GpH#tU?. COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. o o : INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY BY / WILLIAM T. HARRIS COMPRISING PASSAGES FROM HIS WRITINGS SELECTED AND ARRANGED WITH COMMENTARY AND ILLUSTRATION By MARIETTA EIES Presented as a thesis in connection with work for the Masters Degree at the University of Michigan. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1889 \y Copyright, 1889, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. PKEFATOEY NOTE. The compiler and editor of this volume, Miss Kies, has my full consent to and approval of her selections and arrangement of such portions of my writings as she finds suitable for her purpose. I shall be very glad if this book proves helpful to her classes or to any persons who may use it. "William T. Haeeis. Concord, Mass., July 25, 1889. PKEFACE. The present work of compiling and arranging some of the thoughts of Dr. Harris in a form convenient for class-use has been undertaken in order to bring together in a book widely scattered materials which the writer has found useful in presenting philosophy to her classes at Mt. Holyoke Seminary and College. Philosophy as presented by Dr. Harris gives to the student an interpretation and explanation of the phases of existence which render even the ordinary affairs of life in accordance with reason ; and for the higher or spiritual phases of life, his interpretations have the power of a great illumination ; and many of the stu- dents are apparently awakened to an interest in philos- ophy, not only as a subject to be taken as a prescribed study, but also as a subject of fruitful interest for future years and as a key which unlocks many of the myster- ies of other subjects pursued in a college course. The " illustrations " given are such as have been used for several years at the Seminary. Such examples or illustrations have been found helpful in assisting stu- dents who have been accustomed to study the external aspects of the world to make the transition to a more vi INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. thoughtful method, and thus to discover the fundamen- tal principles of a world of things and events. Those who have attempted to study the profound thoughts of Dr. Harris know how difficult it is to " get started." For the benefit of those students who have not jet found the philosophy of Dr. Harris " easy read- ing," a few suggestions as to the method used in teach- ing the subject at Mt. Holyoke may be in order. The majority of the students who come to the study of the subject have never studied any form of mental philosophy. The phases of the subject are presented in the order given in this book. From six to eight weeks, four lessons each week, are taken for the first consideration of the subject, with lectures, explanations, etc. Yery little is expected of the students in the way of recitation during their first time over the subject. About three fourths of the hour of each lesson is taken for explanation and comparison of views of other writers on the subject under consideration, the remain- ing one fourth of the hour for the Socratic method, questions and answers, the students presenting the ques- tions. By this method the student is enabled to get at least a glimpse of the whole subject as a system, and then he is prepared to advance more rapidly. But in attaining the first stages of philosophic knowing persistent effort as well as patient waiting is needed. After the first presentation of the subject, the same ground is gone over, taking the divisions of the subject in the same order, and giving nearly as many weeks to the work. This time over the subject the students, by means of recitation and papers prepared by them, are expected to do. the greater part of the work. PREFACE. Vii The recitations and reading and discussion of the papers occupy three fourths of the hour, and one fourth is de- voted to the views of the leading contemporary writers on the same questions, with occasional reference to the opinions of historic philosophers. This course is de- signed as a preparation for the study of the history of philosophy and as a means for interpreting the thoughts of the great philosophers of all centuries. The strongest desire in preparing this book is that students will be led to study the thoughts of Dr. Harris in articles and books as originally presented by him, and to have a stronger desire to enter the fields of historic thought. Marietta Kjes. South Hadley, Mass., June, 1889. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Methods of Study. page Introspection : Psychology — Physiological Psychology — Empirical Psy- chology — Comparative Psychology — Philosophy. . . .1 CHAPTER II. Pee suppositions of Experience. Nature of the Problems of Philosophy— The Starting-Point in Philo- sophical Investigation — Space, Time : Infinite — Effect, Cause, Causa sui, or Self-cause — Beings : Dependent, implies another, de- rived from another= World; Independent, whole, totality, self- determined^ Creator . . . . . . .15 CHAPTER in. Philosophy of Nature. The "World: Self- Activity shown in Inorganic Forms — Organic; Plants, Animals, Man . . . . . .35 CHAPTER IV. Man: A Self-active Individual. Man is Self-Activity, Self-Consciousness— Channels of Development of Activity : Feeling, or Sense-perception, Representation, Under- standing, Reason, Emotions, Will . . . .48 SECTION I.— SENSE-PERCEPTION. Degree of Activity shown in Sense-perception: Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing, Seeing . . . . . . .55 CONTENTS. SECTION II.— REPRESENTATION. PAGE Self- Activity shown in Eepresentation : Eecollection, Fancy, Imagina- tion, Attention, Memory . . . . . .59 SECTION III. Significance of the Power to Use Language . . . .71 SECTION IV. — REFLECTION. "General Objects" of Memory, as Thought, become Judgments— Sense-perception : Sensuous Ideas perceive Objects ; Identity, Difference— Understanding : Abstract Ideas investigate Object and Environment; Eelations— The "General Objects" or "Univer- sals" are possible because of Eeason : Absolute Idea or Eational Insight knows Logical Conditions of Existence . . .74 SECTION V.— THE SYLLOGISM. The Mind Acts in the Modes of Syllogism: Sensuous Ideas use Second Figure, First Figure, Third Figure; Abstract Ideas use Third Figure, First Figure, Second Figure ; Absolute Idea uses Third Figure . . . . . . . . .96 SECTION VI.— THE THIRD STAGE OF THINKING : THE ABSOLUTE IDEA, OR THE REASON. Eational Insight knows : Causality, Self-cause — Space, Time — Quality, Quantity — Change, Self-activity — Life, Individuality, Absolute Personality — Absolute Thought; manifested in Truth, Beauty, Goodness . . . . . . ... 125 SECTION VII.— THE EMOTIONS. Duplication of Self- Activity in Emotions : Sentient, Psychical, Eational 249 SECTION VIII. — THE WILL. Stage of Knowing presupposed in Contemplation of Freedom — Sub- stantial Will : Self- activity : Totality: Freedom — Formal Will: Ac- tion — Change sometimes regarded as produced only by Environ- ment: External Conditions ; Motives . . . .263 CHAPTEE V. Immortality of Man EXPLANATORY. Where simply the abbrevia r ion "vol.*' has been used, the reference is to the "Journal of Speculative Philosophy." " III." has been used as an abbreviation of the word " illustra- tion." The intention has been to inclose in one set of quotation-marks a printed portion from the works of Dr. Harris, taken consecu- tively from one place, though in a few instances paragraphs have been transposed. Introductory words and parenthetical phrases hare occasionally been changed, but the intention has been not in any instance to change the thought of the sentence. Below will be found a list of the names of articles and books used in the compilation; the pages are given in foot-notes. Articles and Books used in Compilation. " Music as a Form of Art," Vol. I. " Introduction to Philosophy," Vols. I and II. " The Last Judgment," Vol. 3. " The History of Philosophy in Outline," Vol. 10. " The Relation of Religion to Art," Vol. 10. " Michael Angelo's Fates, Vol. 11." " Outlines of Educational Psychology," Vol. 14. " The Philosophy of Religion," Vol. 15. *" Philosophy in Outline," Vol. 17. " Immortality of the Individual," Vol. 19. " Is Pantheism the Legitimate Outcome of Modern Science? " Vol. 19. x ii INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. " Psychological Inquiry," " Education," Vol. VI. " Philosophy of Education," International Education Series. " The Mind of the Child," International Education Series. " Philosophy made Simple," u The Ohautauquan " (March, April, May, 1886). " Religion in Art," " The Ohautauquan " (January, February, March, 1886). "Thoughts on Educational Psychology," "Illinois School Journal," series of articles beginning March, 1888. " Reports of Lectures at Boston University," " The Journal of Education," December, 1888; January, 1889. " Aristotle's Doctrine of Eeason," " Journal of the American Akedeme," June, 1888. " Historical Epochs of Art," " Concord Lectures," 1882. " Results in Ontology," " Concord Lectures," 1887. "Theory of the Syllogism," "Concord Lectures," 1887. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. CHAPTER I. METHODS OF STUDY. Introspection: Psychology — Physiological Psychology -~ Enipirical Psy- chology—Comparative Psychology —Philosophy. Introspection : Psychology.^- " Introspection is in- ternal observation— our consciousness of the activity of the mind itself. The subject who observes is the object observed. Consciousness is knowing of self. This seems to be the characteristic of mind and mental phenomena — there is always some degree of self -relation ; there is self-feeling or self-knowledge. Even in mere life in the vegetative soul there is self -relation. This we shall studv as our chief object of interest in psychology. " We will note first the contrast between external and internal observation. Outward observation is ob- jective perception or sense perception. It perceives things and environments. Things are always relative to their environment. Things are therefore dependent be- ings. They stand in causal relation to other things, and if moved are moved from without by external forces. " Introspection, or internal observation, on the other 2 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. hand, perceives the activity of the mind, and this is self- activity, and not a movement caused by external forces. Feelings, thoughts, volitions, are phases of self -activity. This we shall consider more in detail. Let us note that a feeling, a thought, or a volition implies subject and object. Each is an activity and an activity of the self. External perception does not perceive any self. It per- ceives only what is extended in time and space and what is consequently multiple, what is moved by something else and not self-moved. If it beholds living objects it does not behold the self that animates the body, but only the body that is organically formed by the self. But introspection beholds the self. This is a very im- portant distinction between the two orders of observa- tion, external and internal. The former can perceive only phenomena, the latter can perceive noumena. The former can perceive only what is relative, and dependent on something else ; the latter can perceive what is inde- pendent and self-determined, a primary cause and source of movement. " To pass from the first order of observation, which perceives external things, to the second order of obser- vation, which perceives self-activity, is to take a great step. We are dimly conscious of our entire mental activ- ity, but we do not ( until we have acquired psychologic skill) distinguish and separately identify its several phases. It is the same in the outer world — we know many things in ordinary consciousness, but only in sci- ence do we unite the items of our knowledge systemat- ically so as to make each assist in the explanation of all. Common knowledge lacks unity and system. In the inner world, too, there is common introspection, unsys- METHODS OF STUDY. 3 tematized and devoid of unity — the light of our ordinary consciousness. But there is higher scientific introspec- tion which discovers both unity and system." * " This subject of introspection leads out to the end of the world and reappears underneath the method of modern natural science which studies all objects in their history — in their evolution. Strangely enough the scientists of the present day decry in psychology what they call the ' introspective method.' And just as in the case of the repudiation of teleology, they are bound to return to some other form of what they repudiate. Kenounce teleology, and you find nothing but teleology in everything. Renounce introspection, and you are to find introspection the fundamental moving principle of all nature. All things have their explanation in a blind attempt on the part of nature to look at itself." f III. — A botanist is able to study a plant only through acts of introspection. There are the unrefiective acts of introspection by which he is able to know a plant as one of a class of objects, and the conscious reflective acts of introspection by which he is able to recognize a plant as belonging to a particular class and species; for in this study of the plant life, he learns the characteristics of the plant, the manner of growth, and the relations of this plant to the whole vegetable world and animal world, and in doing this he discriminates between the nature of the energy of the plant and that of the human mind. Physiological Psychology. — " The so-called physio- logical psychology commences with the living organism, * " Illinois School Journal," vol. vii, pp. 346, 347. f Ibid., p. 349. 4 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. and investigates the correlation of psychic phenomena with corporeal changes, and seeks to find what psychic phenomena correspond to the several corporeal stimuli. Its chief industry may be said to be the search for an explanation of mental phenomena in bodily functions. These again it seeks to explain through environment." * " It is evident that on the physiological basis psycho- logical discovery is limited to bodily functions. The idea of life is as far as it can go without transcending what is physiological. A great service will be performed by those investigators who explore this field and demon- strate to science that thinking activity transcends phys- ical functions, and refute physiologically the assertion of Moleschott, that 'thought is a secretion of the brain, just as bile is a secretion of the liver.' Then the limited form of self-activity, which is the principle of life, will be laid aside for the pure self-activity which we call thought. "Physiological psychology, as we have stated, limits its investigations to discovering physical concomitants of mental actions. What portion of the body is affected to movement or change upon occasion of a given mental act? what kind of motion and its quantitative value? also, what mental action or response there is to various kinds of bodily stimuli ? what part of the observation is external or objective experiment ? and what part of it is introspective ? are interesting questions. The pre- suppositions of the observation are : 1. a world of time and space in which the body is conditioned; 2. an in- ternal perception or reflection that can observe what is * " Education," vol. vi, p. 159. METHODS OF STUDY. 5 witliin consciousness, to wit : a subjective world of feeling whose form is time and a world of thought whose form is neither space nor time ; 3. concomitance or succes- sion is all that can ever be observed in these fields ; each series of facts requires observation by a different mental act — the physiological by the external senses, the feel- ings and thoughts by introspection of consciousness. You certainly can never perceive a feeling or a thought or a volition by touch, taste, smell, hearing, or seeing. You may only infer the existence of a thought, feeling, or volition by some external movement or change which you perceive by the senses. " The scope of physiological psychology is logically limited at the outset. It can never catch a thought or feeling outside the internal self, and hence can never identify it with any external fact or object whatever, although- it may fix an order of sequence or concomi- tance between the items of a series observed internally and a series observed externally. " The legitimate conclusion here, therefore, is that in all psychology, physiological or otherwise, the scien- tist who observes must be able to reproduce within his own mind for himself the psychological phenomena that he perceives, for he can never perceive any psycholog- ical phenomena in any other being. The mental phe- nomena of children as well as of adults, of savages as well as of cultured people, can never be perceived as external * phenomena, but only in one's self and inferred to exist in others as concomitant to certain external movements or changes which are perceived to exist externally. Here one comes to the paramount importance of insight into what we shall call pure psychology of thought in 6 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. connection with physiology. If an investigator does not know how to discriminate thinking and reasoning on different planes, it is absurd to expect that he will recognize those different planes of thinking or reasoning in others. Even clear, human speech does not convey a generalization to the mind that is not cultured enough to make that generalization." * "What is to be expected from researches in physio- logical psychology, limited as it is % To this we re- ply : Many and very great services, especially to family and school education. All of the provinces where the body acts as a means of expression to the external world, and all the provinces where the self-active mind uses the body as a means of exploring the world — all these prov- inces have, of course, a physiological factor which should be thoroughly understood qualitatively and quantita- tively. " All cases of insanity, idiocy ; all matters of hered- itary descent ; all that pertains to the use and abuse of the five organs of sense ; all that relates to food, cloth- ing, and shelter, as favorable or unfavorable to the de- velopment of the soul; the questions of comparative psychology of nations — of the modifying influences of climate, age, sex, and occupation ; and, finally, such phe- nomena as sleep, dreams, somnambulism, and the occur- rences that are supposed to belong to the ' night-side of nature,' together with epidemics and superstitions — here is an immense field in which physiological psychology is bound to be of increasing service to man. But so long as it is cultivated apart from pure psychology, and * "Education," vol. vi, pp. 159-161. METHODS OF STUDY. 7 with a sort of persuasion that there is no self -active being that we are concerned with in psychology, it will be impossible to expect any first-class results." * III.— Professor Lad d, after a careful consideration of the quality and quantity of sensations coming through the sense-organs and an enumeration and description of various experiments that noted physiological psy- chologists have made, concludes that " in general, it may be said that every mental state has its value determined, both as respects its quality and its so-called quantity, by its relation to other states "; or, in other words, his con- clusion is that even the physiological psychologist is greatly dependent upon "introspection" for his re- sults, f Empirical Psychology: — " The good old-fashioned psychology laid chief stress on the 'faculties' of the mind. The weaker and more metaphysical (in the bad sense of the word ' metaphysical,' signifying analytical abstract thinking) adherents to this view of the mind went so far as to call these faculties ' organs ' of mind, thus betraying the fact that they had unconsciously or purposely substituted the idea of life for that of mind. Life is organic being, and always reveals itself in organs. Mind does not thus manifest itself, but its so-called fac- ulties are degrees of self -development which arise as the self-activity becomes complex by repeating its acts of reflection. Thus the metaphysical psychology, whose fundamental defect is that it regards the soul as a sub- stance or thing instead of a self -activity, goes on to speak * " Education," vol. vi, p. 162. f Ladd's " Physiological Psychology," Part II, chaps, iii, iv, and v. 8 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. of the faculties of the mind as if they were properties of a mind-thing, instead of modes of activity of an essen- tial spontaneity. In using the word ' organs ' for * fac- ulties,' metaphysical psychology goes over to the ground of physiology or the science of living beings, and natur- ally enough becomes phrenology." * III. — A large part of the text-books in common use furnish illustration of this kind of psychology. These writers vary in the standpoint taken from those who would examine and measure the " faculties " or " or- gans " of the mind according to the standard of a " com- mon consciousness," thus virtually asserting that the thought of a Plato can be brought within the same limits as that of the most ordinary mind, to those who hold that the mind possesses the " lower facul- ties " which can be developed and improved, but the "higher faculties," or "innate ideas," are directly be- stowed upon the mind, and that these ideas can be no further analyzed or understood, and only furnish a background for the development of the lower phases of the mind without themselves undergoing develop- ment. Comparative Psychology. — " Experience, it is true, marshals its train of facts before us in an endless suc- cession every day of our lives. But without scientific method one fact does much to obliterate all others by its presence. Out of sight, they are out of mind. Method converts unprofitable experience, wherein noth- ing abides except vague and uncertain surmise, into science. In science the present fact is deprived of its t * " Education," vol. vi, p. 158. METHODS OF STUDY. 9 ostentatious and all-absorbing interest by the act of re- lating it to all other facts. We classify the particular with its fellow-particulars, and it takes its due rank. Such classification, moreover, eliminates from it the un- essential elements." * "The characteristics of accuracy and precision, which make science exact, are derived from quantity. Fix the order of succession, the date, the duration, the locality, the environment, the extent of the sphere of influence, the number of manifestations, and the num- ber of cases of intermittence, and you have exact knowledge of a phenomenon. When stated in quanti- tative terms, your experience is useful to other observ- ers. It is easy to verify it or to add an increment. By quantification, science grows and grows continually, without retrograde movements. " One does not forget, of course, that there is some- thing besides the quantitative and altogether above the quantitative. The object itself is more impor- tant than its quantitative relations. The soul, as a self-active essence, is the object in psychology. Sci- ence determines the quantitative of its phenomenal manifestation. In other words, science determines ex- actly the time when, the place where, the duration and frequency, the extent and degree of the manifes- tation of this self-activity in the body and through the body. " The nature of feelings, volitions, and ideas in themselves is the object of introspective psychology and metaphysics. But all will concede that parents and * " The Senses and the Will," Preyer, Editor's Preface, p. 5. 10 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. teachers are directly interested in the order of devel- opment of the soul from its lower functions into its higher ones, and are consequently concerned with these quantitative manifestations." * " The supreme interest to us in these observations is the development from lower degrees of intelligence to higher ones. The immense interval that separates plant life from animal life, is almost paralleled by the interval between the animal and the human being. From mere nutrition to sensation is a great step ; from mere sensation, to the conscious employment of ethical ideas and the perception of logical necessity and uni- versality is an equal step. Yet it is to be assumed that the transitions exist in all degrees, and that the step from any degree to the next one is not difficult when the natural means is discovered. It is this means that comparative psychology is discovering. u The infant is contemplated in the process of gain- ing command over himself. His sense organs gradually become available for perception; his muscles become controllable by his will. Each new acquisition becomes in turn an instrument of further progress. " Exact science determines when and where the ani- mal phase leaves off and the purely human begins — where the organic phase ends and the individual begins. The discrimination of impulsive, reflective, and instinctive movements, all of them organic, throws light on the genesis of mind out of its lower antecedent. Imitation is the first manifestation of the transition from the organic to the strictly spiritual. In this connection it * " The Senses and the Will," Preyer, Editor's Preface, p. 6. METHODS OF STUDY. H is, before all, an important question, What is the signifi- cance of the relapse into unconscious instinct through the formation of habit ? We do an act by great special effort of the will and intellect ; we repeat it until it is done with ease. It gradually lapses into unconscious use and wont, and has become instinctive and organic." * III. It is of interest that Prof. Preyer discovers among many other things, from his observations of chil- dren and animals, that an infant uses the sense of sight in the first day of his life ; that indications of the use of the sense of hearing vary greatly in time, but ap- pear as early as the fourth day of the child's life ; and that a child can probably taste and smell soon after birth ; and also that in the lower animals these senses are much more completely developed at birth than with children. And while the instinctive and reflex move- ments of the child are spontaneous, the imitative or voluntary movements, which indicate a development of the will, do not take place until after the forming of ideas, and that early in the mind of the child there is the " formation of concepts without language." Philosophy. — " Philosophy is not a science of things in general, but a science that investigates the presuppo- sitions of experience, and discovers the nature of the first principle. Philosophy does not set up the extrava- gant pretension to know all things. It does not 'take all knowledge for its province,' any more than geology or astronomy or logic does. Geology aspires to know the entire structure of this globe ; astronomy to know all the stars ; logic to know the structure of the reason- * " The Senses and the Will," Preyer, Editor's Preface, pp. 6, 7. 12 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. ing process. Philosophy attempts to find the neces- sary a priori elements or factors in experience, and ar- range them into a system by deducing them from a first principle. Not the forms of reasoning alone, but the forms of sense perception, of reflection, of specu- lative knowing, and the very forms which condition being, or existence itself, are to be investigated. The science of necessary forms is a very special science, be- cause it does not concern itself with collecting and arranging the infinite multitude of particular objects in the world and identifying their species and genera, as the particular sciences do. It investigates the presup- posed conditions and ascends to the one supreme con- dition. It therefore turns its back on the multitude of particular things, and seizes them in the unity of their ' ascent and cause,' as George Herbert names it. The particular sciences and departments of knowledge col- lect and classify and explain phenomena. Philoso- phy collects and classifies and explains their explana- tions. Its province is much more narrow and special than theirs. If to explain meant to find the many, the different, the particular examples or specimens, philosophy would have to take all knowledge for its province if it aspired to explain the explanations offered in the several sciences. But that is not its meaning. To explain means to find the common, the generic prin- ciple in the particular. This is just the opposite of that other process which would take all knowledge in its infinite details for its province. To explain all knowledge is not to know all things." * * Vol. 17, pp. 296, 297. METHODS OF STUDY. 13 "Philosophy is not religion, nor a substitute for re- ligion, any more than it is art or a substitute for art. There is a distinction, also, between philosophy and the- ology, although philosophy is a necessary constituent of theology. While theology must necessarily contain a historical and biographical element, and endeavor to find in that element the manifestation of necessary and uni- versal principles, philosophy, on the other hand, devotes itself exclusively to the consideration of those universal and necessary conditions of existence which are found to exist in experience, not as furnished by experience, but as logical, a priori conditions of experience itself." * III. — Mathematics discovers and states as laws the position and action of bodies in space and time ; philoso- phy discovers the nature of time and space which condi- tion the existence of things and events. The physical sci- ences take molecules and atoms as convenient " working hypotheses," and discover how these behave under dif- ferent circumstances, and formulate laws for this be- havior, and classify the various phenomena presented by their activity; philosophy discovers the nature of a thing, its activity, and sees the correlation of its energy with the different forms of force in the universe. The biological sciences investigate the phases of life — plant, animal, and that of man — the nature of cellular tissue and its structure, and the causes and conditions which produce its numerous variations in classes, genera, and species, and the characteristics and phenomena shown in the process of growth ; philosophy interprets the manifestations of life as manifestations of self-activity * Vol. 17, p. 310. 14 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. in different degrees of completeness — plant life, animal life, and that of man. Psychology studies the mind or soul as a self-active, self-determined individual, and finds out how the individual develops in the channels of feeling, thought, and will, and classifies the phenom- ena presented in the phases of development; philoso- phy discovers not only motion — self-activity — but also discovers that self-determination is rendered possible be- cause of God, freedom and immortality. The sciences which pertain to the relations of man with man investi- gate the conditions of the industrial, civil, social, and political relations of society, determine the causes which have produced the present conditions, and seek, by a study of past and present conditions, to determine how the institutions of society can assist in a better adjust- ment of these relations ; moral philosophy considers the present condition of the individual, the family, soci- ety, state, and church in the light of what they ought to be, and compares the present life of each with its ideal life ; philosophy considers the nature of the will which renders it possible and desirable for man to combine with man in the institutions of the family, civil society, state, and church, in order that the individual may re- enforce society, and society the individual. CHAPTEE II. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. Nature of the Problems of Philosophy— The Starting-Point in Philosophical Investigation — Space, Time : Infinite — Effect, Cause, Causa sui, or Self- cause — Beings : Dependent, implies another, derived from another= World; Independent, whole, totality, self-determined = Creator. Nature of the Problems of Philosophy. — "The problems of philosophy are perennial. Each individual must solve them for himself when he comes to the age of reflection. No number of philosophers can ever set- tle philosophic questions so that it will not be neces- sary for each individual to think out solutions for him- self. Questions of mere fact in nature can be settled by investigation, so that a mere statement suffices to convey the result to a school-boy. But it is not possible to ' settle ' matters of insight just as we settle matters of fact. A truth that requires for its comprehension a certain degree of cultured power of thought can not, by any possibility, be taught as a matter of fact to a youth who has not yet arrived at the necessary stage of thinking. " We recognize this quite readily in the acquirement of mathematical truth. Such truth can not be conveyed to minds that will not or can not grasp the elementary conceptions and make the combinations necessary. Only by intellectual energy can those truths be seen, and even l(j INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. mathematics has not * settled ' anything for people who have no insight into its demonstrations. Philosophic knowing is knowing of logical conditions of being and experience. It is, therefore, a special kind of knowing that arises from reflection. These logical conditions of existence are invisible to the one who does not spe- cially reflect upon them. "When one sees them at all, he sees that they are necessary elements of experi ence. It is a third stage of knowing, this knowing of logical presuppositions, and its insights can not be seen from the first or second stage of knowing. (The three stages of knowing are considered in chapter iv. section iv.) " Truths that are i settled ' in philosophy may yet seem to be impossibilities to the one whose intellectual view is on the second stage of knowing." * The Starting- Point. — " To illustrate philosophic knowing, and at the same time to enter its province and begin philosophizing, we shall take up at once a consideration of three ideas — space, time, and cause. Space and time — as the condition of nature or the world, as the necessary presuppositions of extension and multitude — will furnish us occasion to consider the infinite and the possibility of knowing it. The idea of cause will lead us to the fundamental insight on which true philosophy rests. 3 ' f Space. — " In all experience we deal with sensible ob- jects and their changes. The universal condition of the existence of sensible objects is space. Each object is limited or finite, but the universal condition of the ex- * Vol. 17, p. 342. f Vol. 17, p. 297. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 17 istence of objects is self-limited or infinite. An object of the senses possesses extension and limits, and, conse- quently, has an environment. We find ourselves neces- sitated to think an environment in order to think the ob- ject as a limited object. " Here we have, first the object, and second the en- vironment as mutually limiting and excluding, and as correlatives. But the ground or condition of both ob- ject and its environment is space. Space makes both possible. Space is a necessary idea. We may think this particular object or not — it may exist or it may not. So, too, this particular environment may exist or not, al- though some environment is necessary. But space must exist, whether this particular object or environment ex- ists or not. Here we have three steps toward absolute necessity : 1. The object which is not necessary, but may or may not exist — may exist now, but cease after an interval ; 2. The environment which must exist in some form if the object exists — a hypothetical necessity ; 3. The logical condition of the object and its environ- ment, which must, as space, exist, whether the object exist or not. u Again, note the fact that the object ceases where the environment begins. But space does not cease with the object nor with the environment ; it is continued or affirmed by each. The space in which the object exists is continued by the space in which its environment ex- ists. Space is infinite." * III. — Suppose, for instance, one imagines a definite portion of space, say two feet each way, and then an- * Vol. 17, pp. 297, 298. 18 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. other portion of equal dimensions about the former, and so on with successive additions without limit ; the im- agination soon discovers that it fails to grasp the extent of space pictured, and instead of a picture of the infinite the indefinite is the result. Then suppose that the mind with its thinking activity of reason sees that the one portion of space in limiting another portion really extends itself, and so the limitation is really a self -limit- ation, which is a continuation. Space in so limiting it- self is infinite. Time. — " The thought of space differs essentially from the thought of an object of experience because it is a thought of what is essentially infinite — infinite in its nature. Hence we arrive at this astonishing result — the knowledge of what is infinite underlies and makes possible our knowledge derived from experience, and the infinite makes possible the existence of what is finite. We may find all of these results by considering the na- ture of time. "While space is the condition of the ex- istence of things, time is the condition of the existence of all events or changes. If there is a change, it de- mands time for its existence ; if there is an event, it demands time for its occurrence. Again, time is infi- nite ; any finite time or duration presupposes other time to have existed before it and after it, and is thus con- tinued by the very time that limits it. If we suppose all time to be finite, we see at once that it contradicts this hypothesis ; because, if finite, it must have begun, and to begin implies a time before it in which it was not. Such a time before it, however, does not limit it, but affirms its existence beyond the boundary we have placed to it. Thus time is infinite, and yet it is the PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 19 condition necessary to the existence of events and changes." * III. — Suppose, for instance, a definite portion of time as an hour, and picture the hour preceding this hour and the hour whicli will succeed and so on with successive antecedent and subsequent times without limit and the picture will be only of an indefinite time ; but when any one limited portion of time is considered as bounded by another portion it is seen that instead of one portion limiting another it really extends it or that the portions are self-limited " We can not picture to ourselves time any more than we can imagine space. We think it clearly as the condition of the existence of images and pictures, but not itself as a picture or image." Cause and Effect, Self- Cause. — There is "another presupposition which is necessary to make experience possible, and which is an element far subtler and more potent than space and time, because it is their logical condition also. This deeper principle is Causality. " 1. We regard a thing or object as related to its en- vironment as an external existing limit, in which case the ground or logical condition is space ; or, 2. We re- gard the object as an event or process which consists of a series of successive moments with an environment of antecedent and subsequent moments ; its ground or pre- supposition is time ; or, 3. We may look upon an object as the recipient of influences from its environment, or as itself imparting influences to its environment. This is Causality. " The environment and the object relate to each other The Chautauquan," March, 1886, p. 324 20 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. as effect or cause. The environment causes some change in the object, which change is its effect ; or the object as cause reacts on the environment and produces some modilication in that as its effect. The effect is a joint product of this interaction between the so-called active and passive factors or coefficients. For both are active, although one is relatively passive to the other." * III. — A plant acts as cause upon its environment, the air, producing a change in the air, which change is the effect ; the atmosphere in turn acts upon the plant, making changes in it ; both are active, though one is relatively passive to the other. " The principle of causality implies both time and space. In order that a cause shall send a stream of in- fluence toward an effect, there must be time for the in- fluence to pass from the one to the other. Also the idea of effect implies the existence of an object external to the cause, or the utterance of influence, and in this space is presupposed. Space and time are in a certain sense included in causality as a higher unity." f III. — In order that the sun's rays may heat the sur- face of the ground and the atmosphere become of the right temperature that the plant may give off oxygen, there must be time ; and the fact that the plant is acted upon by an external influence implies the existence of the plant, and the existence of the plant presupposes space. " Now, if we examine causality, we shall see that it again presupposes a ground deeper than itself — deeper than itself as realized in a cause and effect separated into * Vol. 17, pp. 302, 303. f Vol. 17, p. 303. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 21 independent objects. This is the most essential insight to obtain in all philosophy. " 1. In order that a cause shall send a stream of influ- ence over to an effect, it must first separate that portion of influence from itself. "2. Self -separation is, then, the fundamental pre- supposition of the action of causality. Unless the cause is a self-separating energy, it can not be conceived as acting on another. The action of causality is based on self-activity." * III. — If there is an effect, there must be a cause of that effect. If, for example, a person cut a rose from a rose-bush : in order that the act may take place, the per- son first separates by an activity of thought and will a portion of influence or energy, which is transmitted through the arm and hand and through the instrument to the rose-bush, and the result is seen, the rose is cut from the bush. If one imagines a cause or series of causes in the knife, hand, and arm, since there could be made an infinite number of divisions or steps in the process, the idea of a true cause is not helped but hindered, for the thought, the will, the self-activity, a pure energy is the cause which moves the arm, hand, knife, and cuts the flower. " 3. Self- activity is called causa sui to express the fact of its relation to causality. It is the infinite form of causality in which the cause is its own environment — just as space is the infinite condition underlying ex- tended things, and time the infinite condition underly- ing events. Self- activity as causa sui has the form of * Vol. 17, p, 304 22 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. self -relation, and it is self -relation that characterizes the affirmative form of the infinite. Self-relation is inde- pendence, while relation-to-others is dependence." * III. — The person who cuts the rose, in the preced- ing illustration, in the origination of the thought to cut the rose knows that he could have created a thought not to cut the rose, and in this act of reflection thought is its own environment, and in this self -activity is the self-relation of thought and its independence ; while the rose in its less degree of self-activity shows its de- pendence, its relation-to-others in a more marked way. " Causa sui, or self -cause, is, properly speaking, the principle, par excellence, of philosophy. It is the prin- ciple of life, of thought, of mind — the idea of a creative activity, and hence also the basis of theology as well as of philosophy." f " Self-cause, or eternal energy, is the ultimate presupposition of all things and events. Here is the necessary ground of the idea of God. It is the presupposition of all experience and of all possible ex- istence. By the study of the presuppositions of experi- ence one becomes certain of the existence of One eter- nal Energy which creates and governs the world." $ " Causa sui, spontaneous origination of activity, or spontaneous energy, is the ultimate presupposition un- derlying all objects and each object of experience. "We have before us three of the logical conditions or presuppositions of existence and experience : " 1. Object, environment, space. " 2. Event, environment, time. " 3. Effect, cause, causa suiP # * Vol. 17, p 304. % Vol. 17, p. 306. f Vol. 17, p. 304. * Vol. 17, p. 304. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 23 * (" Take the standpoint of materialistic philosophy, for example : matter is the ultimate, the whence and whither of all. Matter is thus posited as a universal which is the sole origin of all particular existences and also the final goal of the same ; hence matter is active, giving rise to special existences, and also changing them into others with all the method and arrangement which we can see in natural laws. For matter must contain in it potentially all that comes from it. Hence matter is creative, causing to arise in its own general substance those particular limitations which constitute the differ- ences and individuality of things. It is negative, or de- stroyer, in that it annuls the individuality of particular things, causing to vanish those limitations which sepa- rate or distinguish this thing from that other. Such a principle as this matter is assumed to be, which causes existences to arise from itself by its own activity upon itself and within itself, entirely unconditioned by any other existence or energy, is self-determination, and therefore analogous to that factor in sensuous knowing which was called the ego or self -consciousness — an ac- tivity which was universal and devoid of form, and yet incessantly productive of forms and destructive of the same. All this is implied in the theory of materialism, and exists there as separate ideas, only needing to be united by inferences." + " The unity of space as the logical condition of mat- ter, and of time as the logical condition of all change and manifestation, prove the unity of the world. The * The portion inclosed in marks of parenthesis is not an integral part, but inserted to show the application of the preceding prin- ciples, f Vol. 10, p. 228. 24 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. mathematical laws which formulate the nature of space and time condition the existence of all the phenomena in the world, and make them, all parts of one system, and thus give us the right to speak of the aggregate of existence under such names as ' world ' or ' uni- verse.' " This question of the existence of an absolute as Creator or as Ruler of the universe hinges on the ques- tion of the validity of such comprehensive unities as 'world' and 'universe.' If such ideas are derived from experience, it is argued that they are fictitious unities, and do not express positive knowledge, but only our ignorance, l our failure to discover, invent, or conceive.' For we certainly have not made any complete inventory that we may call ' the universe.' " Only because we are able to know the logical con- ditions of experience are we able to speak of the total- ity of all possible experience, and to name it ' world ' and ' universe.' Finding unity in these logical condi- tions, we predicate it of all particular existence, being perfectly assured that nothing will ever exist which does not conform to these logical conditions. No extended objects will exist or change except according to the con- ditions of space and time. No relations between phe- nomena will arise except through causality, and all caus- ality will originate in causa sui, or self-activity. . . . " How does one know that things are not self -exist- ent already, and therefore in no need of a Creator ? If this question still remains in the mind, it must be an- swered again and again by referring to the necessary unity in the nature of the conditions of existence — space, time, and causal influence, based on self-cause. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 25 The unity of space and the dependence of all matter upon it preclude the self -existence of any material body. Each is a part, and depends on all the rest. Presuppo- sitions of experience can only be seen by reflection upon the conditions of experience. The feeble-minded, who can not analyze their experience nor give careful attention to its factors, can not see this necessity. In- deed, few strong minds can see these necessary presup- positions at first. But all, even the most feeble in intel- lect, have these presuppositions as an element of their experience, whether able to abstract them and see them as special objects or not." *) Dependent and Independent Being;- — " Let us vary the mode and manner of expressing this insight for the sake of additional clearness. First, let us ask what is the nature of self-existent being— of independent be- ings, whether there be one or more, " 1. It is clear that all beings are dependent or in- dependent, or else have, in some way, phases to which both predicates may apply." f III. — Any material thing of the inorganic world is dependent and forms only a part of an aggregate. So, too, in the organic world a plant is dependent upon its surroundings for food-material, and also, as a plant, only becomes complete in the species. An animal has more independence than a plant, but only sufficient to have the power of reproducing the external world in an un- conscious way, and preserving identity in species. In man there is independence in a more complete form. He presents the two phases — dependence upon his en- * Vol. 17, pp. 305, 30G. f Vol. 17, p. 306, 307. 26 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. vironment and complete independence in the freedom of thought, of will. " 2. The dependent being is clearly not a whole or totality ; it implies something else — some other being on which it depends. It can not depend on a dependent being, although it may stand in relation to another de- pendent being as another link of its dependence. All dependence implies the independent being as the source of support. Take away the independent being, and you remove the logical condition of the dependent being, because without something to depend upon there can be no dependent being. If one suggests a mutual relation of dependent beings, then still the whole is independent, and this independence furnishes the ground of the de- pendent parts." * III. — Since inorganic things are determined by their environment in a greater degree than they are self-determined, they are only dependent parts of a system ; man in the freedom of his thought and will transcends and modifies his environment and is inde- pendent. " 3. The dependent being, or links of being, no matter how numerous they are, make up one being with the being on which they depend and belong to it." f III. — The earth shows dependence in all its parts — inorganic nature and organic are interdependent : the world manifesting and revealing thought and will, and the Creator, make an independent whole. "4. All being is, therefore, either independent, or * Vol. 17, p. 307. f v °l» 17. p. 307, PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 27 forms a part of an independent being. Dependent be- ing can be explained only by the independent being from which it receives its nature." * III. — The root, stem, or leaves of the rose-bush can only be explained by explaining the nature and office of the whole plant ; the plant only by explaining the spe- cies ; and the species only by comparison of the activity of the plant with other manifestations of self -activity. Man and the nature of finite thought can only be ex- plained by an understanding and explanation of the na- ture of absolute thought.^ " 5. The nature or determinations of any being, its marks, properties, qualities, or attributes, arise through its own activity or through the activity of another be- ing." f III. — The nature, properties, or qualities of a crystal in the mineral world are to a degree determined by the temperature, moisture, pressure, etc. to which it is sub- jected, or " the qualities of crystals depend directly on the forces of the ultimate molecules or particles of mat- ter" ; thus a thing in inorganic nature is partly deter- mined by activity without itself. Man, in the process of his growth and development, in contact with the ex- ternal world of things, with other individuals, and with institutions of society, determines through his own ac- tivity his qualities or attributes ; the qualities or attri- butes of God are completely determined by His own activity. " 6. If its nature is derived from another, it is a de- pendent being. The independent being is therefore * Vol. 17, p. 307. f Vol. 17, p. 307. 28 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. determined only through its own activity — it is self-de- termined." * III. — Man only of all finite beings exercises con- scious self-determination ; Absolute Being in His com- plete self -activity is perfectly self-determined. " 7: The nature of self existent beings, whether one or many, is therefore self-determination. This result we see is identical with that which we found in our in- vestigation of the underlying presupposition of influence or causal relation. There must be self-separation, or else no influence can pass over to another object. The cause must first act in itself before its energy causes an effect in something else. It must therefore be essentially cause and effect in itself, or causa sui, meaning self-cause or self-effect." f Being not Empty Form. — " We should note partic- ularly that self-activity, or self-determination, which we have found as the original form of all beings is not a simple, empty form of existence, devoid of all particu- larity, but that it involves three important distinctions: Self-antithesis of determiner and determined, or of self- active and self-passive, or of self as subject of activity and self as object of activity. These distinctions may be otherwise expressed : (a) As the primordial form of all particularity ; (b) the subject, or self -active, or deter- miner, regarded by itself is the possibility of any and all determination, and is thus the generic or universal and the primordial form of all that is general or univer- sal ; hence the presupposition of all classification ; (c) the unity of these two phases of universality and partic- * Vol. 17, p. 307. f Vol. 17, p. 307. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 29 ularity constitutes individuality, and is the primordial form of all individuality." * III. — The thought of this paragraph can not be eas- ily illustrated because in it is involved the process of creative thought. In Chapter V will be found an expo- sition of this process of creative thought. An inadequate illustration may be taken from the thought and activity of every-day life of an individual, as, a man makes a journey ; the self as subject originates the thought of making the journey ; the self on the will side puts the thought into formal action and so renders the thought real in the will, or makes the self as object ; and the thought, the universal, uniting with the partic- ular through the specific act of the will, constitutes a phase of individuality. (" There is here an error of reflection very prevalent in our time, which does not identify these distinctions of universal, particular, and individual in the absolute existence, but calls this absolute or self-existent being ' the unconditioned.' It thinks it as entirely devoid of conditions, as simply the negation of the finite. Hence, it regards the absolute as entirely devoid of distinc- tions. Since there is nothing to think in that which has no distinctions, such an absolute is pronounced ' unthinkable,' inconceivable, or unknowable. The error in this form of reflection lies in the confusion which it makes between the environment and the un- derlying presupposition. It thinks the antithesis of object and environment, of object and cause, but fails to ascend to self-limit and caiosa sui as the ultimate Vol. 17, p. 308. 30 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. presupposition and logical condition of object and en- vironment." * " Any independent, or self-existent being is a self- distinguishing being, and not a mere empty ' uncondi- tioned ' without attributes or qualities. This is so much in favor of theism, and against pantheism. For theism sustains the doctrine of a ' living ' (self active) God against pantheism which holds to a transcendental unity that pervades all, and yet is nothing special, but only a void in which all characteristics are annulled, and hence is neither subject nor object, good nor evil, and is un- conscious. " It is, moreover, a presumption in favor of Christian theism, because the latter lays stress on the personality of God. Self-activity is self-distinction, and has many stages or degrees of realization. It may be life, as in the plant or animal; or feeling and locomotion, as in animals ; or reason, as in man ; or, finally, absolute per- sonality, as in God. In the plant we have reaction against environment ; the plant takes up its nourishment from without, and transmutes it into vegetable cells and adds them to its substance. In feeling, the animal ex- hibits a higher form of self -activity, inasmuch as it re- produces within itself an impression of its environment, while in locomotion it determines for itself its own space. In reason, man reaches a still higher form of self-activity — the pure internality which makes for itself an environment of ideas and institutions. Bat in these realms of experience we do not find pure self-activity in its complete development. * Vol. 17, p. 308. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 31 " Philosophy looks beyond for an ultimate presuppo- sition, and finds the perfect self-activity presupposed as the person id God. Looking at the world in time and space we see that whatever has extension is co ordinate to other spatial existences and, therefore, limited by them. All things in space are, therefore, mutually in- terdependent to the degree that they are conditioned by space. Hence, they all presuppose one independent Being whose self-activity originates them. " Moreover, in the phases of change, succession, or motion, all things in the world presuppose, as time-exist- ences, the mutual dependence that reduces them to a unity dependent on a self -existent whose form is eter- nity. Thus the world in time and space presupposes as its origin a First Cause whose characteristics or attri- butes are such as follow as consequences from perfect self -activity. Perfect will, perfect knowing, perfect life, are implied in the perfect self -distinction of a First Cause. These implications, it is true, do not appear at first. Only after the thinking power has trained itself to look into the presuppositions of its experience does it begin to discover these wonderful conclusions. Then it grows in this power constantly by exercising its thoughts on divine themes. 44 To the person who has never discovered the presup- positions that underlie experience, there is no necessary unity to the world and, consequently, no necessity for a God. He may, nevertheless, surrender his intellect to faith and adopt a belief in God. But if he persists in ' thinking for himself,' he will reach atheistic conclu- sions at this stage of thought. For ignoring the unity which time and space give to the dependent existences 32 INTRODUCTION TO TIIE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. of the world, lie will take for granted their independ- ence. If objects in the world all possess self -existence just as they are, then, of course, they are independent beings, and do not presuppose one absolute independent Being. This is atheism. But it can not stand the test of reflection. " Reflection discovers that extension in space and sequence in time involve mutual dependence through- out the universe. At this stage of thought he has left atheism and arrived at pantheism. For time and space are not forms of personality, but only of ab- stract unity and, hence, although they make atheism impossible they do not necessitate theism. The idea of causality followed out into the conception of self-activ- ity and self-determination corrects the pantheistic result and arrives at theism." *) Principle with which to examine the World. — " Every object of experience, then, involves as correla- tives infinite space, infinite time, and self-cause, or spon- taneous energy. These correlatives are necessarily thought as conditions which render the existence of the object of experience possible. If the object of experi- ence possesses reality, those conditions possess reality, because it is their reality that this object manifests." f " Each and every existence, then, is a self-determined being, or else some phase or phenomenon dependent on self-determined being. Here we have our principle with which to examine the world and judge concerning its beings. Whatever depends on space and time, and pos- sesses external existence, in the form of an object con- * " The Chautauquan," May, 1886, pp. 437, 438. f Vol. 19, p. 197. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF EXPERIENCE. 33 ditioned by environment, has net the form of self-exist- ence, but is necessarily a phase or manifestation of the self-determination of some other being. If we are able to discover beings in the world that manifest self-activ- ity, we shall know that they are in possession of inde- pendence, at least in a degree ; or, in other words, that they manifest self existence. When we have found the entire compass of any being in the world, we are certain that we have within it the form of self-activity as its essence." * " The ground of Aristotle's identification of self-de- termination, or of energy which moves but is not moved, with reason or thinking being, becomes clear when we consider that this self-distinction which constitutes the nature of self-determination, or causa sui, is subject and its own object, and this in its perfect form must be self-consciousness, while any lower manifestation of self- activity will be recognized as life — that of the plant or of the animal. In the plant there is manifestation of life wherein the individual seed develops out of itself into a plant and arrives again at seeds, but not at the same seed — only at seeds of the same species. So the individual plant does not include self-determination, but only manifests it as the moving principle of the entire process. The mere animal, as brute animal, manifests self-determination more adequately than the plant ; for he has feeling and locomotion, besides nutrition and re- production. But as mere animal he does not make him- self his own object, and hence the causa sui which is manifested in him is not included within his conscious- * Vol. 17, pp. 307, 308. 34 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. ness, but is manifested only as species. Man can make Lis feeling in its entirety his object by becoming con- scious, not only of time, space, and the other presuppo- sitions, but especially of self-activity or original first- cause, and in this he arrives at the knowledge of the ego and becomes self-conscious. The presupposition of man as a developing individuality is the perfect individ- uality of the Absolute Keason, or God." * * Vol. 17, pp. 309, 310. CHAPTER III. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. The "World: Self- Activity shown in Inorganic Forms— Organic ; Plants, Animals, Man. The World a Manifestation of Self- Activity, of Self - Determination, of the Creator. — In the preceding chap- ter " we have considered time and space as grounds of existence of material things. We have considered the principle of causality as the form in which all experience is rendered possible. Looking at its presupposition, we have seen that self-activity, or causa sui, alone makes possible any and all influence of one thing upon another. There must be self-separation of energy or influence as a condition of its transference from the environment to the object, or from any one object to another. This self -separation, or self -activity, is the basis of causality, and hence the basis of all things and phenomena in the world. ... " Being assured of the necessary existence of individ- uality or free self-determination as the form of all total- ities,* we may now look for beings which manifest the Divine Self- Activity." f * " Totality as here used does not mean quantitative totality, but qualitative — i. e., independent being.'' f Vol. 17, pp. 343, 344, 345. 36 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. "The idea of self-activity is the source of our thought of God. If oue lacked this idea of self-activity and could not attain it, all attempt to teach him divine truth would be futile. He could not form in his mind, if he could be said to have a mind, the essential charac- teristic idea of God ; he could not think God as a Creator of the world, or as self -existent apart from the world. If the doctrine were revealed and taught to him, and he learned to repeat the words in which it is ex- pressed, yet in his consciousness he would conceive only a limited effect, a dead result, and no living God. But the hypothesis of a consciousness without the idea of self -activity implicit in it as the presupposition of all its knowing, and especially of its self-consciousness, is a mere hypothesis, without possibility of being a fact." * Inorganic Things. — " A general survey of the world discovers that there is interaction among its parts. This is the verdict of science, as the systematic form of hu- man experience. In the form of gravitation we under- stand that each body depends upon every other body, and the annihilation of a particle of matter in a body would cause a change in that body which would affect every other body in the physical universe. Even grav- itation, therefore, is a manifestation of the whole uni- verse in each part of it, although it is not a manifesta- tion which exists for that part, because the part does not know it. There are other forms wherein the whole manifests itself in each part of it, as, for example, in the phenomena of light, heat, and possibly in magnetism and electricity. These forms of manifestation of the exter- * Vol. 17, pp. 310, 311. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 37 nal world upon an individual object are destructive to the individuality of the object. If the nature of a thing is stamped upon it from without, it is an element only, and not a self ; it is dependent, and belongs to that on which it depends. It does not possess itself, but be- longs to that which makes it, and which gives evidence of ownership by continually modifying it." * u Atoms, if atoms exist as they are conceived in the atomic theory, can not be true individuals, for they pos- sess attraction and repulsion, and by either of these forces express their dependence on others, and thus sub- merge their individuality in the mass with which they are connected by attraction or sundered by repulsion. Distance in space changes the properties of the atom- its attraction and repulsion are conceived as depending on distance from other atoms, and its union with other atoms develops new qualities and conceals or changes the old qualities. Hence the environment is essential to the atomic individuality — and this means the denial of its individuality. If the environment is a factor, then the individuality is joint product, and the atom is not an individual, but only a constituent. " Inorganic being does not possess individuality for itself. A mountain is not an individual in the sense that a tree is. It is an aggregate of substances, but not an organic unity. The unity of place gives certain peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, but the mountain is an aggregate of materials, and its conditions are an aggre- gate of widely differing temperatures, degrees of illu- mination, moisture, etc." f * Vol. 14, p. 227. f Vol 19, p. 200. 5 38 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. Organisms. — " In an organism each part is recipro- cally means and end to all the other parts — all parts are mediated through each. " Mere aggregates are not individuals, hut aggregates wherein the parts are at all times in mutual reaction with the other parts through and by means of the whole, are individuals. The individual stands in relation to other individuals aud to the inorganic world. It is the manifestation of energy acting as conservative of its own individuality, and destructive of other individual- ities or inorganic aggregates that form its environment. It assimilates other beings to itself and digests them, or imposes its own form on them and makes them organic parts of itself — or, on the other hand, it eliminates por- tions from itself, returning to the inorganic what has been a part of itself. " Individuality, therefore, is not a mere thing, but an energy manifesting itself in things. In the case of the plant there is this unity of energy, but the unity does not exist for itself in the form of feeling. The animal feels, and, in feeling, the organic energy exists for itself, all parts coming to a unity in this feeling, and realizing an individuality vastly superior to the individ- uality manifested in the plant." * Individuality of Plants. — " The plant grows and realizes by its form or shape some phase or phases of the organic energy that constitutes the individuality of the plant. Roots, twigs, buds, blossoms, fruits, and seeds, all together, manifest or express that organic energy, but they lack thorough mutual dependence, as * Vol. 19, p. 201. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 39 compared with the animal who feels his unity in each part or limb. The individuality of the plant is com- paratively an aggregate of individualities, while the animal is a real unity in each part through feeling, and hence there is no such independence in the parts of the animal as in the plant." * "Individuality begins with the power of reaction and modification of external surroundings. In the case of the plant, the reaction is real, but not also ideal. The plant acts upon its food and digests it, or assimilates it, and imposes its form on that which it draws within its organism. It does not, however, reproduce within itself the externality as that external exists for itself. It does not form within itself an idea, or even a feeling of that which is external to it. Its participation in the external world is only that of real modification of it or through it ; either the plant digests the external, or the external limits it, and prevents its growth, so that where one begins the other ceases. Hence, it is that the ele- ments — the matter of which the plant is composed, that which it has assimilated even — still retains a large degree of foreign power or force, a large degree of externality which the plant has not been able to annul or to digest. The plant-activity subdues its food, changes its shape and its place, subordinates it to its use ; but what the matter brings with it, and still retains of the world be- yond the plant, does not exist for the plant ; the plant can not read or interpret the rest of the universe from that small portion of it which it has taken up within its own organism. And yet the history of the universe * Vol. 19, p. 201. 40 INTRODUCTION TO TIIE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. is impressed on each particle of matter, as well within the plant as outside of it, and it could be understood were there capacities for recognizing it. "The reaction of the life of the plant upon the external world is not sufficient to constitute a fixed abiding individuality. With each accretion there is some change of particular individuality. Every growth to a plant is by the sprouting out of new individuals — new plants — a ceaseless multiplication of individuals, and not the preservation of the same individual. The species is preserved, but not the particular individual. Each limb, each twig, even each leaf is a new individual, which grows out from the previous growth as the first sprout grew from the seed. Each part furnishes a soil for the next. When a plant no longer sends out new individuals we say it is dead. The life of the plant is only a life of nutrition. Nutrition is only an activity of preservation of the general form of new individuals ; it is only the life of the species, and not the life of the permanent individual." * III. — The phases of growth in the oak tree — the acorn, the little plant, the sapling, the full-grown oak — show the individuality of the tree ; in all these phases, the activity of the tree manifests itself in modifying its surroundings and in assimilating them to a certain extent. Because, in the process of acting upon and taking in its external surroundings, the oak tree changes that portion of the external world which is impressed upon it, but does not know that change, the action of the external world upon the tree and the reaction of the * Vol. 14, pp. 227, 228. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 41 tree upon the surroundings is real but not ideal. The individuality of one oak tree is not permanent but con- sists of a series of changes, and even the one oak tree may die and a new one take its place. The extent of the activity of the oak is shown only in the species. Individuality of Animals. — " Feeling, sense-per- ception, and locomotion characterize the individuality of the animal, although he retains the special powers which made the plant an organic being, The plant could assimilate or digest ; that is to say, it could react on its environment and impress it with its own form, making the inorganic into vegetable- cells and adding them to its own structure. Feeling, especially in the form of sense-perception, is the process of reproducing the environment within the organism in an ideal form. "Sense-perception thus stands in contrast to the vegetative power of assimilation or nutrition, which is the highest form of energy in the plant. Nutrition is a subordinate energy in the animal, while it is the su- preme energy of the plant. Nutrition relates to its environment only negatively and destructively in the act of assimilating it, or else it adds mechanically to the environment by separating and excreting from itself what has become inorganic. But feeling, even as it exists in the most elementary forms of sense-perception, can reproduce the environment ideally ; it can form for itself, within, a modification corresponding to the energy of the objects that make up its environment. " Sentient being stands in reciprocal action with its environment, but it seizes the impression received from without and adds to it by its own activity, so as to reconstruct for itself the external object. It receives 42 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. an impression, and is so far passive to the action of its environment ; but it reacts on this by forming within itself a counterpart to the impression out of its own energy. The animal individuality is an energy that can form limits within itself. On receiving an impres- sion from the environment, it forms limits to its own energy commensurate with the impression it receives, and thus frames for itself a perception, or an internal copy of the object. It is not a copy so much as an esti- mate or measure effected by producing a limitation within itself similar to the impression it has received. Its own state, as thus limited to reproduce the impres- sion, is its idea or perception of the external environ- ment as acting upon it. " The plant receives impressions from without, but its power of reaction is extremely limited, and does not rise to feeling. The beginnings of such reaction in plants as develops into feeling in animals are studied by intelligent biologists with the liveliest interest, for in this reaction we see the ascent of individuality through a discrete degree — the ascent from nutrition to feel- ing. " Nutrition is a process of destruction of the individ- uality of the foreign substance taken up from the envi- ronment, and likewise a process of impressing on it a new individuality, that of the vegetative form, or the nutritive soul, as Aristotle calls it. Feeling is a process of reproducing within the individuality, by self-limita- tion or self-determination, a form that is like the exter- nal energy that has produced an impression upon it. The sentient being shapes itself into the impression, or reproduces the impression, and thus perceives the char- PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 43 acter of the external energy by the nature of its own effort required to reproduce the impression." * III. — A dog, in common with the oak, has the power of assimilating a portion of his environment, but the dog has also feeling, sense-perception, and locomo- tion. With the dog, the reaction upon the external world is not only real, but also ideal ; that is, the dog touches, tastes, smells, hears, and sees, and in these acts of sense-perception, he, by his own activity, reproduces that portion of the external world whose activity im- pressed his own activity ; or, to be more specitic, the dog sees a tree — an impression of the tree upon the activity of the dog through the physical organ, the eye, and the energy of the dog limits and measures within himself a copy of the tree, and in so doing he limits himself and sees an object external to himself. But in this act of sense-perception the dog sees the object as one particular object, and not as one of a class of objects. • Nutritive and Sentient Processes. — "In the two forms of the reaction of energy, or individuality, which have been discussed as nutrition and feeling, the former draws the object within itself and destroys its objective form, while in feeling the individuality recoils from the attack made on the organism, and reproduces its symbolic equivalent. Both of these forms find the occasion of action in the contact with the external. Without conjunction, without limitation of the individ- uality by the object, there arises neither nutrition nor feeling. This mutual limitation is the reduction of the two, the subject and object, to mutual dependence, and * Vol. 19, pp. 201-203. 44 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. hence it is the destruction of individuality so far as this dependence exists. By the act of assimilation the veg- etative energy reasserts its own independence and indi- viduality by annulling the individuality of the object. The sentient process, on the other hand, reasserts its independence by escaping from the continuance of the impression from without, and by reproducing for itself a similar limitation through its own freedom or spon- taneity. It elevates the real limit, by which it is made dependent on an external object, into an ideal limit that depends on its own free act. Thus both nutrition and feeling are manifestations of self -identity, in which the energy acts for the preservation of its individuality against submersion in another." * " The difference between a nutritive process and a perceptivo or sentient process is one of degree, but a discrete degree. Both processes are reactions on what is foreign ; but the nutritive is a real process, destruct- ive of the foreign object, while the sentient is an ideal or reproductive process that does not affect the foreign object. The nutritive is thus the opposite of the sen- tient ; it destroys and assimilates, the latter reproduces. Perception is objective, a self-determination in the form of the object — it transforms the subject into the object ; nutrition is subjective in that it transmutes the object into the subject and leaves no object. Perception pre- serves its own individuality while reproducing the indi- viduality of the external, for it limits itself by its own energy in reproducing the form of the object. " For the reason that feeling or perception measures * Vol. 19, pp. 204, 205. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 45 off, as it were, on its own organic energy — which exists for it in the feeling of self — the amount and kind of energy required to produce the impression made on it from with- out, it follows that sense-perception is not only a reception of impressions, but also an act of introspection. By intro- spection it interprets the cause or occasion of 'the impres- sion that is felt. Feeling arises only when the impres- sion made on the organism is reproduced again within the self — only when it recognizes the external cause by seeing in and through its own energy the energy that has limited it. The degree of objectivity (or the ability to perceive the reality of the external power) is measured by the degree of introspection or the degree of clearness in which it perceives the amount and limit of the inter- nal energy required to reproduce the impression." * Human Individuality. — " On this scale of degrees we rise from plant to animal, and from animal to man. The individuality of each lies in its energy. The en- ergy of the plant is expended in assimilating the ex- ternal ; that of the animal in assimilating and repro- ducing ; that of man in assimilating, reproducing, and self -producing or creating. The discrete degree that separates the plant from the animal is measured by the distance between destroying and reconstructing ; the difference between the animal and the man is measured by the distance between reproducing and self-produc- ing, or, in another form of statement, it is the difference in two kinds of perception — the perception of object as particular, and the perception of object as universal. It is comparatively easy to recognize the difference * Vol. 19, p. 203. 46 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. between nutrition and perception ; indeed, one would say that the difficult part is the recognition of the es- sential identity of their energies. On the contrary, the identify of sense perception and thought is readily ac- knowledged, but their profound difference is not seen without careful attention." * III. — The life of the tree is shown in processes of absorption, assimilation, and preservation of the species ; the dog has the added powers of feeling and locomo- tion and the perceiving of objects as individual particu- lar objects. The man in seeing the same tree which the dog sees, not only sees the tree as a particular oak, but also at the same time sees that he belongs to one class of objects and the tree to another class ; or, while the dog sees the particular the man sees the universal in the particular. The extent to which man consciously and reflectively recognizes different classes of objects and their nature and characteristics, depends upon the degree of culture to which he has attained. The per- ceptive-process and the thought-process of man are fur- ther considered in Chapter IV, Sections I, IV, V, and YI. " These general or universal objects are not mere classes or abstractions, fictions of the mind for genera and species, but they stand for generic processes in the world — such processes in the world as abide while their products come into being and pass away. The oak be- fore me is the product of a power that manifests itself in successive stages, as acorn, sapling, tree, and crop of acorns, etc., these stages being successive and partial, * Vol. 19, pp. 203, 204 PHILOSOPHY OP NATURE. 47 while the energy is the unity whence proceed all of these phases through its action on the environment. The energy is a generic process, and whatever reality the particular existence may get from it is borrowed from its reality. The reality of this acorn is derived from the reality of organic energy of the oak on which it grew. The reality of that organic energy is at least equal to all the reality that has proceeded from it." * * Vol. 19, p. 204 CHAPTER IV. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. Man is Self- Activity, Self-Consciousness — Channels of Development of Activity : Feeling, Sense-perception, Representation, Understanding, Eeason, Emotions, "Will. CONSCIOUSNESS. " The attempts to preserve individuality which we see in nutrition and feeling, do not succeed in obtaining perfect independence. Both these activities, as reaction upon the environment, depend on the continued pres- ence of the environment. When the assimilation is complete the reaction ceases, and there must be new in- teraction with the environment before the process be- gins again. Hence, its individuality requires a perma- nent interaction with external conditions, and the plant and vegatative process is not a complete or perfect indi- viduality. It is not entirely independent. Its process involves a correlative existence, an inorganic world for its food." * " The defect in plant life was that there was neither identity of individualty in space nor identity in time. The growth of the plant destroyed the individuality of the seed, so that it was evanescent in time ; it served only as the starting-point for new individualities, which * Vol. 19, p. 205. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 49 likewise, in turn, served again the same purpose ; and so its growth in space was a departure from itself as individual." * III. — In the growth of an oak tree no stage of its life is complete ; in each succeeding period of time the oak, in each different aspect of growth, destroys the pre- ceding appearance and size, and therefore the oak has not permanence as an individual — it lacks identity in time; also the oak produces new plants from itself, which again produce new oaks, and in this continuous growth of individuals from the oak the lack of perma- nence of the oak as regards space is seen. "The animal is a preservation of individuality as regards space. He returns into himself in the form of feeling or sensibility ; but as regards time, it is not so, feeling being limited to the present. Without a higher activity than feeling, there is no continuity of individuality in the animal any more than in the plant. Each new moment is a new beginning to a being that has feeling but not memory. " Thus the individuality of mere feeling, although a far more perfect realization of individuality than that found in plant life, is yet, after all, not a continuous individuality for itself, but only for the species. " In spite of the ideal self-activity which appertains to feeling, even in sense-perception, only the species lives in the animal, and the individual dies, unless there be higher forms of activity," f III. — Since, through his power of feeling, a dog re- tains his unity and returns into himself, and since he * Vol. 14, p. 231. f Vol. 14, p. 231. 50 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. shows a degree of permanence under change, he pre- serves his individuality in space, but the life of the dog is limited to the present; he shows the power of representation and recollection to a degree, but not that of memory — true memory, the power which is known by the ability to use language, the power of mind which retains objects as classes. " Memory," and its relation to the use of language, is further developed in Sections II and III of the pres- ent chapter. " The being which perceives or feels is a self -ac- tivity in a higher sense than is manifested in plant life, but it is not its own object in the forms of mere feel- ing, or sense-perception, or recollection, or fancy. In- dividuality is persistence under change, self-preserva- tion in the presence of alien forces, and self -objectivity. It is self-determination, or free causal energy — causa sui. To have an object, a particular, therefore, is not to be conscious of individuality, either of one's own or of another's. An individuality that does not exist for itself has no personal identity. When the self-activity in reproducing an impression perceives at the same time its own freedom or causal energy, then it becomes con- scious of self." * III. — While each — an oak and a dog — presents phases of individuality, in man is seen true individu- ality. In common with the dog, through the power of feeling, he preserves his unity of individuality in space ; he also retains his individuality in time; through all changes and attacks of external forces the individuality ♦Vol. 17, p. 353. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 51 remains. Man, although, conditioned by time and space, is not limited to the " here and now," but by the power of memory he can live in the centuries and ages that are past, and by the power of imagination and in- sight of the reason he can look into the future. Man can also look in upon his own mind and perceive how the mind acts and learn the nature of thought and see how the activity of thought is related to other phases of activity in the universe; in this power he shows his self-activity, his self-determination, his freedom in mak- ing the self as object of thought ; and when the freely determined thought goes out in action, man is making himself real through his will, or man is a self -realizing being. The phase of individuality shown in the will is treated in Section VIII of the present chapter. (Real, Potential, Actual. — " The immediate object before the senses undergoes change ; the real becomes potential, and that which was potential becomes real. Without the potentiality we could have had no change. At first we are apt to consider the real as the entire ex- istence, and to ignore the potential ; but the potential will not be treated thus. Whatever a thing can be- come is as valid as what it is already. The properties of a thing by which it exists for us are its relations to other beings, and hence are rather its deficiencies than its being per se. The sharpness in the acid is the hun- ger of the same for alkali ; the sharper it is the louder the call for alkali. Thus the very concretenejss of a thing is rather the process of its potentialities. ... In change, the real is being acted upon by the potential under the form of " outside influences." The pyramid is not air, but the air continually acts upon it, and the 52 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. pyramid is in a continual process of decomposition ; its potentiality is continually exhibiting its nature. We know by seeing a thing undergo change what its po- tentialities are. In the process of change is manifested the activity of the potentialities which are thus negative to it. If a thing had no negative it would not change. The real is nothing but the surface upon which the po- tential writes its nature ; it is the field of strife between the potentialities. The real persists in existence through the potential which is in continual process with it. Thus we are led to regard the product of the two as constant. This we call actuality. . . . " The highest aim is toward perfection ; and this is pursued in the canceling of the finite, partial, or incom- plete, by adding to it its other or complement — that which it lacks of the Total or Perfect. Since this com- plement is the potential, and since the potential is and can be the only agent that acts upon and modifies the real, it follows that all process is pursuant of the high- est aim ; and since the actual is the process itself, it follows that the actual is the realization of the best or of the rational." *) " The sense-perception of the mere animal differs from that of the human being in this : The human being knows himself as subject that sees the object, but does not separate himself, as universal, from the special act of seeing. To know that I am I is to know the most general of objects. Consciousness, which is known by the ability to use language, and distinguishes the brute and human, begins when one can seize the pure * Vol. 1, pp. 239, 240. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 53 universal in the presence of immediate objects here and now." * " The so-called faculties of the mind rise in a scale, beginning with feeling. Each higher activity is distinguished from the . one below it by the circum- stance that it sees not only the object which was seen by the lower faculty, but also the form of the activity of that faculty. Each new faculty, therefore, is a new stage of self-consciousness." f " The degrees of conscious- ness are various, and differ through the completeness with which they grasp the determinations of the Ego." % " Self-consciousness is therefore the basis of all knowl- edge ; for all predication — from the emptiest assertion, \ this is now ' — up to the richest statement involving the ultimate relation of the world to God." # III. — As in the example in the preceding chapter, the dog in seeing the tree sees an object as a particular object, and he gives no evidence that he recognizes the tree as belonging to a different class of objects from himself ; but the child, in learning the word tree in con- nection with the object, begins the process of recognition of classes of objects and perceives, though not at first in a conscious, reflective way, that the one word " tree " means any tree and that he himself is different from the tree. In this act of simultaneous recognition of the self, the universal, and of the object, self-consciousness begins. Each successive addition of knowledge of objects of the external world and their relations, involving at the same time a greater knowledge of the universal through * Vol. 14, p. 234. % Vol. 10, p. 229. t Vol. 19, p. 206. * Vol. 10, p. 227. 54 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. the powers of feeling, knowing, and willing, is a new stage of self-consciousness in the child, youth, and man. The degree of self-consciousness attained by the child, youth, or man depends upon the extent to which he can see the universal in whatever line he may be working and thinking ; experience in the lines of physical indus- try, business, and professional life, and the growth and development obtained from the contact and relation of one mind with another and with absolute thought as in- terpreted in science, art, and religion are new stages of self-consciousness. Care should be taken to avoid the thought of " doub- leness " in reference to consciousness. Consciousness is not something apart and different (as " a light," " a witness," " a knowledge of the states of mind," " a pow- er ") from self-activity, from the mind, but is different stages or degrees of the one and the same activity. Channels of Development of Consciousness. — " Ex- perience is a complex affair, made up of two elements — one element being that furnished by the senses, and the other by the mind itself. Time and space, as conditions of all existence in the world and of all experience, can not be learned from experience. We can not obtain a knowledge of what is universal and necessary from ex- perience, because experience can inform us only that something is, but not that it must be." * The two elements of experience unite in various ways and have different names for the different stages of de- velopment : Feeling, known by various names — sensa- tion, sensibility, sensitivity, sense-perception, intuition, * Vol. 17, p. 299. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 55 and others ; Representation, in the forms of recollection, fancy, imagination, attention, and memory ; Understand- ing in the planes of sensuous ideas and abstract ideas ; Reason, with its absolute idea, or knowledge of totality ; Emotions in the grades of sensuous, psychical, and ra- tional ; and the Will, or free energy. Section I. — Sense-Perception - . Degree of Activity shown in Sense-Perception : Touch, Taste, Smell, Hear- ing, Seeing. The specializations of sense— touch, taste, smell, hear- ing, and seeing— in man have greater significance than in the animal, for these are instrumental in gaining a knowledge of the outer world, and this process and the knowledge thus gained furnishes occasion for the higher activity of mind. " Hence, man's act of cognition is more complex than that of mere sense-perception, which he shares with the animal. . . . The energy presup- posed in the act of feeling and sense-perception is a self-activity, but one that manifests itself in repro- ducing its environment ideally. It presupposes an or- ganic energy of nutrition in which it has assimilated portions of the environment and constructed for it- self a body. In the body it has organized stages of feeling, constituting the ascending scale of sense-per- ception. < fc (a) First there is the sense of touch — containing all higher senses in potentiality. When the higher senses have not developed, or after they have been destroyed by accident, the sense of touch may become sufficiently delicate to perceive not only contact with bodies, but also the slighter modifications involved in the effects of 56 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. taste and smell, and even in the vibrations of sound and light." * III. — The sense of touch " contains all the higher senses in potentiality." Also the sense of touch may be subdivided into those of pressure, temperature, etc. By these subdivisions, knowledge of the nature and action of the organs of touch — nerve-fibers, corpuscles, " tactile- cells," etc. — may be rendered more specific, but little is gained as to the significance of the power of sense-per- ception. Introspection, in considering the nature of the activity of sense-perception, presupposes a being, " an organic energy of nutrition " and assimilation which has constructed a body having the organs necessary for an act of sense-perception. The celebrated case of Laura Bridgman furnishes an illustration of the extent to which the power of touch can be developed. " (b) The lowest form of special sense is taste, which is closely allied to nutrition. Taste perceives the phase of assimilation of the object which is commencing within the mouth. The individuality of the object is attacked and it gives way, its organic product or inorganic aggre- gate suffering dissolution — taste perceives the dissolu- tion. Substances that do not yield to the attack have no taste. Glass and gold have little taste compared with salt and sugar. The sense of taste differs from the process of nutrition in the fact that it does not assimi- late the body tasted, but reproduces ideally the energy that makes the impression on the sense-organ of taste. Even taste is an ideal activity, although it is present * Vol. 19, p. 206. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 57 only when the nutritive energy is assimilating — it per- ceives the object in a state of dissolution." * III. — In the commencement of the process of assim- ilation of salt, the energy of the saliva of the mouth at- tacks the energy with which the particles of salt are held together, and the sense of taste, or the mind in a phase of its activity, perceives the dissolution of the salt, or the mind u reproduces ideally the energy that makes the impression on the sense-organ of taste." " (c) Smell is another specialization which perceives dissolution of objects in a more general form than taste. Both smell and taste perceive chemical changes that involve dissolution of the object." f III. — The oxygen of the air attacks the connective energy of the vegetable tissue of the rose, and the sense of smell perceives the fragrance, the dissolution of the object. " (d) Hearing is a far more ideal sense, and notes a manifestation of resistance to dissolution. The cohesion of the body is attacked and it resists the attack, and re- sistance takes the form of vibration ; and the vibration is perceived by the special sense of hearing. Taste and smell perceive the dissolution of the object, while hear- ing perceives the defense or successful reaction of an object in presence of an attack. Without reaction of cohesion there would be no vibration and no sound." % III. — A rock is struck with a hammer. The cohe- sion of the rock resists the force represented by the hammer. Vibrations are the result of the attack. These are communicated by the means of the air, the compli- Vol. 19, pp. 206, 207. f Vol. 19, p. 207. % Ibid. 58 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. cated arrangement of the ear, the nerves, and the brain; the mind perceives the resistance to the attack. The kind of vibrations and intensity, and cultivation of the activity of mind shown in the power of hearing, deter- mines the character of the sound, varying from the harshest noise to the most beautiful music. " (e). The sense of sight perceives the individuality of the object not in a state of dissolution before an attack, as in the case of taste and smell, or as engaged in active resistance to attack, as in case of hearing, but in its independence. Sight is, therefore, the most ideal sense, inasmuch as it is furthest removed from percep- tion by means of the real process of assimilation, in which one energy destroys the product of another energy and extends its sway over it." * III. — The rays of light which are reflected to the eye from a neighboring church-steeple do not cause a dissolution of the object, neither is there an active re- sistance to the impinging rays, but the eye and organs of sight receive the reflected rays and the sense of sight perceives the steeple in its independence. The self- activity, or energy which reproduces this object, the steeple, does not destroy the product of another energy. Extent of self-activity shown in feeling. — " Sense- perception as the developed realization of the activity of feeling belongs to the animal creation, including man as an animal." f " Mere feeling alone is the perception of the external within the being, hence an ideal repro- duction of the external world. In feeling, the animal exists not only within himself, but also passes over his * Vol. 19, p. 207. f Vol. 14, p. 230. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 59 limit, and lias for object the reality of the external world that limits him. Hence it is the perception of his finiteness — his limits are his defects, his needs, wants, inadequateness — his separation from the world as a whole. In feeling, the animal perceives the sepa- ration from the rest of the world, and also his union with it. Feeling expands into desire when the external world, or some portion of it, is seen as ideally belonging to the limited unity of the animal being. It is beyond the limit and ought to be assimilated within the limited individuality of the animal. Mere feeling, when atten- tively considered, is found to contain these wonderful features of self -activity : it reproduces for itself the external world that limits it ; it makes for itself an ideal object, which includes its own self and its not-self at the same time." * Remark. — In each of the above phases of sense-per- ception we have seen that the point of especial interest in the study of the human mind is that each act of sense-perception of the individual is a process in which the self limits and determines himself at the same time that he reproduces ideally a portion of the external world in himself. In desire, a " counterpart of feeling,'' self- activity goes out in the form of will and therefore becomes an emotion. See Section VII. Section II. — Representation. Self- Activity shown in Eepresentation : Becollection, Fancy, Imagination^ Attention, Memory. " All forms of sensibility are limited and special ; they refer only to the present, in its forms of here and * Vol. 14, p. 229. 60 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. now. The animal can not feel what is not here and now. Even seeing is limited to what is present before it." * " The activity of mere feeling or sense-perception is aroused by external impressions, and is conditioned by them. If there is no object then there is no act of per- ception. Every occasion given for the self -activity involved in perception is an occasion for the manifesta- tion of self-activity, but a self-activity that acts only on external incitation is not yet separable from the body." f " While mere sensation, as such, acts only in the presence of the object, reproducing (ideally, it is true) the external object, the faculty of representation is a higher form of self-activity (or of reaction against sur- rounding conditions), because it can recall, at its own pleasure, the ideal object. Here is the beginning of emancipation from the limitations of time. " The self-activity of representation can summon be- fore it the object that is no longer present to it. Hence its activity is now a double one, for it can seize not only what is now and here immediately before it, but it can compare this present object with the past, and identify or distinguish between the two. Thus recollection or representation may become memory." % The distinctness of the image in a reproduced sense- perception varies as the activity of the will in Attention enters the process, and these degrees are shown in Rec- ollection, Fancy, Imagination, and Memory. EemarTc.— The idea that first one " faculty " of the * Vol. 14, pp. 230, 231. % Vol. 14, pp. 231, 232. f Vol. 19, p. 205. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 61 mind and then another begins the process of develop- ment, should be guarded against. The troth is, that, although at different periods in the life of an individual some power of the mind is shown in a .greater degree than others, the mind in its development is one, and there is no reason why, for instance, the simple " good faith" of the child in the reality of things is not the same power as the " reason " which, at a later period of life, consciously sees the reality of things. And the fact that the " feelings are made over " by new thoughts, and that the will early appears in attention and in desire, shows that no point of time can be assigned for the be- ginning of the development of one power of the mind over another. But for the sake of clearness in studying the develop- ment of the mind, each phase will be considered by itself, with the purpose to show how the " lower phases " blend with or develop into the highest phase, or that of " rational insight." Recollection. — " Representation is reproduction with- out the presence of the sense-object; recollection and memory are forms of this. In the form of recollection the individual energy reproduces the activity of a past perception. The impression on the sense-organ is ab- sent, and the freedom of the individual is manifested in this reproduction without the occasion which is fur- nished by the impression on the organism from without. The freedom to reproduce the image of the object that has been once perceived leads by easy steps to the per- ception of general notions." * " As memory, the mind * Vol. 19, p. 207. 62 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. achieves a form of activity far above that of sense-per- ception or mere recollection. It must be noted care- fully that mere recollection or representation, although it holds fast the perception in time (making it per- manent), does not necessarily constitute an activity com- pletely emancipated from time, nor indeed very ad- vanced toward it. It is only the beginning of such emancipation. For mere recollection stands in the presence of the special object of sense-perception; al- though the object is no longer present to the senses (or to mere feeling), yet the image is present to the repre- sentative perception, and is just as much a particular here and now as the object of sense-perception. There intervenes a new activity on the part of the soul before it arrives at memory. Recollection is not memory, but it is the activity which grows into it by the aid of the activity of attention." * III. — For instance, in the previous illustration of the sense of sight, there was an ideal reproduction of the steeple by the beholder. The steeple may be no longer present to the beholder ; the activity of the mind freely and spontaneously brings up an image or picture of the steeple. The mind, in its representative power, has before it the one steeple, and the beholder is limited to the presence of the one image. This power which spontaneously brings up the image of an object does not show the conscious use of the will in attention which intervenes before the power of mind seen in the ability to represent the steeple, becomes memory, or the activity which perceives the general class or type of objects. * Vol. 14, p. 232. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 63 Fancy. — Representation repeats itself promiscuously, and makes new combinations, and forms, from images arising from sense-perception, an indefinite number of pictures. Tendencies and circumstances may to a de- gree influence the working of Fancy, yet the essential characteristic is that it acts without the directive power of the will. III. — Dreams, reverie, etc., are examples of fancy. The mental life of children is largely that of fancy, and also of those grown-up people who have never exercised the will in attention sufficiently to direct the activity of the mind into the planes of thinking. Writers of fairy tales and stories of improbable wonders and doings recognize this activity of the child-mind. The workings of fancy have also been made the foundation of suggest- ive poems and prose works, as Burns's " Tarn O'Shan- ter," Drake's "Culprit Fay," Wordsworth's "To a Sky- lark," Poe's "The Raven," etc., and "Arabian Nights," stories of Jules Verne, " Alice in Wonderland," etc. " We may here distinguish between the imagination and the fancy. The imagination follows the lines of Nature. Its creations take their place with her works. It brings to light what is hidden in Nature, or what she is striving to accomplish. The fancy works more inde- pendently. It forsakes the intent of Nature and adopts ends of its own. It combines the elements of Nature arbitrarily and artificially. Thus the fancy brings to- gether parts of the man and of the horse, and creates the centaur ; the imagination creates the Apollo. Fancy creates the dainty Ariel ; imagination creates Miranda with her sweet and innocent wonder. The world of fancy may be beautiful and fascinating, full of airy and 64 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. delicate shapes ; we find in it enjoyment and refreshment, but it is a world apart from the real world. The world of imagination may be more natural than that of nature itself." * Imagination. — "Fancy and imagination are next higher than recollection, because the mind not only recalls images, bat makes new combinations of them, or creates them altogether." f " Creative imagination sees the correspondence of the lower to the highest order of being, and hence is a revealer of the nature of the absolute." J III. — In the lower planes of thought, the work of the imagination is mechanical and the combinations deviate but little from the patterns furnished by mem- ory ; but in the higher or creative planes, the imagi- nation invests the commonplace and familiar with a new light, and from the infinite realms unknown to ordinary minds reveals wonderful glimpses of truth and beauty. The housekeeper, in the arrangement of her borne, and the farmer, by the vision of rich harvest fields, are assisted and encouraged in the daily tasks. An imagi- native view of their completed work spurs on a Watts, Stephenson, or Edison to attempt remarkable utiliza- tions of the forces of Nature. A Darwin sees the species of plants and animals arranged in an orderly manner in a process of development even before he starts out on his voyages of discovery and verification. Washington is moved to persistent and heroic deeds because his * C. C. Everett, « Poetry, Comedy, and Duty," pp. 4, 5. f Vol. 14, p. 231. % Dictation. MAN : A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 65 imaginative insight shows him a nation united under a federal constitution while as yet not one word of the nation's constitution had been written. And the world's master-minds in their creative power : Beethoven, Mendelssohn, convey their thoughts and feelings in music ; Phidias sees the possible dignity and nobility and beauty and grace of the human mind and represents them in the human form ; through paint- ing, Raphael and Micheal Angelo give to the world their marvelous interpretations of the divine ; Homer, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, by the means of poetry, dis- close the nature of spirit, and portray the unnumbered awful conflicts of good and evil in the human soul. This creative power sees totalities, and therefore comes into harmony with rational insight. See Section YI, " Beauty." Attention. — "The activity by which the mind as- cends from sense-perception to memory is the activity of attention. Here we have the appearance of the will in intellectual activity. Attention is the control of per- ception by means of the will. The senses shall no longer passively receive and report what is before them, but they shall choose some definite point of obser- vation, and neglect all the rest. Here in the act of atten- tion we find abstraction, and the greater attainment of freedom by the mind. The mind abstracts its view from the many things before it, and concentrates on one point. " Attention abstracts from some things before it, and concentrates on others. Through attention grows the capacity to discriminate between the special, particu- lar object and its general type. Generalization arises, 66 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. but not what is usually called generalization — only a more elementary form of it." * " For when the mind notices its mode of activity by which the former perception is reproduced or repre- sented, it perceives, of course, its power of repeating the process, and notes that the same energy can produce an indefinite series of different images resembling one another. It is by this action of representation that the idea of the universal arises. It is a reflection on the conditions of recalling a former perception. The energy that can produce within itself the conditions of a for- mer perception at pleasure, without the presence of the original object of perception, is an energy that is generic — that is, an energy that can produce the particular and repeat it to any extent. The universal or generic power can produce a class." f III. — "Educators have for many ages noted that the habit of attention is the first step in intellectual education. With it is found the point of separation between the animal intellect and the human. Not atten- tion simply — like that with which a cat watches by the hole of a mouse — but attention which arrives at results of abstraction is the distinguishing characteristic of edu- cative beings." \ " Some writers would have us suppose that we do not arrive at general notions except by the process of classification and abstraction in the mechanical manner that they lay down for this purpose. The fact is that the mind has arrived at these general ideas in the pro- * Vol. 14, p. 232, 233. % Vol. 14, pp. 232, 233. f Vol. 19, pp. 207, 208. MAN: A SELF-ACTIYE INDIVIDUAL. 67 cess of learning language. In infancy, most children have learned such words as is, existence, being, nothing, motion, cause, change, I, you, he, etc." * For instance, the process by which the perception of an apple becomes a conception, is not by separating the apple into its qualities, as the color, size, sweetness, sourness, the number, size, and arrangement of seeds etc., and then from the various parts building up the apple in a mechanical way, but the concept apple arises through the activity of attention to the object in the very process of learning the word apple. The child shows that the concept arises thus sponta- neously by the fact that he can recognize and identify the same object under different circumstances, another apple of different size and color, and the picture of an apple even before he is able to enumerate the various qualities necessary to make an apple. This " concept " apple is not the same as the image which arose through the representative power from the reproduced object of sense-perception, but this image has become the concept through the activity of the will in attention, or by means of an act of reflection. This concept apple does not stand for any particular apple, as the image apple did, but stands for any apple of the whole class of apples, and this concept arose in the pro- cess of learning the word apple. The concept apple is not the result of conscious reflective acts, but these con- cepts are the preparation for thought, the objects of memory, the " general objects " which thought uses. " Memory and the phenomena of language are not * Vol 14, pp 234, 235 68 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. recognized by psychologists generally as being the first manifestation of the self-conscious individuality." Memory. — Recollection or representation may be- come memory. " The special characteristics of objects of the senses are allowed to drop away, in so far as they are unessential and merely circumstantial, and gradually there arises in the mind the type — the general form — of the object perceived. This general form is the ob- ject of memory. Memory deals therefore with what is general and a type, rather than with what is directly recollected or perceived." * " With this consciousness of a generic energy mani- fested in the power of representation, arises the recogni- tion of a generic energy manifested in the external world as the producer of the particular objects per- ceived, and each object is seen in its producing energy as one of an indefinite number produced by the continued existence of that energy. The consciousness of free- dom of the ego in this restricted form of freedom of representing or recalling former sense-perceptions lies thus at the basis of the perception of objects as speci- mens of classes ; hence, representation or recollection, which is special and individual, leads to the act of re- flection, by which the energy is perceived and its ge- neric character, and with it the perception of the neces- sary generic character of the energy at the foundation of every impression upon our senses, or at the founda- tion of every object perceived. " At this point the activity of perception becomes conception, or the perception of the general in the par- * Vol. 14, p. 232. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 69 ticular. The s this oak ' is perceived as ' an oak,' or a specimen of the class oak. The class oak is conceived as an indefinite number of individual oaks, all produced by an energy which manifests itself in an organic pro- cess of assimilation and elimination, in which appear the stadia of acorn, sapling, tree, and crop of acorns — a continuous circle of reproduction of the species oak, a transformation of the one into the many — the one acorn becoming a crop of acorns, and then a forest of oaks. " The rise of self-consciousness, or the perception of self-activity, and the perception of the general object in the external world are thus contemporaneous. "With the perception of the general energy the psychological activity has outgrown representation and become con- ception. With conception the energy or soul begins to be an individuality for itself — a conscious individuality. It recognizes itself as a free energy. The stage of mere perception does not recognize itself, but merely sees its own energy as the objective energy, because it acts wholly as occasioned by the external object. In the recognition of the object as an individual of a class the soul recognizes its own freedom and independent activity. Recollection (Erinnerung) relates to indi- viduals, recalling the special presentation or impression, and representing the object as it was before perceived. Memory (like the German word Gedachtniss) may be distinguished as the activity which reproduces the ob- ject as one of a class, and therefore as the form of rep- resentation that perceives universals. With memory arises language." * * Vol. 19, pp. 208, 209. 70 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. " Such a stage we call memory, in the special and higher sense of the word, as corresponding to not ava/Avrjo-Ls, but fjbvrjjjuoorvvT} or fivrffir) — not £rinnerung, but Gedachtniss — not the memory that recollects, but the memory that recalls by the aid of universal ideas. (Such memory is creative as it goes from the general to the particular.) These general ideas are mnemonic aids — pigeon-holes, as it were, in the mind — whereby the soul conquers the endless multiplicity of details in the world. It refers to its species, and saves the species under a name — then is able to recall by the name a vast number of special instances." * ..." In thinking of such faculties in the lives of great men of science — like Agassiz, Cuvier, Lyell, Yon Humboldt, Darwin, and Goethe — we see what this means. It is the first or crudest stage of mental culture that depends chiefly on sense-perception and recollection. After the general has been discovered, the mind uses it more and more, and the information of the senses becomes a smaller and smaller part of the knowledge. Agassiz in a single scale saw the whole fish, so that the scale was all that was required to suggest the whole ; Lyell could see the whole history of its origin in a pebble ; Cuvier could see the entire animal skeleton in one of its bones. The memory, which holds types, processes, and universals, the condensed form of all human experience, the total aggregate of all sense-perception of the universe and all reflection on it, this constitutes the chief faculty of the scientific man, and sense-perception and mere recollec- tion play the most insignificant part. This points to * Vol. 19, p. 211. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 71 the complete independence of the soul as a far-off idea. When the soul can think the creative thought, the theoretic vision of the world — rj Oecapia, as Aristotle calls it — then it comes to perfect insight, for it sees the whole in each part, and does not require any longer the mechanical memory, because it has a higher form of intellect that sees immediately in the individual thing its history, just as Lyell or Agassiz saw the history of a pebble or a h'sh, or Asa Gray sees all botany in a single plant. Mechanical memory is thus taken up into a higher ' faculty,' and its function being absorbed, it gradually perishes. But it never perishes until its function is provided for in a more complete manner." * Section III. Significance of the Power to use Language. — " There is no language until the mind can perceive gen- eral types of existence ; mere proper names nor mere exclamations or cries do not constitute language. All words that belong to language are significative — they ' express ' or ( mean ' something — hence they are conven- tional symbols, and not mere individual designations. Language arises only through common consent, and is not an invention of one individual. It is a product of individuals acting together as a community, and hence implies the ascent of the individual into the species. Unless an individual could ascend into the species he could not understand language. To know words and their meaning is an activity of divine significance ; it denotes the formation of universals in the mind — the * Vol. 19, p. 212, 213. Y2 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. ascent above the here and now of the senses, and above the representation of mere images, to the activity which grasps together the general conception of objects and thus reaches beyond what is transient and variable." * " Language fixes the knowledge of objects in univer- sals. Each word represents an indefinite number of particular objects, actions, or relations. The word oak stands for all oaks — present, past, or future. No being can use language, much less create language, unless it has learned to conceive as well as perceive — learned to see all objects as individuals belonging to classes, and incidentally recognized its own individuality. All human beings possess language. Even deaf and dumb human beings invent and nse gestures with as defi- nite meaning as words, each gesture denoting a class with a possible infinite number of special applica- tions." f " Language is the sign by which we can recognize the arrival of the soul at this stage of development into complete self -activity. Hence language is the criterion of immortal individuality. In order to use language it must be able not only to act for itself, but to act wholly upon itself. It must not only perceive things by the senses, but accompany its perceiving by an inner per- ception of the act of perceiving (and thus be its own environment). This perception of the act and process of perceiving is the recognition of classes, species, and genera — the universal processes underlying the exist- ence of the particular. " Language in this sense involves conventional signs, * Vol. 14, pp. 233, 234. f Vol. 19, p. 209. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. ?3 and is not an immediate expression of feeling like the cries of animals. The immediate expression of feeling (which is only a reaction) does not become language, even when it accompanies recollection or the free repro- duction — nor until it accompanies memory or the seeing of the particular in the general. When it can be showm that a species of animals use conventional signs in com- munication with each other, we shall be able to infer their immortality, because we shall have evidence of their freedom from sense-perception and environment sufficient to create for themselves their own occasion for activity. They would then be shown to react not merely against their environment, but against their own action — hence they would involve both action and reac- tion, self and environment. They would, in that case, have selves, and their selves exist for themselves, and hence they would have self-identity." * " Language is the means of distinguishing between the brute and the human — between the animal soul, which has continuity only in the species (which per- vades its being in the form of instinct), and the human soul, which is immortal, and possessed of a capacity to be educated. ... " Doubtless the nobler species of animals possess not only sense-perception, but a considerable degree of the power of representation. The^y are not only able to recollect, but to imagine or fancy to some extent, as is evidenced by their dreams. But that animals do not generalize sufficiently to form for themselves a new ob- jective world of types and general concepts w r e have a * Vol. 19, p. 212. 74 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. sufficient evidence in the fact that they do not use words, or invent conventional symbols. With the ac- tivity of the symbol-making form of representation, which we have named memory, and whose evidence is the invention and use of language, the true form of individuality is attained, and each individual human being, as mind, may be said to be the entire species. Inasmuch as he can form universals in his mind, he can realize the most abstract thought ; and he is con- scious. ... " It should be carefully noted that this activity of generalization which produces language and character- izes the human from the brute is not the generalization of the activity of thought so called. It is the prepara- tion for thought. These general types of things are the things which thought deals with. Thought does not deal with mere immediate objects of the senses ; it deals rather with the objects which are indicated by words, i. e., general objects." * Section IV. — Kefleotion. "General Objects" of Memory, as Thought, become Judgments — Sense- perception : Sensuous Ideas perceive Objects ; Identity, Difference — Understanding: Abstract Ideas investigate Object and Environment; Eelations — The " General Objects " or "Universals" are possible be- cause of Eeason : Absolute Idea or Eational Insight knows Logical Conditions of Existence. A Conception is not a Mental Picture. — " Percep- tions relate to individual objects ; conceptions relate to general classes or to abstractions — such is the current doctrine of psychology. Let us now take up the in- * Vol. 14, pp. 233, 234. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 75 quiry, What constitutes a general notion or concep- tion ? To this we may reply that it is not a mental image but a definition. The general notion tree should include all trees of whatever description, and it is ex- pressed by a definition. But no sooner do I attempt to conceive the notion tree than I form a mental image. The image, however, is not general enough to suit the notion. I image a particular specimen of tree — an oak, for example. If I image it vividly it is an individual just as much as the oak that I may see before me in the forest. My conception of tree in general recognizes the inadequacy of the image and dismisses it or permits it to be replaced by another image which presents a differ- ent specimen. Perhaps we have never noticed this rela- tion of images to the conception. We are conscious of only a few phases of our mental activity until we have cultivated our powers of introspection. Notice carefully the act of realizing any general conception (or " con- cept,'' if one wishes technically to distinguish the prod- uct from the process itself). We shall discover that our definition is a sort of rule for the formation of images, rather than an image. What conception do we form of bird % We think of a flying animal — of feathers, wings, bill, claws, and various appurtenances which we unite in the idea of bird. We call up images and dismiss them as we go over the elements of our definition, for we recognize the images to be too special or particular to correspond to the conception. In the rudest and least developed intellects, whether of savages or children, the same process is repeated. Is this a bird ? Yes ; it has a bill, claws, feathers, wings, etc. But it does not have either of these in general. Its bill is a particular 76 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. specimen of bill, having one of the many shapes or colors or magnitudes possible to a bilL So, too, of its feathers, wings, claws, etc. The image of our bird was not of a bird in general, but of a hawk or duck, a lien or pigeon, or of some other species of birds. Nor was the image that of a hawk or a duck, etc., in general, but of a particular variety and not even of a variety in general, but finally of a possible or remembered individ- ual specimen of a variety. So, too, the features of the bird are only individual specimens or examples that fall under the general conceptions of claws, feathers, bills, wings, etc* "The definition which we have formed for ourselves serves as a rule by which we form an image that will illustrate it. This difference between the conception and the specimen is known to the child and the savage, though it is not consciously reflected upon. " Take up a different class of conceptions. Take the abstractions of color, taste, smell, sound, or touch ; for example— redness, sourness, fragrance, loudness, hard- ness, etc. Our conception includes infinite degrees of possible intensity, while our image or recalled experi- ence is of some definite degree and does not correspond to the general notion. " We have considered objects and classes of objects that admit of images as illustrations. These images, if vague, seem to approximate conceptions ; if vivid, to depart from them. But no image can be so vague as to correspond to any conception. Let us take more general notions, such as force, matter, quality, being. For force, image, if one can, some action of gravitation or of heat. If some image or experience can be called up it is felt MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 77 to be a special example that covers only a very small part of the province of force in general. But an image, strictly considered, can not be made of force at all nor of any special example of force. We can image some object that is acted upon by a force — we can image it before it is acted upon and after it is acted upon. That is to say, we can image the results of the force, but not the force itself. We can think of force, but not image it. "If we conceive existence, and image some existent thing ; if we conceive quantity in general and image a series of things that can be numbered, or an extension or degree that may be measured ; if we conceive relation in general and try to illustrate it by imaging particular objects between which there is a relation — in all these and similar cases we can hardly help being conscious of the vast difference between the image and the concep- tion. In realizing the conception of relation, as in that of force or energy, we do not image even an example or specimen of a relation or force, but we image only the conditions or termini of a specimen relation ; but the relation itself must be thought, just as any force must be thought but can not be imaged. We can think relations, but not image them. " Just here we notice that we have a lurking convic- tion that these general ideas or conceptions are not so valid and true to reality as our images are or as our im- mediate perceptions are. Conceptions, we should think, are vague and faint impressions of sensation. ' Ideas are the faint images of sense-impressions 5 said Hume. "Nominalism says that there is nothing in reality corresponding to our general conceptions, and that such Y8 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. conceptions are mere devices of ours for convenience in knowing and reasoning. If so, our images are truer than our conceptions. Herbert Spencer says (in his ' First Principles') that our conceptions are mere sym- bols of objects too great or too multitudinous to be mentally represented. " If the views of Hume and Herbert Spencer are true in regard to our general notions, psychology would have a very different lesson in it— very different from that which we propose to -find. To lis the images are far less true than our conceptions. The images stand for fleeting or evanescent forms, while the conceptions state the eternal and abiding laws, the causal energies that constitute the essence of all phenomena." * " As sense-perception has before it a world of pres- ent objects, so thought has before it a world of general concepts, which language has defined and fixed. " It is true that few persons are aware that language stands for a world of general ideas and that reflection has to do with this world of universals." f "It is usual, however, to account for the repro- duction of these universal ideas by supposing that the mind first collects many individuals and then abstracts so as to omit the differences and preserve the likeness or resemblance, and thus forms the conception of class. It therefore makes reflection responsible, not only for the recognition of the universal, but for its creation. But the act of reflection only discovers what had already been elaborated in the lower faculty of the mind. Self- * "Illinois School Journal," vol. vii, pp. 494-496, July, 1888. f Vol. 14, p. 236. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 79 consciousness is not the cause of universal ideas, but the universal rises with it as its condition (the per- ception of the universal being perception of the self). Both appear at the same time as essential phases of the same act. The soul uses universals in language long before it recognizes the same as universal (its first recognition of the universal being only self-recog- nition). Reflection discovers that these ideas are gen- eral — but it has used them ever since human beings became human. After reflection has dawned, how- ever, a new series of universal terms begin to come into use, which denote not merely universal classes or generic energies, but the pure energy in its self- activity, as producing inward distinctions which do not reach external particular things as results. Here begins conscious independence of the world of sense- perception." * " The first stage of knowing concentrates its atten- tion upon the object, the second upon its relations, and the third on the necessary and infinite conditions of its existence. The first stage of knowing belongs to the surface of experience, and is very shallow. It regards things as isolated and independent of each other. The second stage of experience is much deeper, and takes note of the essential dependence of things. They are seen to exist only in relation to others upon which they depend. This second stage of experience discovers unity and unities in discovering dependence of one upon another. The third stage of experience discovers inde- pendence and self -relation underlying all dependence * Vol. 19, p. 210. 80 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. and relativity. The infinite, or the self -related, under- lies the finite and relative or dependent. These three stages of knowing, found in considering the relation of experience to time and space-object, environment, and logical condition — these elements are in every act of experience, although the environment is not a very clear and distinct element in the least cultured knowing, and space and time are still more obscure." * Sense-perception : Sensuous ideas. — " As a human process, the knowing is always a knowing by universals — a recognition, and not simple apprehension, such as the animals, or such as beings have that to do not use language. The process of development of stages of thought begins with sensuous ideas which perceive mere individual, concrete, real objects, as it supposes. In conceiving these, it uses language and thinks general ideas, but it does not know it, nor is it conscious of the relation involved in such objects. This is the first stage of reflection. The world exists for it as an innumerable congeries of things, each one independent of the other, and possessing self -existence. It is the standpoint from which atomism would be adopted as the philosophic system. Ask it what the ultimate principle of existence is, and it would reply, ' Atoms.' " f " In the most rudimentary form of knowing, i. e., in sense-perception, there is a synthesis of the two ex- tremes of cognition: 1, the immediately conditioned content, which is the particular object as here and now perceived ; 2, the accompanying perception of the self or ego which perceives, that is, the activity of self- * Vol. 17, pp. 300, 301. f Y(A - 14 > P- 236 - MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 81 consciousness — the knowledge that it is I who am sub- ject in this particular act of perception. Hence, in sense-perception, two objects are necessarily combined : (a) the particular object here and now presented ; (h) the universal subject of all activity of perceiving. . . . Such a thing as the perception of the permanent, or a relation of any sort (for example, the one of identity, or of difference, the most elementary and fundamental ones) can not take place without attention on the part of the subject who perceives, to the perception of self, or to one of the universal factors which are present in perception. This act of attention to self is reflection — self-perception entering all perception." * " This lowest stage of thinking is least able to dis- criminate distinctions and differences. The most imma- ture mind thinks all objects as having being. ■ All ob- jects to it are co-ordinate and of equal validity in this respect. The moment the mind begins to observe rela- tion, this co-ordination vanishes, and we make the terms of experience unequal. This object depends upon that object in some respect, and therefore is not co-ordinate, but subordinate to it. This belongs to that, and is only a manifestation of that object's energy or sphere of influence." f " The lowest stage of thinking supposes that its ob- jects are all independent one of another. Each thing is self-existent, and a ' solid reality ' ; to be sure, it thinks relations between things, but it places no special value on relations. Things exist apart from relations, and relations are for the most part the arbitrary product of * Vol. 10, p. 226. f VoL 17, p. 338. 82 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. thought or reflection. Things, it is true, are composite and divisible into smaller things, and smaller things are divisible again. All things are composed of smallest things or atoms. This lowest stage of thinking, it appears, explains all by the two categories of ' thing ' and ' composition.' All differences accordingly arise through combination or composition. But since differ- ences include all that needs explanation, it follows that this stage of thinking deceives itself in supposing that things are the essential elements in its view of the world and that relations are the unessential. A little develop- ment of the power of thought produces for us the con- sciousness that some relations, at least, are the essential elements of our experience." * III. — The process in sense-perception has already been described. It has been found helpful in class to consider how the different stages of thinking regard the same object. To the plane of sensuous ideas, a tree exists in the correct external adjustment of the parts — root, stem, and leaves. One tree differs from another in its size, shape, kind of leaves, flowers, wood, etc. The uses of the tree for shade, timber, etc. are apparent. An oak, birch, beech, maple, etc. each exists in its inde- pendence. Wordsworth's Peter Bell, to whom — A primrose by a river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more, lived in this plane of thought nearest allied to sense- perception, or the plane of sensuous ideas. * " Illinois School Journal," vol. vii, p. 442. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 83 Understanding : Abstract Ideas. — " But this view (from the plane of sensuous ideas) of the world is a very unstable one, and requires very little reflection to over- turn it and bring one to the next basis — that of abstract ideas. When the mind looks carefully at the world of things, it finds that there is dependence and interdepend- ence. Each object is related to something else, and changes when that changes. Each object is a part of a process that is going on. The process produced it, and the process will destroy it, nay, it is destroying it now, while we look at it. We find, therefore, that things are not the true beings which we thought them to be, but processes are the reality. Science takes this attitude, and studies out the history of each thing in its rise and its disappearance, and it calls this history the truth. This stage of thinking does not believe in atoms or in things ; it believes in forces and processes — i abstract ' — because they are negative, and can not be seen by the senses. This is the dynamic standpoint in philos- ophy." * u Sense-perception increases in richness of knowledge in proportion as the power of synthesis or of combining the successive elements of perception increases. And this power of combining such separate elements is con- tingent on the power of reflection or of attention to the self-activity in perception. Such reflection is the condi- tion of all generalization. The minimum of this power of reflection admits barely the possibility of combining the perceptions of time-moments that are slightly sepa- rated, and hence its results are the mere perception of * Vol. 14, pp. 236, 237. 84: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. identity or difference without quantity or quality there- of." * . " That first stage of thinking, nearest allied to sense- perception, supposes that things are the essential ele- ments of all being. The second stage, which we may call the understanding, knows better what is essential. By relations it does not mean arbitrary comparisons or the result of idle reflections. It has made the discovery of truly essential relations. It deals with the category of relativity, in short, and goes so far as to affirm that if a grain of sand were to be destroyed, all beings in space would be changed more or less. Each thing is relative to every other, and there is reciprocal or mutual de- pendence. " Isaac Newton's thought of universal gravitation de- serves all the fame it has got, because it sets up in modern thinking this category of relativity, and all thinking in our day is being gradually trained into its use by the application constantly made of it. Isaac Newton is a perpetual schoolmaster to the race, " Herbert Spencer owes his reputation to his faithful adherence to the thought of relativity in his expositions. Our knowledge is all relative, says he (with the excep- tion of that very important knowledge— the knowledge of the principle of relativity itself — we add, sotto voce), and things, too, are all relative, he continues. Essential relativity means dependence. A is dependent on B, so that the being of B is also the being of A. Such is the law of relativity. Moreover, it refuses to think an ulti- mate principle as origin of all. It say, A depends on * Vol. 10, pp. 226, 227. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 85 B, B, again, on C, C on D, and so on, in infinite pro- gression. Relativity, as a supreme principle, is panthe- istic. It makes all being dependent on something be- yond it. Hence it denies ultimate individuality. All individuality is a transient result of some underlying abstract principle, a ' persistent force,' for example. Individual things are the transient products (static equi- libria) of forces. Forces, again, are modes of manifesta- tion of some persistent energy into which they all vanish. " This second stage of thinking attains its most per- fect form in the doctrine of correlation of forces, and is the ancient skepticism of Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus. It underlies, too, the Buddhist religion and all panthe- istic theories of the world. Nothing is so common among men of science in our day as theories based on absolute relativity. It is often set up by those who still hold the non-relational theory of the lower plane of thought, though if held with logical strictness it is in- compatible with the preceding stage. " The first stage explains by the category of things, or independent non-relational beings, while the second stage explains by the category of force or essential relation. Take notice that force does not need a nu- cleus of things as a basis of efficacy; for things are themselves only systems of forces held in equilibria by force." * (" Modern natural science sets up the doctrine of the correlation of forces and the i persistence of force.' In the case of individual forces — heat, light, electricity, Illinois School Journal," vol. vii, pp. 442, 443. 9 86 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. magnetism, attraction of gravitation, and cohesion — there is fmitude, each force manifesting itself only when in process of transition into another form of force. But there is a ground to all these forces, which is an energy. The ' persistent force ' is the energy of each force with- out the particular quality of each force. But it is that which originates each special force, and that which like- wise causes it to lose its individuality and pass over into another force. The ' persistent force ' is not a special force, like light, heat, etc., for the special forces are in a state of tension against each other, or are merely names for different stages of the same energy. The ' persistent force' is an energy that acts, not on an- other, but only on itself. In all changes and loss of individuality on the part of particular forces the ' per- sistent force' abides the same, continually emerging from its successive disguises under the mask of partic- ular forces. " Persistent force can not, like a special force, act on something else, because it is the totality of all forces. All things are mere equilibria of forces, and hence things, too, are manifestations of the self-activity of ' persistent force.' Thus natural science does not find itself able to avoid thinking self-activity as the ground of things and forces." * " A logical investigation of the principle of ' persist- ent force ' would prove that the principle of Personal Being is presupposed as its true form. Since the ' per- sistent force' is the sole and ultimate reality, it origi- nates all other reality only by self -activity, and thus is * Vol. 17, pp. 338, 339. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 87 self-determined. Self-determination implies self-con- scionsness as the true form of its existence," *) III. — In its conscious independence of the objects of sense-perception, the mind in the plane of abstract ideas freely makes universals from the universals, or concepts, or general objects of memory, or thoughts in the sensuous plane; in doing this the mind not only recognizes these universals, but also at the same time notices the mind's own activity in forming these, and thus in the sphere of the understanding the mind " looks upon the image-making process." This stage of thought considers both the object and its environment. A tree no longer exists in its independence. The transformation of water, air, and earthy materials into oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. is of far greater interest. The difficulty with which these combinations are made and broken up in the laboratory, and the ease with which the tree does this work are plainly evident to this plane of thought. And again, what seemed so stable in the tree is again changed, and a handful of ashes remains in the place of the growing tree. Notwithstanding these changes, this plane of thought sees that the changes have not been 'a process of destruction, but that the elements which before made the tree have as- sumed new forms and that the plant-energy bears a relation to other kinds of energy and correlates with the whole. Reason: Absolute Idea. — "Relativity presupposes self-relation. Self -relation is the category of the reason, * Vol. 14, p. 238. 88 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. just as relativity is the category of the understanding or non-relativity the category of sense-perception. De- pendence implies transference of energy, else how could energy be borrowed ? That which originates energy is independent being. Beflection discovers relativity or dependence, and hence nnites beings into systems. Deepest reflection discovers total systems and the self- determining principles which originate systems of de- pendent being. The reason looks for complete, inde- pendent, or total beings. Hence the reason finds the self-active or its results everywhere. " Sense-perception is atheistic ; it finds each thing sufficient for itself, that is to say, self-existent. The understanding is pantheistic ; it finds everything finite and relative and dependent on an absolute that trans- cends all qualities and attributes — 'an unknown and unknowable ' i persistent force,' which is the negative of all particular forces. The reason is tbeistic because it finds self-activity or self-determination, and identifies these with mind. Mind is self-activity in a perfect form, while life is the same in a less developed stage. Every whole is an independent being, and hence self- determined or self-active. If not self-determined it has no determinations (qualities, marks, or attributes), and, is pure nothing ; or, having determinations, it must origi- nate them itself or else receive them from outside itself. But in case it receives its determinations from outside it is a dependent being. Reason sees this disjunctive syllogism. While Buddhism and Brahmanism are relig- ions of the understanding, Christianity is essentially a religion of the reason and furnishes a sort of universal education for the mind in habits of thinking according MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 89 to reason. It teaches by authority the view- of -the- world that reason thinks." * " The final standpoint of the intellect is that in which it perceives the highest principle to be a self- determining or self-active Being, self-conscious, and creator of a world which manifests him." f " Each step upward in ideas arrives at a more ade- quate idea of the true reality. Force is more real than thing y persistent force than particular forces ; Absolute Person is more real than the force or forces which he creates. This final form of thinking is the only form which is consistent with the theory of education. Each individual should ascend by education into participation — conscious participation — in the life of the species. Institutions — family, society, state, church — all are in- strumentalities by which the humble individual may avail himself of the help of the race, and live over in himself its life. The highest stage of thinking is the stage of insight. It sees the world as explained by the principle of Absolute Person. It finds the world of institutions a world in harmony with such a principle." % III. — The third stage of thought not only renders the other stages possible and sees what can be known in those planes of thought, but has an insight into the nature of the universe as a whole ; and this rational in- sight can not be obtained from the first or second stage of thought. What to the lowest stage of thinking had been " dead results," fixed objects, to the second had been mere " processes," to the third becomes a living * " Illinois School Journal," vol. vii, pp. 443, 444. f Vol. 14, p. 238. % Vol 14, p. 239. 90 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. energy. The nature of change or activity is seen. The ]ife of the tree, the extent of self-activity manifested in the tree — that this life, this self-activity, is an organic energy appearing in the various stages of growth of a single plant, of the species, and of the whole class; that the organic energy differs in its power and mani- festations in plant and in animal life ; and that the or- ganic energy of man shows still another phase of life, in that when the self is not only able to act, but to act upon itself, it becomes self -producing, and then self -ac- tivity becomes true individuality. Therefore, the in- sight into the nature or life of a tree includes not only an insight into the conditions of the existence of the tree, the external phases of growth, the processes, the nature of these processes, the difference between these processes and other organic processes, or the difference between activity of life in its lower phases and the ac- tivity of thought, the nature of thought in its phases of limitation and self-determination, and the nature of Ab- solute Thought or complete self-determination. The Three Stages of Thought. — " It has appeared that each of the three stages of thinking is a view-of-the world, and that it is not a theory of things worn for ornament, so to speak, or only on holidays, but a silent presupposition that tinges all one's thinking. " A person may wear his religion on Sabbath-days and put it off on week-days possibly ; but his view-of- the-world shows itself in all that he does. All things take on a different appearance when viewed by the light of the reason. For reason is insight ; it sees all things in God, as Malebranche expressed it ; for it looks at each thing to discover in it the purpose of the MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 91 whole universe. To see the whole in the part is justly esteemed characteristic of divine intelligence. " The oft-asserted ability of great men of science — that of Cuvier to see the whole animal in a single bone of its skeleton ; that of Lyell to read the history of the glacial period in a pebble ; that of Agassiz to recognize the whole fish by one of its scales ; that of Asa Gray to see all botany in a single plant — these are indications of the arrival at the third stage of knowing on the part of scientific men within their departments. Goethe's 'Homunculus' in the second part of ' ' Faust,' symbol- izes this power of insight which within a limited sphere (its bottle !), is able to recognize the whole in each frag- ment. The spirit of specialization in our time aims to exhaust one by one the provinces of investigation, with a view to acquire this power to see totalities. Plato de- scribed this third stage of thinking as a power of know- ing-by-wholes (totalities). " Learn to comprehend each thing in its entire his- tory. This is the maxim of science guided by the rea- son. Always bear in mind that self-activity is the ulti- mate reality ; all dependent being is a fragment ; the totality is self-active. The things of the world all have their explanation in the manifestation of self-activity in its development. All is for the development of indi- viduality and ultimate free union of souls in the king- dom of God. "To sum up; the lowest thinking activity inven- tories things, but neglects relations ; the middle stage of thinking inventories relations, forces, and processes, and sees things in their essences, but neglects self-relation or totality ; the highest stage of thinking knows that all 92 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. independent being has the form of life or mind, and that the Absolute is a person, and it studies all things to discern traces of the creative energy which is the form of the totality. " The theory of evolution, comprehended as the movement of all things in time and space toward the development of individuality — that is to say, toward a more perfect manifestation or reflection of the Creator, who is above time and space — this theory is (properly understood) the theory of the reason. The theory of gravitation, as a world-view, on the other hand, is that of the understanding." * (" Within philosophy itself arises -a fourth stage. The attention of the mind in its fourth intention is directed not merely to the relation of the ultimate prin- ciple to the world (regarded under the phases of par- ticular and general existences), but to the method by which the relation is traced from one to the other. Each higher intention of the mind has for its object the previous intention of the mind, and its relation to those (if any) preceding it. Thus, the second inten- tion (ordinary generalization) notes the relation between sensuous perceptions by attending to its own activity in perception. The third stage of the mind notes the re- lation of all objects of the mind, whether general (of the second stage) or special (of the first stage) to one principle (of course selected from the objects of second intention), and it does this by attending to its own ac- tivity in the act of second intention. The fourth inten- tion notes the activity of the mind in its third intention, * " Illinois School Journal," vol. vii, pp. 444, 445. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 93 and hence recognizes the form under which the many are related to the one — it notes the method of the phil- osophical system." )* (" The science of formal logic states three laws of thought which correspond to these three stages of con- sciousness, although they may be looked upon as three statements of the same principle. These are the so- called principles of identity, contradiction, and excluded middle. A is A, or an object is self-identical, is the formula for the principle of identity, and it is very clear that it expresses the point of view of the category of being, or of the first stage of consciousness. It ig- nores all distinction, all relation, and hence all environ- ment. " The principle of contradiction states the environ- ment explicitly. Its formula is, Not- A is not identical with A, or it is impossible that the same thing can at once be and not be, or what is contradictory is unthink- able. Here we add in thought to the concept of A its contradictory, not- A. We distinguish them, but make one of them the limit of the other. We moreover as- sert mutual exclusion, hence the finitude of both. Not- A is the formula for the relative or dependent, because it is expressed only in terms of something else, some- thing else limited or negated. Change A, and you change the extent or compass of not- A. In the prin- ciple of identity the finitude of the object is not ex- pressed, but in the principle of contradiction two mutu- ally limiting spheres of being are defined. " The formula for the principle of excluded middle * Vol. 10, p. 230. 94: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. tells us that A either is or is not, or that of two mutual contradictories we can affirm existence of only one. " This principle adds the concept of totality to that of identity and contradiction, and therefore relates to the idea of ground or logical condition, the third stage of consciousness. Looking upon the total sphere, we can reason from the existence or non-existence of a part to the existence or non-existence of the other parts. It is the principle of the disjunctive judgment. The principle of sufficient reason, which is added as a fourth law of thought to the three already named, if admitted to this rank of laws of thought, expresses not only a ground of knowledge, but also a ground of being. It means not only that we must have a ground for af- firming the existence of any being, but that there must be a real ground or reason for the existence of any being. Understood in this sense it is the positive state- ment of the principle by which we cognize the logical condition underlying object and environment. 'Ex- cluded middle ' is the negative statement of this princi- ple, while ' sufficient reason ' is the positive statement of it. The former states that ' either, or ' is true, while the latter states that the one is through the other, or that the totality is one unity. By it we perceive the necessity of causa sui, or self -activity, as the sufficient reason for any causd action whatever. By it we affirm the truth that all being is grounded in energy, or that dynamic existence is the basis of static existence.* u We observe in these principles the importance of the idea of the negative as the basis of the idea of rela- * C. C. Everett's " Science of Thought," p. 236. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 95 tion. We can call the second stage of consciousness the negative stage, because it makes so much of the relative. The environment is the negative of the object, and its formula is not- A. It is of the utmost impor- tance in philosophy to recognize the negative in all forms that it assumes. It is the principle of limit, of speciality and particularity, hence of all distinction and difference ; it is likewise the principle of all contrariety, and hence of essence, force, cause, potentiality, and sub- stance. "What is most wonderful is that it is the prin- ciple of life and thinking, only that in these realms it appears as self -related. It sounds absurd, or at least pedantic, to hear one speak of self-negativity as the principle of mind. But really there is no insight pos- sible into self -activity, and the logical conditions of ex- perience, without some recognition of the self-negative. Self-distinction, as self-negation, is also affirmative, because it is identity as well as distinction. " We must see that the categories of experience and the world are not based on being, or even on essence, but that being and essence are based on this negative process of self-relation, which we recognize as pure energy, causa sui, or personality. This alone is the root of individuality, independence, and freedom. The idea of God is the unfolding of its complete, positive import." *) * Vol. 17, pp. 339-341. 96 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. Section V. — The Syllogism. The Mind Acts in the Modes of Syllogism: Sensuous Ideas use Second Figure, First Figure, Third Figure ; Abstract Ideas use Third Figure, First Figure, Second Figure ; Absolute Idea uses Third Figure. " The Logic of Sense-Perception* — Sense-percep- tion is not a simple act that can be no further analyzed. In its most elementary forms one may readily find the entire structure of reason. The difference between the higher and lower forms of intelligence consists not in the presence or absence of phases of thought, but in the consciousness of them — the whole is present but is not consciously perceived to be present. " Perhaps one will reply to this : i The absence of consciousness is a lack of the essential structure of rea- son with a vengeance.' Let us, however, reassert that the whole structure of reason functions not only in every act of mind, no matter how low in the scale, say even in the animal intelligence — nay, more, in the life of the plant which has not yet reached the plane of intellect — yes, even in the movement of inorganic mat- ter ; in the laws of celestial gravitation there is mani- fested the structural framework of reason. ' The Hand that made us is divine.' The advance of human intel- lect, therefore, consists not in realizing more of the log- ical structure of reason, but in attaining a more adequate consciousness of its entire scope. * This section as far as " Abstract Ideas " is taken from the " Illi- nois School Journal," vol. vii, No. 4, pp. 162-166, No. 5, pp. 213-217, No. 6, pp. 262-267, and "develops some new insight into the nature of sense-perception," which Dr. Harris "has recently discovered after many years' study on the subject." MAX: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 97 " Let us imagine, for illustration, an entire circle, and liken the self-activity to it. (Self-determination is a movement of return to itself like the circle). The low- est form of life is not conscious of the smallest arc of this circle ; but the animal with the smallest amount of sensation is conscious of points or small arcs of it. The lowest human intelligence knows at least half a circle. The discovery of ethical laws, of philosophic principles, of religious truths, gradually brings the remaining arc of the entire circle under the focus of consciousness. " What is more wonderful is this : there are degrees of higher consciousness. The lower consciousness may be a mere feeling or emotion— much smoke and little flame of intellect. There are, in fact, degrees of emo- tional consciousness covering the entire scale. First, the small arcs or points ; next, the half-circle ; finally, the whole. Think of emotions that concern only selfish wants ; next, of emotions that are aesthetic, relating to art ; next, of emotions that are ethical and altruistic ; then, of religious emotions relating to the vision of the whole and perfect. Next above the purely emo- tional (all smoke and no flame of abstract intellect), think of the long course of human history in which man becomes conscious of his nature in more abstract forms, and finally reaches science. The progress is from object to subject, and finally to the method that unites both. We act and then become conscious of our action, and finally see its method. " The entire structure of reason is revealed in logic. Logic is thus a portion, of psychology— it is * rational psychology.' " Let us examine senserperception and see what logi- 10 98 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. cal forms make themselves manifest. Take the most ordinary act of seeing ; what is the operation involved there ? Is it not the recognition of something ? We make out the object first as something in space before us ; then as something limited in space ; then as some- thing colored ; then as something of a definite shape ; and thus on until we recognize in it a definite object of a kind familiar to us. The perception of an object is thus a series of recognitions — a series of acts of predi- cation or judgment : ' This is an object before me in space ; it is colored gray ; it looms through the fog like a tree ; no, it is pointed like a steeple ; I see what looks like a belfry ; I make out the cross on the top of the spire ; I recognize it to be a church spire.' Or, again : ' Something appears in the distance ; it is moving ; it moves its limbs ; it is not a quadruped ; it is a biped ; it is a boy walking this way ; he has a basket on his arm ; it is James.' " First we recognize a sense-impression, and through that impression an object ; then the nature of the ob- ject ; its identities with well-known kinds of objects ; its individual differences from those well-known kinds of objects. But the differences are recognized as iden- tical with well-known kinds of difference. It is the combination of different classes or kinds of attributes that enables us to recognize the individuality of this object. It is like all others and different from all others. "Let us notice what logical forms we have used. First, the act of recognition uses the second figure of the syllogism. The second figure says S is M; P is M ; hence S is P ; or, in the case *>f sense-perception MAN: A SELF-ACTIYE INDIVIDUAL. 99 (a) this object (the logical subject) has a cross on the summit of its spire — or is a cross-crowned spire ; (b) church spires are cross- crowned ; (c) hence this object is a church spire. " We notice that the syllogism is not necessarily true. It may be true, but it is not logically certain to be true. This uncertainty attaches to sense-perception. Its first act is to recognize, and this takes place in the second figure of the syllogism which has " valid modes " (or necessary conclusions) only in the negative. But sense- perception uses in-valid modes, i. e., syllogisms which do not furnish correct inferences. Sense-perception, using a valid mode of the second figure (the mode called ' Camestres '), might have said : " This object is cross-crowned. " No natural tree is cross-crowned. " Hence this object can not be a natural tree. " (S is M ; no P is M ; hence S is not P.) " The structure of reason as revealed in logic shows us always universal, particular, and individual ideas united in the form of inference or a syllogism. " Grammar shows us the logical structure of lan- guage. Language is the instrument of, and reveals the structure of reason. Grammar finds that all speech has the form of a judgment. A is B — something is some- thing. All sense-perception is a recognition of this sort : Something (an object before me) is something (an attri- bute or class which I have known before). But this recognition takes place through some common mark or property that belongs to the object and to the well- known class — this mark or property being the middle term. Hence the judgment is grounded on other judg- 100 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. ments, and the whole act of sense-perception is a syl- logism. The mind acts in the form of a syllogism, but is dimly conscious or quite unconscious of the form in which it acts when it is engaged in sense-perception. I perceive that this is a church steeple. But I do not re- flect on the form of mental activity by which I have recognized it. If asked ' How do you know that it is a church steeple?' then I elevate into consciousness some of the steps of the process and say, ' Because I saw its cross-crowned summit.' This implies the syllo- gism in the second figure : (a) Church spires have cross- crowned summits ; (b) this object has a cross-crowned summit ; (c) hence it is a church spire. But this is not a necessary conclusion — it is not a ' valid mode ' of the second figure. The mind knows this, but is not con- scious of it at the time. An objection may be raised which will at once draw into consciousness a valid mode. Let it be objected, 'The object that you see is a monument in the cemetery.' The reply is, ' Monu- ments do not have belfries, but this object has a bel- fry.' Here sense-perception has noted a further attri- bute — the belfry. Its conclusion is simply negative : * It is not a monument, because it has a belfry,' and it concludes this in a ' valid mode ' of the second figure. (a) No monuments have belfries ; (b) this object has a belfry ; (c) hence it is not a monument. If the prem- ises (a and b) are correct, the conclusion necessarily fol- lows. " In the first act of recognition the second figure is used. The characteristic of the second figure is this : Its middle term is the predicate in both propositions (the major proposition or premise, and the minor prop- MAN: A SELF-ACTIYE INDIVIDUAL. 101 osition or premise). There are four ' modes' in this figure which are valid ; that is to say, four modes in which necessary truth may be inferred. The conclu- sions of these are all negative, and run as follows : " 1. No S is P (this is the 'mode ' called ' Cesare') : (a) no P is M, (b) all S is M, (c) hence no S is P ; or, (a) all P is M, (b) no S is M, (c) hence no S is P. "2. Some S is not P (this is the 'mode' called 'Festino'): (a) no P is M, (b) some S is M, (c) hence some S is not P ; or, (the 'mode' called 'Bar- oco '), (a) all P is M, (b) some S is not M, (c) hence some S is not P.* " In the first figure the middle term is subject of the major premise and predicate of the minor premise, thus : (a) M is P ; (b) S is M ; (c)hence S is P.f " In the second figure (as already shown) the middle term is the predicate of both premises, thus : (a) P is M ; (b) S is M ; (c) hence S is P. " In the third figure the middle term is the subject * " Let the reader not familiar with logic who desires to learn more of it than is explained here read the first eight chapters of Aristotle's ' Prior Analytics,' and he will see the subject as presented by its first discoverer. Or, any ordinary compend of logic will give the essential details. For this psychological purpose note in partic- ular the nature of the three figures which are distinguished by the way in which they employ the middle term (the term which unites or divides the subject and predicate of the conclusion)." f " S is used to denote the word subject ; M to denote the word middle (term) ; P is used to denote the word predicate. S and P are respectively subject and predicate of the proposition that ex- presses the conclusion or inference. M is the middle term that brings together S and P, as it is subject or predicate to either term. S and P are called ' terms,' and the two first propositions are called, respectively, 'major' and 'minor' premise." 102 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. of both premises, thus : (a) M is P ; (d) M is S ; (c) hence S is P. " In tikie first figure we unite the subject (S) to the predicate (P) because of a middle term (M) that contains the subject, but which is itself contained in the predi- cate : All men are mortal ; Socrates is a man ; hence Socrates is mortal. Here man is the middle term (M) which contains Socrates, the subject (S), and is con- tained in the more general class of mortal beings, the predicate (P). " In the second figure we unite the subject to the predicate, because of a middle term that includes both ; that is to say, is predicate of both (because the predicate includes its subject). All men are language-using beings ; no monkeys are language-using beings ; hence no monkeys are men. Here monkeys are discriminated from men by the middle term, ' language-using,' which includes all men and excludes all monkeys. " In the third figure we unite the subject to the predicate because of a middle term which is included in both, i. e., is subject of both (because the subject is included in the predicate). All men are animals ; all men are rational ; hence some animals are rational. Here animals (the subject) is united with rational (the predicate) through the middle term, man. " We have now called attention to the use of the second figure as the primary form of sense-perception. We shall next show how the first figure comes to the aid of the second figure in perceiving. "How Sense- Perception uses the First Figure of the Syllogism- to re-enforce its First Act, which takes place in the Second Figure. — We have asserted that sense- MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 103 perception uses the second figure of the syllogism in its first act. The proof of this may be found in the fact that the object can not be perceived except in so far as it is recognized or identified. Identification takes place in the second figure of the syllogism. Before one can notice the differences of a thing one must identify it as an object. And he must identify it as a sensation before he can identify the sensation as a sensation of an object. One may not be able to take account of differences, ex- cept in so far as he has a basis of identity as a ground to go upon. The primary form of seizing the object — the form of 'presentation,' as certain psychologists call it — is that of the second figure. But immediately after its presentation in the second figure begins the activity of the first figure. " JSTo sooner have I recognized and classified the ob- ject by one of its marks than I begin to look after the other marks which I have learned in my previous expe- rience to belong to objects of its class. I recognize the object to be a church steeple by its cross-crowned sum- mit, and begin at once to look for other characteristics of a church steeple, such as a belfry, for example. I also look for the well-known outlines of a spire, for the roof of the church to which it is united, and so on. " If the first step of the process of sense-perception is in the form of the second figure, the second step is in the form of the first figure. By the second figure I have identified the object as a church spire. To classify is to refer the new object to what is well known. It is possible now to re-enforce the present perception by bringing to it all the stored-up treasures of experience. I begin at once to draw out of the treasure house of the 104: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. general class a series of inferences : If it is a church spire it is likely to have a belfry — possibly a clock, a steep slope above, shingled with slate or wood, joined below to the body of the cbnrch at the ridge of the roof or else at the corner of the edifice, etc. Hence I look again and again ; being now helped by my previous experience, I collect much information in a very short interval of time. The form of this second activity in the first figure is (a) M is P ; (h) S is M ; (c) S is P. " 'This object is a church steeple' is the conclusion of the second figure or first act of perception. Then by the first figure I conclude : (some) church steeples have belfrys ; this is a church steeple ; hence it has (or may have) a belfry. " And I continue to look for characteristics which the first figure infers to be present in a steeple. I see a dark opening at the bottom of the steeple and I infer the existence of a belfry by the second figure, thus : (a) belfries have the appearances of a dark opening at the base of the steeple ; (b) this object has that appearance ; (c) hence it is a belfry. " Thus to and fro moves the syllogizing without com- ing to consciousness. The mind acts without reflecting on the form of its acts. The classification of the object being effected by the second figure, I go on to infer by the first figure what I may expect to find there, namely, a bell, and I look for it and see a portion of a wheel in the dark opening. I infer a bell from this. The steps are very complex ; I recognized the wheel by some char- acteristic appearance that belongs to a wheel. Thus we have a series of middle terms, each one of which has been used first as predicate in a syllogism of the sec- MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 1Q5 ond figure and then as middle term in one of the first figure. "The modes of the syllogism ordinarily used by sense-perception are not the so-called valid modes. That is, they deduce only possible or probable knowledge at best. The cross-crowned object may be something else thau a steeple ; the dark space below may be something else than a belfry ; the wheel may be there with no bell attached to the axle ; the axle may not be there ; the appearance of the wheel may be deceptive. Sense-per- ception abounds in deception. The second figure, of identification, is corrected by the use of the first figure, of deduction, which offers a number of additional marks for verification. By verification we decrease the possibil- ity of error by the law of probabilities. Every addition- al mark verified increases the probability immensely. " The first figure acts in very subtle ways in the first stages of a given observation. I look out through the fog in a given direction and see some object so dimly that I should not be able to say what it is. But I know where I am and that in the direction where I am look- ing there is a village. In a village church steeples are wont to be seen, and hence I am led to expect that the most prominent object will be such a steeple. Here the first figure acts to suggest what I may expect to see. It acts in a not-valid mood, thus : (a) Some villages have churches with steeples ; (b) this is a village ; (c) it has (or may have) a steeple. And, again (second figure) : (a) Steeples are prominent objects ; (h) you behold a prominent object ; ( or the Beason. Eational Insight knows : Causality, Self-cause^— Space, Time — Quality, Quantity — Change, Self-activity — Life, Individuality, Absolute Per- sonality — Absolute Thought ; manifested in T^ruth, Beauty, Goodness. " Space and time have been considered as the pre- suppositions or preconditions in all experience. Three grades of knowing have been found by analyzing expe- rience. First, there was knowledge of the object ; sec- ond, of the environment ; and, third 1 , of the ground or logical condition, which rendered the object and its en- vironment possible. There was the thing in space ; 126 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. second, its relation to an environment of tilings in space ; and third, there was space. There was likewise the event, and its environment of antecedent and sub- sequent events ; and then the underlying logical condi- tion of time." * " Philosophy, as a higher, special form of reflection, investigates the presuppositions or logical conditions of the objects and environments of our experience and makes the third stage of experience clear and distinct — far more clear and distinct than the first or second stages, because they relate to contingent and changeable objects, while the insight into the unchanging nature of time and space sees the necessary and universal condi- tions of the existence of all phenomena. The third ele- ment of experience, which furnishes these logical con- ditions is the basis of universal, necessary, and exhaustive cognitions. " The most rudimentary form of human experience, as it is to be found in the case of the child or the sav- age, contains these logical presuppostions, although not as a distinct object of attention. Even the lowest human consciousness contains all the elements which the philosopher, by special attention, develops and sys- temizes into a body of absolute truth. " Every act of experience contains within it not only a knowledge of what is limited and definite, but also a cognition of the total possible, or the exhaustive condi- tions implied or presupposed by the finite object. Hence those vast ideas which we name world, nature, universe, eternity, and the like, instead of being mere * Vol. 17, p. 300. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 127 artificial ideas, or ( factitious ' ideas, as they have been called, are positive and adequate ideas in so far as they relate to the general structure of the whole. We know, or may know, the logical conditions of the existence of the world far better than we know its details. " All our genera] ideas, all our concepts, with which we group together the multitude of phenomena and cognize them, arise from this third stage of experience. It is the partial consciousness of the logical conditions of phenomena which enters as conditions of our expe- rience that enables us to rise out of the details of the world and grasp them together, and preserve them in bundles or unities, which we know as classes, species, genera, processes, and relations. These classes and processes we name by words. Language is impossible to an animal that can not analyze the complex of his experience so far as to become to some degree con- scious of the third element in his experience — the a priori element of logical conditions. " Another most important point to notice is that these a priori conditions of experience are both subjective and objective — both conditions of experience, and likewise conditions of the existence of phenomena. The due consideration of this astonishing fact leads us to see that, whatever be the things and processes of the world, we know that mind as revealed in its a priori nature is related to the world as the condition of its existence. All conscious beings in the possession of the conditions of experience— in being rational, in short — participate in the principle that gives existence to the world, and that principle is reason. Time and space condition the existence of the world; time and space we find a 128 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. priori in the constitution of mind or reason. This sur- prising insight, which comes upon us as we consider time and and space, is confirmed by all our philosophi- cal studies. In our study of causality, we find confir- mation of this insight." * Causality and Self- Cause. — "Without using the idea of causality the mind can not recognize itself as the producer of its deeds, nor can it recognize anything objectively existing as the producer of its sense impres- sions. All sense-impressions are mere feelings and are subjective. How do we ever come to recognize objects as the causes of our sense-impressions? We can see that it is impossible for us to derive the idea of cause from experience, because we have to use that idea in order to begin experience. The perception of the ob- jective is possible only by the act of passing beyond our subjective sensations and referring them to external objects as causes of them. Whether I refer the cause of my sensations to objects and thereby perceive, or whether I trace the impressions to my own organism and detect an illusion of my senses in place of a real perception — in both cases I use the idea of causality. The object is a cause, or else I am the sole cause. " ' When we are aware of something that begins to be, we are, by the necessity of our intelligence, con- strained to believe that it has a cause,' says Sir William Hamilton. The idea of causality contains the idea of energy or self -activity (or self-determination), we should say, and it is not a mere impotence of the mind, but a positive idea that reveals to us, more than any other, * Vol. 17, pp. 301, 302. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 129 the transcendence of mind. Hamilton (Metaph., pp. 533, 555) refers causality to \ a negative impotence ' of the mind. * We can not conceive any new existence to commence ; therefore all that now is seen to arise under a new appearance had previously an existence under a prior form.' This is his analysis of causality : What exists now must have existed somehow T before. ' There is conceived an absolute tautology between the effect and its cause. . . . We necessarily deny in thought that the object which appears to begin to be really so begins, and we necessarily identify its present with its past ex- istence.' Here we see the defect of Hamilton's analy- sis. He eliminates the idea of cause altogether, and has left only one of its factors — that of continuity or con- tinuous existence. The element of difference or dis- tinction is omitted and ignored. (Hume reduced the idea of cause to that of invariable sequence.) " In our idea of causality we conceive something as producing something different from itself, or as origi- nating a distinction, a difference. Change involves the origination of something new, something that did not exist before. This is one of its elements. On the other hand, causality involves the identification of this new determination with what existed before. But this is not all. The difference and identity are united in a deeper idea — the idea of cause contains the unity of difference and identity in a deeper idea, the idea of en- ergy. Energy is deeper than existence because it is the originator of existence. We think the cause as an en- ergy that gives rise to changes. It gives rise to new distinctions and differences — something, through the action of a cause, becomes different from what it was 130 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. before. The action of the energy is the essential ele- ment in the idea of cause, and Hamilton's analysis omits just this, and reduces the idea of an activity to a se- quence of existences. " Experience would be utterly impossible with such an idea as Hamilton's or Hume's in place of the causal idea. We should say, as Hamilton does say, in fact, ex nihilo nihil ; that is to say, there can be no origination, but only a persistence of being. " The idea of causality involves this : An existence which is an energy shall by its activity originate a dis- tinction within itself, and by the same activity transfer this distinction to something else, thus producing a change. " A cause sends a stream of influence to an effect. It must, therefore, separate this stream from itself. Self-separation is, therefore, the fundamental idea in causality. Unless the cause is a self-separating energy it can not be conceived as acting on something else. The action of causality is based on self-activity. " The attempt to form a mental image of causality is futile. We can imagine existences, but not the origi- nation of them. We can not imagine time and space as we conceive them. We can not imagine causality as we conceive and think it. " It is, in fact, the most repugnant idea to a mind that clings to mental pictures as the only form of think- ing. Such a mind fails to discriminate clearly between efficient cause and transmitting links or agents. By doing this it produces an infinite regress of causes which are at the same time effects. In this way it suc- ceeds in losing the idea of efficient cause altogether. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 131 (This is done in the third antinomy of Kant's < Critique of Pure Reason.') For example: a change, A, is caused by B, another change ; B is caused by C, a third change ; C by D ; and D by E, and so on, ad infini- ■tum. Here we have a change A, which, being an effect, must have a cause. We look first for the cause in B, but, upon examination, we see that B is only a trans- mitter of the cause — it is an instrument or agent through which the causal energy passes on its way from beyond. We successively trace it through C, D, E, etc. The imagination says, ' so on forever.' This, of course, means that a true cause is not to be found at all in the series. But if this is so, it follows, likewise, that there are no effects in the series, for there is no effect without a cause. Here we see that there is a fallacy in the idea of infinite progress (or regress) in causes. The infinite regress can not be in the cause, but in the effect. For A, B, C, D, E, etc., are all effects. But just as sure as we see that these are effects, so sure are we that there is an efficient cause to produce them. The infinite series of links or transmitting members of the series change by reason of the activity of a true cause. If any one denies this, he denies that the changes are effects. " To deny that a change is an effect does not escape the law of causality, but it asserts that the change is self-caused or spontaneous. But this is only to come to the same result that one finds if he asserts that the change is caused by something else. " A real cause is an originator of changes or new forms of existence. It is not something that demands another cause behind it, for it is self -active. The chain 132 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. of relativity ends in a true cause and can not be con- ceived without it. " The true cause is an absolute, inasmuch as it is independent. That which receives its form from another is dependent and relative. That which is self- active or a true cause, gives form to itself or to others, and is itself independent of others. That which can supply itself does not need others to supply it. " Our idea of cause, therefore, is the nucleus of our idea of an absolute. It is the basis of our idea of free- dom, of moral responsibility, of self-hood, of immor- tality, and, finally, of God. " All things that exist owe their qualities, marks, and attributes either to causes outside themselves or to their own causality. If the former — that is, if they are what they are through others — they are dependent beings, and can not be free or responsible or immortal. If the latter — if they are what they are through their own causality — they are free and morally responsible, immortal selves, and they are in the image of God, the Creator of all things, who has endowed them with causal energy, that is to say, with the power to build themselves, and he has not built them or furnished them ready-made. The causal existence may be perfect as God, or it may be partially realized and partially po- tential, as in the case of man. (' Partially potential ' — that is to say, man has not fully realized himself, al- though he has the power thus to realize himself.) " The idea of a whole or complete being is realized in our minds solely through the idea of cause. Any dependent being is relative to another and involved with it, so that it can not be detached from it and exist MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 133 by itself. It is no center of formation and transforma- tion. " Our idea of life or living being also lias this cansal idea as its basis. " When one does not confound the idea of causality with the application of it to this or that case, but looks in the face of it, and sees the absolute certainty which he possesses that there can be no change without an efficient cause — and the like certainty that the true cause is an originator of movement and of new forms — when he sees that experience can not furnish the idea because it can not begin without it, and because the ex- ternal senses can never perceive a true cause at all — he will see how important this investigation is in psy- chology." * Space and Time. — "Previous to the formation of general ideas, sense-perception is merely the ceaseless flow of individual impressions without observed connec- tion with one another. In fact, we do not perceive at all, strictly speaking, until we bring general ideas to the aid of our sense-impressions. For we do not perceive things except by combining our different sense-impres- sions — that is to say, by uniting them by means of the ideas of time, space, and causality. " These three ideas are not derived from experience — in other words, they are not externally perceived as objects, or learned by contact with them as individual examples. "We know that this is so by considering their nature, and especially by noting that they are necessary as conditions for each and every act of experience. We * " Illinois School Journal," vol viii, pp. 57-60, October, 1888. 13 134: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. do not mean, of course, that we must be conscious of these ideas of time, space, and causality before any act of experience ; nor would we deny that we become con- scious of those ideas by analyzing experience — what we deny is that they were furnished by sense-impressions ; what we affirm is that they were furnished by the mind in its unconscious acts of appropriating the sense-impres- sions and converting them into perception. The mind's self-activity is the source of such ideas. " We find these ideas in experience, but as furnished by the self-activity of the mind itself, and not as derived from sense-impressions. We may each and all convince ourselves of the impossibility of deriving these ideas from sense-impressions by giving attention to the pecul- iar nature of these ideas. We shall see, in fact, that no act of experience can be completed without these ideas. Immanuel Kant called them 'forms of the mind' — they may be said to belong to the constitution of the mind itself because it uses these ideas in the first act of experience, and in all acts of experience. " Why could not these ideas be furnished by experi- ence like ideas of trees and animals, of earth and sky ? The answer is : Because the ideas of time and space in- volve infinitude, and the idea of causality involves abso- luteness ; and neither of these ideas could by any pos- sibility be received through the senses. And it is not correct to say that we derive even ideas of trees and animals, earth and sky, from sense-impressions, because sense-impressions can not become ideas until they are thought under the forms of time, space, and causality. Before this they are merely sensations ; after this they are ideas of possible or real objects existing in the world. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 135 " Let the psychologist who believes that all ideas are derived from sense-impressions explain how we conld receive by such means the idea of what is infinite and absolute. Is not any sense-perception limited to what is here and now \ How can we perceive by the senses what is everywhere and eternal ? " The materialist will answer, perhaps : "We can not, it is true, perceive what is infinite and eternal by means of the senses ; nor can we conceive or think such ideas by any means whatever. In fact, we do not have such ideas. Time and space and causality do not imply con- ceptions of infinitude or absoluteness. All supposed conceptions of the infinite and absolute are merely negative ideas, which express our incapacity to conceive the infinite rather than our positive comprehension of it. " The issue being fairly presented we may test the matter for ourselves. Do we think space to be infinite, or simply as indefinite ? Do we not think space as hav- ing such a nature that it can only be limited by itself ? In other words, would not any limited space or spaces imply space beyond them and thus be continued rather than limited ? Let any one try this thought and see if he does not find it necessary to think space as infinite, for the very reason that all spatial limitation implies space beyond the limit. Space, as such, can not be limited — the limitation must belong always to that which is within space. An attempt to conceive space itself as limited results in thinking the limited space as within a larger space. Space is of such a nature that it can only be thought as self-continuous, for its very limitations continue it. A limited portion of space is bounded 136 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. only by another space. The limited portion of space is continuous with its environment of space. " This is a positive idea, and not a negative one. The idea would be a negative idea if our thinking of it could not transcend the limit — that is to say, if we could not think space beyond the limit. But as our thought of space is not thus conditioned (we are, in fact, obliged to think a continuous space under all spatial limitations) space is a positive or affirmative idea. We see that the mind thinks a positive infinite space under any idea of a thing extended in space. " Let us state this in another way : We perceive or think things as having environments — each thing as being related to something else or to other things sur- rounding it. This is the thought of relativity. But we think both things and environments as contained in pure space — and pure space is not limited or finite, because all limitation implies space beyond. " The difficulty in this psychological question arises through a confusion of imagination with conception or thinking. While we conceive infinite space positively, and are unable to think space otherwise than infinite or self-continued — yet, on the other hand, we can not image, or envisage, or form a mental picture of infinite space. This inability to imagine infinite space has been supposed by Sir William Hamilton (see his ' Lectures on Metaphysics,' page 527 of the American edition) to contradict our thought of infinite space. His doctrine was adopted by Mansell and Lewes, and also by Herbert Spencer, who made it the foundation thought of his i unknowable ' (' First Principles,' Part I, chap. i). "Now, a little reflection (and introspection) will MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 137 convince us that this incapacity of imagination to pict- ure infinite space is not a proof that we can not conceive or think that idea, but the contrary. Our incapacity to imagine infinite space is another proof of the infinitude of space ! " When we form a mental picture of space, why do we know that that picture does not represent all space ? Simply because we are conscious that our thought of the mental picture finds boundaries to that picture, and that these boundaries imply space beyond them ; hence the limited picture (and all images and pictures must be limited) includes a portion of space, but not all of space. Thus it is our thought of space as infinite, or self-con- tinued, that makes us conscious of the inadequacy of the mental picture. If we could form a mental picture of all space, then it would follow of necessity that the whole of space is finite. In that case imagination would contradict thinking or conceiving. As it is, however, imagination confirms conception. Thinking says that space is infinite because it is of such a nature that all limitations posit space beyond them, and thus only con- tinue space instead of bound it. Imagination tries to picture space as a limited whole, but finds it impossible because all its limitations fall within space, and do not include, space as a bounded whole. Thus both mental operations agree. The one is a negative confirmation of the other. Thinking reason sees positively that space is infinite, while imagination sees that it can not be imaged as finite. "Time is also infinite. Any beginning presupposes a time previous to it. Posit a beginning to time itself and we merely posit a time previous to time itself. 138 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY* OF PHILOSOPHY. Time can be limited by time only. The now is limited by time past and by time future ; no, it is not correct to say that it is limited, for it is continued by them. Time did not begin ; nor will it end. " But one can not perceive an event without think- ing it under the idea of time. No sensation that man may have had could be construed as a change or event happening in the world except by the idea of time. But it is impossible to derive the idea of time, such as we have it from sense impressions, for any one, or any series of such impressions could not furnish an infinite time nor the idea of a necessary condition. " Nor could the experience of any limited extension give us the idea of infinite space or of the necessity of space as a condition of that experience." * Causality conditions Space and lime. — "The principle of causality is so deep a logical condition of experience that it conditions even space and time them- selves. For the externality of the parts of space or the moments of time are conditioned upon mutual exclusion. Each now excludes all other nows, and is excluded by them. Each part of space excludes all other parts of space, and is excluded by them. Any portion of space is composed of parts of space, and it is the mutual exclu- sion of these parts that produces and measures the in- cluding whole. Suppose, for instance, that one of the parts of space allowed another part to become identical with it, penetrate it, and did not exclude it ; then, at once, the portion of space to which these two parts belonged would shrink by just that amount of space, * " Illinois School Journal," vol. viii, pp. 7-11. MAN: A SELF-ACTIVE INDIVIDUAL. 139 which had admitted the other. The portion of space and all portions of space, are what they are through this exclusion, aud this exclusion is a pure form of causal- ity, or an utterance of influence upon an environment. Time itself is another example of the same exclusion. The present excludes the past, and is excluded by it. Both present and past exclude the future, and are ex- cluded by it. Suppose one of these to include the other, then time is destroyed ; but, as time is the condition of all manifestation and expression, the thought of such mutual inclusion of moments of time is impossible. The same implication of causality is found in time as in space." * " The true infinite is freedom. An infinite is de- fined as that which is its own other or environment. But if this separation of self from environment is static or passive, the unity is imperfect, and must be supple- mented by another. Space is supplemented by time, because its unity is imperfect, a unity in kind, or spe- cies, of all parts of space, but not a unity of energy in which each part is the whole. " In freedom the self is its own other or environ- ment, infinitely continued or affirmed by itself. Its other, too, is activity or energy, and is free, and hence infinite. Therefore it exists for itself. But a part of space, although continued by its environment, exists not for itself, but for the unity of all space, which alone is infinite. Space is infinite, but it does not consist of parts that are also self-existent and infinite. Hence the unity of all space is not perfect, as before stated." f * Vol. 17, pp. 303, 304. f ™- *?, P- 341. 140 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. " The skepticism in vogue, called ' agnosticism,' rests on the denial of the capacity of the mind to conceive the infinite ; and, strange to say, this very example of the infinite, which we find in space and time, is brought forward to support the doctrine. . 'I can conceive only finite spaces and times, but not space or time as a whole, because as wholes they contain all finite spaces and times.' But agnosticism bases its very doctrine on a true knowledge of the infinity of time and space. For, unless it knew that the environing space was ne- cessarily a repetition of the same space over and over again forever, how could it affirm the impossibility of completing it by successive additions of the environ- ment to the limited space. It says, in effect : ' We can not know space, because (we know that) its nature im- plies infinite extent, and can not be reached by succes- sive syntheses.' " * " The attitude of modern science against philosophy — the attitude of positivism against metaphysics — the attitude of mysticism and * theosophy ' against Christian- ity — in short, all agnosticism and pantheism branches out at the point treated in this chapter (' Space and Time'). Most of it starts professedly from Sir William Hamilton's supposed proof that the idea of the infinite is merely a negative idea — an incapacity instead of a real insight. From the psychological doctrine of the negativity of our ideas of the infinite and absolute (first applied by Hamilton in his famous critique of Cousin) it is easy to establish the world- view of pantheism, and to deny the doctrine of the personality of God." f * Vol. 17, p. 300. f " Illinois School Journal," vol. viii, p. 11. MAN: A SELF-ACTIYE INDIVIDUAL. 141 Quality and Quantity.—" The general form under which we behold objects in sense-perception is that of thing and environment. This is called the category of quality. To the question that asks what kind, or after the qualities, we answer by describing the difference of the thing from its environment. We mention its bound- aries, its contrasts, and its reciprocal relations. In the category of quality there is (a) affirmation (of the thing), (b) negation (of the environment), and (