MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81204- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the ^ "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions Is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes In excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright Infringement. This Institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order If, In Its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: CREIGHTON, JAMES EDWIN TITLE: STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PLACE: NEW YORK DA TE: 1925 COLUMBIA UNIVEI^ITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT DIDLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARHFT Master Negative # Restrictions on Use: Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record T' loU C862 i. I D109.3 C86 .JK«* Creighton, James Edwin, l86l-192li. Studies in speculative philosophy, by James Edwin Creighton... ed... by Harold R. Skart... New York, Macmillan, 1925. 290 p, 19^^ cm. "A select bibliography of the literary acti- vities of Professor J. E. Creighton**, p. 285- 290. Copy in Philosophy. U ; J REDUCTION RATIO TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: &___ IMA^E PLACEMENT: lA ' flIA) IB JIB DAfE FILMED:____3:_L'gii INITIALS__W^^^ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. Ct" ■-M. ^7^y^ C V Association for Information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue. Suite 1100 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 &?. / :^» r-^ V S^?* i^J ■5 IHll />y I STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY .•n^^^ Studies in Speculative Philosophy THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NBW YORK • BOSTON' • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FXiANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO.. Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO BY JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON, Ph.D., LL.D. LATE SAGE PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE SAGE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY IN CORNELL XTNIVERSITY Edited, With a Select Bibliography, by Harold R. Smart, Ph.D. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1925 AU rightt reserved Copyright, 1926, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and printed. Published December, 1925. Printed in the United States of America by J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK PREFACE Friends and former students of Professor Creighton had often urged upon him the appropriateness and value of the publication of a volume comprising such of his articles as best represented the development and various aspects of his thought. The present work is as adequate and accurate a response to that demand as the changed circumstances have allowed. It has been carried forward with the warm support and valuable counsel of numerous friends and colleagues. The title, Studies in Speculative Philosophy, indicates a spirit rather than a doctrine — a free spirit of ceaseless but constructive criticism, illumined by the experience of the past, and untrammeled by the partisan labels of the present. With some exceptions, which I hope will commend them- selves as obviously appropriate, the Studies are arranged in chronological order. I have tried to include in the appended bibliography all of Professor Creighton's important philo- sophical writings. Acknowledgment for permission to republish articles first appearing in their pages is due to the Editors of The Inter- national Journal of Ethics (Chap. II), The Psychological Review (Chap. X), The Journal of Philosophy (Chaps. XII and XIII), and The Philosophical Review (the other chapters) . I am especially indebted to Professor Glenn R. Morrow of the University of Missouri for a careful reading of the proof-sheets. Harold R. Smart. Ithaca, N. Y. November, 1925. CONTENTS CHAPTER '^®" I The Purposes of a Philosophical Association ... 1 II Knowledge and Practice 24 ni The Social Nature op Thinking 45 IV The Standpoint op Experience 71 -f- V Purpose as a Logical Category 93"t^ VI Experience and Thought 110-^ VII The Determination op the Real 124 •*" VIII The Copernican Revolution in Philosophy .... 146 ^ IX The Notion of the Impuot in Logic 168 X Darwin and Logic 180 XI The Standpoint op Psychology 202 -^ XII Philosophical Platforms and Labels 222 XIII The Form of Philosophical Intelugibiltty .... 243 XIV Two Types of Idealism 256 A Select Bibuography 285 f •/ 1' STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY CHAPTER I THE PURPOSES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION.^ In thinking of a fitting subject upon which to address you on this occasion, I had at first planned to consider two or three fundamental problems which seem to me to be pressing themselves upon our attention, in one form or another, in all the philosophical discussions of the present day. What I had hoped to accomplish was, merely by way of orientation, to discuss the significance of some of the recent contributions to these subjects, and to raise the question whether or not an agreement has not been tacitly reached, which will warrant a restatement of these prob- lems, in a new and perhaps more fruitful form. It was largely, though not wholly, an increasing sense of the difficulty of the task, and of my own incompetence, which led me to abandon this plan. For, in addition, as the time of meeting drew on, and it appeared that the papers were to be so numerous and so inclusive in character as almost to constitute an embarrassment of philosophical riches, it 'Read as the Presidential Address at the fi"t annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association March 31, 1^02 |Upnnt«i frtm The Philotophical Review, Vol. XL. No. 3. pp. 219-237, AprU. 1902. 2 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY seemed better that I should choose a subject of a some- what different nature, but one which I felt it to be impor- tant that should in some form be presented for consideration at this our first meeting, the question of "The Purposes of a Philosophical Association." In general, when one knows what one wants to do, there is no great advantage, I think, in sitting down and delib- erately counting up reasons. But, in the present case, where there are many individuals concerned, it will un- doubtedly promote mutual understanding, and increase intelligent interests in the affairs of the Association, to raise explicitly the question regarding the purposes of the organization and the advantages which it offers to us. There is a certain danger that one may unconsciously come to put too low an estimate upon these advantages, and so fail to appreciate the more serious side of the matter. One not infrequently hears it said that the main purpose of these gatherings is social, to meet one^s colleagues per- sonally, to renew old friendships and to form new ones. This is certainly a feature of the meetings which no one will be inclined to underestimate, and the indirect results of such personal intercourse are often of genuine scientific impor- tance. There is a danger, however, if the social advantages are exclusively emphasized, that certain consequences may ensue which would inevitably tend to weaken the influence of the Association and destroy its effectiveness. In the first place, the members may come to feel that they are in no way responsible for the programme, which is after all unimportant, furnishing as it does only an excuse for meeting. And, in consequence of this feeling, they may, when it is not perfectly convenient to attend the meetings, resolve to remain at home, perhaps with the complacent consciousness that in so doing they are not sacrificing any- thing more essential than their own pleasure. A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 3 It is the conviction that these are not merely imaginary dangers that has led me to invite you to reflect for a little on some of the ends which may be realized through the Association; and, incidentally, upon the responsibilities that we have assumed in becoming members. I wish, how- ever, to preface what I have to say with a remark or two, which may prevent misconceptions regarding the meaning and scope of my discussion. In the first place, I would ask you not to suppose from my remarks that I regard the new Association as a kind of universal panacea for all the ills from which philosophy suffers. An association can only act as one cooperating agency among others, or, at most, prove a stimulus to the forces which are essential for progress in philosophical work. And, secondly, I do not intend to discuss the question of the proper scope of a philosophical association, the particular means which it should employ in order to attain its ends, but simply to attempt to indicate what I believe these ends to be. The most striking characteristic of all modem scientific work is found in the fact that it is the result of conscious cooperation between a number of individuals. This feature has always characterized to some extent the efforts of those who have attained real results in the search for truth, but it has become more conscious and more prominent dur- ing the present generation. It is important to remember, however, that even those pioneers of modem thought whom we usually picture to ourselves as wrapped in solitary cogitation did not work in independence of their fellows and contemporaries. When Descartes retired to Holland in 1629 to work out his new system, he thought it neces- sary to keep in touch with the scholars of the time througji Father Mersenne, and from time to time to request their criticisms of his views. Lockers Essay Concerning Human Understanding grew out of meetings and discussions with 4 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY a number of friends. Even Spinoza, who is often regarded as an absolutely solitary thinker, was in constant communi- cation with a circle of scientific friends, and carried on occasional correspondence with some of the most noted thinkers of his day. In 1660, the Royal Society of London was founded, after having existed for a number of years as an informal club. In 1700, Leibniz founded the Acad- emy of Sciences at Berlin, and a few years later organized a similar society at Vienna. In addition, I may mention the extensive scientific correspondence of the pioneers of science in all departments as evidence of the important role personal intercourse played in the development of modem thought. From these and other facts which might easily be cited, it is evident that the necessities of coopera- tion and mutual help in scientific work were more or less completely realized at an early date. In all of these cir- cumstances, we can discover the effort of the individual to free himself from the idols of the cave, by appealing to the reason of his fellows to confirm or correct his own subjective opinions. It is the realization of the necessity of a more extended as well as a more systematic and inti- mate comparison of views among workers in the same field that has led to the multiplication of scientific associa- tions and organizations in the present generation. Philosophers have been slower than their fellow workers in inaugurating any movement to secure this end. They have, however, been largely occupied with a different, though somewhat similar, imdertaking. In philosophy, it is perhaps more essential than in any other field of inquiry that one should build upon the work of one's predecessors. This is a truth that philosophical students of the present day have realized pretty thoroughly. Indeed, in recent years it has been a frequent reproach that the study of philosophy has reduced itself to a study of the history of A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 5 philosophy, that the interest in systems of the past has displaced that in constructive problems. There is per- haps suflScient truth in this charge to prevent us from denying it unqualifiedly: there is a tendency in every kind of undertaking to mistake the means for the end. In general, however, it may be said that the total absorption of the present time in historical questions is more apparent than real. Moreover, philosophy has certainly gained much from the detailed historical investigations of the past gen- eration. This gain does not chiefly lie in the additional scholarship and critical acumen which such investigations involve, but rather in the fact that it makes possible a more adequate comprehension of the genesis and meanings of our own problems. It is only through an understand- ing of the history of the past that we can rightly appre- ciate the questions that press for an answer at the present time, and know in what terms they can be intelligibly formulated and answered. It is well to remember, then, when we grow impatient with historical studies, that these are not investigations which this or any other generation can put behind them and have done with. The effort to gain a truer appreciation of the thought of the past will always remain an essential part of philosophical study. To undertake to philosophize without an accurate and sympathetic knowledge of the development of philosophical conceptions is not only vain and fruitless, but it is hope- lessly to lose oneself, and to commit intellectual suicide. The character of many books that still appear year by year on philosophical subjects, written frequently by men of ability and of reputation in other fields, but in utter ignorance and disregard of the history of philosophy, illus- trates and justifies my statement. It is not less study of the past that we need, but, doubtless, a more intelligent and discriminating study. 6 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY And this means a study of historical systems in the light of our own problems. Facts without ideas are simply con- fusing: knowledge of the details of philosophical systems without any insight into the inner meaning of things, or ability to distinguish between the external form and the vital essence, is certain to bewilder rather than to bring enlightenment. Perhaps in this historical and evolu- tionary age, when the continuity between the thought of the present and that of the past is so strongly emphasized, there is some danger that in the study of the history of philosophy we may continue to busy oiu^elves with prob- lems that are either outworn, or at least presuppose in their formulation conceptions that are hopelessly antiquated. It is necessary to recognize that there is a dead as well as a living past, that many of its problems, in the form in which they are stated, have been superseded, because they rest upon principles and assumptions which the drift of things has shown to be untenable. And this brings me to the main proposition which I have here in view. The history of philosophy is only intelligible when read in the light of present-day problems. Not only is it true that, from a strictly philosophical standpoint, the study of the thought of the past can never be anything more than a means to the better comprehension of the problems of the present time, but, in itself, the former remains to a large extent incomprehensible except as its disputes and questionings are brought into relation to our own problems, and interpreted in their light. It is, of course, necessary to keep in mind the danger of doing violence to historical fact by construing a past system wholly in terms of conceptions which belong to a later time. Nevertheless, if we would understand the systems of the past, we must read them as the records of the thoughts of men who were struggling with the same stubborn questions which A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 7 concern us. It follows then, I think, that it is only one who has pondered on philosophical problems for himself who can intelligently study the history of philosophy. To undertake to carry on such studies in an external and purely pragmatic fashion would be to adopt a method which would certainly defeat its own ends. If either his- torical or constructive work in philosophy is to prove fruit- ful, the two sides cannot be separated, but must be car- ried on in close connection, the past being used to reveal the present to itself, and the present to unlock the secrets of the past. It does not seem too much to assume that the meetings of the Association will not be without influence in promot- ing the study of the history of philosophy in general. More- over, since the interest of such meetings is likely to be largely centered in the actual problems of the present time, we may perhaps hope that there will be a tendency to bring these studies into closer and more intimate relation to our own philosophical standpoint. But it is more par- ticularly in promoting and facilitating the interchange of ideas between the philosophical workers of the present day, who are scattered throughout this part of the coimtry, that the Association will find its mam function. In every department of investigation the conviction seems to be growing that intellectual companionship and cooperation are essential to real progress. The underlying assumption is that it is necessary in scientific work to combine forces and to work, not as a number of isolated individuals, but as a social group of cooperating minds. We have learned that to isolate oneself intellectually is to render one's work unfruitful; that there is in every generation a main drift of problems within which we must work, if we wish to con- tribute anything to the common cause. We have seen, however, that the facts compel us to 8 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY admit that the insufficiency of the isolated individual and the consequent necessity of cooperation have not been so clearly realized by philosophers as by workers in almost every other department of knowledge. And, as a result, we have perhaps missed to some extent both the feeling of comradeship and also the courage and enthusiastic con- fidence that springs from working shoulder to shoulder with one's fellows. The main reason for this tardiness on the part of philosophical thinkers to recognize as clearly as their scientific brethren the need of cooperation lies in the nature of the subject itself. On account of the extent of the field and the difficulty in obtaining a synoptic view, one may regard the line of investigation pursued by one's neighbor as completely erroneous and directly opposed to one's own, though, in reality, it furnishes exactly the facte which are necessary to correct and complement our own defects and one-sidedness. Another reason doubtless is found in the fact that philosophical theories, like theologi- cal tenete, are so closely related to what is most intimate and fundamental to our personal nature, and, consequently, so suffused with emotion, that it is difficult to be tolerant and fair with those who differ from us. This feeling has not only divided philosophers into schools, but has fre- quently led them to ignore entirely the work of their op- ponente, or to regard them as perverters of the truth with whom they can hold no commerce. Other influences, such as imiversity or individual rivalries, may of course also operate to prevent unity and sympathetic imderstanding among philosophical thinkers. But there are many signs, of which the formation of this Association is but one, that there is a growing consciousness on the part of philosophers of the necessity of coming to imderstand even those from whom they differ, and of recognizing in them allies and helpers in the common cause. I wish to point out in a little A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 9 more detail why such cooperation is necessary, and also to give some reasons for believing that the personal intercourse afforded by the meetings of the Association may aid very effectively in promoting this end. Before proceeding in this direction, however, I may be allowed to refer to an objection which my previous state- mente may seem to have left out of account. It may be held that at the present day printing has taken the place of personal communication, that books and periodical litera- ture adequately fulfill the functions which I have been claiming for the Association, and that, therefore, the latter is in no sense essential. To this it may be added that any association must consist of a limited number of men, from a restricted area of coimtry; while if one knows three or four modem languages, one can by reading share the best thoughts of the leaders of the philosophical world. The objection would have weight only if it were claimed that the meetings of the Association could in any degree excuse members from the necessity of following the thoughte of contemporary writers, as these are found in current books and magazine literature. It is not as a substitute for current literature, but as a supplement to it, that we may hope that the personal intercourse afforded by the Association will prove useful. Perhaps it is not too much to assume that those who offer papers will feel it necessary to present their theories in relation to the most recent dis- cussions of the subject. But, in addition to this, there are undoubtedly certain advantages essential to philosophical work to be derived from personal association and inter- course, which are scarcely obtainable in any other way. I now propose, at the risk of some repetition, to consider some of these advantages in more detail. In the first place, then, it can scarcely be doubted that 10 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY philosophy, of all species of scientific inquiry, is that which demands, in order to be fruitfully prosecuted, the closest and most intimate intellectual relations between a niunber of minds. This is true for a variety of reasons. One of the most obvious of these is found in the fact that in these days we have abandoned the attempt to deduce a philos- ophy of the worid from fundamental first principles, by means of deductive arguments, and have frankly adopted the inductive method of procedure. I do not, of course, mean by this that philosophy, or any other branch of in- quiry, confines itself to induction in the narrower sense of the word, but merely that, in common with all the sciences of the present day, it sees that ite starting-point and basis must be the facts of experience. When this is granted, it becomes at once evident that the data of the philosopher are so complex and many-sided that, working by himself, he is certain to fail to take account of or prop- erly estimate some facts of importance. Again, he must ap- proach these facts through his own individual mind, that is to say, with the particular set of concepts furnished him by his own education and reflection. But it is essential that philosophy should work regressively as well as pro- gressively: it must criticise its presuppositions, and can- not, as do the other sciences, take its standpoint for granted. Now it is evident that no single individual can look, as it were, in all directions at once. He has then constant need of criticism, of supplementation, and of having objections forced upon his attention. It does not seem too much to say that this need can be most effectively supplied through personal intercourse with others. For when objections and opposing views are backed by the im- mediate presence of one^s neighbor, they cannot easily be ignored. Moreover, after a man's views have ceased to be fluid, and have assumed the rigidity of cold print, he A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 11 is not in the same degree open to criticism, or so likely to benefit by it. The advantages of social cooperation in philosophical study were most completely realized in the Greek schools, and particularly in the school of Socrates and those of his immediate successors. In the Socratic method of inquiry, as it is represented to us in Plato's dialogues, a number of persons combine in the search for philosophical truth ; and to the result the most various classes of men, cultured young aristocrats of Athens, tradesmen, Sophists, men of affairs, and inexperienced youths, are made to contribute. Dia- lectic, as described and illustrated by Plato, is essentially the method of critical induction, the method of analyzing facts to discover conceptions, and of testing conceptions in the light of new facts. Of course, the method is the same in principle whether it involves a literal talking back and forth, or takes the form of self-criticism, or a comparison of views with the printed theories of other men. No one would maintain that in modem times dialectic in its lit- eral and original meaning can take the place of either of the other forms of criticism, in the sense of rendering them unnecessary. But, for the reasons I have already urged, it still remains an important and necessary supple- ment to less insistent forms of criticism, and, at its best (that is, where the objections of the critic are carefully thought out) , it has the power to supply something which the other forms wholly lack. It is perhaps only a corollary from this to state that, for the majority of men at least, intellectual contact and per- sonal intercourse with their fellow workers in the same field are essential conditions of complete sanity of view. There are a number of circumstances, inherent in the nature of philosophical study, which render it easier to lose oneself in subjective fancies in this 'field than in the 12 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY realm of the objective sciences. And to this we must add that nowhere is a lack of sanity more absolutely fatal. I have already spoken of the abortive philosophical results of even able thinkers when they write in ignorance of the history of the past. Isolation from one's contemporaries, however, is equally injurious, and brings in its train idio- syncrasies and peculiarities which lower, if they do not altogether destroy, the value of the individual's work. To be insane in the full sense of the word is just to lose con- nection with one's fellows, to fall away from the objective and rational order of things, and to be possessed by subjec- tive fancies and illusions. For a philosophical thinker to stand apart from the thought of his own age, to refuse to see anything of importance in the work of his contem- poraries, or to condenm their results as entirely perverted and erroneous, is to imperil not only his own usefulness, but his philosophical sanity as well. This does not mean that a philosopher must follow the crowd, and not as an in- dependent thinker protest against what he regards as wrong methods and erroneous results. Nol Rather on occasion he must be ready to cry, Athanasius contra mundum! But then he must be ready, like Athanasius, to fight it out, and to fight it out with an open mind. To stand com- pletely aloof from 'this wicked and perverse generation' in which one lives, to regard one's fellow workers as 'mostly fools,' in addition to the moral consequences which it en- tails, both reacts injuriously upon one's scientific effective- ness, and tends to destroy one's scientific sanity. This tendency to isolation in philosophical work seems to me not wholly imknown even at the present day. I have doubt- less set before you the extreme case and spoken of the extreme penalty. But I cannot doubt that nearly every one has at some time, and to some extent, suffered intellectually from this tendency. The most obvious and perhaps the A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 13 most indispensable means of grace is the printed page, an open-minded study of the prmted work of our fellows. It is true, however, that this study is induced and its value enhanced by personal intercourse with the writers. More- over, it must be added that whenever personal acquaintance is possible, it is perhaps the most effective means of pro- moting intellectual sympathy and imderstanding, and of making clear to workers in the same field their imity of purpose, and the mutually complementary nature of their results. One may ignore or almost totally misunderstand the published views of another man; but when these are reinforced by the living personality they cannot so readily be either ignored or misunderstood. It seems to me essen- tial, then, if philosophical thinkers are to preserve their full measure of intellectual sanity, that they should, at more or less frequent intervals, be penned up and forced to listen to the views of their fellows, and, so far as possible, forced to understand and appreciate these views. If we still go on to consider the matter from the stand- point of the members who compose the Association, there is a further point which may be urged. The problems of philosophy are vastly difficult and complex. We are some- times told that they are insoluble, and that we spend our strength for nought. There are even distinguished phil- osophical scholars who say that all metaphysical theories are subjective dreams— necessary, indeed, to beings such as we are— but altogether outside the pale of objective and verifiable fact. Though the individual struggle bravely against this conclusion, the difficulties and perplexities of the subject tend to exercise a paralyzing effect upon him as he faces his problems alone. Realizing the magnitude of the task and his own insufficiency, he is apt to lose heart and to cry, 'who am I that I should try to read these riddles? It is not necessary to dwell upon the evil effects 14 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY which this loss of courage and enthusiasm entails upon the individual both as a man and as a member of society. The remedy is to be found in the development of the con- sciousness of one's intellectual community and partnership with one's colleagues. The task which seems too hard for the individual appears in a different light when he regards himself as a member of a body of organized workers. The sense of comradeship, of working with others for a common end, which is brought home to one most forcibly by personal contact, arouses enthusiasm and friendly emulation that issue in a courageous determination on the part of indi- viduals to play their role and contribute in some way to the accomplishment of the common task. It is the develop- ment of this feeling of intellectual fellowship and coopera- tion that is the most hopeful sign of all scientific work at the present day. It is also to a large extent the source of the inspiration which animates all modern investigation and scholarship. No one would maintain that this spirit is less essential in philosophical work than in other fields of inquiry. Nevertheless, I think that it is not too much to say that there does not yet exist in philosophy, either the external organization for cooperation that has already been set on foot in the natural sciences, nor even the inti- mate feeling of fraternity which binds together the workers in many of these fields. Just what is possible in the way of establishing external means of mutual help, I am not now prepared to discuss. But meeting together for a common purpose will undoubtedly aid in developing that sympathy and imderstanding which must be the basis for all plans of external cooperation. These consequences, I think, may, to some extent at least, be expected to follow as incidental results of the existence of the Association. They can scarcely be said, however, to be included in the ends at which the Association A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 15 should deliberately aim. The maini purpose which we sh(mid conscientiously set before us, it seems to me, is to promote and encourage original investigation and publi- cation. It does not, indeed, seem imreasonable to assume that this end also will in some measure be realized indirectly through the stimulus and inspiration afforded by the meet- ings. But, in addition, I think that it is possible for the Association consciously and deliberately to do something toward the promotion of this result. This does not neces- sarily imply the setting of prize questions, or the employ- ment of any external agencies whatever. But the efficiency and helpfulness of the Association in this respect will de- pend upon the spirit in which it does its work. By setting a high standard, and demanding that the papers presented shall represent the best work and most original thought of those who offer them, by keeping before us as the main purpose of the organization the advancement of philosophy, this Association may do much both to inspire and direct original work. Above all, it may become an important agent in creating the atmosphere and furthering the spirit which are essential to scholarly research. And this is a matter of the utmost importance, for the atmosphere and the scholarly inspiration are what are most needed. The conditions in American academic life which are unfavorable to original scholarship have often been made the subject of comment. The majority of the members of this Associa- tion are teachers, who can imdoubtedly plead as an excuse for their improductiveness the demands of what one of our German colleagues has happily characterized as, die zeitravbende und kraftabsorbirende academische Lehr- thdtigkeit But however unfavorable the conditions are, they are not likely to change greatly in our day, and we cannot maintain that they entirely excuse us from producing something. Indeed, in general we recognize this obligation, 16 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY and keep on hoping that next year or the year after we shall find time to do something worth while. In the mean- time, the fact remains that, with a few notable exceptions, the philosophical scholars of America are comparatively improductive. Can this Association do anything to change this state of affairs? It all depends, as I have said, upon the spirit of the Association itself. If we do not take the meetings very seriously, if we meet in an easy-going way to listen to papers which were written to read and do not represent any real research or deep thought, we may have 'a pleasant and profitable time' (as they say at teachers' meetings) but we shall not do anything to promote Ameri- can philosophical scholarship. I have said that the promotion of philosophical scholar- ship and research is the only object capable of affording a purpose common to all the members of the Association, and an interest which is likely to be serious and lasting. And in this connection I should like to express my opinion that it would be a mistake to make the discussion of methods of teaching philosophy a coordinate purpose, or even to introduce papers on this subject into the programme of the meetings. Even if the membership of the Associa- tion were composed wholly of teachers of philosophy, which will never, I hope, be the case, the meetings should not, it seems to me, be occupied with the consideration of such secondary and subordinate topics. This opmion is based not merely on the personal feeling that the discus- sion of methods of teaching philosophy is in itself rather a stupid way of wasting time, but on the conviction that even in our capacity as teachers it is courage and inspiration to attack problems for ourselves, to go to first-hand sources and so actually discover by our own efforts what we teach to students, that is the one thing needful. In dealing with university students one may surely be allowed to tell one'a A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 17 story in one's own way. The important thing is that one shall have something of one's own to tell, something in the importance of which one thoroughly believes, and which has cost real effort to discover. It seems to me, then, that it will be an advantage in every way for the members of this Association to forget, so far as possible, their profes- sion during the days of meeting, and to come together sim- ply as human beings interested in philosophical investi- gation and scholarship. It may not be inappropriate to the present occasion to call attention to the standing of philosophy in the learned world as a specialized subject of inquiry. If we look at the country as a whole it does not seem too much to say that philosophy does not enjoy the general recognition, even among educated men, that is accorded to many of the other sciences, nor is the philosophical teacher and writer universally conceded to be a specially trained scholar whose opinions in his own field are as much entitled to respect as those of the physicist or biologist in his special domain. In many colleges and imiversities the place of philosophy is only grudgingly conceded. It is regarded as a more or less useful handmaid to theology, or perhaps to education, but its scientific status as a real and independent subject of investigation is tacitly or explicitly denied. Again, men wholly imschooled in the subject frequently feel themselves competent not only to write philosophical books and articles, but they not infrequently exhibit the greatest contempt for professional philosophers, and con- fidently proclaim their own short and easy answers to the riddles of the imiverse. If we admit that this general attitude towards philosophy exists, it becomes necessary to seek for the causes through which it has arisen. I shall not attempt to furnish any exhaustive enumeration of these causes. To some extent 18 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY the explanation may be found in the fact that the prob- lems of philosophy arise only through reflection, and are, therefore, not at once evident to the outsider. One can- not point to definite phenomena of sense as the subject- matter of philosophy, as it is possible to do in the case of physical sciences. The whole inquiry consequently seems to the unreflective person mysterious and fantastical. In addition to this inherent difficulty, however, philosophy has undoubtedly been injured in public esteem by the subordi- nate and ancillary position which it so long occupied m this country. The result of making philosophy the handmaid of theology is always the same— philosophy, so fettered, de- generates into empty logomachies and lifeless definitions and justly becomes a byword and reproach among real thinkers. If at the present time philosophy has again raised its head as a free inquiry, it nevertheless still con- tinues to suffer as a consequence of its former empty char- acter and subordinate position. It is, however, fruitless to dwell upon this subject if we propose to deny that we are ourselves in any measure responsible for the present condition of affairs. But it is impossible, I think, to avoid the conclusion that if philos- ophy does not occupy the place in public esteem which properly belongs to it, the fault must lie to some e^d^nt with its present representatives. There are two mdici- ments which may, with some show of reason, be urged against professional philosophers. In the first place, it can scarcely be said that as a class they display the same zeal in original investigation, or the same scholarly devotion to their subject that is exhibited by many other groups of scientific workers. The result is that outsiders are not quite convinced that philosophers are in earnest, or that they believe in the seriousness of their own work. But secondly, and principally, the educated oulteider with- A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 19 holds his recognition from philosophy, because he believes that it has been barren of real results. Now, in spite of frequent murmurs about Thilistinism,' this demand for practical results is not in itself unreasonable. It is unrea- sonable only if the results demanded be of a kind that from the very nature of the case philosophy cannot supply — as for example, a worldly wisdom like that of the Sophists, or short and simple answers to ultimate problems. But philosophy must bake some bread; it must, like the other sciences, minister to human life. This demand cannot be escaped by the plea that philosophy concerns itself with the theoretical, not the practical, aspect of affairs. For we cannot divorce the intellectual and the practical, or say that one is for the sake of the other. Intelligence, when it is complete intelligence, is itself practical; and the will of a rational being is also intelligence. One cannot escape the conclusion that a lack of practicality in philosophical results indicates a corresponding defect upon the intellectual side, a failure to grasp the significant facts, or an occupation with isolated minor points while cowardly shirking the main issues. In no other way can we explain the charge of unfruitfulness which is so insistently brought against philosophy. Is it not true, for example, that dur- ing the present generation we have debated too exclusively the question whether or not we can know reality, and dis- cussed historical problems in too abstract a fashion? At any rate, the general feeling of the time may perhaps be taken as evidence that the representatives of philosophy have not convinced the public that their results are capable of becoming vital and directing influences in the spiritual life of the individual and of society at the present day. It is not necessary at this point to discuss the question of how the status of philosophy may be affected by the formation of the Association, or to attempt to forecast 20 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY the influence which the meetings may have m this direction It is of course true that the efficiency of philosophy, not merely in scholastic circles, but also in the ^^er hfe of liety, must be to us a matter of concern. Neither can we be indifferent to the standing of philosophy m the learned world and m the esteem of the general pubbc But any action of the Association toward the promotion of these objects must be indirect, resulting from the effect it produces upon its members. I shall therefore pass at once to another question. It may be expected that the existence of a separate or- ganization for philosophy will serve as a means of com- munication with those whose main interest is m other departments of knowledge, and that it will thus prove a lixi in the federation of the sciences. The nieetog^ ?^ the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the first week of the year will soon, it is reasonable to suppose, grow mto a still larger convocation, which w embrace not only workers in the natural sciences, but representatives of every specialized field of i^qmry. No one can doubt that the results of such wider organization will be in every way beneficial. It will broaden the out- look of workers in special fields, and bnng home tx> their minds the necessity of integration as well as specialization in order that human knowledge may become actually one science or systematic whole. It is because of our merest in such a broader federation, that I thmk we should be careful not to restrict the proper meaning of the term 'science,' or allow the word to be monopohzed by the naturalists. But whatever may be thought regardmg the possibility or advisability of this wider scientific fellowship, my fellow members will, I am sure, unammousty agree with me in the statement that it is especially desirable that our relations should be close and mtmiate with the A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 21 American Psychological Association, to whose courtesy philosophical interests in the past have owed so much, and by means of whose fostering care the present organization has grown up. The commimity of interest which obtains and must always continue to obtain between philosophy and psychology, as well as their historical association, would suggest the mutual advantage of holding common meetings from time to time as may be found convenient. The question of the relation of organizations leads me to a final word regarding the relation of philosophy to other fields of inquiry. This is a large subject to introduce at this point, but what I have to say relates to but a single aspect of it, and may perhaps be most directly stated in the following way. Philosophy must recognize that the task for which it stands cannot be accomplished by for- saking- its own standpoint, and adopting that of other sciences in the attempt to imitate their procedure, no matter how fruitful or successful these methods may appear to be when applied in other fields. Philosophy has its own spe- cial standpoint and data, as well as its own special pur- pose, and nothing but confusion can result from any aban- donment of these. This imitative tendency on the part of philosophy, the desire to affiliate with the science which appears most fruitful, or for the time has 'got the voice for excellence,' has shown itself over and over again during the last three centuries, and is still operative. In the seventeenth century, mathematics, as the ideal of the completely demonstrative science, exercised its fascination over the minds of philosophers. This influence was not confined to continental rationalists like Descartes and Spinoza, but furnished an empirical thinker like Locke with his ideal of knowledge. Indeed, it is interesting to note that just as at the present day there is a tendency to limit the term 'science' to knowledge that adopts the form '1 22 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY -^f tV,P sciences of nature, so Locke restricte the word to ^owld e th t can pre^nt M in the demonstrative S^ of mathematics. After mathematics, mechanrcd p^ics and biology have in turn attracted n>any PhUo- soDhical thinkers, and led them to seek to adapt their data to one or other of these standpoints, claunmg that fn so doing they were rendering philosophy truly scientific. "But sS thJdata of philosophy -different from^^^^^^ of the physical sciences, it is never possible without violence t tee upon them conceptions which were framed t. «>m- nrehend facts of a totally different order. The facts o expeSnce cannot be dealt with as if they were physica experieni-e i-a" „,nnec=p<, It is a fundamental phenomena, or biological processes, iv is a lu" „,. • ^. Drinciple of all science that the nature of it« subject- Sr must dictate its method of procedure and the con- Tpts by which it is to be interpreted. The causal pnncip e of coition, for example, is not an empty form that is indifferent to its content and can be transferred without chance of significance from one field to another. My excuse for dwelling upon these well-worn propositions is That there seems to be an uncertainty in some quarters rLarding the business of philosophy, which attempts to cover ite ow^ confusion by a blind faith that if we are emnln protesting our love for natural science, and our dr^ination to follow the road that it has marked out, afwm g^ well. Statement, that 'the pl?ilo-pher must te^^^ his stand upon the results of natural science that he must put on the breastplate of natural knowledge, and the like ^7y conceivably possess a sense in which they are true, but r commonly miderstood they are misleadmg and mis- levour Facts, in the form in which they are deliveml o Wm by the naturalist, have in themsehres no «Pecial sig- Sfica^ce for the philosopher. Nor can he use them as the SStLn Stones of his system. The philosopher must A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 23 look at the facts from his own standpoint, he must read them in the light of his own concepts, and cannot accept a formulation of them which is confessedly one-sided and abstract like that of natural science. Philosophical science is not 'natural* science, and cannot 'accept its facts* from the latter. To do so would be to put 'psychologism* and 'naturalism* in place of philosophy. But philosophy, to be philosophy at all, has to humanize its facts, that is, to look at them from the standpoint of complete and self- conscious human experience, for it is only from this stand- point that a meaning for them can be found. The philoso- pher is thus essentially a humanist rather than a naturalist, and his closest affliations are with the sciences that deal with the products of man's thought and piuposive activity. In his relation to natural science, he is concerned less with the facts regarded objectively than with the thinking opera- tions by which these facts were obtained. He does not adopt the standpoint of natural science, but transforms it utterly, and gives to natural facts a new interpretation in terms of conscious experience. Similarly, the abstract view of nature as a whole which the physical natiu'alist fumishesf, has to be humanized by philosophical interpreta- tion, which constrves the facts differently, finding in nature the congeniality with the mind of man through which alone it is intelligible. And, on the other hand, the philosophical standpoint necessitates a different account of the facts of mind from that given by the psychological 'naturalist.* The merely subjective standpoint of the latter cannot be taken as starting-point any more than the merely objective standpoint of the physicist. Just as philosophy humanizes the physical facts by viewing them in relation to mind, so it also objectifies subjective facts by viewing them as func- tions through which the individual realizes his imity with nature and with his fellow-men. KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 26 CHAPTER II KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE.^ The motto of the Phi Beta Kappa society "Philosophy the pilot of life," furnishes the t«xt for the reflectdons that I have to lay before you today. This motto su^ tije famous saying of Socrates in the Apohgy, that a life without criticism or examination is not a he worth hvmg for a human being. For *iXo<.o«J« in your motto, as I under- stand it, signifies just the free exercise of thought that finds its function in examining and testing the opmions and be- Tets that pass current in ordinary life. It as this facuhy of reflecting on experience, and fin Address aeUvered^for^^^e S^iet, of f^^^^^j^^ rSfVorix.^0. l!^pr2^. Oct.. 1909. 2s life. Nor do we adequately characterize its relation to life when we emphaedze its utility as the essential instrument and indispensable guide of practice. Reflection, as the free and unrestricted play of ideas, is rather to be regarded as the essential business or primary intention of human life. Philosophy is thus no foreign pilot that has been taken on board, but the expression of what is most truly and inti- mately the individuars own natmre. It is not merely regulative, but constitutive of life, being the heart and center from which flow all its practical activities, and to which they all again return for constant adjustment and renewal. It is the ever-present fountain of youth, the vivifying and transforming element of our experience which has the power to make all things new. Without it, our highest activities would be blind and mechanical, our righteousness would be like the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, having no connection with the innermost center of our personality. For mere practical activities tend to become mechanical and perpetuate themselves through habit; and when they lose all connection with the reflective source of rational life, they are incapable of retaining their spiritual vitality and become empty forms without substance. When we thus attempt to regard life in its true ideal sig- nificance, to see life steadily and to see it whole, it seems possible to rise above the opposition between knowledge and practice. Nevertheless, it may be said, this is a mere coun- sel of perfection, an ideal that cannot be realized under the actual conditions that constitute our finite and fragmentary mode of existence. We find that, as a matter of fact, there is a tendency to separate, and oftentimes to sharply oppose, these two aspects of experience, giving either one the primacy, and regarding the other as of secondary or merely derivative importance. Knowledge, for example, is sometimes regarded as the pilot of life in the sense that I i 26 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY it is the indispensable instrument for the attainment of prac- tical ends, the means through which man gains mastery over the forces of material nature or discovers a common basis for cooperation with his fellow-men. From this pomt of view, ideas are valued in terms of their usefulness m practical application, and there naturally arises a certain impatience with regard to knowledge that is not directed toward some practical end. On the other hand, those who live the reflective life are apt to take up an equally one-sided position in defense of knowledge against the claims of practice. They are too often ready to maintain that ideas are debased and contaminated by bemg applied to practical affairs, and that knowledge is higher and purer when it remains isolated in the reahn of the pure idea. It is perhaps true that this is not an altogether just characterization of the position of those who are unwilling to subordinate knowledge to practice or to evaluate ideas in an offhand way in terms of their practical consequences. Yet I think the champions of knowledge for ite own sake have not infrequently been led to define knowledge m a purely negative and abstract way as agamst practice, seeking te vindicate the claims of the intellectual hfe by separating it teo sharply from the functions and offices through which it expresses itself. To separate Imowledge from life, as something that might be contaminated by life s everyday demands and uses, is te take up an indefensible position. In so far as this attitude has existed, the prevail- ing demand that knowledge shall justify itself is a reason- able protest against an interpretation that not only robs knowledge of practical significance, but, in so doing also renders it empty and impossible from an intellectual stand- point For in the midst of our disputes about the relative Importance of knowledge and action, it may at least be recognized that either one, when taken in complete isolation KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 27 from the other, becomes contradictory and self-destructive; the most unpractical of all men being he who is narrowly or exclusively practical, and the stupidest and most unen- lightened man, he who deals only in abstract principles which have no relation to what is real and concrete. In maintaining the value and dignity of knowledge, as is done by this society, there is involved no antagonism to what is practical; on the contrary, your motto emphasizes the essential and necessary relation between knowledge and life. What, however, is fundamentally antagonistic to the spirit and traditions of the Phi Beta Kappa society is that practical attitude which lays exclusive or primary emphasis upon external goods, which can have, at best, only a subordinate place as means or instruments in a rational life. We must distinguish sharply between what is truly practical for a man and what the word usually implies. It is, however, impossible to reconcile the con- flicting positions by any mere definition of terms. There exists a genuine and radical antagonism between philoso- phy, as the love of wisdom, the pursuit of that which is in itself real, and the demand for practical efficiency, that which will yield some tangible cash value in a given situation. It would be idle to conceal from ourselves that truth is about the last thing the average mind esteems or desires. The practical man is always impatient of the person who insists on facts or principles, despising these as not leading te immediate results. The spirit of the world, as Morley aptly satirizes it, is that "thoroughness is a mistake, and nailing your flag te the mast a bit of delusive heroics. Think wholly of to-day and not at all of to-morrow. Beware of the high, and hold fast to the safe. Dismiss convictions and study the general consensus. No zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much low-minded geniality I 28 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY and trivial complaisance as you please." Cynical as these counsels sound when thus baldly stated, they can scarcely be said to exaggerate the prevailing woridly spirit of the man who prides himself on his practical good sense. It is not the mere absence of light that is depressing, but the open contempt for truth as something that is without signif- icance in the affairs of life. It may appear to the young man going out into life that the practical forces are so strong and all-pervasive at the present time that the only prudent course is to capitulate and leam the rules of the game. But, after all, if his college life and the fellowship of societies like this have given him any glimpse of ideal values, his loss of courage can only be momentary. It is encouraging to remember that the history of the conflict between the ideal and the practical is the history of civiliza- tion, and that numbers have never been able to overwhelm the cause we represent. The history of success is the history of minorities. The forces that war against light and knowledge in the name of practical expediency assume various forms, and sometimes profess themselves champions of the highest spiritual interests. They may perhaps be classified un- der two heads: materialism, which demands that the fruits of knowledge be forthcoming in terms of external goods of some kind, and practical or sentimental idealism, which is likewise eager for quick return of profits and impatient with knowledge that does not contribute directly to the amelioration of the life of the individual or society. The influence of materialism is not due to the strength of its arguments; in fact, nothing is easier than to show theo- retically that the evaluation of life in terms of material goods is thoroughly short-sighted and unpractical. But the appeal of materialism is rather to the desires than to the reason. It works through the longing that individuals feel KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 29 for honor or wealth or personal enjoyment, or even presents itself in the name of the intellectual or ©sthetic life, as a demand for the means of cultivation and self-realization. These influences are so subtle and insidious, as well as so constant and pervasive, that the individual is often led cap- tive imawares, the good seed of idealism being gradually choked by the cares of the worid, and the effort required to maintain one*g position as a man of affairs and to rank well with one's fellows. However, the practice of materialism soon leads to its expression in theory. When the indif- ference to ideas is boldly expressed in the form of a cyn- ical theory, or, worse still if possible, in the Polonius-like advice to young men to throw aside ideas and aim at prac- tical things, the paralysis of mind and soul have become complete, truth and the love of wisdom being expressly repudiated. However seductive the rewards of material success, the futility of making these things the ends of life is, on re- flection, clearly enough apparent. But the case is different when appeal is made to the desire to attain practical results of a higher order. The desire to serve society, to benefit one's fellow-men, is one of the noblest impulses of human nature, and appeals strongly to men of idealistic tempera- ment. It is perhaps not too much to say that the increase of this spirit is one of the most hopeful manifestations of our own time, implying, as it does, a growing consciousness of the profound truth that we are all members one of an- other. Nevertheless, there is a real danger, I venture to think, in the philanthropic ideal when taken as an ultimate or exclusive end of life, and thus opposed to the pursuit of knowledge. The danger is that attention may become so exclusively fixed on practical results as to lead to im- patience with the slow processes of thought, and thus to a contempt for truth as opposed to what seems for the time n 30 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY being to be the good of the individual or society. And it scarcely needs to be pointed out that, when this happens, the good will isf itself perverted. There is a strange para- dox in all spiritual life, yet a paradox that ceases to be perplexing when we remember that the mind is not a col- lection of separately acting faculties, but an organic whole. The paradox to which I refer is not merely that the corrup- tion of the best is the worst, but that even the best thought and motives, when over-emphasized and taken apart from the other elements with which they are naturally and nor- mally associated, prove contradictory, and are transformed into their opposites. Thus the desire to benefit society, when dissociated from the love of knowledge, soon degen- erates into the extremest and emptiest form of egoism, into the desire for power or honor; or it leads straightway to the conviction that the practical end is so important that it must be realized at once and at all costs. It is never safe to love anything better than truth, no matter how high or holy it may appear to be. "He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth," says Coleridge, "will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all." As John Morley puts it: "The law of things is that they who tamper with veracity, from whatever motive, are tampering with the vital force of human progress. Our comfort, and the delight of the religious imagina- tion, are no better than forms of self-indulgence when they are secured at the cost of that love of truth on which, more than on anything else, the increase of light and happiness among men must depend. We have to fight and do lifelong battle against the forces of darkness, and anything that turns the edge of reason blunts the surest and most potent of our weapons." I shall try, a little later, to show that the intellectual life, in its most complete exercise, includes within itself the highest practical activities. There can be no ulti- KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 31 mate opposition between truth and goodness, between the ends of the intellectual and the moral life, when these are rightly understood. At present, however, I am rather concerned to point out how the prevailing emphasis on practice, although in its two forms seeming to appeal to quite a different order of motives, leads in both cases alike to an indifference to ideas that is destructive of the highest results. I have put the matter in this way, dwelling on the an- tagonism between the ideals of your society and the pre- vailing tendencies, not for the purpose of bringing discour- agement, but rather, so far as I may, to sound a trumpet and to summon you to arms. And, as is usually the case, the foes within are here more dangerous than the foes without. The greatest danger is that the prevail- ing skepticism shall effect an entrance into our own minds and thus paralyze our efforts in behalf of learning. At the present time, it is essential, above everything else, that scholars, and the universities as the representatives of scholarship, should renew their faith in the sovereignty and efficacy of truth. May it not be, that the indiffer- ence to learning on the part of undergraduates of which we are hearing so much at the present time, is to some ex- tent the outcome and reflection of our own skepticism and worldliness? Unless scholars can keep alive in their own hearts the love of truth, unless they are really absorbed in its pursuit, they cannot hope to inspire others with rev- erence for knowledge as for something high and noble. The fault must lie in ourselves and not in our stars. Even when circumstances seem most unpromising, the love of truth is a motive to which one may always confidently appeal. Next to distrusting his own reason, for the scholar the most fatal step is to assume that truth has no power to awaken a re- sponse in the minds of others. Indeed, these are both 32 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY expressions of the same paralyzing skeptical attitude. To distrust human reason is to forget the fundamental fact that a knowledge of the genuine nature of reality is, as Plato says, the true nourishment of the soul, and that it languishes and dies when it turns away from truth and feeds upon opinion. Indifference to truth can never long maintain itself, in the face of light and conviction. It is vain, said Kant, to pretend to be indifferent regardmg questions to which the human reason, from its very nature, can never be indifferent. The first duty of the scholar, then, when he appears to be surrounded by hostile forces, is to keep his own light trimmed and burning: To abate not one jot of heart or hope But steer right onwards. And he may derive encouragement by reminding himself that the cause of civilization is bound up with the mainte- nance of ideas, with the perpetuation of the spirit of free inquiry. The cause in which he is enlisted is far-reaching, and of the highest importance. Without the work of the scholar who acknowledges as his master no other sovereign than truth, who restricts his inquiries by no practical or instrumental considerations, the spirit of freedom would perish from the earth. Not only would no real advances in the moral or intellectual life be possible, but with the free exercise of thought there would soon pass away the higher ideas and ideals that form the basis of our civili- zation. What the practical man holds in light esteem, the scholar^s work of promoting and keeping alive the cultural ideas that form the basis of civilization, regarding it as effeminate or unfit for a man with red blood in his veins, is, on reflection, seen to be the most practical and important concern of humanity. And, similarly, the disinterested pur- suit of ideas, that often appears to the man enthusiastic for KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 33 practical reforms to be nothing more than a refined kind of selfishness, shows itself as the necessary basis and support for the moral life. "The love of knowledge for its own sake," says Locke, "is the principal part of human perfec- tion, and the seedplot of all the virtues." There is there- fore no ground for discouragement at the present time; and above all no reason for the scholar to feel that his day is over, that his place is to be taken by the practical inventor or the politician or philanthropist who can show results that are valuable to society. It may help to give force to these considerations and to make them more concrete, if we consider their application more specifically to some of the problems of university life at the present time. As is well known, very serious criticisms have been recently brought against the educa- tional results that are being attained by the colleges and universities of the country, and various causes have been assigned as explanations of existing evils, and a variety of remedies proposed. Now, even if we agree among our- selves that these defects have been set forth in a some- what sensational way, it is still impossible to deny that conditions are serious enough to call for our most earnest attention. It must be admitted, too, that the faculties and governing bodies of these institutions have to accept the primary responsibility for existing conditions, and that on them falls the duty of correcting abuses. I have no specific remedies to propose, but I feel sure that any program of reform must proceed from, and go along with, a renewal of faith in the value of ideas, and of courage in proclaiming them on the part of imiversity teachers. It may be impossible to make headway directly against the spirit of the age, as it expresses itself outside the univer- sity; it may even be impossible to refuse admission to college to students whose aims and capacities render them to 34 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY a great extent impervious to ideas; but it is incumbent on those of us who are teachers to hold up a different standard and to maintain an asylum where science and let- ters may be preserved and advanced, and from which they may go forth to the service of humanity. And I may add that the university has the right to expect the same spirit of devotion to truth from her loyal alunmi. To be loyal to the university involves the duty of being loyal to the idea of a university, to its essential spirit and highest purpose. There is perhaps nothing so thoroughly discour- aging to a university teacher, nothing so provocative of deep-seated pessimism, as the lack of sympathy often shown by alumni with the highest aims and interests of their alma mater. The noisy loyalty that discharges itself solely on the plane of sport is too often a hindrance, rather than an inspiration, to the work of the faculty. But, after all, the main responsibility for educational results must rest with the faculty; and the new spirit, if it is to come, must first find its expression through them. I have attempted to state some familiar truths regarding the essential nature of the scholar's vocation, and the grounds which he may find for encouragement, even when conditions appear most unfavorable to his efforts. But, looking at the matter from the actual position in which the individual teacher finds himself to-day, it may seem that these considerations are mere empty words, and that as things are they will remain. It is impossible, it may be urged, for either the teacher or the student to maintain standards essentially different from the society by which he is surrounded. And, moreover, even if we grant that the promotion of the intellectual life is the highest possible aim, when we take human nature and actual conditions as they are, have we any reasonable hope of success? Have not our demands been too high, the plan of education too far removed from the interests of our / KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 35 American youth, to call forth their activities? Let us come down from the heights, and, taking human nature as it is, aim at practical results, at giving our young men a training for life, at making them efficient leaders of business and qualifying them for holding political offices. They may happily in the process acquire some modicum of liberal culture and some respect for ideas. In spite of the element of truth that such statements contain, I cannot help feeling that they point entirely in the wrong direction. A university teacher is not the man to talk about taking human nature as it is, or of gratifying the actually existing interests of students. For his concern is with human nature as it ought to be, his function to awaken and call our inter- ests that are yet only latent and which the student may not yet know that he possesses. It is a poor philosophy to take human nature as it is, and to fail to bear in mind that which it is capable of becoming. Moreover, if the uni- versity cannot maintain any higher ideals, or appeal to different interests, than those which are dominant in the outside world, what reason is there for its continuing to exist? The practical preparation for life may be better obtained in professional schools or in contact with the actual conditions of business life. The question of the relation of the university teacher to practical life is most important, and one that demands serious consideration. It may be that here is one source of his weakness. The older type of college professor was, as a rule, much less actively engaged in practical affairs than their successors are to-day. As a rule, too, the teachers in the great European universities occupy themselves much less with practical matters than we do. They accept scholarship and teaching as their high vocation, reckoning other things as for them of altogether secondary importance. But, among ourselves, the unpractical type of college pro- V, 36 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY lessor, who lived in the world of ideas and was somewhat oblivious to mundane affairs, is rapidly vanishing. In the Rejmblic Plato speaks of the necessity of compelling the philosophers to resign for a time the contemplation of the idea to take part in the affairs of the state. At the present time, however, there seems to be no compulsion necessary in order to mduce scholars to take up practical pursuits. It is so much easier to act than to think! We not only waste our strength on all kinds of practical questions regarding the organization and administration of the university, but we are also ready to lead reform movements in church and state, direct charities, organize conventions, or give advice on any practical question whatsoever, under the pleasant conviction that we are rendering important public service, and also demonstrating that the college professor of to-day is a very wide-awake practical person. Of course, all these activities may be good, but do they not tend to distract the mind of the scholar from his own proper busi- ness? The good may easily become the enemy of the best; and the best and highest for every man is his own station and duties. Where the line is to be drawn in any case is a question for the individual. How far any college teacher may find it possible to engage in practical affairs will de- pend partly on his temperament, and partly on the degree of absorption that his own particular studies demand. But, if he finds that these things tend to distract his mind, and to dull the edge of his scholarly interest, let him not lay the flattering unction to his soul that he is doing something higher and more important. There can be no doubt that the highest efficiency for the scholar and teacher requires that he should sit apart from the practical world. He must, in a sense, renounce the world, and live in the inner reahn of ideas, never allowing the things of sense and time to occupy the chief place in his heart. This does not imply that he KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 37 is to be oblivious to what is taking place around him or indifferent to the interests of the society in which he lives. But he must realize that he can serve those interests best by devoting himself to his own proper work, by laboring to the utmost of his strength that the truth which it is his duty to teach be not error, that the light within his own soul be not darkness. He must be in the world but not of the world, having made the advancement and propa- gation of learning the great end and object of his exist- ence. It is, of course, true that this breed of men has not entirely disappeared from the faculties of our colleges and imiversities. Otherwise, our condition would be help- less indeed. But I think there are comparatively few teach- ers who will not admit that the pressure of outside distrac- tions is seriousily interfering with their devotion to scholarship and dulling their fine enthusiasm for truth. "The world is too much with us"; we are too anxious and troubled about many things, and tend to neglect the one thing needful. The truth is a jealous mistress, who will not grant favors to him who serves her with half a heart. Moreover, there is no other motive than reverence for truth that will supply moral fiber strong enough to with- stand the temptation, under which the teacher always labors, to obtain immediate results by pleasing his hear- ers, by giving them something that will appeal to their immediate interests and fancies, something that will pro- duce an immediate effect. The desire to influence one*s students in a practical way — even to make them better morally — is no proper substitute for the effort to lead them to think clearly and independently, and with a ven- eration for truth to follow the argument wherever it leads. Without this element, instruction degenerates into a mere play of subjective opinions, and furnishes no true nour- ishment for the mind. "The hungry sheep look up and 4 ti 38 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY are not fed." When the guiding principle is lost, there is danger that the relations between teacher and student may tend toward the condition which Plato has described in the Republic, as characteristic of the democratic state: "The teacher, in these circumstances," he says, "fears and flatters his students, and the students despise their masters and tutors. And, speaking generally, the young copy their elders and enter the lists with them in speaking and acting; and the elders unbend so far as to abound in wit and pleasantry, in imitation of the young, in order, as they say, to avoid seeming morose or exacting." It may perhaps be said, however, in defense of the prac- tical teacher, that the main business of the universities is not to make scholars, but to train up men for the profes- sions and for the service of the state. The most valuable and efficient teachers, therefore, will be men of the world who can give the student the outlook on life of the practical man and instruction in what will be of value to him when he leaves the university. There are two things that may be said in reply to this objection. In the first place, it would seem to have much more force when applied to the instruc- tion demanded by professional schools and colleges than to the colleges of arts and sciences, of which I am now speaking. And secondly, it cannot be granted that it is necessary to be engrossed in the affairs of the world in order to imderstand it. The spectator of time and existence, the man who would penetrate deeply into the meaning of things, must sit apart and observe and reflect. It is only thus that he can obtain an objective point of view; his vision is obscured by too near a prospect or by being himself in the heat of the conflict. It is true, of course, that the majority of the students who attend the universities will not devote their lives to scholarship. Nevertheless, it is a mistake on the part of the university to adopt any other KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 39 end than that of producing scholars. The first fimction of the university is to see that the race of scholars shall never fail, to inspire and train men who shall perpetuate and advance the cause of learning. And it is of funda- mental importance that this shall be done, and that a fair share, at least, of the very ablest and most capable men should be led to devote themselves to teaching and scholar- ship. Otherwise, if the noblest and best are drawn off into the practical professions, the cause of learning will be left to the spiritually lame and halt, the mediocre, cautious type of men who look forward merely to comfortable positions and Carnegie pensions. But after the demands of scholar- ship have been met, still the business of life of the majority of the students will be to apply ideas in various fields. This fact, however, is no argument for lowering the intel- lectual standards of the university in their case or for the assumption that knowledge and scholarship are for them of secondary importance. For the university becomes false to its essential fimction as soon as learning is subordinated to any other end. When a imiversity becomes a social club, or depends for its support on the reputation of its athletic teams, it has ceased to be a university, and should siurender its charter as an institution of learning. Moreover, it is of the utmost importance that the men who are to go out into the world to administer its practical affairs should be imbued with a loyalty to truth and a passion for light and clearness of ideas. If we would train men for the state, let us not forget that this is what the affairs of the state demand: the clear-headed courage that comes from loyalty to truth, the patience and resolution that proceed from a faith in principles, the fine sense of justice that can only be maintained by the man who hag learned to rise above his own individual point of view and to imderstand the true objective relations of 40 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY things. To develop character by implanting a reverence for truth, and a desire to serve under her banner, to awaken in their students a love of light and a passion for clear and distinct ideas, this is the high duty of universi- ties. If it is true that this aim has been somewhat obscured of late, if, growing skeptical of the value of ideas, we have put moral training and social experience and other false gods in the place of truth, then we must put away these idols from amongst us, and remember the high vocation imto which we are called. But is this practical, it may be asked? Must not the university conform to the conditions and needs of the coimtry, and is not the demand of the coimtry for practical, efficient men? Well, what is the test of efficiency? It is surely to be rated not primarily by the quantity or amoimt of the activity, but rather by the quality of the end achieved 1 not by the sensational charac- ter of the immediate results, but by the permanent value of that which has been realized. If, then, we insist that we must look to the end in defining efficiency, it is certainly true that to train and discipline the intellectual faculties, awaken the desire to see things clearly and to see them whole, is in the highest sense to promote efficiency. The imiversity can have no higher or more practical function than to implant in its students the love of reality and truth, and the hatred of falsehood and shams. The object of the Phi Beta Kappa society is the promo- tion of the spirit of liberal scholarship. More particularly, as I imderstand, it stands for literature in the broadest sense, for the humanistic studies that deal with the im- material achievements of man's intellect. It is especially in these fields, however, that it is difficult to maintain an invigorating intellectual atmosphere at the present time. There seem to be wanting to the representatives of these branches of learning two sources of encouragement and KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 41 ' ! stimulus that are enjoyed by the workers in the natural sciences. These are, first, the consciousness of the immediate applicability of their results to the practical interests of mankind; and, secondly, the courage and confidence that come from success in actually advancing the confines of knowledge and making absolutely new discoveries. The scientific worker has the advantage over his colleague who is a humanist, also in the more general recognition of the importance of his results on the part of the public. Science may have its uses, and if it does not go too far afield it may be tolerated by the practical spirit; but letters and liberal cultm-e the practical man regards as something weak and effeminate, something not worthy of the attention of serious grown-up men. Even if it be desirable that students in the earlier years of their course should get a taste of language or literature or philosophy, it is felt by many that in their later years they should devote themselves to something more serious, if possible to studies bearing on some vocation. We find a striking picture of this attitude toward liberal study in the Gorgias. Callicles, a Sophist of the worst type, remonstrates with Socrates on continuing to waste his time on a useless study like philosophy. "Philosophy," he says, "as a part of education is an excellent thing; and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but when he is older the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel toward philosophers as I do toward those that lisp and imitate children. . . . When I see a youth continu- ing the study in later fife and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as I was saying, such a one, even if he have good parts, becomes effeminate. . . . What is the value of an art that converts a man of sense into a fool? Then take my advice, learn the philosophy of business, and leave to others these absurdities; for they will only bring you to poverty. Take for your model, not these word-spUtters, but soUd, respectable men of business who have shown their wisdom by becoming well to do." 42 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY The reproach that liberal culture is useless and effemi- nate, then, is not peculiar to our time, but represents the universal estimate of all those who apply a purely worldly standard of value. But there always has existed an- other standard of what is worth while in human life; and on the maintenance of that standard the cause of civilization rests. The teachers of the humanities at the present time have need of all their courage in order to stand firmly and aggressively against the Philistinism that nowadays vaunts itself in high places. They must re- fuse to compromise with the enemy, or to accept some in- ferior post in order to be kept alive, but continue to do battle for the supremacy of man's spiritual ideals. And to carry on this work in the universities there is need of recruits, men of imagination and brains, "the fairest of oiir youth," as Plato says, "men sound in mind and wind, with a quick apprehension, a good memory, and a manly and lofty spirit." To such men the old call is still ring- ing out: Who will go up to the help of the Lord against the mighty? We cannot doubt that the universities will pro- duce a breed of men to carry on this work. The fight is not over. It would be pessimistic to cry, "Zeus is now dethroned and Vortex reigns in his st^ad." The representative of the humanities, therefore, who recognizes the full significance of his own work, has cer- tainly not less real or solid grounds for enthusiasm than his colleague who occupies himself with science. For it is his mission to carry knowledge to its fullest and highest frui- tion, to interpret man to himself in the light of his past achievements and history. Knowledge is only real and genuine when it takes the form of self-knowledge. It is only then that it becomes himian and liberating, that it is the truth that makes us free. And in order to know one's self as hxmian, it is necessary to know humanity. "What KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 43 4 should they know of England who only England know?" Kipling asks. Similarly, to know one's own mind, involves an understanding of what mind has achieved and become. In order to become rational and human, the individual must go beyond himself and enter into the heritage that belongs to him as a member of the family of rational beings. Cul- ture is defined by Matthew Arnold as the effort to know the best that has been thought and said in the world. This, of course, implies more than a process of passive acquisi- tion of foreign material. What we have inherited from the past we have to make our own, employing it as the means for the promotion of our total perfection, as Arnold tells us. The humanist accordingly has the duty of making the past live again, not of mechanically reproducing its acci-' dental and temporal aspects, but of interpreting it in terms of its permanent and eternal significance. And, as this work must be done by each age in the light of its own prob- lems and conditions, it demands powers that are at once creative and critical. Indeed, all true criticism is at the same time creative. The genuine humanist, then, like the real scientist, is not deprived of the inspiration that comes from creative activity. He is called upon to advance knowl- edge, to contribute to the sum-total of ideas. The function which he is called upon to perform is to contribute to the solution of that most difficult and fundamental of human problems, the problem of self-knowledge. It is the most difficult, for it is the all-inclusive problem, being the inter- pretation of reason by reason. It is the most important, for only so far as the mind knows itself is it free. The history of the himian race, as Hegel says, is the develop- ment of the consciousness of freedom. Or, in other words, it is the development of the consciousness of the true end and destiny of man that constitutes the real education of both the individual and the race. 44 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY Philosophy thus becomes the pilot of life in the highest and most complete sense when the desire for wisdom and enlightenment enters the mind as its dominant and con- trolling purpose. This motive, at its highest and best, includes within itself the outer life of practice as its necessary means of realization and mode of expression. Truth can only be realized through contact with the ob- jective world, and through sympathy and appreciation of the thoughts of our fellow-men. The intellectual life is not something isolated and abstract, something opposed or antagonistic to the virtues of practical life. The scholar cannot be essentially self-centered or selfish, or a man of cowardly spirit or low passions. In so far as these things enter into a man, they destroy his enthusi- asm for truth, and warp and pervert his ideas. On the other hand, when the desire for light and wisdom becomes the controlling principle of life, all the lower passions and desires are dried up at the roots. The practical life becomes the means and instrument of reason, its impulses and activities being tested and evaluated in the light of the most complete knowledge that is attainable. And, finally, the more we reflect, the more firmly will we be con- vinced that devotion to truth, "loyalty to loyalty," in Pro- fessor Royce^s fine phrase, is the only soil from which the other virtues can spring. For if this be lacking, if a man be indifferent to truth, regarding it as a thing of no prac- tical importance, there is remaining no longer any center or core of personality, to which a consistent or a coher- ent character might attach. To be disloyal to oiu* own best convictions, then, is the only skepticism that we need to dread. For this is to obscure the very foundation- light of our being, to cherish "the lie in the soul," as Plato puts it, which destroys and corrupts the entire character. CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING.^ The purpose of an association such as I have the honor of addressing is to express and foster the ideals of scholar- ship, to do its part in maintaining in our civilization the ideal of the intellectual life as something of supreme value and importance. To preserve and deepen the humanistic tradition by interpreting it anew so that each generation may not fail to receive its due inheritance of ideas and guid- ing principles is a task that becomes increasingly difficult as time goes on. Our faith in progress, however well-grounded it may be, does not justify us in overlooking the fact that rational ideas, and the civilization that is based upon them, are in constant danger of being perverted and destroyed by forces of irrationalism which often assume plausible forms and profess to prophesy in the name of what is highest. If civilization is to advance, it must be through the power of thought, through the influence of ideas; without this direc- tion the course of human history shows a constant tendency to revert to barbarism as tbe type of a 'natural society.' The intellectual life, as the basis of civilization, has to be supported by organized effort and with vigilance unre- mitting from generation to generation. Over against the scholar there always stands a mighty army, niunerous and ^ This paper was delivered as an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of the University of Virginia, and is here reprinted without change from the University of Virginia Alumni Bulletin for April, 1916. Reprinted from The Philosophical Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp. 274-295, May, 1918. 46 I r I u\ 46 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY strongly entrenched, the practical men falsely so called, whose real name Plato long ago declared to be misologists — haters of ideas. Their favorite form of attack consists in contrasting the weakness of the mere theorist with the strength and excellence of the practical man, who is called the man of character and good will. The general question of the relation of ideas and practice is a well-worn battle ground which I shall not ask you to traverse this evening. But I wish to say a few words regarding a point that is frequently implied in the depreciation of ideas. The scholar's life, it isf often said, isolates the individual from his fellows, divorcing him from real life and from the prac- tical endeavors of men that give to human existence its highest significance and value. I believe that this charge is imjustified, and that it derives its appearance of plausi- bility from a false and antiquated theory of the nature of thinking and a misconception of the conditions under which it takes place. If it can be shown that the life which con- cerasf itself with ideas involves the closest imion of the individual with his fellows, this will in some degree serve as a reply to the oft-repeated charge to which 1 have referred, and will also, I hope, suggest some further applications that may be of interest. The thesis which I shall maintain is that the intellectual life is a form of experience which can be realized only in common with others through membership in a social com- munity. The life of the scholar is no abstract self-cen- tered mode of existence: it does not consist in withdrawing from the world, or in ignoring the claims of one's fellow- men. On the contrary, it demands the most intimate and sympathetic partnership with the minds and interests of others. At its highest and best, it is of all forms of human life the least exclusive and self-centered, and perhaps that which affords the most complete illustration of social com- THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 47 munity and cooperation. It is a popular idea that thinking is a process by means of which the individual evolves ideas in some mysterious way from the depths of his own con- sciousness. But reflection shows that this idea is false, both to the facts of individual experience, and to the his- tory of the development of thinking in the race. An appeal to the facts shows that thinking takes place in the medium of dialectic and discussion, involving the contact, and nearly always the conflict, of different minds. It is a function, not of a single individual mind, but of a plural- ity of minds in social interplay. In short, what I shall maintain is that the notion of the isolated individual is as inadequate and misleading when taken as a basis of logic as by general assent it is acknowledged to be when employed to explain the moral, political, or religious experience of the individual. In these latter fields of experience, the conception of the social nature of man has largely transformed our ideas of human relationships, and has in most quarters displaced the older theories which regarded the isolated individual as the starting point and center of all inquiries. This, change has been practical as well as theoretical: not only has it modified our ways of thinking, but it has led to im- portant changes in social and political practice, and has given a new direction and motive to the efforts of religious workers. Like so many of our modem discoveries regard- ing human relationships, the idea that the nature of the individual is essentially bound up with that of others, is in^^ many respects nothing more than a return to a point of view that was familiar to the great thinkers among the Greeks. Both Plato and Aristotle saw the impossibility of separat- ing the individual from his society. The richer experience of the modem world has, however, given to this point of view a deeper meaning and a more fruitful application than 48 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY was possible in the earlier time. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the corollaries and applications of this con- ception have by no means been as yet fully perceived. What will happen when men really begin to apply this doc- trine and to act upon it, no one can say. In the meantime, it must not be forgotten that this new social doctrine has come not to destroy but to fulfill whatever is true in the old individualistic conceptions. In other words, the mod- em point of view which is affecting so profoundly the relation of man to society may also be described as a more adequate realization of the nature of individuality. It shows how completely the concrete content of individuality is social. It restates and demonstrates in detail the familiar truth that we are all members one of another. That doctrine was long repeated with the lips before it was consciously and deliberately adopted as a basis for constructive theory. It is always a surprise to find that a familiar and accepted truth embodies a principle of great significance — ^that a doc- trine charged with profound revolutionary consequences contains nothing but what the prophets foretold. In our theories as to the practical relations of men in society, we have at length come to see that it is necessary to read the facts in a new way. If it is true that the indi- vidual, as a moral, political, or religious being, includes as an essential element within himself relations to his fellow- men that involve some form of organized society, then it is evidently a wrong scientific procedure to assume as the fimdamental reality a self-centered individual whose activities are all concerned with the promotion of his own happiness. The older theories of politics and ethics accepted unquestioningly the notion of the individual as a self- contained given entity, endowed with certain properties and principles, e.g., "self-love to move and reason to direct." Guided by a similar logic, the older physical theories as- THE SOCLAX NATURE OF THINKING 49 sumed as their unquestioned datimi of fact the self-enclosed atom with its properties of attraction and repulsion. From these isolated atoms, physical and social alike, the nature of the physical world and of human society had to be explained. But the same logic that overthrew the notion of the hard atom led in the social field to a truer view of the nature of the human individual. In both cases alike, a dynamic and relative view came to displace the older static and external set of conceptions. This new doctrine teaches that nothing is isolated and nothing fixed: that the parts live in and through their relation to the whole; and that change finds its way to the very heart of things. I do not feel competent to speak of the results which the application of these new categories have brought about in the physical sciences. We know, however, that the older hypotheses have been revolutionized, and that much has happened and is happening in these departments of knowledge that was wholly undreamed of in the old phi- losophy. Similarly, the abandonment of atomistic concep- tions of man and of society has brought about consequences that seem in many respects even more strikingly revolution- ary. In order to give an account of these changes, it would be necessary to undertake to write the history of recent thought in these fields. We have only to consider the older political philosophy which was based on the concep- tion of a social contract, the hedonistic or intuitional theories of morality, or the classical forms of political economy, in order to realize how great is the gulf that separates our thought from the individualism of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Even those of us who still call our- selves individualists no longer base our arguments upon a conception of the rights, duties, or interests of the formal or nominal individual; we have been forced to abandon the notion of exclusive individuality, and to recognize that 't fi-i 50 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY individuals have reality and significance, not in themselves and by natural or divine right;. but just in so far as they embody and express the life and purpose of a larger social whole of which they are members. It is as members of society y not as self-subsistent entities, that individuals must be interpreted. Individuality involves partnership with others, cooperation in a common cause, loyalty to interests that carry the individual out beyond the limits of his merely private life. This conception of concrete individual- ity, as deriving its positive content from social relationships, is leading at the present day to new methods of inquiry and to new problems in the fields of social and political life. Even in religion, which has never been entirely deprived of social significance, emphasis has in recent times been laid less upon the individual's so-called inner life, and more upon his relations to his fellows. It must, of course, be added that this whole process of reconstruction is still going on, and that many questions as to the lines of its detail are still under debate. For our present purpose, however, it is not necessary to give an accoimt of the results so far achieved, or to attempt a criticism or justification of the doctrines of any particular writer. These references are intended only to introduce the question whether the adoption of a similar standpoint is not necessary in order to understand the significance of the individual's thinking, and the influences which go toward the development of the intellectual life. It might seem that this view would require only to be stated in order to find assent. For it is impossible to sepa- rate the concrete life of the mind into separate departments. The mind is a whole, and if its social nature is demonstrated in certain forms of experience, we should hardly expect to find it, in any one of its aspects, remaining isolated and self-centered. Nevertheless, both in popular thinking THE SOCLAX, NATURE OF THINKING 51 and in psychological analysis there is a tendency to regard the thinking mind as a particular form of existence, some- how enclosed within a body, and expressing the function- ing of a brain. Just as one body keeps another body out of the same space, so the thinking mind of the individual is regarded as isolated, repellent, exclusive. The thinker is taken to be a solitary being, wrestling with his own problems alone and unassisted. By the power of his mind he is supposed to create truth through his own analysis and meditations. And, again, as an independent thinker, Athanasius contra mundum, he is supposed to be capable of bearing witness to this truth, and of making it prevail. As opposed to this contention, I wish to suggest that the^ process of verification always involves, either directly or indirectly, the cooperation and interplay of a plurality of minds. It is with the support and in the light of the thoughts of other men that the individual is able to free himself from subjective fancies and hasty generalizations, and so to attain to universal truth. The result is not orig- inal in the sense that it has sprung wholly from his brain, but it is the product of many minds working together. In short, I am expressing again the doctrine that I have already suggested: thinking is the outcome of the function- ing of a society of minds, not of an abstract individual mind, just as morality, and political institutions, and re- ligion spring from and belong to such an organic imity of individuals. "Without society no individual," is a state- ment that applies to man as a thinker no less than to man as a moral or political being. This doctrine has in some degree always been recog- nized in practice. The expression of thoughts, the appeal to our neighbor, discussion and dialectic, have been since the beginning of history the accompaniments of thinking. It was no accident that the thinkers of the early Greek f (i 62 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY n period, when they undertook to investigate the problems of the worid, grouped themselves into schools in order to obtain social support and assistance. In the procedure of Socrates we have a striking example of intellectual in- quiry carried on unceasingly as a social undertaking. And it would be possible to find illustrations of the same prac- tice from every period of history. In our own time, the increase of the various means for discussion and the ex- change of ideas — ^the multiplication of books and periodicals, of conferences and associations — is taken, rightly or wrongly, as a sign of intellectual activity. Nevertheless, the theory of the lonely thinker busy with his own states of conscious- ness still persists. And theory reacts upon practice. It may be asked whether the social character of thinking is not sufficiently recognized in the current expressions as to the need of intellectual stimulus from other minds, and of division of labor and cooperation in the various sciences. The answer is that these and similar expressions do indeed recognize a relation between minds, but fail to recognize a relation of minds. The imagery conveyed by these expressions is that of a relation which is external and more or less accidental, rather than inner and essential. It is acknowledged that other minds do on occasion afford us stimulus and aid, but the individual is still regarded as a self-subsistent unit. The relation to other individuals is helpful, it may on occasion even be indispensable, but it does not in a literal sense make part and parcel of our thinking. The need for cooperation in the work of the sciences was eloquently proclaimed by Bacon in his trumpet call to men to organize for the great task of interpreting nature. And in this respect, a&r in so many others, his words have been prophetic. However much importance we may attach to the contribution of men of genius, we are forced to recog- THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 63 nize that the advancement of knowledge has been made possible through organization and the creation of agencies for bringing the results of individual effort into a common stock and making them accessible to all. Nevertheless, although no one can fail to recognize this fact, the language in which it is usually described does not carry us beyond the notion of external or mechanical cooperation. It sug- gests the notion of knowledge being built up by each indi- vidual privately doing his part, and of the whole as being formed by such accretions. The total is indeed viewed as the product of many minds, but each imit is regarded as per- forming his part more or less independently, and not as entering into the thought of his working partners. Such a description is not adequate to the living organization and correlation of parts necessary for a science. Nor does the idea of the division of labor, and of each having his separate task, do justice to the real collaboration that is involved in all intellectual work. As a matter of fact, the division of labor which involves cooperation is possible only when all the members are guided by a common idea, so that each member responds to, and to some degree influences, the di- recting purpose of the whole. In order that there shall be genuine cooperation in any spiritual enterprise — and all enterprises involving himian individuals are at bottom spiritual— the parts must be members, and to be a mem- ber implies a constant interplay and interchange taking place between the different points of the system. Individ- ualism, in the exclusive sense, furnishes no logical basis for cooperation. In developing the idea of cooperation, we must recognize the fact that the contribution of each indi- vidual is itself the outcome of social collaboration: not only is there cooperation with respect to the whole, but with respect to each of the parts. In other words, what we call the contribution of the individual, in so far as it is a genuine it 64 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY i^ contribution, is itself a product of intellectual cooperation. If this form of unlimited spiritual partnership exists among men as intellectual beings, it is surely right that our logical theories should not fail to recognize this fact, and to give it proper explanatory significance. Notions of co- operation and division of labor which are based historically upon the assumption of the separate and independent indi- vidual thinker, fail, like the social contract theories of the state, to describe adequately the concrete relations of human beings. These conceptions derive the degree of truth and plausibility which they possess from their partial recog- nition of the need of one individual for another, in order that the ends most essential to civilization shall be realized. But, as we have seen, the relation to others is still regarded as something external to the individual, and not as literally constitutive of his individuality. An advance to a more satisfactory point of view is afforded by the application of historical or evolutionary categories to the development of knowledge. The history of the special sciences, and of the total body of organized knowledge that we call Science, discloses the continuity and organic connection of the various elements from which these systems are built up. The concept of growth is substituted for that of mechanical construction. The prog- ress of knowledge consists neither in the displacement of the earlier ideas by the later, nor in a simple process of addition, but is effected through a movement in which the results of the past are at once assimilated and transformed. From this point of view the contributions of individual thinkers are not viewed in isolation, but as moments in the larger intellectual movement to which they belong. The center of interest is not placed in the private individual, but in the development of ideas, the growth of new prob- lems, and the transformation of old theories. The dominant fi^ \':ti\\ THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 55 thinker of the time is regarded as simply giving expression to ideas which are in some sense the common possession of his time. His originality consists in his ability to grasp as a whole and to bring to expression what is already moving in the minds of many. History shows how frequently the development of ideas, conmionly attributed to great individual thinkers, does as a matter of fact take place through a process of slow modification extending over a considerable period of time. These slowly moving changes are the result of prolonged discussions in which many individuals have borne a part. In the total result the contributions of any one man do not stand apart from those of the others, but appear as steps or stages in the development. They have significance, not in and for themselves, but through their relation to the ideas of some forerunner or contemporary. Illustra- tion of this can be found in ahnost any of the great theories current today. Newton's theory of gravitation was only the culmination and extension of the mechanical theory that was developed throughout the whole of the seventeenth century by the cooperation of many thinkers. Newton's answer gets its meaning and significance from its relation to the problems which Kepler and Galileo brought to light. The evolutionary theory is still more obviously the result of a movement involving many minds. In the history of this movement we distinguish, but cannot isolate, the ele- ments that are due to this or that individual. Since the time of Darwin the evolutionary conception has imder- gone important modifications, and it has gained new mean- ing by being extended and apphed in many fields of knowl- edge. Although the historian of the theory might mention various names in connection with this or that step in ad- vance, he would admit, I think, that the modifications have come about through the interchange and interplay of '. I f i 4- 66 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY different minds in their reflection on the problems involved. The same point finds illustration in the history of Eng- lish Liberalism as set forth, for example, in the little book of Mr. L. T. Hobhouse. It is a far cry from the ideas of laissez faire and freedom of contract as held by the Man- chester school to modem Liberalism as represented by Lloyd George and his associates. Yet the latter form of the doctrine has developed logically by a deepening and extension of the fmidamental principle contained in the earlier position. In tracing this development we come upon prominent thinkers who have influenced its direction ; but the striking fact remains that the advance is the out- come of a process of social thinking to which the masses as well as the leaders have contributed. Even those who have opposed Liberalism have had a part in determining its direction and character. Nevertheless, in the face of such historical examples, which might be multiplied indefinitely, it may still seem possible to fall back on the statement that all thinking takes place in individual minds. But axiomatic as this proposition may appear to be, it has no bearing at the pres- ent stage of o\ir discussion. It is put out of court by the prior question, which has already been raised: What is the character and reach of the individual mind within which thinking goes on? Is the individual mind which has the power of thought to be regarded as inclusive or exclusive of the mind of others? Is thinking a mere subjective turn- ing of one's gaze inward, a searching within the depths of our own private consciousness for ideas, or does it imply a looking abroad and an actual participation in the minds of our fellow-men? When one insists that thinking goes on in individual minds, it is difficult to avoid picturing these minds as independent entities, distinct from each other like bodies in space. In accordance with this imagery, which THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 57 is adopted by the popular psychology, the mind is con- ceived as a particular thing or object with an inner self- inclosed mode of existence. The fact remains, however, that the popular imagery of the mind and the descriptive account of its content based on this imagery are inadequate when confronted with the actual facts of experience. This is what has still to be shown. Physical things may be defined for some purposes in terms of their mutual exclusiveness. A body is that which excludes every other body from the space that it occupies. But this logic of mutual exclusiveness cannot be applied to minds. Of course there is a sense in which each individ- ual mind has its own differentia, its own unique life. But it is of the very essence of mind to go beyond its limited and isolated form of existence, and to include what is nec- essary to complete and render consistent its own experience. Intelligence constantly looks outward, sharing in commu- nistic fashion its own riches with others, and unhesitatingly appropriating the fruits of other men's labors. In other words, intelligence is openness, participation, making pos- sible the mutual sharing and conflict of minds. Intelligence is not a private endowment that the individual possesses, but rather a living principle which possesses him, a uni- versal capacity which expresses through him the nature of a larger whole in which he is a member. This organic relation of the individual mind to other minds is, however, not the only element in the total process of thinking. The relation of the mind to the external order of events that we call nature cannot be left out of account. It is just as impossible to describe thinking without any reference to nature as it is to describe it without regard to the minds of other men. And the one relation is no more external than the other. This statement must not be I ■1 It* 58 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY interpreted to mean that what we call nature is iteelf subjective, a mere order of ideas in the minds of individuals. On the contrary, it is intended to emphasize the distinc- tion and opposition between mind and the external order. What I wish to insist upon is just the opposite of subjec- tivism, namely, that the individual mind has no reality apart from such an order of nature. The thinking mind exists, as the revelation of an order that stands over against it. The world of objects, or nature, on its side, is just that which progressively reveals itself to thought. It is opposed to mind, indeed, but yet cannot be defined merely in terms of this negative relation; as Descartes, for example, sought to define it. In spite of the fundamental opposition, or rather just because of this opposition, the relation between the two sides is complementary: thought is real and genu- ine just because it has the capacity to grasp and express what is not thought; and nature on its side is that which reveals its unity and significance in terms of thought. In attempting to understand the nature of each of these complementary factors, we make the problem hopeless at the outset if we fail to recognize both their opposition and the complementary character of this opposition. We must remember that it is only through and because of his relation to nature that the individual is a thinking being. The touch with the outer world is not something that we could dispense with and still keep our own minds. In a very real sense we must admit that we have received all that we have ; our wisdom is not our own, but has come to us from without. On the other hand, it is necessary to recognize that the objective order is capable of furnishing us with instruc- tion only in so far as we find there replies to our question- ings. What we call nature is not a miscellaneous assemblage of facts which are mechanically impressed upon us. It reveals itself to us rather as a continuous set of problems ^'^ THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 59 and answers, as that which affords at once the necessary stimulus and the verification of our thinking. There is thus an mterplay l)etween mind and nature, one furnishing the complement and answer to the other. This interplay is analogous in character to the complementary correspon- dence that is exhibited between one mind and another in social relationships. The question may arise whether in this organic relation of subject and object we have not all the factors that are indispensable for thinking. The necessary relationship that exists between the mind and the external order may be admitted, and still it may be denied that the relation of subject to subject, the social interplay of minds, is in any way essential to thinking. Why, it may be asked, may not the thinker solve his problems alone, confronting the facts singly, and without reference to the opinions of any other man or body of men? The question assumes that nature as we know it is quite independent of the social order, and that a relation to this external order is sufficient in order to develop self-conscious- ness on the part of the individual. But both of these assumptions appear to be contrary to the facts. In the first place, what we from our modem point of view call nature has been made what it is for us through a long process of social thinking, extending back to the first beginnings of social culture. The nature which we seem to find as something immediately 'given* has actually been mediated through the forms of social thinking and social description. If we think of the external world as a coherent system of uniform laws, we have to remember that it was with much labor that this conception was reached, and also that all kinds of superstitions are threat- ening to destroy it even in our own day. The nature which is our guide and instructor is no brute fact, but a 'second |i 60 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY nature' made over and rendered orderly and respectable by the social thinking of the race. It requires eternal vigilance and effort to maintain this rational view of nature. The tendency toward barbarism, which seems to be quite as real and potent as the tendency towards civilization, mani- fests itself in every age in theories that are only thinly dis- guised attempts to strip nature of her order and rationality and to revert to some primitive superstition akin to witchcraft or animism. Nature itself then as a rational order presupposes social thinking, and is shot through and through with the results of such thinking. It thus becomes a middle term that mediates between one mind and another, or between one generation of people and another. But, in addition to this mediated relation to other minds afforded us by the external system that we call nature, and by objectified orders of ideas such as those embodied in systems of law and religion, thinking seems to demand a direct and living relation between individual minds. For thought involves a consciousness of self as well as a consciousness of objects. And it appears certain that without the stimulus afforded by the direct contact with other minds, the individual would not come to a consciousness of himself. We come to know ourselves through learning to know others: our fellow is the medium in which we see the nature and meaning of our own mind reflected. The consciousness of self is thus no original datum, but something progressively communicated to the individual through his contact with nature, and especially through social contact with his fellow-men. The process of thinking may accordingly be said to involve and to be constituted by the interplay of the three moments, — ^the self, fellow-men, and nature. No one of these three centers can be reduced to terms of the other; they exist and develop in correlation— each reacting upon THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 61 f the others, and in turn receiving through this interchange its own content and significance. In speaking of the direct communication between indi- vidual minds, I have of course no intention of suggesting any mysterious or telepathic influence. Language is the normal means of communication between minds, and it is in this medium that thinking takes place. The impossibility of separating thinking from language is now generally recognized, and this fact might be developed at length in Support of the position here advanced regarding the social nature of thinking. Thought is not complete until it is expressed in words, and thus embodied in the coin of the social realm. Communication is not something super- added to thinking, but is an essential part of it. What is incommunicable or inexpressible is for that very reason unthinkable. With what is merely private and inner, thought has no concern. I am anxious not to seem to rest my conclusions on general considerations and arguments which someone may term ^metaphysical' and feel justified in neglecting. These conclusions are, I think, borne out by an appeal to actual experience. A concrete act of thought may be divided into three parts: the formulation of the problem, the idea- tional construction, and the process of verification. These divisions are not, of course, to be taken as successive and external to one another, as if one were completed before the next were begun. Now I think that reflection on actual experience reveals the fact that in each of these stages of his thought the individual makes use of the mind of his fellow-men. I wish to suggest briefly certain facts relative to each of these three phrases of the process of thinking. To become conscious of a problem and to succeed in giving it exact formulation is a long step towards its solu- 4 62 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY tion. This task is never accomplished by the individual unaided. Our problems are set for us by reference, more or less conscious on our part, to what others have thought or are thinking. They grow out of the interests and re- quirements of the society to which we belong. It is through our participation in the intellectual life of society that we attain the level where a real problem emerges for our consciousness. The stimulus of society is inquired to enable us to perceive and to locate intellectual diflBculties. When we say that the reading of a book or the influence of a teacher has made us think, we usually mean that we have been helped in these ways to perceive new problems of which we should otherwise have remained oblivious. The value of the influence thus received does not at all depend upon our willingness to accept the conclusions of others. On the contrary, it may oftentimes have more important results if it rouses opposition. It was Himie's skeptical solution of the problem of knowledge which awoke Imman- uel Kant from his dogmatic slumber and gave rise to the critical system of philosophy. Kant himself acknowledged that it was only through Hume's assistance that he was enabled to catch sight of the fundamental problem of phi- losophy in its complete generality. But when the problem is once formulated, does not the individual have to solve it by his own thinking without outside assistance? It is at this point that the image of the solitary thinker is most insistent. A little reflection on our own experience will, however, convince us that in the effort to analyze a situation and solve a problem there is always involved a reference to the ideas and suggestions of others. From beginning to end thinking involves debate and discussion, the opening of one mind to another, the mutual corroboration and opposition of minds. It is just this social reference, this dialectical character, that gives THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 03 point and relevancy to our judgments. Without such a social situation, actual or dramatically assumed, every judg- ment would lack that point and appropriateness to the situa- tion upon which its significance depends. The interplay of minds implied in all thinking doubtless finds its most complete and characteristic expression in oral discussion. When carried on at its highest level, this affords an almost ideal illustration of the united function- ing of several minds, each member of the group having at his disposal the resources of all the others. This dialectical play of thought has as its outcome something that is essen- tially a common product. Every member in the discussion comes to partake of the fruits of a larger social intelligence, which has come into being by each individual uniting his mind to that of his fellows. It is of course true that the outcome of a discussion may in some cases be nothing more than a compromise — an agreement on the part of those participating in it to support what no one really believes in. But when the object is to discover the truth rather than to find a practical measure of agreement, and when each party to the discussion is loyal to his own conviction and at the same time open-minded to the arguments of his neighbor, the individual is likely to be carried beyond the limitations of his ordinary consciousness. I have in mind, as I have already said, discussion when carried on under the most favorable conditions. For in order to appreciate the typical character and purpose of any activity whatever, it is necessary to take it in its highest and most complete form, And not to emphasize its defects and perversions. When mind speaks to mind through the medium of the printed page, the contact is no less real, though less direct. This form of communication has an advantage, indeed, in that it enables us to overcome the limits of time and space 64 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 65 to which oral discussions are subject. It enables us to re- ceive instruction and stimulus from those whom we have never seen, and even to appropriate as our own the ideas of the great thinkers of past ages. But incalculably great as is our debt to the past, the instruction which we receive from it has this unsatisfactory feature: we have no oppor- tunity of answering back or asking questions. Socrates in the Apology suggests that such an opportunity may be one of the chief joys of a future life. "What would not a man give to be able to examine the leader of the great Tro- jan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless other men and women I" And, again, it may be doubted whether without the assistance of our contemporaries we should be able to derive much instruction from the past. It is this personal and social atmosphere that constantly sustains our thinking. Even when in our reflective moods we s:eem to shut out the world, and call our thoughts home, we still carry into that inner world of imagination our fellow-men and their thoughts. In imagination a discus- sion is still carried on, in which the theories of this man, or the objections and criticisms of that man, are weighed and evaluated, as we continue to develop and modify our ideas. If we do not carry on this form of imaginary debate with our fellows, each of us carries on a dialogue with himself. One part of the self may assume the role of the advocatus diaboli, suggesting doubts, raising objections, and mocking at conclusions. In all these cases the social process is simply transferred within us. The debate with ourselves is just the rehearsal or repetition of a debate carried on with others. Thinking still takes the form of dialectic, but instead of talking to others we talk to ourselves. Bringing ideas to expression is accordingly a part of the thinking process, not something to which we proceed after the thought is complete. Until we are able to find the appropriate language in which to express our meanings, the ideas themselves lack definiteness and precision. More- over, before they can attain the rank of knowledge, it is not only essential that our ideas should be embodied in language, but also that they should run the gauntlet of public opinion. In other words, verification is an integral element in thinking, and verification, like the other phases of the process, is fundamentally social in character. Our thoughts gain their certificate of truth only aft^r being sifted, tried, and tested by a larger and more complete experience than that of any individual. The individual succeeds in criticising and evaluating his own thoughts through the help that he receives from others. It is largely through the help of our friends that we discover what we ought to think. We feel the necessity of having friends confirm our views, and the certainty and assurance that we come to feel in our own conclusions is to a large degree a reflection of the judgments expressed by them. When they fail to agree with us, we feel that it is necessary at least to reconsider the arguments, taking account of the objections that they have brought against our position. Even when after mature consideration the individual feels obliged to maintain his conclusion in the face of the opinions of others, he still appeals to a social standard for confirmation; as for example to the judgment of a more enlightened society of the future. It thus appears that thinking is a joint enterprise at every stage of its procedure, and that it is comprehensible only in the light of the social relations that it presupposes. To think is to maintain open-mindedness, to enter sym- pathetically into the ideas of our fellow-men, to become working partners with them in the highest and most charac- teristic form of social life, a life where there is full and 66 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY complete participation by each member in the resources of all. I have been maintaining that as an intellectual being, no less than as a moral, political, and religious being, man is made for society. But it should also be added that the various sides of life to which these names apply are not separate departments operating independently of one an- other. Experience is a whole, and all attempts to analyze and explain it which do not keep in mind this primary fact are likely to prove misleading. We cannot, for example, divorce morality from religion, or intelligence from poli- tics. I wish more particulariy at the moment to insist that the intellectual life is not something apart from the prac- tical activities of men. The chief danger lies in forgetting that the practical life actually lived by men as social beings is a life mediated through ideas, and made possible by intellectual agreements. Of course it is true that the unities which take the form of feeling and of practical purpose are also elements that hold society together; but it remains true that wherever there is unity of any sort among hmnan beings there must be common ways of thinking. Intellectual opinions do indeed divide men, but the reason alone has power to heal the strifes and divisions which it brings. No remedy for the evils of human life that dispenses with intelligence can be anything but a sham. Philosophy must still remain the guide of life. The doctrine of the social character of thinking has many applications and corollaries, both theoretical and practical. I shall suggest only a few. First of all, there follows the need for keeping alive discussion, both in pub- lic and private, and of emphasizing, even more strongly than we have hitherto done, the advantages of cooperation and organization in our efforts to maintain and advance knowledge. I am not minimizing the value of individual THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 67 effort and individual leadership; but to make his work profitable even the man of genius requires a society capable, not merely of understanding him, but of rendering him assistance by intelligently opposing and criticising him. The suggestion, opposition, and criticism that come from other men are necessary to render the thought of the genius fruitful and to preserve his own sanity and objectivity. How many potential geniuses have been wasted for lack of the necessary intellectual environment, — some for lack of appreciation, more, perhaps, ruined from lack of intel- ligent criticism. It is desirable, however, not only to increase the opportunities for discussion, but also to im- prove its quality, and so to render it a genuine instrument of cooperation. A man must join himself to his fellows with open-mindedness and genuine good will. He must respect both his own reason and that of others, freeing his mind from all pettiness and vanity, loyally bearing his part in the enterprise. Differences and controversies are bound to arise, but these represent only the aspects of sup- plementation and correction necessary to secure a fuller and more complete theory. Controversies are necessary phases in cooperation, so long as the main purpose is not allowed to disappear, so long as care is taken to preserve "the xmity of the spirit in the bond of love." When this is lost, when scientific discussion degenerates into personal bickering, the world has another illustration of the sad truth that the corruption of the best is the worst. Our analysis of thinking has shown that the production of ideas cannot in the end be divorced from their expression and dissemination. This fact is of great practical impor- tance both from the point of view of the individual and from that of society. Thinking, we saw, is thoroughly communistic in character: it borrows freely from others, and is ready and anxious to share what it regards as its i4 68 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY own riches of discovery. There is no private property in ideas; they belong, by right of birth and nurture, to society. Just for that reason the attitude of others whom we regard as our fellows towards what we regard as truth can never be a matter of indifference. We are rightly bound to come to terms with our neighbors. The func- tion of the intellectual life is not fulfilled until it has pro- vided a basis for a real community of life between all members of the human race. The intellectual life from its very nature carries with it something of the missionary spirit. The impulse to know contains as an essential ele- ment the desire to convince others, or to be convinced by them. There is of course a certain amount of truth in the statement that our first duty is to cultivate our own garden, to strive for clearness and consistency in our own thinking. But it is impossible to clear up our own thoughts without at the same time seeking for intellectual agree- ment with our fellows. The ends of the intellectual life are inclusive: the good that we desire for ourselves we seek for others also. Indeed, these two things are one and in- separable; neither one can be realized apart from the other. Since individuals are thus interdependent in the sphere of thought, as in that of action, it follows that there exist certain reciprocal rights and duties in this field that ought to be recognized. The individual may claim discussion as a 'natural right.' That is, we are justified in expecting others to interest themselves in our ideas, to supply the de- mands that we make upon them for stimulus, suggestion, and correction. If the proper exceptions and limitations are assumed, we may go even further and say that we have a right to demand that others shall agree with us or show their reasons for differing. And, on our part, we owe similar duties to them. Toleration is a great virtue; when it is genuine it is based upon a respect for the reason THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING 69 and personality of others. But the easy toleration which declines discussion may be at bottom founded on indiffer- ence and even something approaching contempt. Of course it is not possible for all men to pass their lives, like Soc- rates, in discussion. There is a time and a place for all things, and this consideration properly limits our impulse to argue with our fellows. But is it not true that we are sometimes prevented from contributing our part by a habit of false politeness that forbids us to express dissent? Is it not true that this negative form of politeness, which pre- vents us from joining in a discussion when we disagree, is frequently based on other considerations than deference? At any rate, the old maxim that silence gives assent seems no longer to hold good in our society, and to have been superseded by a laissez faire doctrine that excuses us from the duty of expressing our opinions. It is true that in such matters all kinds of concrete situations have to be taken into account. But to decline a discussion may indicate an attitude of indifferentism or even of hostility entirely out of harmony with the social view of the thinking individual which has been set forth in this paper. Intolerance, and even persecution, with all their evils, are on one side less anti-social than the individualistic indifference that refrains from the trouble of argument on the ground that one has no concern in the opinions of other people. Bad as they are, intolerance and persecution imply at least a partial recog- nition of the human rights and duties which belong to mem- bers of an intellectual community. We condemn these particular attitudes only because they defeat the ends that they aim to secure. It is impossible to force people to agree with us, and if it were possible, it would mean that we should be in danger of reducing truth to the fixed me- chanical pattern of our own minds. The requirement which can reasonably be made of others is that they shall play I 70 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY • the intellectual game with us, that they shall differ from us as well as agree. It is through dissent and difference, it may be through opposition and conflict, that truth is born. There must of coiu*se exist a certain degree of agreement and unity in order to maki^ possible a real contact of minds, but if there is to be real social intercourse, one individual must never become a mere echo or imitation of another. If the work of thinking has thus its two complementary sides, of discovering truth and making it prevail, it follows that the true thinker is at once a teacher and a learner. He lives his life in reciprocal relations with his fellow-men in society, both giving to and receiving from others. Where the relation is not reciprocal, and the giving and receiving not mutual, thinking fails to attain to its full vitality and perfection. The intellectual life, like all manifestations of spiritual activity, is realized only by loyally serving a cause in conjunction with others. The man who locks his ideas up in his own breast soon ceases to have ideas. On the other hand, the man whose sole delight is to instruct others, who holds too persistently the doctrine that it is more blessed to give than to receive, soon exhausts his stores and degenerates into "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." To preserve the vitality of thought, a genuine give-and-take process is essential. Unless our views meet with some resistance, it is not necessary to go on thinking; it is enough to go on repeating them. There is food here for reflection on the part of those of us whose profession is to teach in the various schools of learning. It is doubtful whether a teacher can really give an education to students, if he fails to profit by their difficulties and problems, and to have his own mind quickened by their thoughts. To proclaim dogmas year after year is dreary and monotonous work. But to join with youthful minds in the keen pursuit of truth is a perpetual joy and refreshment of the spirit. CHAPTER IV THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE.* There is perhaps no word more frequently employed in the philosophical literature of the present day than *exper- ience.* On taking up a new book, one not infrequently finds the author eager to acknowledge the sins of his predeces- sors and the discredit they have brought on philosophy by following the high a priori road, while at the same time announcing his own intention of founding his own conclu- sions on the impregnable rock of concrete experience. Now I neither wish to deny that there are sometimes grounds for such criticism, nor that these resolves have often borne good fruit. At the present day, the proposition that philosophy must derive its results from experience would undoubtedly command almost imiversal assent. We all claim to be empiricists, in the sense that we seek to base our philo- sophical arguments and results upon the facts of experience. But what is often overlooked is the fact that this agree- ment is only verbal, a mere profession with the lips that carries with it no real imanimity of opinion. For experi- ence, far from being a clear and transparent medium that presents to us facts in unambiguous and unmistakable form, is rather something so many-sided and complex, in some relations so shifting and unstable, as to be capable of yield- *This paper was read at Iowa City before the Western Philo- sophical Association, and also before the Philosophical Seminary of Princeton University. Reprinted from The Philosophical Review, Vol. XII, No. 6, pp. 593-610, Not.. 1903. 71 72 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 73 ing various and even contradictory readings. Not only is this true as a matter of fact, but from the very nature of the case it must to a large extent remain true. For the standpoints from which we view experience vary indefinitely with the nature of the ends and purposes that lead us to con- sult it. Any object of experience, a loaf of bread, for ex- ample, may be variously defined from the standpoint of experience as an object in space possessing certain physical and chemical properties, as a complex of sensations, or as an object of desire and will. The ambiguity which arises regarding the standpoint of experience as a whole is, of course, much more serious and more difficult to avoid than that which obtains where only a single term or element of experience is concerned. However strongly we insist that we propose to deal only with ^ facts,' the result always shows that we have ap- proached our facts with conceptions and presuppositions which have determined in large measure our selection and reading of the facts. In setting out to give an account of experience, one may assume, for example, that we are deal- ing merely with mental states, with a stream of physical processes which are related to objects beyond themselves only in a secondary and external way. One may further go on to assume, employing more or less consciously Hume's dictum, that whatever is distinguishable is separa- ble, and whatever is separable is distinct and individual, that these psychical processes have no internal principle of connection, but simply become associated and fused together in a mechanical way through the fact of their contiguity in time. We see, then, that the so-called empirical philosophy, far from being a plain historical and unequivocal account of experience, is based on very definite assumptions about the general character of experience. In Hume's system, we see these assumptions carried through by a master mind. And the result, as is well known, seemed to Hume himself in the highest degree artificial and imsatisfactory, though he saw no way of reaching a different conclusion. Kant's significance in the development of philosophical theories arises from the fact that he questioned the assump- tions of his predecessors regarding the nature of experience. As against Hume, he insisted that the mind is an active principle of synthesis which unites the various parts of ex- perience, and is the source of the relations that give it significance. The defects of Kant's philosophy, as I is now generally admitted, were due to the fact that his ques- tioning of Hume's presuppositions was not sufficiently thorough-going. If we take merely the letter of his writ- ings, we have to acknowledge that experience, as he de- scribes it, is still an affair of mental representations, and also that the elements of which it is composed stand apart from each other and are only operated upon externally by the principle of synthesis. Without considering these defects further at present, I wish here to urge that Kant, like Hume, is giving an account of experience. In spite of his constant reference to the a priori conditions of experi- ence, his real problem is to describe the nature of experience. His account differs from that of the so-called 'empirical school' just because he approached his task with concep- tions and presuppositions which were different from theirs. It must not be forgotten, however, that Kant's system is at least as empirical, i. e., as closely based upon the facts of experience, as is the philosophy of the English school. These introductory remarks may serve to illustrate the statement that experience is no unambiguous term to which one can appeal in uncritical and confident fashion. The 74 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 75 truth seems to be that the definition and determination of the true standpoint of experience is, in a certain sense, the essential and all-inclusive problem for philosophy. In discussing the question, therefore, what I shall mainly try to do is to offer some general reflections regarding the nature of experience, and to bring together some conclusions with reference to this topic that appear to have been established by historical criticism and the discussions of the present day. In the first place we may ask: What test of the adequacy of any description of experience can be laid down? What general conditions must be fulfilled by any account which professes to be true and adequate to the facts? It will not be sufficient to say simply that the account must be true to the facts; for, as we have already seen, the nature and correct reading of the facts is the very point at issue. Here as everywhere, I think, we can only apply the general criteria of intelligibility. What our intelligence demands is completeness and consistency, both of fact and relations. In other words, that account will be most satisfactory which exhibits most fully and consistently at once the distinctions and relationships which obtain among the various parts of our experience. Philosophy has to render experience intelligible, and to this end it must bring to light its manifoldness and unity, its complete dififerentia- tions and integrations. This implies, of course, that experience must be appre- hended through intelligence. And the truth of this at once makes obvious the contradiction involved in the conception of a *pure' or presuppositionless experience. That experi- ence involves a knowing mind is overlooked by those who propose to begin with a 'pure* experience as something that is directly given, and thus unspoiled by any conceptions or introjections of thought. Every attempt to determine the nature of experience in its so-called purity, before it is corrupted and transformed by the influence of thought, must prove futile, just because experience always exists for a mind, and to be a wind is to meet the object with conceptions and practical purposes. From the first, we ^^ may say, experience is in the clutches of thought, moulded by the mind's conceptions and presuppositions. Since, then, it is impossible to deal with experience without these presuppositions and conceptions, it follows that the only possible procedure is to test and criticise these as we proceed in order to eliminate their contradictions and cor- rect and supplement their inadequacies. The true nature of experience, therefore, can be discovered, if discoverable at all, only at the end of the process of philosophical reflec- tion and criticism. It is, of course, true that philosophy must start from experience, i. e., from what is already known and established regarding experience. But any such standpoint, however elementary and presuppositionless it may seem, is one that has been already touched by thought, and is no simple datum that is passively reflected in con- sciousness. We must give up once for all the notion of experience as a mere lump or matter, upon which thought works ab extra, as upon something foreign and external to itself. There is no experience in itself, and there is no thought in itself standing as a merely subjective principle in independence of its content. Experience at every stage contains within itself, as iih integral part, the moving princfple of thought as its dynamic and integrating factor. From this it follows that experience is no static thing, no permanent storehouse where facts exist in changeless form, but that it is essentially a process of transformation and adjustment, a process that aims both at logical deter- minateness and consistency, and at the realization of prac- tical ends. 76 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY The question which I wish more directly to raise at this point is: Where may the philosophical reflection of the present day strike into this process? What, in other words, is the standpoint of experience for the philosophy of our time? The obvious answer would seem to be that we should begin with what we know, with the standpoint that has been gained through the reflection of the philosophers of the past and the labors of our own generation. This is regarded as the essential condition of further progress in the other sciences, and it is diflficult to understand why it should not be equally important in philosophy. Never- theless, in philosophical discussions one still hears frequent reference to the standpoint of the plain man. I do not assert that this is in no case justifiable. But very frequently it is certainly misleading; and, in addition, to appeal to an uncritical and unreflective reading of the facts seems to betray a fatal misunderstanding of the achievements of philosophy, and a lack of confidence in its results which almost renders impossible any further progress. The astronomer and the physicist would hardly feel that the plain man was competent to speak regarding the facts of experience within their sciences. They would very properly object, if such an appeal were proposed, that their standpoint was the outcome of centuries of intellectual toil, and that the verdict of the plain man could conse- quently have no weight. Now it seems to me that the same thing is true in an even higher degree in philosophy, where the all-important thing is to understand the form in which questions may legitimately be put. Such knowl- edge comes only from insight into the way in which the conceptions that form the framework of the science have grown up. The standpoint of experience which we must adopt at the present day is that which has been wrought out and defined by the history of philosophy. One must THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 77 follow the history of philosophy, not merely mastering its external details, but also gaining insight into the evolution of ideas that it exhibits, before one can hope to contribute in any fruitful way to the solution of its problems. The history of philosophy thus furnishes the indispensable propaedeutic through which one is raised to the philosophi- cal point of view, the necessary discipline through which one attains the ability to define one's problems and give them intelligible form. To answer our question regarding the standpoint of ex- perience, then, it is necessary to make an attempt to bring together what has already been established on this point by the teachings of the past. Perhaps everyone would readily admit that much fruitless effort has been expended, and much time wasted, in philosophical discussions, from a failure to understand adequately the significance of the historical movement as exhibited in the great systems of the past. Not only do we often go on thrashing over old straw, but not infrequently we also continue to employ methods and conceptions which have clearly been dis- credited and superseded in the evolution of philosophical ideas. The result is that our labors are rendered useless. Nor is this all. Through such unmeaning and anachro- nistic controversies the standing of philosophy is seriously injured in the scientific world. It is of the utmost im- portance, then, to ask ourselves what may fairly be said to have been established as to the philosophical standpoint of experience through the reflection of the past and the discussions of our own day. In approaching the facts of experience, what conceptions are likely to prove most fruit- ful for philosophy? It would doubtless be vain to expect that complete agree- ment on all points can be reached in answering this ques- tion. But an effort to formulate an answer may perhaps 78 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY lead us to see the exact problems involved, as well as to perceive some underlying basis of agreement. In attempt- ing, on the present occasion, to outline my own view, I shall be obliged to confine my attention to certain general no- tions that seem to me of fundamental importance. To render the discussion more definite, I shall state my con- clusions somewhat dogmatically in a number of negative propositions, adding, in each case, a short discussion of the point involved. The logical relation of these proposi- tions, will, I hope, appear as we proceed. II. 1. Experience is not a stream of subjective processes, existing as mental modifications in a particvlajr thing called mind. Such a view is inadequate, whether, with the empiricists, we think of mind as a passive receptacle, or with Kant, as an activity capable of functioning as a principle of syn- thesis. It is doubtless true, as I shall have occasion to acknowledge more fully hereafter, that for certain purposes it is useful and necessary to look at consciousfness from this point of view. But the proposition which I would now urge is that this is not the view of experience itself, and that, above all, it can never serve as a basis for phi- losophical construction. If we begin with mental proc- esses, our philosophy must end with mental processes. The only way of avoiding the conclusion of Berkeley is by denying the proposition which forms the real sum and substance of his argument: * We never know anything except our own ideas.' Nor do we get a satisfactory ac- count of experience by simply accepting Kant's new insight that, through the activity of the mind, thought enters as a THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 79 principle of synthesis into experience, so long as we regard this activity as a merely subjective principle, a principle whose function is exhausted in bringing order and unity into our representations. For although the deeper spirit of Kant's philosophy doubtless leads beyond this conclusion, what he terms experience never really deserves the name, but remains a thing of representations and never attains to real objectivity. Subsequent philosophy, however, largely through the criticism and development of Kant's doctrine, has led us to see that it is not suflBcient to assume merely the activity of consciousness. In order to render experience possible, it is necessary that this functioning shall be of such a character as to connect the mind with objects. In other words/ we have been led to see that a more adequate ac- count of experience does not find the subject here and the object there, the mind on one side and the things which it knows on the other. Experience is not the resultant of a mechanical interplay of two independent things, but the concrete expression of rational life, having subject and object as organic, though distinguishable members of its essential unity. Not only is there no object without a subject, but it is also equally true that there is no subject without an object. There is no independent object outside of thought, and there is no 'thought in itself,' standing apart and in abstraction from the contents of experience and entering into only occasional and external relations to this content. We do not first have a mind and then become conscious of our relations to objects, but to have a mind is just to stand in those self-conscious relations to the objective realities. As Hegel has remarked, it is the very nature of thought to " shut us together with things "; and we may add that it is the very essence of things to exist necessarily in relation to thought. In stating the matter 80 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 81 \l thus, we are, of course, using the tenn * thought * in its broad sense, as inclusive of the volitional and emotional aspects of the life of a rational being, as well as of his merely theoretical or cognitive relations. 2. The relation of subject and object in experience cannot be adequately expressed in terms of cause arid effect. This proposition follows immediately from what has been already said, as it is obvious that the application of the causal category presupposes the mind as a conscious- ness-lhing, receiving impressions from an extended object; upon which, it may be, it in turn reacts. It is not alto- gether superfluous, however, to consider by itself this corol- lary of our general position. For the causal standpoint is so strongly entrenched in the assumptions of common sense, and so firmly rooted in the metaphors of language, that it still seems to retain its influence in the discussion of special doctrines upon the minds of many writers who have per- haps clearly perceived its general inadequacy. There seems, then, to be some justification for stopping to point out that, when we abandon the causal standpoint and admit that subject and object are related in a more essential and intimate way, we have thereby left behind both the inter- action view of the relation of body and mind, and the copy or representative theory of knowledge. However obvious this truth may appear, it is not always regarded in practice. It seems to me that there are many illustrations, in recent philosophical literature, of a tendency to abandon well-established philosophical positions, and to fall back to the plane of common-sense dualism. This, of course, is to operate with conceptions which have been tried and found wanting by historical criticism, and, as a result, seriously to lessen, if not entirely to destroy, the value of one's conclusions. The relation of consciousness and its object cannot be represented as that of a consciousness-thing, shut up within itself, to other independently existing physical things. I have spoken of the interaction theory as condemned by this assumption. But in so far as parallelism is based tm the same presuppositions, in so far, that is, as it simply denies, from the same standpoint, what interaction affirms, it is equally an anachronism at the present day. The truth in parallelism consists in its insight that the relation of body and mind is no external and occasional relation of two seperate entities, but is so close and intimate, so essen- tial and organic, that it cannot be adequately described by means of the mechanical notion of action and inter- action. Those who uphold this theory, however, are not always conscious of the real bearing of their doctrine, and understand it as a denial from the common-sense stand- point of any real interconnection between the physical and psychical. The representative or copy theory of knowledge is based essentially on the same presuppositions, and its breakdown forms one of the most instructive chapters in the history of modem philosophy. According to this view, the object in some way gives rise to a copy or image of itself in the mind. But as the mind is a mere ' consciousness-thing,' shut up in itself, the object is never directly presented in consciousness at all. A number of insoluble problems, then, at once result: What test can the mind find within its own states (to which by hypothesis it is strictly limited) to determine whether or not the copy corresponds to the object? How is it possible for such an external object to impress its image on the mind? And, finally, what evidence is there within experience of the existence of any such external object at all? These and other difficulties with which the history of philosophy has made us familiar 82 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY have compelled us to revise our presuppositions regarding the function of subject and object in experience, and to adopt a new view of the nature and relations of these terms. The view of experience, then, to which it seems to me historical criticism leads may be further enforced and defined by means of a third proposition: r 3. The mind is not one particular thing, separated from other things, but as a true individwal it contains within itself the principle of universality. This is shown by the fact that it is able in one indivisible act to differentiate itself from things and to relate them in the unity of its own life. As Aristotle remarked, "reason is the potentiality of all things," not a particular kind of existence separated off from other things. To be a mind at all, is just to stand in essential relation to objects which are not thus left standing without it, but which enter as a real and constitutive element into its nature. Its center of gravity, so to speak, falls outside of what is taken to be the limits of its real nature, so long as it is viewed from the standpoint of an external spectator as a mere mode of existence. In other words, when we take our stand within experience, as philosophy must do, the difficulties regarding the relation of subject and object which seem so persistent and insoluble fall away and lose their meaning. The problem of the interpretation of ex- perience no longer requires us .to perform the impossible feat of uniting elements which are eternally and absolutely separate; but from the internal standpoint, it requires only that we shall render more determinate and precise the rela- tion of two inseparable elements within experience itself. THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 83 III. Before passing on from the general propositions which we have here been considering to any attempt to define more exactly this relation, it seems necessary to say a few words regarding the standpoint of the special sciences in its con- trast to that view of experience which we have just insisted must form the basis for philosophy. From the external point of view, experience appears to be made up of a variety of objects of different kinds. Thess objects are then parcelled out into groups among the different sciences for investigation. In this division, the first and funda- mental distinction is between consciousness-things or minds, and extended things or physical objects. The former class of objects is frequently analyzed into distinct elements like sensation and affection, while the latter is divided into organic and inorganic physical things ; the limits of division being determined in each case partly by the satisfaction of the logical demand for distinction and interrelation, and partly by practical considerations of convenience in carry- ing on investigations. There thus arises the attitude of the special sciences toward experience. This, as we have seen, is always the attitude of one looking at experience from without. Experience is consequently always a collec- tion of objects (in the literal sense of the word) or things over against the scientific observer, upon which his thought has to operate in an external way. This attitude is, of course, demanded by the purposes that the special sciences have set themselves to carry out, and within its own field has proved abundantly fruitful. Philosophy, on the other hand, has its own purpose, and its own standpoint with regard to experience. It has to deal with the world in its immediate relations to the knowing 84 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE i I \ < and willing subject, i, e., with experience as we actually live it. When we take this internal point of view, the objects are not viewed in isolation from the subject as a foreign content upon which the thought of the latter has to work, but rather as representing certain situations with which the life of the subject is essentially connected. This, as history has shown, is the only starting-point from whlcn it is possible for philosophy to advance. And I may add that it is just the possession of this concrete standpoint that makes philosophy preeminently the science of experience, and differentiates it from the special sciences, which, from the standpoint of an external observer, investigate the various groups of objects of which cxpcrienoc is composed. Indeed^ if the latter were the only legitimate way of viewing ex- perience, there would, I think, be no pod^iblc answer to the demand, «o oftc»n urged, that philoeophy should give way to the .special sciences. IV. It is now time to attempt to make more precise our view of the relations between the subjective and objective ele- ments of experience as these exist from the internal point of view of the philosopher. As we have already f»een, the process of experience from i\m point of view iochides and embraces thought as its immanent principle of life and movement. The philosopherV bwoew » noi, as an in* temul observer, to investigate the nature of objects and their outer relations, but to interpret from within the experience which is at once both subjeet and object^ a liv- ing process of thought and tlic being of tiic world. Now, in tho first place, it is important to notice that the rela- tion to objects, which is the very essence of the mind, is an eminently practical relation. In thus defining it^ however, I am not opposing in any sense the practical to the theoretica], but rather using the term practical to denote that complete and concrete relation of the mmd to objectivity which includes the theoretical as one of its elements. The objects are not indifferent to the mind, things that appeal merely to its theoretical interests as subjects of calm and disinterested contemplation, but they rather represent the means for the satisfaction of its com- plete interests and the realization of the ends of its com- plete life. The possession of a mind on the part of the individual denotes just this total practical relation to objects. A being with merely theoretical ends, and without feelings and practical desires, if such a tiling were con- ceivable, could not be said to have experience in the human asuie at ait. Objects are thus bound up with our feelings and practical purposes, as well as related to us through ideas. Indeed, there is a distinct advantage in mterpret- ing even the ideational relation of the mind to objects 1^ means of the teleologies] category, so long as this category is not regarded in such a narrow and ODO-eidisd way as to subordinate the theoretical life to what is merely ex- ternally practical. We may say, then, that the world is not merely my cognitive ides. It is rather that timmgb which I am able to find satisfaction for my desirec^ and to obtain the realizntiow of my ends. AnKMttr these ends the intellectual demand for oomprehenrion occupies a real and important place. But it exists always in close and osiganic connection with oiber ideal.s of my nature, such as the demand for practical control and for ethical and srathetical rtalisa- tion. All of these ends, as elements of a concrete totality, constitute the reason or complete mind of a rational being. It consequently follows that all of these sides most con- tribute something to a complete int6ipiret4iUon of experience. >■'! M 86 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY To assign to each of these factors its proper place and determine its significance, to discover the categories that will preserve the truth and lead to the most complete har- mony of these various ideals, is the task of philosophical reflection. It must never be forgotten that this total attitude of the mind toward experience is not simply a complex of func- tions that exist in isolation from one another. They are rather to be regarded as a system of ends that expresses the organic and essential unity of the experiencing subject in its complete and concrete attitude toward the world. The synthetic unity of apperception, that which gives sig- nificance and unity to experience, is something more than a merely theoretical or logical principle. In order really to perform its function, there must also enter into it the practical and emotional factors which constitute our rational human life. Only by regarding these various ele- ments as a system of functions existing in relation to objects do we reach the view of a concrete totality of mind. There still remain two points which seem to demand further consideration in this connection. I. In the first place, it may be objected that we do not escape subjectivism by interpreting the world in terms of purpose instead of in terms of sensation and idea. If I construe reality as a set of means for the realization of my purposes, as an instrument for the realization of my will, its real objective character seems to be lost. The world is my oyster,' is even less satisfactory as a philosophical principle than, ' Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung.' Now this objection, though possessing force against a certain external view of purpose, does not apply to the view of experience we have been attempting to outline. The objection, in short, rests upon and presupposes the abstract separation of THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 87 subject and object, of knowledge and will, against which our whole view is directed. It would be a false view of experience to suppose that the subject confronts reality with fully defined and unyielding purposes as fixed stand- ards by which its nature is to be determined. The truth is rather that the purposes of the subject are only real through their relation to the concrete situation in exper- ience. So far from being fixed standards, according to which facts must be ruthlessly construed, the concrete process of experience is constituted by the organic interplay of those two factors. On the one hand, we see the purposes of the subject be- coming progressively limited, corrected, and defined through the stubborn character of the ' facts ' before they can reach fulfillment. We learn by the hard discipline of the real world what we really want and intend, what exact content is essential to the realization of our purposes in a give" concrete situation. The mind's purposes — ^just because they are the purposes of a mind — are never merely sub- jective purposes or internal meanings. For quite apart from things they would have no meaning. As they at first appear, however, this reference to things is vague and inde- terminate. But in the concrete development of experience new factsf and situations come to light that give definiteness and content to these purposes. The objects which, as stub- bom external facts, seem to annihilate and bring to naught our purposes, in reality correct and supplement them in such a way as to afford the true fulfillment and embodi- ment that they demand. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the objects are not external realities which exist and operate upon the mind apart from its interests and purposive ideas. It is our reason itself which, as a thinking will or a willing thought, goes on to define and determine more adequately !«li I H 88 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY its own meanings and purposes. And it does this by select- ing through active attention the objects it wants, those which stand in the required relation to its own ends and ideas. Facts, then, gain their significance in the develop- ment of experience only in so far as they become ideas; that is, only in so far as they are selected by our thinking-will as fulfilling and defining its own meanings and purposes. Without being thus chosen, so to speak, no 'fact-in-itself,' if such a term has any meaning, has power over our pur- poses and ideas, either to fulfill them or to overthrow them. The object that leads the mind beyond subjectivity is the object that the attention selects as just that which is demanded by the mind's purposes and ideas. Thus we may say that the evolution of experience is the mind's own process of self-determination. In this process it becomes progressively aware of its own meaning through its com- merce with the objects which it has itself selected as the necessary means for the embodiment and fulfillment of its own demands.^ II. Proceeding now to our second point, we may ask if it is necessary to subordinate the real to the ideal ele- ment in experience as our account has done. Instead of interpreting the object in terms of the subject, we must accept these elements, it may be ux^ed, as simply existmg in mutual coordination in experience. / Or the question might be raised whether it would not be more truly scien- tific to construe the mind as a function of the object. These questions are of the utmost importance, and I realize that my treatment of them here must necessarily be very summary and far from complete. It seems necessary to refer to them briefly, however, in order to render reason- ably complete the view of experience we have been occupied in outlining. * Cf. Boyce, The World and the Individual, Chap. VII. THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 89 Once again we must defend the results we have reached by insisting that the standpoint of philosophy is that of internal experience itself. From this r point of view, the subject is seen to include the object, the ideal to furnish the system within which the real falls. Both of the objec- tions which call in question this interpretation draw their support, I think, from a consideration of experience from an external standpoint. When we attempt, for example, to understand man and man's life from the point of view of biology, it is natural to take as our starting-point the bodily organism, and to interpret the mental life as a set of functions that ministers to its wants. From this stand- point, it is possible to regard consciousness as a variation which possesses survival value, and its content and con- stitution as determined by the biological needs that have arisen during the life of the physical organism. Such an account might for biology be useful and true. It must not be forgotten, however, that this standpoint is abstract, and consequently that the account cannot be accepted as phi- losophy, i.e., as a complete and adequate reading of the facts of experience. Among certain philosophical writers of the present day, however, it is more common to insist on the exact coordina- tion of the subjective and objective factors in experience. The direct view of experience, it is said, shows us subject and object together in fundamental or organic imity. We cannot, then, so long as we are true to experience, subor- dinate one of these terms to the other. Indeed, when once we give up the ontological view, which regards subject and object as entities, and recognize that these are simply functions within experience, we see that there is no necessity for such a subordination. The account of experience, then, cannot rightly be couched either in terms of idealism or in those of materialism. The relation between the subjective 90 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY and objective elements is rather to be regarded as that of two coordinate factors that derive their meaning from their fmictional interplay and interaction. I must certainly apologize for attempting to criticise, in a paragraph, a theory which has not even been fully stated. But I venture to refer to it here because I thing its essential defect has been already indicated in the course of my paper. Perhaps we may get at the root of the matter most quickly, if we examine the concept of function which plays so large a part in the discussions to which I have referred. Out- side of mathematics, where the term indicates merely a constant ratio between two quantitative expressions, fimc- tion denotes an activity of some part or member of an organic unity. Thus we can speak of the function of the blood in the body, or of the legislature in a state. That which functions is always a member of an organism, and the end of the function always includes a reference to the whole of which this member is a part. Now it seems pertinent to ask: What is the whole of which the subjective and objective factors in experience are fimctions? We do not get a true totality by simply adding together the two sides. If it be said that the concrete itself is the true totality, the real organic whole of which subject and object are functions, I reply that experience is only known in this way when apprehended from within. When looked at from an objective point of view, as when I regard the experience of another individual, it appears as a complex of separate parts entirely without organic imity. In other words, it is only in virtue of self-consciousness that we are able to speak of experience as an organic unity. And self -con- sciousness shows itself as the concrete unity of subject and object which we have been seeking. It is not a par- ticular fact, alongside of and coordinate with other facts, but a universal principle which interpenetrates all the par- THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE 91 ticulars, and comes to a consciousness of itself just through forming and expressing the nature of all these particulars. Without the object there could be no self-consciousness, just as without self -consciousness there could be no object. Very true. But this does not imply that these two corre- lated terms are at the same time coordinate. We might say that without the various members of a plant or animal there would be no life, and yet not regard life as another fact to be coordinated with these members. But doubt- less I shall be reminded that organic life is nothing over and above functional relation of the parts — ^that life is not a thing but a relation. Carrying out this analogy, it may be further urged, we consequently cannot impute to ex- perience any principle of unity over and above the func- tional interplay of parts that are actually found there. To do so would be to hypostatize a system of relations. It would be foreign to my purpose to enter into any dis- cussion of the adequacy of this conception of organic life, and it is by no means necessary for our argument. For the analogy between any physical organism and experience breaks down. In experience this unity not only exists as a fact for an outside spectator, but comes to a knowledge of itself in self-consciousness. And self-consciousness can- not properly be regarded as just an additional characteristic of the experience-process to which no more special impor- tance attaches than to any other characteristic. Self-con- sciousness, in other words, is imique and all-important. It transforms the whole process by reducing all the objective relations into terms of its own life. By becoming conscious of the objective relations, and of its own life in connection with these relations, it thus raises itself above the mere process of experience. Now it is essential to see that it is only in the light of this central principle of self-conscious- ness that we can regard the various elements in experience i^il I .1 V I*. 11 r"' 92 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY as related functionally. Functions, as we have already maintained, imply a central unity which is something more than the mere togetherness of parts-. Or, to put the same thing in a different form, the fact of functional relationship implies the existence of an inner pervading identity run- ning through the parts. In experience this principle of identity comes to consciousness of itself by distinguishing itself from the objects in which its nature is expressed and embodied. And in this act of discrimination and recogni- tion there is to be found the central principle in the light of which the whole process of experience gains significance and the possibility of interpretation. It is in this sense that the mental may be said to overlap the physical, the ideal to include the real. And if the exist- ence and position of such an ideal principle be admitted, it would seem to follow directly that to give a philosophical interpretation of experience is to show its relation to the ideals and purposes of a rational self-consciousness. ! CHAPTER V PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY.^ The category of purpose, after having fallen into dis- credit for a long time, has begun recently to reassert its right to a central place in philosophical theories and dis- cussions. There is, however, an important difference be- tween the old teleology and the new. The former view endeavored to interpret the world in the light of some objective purpose, which was regarded either as immanent in the world, or as having a transcendent existence in the mind of God. The new teleology, on the other hand, is subjective and individual in character, and maintains that in the needs and ends of our personal lives we find the only possible key to the interpretation and evaluation of reality. It is thus, as has sometimes been observed, essen- tially in harmony with that modern spirit which, as a foe to all absolutism, refuses allegiance to external standards, and judges everything in accordance with its bearing on hiunan life and human interests. There is nothing essentially new in principle, I think, in this general tendency of current thought. There is much in the doctrine that connects it with Fichte, and still more closely with Positivism and with many forms of the neo-Kantianism of our own day. During the last dozen years or so, the theory has been advanced from many sides, »Read before the American Philosophical Association, Princeton, N. J., December 29, 1903. Reprinted from The PhiloBophxcal Re- view, Vol. XIII, No. 3, pp. 284-297, May, 1904. 93 m. i il ' n I 94 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY apparently worked out from different sftandpoints, and with a correspondent diversity in its emphasis upon particular points. Mach, Karl Pearson, and many others who draw their material primarily from the physical sciences, agree with those who have approached the matter from the standpoint of philosophy and psychology in regarding thought as instrumental in character, and subordinate to the practical ends of human will. Professor James has expoimded the doctrine in a nimiber of essays, bringing into popular use the term Tragmatism* proposed some twenty-five years ago by Mr. C. S. Peirce. In the hands of Professor Dewey and those associated with him at the University of Chicago, the position has been much strength- ened and elaborated by being brought into connection with the general standpoint of evolutionary science. It thus appears as a comprehensive theory of experience, in the form of a genetic and evolutionary psychology that fur- nishes the general standpoint from which the problems of logic, ethics, and the other philosophical disciplines are to be worked out in a systematic way. Whatever one's final judgment may be, one cannot fail to receive intel- lectual stimulus and suggestion from this new movement, or to recognize the strength and persuasiveness of the exposition and illustration that it has received at Pro- fessor Dewey's hands.^ ^As I do not intend in what follows to refer specifically to this position, though I have attempted to consider the principles that underlie it, a word in criticism of a general tendency that seems to be present in many if not all of its advocates may perhaps be allowed. What I refer to is probably a natural expression on the part of these writers of their enthusiastic belief and confidence in the novelty, importance, and all-inclusiveness of the method they are pursuing. It results, however, in a tendency to appropriate, as something peculiar to their own position, principles and insights that have long been common property, and thus to leave on the reader's mind an impres- sion of hastiness or lack of accurate historical knowledge. The same unfortunate impression is also produced by the impatience shown PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 95 I. The general theses of the current teleological doctrines have been so often set forth that it is not necessary for me to attempt here any extended summary. Their funda- mental postulates or principles may perhaps be stated in the following way: Thought is a particular function or activity within experience, not the universal form or con- stituent element of conscious life. It is always instru- mental in character, having for its object the discovery of ways in which the purposes and needs of the practical life can be realized in action. It is thus always determined by its relation to a specific situation and to a definite prob- lem. Moreover, its standard of success and test of adequacy is found in the practical success which it achieves. From this it follows, negatively, that thought has no onto- logical reference beyond experience. It is not its business to know or define a reality in any sense outside or inde- pendent of the experience of the individual. As a recon- structive function of experience, it necessarily works within the limits that the latter sets, and in the service of the practical ends to which it gives rise. These propositions are supported by various lines of argument. The obvious use and importance of knowledge for practical purposes, the historical fact that the sciences have grown up in response to practical necessities, and the close and essential connection between idea and action in the psychological life, are all brought forward by various writers. In addition, however, there are two lines of argu- ment adduced that seem still more significant. In the first place, the purposive or teleological view is sustained by in dealing with the views of others that leads these writers occa- sionally to anathematize their opponents as 'belated, prehistoric, anti-evolutionary ontologists.' M n . 1 96 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY regarding thought as a function of life in general, which in itself sets no new ends, but appears upon the scene as a favorable variation in the service of ends already present, and can therefore be treated in analogy with the other functions of life. And, secondly, the supposed diflficulties of the ontological or absolute view are made to furnish indirect or negative support to this position. For this new view of thought avoids, it is claimed, the insuperable diffi- culties and inevitable contradictions of any theory that assumes that thought has to know a transcendent object. Quite apart from the impossibility of understanding how thought could ever set itself such a task, the ontological view, it is claimed, affords no possible test of success or failure in its performance. *No bell rings,* as Professor James graphically puts it, as a signal that thought has reached its goal. When we turn to examine these arguments, we must say that at least those first enumerated do not seem conclusive, even if we accept them in the form in which they are com- monly stated. That knowledge is actually employed as a guide of life, does not imply that this is its sole or even its chief function. It would be equally cogent to argue that the practical activities exist only as means to knowledge, since we do frequently find them employed in this service. Nor, in the second place, does the close psychological con- nection of idea and action require us to conclude that the former is subordinated to the latter. The process of know- ing, as has often been pointed out, involves will and purpK)se in the form of interest, attention, and selection; but this is not a complete description of the psychological situation. In any genuine case of knowing, there must be also present an objective interest, a detachment from the personal and private ends of our will, in order to permit the true end of knowledge to be realized. The facts of experience, then, ' PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 97 when we look at all sides, seem to show that ideational life is not defined or determined by any merely individual end. Instead of separating the ideational and the volitional elements of experience, or reducing one to terms of the other, the facts of the case compel us rather to recognize them as distinguishable, though not distinct, moments in the total attitude of the self toward reality. In the third place, it does not follow, even if we grant the premise, that because the sciences have been developed through the stimulus of practical needs, they have therefore no further aim or significance. In accordance with what Wimdt calls the heterogony of ends, we may suppose that the process of development has brought into view in more highly evolved forms of conscious life a different end, — that of knowledge,— which may now be of supreme im- portance. Apart from this, however, the premise of the argument may well be questioned. In the early history of both the individual and the race, practical interests and needs are doubtless most insistent and absorbing, and largely dominate the life. Freedom from the most press- ing needs of life is certainly essential to any progress in science. But it is doubtful if it is permissible to assume that the disinterested impulse toward knowledge is entirely absent at any stage of human consciousness.* n. However confidently we may turn aside these common- place ripples of argument, we cannot forget that there are * It has been the fashion in recent genetic studies to emphasize the dependence of the theoretical on the practical. But there are many facts in early forms of consciousness that are plainly expressions of a genuine wonder, — real intellectual curiosity, though of course in an undeveloped form, — that conditions in various ways the so-called practical activities. (d f V 98 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY two great waves still to be faced. To meet these we shall find it necessary to lay our course on the open sea witii philosophical exactness, and to put our craft in the best pos- sible condition to meet the shock. The argument from biological analogy professedly car- ries with it the full authority and weight of current evolu- tionary science. It points out that the idea, like everything else, is developed as a necessary function within experience. The idea, it is said, comes in response to a definite demand for * readjustment and expansion in the ends and means of life.' It thus works in the service of life, having for its object to readjust habits in the light of new situations, to loosen tensions that arise within experience, and, in general, to quiet uneasiness, restlessness, and pain. Now, it is to be noted that, if thought is to be regarded as analogous to other functions of life, it cannot be taken as setting any new ends of its own that are independent of the ends of the life of the organism in which it has arisen. The prob- lems that it is called to solve are never theoretical prob- lems, difficulties set by the intellect itself. For if this were the case, the biological view of thought would be completely out of court; for thinking would be no longer merely per- forming the task prescribed by the organism, or by unre- flective experience, but seeking to realize an end which is quite different in character. This point requires to be carefully noted; for just here, as we shall see more explicitly hereafter, serious ambiguity arises in the use that is made of terms like 'practical,* and 'the demands of life.' It is surely clear that one cannot blow hot and cold at the same time, and that from the standpoint of the present argument 'practical ends' must be limited to those which belong to the organism, or which are in some sense antecedent to thought. If thought sets any ends of its own and works for their realization, it is PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY d9 surely dear that it cannot be regarded as a particular func- tion of life, and treated as analogous to the other biological functions. The whole point at issue here, then, is whether thought can be adequately described as a particular function of experience. When we take the external point of view, look- ing at the psycho-physical individual as an object of scien- tific investigation, we can only construe thought in this way, and such an interpretation has a certain truth, — it may be that this is the only truth about thought that biological science is able to furnish. But philosophy, as the science of experience, occupies a different view-point from that of the special sciences. It looks at experience from within, not as an object, or a collection of objects, but in its immediate relations to the knowing and willing subject. Now, from this point of view, the thought function is seen to be cen-^^ tral and constitutive, not an external process of reflection superinduced upon life or experience. The dualism that is implied between the ideational process and a life of habit or feeling, or of immediate values, has no real exis- tence, but results from the abstraction that is forced upon us when we look at experience from the outside. From the internal viewpoint of self-consciousness, however, thought, — not as an abstract reflective principle, but as the concrete and self-conscious attitude of the self, whichA/ includes will and purpose as an essential moment of its own life, — ^thought, in this sense, is seen to be the central prin- ciple that gives to experience its significance and its pos- sibility of interpretation. In the light of this position it would seem to follow that the so-called 'practical' ends can never be final or inde- pendent ends for a rational being. They only find a place mithin such a life by being included as means within the ultimate ends or ideals in which the self expresses the l\ 100 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY unity and completeness of its own life. In the realization of a string or series of particular purposes that are not subordinated to an ultimate end, there can be no true self- expression or self-realization. We have at length come to consider the indirect support that the instrumental view of knowledge receives through the alleged incapacity of all ontological systems to explain how thought can deal with a reality that in any sense transcends experience. There is no test of thought, it is urged, but the practical test of success as shown by trial and experience itself. Reality as an ontological system, eternally complete and finished, and thus contrasted ^ith the incompleteness and growing adequacy of our experience^ is an unmeaning abstraction, something that does not func- tion at all in our thought and is dumb to our successes or failures. I certainly cannot escape the conviction that those who put their objections in this form have not understood the position of their opponents. Everyone would admit that there is no external test of truth, and that the standard must be found within experience itself. But the question recurs: What is the nature of experience? And it is in the reading or interpretation of experience that many idealists take issue with those whose arguments we are examining. If, as the latter maintain, the experience of the indiviflual, in its essential nature, is isolated and detached as a finite phenomenon, if the nature of a larger whole does not fimction constitutively within it in the form of imiversal principles, then all tests of truth are impossible, practical tests no less than theoretical, as I gfhall presently show. But if (as I have always understood idealists to maintain) experience by its very nature involves a refer- ence to reality, the case is not so hopeless. For then the PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 101 reality which is taken as a standard is not external, but functions as an immanent principle within experience. It does not, however, fall wholly within any individual expe- rience, but exists as the extension and supplementation that individual experience seeks and demands. It is this rela- tion of individual thought to the reality that is at once continuous with it and also its necessary complement and fulfilment, that finds expression within experience in the aspects of universality and necessity. These are not char- acteristics of ideas as such, nor is an idea made universal through the fact of its existence in all minds, but it only partakes of universality and necessity through being an element within an experience that has tTie nature of reality boimd up with itself. The objective or ontological view does not then have to undertake the impossible task, which its opponents would thrust upon it, of explaining how thought-in-itself can know reality-in-itself. There is no warrant whatever for identi- fying this form of idealism with the older representational theories of knowledge. The truth is that it was just this school of thought that first showed both the inadequacy of representationism, and the possibility of avoiding its diflfi- culties by starting from a truer and more concrete view of experience. Thought, idealism points out, has no exis- tence as something standing apart from reality; but, in HegePs graphic words, it is its very nature to shut us together with things. No bell then is necessary as a signal that our thought has touched reality; every real thought has some degree of truth, even although the proposition in which it is expressed may not be adequate to the expression of this truth. The real problem in any given case, there- fore, is to determine which of two or more possible ways of judging about realHy is truer and more adequate. Here the appeal is to experience itself, but to experience ) I I ill 102 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY as systematized by thought. It is to be noted, however, that the system to which we appeal is not a fixed circle of abstract ideas that have the power of determining truth through their own internal consistency. It is rather the concrete and fluid process of thinking, in which the nature of reality functions effectively, both as something already partially determined, and also as that which sets the ideal for further determination. As thus an active process of transformation directed towards the realization of an ideal, thought seeks to extend and supplement its present content. It looks before and after, and seeks guidance and direction from every quarter. To this end, it appeals to direct per- ceptive experience, and makes use of trial and experiment as its instruments. With the same object of broadening its outlook, it makes use of the opinions of other men, testing and correcting its own conclusions by the light which these results afford. Herder has well remarked that it is not without significance that the word Vemunft is derived from Vemehmen, to learn or give ear to. For reasoning involves, as one of its essential moments, a looking abroad and learning from every quarter, not in an attitude of passive receptivity, but with a mental alertness and selective atten- tion that employs the whole process of experience as a means of realizing and fulfilling its own ideal. For this view of reason we are indebted to the men who inaugurated the historical movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. For the eighteenth century ra- tionalists, reason was something limited and self-enclosed. That is, they commonly assxuned that every normal person had only to look into his own consciousness to know what is reasonable. Reason was thus regarded as an infallible* organon, which each individual carried with him as a pri- vate possession, and which had the power to determine truth, by means of the laws of formal consistency. PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 103 Now, in abandoning this abstract conception of thought or reason as a thing-in-itself, it is necessary to avoid the opposite error of resolving thought into a mere plurality of experiences, into consciousness of the result of movement, for example. For it is impossible to dispense with the functional reality of thought as a guiding and controlling principle. This principle is not merely regulative of expe- rience, but constitutive as well; or, rather, we may say that it is constitutive just through the fact that it is regu- lative. In other words^ thought, in its work of determining reality as a system, operates not only through retrospective categories, but possesses in ,a certain sense the power of prevision, and this prospective reference, as guiding piu-pose and ideal, operates effectively in building up the system of truth. It is only when we take account of these facts that we can find any meaning in the conception of 'workability' as a test of truth. Those who emphasize the all-suflficiency of this practical standard, however, usually assume that it is a new principle come to supersede and destroy, not to fulfill, the claims of the older logical principles. At this point a little reflection will show that the conditions under which the practical test is applied presuppose logical think- ing as their necessary framework and background. It may be said that the practical criterion of Workability' merely asserts that the test of any present system of experience is the future experience that comes through trial and ex- periment. It means simply, it may be said, that present ideas must be tried by their future results. But we can maintain with equal reason that the present system of knowledge furnishes the standard by means of which we must judge of the future. This antinomy obviously has its soiu'ce in the abstract separation of present and future experience. Instead of being external and independent ' 1 1 ' n . ! I 104 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY centers that exercise authority from the one side or the other, future experience and present experience necessarily imply each other, the present looking forward to the future for its completion and correction, the future looking back to what is for it the past. Now, this reciprocal implication and determination of parts presupposes that these parts are elements of a rationally coordinated system. It follows, therefore, that the so-called practical test that judges of the truth of an idea by its results, is applicable only when it is used within a rationally determined system of thoughts that contains as immanent ideal its own principles of criti- cism. (Everything works in some way, but the practical question always is. How does it work?) Passing from this point, we may find that some further explanation and justification are still demanded of the prop- osition that thought is necessarily and organically con- nected with an objective reality. How is it possible, it may be asked, for reality to be at once both within and without an individual consciousness? It is impossible to deny that the consciousness of each person has an aspect of uniqueness, in virtue of which it may be said to be strictly self-enclosed and particular. But the facts of experience, impartially and comprehensively viewed, compel us to rec- ognize another moment of mind as equally essential to its true individuality. This is expressed through the principles of universality and necessity, which are, as we have seen, marks of the functional efficiency of the objective ideal. This ideal, though a part of present experience, points al- ways to a system of reality in which it is completely ful- filled and realized. Nevertheless, the fact that the objective world fimctions in individual consciousness as an ideal, does not exclude its reality either within our consciousness or without it. For the ideal and the real are continuous with each other, and complementary in nature, not separate PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 105 and opposing modes of existence. It is the presence of reality as ideal in our consciousness, — not as something that is already attained, but as the mark to which we press forward,— that differentiates our thinking from the aimless play of subjective ideas. This view, I venture to think, makes no impossible de- mands, and appeals to no questionable hypotheses. It appears to me to be simply a more complete and adequate reading of the facts of experience than that furnished by its opponents. The relation of the mind to reality,— to a world of things and persons,— is given with the very fact of conscious experience. If we find no difficulty in ascribing an objective reality, in the ontological sense, to persons,— if we do not reduce our fellow men to functions within experience,— why should we pronounce it unmeaning to give the same kind of reality to things? Recent investiga- tions into social and genetic psychology have emphasized in a striking way the fact that it is the very nature of the individual consciousness to transcend the limits of its own particularity, and unite with other individuals. This social relation, we say, is not external and accidental, but a real and constituent element in the life of the individual, the nature of the Alter being essentially involved and included in the nature of the Ego. Now, if we find no obstacle to prevent us from admitting the transcendence by the indi- vidual of the bounds of its particularity in this social con- nection, why should we make a difficulty in the case of objects in general? Our relations to persons are, indeed, more intimate and also more varied than are those in which we stand to things. Moreover, we may perhaps say in general that these relations continue to lose something in intimacy, variety, and emotional warmth, as we pass downwards through the various forms of organic life to the objects of inorganic nature. But there is no difference in I 1 ! 4 106 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY principle between the mode in which we know persfons and that in which we know things. Furthermore, we have also to admit that the feelings and emotions that seem distinctive of our attitude toward persons are not original, but have grown up through experience: persons are only gradually distinguished and classified by the child as different from other objects of the real world. III. I have thus attempted to examine the main arguments of those who interpret reality in terms of will ^ and purpose, and to answer the objections that are most insistently urged against the older view. It now remains to indicate briefly the chief difficulties that seem to me inherent in this modern form of teleology. As these objections have been more or less explicitly anticipated in what precedes, I shall confine myself to a brief statement that will to some extent serve as a summary of my paper.^ 1. We have already had occasion to refer to the am- biguity that in this use attaches to the word 'practical,' as well as to the terms 'end' and 'purpose.' These words seem to be employed by this theory to cover two modes of consciousness that are usually, at least, regarded as essen- ' It is somewhat remarkable that those who uphold the teleological or instrumental view of knowledge have as yet devoted almost no attention to answering the serious and legitimate objections that have been strongly urged against their position from many sides {cf., e. g.y James Seth, "The Utilitarian Estimate of Knowledge," PhUo- sophical Review, Vol. X, pp. 341 flf. ; W. Caldwell, "Pragmatism," Mind, No. 36, pp. 433 ff. ; B. Bosanquet, "Imitation and Selective Thinking," Psych. Rev., X, pp. 404 ff.). The explanation of this is probably to be found in the belief that the further development of their principles affords the best answer to objections, and is at the present time of fundamental importance. Nevertheless, a fuller and clearer definition of the view is urgently demanded in the light of the criticism to which it has been lately subjected. PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 107 tially different. In some cases the 'practicaP end for the realization of which thought acts as an instrument is ma- terial in character and involves physical movements: as, e. g.y to supply food, provide shelter, or in some way to minister to the needs of the physical organism. In other connections, however, the term 'practical purposes' is broadened to include intellectual interests and problems that concern only the relation of the thinking process to it- self, and have no discoverable relation te biological needs or to physical movements. The employment of terms in this shifting sense seems te have resulted in a certain con- fusion of the issue, and to have led to a slurring over of one of the fundamental difficulties in the position. Moreover, the claim of the position to novelty depends te a very large extent upon its adoption of the narrower and more usual interpretation of what is to be regarded as a practical purpose. If these words are used to include the ends of knowledge, there is nothing essential gained, so far as I can see; the logical problem still remains, and here analogies with the course of biological evolution and argu- ments based on these analogies cannot help us. 2. From the standpoint of the position we have been examining, one cannot consistently speak of supplementing or broadening the individual standpoint by reference to social purposes. For, as we have seen, the recognition of other individuals, and of our own relation to them, re- quires the adoption of the transcendent and ontological position against which the instrumental view levels its heaviest artillery. The instrumental view must, then, logically remain purely individualistic. As such, it necessarily fails to do iustice».> to the objective and universal aspect of experience. For a series of individual purposes, as a description of objec- tive reality, is surely open to all the theoretical objections t \ 108 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY that have been so often urged against a series of subjective feelings; while, if taken seriously as a standpoint for ethics, the doctrine seems open to the gravest objections. 3. A string of individual purposes also fails to afford any unity to life and experience. But there is actually such a unity present, if not in realized form at least as ideal, in all rational life. We must conclude, then, that in maintain- ing that it is always in the light of particular definite pur- poses that experience must be interpreted, the instrumental view is emphasizing what in themselves are not true ends of thought at all, but only subordinate ends that find their meaning and place in rational experience from their rela- tion to a universal and dominating end. Without the ref- erence of the various practical purposes to the unity of ^f' such an end, experience would remain a chaotic assemblage J,5v^ of elements completely lacking true imity and consistency.^ V ' 4. In spite of the claim made by its advocates that this theory avoids dualism, it yet introduces a sharp opposition between immediate experience and the ideational process. This opposition does not seem to be warranted by an analysis of consciousness itself. On the one side, the theory seems to place experience or conscious life, consisting of feelings, impulsive and habitual reactions, and immediate appreciations of values. Out of this, as a ready-made prius, or an antecedent existing matrix, thought arises as a proc- ess of reflection, or a fimction of transformation and readjustment. Thought is thus necessary to the further de- velopment of experience, but it does not appear to be in any sense organic to it; for experience can apparently exist in independence of thought. Even ^hen it is pointed out that thought arises out of experience, the diflBculty is not fully met; for it comes, not as the development of a principle already immanent in, and constitutive of, the earlier stage, * Cf. Bosanquet, Psych. Rev., X, pp. 404 ff. PURPOSE AS A LOGICAL CATEGORY 109 but as a variation, or deus ex machiruij that introduces something entirely new. There is thus a departure, I think, from the procedure of the true evolutionary method. 6. What I have already set down must stand at present as justification for the final statement of my paper, that the view of experience we have examined, instructive and valuable as it is in many of its aspects, is only valid in so far as it rests upon a logical and ontological basis that is quite different from that which it claims for itself. It seems to me that I have shown that, in several of its argu- ments at least, this theory does implicity rest upon such a basis. Even constructive thinkers do not always remember that the underiying principles of experience are not ex- plicitly asserted in consciousness, as are particular facts, but rather are implicitly asserted or assumed. It is there- fore easy, from the standpoint of common sense and natural science, to fail to recognize consciously a background that is all the while presupposed as the support which gives the facts of experience their meaning. If the instrumental' theory were to develop consistently its presuppositions, its claim to be an independent and self-sufficient method of philosophy would, in my judgment, at once appear as groundless and impossible. CHAPTER VI EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT.^ Under this very general title I wish to discuss certain fun- damental doctrines regarding the nature of experience which are directly involved in the current discussion of pragma- tism. The fact that some of those who have not been entirely swept from the old moorings by the strength of this 'new movement* still find it necessary at frequent intervals to take their bearings and define their position in relation to it, may be taken as a sufficient acknowledg- ment of its vitality and significance. Nevertheless, as Professor Moore has happily remarked, the differences in regard to pragmatism are still numerous enough to insure a long period of fruitful development.^ But, in order that these differences may become really fruitful, they must be carefully defined, and the presuppositions on which they rest must be scrutinized and subjected to discussion. I shall try to show that the contentions of certain adherents of pragmatism regarding the nature of experience are based on principles that fail to take account of the significance of experience in its totality, or rightly to interpret its organic character. It has been frequently maintained in recent discussion that the old epistemological problem has lost its meaning. *A paper read before the American Philosophical Association at Cambridge, December, 1905. Reprinted from The Philosophical Re- view, Vol. XV, No. 5, pp. 482-493, September, 1906. 'The Philosophical Review, Vol. XIV, p. 343. 110 EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 111 The questions of the relation of knowledge to reality, and of the general problem and functions of thought, it is said, have no longer any significance. For, it is urged, the dis- tinctions which these questions commonly imply are arti^ ficial rather than real. When rightly understood, they are seen to be distinctions of function or use that arise and have a real meaning only within experience. More partic- ularly, it is to be noted that this 'new movement' is characterized by its identification of thought with the reflective process that arises as a definite response to a particular situation within experience. The whole mean- ing and significance of thought must, accordingly, be defined in terms of the particular experience out of which it arises, and of the immediate consequences to which it gives rise. There is thus no problem as to the nature of thought in general, and no reality apart from the specific situation in experience with which it is called upon to deal. The prob- lem of logic consists in describing the instrumental func- tion of thought in these definite situations, and thus exhibiting in detail its relation to the other aspects of experience. This doctrine has been so clearly and persuasively set forth by well-known writers that it requires no further exposition in this connection. Nevertheless, I cannot per- suade myself that the epistemological problem can yet be set aside as superannuated, though doubtless all schools of thought have got beyond the older formulation of it in dualistic terms. Students of the history of philosophy will scarcely concede, however, that to pragmatism belongs the credit for this advance. Dualism was definitely set aside by Kant and his successors in Germany a hundred years ago; and, thanks to the efforts of the so-called neo-Hegel- ians, our English-speaking philosophy may be assumed to have abandoned that standpoint. But the truth that ■ i I ii % i 112 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY was contained in dualism must be retained, though the problem of experience has become radically transformed. This, it appears to me, has been largely overlooked by the exponents of pragmatism. Nevertheless, one who criticizes; pragmatism from the standpoint of idealism is confronted with peculiar dif- ficulties. For his own watchwords are largely the same as those of the pragmatists. Like them, he is seeking to exhibit the imity of experience through the functional rela- tion of its parts. And, in working toward this end, he has often to acknowledge the positive suggestiveness of much that is emphasized by certain representatives of the *new movement.' But on the qther hand, idealism can give no quarter to the conclusions in which pragmatists specially delight, — the irrationalism, showing itself in a depreciation of thought and ideas, the relativity and sub- jectivism, and the uncritical claim to base itself upon 'pure* experience, — for it recognizes in these doctrines its historical enemies under a new form.^ Now, in order to carry on this 'ancient quarreP on equal terms, it is necessary at the present time to begin with an emphatic protest against the pragmatist's assumption that he and he alone speaks in the name of experience. The so-called 'radical em- piricist* cannot be allowed to claim a monopoly of experi- ence. The question of the nature of experience is the very point at issue. The idealist maintains that in his doctrine of immediate experience the pragmatist is appealing to an oracle that is dumb ; or, in other words, that the conception of an immediate presuppositionless experience is a contra- di(5tion in terms. He has thus the ungracious task of thrust- ing presuppositions on the attention of those who have at- * It is a significant fact that some of those representatives of prag- matism who hesitate to develop their doctrine into an irrational fideism are now attempting to connect it with realism and falling back on an uncritical and naturalistic theory of knowledge. EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 113 tempted to forswear all presuppositions, and of insisting on a method of procedure which shall be more adequate to experience than that of radical empiricism. In order to make my criticisms more intelligible, however, I propose first to describe in outline the position from which they are made. This general point of view is, of course, not unfamiliar, though I hope that my statement of it may help to emphasize some points that are of importance at the present time. It is necessary first of all to raise the question as to the concrete form of experience. In what terms are we to give the reading of experience? On the answer to this question our whole account will depend. Now, whatever may be the standpoint which psychology may find it con- venient to assume, philosophy cannot begin with isolated mental states, but must recognize that experience con- sists from the first in an attitude of a subject to other sub- jects and to objects. We may for the present speak of this attitude as the subject-object relation. The subject and object are not, however, to be regarded as ontologically separate and independent, and as entering into external relations at this or that point of time. What we must insist upon is not a theory of dualism, but the essential duality of experience. What an experience could be without this form or prior to this duality I am unable to imagine. It therefore appears to me unjustifiable to regard the subject-object relation as derivative, as a functional rela- tion mthin experience. For the relation of a subject to other subjects and to a world of objects is the universal form, and not a particular fact or function at all. The demand that this attitude of the subject shall be exhibited as a particular fact of the content of experience,— as, for. example, in the form of a definite process of will or feeling, 1 !M 114 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY — on pain of being declared unreal, isf based on presupposi- tions that would render all experience unintelligible.^ For though experience is life, its differentia is found in the fact that it is something more than life. Nor is it sufficient to say that experience is life that has become conscious of itself, if we limit that consciousness to an awareness of its own states. For experience is essentially a life con- sciously lived in relation to an environment. The inner life of the subject exists precisely in and through this relation to objects and apart from this it is nothing. To attempt to define this subject-object relation in terms of something more ultimate is to confuse the problem which experience sets with the fruitless task of trying to show how experience is made. Now there are two objections which may be made from opposite sides to the view here advanced, and although neither can be fully dealt with here, it may be well to consider them in passing in order to render more definite what has already been said. On the one hand, it may be urged that the attitude of self or subject to reality yields only an individual and subjective experience. How can such an individual experience possess the universality and necessity which characterizes real objectivity? This objec- tion can be met only by insisting that^lhe subject of experi- ence is not a mere capacity for sensations or feelings, but is essentially a process of objectification. As we have seen, subject and object are correlative terms, and any defect in our conception of one of these *The same judgment must, I think, be passed on recent attempts to define consciousness as a particular kind of a relation, as well as on Professor James's question regarding its existence. If 'existence* means being as a particular entity or thing, this cannot, of course, be predicated of consciousness. But are not forms 'real' as well as ideal, or is the term reality to be limited to what can be held in the hand as a definite particular kind of a lump? EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 115 terms is certain to involve a corresponding deficiency on the other side. Without a genuine subject, no objects, and without real objects, no possibility of a true subject. For example, the unsatisfactory character of Berkeley's ideal- ism, its lack of objectivity, is the immediate consequence of the empirical view of the self and its functions which he inherited from Locke. The subject with which we begin expresses itself, however, in no mere immediacy of sensation, but is itself a process of interpretation in terms of ideas and universal relations. Experience is, indeed, teleological as the expression of a conscious subject; but the ends and ideals by which it is guided are not merely personal attitudes or desires operating at haphazard, but possess the form of universal demands, binding on all and also systematically related and connected. In other words, we are true to experience in our account only when we describe it as an effort to realize a rational life. And this rational life is something that is not realized in an individual consciousness as a thing apart, but implies both a relation to objects and to other subjects. The relation to objects is obviously essential both from a theoretical and practical point of view. Rationality implies an objective order to be known which at once may serve as the limiting term and the instrument of our practical activity. But the rela- tion to other subjects is not a less important or a less essen- tial constituent of our experience. A rational life can be lived only in relation to other subjects who are regarded from the standpoint of our life, not as objects or means, but as sharing with us a common experience and cooperat- ing with us in the realization of common ends. The demand for a rational life therefore carries with it a demand for a social life. So far from being a subjective affair, then, experience involves these relations to objects and to other subjects. If we use the term * consciousness' to describe t ; 1 ( !l 114 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY — on pain of being declared unreal, is based on presupposi- tions that would render all experience unintelligible.^ For though experience is life, its differentia is found in the fact that it is something more than life. Nor is it sufficient to say that experience is life that has become conscious of itself, if we limit that consciousness to an awareness of its own states. For experience is essentially a life con- sciously lived in relation to an environment. The inner life of the subject exists precisely in and through this relation to objects and apart from this it is nothing. To attempt to define this subject-object relation in terms of something more ultimate is to confuse the problem which experience sets with the fruitless task of trying to show how experience is made. Now there are two objections which may be made from opposite sides to the view here advanced, and although neither can be fully dealt with here, it may be well to consider them in passing in order to render more definite what has already been said. On the one hand, it may be urged that the attitude of self or subject to reality yields only an individual and subjective experience. How can such an individual experience possess the universality and necessity which characterizes real objectivity? This objec- tion can be met only by insisting that^the subject of experi- ence is not a mere capacity for sensations or feelings, but is essentially a process of objectification. As we have seen, subject and object are correlative terms, and any defect in our conception of one of these *The same judgment must, I think, be passed on recent attempts to define consciousness as a particular kind of a relation, as well as on Professor James's question regarding its existence. If 'existence* means being as a particular entity or thing, this cannot, of course, be predicated of consciousness. But are not forms 'real' as well as ideal, or is the term reality to be limited to what can be held in the hand as a definite particular kind of a lump? EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 115 terms is certain to involve a corresponding deficiency on the other side. Without a genuine subject, no objects, and without real objects, no possibility of a true subject. For example, the unsatisfactory character of Berkeley's ideal- ism, its lack of objectivity, is the immediate consequence of the empirical view of the self and its functions which he inherited from Locke. The subject with which we begin expresses itself, however, in no mere immediacy of sensation, but is itself a process of interpretation in terms of ideas and universal relations. Experience is, indeed, teleological as the expression of a conscious subject; but the ends and ideals by which it is guided are not merely personal attitudes or desires operating at haphazard, but possess the form of universal demands, binding on all and also systematically related and connected. In other words, we are true to experience in our account only when we describe it as an effort to realize a rational life. And this rational life is something that is not realized in an individual consciousness as a thing apart, but implies both a relation to objects and to other subjects. The relation to objects is obviously essential both from a theoretical and practical point of view. Rationality implies an objective order to be known which at once may serve as the limiting term and the instrument of our practical activity. But the rela- tion to other subjects is not a less important or a less essen- tial constituent of our experience. A rational life can be lived only in relation to other subjects who are regarded from the standpoint of our life, not as objects or means, but as sharing with us a common experience and cooperat- ing with us in the realization of common ends. The demand for a rational life therefore carries with it a demand for a social life. So far from being a subjective affair, then, experience involves these relations to objects and to other subjects. If we use the term 'consciousness* to describe 116 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY this attitude on the part of the subject, we may then sfay that consciousness is a claim that experience while remain- ing mine is also, objective, — ^valid beyond the preaent moment and not circimiscribed by my mental states, — and thus constitutes a rational order that is shared with other individuals. The other difficulty is urged from the opposite point of view. If we regard experience as objective, it may be said, we fail to take account of its quality as the inner life of a subject. After all, experience is the life of an individual, and takes the form of his immediate sensations, and feelings, and desires. The question philosophy must face, then, is how to get objectivity from such an experience. It is imdoubtedly true that philosophy must view experi- ence as the conscious life of a subject; and I have elsewhere maintained that this standpoint is that which essen- tially differentiates science from philosophy.* Neverthe- less, the inner life of a subject is not subjectivity, but con- sists precisely in an attitude to objects and to other persons. Apart from this it is nothing. There is a sense in which thought is primary and overlaps and includes the object, reducing it to the form of its own 'glassy essence,' but this position is not identical with, but rather fundamentally opposed to the theory that makes mental states or feelings^ primary. It is only by abstraction that we get the mere 'affection of the subject,' and such an abstraction has no proper title whatever to the name of 'inner experience.' The true inner experience is the rational life of a subject which, as such, includes and implies objective relations. It is not 'psychical fact' but interpretation and significance; and the 'psycho- logical facts' of consciousness are abstract constructions from the standpoint of concrete experience. The tendency to ^The PhUoiophioal Review, Vol. XII, pp. 602 ff. EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 117 abstraction is here so strong, however, and the historical in- fluences so powerful, that our modem epistemology has not yet liberated itself from the doctrine of mental states. In passing on to another point we may say that the attitude of the human subject to the world may be described as a demand for a rational life and that experience is the process in which that end is progressively realized. This attitude of the subject is, however, no abstract unity but takes many forms and realizes its end through various modes of fimctioning. Nevertheless, if we describe these diverse forms of functioning 'as feeling attitudes, will attitudes, and cognitive attitudes, we must not overlook the fact that they are all organically united as parts of one rational life. Thinking or rationality is not limited to the process of abstract cognition, but it includes feeling and will, and in the course of its development carries these along with it. There is, of course, no such thing as what we have called abstract cognition; but the different mo- ments are all united in the concrete experience which we may name the life of thought. Furthermore, we are per- haps justified in using the term 'thought' in this way, since the cognitive attitude is more universal than either of the others and, as a process of mediation and interpretation, may be said to overlap and include them. For not only are states of feeling and will known, but in a human life at least, they seem to derive their meaning and place through falling within the life of knowledge. This is not, however, to deny the reality or genuine function of feeling and will, or to imply that in the development of experience they are transformed into abstract logical truths. It has been rightly urged recently from many sides that knowledge in- volves and implies feeling and will as parts of its own concrete process. But it is equally true that feeling and will, in a rational human experience, are informed and guided I 118 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY by knowledge, and thus without any loss of their own specific character are universalized and become real elements of the intellectual life. We shall therefore use 'thought* in this concrete sense to express the concrete form of experience. And then we may at once go on to say that the activity through which the subject realizes its demand for a rational life is judg- ment. Moreover, as the conscious life is everywhere and al- ways just such an activity, judgment and consciousness may be said to be identical conceptions. To be conscious, is to judge; to be in consciousness, is, to some degree, to be already interpreted and universalized. The end and aim of judgment may be said to always be the same: the development and maintenance of a rational life. At any given point, then, we may describe the conscious life as a continuous judgment, which not only embraces and gives meaning to all the states of the moment, but includes and supports the whole system of our knowledge up to date. Of course, such a judgment is never completely coherent and harmonious, and therefore leads on to further processes of analysis and interpretation. Yet these subsequent acts of thinking, however special the problem which is the immediate concern, or however methodological their start- ing point and procedure, are no merely detached and sepa- rate functions, but have a more ultimate significance as the means through which experience progresses towards its goal. The complete continuity of experience — if by this is meant the organic and functional unity of its various parts, — implies the subordination of the various ends of life to one all-embracing purpose, which can be nothing else than the attainment of rationality in all its modes of experience. This bare sketch may serve as an indication of a stand- point which takes issue with pragmatism on several funda* EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 119 mental points. In the first place, it would seem impossible to resolve the problem of knowledge into a series of particu- lar or specific problems which have reference only to some immediate situation, or to the requirements of some proxi- mate end. Practically, such a procedure may possess the advantage of rendering the problem manageable and capa- ble of solution in concrete terms. And for certain pur- poses the solutions which are offered in these terms may be found valid and satisfactory. In judging of the ade- quacy of any answer, one must always have reference to the nature of the inquiry. For certain purposes it may be legit- imate and even necessary to limit the inquiry, and to define the function of knowledge in terms of its bearing on a particular situation in experience. This inquiry if carried out strictly under these limitations would not be logical at all, but would belong to the sphere of functional psychol- ogy. As a matter of fact, in the treatment of the pragma- tists, there always is an unacknowledged reference beyona the specific situation to the larger purpose oi expenence, and therefore the result is, I think, always something more than functional psychology. However that may be, the spe- cifically logical problem never refers merely to a definite sit- uation in experience, but must always deal with this as the outcome and expression of the life of reason. The real loom of the logical problem,— to adopt Professor Dewey's term, — cannot be adequately defined except in the light of the object and end of experience as a whole. It may be conceded that an eminently useful, practical, or instru- mental set of rules might be worked out without any such ultimate reference, just as we may have a practical ethics which describes the type of conduct demanded by particu- lar situations without any explicit consideration of thp problem regarding the nature of the ultimate ethical end^ But philosophy, whether as logic or as ethics, cannot thus If^^ 120 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY limit the scope of its inquiry: As philosophy^ it must in- sist on seeing the part in the light of the whole, and on interpreting the particular problem as an element and a stage in the process of attaining rationality. Its object i&( the complete analysis and description of experience, the discovery of the realm of pure experience, if this is any- where to be foimd. Again, it is not f>ossible to accept the antithesis between thinking and * concrete ways of living' which is assumed in much of the discussion of the present day. The distinc- tion between reflective and unreflective experience, though only relative, is not indeed to be ignored. But, on the other hand, the distinction must not be stated as if it involved an absolute opposition in the form of experience. It seems to me that the pragmatists, in emphasizing tiiis distinction, have converted it into a virtual antithesis — or at least that the result has been to obscure the essential unity of func- tion which belongs to the nature of all experience. What is involved here is not merely a question of terminology as to whether we shall call the organizing principle of all experience ^thought' or by some other name; but whether we shall recognize any such unitary process at all. Can we regard experience as a single process throughout its various stages of development? It is evident that the unity of the process cannot be any simple abstract identity. Differ- entiation of function is the condition of development in the conscious life, as in an organic body. But in both cases, and even more emphatically in the case of experience, the process is the development of a single principle which maintains itself in and through the differentiations. It is of this principle that the parts are functions. In other words, it is only when we insist upon this imity that we have a right to talk about functions at all. Now it is indeed true that the pragmatists emphasise EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 121 the continuity of experience. My contention, however, has been that experience to be intelligible must be a unity, and not a mere continuity. But, it may be asked, is not a func- tional imity where one part is shown to depend upon another the only kind of a unity or system that can be demanded for experience? It is certainly true that if the relation between the parts of experience can be shown to be functional in the full sense, the whole must be regarded as a real unity. It seems necessary to point out, however, that the mere dependence of one part upon another does not constitute functional unity. Even a reciprocity of dynamic elements is not yet organic imity. A functional relation in the full sense implies cooperation in the realiza- tion of a common end, and hence the bond of a commr nature. Now, in reading the writings of my pragmatic friends I find it difficult to decide whether the 'functional relation,' to which they make very frequent reference and which is in their hands a universal solvent of difficul- ties, is anything more than a dynamic relation of parts, or whether there is not a real though unavowed reference to a general end of experience through which it finds a imity. This point is of fundamental importance, and it is neces- sary to request an explanation of the sense in which the term 'organic unity' is to be employed. If the former inter- pretation is correct, then they are not functionalists at all in any real sense; while if the latter alternative is the true one, the difference between this view and idealism is one of emphasis rather than of difference of principle. These general considerations may perhaps receive illus- tration by reference to one or two particular points. What, we may ask, is the character of the antecedent experience out of which thought comes? Now, at times the quality of immediacy and the merely presentative character of the experience are emphasized in the pragmatic account. 122 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHT 123 :Hi Then the problem is to understand how this immediacy can put on mediation, or how any crises or problems arise in an experience so devoid of speculation. But again in other passages, so much is put into the immediate experience that its immediacy vanishes in everything but name, and the only real distinction that remains between it and the reflective process seems to consist in the degree of explicit- ness of purposive attention that is directed towards a partic- ular problem. The impossibility of finding any point of contact between a mere datum of fact and reflective experi- ence has been often demonstrated, and this impossibility is emphasized by Professor Dewey in stating the points of agreement between his own doctrine and that of idealism.^ But if we admit, as he does, that the antecedent experience is "already organized," if "it is no mere existence but quali- fied as respects meaning," if finally crises arise within it which set a problem for reflection, there would seem to be no ground for denying to this prior experience the title of thought. It is doubtless true that thought can select any part of its own content as a datum from which to proceed to fiuther analysis. In this sense every judgment pro- ceeds from a concept, and the description of the relation between them as one of function or use seems to me ex- tremely suggestive. But, I would maintain, the distinction is one which falls, not merely within experience, but within thinking itself. The same considerations, mvtatis mutandis, may be iu*ged in regard to the stage beyond thought in which the reflec- tive process is said to issue. Although the act of thinking is supposed to cease with the solution of its definite prob- lem, the experience to which it gives place retains and preserves the product of the transforming judgment. It has been reconstituted, adjusted, and harmonized in such a ^8tudiei in Logical Theory, p. 44. way as to solve the problem which gave rise to the particu- lar process of reflection. But, if we have passed out of the territory of thought into a different realm of experi- encing, it seems difficult to understand how the results of reflection still continue to exist. The new distinctions and relations which the thinking activity has introduced would surely cease to be if thought should entirely disappear, or should be occupied merely at some other 'point of tension.' That which has been constituted by thinking would seem to require thought for its support. The question, then, seems to force itself upon us as to whether the nature of thought can be adequately described as a mere process of transition from one unreflective experience to another. Is it not more consistent with our actual experience to recog- nize that thought has at once a conserving and a trans- forming function? These two moments seem to be present in every act of thought, though sometimes one aspect and sometimes the other is predominant in experience. The rhythm or alternation, then, is never between an absolute resting place and an absolutely transitive state, but between a thinking experience where conservation is the main char- acteristic and another thinking experience which is predom- inantly a process of transition. But there is no suspension or interruption of thinking, no mere 'going on* of a life that is not sustained and directed by thought.^ Even when there appears to be no positive advance in knowledge, so long as consciousness persists, judgment as its universal form must support the ideal system of meanings and relations of which experience consists. The main contention of my paper, accordingly, is that in order completely to transcend dualism and attain to a standpoint that is really organic or functional it is necessary to regard experience as the process through which a subject expresses and realizes a rational life. 1 iii CHAPTER VII THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL.* There is one problem on which philosophers are com- monly supposed to meditate that we should all probably agree in repudiating as not a genuine problem at all. That is the problem as to whether there exists a real objective world. Even the inquiry regarding the grounds of our belief in such a world probably geems to most of us at the present day, not merely superfluous, but based on a logical confusion of ideas. And, indeed, notwithstanding the appearance of occasional 'demonstrations* of reality, this is no new standpoint in philosophy. In spite of popular misconceptions, it remains true that the real existence of the world as an objective order has never been called in question by any serious thinker. The reality of the world is the assumption j)f philosophy, as it is of common sense and of the sciences; or rather, it is the 'situation* out of which and with reference to which, the life of thought and practice proceed. If not in explicit words, at least in spirit and method of procedure, all the great historical systems show their acceptance of the truth of Lotze's dictum that the world once for all is and we are a part of it. To explain how the world was made or to prove its existence are not genuine problems for philosophy or for any science. The real problem of thought in all fields is the determination * Read in part at the Cambridge meeting of the American Philo- sophical Association, December 28, 1911. Reprinted from The PhUotophical Review, Vol. XXI, No. 3, pp. 303-321, May, 1912. 124 >.. THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 125 of the real, the problem of making intelligible the nature of the world which our thought finds given along with the consciousness of itself. Furthermore, that reality is knowable, at least in part, or in some of its aspects, seems to be a presupposition of all modem methods of philosophizing. Even when the formal claim to a 'knowledge' of ultimate reality is denied, it is assumed that this is nevertheless accessible to some form of conscious experience which is capable of appreciat- ing, and to some extent at least of expressing, its value and nature. Again, there appears also to be a basis of agree- ment in the appeal which all schools make to experience, and in the conmion assent which they give to the proposi- tion that all of the forms and factors of experience must be ^ taken into account, since all furnish data that are significant for the philosophical interpretation of the world. On the other hand, serious differences of opinion exist both regarding the terms in which the nature of the real must finally be defined, and also in respect to the closely related question concerning the criteria and methods for arriving at truth through the different modes of experience. The initial difficulty in securing agreement arises in con- nection with the problem as to what facts experience offers to a natural and unperverted view. On its face, this prob- lem seems to be a very simple one. If experience were a store-house of facts, it would appear obvious that the one thing needful is to accept what it offers without question or theory. But, unfortunately, it is impossible to discover in experience any such store of facts, lying, as it were, neatly arranged and labeled to our hand; in all cases what are called 'facts' are bound up with theories and conditioned by hypotheses. It appears, then, that any agreement regarding the standpoint of philosophy can be I 126 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY • attained only through the strife of theories, and that injunc- tions to each other to lift up our eyes and recognize that experience presents such and such facts are not likely to produce much effect until some common understanding is reached regarding the conceptions to be employed in con- struing experience. Of course I do not mean that the test of theory is independent of fact, or the process of testing theories does not involve a constant reference to and evalua- tion of facts. I am insisting here only that there are no inamediate 'facts,' prior to theory, to which we can appeal to settle our disputes. If, accordingly, it is admitted that a theory of experience is involved in every attempt to read off the facts which it presents, the question arises how and where one may obtain a theory adequate to the purposes and procedure of experience. The sharply em- phasized differences of the present day seem to make more apparent the need of attempting to define anew the initial standpoint and distinctive procedure of philosophy. This task, however, has fortimately not to be undertaken from the first beginning. If we admit that there has been anjrthing worthy of the name of philosophy in the past, it must be possible to obtain instruction and guidance from a critical study of its procedure and results.^ It is true that it is necessary to *see through' the history of philosophy, as Professor Dewey says, before it can be of service to us; but to see through it is to recognize its positive achieve- ments, as well as its failures and limitations. Even those who are inclined to attach little positive importance to the philosophizing of the past cannot fail to recognize the negative instruction or 'warnings' afforded by the presup- positions and logic of the history of philosophy. But it appears to me that it is only through the recognition that the efforts of the past have yielded positive results which exhibit a genuine development that we have any basis for THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 127 confidence in achieving anything ourselves, or any platform that can render cooperation and intelligent discussion pos- sible. Verbal definitions are not suflficient for this purpose, though these may often be necessary and useful. Modem philosophy begins, as it has often been pointed out, with Descartes' assertion of the priority of the principle of subjectivity in experience. And this doctrine remained the common presupposition of subsequent systems, down, at least, to its issuance in scepticism in the system of Hume. Our president of to-day has published an admirable and instructive paper in which he maintains that this sub- jectivism has continued to infect all modem philosophy.* While I agree with many of the contentions of that paper, I am inclined to believe that it is tmer to the logic of mod- em philosophy to say that it presents, as one of its main aspects, a process of development in which the onesidedness of the subjective view is overcome by the recognition of the fact that objects are essential elements of experience. The course of development is indeed not always in a straight Ime, and does not correspond with the temporal succession of systems. It should be noted that the problem is not simply to recognize the connection of experience with a world of real objects. The fact of that connection was maintained, inconsistently, indeed, but none the less openly and emphatically, by all the systems, excepting perhaps that of Berkeley. But it was essential also to develop a theory of experience that would make intelli^nbJe the rela- tion of knowledge and a world of real objects: so long as that relation was regarded as extemal and mechanical the question seemed to be as to which of the two sides could most consistently be reduced to the other. After Hume had exhibited the scepticism which was in- * F. J. E. Woodbridge, "The Problem of Consciousness," Studiet in Philosophp and PtycKology (Garman Memorial Volume). ; I : :ii 128 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY herent in the empirical view of inner experience, Reid attempted to reclaim philosophy from 'the way of ideas* and to set up a system of Natural Realism. Like many of the Realists of the present day, however, he was unable to free himself entirely from the theory of ideas which he combated, and neither he nor his successors in the Scot- tish school succeeded in developing any unambiguous and satisfactory theory of the relation of the object to the mind, or any critical method for an objective philosophy. Nevertheless, Reid's doctrine that experiencing is no matter of ideas, but a direct dealing with objects must be considered an insight of great importance. Kant's so-called *Coperni- can revolution' seems at first to be nothing more than a renewed assertion of the priority of inner experience. But fortunately Kant's contributions to a theory of experience are more important than this misleading statement suggests. Although the presuppositions of his system prevented him from gaining a really objective standpoint, his conception of consciousness as a synthetic principle, and his develop- ment of a critical method were essential steps in this direc- tion. One can say that although Kant's own view remains infected with subjectivism, his method and results point the way to a more satisfactory theory than his predecessors had been able to attain — a theory that makes it possible to understand how experience can be at once both sub- jective and objective. Jacobi's contribution consists mainly in his convincing exhibition of the inconsistencies and de- fects of the Kantian system, and the need for a different basis in order to secure objective certainty. He himself was imable to supply philosophy with any theory of the relation of the mind and the object that was capable of furnishing a critical principle of procedure: his valid protest against ideas and subjectivism end by an appeal to the immediacy of feeling and the certainty of faith. THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 129 It is probable that Schelling's interest in the natural science of his time explains, at least in part, his dissatis- faction with the philosophy of Ficht€. This dissatisfaction issued in what Schelling himself described as his ''Durch- bruch in das freie affene Feld objectiver Wissenschaft/' ^ the recognition of the independent existence of the real worid, and the necessity of dealing with it directly. It is true that by attempting to make philosophy do the work of the special sciences, Schelling's philosophy of nature soon brought discredit upon itself. Nevertheless, the new direc- tion and the new interest thus given to philosophy were of great importance for its future. Schelling, however, never succeeded in uniting the logic of the transcendental method with the objective standpoint in philosophy. He rather alternates in different treatments of the philosophical problem between an internal method that follows the gen- eral course marked out by Fichte and an objective analysis of nature without any direct reference to the criticism of the categories and forms of experience. It is true that Schelling maintained that the two methods of philosophizing exhibit the same essential relationship of experience and nature: if we begin with one pole we are led necessarily to the o*her. But he never succeeded in actually demonstrating this unity by combining the two distinct modes of procedure as elements of a single method. It was by the elaboration of a single method capable of holding together the two sides of experience and exhibiting at once their organic unity and distinction that Hegel advanced beyond the phi- losophy of Schelling. The task of experience is to reveal the nature of things, and this is accomplished through the judgments of the mind. But the mind can discover the nature of the real only because the process of experience ^Werke, Bd. IX, pp. 366. Cf. Kuno Fischer, Geach. d. neueren Philoi, (1899), Bd. VII. p. 312. I 130 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY is guided by an immanent dialectic which at once exhibits the inadequacy of its first attempts and leads on to deter- minations that are truer. In defining and characterizing the real object, the nature and fimctions of the knowing intelligence reveal themselves in the dialectical develop- ment. These judgments then at once report both the nature of the world of real objects and also the structure of the judging intelligence. The categories are, accordingly, not merely forms of the understanding, as Kant supposed, but also at the same time constitutive principles of things. To regard the categories as a priori forms of the mind to which objects must conform, is just as misleading as the view against which Kant protested, namely, that the mind is passively determined by the merely outward course of events. Moreover, it follows that the forms of the mind can be discovered, and their meanings and limitations brought to light only in and through the objective process of experience itself. The categories reveal themselves and criticize themselves in their concrete employment. On the other hand, it is plainly impossible to discover truth and reality in an existing order of perceived events which may once for all be accepted as 'given,' without any analysis or criticism of the mode of experience through which it is known. These references to modem systems, hasty and incom- plete though they are, serve, I think, to show that real progress has been made in defining experience in such a way as to connect it organically with the world of real objects. I do not mean that the conceptions arrived at will not require revision in the future; but they appear to me to furnish a working basis for philosophy, bringing it into touch with, and to a considerable extent making intelligible, the standpoint of everyday life and of the special sciences. Philosophy seems to be justified, if we THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 131 may judge from the logic of modem systems, in taking as its point of departure a real world and a real mind whose function it is to determine what reality is and is capable of becoming. The mind, however, cannot be conceived as something that has an independent and self-enclosed exist- ence apart from its relation to the world. It is not a con- scious or thinking 'substance'; but something which has its being only through its relations, direct and indirect, to the objective system of persons and things. If we inquire how the mind, a conscious unextended substance, comes to be aware of what is beyond itself, we ask a question that can have no answer. For to he a mind is just to be a func- tion of interpretation ^nd synthesis of the real. If we refuse, then, to set the unmeaning problem of how experi- ence is made, contenting ourselves with understanding, so far as we can, its purpose and inmianent principles, we may define the mind as/the function which realizes for itself the significance and relations of a world of persons and things." Consciousness of mind, then, exists for experience only in its functional relationship to the world which it defines and evaluates. Moreover, so far as the individual mind is concemed, these two conceptions are not reciprocally correlative, and do not stand on the same footing. For while the mind of any particular individual has no mean- ing apart from its relation to objects, the latter exhibit no similar dependence on the individual mind. We think of the system of nature as existing and as forming the prius in some sense from which emerged all living and conscious beingsr- To this extent, it seems to me, all philosophy must be realistic or naturalistic. This admis- sion, however, does not predetermine in any way the character of our metaphysical result. We cannot set out in our philosophizing as 'realists' or 'idealists.' What we 132 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY • are to think about the world will depend on what our thought is able to make of it, after the most comprehen- sive survey of which it is capable of the data offered by the various forms of experiencing, and especially as these have been analyzed and classified by the special sciences. If in the end we find ourselves obliged to construe reality by means of idealistic categories, this standpoint must be reached in an objective way. There is no short cut to idealism. It is not the presupposition of philosophy: its standpoint is not 'first for us/ even if it turns out to be 'first by nature.' I have tried to maintain that, for the purpose of phi- losophy, it is necessary to keep fast hold of both the subjec- tive and the objective aspects of experience. Now there are two opposed but closely related theories of experience which disregard this principle. They both appear to furnish a reading of experience in terms that are conditioned by the standpoint and purposes of special sciences. The one, adopting the standpoint of psychology as final, con- strues experience in terms of qualities in a mind, or states of consciousness. As only the 'inner' can be experienced, objects — at least so far as these can be known — must be defined in terms of states of the subject. We find, accord- ingly, that what we call objects are constituted by relations between states of consciousness. The standpoint of experi- ence, thus interpreted, reduces the object to terms of the subject, by a short but infallible method of procedure. This 'psychological' account of experience finds an almost exact counterpart in those theories that adopt the standpoint of the physical sciences. From this point of view, the nature and relations of objects are considered as merely outer; that is, the objects are taken as given without any reference to the process through which they are known. What is called 'consciousness' must accordingly be defined in terms THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 133 of objects^as a relation of objects, or a togetherness of objects, or as behavior of objects, etc. Consciousness can be nothing more; for experience shows only objects and their relations and changes. If we assume that conscious- ness possesses any other reality, we must at least admit that such a reality is found nowhere in experience. It would be interesting, if time permitted, to dwell on the almost exact parallelism in the arguments by which these two positions are supported. The truth is that the com- mon presuppositions of subjectivism and objectivism are much more important than their apparent opposition. Both alike assume that the real is to be found in what is simple and immediate ; both try to grasp the result and forget the process. The abstract inner and the abstract outer inter- pretations of experience are opposed only superficially; in standpoint and method they are identical. Moreover, the artificial and untenable character of both these theories is shown in the same way— namely, by the fact that in the end both are compelled implicitly to admit what they begin By explicitly denying. This statement, I assume, will find pretty general agreement so far as sub- jectivism is concerned. It is not possible to bring the theory of subjectivism into relation to any concrete problem with- out going beyond it. Even in supporting the theory by means pf arguments, one is at the same time refuting it, since one must presuppose at least the real existence of other minds lo whom the arguments are addressed, and of some objec- tive media through which the ideas are expressed and received. In like manner, the exclusively objective view, in attempting to find some expression for consciousness in terms of the object, is able to proceed only because it presupposes, as all objective science presupposes, a mind which is aware of the relations or 'behavior' of objects. To omit all reference to the consciousness as the knower, Ili^'< 134 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY and begin directly with objects is, as is well-known, the pro- cedure which the purposes of the physical sciences impose upon them. But when philosophy adopts this standpoint, it loses its differentiating mark, and can contribute nothing to render the scientific results more intelligible or more concrete. The true science of philosophy consists in main- taining and developing the concrete standpoint of experience, and this can be done only by holding together, without obscuring, its subjective and objective aspects. If one is to look to the history of philosophy for 'warn- ings,' it appears to me that one can derive from the history of the modem period useful instruction as to the futility of attempting to render philosophy 'scientific* by importing into it the principles and methods of the special sciences. Over and over again new movements have been inaugurated with great enthusiasm to reclaim philosophy from the error of its ways by assimilating its procedure to that of the special sciences, and over and over again the outcome has shown that philosophy cannot have a method imposed upon it from without, or be bound by any 'scientific' formu- lation of problems, no matter how skillfully prepared. A single consideration is sufficient to show the inapplicability of natural science concepts to philosophy: all the natural sciences deal with objects (or certain formal aspects of objects). Philosophy, on the other hand, is concerned with experienced objects and experiencing subjects. In other words, philosophy is the science whose function is to main- tain the standpoint of experience in its concreteness, and it thus includes, as an essential part of its task, a criticism of the categories of knowledge. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the function of knowledge is not to construct objects in their relations, but to report them. Knowledge has to follow and interpret the nature of a preexisting order of existence. It THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 135 is sometimes said, however, that in the process of experi- ence the apparent priority of the object is shown to be imreal; that the mind reduces the object to terms of itself, or translates it into terms of ideas. Now it is true that in becoming known, the object reveals its inner relation- ship to the mind, and that it thus loses the indifference to knowledge which it seemed to possess as a mere form of external immediacy. But it is misleading and inaccurate to speak of knowing as 'reducing' the object to a meaning or idea, or as 'abolishing' all differences between it and the mind. This form of statement, however, is often adopted by certain idealistic writers. It is even not uncom- mon to discover in the failure of the knowledge process to reduce the object completely to terms of the subject, and thus to abolish all duality, grounds for appealing to some 'hyperlogical' form of experience. In this way it is hoped that the fatal defect of the duality that persists in knowl- edge may be overcome, and the perfect identity between the mind and the object secured. Now it seems to me that such an ideal of absolute identity is wholly imaginary and spurious. It is surely not a rational demand of knowl- edge that the object shall be 'reduced' to a state of mind; that there shall be absolute identity between ideas and the things and events known through them.^ To retain and to define in their reciprocal relations the distinct factors of experience is surely just as important as to discover iden- tity. It would seem that knowledge must do both; that is, * One can 'overcome' duality in experience in two ways : either by going beyond consciousness to some form of mystical trance, or by deciding deliberately to forget its presence and take no account of it in our analysis. Moreover, it is important to note that both mysti- cal idealism and abstract objectivism rest on the same assumption, viz., that the real is something capable of being given in the form of simple immediacy, and both alike feel the necessity of eliminating the mediating consciousness in order to be able to see the object *face to face.* :1t 1 1 1 1 136 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY it must exhibit and define the differences between the mind and things, at the same time that it exhibits their aspect of identity. The term identity/ however, needs to be carefully defined in this connection. The necessary assumption of experience is that the world of real objects is known, or at least knowable by the mind. The nature of the object is then such that it is capable of being reported in terms of experi- ence. Of coiu^e any concrete individual experience fails, because of its actual limitations, to report completely and without error the objective order of events. But it must not be forgotten that the mind's capacity to know involves the capacity to sift out errors and eliminate subjective lim- itations, so that we can regard the mind as a potential knower and the object as knowable. And, secondly, in attempting to determine in what sense there can be identity between the mind and the object we should look to a case where knowledge succeeds, to the ideal of knowledge, which may indeed never be completely realized in any individual experience but which is always realized in some degree in every case of real knowledge. Now judgment that ex- presses the result of actual experiencing affirms that reality, or some aspects of the real, is, or reveals a universal mean- ing or idea. (The full truth regarding the real cannot, of course, be expressed in a single judgment and no con- crete judgment stands in isolation.) For it must be noted that, as genuine knowledge, the judgment is not to be taken as a mere connection of my ideas about things, but as an actual revelation of their nature. It is not the individual who, from an outside standpoint as it were, attaches ideal meanings to the thing, categorizing and classifying it ac- cording to his subjective fancy or convenience. But the relations and qualities of the thing itself come to light and are reported in terms of experience. No doubt experience THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 137 always goes on in individual minds; but in so far as experi- ence succeeds in realizing its purpose of attaining to knowl- edge, it is no merely individual affair. The nature of the object is indeed indifferent toward me as an individual so long as I attempt to know it in an external way through 'qualifying' it by means of abstract ideas, or pasting upon it the labels which are convenient for my own subjective purpose. So long as I maintain my independent position over against the object, its inner center and essence remain inaccessible, refusing to be 'reduced' to sensations and relations in my mind. Only by stripping off its subjective opinions and sinking itself in the object does the mind ren- der itself capable of becoming the bearer of truth, and only then does the object reveal itself in terms of experience. This rapprochement does not involve any real loss of inde- pendence on either side. In knowing the object the mind realizes its own capacities and comes to know its true na- ture; while the object, although displaying its true nature in experience, does not thereby lose its reality as the being which is known, and so does not become numerically identical with the function of knowledge. The proposition that experience maintains the duality of knowing and thing known is, then, not incompatible with the assertion that it also reveals their identity. For if there is no identity, knowledge cannot be objective and genuine; logical experience in that case is not a process of concrete determination, but a game that is played with abstract counters. That alternative I am not considering at present, but am assuming that objects are capable of being known. If this be granted, then there must be more than an external correspondence between the *idea' and the object. The idea, we say, is the interpretation of the object, the revelation of its nature. This revelation finds illustration in the fact that cognitive experience may always H Ifil 138 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY be read both in internal and external terms; as the ideas* and judgments of a mind, and as the determinations of real things. In its concreteness, it is both. Moreover, it can only be one in so far as is the other. This statement, however, is not to be interpreted in the sense of the Kantian doctrine that experience is a compound made up of contri- butions from the mind and from the object. When the rela- tion is put in these mechanical terms, the* so-called contribution of the mind becomes a veil that makes it impossible to know the object as it were face to face. Be- cause the mind expresses its own nature in the process of experiencing, the assumption is that it must thereby con- ceal the natiure of the object. But apart from mechanical theories, why is such an assumption necessary? Because experience expresses the nature of the mind, does it follow that it cannot also express the nature of real objects? This possibility is excluded only by the theory that the relation between the mind and the object is external and mechanical. For those who accept the external view, and still wish to avoid subjectivism, the problem of how to eliminate con- sciousness naturally arises. What I am proposing is that we should not try to eliminate it, and should not regard it with Kant as an ^UvbequemliclikeiV \ but should accept knowledge as real. And to accept knowledge as real is to accept the doctrine that logical experience is a form of fimctioning in which the identity in difference of mind and object is exhibited and defined. It may perhaps be said that this is to complicate with words without adding anything essential to the fact of knowledge itself. How does the doctrine of * identity in dif- ference' make the f^ct of knowledge more intelligible? In reply to this objection two points may here be mentioned. The first consideration, which has already been suggested, is that the conception of identity in difference makes it THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 139 possible to understand how the mind can know the object without introducing some foreign element into the knowl- edge of it. In this way, therefore, one can avoid both sub- jectivism and objectivism. And, secondly, this conception enables one to discard the theory of representative knowl- edge, while retaining the undoubted element of truth which that theory contains. For logical experience does not con- struct an image or 'subjective picture of the object, but reveals its essential nature and relations as an element in an organized system of ideas. The relation between 'idea' and real object is not external like that of a copy and its original, but the more intimate inner relation of existence and meaning. It would therefore seem to follow that the question whether the real object and the idea are numerically iden- tical cannot be properly raised. For the question as to whether two things are the same or different is possible only when the things compared belong to the same genus. But the 'cognizing' experience is not an object at all; it cannot even be regarded as an existing psychological proc- ess, or complex of processes. It is real, indeed; but its reality consists in its ideal significance or meaning as an element of a conscious experience. In the judgments through which experience is constituted, this 'idea' or meaning is afl&rmed to be at once identical with the object and different from it. I have been trying to outline a view which maintains that all experience, of whatever kind, involves consciousness as a function of mediation. And since experience is assumed to furnish genuine knowledge of objects, it follows that no object can be in its own nature a simple immediated en- tity. To be real,' would therefore see^ to involve, not merely standing in relations, but functioning as an element in a related system. In so far as knowledge is genuine, i. e., 140 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY in so far as experience fulfils its task of determining the nature of the real, the categories and forms of experience must be actual constitutive determinations of the real world. This, of coiurse, does not mean that anything we are in the habit of thinking must be objectively true; nor does it imply that the hypotheses and methodological prin- ciples adopted for a special purpose are to be accepted just as they stand as statements possessing ultimate onto- logical validity. But when criticism has done its work, when all of the findings of experience have been taken into account, when the analyses of the special sciences have been evaluated and interpreted, what we are obliged to think in the end must be accepted as true, if not the final and complete truth regarding the object.^ I shall try to state briefly the bearings of the theory here outlined on the problem of the method of philosophy. In the first place, it appears obvious that the process of determining the nature of the real world must be accom- panied by and involve the criticism of the categories of knowledge. Not only so, but these problems are one and in- * It seems impossible to deny the truth of the Rationalistic prin- ciple that the order and connection of ideas is identical with the order and connection of things. The failure of Rationalism was not the consequence of this assumption, but of the abstract dualistic concep- tion of 'ideas' and 'things' from which it set out. It was thus never able to get beyond the idea of an external relation between the two terms which is expressed through conceptions like 'Occasionalism,' 'Parallelism,' and 'Preestablished Harmony.' For the same reason it was unable to supply any adequate criterion or method for deter- mining the true 'order and connection' of ideas. Just because the Rationalists held the same subjective view of experience as the Empiricists, they were obliged, like the latter, to find the criterion of truth in the psychological clearness and distinctness of ideas. It is interesting to notice the attempts which both Spinoza and Leibniz make to discover in 'ideas' a criterion of certainty, and how their abstract view of thought rendered it impossible for them to discover within experience any immanent principle of criticism which would serve to distinguish the inadequate ideas of the imagination from the adequate truths of reason, l^e result is that Rationalism went the way of all uncritical thought, and ended in abstractions and dogmatism. THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 141 separable. Epistemology and metaphysics cannot therefore be separated from one another: the categories of knowl- edge cannot be determined a priori but must be discovered and criticized through an analysis of the actual procedure of thought in dealing with the real world. Secondly, the con- clusion seems to be justified that the fruitful method for philosophy cannot be that which proposes to begin by ignor- ing consciousness and dealing only with objects and their relations. With the idea underlying this proposal, viz., that experience brmgs us into direct contact with things, I am in full agreement. But the further assumption that such a relation to the real is not mediated by consciousness, but takes place solely through the mediation of the phys- iological functions, seems plainly contradictory of experi- ence. The necessity of getting rid of consciousness plainly depends on the idea that this imposes upon the object an element foreign to its true nature. This, as we have seen, would certainly be true if consciousness were a thing or substance having only an external or accidental relation to the object. One may recognize that the recent attempts to define consciousness in terms of objective relations repre- sent a valid protest against the conception of consciousness as a self-enclosed entity or independent substance. But, as I have tried to show, 'absolute' objectivism is the exact counterpart and parallel of the subjectivism which it seeks to escape. One view aflarms directly of experience what the other denies; and, as is usual in philosophy, these con- tradictory statements rest on a common assumption. Both alike regard the identity exhibited in experience as an exact numerical identity which excludes differences, and is accord- ingly capable of being grasped as something simple and immediate. For it is clear that all attempts thus prematurely to grasp the object, rest on the assumption that the real is a 142 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY simple undifferentiated form of existence whose complete being and truth can be presented or given at one stroke. But is it certain that what is real, simply is or exists without mediation? I have already said that if knowledge gives an accurate account of the nature of objects, to be real must mean to function as an element in a systematic totality. Undoubtedly some persons will find grounds for rejecting this statement, perhaps because it seems to make for ideal- ism. To avoid any such objection, I am glad to accept the proposition that 'the individual is the real* The individual is, however, never a simple inunediate, but the individuated, which involves positive and negative relations to other things. Furthermore, even if it were true that real objects possess this form of immediate existence, it would be impossible for the mind to know them. For to what mode of experience can we go to find such immediacy? Sometimes we are referred to 'science,' sometimes to the experience of the 'plain man,' and sometimes we are told that "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." I personally find it impossible to conceive of any form of awareness or feeling, of however primitive a type, that does not involve consciousness; and consciousness is surely in its very nature a principle of synthesis and interpretation. It is doubtless true that our knowledge of objects begins with a mode of experiencing in which objects "with their determinations appear to be given as immediate facts. Nor can it be denied that this primitive experience furnishes the platform from which arise the problems that call out our subsequent processes of reflection. But this so-called presentative or perceptive experience presupposes the interpretation of thought. And, on the other hand, when we deliberately set a problem for thought, we do not cease to appeal to observation and to invoke intuition. What we call 'perception' is to a large V :\ THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 143 extent thinking, and fruitful thinking is closely bound up with perceiving. Nevertheless, although the immediate and the mediate factors in the experience are always thus relative to each other, we can distinguish various stages in the process. The standpoint of ordinary experience, as al- ready remarked, appears to possess immediacy as its pre- vailing characteristic. The reports of the special sciences carry us a long way beyond this immediacy of common sense.. That is, they make it evident that 'the experience of the first look' does not furnish a satisfactory account of the various kinds of objects. Their lesson is that the im- mediate presentation must be left behind, and the objects construed in terms of atoms and ions, ether, forces, aflanities and relations of various kinds, the terms varying with the different sciences. It is to these reports that we are often referred for the final word regarding the nature of reality. But there are serious difficulties in the way of following this advice. In the first place, these reports are not pre- sented by the various sciences in the same terms; and on the surface, at least, they often exhibit inconsistencies. Each of the special sciences defines its own field of reality in accordance with its own particular purpose, and adopts the methodological principles that prove most directly serv- iceable for describing and correlating the objects with which it is concerned. Moreover, the special sciences are con- cerned only with the various kinds of 'objects,' and there are aspects of reality that cannot be reduced to this form. More specifically, the special sciences abstract from the process of knowing and the other judgments of conscious appreciation, looking outward rather than inward for their problem. It is, of course, true that one frequently finds within a special science discussions of method, and often- times a clear analysis of the presuppositions upon which the science rests. But these discussions, in so far as they m !■; 144 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY belong to the science itself, do not involve any analysis of the knowing process as such, or any attempt to correlate and evaluate the various forms and categories of experi- ence. Now, it is obvious that systematization of results in terms of experience is essential, if any final synthesis and interpretation of the real is to be reached. This system- atization is the peculiar problem of philosophy. It should be evident, however, from the outset that a genuine cor- relation of the sciences cannot be attained by falling back through a process of abstraction, as Spencer proposes, on the most general conceptions which underlie all the sciences. Abstraction can never be an end in itself. Philosophy can arrive at new and valuable results only as a process of concretion, i. e., by introducing into the special sciences the point of view of conscious experience. This means that philosophy must enter into and seek to reinterpret the pro- cedure and results of the special sciences, assigning to them their place and value as functions and determinations of consciousness. It is in this way, by the restoration of con- sciousness to its proper place, and by the interpretation of the world of objects in its light, that the (J^^d bones of abstract knowledge may be made to live, and that there may be discovered in the world that fluidity and concrete- ness of which the special sciences seem to have robbed it. To avoid any possible misunderstanding, I wish to say in conclusion that in speaking of philosophy as criticising and reinterpreting the reports of the special sciences, I do not mean to suggest that it is the business of the philoso- pher to dispute or deny the accuracy of the scientist's results, or to inform him as to their bearing on the special problems with which the latter is engaged. To do so would of course be idle and impertinent. But the procedure and results of the sciences are an important part of the data by means of which the philosopher is seeking to solve a r THE DETERMINATION OF THE REAL 146 problem which does not arise in any of the fields of special investigation. For this problem, which demands an answer in terms of conscious experience, these data require to be differently appraised and evaluated. Philosophy must therefore in a sense begin where the sciences leave off. The analyses which the sciences carry on furnish the philosopher with data that are indispensable for his purpose. He cannot make these analyses for himself. His function is rather to promote rationality and intelligibility by endeavoring to form a consistent conception of a concrete system of knowledge and of reality. In so far as philosophy succeeds in reaching a concrete conception of a globus intellectualis it has something to offer in return to the scientist who is seeking for a clearer view of the wider bearings of his own results. For this synoptic vision of the whole, if con- crete, will include the parts, assigning to each of the spe- cial inquiries its proper place, and exhibiting its more general significance as contributing to the determination of reality. Philosophy and the special sciences sprang originally from the same root, and in spite of the enormous specialization of modem investigations, the bond of con- nection has never been broken ; the life-giving sap has never ceased to circulate through all the parts. Moreover, at the present time both philosophy and the sciences are recognizing a need for the restoration of the closer and more vital relation that formerly existed between them. On the side of philosophy, this result may be most cer- tainly realized by maintaining a continuity with the past and its historic position as the science of experience, while not neglecting to understand and appropriate the wealth of material which the various sciences are making accessible at the present day. i I M Id CHAPTER VIII THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION IN PHILOSOPHY.* It is a commonplace of our philosophical tradition that Kant marks a turning point in the history of modern thought. The Kantian and post-Kantian systems are forces with which we have to reckon at the present day, if only by way of attack and criticism, while the earlier theories of the modem period, though not lacking in suggestion, are gener- ally taken to represent standpoints and methods which have been definitely transcended, and are now chiefly valuable for the light which they shed upon the subsequent develop- ment of philosophy. Kant himself was so impressed with the importance of the new principle which he introduced into philosophy that he spoke of it as a revolution compara- ble to that which Copernicus had brought about in astron- omy. And, in spite of occasional dissenting voices, this ver- dict seems to have been generally accepted, not only by his immediate successors, but also by philosophers of the pres- ent day. We all know to what an extent the Critical Philosophy absorbed the thought of Germany during the past generation, and how largely it has influenced there the most various departments of thought. In the other coim- tries of Europe and amongst ourselves Kant's thought has been an important influence, though nowhere has its authority been so great as in the country of its birth. Just *Read before the American Philosophical Association at Columbia University, December, 1912. Reprinted from The Philosophical Re- view, Vol. XXII, No. 2, pp. 133-150, March, 1913. 146 THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 147 now Kant seems to be paying the penalty for the infallibil- ity which the very letter of his system was in some quarters supposed to possess; and particularly in the English-speak- ing world there have of late been a good many writers who call in question the traditional estimate of his philosophy, and deny that his method leads to any significant results. Has the Critical Philosophy really become antiquated? Has its method no longer any importance for the problems of the present day? It will, I think, contribute something to the answer of these questions if we endeavor to define in general terms the nature of the new principle which it introduced into philosophy. Kant's own statement of the nature of the change which he had brought about is well known. Whereas previous philosophy had proceeded on the assumption that the mind is determined in the process of knowledge by an object external to itself, his philosophy is the proof that the object must conform to the conditions prescribed by the knowing mind. Thus the center of the philosophical universe is changed from the object to the knowing subject: we have to recognize that the understanding gives laws to nature. Now, if Kant is himself the final authority regarding the meaning of his philosophy, and if this statement is to be taken literally as complete and final, then one would be justified in feeling that his new principle is of questionable validity. Indeed, if this is the sum and substance of the Critical Philosophy, we may fairly ask, what real advance in method it represents. The 'mind,' in the sense of the older philosophy, has no advantage as a principle of explanation over the merely external object. Mere subjectivism is no advance on mere objectivism: they rest on the same funda- mental assumptions and have so much in common that their dififerences are almost negligible. That the subject constructs its object, or that the mind makes nature, is iil i^j 148 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY not a formula which can claim to yield any fundamentally new insight or, so long as words are employed in their usual sense, which makes any real contribution to our understanding of the nature of experience. One may well hesitate, however, to accept this off-hand statement from Kant as an adequate representation of the central doctrine of his system. In truth, it seems quite evident that he himself never fully realized the extent of the revolution which he inaugurated, or how complete a re- vision of the old assumptions the results of his method necessitated. To imderstand Kant's thought we have to go beyond his isolated statements, and try to catch the drift of his logic as a whole. If we confine ourselves to a citation of passages it is easy to prove almost anything we wish — certainly a very simple matter to convict Kant of absurdities and inconsistencies. But, to see the critical philosophy in its setting, one must look before and after: to the common assumptions as well as to the points of differ- ence of the early rationalists and empiricists ; to the conclu- sions which have proved fruitful for a later time, but which he never expresses without qualifications, though clearly enough suggested by the logic of his principles. Kant begins clearly enough with the ordinary dualism, which was common to both the earlier schools of modem philosophy; and at first he appears to be bringing together in a merely mechanical way elements derived from these historical soiu'ces. Experience appears as a compound, made up by the union of sensational and rational elements. Then, since the form of experience is more important than its matter, the form-giving element, the mind, becomes for Kant the all-important factor. The professed object of the inquiry then comes to be to discover the transcendental ele- ments which the mind contributes to experience. But, as one can see through the perspective afforded by the inter- THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 149 vening time, the significance of the Critical Philosophy is not dependent upon its success in carrying out this program, but is due to the fact that the logic of its procedure trans- formed the standpoint from which this problem had been formulated, and thus revealed that the problem itself waa not a genuine one. It is doubtless always difficult for anyone who has reached a new and fruitful conception to see clearly its full bearing or significance, and to estimate objectively the relative importance of the various elements contained in it. In Kant's case, moreover, this difficulty was intensified by certain personal characteristics: by natural caution and conservatism, and by a certain love for machinery and for analytic distinctions which often confuse rather than aid the progress of his thought. It is as if there were two Kants, the mechanically minded, pedantic Konigsberg pro- fessor, who as Fichte remarked, was only a 'drei-viertel Kopj* and the bearer of the world-transforming thought, Kant, 'der alles Zermalmender/ It is of course with the latter that the history of philosophy is concerned; and this implies that it must direct attention to the spirit rather than to the letter of the system, often emphasizing what is suggested, rather than what is asserted explicitly, and everywhere bringing its results into relation to the problems of our own time. From this point of view, it is at once evident that the revolution which Kant inaugurated was the direct result of his employment of the critical method in philosophy. That method is not concerned with the problem of show- ing how experience is constructed by the application of the universal forms and categories of the mind to an imrelated manifold of sensation, though of course abundant justifica- tion for this interpretation can be found in Kant. His real method of procedure, however, i. e., the procedure by means of which he obtained fruitful results, assumes knowledge f ill 150 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY and its organization, and proceeds by reflective analysis to bring to light the assumptions which are involved in it as constructive principles. The method implies quite a dif- ferent logic from that based on the old laws of thought which were presupposed alike by both empiricists and rationalists. The analysis that both these schools regarded as the only valid procedure of thought was a mechanical process of division, an analysis that based itself on the doctrine of external relations, and was therefore unable consistently to recognize any synthesis.^ The reflective analysis which Kant employs recognizes the presence and operation of synthetic principles, and is concerned to bring these to expression and to determine their significance and function. The critical method, then, does not attempt to construct knowledge or to prove its existence, but to formulate and systematize its necessary assumptions. Kant took his stand on the science of his time, on the mathematics and physics, which seemed to him to offer results that were both definite and certain. He saw that these sciences rest upon certain synthetic principles, which are a priori in the sense that, as general assumptions, they determine the form and method of the whole procedure of knowledge. These a priori principles are justified by the fimction they perform: they are seen to be indispensable conditions of a rational experience. It is true that the old Adam in Kant * It is interesting to see how this old logic influences both the thought of Hume and of Leibniz, both of whom aided Kant in per- ceiving the indispensable character of synthesis. Hume's examination of the principle of causality convinced him that synthesis is indis- pensable to knowledge. But synthesis cannot be justified in terms of the old logic of external relations, and as he never thinks of ques- tioning this position, he is compelled to pronounce the apparent synthesis a "fiction." Leibniz, while recognizing that judgments con- cerning matters of fact are synthetic, refuses them the full rank and title of knowledge, since they lack the old analytic marks of uni- versality and necessity. THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 151 leads him to make heroic attempts to ascribe a priority in the old rationalistic sense to these principles, as pure ra- tional concepts and judgments, valid quite apart from any application to empirical fact. But all such attempts to ascribe some kind of peculiar sanctity to these principles, to make them absolute, is fundamentally opposed to the logic of the critical method. The transcendental method, which confines itself to an analysis of experience, knows nothing of these absolute distinctions of kind between one species of truth and another, and is therefore not called upon to furnish a metaphysical theory to support the claims of certain propositions to possess absolute certainty and necessity in their own right. The only kind of justification it can afford is derived from experience; the only kind of necessity it can discover is hypothetical in character. Since a rational experience such as physics presents to us is real and genuine knowledge, the principles which underlie it must also be valid categories of reason. It will be noted that on this point also the critical method marks the begin- ning of a profound revolution regarding the nature of truth. The older view is that certain privileged experiences (necessary conceptions or judgments, clear and distinct ideas, etc.) have truth, as it were a quality, attaching to them in their own right and in their individual character. This truth is, of course, absolute, in the sense that it does not depend upon anything else and is once for all contained in the starting-point. Inquiry is supposed to set out from such centers of absolute certainty, proceeding, as we have seen, by analysis, to the discovery of new truth. Now the critical method in Kant's hands brushes aside that view of truth, substituting for it the conception of a hypothetical working body of truth that becomes more complete and con- crete with the progress of inquiry. There are no propositions which are true in themselves or necessary in themselves. 152 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY Knowing is essentially a process of trying out assumptions in actually dealing with reality. The categories are simply the most general assumptions of all rational experience, the prin- ciples of synthesis which are universal in their application. They are necessary in the sense that they are indispensable, a jyrim in the sense of being basal presuppositions which determine the form and character of our concrete experience. Moreover, it follows that if the categories are justified only by their results, they are not beyond criticism: they must be capable of being criticised by their results. When the old a prion view of truth is abandoned, the language of the old dispensation regarding the immutability of principles is simply an anachronism. From the standpomt of the criti- cal method, the category cannot be regarded as a dead and unyielding form, which is once for all there and admits of no expansion or modification. The category of causality, for example, is not an immutable principle which has remained unaltered from generation to generation; or something that can't be transferred unmodified from one realm of fact to another. It is a prmciple that has under- gone constant redefinition in the reflective advance of in- quiry; and although called by the same name, it takes on a new form and a new significance in the various sciences. It is essential to the advance of knowledge, then, that there should go hand in hand with construction a process of criticism by means of which the nature of the func- tioning category is not merely brought to consciousness, but through which it is modified, reconstructed, adapted progressively to the facts with which it has to deal. This critical movement of thought is not limited to what we call philosophy: it must function also within the inquiries of the special sciences if these methods of investigation are to be prevented from becoming mechanical and unfruitful. The critical method, then, has the task not only of dis- THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 153 covering the categories but also of criticising and reconsti- tuting them. Or, rather, these two processes are inseparably joined in the one critical movement. Kant, however, never recognized this necessary consequence of his own method. For hhn the categories set down in his own table formed as it were a kind of rigid framework of the understanding, furnishing the final and complete expression of the conditions of possible experience. This limitation in view seems to be the result, at least in part, of the seriousness with which he took the science of his time. He assumed as unquestionable that physics afforded the final and complete account of phenomena in space and time, and that accordingly all that criticism could do was to recognize in its assumptions the total system of rational principles. Like some contemporary philosophers, he iden- tified the standpoint of a special science with logical pro- cedure in general. Consequently, it seemed possible to him to give a fixed list of categories which should mark off the definite boundaries of the island of the knowable. But the figure of knowledge as an island has no applica- tion as soon as it is recognized that the categories are neither absolute nor immutable, but hypothetical principles which undergo modification in the development of expe- rience. Only if the twelve apostolic categories left no genuine problems unsolved, could we suppose that they exhaust the possibilities of experience. Kant himself recognized that there are problems left over: beyond the understanding is the reason. It is true that he is pri- marily occupied in criticising reason as a faculty of illusion; but he also gives to reason a valid function and use within the field of experience. This function is regulative, not constitutive; it reveals the incompleteness of the solutions offered by the understanding, and thus suggests new prob- lems and lines of advance. If the regulative use of reason 154 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY does not for Kant extend so far as to suggest new cate- gories, this is because he is already convinced that the number of categories cannot exceed twelve. It remains true, however, that in this conception of reason as func- tioning within the field of experience we have at least a hint of that immanent dialectic of thought in virtue of which it strives to organize its experience in terms of more and more adequate categories.^ Philosophy, accordingly, finds its place and function as a criticism of the categories. As we have already seen, the critical movement is not something peculiar to philosophy as a distinct mode of inquiry: it is organically involved in all science. The difference between the critical pro- cedure of philosophy and the special sciences is one of degree, not one of kind. In the first place, these sciences are more frequently occupied in employing and applying their principles than in criticising them; criticism of cate- gories is usually an incident for them, not their main undertaking. But for philosophy criticism is a deliberate and self-conscious method. This is not to assert that philosophy is not called upon to construct, but rather that it constructs through criticism. It presupposes the con- structions of ordinary thought and of the sciences, and undertakes by means of criticism to reconstruct and carry the work of interpretation fmther. And, secondly, phi- losophy is able to carry forward the work of criticism, and thus to differentiate itself from the special sciences, by generalizing the problem of criticism, and thus freeing it from the restrictions and limitations which belong to *In maintaining the necessity of proceeding as if experience were constituted in accordance with certain categories, Kant is justifying the use of these categories by the same method, and as fully and completely, as he established the validity of his so-called 'constitutive' categories. The method of the *al8 ob* is simply the hypothetical procedure. THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 155 the special point of view. It seeks to understand the fundamental organizing principles of experience and of reality in their systematic interrelations as they exist in the ordinary beliefs of mankind, and, in a more explicit and clearly defined form, in the systems of the various sciences, and to construct as best it may, some kind of a systematic view which will bring these various functions and phases of experience into relation to each other. To the extent that philosophy succeeds in generalizing the problem of knowledge it can claim the right to criticise the assumptions of any particular science. This is not a question regarding the claims of 'science' and 'philosophy,' taken as two distinct species of knowledge; it is simply a statement that if one studies the systematic relations of knowledge one may rightfully claim to have learned some- thing which will have a bearing and application in a particular case. I cannot refrain from remarking that philosophers are as a rule too modest regarding the results and achieve- ments of their own subject. It has become the fashion to emphasize in a kind of low-spirited mood the failures of philosophy; and in the same breath to sigh for the kind of results that are attained by science. Or, again, we propose to remedy our ills by following the example of science. Is it not possible that at least some of this com- plaint is based on a misunderstanding of the kind of results which we have a right to expect from philosophy? And is it not also possible that we fail to appreciate fully the service which philosophy has rendered and is rendering to science in the broadest sense of that term? This is too broad a subject to be discussed here; but I should like to relate this digression to the main subject of my paper by saying that the process of criticism and transformation of view which is now so active within the special sciences may 1 I ,<=- 156 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY fairly, I think, be described as the application of concep- tions and points of view whose genesis we have been fol- lowing in the Kantian philosophy. Perhaps its most essen- tial feature is seen in the recognition by scientific men that they have been employing categories which are not absolute in character, but which must be subjected to reflection and criticism. In assigning to philosophy the task of criticising the gen- eral categories of experience one must guard against the suggestion of subjectivity which the word 'experience' seems to carry with it. But it is surely only an antiquated theory of experience which prevents us from recognizing that cate- gories are not subjective thoughts, but enter as constituting principles into the nature of things. Moreover, the new theory of logic carries with it a new view of reality. Leibniz had pointed out that individual things are not isolated particulars, simple or bare identities, but that their individuality is just the expression of their place in a system. Now realities of this relational, representing type can only be known through a category, or rather through a developing system of categories. Kant's doctrine of cate- gories is thus the complement and the proof of Leibniz's insight. Taken together, they imply that reality is not an aggregation of things in themselves, but an organization of possible objects of experience. Neither concrete things, nor any real elements into which they can be analyzed, are simple unrelated reals, which might be defined in their immediacy and isolation without committing oneself to anything further. Since the real is what stands in rela- tions, the process of knowledge must consist in developing these relations. It must therefore be essentially synthetic in character. But, since the individual thing has many sides, or aspects, to attempt to deal with these without analysis would only bring confusion. In the development THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 157 of knowledge, then, analysis and synthesis must constantly supplement each other; or rather they are only comple- mentary sides of the one movement of experience. In order to understand anything, one must follow out its detail in different directions, everywhere drawing distinc- tions and taking account of parts. But if this process is anything more than mechanical, i. 6., if it is an intelligent effort to understand, the analysis will be guided throughout by an idea of a whole of some sort, the more precise nature of which is progressively defined as the work of understand- ing advances. One must accordingly recognize that in order to know it is necessary to adopt some point of view, to interpret the nature and connections of things in terms of some conception or category. But the category, regarded as the form under which we know, does not construct the object, or introduce into the real world relations which are for- eign to its real nature. The point of view of individual experience presupposes the organized world of real obj ects ; and the development of rational life, both in the individual and the race, is the progressive recognition of the nature of that organization. But it is necessary to add that this recognition of a rational order without us is not attained through mere contemplation. To advance towards an understanding of the objective order involves an active process of interpretation, and requires the systematic co- ordination of data afforded by all our methods of seeking and experimenting, both practical and theoretical. The determination of the real is an enterprise of genuine dis- covery, effected by the employment of a systematic and progressive method of inquiry. This involves the continu- ous transformation of the system of related objects from which the inquiry at any time sets out. The transforma- tion, however, is not an external modification which obscurei 158 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY the nature of the real. It is the self-revelation of the real. One may say either that the real progressively reveals itself to the systematic method of inquiry pursued by intelligence, or that the latter is enabled to penetrate into the real world and give expression to its constitution in terms of a new principle of organization. Just because objects are not things-in-themselves, but possible objects of expe- rience, the category in terms of which the results of our thinking are provisionally expressed is not an abstract label or arbitrary rubric which obscures rather than reveals their real nature. The process of thought retains the real object as the center of its knowing, and does not float away to a shadowy realm of abstract universals. The critical method exhibits the emptiness of abstract thinking: it teaches that real thought is always in relation to a real world of objects. In proportion as thinking is genuine thinking, and not a mere playing with forms, its results will always be to some degree a revelation of the real, a stage in the self-revelation of the real world.^ In emphasizing the fact that experience is a process of determining the nature of objects, one must not forget that, as a conscious movement, experience also reveals the laws and principles of intelligence. The mind and the object are reciprocally determining factors within experi- ' The position that thought is the genuine revelation of the nature of reality, does not, however, imply that 'reality' is something fixed and unchanging. It will not do to locate the change and development on the side of knowledge while assuming that 'reality' is outside of or beyond this process. That thought is unable to grasp what is in movement, seems to be a dogma that goes back to the earlier form of Plato's doctrine which he himself definitely refuted in his later dialogues. It is strange to find this assumption appearing over and over again in quarters where the inadequacy of the general system of logic to which it belongs has been recognized. That what is ulti- mately real — the Absolute — must be beyond time and change and process, present all at once, does not seem to be a genuine requirement of our thought, but only a consequence of a system of logic from whose authority we find it difficult to free ourselvea. THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 159 ence. In discovering the nature of the objective order, the mind comes to a consciousness of the principles of its own procedure: in recognizing the interrelation and unity of the parts of the outer world it becomes aware of the sys- tematic connection and unity of its own life. The unity which is found in each presupposes the unity of the other: the unity of the world is the condition of the unity of the empirical consciousness, and is in turn conditioned by the latter. Moreover, Kant carries his critical inquiry one step fur- ther, and in his doctrine of the transcendental ego adopts a principle which definitely goes beyond the categories of natural science. It is true that he himself did not succeed in bringing this principle into organic relation with his table of categories, as the highest function of synthesis of which the categories are particular phases, but always rep- resented it as an analytic, static unity, a mere point of reference outside of experience. The doctrine of the transcendental ego— or Reason, as it might better be called in order to escape subjective implications — as the supreme dynamic principle of synthesis within experience, is, how- ever, suggested so directly by Kant's method that it was at once seized upon and developed by his successors. Now, I know this doctrine seems antiquated to many of my col- leagues; and I myself confess that I am not able to accept the form of absoluteness which some idealists have given to it. Nevertheless, I believe that Kant's principle is of fundamental importance for contemporary problems, and that its consideration may help to bring to a focus some of our discussions. The notion of a synthetic unity, func- tioning within experience, simply brings to expression the ultimate presupposition of the system of objective idealism which I have been attempting to outline. It must not for a moment be regarded as a substance or a cause beyond or. 160 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY If 4 above the concrete system of reality. But the concept emphasizes at once both the unity and the concrete differ- ences and individualities within that system, and provides a principle which renders these two aspects comprehensible. The notion of reason as supreme synthetic principle is the necessary presupposition of: (1) the complementary character of inner and outer experience, what Kant called the affinity of the mind and objects; and (2) the fact that the categories, as they are found both in the mind and in the world, form a system of mutually related and conditioning principles, in^ead of simply a succession or plurality of instrumental concepts. It is at this point, I think, that objective idealism parts company from in- strumentalism, with which it has much in common, and to which it is indebted for much suggestive criticism. In- strumentalism may give us a succession of categories, but it fails to provide any basis for an objective system of categories. It is just because experience requires for its adequate description some account of the systematically progressive character which belongs to it, that idealism regards the idea of Reason as indispensable. It may be asked, why bring in Reason in general, why not rest in the functional relations which are expressible in terms of the categories of natural science? The answer, it seems to me, is, just because the categories of naturalism are not adequate to furnish expression to the kind of func- tional relationship that experience presupposes. For exam- ple, the conception of 'evolving life,* which is perhaps the highest category of naturalism, serves to correlate a good many facts, just because life is itself so far rational. When taken with a strictly natiu'alistic connotation, how- ever, it leaves unexpressed what we are accustomed to regard as the distinctive values of reason. On the other hand, if we read Reason into the evolving process of life, THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 161 as we certainly have a right to do, we have gone beyond naturalism, in that we have reinterpreted the facts as correlated by natural science in terms of a new category. I confess my personal sympathy with the recent demands for a philosophy that shall free itself from transcendental- ism and become frankly naturalistic. This is, I take it, the present-day formula of progressivism, the protest against taking refuge in principles which arrogate to them- selves some superior sanctity, but are at bottom nothing but abstractions, a procedure which is the besetting sin, not only of philosophy, but of every kind of technical in- quiry, in every age of the world. But, aft^r all, what is in the fullest sense natural and concrete? If we employ the notion of evolution, as I think we must, to bridge the seem- ing gulf between mind and nature, letting consciousness arise by natural stages of development out of a preexisting physical order, we have accounted for the 'naturalness' of consciousness, but have still to explain the 'rationality' of objects, the fact, that is, that they are not things-in- themselves but possible objects of experience. To explain both sides one must make an assumption that is not necessary for the purposes of science, in the narrower sense of that term,— the assumption of a 'ratiorud evolving proc- ess.' It seems to me that we are driven on, by the neces- sity of a real problem, to employ a new category or series of categories, which may here be described by the term 'reason.' This conception emphasizes the logical continuity of the process which leads up to the new meanings and values that are expressed in conscious experience. With- out ignoring distinctions or denying the advance to some- thing genuinely new, it maintains at once the 'naturalness' of reason as the goal and expression of nature and the 'rationality' of the natural process which leads up to this result. It seems to me that instrumentalism abandons the |j ifl 162 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY •i logic of its own method when it refuses to advance beyond the categories of natural science to a genuinely objective teleology. Since philosophy recognizes problems which do not concern natural science, no fear of transcendental prin- ciples should deter it from following the critical method in attempting to solve them. At the present stage of philosophical inquiry, the classifi- cation of different thinkers under the old names of idealist* and 'realist* has little significance. It is not difficult to recognize in recent attempts to define consciousness in terms of the relations of objects, on the part of some of the members of thigf Association who call themselves 'realists,' a movement away from the old rationalistic conception of consciousness as a special kind of independent entity, de- scribed as a substance, a cause, or what not. This effort to see consciousness in its concrete and natural setting, — not as a kind of thing-in-itself , or the place of inner states, but as a function genuinely involved in the objective order, — is wholly akin in spirit and method to the philosophy which proceeds from Kant, and is fimdamentally opposed to the type of realism that bases itself on the pre-critical logic of external relations. The ideal which evidently guides the thought of Professors Woodbridge and McGilvary, for ex- ample, is to obtain some conception which will avoid the 'external relation* view of object and consciousness, exhibit- ing the two sides rather as complementary and essential to each other. This purpose does not appear to have been materially advanced, however, by calling consciousness a relation among objects, though perhaps the term 'relation' carries one further in the right direction than 'substance* or 'cause.* But it is as impossible to define consciousness merely in terms of the relations of objects as it is to define it solely in terms of the relations of inner 'states of con- THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 163 \ sciousness.* What it is essential that the definition shall bring out is the fact that the consciousness of the indi- vidual is implicitly reason: that is, that consciousness not only exists in individualized centers, but that it is a func- tion that carries the individual beyond the limits of his particular mode of existence, and reveals to him his place as a member of an objective order. On the other hand, the neo-realists who accept as their guiding principles the method of analysis and the doctrine of external relations are facing in a direction quite opposed to Kantianism and the philosophy which has been developed from it. Indeed, if it is intended that these principles are to be taken literally, one can only recognize in neo-realism another example of a reversal to a type of thought that has repeatedly exhibited in the history of thought the impasse to which its principles lead. As will be obvious from the earlier part of this paper, I not only agree with Professor Marvin in regarding neo-realism, in so far as it is based on these principles, as a return to dogmatism, but I hold that it has not turned its back merely upon Kant, but upon the whole drift of modem thought. For mere analysis and external relations are the principles of a static and abso- lutistic logic that both the history of philosophy and the history of the special sciences show to be no longer the working assumptions of modem thought. Modem thought, both philosophical and scientific, involves criticism of cate- gories; neo-realism eschews both categories and criticism, aligning itself somewhat proudly with the convictions of the plain man. The fundamental likeness of this stand- point, in its conception of the nature of tmth and of method, to the thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is shown even in the external form of the neo-realistic writings. While it claims to introduce a more strictly scientific method of procedure than that generally obtain- ) I I lii I 164 STXJDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY ing in contemporary discussion, formal logic and its maxims seem to live again in its pages. One cannot help being impressed by the logical apparatus: the definitions, the elaborate divisions, the formal array of 'idealist' arguments, classified, labelled, awaiting refutation in due order,— all this seems strange in our day and generation. The justifi- cation for dwelling on the strangeness of this dialectical form is that it appears to be symptomatic of a real aflBlia- tion in spirit on the part of the 'new realism' with old rationalism. This is perhaps shown most strikingly in the assumption that philosophical doctrines can be 'demon- strated' or 'refuted' by formal processes of argument. Now I have been insisting that modem philosophy has substituted for these formal 'demonstrations' the criticism of categories. The only way to prove a principle in phi- losophy is to show what it leads to, to work out its implica- tions in definite fields of concrete fact. Idealism, e.g., cannot be overcome by refuting certain formal arguments which are supposed to demonstrate it. It has at least worked out the consequences of its principles in a somewhat systematic way, and can be criticised fruitfully only by exhibiting the inadequacies and failures of the explanatory principles which it employs. So, too, the real disproof of the doctrine of external relations does not consist in the fact that it has been formally 'refuted,' or shown to involve a reductio ad absurdum, but has come about through the historical ^xliibition of its inadequacy and unfruitfulness as a principle of explanation. It has not been so much re- futed as superseded. What a contemporary critic of this position does is to point out that modem investigation is actually proceeding by employing quite different methods and assimiptions.^ > Cf. De Laguna, "The Externality of Relations," The Philosophical Review, Vol. XX, pp. 610 ff. THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 165 Along with this pre-critical logic, the 'new' realism also shows its relation to the eighteenth century by its lack of appreciation of the history of philosophy. It is not by accident, or merely in an extemal way, that these two positions are conjoined. The attitude toward history is nothing more than the necessary corollary and complement of the rationalistic logic. If one begins by adopting analy- sis and external relation as axioms, one has no need of genesis: if the mechanical categories are regarded as ulti- mate, the genetic categories are ipso facto excluded. The history of philosophy, as a serious and fruitful field of investigation, came into existence as a consequence and an expression of the evolutionary logic to which Kant's 'Copemican revolution' gave rise. The slight value which the neo-realists attach to the history of philosophy is, ac- cordingly, quite in harmony with their principles of pro- cedure, and fumishes an interesting confirmation of Pro- fessor Marvin's contention that the movement represents a return to dogmatism.^ For criticism is historical analysis, dogmatism is 'rational' analysis. It does not seem to me, however, that the so-called neo- realistic movement is fairly or adequately represented by the logical principles which it has begun by emphasizing. Like Kant, it seems to have been guided by an instinct that is sounder than the logical method to which it appeals. At least, I find myself in sympathy with many of its con- tentions while rejecting its principles and method. The insistence on the part of realism upon the genuinely objec- tive character of experience is in line with the best tradi- tions of idealism, and repeats a protest that is found in Schelling and Hegel. It is interesting to note that in our own day Edward Caird thought it necessary to utter a * Marvin, "Criticiflm and Dogmatism," J, of Philosophy, Vol. IX, No. 12. I I' 166 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY warning against the subjective implications of the language employed by certain idealists.^ Then, again, realism has rendered valuable service in calling attention to the fact that not all relations can be interpreted in terms of the subsumptive theory of the relation existing between the subject and predicate of a proposition. It has thus again acted as an ally of concrete idealism in criticising a certain neo-Platonic tendency towards an abstract form of monism which has frequently shown itself in the history of phi- losophy, and from which contemporary philosophy is not free. Still another characteristic of neo-realism, which commends it to those who derive their principles from Kant and share his dislike for Schwdrmerei, is its vigorous defence of the claims of logic to deal with philosophical problems. For it definitely sets its face in the direction of science, choosing, as Hegel says, "the hard labor of the notion" and resisting the promises of faith and intuition i It seems worth while to quote here the following passage from Caird as representative of a form of idealism of which the neo-realists seem to have taken no account: "Any so-called form of idealism," Caird says, "which assumes that we are first conscious of our ideas, as our ideas, and then that secondly we proceed to infer from them the existence of objects, inverts the order of our intellectual life, and tears asunder its constituent elements. It is to invert its order: for though the unity of the self may be implied in all consciousness of objects, yet it is to the object in the first instance that our attention is directed, and we observe the outward world and construe its mean- ing long before we turn the eye of reflection upon the inner life. And it is to tear the elements of it asunder: for the outer and the inner life are at every point in close correlation, and there is no experience of ours, theoretical or practical, in which we have not to do with both. The growth of our inner life is just the development of our knowledge of the outer world, and of our interests in it, and the attempt to retire into ourselves and in a literal sense to make our mind a 'kingdom' to itself is suicidal.'' Moreover, Caird holds that the doctrine which denies "the reality of any world but a world of spirits and their conscious states" is not a tenable theory ; for "the denial of the reality of the material world will inevitably lead to the denial of any world at all." (Queens Quarterly, XII, pp. 94- 95. Quoted by Watson in "The Idealism of Edward Caird." The Philosophical Review, Vol. XVI, 1909, pp. 262-263.) THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION 167 to open up a way to a higher truth that is independent of the intellect. All this makes one regret the more that this school, if one may call it a school, has been attracted by the ideal of the old mathematical method. That method, as has been stated, showed its total bankruptcy both in the hands of Hume and in the procedure of the later rational- ists. From the time of Leibniz until our own day, as I read the history of thought, the modem movement has been away from the notion of simple independent realities, of external relations, preformation, and the method of mere analysis, away in short from the logic of deductive demon- stration, towards a more and more complete recognition of what is implied in the logic of the critical method. I 11 THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC 169 CHAPTER IX THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC.^ The notion of the Implicit or Potential, in some form or other, has been regarded as an essential and valuable philosophical idea since the time of Aristotle. Though at the present day we do not apply it as a principle of cosmic explanation with the confidence of the earlier Idealists, the notion still plays a great part, especially in all sciences dealing with the phenomena and achievements of life and mind. Nevertheless, in logical discussions its use and mode of employment have been from time to time sharply chal- lenged, not merely by the representatives of the view that each element of experience is in its own nature distinct and separate from every other, but also by the Idealists, the champions of continuity. The latter, indeed, attack only the uncritical and mechanical employment of the idea, and seek to distinguish sharply between the significant applica- tion of the concept, and its abuse as a merely verbal and abstract term. In certain recent discussions, however, the Idealists are themselves represented as still under the fatal spell of the 'potentiar and of allied verbal terms, and I seem to per- ceive a tendency in some quarters to scoff openly at the Idealist^s formulas, or at best to listen with a kind of humorous tolerance to his frequent references to presupposi- ^Read before the Baltimore meeting of the American Philosophical Association, December, 1908. Reprinted from The Phtlosophtcal Re- view, Vol. XIX, No. 1. pp. 53-62, January, 1910. 168 tions of experience, and the becoming explicit of what was formerly only implicit. It would be easy to retort in kind, for every school has its formulas. But it is rather the part of wisdom for the Idealist to rethink his favorite concepts in order to fix and define their legitimate use, and to inquire what clear ideas attach themselves to the words which he commonly employs to express them. My remarks will take as their point of departure Pro- fessor Baldwin's recent discussions of the concept of the Implicit. As is well known. Professor Baldwin, after deal- ing in a series of works with the general principles of evolu- tion, as well as with their special applications to the mind of the child and the race, has recently published two vol- umes (with a third soon to follow) of a work entitled Thought and Things, or Genetic Logic, The author claims a certain advance in standpoint and method over the older logical discussions in virtue of the more genuinely genetic character of the concepts with which he has approached his inquiry. While conceding that Hegel and the neo-Kantian logicians generally employ a method that is to some extent genetic. Professor Baldwin finds that the treatment even of writers like Bosanquet, who have come nearest to grasp- ing the nature of the logical process as genetic, is still defective and vitiated by formalism and appeals to the potential. In view of this claim to a more adequate method of dealing with logical experience, it was important that Professor Baldwin should explain and defend the con- ceptions which were to guide his procedure, as he has done to some extent, at the beginning of his work. Here in par- ticular we learn how it is necessary to interpret the logical series when conceived as genetic, or what the concept of a genetic series really implies. These pages, read in conjimc- tion with some of the author's earlier writings which deal with the same topic, furnish a valuable and most suggestive I (i m 'f 170 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY treatment of fundamental logical problems; and here one must go in order to understand and estimate his claim to have gained a more concrete and fruitful point of view than that of the older writers. In thus trying to under- stand Professor Baldwin's working concepts, one finds in the list of canons of genetic logic, the canon of Actuality, which says that "no psychic event is present imless it be actual," and whose violation gives rise to the fallacy of the Implicit or Potential. This fallacy, we are told, "con- sists in treating something as implicitly or potentially pres- ent when it is not actual." And the illustrations given are "the finding of logical procesgf in the prelogical modes or a potential self in the impersonal modes." ^ What is to be the criterion of presence or absence in the mind is not made clear in this connection, but, from the general form of his statements, as well as from other passages in his writings, it seems fair to assume that Professor Baldwin regards as actual only what is capable of appearing as a particular ^psychic event' or phenomenal content. Elsewhere we are told that "what is, shows"; which apparently means that what is not discoverable as present to consciousness in the form of a particular phenomenon at any stage, must not in any sense be ascribed to that stage as real or actual. If this interpretation is correct, it would seem that Professor Baldwin has for the moment forgotten his func- tional or genetic standpoint. For, as I shall attempt to show more fully later, that point of view does not construe mind in terms of psychic contents which can be pointed out as definite modes of existence. If mind is to be de- scribed functionally, the structural test of what is real can- not be invoked. It is impossible, then, to settle the matter off-hand by Berkeley's favorite prescription of looking into our consciousness and seeing what is there and what is not. > Thought and Things, Vol. I, p. 24. THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC 171 A logical function, as the mind's process of realizmg truth, cannot be called upon to show itself in the form of a par- ticular psychic event, or other mode of phenomenal exist- ence. To make this the test of logical presence is obviously exactly parallel to Hiune's famous demand that the particu- lar impression be pointed out from which the idea of the self is derived. It is evident that the logical result of taking Mr. Bald- win's statement of the canon of Actuality thus literally, would be to dissolve all inner connection of ideas, and to throw us back on the principle of Association. But this is only one part of his teaching. For he had previously laid down as the first canon of genetic logic, the principle of Continuity, — "all psychic process is continuous." The cor- responding fallacy of Discontinuity "consists in the treat- ing of any psychic event as de novo, or as arising in a dis- continuous series ; so the fallacy of the historical distinction in principle between 'sense' and 'reason.' " ^ It is clear from this statement as well as from other passages, that what is here emphasized is something more than the merely tem- poral or psychological continuousness of the developing experience. Nevertheless, I find it difficult to understand just how Professor Baldwin conceives the principle of organization or the nature of the continuity. The difficulty is that the terms employed in repudiating the implicit seem logically to leave no place for any continuity. How is it possible to hold on to these two canons at once, to empha- size Continuity and to repudiate the Implicit? It would not solve the difficulty to say, 'by understanding the nature of a genetic series'; for that is the very problem at issue. Mr. Baldwin's theory may perhaps be set in a clearer light by reference to the two sets of views with which he contrasts his own position, and between which * Op, cit, Vol. I, p. 22. 172 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY it is evident that he is attempting to steer, in a sense, a middle course. On the one hand, there is the atomistic, agenetic theory of mind, which attempts to build up knowl- edge out of discrete mental states by employing the me- chanical principle of cause and effect; and, on the other side, there is the view of the idealistic logicians. The former set of conceptions Professor Baldwin rejects as inadequate to deal with a developing experience. But, as we have seen, he also maintains that the idealists fail to reach a truly genetic view through their tendency to substitute references to the implicit for an account of the actual mo- tives and conditions under which new modes of experience appear in the process of development. More specifically. Professor Baldwin objects to the Idealist's procedure of finding the germ of the subject-object relation, and of logical judgment, in the earlier forms of cognitive experi- ence. It is impossible here to discuss at length the ques- tion whether these criticisms fairly apply to the method of those logicians against whom they are directed, or whether they are based on a mi^nderstanding of their views. As I have already said, however, Professor Baldwin is in a sense only repeating the warnings of the idealists against hypostatizing the implicit. The leading representatives of this way of thmking have repeatedly pointed out the bar- renness of references to the implicit when this is conceived as an abstract term. They have also emphasized the im- portance of tracing out the process in detail, of comprehend- ing the universal in and through its particular manifesta- tions, and have held that the truth is not merely the result, but the result viewed in relation to its process of becoming.* »"Denn die Sache ist nicht in ihrem Zwecke erschOpft, sondem in ihrer Ausfuhrung, noch ist das Resultat das wirklicke Ganze, sondern es zusammen mit seinem Werden; der Zweck ftir sich ist das nn- lebendige AUgemeine, wie die Tendenz das blosse Treiben, das seiner Wirklichkeit noch entbehrt, und das nackte Resultat ist der Leichnam, THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC 173 Nevertheless, it cannot, I think, be denied that Professor Baldwin's protest is directed at a real abuse; and to fail to acknowledge that there may be some grounds for his criticism would be to forget that abstraction is an easily besetting sin. To think of the implicit as a preformed somewhat, actually existing in the earlier cognitive expe- rience, and naturally unfolding ex vi propria, and to suppose that a general reference to this natural tendency of the implicit to become explicit is a sufficient explanation of the real process is, of course, to rest in the emptiest verbal abstractions. As is at once obvious, it is the standpoint of the older preformationism, and not properly a genetic view at all. But, granting that a genetic account of logic must avoid both an atomistic and a preformation view of knowledge, the question still remains: How is the continuity of expe- rience to be conceived? In what terms are we to think of the relation of the different stages and modes of knowledge, and what is the nature of the "one continuous function of cognition," to which Professor Baldwin in more than one passage refers? The answer to these questions is im- doubtedly to be found in a conception which will ade- quately express the nature of a genetic logical series. In his canon of Progression, as well as in the later essays in his volume, Development and Evolution, Professor Baldwin has distinguished between a genetic and an agenetic series, and between genetic and agenetic sciences. In these dis- cussions, accordingly, we may expect to get additional light regarding the positive character of his working conceptions. The fundamental distinction between a genetic series and der die Tendenz hinter sich gelassen." Hegel, Werke, Bd. II, p. 5. Similar statements frequently occur in many of Hegel's writings. Cf, also Bradley, The Principles of Logic, 1st Edn., pp. 194 ff. ; Ap- pearance and Realitj/, pp. 384 ff. ; Bosanquet, Logic, VoL I, p. 16. i ' If f: ? I.M > f 174 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY one that is agenetic or mechanical, is that in the former there is real progression or development. Something new appears which was not present in the earlier stages, and which cannot be explained as made up of, or caused by, the events which preceded it. The genetic series, conse- quently, is not reversible like the mechanical, where cause and effect are taken as identical in virtue of the fact that they represent the same amount of energy. The universal category of science, then, is not mechanical cause and effect. There must be a genetic science and a genetic standpoint, which shall recognize the genuine character of development, the presence of a new element or form of synthesis at the later stages which is not simply the old over again. More- over, this genetic series cannot be constructed a priori: "No formula for progression from mode to mode, that is, no strictly genetic formula in evolution or in development is possible except by direct observation of the facts of the series which the formulation aims to cover, or by the interpretation of other series which represent the same or parallel modes."* Now there can be no doubt that Professor Baldwin is right in insisting that a genetic series is not mechanical, and must ultimately be interpreted by a different category than that of cause and effect. But the question with which we are here concerned is whether his own statement of the principle of development is adequate, whether he himself ever reaches a 'genuinely genetic point of view/ For the distinction which he labors seems to be the familiar one between existence and value, between the causal and the teleological standpoint. It is possible that I have failed to understand Professor Baldwin, but I do not find that either in the passages which I have summarized, or in his discussion of the Retrospective and Prospective categories, * Development and Evolution^ p. 23. THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC 175 he clearly puts the distinction in this way. Indeed, if we take his statements literally, it seems that he has not real- ized how completely the causal point of view is left behind when we think of things as developing. As we have seen, his way of stating the distinction between the mechanico- causal and the genetic or developing series, is that in the progression of the latter 'something new* appears in the consequent which is not present in the antecedent, and is not accounted for by it. Now this statement in itself would leave the series unintelligible ; since the new factor or feature is asserted to come in simply as 'something new' without being related through identity to anything else. The identity of matter or energy which gives to the prin- ciple of cause and effect its explanatory power is denied, while the nature of the identity which it is proposed to put in its place is not exhibited.^ To explain, however, is just to link together differences through an identity; and it is essential to see clearly what the developmental point of view requires us to substitute, as a principle of explana- tion, for the quantitative identity of physical cause and effect. This, as I have already said, must be the principle of teleology, the ideal identity of end and means. Now, it is of fundamental importance to recognize that the adop- tion of this category implies a complete transformation of view and a shifting of emphasis from the parts to the whole. There can no longer be any question of the equality or inequality of the members of the series viewed as external to each other; but, as means or functional processes, they * In a paper in The Psychological Review for November (Vol. XVI, No. 6) Professor Baldwin has replied to this criticism as well as to certain other points which I urged in an article in the May (1909) number of that journal. It does not, however, appear to me that his statements on this point clear up the difficulty to which I have called attention. The questions at issue are too fundamental to be discussed in a footnote, and I hope to find occasion to return to the subject. H 176 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY are now conceived as constituent parts of a teleological system. It may be that Professor Baldwin actually reaches the teleological point of view in his treatment of the genetic categories as 'prospective*; but, as I read him, he is there insisting on the necessity of recognizing the something new, *the further career,' rather than looking at the whole proc- ess as a teleologically developing system. Moreover, the idea of teleological development carries with it another aspect of the genetic series which Professor Baldwin, I think, has not emphasized, and which he perhaps would not admit. A genetic series as teleological is a self-deter- mining series, as opposed to the changes of a mechanical system which are determined from without. So long as we read a series in genetic terms, we must regard the differ- ent modes and stages which it presents as the movement and manifestation of an ideal unity or whole. Determination through external causality is simply unmeaning and in- applicable. To give a causo-mechanical explanation of evolution is a contradiction in terms. When such a mode of explanation is adopted the evolutionary point of view has been abandoned, and the developing subject been trans- formed into a series of objects, which are viewed as stand- ing in causal relation to other objects. When, on the other hand, the genesis of knowledge is conceived in teleological terms, certain results are obtained which are of importance for our discussion. In the first place, it is to be noted that the conception of function has no meaning apart from teleology. In contemporary writ- ing, however, it is not unusual to find the term used to denote a detached or isolated activity, in fact, to find the word 'functional' employed as synonymous with 'dynamic' or 'changing' as opposed to what is regarded as 'static* The real opposition to the functional, however, is found in what is regarded as mechanical or causally determined. THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC 177 For a dynamic process or activity becomes a fimction only when it is viewed in relation to some permanent imity or ideal value, and as the bearer or representative of that unity. A function, as thus representative and pointing beyond it- self, is a meaning, a universal, not a particular activity or psychic event. To take a functional point of view, then, is just to grasp the end or purpose of a series of events and to read the parts as the means or members through which this ideal organization is realized. As thus representative and expressive of the whole, functions are ideal and univer- sal in character, and cannot be reduced to the form of mental objects or events. A functional or genetic logic, then, must deal with cognitive experience as an immanent process of attaining truth through the organization of meanings. It can by no means dispense with detailed explanations and analyses, but these must be descriptions in terms of 'end and means,' not in terms of external causality. From this point of view we are able to understand the meaning and legitimate use of the notion of the Implicit. Indeed, we are able to see that this conception is indispen- sable, for to deny it, as Aristotle long ago remarked, would be to deny all movement and becoming in the sense of genesis. But it must never be forgotten that, when we look at experience functionally or teleologically, the implicit has not the form of an existing psychical content or object that can be thought of as a prior term, independently real apart from the process and the end. The earlier and later stages are held together in thought, and form an intelli- gible unity just through the fact that they reflect light upon each other and exhibit their common identity. That is, the end throws back light upon the means, thus disclosing that the latter, in virtue of its ideal meaning or represent- ative function, is not an independent and detached mode I I ( t h\ Ml If" r I 178 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of existence, but a necessary moment of the same system, and therefore implicitly identical with the end itself. When thus interpreted teleologically, the different stages of the developing process are not taken as something new and inexplicable, but are explained as essential moments in the process through which the end is realized. We may, then, emphasize the continuity of the process of cognition by describing it as one continuous function which is exhibited throughout its various modes and stages. This would mean that all the various functions of logical experi- ence are subordinated as means to the ends of some supreme function or unity. This function of unity in experi- ence is, as Kant showed in his doctrine of the Unity of Apperception, the logical mind itself. Moreover, it is evident that any particular category or mode of experience is just the logical mind functioning at that stage. When we take the logical mind itself as the one continuous function, and think of experience as a process of development, we can express in somewhat different terms the relation of the implicit and the actual in experience. The undeveloped logical mind is not merely imiversal capacity or potentiality of knowing, but also a movement toward actuality. Its real nature consists, one may say, in its striving for meaning, in its demand for completeness and coherence of experience. The ends of the logical process, the demand for meaning, which is the essential nature of the logical mind, is func- tionally operative at every stage of development, so that each prior stage of experience, as representative of those ends, is connected through identity with the latter. Or, in other words, the Implicit is just the logical mind, as ex- pressed at every stage in the system of developing functions through which the ends of knowledge are realized. As the bearer of the logical idea, as the instrument of the logical end, each functional stage is, as we have seen, a universal. THE NOTION OF THE IMPLICIT IN LOGIC 179 and thus linked through identity to the other functions. In this sense the genetic process is continuous, exhibiting in its progression not merely 'something new,* but rather the development or realization of the ends which constitute the logical mind. The 'logical mind' is thus the universal pre- supposition of experience, and its ends and demands must be regarded as necessary both to explain experience at every stage, and to furnish the dynamic or moving prin- ciple throughout the whole course of its development. In any genuine course of development the end is functionally effective from the beginning; hence a theory of logic is necessarily a description or analysis in terms of teleology. In conclusion, I would repeat that these conceptions do not render imnecessary a detailed account of the develop- ment of knowledge. They are intended to apply only to the question regarding the terms in which the account of its development is to be written. No one can doubt that the mind in its early stages of development is almost entirely immersed in practice, and that its functions appear to be directed only to the satisfaction of practical desires. But, if the genetic viewpoint is to be retained, it is necessary to maintain that the cognitive mind was never merely prac- tical, but that, even in its first beginnings, logical functions and logical meanings were not entirely lacking though for the time overshadowed by more pressing interests. Genetic logic is then the story of the gradual emancipation of the logical mind from the direct control of the practical through the working out of the principles which constitute its own essential nature. CHAPTER X DARWIN AND LOGIC.^ In attempting to estimate the influence of Darwin's thought in different fields of inquiry, it is advantageous to distinguish between the direct and the indirect results of the conceptions which he introduced. By direct results, I mean primarily the effect of the conception of natural selection, as an explanation of the formation of species, upon the problems and methods of the biological sciences. And, as all the characters and functions of living beings, mental as well as physical, are subject-matter of biology, the explanation of the mental endowments and character- istics of man and the lower animals through the principle of natural selection may be included under the same head- ing. This can be done the more readily because of Dar- win's own employment of the principle to explain, not only the instmcte and emotions of living organisms, but also to some extent the intellectual and moral endowments of the most highly evolved animal. Indirect consequences are always difficult to trace in detail. From the standpoint of science, the most obvious and important indirect result of Darwin's discovery is the confidence which it fur- nished in the fruitfulness of the method of tracing origins in all fields of inquiry. In the process of becoming, Dar- win's procedure showed, things progressively define and » Reprinted from The Psychological Review, Vol. XVI, No. 3, pp. 170-187, May, 1909. 180 * DARWIN AND LOGIC 181 specify themselves through their positive and negative relations to other things. In the impetus thus given to the evolutionary method, there was strengthened and ex- tended the influence of an instrument of analysis whose full power and significance has scarcely yet been realized. It is only a commonplace to say that the publication of the Origin of Species revolutionized biology. For this work transformed the evolutionary hypothesis of the gradual formation of biological species from an a prvori speculation, which was scarcely if at all influencing workers in this field, into an established and fruitful principle of explanation. Thus in a marvelously short time the stone which the builders had rejected became the head of the comer. Im- portant and far-reaching as this result is in itself, it is the wider application of the evolutionary conception, which Darwin may thus be said to have called into existence as a working principle of natural science, that gives to his discovery its main interest and significance. "If we may estimate the importance of an idea by the change of thought which it effects," says Romanes, "this idea of natural selection is unquestionably the most important idea that has ever been conceived by the mind of man."^ In his enthusiastic estimate of natural selection, Romanes, of course, assumes that it was this principle alone which made possible an intelligible and workable theory of evolution. After showing how little scientific thought had really been influenced by the earlier evolutionary hypotheses, he con- tinues: "It was the theory of natural selection that changed all this, and created a revolution in the thought of our time, the magnitude of which in many of its far-reaching conse- quences we are not yet in a position to appreciate, but the action of which has already wrought a transformation in general philosophy, as well as in the more special science ^Darwin, and after Darwin (1901), Vol. I, p. 256. ', ) t A I i f ) 182 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of biology, that is without a parallel in the history of man- kind." ^ In general philosophy and in the historical and social sciences, the notion of development and the evolutionary method of investigation had made their influence felt long before Darwin's discovery of natural selection had ren- dered their application fruitful in biology. From the time of Leibniz the notion of a continuous development had been familiar to philosophers. It exerted little influence, however, imtil the second half of the eighteenth century, when it appears both as an hypothesis in biology and as an interpretation of the spiritual history of the human race. In biology, as we have seen, it remained without practical effect because its factors or definite mode of procedure had not yet been discovered. But in its applica- tion to history, the method made its way through the influ- ence of Lessing, Herder, Schlegel and Kant, and finally became, one may say, the main motive of post-Kantian idealism. In Hegel, the notion of Entvncklung is, even more explicitly than in Fichte and Schelling, the guiding method and explanatory principle. In his Logic, an attempt was made to exhibit the laws of the evolutionary process in their complete universality — ^to give in general terms that are applicable within the whole range of experience some- thing analogous to what Darwin afterwards furnished in the special field of biology, a demonstration of the stages and working principles of the movement. HegePs philoso- phy influenced historical study very greatly; especially, it gave an extraordinary interest to investigations into the thought systems, languages, customs, and institutions of himian society. The same fundamental motive, though limited in various ways by special interests and arbitrary assmnptions, shows itself in the work of Comte. In Eng- ^Ihid., p. 259. ^ DARWIN AND LOGIC 183 land, as is well known, Herbert Spencer had recognized the significance of the evolutionary principle and begun to work out its ethical and social consequences before the appearance of Darwin's great work. Even J. S. Mill— as I think is evident both from his logical and ethical writings — was influenced by organic conceptions, which he probably learned mainly from Coleridge and Comte, and was thus led to attach a much greater importance to the historical and social sciences than had his immediate predecessors. In philosophy, then, and in the field of the humanistic sciences, it is evident that the application of the doctrine of evolution had not to wait for the discovery of the principle of natural selection. It might therefore be inferred that in these departments of knowledge the principle has no applica- tion, or is at least of subordinate importance. Whatever conclusions we may later reach regarding the direct appli- cability of the conception of natural selection to the human- istic fields of inquiry, it is necessary to recognize that, indirectly at least, these subjects were stirred into new life by the influence of Darwin's thought. For though, as we have seen, the concept of evolution was already being em- ployed by workers in these fields, its influence was extending very slowly. It lacked definite and concrete formulation, and hence had never fully come to its own. Few even of those who were applying the principle at that time firmly grasped its significance, or realized clearly its transforming power. Hegel's imboimded confidence in his method, which has often been regarded as presumptuous, is really con- fidence in the validity and eflScacy of his conception of development; and the Logic is his attempt to fully define and exhibit in detail, in the most universal terms of expe- rience, the nature of that principle. But Hegel's detailed working out of the method of evolution was not generally understood, and exerted little influence on the succeeding 184 STUDIES IN SPECOLATIVE PHILOSOPHY generation. This was due partly to the artificial form which he gave to his exposition, and partly to his inability, through lack of material, to base his results upon the facts of the physical sciences and of psychology. His conclusions were indeed derived from a wide survey of facts, but these facts belonged to the inner life of man and society; and thus, as not directly given to sense perception, they were too remote from ordinary experience to appear concrete and impressive. Darwin's formulation of the evolutionary doctrine, on the other hand, rested on observations of the conmionest facts of daily life. It drew its support from the experi- ence of the breeder of domesticated plants and animals. Moreover, it provided a definite working mechanism for the evolutionary process that rendered its operation con- ceivable in scientific terms. But these facts do not in themselves explain the extraordinary influence which Dar- win's conceptions quickly came to exert outside of the field of biology. There can be no doubt that this was primarily due to the fact that Darwin himself showed that his theory definitely linked man to the lower animals; and this consequence was further emphasized and enforced by able disciples like Haeckel and Huxley. Not only did the proof of the descent of man' rouse popular interest and give rise to theological controversy, but it tended to break down the wall of partition between the humanistic sciences and biology. The success of the evolutionary method in biology brought fresh courage and renewed con- fidence in the fruitfulness of their method to the humanistic sciences that were already employing evolutionary concep- tions. But this is not the only effect that Darwinism has produced in these fields. The place which the doctrine assigns to man as a member of the biological series seems to demand that the biological evolutionary conceptions shall DARWIN AND LOGIC 185 be used to interpret all the phases and manifestations of human life, mental as well as physical. The immediate problem of this paper has to do with the influence of Darwin's discovery on Logic. What I have said of the indirect influence of Darwinism has, of course, its application to logic, as will appear from time to time in our discussion. We may ask, however, at the outset, how far has the principle of natural selection ^furnished guidance' in the attempts to explain the development of thought and the structure of knowledge? As we have already seen, Hegel's treatment of logic is distinctly evolu- tionary, as is also that of other idealistic writers, the so- called neo-Hegelians who work with the same general conceptions which he employed. We will, accordingly, ask in what ways this older conception of logical evolution has been modified by Darwinian conceptions, and attempt in a summary fashion to furnish an estimate of the value of these modifications from the standpoint of logical theory. Darwin's great service to biology consisted in his state- ment of the working factors of evolution. He was the first to give a ^sufficient reason' for the transformation of species by pointing to the natural causes which are con- tinuously in operation. The modus operandi of biological evolution is given in the conceptions of variation, natural selection (including sexual selection), and heredity. It is an observable fact, says Romanes, "that in every genera- tion of every species a great many more individuals are bom than can possibly survive; so that there is in conse- quence a perpetual battle for life going on among all of the constituent individuals of any given generation. Now, in this struggle for existence, which individuals will be vic- torious and live? Assuredly those which are best fitted to live, in whatever respect, or respects^ their superiority t^l 9 186 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of fitness may consist. Hence it follows that Nature, so to speak, selects the best individuals out of each generation to live. And not only so; but as these favored individuals transmit their favorable qualities to their offspring accord- ing to the fixed laws of heredity, it further follows that the individuals composing each successive generation have a general tendency to be better suited to their surround- ings than were their forefathers."^ Darwinian evolution thus results in a continuous adaptation of the species to its environment through the elimination of the unfit and the accimiulation of favorable characteristics through he- redity. Hence natural selection, taken in combination with variation and heredity, is able to explain, not only specific and individual forms regarded as wholes, but also the special constituent characters and functions of the species that have survived. And, as the living organism is psychical as well as physical, these principles apply di- rectly to the mental life of all animals, including, of course, that of man. It is natural then, that biologists, viewing man as a member of the biological kingdom, should extend the prin- ciples of their science so as to include within their range all the forms and functions of experience. Darwin's treat- ment of the instincts and the emotions opened the way to important results in psychology; and the functional view of psychology, which regards the mind as an organic func- tion whose origin and modifications are to be explained in biological terms, is only following in the path which he marked out. But Darwin goes further, and, like some of his successors, seems to suppose that these principles of functional psychology or biology are adequate to explain all forms of experience. "Although perhaps nowhere dis- tinctly formulated," Isfays Alfred Russell Wallace, "his » Romanes, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 259-260. DARWIN AND LOGIC 187 whole argument tends to the conclusion that man's entire nature and all his faculties, whether intellectual, moral, or spiritual have been derived from their rudiments in the lower animals, in the same manner and by the action of the same general laws as his physical structure has been derived." * Now, it was not in accordance with Darwin's purpose to work out the detailed application of his principles to the mental life in the form of psychology, or ethics, or logic; and he recognized that he had no special equipment for such investigations. He contents himself, therefore, with indicating the standpoint and material of such in- quiries, giving details only when his own observations and reflections enable him to call attention to new facts. His treatment of logical functions and judgments is much less extensive than his discussion of moral experience, though the suggestion which he makes in Chapter V of the Descent of Man regarding the function of imitation has led to important results in logic, as well as in other fields. And further than Darwin, so far as my knowledge extends, no biologist has gone in explaining logical forms of experience. But the biological point of view necessarily explains the forms and categories of thought, the very nature of reason itself, as functions of the living being that are to be explained by the general laws of biological evolution. The carrying out of this program, however, Darwin rightly leaves to the psychologist and the logician. Now, I cannot see why any objection should be raised to the biological method of explaining experience, so long as this is not taken for philosophy. Logical thinking and i Darwinism, 2d ed. (1889), p. 461. The author continues: "As this conclusion appears to me to be supported by inadequate evidence, and to be directly opposed to many well-ascertained facts, I propose to devote a brief space to its discussion." I fi N u Mi '. f f 188 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY moral action, whatever they may be in addition, are from one point of view, modes of living, and as such midoubtedly prove of advantage to the organisms which are char- acterized by them. If the objection be raised that this standpoint fails to exhibit what is essential in these experi- ences, the reply is, I think, that philosophy cannot afford to ignore any genuine aspect of experience, and that what we may choose to call merely 'external relations* cannot be devoid of philosophical significance. This much at least is true: that the unitary view of the psycho-physical or- ganism and its activities, which biology has emphasized, is a good antidote to the abstracting tendencies of both physical and mental science. ^'^The objection to the biological interpretation of logic and of experience generally, holds only when it is put forward as philosophy. The limitation of these accounts of experience does not consist in their lack of details — the details may be worked out in time — but is a limita- tion of principle. They simply do not raise the logical problem, or give any account of the values that are opera- tive within experience as experience. They look upon expe- rience from the standpoint of an external observer, and hence can deal only with objects and the external relations of objects. But, though mentality is a life function, as experience it is internal or for itself. And this is equivalent to saying that it is now constituted by new functions imply- ing new ends in the light of which it must be understood. To imderstand experience as experience, which is the special business of philosophy as distinguished from natural science, is to interpret its various developing stages in the light of the system of ends which is being realized. For logic, then, thinking is not rightly construed as adjustment to the environment, whether physical or social. External terms like 'adjustment' and 'environment' are misleading DARWIN AND LOGIC 189 metaphors as descriptions of logical results and relations. Of course, the thinking of the individual grows out of life. But, as in the case of the state, which Aristotle remarks originates in life but is for the good life, we may say that cognition has a natural origin but is for the sake of truth and consistency. Moreover, in logical experience the opposition between organism and environment, which is essential to biological evolution, has become transformed into the distinction be- tween subject and object. This distinction falls within experience and is not a relation between experience and something external to it. Thinking, therefore, cannot be externally determined; it is a self-determining process whose 'developmental factors' are organic to the process itself. The moving principle of the whole is just the nature of thought itself regarded as a demand for completeness and consistency of experience. It is this immanent prin- ciple of reason or intelligence which, as the presupposition of all experience, is thereby presupposed in all science. Of course, the thinking experience from this point of view is no longer a function of an organism, a mode of experiencing over against the experiencing of other psychic individuals. As logical thinking, it is objective and social — ^the medimn in which we are shut together with persons as well as with things. This will be recognized as in general outline identical with Hegel's conception of the logical standpoint. It is in this sense that he speaks of 'absolute thinking' and 'absolute experience' — a mode of expression which has proved to many a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Dissatisfaction with the standpoint and procedure of this idealist logic is, however, expressed in different quarters by writers whose main work lies within the field of psychol- ogy and philosophy, and in some of these writers the influ- t ti feri i 190 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY ence of biological conceptions is more or less directly evi- dent. What is regarded as lacking in the logic of Hegel and his followers is: first, an account of the development of knowledge from the point of view of individual experi- ence; and secondly, a detailed working out in concrete terms of the psychological motives and processes through which logical results are obtained. To overcome these defects and base logic upon psychology seems to be the program of the majority of recent writers on Erkennt- nistheorie, in Germany, though in that country a contro- versy is still going on between the advocates of the *pure' and the ^psychological' logic. The influence of biological conceptions is perhaps most clearly evident in Avenarius and Mach. Indeed, the latter might be perhaps fairly clas- sified as ^Darwinian' in his general view of the origin and function of thinking, though his account of experience is given in terms of Hume's analysis.^ It is obvious that a complete account which should attempt to trace both the direct and indirect effect on logic of Darwin's contribution would extend far beyond the limits of this paper. I should like, however, to refer to the influence which this ^scientific' view of evolution appears to have exerted on the treatment of logical prob- lems by certain contemporary writers in this country. This influence is manifest, I think, in many of the papers con- tained in the Chicago Studies in Logical Theory, and in vari- ous contributions to periodical literature by the same writ- ers. It has perhaps also furnished the main inspiration for Professor Baldwin's work on logic. Though there are some important differences between Professor Baldwin's ^ Simmers name should also be mentioned in this connection. The application of Darwin's principles to logical questions is evident in his articles, *Pens6e thfiorique et int^rCt pratique,' Revue de M^taph.^ IV., pp. 160-178, and *Ueber eine Beziehung der Selectionslehre zur Er- kenntnistheorie,' Archiv f, »y»t. Philoa., I., pp. 34-46. DARWIN AND LOGIC 191 views and those of the pragmatic evolutionists, they belong together in general standpoint and aim. Not only do they both approach the problems of logic from the psychological point of view, but both alike derive their working concep- tions from the biological formulation of evolution rather than from post-Kantian idealism. The *newer' evolutionary influence is shown by the Chicago group of writers especially in their interpretation of thought as instrumental and practical, both in its origin and ultimate significance. Hence it follows that the logical problem is to describe and explain thinking in its dealings with a concrete situa- tion. Thinking is always a process of adjustment, a means of securing adaptation, and, as such, does not give rise to any general problem regarding the nature of knowledge as such, and does not admit of interpretation in the light of any absolute end. Professor Baldwin, on the other hand, though holding to an instrumental view of the origin of the logical function and the tests of truth, refuses to adopt the pragmatic interpretation of the meaning and significance of knowledge. He seems to hold that, when the stage of logical experience is reached in the progression of cognition, new functions and meanings have emerged which cannot be adequately described in instrumental or pragmatic terms. In his case the Darwinian influence, however, seems to account for the dualism that persists throughout between the inner and outer 'controls,' which appears to be the survival under another name of the opposition between the organism and its environment. It is true that Professor Baldwin tells us that this dualism is to disappear in a higher form of experience of the type of sesthetic contempla- tion; but in the progress of logical development no genuine organic unity between thinking and its object is attained. From the point of view of idealism, therefore, pragmatism is strong where Professor Baldwin's theory is weak, and I ! |[|| 192 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY weak where he is strong. The fonner position stoutly repudiates dualism, while he as explicitly refuses to con- strue logical experience in instnunental terms. While recognizing the force of the arguments that each of these parties directs against the other, the idealist is ready on occasion to demonstrate that the dualism and pragma- tism, which each finds unsatisfactory in the other, have a common root, and are both the logical outcome of the 'newer* evolutionary approach to the problems of logic. This general conclusion has already been urged from various sides against pragmatism. Moreover, as pragmatism has been for a considerable time the storm-center in logical discus- sions, and as I have more than once expressed my views in relation to it, I shall turn to Professor Baldwin's work as illustrating Darwin's influence on the method and procedure of logic. What seems to me especially significant in Mr. Baldwin's work is the account, in the first volume of his Thought and Things, of the stages and means through which the indi- vidual mind develops a fully conscious logical experience. It is in part the same undertaking which Hegel left so incomplete in his Philosophie des Geistes, and which he combines so strangely with other topics in the Phdnomenol- ogie as to be almost unintelligible. The progress of biol- ogy and psychology have made it possible for Professor Baldwin to present a concrete and detailed working out of this problem which is an immense advance on any- thing that previously existed. And yet I cannot help thinking that he has been hindered rather than helped by his working conceptions. As I have already indicated, his standpoint is dualistic: the development takes place through the interplay of an inner and outer ^control,' which seem to be a translation into other terms of the organism and environment. The primary responses of the psycho-phy- DARWIN AND LOGIC 193 sical individual consists of motor adjustments. These, as they come to consciousness, furnish the contents of mind. "What we think is a function of what we have done." The unity of thought itself is 'the conscious side of the unity or synergy of material actions.' In short, Professor Baldwin's account professes to show, not the means through which the mind becomes conscious of its own logical nature, but how that logical nature is engen- dered in it through the motor adjustments of the organism to material conditions. It appears to him essential to derive the logical from the biological; to begin with logic or reason as implicit is to shirk explanation and take refuge in mysticism. But, after all, is it not true that sensations of processes of motor accommodation are no more able to account for the organization of experience than sensa- tions of any other kind? It is an old story, but neverthe- less one that cannot be ignored, that a description of experience must take account of the mind as the central principle of that process. Leibniz's addition to the sensa- tionalist formula — nisi intellectus ipse — has not been ren- dered superfluous by the progress of science. Of course, in recognizing the function of interest or atten- tion,^ even in the earliest forms of experience, Professor Baldwin may be said to admit the presence from the be- ginning of the interpreting activity of the mind. This, he might say, is 'the one continuous fimction' whose develop- ment and progression he is recording throughout his book. But although this 'universal function' is recognized in words, it is phenomenalized, equated with motor process, in the supposed need of 'scientific' explanation. One may, indeed, analyze attention into motor terms from the standpoint of structural psychology; but, as the fimction of meanings and the organizing principle of experience, attention is not * Thought and Things, Vol. I., pp. 40 ff. 194 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY a phenomenon to be explained at all, but is itself the pre- supposition of all explanation. This does not mean that the development must not be traced in detail. Professor Baldwin is quite right in insisting on the necessity of exhibiting the ^What' and the 'How' and 'Why' of the process. But it must never be forgotten that logical progression moves in the realm of meanings and functions, and that, consequently, the process is self-determining, the relation of its parts being the inner organic relation of means and end. That is, the account of the development of experience must be expressed in teleological terms, not in termsf of cause and effect. It is a common mistake to suppose that to employ teleol- ogy is to abandon analysis and resign oneself to a merely formal explanation. To appeal to this principle is supposed to be equivalent to an appeal from knowledge to faith. But philosophy has surely advanced far enough beyond Kant to recognize the necessity of teleology not only as a 'regulative,' but also as a 'constitutive' principle. Whether we are to hold that 'science' may be teleological, depends upon what we include in our notion of science. At any rate, no one can deny that experience presents us with variously organized systems of value which require to be analyzed and described in order to be understood. Now, Mr. Baldwin has in various writings insisted that in a genetic science the mechanical form of explanation no longer applies. He does' not, however, abandon the causal category, but merely denies that in a developing series there is any longer an identity between the ante- cedent and consequent. It is the differentia of a genetic series that in the later terms something new appears which was not contained in the earlier. This appears to be equiva- lent to giving up all explanation; the 'something new' simply comes into the series ag a miracle. But, although DARWIN AND LOGIC 195 the conception is contradictory in principle, it enables Mr. Baldwin to escape the difficulties which a causo-mechanical theory would have to face, while at the same time assimilat- ing his procedure to that of causal science.^ It is contradic- tory in principle, for it exhibits no identity throughout the different stages of the process; it renders impossible the conception of experience as the development of one con- tinuous function. But it is this latter principle, with the teleology that it involves, that has enabled Mr. Baldwin to reinterpret facts derived from psychology and sociology in a way that is significant for logic. The following out of this principle, however, is strangely crossed by and inter- mingled with an external 'scientific' explanation of experi- ence in terms of the interplay of the organism with its physical and social environment. That what I have called Mr. Baldwin's external mode of explaining logical experience is derived from Darwinism is still more evident from his presidential address entitled "Selective Thinking." ^ This paper is at once a program and an epitome of the work that he has since published in this field. Here the terms and conceptions are avowedly taken from biology, as is evident from the following state- ment of the problem: "Looking at the question from a point of view analogous to that of the biologists when they con- sider the problem of 'determination' in organic evolution, we are led to the following rough but serviceable division of the topics involved — a division which my discussion will follow: (1) The material of selective thinking (the supply of variations) ; (2) the function of selection (how * In a paper entitled "The Notion of the Implicit in Logic," which was read before the Philosophical Association at the Baltimore meet- ing, I have treated this point more in detail. The paper appeared in The Philosophical Revietc, Vol. XIX., pp. 53 ff. [Chap. IX, above.] ■Published in The Psychological Review, January, 1898, and re- printed in the volume Development and Evolution, pp. 238 ff. ;i i( m 196 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY certain variations are selected out for survival) ; (3) the criteria of selection (what variations are singled out for survival) ; (4) certain resulting interpretations." ^ This formulation of the problem and the comparatively brief compass of the paper bring out cleariy both the nature of the explanatory principles that he proposes to employ and also, I think, the ambiguity in the actual procedure to which reference has already been made. On the one hand, we are told that "it is just the nature of knowledge to be an organization, a structure, a system."^ Variations are not fruitful "that do not fit into the coordinations of knowledge which are ours, nor bring about readjustments in the arrangement of them. The items, to appeal to me, must never quite break with the past of my knowledge: each must have its hand linked with that of the thought which begot it." ' "The attention is a function of organiza- tion, a function which grows with the growth of knowledge, holds in its own integrity the system of data already organ- ized in experience." * Moreover, Professor Baldwin points out that "the environment of thought can only be thoughts; only processes of thought can influence thoughts and be influenced by them. . . . Even in knowledge of the external world of signs, expressions, etc., we have to say that move- ment must be reduced to some form of thought in order to be organized in our knowledge." ' In these and many other statements that might be quoted from the paper, the idealist recognizes familiar doctrine, and also that here fresh facts and illustrations are brought to its support. But the Darwinian conceptions, which play the main role, lead the author to 'genetic* results of the organization of knowl- edge which are quite out of harmony with that indicated ^Development and Evolution, pp. 238-239. »/6tU, p. 245. •Ibid., pp. 246-247. * Ihid., p. 252. • Ibid., pp. 260-261. DARWIN AND LOGIC 197 in the passages quoted. These are summed up in state- ments like the following: "Selective thinking is the result of motor accommodation to the physical and social environ- ment; this accommodation taking place in each case, as all motor accommodation does, from a platform of earlier 'systematic determination* or habit." ^ "Thus organized knowledge in all its development may be looked upon as due to the synergies of motor process selected as accom- modations to the world of things and persons."' This really amounts to a derivation, not merely of the contents of the mind, but of its organizing principles and categories from the control of the environment. Although we are told that 'the burden of mental progress seems to lie on the side of the organizing function,* that organizing func- tion is itself derivative. "The individuaFs judgment, his sense of reality and truth . . . when genetically considered is both the outcome and the evidence of the control which the environment has all along exercised. Even though we assvime certain innate norms of selection which the in- dividual directly applies, still those norms must not only lead to workable systems of knowledge in the world of ac- tive experience, but they must also in their origin have been themselves selected from variations, unless, indeed, we go back to a theory of preestablished harmony."' It appears to me that it is necessary only to place such statements side by sfide in order to exhibit the difficulties of the position. Of course, Mr. Baldwin*s view is that logical organization arises out of the earlier organization or platform of motor habits. But what is the principle of unity that brings together motor adjustments into an * Op. cit., p. 264. •/fttd., p. 265. , ^ ■ Op. cit., p. 266. It is interesting to note that here, as elsewhere, the alternative for Professor Baldwin is between deriving logical prin- ciples mechanically and finding them emitting a priori. m II H; 198 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY organization? What is meant by the 'synergy' or union of adaptive movements which is said to give unity and organ- ization to the mental life? If we say that this is just the consciousness of the movements as related, do we not thereby imply that the unity and organization are involved in the very nature of consciousness? To form a system or platform, the motor sensations must be interpreted, evalu- ated, or translated into terms of knowledge. Similarly, new motor accommodations' cannot produce changes in this system. It is only thought which produces changes in the organization of knowledge. Attention is, indeed, in a sense 'action'; but can its function as the organizing principle of experience be adequately described in terms of what is 'motor, afferent, kinesthetic'? And the Darwinian prin- ciples show their inadequacy in other respects. For think- ing is not mere selection or elimination. Not only do the variations arise as differentiations of the achieved organ- ization of experience at any stage, but they are linked to each other in such a way that they mutually define and determine each other. The variation finally chosen has itself undergone modification and determination through the process of elimination. Moreover, it is not simply added to the platform from which it arose, but enters into it as an organic member. In short, what we have is a living, organic process of internal transformation and growth to which no account in mechanical terms can do justice.^ * In this attempt to trace out the influence of biological concepts on Mr. Baldwin's logical writings and to estimate their value, my criti- cisms have necessarily been stated somewhat summarily. The point* involved are so fundamental that it is, of course, impossible to treat of them exhaustively or adequately in this incidental way. Readers of this Review have, however, already had the main issues between idealistic and Darwinian logic ably presented on both sides in a notable discussion between Mi. Bosanquet and Mr. Baldwin, which was carried on in various numbers of this journal during 1902 and 1903. DARWIN AND LOGIC 199 The general result that we seem to have reached is that Darwin's conceptions can be fruitful for logic only when transformed in the light of an idealistic philosophy. When carried over directly into logic they furnish no really genetic or teleological principle of explanation, but throw us back on the mechanical and external categories which have already been tried and found wanting. Nevertheless, Dar- win's work and method — infusing as they did new life into the psychological and historical sciences and opening up new problems and new fields of investigation — fortunately have not left logic untouched. Fortunately, for if logic is to fulfill its task of interpreting and exhibiting the principles of experience, it must rest upon the work of the physical and mental sciences, that 'first vintage' of truth, as Bacon might say. The vast accumulation of facts in various fields, and the new form of the results^ offer fresh problems to logic and demand a new statement and interpretation from it. The new facts of biology, psychology, sociology, and history press upon logic for reinterpretation and revaluation in terms of experience. Not only will Hegel's work ''all have to be done over again," as Green remarked; but logic, if it is to keep alive and fulfil its function, will have to be done over constantly and continuously by each generation in order to meet the new problems raised by the advance of the special sciences. There can be no doubt that the weak- ness of the Hegelian logic consists in the fact that its con- nection with psychological experience is not clearly and fully worked out. When we call to mind how compara- tively little had been accomplished in the way of scientific analysis a century ago, either in physical science or psychol- ogy, we cannot but marvel at Hegel's achievement. That, working with such scanty materials, he was able to furnish an interpretation of experience whose essential features the advance of science has confirmed, is a striking evidence \i ■ i i 200 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of his own profound insight, and of his ability to profit by the labors of his predecessors. This work, however, must be done over again in the light of the new facts and laws that are furnished by science, and more particularly by the evolutionary sciences to which Darwin^s discovery gave a new impetus and direction. It should be recognized that the movement known as neo- Hegelianism constitutes an important step in this direc- tion. That movement has succeeded in ridding itself of the formalism and abstractness that characterized Hegel's results, mainly by recognizing and making use of the new material that scientific analysis has brought to light, par- ticularly in the field of psychology. The further recon- struction of logic that is urged by the pragmatists and Mr. Baldwin is imdoubtedly made necessary by the discovery of facts of a new order, and most of all by the new con- ceptions imder which the sciences are to-day presenting various aspects of experience. These writers have done good service, both by insisting on the need for a restate- ment of logic that shall take up into itself and serve as an interpretation of the psychological sciences, and by their own positive contributions toward such a restatement. The criticism that I have tried to justify in the case of Mr. Baldwin is that he has sought to bring about this recon- struction by adopting to some extent the standpoint and working conceptions of biology and psychology. For it must never be forgotten that logic has not to take over either facts or conceptions from the special sciences. It is rather its function to reduce these facts to its own terms, to estimate their value and assign to them their meaning in accordance with its own standards. Darwin's evolutionary principles, being formulated as a mechanical explanation of the adaptations to be met with in organic nature, can have no direct application as an explanation of experience. DARWIN AND LOGIC 201 After all, is not the fundamental issue between Ideal- istic and Darwinian logic, simply the old question as to whether reason and purpose can be explained in terms of relations obtaining between phenomena, or whether these principles are not rather presupposed in all science and experience? If the latter be true, and only if it be true, are we entitled to employ teleology as an explanatory category of our experience. For the ultimate explanatory category of experience must be at the same time its imiversal pre- supposition. To work out and justify the connection be- tween presupposition and final category is to complete the circle of experience, and so must inark out for logic the nature of its imdertaking. Ill tiij CHAPTER XI THE STANDPOINT OF PSYCHOLOGY. in terma of exi!*asive and ubiquitous than those commonly recognized by psychol- ogists, but wliicli are still, like the hitter, existential struc- tural units. It is new elements, not a new point of view, that one finds at the end of her series of artidea in the Journal of Philosophy . Or at least there is a failure to realize how completely the concept of the self transforms tlie natural science standpoint This appears clc4ir]y, I tliink, from the sUitement in the concluding article of the series. 'ThLi proposed description of consciousness, in terma of the char- acters of the conscious self," Miss Calkins writes, "cannot take the place of the so-called Ktructural analysis of con- seiouaneas into elements. On the contrary, the structural anabasis, which i$ common to all forms of psychology, must supplement the description peculiar to aelf-pcychology. From the atmctural standpoint, consciousDeas^ though conceived as self, is regarded (in spite of its inherent rclntcdnsae and *l 218 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY persistence) as if in artificial isolation from surrounding phenomena, and as if momentary. The results of the analysis of consciousness, thus conceived, are the so-called elements of consciousness." ^ Another passage in the same article states that "the analysis into elements is an analysis of the self's consciousness when the self is conceived with- out reference to other selves or to its own past or future." ■ But what meaning can be given to a self that is thus re- duced to a mere pwnctum stans, a bare existence? What is the necessity, one is bound to ask, of making such an abstraction, and how in detail does the abstract form of analysis subserve intelligibility in this case? I am not maintaining that what Miss Calkins calls structural analysis is never necessary or useful; but I do hold that from the point of view of a self -psychology it is not to be regarded as an end in itself, coordinate with the other form of analysis. It has a meaning and justification only as an instrument, a temporary abstraction that is demanded by the interests of the concrete analysis, and the results of which must be translated into the terms of the main in- quiry. Thus, for example, if one were to undertake to analyze the character of any form of thinking, it would doubtless be necessary to introduce as a subordinate part of the main procedure what might be called a structural examination of the mental imagery involved. But this examination would not constitute an independent inquiry: it would be significant only when, by annulling the tem- porary abstraction, it were again included as a subordinate, though integral part of the main body of results. The self, if it is to furnish a fruitful concept for psychol- ogy, must be regarded as something more than a point of reference. Miss Calkins's main difficulty seems to arise ^Journal of Philoa., Vol. V, p. 113. Italics mine, ■/bid., p. 120. THE STANDPOINT OF PSYCHOLOGY 219 from the fact that, in her view, the self remains on the sensational, existential plane. It cannot, therefore, attain to genuine universality. As an appreciative self, indeed, it is not thus isolated and particularized, but looks before and after, and stands concretely united to a real world of persons and things. But it would seem as if Miss Calkins believes that the self, in order to validate its claim to reality, must be capable of being foimd by the type of in- trospection that seeks and finds only modes of\ existence. The whole question as to what introspection actually yields is, of course, involved in the present discussion. Miss Calkins has insisted that introspection affords us knowl- edge of various kinds of relations, and reality feelings, thus extending the possibilities usually assigned to it; but she fails, I think, to look at the universal and objective aspects of mental life, evidently assuming that whatever is real must be embodied in some particularized existential form, and that it is this that gives us assurance that it is no mere creation of the fancy. This, however, is to subordinate the appreciative standpoint to the existential, which is, I think, quite opposed to the real spirit of her contention. There is another point of great importance in connec- tion with the question of the analysis of experience which I can the more readily pass over with a mere mention, because it is likely to receive attention from other speakers who are to follow and who are more competent to discuss it. That is the question of the value and character of the psychological analysis effected by comparative and histori- cal studies of the objective manifestations and products of mind. It would appear that the tremendously important results that are obtainable from these sources are contribu- tions to the psychology of the appreciative individualized form of mind, rather than to an analysis in terms of struc- ture. If this be true, the resources of analysis that the 220 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY former has at its command are almost infinite, and may well compensate for the greater difficulty of applying experi- ment from this point of view. A& is well known, however, experimentation has already been successfully employed as an instrument for effecting this type of analysis in certain fields, so the dividing line is not that between an experi- mental and a non-experimental psychology. There remains the objection that such a type of psychol- ogy as I have been discussing would have no definite limits or boundaries, that it would lose itself in philosophy, or in history. Perhaps no better protocol for the discussion of this question can be foimd than Bacon's reminder that the distinctions of the sciences must not be conceived as absolute gulfs and divisions, but only as veins and mark- ings in one continuous body. Division of labor and dis- tinction of categories are, of course, essential to progress in scientific work; but at the present time it is perhaps even more important to seek for some principles of inte- gration and unity. I believe that not only psychology, but all the sciences, require to be humanized and rendered concrete, as Bacon and Comte pointed out, by being brought into relation to the life of himaanity. When dissociated from philosophy and history they are no better than dead branches severed from the parent trunk. It is inadvisable, then, to fix absolute divisions or to attempt to determine the limitations of the different sciences on purely formal grounds. If the conception of imity and supplementation is preserved as the guiding idea, this will itself operate as a principle of division of labor. A formal or a priori delimi- tation of the different sciences is lacking in the flexibility and capacity for adjustment that is demanded by the changing conditions and relationships of a growing body of truth. In particular, it is essential that the connection between philosophy and psychology that has in recent THE STANDPOINT OF PSYCHOLOGY 221 years been somewhat weakened should be restored and strengthened.^ A close intimacy and a constant give-and- take association is essential to the fruitful development of both these subjects. This is not the place to attempt any accoimt of the division of labor that seems to be called for at the present time.' The lines of division will, as I have said, grow out of and be determined by the demands of this close association, probably taking new directions from time to time as the inquiry advances. * It is interesting to refer in this connection to Wundt's references to Hegel at the end of his essay in the Kuno Fischer Festschrift {Dte Philosophie im XX Jahrhundert, 1907) as setting the ideal of a con- crete knowledge of mind towards which the psychology of the future must advance. In his recent brochure entitled Die PBycholoffte tm Kampf um8 Daaein Wundt also emphasizes the necessity of a close relation between philosophy and psychology. •This subject has been treated ably by J. R. Angell m his paper entitled "The Relation of Structural and Functional Psychology to Philosophy" (Chicago Decennial Puhlications) , and also more or less explicitly by Dewey in several writings. CHAPTER XII PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS The Idea of a Philosophical Platform ^ At the Baltimore meeting of the American Philosophical Association two papers ^ were presented which emphasized the advantages that philosophy would derive from the formulation by its representatives of a body of doctrines and principles that might be regarded as at least pro- visionally established. Such a platform, it was argued, would in several ways promote the interests of philosophy. In the first place, it would remove from philosophy the standing reproach that it has arrived at no certain conclu- sions, and is therefore unworthy to be called a science. And, secondly, it would enable philosophy to take its place and perform its proper function in the development of scientific thought and social practice. Philosophy must prove its utility by furnishing principles of guidance and criticism in both the social and the natural sciences. If the demands from these sources are to be met, it must be possible to say in philosophy, somewhat as we do in the case of the other sciences, that there is a body of truths and principles which are accepted by the competent repre- sentatives of the subject, as established. Workers in other departments, and intelligent outsiders in general, ought to SThis discussion is reprinted from The Journal of Philosophy ^ Vol. VI, No. 6, pp. 141-145. ' "Concerning a Philosophical Platform/* by Karl Schmidt, and "The Doctrine of Histurgy," by Christine Ladd Franklin. 222 PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 223 be able to appeal to the results of philosophical investiga- tion as they appeal to the conclusions of physics or of biology. Moreover, a formulation of results and principles would furnish to philosophers themselves a starting-point for further investigations, and thug promote unity and continuity of effort. As only the abstracts of these papers are before me as I write, I do not wish to attempt any detailed criticism of them. It is to be noted, however, that both papers main- tained that some formulation of established results is not only desirable, but also possible, and both proceeded to furnish suggestions as to how this end might be attained. These suggestions cannot be discussed at present, but the general issue raised by the papers seems important and worthy of consideration. It is, of course, a notorious fact that philosophers do not agree; and this is commonly regarded as a proof that no objective certainty is possible regarding the problems with which they occupy themselves. The lack of any established body of results which can be summed up in a series of defi- nite propositions that the outsider can directly appropriate and apply in some field of practice, is doubtless another source of the wide-spread conviction that philosophy neither bakes bread nor can any longer give us "God, freedom, and immortality." As students and teachers of philosophy we do not, of course, admit the truth of these charges. They have been adequately refuted, at least in their popular form, by having been shown to rest on a fundamental misconcep- tion of the nature and function of philosophy, which is not one of the special sciences, dealing with a particular field of the phenomenal world, but is an attempt to understand and evaluate the standpoint and results of all the sciences and the meaning of experience as a whole. Philosophical results cannot then be set down in the form of a statement 224 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of particular facts, and still less can they be separated from the problems and processes of which they are the outcome. It is undoubtedly true that in every science which has attained any considerable degree of organization the result derives its significance from the context in which it arises, and, taken by itself, igf largely unmeaning; but in philosophy, for obvious reasons, it is still less possible to regard results as 'fruit' which is external to and separable from the tree which bore it. Moreover, as has often been pointed out, the special sciences attain to demonstrative certainty just in proportion to the abstractness of their procedure. The well-established bod>* of facta which they scan to exhibit rests in cvcr>* case upon afisumptioos and hypothesee. These, as scientific mcD kiK>w well, are often vague and sometimes contradic- tofy. And when thc«c ultimate principles come up for discussioii in science there is foimd in thb field scarcely le^ difference of opbk>n thiin obtains among the piirti^ans of philosopliical systemSw These contnidijrutiooa and Ofthers of like nature are quite fumiUar to philosophical readers, and do not need to be further urged in this place. It may eeem, however, that tbcy were not suflSciently kept in mind by the authors of the papers to which I luivc referred above. Both writera, I venture to think, have had before them the ideal of established conclufiions in philosophy which should be analogous to the accepted results of the special sciences. From the very nature of philosophy, it ought to be evident that such a platform is neither desirable xwr possible of Y attainments Kevertbclcss, though we reject the idea of an officially estabUsbed creed in philosophy, we cannot deny that some agreement, csp in order that this criticism shall be effective and significant, there must be a common problem and a large mea.(mre of agreement regarding the conceptions that arc applicable in seeking to solve it. Without this, philosophical discussion tends to degenerate into mere logomachy, a verbal conflict from which cadi party cnKjrgea without honor or profits A philoaopbioal platform, therefore, as wc have said, exists neeesHurily, sinoe pliilosopliy exists as a rational and objective mode of inquir>\ But is it necessary to go on to ask, In what does this platform consist and how has it been constituted? There have been no ecimienical coun- cils to settle philosophical creeds or any explicit forniu- latmie of common doctrines on the part of philosophers. Moreover, when we read the discussions of our own time or of any particular generation, they seem to present noth* ing but the differences of individuals and of parties, and to afford no possible basis of agreement. This appearance is, however, deceptive. Unity is being achieved m and 226 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY through the process of emphasizing differences. Out of the eater there comes forth meat. This unity often comes to light in a form and to a degree that can be appreciated as the consequence of the work of a few years, or a single generation. But it is only when we look to the history of philosophy as a whole that we become conscious of the fundamental basis of agreement, the real process that renders philosophy objective and real. For the history of philosophy is not a mere collection of individual opinions, but a process of development. The notion of development, however, is conceivable only when it is seen to involve the continuity of a universal principle which is present in all stages of the history of philosophical thought, and of which these stages must be regarded as the progressive determina- tion. Without such a conception, I do not see how it is possible to speak at all of the development of philosophy. And if it is impossible to discover any genuine development in the history of philosophy, if the term 'development' is only a figure of speech, then the efforts of any individual to give an objective interpretation of his experience must forever remain fruitless. So long as the individual believes that reason and philosophical truth are merely in him, and are not manifest in the world and in the history of thought, his deliverances are not likely to be of great value. By his own unaided efforts no man can reach philosophical truth, any more than he can become rational or moral by isolating himself from the beliefs and prac- tices of society. To become a philosopher, he must assimi- late and reproduce in his own thinking the development of philosophical problems and answers as these are shown in the course of history. In this way alone will he attain objectivity of view and find a platform on which he can unite with other philosophers. It may be objected, however, that experience has abim- PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 227 dantly shown that the history of philosophy can furnish no objective standard of philosophical truth. Of this his- tory it may well be said, Hie liber in quo quaerit sua dogmata quisque Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua, since there is opportimity for the widest divergence of opinion in the interpretation and evaluation of the various philosophical systems. One school, for example, maintains that the philosophy of Kant and the post-Kantian idealists represents the culmination of modem philosophy, while others tell us that the true line of development runs around, not through, Kant. Each one, it may be said, will find in the history of philosophy his own favorite doctrines, or illustrations of the errors which he is most anxious to combat and expose, and will thus in the end use his own conceptions as the standard of evaluation. Hence the study of the history of philosophy can never make a phi- losopher: one must reach his conclusions by his own inde- pendent processes of thought, or with the aid of contem- poraries who are occupied with the Vital' problems of the present time. Now it is unquestionably true that the mere acquaintance with the facts and external features of the different his- torical systems is of no great advantage, and in itself does not make a philosopher. But to comprehend the develop- ment of philosophical thought is to gain an understanding of the significance of philosophical problems and the true function and relations of the conceptions that appear in the course of its history. This involves an active process of philosophizing on one's own part: it requires us to in- terpret, reconstruct, and evaluate the historical results through our own thinking. The process of interpretation and evaluation does not signify, however, that we have 228 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY the right arbitrarily to construe these systems in an external way in accordance with any preconceived notions of our own. There is a constant process which is at once a giving and a receiving. We neither passively assimilate nor arbi- trarily construe, but by following and apprehending the inner movement of the history of philosophy we are quali- fied to enter into it, and become a part of it. If there is any truth in the assertion that the history of philosophy is a genuine development, then to comprehend this is an indispensable part of philosophy itself. If, on the other hand, history presents no real development, it would seem that the opponents of philosophy are right in their belief that the history of philosophical opinions has demonstrated the impossibility of philosophy as a subject of rational human investigation. For what hope is there in individual effort if the thought of the race has proved totally incom- petent to its task? And what possibility is there of co- operation, if the past has given us no platform on which to stand? There is, of course, nothing new to philosophical readers in the views which I have here attempted to express. But they seem to be of interest in relation to the question of a philosophical platform, which was brought forward at Baltimore. They also seem to me important and worthy of consideration in view of the evident lessening of interest in historical studies among American philosophers at the present time. If it is true that some agreement as to the aims and method of philosophy ts essential both to the progress of philosophy itself and to the influence and posi- tion of the subject among the other sciences, and if, further, this agreement can be attained only by arriving at an imderstanding of the meaning of philosophy as it is ex- hibited in its historical development, can we afford to neglect historical studies or to regard them as of secondary PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 22^ importance? For the continuity of our thought with the past is at the same time our bond of imion and basis of objectivity, and, as such, it, therefore, is the only thing that insures the reality of philosophy at the present time or that furnishes a guarantee for its future. n. Philosophy as the Art of Affixing Labels.^ I BELIEVE that it was Robert Louis Stevenson who re- marked that man does not live by bread alone; he lives in very large part by catchwords. These constitute the staff and support of the spiritual life of mankind. One could write an essay upon the great services they render to human society, dwelling upon their convenience and portability, the readiness with which they may be ex- changed, the comfort and sustenance which they afford to the spirit, and the great deeds which they have inspired men to perform. Truly man does not live by bread alone I Now feasting upon catchwords, fortunately or unfortu- nately, is not confined to the man on the street; the adher- ents of the schools are also much addicted to them. The philosophers are said to sustain themselves upon an espe- cially husky and empty variety of such words, and in feeding upon them gradually to lose the capacity to enjoy other and more wholesome fare. Not only is this the case, but these philosophers of the schools seek to set themselves up as alone possessing the skill and the right to prepare the catchwords upon which the multitude shall live, for they esteem highly that which they themselves have made. * Read at the meeting of the American Philosophical Association at Ithaca, December 30, 1919. Reprinted from The Journal of Phi- losophy, Vol. XVII, No. 9, pp. 225-233. 230 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY But the multitude will have none of them, finding their words empty and bitter, and choose rather to live upon the smooth and succulent phrases which may be obtained at a small price in the common market-place. It is not at this level, however, that a serious impeach- ment can be brought against philosophers. For they more than any other set of men can justly claim to have been awake to the fallacies that lie hidden in words and never to have ceased to warn against them. On the other hand, and largely as the result of philosophical analysis, it is im- possible any longer to treat words with contempt as merely empty sounds. Words are bom in the vital flowing of thoughts, and, as the organs through which thought secures articulation and definiteness, they are an organic part of the process itself. There are the two sides, the domination of words over the mind, and the indispensable aid which they afford to the mind. The classical writings of phi- losophy are full of texts in illustration of these two forms of relationship. "Men believe that their reason governs words," says Bacon, "but it is also true that words react upon the understanding, and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive." "The light of the mind is perspicuous words," says Hobbes, "by exact definitions first snuffed and purged from am- biguity." Philosophy is able to accept both these state- ments, and is perhaps beyond the point where it is likely to profit from external criticism. On the whole, I am in- clined to think that the danger at present is that we shall attach too little rather than too much importance to our philosophical catchwords, if we call them such. Principle, nous, idea, substance, continuity, cause, God, ego, commu- nity; what a great price was paid for the gains summed up in these and similar words, and to what an extent they uphold the order of our world! If it is said that these PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 231 terms are empty, one may fairly retort, "to him who brings nothing all things are empty." These words are indeed empty unless they have received a content through an effort to realize in themselves the experiences they sum up. No effort of mere technical definition can put meaning and life into them. While then philosophers are abundantly able, by con- siderations such as those mentioned, to meet the superficial criticisms leveled against them from the outside, they nevertheless feel the peril of the undertaking in which they are engaged, knowing well that all great things are as rare as they are difficult. As philosophers there is an ever- recurring need of defining our aims and of examining our results, in order to free the mind from idols and to see as clearly as possible both the goal at which we are aiming and the formalistic motives which tend to draw our minds away from it. The points upon which I shall touch are all familiar, and I shall confine myself mainly to suggesting their applicability to the present situation in philosophy. I should like to have what I say taken as an indication of a personal conviction, rather than as an attempt to deal systematically with the underlying philosophical problems. In the first place, I have come gradually to think more of philosophy as representing an attitude of mind and a level of experience, and less of it as a 'subject' or 'science' composed of a body of propositions to be taught and learned. One gets increasingly the impression that the great masters, from Plato on, are not dominated by the interests of 'schools,' but keep close to the literal ideal of philosophy as love of wisdom, and effort after insight. It is of course true that all the great philosophers emphasize that philosophy is a method, a 'way' of procedure, but this is not something secondary to be imposed upon life from the outside for the sake of establishing certain abstract 232 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY generalizations, but just a bringing to consciousness of the principles that are already implicit in experience, and which become evident through its own power of immanent criticism. That concrete way of the mind is dialectic. As opposed to this we have eristic, which is the art of fighting with words. "Mit Worten lasst sich trefflich straiten, Mit Worten ein System bereiten." There is surely a danger when philosophy is made formal and is cultivated exclusively by schoolmen. That is why I lu-ged at the founding of this Association the desirability of cooperation on a different basis than that of the pro- fessional occupation of many of itgf members. Secondly, I think we are following a false analogy when we seek to assimilate philosophical inquiry to that of the special sciences, and to require from philosophy the same form of practical application and of definitely marked progress that the latter are supposed to exhibit. I do not mean that philosophy has nothing to learn from the special sciences or that it is able to proceed by ignoring the results that they obtain. But each form of inquiry must do its own work, and this cannot be achieved by attempts to set up philosophy as a * science* and to demand of it the form of result that the other sciences yield. It is certainly justifiable to demand that philosophy shall be useful, but its use can never consist in supplying new 'facts' or in providing definite rules of action, but just in vitalizing the whole of experience by bringing to conscious- ness the fundamental relations upon which it rests. I can- not help thinking, then, that the complaint, which I have sometimes heard even within the philosophical camp, that the subject is lacking in applications, rests upon a con- fusion of ideas, and that this confusion is largely due to a PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 233 failure to distinguish clearly between the aim of science and that of philosophy. The same is true in principle of the ever-recurring complaint regarding the unprogressive character of philosophy. Thirdly, philosophy seems to me to fall short of its true influence and interest through a failure to realize clearly that its judgments must finally assume a categorical form and bring us to what is individual and concrete. In gen- eral, science takes the opposite way: its main interest is in analysis, and its constructions take the form of a system of carefully defined generalized concepts that serve the purposes of calculation and prediction, but for the time seem to be indifferent to the nature of concrete reality. Now the great practical success of this method has too frequently led to the overlooking of its limitations, and to the assumption that its principles represent the completed form of logical procedure. When this assumption is ac- cepted, one of two courses is logically open to philosophy. It may apply as best it can the method of analysis and classification in terms of some general aspect to the objects that make up its subject matter; or, secondly, it may abandon all claim to logic and appeal for its results to intu- ition or to faith, or some alogical form of experiencing. These, as I have said, are the logical alternatives; but in practice it is usual to mingle the two methods judiciously, to proceed for the most part and in ordinary situations by way of clear and distinct classifications, and to carry the appeal to the higher irrationalism only when the issues seem to be particularly grave and important. The first logical alternative was accepted with great enthusiasm by the philosophers of the eighteenth-century enlightenment. It was during this period that philosophy as the art of afi^ng labels attained its greatest perfection. All mysteries were abolished by reducing every form of 234 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY reality to a generalized type, defined in quite perspicuous terms. But just for this very reason, the concrete nature of individuals was hidden from these times. The literature of the century presents us with '^types," the philosophical writers construct the mind out of generalized conceptions of "impressions" and ''simple ideas of reflection," or on the practical side, in terms of "ambition," "self-love," "benevolence" or "reason."^ This is all an old story; but what I wish to suggest is that the rationalistic ideals of this former time still tend to give the direction to our philosophizing. That is, we t^nd to set before ourselves definition and formal demonstration as the goal, and to suppose that philosophy consists in classification and char- acterization. Thus we undertake to define the Ego, and Consciousness, and Value; thus we classify the historical systems of philosophy under various rubrics like Material- ism, Pantheism, Personalism, with something of the feeling that when they are once labeled they are out of our hands and ready to ship. I have spoken as if in this classificatory procedure phi- losophy were adopting the procedure of the sciences. That is not quite true. All genuine science goes beyond abstract classification and contains an element that is categoncal. A careful analysis of scientific procedure, such as that given for example in Mr. Bosanquet's Logic, brings out the fact that the mind throughout this process is always returning to what is concretely real. Even when following the sys- tematic connection of generalized contents, the mind is also working out the structure of a concrete individuality : scien- tific analysis when taken in its full compass, is seen to dis- close to the mind a compelling form of categorical syn- thesis. Now I wish to point out that a philosophy which » Cf. G. H. Sabine, "Hume's Contribution to the HUtorical Method," The Philosophical Review, Vol. XV, pp. 31 ff. PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 235 attempts to imitate the procedure of the sciences is likely to realize the abstract and hypothetical side of scientific method, without the saving element of directness and con- creteness. As external reflection, it assumes the object as once for all given in the generalized concept from which it sets out, and accordingly does not feel the necessity of returning to the concrete to transform and vitalize its abstractions. This point calls for more extended treat- ment than can here be given to it; but what has been said may serve to explain why the generalizations of a philos- ophy of this type are thinner and less significant than those of the special sciences. The abstractions in which philosophical reflection fre- quently issues are those of a logic which presupposes a mechanical separation between the mind and its objects. The world, or that portion of it which occupies our thought at any time, is taken as a fixed datum. Thought plays upon this from the outside, distinguishing and naming its qualities and aspects in t€rms of general predicates. It moves round and round it, but is never able to break its hard crust and genuinely interpenetrate it. The relation between thought and its objects is and remains forever ex- ternal. Thought is one independent entity, the object is also an independent entity; one does not need the other in order to complete it. The sequel to this logical theory is inevitable. If think- ing cannot lead us to reality in its concreteness, we must call up some other power of the mind to bring about this result. Feeling, or immediate intuition, must effect what is impossible for logic. So for lack, as I believe, of an adequate logic of the thinking mind in its wholeness, we find distinguished writers of the present day appealing to a form of experience that lies beyond thought. I quote a few sentences from the last paragraphs of Professor James ':; ,1 Kl t 236 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism, for which a parallel might easily be found in many other modem writers. "This incommensurability of the necessary and the con- tingent, the scientific and the historical, answers to the difference between validity and reality, and shows at the same time that 'reaUty is richer than thou^tJ Thought gives us only 'science,' not existence; we cannot, by piling up propositions, secure the simplest 'position/ Thought, again, gives us only the 'universal,' the relational. From the particular, which is the 'surd' for it . , . it must start, but to this particular it can never return save by traversing an interminable series." ^ I cannot now undertake to state fully the reasons why I thmk such a conclusion unsatisfactory. It is perhaps enough at present to say that it fails because it does not accept the view of the mind in its wholeness as in prmciple adequate to its work. This, I take it, is the principle on which all the great classical systems are based. We are not then obliged to accept such an account of thought as that given by Professor Ward, because there is already in existence a logic more adequate to the process of living ex- perience which we may fairly claim to be the proper logic of philosophy, since it is expressed and illustrated in the writings of its greatest historical representatives. That is the logic of the concrete universal or individual whole. If it is the task of philosophy to render reality intelligible, and if reality is ultimately a system of individuals, not of abstract qualities or essences, it would seem to follow that the hope of progress in philosophy must consist in adoptmg and applying this method. It is essential to be quite clear as to what we really have a right to demand from philosophy, as to the form of comprehensibility which * Fourth Edition, p. 572. PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 237 we may legitimately expect. In some of our discussions of late, it seems to me that there has been set up as the goal of philosophy something which can never be realized in concrete knowledge. This is the attainment of a highest generalization, the most abstract label, under which every- thing can be brought and in terms of which it may be de- fined. Now I think that for philosophy this alluring pros- pect is nothing better than mirage, and if we would make progress we must turn our back upon it. I shall try to in- dicate very briefly the direction in which philosophy must look if it is to find its real mission. In attempting to interpret reality philosophy seeks to understand individual natures and individual relationships, and so on one side it is a return from the generalizations of science to the standpoint of common sense. Philosophy is, however, a direct and natural point of view which has been enriched and rendered coherent by an analysis that has given to it a consciousness of its own principles; it is an immediacy which has absorbed the results of mediation. Let it be again emphasized, however, that philosophy is not an abstract science, but is a level of life in which we return from analysis and generalization to a direct seeing of things in their concreteness. Pater remarks that for Plato the ideas which form the ultimate object of the mind's quest tend to be thought of as concrete individual things, almost as persons, to be known and loved. The rationality that philosophy seeks must be of the kind that applies to indi- viduals and forms of individuality. Philosophical insight has as its ideal the type of perfect imderstanding that arises as a result of long usage between members of an intimate circle of friends. Thus philosophy should help us to feel at home in oiu* world as we feel at home in our family. If it can contribute to this kind of understanding, that is all which we have any right to demand. t t* 238 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY This conception of philosophical rationality is of course as far as possible removed from the ideal of bringing every- thing under one highest generalization. It seems to me very important that philosophy should disclaim "this false pretense of knowledge" and realize that the wisdom which it is its mission to seek cannot consist of general formulas in regard to types or typical forms of relationship, though it may very well find suggestion and instruction in such formulas. It seems worth while dwelling upon some of the conse- quences which the more concrete view of philosophy carries with it. Where philosophy derives its ideals of compre- hensibility from the special sciences, it is likely to look forward also to some conception or formula which will enable it to make or to transform its world. Pragmatism, we may say, is the natural corollary of this point of view. But the logic of the concrete universal yields no such prac- tical rule of action. For it, the first mark of reason con- sists in the acceptance of the universe. We may recall Lotze's fine saying that it is not the business of philosophy to explain how the world is made, or why there should be a world at all, but to seek to understand the actual world of which we find ourselves a part. That is surely enough! I confess to thinking that some of the so-called philosophical problems that have occupied our generation are pseudo- problems, generated by an overstrained and artificial logic, not by any demands of reason. We are not called on to make a world, or to fashion it after our heart's desire, but to accept and understand it. Reason implies the accept- ance of restraint, the recognition of an order and constitu- tion of the world which, after all our analyses and defini- tions, has just to be accepted thankfully and loved— for better or for worse. It is the only world we have ! Once more, however, it seems necessary to insist that PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 239 the rejection of the logic of abstract generalization as final does not imply that philosophy is to abandon logical method, or that it can follow any "primrose path" where exact analysis is no longer necessary. But it does imply that analysis is now to become an instrument rather than an end, and that its results are to be interpreted in terms of the nature and relations of concrete individual wholes. What has no bearing upon human life and experience, a hypothetical problem which has no possible concrete refer- ence, is not a legitimate problem for a sane man. Of course in actual practice one has to learn the importance of being patient with analyses even when they appear to deal with situations that have been abstractly defined, or are stated in terms that are artificially ingenious. But if these are to be justified as necessary phases of philosophical thinking, the abstractions finally must be restored and the results evaluated in terms of their bearing upon the facts of con- crete experience. The central problem of philosophy, then, which must be kept fundamental and determining, is that of attaining the most complete and satisfactory level of experience. We are misled by a false ideal when we attempt to substitute for this concrete demand of the mind as a whole the demand of an isolated phase of the mind for a special form of solu- tion. What philosophy is concerned with is the life and solidarity of the whole. Nettleship in his lectures on Logic quotes a sentence from Novalis, to which several other writers have since called attention: "Philosophiren ist dephlegmatisiren, vivifvciren" To philosophize is to get rid of the mind's phlegm, to vitalize experience by raising it to a higher power. It is to forsake the letter for the spirit, or rather to discover the spirit in the letter. The notion that thought or theory carries us away from the real is hard to eradicate, because, as we have seen, it sup- 240 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY ports itself on the view that thinking is nothing but abstract generalization. But generalization, when it represents seri- ous thinking, is also a process of defining and bringing to light the nature of individuality. "Generalization," says Pater, "whatever Platonists, or Plato himself at mistaken moments, may have to say about it, is a method, not of obliterating the concrete phenomenon, but of enriching it with the joint perspective, the significance, the expressive- ness, of all other things besides." That is true, but only when the generalization is the expression of thinking that goes beyond bare identity and retains within itself the life of the differences and distinctions of the concrete objects of experience. Then it does not carry us away to a gray world of shadows, but endows the particular objects of experience with new life and individuality. Thus the process of thought is not something outside of or apart from the process of experience, but is the moving force and spirit of the whole. The logic of philosophy accordingly is just the principles at work in experience and which carry it on towards? concretion and individuation. And this, as we have seen, means that reality is not some- thing given once for all, but something to be discovered in the process of thought. Thinking is the quest for true reality, not comfortable reflection about an absurd posses- sion. Yet it is also true that from the beginning there isr possession; the real is not merely something that is-to- be; here and now is our absolute, but it is also a promised land, whose riches we have not yet exhausted. To philosophize, then, is nothing more strange and recon- dite than, in Bacon's phrase, "to use our utmost endeavor toward restoring and cultivating a just and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things." It is not ex- ternal reflection upon an object alien to the mind, lying PHILOSOPHICAL PLATFORMS AND LABELS 241 isolated and motionless and not itself caught up in the moving web of the life of thought. And from this it fol- lows that its ultimate aim is not to classify objects under abstract categories, but to construct an orderly world in terms of the relations of concrete individuals. That is to say, its procedure is not in the direction of abstract gen- eralization, but towards the discovery of concrete individual wholes, existing as members of a world or cosmos which is itself a concrete whole. In this we have the fundamental distinction between the philosophical form of comprehen- sibility and that at which the sciences aim, so long at least as we think of scientific analysis as interested only in sup- plying instruments of practice. The scientist, as such, is likely to find the significance of his thinking only in the series of correlations between universals that his analysis has brought to light; he does not usually notice that the process has yielded a synthetic result, that through it the form and structure of an individual whole has been brought to light. Now it is just in holding fast to the synthetic results of thought that philosophy returns to what is indi- vidual and concrete. Its goal is the synoptic vision, seeing things whole. But it may be asked what is the form and principle of this wholeness? It is not something chaotic or capricious, for it is the outcome of analysis and definition, or rather of a synthesis into which analysis has entered as a defining factor. Nor does it exist in the form of a series of abstract qualities, for this is pure externality and negativity, and in itself incapable of completeness. But its order is that of a many-sided and systematic relation between real beings whose place and functions are revealed and made intelli- gible through the experimental life that is reason. It is insight into this order that we demand from philosophy; 242 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY not formal proofs, but the raising of our experience to a higher level of insight so that we shall find more and more confirmed in detail the postulate of all rational life, "the unity of the mind with the whole of nature." CHAPTER XIII THE FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGI- BILITY.^ Under this title I wish to call attention to an aspect of a very old and familiar problem — ^that of the nature of philosophy. We habitually assign to philosophy the task of ^explaining' the world, or of rendering experience *in- telligible.' Now is it possible to specify more exactly what is involved in this requirement? What is it to explain or to render intelligible in the philosophical sense, and what is the form of logic in which philosophy can be re- quired to attain rationality? It would seem necessary to understand as clearly and definitely as possible what type of explanation philosophy may properly be expected to fur- nish before any discussion is in order regarding its com- petency to fulfill its task, or concerning the relative value and pertinency of various systems. The central position that the problem occupies logically is not, however, its only claim to consideration. The fail- ure to discriminate between different forms of explanation has frequently given rise to practical misunderstandings regarding the fruitfulness and value of philosophical study itself. It would be hard to find a better illustration of the fact that discontent and disillusionment often have their sources in unreasonable expectations and impossible de- i Read before the Eastern Branch of The American Philosophical Association at Vassar College, December 29, 1921. Reprinted from The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XIX, No. 10, pp. 253-261. 243 244 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY mands. Complaints are brought against philosophy— not merely by outsiders, but by its professed students as well— for a strange variety of reasons: because it does not give us demonstrations like mathematics, or new facts like the natural sciences, or esthetic enjoyment like poetry, or a technique for transforming education and social life in accordance with the demands of the age. Or, again, the demand is that philosophy shall furnish a statement of the most general relations of existence, analogous to but more inclusive than the fundamental principles of mathematics. Now I do not say that all these requirements are artificial and suggested merely by external analogies— 4.hough I think that some of them undoubtedly are— nor is it neces- sary to assume that on examination they would appear mutually inconsistent. They have been mentioned only to illustrate the variety of the demands that are made upon philosophy, and to suggest the corresponding necessity from a practical point of view of such an inquiry as is suggested by the title of this paper. In considering this question it is helpful, I think, to make an attempt to distinguish genuine philosophical problems from those that are artificial. Of course such a distinction cannot be made in any external fashion by setting up a preliminary definition. In philosophy, more than in any other type of inquiry, the formulation of the problem and its answer can never be sharply separated. To succeed in asking a reasonable question is already in some measure to see one's way to an answer. One must begin, then, by attempting to apprepiate rightly the objective situation and its demands. A genuine philosophical problem is one that is objectively grounded and does not spring merely from the associatively directed fancy of a subjective interest. There must underlie it an order of experience that is already fundamentally organized in accordance with rational prin- FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 245 ciples, and it is from the demands of this experience that philosophy as a consciously directed activity must pro- ceed. It will of course be necessary to bring up for further examination and criticism principles previously received; but in doing this philosophy must rest its case upon an order of experience that is taken, at least provisionally, as reasonable and secure. Thus, while one may reasonably question the validity of any particular fact or phase of experience, one can not intelligibly question the validity of experience as a whole. The beginning of all philosophy consists in an acceptance of the world-order of our own time and civilization, and from these roots all its genuine problems spring. These considerations when applied help to protect us against a good many pseudo-problems that are popularly supposed to be the special interest of philosophy. It is not the business of philosophy, as Lotze was fond of remark- ing, to prove that the world exists or to demonstrate how it is made. Philosophy has not to show us how to make a world, but to help us in understanding the actual world in which we find ourselves. The genuine problems of phi- losophy are natural problems, not reached by an artificial straining, but generated by the demands of a human life to know itself and to become at home in its world. There is always a special danger that when philosophy is carried on largely by schools and schoolmen it may become artificial through too great an emphasis upon formal com- pleteness and the requirements of technical demonstration. It would be quite in order to raise the question, 'Are we Scholastics?' Scholasticism has of course its merits, and I am not arguing in favor of dilettantism, or lack of earnest- ness and seriousness in carrying on philosophical inquiries, but against making what is merely technical and abstract the end and goal. It is of course to be admitted that for 246 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY certain preliminary inquiries in philosophy technical meth- ods and a rigorously defined terminology are necessary. But two things should be borae in mind: first, that such technical inquiries are a part of philosophy only in so far as they directly or indirectly throw light upon some genuine problem, and, secondly, that the philosopher by profession is not thereby set apart from his fellows and dedicated to some precious but obscure inquiry in which they have neither part nor lot. The important matter is to rid thought of abstractions that are not instrumental to concrete knowledge, and as little to accept our problems ready-made from the schoolmen of the present day as from those of the past. Philosophy, as criticism that is based upon life, has first of all the function of showing the irrationality and illegitimacy of many questions, both contemporary and traditional. But the mere resolve to occupy one*s thought with the concrete is not enough: it is also necessary to proceed to it through criticism, i. e., through a natural dialectic of thought. The way is long and difficult, and is in general the path which the classical systems of philosophy have tried to follow. On the other hand, I cannot help thinking that in some of the present-day movements that advertise themselves as 'new' and 'scientific' there is plainly marked a tendency to turn away from one form of abstraction in order to take refuge in another. The desire to direct philosophy into more fruitful channels doubtless underlies the effort to assimilate its procedure to that of the special sciences. The traditional form of philosophical inquiry, it is said, is neither logically convincing nor practically fruitful, while contemporary science offers an example of an increase and systematization of positive facts that represent a solid achievement both on account of its certainty and of its FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 247 service to society. Hence arises the demand that philos- ophy shall be reformed by the adoption of the scientific method, and made to yield conclusions that are rigidly demonstrable and capable of fruitful application. Now one may sympathize in large measure with the motives of these reformers without being ready to accept their somewhat pessimistic diagnosis of the condition of philosophy or approving the remedies they propose to employ. That philosophical inquiry should be carried on with systematic thoroughness and with the utmost atten- tion to real facts and willingness to follow where the argu- ment leads, no one would wish to deny. Indeed, only on these terms is philosophy true to its name. But this is not to assert that it must abandon its own problems and pro- cedure and seek for a place among the sciences. Here again I would suggest the possibility that dissatisfaction with historical philosophy has its source in a misunderstanding in regard to the form of intelligibility at which its representa- tives have aimed. May it not be true that the historical systems seem to certain persons to have little value just because they themselves are interested only in a different type of problem, and that this fact explains why they seem to themselves to have received a stone when they asked for bread? Apart from religion, there are three consciously directed approaches through which the mind may be said to attempt to render the world familiar to itself — those of science, of philosophy, and of art. In ordinary life these interests are not clearly defined and differentiated, and in every normal individual they are all present and influence each other in some degree. But however intimate their relation in the life of any individual, it is essential that one form of problem should not be confused with another. The form of intelligibility that philosophy seeks, and in some measure 248 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY attains, is not that of science and not that of art, nor is it any admixture of the two, though it has relations with both. Leaving for the present the nature of art out of account, we may consider some of the fundamental distinctions be- tween scientific and philosophical explanation. One or two preliminary remarks are, however, necessary to avoid misunderstanding. In the first place, the distinc- tion between these two modes of inquiry does not exclude, but rather provides for, mutual aid and supplementation in practice. The effort to explain the world is a human undertaking and is carried on by human beings, not by the abstractions we sometimes name 'the philosopher' and 'the scientist.* To ensure genuine progress m any field it is necessary that the two forms of inquiry should take note of each other, even that they should interpenetrate each other within the same mind. I have tried at various times to state and illustrate my understanding of necessary con- nection between them, and of the nature of the dialectic by means of which they are connected. At present I wish to insist that it is only by keeping clear the essential dif- ferences that the true relation between them can be understood. , . r u-i The general question regarding the relations of philos- ophy and the sciences has, then, many aspects which must at present be left out of account. What I wish to empha- size is that the demands of explanation in the two fields are not identical, and that a complete explanation in one set of terms has no immediate relevancy as an answer to a ques- tion raised from the point of view of the other inquiry. The scientific explanation of why Socrates is sitting m prison awaiting the execution of his sentence, stated in terms of the contraction of the muscles of his legs and the revolutions of his bones in the socket joints, does not fur- nish the kind of explanation that is demanded. What is FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 249 required is to supply the context in terms of the personality and moral character of Socrates. It is not a mere difference of substituting a teleological for a mechanical explanation, as might appear from the illustration. That the form of philosophical intelligibility always does involve teleology, is, I think, true. Nevertheless it is necessary to carry the matter fiu-ther since there is a superficial type of teleological explanation that has no claim to the title of philosophy, just as there are causal explanations that cannot properly be regarded as scientific. It may throw additional light upon the question before us to ask what legitimate demand of our intelligence re- mains unsatisfied after the scientific account is complete. What is still lacking to comprehension? It may be said that the sciences make us familiar with the general frame- work of reality and furnish a kind of inventory of the dif- ferent types of things contained therein by exhibiting how they may be thought of as compounded in certain uniform ways of simpler events or elements. The laws expressing the relationships of these elements are at the same time, as Bacon points out, rules by means of which they may be constructed. Now although this type of explanation is in- dispensable, and may even seem to satisfy all justifiable demands in regard to certain fields of reality, it does not give us any insight regarding the nature of the significant individual things by which we are surrounded and in rela- tion to which we live. On the contrary, it obliterates all real individuality and reduces everything to identical ele- ments or events. It yields knowledge in the form of gen- eral concepts that do not directly apply to concrete indi- vidual wholes, but to the abstractly simplified relations of ideally defined imits. Now conceivably in the realm of what we call nature it might be possible by substituting poetry and other forms 250 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 251 Ml of art to dispense entirely with the philosophical mode of inquiry. I have a friend who sometimes remarks, "I never feel any need of philosophy. When I turn from mathe- matics I fall back on poetry." That attitude seems com- prehensible, as I have said, so far as the realm of outer nature is concerned, though even there I believe it would not be difficult to show that experience involves a relation to actual individual wholes whose nature demands compre- hension in intellectual and not merely in imaginative terms. However that may be, it is certainly true that human nature and the world of social and historical life have always formed the central interest of philosophy, and of these the attitude in question simply renounces all critical and coher- ent knowledge. For the sciences based on the logic of mathematical calculation recognize no individuals and can furnish no insight into the reciprocal human relations that constitute the social and historical life of man. What we seek imder the name of philosophy is an under- standing based on reflective criticism and observation, of the individuals and types of individuals that make up the world we live in. This process of reflection, it is evident, must both presuppose and issue :n a knowledge of the self. I know of no better description of philosophy than that it is the most fully integrated effort of man to establish relations with his world and thus to attain to the familiarity and confidence that come from imderstanding. Where shall we look for a realized exemplar of that kind of intelligibility? Philosophy, as Hegel loved to say, can not be real as mere desire for knowledge, but only through recognizing itself as knowledge already implicitly realized. If science does not give us the form of knowledge we seek, where is it actually to be found? In the classical systems of philosophy, doubtless. But it seems to me that a fa- miliar illustration of the kind of insight that constitutes philosophy may be drawn from the understanding that we have of that part of the world with which we are most familiar, such as the circle of the home, or the life of a small community whose members have known each other long and intimately. In such situations the spirit of the whole is comprehended as the common life of which all the individuals partake, and in terms of which their relations to each other seem natural and reasonable. This kind of understanding is of the essence of logic, though it is rarely drawn out into a system of abstract propositions. But at its best it holds within it, as it were in solution, the result of countless observations and analyses, and is thus sup- ported by all kinds of lore — historical, scientific, psycho- logical — constituting a richness of concrete detail that has been harmonized and blended into the form of inmiediate familiarity. The depth and significance of the immediacy are proportional to the attention and insight that have gone into processes that have led up to it. Such understand- ing does not come by nature, or through mere unreflective contact, but is the product of accurate observations and of well-disciplined and sympathetic imagination. It is no blind oracle pronouncing ambiguous conclusions, but has its witness within it and is able to supply the context that ren- ders its judgments intelligible. It may accordingly be said that this type of knowledge is philosophical in the degree in which it attains systematic completeness of view in con- crete form. It comprehends individuals of different orders in the form of a significant and concrete unity by supplying the context that gives to them the form of a self-subsisting whole. Objection may, however, be raised against accepting this familiar type of knowledge as an illustration of the true form of philosophical intelligibility on the ground that the latter must rest upon rigorously demonstrated propositions 250 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of art to dispense entirely with the philosophical mode of inquiry. I have a friend who sometimes remarks, "I never feel any need of philosophy. When I turn from mathe- matics I fall back on poetry." That attitude seems com- prehensible, as I have said, so far as the realm of outer nature is concerned, though even there I believe it would not be difficult to show that experience involves a relation to actual individual wholes whose nature demands compre- hension in intellectual and not merely in imaginative terms. However that may be, it is certainly true that human nature and the world of social and historical life have always formed the central interest of philosophy, and of these the attitude in question simply renounces all critical and coher- ent knowledge. For the sciences based on the logic of mathematical calculation recognize no individuals and can furnish no insight into the reciprocal human relations that constitute the social and historical life of man. What we seek under the name of philosophy is an under- standing based on reflective criticism and observation, of the individuals and types of individuals that make up the world we live in. This process of reflection, it is evident, must both presuppose and issue in a knowledge of the self. I know of no better description of philosophy than that it is the most fully integrated effort of man to establish relations with his world and thus to attain to the familiarity and confidence that come from understanding. Where shall we look for a realized exemplar of that kind of intelligibility? Philosophy, as Hegel loved to say, can not be real as mere desire for knowledge, but only through recognizing itself as knowledge already implicitly realized. If science does not give us the form of knowledge we seek, where is it actually to be found? In the classical systems of philosophy, doubtless. But it seems to me that a fa- miliar illustration of the kind of insight that constitutes FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 251 philosophy may be drawn from the understanding that we have of that part of the world with which we are most familiar, such as the circle of the home, or the life of a small community whose members have known each other long and intimately. In such situations the spirit of the whole is comprehended as the common life of which all the individuals partake, and in terms of which their relations to each other seem natural and reasonable. This kind of understanding is of the essence of logic, though it is rarely drawn out into a system of abstract propositions. But at its best it holds within it, as it were in solution, the result of countless observations and analyses, and is thus sup- ported by all kinds of lore — historical, scientific, psycho- logical — constituting a richness of concrete detail that has been harmonized and blended into the form of immediate familiarity. The depth and significance of the immediacy are proportional to the attention and insight that have gone into processes that have led up to it. Such understand- ing does not come by nature, or through mere unreflective contact, but is the product of accurate observations and of well-disciplined and sympathetic imagination. It is no blind oracle pronouncing ambiguous conclusions, but has its witness within it and is able to supply the context that ren- ders its judgments intelligible. It may accordingly be said that this type of knowledge is philosophical in the degree in which it attains systematic completeness of view in con- crete form. It comprehends individuals of different orders in the form of a significant and concrete unity by supplying the context that gives to them the form of a self-subsisting whole. Objection may, however, be raised against accepting this familiar type of knowledge as an illustration of the true form of philosophical intelligibility on the ground that the latter must rest upon rigorously demonstrated propositions 252 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY that command universal consent. Universality and neces- sity, we have been often told, is the true form of philosophy. There is a truth in that statement, but the philosophical form of imiversality and necessity is not that which belongs to abstract propositions. Science is a system of abstract propositions, but the demand for this type of demonstration in philosophy rests upon a confusion of ideas. Rigorous logical proof of the type demanded by science is always pur- chased at the cost of abstraction, as is most clearly illus- trated in the case of mathematics ; the more complete the abstraction from reality the more compelling is the nature of the formal demonstration. Just because philosophy is occupied with the relations of concrete individuals and sys- tems of individuals, the logic of general propositions cannot be its final test or form of truth. The difficulty is still likely to be urged, however, that what is not expressible in propositions that can be for- mally demonstrated is but subjective opinion, and can never furnish a common basis for life or society. This would be a serious objection if it were true. But it rests, I think, upon a misunderstanding of the nature of knowledge as a process of systematic concretion, a movement from the abstract to the concrete. In the first place, demonstration of the type described by formal logic has its place and function only within this total process. It always presup- poses an objective world of fact upon which the common intelligence of individuals rests. The abstract method can operate only in so far as it is supported by a concrete basis of organized fact. One could infer nothing in a world of mere assumptions. And secondly, in actual reasoning there is always the further question after the formal correctness of a conclusion has been accepted— the question, namely, as to what application it has, i. e., how it enters concretely into the world of reality and modifies or further defines our FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 253 knowledge of the nature of the individual systems that compose it. The common experience which forms the basis of a com- mon social life is, even on its intellectual side, wrongly conceived as of the inflexible type suggested by the literal identity of identically formulated propositions. It is com- paratively easy to agree upon a common formula; but no matter how carefully the words have been defined in the abstract, the attempt to apply the formula is sure to reveal differences of personal opinion. Such formulas have an important function as instruments in attaining a common understanding, and they serve too as a nucleus about which common feelings grow up. But neither practical life nor philosophy can rest in such abstract forms of agreement. The conditions of a common fife demand differences no less than identity. Without such differences there would be no knowledge, nothing but the dead level of opinion that is without life or movement. If this is true, the objectivity of philosophy is not something guaranteeing a common platform of truth that is once for all defined and demon- strated. It is rather the concrete basis of an understanding developed through the give and take of a common life. If the logic of philosophy is of the character that I have endeavored to sketch, it is evident that the oft-repeated criticism that it obscures differences and issues in a block universe is based upon a failure to distinguish clearly be- tween its goal and that of the sciences. It is the logic of science that has an eye only for imiformities, while that of philosophy seeks out and maintains differences. The latter, however, does not rest in discrete or isolated points of view; for the principle of individuality when rightly understood leads on to a system of individualities. The individual, that is, just because it is not a mere particular but possesses character or significance, is a member of a 254 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY 255 ^ world or system of individuals. Everjrthing however de- pends upon rightly apprehending the nature of the universal that at once unifies and individualizes its members. That is, neither aspect ol *he individual reality must be taken apart from the other. If we say that the individual is the synthesis of the particular and the imiversal, we must remember that these aspects have no meaning apart from each other, they are not elements existing separately out of which we have to compound the individual whole. The universal is not something to be pictured existentially, either as a connecting link, or a common element in different individuals. Philosophy is indeed speculation or seeing, but its light must not be confused with repre-nentMion in the form of imagery. As reason^ i. e., the integral mind in its totality and completest effort after tlic real tljiDg, it has the form of universality and freedoocL That ifl, it is not bound down and controlled, m in the ordinary routine of practical life, by the first form of particularity aod hard isolation, but sees beyond these and compreheiidji their tnie reality and significance in tenn8 of itfi own system of concrete truth. The conclusion we have reached, tbcs, is that the |>)iilo- sophical form of intt^Uigibility t.*t that of a concrete universal which expresses the inwardness and eeMoee of in- dividuals through the Kru!

' that the mind shall undenttaiid the truth tliat ia contained in this abstract standpoint, but it has aUo to free itself from the domination of existential imngeiy in order to rise to free- dom and univcrMjHty. It b, however, important to note that fn?edom from imagery is not identical with witlidrawal from what is actual and concrete. The real world is the world of wgnificant individual wholes constituted by reflec- tive experience; not tliat of the superficial and conflig^g impftssiODS of practical life. 'v )'l CHAPTER XIV TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM.* For a decade or more Idealists have been so occupied in defending their position against attacks delivered by Prag- matists, Neo-Realists, and others that they have had little opportunity of examining in detail their own doctrine, or of attempting to settle their own family quarrels. Criticism of idealism from other schools has served to imite under a common flag philosophical thinkers who are by no means at one either in their presuppositions and method, or in the general character of their results. The grouping of 'mentalists* and panpsychists imder a common label with the exponents of speculative idealism, however explicable historically, has led to much confusion and fruitless con- troversy. Indeed, there is no better illustration at the present day of the hypnotic power of a label than that afforded by the inability of some recent critics, of idealism to distinguish in principle between the different forms of doctrine to which this name is applied. It seems to these critics impossible to disturb their fixed systems of classifi- cation.* Perhaps feeling that an incurable ambiguity at- ^ This article is based on a paper read before the Philosophical Club of Yale University. A number of changes have been made in the revision of the MS. Reprinted from The Philosophical Review^ Vol. XXVI, No. 5, pp. 514-536, Sept., 1917. *The diflSculty of getting beyond labels in the discussion of philo- sophical problems recalls once more Bacon's statement: "Men believe that their reason governs words ; but it is also true that words react on the understanding ; and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive." — Novum Organum, Bk. I, 60. 256 TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 257 taches to the word 'idealism/ Professor Bosanquet has repu- diated that name for himself and seems to suggest that the name should no longer be used to denote the specula- tive doctrine which derives from the great writers of the past, but that to describe this the term 'speculative phi- losophy' should be employed.^ This is a proposal that deserves careful consideration. Even if traditional idealism may not be willing to abandon altogether its historical name, it is none the less essential that it should separate itself sharply from what may be called the hybrid forms which claim alliance with it. And this separation should be thoroughgoing and final, not something perfunctory and formal which still makes possible and sanctions mutual borrowings and accommodations. Traditional idealism, if it is to maintain itself as genuinely 'speculative phi- losophy,' must discard and disclaim the subjective cate- gories assumed by the modern 'way of ideas' which is most frequently connected with the name of Berkeley. Idealists of this school ought not to allow their affection for 'the good Berkeley' to deter them from repudiating all alliance with his philosophical doctrines. Moreover, if this specula- tive idealism is to be defended and developed, it must rid itself of the ambiguities and restrictions that have resulted from its association with 'mentalism,' and that seem to make it a doctrine remote from the movements of science and the interests of practical life. By thus repudiating the unnatural alliance with the doctrine of 'mental states' speculative idealism will give evidence, not of weakness or vacillation, but of its vitality and steadfastness in main- taining the continuity of its historical position. At the * Philosophical Review, Vol. XXVII, p. 6. Cf. also ibid., p. 268, footnote. While I have of course no right to make Professor Bosan- quet responsible for the views here expressed, my obligations to his writings will be apparent in several passages where no specific reference is given. 258 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY same time it will strengthen its position by removing the chief grounds of misunderstanding and criticism from without. In order to prepare the way for the distinction which it is essential to make between the two types of philosophy which are confused under the name of idealism, we may ask what is the characteristic of thought that is 'speculative' as opposed to thinking that claims for itself the title of 'reahstic^ The endeavor of speculation, as Bergson has well remarked, is to see, i. e., to appreciate and understand; while that of realistic thinking is to construe, i. e,, to show how the thing is made. I think it is possible to show his- torically that the characteristic mark of idealism, as it is foimd in the great systems, is its direct acceptance of things as having value or significance. The mind refuses, as it were, to allow anything to intervene between it and its object, to set up any bare existence, or isolated entity, as the 'cause' or 'element' in terms of which its own direct experience of a significant world is to be explained. Or we may say that it refuses to abstract from value, that it holds fast to the unity of existence and significance. Its primary insight, which reflection has formulated as its principle, is that the reality known in experience is not something that merely 'is' or possesses bare existence, but that, as existing concretely, it forms part of a permanent system of relations and values.^ Historical idealism is thus opposed in principle to what we may call atomic realism. When the latter view is consistent with itself, it * That the standpoint of value is more concrete than that of existence is evident from the fact that it includes the latter as a necessary moment in itself. On the other hand, there is no road to significance if one begins with bare existences: no path from given entities, whether physical or mental, to a real world, to real knowledge, or to judgments of value of any kind. TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 259 is forced to the conclusion that all relations are external, and that all significance and meaning are secondary and derivative, imposed upon the universe by the subjective mind. For it is obvious that if the objective world is simply an aggregation of existences, in themselves devoid of meaning, the value and significance that is popularly ascribed to things when experienced really cannot belong to the things themselves, but must be taken as indicating the way in which they affect the mind through their influ- ence upon the bodily organism. In opposition, then, to types of thought which may be denominated 'realistic,' and which seek to exhibit the con- struction of the concrete world from certain hypothetical elements, speculative idealism may be said to be char- acterized by the conscious effort to understand things as they are: to see together things and their relations, reality in its concrete significance, without feeling the need of going behind this insight to explain, as it were, how reality ia made. On the other hand, the second type of thought to which the name 'idealism' is applied in common usage — what I have called 'mentalism,' and what might perhaps be de- nominated psychological or existential idealism — is essen- tially 'realistic' in character, judged by the distinctions already laid down. Its claim to the title 'idealism' comes from the fact that it asserts everything to be mental in character — of the content of mind, or of the substance of mind. But though idealistic in name, it fails to realize, wholly or in part, the speculative principle which distin- guishes genuine idealism. Instead of accepting the intui- tion of objective reality, and of seeking to penetrate into *. this through reflection, this type of thought proceeds dog- matically to transform experience into an order of existing ideas, to elaborate a theory of active substances and passive 260 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 261 ideas as the machinery through which it is to be under- stood. In this process of transformation, both the mind and its objects become modes of existence, and the rela- tion between them is conceived as external and mechanical. The external order of things as conceived by physical science is simply asserted to be a psychological order; but instead of thereby becoming 'ideaF these things remain 'dead, inert, and passive' as before ;— existences, not mean- ings in a concrete world of meanings. It is here, I think, that the clear line of separation is found between those calling themselves idealists: the ques- tion is whether it is necessary to 'validate' experience by constructing it in terms of particular existences. The psychological or existential idealist feels the necessity of doing this. Even when defending the basal categories of experience, such as 'significance' and 'the Ego,' he hesitates to take these speculatively in their universality, but turns? again to reduce them to a particular form of psychical existence, assuming that they can be validated and made secure only when they are based upon some psychological 'feeling of value' or 'feeling of the Ego.' It is indeed necessary to avoid abstractions and not follow categories which do not exhibit their concrete operation and vitality in experience; but it is to the form and content of experi- ence as a whole we must look for the justification of our categories. To assume that to be real the ideal category must be 'given,' or that there must be 'given' some par- ticular feeling or impression 'corresponding to it' (as Kant sometimes maintained) is of course to stick in the category of existence, and consequently to render it impossible to comprehend experience at all as a system of developing meanings. I have purposely refrained from attempting to illustrate the limitations of existential categories by reference to the views of any contemporary idealistic writers. It seems safer to choose illustrations from historical doctrines than from the utterances of philosophers of the present day. The example of psychological idealism or 'mentalism' that comes most readily to mind is the system of Berkeley. In spite of occasional passages which may seem capable of a different interpretation, there can be no doubt that, in the earlier form of his philosophy at least, Berkeley re- gards experience as a collection of ideas, and each idea as a particular mode of existence, being nothing else than that which at the moment it is perceived to be. Again, he is no less insistent than Hume that ideas are in their very nature distinct and separate from one another, that there are no necessary relations between them, but that the system of relations in virtue of which certain ideas become signs of other ideas is arbitrary and learned through experience, though the connection between them in what we call the order of nature is divinely established and independent of the will of any finite being. It is clear that Berkeley's thinking takes place on the plane of existence, and in terms of existing entities and their relations. In other words, the outer order of things has simply been carried over into the mind, and represented there in terms of sensations, which are themselves regarded as particular modes of exist- ence. There is, then, in all this no real approach to genu- ine idealism. To transfer things into the mind, to call them inner rather than outer, does not supply philosophy with a new principle. For the most part Berkeley, and those who have followed him, have contxnued to operate with the old realistic categories, and to conceive of the mind and the nature of experience in terms as mechanical as those employed by materialists. When we come to Kant the case is not so clear. On the one hand, Kant appears to be explaining how experience 262 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 263 is made; how beginning with the disconnected particulars of inner representations, the mind reaches a standpoint of universal objective truth by uniting, through its own syn- thetic principles, the existing psychical data furnished by sensation. But with all his pains in this undertaking he is unable to reach real universality, or genuine objectivity. The inner representations are joined together in an order which is said to possess strict universality and necessity, but yet they do not cease to be regarded as maintaining the character of existing mental images, not themselves really transformed into imiversals, though caught as it were in the web of universal categories. Moreover, this experi- ence, which is described as constructed through transcen- dental machinery, never attains to objectivity in the full sense. It remains to the end a system of Vorstellungen, with a certificate of universal validity according to the necessary laws of the understanding indeed, but yet with the disconcerting limitation stamped upon this certificate that experience is only valid of phenomena, and must always be contrasted with the unattainable ideal of a knowl- edge of things-in-themselves. But, on the other hand, as has often been pointed out, there is another side to Kant's philosophy which approaches the problem of experience from a different point of view and at least suggests how the difficulties and limitations which I have mentioned may be overcome. This interpretation of Kant is worked out with great detail by Edward Caird in his epoch-making work on the Critical Philosophy. The question of the historical justification for Caird*s interpre- tation is not one which it is now possible to discuss. What- ever conclusion be maintained on this point, however, it remains true that the philosophy of Kant is still very generally identified with the task of bringing order and coherence into a series of unrelated sensations. Accord- ingly, many of those idealists whose teacher has been Kant, as well as those whose doctrine has been derived in the first place from Berkeley, continue to think of experience in terms of states of consciousness, or mental existences, and thus fail to arrive at a genuinely speculative view of knowledge and of reality. For those who approach the problems of philosophy from this point of view, Idealism is committed to the doctrine that material objects, at least so far as they can be known in experience, are real only as existent states of conscious- ness. The outer order is not accepted frankly for what it is, but is construed as the development or synthesis of some more primary inner order of facts, sensations, or internal purposes. In order to be known, the objective order must be reduced to conscious states: 'What do we ever know but our ideas?' The assumption in this form of pro- cedure appears to be that it is necessary, in order to make experience intelligible, to reduce objects to terms of mind, to interpret minds and material things as literally identical modes of existences. Now as it is obviously impossible to reduce material things to states of consciousness in an individual mind, it is common for adherents of this view to suppose that the difficulty may be met by postulating an Absolute mind as the vast receptacle, as it were, in which things exist in the form of ideas. But it is surely clear that so long as the existential categories are not transcended, so long as the Absolute mind is still conceived as a magnified or extended psychological consciousness, the whole assumption is not only arbitrary, but remains useless as a guarantee of significance and objectivity. On the one hand, things are not rendered a whit more 'ideal' by thinking of them as states of consciousness of an Absolute mind. Moreover, 60 long as this Absolute mind is conceived after the analogy 264 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY of an existing psychological consciousness, as a series or even a totum simul of states of mind, it has no principle of connection with objective experience. Absolute idealism of this type is just as much subjective as the view which reduces things to states in the consciousness of a finite individual, and is open to all the objections which are brought against the latter theory. To assert that things exist as elements in an Absolute experience is then in itself only an appeal to a mechanical device which explains nothing, and is in addition unmeaning and arbitrary. The fundamental postulate of this form of idealism, as we have already seen, is that the object must he reduced to terms of the mind. The mind can know only that which is itself, or is within itself. As it is sometimes expressed, reality must either be itself made up of minds, or exist as a state of some mind. The former view, that reality is at bottom a collection or system of psychical beings, is main- tained by many writers as a means of uniting Idealism with Pluralism. To merge reality in an Absolute mind seems to them to lead to insuperable difficulties, and these they usually regard as one of the necessary results of all forms of Monism. These difficulties they try to escape by main- taining some form of the panpsychic doctrine, that reality is composed of a plurality of minds. But if these 'minds' are still conceived as bare 'existences,' the difficulty reap- pears of how isolated particulars are to be given any content, or to be combined into a system or order of reality. I am not here attempting to refute panpsychism, or arguing against all forms of Pluralism ; but I merely wish to point out that Pluralism may, and I think often does limit itself to what I have called the existential view of Idealism, pro- ceeding, like the existential idealists, who support them- selves upon the Absolute mind, on the assumption that all reality must be reduced to a single form or mode of existence. TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 265 It would obviously be impossible to maintain that the idealism which has been presented by contemporary writers has in all cases failed to transcend the category of existence. Of a considerable number of the best-known representatives of this doctrine such a statement would be obviously false. But it is at least true that its critics have as a rule failed to understand it in any other sense; and I think that a good many idealists have given some ground for the misunder- standing by failing to take and maintain from the beginning a standpoint that is objective and genuinely speculative. To attempt to justify this statement by referring to particular authors and citing quotations would probably lead to dis- agreements in interpretation, and besides take more time than I have at my disposal. It is better to pass on and attempt to indicate the standpoint and method of objective or speculative idealism, which I think both the history of philosophy and the authority of contemporary writers justify us in regarding as the more adequate and complete form of this doctrine. The standpoint of this mode of philosophizing is that of experience, as this has been developed and defined by the reflection of the past. It does not claim to have made any new discovery. It does not occupy itself with bewailing or exposing the errors or shortcomings of the classical repre- sentatives of philosophy, but does devote much careful study to an attempt to understand them. By reflecting upon the past in the light of the thought of the present day, and of the problems of the present day in the light of the intel- lectual achievements of the past, it tries to gain insight as to what problems are genuine and how these can best be formulated. It thus is enabled to develop a basis for criticism and to continue the tradition of the older philo- 4^ ^ 266 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY sophical systems, even while discarding and modifying the older categories and statement of problems. This historical speculative idealism, as occupying the standpoint of experience, has never separated the mind from the external order of nature. It knows no egocentric pre- dicament, because it recognizes no ego 'alone with its states,' standing apart frcm the order of nature and from a society of other minds. Ht thus dismisses as unmeaning those problems which are sometimes called *epistemological,* as to how the mind as such can know reality as such. Without any epistemological grace before meat it falls to work to philosophize, assuming, naively, if you please, that the mind by its very nature is already in touch with reality. Instead, that is, of assmning that there is an entity called mind, and another entity having no organic relation to mind called nature, it assumes on the basis of experience that these realities are not sundered and opposed, but are in very being and essence related and complementary. The rela- tion or rather system of relations that constitute the bond between what we call mind and that which is termed nature it takes not as external and accidental, as if each of these could be real outside of this system, but rather as internal, essential and constitutive. We can think of a mind apart from an objective order only through an abstraction: to be a mind at all it is necessary to be in active commerce with a world which is more than an order of ideas. If it is said that this is mere assumption, and not proof, I reply that this is the universal assumption upon which all experi- ence and all science proceeds. It needs no proof because it is the standpoint of experience itself. That it is the natiu-e of the mind to know, is a proposition that it is impos- sible seriously to call in question. But even if this is granted, it may still be urged that there is no ground for maintaining that the involvement of the two terms is recip- TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 267 rocal, that the relation to mind is in any way constitutive of xuature. The process of knowing, say the neo-realists, does not in any way alter the nature of the object. The dbject is what it is quite apart from any relation to the mind which knows it. Indeed, must we not suppose that the conscious mind itself, with its function of knowing, appeared for the first time in the process of evolution when certain material conditions were fulfilled? And if this is true, should not mind be regarded as a mere result of natural processes, not as a necessary complement to these processes, or as something which they presuppose? These questions involve issues that are so ultimate and far-reaching that I would gladly avoid discussion of them, if I could, in this preliminary sketch. I think that at this stage it is better not to go beyond what may be called the minimum or immediate implications of experience. THfe^ external order that we call nature is something that is at least knowable by mind. That seems to be the very least that experience can assume and still remain experience. The only alternative assumption is that of *things-in-them- selves' which have only an external relation to each other and to mind. But this throws us back from experience to the effort to show in abstract terms how experience is made. It seems, then, permissible to say that 'knowability' is a genuine characteristic of things, not an accident external to them. If it is the nature of the mind to know, it is also the nature of things to be known, and we accordingly seem entitled to assert that the order that we call nature is not fully complete apart from this relation. Nature, as Kant says, must consist of possible objects of experience. This does not imply that such objects must exist as representa- tions within the mind. I have already given reasons for refusing to accept this statement. It does imply, however, that the relation to mind is a constituent moment of things, 268 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY not something added on from the outside. Moreover, when we speak of the appearance of mind from the standpoint of cosmic evolution we do not think of the process as com- plete, even in its physical aspect, until consciousness^ has appeared, until the relation to mind which was implicit in it from the first has become explicit. There are undoubtedly other considerations which might be urged as evidence of the essential involvement of nature with the life of mind. But it seems better to begin by taking this doctrine in the minimum sense in which one may hope it may find general assent. Its further implica- tions and more complete formulation will appear in a more concrete and convincing form in the movement of philoso- phizing, which is occupied at once with the determination of the real and the criticism of the categories of knowledge, as parts of the same undertaking. The principle of an Absolute experience cannot be accepted at the outset on the authority of formal arguments, and indeed when introduced in this way it is nothing more than an empty name. If it is to have meaning it must grow out of the critical process of experience and be justified by this ; it must emerge as the result which has been defined and rendered concrete by the whole process of thought of which it is the necessary out- come; it must show itself capable of including and doing full justice to the standpoints of the other categories, as well as of supplymg the demands for fuller intelligibility which they fail to meet. I am inclined to think that the criticism that idealists tend to evade the real problems of experience by bringing in a kind of ready-made notion of an Absolute mind is not always without justification. This category of Absolute mind has meaning and content only when it is exhibited as growing out of the reflective process of experience; it is justified only when it is shown to be a necessary standpoint^ order to enable reason to over- TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 269 come actual difficulties that ^present themselves Within human experience itself. Whether such a conception in the end is indispensable as the goal of speculative philosophy is a question which cannot be answered by any a prwri method. It is only indispensable if it concretely proves itself indispensable in the process of dealing with genuine problems of experience. Moreover — and this must never be forgotten — if this conception of an Absolute mind is to be anything more than an abstraction, it must come, not to destroy, but to fulfill the program and promises of the categories of ordinary experience. It must be capable of justifying and completing, while at the same time trans- forming by illuminating, the standpoint of common sense and of the special sciences. Such a conception accordingly cannot be the starting-point or presupposition of specula- tive idealism. This philosophy knows no royal road to insight, but follows the beaten path of experience. More- over, speculative philosophy is not distinguished from com- mon sense and science in its starting-point: it begins where they begin without any doubts regarding the reality of the world, or any presupposition that it is necessary to stand on one's head and see things in an inverted position in order to see them truly. It is distinguished from these other attitudes towards experience only as emphasizing and mak- ing more explicit the common effort of all experience to see things steadily and to see them whole. Speculation is not an effort to get beyond experience: its object is to see, to comprehend reality through the process of experience. I have emphasized this continuity and connection of philosophy with the other forms of the intellectual life be- cause I think thay what has been the popular mode of ap- proach, that of beginning with 'inner experience' and then raising the question as to how objectivity is to be secured, has tended to give the impression that philosophy is diet- 270 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY parate in purpose and essence from other fonns of inquiry. And from this belief the conclusion that it is not a concern of the ordinary man is a short and easy step. The result has been to isolate philosophy from the ordmary life of reflection; to make of it something recondite and scholastic. Now I will return and attempt to complete the descrip- tion of the standpoint and procedure of speculative idealism. I have already pointed out that this philosophy begins by viewing the mind and the objective system of nature as complementary and hence inseparably related aspects of the conscious life which is experience. I should like now to add that a relation which is equally obvious, and which also must be accepted as complementary, is that of the individual mind to the minds of other individuals, what we may speak of as a complementary social relation. There are thus three moments or coordinates whose complemen- tary relationship it^is the nature of experience to define. Experience is at once an explication or revelation of reality, a comprehension of the mind of one's fellows, and a coming to consciousness on the part of the mind of the nature of its own intelligence. Philosophy, insisting on seeing things as they really are, must proceed with this system of rela- tionships in view. The initial reflection necessarily leaves these relationships largely undefined; it is, however, suf- ficient to prevent us from falling into the error of attempt- ing to define reciprocally acting centers as static and isolated realities. . There is also a further implication of this standpoint which it is important to make explicit at the outset. When once this standpoint is adopted, it is no longer possible to view experience as made up of existences or entities, each with its own independent self-enclosed center. The objec- tive system of experience which all knowledge postulates is, as we have seen, at once my experience, the experience TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 271 of my fellow men, and the nature of reality. Of course it is not maintained that the experience of any moment is adequate to express the nature of reality or the full mean- ing of my neighbor's mind. But the experience of any moment is not complete as my experience: it is not adequate to express my full meaning. In so far as it has any value at all, in so far, that is, as it is a genuinely objective experi- ence, it is true for my neighbor as well as for myself, and also holds true in some sense as a description, or an illustra- tion, of the nature of reality. In principle, then, experience is thus universal and inclusive. And by this expression I wish to imply two things: first, that it is the character of knowledge to claim to exhibit this imiversality and inclu- siveness; and, secondly, that it is essentially a process of criticism, having the power to discover its own shortcomings and to proceed step by step to remedy them. Now it is at once obvious that such a description of knowledge and such professions on its part, are, so long as our thought is tied down to the category of existence, not possible. You know something of the insoluble episte- mological problems that arise as a consequence of this limitation. Is the idea, it is asked, numerically one with the object which it knows, or are they two things? Or do two persons looking at the sun have one and the same idea? How can things which are distinguishable be identical, or the many be a one? It is clear that these questions admit of no satisfactory answer on the assumption that experience and reality are nothing but a compound of bare existences. To take even the first step towards comprehending reality in its concreteness we must realize that what we call facts are values as well, embodiments of imiversal relations. Both to common sense and to philosophy reality reveals 'itself as transcending the paiticularity and mutual exclu- siveness of mere existences. Philosophy is here endeavor- 272 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY ing only to gain recognition and explicit statement for what is constantly assumed in every-day experience. ^It is as belonging to a system, or perhaps an indefinite number of systems, that things are known as existing in our ordinary ways of deahng with them; in their concreteness they always appear as members of some order, as meanings or signi- ficances which are not confined to an isolated 'here' and 'now,' as they would be if they were taken as bare exis- tences. Even in the special sciences, the point of view of value is never eliminated. The special sciences do, indeed, succeed in eliminating the subjective and contradictory systems of value in which uncritical experience construes things, and set up as a common measure some objective system, like the system of energy, or the system of life, in terms of which the particular facts are read and evaluated. It is not unusual to assume that in thus casting out the idols of subjectivity the special sciences attain to a realm of pure facts that are not values, to existences which are uncontaminated by any relation to a category or hypothesis of intelligence. It is fortunately not necessary on this occa- sion to argue against such a position. There is still in these special sciences an appeal to an order or system, and it is with reference to this system that the facts are chosen and evaluated ; but it is to the order of the universe, or, what is the same thing, the order of intelligence, rather than to an arbitrary system established by the mind of any individual. The various orders of the special sciences — for what we call science by no means constitutes a single order — are accordingly systems of value whose form and character are largely determined by certain assumptions regarding the nature of reality. So long as we proceed on the hypoth- esis that it is the nature of intelligence to know, to reveal the nature of reality (and this all forms of experience must assume), it is surely contradictory to separate existence TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 273 from value, the particular from a system of laws and prin- ciples based upon some more general assumption or cate- gory. Tlie whole nest of illusions against which I am per- haps arguing at unnecessary length, appears to arise from a desire to grasp reality as it would be if there were not such a principle as intelligence. And does this not again involve the assumption that the nature of reality is to be discovered by looking back to the beginning before it was contaminated by the mind, rather than on ahead to discover what experience can reveal it to be? All attempts to dis- cover an original datum out of Which experience is made, whether in the form of a priori rational principles or of the 'immediate facts' of the most radical empiricism, are essen- tially identical in logical method. The assumption which they share in common is that the problem of philosophy is to explain experience by showing how it is made, rather than to comprehend its function and development. In adopting this procedure, then, Neo-Realism ranges itself logically with the old metaphysics, limiting itself like the latter to an analytic dealing with the formal aspects of experience. But in the interest of fair play I feel obliged to point out that the same logic leads existential or 'mental' ideal- ism to what is in principle an identical conclusion. For if we say that the understanding makes nature, and that the pure forms and categories of the mind must be determined apart from any matter of experience, we\are simply taking intelligence, or mind, as an absolute prius, as the realist takes his given entities. In both cases alike the appeal is to something a prioriy something that can be taken in itself as existing independently of what it is revealed to be in the process of experience. As opposed to the views just described, what I have called speculative idealism finds its ideal of truth and real- 274 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY ity in the nature of experience itself. It appeals to no entities, and to no a priori system of logical forms. This experience, as we have seen, presents itself as an individu- alized system composed in some way of other less inclusive individualized systems, and these it finds grouped about the three reciprocally determining coordinates, of self, other selves, and nature. For further determination of these con- stitutive moments and their relation it has nowhere to look except to the critical process of experience itself. Its logic and ideal of truth must be that of the concrete universal; so much is determined by the very form of experience. But the nature of intelligence and the nature of the world must be communicated to the mind gradually through the conscious and critical exchange with its social and physical environment. We have always to look on ahead for the truth about the mind and reality, rather than to assume that these are existing data from which experience set out. James somewhere remarked that things are Vhat they are experienced as\ This statement is delightfully ambiguous, but if I am not mistaken, it was intended to sfuggest that the nature of reality reveals itself once for all without reflection to a ^genial experience of the first look.' Against this, I am of course maintaining that the faith of specula- tive philosophy is that the mind and things are what they show themselves to be in the whole course of experiencey and that they are not once for all 'given' at the first moment or at any particular moment. But now one must ask. What is the place and function of speculative philosophy in regard to this course of experi- ence? What is the ideal of philosophical experience? The answer must surely be, to see things as they are. How is that possible? Well, our postulate is that it is the pature of the mind to know. But that postulate seems to be ren- dered nugatory by the fact that finite intelligence must TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 275 always approach experience from some particular point of view, with some special purpose of investigation which, just because it is special, is inadequate to comprehend the truth of the whole. There is no conceivable problem of reality as a whole. Professor Dewey is never tired of telling us; all problems are specific and defined by a special purpose. Now it seems to me that this is never quite true of any form of intellectual inquiry: there is always in any genuine human inquiry, I venture to think, at least an implicit reference to a more comprehensive problem than that upon which attention at any moment is immediately directed. But it is the differentia of philosophy that from its stand- point this larger reference is always consciously explicit. What constitutes any inquiry philosophical is the fact that the specific inquiry is recognized as part of a more com- prehensive problem. Thinking is viewed as a continuous and progressive function which goes on steadily with the work of experience, not as a task of solving a series of dis- connected problems. The postulate that it is the nature of the mind to know, signifies that the mind can go on knowing, can progressively overcome its onesidedness, can penetrate through the continuity of experience more and more deeply into the nature of reality. It is not the exis- tential mind of any one moment to which this postulate is applied; but the mind as the continuous principle of criticism, the mind as the free and comprehensive principle of intelligence. I have said that mind is always in contact with reality: that all its forms of experiencing must be regarded as pos- sessing some truth, however partial and inadequate this may be. At ordinary levels of experience it is only as it were the surface of mind that is thus involved: the results are frag- mentary, incomplete, and contradictory. But the freedom and comprehensive character of the mind manifests itself 276 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY as the principle of criticism, which exhibits and removes the limitations and defects of the earlier experience by the dis- covery of a deeper and more comprehensive principle of intelligibility. It is in virtue of this capacity of going on continuously to correct and complete any given experience that it can be said that the mind is able to know. Now it seems to me that it is just this free and imlimited spirit of critical inquiry that constitutes the ideal of philosophical experience. Some breath of this spirit there must of course be wherever there is mental life, intellectual curiosity. Phi- losophy does not introduce a new principle: it is just the development and most complete expression of the nature of mind. Nor is it true that professional students of philosophy necessarily possess and exemplify this spirit or that it is lacking in ordinary men or in scientific in- quirers. It is necessary to remember that an individual is always more and also something less than his profession. But, apart from individuals, it is true that philosophy is the freest and most systematically comprehensive expres- sion of this principle of criticism. Science, as distinguished from philosophy, is also critical ; but its criticism is limited to what we may call matters of detail; as bare science or unphilosophical science it does not criticise its own prin- ciples and assumptions but accepts them as given, as deter- mining the scope of its problems. It is thus not an entirely free inquiry, being conditioned by the limitations of the assumptions which it accepts as its starting-point. To philosophy, on the other hand, is committed the function of making explicit the underlying assumptions and purposes of the various stages of experience, and of raising questions as to the possibility of obtaining a more direct or more adequate mode of approach to the nature of reality. Phi- losophy is thus absolutely free inquiry, without presupposi- tions in the sense that it is able te criticise and transcend TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 277 any category that falls short of the complete range and scope of the whole mind and the whole of reality. There is only one thing that it is unable seriously to question: its own capacity to advance beyond any given limit; only one category that lies beyond criticism, and that is the cate- gory of intelligence. Within these limits, which are the limits of intelligibility itself, there is nothing which is not subject to criticism and revision, no predetermined structure of reality, and no table of the a priori forms of the mind. Philosophy is accordingly just intelligence com- ing to full consciousness of itself, turning back upon itself and becoming critically aware of its working principles; looking forward and taking a more comprehensive view of its own purposes, trying all things, proving all things, and holding fast te that which critical experience reveals in regard to the nature of the world and of intelligence. Speculative idealism may then be described as occupied either with the criticism of the categories of experience, or with the determination of the nature of reality. For these undertakings, though distinguishable, are part and parcel of the same task, and must be carried on together. Since the categories are principles of objective mind, mind in actual commerce with reality, they can be discovered and defined only through their actual employment in the con- crete process of knowing. And on the other hand, since reality is in its very nature knowable in terms of mind, that is, in terms of some universal principles, determination of the real necessarily involves the question of the categories and of their systematic relationships. There is accordingly, I think, no justification for the separation of problems of knowledge from problems of reality, although interest in any one discussion may center around one or the other phase of the common inquiry. 278 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY I have been maintaining throughout this paper that specu- lative idealism must interpret the mind and reality in terms of the concrete universal. For the individual alone is real. Now in maintaining this concrete position, there are two abstract views to be reckoned with which are sharply opposed to each other: the one maintaining that only the particular existence is real, and the other finding reality in the universal. Both are based on the same principle of abstraction, viz., on the separation of existence from meaning. But, as I have already suggested, in no actual form of experience is this separation ever complete. Ter- ceptions without thoughts are blind, and thoughts with- out perception empty.' Nevertheless, two facts should be recognized. First, that the development of experience is in the direction of a constantly greater degree of con- creteness or individuation; and secondly, in this process of concretion, deliberate abstraction (which from the very nature of experience can never be complete or final) is a necessary means to the goal. For example, the abstract existential point of view adopted by the natural sciences is not only necessary and justified for the special purposes of these inquiries, but is also indispensable for the more comprehensive task of philosophy. Without the analyses and results which are derived from this point of view, it would be impossible for philosophy to attain to any con- creteness of view, either in regard to the parts or the whole of experience. Of course, the results thus obtained by the sciences cannot be taken over by philosophy at their face value, so to speak. They have to be interpreted and trans- lated into terms of more general significance, through restoring the abstractions that have been made. The same point receives illustration from the use which is made of abstract terms in logical definitions and descrip- tions. The theory that thinking is a process of abstraction TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 279 is a necessary counterpart of the existential point of view. And, like that point of view, it has a relative justification. Thinking involves some degree of abstraction; but the ab- straction is a means, not the end. Concepts are, if you please, methodological instruments, but they are always fashioned in the interests of the concrete purpose of knowl- edge. Their function cannot be adequately imderstood unless one keeps in mind the purpose of the knowledge process as a whole, which is of course to reveal the nature of individuals. It is, I think, because this final purpose of experience has not been kept in mind that it has been possible for the doctrine to maintain itself that thinking necessarily moves in the realm of abstractions. But no one would seriously maintain that abstract classifications and labels represent the final goal of thinking, the ultimate achievement of intelligence. If it is the nature of the mind to know, the process of reflective experience, taken as a whole, must be a process of concretion in which abstrac- tion is a mere movement and instrument. To render this sketch even approximately complete, an account should be given of the way in which the relations between the three dynamic coordinates of experience are to be conceived. These are, as we have said, the self, other selves and nature. I have on another occasion described the process of intelligence in terms of a social dialectic,^ and can only state here that I regard the process of think- ing as necessarily involving social relations among a group of individuals. Regarding the question of the relation of the mind to natiu^, however, I should like to add a few words. In the first place, speculative idealism has, I think, to accept nature in very much the sense in which it is pre- sented to us by the assumptions of common sense and the * "The Social Nature of Thinking," Alumni BuUetin, University of Virginia, April, 1916. [See above. Chapter III.— Ed.] i 280 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY objective sciences as a physical order. I fail to find any lo^cal compulsion, in the supposed interest of monism to reduce matter to terms of mind, or to interpret it with panpsychism as at bottom composed of mind stuff, or psychical entities. All that monism can legitimately de- mand is that there shall be a univr.rse; it cannot on a priori grounds require that this universe shall be all of one piece or stuff. The conception of nature and mind as comple- mentary m character satisfies, it appears to me, all the legitimate demands of monism. Moreover, I think that there are positive reasons for maintaining the contrast between the material order of nature and the conscious order of mmd.' I cannot help feeling that the view of nature as a uniform and permanent system of natural laws 18 a necessary element in a rational experience. The con- trast (and m a certain sense the opposition to subjectivity which we are conscious of when facing natural objects and forces) IS an unportant influence and element in a sane and normal life. I am unable to conceive how there could be a rational life without an apprehension of an objective order, umnoved by our clamor, indifferent to our moods, with which we can hold commerce only on nature's own terms^ Water does not run up hill; one cannot by taking thought add a cubit to one's stature. We have in a very important sense to accept the world' as we find it Now such a steady dependable world, so far from being an irrita- tion or a balking of reason, appears to me to furnish the and nature, on which as it would seem, their insepaSS dlnrnds TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 281 only possible basis for rationality. It is sometimes said, and truly, I think, that one cannot either become or remain a rational being, really sane and intelligent, without an interchange of ideals with one's fellows. But, in addition to this social supplementation, I feel also that rationality requires for its support and steadying, just the element that nature, in its opposition to subjectivity, supplies. This consciousness of the need of supplementation from nature as a system of objects finds expression in the emotional life as well, though I am inclined to think that what has been called the 'cosmic emotion' has an intellectual root. At any rate, the emotional experience of mental refreshment and renewal from the contemplation of natural objects and natural laws is a common one, and may help at least to illustrate what I have in mind. We could not have a ra- tional experience in a universe consisting solely of a com- munity of freely acting psychic beings. We need also a material system of things, an order to which we have to submit our intelligence and our will, an order that we are unable to bully or cajole, but which we can learn to con- trol only by understanding and obedience. One other consideration: this conception of nature as a fixed system of uniform laws has been one of the great achievements of civilization. It has been the work of centuries of thought. To maintain it requires ceaseless vigilance against the forces of irrationalism and supersti- tion. The tendency towards barbarism manifesto itself not only in such attempts to break down moral law and the moral order as are illustrated by the Teutonic nations at the present day, but also in a whole group of contemporary theories which are only thinly disguised attempts to strip nature of her order and rationality in order to revert to some primitive superstition akin to witchcraft and ani- mism. We may say ''securus judical orbit terrarum/' but it 282 STUDIES IN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY TWO TYPES OF IDEALISM 283 is also true that this order is something to be maintained by our militant efforts. I have spoken of the recognition of a physical order com- plementary to mind, and yet standing opposed to sub- jectivity, as an indispensable basis for the life of reason. Neverthelessr, this to some minds seems to impose upon knowledge an impassable limitation, to be a barrier that meets intelligence as a check, which from its very nature shuts it off from reality. The consequence of such a sepa- ration between knowledge and its object, or at least between the rational form of knowledge and its object, is shown in the doctrine that reality is known, if at all, only in some form of feeling, or intuition that transcends the conditions of philosophical experience. To accept such a conclusion would, of course, be inconsistent with the whole theory of experience which I have been attempting to outline. I have introduced this question here because I think it serves as another illustration of how the limitations of what I have called the existential point of view continue to persist in systems of idealism. Here as before the assiunption appears to be that knowledge is a literal reduction of the object to terms of itself; that to know the object it is necessary that I should be the object, or that the object should be identical, in terms of existential stuff, with the knowing mind.^ A rational view of experience is committed to the doctrine of identity in difference. There must indeed be identity be- tween my meanings and the nature of things; but so long as the object remains as something to be known there must also be distinction and difference. There seems to me no mystery about this imless we arbitrarily insist on making one; reality is siirely the only standard of comprehensi- ^ It is, I think, upon such assumptions as these that Mr. Bradley's dissatisfaction with the results of logic finally rest. Of, Appeoranot and Realittf, pp. 544 if. bility. Ifl not the demand, then, that the knowing experi- ence shall be transcended a consequence of the limitations of thought that continues to employ the abstract categories of existence? |i i « M i' II A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE LITERARY ACTIVITIES OF PROFESSOR J. E. CREIGHTON. I. Books and Translations. An Introductory Logic. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1898. 8°. — pp. XIV, 392. Fourth revised and enlarged edition, 1922.— pp. XVI, 502. Translator — Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology, By W. Wundt; translated from the second Gennan edition, in collabo- ration with E. B. Titchener. London, 1894. 8°. — pp. x, 454. Second revised edition, 1896. Translator — Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine. By F. Paul- sen; translated from the revised German edition, in collabo- ration with Albert Lefevre. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902. 8°.— pp. xix, 419. n. Editorul Work. I. The Philosophical Review. Co-editor, with Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, 1893-1896 (vols. II-V). with Dr. Schurman, and Professor James Seth, of Comdl University, 1897-1898 (vols. VI-VII). with Dr. Schurman, with the co-operation of Professor Seth, of the University of Edinburgh, 1899-1902 (vols, vni-xi). with Professor Ernest Albee, of Cornell University, with the co-operation of Professor Seth, 1903-1908 (vols. XII-XVU). Sole editor, with the co-operation of Professor Seth, 1909-1923 (vols. XVIII-XXXII). Sole editor, 1924 (vol. XXXni). 286 286 BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 m 2. Kant'Studien. American editor of Kant-Studien from 1896-1924. In this capacity Professor Creighton contributed the following articles to this journal: "The Philosophy of Kant m America." Vol. U, Oct., 1897, p. 237. -rw. "American Current Literature on Kant." Vol. Ill, Oct., 1898, p. 148.-y«j ^ "Kantian Literature in America since 1898." Vol. VII, 1902, p. 409. ^ IV XXIIL "Reasoning and Inference." XXin. "Romanticism." XXIV. "Arthur Schopenhauer." XXV. "Spinoza." XXV. "Stoicism." XXVI. "Teleology." XXVII. "Utilitarianism." XXIX. "Will." In the 1924 Annual— "Philosophy." 2. Articles in Hasting's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Volume. Article. I. "Abstraction." lU. Enctclopedia Articijdb. 1. Articles in the Encyclopedia Americana. Volume. Article. ill il^ II. m. V. V. V. vn. vm. vm. IX. IX. IX. X. X. XIV. XVI. xvm. XXI. XXII. xxn. xxm. xxm. "Aristotle." "Bergsonism." "Joseph Butler." "Cambridge Platonists." "Cartesianism." "Concept." "Deduction." "Rene Descartes." "Determinism." "Dialectic." "Eclecticism." "Empiricism." "Epistemology." "Idealism." "Immanuel Kant." "Materialism." "History of Philosophy." "Pluralism." "Pragmatism." "Rationalism." "Realism." 'I IV. Articles. (Arranged in chronological order. Abbreviations as fol- lows:— PJl. for The Philosophical Review; JPh. for The Jour- nal of Philosophy; Psych. R. for The Psychological Review.) \f"Modern Psychology and Theories of Knowledge." P.R., III, 1894, 2, p. 196. "Professor Eraser's Account of 'Human Intelligence'." P.R., IV, 1895, 2, p. 167. "The Nature of the Intellectual Synthesis." P.R., V, 1896, 2, p. 135. "Is the Transcendental Ego an Unmeaning Conception?" PJt., VI, 1897, 2, p. 162. "Philosophy at the Scientific Associations." PM., VIII, 1899, 1, p. 109. X "Methodology and Truth." PJi., X, 1901, 1, p. 45. "The Purposes of a Philosophical Association." P.R., XI, 1902, 3, p. 219. \ "The Standpoint of Experience." PH., XH, 1903, 6, p. 593. "Dr. Perry's 'Reference to Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism'" JPh.. I, 1904, 10, p. 266. "Purpose as a Logical Category." PJi,, XIII, 1904, 3, p. 284. |! 288 BIBLIOGRAPHY '/ 7 ' "Experience and Thought." P.R., XV, 1906, 5, p. 482. "The Nature and Criterion of Truth." PJt., XVII, 1908, 6, p. Ua^. "The Idea of a Philosophical Platform." /. Ph., VI., 1909, 6, p. 141. "■^^or^^f ^^o?^^*'^®-" ^^^^^^^ional Journal of Ethics, XX, lyuy, 1, p, ^y, "Darwin and Logic." Psych. R., XVI, 1909, 3, p. 170. "The Notion of the Implicit in Logic." P.R., XIX, 1910 1 p. 53. ° > * *'*"> *, "^K^^^ij'^^^K?! American Universities." Science, N.S. AXXII, 1910, 815, p. 193. "The Fourth International Congress of Philosophy." J. Ph., VIII, "The Determination of the Real." P.R., XXI, 1912, 3, p. 303. Consistency and Ultimate Dualism." P.R., XXI, 1912, 3, p. 344. Academic Freedom." Science, N.S., XXXVII, 1913, 951, p. 450. "The Copernican Revolution m Philosophy." P J? XXII 1913 2, p. 133. *' ' ' "The Govei^ent of Americaii Universities." University Control. Edited by J. M. CatteU. New York, The Science P?ess, 1913. "The Standpoint of Psychology." P.R.^ XXIII, 1914, 2, p. 159. "The Firet Quarter Century of The Philosophical Review." P R AA VI, 1917, 1, p. 1. •' "^^^:m^ 1917 ^S'^'^Ty^o'''^ Association and its Programs." J Ph., "Two Types of Idealism." PJt., XXVI, 1917, 5, p. 614. -? i* "■^^ XXVlrtoisT "es"""" ^' '^^'^ "^^^ °^ Idealism." PJt., "The Social Nature of Thinking." P.R., XXVII, 1918, 3, p. 274.-