an illustration of the typical method of a philosophic apologetic. It is hardly necessary, or even useful, to discuss the subject here in any detail; altho few of those who feel in the metaphysical ultimates, support for their religious beliefs (they commonly do not admit a distinction of relig- ious and theological beliefs), ever stop to reflect that philosophy (even such philosophy) does not — cannot — return the compliment! Clearly, neither the "Absolute" nor the "Infinite" is — godlike. There may be some faint resemblance of the 'O theos of Greek speculation. But "he" too had nothing in common with the Olympian company. Far fainter is their likeness to a "personal God." As regards the incompatibility of these terms, used in their apologetic meaning as synonyms, Mr. Stephen notes that an "absolute" is something absolutely limited, — so that anything 12 or any fact is, as such, an absolute, — and thus it is the very antithesis of the "infinite"; unless it be a "limited infinite" (which is a formal mathematical conception) ; but that is just„what the Infinite in apologetic usage is not. We have mentioned John Stuart Mill in this connection, and it is our purpose to study his thought (and not apart from his character and aims) under various heads, and to portray him, as a result of an impartial and "objective" but appreciative examination, in a character as philosophic thinker corresponding essentially to the view of philosophy presented in this essay. His apparent extremes, if one admit them at all, seem to have been due to his antagonism — more pronounced than our own age demands — to the "ancient ideas" which he saw obstructing progress. But he frees himself, according to all accounts, — including his own memoirs, and the evidence of his writings, from all orthodoxies, or mere par- tisanships. Mill was a mediator of philosophic ideas, in the genuine spirit of dis- passionate speculation, because — scientific, progressive, radical, even "revolutionary," that he was — he was progressively less under the illusions of his optimism, as his intellectual and practical career unfolded. That he had a "practical career," must be accountable in great measure for this happy moderation. He was no doctrinaire, — not after he passed the period of youngest manhood; and he was still a boy when he embraced orthodox Benthamism with religious fervor. But his business life too began when he entered the India House under James Mill's administra- tion, at the age of seventeen. One of his reproaches to Comte was, that he should fancy a "positive" and complete science of society, — a full-fledged scientific sociology, — would spring into existence once the positive method was applied to social phenomena. Which strange and impracticable optimism on Comte's part was in glaring contrast to the implications of the classification of the sciences, and the philosophy of history, which he "established." For if it took some three centuries of modernity — to say nothing of a millennium before — to bring the sciences to a positiveness imperfect even in mathe- matics, and even more incomplete or, entirely lacking in each one of the "dependent" or "later" sciences, — the degree of dependence and the lack of positive character, due to theological or metaphysical tutelage, increas- ing pari passu until you reached sociology, which was admittedly (in so far as even existent) not positive at all; — if Comte recognized that such results were the work of the whole epoch of scientific development since Descartes, he might, it would seem, be supposed to expect the actual application of his social philosophy to reorganization, to require a long period for its completion. Mill was incapable, in any event, of the impracticable dogmatism which inevitably grows out of such over-systematization. He had not the intel- 13 lect for such a universal reconstruction, and all the conditions and circum- stances of his education, training and career, made him combine in a useful way the speculative and. the active life. He remained, as a thinker, essentially insular, and tho superior to Philistinism, was not the "Occi- dental European" that Comte aspired to be. But these limitations com- bined with his character and dominant interests to make him remarkable as a philosophic moderator. II. JOHN STUART MILL AND THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM Consistency would perchance never have been deemed a jewel, had Shakespeare taken the trouble to dissect a common toad; for he would have found no jewel in its head, and so must needs recast his metaphor. But whether the praise of consistency as a rare virtue be due to a zoologi- cal blunder on the part of the great poet, or a mere conservative shibboleth, for the collectivist-individualism of the present moment the less eulogistic characterization by the best known of American essayists, that consis- tency is merely a nocturnal disorder, and not of minds of the larger caliber, will be more congenial. Now there are certain grea,t thinkers to whom the world owes much, who themselves owe to consistency much that makes their systems famous. They are conveniently described as system-builders. But it is not the systems in their integrity that have become great creative episodes and monuments of evolution in the history of thought and culture and institutions. In the retrospect we can see that, to all appearance, their authors could have made their permanent contributions to the restate- ment and re-solution of the problems of thought and life and investiga- tion of reality without fixating them in consistent systems at all. That in order to give their new or refurbished weapons of science play we must take them out of the dim and cob webbed armory and try them directly on the green wood of contemporary life and fact. Thus it is the method of Descartes — the method that he formulated, perhaps, more than that which he used — and the great principle of extri- cating the mechanism of nature from the — shall we say ? — camouflage of finality, so that it could be seen for what it is and made to give an account of itself otherwise than thru the medium of texts and MSS both sacred and profane, or that of a magic whose presuppositions and assumptions were well-nigh as prejudicial; — it is these elements, even more than the mathematico-metaphysical ideal of the system as such, that constitute the epoch-making Cartesianism. Dualism may not be desirable, any more than any other ism, and the postulate that there subsist two sub- 14 stances, that is, two simple, irreducible, unanlyzable, mutually exclusive and utterly disparate kinds of reality, may be, and probably is, forever unverifiable. You may believe it ; you probably never will know it. But if some such theory will serve to disentangle the natural from the super- natural and enable thinkers and investigators to see the former in its intrinsic character, while taking for granted, ignoring or repudiating the latter, as the case may be, why, as instrumental to such result — as indis- pensable, it may be, one can live on terms with dualism — as a working hypothesis. One might live quite as charitably with some sort of monism, if it yielded the same kind and degree of emancipation. What Descartes' dualism did was to make modern science possible. But even tho we may say it was true — then, we are not obliged to acknowledge the doctrine as a permanent contribution. There is however another way of viewing the aspiration to consistency or systematic completeness on the part of speculative thinkers; just in proportion to the importance of the great discovery or renovation or innovation which is destined to become a monument in the history of phi- losophy, it will be seen to have a general implication for the principles of all departments of reflective thought. And the attempt to work out these implications becomes the obvious preoccupation of the thinker. That is to say that the epoch-making discoveries in philosophy are all revolutions in what is called methodology. Hence they involve in greater or less degree the recasting of the whole of abstract science. And we may observe in passing that discoveries in the scientific field strictly so-called may indi- rectly bring about this situation; and if that be so, and we may assume that the special sciences will never be "completed/' then philosophy, how- ever closely it may approximate scientific method, will never itself be finished and Othello's occupation gone. Not only are the great discoveries orientations, which demand general readjustment, but their soundness will be tested by their applicability in all fields, and the genius of their authors will be judged by their ability to make this application — with consistency. To be a discoverer, a pioneer, in philosophy then, is to discover at the same time a vocation as a syste- matic philosopher. So that while we may judge, as we often do, that most of the systems are, as such, rather more interesting than valuable, or true, we cannot cavil at the sense of mission, of vocation, on the part of their creators. Their creators! You have perchance formed one of a group pausing on their way along the mountain road, or seacliffs of Maine, or say a bridge in Venice, to watch a painter at work. Here is something more than construction, greater than the mastery of instru- ments ; a mechanism is at work, but its product is expression ; with these pigments and delicate brushes of camelshair the artist is fixating there on the small stretch of canvas a mysterious blend of himself and nature, a something intangible but spiritual, significant. He is a creator, and 15 tout le monde stops to glance at his handiwork, which in some strange way means more to many of them than the scene of which it is superficially but the miniature replica. The picture is in a sense the man; ar.d no sooner are we fallen under the spell of the former than the latter becomes the object of an even stronger interest; we are now fascinated by the painter and long to know him. Similarly our interest in the great philosophies becomes progressively more humanistic. It ceases to be so important that the system is the monument of an inconsequential consistency, or that it reveals the limi- tations at once of the principle it exploits and the mind that conceived it. It is a work of art, of creative genius, to be appreciated ; to inspire in its integrity, as well as make a fragmentary contribution. It is their creators that count. And the more familiar we become, if haply we ever do become familiar, with this or that system, the more they become like old palaces or churches ; vaguely they seem to surround and cover us, while thru their windows old and storied seems to fall a light of other days. And at length, becoming at home in the past, we begin to apprehend the presence of the prince or the god; personality illumines and explains and unifies, and brings the air of hospitality. We like to conjure up the architecture for the sake of getting en rapport with the fellow-creature who called it all into existence. We have become familiar, at least verbally, with the historical method in the history of philosophy, but judging by certain reviews of new his- tories of philosophy offered during the last ten years, the method as exemplified is not all that could be desired. Observing moreover the rather vague and ill-defined interest of the average sort of students of the subject, it may occur to one that our historical method might with ad- vantage be modified in the direction of a biographical method. This would require little but a shifting of emphasis from the epoch to the author and probably an alteration in the relative proportion of historical and expository matter. The greater quantity of the former would give scope for the biographical emphasis to be made effective; a chance to get a powerful delineation of the thinker limned upon a background sufficiently ample and enriched with detail to make a realistic impression. Moreover, as to the expository matter; — there might well be less than usual of this, and more, much more, direct quotation from the sources — the work or works of the philosophers themselves. This would encour- age the student in that too rare indulgence, the consultation of the pri- mary sources, or at any rate their English versions. Such discreet quo- tation would acquaint the student with the fact that the main principles of a system of thought may be reduced to a rather small compilation of passages, if one only knew how to go about it. In the presence of such exhibits, with their connections concisely indicated, the interest of the student would be aroused and the impulse to know more about the con- 16 text should follow "as the night the day." In a word, why not have the history of philosophy written not so much by the distinguished expositors of speculative thought ; — let these write expository works, sets of lectures, special studies and the like ; — as by scholars whose real inter- est is most general and objective. These would presumably give us his- tories which would be genuine textbooks serving the only real purpose of such works, actually firing the undergraduate mind to investigation under the feeling he has, say, in studying a good textbook of science, namely, that he knows what he is doing. The ultra-expository kind of books are more adapted to advertise the author than to spread the knowledge, much less the love, of philosophy. He may gain a reputation without giving an understanding, at least where it is most needed. He is sure of the glory and excitement of controversy with the philosophical authorities; but might well be admonished to use some other medium than the textbook for indulgence in this sport of kings. This apparent digression may be pardoned for the sake of one for whom education was to be the greatest instrument for the gradual perfecting of the life of man in society. And for Mill consistency in the sense of systematic completeness and perfection could never be a legitimate aspira- tion in philosophy. For such a system requires in time the subordina- tion and sacrifice of the individual lines of force in human thought, which furnish the disintegrating influences out of which must grow reconstruc- tion and progress. Nothing was more objectionable to him than a dog- matic system pretending to correspond to objective truth. Progress re- quired freedom of thought, and that meant convergence, conflict and reconciliation of individual convictions. Consensus, in theory and prac- tice, was the method ; and this could not be the consensus mediated by an academy of immortals. Nor could it be mediated even by a majority. How to advance to this real consensus, how to get beyond the domina- tion of certain interests, beyond even the mere compromise of interests, is the problem of democracy. Dogmatism resembles superstition in that while the formulae of beliefs are definite, the ideal objects thereof remain intangible and indefinable. One "sees" manifestations which "verify" the belief, yet the thing believed in remains beyond the range not only of our own individual experience, but of that of any conceivable expe- rience. The conviction is a feeling "bearing its reason in itself." Dog- matism in the last analysis rests on intuition and on it alone. The possi- bility of such truth, and thus grounded, was utterly repugnant to Mill's most solemn convictions, stood straight in the pathway of his most conse- crated purposes. It is very easy to forget or ignore the fact that a logic of experience cannot in the nature of the case be made an organon for the revelation of objective truth. It is therefore a misuse of logic to go about to prove that it is not. Nor does the most strenuous effort to establish the validity of 17 the results of an experimental logic justify us in gloating over what we deem its failure to realize an aspiration to apodictic certainty. For after all, a regressus, infinite but for the intervention of the First Cause, stretches ominously back of the premises of the most irreproachable de- duction. We may also note that if the empirical logican draws the fire of his detractors for an alleged effort to create the "transcendental illu- sion/' then the results of the logic of induction must give a remarkable impression of verisimilitude. We all have our limitations, but we natur- ally try to minimize them. A system like Mill's deliberately counts on getting along without any kind of Absolute, and that for the better accom- plishment of the very purpose it has in view: the realization of an un- known and as yet non-existent perfection of social organization thru progressive change. "The only system," says Edith Simcox, writing in the Contemporary Review soon after Mill's death, — "the only system that can last as long as thought, law and human society, is one that begins by acknowledging no eternal truths, and is content with the merely historical identity of the subject of continuous change." In contrast with this point of view, the point of view from which best to appreciate Mill's forcefully-purposed thought, whether we fully accept for ourselves the standpoint or not, — is this passage from a French review of the same period; a writer in the Critique philosophique (perhaps Re- nouvier, tho the article is unsigned) sums up in a concluding paragraph Stuart Mill's limitations as a philosopher, as follows : "What was lacking in Mill, — not in his life ; nothing was lacking In his life, — but in his phi- losophy, was the recognition in ethics of a reason, revealer of the Just (capital J), superior to feeling; in logic and psychology, of constitutive forms of the understanding, superior to empirical associations. Whence results, that the unity of feeling and reason operates only as instinct in his social views, and that his justness as analyst and thinker was due to his abstaining from pressing his metaphysical theories to a conclusion which they could not have, — at least on the supposition of no other motives of belief than those which he admitted." The Gallic grace of this passage makes us shrink from its exegesis. It was truly a fundamental lack, — that Mill was not a neo-Kantian or neo- criticist of the contemporary French school ; that he had not adopted as the cornerstone of his philosophic edifice the very principle that was to him anathema. And it is almost fulsome to commend him for not pressing his theories to conclusions most definitively ruled out by his own logic. But let us return to our orientation. For Mill, experimental method, in thought and in act, was not repugnant to logic, not even to rigorous logic ; neither was such method tainted with scepticism. Not to have beliefs, ardent convictions, and not to work hard for the good — however difficult to envisage — of mankind, under their inspiration, was the most contempti- ble failure of vocation. Says Edith Simcox in the same review quoted 18 above, 'That immoral scepticism, or rather imbecility of judgment, which hesitates to build upon convictions sincerely held because they may after all prove to be erroneous, met with no sanction from him, either in prac- tice or theory. To act in candor and good faith, undismayed by the inevit- able prospect of blundering, is as necessary a step towards the discovery of truth, as to reason according to established canons, tho the human brain is liable to fallacy, and incapable of attaining absolute certitude. And tho it may be given to few to succomb as seldom as Mr. Mill to those two accidents of human infirmity, we may at least learn from him not to lose the fruit of what knowledge we have, by an ill-timed reference to such as may be reserved for later generations." Any modern discussion of the so-called problem of freedom turns on an examination of the terms cause, law, necessity, and freedom itself ; but the concept of law is the crux of the matter, and the criticism of it will be seen to involve the other terms and clear the whole situation. The analysis of the notion of law in the political sense and with reference to the idea of justice may serve us here as a starting-point. The following is a pass- age translated from Dumont's version of Bentham's treatise on Legis- lation : "The primitive sense of the word Law, is the vulgar sense, that is, the will of a lawgiver. The law of nature is a mode of expression : Nature is pictured as a being, to whom one attributes such or such a disposition, and this is called figuratively Law. In this sense, all the general inclina- tions of men, all those which appeared to exist independently of human societies, and which must have preceded the establishment of political and civil laws, are called the law of nature. Here is the true sense of this word." The purpose of the writer need not concern us here, but the analysis suggests at once how the modern usage of the same expression to designate the foundationstone of modern science brings to conscious- ness in the majority of minds traces more or less distinct of its primitive meaning. Now since cause is, in the simplest and least prejudiced terms, an operation of natural law, it too carries with it what the author of the above analysis would call (if we dare use such a discredited formula) an "inseparable association" suggestive of the power of legislating will. Again it is seen that necessity is the very imposition of such will in actu ; or for more sophisticated minds, a metaphysical real which coerces that very will itself, just as 'anangche' controls Zeus. Finally, in freedom we find the confusion resulting from primitive association culminating in a complete inversion of the connotation belonging to the term in its scienti- fic context; instead of that freedom of functioning and self-realization arising from perfect mechanical adjustment "free" from all extra-natural sabotage, the term insists on whispering to us sinister suggestions of an alleged "freedom" of caprice, of indifference. It would be parlous free- dom indeed which would leave us quite helpless ; for a few minutes after 19 starting for a lecture-room we might find ourselves en route for Mars. Only a thoroly anthropomorphic omnipotence could relieve us from this predicament; but — there's that will again; we land in theological deter- minism ! And that is just what has happened — to freedom. As tho the burden of its "primitive meaning" connected with pre-civil law were not enough, this precious word became further charged with the duty of vindicating itself against a theological doctrine of necessity in the guise of predestina- tion. The facts are too familiar to need more than the briefest mention. There was a pretty strong flavor of this particular conception in Augus- tine, explainable by his favorite obsession, the divine omnipotence, corre- lated with omnisience ; — implying foreknowledge, implying predestination. Then the most metaphysical and scholastically inclined of the Protestant reformers and divines developed the doctrine, not shrinking from its most revolting implications. One practical use it served was as a weapon against the Catholic miracles, all post-apostolic instances of this type of divine intervention being repudiated by Protestants generally. Theologi- cal determinism had upon these somewhat the same sort of corroding effect as modern scientific determinism upon similar beliefs. But it was unfortunate that predestination seemed to blend with natural law, thus confusing necessity, the invariable coupling of definite condi- tions with specific phenomena, with that "mysterious compulsion" so revolting to Mill and to all other so-called "necessitarians" who accept science. According to this conception necessity is overshadowed by divine will, projecting and so fixating the future, towards which man can only move along trails already blazed, but from which the stumblingblocks are not removed, — tho for the elect they become for the moment stepping- stones. Deeply ingrained in the popular notion of natural law, it leads to the passionate rejection of the latter, as being the order of our volitions as of a part of a natural world, and the eager acceptance of an irrational and indefensible theory of so-called freewill, whose self-contradictoriness they ignore. What their soul really loathes, did they but know it, is not natural law, but predestination ; and in this we may well extend them our sympathy. Necessity in this moral sense is substituted for that of the certainty, order and permanence of law. Indeed natural law may be regarded as the conception of the permanent amid the flux, for which the thinker has sought as for the philosophers' stone. It is a modern monism, a principle of unity, without the disadvantage of being substance or stuff ; it is nearer to reality than any such conceptions. The science of natural law is ideally comprehensive, and gives permanence without the help of the supernat- ural, certainty without dogma or faith, substituting knowledge for belief, so that certitude and truth are one. Mill resolved on attacking Hamilton's philosophy because in the writ- 20 ings of one of the ablest of his followers, as Mill himself says, "his pe- culiar doctrines were made the justification of a view of religion which I hold to be profoundly immoral — that it is our duty to bow down in worship before a Being whose moral attributes are affirmed to be unknowable by us and to be perhaps extremely different from those which, when we are speaking of our fellow-creatures, we call by the same name." Fur- ther light is thrown on this resolve by another passage in the Autobio- graphy, in which the type of philosopher exemplified by his father, and, tho less narrowly, by himself, is contrasted with the school represented by Hamilton. "There is a natural hostility between him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings and moral facts by circum- stances and association and prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human nature; a philosophy which is addicted to holding up favorite doctrines as intuitive truths, and deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking with an authority higher than that of our reason." But we all know that the Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Phi- losophy was not the first occasion of Mill's subjecting to his notable powers of analysis the problem of freedom, or as he denominates it, under protest as regards the second term, Freedom and Necessity. Not- withstanding the singular good fortune which brought him to manhood without dogmatic bias with respect to religious truth, there came a time when the problem of the freedom of the will gripped him in a very orthodox way. Quite commonplace indeed was the confusion of thought which for a time made the idea of volition controlled by character and character by circumstances a veritable "incubus." Then and there he thought it out, and briefly records the resolution in the memoirs. This solution, which required no material revision, is set forth with accus- tomed clearness in the Logic. But we derive a greater human interest f*om a study of his chapter on the same subject in the Examination, where a system of philosophy which he deemed as vicious as it was fallac- ious, affords a foil, and wherein we feel a certain storminess that sweeps his philosophic calm. Having indicated, with his own help, something of the speculative char- acter of Mill's protagonist, or, more exactly, of his system, for Hamilton had now no further need of mundane philosophy; — its author depre- cated an attack made only under a strong sense of duty; — and having noted that the problem of freedom had caused a youthful spiritual crisis in Mill's own life; let us now pass on to examine the Examiner. Accord- ing to Mill, Hamilton makes the existence of God depend on the postulate of a moral will, which in turn depends on our being moral agents, i.e., on freewill. This makes these supposedly necessary doctrines indispen- sable to each other, instead of being independently demonstrable. Of this kind of evidence Mill sharply observes, "The eager attempts of almost every metaphysical writer to create a religious prejudice in favor of the 21 theory he patronizes, are a very serious grievance in philosophy. ... I might warn the defenders of religion, of the danger of sacrificing in turn every one of its evidences to some other." He also points out that freewill is placed by its advocates in contrast with necessity as identified with materialism crassly conceived. He shows the illegitimacy of this, and illustrates his point by citing the cases of religious necessitarians who are spiritualists — Luther and the Reformers, Calvin and the school of Ed- wards, Leibniz, Condillac, Brown. "But," says he, "to confound necessity with materialism, tho an histori- cal and psychological error, is indispensable to Sir W. Hamilton's argu- ment, which depends for all its plausibility on the picture he draws of a God subject to a brute necessity of a purely material character. For if the necessity predicated of human actions is not a material, but a spiritual necessity; if the assertion that the virtuous man is virtuous necessarily only means that he is so because he dreads a departure from virtue more than he dreads any personal consequence; there is nothing absurd or in- vidious in taking a similar view of the Deity, and believing that he is necessitated to will what is good, by the love of good and detestation of evil which are in his own nature." The next point is, that no distinction is made by Hamilton and others between determinism, which Mill calls "a fairer term," and necessity, or even fatalism. Further, while admitting, in harmony with a certain par- tiality for the design argument, that we may base our presumption of a divine intelligence on the existence of natural phenomena, we are not jus- tified in taking the effects of our minds on things and the conditions and laws governing those relations, as types of the Absolute which is unknow- able and inconceivable — as Hamilton thinks God is. "And," he adds, "tho I do not acknowledge the obligation of believing what can neither be known nor conceived, as little can it be admitted that the divine will cannit be free unless ours is so ; any more than that the divine intelligence cannot know the truths of geometry by intuition, because we learn them from Euclid." He thus disposes of Sir William Hamilton's attempt to prove "that one who disbelieves freewill has no business to believe in a god." Having thus pictured this curious scaffolding for the throne of God, resting upon the affirmation by man of his own freedom, on which again is superposed the postulate of a moral order of the universe, Mill turns his attention to a favorite logical device of the intuitionists intended to exhibit man as forced to the assertion of his freedom as something more than a statement of fact. This device consisted in presenting two contra- dictory inconceivables, and arguing that, so far from being false because both inconceivable one must necessarily be true because the other being contradictory to it must necessarily be false. You have then merely to discover a preponderance of probability — and choose. A theoretical, or a 22 moral, demand will answer for the basis of this probability ; and there is of course no objection to two moral demands demanding each other! The more the merrier. It is curious to note in this connection that Mill was by no means willing to concede the impossibility of the inconceivable. Furthermore, being somewhat pre-Darwinian, tho not altogether unevolu- tionary, Mill in his logical doctrine of "kinds" seems to approximate the scholastic notion of species; he also doubted whether the so-called uni- formity of nature reigned in the interstellar spaces, while late in life he used to write at some length to Prof. Bain about his difficulties with the conservation (not the conversion) of force, — for him a much harder nut to crack than the conservation of matter. Sir Leslie Stephen explains the predilection of Hamilton for this bal- ancing of inconceivables as due to his extraordinary interest in the antino- mies of Kant. Hamilton thought all such oppositions were antinomies, and called them such, not noticing it would seem that the Kantian antino- mies are disclosed only in the realm of the cosmological argument, and do not apply, or rather have no analogy in the ontological proofs. However Mill quotes this typical passage from the Lectures: "How, therefore, I repeat, moral liberty is possible in man or god, we are utterly unable speculatively to understand. But the scheme of freedom is no more inconceivable than the scheme of necessity. ... As equally unthinkable, the two schemes are thus theoretically balanced. But practically, our con- sciousness of the moral law, which without a moral liberty in man would be a mendacious imperative, gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the doctrine of fate ( !). We are free in act, if we are accountable for our actions. " It is in his criticism of the points included in this passage that J. S. Mill's philosophy of the moral-religious problem of freedom is exhibited in its main aspects. He begins by assuming tentatively Hamilton's point of view, that the terms of the alternative are alike unthinkable — "concede to him the co- equal inconceivability of the conflicting hypotheses, an uncaused com- mencement, and an infinite regress"; that is to say, these expressions are the logical counterparts of a "free" volition, and a naturally caused voli- tion. The "scheme of freedom" versus the "scheme of necessity." Nor does he stay to examine Hamilton's position that the inconceivable may however not be impossible "by the laws of the universe" ; that one of the opposed two incomprehensibles may from its "nature" seem certainly true. But he raises the question of what justification the philosopher has in choosing to assign the one inconceivable hypothesis as the explanation of the one class of phenomena, those of the will — volitions, and the other inconceivable hypothesis to account for all other phenomena in man and nature. For the evidence to which he appeals in both cases is identical — experience ; it is the fact of freedom that weighs the balance in favor of construing moral phenomena on the hypothesis of an unthinkable moral 23 liberty ; it is the experience of an "invariable sequence" between event and antecedents that makes the protagonist of freewill a determinist in his interpretation of natural phenomena other than volitions. For the sequence is all that experience discloses, — "that wherever and whenever that union of antecedents exists, the event does not fail to occur." Experience does not reveal any causal nexus, as Sir William, with most philosophers of the age, admits in disclaiming a principle of "sufficient reason." "Any must in the case, any necessity," adds Mill, "other than the unconditioned universality of the fact (he means "invari- ability," we may guess), we know nothing of." Now in the case of natural phenomena, the a posteriori 'does', "tho not confirmed by an a priori 'must', decides our choice between the two incon- ceivables." If then there are moral events which disclose constant rela- tions of sequence with definite moral antecedents, why may we not infer that the very same "inconceivable" determination by natural law governs moral phenomena, acts of will, as admittedly operates in all other realms of phenomena? Is not the evidence the same? For, as Mill sums it up, "a volition is a moral effect, which follows the corresponding moral causes as certainly and invariably as physical effects follow their physical causes. Whether it must do so, I acknowledge myself to be entirely ignorant, be the phenomena moral or physical ; and I condemn, accordingly, the word Necessity as applied to either case. All I know is, that it always does." But Sir William does not identify the "fact" of moral liberty with this type of empirical account. His thesis is rather the "consciousness" of freedom than the "experience" of it, — or, (for he is not free from doubt) consciousness of something that implies freedom. "If this is true," says Mill, "our internal consciousness tells us one thing, and the whole outward experience of the human race tells us another." He thinks the problem for philosophy is more difficult than Hamilton was aware. Consciousness has not merely to choose between solutions of more or less equivalent weight, but to judge between "herself and a complete Induction from experience." We might decide a priori for "conscious- ness," if anyone knew what it is ! — when its connotations run the gamut from sensationalism (or even scepticism) to absolute idealism. And the Absolute is exactly what Hamilton does not mean by "consciousness." The solution is found by distinguishing two questions to which the respective yes and no are answered by experience and consciousness. That is, in natural phenomena outside of volitions experience reveals determination by natural laws, as Hamilton holds with the Necessitar- ians. But Mill, filing another protest against "necessity," and with the proviso that natural law simply means invariable uniformities and (knowl- edge being complete) predictable sequences, and that there is no sense of compulsion by any form of will, supports the affirmation of the Necessi- tarians (so-called) that experience shows an exactly analogous determina- 24 tion of the human will by natural causes or conditions. This is the yes of experience to the thesis of determinism, to which 'consciousness' is alleged by Sir William to say 'no.' But the noble philosopher disregards the empirical testimony in so far as relating to the phenomena of man's will. According to his thesis 'consciousness' says 'no' when interro- gated as to the natural determination of the will. On the contrary it says, man is conscious of the freedom of his will. But what it really says no to is a "different question," Mill points out, than the one to which experience replies (again according to Mill and the determinists) "yes." What consciousness says no to is the question, Are acts of human will necessitated, or obligated, to be what they are, and no other, by an Asia- tic kismet, or mysterious and inscrutable fate, or by virtue of a theocratic predestination, either or both which act as themselves, however meta- physically conceived — that is, whatever may be thought about the inmost reality or being of either fate or 'Providence,' — act as themselves free agents, unconditioned by any law or principle intelligible to the mind of man? But — if we appreciate the meaning of Mill's criticism — Sir William does not thus discriminate types of what is still called by thinkers of like tendencies, "necessity." Nay, more — not only is the realm of nat- ural law haunted by a phantom will implied by this word, — a will mani- festly capricious, even utterly immoral, if natural phenomena are (as they must be under such a presupposition) judged by human ethical standards; — but the noble philosopher fails, as we have seen, to distin- guish so-called necessity from so-called "materialism." This is an error common to those who experience a moral or religious recoil from what they regard as confusing the natural man and the spiritual man. It is an error however into which not all necessitarians or determinists fall; although such spiritual determinists are chargeable with the theological misinterpretation of the facts of natural law. It is a pure assumption then, thinks Mill, that consciousness denies what experience affirms in regard to natural law as determining the will. This contradiction is only possible when any theory subsuming the phenomena of the will under law is confused with religious conceptions (theistic) or mystical conceptions (fatalistic) of determinism; when om- nipotence, or destiny, and not nature, is the seat of that law. He then inquires further into this alleged "consciousness" of freewill. It is difficult to "ascertain what it is that consciousness certifies; . . . whether we are conscious only of moral responsibility, in which freewill is implied (according to Hamilton), or directly conscious of freewill." It appears Hamilton was far from settled on the point. But the direct consciousness of freedom is often maintained ; with what propriety is the term "consciousness" employed in such a connection? We are not conscious of ability to do things — as for example, right ' 25 or wrong; to do or not to do at will. We are conscious only of what we do (are doing), or feeling. What we can do we know, and that only from experience. This knowledge is misnamed "consciousness." "But it does not derive any increase of authority from being misnamed; its truth is not supreme over, but depends on, experience." Such an al- leged consciousness must submit to the acid test of experience; if it does not stand this test it is a delusion. But again, what is this conviction — call it consciousness or belief? Just what is it that we are convinced of? It is not the freedom of indifference. In case of any accomplished choice we can say, I could have done the opposite, but only — if I had preferred. You mean to include in the preference the consequence, or the conformity with morality, that may cause one to inhibit a course otherwise and in itself preferable. But that which is actually preferred, whether for the satisfaction of desire or the satisfaction of principle, is what will be done — barring accidents. "I therefore," says Mill forcibly, "dispute altogether that we are con- scious of being able to act in opposition to the strongest present desire or aversion," A man, whether good or bad, acts in conformity with his strongest desires. It is a question of the relative strength of the desire to do right and the aversion to doing wrong. Virtue is the combined strength of this desire and aversion. And on the possibility of this state of mind is based moral government; while moral education, in the wide sense of social experience, is the discipline adapted to produce it. Such education consists in training the impulses, with the view to making the desires what they should be. Not to pursue this topic of moral education, which involves the problem of an ethical standard and set of principles, the point to emphasize here is Mill's rejection of the "figment of a direct consciousness of the freedom of the will." Is it then that this freedom is implied in a direct "con- sciousness of moral responsibility" ? — which Sir William claims, either as an alternative, or as a correlative and reinforcement to the direct con- sciousness of freedom itself. The dependence of moral responsibility on freedom is often an opnion determining the views of necessitarians ; for example, the Owenites, who, recognizing the control of volitions by natural causes, infer the injustice of punishment, for which they substitute "moral suasion"; and they accordingly emphasize education of habits and dis- positions tending towards those virtues which they clearly recognize, and engendering that strong sense of moral distinctions which characterizes them. The confusion of thought which makes natural causation of voluntary acts seem inconsistent with accountability for them is more than a verbal fallacy, yet such a fallacy contributed to cause it. Can we speak of a "consciousness of moral responsibility"? Well, what is responsibility? Either, the expectation of penalty (social or supernatural), or, the sense 26 of guilt — the consciousness that we deserve punishment. But can we be conscious of liability to punishment ? We believe ourselves liable to pen- alties for certain types of behavior, thru some kind of experience, educat- ing us to the belief. The result of this experience — the sense of liability — is not consciousnss, says Mill ; and by any name, does not depend for its existence on being inferred from the spontaneity of volition. Punishment and guilt, like moral evil, are conceptions not incompatible with — even conspicuous by association with — systems of theological or mystical determinism. Obviously neither predestination nor fatalism exclude these notions. You are foreordained to sin and to incur eternal reprobation; you are destined to err — and to suffer the consequences — the inevitable consequences — of your error. The belief therefore that we shall be made accountable for our actions, requires no support from freedom; what does require it, that which may be deemed to presuppose freewill, perhaps, is the conviction that this accountability is just, "that guilt de- serves punishment." The crucial question is, does this conviction depend upon the hypothesis of freewill? The empirically grounded belief that we shall suffer for wrongdoing, does not need this hypothesis ; such belief is not "consciousness of moral responsibility" however. It does not involve the ethical problem neces- sarily. The mere recogntion of a distinction between right and wrong, itself known thru experience, will suffice. Not only does a man know that he will be made accountable by his fellows, but when he is in an irresponsible office he tends to throw off this feeling of accountability. And again, men commonly have a "wholesome 1 * sense of liability to "superiors," accompanied by an unmoral or immoral attitude towards "inferiors." Finally, it should be always remembered that the "highest sense ... of the worth of goodness and the odiousness of its opposite, is perfectly compatible with the most exaggerated form of Fatalism." If then the experimental knowledge of accountability and the sense of moral distinc- tions neither one requires the hypothesis of freewill, does the other sense, of punishment deserved — does "moral responsibility" in the other mean- ing, of which we are said to have a "consciousness," — does this any more depend on freewill? It is the questoin of the legitimacy of retributive justice, — punishment. It is said that to punish a man for what he cannot help is unjust. But what if the expectation of punishment is the only means whereby he is enabled to help doing it? This will be the usual case with persons of evil disposition. They will do wrong if they think they can with impunity, but usually refrain if the conviction is strong that they will suffer for it. Says Mill, "the question deemed to be so puzzling is, how punishment can be justified if men's actions are determined by motives, among which motives punishment is one. A more difficult question would be, how can 27 it be justified if they are not so determined. Punishment proceeds on the assumption that the will is governed by motives. If punishment had no power of acting on the will, it would be illegitimate, however natural might be the inclination to inflict it. Just so far as the will is supposed free, that is, capable of acting against motives, punishment is disap- pointed of its object, and deprived of its justification." Medicinal punishment — for the offender's benefit, and protective pun- ishment — for safeguarding the rights of society, are considered justifiable on necessitarian grounds. These are the two aspects of punishment. The power to punish, used for aggression against individual rights, is unjust. But "if it be possible to have just rights, it cannot be unjust to defend them." And justice of such punishment does not depend on a doctrine of the will. To sum up the argument to this point, Mill's contention is, that given our feeling of moral distinctions derived from education and experience — the former being but a narrower term for the latter, and given our knowl- edge of accountability (whether to a god or to society) similarly derived, we also have, based upon these, a knowledge that the punishment of wrongdoing will be just — "just" namely, as the penalty of the violation of right or rights. To disprove this would require the positive evidence that this sense of accountability and recognition of the justice of punish- ment precede all experience of punishment itself. Now this empirical knowledge is identical, thinks Mill, with the alleged primitive "consciousness of moral responsibility." And he notes that, according to Sir W. Hamilton's famous "law of parsimony," "we ought not to assume any mental phenomenon as an ultimate fact (meaning empirically unconditioned), which can be accounted for by other known properties of our mental nature." From this doctrine Mill draws these corollaries: "It is impossible to assert the justice of punishment for crimes of fanaticism on any other ground than its necessity for the attain- ment of a just end." "The merely retributive view of punishment derives no justification from the doctrine I support. But it derives quite as little from the freewill doctrine." That is, all just punishment is directed to operation on the will, thru supplying or modifying motivation. If a man's conduct were beyond the reach of motives — indifferent to good or bad, restraint would be justified, but not infliction of pain. Mill thinks association accounts for the "natural sentiment" of the justice of punishment as retaliation or reprisal. He quotes Hamilton's remark that the "associations of thought are mistaken for the connections of existence," and adds that this is most true where the emotions are involved; since it does not usually occur to one that "feelings" require justifying, except as a practical necessity may arise for explaining them to another who does not participate in them. He does not think any "metaphysical objection" will make any determinist "feel" punishment to 28 be unjust, in case he have committed a crime, not under any form of duress recognized by law as an extenuating circumstance, or the influence of anything more than "natural necessity." He will recognize that the penalty existed for the very purpose of giving his will a set against doing the deed. He will recognize the evil in his motives, as well as the defects in his "mental disposition," or character, which kind of defects are meant by the term "fault." No doctrine of the will is needed to make us feel that we ought to overcome our faults, "and our estimate of the merit rises, in exact proportion to the greatness of the obstacle which the moral feeling proved strong enough to overcome." The true doctrine of causation of human actions does not resemble fatalism, Mill says, "in any of its moral or intellectual effects." He dis- tinguishes two kinds of fatalism: that of the Oedipus "holds that our actions do not depend upon our desires," but upon destiny, against which strife is meaningless. The other, that "our actions are determined by our will, our will by our desires, and our desires by the joint influence of the motives presented to us and of our individual character; being made for us and not by us, we are not responsible for it, nor for the actions it leads to, and should in vain attempt to alter them." But the true doctrine of causation points to the conclusion that we are "under a moral obligation to seek the improvement of our moral charac- ter." This, because our conduct and character are both exhibited from a natural point of view as under control within limits ; and if we cannot alter our conduct because of our character, we must endeavor to alter the latter. Perceiving these conditions, realizing the alternatives, enter- taining the new motives, making the effort of orientation, — all these are not merely so many effects of a concourse of antecedent causes or condi- tions, but are at the same time so many causal or conditioning factors in the present situation at any given moment, will be so at the next and at every subsequent one, and may become or be made the determining factors in the future conditions. We might emphasize in connection with Mill's distinction of the incon- gruous fatalism of popular interpretations of determinism, another dis- tinction — that between the conception of altering nature and that of controlling the impersonal forces of nature . We can, in ourselves, with- out resorting to a vicious dualism, distinguish forces not belonging as it were to personality, and the very handling of which gives character in a very fundamental sense its type. Mill notices that Kant avoids a consistent determinism by a "change of venue" ; he distinguished two kinds of voluntary acts, those which are the consequence of motives or character, and so determined by them; and those which are of the nature of efforts to reform our character itself. These latter are "free." But Mill refuses this compromise, and regards the moral effort as equally due to antecedent causes. Thus with 29 perfect knowledge efforts and other acts alike would be predictable, but this would put upon them no mysterious constraint, compulsion or obliga- tion to be what they will be. "Necessity (in so far as admissible) can mean no more "than the abstract possibility of being foreseen," . . . "simple invariability of sequence.' , Mill stops to answer seriously freewill metaphysicians maintaining that we can will when we have no strongest desire, or otherwise would be like the asinus Buridani and remain transfixed in indecision forever; altho he is perhaps rather priggishly surprised that any thinker should do so. It seems that Reid and Mansel, tho not Hamilton himself, had gravely undertaken the solution of this dilemma. It is only requisite to give a natural aspect to the situation. A state of deliberation must end in fatigue and inattention; then an accidental renewal of attention fixed for the instant on only one haystack, plus hunger, which has not decreased as we may suppose, equals — a swift decision ! But the situation, if true to life at all, would argue for freewill for the ass ! — and, says Mill, per- haps he has it. Again, Mill objects to Dean Mansel's (but not Hamilton's) reduction of the formula that acts are determined by the strongest motive, to an identical proposition. For determinism does not refer here to the strong- est motive in relation to the will itself ; but rather, in relation to pleasure or pain, liking or aversion. Impulses thus first caused become habitual, and then "strength of motive" comes to mean completeness of the habitual reaction — the working of the association between an idea and a motion. But even if ultimately the strength of motives is tested by effect on the will, the formula still means more than "the prevailing motive will pre- vail"; it means there is a prevailing motive; one which will continue to prevail. In other words, it excludes freewill; revealing as it does a causal situation. Mill, "before leaving the subject," as he says, finally notes that "in its coarsest form," that is, the theological form of the doctrine of predestina- tion, no normal person, not even a Mohammedan, (or, he might have added, a Calvinist), is really oppressed by the doctrine; since the spiritual situation is veiled by the natural conditions, and none knows his "destiny." It is only when, by the drift which one seems to see in his affairs at certain crises, he fancies he has glimpsed the inscrutable purposes of Deity, that effort may perchance be paralyzed; that he may take circum- stances as an intimation of his fate, and abandon hope "without waiting for the result." But such inaction is, by the showing of the doctrine itself, presumably to defeat the divine purpose. It is Islam, or resignation, misunderstood. As John Stuart Mill puts it, "Because something will certainly happen if nothing is done to prevent it, they think it will certainly happen whatever is done to prevent it: in a word, they believe in Necessity in the only 30 proper meaning of the term, — an issue unalterable by human efforts or desires." Mill apparently would agree with the remark attributed to an American philosopher, that he rejected "freedom" because freedom is "unscientific." Both dispose of the question by accepting the fundamental hypothesis of natural science, invariable law, as universal and necessary. "Before leaving the subject" ourselves, it is worth while bringing the discussion- it seems to be still a live question — up to date, by giving some account of a suggestion by another scholar to whom the remark cited was made. * Freedom is not scientific. Reflecting upon this statement, Prof. Bush observes that "whether we use the word freedom, or pur- pose, or intelligent control, . . . the simple fact is that the idea of mechanistic determination is opposed to the idea signified by these words and by plenty of others." So then freedom is not scientific, it is true. The question asked is, What is it to be "scientific"? The traditional answer will serve, — that science looks for causes and seeks to explain. If one employ materials or means, he anticipates that they will accomplish certain ends in view. If they do not, one is convinced that he has mis- takenly used the wrong things. This is the distinction between "formal truth" or logical consistency, and "material truth." Logical truth does not reveal existence ; but the latter is its own only evidence. And if this be so, what is the meaning of the statement of scientific determinism? The crucial point is, that this statement is a "dialectical" one, and so not "existential." The formula of universal determinism is not a "meta- physical discovery." Nor is the term metaphysical obscure enough to make this assertion unclear. The scientific formula has a "methodologf- cal function"; in a word, it is a working hypothesis and nothing more. What can it do, however, but exclude the spontaneous ? This it is, then, to be "unscientific." Now "freedom" is a fact, observable in experience, and it is hard to convince one that it is nevertheless an illusion. And, did we stop here, the tables would seem to have been turned, and the victory won for freewill. That is, we would have to accept the witness of experience, as against a scientific dogma incapable of empirical verification. But no, — we want to get rid of an "artificial problem," not merely ar- range a new alignment of partisanship. "The spontaneous is the region of the uncontrollable," cuts both ways, — in the moral as well as the phy- sical sphere. The postulate of freedom, too, is — equally with that of universal law — not susceptible of complete induction, verification by observation; it too is a working hypothesis. Both are "postulates of the practical intelligence." If the necessity is felt for determinism in nature, to make control possible, equally will that complex instrument, * The account is based on, and quotes fragmentary from, a MS of Prof. Bush since printed. 31 intelligence, need to be controllable, dependable, in order to do its work, to exercise that degree — increasing degree — of control over the environ- ment, physical and social, including that portion of the organism itself which is distinguishable from intelligence, whose function intelligence is. The contrasted facts, that the "principle of causality has been given unlimited scope, and that" at the same time "a gratuitous perplexity in metaphysics has been piously esteemed," are then seen to be explained by the two views seeming both indispensable, and justified by "success in promoting," — one, "the conditions . . . favorable to man's existence"; — the other, those which are "favorable ... to the realization of his poten- tialities." Man's limited and rather indefinite freedom is, according to Mill's view, a natural thing. Volition is not in any way altered as a fact by being no longer attributed to other than natural forces. The regulation of the will by natural law gives man control of it, as of one among other natural energies or agencies, so that he can employ it reliably in gaining a pro- gressive knowledge and control of all other natural objects and processes, and use these for his human needs. If we wish to continue the use of the terms, like "determinism" (tho it would be better to drop them), we may formulate a practical "solution" reconciling freedom with natural law. In the first place we may take as true Spinoza's dictum, that nat- ural facts are connected by causes which have no reference to their con- sequences for mankind. The events are joined by inevitable uniformities of relation among natural forces, of which there is no objective, unitary system. Man makes the "cosmos"; but there is no fixed order of the past, — much less of the future — whose wholly ideal existence is obvious. Now when one is choosing a course of action, he is comparing ideas ; not standing blindfolded at the "parting of the ways," in the sense of two veiled existent "paths," one of which he will inevitably select. How can he choose one among actions which have as yet no existence? In order to exist an act must have been done. It is the decision, perfectly natural of course, under the circumstances, and the result of a succession of causal sequences; which, however, had none of them such an end, nor indeed any end, in view, — it is the decision that brings one "path" into existence. There has been a choice, and a choice is free, — "Hobson's choice" being a misnomer ! Psychologically, we can inhibit one idea, and the other will tend to realization. And just as a single "moment of con- sciousness" is our sole point of contact with reality, so an instant of delib- eration and choice is our momentary — but frequently recurring — realization of freedom. What is "determined" is, how either choice will work out, once taken. This no will can change or affect. Yet even here we speak of the details of causal connections ; a man from the standpoint of his whole purpose may manipulate variously the known "laws," accord- ing to his degree of intelligence, and harness their energies. Experience 32 and foresight give an indefinite possibility of control of choice, with a view to realize desired results. This may be called a "solution" by subsuming freedom under necessity, — meaning under law, or invariable uniformity of sequence of antecedents and effects. The cause of an effect is nothing but the conditions under which it will result or exist. To know causes (from experience) is to understand what effects will follow from specific conditions; what effect certain actions or behavior will have. Human will itself is a determiner of that element of impersonal indeterminateness that exists in man's relation to environment ; a result of his capability of affecting and controlling, or using it — adapting it to him — which he has in measure, and which is one phase of the "adaptation" of organism to environment. For there is interaction between these. Therefore, as Prof. Dewey remarked in dis- cussion, "the will is the least desirable place in the universe for indeter- minism." Ill JOHN STUART MILL AND POSITIVISM "Je ne l'ai jamais vu en personne." One may indulge a regret something more than sentimental that John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte never were able to cement "irrevocable- ment," as Comte would say, their "sympathie philosophique" by means of direct personal association and that complete and frank discussion of their views, which a certain formal and diplomatic character insepa- rable from a correspondence — especially in French — between distinguished persons must inevitably prevent, but which alone could reveal and deter- mine the nature, extent and limits of their "convergences" and diver- gences. Mill felt in Comte a worthy master without the limitations of a Bentham, or indeed of a James Mill. He felt in him a virgin spring of intellectual waters capable of fructifying more richly his own thought, limited as it was by a certain "secheresse" which he himself recognized. Comte was to be a refuge from Philistinism. While Comte seemed to discern in Mill a "superior mind," which is to say one capable of appre- hending the value and finality of the immense work, whose synthesis must needs be perfect, since based, "for the first time," on an adequate analysis of social phenomena and a scientific philosophy of history. And besides that philosophic sympathy provoked in Mill by the "great synop- tic picture" of the past which Comte had painted with a masterly origin- ality, Comte saw in him the possibility of that personal sympathy of which he stood sadly in need. The detached but unsparing criticism — altho everywhere accompanied by a singularly just and impartial appreciation — 33 of ideas and institutions, included in the vast sweep of his research and speculation every interest, public and private, in society, whether in its static or in its dynamic aspect, its "temporal" or its "spiritual powers." "Order" and "progress" alike were subjected to his dialectic, the most scientifically grounded and impartially motivated, as well as the most comprehensive and exhaustive criticism and reconstruction ever under- taken. Comte's investigation was unbiased — it was not a polemic, dis- closed no partisanships. This detachment from "interests" isolated Comte, and his system of "cerebral hygiene" completed the process and resulted in wellnigh dissolving the economic foundations of his career. This isolation extended to Mme. Comte. Their real relations need not concern us; the simple fact was that there was in these no "philosophic sympathy," and lack of personal sympathy in time resulted, leading to voluntary separation. Comte later found consolation in a platonic devo- tion to Mme. Clothilde de Vaux ; with serious consequences to his system, if we may trust Mill's judgment, for it led to the important principle of the presidency of feeling, — one of the chief grounds of Mill's ultimate rejection of the positive polity. The impression made upon Comte and upon his thought by this episode is astonishing when we consider that it ended sadly with the death of Mme. de Vaux within the space of a year. The invention of "altruism," a word coined by Comte, measures this im- pression. The motto of the Systeme became "Vivre pour autrui." Comte remarks with a certain commonplaceness that the "only happiness is in the exercise of the affections" ; and Mill suggests that Comte should know as he had found it so "for a whole year." The "hygiene cerebrale," practically the renunciation of news of the world, gave way before the great expectations aroused by Mill's Logic, which appeared somewhat in advance of the sixth and final volume of Comte's Cours de philosophie positive. The isolation of Comte resulting from this complete devotion to the development of his own thought, and from the universality of his criticism had material consequences, as im- plied above. It estranged most of the savants, or distinguished special- ists, even of France itself, including the representatives of those sciences which had reached, according to Comte, the stage of greatest "positivity." From these last chiefly the great positive philosopher might seemingly look for support based on necessary identity of interest, more than from any other class. But Comte indulged in no eulogiums. While recognizing with discrimination the character and extent of the positive development of each of the sciences, he yet found that all shared in greater or less degree two defects; "dispersive speciality," and "theological tutelage." That is, the sciences did not understand their mutual interrelation and dependence as parts of an organic whole ; and they, even in mathematics, still operated more or less with "theological" — or at any rate "metaphy- sical" — conceptions. But these were fundamental defects. The classifica- 34 tion of the sciences, and their emancipation from the control of pre-scien- tific ideas, were crucial points for positivism, and they were principles on which Mill was in thorough agreement with Comte. In his Auguste Comte and Positivism, in a footnote, Mill says, "The philosophy of the subject is perhaps nowhere so well expressed as in the Systeme de politique posi- tive (iii, 41) : 'Logically conceived, the order according to which our principal theories accomplish their fundamental development results nec- essarily from their interdependence. All the sciences may no doubt be sketched at the same time, — their practical employment itself requires this simultaneous cultivation. But such a preliminary sketch is concerned only with the inductions proper to each class of speculations. For this inductive effort is capable of furnishing principles adequate only for the simplest investigations. Everywhere else adequate principles can be estab- lished only by subordinating each class of scientific inductions to the whole system of deductions which have been derived from less complex, and therefore less dependent fields of inquiry. Thus our different the- ories depend for their dogmatic character upon one another, according to an invariable order, which must control historically their distinct ap- pearance, — the most independent always being capable of earlier develop- ment.' ' : (The translation of the passage quoted is by the present writer.) The classification of the positive sciences built up by Comte upon this principle, was the second great point of philosophic "conver- gence", — the first being of course the philosophy of history based on the "law of the three stages", — that led Mill to make overtures to Comte. And he needed, and so welcomed with sincere effusion, these approaches and appreciations of one whom he insisted upon at once identifying as an adherent and destined propagandist; — the more eagerly, as these very principles estranged from him not only churchmen and (only less) states- men, but savants as well. Philosophers might be deemed accustomed to doing without the support of one or both of these classes, with the addi- tion sometimes of the industrial-capitalists, who usually demand mate- rial results of theories before subsidizing the theorist. But to be deprived of the countenance of the very group for whom his thought might be assumed to have the greatest affinities, — the class best qualified to endorse his theories from a practical point of view, and so commend them to statesmen and capitalists at least, — this was dangerous isolation indeed ! Comte says of this situation, in one of his earlier letters to Mill, "I have learned at my own cost, that the scientists would be quite as vindic- tive and oppressive as the priests and the metaphysicians, if they should (pouvait) ever have the same means. But as far as I am concerned their present power is quite sufficient. And the result of my historical appraisement leads me of necessity in my sixth volume to attack directly the routine system of independent specialization; which impresses me, in relation with the total view of modern history, as constituting today, 35 especially in France, the chief obstacle to the great philosophical move- ment of the XlXth century." Again, in one of Comte's earlier letters to Mill occurs a passage which illustrates at once his philosophy of science, and the consequent attitude towards the scientific world which seems to elucidate the reaction of that community to Comte's programme of reorganization. He assaults the "present constitution of the scientific world" as follows : "Starting from the great scientific impulse given by Bacon and Descartes, inasmuch as the method had to undergo its different fundamental elaborations, mathe- maticians were bound to have a natural predominance, since positivism first came from them. Enunciated as a principle in the XVIIth century, and developed as a fact during the following century, it is in our days that their provisional preponderance has been completely realized. Now, therefore, is precisely the time it should cease, because of the ultimate extension of the positive method to the science of man, — first individual, then social, — a science which, by its very nature, must certainly again become predominant; as it was normally under the theological regime, and even later under the metaphysical. The philosophic agitation stirred by my work, will have given really only the systematic impulse to that new final coordination of scientific forces, henceforth disciplined especially by biologists and sociologists ; while mathematicisians and physicists will pass in their turn to the second rank." If we seek to designate the most fundamental fact which drew Mill and Comte together, we shall not be far wrong in judging it to be — a recogni- tion of anarchic conditions in society. But this anarchy was for Mill primarily economic in its causes, and it was primarily a practical situa- tion, in an insular setting, with which he was preoccupied. While for Comte the anarchy was intellectual and viewed as uniform throughout "Occidental Europe;" and France was simply best prepared to take the lead in a universal reorganization of society, for the first time fully planned on the basis of a perfected scientific theory. We say "scientific", but it must be understood that Comte's method (and Mill's in principle) is primarily a sociological method, and that is why it was uncongenial to the scientific coteries of the day. The grand aim of the system of Comte was precisely to substitute the sociological for the scientific point of view, as the only possible solution of the intellectual and social an- archy, by concentrating all inquiries and scientific interests in one com- prehensive humanistic interest. To speak then of this method as "scien- tific" implies that the recognized methods of science as more or less developed in the modern age, were to be applied to the study of human and social phenomena. That social facts are capable of systematization under the "reign of law" — law as "natural" as any other scientific laws — this is Comte's fundamental thesis. Social facts are merely more complex than in scientific fields other than that that of sociology. Comte's great 36 originality consists in his discovery that history and scientific development have now furnished sufficient data and principles for the immediate "con- stitution" of sociologly as a natural science, — a science which has only to be formulated in order to carry its own convincingness and lead at once to the "re-constitution of society." "Society" in this context is, first, Occidental Europe, and secondarily the civilized world; the back- ward peoples remaining under a tutelage far different from any formerly known in history, since it will involve no "exploitation" or oppression, but will extend distinterested protection and guidance, and provide rapid education for membership in the family of mature nations. Now it was this method, and the historical "appreciation" upon which it was founded, that won Mill's eager adherence. It was this theory that he had developed in his own thinking and which underlay his work on logic, actually completed before he read the final volume of Comte's great work on the Positive philosophy. Mill's work was not revised as a result of this reading, for reasons — cordially approved by Comte him- self — which are best explained in his own words. "In asking for the work all your indulgence, I must point out to you that the first book dates essentially from 1829; that the second is a simple reconstruction of a w r ork done in 1832, excepting the polemic against the representative of German metaphysics, which alone is recent; and that the third itself, where I at last enter frankly into the positive method, was done in all most essential respects before I had taken cognizance of your great work, even as to its first volumes. It is perhaps a circumstance favorable for the originality of my philosophical point of view that I did not earlier become acquainted with what would exert so great an influence upon my mind. But it is quite certain that my book is worth less, although it may perhaps be more suitable for the readers it will have." But Comte was in no mood to find faults. He read Mill between sessions of the inquiry on the part of the authorities of the Polytechnic School, which resulted from efforts — ultimately successful — to oust him from his position as examiner of candidates for entrance to the school. From this ordeal, he says, the work of Mill "agreeably distracted him." His reception of it is cordial, not to say expansive. Nothing is further from his thoughts than the apprehension of disagreements. "It is not in my power, I feel," he writes, "to thank you worthily — at least now — for your generous anxiety to render me on every occasion the illustrious philosophic justice which you thought my due. This strong expression of appreciation, — the first reward of my labor and the most decisive, even including all those that I may henceforth expect, — has made upon me a profound impression of recognition which will last all my life. For I cannot suppose (however you may have utilized my labors) that you were in the least obligated, surely, to such a noble and ardent demonstration, — 37 which may perchance not be without danger to you, notwithstanding the character of your position." But the Logic is appreciated for substantial reasons. It is recognized as an admirable propagandist document. "You have quite fully realized your principal end, by devising a happy and decisive transition from the least backward phase of the metaphysical spirit to the veritable positive spirit, — whither you will thus lead in your train many excellent intellects upon whom my own works can exert almost no influence directly, yet whose cooperation in the great philosophic foundation of our century should be- come very valuable, on account of the habits of systematic generalization derived from their training in metaphysics. This discipline, despite all its radical faults, perhaps brings such minds more into relation with the real final pont of view, than the cruder independent empiricism of our own supposedly positive specialists, upon whom alone I have any special influ- ence." This "service" anticipated by Comte, "passager mais capital", as he graciously says, — to modern evolution, should not be confined to Eng- land, even tho specially adapted for that country. More specifically Comte indicates what he means by the supremely useful mediation repre- sented to him in a total view of Mill's work. "No other interpreter could perhaps adequately sustain that vigorous wisdom which made you so felicitously set aside all really metaphysical arguments, without ignoring however any natural connections with them that your work disclosed. But beyond the invaluable transition you have thus thoroly constructed, this really systematic work contains doctrinal chapters important in many respects, whose permanent influence will not be limited to this important episode. Such is especially your admirable estimate, as clear as it is profound, — of the four general modes of elementary induction. And I admired even more the convincing exposition with which you concluded it, by conducting the reader to the almost spontaneous demonstration of the necessary interposition of deductive steps. The spirit of these two conclusive chapters is afterwards felicitously reproduced so as to leave an indelible impression, in the special consideration of sociological inves- tigations. All this certainly forms a genuine whole (ensemble) whose essential parts combine without difficulty in producing the effect you had chiefly in view." And "all this," we may remark, is an intelligent review and real appre- ciation by M. Comte. In anything Mill did he looked for the features which marked its affinities with his own thought, and regarded all else as "provisional" and destined to undergo change with the perfecting of Mill's mind. It was a literal fact for Comte that disagreements between them were such as the mere logic of positivism must inevitably remove. So he goes on in the same letter just quoted, — "As to disagreement, I am happy to declare to you that I have sought there in vain for the numerous indications your letters seem to announce to me. I must first bar out com- 38 pletely, according to the spirit of this great work, all in it that essentially belongs only to a transition phase, now completed in the spontaneous evolution of your own understanding. Even without your direct explana- tion, I should have easily recognized that this whole writing had been not only conceived but in greater part executed before my works had at alt affected your effort. . . . And you have every reason to congratulate yourself today on such an independence, which, while assuring greater originality to your conceptions, permits you besides to act more directly upon the minds you wish especially to reach. However, under every other aspect I have found between our brains (!) a precision of synergy even beyond what I expected. For this slow and exhaustive reading has shown me only a very small number of philosophic divergences, most of them unimportant, of which we shall talk at leisure during the happy visit you are allowing me to anticipate . . .," etc. A hope, as we have seen, never realized in respect of philosophic agreement or of personal intercourse. Under these circumstances no one can say categorically that M. Comte was not justified in the hopes he reposed in a personal contact with Mr. Mill. But it is certainly doubtful, as the divergences were on what soon proved to be fundamental points. Mill has been reproached for not seeing this and exposing himself at once to the consequences. But this seems to be disregarding certain considerations, as well as being a fruitless criticism and probably unjust. It is to leave out of account the point of view furnished by Mill's letters to Comte, published only in 1899; it is to disregard the expansive protestations of Comte, and to ignore the amenities of such a remarkable correspondence altogether. The spirit of Comte in regard to disagreement has been typically illus- trated ; it was he and not Mill who minimized their divergences. Mill first mentions them, — deprecatingly, as was natural and proper, — and he does so very early in the correspondence. And not only does he warn Comte (with the result we have seen ) about the shortcomings of his Logic, but with characteristic sincerity, as well as clarity and brevity (Comte, by the way, furnished from three-fifths to three- fourths of the actual bulk of the correspondence), Mill gives a definite account of all that is unfavorable in his own reactions upon the reading of Comte's vast work. But Comte in his ample replies never really discusses these points. They were postponed to a more convenient season, when Mill should have read his "final determination" of the new science of society, both as a "philosophical foundation," and a "social reorganization." Before attempting "documentation" of this point, important because the onus has been thrown upon Mill of making gratuitous advances, and then misleading Comte by minimizing the disparity of their views, — let us see what the letters reveal as to the propriety of the overtures. The editor of the Lettres Inedites in his clear and interesting introduction obviously intends impartial justice to Mill, yet there seems to be the faint- 39 est trace of resentment in behalf of the frank, trustful and persecuted French thinker. But he lays himself open to refutation on a question of fact by alluding to Marrast, the French publicist, a common friend of the two philosophers, as a medium not employed by Mill to establish the intercourse he desired. This is the allusion,— "Sans etre connu de Comte, sans recourir meme, comme il pouvait le f aire, aux bons offices de Marrast, leur ami commun, il s'addresse a lui directement, pour lui exprimer son admiration." Mais pourquoi pas? However, as a fact, references to Marrast are comparatively frequent in the correspondence, while in the very first let- ter of Mill he says, — . . . "mais, encourage par mon ami M. Marrast, et pensant que peut-etre . . . il ne vous serait pas completement indiffer- ent de recevoir d'un pays etranger des temoignages de sympathie," . . . etc. And it is in the name of Marrast that Comte accepts the self intro- duction of Mill, apparently as sufficiently conventional to suit French ideas of propriety and, in view of what he takes to be Mill's position in the world of savants, as not detrimental to his own dignity as the succes- sor, temporal and spiritual, of Descartes. An extract from Comte's first reply indicates the tone of responsiveness, as well as it shows — not between the lines — what is going to happen. "I had previously learned with much satisfaction from a casual explanation of M. Marrast, that your wise energy had happily resisted the blind importuning of your friends to a parliamentary career. An extraordinary mind (une raison bien eminente) alone could make you feel how infinitely more useful your philosophic activity could be, by remaining a stranger to the too fluctuating point of view of parliamentary criticism, — which tends directly to prevent all regular habit of a general point of view, at a time when the character of generality in our conceptions constitutes precisely the chief social need." This involved more than the "positive method," to which Mill is com- mitted; it expresses sharply the "principles and the consequences" of the positive philosophy which in the sequel must render abortive this philoso- phic friendship, inaugurated with such mutual impulsiveness. Mill in his second letter addresses himself in his sober, conscientious way, to dissipate this inaugural misunderstanding. "I see that my friend Marrast has given you on my behalf certain information which is not quite correct. In the first place, I have not charge of, the statistical work of the East India Company, but only of a part of the political admin- istration of India, especially in connection with external relations, includ- ing the general control of numerous kings and kinglets, our dependents, whose backward civilization often embarasses us. Hence I must tell you that my abstention from Parliamentary life can afford me no title to praise, having always been a necessity, from the incompatibility of that life with the employment from which I derive my means of subsistence. I could not leave you in error in this respect, especially as there have 40 been occasions when, if my personal position had not forbidden direct political activity, I believe I should have allowed myself to enter upon it." Mill goes on to explain that his motives are twofold; first, the difficulty, greater in England than in France, of getting a hearing, even among the 'corps d'elite," for untried theories; secondly, the impossibility in Eng- land — which "has not yet had its 1789" — of emancipating social philoso- phy, whether from empiricism or from theological tutelage, in the name and by means of, merely negative criticism. The introduction to the Lettres Inedites cites Mill's expression "diver- gences secondaires," as tho it were preposterous. But the correspondence was well along in its second year before this phrase — obviously one of politeness — occurs. Mill's formulations of points for discussion, ever increasing in length, culminate in the longest of his letters, where twelve (printed) pages are devoted chiefly to the question of the subordination of woman under the positive regime. This is the piece de resistence among the "divergences." It is undeniably a capital question, and Comte takes it up and goes into it with unusual fulness. But when Mill does not at once yield to arguments so conclusive for Comte's mind, the latter does not hesitate to signify that the discussion is in his view useless, and Mill perforce abandons it ; surely with slight hope that a theory in which he is so passionately interested — which is the result of a lifetime's experience, and bound up with all his social thinking — will be changed by Comte's forthcoming volume, — much less by "further reflection" on his part. After this forceful closure of debate by Comte, the Correspondence be- comes more conventional. It is much concerned with Comte's unfortunate situation and with Mill's generous expressions of sympathy and efforts of practical assistance. It is of little philosophical importance thenceforth. Mill declares in his appreciative way that, notwithstanding the fixed dis- agreement it revealed, the great discussion has resulted in permanent good to his mind and thought. We can better see the true relation of Mill and Comte if we notice the latter's answer to the first explanation, just quoted, of Mill's position and relation to public life. "I regret that M. Marrast unintentionally misled me about your particular position, but I am well content to learn that it is even better than I had thought, besides being of a nature to sustain your mind without difficulty at a high social point of view". . . . "While thanking you for your frank explanation on the subject of parliamentary life, allow me to differ somewhat from your opinion, and to congratulate myself, on behalf of the great cause of humanity, that your personal situation forces you to an activity less direct and more general. Perhaps the reading of my sixth volume will modify your own opinion on this point; for I there prove by pertinent argument how much philosophic activity ought now to predominate over political, properly so-called, thruout the extent of Western Europe; the former continuing in the 41 more or less explicit work of the social renovation. Surely I am far from condemning this political activity per se ; but I think truly superior minds should leave it henceforth to men of lesser worth (who will certainly not fail to display it) and reserve themselves for the philosophic elaboration of which they alone are capable, and on which now depends the progress of ultimate regeneration among the elite of humanity." In the study of this interesting correspondence matters are somewhat simplified by the fact that Mill's reaction to Comte's first great work only, is in question. For the association had ended some years before the appearance of the second. For Mill's mature conclusions on this, and the whole cycle of his works, we shall presently inquire in Auguste Comte and Positivism, the 200-page volume in which were reprinted Mill's two papers from the Westminster Review of the year 1864. Never- theless, the system of Comte is sufficiently explicit in the earlier work, especially in the sixth and last volume, to take Mill thru all essential phases of his reaction to that system. The reading of this last volume was subsequent to the abandonment of the discussion of the great question of the position of woman in the system, crucial and irreconcilable as it ap- peared, at Comte's request. To put it briefly, Mill accepted Comte's "social dynamics" and repudiated his "social statics." Comte's thought emancipated Mill from dogmatic Benthamism and at the same time re- vealed it to him as the best introduction the age offered, to the "positive spirit." "It was in the year 1828," (when he was twenty-two), he says in his first letter, "that I read, Monsieur, for the first time your little treatise on the Positive polity; and this reading gave to all my ideas a strong shock which, with other causes, but much more than they, deter- mined my definite withdrawal from the Benthamite sect of the revolution- ary school, in which I was reared and, I may almost say, in which I was born. Altho Benthamism remained without doubt very far from the true spirit of the positive method, that doctrine still seemed to me to offer the best preparation which exists today for real positivism applied to social doctrines ; whether by its rigorous logic, and the pains it always takes to understand itself; or especially, by its systematic opposition to every attempt to explain any phenomena whatever by means of absurd metaphysical entities, of which it taught me from my earliest youth to feel the essential nullity." The points emphasized here are points of method, and the statement accurately forecasts Mill's response to Comte's first principal and more critical work. The method is acceptable generally ; not so the reconstruc- tion, some principles of which he never could accept. This method was the method of science, and Mill, however far he may have gone in the direction of a scientific dogmatism, and felt the inadequacy of a "nega- tive philosophy" for constructive social labors, and the impotence of mere "revolution" to do anything but destroy outworn institutions, — he 42 could not but feel that the discovery of a true method was not in itself the regeneration and reorganization of society, but only the first great step in the emancipation of "superior minds," which should prepare them for the necessary "prevision" for a genuine social realism, making possible the recognition of the forces actually at work, and the new forces coming into being. The correspondence was abandoned in 1847, after Mill's letter of the 17th May. Comte's memorandum on the date of reception, followed by "Repondu le — ," shows no original intention of not replying. It is in Comte's last letter, September 1846, that he tells Mill of changing his plan to publish the Systeme de politique positive as a whole ; it is to come out in two- volume installments. It appeared some five years later — in 185 1. The divergences between the two thinkers then were sufficiently devel- oped by the doctrines embodied explicitly or implicitly in the earlier Cours de philosophie positive. The mutual discussion of these differences could only be stimulating to Mill, and might have gone on indefinitely to (it is not too much to say) his endless delight. He ardently wished to see a method at which he had independently arrived, develope in the hands of a master thinker. If he himself could only help to make it practically useful, he should not have lived in vain. Both these men were funda- mentally eager — even impulsive, — enthusiastic and "suggestible." Only — "La pensee de Comte est restee jusqu'au bout fidele a elle-meme," as M. Levy-Bruhl says in his Introduction. After all, this statement is not free from ambiguity. It is quite as applicable to John Stuart Mill. We can see this by the reflection that positive social statics became Comte's all-mastering preoccupation, while positive social dynamics was Mill's. The former was interested in order, and this interest made him for all practical purposes another Utopian. Mill was interested in progress — progress becoming indefinitely more orderly. Mill's thought also "re- mained faithful to itself" in the sense of self-consistency, but its perman- ent structure only gave it more assimilative powers. Why should not Comte expect Mill to come to "agreement" by accepting Comte's demon- strations seriatim ? — as a mere mark of the unfolding of a really superior mind. Did Comte not follow Mill's advice to the letter when he advised against his taking up the study of German philosophy? In everything outside of his "pensee" — his highly systematic philosophy and intellectual regimen — Comte's suggestibility was naive. He was charmed with Mill's word "pedantocratie" as a characterization of a state ruled by "philoso- phers" who were themselves mere "erudits," and when organized and intrusted with power, capable of being the most reactionary class in society. Comte with a truly French politeness begs Mill's permission to make literary use of this clever term, — request not difficult to grant. Again, Comte makes Mill's Logic and other works or writings then available an exception to his rules of "hygiene cerebrate." And as we have 43 said, when after the completion of the Cours he purposed studying Ger- man philosophy — not that he expected to derive anything of philosophic value, but to master the language — and Mill advised him that only the great dramatic poets were worth while knowing, the advice was followed very readily. The essence of the disagreement of philosophic views is sharply defined in Bain's remark about Mill's chapter in his essay on Representative Government — that on the "Criterion of a Good Form of Government/' — "which contains an exceedingly pertinent discussion of the relation be- tween Order and Progress; and demonstrates that Order cannot be per- manent without Progress; a position in advance of Comte." The two articles in the Westminster on Comte's philosophy interrupted (says Bain) Mill's work on the Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and occupied him till the end of 1854. This was thirteen years after the publication of the Systeme de politique positive (1851), the second great work of Comte, and about seventeen years after the abandonment of intercourse with him. The figures emphasize that the basic principle of Comte's work adumbrated by Mill from the first, — the imminent final ascendancy of the static over the dynamic, — was really sub- versive of Mill's philosophy of society. Mill indeed looked forward to a very distant future wherein should emerge a social order stationary as far as its economic structure and the prevalence of Justice, as well as contrasted with dogmatic belief or superstition, are concerned. But these very conditions were the conditions of progress — which the indefi- nite perfectibility of human society makes possible. Mill's great trust in the saving grace of the complete separation of the "powers" was based on the idea of freeing the "spiritual" power from "temporal" control ; and his increasing opposition to the 'organization' of the spiritual power is grounded on the conviction that — apart from its incompatibility with the very idea of such a power — organization would defeat its own ends — of freedom from the state, and the ends of society — freedom from arbitrary control. "Je suis tres portee," he writes, long after the Comte episode, to a French expositor of Positivism, "a croire (sans vouloir decider positive- ment cette question pour l'avenir) que le nature meme d'un pouvoir spirituel legitime ne comporte pas une organization reele." In his third letter Mill pursues the topic of the "vie parlementaire," which, as he had explained, he had not so much avoided as been de- barred from by his position in the India House. He is "not far" from Comte's view that political action is incompatible with a real influence upon "philosophic renovation," "even in England," and admits Comte's Vlth volume may convince him. Certainly Comte alone has enunciated the principle of the separation of the powers (in his Vth volume), and Mill feels on this point "complete conviction." Yet, while he thinks the two powers should be "organized" (he uses the term here) in ways quite 44 distinct, he does not see why the same person should not, "jusqu'a un certain point," share in the activity of both. He thinks an education partly "active" is necessary to the perfecting of "speculative capacity," — and of course vice versa. The latter is common opinion, and sound. What Comte's volumes have thoroly 'cured' him of is the Utopian scheme of government by "philosophers" — or even "making it depend on high intel- lectual capacity conceived in the most general sense." This is the error of VHIth century speculation. He goes on to cite China as the classical example of a "pedantocracy," remarking sagely a propos, — "The majority of any lettered class is perhaps less disposed than that of any other class to permit itself to be led by the most highly developed intellects among them. And as this majority certainly could not be composed of great thinkers, but merely of scholars (erudits), or of scientists without gen- uine originality, the only result could be what is seen in China." The whole passage may be taken as forecasting Mill's objection to the organi- zation of the spiritual power, which unhappily was fundamental to Comte's systematization ; — unhappily because, as we shall presently notice more carefully, he deemed himself in the end to have had the deepest affinities with Comte on the subject of religion. In Comte's reply he dilates upon the term invented by Mill so spontaneously, and, in effect, ignores all the rest. In this same letter Mill touches on a subject which is to become a bar- rier between them — that of psychology. For Comte this is no science, and that, not because it is not yet "positive," but because it belongs to "metaphysics," and any pretentions it may have in the direction of a positive science are rendered vain by the greater capability of physiology to furnish an analysis of the "faculties," mental and moral. The "dis- covery" of Gall of the localization of the "organs" of the principal facul- ties in specific brain areas, connects for him directly the mental (and moral) with the physical man, and so joins biology with social science. Now Comte got the idea that Mill's forthcoming Logic was a sort of psychological work, — which in point of fact it is, in the sense that Mill, in whatever he writes, reveals the psychologist. In explaining, Mill, while acquitting his work on logic of being, at all events consciously, a treatise on psychology, is able to say a word for the validity of the latter as a scientific — even "positive" — inquiry. "I regret," he writes, "having unin- tentionally given you the idea that the philosophical work in question had as its object the analysis of our mental faculties and moral tendencies. I only intended to express my belief in the possibility and in the scientific value of psychology thus understood. But in my Logic I am engaged only with method — that is, with intellectual acts, making abstraction from the faculties as far as possible." This is a very mild protest, but there is implied a capital disagreement. A "Logic" for Comte could only be — in so far as positive — a treatise on physiological psychology; some- 45 thing subsidiary to biology, and introductory to the social science proper. What he thought Mill must mean by a work on logic was, "a sound rational analysis of really primitive mental faculties and moral disposi- tions," by someone without "any illusions about the nature of such a subject, — henceforth always connected, at least in principle, with the anatomical determinations of cerebral physiology" ... etc. We may cite from Mill's fourth letter a passage as typical of his state- ments of agreement with Comte. They are broad and general, implying much to be threshed out by debate ; and here also he is — as he tells Comte he is in the Logic — preoccupied with method. He says he awaits with interest Comtes' "judgment upon England" in his Vlth volume, and expects an "example of the great power of interpretation of general facts . . . which a mind truly scientific may derive from a profound knowledge of sociological laws." He then continues, — "In spite of the brevity of human life, we may both hope to see the social situation and the national character of each important part of the human race, con- nected with the laws of human nature, and with the qualities of the general or particular organic environment, with a relation of sequence as certain, if not as complete, as that which now exists in the most ad- vanced sciences. I should be very happy to believe myself capable of taking a really important part, even tho a secondary one, in the great work." A world of misunderstanding might have been avoided if the friends could have met and talked over these alleged "sociological laws." Mill was more or less under the illusion of scientific dogma, — as most thinkers are who follow in general the same line of development; in turning away from a theologizing science, they run into the arms of another theory, which, however better grounded, and hospitable to critical examination, has also a too plausible generality. Still, allowing for this tendency of Mill to recognize scientific law with enthusiasm, he must have regarded the sociological laws as not having gotten much beyond the stage of "empirical laws" based upon historical generalizations. Now these "inductions" must be correlated with psychological laws — which Mill probably considered pretty well worked out by his father. But of this more may be said when we come to examine Mill's Westminster essays. It is in the sixth letter that a really obvious divergence is disclosed. Comte has prescribed as it were a bitter dose for Mill's psychological heresy — six volumes of Gall! He reads the work with "serious atten- tion," but then finds himself "quite as embarrassed as before" the read- ing, in the attempt to judge Gall's theory — favorably. "I am almost convinced that there is something of truth in it, and that the elementary tendencies and capacities, whatever they may be, are each connected with a particular part of the brain. But I experience very great diffi- culties." These are of course concerned with the "special localization" 46 }f phrenology. Mill discusses them thruout some three (printed) pages. The theory is full of anomalies and absurdities, and as tho to cap the :limax, Mill can cite his own experience to show the "prematurity of all ocal specialization." "A very pronounced phrenologist exclaimed the nstant he saw me for the first time, 'What do you do with your construc- iveness?' Now I lack almost entirely the corresponding faculty. I am destitute of the sense of the mechanical, and my ineptitude for any opera- tion which requires manual skill is simply prodigious I" Another em- arassment of Mill's is that the only professors of phrenology he knows are to say the least mediocre minds. Of course, the premature surveying and blue-printing of the cortical surfaces by them is too obvious for omte to deny. He grants the whole contention — they "agree," except that Comte remains more hopeful that this convenient definiteness of the correlation of the mind with its organ will be progressively established on a positive basis. And as the wish is often father to the thought, he proceeds to employ the principle of special localization as tho it were so established. So much so that this remained one of the irreconcilable points, as we shall see in Mill's review written more than twenty years ater. The bearing of the doctrine upon Mill's special psychological inter- est and his great hopes for that science, is as plain as it is important. In his eighth letter Mill gives further light on the literary history of his Logic in its relation to Comte's Cours. He speculates generously, not to say flatteringly, upon the probable effect of an earlier acquaintance with the latter. But it is quite clear that the very considerable influence he pictures, would have been upon method, resulting in the modification of some of the conceptions he operated with, in the direction of "positivity." "I should certainly have given to the exposition of my ideas, even with- out definite intention, a somewhat different turn, making the exposition in certain parts less metaphysical in form." We may take this as a fairly accurate estimate. Its limitations are quite obvious. The Logic would have been different in no respect that would not have emphasized its inherent character. Mill remarks further on, — "Ce livre est l'expression de dix annees de ma vie philosophique." This period may be compared with, — altho it certainly does not represent the concentrated speculative labors of, — the twelve years devoted by Comte to the Cours de philosophic positive. Another allusion to his patient study of phrenology occurs in the same letter. "Unfortunately I cannot flatter myself with the hope of arriving soon at ideas more settled about the constructive (affirmative) portion of Gall's theory." The reason lies in a dilemma in which he adroitly shows Comte to be also involved. "Since if he himself has not (according to you) sufficient knowledge of zoology and comparative anatomy, I, who have only a very superficial acquaintance with the sciences, should be still less able to judge the real force of the evidences that he produces 47 in support of the general conclusions of phrenological physiology; — at least till some expert should accept them, and place them before me and everybody else, by doing the important work, the nature and necessity of which you point out in your letter." This may be a British, even "bourgeois," argument, but it is hard to refute. We are now in August 1842. Some seven or eight exchanges have taken place between the two thinkers, and about eight months have elapsed since the correspondence was begun. In Mill's eighth epistle there also occurs, at this early stage, a very explicit and seriously urgent plea for that debate, which had always been his desire and hope — for him, in a word, the object of the correspondence. The whole paragraph is striking and must be quoted : He is declaring that Comte's letters are a "veritable fete" — and especially the news of the completion of the "sixth volume." He feels the less disposed to broach philosophic discussions, which the reading of the final portion of his system might render quite unnecessary. "However, I have always much desired that a genuine and frank comparison, in some degree systematic, of our ideas, whether philo- sophical or sociological, might be established between us; altho always feeling that this would necessarily require as a preparatory condition, that I should have a complete knowledge of your great philosophic work in its entirety, — and even that you should take cognizance up to a certain point of what I have myself written, in order to understand my point of departure, and the course of my intelectual development, — so as to supply the place of many explanations, and make the discussion bear from the beginning upon real and fundamental points of divergence — always supposing that such should be discovered, — ce dont je ne puis pas decider." Then follows a paragraph, brief, but as significant as possible of Mill's philosophic attitude : "I am conscious of always being more and more in sympathy with your theories according as I have become more acquainted with them and understood them better. But you are well aware, in your character of mathematician, that a continuous decrease is not always a diminution without limit." The limit was soon reached — on the question of divorce, opening up the general problem of the posi- tion of women. The separation of Comte and his wife brings this subject to the fore. Mill when he married, which was not till 185 1, the year Comte's Politique appeared, and some five years after the correspondence with Comte ceased, — wrote a paper giving his wife carte blanche "to dispose of herself," and absolutely repudiating all the rights acquired by his mar- riage, — which he expressly regrets his inability legally to divest himself of. This will serve to illustrate his position on divorce. Comte made a virtue of his rigid attitude, — it was essentially the Catholic doctrine, — maintained amid the contrary solicitations of his private life, and deems that his sheer energy of conviction under these circumstances constitutes 48 a "very strong presumption" in favor of the correctness of his opinion on divorce as part of his system. Mill could not concede the slightest validity to such logic. However, Comte does discuss this question at considerable length. It recurs in the course of the correspondence during about a year, when Mill filed his twelve-page brief, and Comte suggested the abandonment of the discussion; the real ending, as has been said, of the philosophic phase of their intercourse. In about his ninth letter (September 1842) Comte writes as follows : "As to our present lack of agreement on the subject of divorce, I am convinced that, despite my individual case — of a nature happily exceptional, altho now too little rare, — I should not hesi- tate to reveal to you my opinion upon the social importance of the com- plete indissolubility of marriage, — the final indispensable completion of the institution of monogamy, and an essential condition of the ultimate econ- omy. For I sojourned a long time in the sociological phase where you are still in this matter; and I abandoned it spontaneously in opposition to the tendencies of my personal situation, as a consequence of the most profound convictions resulting from the entire course of my political reflections." The statement continues to about three hundred and fifty words, marked thruout with the same energy of conviction. As for argu- ment, Mill is referred to the anticipated work on the Politique positive, where he is assured "this essential article will be adequately explained." In December 1842, after reading the last volume of the Philosophic positive, Mill writes, "As regards the desir eyou manifest — so honorable to me — of knowing whether, after a mature judgment, I consider your last chapters, and especially the first of the three, adequate to define the constitution of a new general philosophy, — that is to say, a complete and enduring systematization of the whole of our actual conceptions, — you must surely feel already, after all I have just said, that I do feel this con- viction very deeply, and that I entirely agree with the general conclusions of your work, with the exception of some secondary ideas which seem insufficiently elucidated, and which, even if they never were so, would not alter in any degree the essentially satisfactory character of this im- mense systematization." What Mill is endorsing here is sufficiently clear to anyone scrutinizing the letter closely. This is during the course of the only real discussion they had — on the "woman question," precipitated by Comte's intransigeance on the matter of divorce. Certainly this question was not a minor one, but Comte's position on it did not vitiate the "im- mense systematization," in respect of general principles and methods. He shows his meaning more plainly by adding that, convinced as he had long been that only the "ascendancy" of the positive spirit could pro- duce a thoroly logical mind, he would not have believed there was in existence such a "realization" of this — "and from the very first step" — as Comte's book. He continues in the same paragraph, however, in a 49 way which betrays a new fear, and the discovery of a new extreme ten- dency in Comte — over-systematization. This became the object of some ironic stress in the Westminster papers. In this letter he says, "You make me afraid of the energy and fulness of your convictions, which thus seem incapable of ever needing confirmation on the part of any other intellect. And I feel that the invaluable sympathy of which you give me testimony to an extent far beyond my real merits, — and which you proclaimed with such noble confidence, in the note devoted to me, to all philosophic minds in Europe, — obliges me now to tremble before you!" The note acknowledges the authorship of the much admired term "pedan- tocracy." Now follow two paragraphs. "Avec cela" — "At the same time, there are always questions, more or less secondary," (Here we have the cele- brated phrase: note the context carefully.) "upon which I still retain (conserve) either an opinion different from yours, or difficulties not yet resolved. Altho both probably tend to disappear, I must not seek to minimize the real difference that may exist between us: — the less so, since I feel today, with reference to every opinion you have sanctioned, the necessity of defending myself against solicitation, — always more to be feared in my particular disposition than a hypercritical spirit." Then the give-and-take sort of thing Mill had in mind appears "nettement" in the beginning and closing sentences of the other paragraph cited: "I adjourn all more precise indications of these differences until the time, now at hand, of the publication of my book, which will indicate some of them, either directly, or more often indirectly." . . . "As to the intrinsic value of the positive conceptions which are found in it, I can have thereon no definite opinion until they shall have been known and judged by you — hitherto the sole competent judge on this subject." After Mill's Logic had been read by Comte, Mill resumes discussion. His notion is still that their relations are a remarkable instance of spon- taneous intellectual accord; that, starting widely apart, and associated only on "two-thirds of the way," they are however in essential harmony. This spontaneous agreement is itself evidence both of the truth and of the "opportuneness" of the "new philosophy." In the letter now before us, written in June 1843, occurs a passage amounting to a page of print, which however is too good a historical document to be mutilated. Let us read the whole of it into the evidence. "Reassured for the future as to questions of method, whereon I no longer fear any serious divergence, either about the general theory of positivism, or about its special applica- tion to social studies, I can only anticipate an equally perfect agreement in regard to social doctrines. Till now this agreement has existed especially in relation to that part of your doctrines which more than all the rest belongs properly to yourself. I speak of the general laws of social dynamics and of the historical development of mankind, including the 50 practical corollaries derived from them and which are so important; the most essential of which is, in my view, the great principle of the separation of the two powers. As regards the doctrines of static soci- ology, which you did not discover but rather received from ancient social theories, altho you have supported them with your customary energy of philosophic conviction, — there are still some real disagreements between us. These disagreements are connected no doubt in most respects only with the fact that I have not yet reached a state of complete conviction about things which in your view are demonstrated. While fully recogniz- ing for example the social necessity of the fundamental institutions of property and marriage, and while entertaining no Utopian ideas upon either subject, I am however very much inclined to think that these two institutions may be destined to undergo more important modifications than you appear to think; altho I am utterly unable to foresee what they will be. I have already told you that the question of divorce remains undecided for me, despite the powerful argument of your fourth volume. And I am attainted of a still more fundamental heresy, since I do not accept in principle the necessary subordination of one sex to the other. You see, we have still questions of major importance to discuss, — a discussion however which it would be futile to open at the end of a letter." The following month, July 1843, Mill assigns ill-health as a reason for again postponing discussion on the questions which are looming larger, and he betrays his anxiety. "The same reason" — alluding to his health — "prevents me from beginning immediately, as I should desire to, the serious discussion of the important social questions upon which our opinions do not yet agree. The confidence that you express that this divergence of opinion will be only transitory, is a fresh evidence of your esteem, which is so gratifying to me, and any diminution of which would be very painful." Of course Comte's theory of the "natural" subordination of woman rests on biology and comparative anatomy — the physical differences, and lesser physical stature and muscular strength of the sex. Mill takes up in his next letter "notre importante discussion sociologique." He devotes most of his letter to this vital question. He understands Comte to con- ceive the organic constitution of the woman as a "state of prolonged childhood." Against this thesis he argues somewhat as follows: It is true that physiologists find women nearer than men to the "organic char- acter of children," in respect both to the muscular, cellular and nervous systems, and probably the "cerebral structure." "Cela pourtant est bien loin d'etre decisif pour moi." To infer logically the "inferiority" of the woman would require proof that the difference between childhood and manhood is due to anatomical structure. But it is almost wholly due to "lack of exercise" or activity in certain directions. He thinks that 51 if the physically immature brain might be kept so while being educated and exercised under careful control, it would become a man's brain, altho very different from any normal human type. Just so the moral type of woman averages considerably different from the masculine. He doubts whether the "time has yet come" to define exactly these differences. Physiologists say woman's brain is smaller and hence weaker, but more active than man's. Then their quickness ought to compensate for lesser power of sustained mental effort. They would be more adapted to "poetry" and "practical life" than to "science." Observation seems to verify this reasoning. Mill's method from this point is of course to mini- mize the "real differences" by emphasizing the influence of "education and social position." Education of women provides nothing to stimulate powers they may lack ; while education of men seems to account for their possession of them in greater degree. Application to "science," and "even the dead languages," drills the brain in sustained effort. Preoccu- pation with the minutiae of home life, "distracting" but not "occupying" the mind, does not give the same strength to its organ. Now among ignorant men we find the same phenomena. Indeed Mill "finds" that in ordinary practical affairs of life even "mediocre" women show greater capability than men of similar mediocrity. More, — an ordinary man has little general interest beyond his "specialty," compared to the average woman. Comte will say (says Mill) that the emotional life dominates in woman. But this is true only of "sympathy." Selfishness (egoi'sme) may predominate in man; but if sympathy very often becomes a species of selfishness in many women, the same is true of all men who have not been educated (and few have) to a social outlook, and to foresight of the widest consequences of conduct. Now this type of education and training is exactly what women do not receive. On the contrary, any subordinat- ing of family and clique to a "general interest" would be frowned upon. Mill admits that their extraordinary "nervous excitability" makes women more like young men than old, and that they have, more than men, difficulty in "making abstraction" from immediate and individual interests. He thinks however that this "fault" is well offset by the absence of another — that fault of philosophers, detachment not alone from individ- ual interests, "mais de tout interet reel" ! Women are too practical for speculative "dreams," and (better still) a woman "rarely forgets what pertains to real beings, — to their happiness and to their sufferings." He reminds Comte that there is no question of a society "gouverner par les femmes," but only of finding out whether a society would not be better governed by both men and women. Then with characteristic hopefulness and courtesy, — "Au reste, il est peut-etre tres naturel qu'a cet egard vous et moi soyons d'opinion differente." And why? Because the French character contains much that is notoriously accounted "fem- inine," and a French thinker may well hesitate to "give further strength 52 to what already has too much." But English faults are "rather in a contrary sense." This line of argument, far from being uncomplimen- tary to French character, embraces it in an acknowledgment of women's "equality" with man. Mill would have Comte observe this coincidence, — that "while people have always recognized in the French, to a certain degree, that constitution which is regarded as feminine, what nation, however, has produced greater philosophers, more illustrious statesmen ?" In October 1843 Mill prepared a veritable brief on this question, the only one of their differences discussed very much by Comte, and the one which really doomed their intercourse to inconclusion, as far as "philoso- phy" was concerned. A whole letter, twice Mill's usual length, is given to his statement, which is the systematic completion of the one just sketched from his August letter. He begins with a new expression of his point of view that rational differences of opinion even on fundamental questions, between "educated people," need cause no anxiety about the possibility of an ultimately "sufficient convergence of opinion." Yet — "this disagree- ment, and the mode of thought revealed on both sides by the discussion, confirm my opinion that the intellectual basis of static sociology is not yet sufficiently prepared." As to social dynamics Mill says that in his opinion its "foundations" are already fully constructed. But as to "statics," history now plays only a secondary tho important role as a criterion of explanation. And now comes the point where Mill offers his original contribution to the new method. "The passage of social statics to the truly positive stage consequently requires, compared to dynamics, a much greater perfection of the science of the human individual. It presupposes especially a very advanced state of the secondary science which I have called Ethology; that is to say, of the theory of the influ- ence of different external circumstances, whether individual or social, on the formation of the intellectual and moral character. This theory, a necessary basis of rational education, today appears to me the least advanced of all speculations which are at all important. Any genuine knowledge — even empirical — of this kind of natural relations, it seems to me could not be rarer, and sound observations are not less so, — either on account of the difficulty of the subject, or of the tendency, which prevails oftener than not in this sort of researches, to regard as inex- plicable all that no one has succeeded in explaining. The sort of biological study begun by Helvetius — tho with great exaggeration, has had no one to carry it on. And I cannot help thinking that the reaction of the XlXth century against the philosophy of the XVIIIth has resulted in our day in an opposite exaggeration, tending to assign to primitive variations too large a part, and to conceal in many respects their true character." Mill adds that he thinks it quite natural for Comte to explain such an opinion by his inadequate knowledge of animal physiology — especially the physi- 53 ology of the brain. And he declares he is doing his bit towards the "dis- appearance" of such objections. "J'ai fait des etudes consciencieuses sur ce sujet." "I have even read with scrupulous attention the six volumes of Gall." Nothing could be fairer. Alas, that "love's labor '$ lost!" Concerning Gall's polemic against psychology, Mill not only admits the justice of his criticism of his predecessors, but confesses to have long since surpassed his point of view. Mill repeats what he has already told Comte, that the general principle which Comte regards as already established, as to the localiza- tion on very broad lines of very comprehensive classes of functions, is not proved by Gall's book — which in fact did not intend to prove it. Its thesis is, according to Mill, just "that particular localization" which he supposes Comte, like himself, to reject. He sees the "necessity" of giving attention to every kind of investigation of connections between anatomy and mental and moral phenomena, — between structure and func- tions. He will seize with avidity any opportunity, do any possible read- ing, to clear up the subject. Meanwhile, all reading and reflection so far make him think "nothing is really established, all is vague and uncer- tain, in this order of speculations." Moreover, since "ethology" is equally backward, "anatomical variations ought to be held responsible only for 'residues/ " applying his logical terminology, "after abstracting from the total phenomenon everything that admits of any explanation whatever." Referring to his last letter Mill then explains that the view he discusses there, that women are less adapted for prolonged mental labors such as the pursuit of science and philosophy require, is not his own opinion; it is merely the only one "not in flagrant contradiction with the facts." If one admitted it however, it would indicate, not any inaptitude for science, but only less of "vocation" to it on the part of woman. Setting aside then these problems, but preserving a receptive attitude towards any new information, Mill takes up the arguments whereby Comte thinks his position established, irrespectively of "anatomical con- siderations." They rest on an "exact analysis of general experience, usual as well as historical." As to "usual experience," — Mill's English is quite different from Comte's French. Without pretending to any expert knowl- edge of enigmatical femininity, from the best information Mill thinks the education of women in England stresses sex much less than in France. There from childhood they are trained to act with direct reference to the effect upon the other sex. This involves a dissimulation which affects their own development, as well as the judgment of an observer. In Eng- land women's education imposes only rules of "wellbeing," as regards sex, and dissimulation is limited to the demands of social propriety. Mill seems to mean that whatever mystery there might be about "woman," was due to a highly purposeful expression in the French, and to a slightly 54 hypocritical repression in the English. Coquetry in the former, prudery in the latter. The English type could be better understood. "Their social dependence restricts their development, but does not alter it as much as in France." At all events Mill submits that Comte's "absolute sen- tence" (judgment) of administrative incapacity is quite unwarranted. In "domestic government" for example, English establishments are well- known to be the best managed — at least as regards the obedience of chil- dren and servants. These latter are (except the Scotch) less intelligent than in Southern Europe, but far more efficient, even tho this depends on constant intelligent supervision, — which spontaneously proves the point. In fact English women have the monopoly of home management. Not only do menfolk regard their own interference as "ridiculous," but very often are in such matters "of a sovereign ignorance and incapacity !" Turning now to industrial management, the work of women here has been tried thus far only on a small scale, where it has not been denied that they have done as well as men, and not lacked perseverance. Perse- verence (l'esprit de suite), admittedly a sine qua non of sustained success, does not however mean merely mental endurance thruout a working day ; if it did, where would most men come out? But it means, thoroly trying out a definite, conscious plan. Mill thinks men cannot successfully dis- pute such a quality with womankind. The caprice or fickleness with which they are charged (tho by no means so in England) does not touch their permanent interests. For endurance in "important designs" women are distinguished. And their "caprice" is "more apparent than real," however well they may understand the occasional usefulness of this appearance in a masculine world. Concerning Comte's opinion that women are more under the control of impulse and desire than men, — that passion predominates over reason, — Mill thinks experience shows the very contrary. Renunciation is woman's social lot. Men are hardly capable of it even on great occa- sions, impatient of it ordinarily. He does not base any argument on this, — it is the mere result of power on the one side and dependence on the other. Nevertheless a priori, the supremacy of reason is propor- tional to the habit of self-examination. One ignorant of his own charac- ter is incapable of rational conduct. Feeling, thought, behavior, are con- trolled by mere general habit. Mill thinks the sexes are about equally remiss as to self-examination. The resulting self-command is very rare. But English opinion credits women with a "force of moral repression'" far greater than men believe themselves capable of. This superiority is deemed "proper" to them. Mill himself believes the witness of expe- rience is at any rate not entirely against that view. He adds that women are credited with a more scrupulous conscience; "but what is conscience, if not the submission of the passions to reason?" "I now come to the argument founded upon the persistence until our 55 age of the social subordination of women, compared with the gradual emancipation of the inferior classes in the most advanced nations, — altho these classes began everywhere by being slaves." Historically this seems only explainable by "organic inferiority." But Mill thinks a bet- ter answer will be found. He finds the general direction of the answer in an emphasis, not on any such assumption, but on the fact of woman's "subjection" interpreted in the light of the effects of other instituted sub- jections among classes of male population. The peculiarity of women's subjection has been that it confines her to the domestic sphere, and that it links her in a unique intimacy with her individual master, — and, he might have added, with her male kinsfolk only less intimately. Her social activities are circumscribed by this dominant interest, — which is not freely her own, but prescribed for her, along with the rules directing her conduct; and these demand not foresight but obedience. Mill thinks the mere habit of this intimate dependence would make women a "weaker sex," quite apart from any gross or physical abuse of their power by her menfolk. As compared with slavery, or even with serfdom, woman's "servitude" is much more agreeable, — which accounts for its persistence. This seems to be the direct answer to Comte's "historical argument." As to the self-emancipation of the subject classes, Mill thinks the more the slavery is directly "domestic" the more it destroys any effective spirit of revolt ; that altho slaves have achieved both freedom and social "equality," the household slaves have found emancipation only as a result of others' prowess. Agricultural slaves of antiquity were nearer the position of serfs, whose feudal duties are limited and leave him some freedom. He has some property, requires foresight, "receives not the bread of others," must provide for himself. He sometimes commands others, but is master of himself, has the authority and duties of a pater- familias, and "learns to think himself someone." But this semi-inde- pendence is not the lot of woman, — far above serfdom tho that lot may be, in Europe at least. Even the serfs owe their first relaxation from slavery to the economic interest of their masters, seconded by the "moral authority of the Church." Mill thinks not "one man in 10,000," who has never known freedom, would give up a "pampered slavery" for it, — so debasing is the habit of dependence. Now the "careful" rearing of women from childhood in the belief that they must always be under masculine authority, and have no concern with "real affairs," employs all their "sympathetic resources" in seeking happiness, not in their own life, but in that of the other sex, and at the cost of dependence. "These considerations seem to me more than sufficient to explain an almost indefinite delay of the emancipation of women, without compelling the influence that it may never arrive." Mill thinks Comte should "con- fess" that woman could not find freedom till long after the serf; and his is quite recent. Moreover, "on a theory of natural equality," her 56 "elevation" is as "advanced," and is advancing as rapidly, as one might expect. The serfs attained freedom by creating towns and fighting their lords, aided by numerical strength against military skill, — physical strength being equal man for man. But women must "rise" by pro- gressive individual successes in all unforbidden careers, surpassing all expectations. In such self-emancipation, the only possible way, Mill thinks they are making rapid progress. In literature women are begin- ning to reveal genius even, altho it may be rather "ornamental" in a sex not usually given to "serious studies," or to "live by its labor." The great lack is strong originality — natural in such recent bgeinnings; "ce sont les Romains qui viennent apres les Grecs." The imitative and con- ventional are giving way to the genuinely feminine in the writings of women. Soon this growing originality will produce work of the first rank. Mill concludes what has become a "treatise" in place of a letter, by reference to the anomaly, — ridiculous, as Comte says; "a queer contrast to their social position as a whole," as Mill admits ; — of queenship. This kind of "high direction of human affairs" is the only one which is not closed to women, and, in most European countries, is still open to them. Now in the two centuries between the time "when royalty ceased to re- quire special military skill, and that when it began no longer to require, or even to be compatible with, any ability whatever," — there were pro- portionally as many "great" queens as great kings. Mill "thinks so, at least ; and this experience, in circumstances far from favorable, ought to have some weight ... in the question of their governmental capacity." Comte's reply to this great effort is not encouraging. He intimates that in his opinion further discussion is useless; and contents himself with citing authorities on biology, etc. Mill can only accede to this; and declaring that he has gotten good out of the discussion anyway, he concludes that, after all, Comte had "definitely founded dynamic soci- ology." He promises further, to read de Blainville and Spurzheim. The former, a celebrated naturalist, was one of Comte's seemingly few scien- tific friends; the latter, a German physician, was one of the founders of phrenology. Mill had explained that his feminist opinions had resisted all assaults. "As you have also on your part a very fixed opinion, it is scarcely probable that an epistolary discussion, or even an oral one, should cause our disagreement to disappear ; but it may without that be in more than one way useful to us." As for Comte, he cannot understand, even credit, fixity in the opinions of a supposed proselyte. "Allow me however still to hope that your perseverance in this case is not irrevocable, and will yield later to the spontaneous influence of your own meditations, — perhaps even before the period when these reflections can be fortified by what I have to write specially upon this weighty subject in my forth- coming work." 57 In January 1844 Mill reminds Comte of a passage in "next to the last chapter" of the Logic where he "gives a complete public adherence" to Comte's "fundamental law of human evolution," — that of the three stages. He has no doubt of the "truth and universality" of this law, or its serviceability as a "foundation" for the explanation of the "chief secondary facts of human development." Its completeness he would "never have believed possible," but for Comte's "realizing" it in so many important respects. It is because "dynamics" is thus so advanced, that Mill believes the establishment of the principles of social statics is going to occupy the most important place in that phase "of our enterprise" nearest at hand. By January 1845 Mill shows his abandonment of the hope of any agreement with Comte on social statics. Discussing Littre's project of a Positivist review, with Comte as editor and Mill as a regular con- tributor, Mill once more signifies his adhesion in "philosophic methods, historical doctrines, laws of development past and present." "But in founding a Review, and especially in founding it in the name of a sys- tem of philosophy, one undertakes to throw oneself into all questions of any importance that are currently discussed. And on this ground it is not to be supposed that there would be sufficient harmony in our opinions. I think if you were called on to pronounce upon all questions, and to state all your ideas, we should find ourselves in disagreement more often and more seriously than you seem to believe, — and than I myself at first believed." In fact, Mill says he thinks positivism is not in a proper state to announce itself as a "school," and "in the interest of speculative de- velopment, this essay in propagandism seems premature." To be a recognized school, "a common body of doctrine would be necessary ; yet there is as yet only a method and some very general principles, which are not even yet recognized by the majority of those who accept the essential principle of positivism, — that of absolutely declining all specula- tion about 'first causes,' and confining ourselves to investigation of the operative laws of phenomena." Mill adds kindly that this is formal advice, and that on personal grounds all "depends on the chances of success": Littre and de Blainville should be judges of that. The enter- prise however was abandoned. The editor of Lettres inedites states most clearly the circumstances both of education and character which made Mill the peculiarly tem- perate thinker he became. An extremist only to extremists, and almost equally to those in opposite camps, he has succeeded as rarely happens in contributing something "positive" to all schools. Says M. Levy-Bruhl, "After the external education his father made him undergo, he gave himself another more comprehensive one. This experience taught him never to consider his present ideas as entirely definite. Penetrated with a religious respect for truth, and convinced that this truth — at least in 58 philosophic and social matters — presents a multitude of aspects of which we see only a part, his effort went to the discovery of the greatest number of these aspects. He thought he had no right to sacrifice the slightest particle of truth to the beautiful logical order of a system. The chief epochs of his philosophic career are thus marked by the perception of new ideas and doctrines which impressed his mind and which he endeav- ored to assimilate, without being first assured of their perfect harmony with the community of his previous notions." Again, — "Like Comte he is convinced that the intellectual regeneration of Europe must precede the ethical. In his view, as in Comte's, the capital problem is, to unite human minds in a set of common convictions, different from ancient beliefs only in having no further need of a theological foundation." And — "His favorite maxim was, 'To do the work to which after due deliberation you think you are best adapted, to do it in the interest of humanity, and at your departure leave the world a little better than you found it.'" Such was the Mill to whom the thought of Comte made such strong appeals. And the kind of statement in Comte's works that must have attracted him we can see in passages like the following: "Seeking to reduce to its simplest expression the general spirit of theological and metaphysical polity, we see that it leads back to two essential considerations. As re- gards the mode of procedure that spirit consists in the predominance of imagination over observation. As regards general ideas intended to direct efforts, it consists on the one hand in conceiving social organiza- tion in an abstract way, — which is to say, as independent of the state of civilization ; and on the other hand, in regarding the progress of civiliza- tion as not subject to any law." Or again, — "Civilization consists, properly speaking, in the development of the human mind, on the one hand, and on the other, in the development of the action of man upon nature which is the consequence of it. Moreover, all the elements of which the idea of civilization is composed are, the sciences, the fine arts, and industry; this last expression being taken in the widest sense." Religion was not a special, but the most general, expression of the human spirit or mind. On the other hand, as to its form it was found among the beaux-arts. Apparently Comte thought philosophic genius could create a religion. Mill seemed to have agreed with him as to the generality of religion ; but the development of an elaborate artistic technique was foreign to his proposal of a conscious intellectual, or even scientific, direction and control of the spirit of religion. We can see how Comte's philosophy of religion at once revealed in Mill the deepest affinities and stirred the deepest antagonism. One is tempted to quote here a very late (1854) statement of Mill on this subject, because of its epistolary directness and conciseness. He writes (in French) to Barbot de Chement, captain of artillery, — "I accept 59 in general the logical part of Comte's doctrines, or in other words all that is related to the method and philosophy of the sciences. While I find some gaps which I am compelled to fill in my own way, I recognize that no one except Aristotle or Bacon has done so much to perfect the theory of scientific methods. I accept in great part the criticism of his predecessors, and the general bases of the historical theory of the develop- ment of mankind, — excepting differences of detail. As to religious views, — which, as you doubtless know, for him as for every free thinker, are a great obstacle to influence among the majority of my fellow-countrymen, — it is just in this connection that my opinions are beyond contradiction closest to M. Comte's. I am in perfect agreement upon the negative part of the question, while on the affirmative part I hold like him that humanity as a whole, represented especially by illustrious minds and characters, past, present or to come, may become not only for exceptional persons but for everybody, the object of a feeling capable of filling with advantage the place of all existing religions, both for the demands of the heart and of those of social life. This truth others have felt before M. Comte, but no one I know of has weighed it so thoroly or upheld it so strongly. There remains his moral and political philosophy, — and here I must above all confess my almost total disagreement. Altho claiming as much "positivism" as anyone in the world, I do not accept in any way the positive polity as M. Comte conceives it, either as to the ancient doctrines which he preserves, or as to what he has added of his own. I do not conceive either the conditions of order or, as a result, those of progress, as he does. And what I say for myself, I might say for all his English readers whom I know. I do not believe the practical doctrines of M. Comte have made the least advance here. He is known, judged, and even opposed, only as a philosopher. In social questions he does not count at all. He is himself aware of this, and complains that his English admirers accept only his philosophy and reject his polity." Altho we are concerned here with Mill's religious ideas (reserved in general for another essay) only as directly related to Positivism, it may be noted as distinctive of his conception of a "religion of Humanity," that he was specially impressed with the high moral demands such a religion would make. It is to arouse an intelligent, even if impassioned, sense of right and duty. His conception is less emotional and more ethical. His own heritage of disbelief very plainly impressed him, — as it seldom does those who disbelieve on intellectual rather than moral grounds (the latter ground being distinctive in him as in James Mill), — with an intensified sense of moral and ethical values. This is to place the will above the feelings, and is in contrast with Comte, who would by means of religion place emotion — that is, the affections — in charge of the will. The Religion of humanity is for him a consecration of the affections; for Mill it was an ardent devotion of the will to the ends of 60 human society. Two paragraphs may be cited from a letter to Comte written about a year after the opening of their correspondence. "Having had the fate, very rare in my country, of never believing in God, even in my childhood, I have always seen in the creation of a true social philosophy the only possible foundation for a universal regeneration of human morality, and in the idea of Humanity, the only one which could fill the place of the idea of God. But it is a long way from that specula- tive belief to the feeling I experience now of the complete adequacy, as well as of the near advent, of this inevitable substitution. However well prepared one may be, compared with most minds, to undergo the intellect- ual consequences of this conviction, it is impossible but that it should determine a sort of crisis in the life of every man whose moral nature is not too much beneath the duties which it imposes. For the conviction either shows clearly that the actual political, and especially moral, regen- eration which we have always dreamed of for an indefinite future, has really become possible in our own days, and that the time has come when the devotion of individuals can truly realize appreciable results for such a great cause ; — or else, it produces by an inevitable reaction a bitter feeling of various particular shortcomings which tend to make us unworthy such a destiny." In August e Comte and Positivism Mill undertakes to subject Comte's system of thought to an orderly criticism within the compass of two of the rather ample philosophical essays customary in the mid-XIXth century Reviews. Not only are these articles for English readers, — but Mill himself is admittedly a "positivist," — of course only in the same in- formal sense in which he is (so to say) "anything." Hence he begins by acquitting Positivism of whatever reproach it might bear for English readers as a polemic against theology and metaphysics; and for the rest applies in the detached way of the logician, — not without an element of cool sarcasm, but with unfailing courtesy and warm appreciation, — the method of "agreement and difference." Not that Mill throws a sop, as the saying is, to the theologians. He never dissimulates, altho he may have limited in his lifetime the controversial expression of, his convic- tions on the religious question. But he desires to be an impartial judge, and there was no reason why Positivism should suffer unnecessarily the stigma of "atheism," or even of radical metaphysical scepticism. The general theological dogma then, as understood in England, of "creation by Intelligence," may be, according to Mill, held by one "accepting the Positive mode of thought"; — since, "if the universe had a beginning, its beginning was by the very nature of the case, supernatural ; the laws of nature cannot account for their own origin." Not that such an affirmative belief was allowed by Comte. We are necessarily ignorant of origins, and must confine ourselves to the knowl- edge of an "ascertained order of events." And if the law of the three 61 stages is a veritable law of succession, we are destined to abandon the "theological" viewpoint in toto. But Mill thinks we need not apply so rigidly the "theory of the progressive stages of opinion." "It is one of M. Comte's mistakes that he never allows of open questions." Mill is able to clear Positivism more thoroly from a corresponding metaphysical reproach. What Comte rejects is Platonic realism, continued, altho modified, in Aristotle, and perpetuated in the Schoolmen. Recognizing, tho not always mindful, that analysis and criticism of abstractions is a part of scientific technique, "what he condemned" — says Mill — "was the habit of conceiving these mental abstractions as real entities, which could exert power, produce phenomena, and the enunciation of which could be regarded as a theory or explanation of facts." The controversy over "universals" was a turningpoint in the history of thought, "being its first struggle to emancipate itself from the dominion of verbal abstrac- tions." "The metaphysical point of view is not a perversion of the positive" — that is, class names made entities — "but a transformation of the theological." That is to say, "The realization of abstractions was not the embodiment" — incarnation, substantialization — "of a word, but the gradual disembodiment of a Fetish." The actual historical process, as Mill agrees, consisted in the power, first residing in the object and causing events not obviously connected with it, being now conceived as subsisting quite apart from any objects, and yet causing their activities and whatever effects the objects may produce. Bentham had of course long since warned Mill against "fictitious entities," and he recognizes the more cordially Comte's success in the right application of this method of historical criticism. Mr. Mill's Westminster Review essays show that his maturer judgment did not differ essentially from his earlier impressions of the merits and defect of M. Comte's system. The points of agreement make a less formidable list than the topics of disagreement, but they are points both fundamental and comprehensive. Put in most general terms they may be named as follows : Mill accepts Comte's philosophy of history, his classifi- cation of the sciences, his doctrine of the "spiritual power" and especially of its "separation" from the "temporal," his suggestion of a "seventh" science of ethics as the culmination of a positive social statics, the religion of Humanity as the inevitable substitute for supernatural faith. In one word, he accepts the positive philosophy as a mode of thought primarily, "en rejetant les consequences de meme." On the other hand then the "consequences" may be classified somewhat in this way: The English thinker is opposed to — the "subjection of women," sacerdotalism and the organisation of the spiritual power as a priestly corporation, Comte's "abandonment" of the positive method in suggesting "pretending" the existence of scientific laws in anticipation of discovery; the premature completion of sociology, Comte's abandonment of the historical method 62 in maintaining his "dangerous" intellectual isolation and suggesting neg- ect henceforth of all intellectual monuments except a restricted "library of Positivism" ; oversystematization, altruism and the presidency of feeling, and what amounts to a monopoly of egoism by Comte himself as pontiff of the Humanitarian hierarchy. Let us notice some of these points. The cornerstone of Comte's phi- losophy of history is the theory that human progress has depended on intellectual development. Spencer attacked this by showing in ways obvious to Comte as well as to everybody else how man's activity is influenced by his feelings. But feeling attitudes towards current ideas are themselves the results of previous ideas. "It was not human emotions and passions which discovered the motion of the earth, or detected the evidence of its antiquity; which exploded Scholasticism and inaugurated the exploration of nature; which invented printing and paper, and the mariner's compass." Yet revolutions have resulted and will still flow from such "discoveries." Progress then is primarily "intellectual," or the result of increasing intelligence and knowledge. Now examination of the order of the development discloses what Comte took to be a law of succession, thru three modes of conceiving the universe. "The passage of mankind thru these stages, including the modification of the theological conception by the rising influence of the other two, is to M. Comte's mind the most decisive fact in the evolution of humanity." This is, so to speak, the evolution of the spiritual power. In the "temporal" sphere a parallel movement consists in the growing ascendancy of the industrial life over the military. The two "powers" are just the development of the two aspects of human life — thought and work. Whether the "theo- logical" mode of thought and the military mode of active life are neces- sarily connected or not, — Comte believes they are, — makes no difference in the fact that they declined together and for the same causes — "the progress of science and industry." M. Comte is justified in thinking of the movement as a "single evolution." On these "first principles of social dynamics" Comte bases his two- volume review of universal history. "We regard it as by far his greatest achievement; except his review of the sciences, and in some respects even more striking than that." In this effort the philosophy of history is made a science. "We shall not attempt the vain task of abridgement" — a remark which may have suggested the very task so successfully done oy Harriet Martineau, and which she was engaged upon when M. Comte died in 1857. But her volume would fill many reviews. The main fault in this synoptic picture Mill thinks is in an unwarranted extension of the term "theocracy." Such a regime Comte conceives to consist in a government by a priestly caste, but, says Mill, "we believe that no such state of things ever existed in the societies commonly cited as theocratic." Priest-kings were mere occasional usurpers. Israel was not a political the- 63 ocracy. "Priestly rulers only present themselves in two anomalous cases, of which next to nothing is known." These are Japan and Thibet; but the social system is not one of caste, and the "priestly sovereignty" is nominal. Even in India- — and here Mill speaks "by the book," certainly — where the caste system exists and the influence of the sacerdotal class is the greatest on record, a Hindoo king is only nominally limited in despotic power by the Brahmins. But Comte regards almost all the societies of antiquity as theocratic, excepting the Greek and Roman. The "only other imperfection" is some minor failure in interpreting English phenomena, chiefly in assigning no "positive influences" to Protestantism; which however makes demands on intelligence by instill- ing a feeling of direct individual responsibility to God ; — "almost wholly a creation of Protestantism." Whatever their spirit of orthodoxy, "belief was to be sought and found by the believer" without mediation. "The avoidance of error thus became in great measure a question of culture," and a powerful intellectual incentive. Protestant countries not having state churches, are examples — especially Scotland and the New England states. But these are matters "of detail." Mill says of Comte's histori- cal review in general: "The chain of causation by which he connects the spiritual and temporal life of each era with one another and with the entire series, will be found, we think, in all essentials, irrefragable." "We find no fundamental errors in M. Comte's general conception of history." It is characteristic of Mill's own mode of thought that he found Comte "singularly exempt" from exaggeration either of particular or of general causes. His is neither a mere great man theory nor like Buckle's, deterministic to a point of fatalism. Intellectual progress involves moral development, and casual factors are important as well as general laws. Also, "all political truth he deems strictly relative," and few have de- fended this doctrine so effectively. While "placing in the strongest light" the imperfections which made all societies transient, he "accords with generous recognition the gratitude due to all who . . . contributed mate- rially to the work of human improvement." Useful and necessary, in part at least, were all philosophies and societies. The theological and the metaphysical modes of thought brought men from savagery to civiliza- tion. He lauds the great personalities from Thales to Fourier and de Blainville; from Homer to Manzoni. He esteems very highly the influ- ence of Christianity, and over-estimates for English opinion in general — but not for Mill — the virtues of the "Catholic period." And not only are the "great men of Christianity from St. Paul to St. Francis" celebrated by him, but even the great modern men in a Church no longer advancing with the world; such as "Fenelon and St. Vincent de Paul, Bossuet and Joseph de Maistre." "A more comprehensive, and, in the primitive sense of the term, catholic, sympathy and reverence towards real worth, and every kind of service to humanity, we have not met with in any thinker." 64 "Neither is his a cramped and contracted notion of human excellence, which cares only for certain forms of development." Poetry and the arts have high moral values, "by their mixed appeal" to emotions and intellect, educating the feelings of "abstract thinkers," and enlarging the "intellectual horizon" of the worldly. But after this "profound and comprehensive" view of social progress, Mill fails to find "any scientific connection between his theoretical ex- planation" of this progress, and his "proposals of future improvement." These are not "recommended" as what society has been working towards thruout history. "They rest as completely, each on its separate reason of authority, as with philosophers who, like Bentham, theorize on politics without any historical basis at all." The only connection between Comte's 'historical speculations" and "practical conclusions," "is the inference," that since the old social powers both of thought and of life are disap- pearing, leaving the "two rising powers, positive thinkers" and "leaders of industry," the "future necessarily belongs to these: spiritual power to the former, temporal to the latter. As a specimen of historical forecast this is very deficient ; for are there not the masses as well as the leaders of industry ? and is not theirs also a growing power ?" At any rate, Mill thinks that Comte's conception of the mode of organizing and utilizing these powers is "grounded on anything rather than on history." And he remarks as a "singular anomaly" in so great a thinker, that Comte, — after bringing "ample evidence" of the slow growth of the sciences, all of which except mathematics and astronomy are, "as he justly thinks," far from a positive stage, — should speak as if the "mere institution of a positive science of sociology were tantamount to its completion" ; as if all conflict of opinion in this department were due to the theological and metaphysical modes of thinking, and could be at once resolved by the introduction of the positive method, and harmony among thinkers at once ensue, just as in the case of inorganic sciences. "Happy would be the prospects of mankind if this were so. A time such as M. Comte reckoned upon may come; unless something stops the progress of human im- provement, it is sure to come, but after an unknown duration of hard thought and violent controversy." "Decomposition" has gone on for fourteen centuries and is not yet ended. "The shell of the old edifice will remain standing until there is another to replace it; and the new synthesis is barely begun, nor is even the preparatory analysis com- pletely finished." In other cases Comte knows the difference between a method and a science itself, and the right application of the "right proc- esses" is harder than their discovery. And this is truest of sociology, where the facts are more complicated and dependent on a greater "con- course of forces" than in any other science. In this complicated field the difficulty of a deductive method is enormously increased, while the vast scope of variable factors in the phenomena reduces induction to an 65 empirical value. Agreement in results, and impartial judgment, are most uncertain; — a condition greatly aggravated by the unlimited influence of "interests" and predilections. So that, Mill concludes (alluding to sociological inquirers), "the hope of such accordance of opinion as would obtain, in mere deference to their authority, the universal assent which M. Comte's scheme of society requires, must be adjourned to an indefinite distance." Mill suggests that Comte's terms, "theological, metaphysical, positive," designating the historical succession of modes of thought, would be more intelligible and less liable to misapprehension for English readers, if others were substituted like, "Personal or Volitional, Abstractional or Ontologi- cal, Phenomenal (objective) or Experiential (subjective aspect)." Others might be employed — as, the animistic, the theological and the natural modes ; the supernatural, the superrational and the rational ; or, the an- thropomorphic, the hypostatic, the impersonal ; or, spiritism, metaphysical realism and concrete realism. At any rate, the endeavor to formulate substitute triads aids in gaining insight into Comte's "law." If human progress be in first instance progressive in speculative method, then the sciences will have passed in a different order thru the character- istic stages of this development. Thus a classification of sciences becomes a philosophic doctrine of first importance. Comte first distinguishes "abstract" from "concrete" sciences. "The abstract sciences have to do with the laws which govern the elementary facts of nature; laws on which all phenomena actually realized must of course depend," but which would equally explain an indefinite number of other possible combina- tions. A "concrete" science is a system of the laws of a class of actually existent combinations. Thus mineralogy is concrete, while physics and chemistry are concerned with abstract laws of "mechanical aggregation and chemical union" in general. With laboratory events mineralogy has nothing to do; but only with naturally existent aggregates and com- pounds. Similarly, of the biological sciences physiology is an abstract system of the general laws of organic life; zoology and botany, concrete systems of the phenomena of existing or extinct species. Abstract science deals with each law in all its aspects and possible effects. Concrete science considers laws only in combination and in manifestation. Mr. Mill examines Mr. Spencer's different distinction of the sciences under the same terms. For him geometry is abstract because its truths are ideal, with no necessary empirical reference ; but biology and chemistry are con- crete, because however general their laws, there are observable instances of their existence and operation. According to Spencer, a geometrical truth is not exactly true of real things; or, a mechanical law like inertia is "involved" in experience, but not seen except in partially unsuccessful conflict with other laws. Mill objects to this, that it "classifies truths not according to their subject-matter or their mutual relations, but according 66 to an unimportant difference in the manner in which we come to know them." Mill observes that there are truths in physiology which are known only indirectly ; — are these then abstract ? The usage is not above reproach in either philosopher, "but of the two distinctions M. Comte's answers to by far the deepest and most vital difference." The Germanic construction will not weaken the force of this statement. "The distinc- tive attributes" of the two sorts of science "are summed up by M. Comte in the expression, that concrete science refers to Beings, or Ob- jects, abstract science to Events." Obviously the concrete sciences are the first cultivated — in the sense that investigation and generalization start with "spontaneous facts"; but their scientific form depends both logically and temporally on the develop- ment of the abstract sciences. Now in this point of view there are as yet no concrete sciences — astronomy possibly excepted — strictly speaking, "but only materials for science." Comte's classification therefore is of the "abstract" sciences. His principle conforms to the conditions of our study of nature. It is a fact that all phenomena are in the same sphere of uniformities ; as we discover new laws, those already established con- tinue operative, in increasing complexity of combination. Take the mathematical group for example: — number (itself including arithmetic and algebra), geometry, mechanics: "the truths of number are true of all things and depend only on their own laws." "Geometry can be studied independently of all sciences except that of number." Rational me- chanics requires the laws of number and extension and, in addition, of equilibrium and motion. (Conversely we see algebra and geometry inde- pendent of these last.) Astronomy requires further, gravitation, — not affecting the others. Physics presupposes all four sciences named, — all terrestrial physics being affected by the mutual motions of the earth and heavenly bodies. Chemistry involves all the preceding laws, especially the physical laws of heat and electricity, and adds its own peculiar ones. Physiology and other biological sciences (as we call them) exhibit an equally obvious and inclusive dependence, while adding a whole new — and as yet the most important and complicated — system of laws, those of the organism, including vital phenomena. Lastly, "The phenomena of human society obey laws of their own, but do not depend solely upon these: they depend upon all the laws of organic and animal life, together with those of inorganic nature, these last influencing society not only thru their influence on life, but by determining the physical conditions under which society has to be carried on." The logical law of this classification has been quoted (above) from Comte himself, in its most succinct and (as Mill says) well-expressed form. Mill quotes an even more concise formula: "Chacun de ces degres successif s exige des inductions qui lui sont propres ; mais elles ne peuvent jamais devenir systematiques que sous l'impulsion deductive 67 resultee de tous les ordres moins compliques." We shall not notice here other subdivisions than those of number, already mentioned, but conclude this account by observing that Comte's classification of the (abstract) sciences includes six, — mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology. Needless to say, Comte gets into some difficulty in his subdivisions, and much controversy resulted. Mr. Spencer offered a more elaborate system, which was ably attacked by M. Littre. Mill concludes — with all respect due to a real peer of Comte in power of organization — against Spencer. Comte's system answers best his purpose — of illustrating in scientific development the historical law of the three stages or modes of thought. Spencer holds there is a consensus rather than a hierarchy of the sciences. But he confuses (thinks Mill) the empirical and the "scientific stage" of development. In the former alone the fields of investigation are independent. It is empirical truths that the "later" sciences lend to the "earlier" — or at most "elementary scientific truth," of the sort "easily ascertainable by direct experiment." M. Comte did not neglect this observation. But it remains true, and crucial, that the "later" absolutely depend for their really "scientific" form upon the simpler and more comprehensive laws of the "earlier" sciences. "The truths of the simpler sciences are a part of the laws to which the phe- nomena of the more complex sciences conform." These laws are indis- pensable to their explanation, and must be so well-known as to be "trace- able thru complex combinations," in order to discover the special laws of the science in question. "This is all that M. Comte affirms," says Mill, "and enough for his purpose." The combination of these two great doctrines will imply that the more "special" the science, the "tardier" its progress from stage to stage, so that one may be "completely positive" while another is still "metaphysical" and yet another "theological." Obviously certain truths were from the first "excepted from the theological explanation"; this would be true of mathematics, which is not susceptible of a theological, tho it is of a meta- physical, explanation or interpretation. Thus is laid the foundation for positive development. But we have only to advance to astronomy to reach an instance where the theological lingered later, especially because of the inaccessibility of the objects ; and only with Newton did the meta- physical era close. Increasing power of prediction and control undermine the "voluntary" stage; lack of these powers preserves it. Men pray for rain, or victory/ or against accident or disease, but not "to arrest the tides," — since King Canute ! Vestiges of primitive thought "linger in the more intricate departments" of the most positive sciences. But the meta- physical has better staying powers, being more hospitable to the idea of law. Incidentally, this made possible valuable service in hastening the decay of the theological. In Comte's view only astronomy is free from metaphysical entities. This may be true (or may have been, before de 68 Morgan) of mathematics; but Comte's usage of metaphysical must be scrutinized. For example, the idea of chemical affinity means, he thinks, belief in "entities" residing in bodies and causing them to combine; otherwise, the statement of the law would be an identical proposition. But Mill notes that affinities are preferential tendencies to certain com- binations in fixed proportions. The stronger tendency always prevails, so that A "detaches" B from C, not in some, but in all, cases. This was a "positive generalization," — as positive as the more complex law of "elective chemical combination" that superseded it. The most notable scientific advancement since Mill's day is in the biological sciences, but biology then was rife with scholastic, metaphysical and animistic entities. The results were harmful, in misdirecting inquiry. Chemistry became positive with Lavoisier ; biology with Bichat, who "drew the fundamental distinction between nutritive or vegetative and properly animal life, and referred the properties of organs to the general laws of the component tissues." "The most complex of all, the Social, had not, he maintained, become positive at all, but was the subject of an ever-renewed and barren contest between the theological and metaphysical modes of thought." To make this positive, bringing all theoretic science to its final stage, was Comte's aim, — achieved for him in the latter half of his Philosophie positive. But "positive," no more than metaphysical, was a consistent term with Comte. All science is at all times to a degree positive, being based on experience and observation. Comte of course admitted the existence of positive sociological data, and that the best writers on the highest subjects had consciously discarded the primitive modes of thought ; as Montesquieu, — "even Macchiavelli" ; — Turgot, Adam Smith and all the economists ; Ben- tham and his initiates. All these believed in, and sought for, "invariable laws" of social phenomena, thus making sociological inquiry positive before Comte, — who made the greatest contribution to the method of such inquiry. "What he really meant by making a science positive, is what we will call, with M. Littre, giving it its final scientific constitution." This meant, discovering laws of society which would be to its phenomena what the law of gravitation is to astronomy, — in its scope and impor- tance. This quest was the incentive of Comte's whole career. And he undertook a "wonderful systematization" of all the sciences. In this "philosophy of science," — the nature of which Mill felt it necessary to explain as, "in one word, the logic of the sciences," — Comte accom- plished his task for the first five of the sciences with the most admirable success. Never has "the way to a complete rationalizing of those sci- ences" been elsewhere shown so well. But here, if anywhere, Mill will find logical defects. M. Comte's philosophy of science excels in treat- ment of the "methods of investigation," rather than of the "requisites of proof." He confines himself chiefly to the former, and "treats it with 69 a degree of perfection hitherto unrivalled." His survey of our intellectual resources for the investigation of natural laws is incomparable. But on the question how we shall test the validity of results, "M. Comte throws nO light." He rejects the syllogism (as useful, Mill notes, as it is inade- quate) but substitutes nothing. "And of induction he has no canons whatever." According to Comte, accounting for the facts does not prove a theory — as the ether; he insists on verification, — that a hypothesis must not only be consistent with the facts, but they impossible without it. Needing then a "test of inductive proof," he yet seems to "give up as impracticable the main probem of Logic properly so-called." Comte speaks at first of a doctrine of method in the abstract, "as conceivable, but not needful" ; and ends by condemning the study of logic, except in its applications in the several sciences, "as chimerical." Mill considers that Comte's "determined abstinence from the word and the idea of cause, had much to do with his inability to conceive an Induc- tive Logic, by diverting his attention from the only basis upon which it could be founded." This basis is the distinction between laws of the sequence or coexistence of phenomena, and unconditioned causal laws. The former are dependent on the latter, and in final analysis on the ulti- mate law that every phenomenon has a phenomenal cause. That day and night alternate is a law of sequence, conditioned on the alternating "pres- ence and absence of the sun." Now however this may be conditioned — as by the rotation of the earth — it is unconditioned as the cause of the suc- cession of day and night. The ultimate laws are therefore themselves phenomenal; but there is a difference between Kepler's laws and the law of gravitation. Mill opines also, that M. Comte was not "at bottom so solicitous about completeness of proof as becomes a positive philoso- pher, and the unimpeachable objectivity, as he would have called it, of a conception was not with him an indispensable condition of adopting it, if it was subjectively useful by affording facilities to the mind for grouping- phenomena." Another "aberration" of method, equally "unphilosophical," is Conite's rejection of psychology — sufficiently discussed above for our purpose — in condemning introspection, psychological observation proper, "as an in- valid process." Mill is "almost ashamed to say," that phrenology is Comte's substitute; but does him the justice to add that he accepts only (as yet) the division of the brain into "the three regions of the propensi- ties, the sentiments and the intellect, and the subdivision of the latter region between the organs of meditation and those of observation." Mill thinks psysiology has tended to discredit phrenology more and more, and points out that if its theory were true, psychological observation would still be necessary, since the correspondence between functions and organs could be ascertained only by observing both. To establish a relation "between mental functions and cerebral conformations" requires not only 70 parallel series of observations, but, as Comte admits, an analysis of the rimitive faculties apart from physical conditions, for separate evidence f mental divisions corresponding to the alleged organs. And this analysis demands a perfected psychology. The "weakest part" of Comte's treatise, according to Mill, is his "un- satisfactory attempt to trace the outline of social statics." Here there s nothing original, "unless his revival of the Catholic idea of a Spiritual Power may be so considered." Both agree that Aristotle perfected static politics as far as could be done without a canon of progress. A spiritual power exercising universal intellectual authority in society, — the ascen- dancy over opinion, of the most eminent thinkers, — and unanimous defer- ence of those who "know much to those who know still more," will come spontaneously into existence only when unanimity is attained, — 'without which it is neither desirable nor possible." Such a legitimate 'power" will derive no strength but rather weakness from organization. In Comte's general philosophy of sociology the "inversion of the rela- tion between deduction and induction" is characteristic of the method. This view of method Mill thinks "very instructive." It varies from ordinary scientific method in other fields, by whose analogy social science would be the system of deductions from general laws of human nature (formulated from consideration of individual feelings and actions), verified by history. But this method is inadequate in sociology, because of the influence of social history itself over human nature ; so that whereas in other sciences "specific experience commonly serves to verify" deduc- tive laws, in sociology it is "specific experience which suggests the laws, and deduction which verifies them." If a supposed historical law of society contradicts the known laws of human nature, the historical law must be vitiated by a misinterpretation of historical events and processes, and so fails of verification by the deductive laws of human nature. If on the other hand a social law generalized from historical data affiliates with the established laws of human nature — if the actual course of events can be seen to be what "human nature" (and its environment) lead us to expect — "sociology becomes a science." The method demands that de- ductive psychological laws (as Mill would say) shall verify historical in- ductive generalizations. This method means practically that, owing to the very complexity of social facts, it is necessary to study them together rather than separately, or in separate groups. Mill speaks of necessary "limitations" to be observed in the application of this method. One is this: that we may take into account only a definite number of variable factors in a problem, assuming for the immediate purpose in view, that other actually variable elements are constant. Mill finds initial difficulties in Comte's political theory also, due to his attempt to apply systematically the law of the three stages. It is not true that all political thinkers have drawn their doctrines either from 71 divine law or from absractions. Or it is true only as regards a rule of human and social conduct. The visible actions of mankind were never given an animistic or an abstract reference, altho general phenomena, including change in human wills, may have been referred to gods. We have seen Mill taking exception to M. Comte's categorical statement that historical and contemporary sociology contained no positive elements at all. He finds a parallel fault in the fundamental thesis of his political criticism. For Comte all political philosophy has been and is divided between the theological and the metaphysical modes of theorizing. But Mill maintained that when the doctrine of divine right whether of kings or popes became out of date, not one, but many, rival theories arose. "All theories in which the ultimate standard of institutions and rules of action was the happiness, and observation and experience the guides (and some such there have been in all periods of free speculation), are entitled to the name Positive, whatever, in other respects, their imperfections may be." To be sure, such utilitarian and empirical types of political thought are rare; and Comte is right in "affirming that the prevailing schools of moral and political speculation, when not theological, have been metaphysical." And Mill notes that progress has been chiefly due to the fact that the "petty military communities" escaped the "delusion" that all public law was divinely given. Generally the conception of Nat- ural Rights supervened, and persisted until it emerged as the basis of the modern negative philosophy of revolution. Lawyers succeeded theolo- gians as "legislators of opinion." The descent may be traced from the Greek metaphysicians, thru the Roman jurists and the Continental lawyers to the writers on international law. These last were the first -" systematiz- es of morals in Christian Europe, on any other than a purely theological basis," and so stamped ethics as well as politics with metaphysical char- acter. This philosophy reached the climax of its destructive power and its constructive impotence, with Rousseau and the French revolution; and by its lack of "positive" genius succumbed to a monarchical and ecclesiastical reaction. Thus the two modes of thought are left both extant, tho the "later" mode suffers discredit from the partial failure it recorded at its golden opportunity. The exception Mill takes to Comte's review of political thought is of course in reference to English communities. For France and the Con- tinent the account is correct enough. But with the English, when "divine right died out with the Jacobites," not natural right but custom and expediency, became the basis of even popular political opinion. English political preferences, in government and law, are tested by practical consequences. Even the industrial radicals add "more substantial reasons" to their appeals to abstract right. "Thus far and no farther" — asserts Mill — "does metaphysics prevail in the region of English politics." In ethics however, "a still deeper and more vital part" of social existence, 72 Mill admits (sadly no doubt) that opinion is either theological or meta- physical. The "intuitive morality," nay, the "whole a priori philosophy," including physical science — induction's first conquest, — "has the universal diagnostic of the metaphysical mode of thought, in the Comtean sense of the word." This "Comtean sense" is however otherwise seriously misapplied. Es- pecially is this true of the main "articles of the liberal creed," which Mill defends against this imputation. A flood of light is thrown on Comte's standpoint when Mill tells us — "Whatever goes by the different names of the revolutionary, the radical, the democratic, the liberal, the f reethinking, the sceptical, or the negative and critical school or party in religion, politics or philosophy, all passes with him under the designation of meta- physical . . ." All this order of doctrines are "mere instruments of attack upon the old system, with no permanent validity as social truth." Such are the doctrines of liberty of conscience, of "equality," and of the sovereignty of the people. Comte does not require the legal, but moral, repression of individual opinion. Or rather, he demands the acceptance of intellectual authority by a people instructed in every department of science, — including sociology and, presumably, ethics, in their positive scientific form, — so that they will voluntarily receive authoritative opin- ions on all social questions, exactly as they would in the case of any of the sciences. Comte feels that the very complexity of social problems makes ignorant error all the more fatal. So it is the moral right of indi- vidual judgment as such, which Comte denies. But Mill thinks such an a prioi solution yields a sort of truth liable to "perversion," and entitled to consideration only in a concrete situation. "The doctrine of Equality meets no better fate at M. Comte's hands." It is nothing but a traditional dogmatic protest. The necessity of co- operation, natural differences of ability, require subordination, with recog- nition of course of the moral worth of men as men. True enough. But it never occurs to Comte to consider whether, with proper education, people will not "spontaneously" class themselves more effectively. The sovereignty of the people too Mill maintains against Comte, has a "posi- tive" aspect. It is not mere radical metaphysics. In its practical and constructive character it is the demand for government with the consent of — and the participation of — the governed. One more question Mill raises reflects his dominant interests and illus- trates further his judicial attitude. He challenges as a radical defect in Comte's system of theory his depreciation of political economy, — only paralleled by his attitude towards psychology. The economists seem to share his disdain for the independent specialists in all the sciences. His technique requires that all social phenomena shall be studied in their ensemble. Mill appropriately defends the economists from the imputation of pursuing their inquiries without reference to the social sig- 73 nificance of economic facts. He acquits them of the delusion that their various theories of economic institutions are exactly true semper ubique. They merely believe that an understanding of the complicated economic machinery of Europe will enable one to predicate much of economic situa- tions which do, or would, exist under difference of conditions. Mill points out that narrow minds will "draw narrow conclusions" from any science. He adds, — "The only security against this narrowness is a liberal mental cultivation, and all it proves is that a person is not likely to be a good political economist who is nothing else." CONCLUSION The unique interest which has always attached to J. S. Mill's System of Logic is due to the human interest which he contrived to inject into the study of abstract scientific method, by including the "social science" among the subjects to which this method is applicable. The last book of the two-volume work, that on the Logic of the Moral Sciences, seeks to lay the foundations of a scientific sociology. Science begins spontaneously and instinctively. "Principles of evidence and theories of method are not to be constructed a priori." "The way of attaining an end is seen as it were instinctively by superior minds in some comparatively simple case, and is then, by judicious generalization, adapted to the variety of com- plex cases. We learn to do a thing in difficult circumstances, by attending to the manner in which we have spontaneously done the same thing in easy ones." The sciences which relate to himself, the "most complex and most difficult, subject of study on which the human mind can be engaged," are, according to Mill, "still abandoned to the uncertainties of vague and popular discussion." All others have emerged from a purely empirical state. Of human sciences the psychological, tho not free from uncertainty, are fairly organized, especially as to method; but the "laws of mind," and yet more, the laws of society, are a subject of disagree- ment, even as to their mere existence. "Here therefore if anywhere, the principles laid down in the preceding books may be expected to be useful." Here Mill humanizes logic: it becomes not only method of science, but universal method; method of intelligence. For it cannot be that the "proper study of mankind" is alone to defeat philosophy's efforts to rescue it from empiricism. "Consciously and deliberately" the processes which revealed simpler laws must construct human and social laws. This must be the way, and the only way, to "remove this blot upon the face of science," — human self-ignorance. Without then pretending to construct actually the sciences of ethology and politics, Mill will emulate Bacon in pointing the way — with a logical sign-post. Comte as we have seen was willing to undertake the final constitution of the social science, and denied that method could be constructed abstractly, but was to be studied only 74 in the cultivation of the sciences themselves. This inquiry of Mill's then was to examine which of the logical methods are best suited to sociological investigations and "moral" sciences, the peculiar advantages or disadvan- tages of such employment, how far wrong choice or lack of skill in method account for the state of these inquiries, and what improvement may result from correcting such defects. In a word, do, or can, "moral sciences" exist, how far may they be perfected, and by what type of method can this best be done? The first question that confronts us is, whether human behavior can be reduced to scientific laws. Mill, as we have shown in the essay on the Problem of Freedom, answers with an emphatic yes. But, althb somewhat inclined to a scientific dogmatism, he declines to surrender human moral liberty to it. He begins the inquiry therefore by establishing firmly the genuineness of this liberty, as not conflicting with its natural causation, — wthout however any mysterious constraint which makes it an illusion. It is probable that Mill does not do full justice to the (perhaps not entirely explained) spontaneity of our volitions, but he does great service in breaking the spell of such words as "necessity," cause, law and the like, by abstracting from their moral meanings. On the whole he steers very steadily between the Scylla of apologetic intuitionism and the Charybdis of a fixed order of natural events. "It would be more correct to say that matter is not bound by necessity, than that mind is so." The will of man then is not bound, tho limited in its prerogative, but it is itself a natural phenomenon, and as such a product of natural forces and controlled by natural laws. This point settled, the next question is, is a "science of human nature" possible? Certainly the complexity, even caprice, of man's acts, cannot exclude such a science. Meteorology, "tidology," are sciences, theoreti- cally and practically, altho not of astronomic exactitude. But such an exactitude would mean in a human inquiry, that "it would have attained the ideal perfection of a science if it enabled us to foretell how an individ- ual would think, feel or act, thruout life," just as we predict eclipses. "It needs scarcely be stated that nothing approaching to this can be done." Such a thing we may add, is inconceivable anyway, and the result useless even if it were possible. "Prediction" of that, the like of which has never yet happened, is unthinkable. That which is sui generis must have already occurred at least once, in order to be foretold ! We are not gods. Even the astronomic perfection of all science would give us only natural knowledge, not supernatural or magic power, Mill says, "as the data are never all given, nor ever precisely alike in different cases, we could neither make infallible predictions nor lay down universal propositions." He finds his "pou sto" for the science of human nature in the fact that it, like the tides, is "determined in an incomparably greater degree by general causes," than by the complex of lesser ones. And "an 75 approximate generalization is practically, in social inquiries, equivalent to an exact one ; that which is only probable when asserted of human beings taken individually, being certain when affirmed of the character and col- lective conduct of masses." It is then no detriment that this science must be based on approximate generalizations. Such "empirical laws should connect deductively with the laws of nature from which they result; should be resolved into the properties of the causes on which the phe- nomena depend. In other words, the science of human nature may be said to exist, in proportion as those approximate truths which compose a practical knowledge of mankind, can be exhibited as corollaries from the universal laws of human nature on which they rest; whereby the proper limits of those approximate truths would be shown, and we should be enabled to deduce others for any new set of circumstances, in antici- pation of specific experience." Given man's natural volitional control, and given the possibility of a science of human nature, which, tho not as exact as the most complete and simplest sciences, would be both theoretically and practically valid, — the next step is to examine the "laws of mind," or the psychological basis for this science of human nature, which Mill names "Ethology." It is to connect psychology with sociology and with ethics. Mill designates "phenomena of mind," "the various feelings of our nature, both those called physical, and those particularly designated as mental: and by the laws of mind I mean the laws according to which those feelings generate one another." And the "subject of psychology is the uniformities of succession, the laws, whether ultimate or derivative, according to which one mental state succeeds another, is caused by, or at least is caused to follow, another. Of these laws some are general, others more special." Two classes of these most general laws are those of representation and those of association. The first, the law of the reinstatement of sensuous experience, is "expressed by saying, in the language of Hume, that every mental impression has its idea." The latter, "secondary mental states," are excited by the former or by each other. Similar ideas excite each, other, those habitually experienced in coexistence or sequence do, and finally the greater the intensity of either or all of the associated impres- sions, the greater the susceptibility to excitation and conjoint recurrence. Mill thinks the complex mental laws spring from these simple elements, but not always by mere "composition of causes"; they are generated by a kind of "mental chemistry." But he is not satisfied — as were Hartley and James Mill — that all higher forms of ideation, including emotions and volitions, are similarly generated from the elements of sensation. And even if they were, we could not reduce them again to these elements; they cannot be decomposed. Hence nothing can take the place of an independent study of the special properties of these complexes. Thus we take "belief," or "desire," as they exist, and inquire as to their intui- 76 tive or natural objects; altho we may also analyze them into their psychological elements; and Mill thinks the laws of association will be appreciable in the relations of the most complex ideas. Next the influence of bodily upon mental states must be determined, whether constitutional, or due to the "mental history" of an individual. Mill thought the existing state of physical psychology proved a close con- nection between mental tendencies and organic differences, affecting espe- cially the quality and intensity of sensations. The detailed explanation of mental characterstics then must be immensely aided, even altho it can never be made complete, by knowledge of the laws of mind, — in a word, by psychology. And much assistance will be gained by connecting this science with the biological sciences, by employment of the method of "concomitant variations." "Ethology, the deductive science, is a system of corollaries from psy- chology, the experimental science." The laws of mind are the abstract philosophy of human nature, and the basis of the "science of the forma- tion of human character," — that is, ethology. The laws of this science would consist not of the empirical generalizations arrived at from sys- tematic observation of human and social phenomena, but of the "causal laws," mainly psychological laws, but also physical laws, which account for these phenomena, and with which the empirical laws must be brought into harmony. No other method is possible, because not only is an experi- mental method, in a scientific sense, incapable of any conclusive applica- tion; but, a fortiori, the method of observation is impossible too. Only approximations could ever result. Every least condition affects in degree the actions of every individual, and the complexity is endless, ever-varying and completely bewildering. From such effects it is a hopeless task to trace directly the causal laws. Yet they may be actually few and simple ; at least a few simple laws may be accountable for most of the given phenomena, since a simple law may have varied effects. Thus, if psychology means the "science of the elementary laws of mind, ethology will stand for the subordinate science which determines the kind of character produced, in conformity to those general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical or moral." "The laws of the formation of character are, in short, derivative laws resulting from the general laws of the mind; and they are to be obtained by deducing them from those general laws, by supposing any given set of circumstances, and then con- sidering what, according to the laws of mind, will be the influence of those circumstances on the formation of character." Mill conceives this as an exact science, because it truths are "real laws." Yet its propositions are "hypothetical only, and affirm tendencies, not facts." "They must not assert that something will always or certainly happen, but only that such and such will be the effect of a given cause, so far as it operates uncoun- teracted." "The principles of ethology are properly the middle principles, 77 the "axiomata media" (as Bacon would have said) of the science of mind," mediating between the mere empirical generalizations of phe- nomena, and the highest generalizations of the social science. Mill points out that altho "mankind have not one universal character," "there exist universal laws of the formation of character;" and observes that the error of the ancients was not in making the largest generalizations first, but in doing so without inductive "warrant," or verification, — which Mill makes an integral part of deduction. In reflecting generally on the social science, Mill observes that the current preoccupation with "fructifera experimenta," almost excludes the "lucifera," or merely informing kinds of study. It is a case of the "art" as against the theory and method of science, resulting in social investigations, as in other fields, in quackery, or at least in mistaken methods. These methods he criticizes as respectively, the "chemical or experimental," the "geometrical or abstract," the "physical or concrete deductive" and the "historical or inverse deductive." That Mill should say, "in social phenomena the composition of causes is the universal law," while in mental phenomena complexes are chemically generated, is striking. This position leads to the rejection (well justified, for that mat- ter) of "chemical" sociology. Mill thinks its practitioners more scholas- tic than Baconian, — as they deem themselves. The difficulties of experi- ment and observation here again interfere with the application of logical method, whether of "difference," or the "indirect method of difference," or that of "residues." How are you to get an "experimentum crucis"? For comparison, we need instances exactly alike excepting in the one phenomenon to be accounted for. This is even less possible in the "indi- rect" method, when there is the same requirement for classes of instances. The method of agreement has been shown elsewhere in the Logic to be of little value in "cases admitting plurality of causes" ; and social phe- nomena are the extreme in this respect. As for the method of residues, much false history is an example of the fallacies it leads to. Without the aid of psychology and ethology, the phenomena may easily be attri- buted to causes in no way responsible, and hit upon simply because they are the only ones the complicated facts of the situation seem to suggest. The error of the mathematical sociologists is, not in failing to under- stand that it is a deductive science, but that they have a geometrical ideal of deductive method. Now in geometry there are no conflicting and counter- acting causes to account for. Mechanics or physics would be a nearer analogy to social phenomena in this respect. The geometrical method leads to the founding of social science on certain definitions and axioms, — like Hobbes' principle that all government is based on fear. But he is obliged to supplement this with a social contract; and Mill calls this a "double sophism," as using a "fiction for fact," and basing a theory on a mere practical maxim, — thus begging the question. Or again, the "inter- 78 est-philosophy of the Bentham school," — founded on a maxim, and an ambiguous one. Mill's distinction is that in a "succession of men," — the majority of a body, — personal interest will govern most of their conduct, and he gives the school the "benefit of this more rational state- ment of their fundamental maxim." But he finds the theorems of their political philosophy fallacious, because the original premises of their reasoning explain specific effects by means of one cause, and ignore the concourse of causes. It was a mistake more of form than of substance, — in taking the "mere polemics of the day" for the social science. They made it is true many "allowances" for the inadequacy of their theory; but, Mill remarks, "there is little chance of making amends in the super- structure of a theory for the want of sufficient breadth in its founda- tions." There are according to Mill two methods respectively valid in two kinds of sociological inquiries. The "physical method," analogous to that of the higher physical sciences, is the true method of sociology proper, — the science of society. For, "however complex the phenomena, all their sequences and coexistences result from the laws of the separate elements." This method may be called the "concrete deductive." There is another sociological inquiry aiming at a science of the "states of society." For this the "historical, or inverse deductive" method is necessary. This latter has been discussed and illustrated in our study of the correspondence with Comte. In regard to the physical method we note first that in insist- ing on the deductive nature of sociological laws Mill lays the empirical emphasis, remarking that "the ground of confidence in any concrete de- ductive science is not a priori reasoning, but the consilience between its results and those of observation a posteriori. Either of these processes when divorced from the other diminishes in value as the subject increases in complication, and this in so rapid a ratio as soon to become utterly worthless; but the reliance to be placed in the concurrence of the two sorts of evidence, not only does not diminish in anything like the same proportion, but is not necessarily much diminished at all." The deduc- tive method often becomes inverted by the complexity of the problem, and instead of verifying deductions by observation, — the ordinary "phy- sical" method of procedure, — we actually verify by means of the "princi- ples of human nature," the "conjectural generalizations from specific experience." Mill mediates here, in disagreeing with Comte as to the unvarying necessity of this latter procedure, which for the French sociologist is (and Mill names him as the "greatest living authority on scientific method") "inseparably inherent in the nature of sociological speculation." But the principle of Mill's distinction of these two methods is illustrated in the following: "The deductive science of society does not lay down a the- orem, asserting in an universal manner the effect of any cause; but rather 79 teaches us how to form the proper theorems for the circumstances of any given case. It does not give us the laws of society in general, but the means of determining the phenomena of any given society from the particular elements or data of that society." Even more illuminating is this: "Notwithstanding the universal consensus of the social phe- nomena, whereby nothing which takes place in any part of the operations of society is without its share of influence on every other part, and not- withstanding the paramount ascendancy which the general state of civili- zation and social progress in any given society must hence exercise over all the partial and subordinate phenomena, it is not the less true that different species of social facts are in the main dependent, immediately and in the first resort, upon different kinds of causes; and therefore, not only may with advantage, but must, be studied apart : just as in the natural body we study separately the physiology and pathology of each of the principal organs and tissues, altho every one is acted upon by the state of all the others; and altho the peculiar constitution and general state of health of the organism cooperates with and often preponderates over the local causes, in determining the state of any particular organ." (p. 2 59-) "On these considerations," Mill adds, "is grounded the existence of distinct and separate, tho not independent, branches or departments of sociological speculation." With regard to the subject of these specula- tions, human society, the physical analogy with which Mill is so impressed is well brought out in this passage: (p. 586f) "States of society are like different constitutions of different ages in the physical frame; they are conditions not of one or a few organs or functions, but of the whole or- ganism. Accordingly, the information which we possess respecting past ages, and respecting the various states of society now existing in different regions of the earth, does, when duly analyzed, exhibit such uniformi- ties. It is found that when one of the features of a society is in a particu- lar state, a state of all the other features, more or less precisely determin- ate, always coexists with it." The study of Mill's correspondence with Comte, and of his own con- struction of the scientific method of sociology, give us then a total view of Mill's philosophy, — and especially in connection with his characteristic social emphasis, — as one of mediation. It has perhaps the weakness which certain thinkers declare belongs to such types of philosophizing, but it has also the advantage of being big with possibilities. As Lord Morley says, — and Professor Bain had said it long before, — Mill's works have stirred "innumerable little pulses of thought." It is not sentimental to say, that his influence blends emancipation and consecration in a remarkable man- ner. And his philosophy is forward looking, like contemporary pragma- tism, — futuristic. Indeed this is its dominant note. It is when his eye is on a distant future — and when is it not? — that Mill makes a near ap- 80 proach to eloquence and prophecy. He was aware of his limitations — they were the limitations of human nature, but no effort to conceal them, or to eke them out, by means of a pretense of any artificial or unnautral reality. With the law of progress therefore he was chiefly preoccupied, and on this subject he stands between Comte and their other contemporaries, espe- cially in France. He accounted Comte the greater, because he had dis- covered that the usual manner of formulating the law of progress directly from the study of the historical evolution of societies, states and nations, was fallacious, that such studies could never yield more than empirical laws, and that these historical generalizations must be correlated with the deductive laws of man's mental and moral nature, — the principles which would be operative and fundamentally causal in any social situation what- soever. With this general conception Mill was in cordial agreement. His position differed from Comte's in two main respects however, — in regard to the process by which the laws of human nature were reached, and to the precise method of verification which should establish logically the higher deductions adapted to constitute a law of progress. With refer- ence to the first point, Mill felt that the actual laws of a social science must wait upon the development of, not psychology merely, but of another study — itself dependent upon psychology, and as yet practically non- existent, — a study which must be reduced to an exact science, and an abstract or deductive one, — the science of moral character. Now Comte admired this conception of Mill's, that of an ethology, and knew that its subject-matter must form an essential part of social science. But he could give no clear position to such a science in his system, because of his exaggerated emphasis on physiological psychology as adequate to connect biology directly with the principles of sociology. The second point of difference with Comte on the general conception of a law of progress, the matter of method, is connected with the same disparagement of philosophical psychology — or any psychology less physi- cal than phrenology. Reflective and introspective psychologizing Comte strongly repudiated. Hence his insistence on always studying social phenomena in complete ensemble, and invariably using the inverse his- torical, and never the physical or direct deductive method, — which he deemed always inadequate, — in the final verification and establishment of the laws of social science. This attitude must have been due both to his confidence in his own philosophical interpretation of history and to his confidence in phrenology. For the mechanical character which laws of human nature must derive from their purely physical basis, and their direct deduction from natural law in the biological sense, seemed to Comte to render them so definite and fixed that they might always be verified by the historical laws, as representing experience, observation and experimentation. 81 Now the serious limitations of observation and experiment in social phenomena constitute the special methodological difficulty. And ordin- arily in restricted investigations specific experience is so little "specific" that it must be employed for what approximate verification is possible of the psycho-social deductive laws. This is Mill's "direct" or "physical" method, — adapted for use in investigations up to, say, a national, or per- haps a racial scope. Whereas, the "inverse" method, exclusively insisted upon by Comte, was, according to Mill, applicable on a world-wide, or say, continental scale. For here the larger and simpler and more general laws, or causal factors, are the only ones that can be well distinguished in the complex social phenomena, and the resulting empirical laws or histori- cal generalizations will be of a higher order of inductive validity. These will therefore be (if sound in method) susceptible of verification by the deductive principles of the abstract social science. Finally, as to the nature of social laws — their degree of certainty and denniteness : Mill seems to have been sufficiently impressed with the necessary lack of these qualities on the part of all possible empirical gener- alizations from history and social life. But he is very sanguine about the reduction of psychology to a scientific basis, and of the possibility of an exact (practically exact) deductive science of the formation of human character. On the other hand he seems to recognize that the laws of these sciences, tho natural, and analogous to other natural laws, will be yet of an essentially different character. And, tho they will be "phy- sical" laws, in the sense of real and active forces, they will not neces- sarily or even probably be "physical" in the restricted sense of materialism. Physiological psychology may explain and simplify much, but not all, nor what is most important humanly and socially. Even on its speculative side, psychology will need to be merely a method, altho the only possible method, of the science of human nature as such. An abstract science (in the Comtean sense) which should tell us just what humanness, as such, is, — a metaphysics of human nature, — however analogous in its formal char- acter as a system of natural law, would certainly be very different, in respect of the realities with which it dealt, from any other recognized or possible natural and physical sciences. IV. JOHN STUART MILL AND RELIGION. The "infidelity"— as it was then the fashion to call rejection of Chris- tian doctrine — of James Mill was exceptional in being fundamentally a moral revolt. Whatever may be thought of its justification, its motives were both intelligent and noble. They were neither partisan nor selfish, 82* even tho some may think there was in them a tinge of fanaticism. His critique was based on the judgment, equally obvious and true, that it is demoralizing to worship an "immoral" Being. Now the Christian God, 3eing omnipotent, was logically the "author of evil," and by permitting its continued existence, revealed a character which had to be judged by a different moral standard than prevails among the Christian community. This position apparently did not greatly affect John Stuart Mill's father in his social relations. It was expressed, if at all, philosophically rather than polemically, and not in any sort of "disagreeable" attitude to "be- lievers." And the sole "immoral" effect on him consisted in his dissem- bling his real convictions and in teaching his precocious son to do the same. But that son's detached and dispassionate attitude on the subject of religion, from his first youthful contact with the world, must reflect not only his constitutional moderation, but his father's calm and judicial attitude. When John Stuart Mill finished his autobiography he thought the time pretty well passed when society was capable of making people suffer for unusual religious views; that the day was at hand when one might dedicate himself to that duty which always theoretically existed, of affirm- ing one's real beliefs without fear, for the good of society. Instead of ruining one's influence, and possibly incurring a useless martyrdom, one might hope for "success" to attend even the efforts of individuals. Mill did not really conceal his religious views, he merely stated or implied them in ways adopted to allay prejudice, conciliate opinion and avoid bitter controversy. These views are stated quite frankly to many correspondents, and they are implied throughout his works, — as for ex- ample in his continual emphasis upon the principles of natural science, and his constantly expressed conviction that even the complex phenomena of social life may be and will be eventually reduced to laws, "as certain, if not as complete/' as in the recognized sciences. This emphasis on the conception of natural law is very characteristic, and amounts to a bias in favor of a scientific dogmatism, not entirely warranted by the situation but perfectly natural under the circumstances of Mill's day. He threw his weight on that side only to redress the balance and open the way to sane and judicious thinking. His manner was, not to balance himself skilfully between the horns of a dilemma, but rather to "take the bull by the horns" and observe the results. We may judge Mill's attitude the better perhaps for the very fact that he was attacked by people of extreme opinions both reactionary and radical. It is true that no radical dissatisfaction with his discriminating "examination" of philosophies and of policies, could hope to rival in fanaticism and venom the lucubrations of certain of the apologetic writ- ers. One of the most venerable of religious periodicals referring to him soon after his passage from the scene of his labors, added to its bitterly disparaging comments almost in so many (or few) words, "Better dead." 83 Mill's philosophic attitude was not a policy, but a necessary outcome of his whole methodological technique. This was dominated by the grand conception of the ultimate, however remote, reduction of social facts to a systematic, natural science, by the discovery and formulation of their laws, precisely on the anology of all other recognized natural sciences. These social facts were seen to depend for their intelligibility, and their capability of being analyzed, classified and scientifically treated, on a sci- ence of human nature, which he aspired for a time to formulate. His Ethology — or "science of custom," was to be a result of the study of the way man, man as distinctively human, tends to- "react," mentally and morally, to the stimulations of his environment, and particularly of his social millieu. The resemblance of this conception to our contemporary "behaviorist psychology" is noticeable — in so far as the latter deals with human behavior, studying on a biological basis its actual conditions, modi- fications and characteristics, without metaphysical presuppositions and with reference to intelligent control, and direction upon the environment. Neither did his position express a compromise ; much less was he an opportunist or temporizer in his philosophizing. This attitude may be studied in his associations, in his analysis of the "problem of freedom," in his reaction to Positivism and the Comtean spirit, and very markedly in his posthumous Three Essays on Religion. Mill kept progressing be- yond conventional, traditional, dogmatic and orthodox positions, but he did not cast away the good along with the evil, just because of its taint of authority. He would assimilate the good and build it into his thought, which kept drawing its more vital currents from the trunk of the old tree, — his father's tutoring, and Benthamism ; "association" and "utility" ; — but clothed itself with a foliage shaped and colored in the air and sun- light of a varied and varying world. In connection with his associations, the well-known incident of his standing for Parliament illustrates well the difference between his atti- tude and — either compromise or opportunism. As to the latter, the fact of his being immediately defeated for a second term shows how his philo- sophical mode of thought on public questions rendered the rank and file of partisan and prejudiced electors cold, and many of his colleagues in the House far from pleased and flattered. As to the matter of compro- mise, on the other hand, nothing could be more uncompromising than his stipulation in consenting to stand (or "run," as we say). He would not spend a shilling, nor do any electioneering. He did make a speech or two — to workmen chiefly ; and he won their hearts by frankly admitting to a heckler, that he had said, and held the opinion, that English workmen, while admiring truthfulness in others, were great liars themselves ! Their reception of this, with huge applause, proved the truth of the first propo- sition at least. If he was not exactly popular in the House, it was not that he was theoretical so much as that he was intractable ; he could not 84 be "regimented." He "elevated the tone of debate," but at some cost to the secret feelings of honorable members. Another illustration is offered in his consideration of "freedom." Here Mill brings all his logical equipment to safeguard man's genuine control over his destiny, against an obscure metaphysical dogma which takes away with one hand what it gives with the other, — which sacrifices "freedom" on the altar of theological controversy ; — and equally to defend it against the opposite "fate," surrender to an unwarrantable scientific dogmatism. This is done in a formal way in the Logic. But it is in his chapter on the same problem in the "Hamilton," that Mill's characteristic attitude, — that of a mediation suggested and controlled by a humanistic motive, — shows in striking contrast with his very uncompromising and decidedly hostile attitude to the "intuitionist" type of philosophy he is examining in Sir William Hamilton. For Mill no compromise was pos- sible with "intuition," which left experience precariously suspended in the void. When we review his connection with Comte and Positivism, his atti- tude comes out in striking detail. Here if anywhere, the logician will succumb to the fascination of system ; the empirical philosopher will pay homage to the father of a modern science of history; the discoverer of an inductive method of proof — supplemented withal by the "interposition of deductive steps," might well accept the authority of one who applied suc- cessfully a like method to the classification of the sciences. Mill con- fessed to Comte that he had to guard against the attractiveness of his doc- trines rather than against a too-critical attitude. Sufficient illustration of his discrimination of Comte's contributions to philosophic thought have been presented in a previous essay; but Mill's reaction to the Comtean thought will remain a classical example of his historical position as a mediator of philosophical ideas. The real fabric of that which he selected, assimilated and transmitted may be gathered from the concluding chap- ters of the Logic, those on the "Logic of the Moral Sciences," an analysis of which concludes the essay referred to. Mill's solution of the problem of "freedom" may be taken in relation with his position on Positivism. Ini the latter, he accepts the dynamic and rejects the static philosophy of society. In the former he vindicates a natural freedom, which will make progress possible, and necessary, while refusing to support any theory, either natural or supernatural, which would give the static con- ditions of human and social life ascendancy over the dynamic, — that would sacrifice progress to "order". He vindicated, in other words, a genuine freedom against a deterministic illusion. He interpreted free- dom as a phenomenon of natural law, without surrendering even its theoretical validity to a scientific dogmatism, on the one hand, any more than to a theological or metaphysical dogmatism, on the other. And of Positivism, he accepts the "philosophy" (method, and criticism) — in- 85 terpretation of the past (largely) and appraisal of the present, — but rejects the "polity" (program of reorganization). The two systematiza- tions seem to him fundamentally contradictory. In the matter of religion, Mill's spirit is humanistic and pragmat- ical. Not that he consciously employs the method of pragmatism as we understand it today ; nor is his logic like its logic, except in being founded on experience, and in being dominated by a human and social motive. It is significant that Professor James dedicated to Mill his volume of lectures on Pragmatism. In his formal critique of "natural religion," in the Three Essays which he withheld from publication till his death, Mill applies the methods of his own Logic, but he very carefully saves whatever "residues" logically escape disentegration, for the comfort and confirmation of those who desire to believe. And when one con- siders that these Essays do not assail even dogmatic theology in general, much less in any systematic way Christianity, one is amazed at the ferocious sarcasm with which certain reputed scholars assailed this post- humous work for its very dispassionate analysis of abstract theism. Systematic, traditional theology must have been in sad case, when it clung so desperately to "natural religion" to justify a supernatural faith. At all events, in these Essays all "dissembling", is absent. Whether the "time had came" when a man might speak frankly on the subject of religion, or not, Mill's best efforts to solve the most vexed of questions Was to be given to the world. But much else besides the Three Essays is needed to give us the picture of Mill's religious character. In his letters to Comte, and his general correspondence, we find many passages in which his self-expression on these matters is vivid and varied. In all his chief works his main theses, criticisms and solutions, are incorporated ; for the religious problem ramified in all directions, where the human and social problem extends, — where psychology and sociology are the leading inquiries. Beginning, then, at the end,— with the three Essays, — one notes first that in this systematic statement there is disclosed no material change of Mill's original views as indicated in the Autobiography. It is but a formal explanation and defence of the moral revolt which was his in- heritance from his father. The great point of it all is the same. If God made the world such as it is, then "natural" evil becomes moral evil; and if God be, as theology says, omnipotent, then he is "the author of evil" and "responsible" for it all. To love and to worship such a God would be degrading; to worship him as ideally good, and so forth, as theology also describes him, is morally stultifying. Even Mill's Mith- raism, or solution by means of a Persian dualism, is not different from the "Manichaeism" of earlier years. He mentions the struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman as a type of the only possible theological account of the moral situation of the world, that does not do violence to the facts. 86 The main conclusion is a formulation, with precise qualifications, con- ditions and provisos, of that familiar to us in the Autobiography, — that one may without reproach "worship" a God of "limited power", who is "perfect" however in "goodness", though unable to realize fully his good will. Whether this conception is a possible, a consistent, or even a useful one, we shall not just now inquire. Mill does not criticize Christianity systematically in these Essays. They are a critique of "Natural Theology", and especially of theism, in its "natural basis". Of distinctively Christian doctrines, he gives a favor- able estimate (so far as they are discussed at all), and especially so to the central conception of Anglican theology, the doctrine of the Incarna- tion. On page 253 he says of this, "It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews, or of Nature, who has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind." We may compare with this Mill's interest in the Oxford Movement, or Anglo-Catholic revival of the 1840*8. In 1842 he writes, explaining for the first time to Comte the move- ment as an exception to prevailing English "inattention" to French philos- ophizing. It is a "new school of theological philosophy" playing in the "sociological regeneration" of England a part analagous to that of the school of de Maistre in France. "Like that school, it judges the present crisis in a manner nearly true, being mistaken only about the remedies. It rehabilitates Catholicism and the Middle Ages, calls itself 'Catholic' and claims that the Anglican Church has always remained such, — with- out the Pope, it is true, but by transmitting the spiritual power in the body of bishops. It upholds the principle of authority against that of the unlimited liberty of conscience, — a principle more strongly accredited here than it could ever be made in France by the philosophy of Voltaire and Diderot; precisely because its less complete victory has not allowed it to reduce itself to absurdity by the full development of its anti-social consequences; this school also resembles the French Catholic school in that it was the first to found, in this country, a kind of historical philos- ophy." Mill mentions later to the same correspondent that the "Anglo- Catholic school, . . . which has assumed a considerable, though only transient, importance in our speculative public, has been fit to extend a high protection to my work. Their various organs have devoted articles to it — sometimes quite remarkable ; and I am told that at Oxford, where they are very powerful, everybody reads me. It is almost as though de Maistre recognized your great work! You may be sure they do this with many reservations, especially on the religious question, — but this is in every way better than if they praised me without stint. On the other hand, I am read at Cambridge in preparation for university exam- inations ; for Mr. Whewell questions students upon his own work, and as they think he will wish to frame questions implying doctrines that I have opposed, they read me in order to know what they are !" 87 In 1845 he refers once more to this movement in a letter to Comte. "We have secured, you and I, the honor of quite a distinguished publicity through the agency of one of the leaders of the Anglo-Catholic school, Mr. Ward, who brought out about a year or more ago, quite a large volume, in which he depicts in very dark colors the present state of the Anglican Church and English society, declares himself very sharply against the Reformation of Luther, and summons the Anglican Church to re-enter the fold of Roman Catholicism. This work made a great scan- dal here, and Oxford University has just deprived the author of his aca- demic degrees, as being no longer a member, at least by right, of the Angelican Church. It is only lately that I have read his work, although I have learned that there was a question of myself. I found myself cited in each chapter, and even oftener, with immense praise mingled with com- plaints of my unbelief and the atheistic tendencies of my writings. He also said he had read the greater part of your Cours on faith of what I said about it. It goes without saying that he rebukes you even more sharply than me for your irreligion ; yet he cites many passages, he eulo- gizes your ability and even your motives and says that you admit having taken many things from de Maistre, but that he considers you quite su- perior in depth to that thinker. According to him, we are bound to come to irreligion by ourselves, unless we come back to Catholic philosophy. For he extols the philosophy of Catholicism quite as much as the faith. It is quite amusing that we should find such decided support in this camp, and that Mr. Ward should be accused by his adversaries in the Quar- terly Review, of having drawn more doctrines from my school than from that of the Anglican theologians." Another noticeable feature of Mill's chapters on Theism is that he devoted practically the entire discussion of "Revelation" to the subject of miracles, and does not discuss the possibility, or the possible mode or na- ture of a revelation at all. There is no mention of Kant, or any other writer on this problem. The omissions we have noted of what we might be superficially led to expect in Mill's criticism of religion may be explained by the fact that his was by no means a negative attitude on the subject. His animadver- sions are directed solely against those elements which he regarded as demoralising. His object was not to undermine Christianity by a rigor- ous and systematic method of historical criticism, or to test all its for- mulas and beliefs by a standard of objective truth. In so far as Christian- ity's "metaphysics" was "bad," he would leave it to battle with and adjust itself to a better philosophy, to the creation of which he would devote his effort. Psychology, "ethology," sociology and ethics, as they assumed scientific form would alter and "improve" Christianity, as they would all the other institutions of mankind. The destruction of religion, then, or even of theology alone was very far from his desire or endeavor, cepting only in so far as they seemed to interfere with true morality. 88 To write of Mill's religious ideas implying that he had religious ideas may be unconventional. His not having such ideas, his taking an atti- tude of general negation to such ideas is a common assumption. But it is unwarranted by the facts. It is merely a fact that will be incidentally illustrated, and not a thesis to be supported by dialectic, or urged in a eugolistic sense, that Mill was a religious man. That is, if we accept a modern untechnical and unbiased definition of the terms religion and religious. Speaking of a modern definition of religion, we may assume a dis- tinction, not only between religion and theology, religion and faith (dog- matic), — between religion and its instruments, — between religion as a system of ends (ideals), and a system of means (institutions, formulas) ; but we may assume as abandoned by most enlightened and prejudiced thinkers the habit of giving to all forms of antagonism to anything asso- ciated with religion, the epithet of "irreligion," — much less (as was the manner of even the recent past, and is still the way of the thoughtless or lethargic), "infidelity," "atheism," — or even "scepticism" or "agnos- ticism." These all may be regarded as for us but polemical epithets, weapons forged in the fires of a strife which was itself the true and worst irreligion, used in the long warfare of theology with science, and un- suited as they always were to the context of reflective thought. It results that we may be anti-sacerdotal without being anti-prophetic ; we can be anti-ecclesiastical without being sectarian, anti-Catholic, or anti- Protestant without being anti-Christian or anti-catholic (with a small "c"), — anti-theological but not anti-religious. We may go so far as to say that one can be non-Christian (if actually possible to be destitute of even unconscious marks of such an inheritance — such a historical movement), even non-theistic without being, at least universally, censured as "irrelig- ious," or incurring any odium greater than the reproach, from certain offi- cial quarters, of "heresy," — whose supernatural or spiritual retribution, in the absence of penalties enforcable by "the secular arm," appear pro- gressively less fearful, and, in view of current knowledge in the sciences of nature, correspondingly difficult even to envisage or conceive. Fortunately, the fallacy and fanaticism on which persecution rested, are widely enough recognized, to make the majority of people rejoice in the immunity of the free-thinker; the fallacy being that of an enforced religion ; the fanaticism, a delusion that freedom of thought, on which de- pends investigation and the advance of knowledge, should be, or even could be, by the suffering and death of individuals, effectually repressed. The heretics are getting nearly indistinguishable from the martyrs; — philosophical insurgents, even, can hardly complain of their lot if they keep cool and keep kind, — in a word, remain "philosophical." Mill, in his Autobiography, twice makes a "profession" of religious experience : one, a youthful "conversion" ; the other, a mature and most 89 solemn self -consecration. That the latter was preceded by a period of idealizing, even idolatrous, worship is abundantly evident. Indeed, this worship is one of the two great weaknesses — the other being his "de- plorable" lack of conventional religiousness — Mill's friends saw in his character and life. The youthful conversion was to the philosophy of Bentham. "I now had in one among the best senses of the term, a re- ligion." The second profession and consecration he records thus : "Her memory is to me a religion, and her approbation a standard by which I endeavour to regulate my life." With these intimate glimpses may be related his conviction that it was a high duty to speak frankly to the world one's real opinions on this most vital problem, in as far as they would seem to do good in society, and not accomplish harm, and defeat their own ends, by destroying that which, though imperfect, was still of predominant worth, and for which a better thing had not been prepared to supersede it by a natural order of development and progress. In the preface of Draper's Conflict between Science and Religion, occurs the following passage: "When the old mythological religion of Europe broke down under the weight of its own inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor the philosophers of those times did anything adequate for the guidance of public opinion. They left religious affairs to take their chance, and accordingly those affairs fell into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs, and slaves." (1876. Preface, p. vii.) Just before making this statement, Dr. Draper urges the duty of emancipation to confess and profess itself before society and the world. "It then becomes the duty of those whose lives have been made familiar with both modes of thought", — i. e., those of stationary faith and of pro- gressive science, and their inevitable divergence, — "to present modestly, but firmly, their views; to compare the antagonistic pretensions calmly, impartially, philosophically. History shows that, if this be not done, so- cial misfortunes, disastrous and enduring, will ensue." In these passages are emphasized two points in reference to the philosophy of religion, or the "religious problem," namely, the moral obli- gation openly to profess unfaith, and the historical lesson of disaster — even catastrophe — attending its dissimulation. These considerations raise a question of the first importance, and interest to philosophers who do not scruple to confess genuinely scientific aims, and utilitarian, or in- strumental, motives. The question whether it is not the conspiracy of silence rather than the "new orientation" itself, that is responsible for the confusion and moral abandon which attend to a greater or less ex- tent the break-down of the system of religious sanctions. The point of view set forth by Draper seems admirably to express one's "total im- pression" of Mill's own. o»: The three Essays are essentially an examination of the logic and metaphysics of natural theology. It was bitterly attacked by the ortho- dox as the "Destruction of Theism", — an ironic phrase, of course. Agnos- tics on the other hand deplored the revelation of Mill's relapse into theism. Most interesting in this connection is the impression of Mill's book revived in Mr. Morley's recent Recollections. "In 1874," he writes, "Mill's posthumous essay on Theism appeared, — a piece that dismayed his disciples, not merely as an infelicitous compromise with orthodoxy, but what is far more formidable, as actually involving a fatal relaxation of his own rules and methods of reasoning. It made a sort of intellec- ual scandal, like the faith of Pascal, that most intrepid of reasoners, in the unspeakable miracle of the Holy Thorn. It seemed a duty to keep the agnostic lamps well-trimmed. I made no attempt to argue with the mystic or the transcendentalist, but only with the rationalist master of those who know, on rationalistic ground expressly chosen and profoundly impressed by himself." (Vol. I p. 106.) It is a sorrow to the author to lay hands on "Father Parmenides" — a teacher like Mill, endowed with a "powerful understanding", suffused with the "charmed equanimity" of "charis." None the less the essay is a "labored evasion of plain answers to plain questions." Mill's answer to his "man Friday" is shortly this : first, there is a low degree of probability that the world is the work of a Creator, not omnipotent, but of limited power, and he cannot "kill the devil". Secondly, if he exists, benevolence is one of his attributes but not his sole "prompter". Thirdly, there is room to hope he may grant us immortality, if that is any good to us. Lastly, the miracle of Christ's being "conferred on mankind" was "supernatural". "So, in short, the dogmatic assertion of creeds, faiths, and ardently professed convictions, that are taken to guide, il- luminate, and glorify the life of Christendom, is reduced from full shining noon to a dim twilight of bare possibilities and blenched peradventures". Mill's estimate of Christ is a "glowing, beautiful and sincere tribute." The passage here referred to by Mr. Morley, (pp. 253-5 m Three Essays) may be summarized as follows : The moral standard and ex- ample embodied in a "Divine Person" is the most valuable agent in Christianity, and an available and inalienable possession of all men. "Ra- tional criticism" leaves us "Christ". Presumably Mill does not mean the Messiah. If we substitute "Jesus" we shall get his idea better. Textual and historical criticism, too, "leave" a unique prophetic figure, and a body of "sayings" whose force and obvious originality are in marked contrast with the Greek-Oriental theosophy credited to Jesus in the Fourth Gos- pel. Mill recognizes that the "life and sayings of Jesus" — here using the given name — bear a "stamp of personal originality combined with a pro- fundity of insight", which proclaim him a genius of the first rank. He did not aim at "scientific precision", and we may recognize superlative 91 genius without supposing any supernatural "inspiration." Add to this "genius" the character of "greatest moral reformer and martyr," and religion is justified in making him "the ideal representative and guide of humanity." Even the "unbeliever" will best translate the "rule of virtue" into the "concrete" by trying to live so as "Christ would approve." One may ask how true this would be to-day when criticism has not confined itself to the "text," but proceeded to the philosophy of the Nazarene. Mill thinks even the "rational sceptic" may conceive that Jesus' practical Messianic consciousness was not a delusion ; that he was "possibly" what he deemed himself, "a man charged with a special, express, and unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue." "We may well conclude," he adds, "that the influences of religion on the character which will remain after rational criticism has done its utmost against the evidences of religion, are well worth preserving, and that what they lack in direct strength as compared with those of a firmer belief, is more than compensated by the greater truth and rectitude of the morality they sanc- tion." As to the first part of this statement, it is obvious that its signifi- cance will depend on how far criticism goes, and what does "remain." As to the latter portion, it is somewhat ambigious. It is a fair question whether Utilitarian ethical ideals are sufficiently in harmony with Chris- tian—even as revised by the founder of Christianity — to warrant Mill's generous tribute to the "recitude of the morality they sanction." Mr. Morley thinks Mill's argument on theism is weakened by over- sight of one of the "remarkable new growths, — the science (sic?) of comparative religion." At least, he "dissociated his speculation on theism from methods of ordered historic thought and knowledge, with which it was especially connected." He had forgotten how recently the "sublimest sayings of the Gospels found exact parallels in the Talmud." Referring to the miracle of "Christ's" bestowal on mankind, Mr. Morley asks what "becomes of social evolution" if one of the "most important of all the changes in moral history" was due to supernatural and unique interven- tion. Why not make similar claims for the heroes and yeomen who "wrought transformations," and labored in the "stupendous phalanx" of churchmen? Mill dogmatically asserts that "the Manichaean doctrine alone escapes "imputing moral obliquity to the Supreme Being" by denying omnipotence. The world is a battlefield between two Powers. 'Tis an "Olympian dualism" of beneficent and maleficent divinities. "Our con- sternation in those days arose from the path along which Mill travelled to this particular form of theistic conclusion. He who had done more than anybody (else) to make language, conceptions, reasoned arguments, into instruments of precision was now for flatly sanctioning one of the hardest of mystic propositions." Consolation in bereavement was to Mill the "only permanent value" in religion. "But can we really suppose," asks Mr. Morley, "that this scheme of possible contingencies, low degree 92 of probability, permissive hopes, dubious potentialities, could bring com- fort or consolation worth the name." Mr. Morley's striking summary is, that Mill cuts the tangle of life and death, only to offer a "second knot" yet harder to unloose. Can we explain these anomalies ? Mill was not willing that scientific methods should destroy what was — though imperfect — humanly and so- cially valuable. The fault of Christianity was "bad metaphysics"; a judgment not conflicting with recognition of the "rectitude" of Christian morality, — the practical results of real Christianity. The Three Essays were a criticism of the "metaphysics" (in the logical-psychological sense of his day) of abstract theism or "natural religion"; touching upon the Incarnation of the historic Christ, only to praise. The thesis of the Three Essays on Religion is, briefly, this: God cannot be both omnipotent and all-good. There is practically no evidence of his existence except a very little in the design argument. There is some indication of goodness, and at the same time much evidence of lim- ited power. Hence God may be believed in naturally as a good, but not all-powerful, Being. Mill's procedure is, first to examine the grounds of natural religion in the conception of Nature. Here the method is a re- duetto ad absurdum. "Follow nature" is the ethical maxim of natural religion, for by so doing you will obey Nature's God. Now "Nature," either includes or excludes man. If the former is meant, the maxim is meaningless; whatever you do will be natural. If the latter sense be em- ployed, the maxim is self-contradictory; for then man's whole effort is to oppose, modify, control, use, and even defeat, Nature. Finally, should either of these conceptions be made the ground of a Divinity, this being could not be an object of religious reverence. The second essay, on the "Utility," or the happiness-value of "Re- ligion," is a criticism of natural Theism designed to discover any possible salvage of such beliefs, on the principle of utility. The test is not that of doctrinal Utilitarianism, but seems to be that of a common-sense, intelli- gent conception of a real and not theoretic human happiness. The method, of course, is the method of "residence." In the third essay, on Theism, Mill reviews the main apologetic ar- guments, so far as abstract and based on natural theology, and comes to the reiterated conclusion that the argument from design has some slight evidential value, but that all forms of the other "proofs" are practically eliminated. The method here is to expose the dilemma. In each dif- ferent point of view natural theology is found to be bound up with the fundamental problem created by the demand for reconciliation of power and goodness in the conception of God. In the "Nature" the thesis, as has been intimated above, is developed from the ambiguity of the term. There are really two concepts as com- mon usage shows, — one including, one excluding, man. But in neither 93 sense can "Nature" prescribe a rule of life for man. "Naturam sequi" is absurd and self -contradictory. Man is either wholly controlled by Na- ture, — a part of its machinery ; or Nature is the domain of his conquests. This reasoning undermines the foundation of a theology based on Nature, which is either identical with God, or reflects his "character"; and that makes "him" either unmoral or immoral. To restate the argument of the utility, — after examining impartially the parts of natural theology with a view to ascertaining what (if any) doctrines may be justified on the ground of utility, Mill applies his own inductive method of residues, and lays down the thesis that nothing should be left to be accomplished for the practical life by the agency of "religion," so dubiously based, except whatever (if anything) cannot be done by other means. The "residue" is found to be very meagre. As for the final essay, in it Mill concludes that a good God, of "limited power" may exist, and he may "will the good" of mankind, but cannot be supposed to act with no other motives. Mill regrets that Plato did not leave a dialogue Peri Phuseos, as a specimen of the "Socratie Elenchus", which would have pre- vented his successors from modes of thought due fundamentally to a "fallacious use" of the word Nature. In the absence of a Platonic model, however, Mill employs the Platonic method. The first "rule" is to fix the meaning of your term, and this is to be sought (second rule) in the concrete. The "nature" of a thing is thus found to mean "its entire capacity of exhibiting phenomena". This is consistent with Mill's well-known definition of an object as "the permanent possibility of sensation". "Nature in the abstract" then is the "ag- gregate of the powers and properties of all things". And we must note that this includes not only "phenomena", but also their "causes", as well as all possible phenomena, — all the "unused capabilities of causes". It is the mode of existence of things as a whole which the general term suggests, rather than the endless details; "the concep- tion which might be formed of their manner of existence as a mental whole, by a mind possessing a complete knowledge of them". The "arts" of man are natural, as is all his activity, and this consists chiefly in "moving things into certain places". But all man's powers of will, intelligence and strength, are themselves natural. A second meaning thus emerges, — "Nature" in a sense excluding man's agency in events, or even as opposed to it. These two senses elucidate most others which have "consequences". In which of them does it carry its moral meaning? Naturam sequi has been the ethical motto of many ancient schools. Stoics and Epicureans agreed upon it, and both bequeathed it to the Roman jurists, and they as jus naturale, to the political writers and moralists of Europe. International morality based on 94 this conception passed it on to Christianity. Here a rival doctrine of natural depravity opposed it and so it was the more strongly em- phasized by the Deists. Mill adds that Christianity had assimilated considerable "sentimental Deism" through the spread of Rousseau's influence. He attributes to his own age a general moral confusion, uncertainty, and opportunism. But people still speak eulogistically of things done "according to nature" or of nature as "enjoining" them ; and the word unnatural is still "vituperative". All of which implies the same fundamental theorem as that of the formal works on "natural law". Is then the moral meaning a third definition of Nature? No, because people believe "nature", in the sense of what exists, is act- ually a criterion, of what ought to be. The examination of this con- ception shows that it is due to the ambiguity of the word "law". Law, means both what is and what ought to be; so does nature. An ethical sense of law is reflected in an ethical sense of nature, — in- evitably, from the close association of the two terms in the phrase law of nature. The same difficulty exists with this latter phrase in its scientific use, where the word law gives to the conception of cause a sense of mysterious compulsion or of power, which Mill, following Hume, strenuously denies. The meanings, then, being limited to two, to which sense of nature is the moral implication attached? Now at first sight it seems plain that it cannot be with the all- inclusive sense. But Mill points out that a rational effort may be based on following nature even in this sense. "Though all conduct is in conformity to laws of nature all conduct is not grounded on knowledge of them, and intelligently directed to the attainment of purposes by means of them." "According to Bacon's maxim we can obey nature in such a manner as to command it." "If, therefore, the useless precept to follow nature were changed into a precept to study nature, to know and take heed of the properties of things which we have to deal with, so far as these properties are capable of forwarding or obstructing any given purpose, we should have arrived at the first principle of all intelligent action, or rather at the definition of in- telligent action itself." This would be then "Naturam observare." But this maxim is merely prudential; the other is ethical, and supposed worthy to be enforced by sanctions and penalties. "Right action must mean something more and other than merely intelligent action." Can we establish such rectitude on nature in a sense elim- inating human agency? The contradiction is obvious. This nature is to be controlled by man. That is what the limitation of its "ex- tension" means. Of course, if the spontaneous natural process is right, we may not fly, nor even elevate an impious umbrella! But classical moralists do not dispraise the arts of man. Yet "all praise 95 of civilization, or art, or commerce, is so much dispraise of nature; an admission of imperfection which it is man's business and merit to be always endeavoring to correct or mitigate." Not a little effort and sagacity has been spent by mankind in justifying by the fiction of a divine gift, or bringing under the sanction of revelation the de- veloping arts of life, and defending inventions from "religious sus- picion" as interfering with the divine government of the world. Mill conceives that although now one would rarely recommend any course of action on account of its agreement with the idea of a divine economy, one feels the force of such a support for that which he already approves. The maxim is seldom contradicted. One avoids the sus- picion of impiety. Each party to a controversy likes to claim the support of religious arguments, and to offset one alleged impiety by another and better kind of piety than the opponents'. Progress "clears away particular errors, while the causes of errors remain stand- ing," and but "little weakened". Religious persons should "face the undeniable fact", that nature "unmodified by man" is something no just and beneficent creator would ask "rational creatures" to imitate. Mill distinguishes the impression of awe, really produced by the mere vastness of the greater natural phenomena, from the moral emotion of reverent admiration of excellence. "Those in whom awe produces admiration may be aethetically developed, but they are morally uncultivated." Evil power may cause similar emotions. Mill then arraigns nature with a rare and vehement eloquence for its "per- fect and absolute recklessness". The passage (of three pages) is one long pathetic fallacy, but throws the onus probandi on those who would invest nature with the moral character of a divine order. Nature is in fact a contradiction of order, and disorder a counterpart of her work, if we judge from a moral standpoint. "Anarchy and the Reign of Terror are overmatched in injustice, ruin and death, by a hurricane and a pestilence." Even if these "deeds" of nature are for good, though mysterious ends, that would not make our imitation of them good. Reductio ad absurdum. If it is a sufficient reason for doing one thing, that Nature does it, why not another thing? If not all things, why any- thing? But, of course, no one consistently believes in this occult good hidden by the noxious facts of nature. Mill observes that good coming out of evil, on which people love to dilate, is as "often true of human crimes, as of natural calamaties". The London fire would have improved its health just the same if it had really been the work of the "furor papisticus" so long "com- memorated on the Monument" ! Again, evil often comes out of good, — that is, of what to all present appearance was beneficial. Such 96 events are as much talked about, but not so willingly generalized; they are dismissed with pious reflections on human limitations. "Both good and evil naturally tend to fructify", however, "each in its own kind". "The general tendency of evil is toward further evil." "Poverty is the parent of a thousand mental and moral evils." In- jury and oppression are degrading. The natural theologians are severely reproached for losing their way utterly, devoting all the "resources of sophistry" to show that misery exists lest there should be more and worse misery, and that the universe is a just, even if unhappy one. Apart from ethical considerations, the dilemma re- mains; nature is no more a proper environment for justice than for virtue. Given natural justice and a God omnipotent, each would experience evil in proportion to his evil deeds and the good would experience only happiness. The doctrine of "another life" proclaims that the injustice of the present order is felt by the very persons who hold the sacred view of nature. The most fanatical theology cannot reconcile nature with omnipotent benevolence. Now to a God, good but not almighty, a man could be a "not ineffectual auxiliary". And such, thinks Mill, has been consciously or unconsciously, the fate of all who have derived real and "worthy" aid from a belief in Divine Providence. "It may be possible to believe with Plato that perfect goodness, limited and thwarted in every direction by the intractableness of the material, has done this because it could do no better? But that with full control he made the material what it is, is an idea repugnant to the most elementary moral distinctions. Still, men cling to the notion that some part of nature is the divine pattern, though that part is not made clear in any "accredited doctrine". If it be the "active impulses" of senti- ent life, all must be considered good in their operation. If only a section of this activity be meant, it must be that where "the Creator's hand" is manifested. Now man's deliberate conduct seems most his own, and hence the "inconsiderate" is attributed to God, — which is to exalt instinct above reason. Then "all unreflecting impulses are invested with authority over reason, except the only ones which are most probably right." Of course, these consequences will not be carried through. "The pretension is not to drive Reason from the helm, but rather to bind her by articles to steer only in a par- ticular way." She is to defer to instinct. Mill thinks the idea that "goodness is natural" is highly artificial. "Worth of character was deemed the result of a sort of taming" Moral excellence is "repugnant to the untutored feelings of hu- manity". Courage, the barbaric virtue, has had to subdue the most powerful human emotion, fear; and this shows the might of disci- 97 pline. But courage is probably not natural, "consistent courage is always the effect of cultivation". Again, — cleanliness is as artificial as possible. Children, and the "lower classes" seem fond of dirt. And it is disgusting only to those who become accustomed to do with- out it. If we turn to the social virtues, "it is the verdict of all ex- perience that selfishness is natural". And there is a "sympathetic" as well as a "solitary" kind — l'egoisme a deux, a trois, ou a quatre. Whether an uninstructed person was ever more kind than selfish, or not, such cases are extremely rare and do not disprove the point. But says Mill, "savages are always liars". They have no notion of truth as "a point of honor". So of the "whole East and the greater part of Europe". Justice is equally artificial; the farther we look back the more do we find justice defined by law. Just rights were legal rights; a just njan, one who observed others' legal rights. A "higher justice" is an extension of this idea of legal justice. Ety- mology as well as current usage bears out this view. Mill is "ready", with proper reservation, (against "intuition", doubtless) to recog- nize "germs" of virtue in human nature, but they would stand no chance against noxious growths unless artificially cultivated. The human nature thus perfected is the only nature "commendable to follow", and even it implies some more ultimate, chosen standard. So even man's own nature is to be amended rather than followed. Mill points out the absurdity of those who admit the necessary primacy of "reason", and yet recognize in the urgency of the desires the designs of "Providence", and in the love of existence the proof of a "future life". But he, while admitting the raison d'etre of all impulses, believes they must not only be regulated, but some even, — as "destructiveness", or the "instinct of domination"; — "starved by disuse". Mill lays the utmost emphasis! on the idea that the untrained impulses of men would all lead to misery; and judges that "one- tenth" the "pains" taken to illustrate from nature the theory of bene- ficent design, would reveal the animal world divided into devourers and devoured, and without protection from innumerable ills. Besides the many ethical uses of the idea of conformity to nature, Mill cites many lax eulogositic uses of "natural" applied to human behavior. One has natural grace, or we recognize his natural man- ner or character, or he was naturally so-and-so until something made him otherwise; one is naturally dull but persevering; naturally am- bitious but unfortunate ; or finally, anyone acts or reacts "naturally" when he does merely what any man would ordinarily do. Now in these cases there is no necessarily good sense at all, — often quite the contrary. And Mill singles out "absense of affectation" as the one 98 sense of "naturalness" that is really a term of praise. But in this absence he recognizes the great virtue of "sincerity. " The discussion draws to an end with this ethical dictum : "Con- formity to nature has no connection whatever with right and wrong." The idea should have no place in ethical discussion, except as a second- ary factor in the question of the degree of blame. Facile est descensus Averni, and virtue is more unnatural than vice ; but if we feel a wrong to be unnatural, that adds something to culpability. If however no such repugnance exists, no question of naturalness can effect praise or blame. "The corresponding plea in extenuation of a culpable act because it was natural, never ought to be admitted." Most bad ac- tions are "natural" enough, as is also the "fellow feeling" that makes us often plead their "naturalness," especially when we are aware of our capability of doing the like. On the other hand, an action offensive to one's taste may be more abhorrent than a crime. This essay ends with a brief summary, which we may condense thus: "Nature" means either the "entire system of things", or that system less man's "intervention". The ethical precept, Naturam sequi, is for the first sense meaningless ; all is natural. In the other sense, this motto is either irrational or immoral. Irrational because human activity consists essentially in intervening in the "spontan- eous course of nature"; immoral, because natural phenomena when given moral meaning are largely evil and not to be imitated. "The scheme of nature regarded in its whole extent cannot have had, for its sole or even principal object, the good of human or other sentient beings." They all must win good from it. Any signs of benevolent purpose are accompanied by signs of limited power, and the duty im- plied for men is to cooperate with and supplement the efforts of the beneficent powers, in order to control nature in the interests of high ideals. The question of the usefulness of religion is rarely raised because, as Mill remarks, this question never occurs to a positive religious at- titude. It is weakening apologetics that raises this question. An argument from utility proposes hypocrisy to unbelievers, self-decep- tion to half-believers, dissimulation of doubt to all. But arguments, when beliefs are weak, assume a more important place, and may be enter- tained by those whose wish to believe is disinterested. Utility preserves the remnants of training and religious habits, even emphasizing them ex- ternally. If religion be necessary, it is unfortunate that it should rest on "moral bribery or subornation of the understanding", — unfortu- nate for sincere believers, as well as for sincere disbelievers, who can- not be frank for fear of doing harm. The mental conflict is disastrous. It breeds indifference to the highest ends, fear that free thought will 99 destroy virtue, or banish noble feelings and impulses. People turn from philosophy, or are zealots for " intuitive" schools, where feeling supplies evidence of truth. "The whole of the prevalent metaphysics of the present century is one tissue of suborned evidence in favor of religion." Is this speculative effort of use to "human well-being"? Would not a recognition of our mental limitations be more valuable, as the devotion of our powers to "other sources of virtue and happiness", which need no supernatural support, would be more useful? Mill had no animus, except against the hateful "intuitionism" which vitiated religious philosophy. He thinks "sceptical philoso- phers" quite as wrong, in supposing that the problem can be solved by a simple formula, and himself holds a characteristic mediating posi- tion. It is not sufficient to say truth and utility cannot conflict, and if religion be not "true" it cannot be useful; that its rejection then can only result in good. For, Mill points out the acquisition of a neg- ative truth cannot be as clearly useful as the discovery of a positive truth, an agnostic conclusion does not give us a fact to guide us. The supposed "fact" in which we no longer trust, may have pointed in the right direction, and its prominence may have served us when bet- ter "indications" were more obscure. "It is in short perfectly con- ceivable that religion may be merely useful without being intellectual- ly sustainable." And there is historical evidence of this which even an "unbeliever" cannot deny. Whereupon, Mill announces his object of inquiry, "whether it is the case generally, and with reference to the future." Between the familiar arguments pro and con Mill notes the distinction that the affirmative side have gone very fully into the "advantages" of religion in general and particular; but the negative have merely emphasized the most damaging evidence. Now, nothing is easier than to catalog the crimes committed in the name of religion, — "from the sacrifice of Iphegenia to the Dragonnades of Louis XIV (not to descend lower)", — but these crimes are those of particular re- ligions, and "afford no argument against the usefulness" of any other. Indeed the inherent evils which produced these "odious" things were found to be separable, and have mostly been removed from the re- ligions of mankind. They remain, however, reproaches and hurt the good influence of religion, revealing its shortcomings in contrast with its claims, and showing that all moral advance is not due to it, and occurs in spite of it. Improvement is proceeding, and not yet complete. We are to suppose religion to accept the best ethical elements from every source, and then when it becomes free from the odium of bad doctrine, it is time to find whether its usefulness is inherent, or its benefits otherwise obtained. "The essential portion of the inquiry into the temporal usefulness of religion, is the subject of the present 100 essay. It is a part that has been little treated of by sceptical writers." Mill adds that the only available matter for the sceptical argument is found in "Philip Beauchamp" and in Comte's writings, — and he will make free use of this. Two questions divide the essay. What does religion do — for the individual, and — for society ? And first an important distinction, "com- monly overlooked", is emphasized. The advantage religion gains by being credited with all moral training whatever, and wherever re- ceived. All moral culture resulting from education and social in- fluences, as it usually claims religious sanction, so religion usually gets the credit for it. The "great moral power in human affairs", that of generally received beliefs and customs instilled from child- hood, being thus commanded by religion, magnifies its achievements and increases its authority. The influence of authority is paramount for the individual, who respects general social assent more than his own intelligence. Even one other makes an "infinite" gain to a be- lief, as Novalis said; but when everyone you know holds the same, authority is overwhelming. The number of "dissentients" measures the influence of a doctrine, on belief and on conduct. A thing which has proved true whether it had religious sanction or not. Religion adds to the influence of its association with generally received beliefs, the power derived from a like connection with edu- cation. Yet it is not the religious reference that gives early educa- tion its "empire". The law of God is but the parental command. Another system of duties without religious association, would be as strongly rooted, if taught as early. And social agreement on such a system would spread moral culture where now it is excluded by re- ligious prejudices and antagonisms. The greatest strength in educa- tion lies in the command over the feelings that early acquired beliefs have, unequalled by any later ones. Mill declares the "power of edu- cation is almost boundless". He sees in the long life of the laws of Lycurgus, and in the strength of Spartan institutions, the influence, not of religion but of education. "Among the Greeks generally, social morality was extremely independent of religion." And "such moral teaching as existed in Greece had very little to do with religion." The latter was to preserve the dignity of the gods themselves, not to prescribe the duty of men. "The case of Greece is, I believe, the only one in which any teaching other than religious, has had the un- speakable advantage of forming the basis of education." The ex- ception proves the rule, that "early religious teaching has owed its power over mankind rather to its being early than to its being re- ligious." A third power held as religion's "appanage" is public opinion. 101 Morality may be summarized as the conduct one desires others to observe towards himself. ! Public opinion often supplies motives more powerful than conscience, but when they are in harmony, as they are naturally, the resulting motives will be all-powerful. The strongest passions, except mere animal appetites, are names for motives derived from public opinion. Glory, praise, vanity, honor, love of sympathy, dread of shame, of social penalties, of resulting failure and loss. Ambition, depending on the favor of men — except in war time. Ambition, whose very objects are such because com- monly desired. One's very merits are recognized in the opinion of others. Beyond the gaining of subsistence, the varied activities of civilization are largely directed to securing "the favorable regard of mankind", while crimes are committed to escape or to avoid the consequences of its disfavor. Religion, by alliance with this power, derives from it a strength which appears its own. But the failure of divine penalties to fulfill prophecy, dispels the illusion, while the promise of remote rewards and punishments influences conduct but little. Religion encourages the belief that it is never too late to mend, though preachers complain of the small effect on conduct of the "tremendous penalties denounced". Mill cites Bentham's proofs of the ineffectiveness of the religious sanction, unenforced by public opinion. Bentham's illustrations are those of oaths, — court, university and custom house, — duelling, and sex irregularities, — in which popular sentiment makes one law for the man and another for the woman. The first case merely illustrates the tendency of the two motives to appear or disappear together. But the other two show the weakness of the religious motive alone; for "what mankind think venial, it is hardly ever supposed that God looks on in a serious light: at least, by those who feel in themselves any inclination to practise it". With regard to Christian martyrs Mill is unwilling to attribute their hero- ism to the influence of human opinion, but as little can it be assigned to supernatural rewards. "Their impulse was a divine enthusiasm — a self-forgetting devotion to an ideal." "Every great cause" may "inspire" the like "exalted feeling". But the use of religion as a "supplement to human laws" is only the "vulgarest" part of this branch of the subject. Its nobler exponents claim religion to be a social necessity, as aloiie able to "teach us what morality is". They attribute to religion all high mor- ality, assert the superiority of Christian morality to that of "un- inspired philosophers", — who even were indebted to a Hebrew or primitive tradition, — that only a divine moral law will heceive human sanction, and, however powerful that sanction might be in securing obedience, the law itself would not exist but for religion. There is, 102 historically, truth in these claims but the ancients attributed physical phenomena also to spiritual powers, and had no conception of natural laws. A universal deference to spiritual powers was thus inevitable. Neither moral nor scientific truths could for them be other than supernatural; but would they now give up moral, any more than scientific truths, because these had "no higher origin than wise and noble human hearts"? Once possessed, are not these truths self- justifying? True, in Jesus some forms of goodness are carried to an unprecedented "height", though not without parallels in the Stoic emperor. "But this benefit, whatever it amounts to, has been gained." Here Mill is a humanist. "Mankind have entered into the possession of it. It has become the property of humanity, and cannot now be lost by anything short of a return to primaeval barbarism." The "commandment" of love, the greatness of ministry, chivalry and the high claim of the weak and lowly upon both God and man, the good Samaritan, the "Neither do I condemn thee", the Golden Rule, and other "noble moralities" not free from obscurity: Mill regards these as permanent elements of civilization, and far enough in advance of ordinary practice to remain a standard, inalienable from human culture. On the other hand, "wherever morality is supposed to be of super- natural origin, morality is stereotyped ; as law is, for the same reason, among believers in the Koran." Belief in the supernatural is no longer required, Mill concludes, to teach us social morality, and furnish effectual motives to social virtue and against its opposite. The more "elevated branch of the subject" remains, the inquiry as to the necessity of supernatural beliefs for the individual. For if they are necessary to the individ- ual, they are to society in a far higher than the vulgar sense. What wants, then, of human nature are thus supplied? And how far can these be otherwise fulfilled ? We now apply the "method of residues". Mill conceives that something more honorable than fear "first made gods in the world". Animism was, in our present terms, this origin. Fear came with the disembodiment of the fetich, — the withdrawal of the spiritual power from familiar objects to the greater objects of nature, or to a vague and mysterious invisibility. Belief then pre- ceded fear, but fear when coirie, reinforced belief. The persistence of religion in cultivated minds is due to man's limited knowledge and boundless inquiry. "Human existence is girt round with mystery." Its "domain" is an "island" in space, a moment in time. "What cause or agency made it what it is, and on what powers depends its future fate?" No answer is forthcoming, and imagination supplies all we have. Religion and poetry thus respond to the same human want, and the former is different only as a "craving" to know whether there 103 are realities corresponding to the imaginings of poetry. Thus a "be- lief and expectation" are added to the poetry and the unimaginative may share this with the poetical. The "canvas" of belief is filled with "such ideal pictures as it can either invent or copy". The "insuffici- ency" of human life is satisfied, sufferings are consoled, — by the "hope of heaven" for the selfish, the "love of God" for the "tender and grateful". We have now to ask whether these satisfactions and elevations cannot be afforded by the "idealization of our earthly life" ; whether this may not yield a poetry and even a worthy religion, still better able, when aided by education, to "ennoble conduct". If it be ob- jected that the transiency of human life is not an adequate founda- tion, — no better than "Epicureanism", — Mill, while commending the maxims of that cult, and admitting that the "Carpe diem" is a "rational corollary from the shortness of life", thinks men may nevertheless care for something "beyond it", and even feel the "deepest interest in things they will never live to see". Is not the life of the race practically endless? And, in view of its indefinite perfectibility, life "offers to the imagination and sympathies a large enough object to satisfy any reasonable demand for grandeur of aspiration". Herein Mill lays down the principle of the Religion of Humanity. He thinks that the "more eminent in thought and mind" are not the only ones" capable of identifying their feelings with the entire life of the human race". The degree of cultivation necessary "might be, and certainly will be, if human improvement continues, the lot of all". Rome was the governing religious idea to the Romans, and (although Mill thinks them otherwise much over-praised) where "that idea is con- cerned" a "certain greatness of soul manifests itself in all their history". He cites the evidence of Cicero De Officiis, though, apart from patriotism, not much commending his ethics. But why should we not be trained to "feel the same absolute obligation toward the universal good", as a Roman did to make a patriotic sacrifice? Sym- pathy and benevolence should suffice in some, supplemented by the "force of shame", in others. Such disinterested morality would ask no greater or more material reward than the approval of those, living or dead, whom we venerate. That such motivation would suffice to generate the highest moral earnestness, intelligence, and aspiration, is shown by the immense influence of the great and good men of history. Here Mill announces his thesis, — that "to call these sentiments by the name morality, exclusively of any other title, is claiming too little for them. They are a real religion." And in close connection he gives a striking definition. "The essence of religion is the strong and earnest direction of the emotions and desires towards an ideal object, 104 recognized as of the highest excellence, and as rightfully paramount over all selfish objects of desire." The last condition "is fulfilled by the Religion of Humanity in as eminent a degree, and in as high a sense, as by the supernatural religions even in their best manifesta- tions, and far more so than in any of their others." Mill then asserts roundly that this religion is "better than any form whatever of supernaturalism", and a "better religion than any of those which are ordinarily called by that title". But the statement is defended: the Religion of Humanity is disinterested, whereas supernatural religion announced good and evil of "such magnitude" as to absorb all interest away from any other less remote ideal. Not but that many devotees are disinterested, but common minds seize only the appeal to selfish interest. Even the "Christ of the Gospels" speaks of rewards and punishments. But the cultivation of unselfishness is the best thing that any religion can do, and this is exactly what the religion of hu- manity would do, — by habitually expressing such feelings. Then the old religions depend for effect upon a deadening, or worse, of mental activities. Mill means that the worship of an (as it were) unsuccess- ful creator, requires a sophistication which is demoralizing. He points out that when one makes excuses for the "mysterious" ways of Providence, he is no longer adoring moral perfection; he is wor- shipping power. In contrast with his earlier tribute to tthe historic Christ, Mill finds in connection with demoralizing theological doctrines, that "revelation" itself, the gospel and the authentic teaching of Jesus, contain elements potent for moral corruption which almost outweigh the moral beauty and worth. The doctrine of hell epitomizes these elements. Every other outrage of justice and humanity involved in the average Christian idea of God, is insignificant "beside this dreadful idealization of wickedness." The worst of it is that these other ideas are not so "deducible from the very words of Christ," — such doctrines as atonement and redemption, original sin, and vicarious punishment ; and that making belief in Christ's divine mission a condition of salvation. The responsibility of Jesus for these is less clear than for the doctrine of hell. There are also elements distinguishable as Paulism, and possibly separable from Christianity; for example the reactionary doctrine of the divine right of rulers, and its corollaries. But there is one "moral contradiction inseparable from any form of Christianity"; that the "one thing needful" was withheld from the many, and that the news of this exclusive gift came so ill- authenticated as to leave a "tendency to disbelieve," which the growth of human knowledge must inevitably increase. "He who can believe these to be the intentional shortcomings of a perfectly good Being, must im- pose silence upon every prompting of the sense of goodness and justice as received among men." The pure and ingenuous faith widely exempli- 105 fied among Christians, therefore, according to Mill's view is necessarily conditioned upon an inactivity of the "speculative faculties" which im- pairs the social usefulness and circumscribes the moral growth of its pos- sessor. "It may also be said of sects and of individuals, who derive their morality from religion, that the better logicians they are, the worse moralists." The Manichaean form of solution is not proposed by Mill then on "logical" but on moral grounds, and as not in conflict with the ethical im- plicates of a "religion of humanity." The metaphysical conflict of good and evil, attended by a consciousness of human co-operation with the good and conviction of its progressive triumph, may be the encouraging speculation of him "to whom ideal good, and the progress of the world towards it, are already a religion." Dogmatic beliefs may be supplanted by imaginative theories, which the preponderating correspondences of natural things with human conceptions of good, make tenable, and the "contemplation of these possibilities" may be a proper means of stimu- lating good impulses. CONCLUSION. The study of Mill's thought on the subject of religion exhibits the mediating character of his philosophy in a manner that throws most light on the influence of his own individual nature in thus coloring his thought. That a real passion for justice dominated in the motivation of Mill's thought was probably the most salient fact in his career. This motive in him amounted to a veritable self ^dedication in the best religious sense, not to a dogma, but to a purpose, — the improvement of man's life, and especially of the lot of the less fortunate. His passion was more than sympathy — it was justice. Hence mere radicalism could not be the boundary of his efforts, nor could he accept as an adequate political phil- osophy mere revolutionary doctrine, with its lack of constructive poten- tialities, — so conspicuously shown in the French Revolution. Mill desired a moral renovation, but was convinced an intellectual improvement must be its antecedent. His belief that increasing intelligence would dispel the "ancient ideas," superstitions, along with ignorance, seems very like that of Erasmus, as do also his characteristic moderation and dependence upon reason and good sense to convince men. He may be properly termed a humanist. Justice was his armour, and intelligence his weapon, the good of humanity the object of his chivalrous quest. The fundamental formal principle throughout his philosophy is the mediation between traditional rationalism and extreme empiricism, or, to put it another way, in metaphysics he stands between idealistic rational- ism and dogmatic materialism. He appears to be practically an idealistic empiricist in psychology, and a materialist in science, — or all science 106 "below" psychology, which represents the borderland between the physi- cal and psychical. We may view him as a philosophic mediator in re- ligion, in his concession of a finite God as an imaginative religious idea not essentially in conflict with an idealization of the spirit of humanity. In this conception he attempts to mediate between theism and atheism, but without vital interest in either. Taken together his whole thought on the subject seems almost to amount to a proposal to use Christianity as the best medium, after a metaphysical reformation, which would carry away most of the natural theological basis and all of the dogmatic super- structure, including Christology. This would leave the "historic Christ" — or, better expressed, the real Jesus, — as the natural head of the hu- manitarian cult. On the other hand, his rejection of a dogmatic atheism or a dogmatic materialism, is thoroughgoing. Another illustration of this mediating attitude may be taken from Mill's ethics — to which the present essays have made but slight reference. In this field Mill introduces a principle which places him between rational or intuitional types of ethics, and orthodox Utilitarianism. This prin- ciple is that of discriminating pleasures. But if there be higher and lower pleasures, they must be distinguished by some standard other than utility. A distinction of pleasures is made by the Utilitarians, following the tradi- tion of Epicureanism. But Mill observes a false emphasis on their cir- cumstantial features rather than on their "intrinsic nature." Now the for- mer, such as permanency, safety, cheapness, — are not qualities, and beyond these the Utilitarians generally measure goods by quantity rather than valuing them for their qualities or character. Mill asserts that discrimi- nation of kinds would be perfectly compatible with their principle. Pleas- ures alone among human interest cannot be without qualitative distinc- tions. Such distinctions according to Mill exist by a universal or tacit consent. This agreement arises among people "competently acquainted with both"; when such persons prefer one pleasure to any quantity of another, though the former may entail discomfort we must believe the preferred one immeasurably superior in quality. The employment of the "higher faculties" constitutes the best, then, rather than the "greatest" (or biggest) pleasure. "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." In order to safeguard the distinction, Mill separates the "two very different ideas, happiness and content." Contentment may be sacri- ficed gladly — a phrase which at once conveys that happiness is aug- mented. Whether we must say that this distinction abandons the hedonistic principle, or affirm with Mill that happiness may include the subordina- tion, and even the sacrifice, of pleasure to pleasure, — and yet remain essentially "pleasure," may continue a matter of discussion. But his in- terpretation of the ethics of utility illustrates his manner of fixing upon golden means, and of thus emancipating himself — and others, from tram- 107 mels of dogmatism. It also illustrates his tendency to rely for support on certain of the more ancient authorities, in his effort to reach clarity of thought. The universality of the discrimination he is referring to is well- stated in this passage (Util., p. 10, Everyman) : "It may be questioned whether anyone who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower ; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both." It is those who have tried both "kinds" of pleasure then who provide this criterion. Shall we say then that the ultimate principle is indeed an em- pirical one, but that it consists of the judgment of a cultivated intelli- gence ? In psychology again Mill chooses an attitude opposed to a rational conception of the soul as the ground of experience, on the one hand, and to the denial of the soul altogether, leaving nothing but the Humean mis- cellany of experiences, on the other. This attitude may be described epistemologically as equally out of harmony with idealistic rationalism and idealistic empiricism. Or, metaphysically, somewhere between ma- terialism and idealism ; a sort of "phenomenalism," rather than dualism. Mill is too much under the influence of a somewhat formal conception of natural law, too little vitalistic, to be a dualist, — though, as we have just implied, he is even less a monist. Mill's practicalism then is of a dis- tinctly humanistic flavor. Perhaps that is why he will not surrender the "soul," — that intimate human possession, be it "real" or "ideal," which is likely, we may presume, to bear us company to the end of the chapter. Now there seems to be implicit in Mill, a notion of the soul correspond- ing to his very well-known definition of objects or bodies. Objects are "permanent possibilities of sensation." The soul then is equally real as a ground of experience, — a "permanent possibility" of experiencing the sensations which are the beginning of knowledge and even of wisdom. This may be assailed dialectically and reduced to terms of subjective ideal- ism or of mechanistic materialism, that is if we are right in interpreting permanent possibilities as potentiality. Then applying Aristotle's distinc- tion of potentiality and actuality, the latter being the seat of reality, and even logically and metaphysically prior to the former, — what reality is this permanent possibility? Is the soul then anything other than the content of psychic life? Anything but experience itself? On the other hand, we may interpret potentiality as a real in the sense of the condi- tiones sine qua non of psychic life ; then if we ask what these conditions are the obvious answer is that they are comprehended in the physiological structure and processes of man's body, and especially of the brain and nervous system. Mill would have inclined to a materialistic view as far as it could be made without violence to fit the facts, and exclude the con- trary hypothesis. And this leaning would assimilate his implicit realism of the theory of the soul to his conception of bodies as real, in so far 108 as being "permanent possibilities of sensation." It could hardly be that he would think the possibility of the soul, albeit partly physical, even material, like objects themselves, could be less permanent or less real; in a word, that the subject should be less real than the object. Lord Morley notes that the greatest human and social value, accord- ing to Mill's view, of the positive doctrines of theological religion, is for consolation, and he asks with the true Agnostic wistfulness, whether John Mill "believed" that his "system" of "permissive hopes and blenched peradventures" could really give any comfort or support "worth the name" to souls at the "parting of the ways" to life and death. And it seems to the present writer that one may well start from this question, in attempting to explain in general terms Mill's attitude and thought on the religious problem. The real answer to Mr. Morley's question is just a gentle "No." Mill thought that anyone, the common man or woman, would really be better off without such illusory help, — provided he or she had something better. This something would be a living purpose, rather than a blind belief often most intense when directed to what after all though con- ceivable might not be really desirable. How neutral and ghostly the "reward" of endlessly prolonged "life," a life of mere vision, without activity, — compared to the conception of a race future and the indefinite continuance of one's own generations, the transmission through ages of that mysterious germ of life in which a man realizes a new self-hood. Of what significance is the objection that this "hope" is remote. What could be remoter than the usual hope of immortality? To bring it near and make it intelligible at all, it must be projected on the lurid background of a cosmic debacle ; and not only is this universal catastrophe inconceiv- able for a Copernican universe, but the resurrection admittedly awaits the "last trump," "the last day," — in a word, our hope is put off until "the end of time," an end that never will be. What could be remoter ? No such "blenched peradventures" are seriously offered by Mill to the bereaved. Only, he will not snatch such shreds of hope from those that have no other consolation. Nor is it a Stoic counsel that he brings. He believes that if quite other ideas about life and death, and man's good, and about real values, — about what can actually be perpetuated and what is worth perpetuating, — were instilled into the mind by the general edu- cation and experience of individuals in society, we should actually be bet- ter off in every way. More, — in what seems a paradoxical manner to ordinary religious common-sense, he even suggests in certain letters that Christians could remain such, and become such in an improved way, by actually ceasing to believe in God, and devoting themselves to a practical idealism based on an intensified appreciation and devotion to the historical founder of Christianity, as the "incarnation" of that which is human, and so worthy of universal reverence and consecration. 109 J! Mr. Morley's "recollection" of the sensation produced in Agnostic and other circles by the appearance of Mill's posthumous Essays on Re- ligion, pictures two causes, — the unexpected concessions to theology, and the relaxation of logical rigour. With reference to the latter point, it would seem that Mill was using with no less precision than discrimination, in the systematic study of this master-problem of human life, those logi- cal instruments for the contrivance of which he was so much admired. Meanwhile, it could hardly be felt (rightly) that those mere "permissive hopes, limited possibilities, low degree of probability, and blenched per- adventures," were a very grave concession to orthodox natural theology. As an apologetic for Christianity, — a "Christianity" divested (in one word) of everything naturally incredible to the human mind, — there would be little if anything in Mill's opinions which any "rational sceptic" could not accept. Mill's position might be designated as undogmatic non-theism. He was not a poet, or he might have surrounded his gravely moral and grimly argumentative critique of the naturalness and usefulness of re- ligion with that lovely atmosphere, — as of the "Syrian plain," where, on the tomb of the Nazarene, the "Syrian stars look down." Doubtless he shared the refined melancholy of the great Agnostics of his century — without sharing precisely their views. Whose views did he share pre- cisely? Only one perfect intellectual union does he record — a union which only himself could understand, or even believe to be all he thought it. But that melancholy which one may to-day see in the eyes of Mill's silent portrait, that gravity which accompanies — not so much "doubt," as conviction that what was true and sacred is no longer true, though it may remain sacred; — that grave melancholy which in an Arnold some- times becomes wistful, reminiscent and seeks poetic expression, in Mill adds to an energy of hope, of purpose, of wise sympathy, of energetic labour, — though it were mostly on the work of theory, criticism and logi- cal construction, — for social justice and human welfare. 110 VITA. Horatio Knight Gamier was born in Newark, New Jersey, but first entered the public school in Passaic, New Jersey, and was graduated from the high school. He finished preparation for college at Centenary Col- legiate Institute, Hackettstown, New Jersey, and entered Wesleyan Uni- versity, but removed to Columbia College the second semester. Obliged to resort to remunerative employment, Mr. Gamier left undergraduate work uncompleted, and remained a number of years in business positions, finally returning to academic life by entering the General Theological Seminary, whence he received the Degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1908, and was ordained a presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the spring of the same year. Meanwhile, having carried on work in the Graduate School of Co- lumbia University during i907- , o8 under the faculties of Philosophy and Political Science, Mr. Gamier was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts in 1908. Two years graduate study followed at Union Theological Seminary, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1910. The author's educational career began as master of English and history in the Allen- Stevenson School, New York City, i9io- , n. The next four years were spent at St. Stephen's College, Annandale-on- Hudson, N. Y., as acting professor of English and history, professor of history and social science, and (one year) professor of philosophy. (During the summer of 1913 he traveled in Europe.) Resumed grad- uate work at Columbia in philosophy in the fall of 191 5, continuing in residence three and one-half years, during which he filled positions as assistant in philosophy at Vassar College (first semester I9i6-'i7), in- structor in philosophy at Vassar (first semester I9i7-'i8), acting in- structor in philosophy in Columbia College and University Extension Teaching (spring of I9i7~'i8), and lecturer in philosophy in Columbia (first semester, I9i8-'i9). He is now acting professor of philosophy at Trinity College for the spring term (military schedule) in the tempo- rary absence of Prof. Urban at Harvard. In the spring of 19 18 Mr. Gamier passed the final examination under the faculty of philosophy for the degree of doctor of philosophy, the dissertation having been accepted. The actual conferring of the de- gree has awaited only the printing of the dissertation. Ill iiihwiiiii 0F C0NGRESS 029 815 249 6 B L1DKHKT Ul- 'wUIIURCOO llll 029 815 249 6 J Hollinger Corp. pH8.5