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AUTHOR: 
 
 HODGSON, SHADWORTH 
 H O L L W A Y 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 INTER-RELATION OF THE 
 
 ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DA TE : 
 
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 Hodgson, Shadworth Hollway, 1832-1912 . 
 
 Inter-relation of the academical sciences, by Shad- 
 worth H. Hodgson ... <From the Proceedings oft^^ 
 British academy, vol. ii> London, Pub. for the British 
 academy by H. Frowde [1906] 
 
 cover-title, 16 p. 241-. 
 
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 THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Inter-Relation 
 Of the Academical Sciences 
 
 By 
 
 « 
 
 Shadworth H- Hodgson 
 
 Fellow of the Academy 
 
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 IFroni the Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol II} 
 
 i 
 
 London 
 
 Published for the British Academy 
 By Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press Warehouse 
 
 Amen Corner, E.G. 
 
 Price One Shilliri^ net 
 

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 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL 
 
 
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 Read March 14, 1906 
 I. 
 
 My aim in the paper which I now have the honour of reading 
 
 before this meeting of the Academy is to contribute in some measure, 
 however slight, to the furtherance of what I take to be the main 
 
 purpose for which we exist as an Academy, which is our special 
 justification as an Academy, and not merely one among the learned 
 Societies which for various purposes exist around us, the purpose 
 namely of bringing the various mental and moral sciences into 
 
 co-operation, and rendering their results more readily accessible to 
 
 one another than they would otherwise be; these sciences being 
 
 those which find their object-matter in some branch of human 
 activity, that is, in what men consciously feel and think and are and 
 do, just as the positive physical sciences find the object of their study 
 in Matter and physical energies of every kind. 
 
 It is thus what may be called the internal organization of the 
 Academical Sciences that I have in view in the present paper. Our 
 
 President, in his Address delivered at our first Annual General 
 
 Meeting, on June 26, 1903, has repeatedly and emphatically insisted 
 
 on the corporate organization of the students of these sciences as the 
 great purpose of the Academy ; and has well shown its necessity and 
 described its advantages. To what he has so admirably said on these 
 points I have nothing to add. It is rather to the relation of the 
 sciences themselves to one another, that is, their internal organization 
 as a body of knowledge, that I propose to address myself. Here 
 perhaps there is room for some further observations. For I think 
 that, unless we were distinctly agreed upon the common ground which 
 
 the four Sections of the Academy alike occupy, and which constitutes 
 
 the nexus between them, by the knowledge of it being perceived as 
 the ulterior End which all alike, as sciences of practice, have in view, 
 
 H 
 
2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 our four Sections would still be little more than a bundle of learned 
 
 Societies accidentally associated, and not, strictly speaking, an organic 
 
 unity. But in beginning as an Academy, which, whatever else it 
 may be, is at any rate a Society for the intercommunication of ideas 
 between the students of different subjects, rather than for the study 
 of any subject or group of subjects separately, we have begun as an 
 organic unity, and our division into Sections is the beginning of our 
 
 organization as an unity ; it remains to bring the nature and basis of 
 
 that unity and of that organization into distinct consciousness. 
 
 Of course this does not involve the idea that a specialist in any 
 one Section or Sub-section should become a specialist in any other, 
 
 though, where any member is a member of more than one, it is 
 doubtless a circumstance to be welcomed. The work of each Section 
 must always be done by those who are specialists in that Section. A 
 
 specialist's knowledge of its subject-matter is not to be expected of 
 the members of the other Sections. The organization of which I 
 
 speak consists, first, in the recognition, by specialists in all the 
 Sections, of the ulterior end to which their special science is sub- 
 ordinate, to the attainment of which it is a contributory, and secondly 
 in the readiness with which the best that is being thought and 
 
 known in any Section can be brought within reach of workers in any 
 other Section. 
 
 The first question, then, to be entertained and answered, in 
 
 justification of our title of an Academy, is this, — in what does this 
 common ulterior End, which is also the neanis and common basis of 
 
 all our Sections, consist ? It must be something which differentiates 
 the purposes of all alike from the purposes of the group of simply 
 natural and positive sciences which are directed to the discovery of 
 the de facto laws of physical nature, increasing by that discovery the 
 
 wealth of speculative knowledge, and the command which man has 
 
 of physical agencies for the supply of his wants and for the effectua- 
 tion of his purposes, whatever these may be. The discovery of the 
 
 de facto laws of physical nature is thus the differentia of positive 
 science, the End which specially characterizes it ; we describe these 
 phenomena and their laws in terms of matter, ether, motion, force, 
 and energy, mechanical, chemical, magnetic, electrical, and so forth ; 
 and we abstract from the circumstance, that our knowledge or 
 
 surmise of these energies, these phenomena, and their laws, consists of 
 
 consciousness, or that consciousness is our only evidence for them, 
 
 either for their nature or for their existence. That fact goes without 
 saying, and is hardly ever adverted to. Of course I am not forgetting 
 
 the constant use made of what is known as the ' personal equation ' 
 
 ( 
 
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 i- 
 
 
 t 
 
 M 
 
 V 
 
 2 
 
 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 3 
 
 in the observation of physical phenomena. But this is no objection 
 or exception to the foregoing statement. In taking account of the 
 
 ' personal equation ' the observer himself is thought of as an instru- 
 ment, an object of observation in just the same sense as the objects 
 
 which he observes. The idea that his consciousness is his only 
 evidence for his own existence does not, or at least need not, occur 
 to him. 
 
 But when we come to phenomena in thinking of which we can no 
 longer make abstraction from modes or forms of consciousness, seeing 
 that these are involved in the thought of the phenomena themselves, 
 
 which is the case whenever we think of a desire, or of an interest, or 
 of a purpose of any kind, or compare different Ends or purposes 
 
 together in respect of their preferability or value, real or apparent, 
 
 notwithstanding that the purpose or end itself may be described 
 simply as some change to be wrought in physical matter ; — as, for 
 
 instance, when a flint arrow-head, or a piece of pottery, unearthed 
 from a grave-mound, derives its present interest for the archaeologist 
 simply from the fact that it has, ages ago, supplied the felt needs, 
 interests, or purposes of conscious beings, and from the light which it 
 thereby throws upon their habits and attainments ;--and since at the 
 
 same time we have no immediate knowledge of the agency which is 
 immediately concerned in supporting those modes or forms of con- 
 sciousness ; — then we inevitably find our point of view changed from 
 what it was in the field of physical science ; we adopt consciousness 
 as our point of view, instead of abstracting from it ; and we include 
 in the thought and term consciotisness the immediate agent or 
 agency which supports it, but of which we have no immediate know- 
 ledge, calling the two taken together by the various names of I, Ego, 
 Soul, Mind, or Self, and leaving open thereby problems of the 
 
 greatest difficulty for Psychology to investigate, namely, in the first 
 place that of the nature of the connexion between consciousness and 
 the agent or agency immediately concerned in supporting it, and 
 
 secondly that of the connexion between either consciousness or its 
 immediately supporting agency and the other agencies at work in the 
 
 living physical organism, which are the objects studied in biology 
 and physiology. 
 
 The position of Psychology is thus unique among the sciences ; it 
 has a double character ; it takes up the thread of investigation at the 
 
 point where it is dropped by the positive physical sciences ; it is 
 
 itself both a positive, speculative, physical science, so far as it is 
 
 based on biological and physiological knowledge, and it is a 
 
 philosophical and Academical science, so far as it is based on 
 
 339?.h2 
 
 ui 
 
[ 
 
 4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 the phenomena of consciousness, and uses terms of consciousness in 
 
 describing and investigating them. It is that science of the second 
 group which connects the second group with the first. The conscious 
 
 organism as the seat of individual consciousness, and the agent con- 
 cerned in effectuating conscious purposes, is that which we have before 
 us in all departments of this second or Academical group of sciences, 
 
 however the problems mentioned above may finally be answered by 
 Psychology as a special member of the group. Man, in short, and 
 his conscious activities in every direction, and the relations of men 
 with men, and with other conscious beings, are the object-matter of 
 this second group of sciences ; and the differentia of the group as 
 
 a whole consists in its taking consciousness as the point of view from 
 which it distinguishes, compares, and passes judgement on those 
 various activities, and on the character and ability of the actors. 
 
 The question, then, which was proposed at starting, as to the 
 ulterior End which all our Sections have before them, can now be 
 
 answered. It is the harmonizing and organizing into a system the 
 
 knowledge obtained, in each Section and Sub-section, of those con- 
 scious activities which are its special province, and that again with 
 the still further purpose (inasmuch as all knowledge has some prac- 
 tical use as its end) of harmonizing and organizing those conscious 
 activities themselves into a concerted and combined Life of mankind 
 
 on earth, political, social, and individual. But with this further 
 
 purpose, the application of knowledge in actual practice, that is to 
 say, with Art as distinguished from Science, we have nothing as an 
 
 Academy to do, except to criticize it from the scientific platform. 
 It is with the Sciences of conscious activities, and with their organi- 
 zation as a system of knowledge, that we are concerned, as the ulterior 
 
 End which our several Sections have before them. We are not 
 
 a literary, or an aesthetic, or a moral, or a religious, or a juristic, or 
 
 in the ordinary sense of the term a sociological, or in any way a 
 
 political, but solely a scientific body. But our sciences, all the same, 
 
 are sciences of practice. Arts, it is true, are also scientific, but that 
 does not make them sciences of practice. From these they are 
 
 properly distinguished by the name of practical sciences. 
 
 The conscious activities of men being thus the object-matter with 
 which as a group of sciences we have to deal, it follows that we have 
 to deal with them as defined and described by the modes of con- 
 sciousness embodied in them, the pm*poses at which they are said to 
 aim. Conscious life is a hierarchy of purposes. A purpose immedi- 
 ately aimed at is an End. An immediate purpose attained is a 
 Means to a further purpose. The comparative value of purposes. 
 
 ' 
 
 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 5 
 
 whether as means or as ends, is what we have to determine, and that 
 in every department of inquiry. The whole of consciousness is teleo- 
 
 logical in the sense that the ultimate elements into which it may be 
 
 analysed are distinguishable but never separable, that is, presuppose 
 
 and are adapted to one another, without which correspondence and 
 combination of elements the consciousness which they constitute 
 would not exist, seeing that they are not consciousness in separation, 
 and it is only by abstraction (which has always the concrete in the 
 background) that we can think of them as separate. 
 
 For example, sensations of light or of colour are not sensations 
 unless they occupy some form of superficial spatial extension, apart 
 from which they exist only as abstractions introduced by thought. 
 
 The same is true of sensations of touch and pressure ; you cannot 
 even think the thought of actually touching a mathematical point, 
 at least when this is taken in the Euclidean sense of a division, not 
 an atom, of space. Nor, again, can you think of pure space except by 
 abstraction ; pure space, as a pure existent not due to abstraction, is 
 pure nonentity ; it is not the same thing as pure vacuity, which is 
 plainly an abstraction, that is, you have to think of filled space in 
 
 order to think it. Time-duration, again, is an element of conscious- 
 ness which is universally present in all feelings or modes of conscious- 
 ness whatever, and which cannot itself be feit or thought of, except 
 by abstraction, as separably existent ; as a pure existent not due 
 
 to abstraction, it would, like pure space, be a pure nonentity. And 
 feelings which should be supposed to exist for no time-duration would 
 plainly thereby be supposed not to exist at all. 
 
 There is therefore in all consciousness, and consequently in all 
 things whatever which we can either positively know, or surmise, or 
 imagine, as its objects, a teleologic character, a harmony of different 
 elements, which is inherent in them and essential to their being what 
 they are, the basis of, or rather identical with, their rationality. We 
 may say that teleology, in this sense, and rationality are the same ; 
 
 teleologic being the name we give an idea or its object when we 
 take its constituent elements or parts severally, and consider any one 
 of them as if it was prior to the whole, and rational being the name 
 we give it when we take it first as a whole, before considering the 
 several elements or parts which analysis distinguishes as composing it. 
 There is no idea, and consequently no object of an idea, which 
 escapes this statical mode of consideration, so to call it, which never- 
 theless, however necessary and essential it may be, obviously tells us 
 nothing as to what ideas are true and what fictitious, seeing that 
 their teleology or rationality is essential to all ideas alike, simply in 
 
6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 their character of modes of consciousness, the minima of which are 
 analysable into teleologic elements. 
 
 In all ideas, then, from the least to the greatest, from that of a 
 
 minimuTn of consciousness to that of the Universe or Totality of 
 
 Existents, whatever else there may be, there is this teleologic or 
 
 rational character. But ideas are not the ultimate data of conscious- 
 ness ; that is to say, consciousness does not come to us, or arise 
 in us, in the form of ideas severally distinct from one another, 
 
 any more than it arises in the form of minima of consciousness. 
 Attention to consciousness, or apperception in some shape or other, 
 goes to the making both of an idea and of a minimum. Consciousness 
 
 arises in the form of a stream, a time-stream of consciousness, the 
 
 different parts of which, whether simultaneous or successive or over- 
 lapping, are distinguished from one another by differences in the 
 feelings, sensations, emotions, and so on, which are the content of the 
 time-duration, including those visual and tactual sensations and 
 
 their combinations which are spatially extended also, and are our 
 evidence for the existence of a spatially extended and material world, 
 the premisses from which its nature and existence are inferred. 
 
 From this time-stream arises our idea of the distinction of Time 
 into past, present, and future. In attention to any portion of the 
 
 stream we observe it passing away and becoming w^hat w^e call a 
 
 memory ; that is the past^ — irrevocable. While still retained in 
 
 consciousness without perceivable change, it is the present^ — modifi- 
 able. Here our immediate knowledge ends ; but attention is always 
 
 anticipatory, always has a purpose in view, and in the simplest cases 
 this purpose is merely that of feeling or knowing the present more 
 vividly or more clearly. Still it is anticipation, purpose not yet 
 
 realized, not yet actual consciousness ; the present moment contains a 
 
 present expectation of something which is not present but to come ;— 
 
 that is the future. Xime-duration is the common element, the 
 
 common nexus of the whole stream. The efficient causes (so to call 
 them) which throw up, as it were, the successive present moments of 
 the stream of consciousness lie, though unknown to us except by 
 subsequent inference, in the past, as the stream itself also does. 
 They belong to, and are part of, a series and system of agents and 
 
 events which have been moving onwards from past to present, and will 
 continue to move onwards from present to future, that is to say, in the 
 opposite direction to that in which, as noted above, the consciousness 
 
 moves to which they give rise, Avhich is the direction from the actual 
 present to the past of memory. The present moment of conscious- 
 ness recedes into the past, or becomes a memory, in order of know- 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 / .<^ 
 
 
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 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 7 
 
 ledge, or as part of our knowing, and advances into the future, or 
 
 becomes a new present, in order of existence or real genesis from its 
 efficient causes. 
 
 To render this less paradoxical than at first sight it may seem, it 
 must be considered that every new present moment of consciousness, 
 as it arises, has a twofold character, a twofold aspect ; first, what it 
 
 is, namely, its content as consciousness or as a knowing, and secondly 
 the/ac^ that it is, its character as an existent. And it is the percep- 
 tion that every actually present moment contains, as part of itself, a 
 
 memory of what has been actually present the moment before, that 
 gives the whole experience the character of a stream, a time-stream 
 of consciousness, ever receding into the past as each new present 
 moment arises and advances into the as yet unknown future. It is 
 
 the content of consciousness, in which time-duration itself is an 
 
 element, that is our evidence both for these two aspects of the stream, 
 
 as a knowing and as an existent, and also for the opposite directions 
 which the two aspects seem to take, the aspect of it as a knowing 
 
 receding into the past, as the aspect of it as an existent advances 
 into the future. In short, I draw a wide distinction between the 
 content and the eocistsnce of consciousness (and of every portion or 
 moment of it), but it is a distinction between inseparables. 
 
 Now, in its character of an existent, every present moment of con- 
 
 sciousness depends, as we cannot but think, for its arising or genesis 
 
 as an existent, upon some efficient cause or causes, so to call them, 
 
 which have existed in the past, though unknown to us at the moment 
 of operation. I pass over here the psychological question as to the 
 
 nature of the proximate efficient cause or causes of consciousness. 
 These do not now concern us. They lie wholly in the past. On the 
 other hand, the purposes of the stream of consciousness, which belong 
 
 to it in its character of a knowing, and therefore the purposes, if 
 
 any, of its efficient causes, lie in the future, wholly unknown to us 
 
 except as purposed, that is, by anticipation ; though it will be to 
 
 this same series and system of agents and events, moving from past 
 to present and then to future, that, if they are realized, their 
 
 realization will be due. 
 
 As conscious agents, then, we form part of what may be called a 
 scheme or system of dynamic teleology, as compared to that system 
 
 of statical teleology described above. The whole of consciousness is 
 
 teleological, the whole of conscious activity is consciously teleological, 
 
 directed to realize some purpose in the future, which in the present is 
 anticipation only. The content of a purpose or anticipated end is 
 also called a motive. But this term is ambiguous, and stands in 
 
8 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 need of analysis. It includes the idea of a known, i. e. consciousness, 
 and an unknown, i. e. activity or agency, in a single term. The 
 
 analysis of motives, as distinguished from purposes or ends, is a 
 
 question for Psychology, as that border science which includes the 
 
 study of the efficient causation of consciousness as well as of con- 
 sciousness itself, and of the connexion between them. 
 
 Barring this special psychological question, the sciences of the 
 second or Academical group are directed to discover the meaning, 
 and compare the relative value, of conscious actions, in all depart- 
 ments of conscious activity, without analysing the efficient agencies 
 
 involved in the actions themselves, whether these belong to conscious 
 
 beings or to inanimate nature, just as the sciences of the first group, 
 the natural or physical sciences, are directed to discover the actual 
 efficient agencies and their laws, which are operative in the produc- 
 tion of all phenomena without distinction. And this, as it seems to 
 me, is the true distinction between these two great groups of sciences, 
 namely, not that the first deals with the laws of Matter, the second 
 
 with those of Mind, but that the first deals with the laws of what we 
 are accustomed to call efficient causation, the second with those of 
 
 what we are accustomed to call final causation, being occupied with 
 
 the meaning and value of things for conscious beings, — not with the 
 question How comes 9 but with the question What for 9 — a question 
 
 which can only be asked, and consequently only answered, if at 
 
 all, in terms of consciousness. Just as the sciences of the first group 
 make abstraction, as already said, of the fact that consciousness is 
 
 the only evidence of any sort of existence, so those of the second 
 group (with the exception of Psychology) make abstraction of the 
 fact that purposes are only formed, or communicated, or realized, 
 
 by means of some efficient agency which is not consciousness, though 
 this fact is always present in the background, just as the corre- 
 sponding abstraction, from consciousness, is present in the physical 
 sciences. And this abstraction from the difference between the 
 
 supporting agency and the consciousness supported by it is expressed 
 
 and embodied in the universal and inevitable use of the personal pro- 
 nouns, I and We, whereby the two things, the consciousness and the 
 agency, are represented as one thing, an unanalysable Conscious Agent. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now it is the primary purpose and function of Philosophy, which, 
 
 with its cognate or subordinate sciences. Psychology, Ethic, Logic, 
 
 Aesthetic, Theology, and possibly others, is the third of our four 
 Sections, to push the analysis of the content of consciousness (which, 
 
 i 
 
 \ 
 
 II 
 
 f 
 
 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 9 
 
 if I may repeat the remark, is our sole evidence for anything 
 whatever) as far as self-consciousness enables us to push it. It 
 
 is this primary function, this selection for analysis of consciousness 
 
 as a knowing, or as the evidence of everything, itself included, rather 
 than any being or existence assumed as already known or knowable, 
 which makes it a Metaphysic, and distinguishes it from a professedly 
 philosophical Ontology. As ontology, philosophy would have no 
 place among sciences which are founded on experience ; as metaphysic 
 it stands in relation to them all. Its first purpose is to show by its 
 analysis what is the meaning of such terms as Being and Existence, 
 
 or Reahty as opposed to Appearance, instead of assuming their 
 
 objects either as ultimate and unanalysable data, or as the objects of 
 ultimate and unanalysable conceptions. Its second purpose is to 
 
 explain, in the sense of rendering intelligible, the Totality of Exist- 
 ence, in case that purpose should be found attainable, and, if not 
 attainable, at any rate to show by its analysis what and where are 
 
 the limits, and in what their nature consists, which for ever forbid 
 
 its attainment, and what is the character which is thereby imprinted 
 upon the knowledge which lies within those limits, and is therefore 
 
 conceivably attainable. Such are its purposes, and such its method. 
 
 And the object- matter which it has before it, and to which its 
 analysis has to be applied, is that view of the Totality of Existence 
 
 which is taken by men in general, including the metaphysician 
 himself, before they begin to philosophize, namely, speaking roughly 
 
 as a World of Persons and Things, of Substances and their Attributes, 
 
 of Agents and their Agencies, which may fairly be called the common- 
 sense view of things, and in this sense is the eayplkandum of philosophy. 
 But it is in its departments of Ethic, Logic, Aesthetic, and 
 
 Theology, departments which are immediately dependent upon the 
 metaphysical analysis of consciousness as a knowing, that Philosophy 
 
 itself becomes definitely a science of practice, inasmuch as these 
 
 sciences aim at influencing for the better certain departments of the 
 
 actual practice of mankind, by applying to them ideas derived from 
 
 metaphysical analysis. Perhaps we may say that Theology, which 
 includes a criticism of all professedly Religious Creeds, is that 
 department of philosophy in which this influence is most sensibly 
 and most generally felt. It is there that men in general are most 
 keenly alive to its influence, and most fervently resent its inter- 
 ference. Nevertheless it is based, like the rest, on the metaphysical 
 
 and also (to use a lately coined word) metapsychical analysis of con- 
 sciousness as a knowing, purged of those common-sense assumptions 
 
 which belong in fact not to its data but to its exylkanda. 
 
10 riiOCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISII ACADEMY 
 
 Onr renuiiniDK three Sections, namely those of History, Fliilolojgr, 
 
 And Law, trith tlicir SubdivUiotUy mUumI on a y«ry diffcrMit foutiik^ i 
 they detii wilh the coiicret*^ Aclionii of ooncrci^ coiwctoitt beings* ^ 
 
 assuming tbe$e as given nnd ascertained factt ; that is, they sXmuX 
 IxaDkly on what, a» a roctAphvBiciaih I c*ll the €M>ronioii-»vn«i view 
 of tilings ; though each St»ction and SuhdivLiian of a Sociion has it* 
 
 own method of defining and treating that portion of the whole 
 
 object-matter which it •clcctji a» its own field, aixi JU own function to 
 perform in n^ic'ird to it But all the aeveral sci^^nccf grouped under 
 
 oiir four Sections cxUted as sciences, as our Tresident in his first 
 
 Address t\ea told ub, bcforv a cc-rUiiu number of U»cir devotee* w^ro 
 gnihitrcd together into an AcAdicm>% just a» th« common-»cna© Tl^w 
 
 of persons and Uiings (as already remarked) cxttted long befow 
 rhilo«iOphy canic into existence, «u an linjuiry into its meaning, its 
 
 nAtuie» and itJi g«ii>cftliL What the Acjidcmy doc* for the wcM^m!** U 
 
 to contribute: to their organization &s science*, by bringing them, as 
 wdl as their devotee?, into cloeer touch witli outj another. Tlic 
 single comprtihcD8ivc sdciicc which they maybe ini»gti>od to compos*, 
 
 •uppocing th^ir organization c^ffcclod, is as yet Unnamed, an ideal in 
 the far distant future. 
 
 Of course I luw very fttr from pretending to gix^ f^'On m. sketch of 
 
 the divi-jions and mibdivisionB of tlni sciences falling under any of our 
 
 four SectioM. Conscious human actions are the one object-matter 
 
 common to ivll aUke; their cxjiiunon hosts their common nexus. The 
 divUions and 8iihdivision5 depend up(m th« point of view, the interest 
 or purpose which determines the selection of the action* to be 
 studied, and the method of studying them* Tlic *ame acliom may 
 he stwlMxi from voriou* iH>5nt* of view, and the ftcienccs will tborefore 
 
 overlap and depK^d upon one another in various u-ays. It may Us 
 
 necessary a-t one time to iiu|uij>c into the caui** of actions frotn tlie 
 r^iivote^t past, at another to anticipate their effects in the future 
 
 from the known effects of similar actions in similar circumsUnces. 
 
 The hiatorj* i>t consciousncw i» tl»«c history of »t^ evolution and 
 development from ns fiu: back wiwxi are able to trace lb course (an 
 
 II 
 
 ^ i i^ 
 
 INTEll-llELATION OF THE ACADEMICAI- SCIENCES 11 
 
 character. Owing to this dcpcudcnce it U usually consldc^d as 
 
 outaido HUiory pr«>per, taking ihU ix» be a »cIcik?c founded on 
 
 records wbether docun>€ntary or archaeological, tho^igh in the 
 Ethnology of recent or actually existing ruocsj it seems again to enter 
 thie slrictly historical sphere. 
 
 Now by the term Histor}% taken wmply, the hiRtor>- of mankind al 
 large, the history of men in society, is always intetidod, excluding the 
 
 biogmphy of imlividuals, except so far as this is subaerxt^nt to the 
 hiiitory of mankirKl* And I believe I am aUo right in sa>nng, UiAt it 
 
 h to history proper (whidi is still the history of mankiod) iu the 
 
 iwtuo ju»t iwcrtbcd to it, namely, iw a miicaic* founded on reoordu, in 
 
 whirh it iiu^ludcs ArcKneotogy, that our first Section le d^'oted, 
 
 Rit tliis circumfcription of itn domain swms to have been reacbed« 
 
 not by direct selcctiuu of Midi iuII«h»* imkI «»viit« as o*n I)* »*••••• 
 fur bjr it>eoids or monuniants of any ttnd as lU iiI^ih*! imm! U^ 
 
 rather by a proces of retaining aa ibi ipcdal domain ^hia 
 
 firum Ubtorv in its widest and intisl rfiiii|Mii4KMMlvii suiiiw, Ihu II 
 of cunsdout boini^ (in which« as jiisK nMiiarkiMl, lui iiii|Mftailt 
 
 of Natuml Hiiitory is indndAflK a(W iD]Mn(lii))( ffOm it 
 
 mattera which can \po treated as Unv i/l^wls of simkIuI acH^iii 
 tlko history of whidt thcrcfuHi |NfvMipp4>90s Oim fofWiiiHtm a# 
 
 special sricnrci and the seledlon of thuir n\wAi\] nhii » t^ T 
 Idstory of conadoanwi aa a »M'|MiiaU. i'auivui ^ \\>i 
 
 dviK^mls upon Um seUrtlon of llu» rnhilUliinft nf isiiim«1u 
 
 thu ol4#ct*matl4ir of piy«*'»'»''^ev l 'hi* KUliii*y of language p 
 
 am) dfiHiMdn upon tho liolc<tlon of njHMvh nml and wiillmi, m 
 
 iibj' I .1 .lliir of phllohi^jy I aiwl tlw* ht^btry nf law |»«tiMipjMBM 
 
 dii»|Xiiwlft ti|vm ihn u«1i«i*Ii4mi, wlnrli in lliit Maa ii a aalocttOd 0^ 9f 
 the pbunomcilA of IllnUiry |Mii|n<r, ul Uw mild Ui|f(al ridaUvtl* ^ ~^ 
 iil^iM'i iiiiiliifr iif JMfis|>«U(lv«Kv» 
 
 Thu hlntory of I^aw ran m. vit a^ a fart la" snudul^l ffinn 
 
 proper. Lawn art IIummmIsi". dia uinunta, and of all docuiiH' 
 
 ara Uim miHii liii|airliuil vUm, hiiviiiimli lut Um^v i»MirL Oia ra 
 
 nlagiis iif progef^ai ill all <ii>partmwt« of human artivlly, aiU U a3 
 rtjloUoui or ItiiinaM Mi\^n tii iini* aiiutlKir, domcatlc, lOCiali |««*tMX, 
 
 ,«^^aaa. aU4 .la^ U ^U 
 
 tk# 
 
 m AAs IslUs iaak wik IW 
 
 ^ lAsit taaial 
 
 •kiA a#9 IM 0^mi 
 
U PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 the idea of Justice, of Right as distinguished from Might. The aim 
 of all Law is to establish a just rule, to give might to right, instead 
 of ascribing right to might as its indistinguishable attribute. The 
 recognition of this idea is the foundation of the science of Juris- 
 prudence. But whence is this idea derived? It is derived from 
 those phenomena of consciousness which are the special object-matter 
 of Ethic, a special department of Philosophy. Law, therefore, the 
 object-matter of our fourth Section, has a double affinity; in its 
 
 specially scientific character, as Jurisprudence, it is the offspring of 
 
 the ethical idea of justice or of right ; in its operation, that is, in the 
 application of this idea to modify existing facts, it is a distinguish- 
 able but wholly inseparable department of history proper. 
 
 There are other special sciences which, like law, may be treated 
 
 apart from history proper, though always as its subservients or 
 contributories ; for instance, the science of Political Economy and 
 the science of War, the latter of which has a branch of law already 
 recognized as applicable to it. But distinct from all such special 
 
 sciences there will still remain, as the object-matter of history proper, 
 all those dealings of men with one another in society, and of societies 
 
 with one another, in connexion always with their physical conditions 
 and circumstances, which require only a general knowledge of human 
 
 nature, its motives and capacities (distinct from their psychological 
 
 mechanism in individuals), in order to understand them, interpret 
 their significance, and draw the conclusions which they warrant, for 
 the guidance of present and future action. Domestic, social, political, 
 and international actions are, in short, the field of History proper. 
 And it need scarcely be mentioned how vast this field Is, nor yet how 
 
 closely it touches the daily life of individuals, nor yet how indis- 
 pensable is true historical knowledge, taken simply as the ascertain- 
 ment of actual matters of fact, for guiding that daily life aright. 
 
 Historical science is a science of practice, and of that practice which 
 
 every man of necessity practises, simply as a member of human 
 society. Its true name therefore is Sociology. 
 
 It remains to say a few words of Philology, our second Section, 
 and its selected object-matter, Language ; that is to say, of oral an J 
 
 articulate speech addressed to the ear, and of writing, its symbol 
 
 and representative, addressed to the eye. Its function also in both 
 its modes is twofold ; it serves to fix and thereby mediately to recall 
 feelings and thoughts within the individual consciousness, and it 
 
 serves to communicate the feelings and thoughts of one individual to 
 
 others; it is, for psychological reasons, the all but indispensable 
 medium both of thought and of intercommunication. It is therefore 
 
 -*• <r-r> 
 
 ff' 
 
 'i 
 
 ^ 
 
 «" 
 
 K 
 
 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 1^ 
 
 almost as intimately and universally bound up with the conscious 
 
 actions of human beings as consciousness itself. Its history is the 
 history of its development and evolution from that point or points 
 in its course at which we place the differentiation of man from his 
 
 pre-human ancestors, a differentiation to which the formation of 
 
 articulate forms of speech may itself have most effectively con- 
 tributed. I say point or points in its course, because this differentia- 
 tion may have taken place at spots of the earth's surface widely 
 separate from one another geographically, and differing also in 
 
 climate and other physical conditions ; nor need the differentiations 
 
 have occurred simultaneously. Philology is therefore capable of 
 furnishing most important evidence to Ethnology. And at all 
 periods of its history we find language a potent factor in moulding 
 the Ideas of those who speak it, whether it is their native tongue 
 that they speak or one which they have adopted from others ; and 
 the familiar use of a common language, especially if native to those 
 w ho use it, is notoriously one of the most powerful bonds of fellow- 
 ship between men, however widely they may be scattered over the 
 
 surface of the globe. 
 
 I come lastly to that function of language whereby it is most 
 closely and intimately connected with the consciousness of in- 
 dividuals, though this can never be actually sundered from its 
 function of intercommunication, the individuals being born and 
 living, and except in the rarest cases of attempted isolation con- 
 tinuing to live, only in society. And here the first question to meet 
 us is, AVhat is meant by articulation, what are its essential charac- 
 teristics ? The utterance of sounds having, or capable of having, 
 
 meaning of some sort is doubtless the concomitant of a reflex action 
 initiated by feelings, or the proximate conditions of feelings, internal 
 to the organism, whereby an association in consciousness between the 
 feelings and the utterances is established. But this expressive utter- 
 ance alone is not articulate language, however numerous, various in 
 kind, and I may add complex, such associations may be ; it is only, 
 if the term may be permitted, its raw material. True, the establish- 
 ment of the associations gives the sounds meaning ; they express and 
 
 serve to recall into consciousness the feelings or ideas with which 
 
 they are associated, and those feelings or ideas are their meaning. 
 But more than this is required to render them articulate. What 
 
 is this more? I speak under correction from experts both in 
 psychology and philology, though what I rather fear is, that I may 
 
 seem to be giving undue prominence to what is already well under- 
 stood and trite. Nevertheless it seems important to notice, that 
 
14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 the essential step towards turning utterances having meaning into 
 
 articulate language is attention as an act of thought, attention first 
 to the feelings or ideas whereby similar occurrences of them are 
 grouped together as one feeling or idea in point of kind, which is the 
 
 formation of general ideas, and secondly to the utterances expressing 
 them, whereby similar occurrences of the utterances are perceived to 
 be but one sound in point of kind ; that is to say, to be one word, 
 one term, expressing one general idea. Articulate speech or lan- 
 guage is thus the work of thought operating on perception. It is 
 
 co-extensive with thought, but not with consciousness in its entirety ; 
 for it presupposes the perceptions upon which it operates — that is, 
 both the feelings or ideas originally expressed and the sounds 
 originally expressing them, the latter of which become language 
 expressing general ideas by the operation of thought. 
 
 The very first step in this process, the formation of general ideas 
 by attending to the data, involves a judgement, such as we should 
 express, language having once been formed, by a proposition : * this 
 
 colour is similar to that.' From this point the development of what 
 
 are called the parts of speech follows easily. To express a particular 
 instance, you must restrict a general term — this blue, this man ; 
 pronouns are used for nouns; then nouns substantive and nouns 
 adjective are distinguished ; verbs expressing activity and passivity 
 are distinguished from verbs expressing simply event, such as 'it 
 
 rains, it thunders ' ; and differences in actions and events are marked 
 by differences of voice, mood, tense, number, and person, in the 
 verbs expressing them, and by what may be called the adjectival 
 
 forms of verbs, such as the participle and gerund. Then links are 
 
 sought, expressing the relations of things to each other, by means of 
 prepositions or by the case endings of nouns, by different forms for 
 
 singular and plural, or by marking sex as by the genders. Similar 
 links are sought to express the transitions of thought between one 
 
 action or event and another ; such are the conjunctions. Sentences 
 are thus the articulation of language, and language has been an ever- 
 advancing construction, from the first moment when men turned 
 their attention to their own vocal utterances, as a means of fixing 
 
 their own Ideas or communicating them to others. It has gTOwn up 
 
 pari passu with their common -sense idea of themselves and the 
 world about their., and (except in the case of technical or scientific 
 
 symbolism) subserves no other needs than those of daily life, or than 
 
 are capable of an expression in literature. 
 
 I need not stay to remark at length, how vast a field and what 
 important regions of human life are brought within the province of 
 
 jl 
 
 r- - 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 
 INTER-RELATION OF THE ACADEMICAL SCIENCES 15 
 
 philology by its inseparable literary development. One limitation of 
 
 it, however, should not be left unnoticed. Articulate language 
 cannot alone communicate to the reader or hearer of it the sensations 
 
 or the emotional feelings which it describes, with anything like the 
 vividness or the certainty with which it communicates the ideas or 
 
 the thoughts describing them. To do this even imperfectly, in the 
 
 case of the emotional feelings, it depends upon accents, pauses, 
 stresses, intonation, in short, upon the vocal modulation given to it 
 
 by the reader or the speaker, as in singing and acting. That is, 
 
 it depends upon the musical element in vocal utterance ; and this 
 belongs to the province of aesthetic, not of philology. Music, in 
 fact, has been called the language of the emotions, and rightly so 
 called, seeing that it expresses and communicates emotional feeling 
 
 without the aid of imagery or of thought. Music has, no doubt, an 
 articulation of its own, but it is not that articulate language with 
 which philology is conversant. 
 
 The further articulation of language, the further evolution and 
 
 development of its construction by devising or adopting new verbal 
 forms to express new modifications of thought, as for instance a form 
 to differentiate a word used to express a mode of consciousness from 
 the same word used to express the object (which may also be one of 
 
 the real conditions) of that inode;~say, e.g., light as a sensation in 
 
 us from light as a motion in the luminiferous ether ; — this is a task 
 which, if practicable at all, must be left to the speakers of the 
 language to be modified, just as the introduction of new technical 
 terms which involve no change in its structura,l articulation is left to 
 
 specialists. Ordinary language is capable of enrichment in both 
 
 directions, but it is obvious that to make any advance in the former 
 
 direction involves, as its pre-requisite, a general advance in the 
 habitual demand for accurate and subtle thinking on the part of 
 
 a whole community. And even if there should be such a general 
 advance it may not be found adequate to effect a structural modifica- 
 tion of a language which has reached that stage of its development 
 which we call maturity. 
 
 It is to promote the well-being of mankind at large, not of the 
 
 greater number only as estimated by majorities, but of every indi- 
 vidual who shall be born into the aggregate, so far as this depends 
 upon what he is and feels and thinks and does; that is, upon his 
 powers of self-knowledge and self-control, rather than upon the 
 command he has over the forces of inanimate nature, or of any 
 
 nature other than his own, that the Academical Sciences, now 
 included, or to be included in the future, under our four Sections, are 
 
le PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 ultimately directed. The harmonizing of the conscious actions of 
 individuals by applying the lessons of the past, and leading indi- 
 viduals to see what purposes are desirable or the reverse in each 
 department of knowledg-e, what are realizable and what illusory, is 
 
 the ulterior aim of all : no definite fixed state of society, but a 
 progressive interaction of all its members, recognized and promoted 
 by all. Human nature is still in ^fieri^ and the final issue of its 
 
 history cannot be foreseen. But we may fairly hope that the 
 
 foundation of the Academy will appreciably further the realization of 
 this progressive interaction, which is the common though ulterior 
 aim of the sciences of practice which it brings together into contact 
 
 and collaboration. 
 
 What I have tried in the first place to show in this paper is, that 
 the internal organization of the academical sciences, as I have 
 ventured to call it, is no less essential to the realization of their 
 common and ulterior aim than the corporate organization of their 
 several devotees in an Academy. And in the next place I have 
 
 attempted to indicate what, in my opinion, is the only possible way 
 
 in which that internal organization can be effected, namely, by 
 connecting the sciences of our first, second, and fourth Sections with 
 
 those of our third, that is, with philosophy, which alone possesses in 
 
 its metaphysical department a secure foundation for any science 
 whatever, being itself founded, alone among all, upon the analysis of 
 consciousness, or experience, without initial assumptions of any kind. 
 
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