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AUTHOR: 
 
 MANSEL, HENRY 
 LONGUEVILLE 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE... 
 
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PROLEGOMENA LOGICA: 
 
 In 
 
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 < !>!..eui.i. 
 
 iJ'Q'JI^.IliKAKY 
 
 INTO 
 
 N \ORK. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 
 LOGICAL PROCESSES.j 
 
 BT 
 
 HEXRY LONGUEVTLLE MANSEL, B.D., LL.D. 
 
 WAYNFLETE PR0FE880B OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY, OXFOM) J 
 
 ZDITOa OF SIB WILLIAM HAMILTON'S LECTURES; AUTHOB OF 
 
 *' LIMITS OF BKUQIOUS THOUGHT," ETC ETC. 
 
 La Logique n'ert qu'un retour de la P»ychologie na eHe-mfeine. 
 
 Coosiir. 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE SECOND ENGLISH EDITION, 
 CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 GOULiD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 69 WASHIKOTOir 8TKBBT. 
 
 NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 
 CINCINNATI: GEORGE 8. BLANCHARD. 
 
 18G0. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Entered according to Act of Cong««,, in th. ye«. J880, by 
 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 In the C.e*.. Offlc of the DUtWct Con« for the DWric of M««,ohu,c.,. 
 
 Q 
 
 Andovtr : 
 £Uctrotyped ami Printed Ay W. F. Draper. 
 
 ti?- •*» 
 
 A PORTION of the foUowing pages has already appeared in 
 two Articles contributed by the Author to the Mrth British 
 Review} The present Work is an attempt to exhibit more 
 fully the relations there intimated as existing between Logic 
 and Psychology, with some additional matters, which could not 
 be included within the limits of a Review. The title of the 
 work is not meant to hnply that it contains an introduction to 
 Logic, or is designed for the use of those unacquainted with 
 its rudiments. On the contrary, without some previous knowl- 
 edge of the elementary portion of that science, the greater 
 part of the present volume wiU not be intelligible. But it 
 is intended as an inquiry into that which in the order of 
 nature is prior to Logic ; though in the order of time it is 
 of later scientific development, and in the order of study 
 should be postponed till after an acquaintance at least with 
 the elements of logical science; — an inquiry into a subject 
 which is indicated by every page of Logic in which mind and 
 
 > No. 27; Art PhUoaophy of Language. No. 29: Art. Becent Extensiom 
 <lf Formal Logic, 
 
 15032 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Its opemtions are mentioned, and which is the touchstone by 
 which the whole truth and scientific value of Logic must ulti- 
 mately be tested; -an inquiry into the constitution and lawg 
 of the thinking faculty, such as they are assumed by the 
 Logician as the basis of his deductions. It may, therefore, 
 be regarded as an attempt to prt,secute, in relation to Lo-nc 
 the mquir^ instituted by the Prt.legomena of Kant in «laL 
 to Metaphysics ; namely. What are the psychological condi- 
 tions under which a scientific system is possible, and what, in 
 conformity to those conditions, are the chamcteristic features 
 which such a system must exhibit ? It is not intended asl 
 a complete treatise, either on Psychology alone, or on Logic 
 alone ; but as an exposition of Psychology in relation to 
 Logic, containing such portions of the fonner as are abso- 
 lately necessary to the vindication and even to the under- / 
 Standing of the latter. 
 
 That something of the kind is not altogether mmeeded, wfll 
 be acknowledged by those who are acquainted with the litera- 
 ture of the subject. During the last and present centurv 
 under the influence of the Critical Philosophy of Kant, For. 
 n>al Logic, in itself and in its relations to Psychology, has 
 been elaborated by numbers of eminent write,^ in GeLany 
 fiom whose labors the English student has, as yet. derived' 
 hardly any benefit. Misconceptions are still aUowed to prevaQ 
 concerning the nature and office of Logic, which the slightest 
 acquaintance with the actual constitution of human thought 
 and its Uws would suffice to dissipate forever. Matte« 
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 treated of by different logicians are alternately expelled from 
 and restored to the province of the science, without the ap- 
 pearance of anything like a sound canon of criticism to deter- 
 mine what is logical and what is not Attack and defence of 
 the study have been conducted on grounds equally untenable ; 
 and a conception of Logic as it might be were the human 
 mind constituted as it is not, is frequently tossed to and fro 
 between contending parties, to the exclusion of Logic as it 
 must be while the human mind is constituted as it is. 
 
 But if an exposition of Psychology in relation to Logic is 
 thus needed for a distinct conception of the latter science in 
 itself, it is not less needed when we look to the conditions 
 under which that science may be most profitably employed as 
 a branch of academical study. Few who are acquainted with 
 the various logical systems of modem times will hesitate to 
 give a decided preference over all others to the formal view 
 of tlie science, which from the days of Kant has gradually 
 been advancing to perfection. Whether we regard the unity 
 and scientific completeness of the system itself, the great 
 names by which it is supported, the valuable works that 
 might easily be made available for its communication, or 
 the facihty with which it might be introduced into the exist- 
 ing course of study, in all it possesses unquestionable advan- 
 tages, as the basis of logical instruction. But, on the other 
 hand, its compass is small ; and its contents, though clear and 
 definite, are, taken by themselves, too meagre to be an ade- 
 quate substitute for the miscellaneous reading which is so 
 
 1* 
 
w 
 
 VI 
 
 PREPACB. 
 
 often nusnamed Logical. To supply this defect, two co„,.es 
 «e open. The study of Formal Logic may be combined 
 euher with its objecUve or with its subjective applications. 
 We may treat, that is to say, a system of Logic, either in 
 connection with some of the various objects of thought to 
 which ,t may in practice be applied, or in relation to the 
 thmkmg mind, and to that mental philosophy of which it forms 
 a portion. The former method has been abundantly tried, 
 and has abundantly faUed in the trial A system of Logic 
 treated in its objective application has no alternative between 
 an mipossible universality or an arbitnuy exdusiveness. By 
 whatever right one iota of the matter of thought can claim 
 admission into the system, by the same right the whole uni- 
 verse of human knowledge is entitled to follow. Such a 
 method can only be employed as a bad means of collecting 
 desultory information on unconnected subjecU. As a system 
 It postulates its own failure. 
 
 It is in connection, not in confusion, with cognate sciences 
 
 as a branch of mental phUosophy, that Logic may and ought 
 
 to be studied. [One of the objects of the present work is to 
 
 8how that Logic as a science cam.ot be rightly understood and 
 
 appreciated, except in relation to Psychology?! '^'^ neglect 
 
 of tins relation has been acknowledged as the weak side of 
 
 the Kantian Philosophy- its recognition has been impezu- 
 
 tively demanded by the ablest modem writers on the subject. 
 
 ' See Fries, S,„Uem der LogOc, p. 22. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 vn 
 
 "Selon moi," says M. Duval^ouve, "I'objet de la logique 
 n'est pas seulement la directim de I'intelligence, mais encore 
 Tetud^ de I'intelligence; la direction apres I'^tude; et un traite 
 de logique doit comprendre la description du fait intellcctuel, 
 k thA>rie de ses lois, I'expos^ des regies qu'il doit reconnaltre,' 
 eoit dans son ^tat psychologique et de pure pens^e, soit dans sa 
 manifestation par k parole."' The propriety of including 
 these psychological matters in a Treatise on Logic may be 
 questioned ; but to the necessity of including them in a phi- 
 losophical course, of which Logic should form a portion, the 
 whole history of the science bears witness. ' The alliance 
 estabUshed of old between Logic and Metaphysics was dis- 
 solved by the Critical Philosophy of Kant, and cannot be 
 restored, except by identifying the two, with Hegel. To those 
 who reject this alternative a blank is made in philosoplucal 
 study, which can only be adequately supplied by a well-con- 
 nected course of Mental Science, embracing, as its constituent 
 portions, the three cognate subjects of Logic, Ethics, and 
 Psychology. 
 
 To Ethics, as well as to Logic, Psychology is an indispensa- 
 ble supplement. The science of man as he ought to be must 
 be based on that of man as he is. In Moral PhUosophy, as in 
 Logic, questions of a psychological character meet us at every 
 stage of our course ; and the value of every ethical system 
 must ultimately be tested on psychological gromids. Perhaps 
 
 > TiuiUde IxHptjue, Preface, p. viii. 
 
VIII 
 
 PR£F ACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 it is not too much to saj, that half the ethical systems which 
 have been at different times in vogue, have started from a 
 psychological assumption, which, consistently carried out, would 
 make Ethical Philosophy impossible. 
 
 May I be allowed to suggest a stiU higher application of 
 the same criterion ? L, the veiy conception of Revealed 
 Religion, as a communication from an Infinite to a finite 
 Intelligence, is impUed the existence of certain ideas of a 
 purely negative character, the purpose of which is not spec- 
 ulative but regulative truth ; which are designed, not to sat- 
 isfy our reason, but to guide our practice. These, from their 
 very nature, are beyond the criticism of reason. But in order 
 to discriminate accurately between the provinces of reason 
 and faith, to.determme what we may and what we may not 
 seek to comprehend as a speculative truth, an examination of 
 the limits of man's mental powers is indispensable. The 
 ground of many a controversy might be considerably nar- 
 rowed were we to inquire at the outset what are the mental 
 powers that can be brought to the solution of the question, and 
 how are they related to the daU on which they must operate. 
 Fichte made his earliest attempt, as a disciple of the Kantian 
 philosophy, by an Essay towards a Critique of every Revela- 
 tion. The positive portion of his principles of criticbm (for 
 many of them have a negative character only) might be better 
 applied to a Critique of every Critique of Revelation ;- an 
 inquiry, that is to say, what portion of the contents of Revela- 
 
 nc 
 
 tion, as addressed to human minds, can be wrought by human 
 interpretation into the form of speculative dogmas. 
 
 " La psychologic," says M. Cousin, « n'est assur^ment pas 
 tonte la philosophic, mais elle en est le fondement." If there 
 be any truth in this saying of one of the highest philosophical 
 authorities of our own or of any age, it will follow of neces- 
 sity that a course of instruction in this fundamental branch 
 must be an integral and indispensable portion of any system 
 of philosophical teaching. 
 
 The psychological criticisms of the present work are mainly 
 limited to logical questions, and are designed to throw some 
 light on matters which, almost from the commencement of my 
 logical studies, have appeared to me to stand in especial need 
 of elucidation. Much of what has been acquired from foreign 
 sources, with much labor and little guidance in the search, 
 might have been learned in an easier and more direct manner, 
 had the course which I have ventured to recommend been 
 adopted in relation to my own early studies. The numerous 
 obligations which the work is under to previous writers are 
 most of them acknowledged as they occur. One or two, how- 
 ever, demand an express mention here. The reader who is 
 familiar with Kant's writings will probably discern obligations 
 to the Critical Philosophy in ahnost every page ; even where 
 the language of Kant has been departed from, and the differ- 
 ence in detail is such as would not justify a direct reference to 
 ,his works. The method and material for thinkmg derived 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 from the study of the Kantian philosophy is in many respects 
 far more valuable than the direct information communicated. 
 This is especially the case with a student who views that 
 philosophy from the psychological rather than the metaphys- 
 ical side, in its relation to Hume and Locke rather than to 
 Wolf and Leibnitz, and who endeavors to combine the mate- 
 rials thence obtained with the most valuable results of the 
 Scottish philosophy, which owes its rise, like the Kantian, to 
 the skepticism of Hume. 
 
 To two other eminent philosophers a similar acknowledg- 
 ment is due. The German side of M. Cousin's Eclecticism 
 approaches, in aim at least, if not in method, nearer to tlie 
 philosophy of Schelling and Hegel than to that of Kant. It 
 is natural, therefore, that his view of the limits of human 
 thought, and consequently of the province of Logic and of its 
 relation to Psychology, should contain much which cannot be 
 directly transferred to the pages of a work wliich advocates a 
 strictly formal view of Logic, and which would rather contract 
 than enlarge the limits assigned by Kant to the Understanding 
 and the Reason. But the writings of M. Cousin are indis- 
 pensable to all who would gain a true estimate of the impor- 
 tance of Psychology and its position in a philosophical course ; 
 and the benefits which I am conscious of having derived from 
 their study are far more than can be adequately expressed 
 by a direct acknowledgment of passages borrowed from them. 
 From the author's view of the office of Logic I have departed 
 widely ; which makes it the more necessary to confess the 
 
 PREPACK. 
 
 XI 
 
 numberless advantages derived from his writmgs, in relation 
 to ahnost every pomt treated of in the following pages. 
 
 Li many points in which I have departed from the doc- 
 trines of the great Eclectic, I am much indebted to the 
 writings of his illustrious critic, Sir William HamHton. The 
 same acknowledgment may indeed be made in relation to 
 nearly the whole contents of the present volume, partly by 
 way of direct obligation, and still more by way of hints and 
 suggestions of questions to be solved, and thejnethod of their 
 solution. I cannot, indeed, claim the sanction of this eminent 
 authority for any statement which is here advanced, except 
 where direct reference is made to his writings ; yet probably 
 even where I have differed from him in opinion, there is 
 much that would never have been written at all but for 
 the valuable aid furnished by him. To say that I have 
 occasionaUy ventured to dissent from the positions of each 
 and all of the philosophsrs to whom I am so much indebted, 
 is only to say that I have endeavored to study their works 
 in the spirit in which they would wish to be studied — with the 
 respect and gratitude of a disciple, but, it is hoped, without 
 the servility of a copyist. 
 
 For the phraseology which I have occasionally been com- 
 peUed to employ in the course of the following remarks, 
 no apology will be required by those acquainted with the 
 history of mental science. Li no branch of study is it so 
 necessary to observe the Aristotelian precept, 6voiu.r^ouiv 
 
XII 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 <ra<f>rjv€La^ €v€k€v. Nine-tenths of the confusion and contro- 
 versy that have existed in this department are owing to 
 that unwillingness to innovate in matters of language, which 
 leads to the employment of the same term in various shades 
 of meaning, and with reference to various phenomena of 
 consciousness. In this respect philosophy is under deep 
 obligations to the purism of German writers, which has en- 
 abled subsequent thinkers to examine the most important 
 problems of Psychology apart from the old associations of 
 language. A new phraseology may occasion some little dif- 
 ficulty at the outset of a work ; but to adhere to an inade- 
 quate vocabulary merely because its expressions are estab- 
 lished, is to involve the whole of the subject in hopeless 
 confusion and obscurity. In this respect, however, I trust 
 I shall not be found to have departed from authorized lan- 
 guage in a greater degree than is absolutely necessary for 
 the purpose of communicating to English readers some of 
 the most valuable results of German thought, and of carrying 
 into effect the main design of the present Essay, — that of 
 testing the received processes of Logic, by reference to the 
 facts of human consciousness. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAOR 
 
 ON THOUGHT, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM OTHER FACTS OF 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE THREE OPERATIONS OF THOUGHT, 
 
 6» 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON LAW, AS RELATED TO THOUGHT AND OTHER OBJECTS, 76 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF MATHEMATICAL 
 NFXESSny, 
 
 2 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF METAPHYSICAL '^"" 
 
 NECESSITY, ... 
 
 ' 118 
 
 ^ 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON LOGICAL NECESSITY AND THE LAWS OF THOUGHT, 
 
 153 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON THE MATTER AND FORM OF THOUGHT, 
 
 201 
 
 J 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE THOUGHT, ... 221 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON LOGIC AS RELATED TO OTHER MENTAL SCIENCES, 
 
 1. 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 J 167 
 
 ON THOUGHT, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM OTHER FACTS OF 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Without entering into the countless disputes which 
 have taken place concerning the nature and definition 
 of Logic,* it is sufficient to observe that it will be treated 
 in the following pages, in accordance principally with the 
 views of Kant, as the Science of the Laws of Formal 
 Thinking. In the wide sense, indeed, in which the term 
 is used by Archbishop Whately, it may be admitted that 
 Logic, as furnishing rules to secure the mind from error in 
 its deductions, is also an Art, or, to speak more correctly, 
 a Practical Science.* Still, it may be questioned whether 
 the practical service thus performed by Logic can with 
 propriety be allowed to influence its definition. The 
 
 1 For a sammary of various opinions on this qaestion, see Zabarella, cfe 
 Natura Logicce, lib. i. ; Smij^lecii Logica, Disp. ii. Qu. v. ; Burf^rsdicii Inst. 
 Log. lib. i. cap. 1, and Sir W. Hamilton, Edinburgh Beview, No. 115, p. 203. 
 
 * For the distinction between these tenns, see Wolf, Phil. Bat. Proleg., 
 4 10. " Omnis Logica utens est habitus, qui proprio exercitio comparatur, 
 minime autem discendo acquiritur, ndeoque et ipsa doceri nequit. Quam- 
 obrem, cum Logica omnis vel sit docens vel utens, neque enim praeter 
 regularum notitiam atque habitum eas ad praxin transferendi teiHum 
 
 aV 
 
16 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGIC A. 
 
 benefits performed by Logic as a medicine of the mind, 
 however highly we may be disposed to rate them, are 
 accidental only, and arise from causes external to the 
 Science itself: its speculative character, as an inquiry into 
 the laws of thought, is internal and essential. To the 
 twofold character of Logic two conditions are necessary. 
 Firstlv, that there exist certain mental laws to which 
 every sound thinker is bound to conform. Secondly, that 
 it is possible to transgress those laws, or to think unsoundly. 
 On the former of these conditions depends the possibility 
 of Logic as a speculative Science ; on the latter, its possi- 
 bility as a practical Science or Art. Now, if we look at 
 these two conditions with reference to the actual contents 
 of pure Logic, it is manifest that the abrogation of the fii*8t 
 would utterly annihilate the whole Science ; whereas the 
 abrogation of the second would at most only necessitate 
 the removal of a few excrescences, leaving the main body 
 of Logical doctrine substantially as it is at present. Sup- 
 pose, for example, that the difference between sound and 
 unsound reasoning could be discerned in individual cases 
 as a matter jf fact, but that we had no power of classifying 
 the several instances of each and referring them to certain 
 common principles. It is clear that^ under such a supposi- 
 tion, the present contents of Logic, speculative and prac- 
 tical, could have no existence. The number of sound and 
 unsound thinkers in the world might remain much as it is 
 DOW, but the impossibility of investigating the principles 
 of the one and applying them to the correction of the 
 other would make an Art or Science of Logic unattainable. 
 
 concipi potest; sola Loji^ca artificialis docens ea C8t, qnie doceri adeoqae 
 in numenira disciplinarum philosophicanim rcferri potest. Atque ideo 
 qaoquc Logicam definivimus per scientiam, minimo autcm per artem Tcl 
 habitum in gcncrc, quod genus convenit Logicsc utcati." 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 17 
 
 But let us imagine, on the other hand, a race of intelligent 
 beings, subject to the same laws of thought as mankind, 
 but incapable of transgressing them in practice. The 
 elements of existing Logic, the Concept, the Judgment, 
 the Syllogism, would remain unaltered. The Science 
 of Logic would investigate the laws of unerring Reason, 
 as the Science of Astronomy investigates the unvarying 
 laws of the heavenly phenomena ; but an Art of Logic, to 
 preserve the mind from enor, would be as absurd as an 
 Art of Astronomy proposing to control and regulate ihQ 
 planets in their courses. From these considerations it 
 follows that, even granting Logic to be, under existing 
 circumstances, both Science and Art, yet the former is 
 an essential, the latter an accidental, feature ; the one is 
 necessarily interwoven with the elements of the system, 
 the other a contingent result of the infirmities of those 
 who possess it. In this respect, pure Logic may not 
 unfairly be compared to Mechanics treated as a branch 
 of Mathematics. As Sciences, both proceed deductively 
 from assumptions more or less inconsistent with the actual 
 state of things. As Arts, neither can be put in practice 
 without making allowance for contingencies neglected in 
 the scientific theory. The assumed logical perfection of 
 thought bears about the same relation to the ordinary 
 state of the human mind as the assumption of perfectly 
 rigid levers and perfectly flexible cords bears to the action 
 of those instruments in practice. But, on the other hand, 
 the possibility of making such allowances implies that the 
 difference between practice and theory is one of degree 
 only, and not of kind. The instrument as used may not 
 be identical with the instrument as contemplated, but it 
 must be supposed capable of approximation to it. A Sci- 
 ence of the Laws of Thought is only valuable in so far as 
 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 19 
 
 I 
 
 I- 
 
 ♦ 
 
 its laws are acknowledged to be those to which actual 
 thinking ought, as far as possible, to conform, and which, 
 if fully complied with, would represent only the better 
 performance of existing obligations, not the imposition of 
 new ones. The same may be said of Ethical Philosophy 
 likewise. In describing the perfection of moral and intel- 
 lectual virtue, we describe a standard to which, in the 
 existing state of human nature, no man does or can 
 attain ; but the whole value of the portrait is derived 
 from its being a more or less accurate representation of 
 man as he ought to be, not the imaginary sketch of a being 
 of a totally distinct kind.^ 
 
 In order therefore to the right appreciation of any given 
 system of Logic, it becomes necessary to ask. What is the 
 J actual nature of Thought as an operation, to what laws is 
 it subject, and to what extent are they efficient ? This 
 inquiry does not, strictly speaking, fall within the province 
 of Zogic itself.^ No Science is competent to criticise its 
 own principles. That there is such an operation as think- 
 ing, and certain laws to which it is bound to conform, the 
 Logician does not question, but assumes. Whether there 
 are other mental operations besides thinking, and whether 
 these must act in combination with Thought for the at- 
 tainment of any special class of truths ; — these and such 
 like questions it is beyond his province to investigate. His 
 own branch of inquiry is twofold, partly constructive, and 
 partly critical. In the former capacity, he inquires, what 
 are the several forms, legitimate or illegitimate, which 
 
 1 "Beide, Logik und Ethik, haben VorxhHJien aufzusteUen, nach welchen 
 Bich, hier das Denken, dort das Handeln richten soil, obglelch es sich eins 
 wie das andcre, aus psychologischen Griinden par oft in der Wlrklichkeit 
 nicht darnach richtet, und nicht darnach richten fcoiui."— HerUart. Psy- 
 chdogie cds Wissenschiufi, Th. ii. 4 1 19. 
 
 Thought as a product will assume, according as the act of 
 thinking is or is not conducted in conformity to its given 
 laws. In the latter capacity, he sifts and examines the 
 special products of this or that thinker, and pronounces 
 them, according to the features which they exhibit, to be 
 legitimately produced or otherwise.^ 
 
 Beyond the boundaries of pure Logic there is thus 
 another and important field of inquiry. Is the mind capa- 
 ble of other operations besides those of Thought ; and are 
 there other kinds of mental rectitude besides that which 
 results from the conformity of Thought to its own laws? 
 Do the several mental faculties act in the pursuit of truth 
 conjointly or separately ? Does each process guarantee 
 the complete attainment of a limited class of truths, or 
 the attainment of a single element which becomes truth 
 only in combination ? Do the Laws of Thought, as as- 
 sumed by Logic, exhibit those features which, from the 
 general constitution of the human mind f^nd the peculiar 
 character of the thinking faculty, they might be expected 
 to exhibit? In relation to these and similar questions, 
 Logic is subordinate to Psychology. 
 
 To Psychology we n:ust look for the explanation and ' 
 justification of the peculiar features of Logic. Logic, says 
 one antagonist, furnishes no criterion of material truth 
 and falsehood. It may be that, from the constitution of 
 the human mind, such a criterion is impossible. Its prin- 
 ciples, says another, are mere frivolous tautologies. It 
 may be that this very tautology has a psychological sig- 
 nificance, that it is the necessary consequence of a mind 
 gazing upon its own laws. It is barren in the production 
 
 1 See Qauberg:, Logica, Prolog. ^ viii. Drobisch, Neue DarsteUung der 
 Logik, ^ 9. Frieg, System d^r Juogik, § 1 . 
 
 • * 
 
20 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 w- 
 
 t 
 
 of positive science. It may be that Thought alone was 
 never designed by man's Maker to be otherwise. As an 
 instrument, it has attempted much and accomplished little. 
 The fault may lie, not in the tool, but in the workman. 
 Before we condemn Logic for what it does not perform, or 
 despise it for what it does, it may be as well to ask, what 
 we may learn elsewhere of the nature of the thinking 
 faculty, and what it may reasonably be expected to ac- 
 complish. 
 
 In order, therefore, to determine accurately the province 
 and capabilities of Logic, it will be necessary to examine 
 the psychological distinction between Thought, properly 
 so called, and other phenomena of mind. This being as- 
 certained, there will remain the inquiry, in what manner 
 our consciousness itself and the several objects submitted 
 to it may be regarded as subject to law ; what are the dif- 
 ferent classes of laws, whether of the subject or of the 
 object, the characteristic features of each, their mode of 
 determining the several operations subject to them, and 
 the consequent character of the respective products. 
 f;v:JIvery state of consciousness necessarily implies two 
 elements at least : a conscious subject, and an object of 
 which he is conscious. In every exercise, for example, of 
 the senses, we may distinguish the object seen, heard, 
 smelt, touched, tasted, from the subject seeing, hearing, 
 smelling, touching, tasting. In every emotion of pleasure 
 or of pain, there is a certain affection, agreeable or dis- 
 agi-eeable, existing within me, and of this affection I am 
 conscious. In every act of volition, there takes place a 
 certain exercise of my will, and I am conscious that it 
 takes place. In this point of view, it is not necessary to 
 enter on the often disputed question, whether such states 
 of consciousness furnish immediate evidence of the ex- 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 21 
 
 istence of a world external to ourselves. That of which 
 I am directly conscious may be an object numerically dis- 
 tinct from myself, or it may be a modification of my own 
 mind. All that need be insisted upon here is, that there 
 is present an individual object, whether thing, act, or state 
 of mind, and that we are conscious of such an object as 
 existing within or without ourselves. A psychological 
 dualism is implied in the very notion of consciousness : 
 whether this necessarily involves an ontological dualism, 
 is beyond our present purpose to inquire.^ 
 
 But to constitute an act of Thought^ more is required 
 than the immediate relation of subject to object in con- 
 sciousness. Every one of the above states might exist in 
 a mind totally incapable of thought. Let us suppose, for 
 example, a being, in whose mind every successive state of 
 consciousness was forgotten as soon as it had taken place. 
 Every individual object might be presented to him pre- 
 cisely as it is to us. Animals, men, trees, and stones, 
 might be successively placed before his eyes; pleasure, 
 and pain, and anger, and fear, might alternate within him ; 
 but, as each departed, he would retain no knowledge that 
 it had ever existed, and consequently no power of com- 
 parison with similar or dissimilar objects of an earlier or 
 later consciousness. He would have no knowledge of 
 such objects as referred to separate notions; he could not 
 say, this which I see is a man, or a horse ; this which I 
 feel is fear, or anger. He would be deficient in the dis- 
 tinctive feature of Thought, the concept or general notion 
 resulting from the comparison of objects. Hence arises 
 
 1 This point has Ixien already arpied fully and satisfactorily by the 
 prcat modern advocate of Natural Dualism, Sir William Hamilton. The 
 reader is referred to his edition of Reid's works, especially to his notes B 
 and C, for a masterly dissertation on this important question. 
 
 I 
 
22 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 the important distinction between Intuitions^ in which 
 the object is inimecliately related to the conscious mind, 
 and Thoughts^ in which the object is mediately related 
 through a concept^ gained by comparison. The former 
 contains two elements only, the subject and the object 
 standing in present relation to each other. The latter 
 contains three elements, the thinking subject, the object 
 about which he thinks, and the concept mediating between 
 the two.® Thus even the exercise of the senses upon pre- 
 sent objects, in the manner in which it is ordinarily per- 
 formed by a man of mature faculties, does not consist of 
 mere intuition, but is accompanied by an act of thought. 
 In mere intuition, all that is simultaneously presented to 
 the sense appears as one whole ; but mere intuition does 
 not distinguish its several parts from each other under this 
 
 * Here, and throuj^hout the following pages, the word Intuition is used 
 in the extent of the German Anschauung, to include all the products of 
 the perceptive (external or internal) and imaginative faculties ; every act 
 of consciousness, in short, of which the immediate object is an individual, 
 thing, act, or state of mind, presented under the condition of distinct ex- 
 istence in space or time. 
 
 * The revival of this term, unfortunately, till very recently, suffered to 
 grow obsolete in philosophy, will need no apology with those^who are 
 acquainted with the writings of Sir W. Hamilton. It is absolutely neces- 
 sary to distinguish in language between the act of thought and its prod- 
 uct, a distinction expressed in Greek by v&t)(Tis and viritia, and in the fol- 
 lowing remarks by conception and concept. The latter term has been fUlly 
 sanctioned by the usage of French philosophers, as well as of the emi- 
 nent writer above mentioned. 
 
 3 " In apprehending an individual thing, either itself through sense or its 
 representation in the phantasy, we have, in a certain sort, an absolute or 
 irrespective cognition, which is justly denominated immediate, by contrast 
 to the more relative and mediate knowledge which, subsequently, we com- 
 pass of the same object, when, by a comparative act of the understanding, 
 we refer it to a class, that is, think or recognize it, by relation to other 
 things, under a certain notion or general term."— Sir W. Hamilton, Beid'a 
 Works, p. 801. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 23 
 
 or that notion. I may see at once, in a single panorama, 
 a ship upon the sea, an island lying behind it, and the sky 
 above it. To mere intuition this is presented only in con- 
 fusion, as a single object. To distinguish its constituent 
 portions, as sea and land, ship and sky, requires a com- 
 parison and classification of them relatively to so many 
 separate concepts existing in the mind ; and such classifi- 
 cation is an act of Thought.^ ,^ 
 
 In every act of Consciousness the ultimate object is an I 
 individual. But in intuition this object is presented to 
 the mind directly, and does not imply the existence, past 
 or present, of anything but itself and the mind to which 
 it is presented. In thought, on the other hand, the indi- 
 vidual is represented by means of a concept, which contains 
 certain attributes applicable to other individuals of the 
 same kind. * This implies that there have been presented 
 to the mind prior objects of intuition, originating the con- 
 cept or general notion to which subsequent objects are 
 referred. Hence arises another important distinction. All 
 intuition is direct and presentative ^ all thought is indirect 
 and representative. -^ ^ 
 
 This distinction necessitates a further remark on the 
 characteristic feature of thought, as compared with one 
 special class of intuitions. That sensitive perception 
 
 
 1 Hoffbaucr, Logik, § 10. 
 
 * The terms represent, representation, etc., are, here and throughout the 
 present work, used in a wider sense than that to which they are confined 
 by Sir W. Hamilton. With that philosopher, the representative faculty 
 is synon}Tnous with the imagination proper, and the above terms arc used 
 exclusively with reference to individual objects. See Beid's Works, pp. Sa.'i, 
 809; Discussions, p. 13. In the following pages the term representation and 
 its cognates are extended so as to include the concept, which is representa- 
 tive of many individuals, as well as the image, which is representative 
 of one. 
 
24 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 25 
 
 takes place through the medium of a representative idea, 
 is a hypothesis which was made more than questionable 
 by the philosophy of Reid, and may be regarded as com- 
 pletely overthrown by the recent labors of his illustrious 
 editor, Sir William Hamilton. But there still remains the 
 faculty of Imagination, whose office is the production of 
 images representative of the several phenomena of Per- 
 ception,^ internal as well as external. In relation to this 
 
 1 The term Perception requires a few words in explanation. In modem 
 philosophy, fVom Descartes to Reid, this term was used widely, as coex- 
 tensive Miith Apprehension or Consciousness in general, with some minor 
 modifications, for an account of which the reader is referred to Sir W. 
 Hamilton's Reid, p. 876. By Reid and his followers it was used for the 
 consciousness of an external object presented to the mind throu^rh the 
 organs of sense, as distin(;uished from Sensation^ the consciousness of an 
 affection of the subject through the same organs. In this sense they are 
 clearly distinguished by M. Royer Collanl, Jouffroy's Reid, iii. p. 3-i9. 
 " II y a dans I'operation du toucher sensation et perception tout ensemble: 
 changement d'etat ou modification inte'rieure, c'est la sensation ; connais- 
 sance d'un objet exterieur, c'est la perception." Cf. Reid, Intell. Powers, 
 Essay i. ch. i. Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, § 15. According to 
 M. Royer Collard, the senses of smell, hearing, and taste, give rise to sen- 
 sations only; touch is in every case a union of sensation and perception; 
 while sight holds an intermediate and doubtful position, as informing us 
 of the existence of extension, but only in two dimensions of space. Sir 
 W. Hamilton, on the other hand, holds that the general consciousness of 
 the locality of a sensorial affection ought to be regarded as a Perception 
 proper; and, in accordance with this view, he has announced the import- 
 ant law, that Sensation and Perception, though always coexistent, are, as 
 regards their intensity, always in an inverse ratio to each other. Some 
 recent French philosophers, influenced by the union of physiological with 
 psychological researches, have employed the term Perception in another 
 sense, to denote Sensation with Consciousness, Sensation being extended 
 to those affections of the nervous organism of which we are not conscious. 
 This occurs in the writings of Maine de Biran, and appears to have misled 
 M. Ravaisson into imagining that that philosopher had anticipated the 
 above-mentioned law of Sir W. Hamilton. The passage alluded to is 
 apparently one in the Essai mtr la decomposition de la Pen&^e, p. 116, but 
 
 faculty, the criterion above given as characteristic of 
 Thought requires a few words of explanation. 
 
 Imagination, regarded as a product, may be defined, the 
 consciousness of an image in the mind resembling and rep- 
 resenting an object of intuition.* It is thus at the same 
 time presentative and representative. It is presentative 
 of the image which has its own distinct existence in con- 
 sciousness, irrespective of its relation to the object which 
 it is supposed to represent. It is representative of the ob- 
 ject which that image resembles ; and such resemblance is 
 only possible on the condition that the image be, like the 
 object, individual. If we try to form in oiir minds the 
 
 the resemblance is merely verbal. A nearer anticipation may perhaps bo 
 found in Kant, Anthropologie, ^ 20. 
 
 In the text, Perception is employed to denote all those states of Con 
 sdousness which are presentative only, not representative. It will thus 
 include all intuitions except those of Imagination, and may be divided 
 into external or sensitive, and internal; the former corresponding to the 
 Perception of Reid. This use of the term, allowance being made for a 
 different theory of external Perception, accords with that of Kant. 
 
 1 This is the ordinary psychological sense of Imagination ; however 
 variously the term may have been employed in reference to poetry, and 
 generally to the philosophy of taste. It corresponds with the definition 
 given by Descartes (Meditatio Secunda), ** irnaginari nihUaliud est quam ret 
 corporea figuram seu imaginem contanplari ; " except that the latter is incor- 
 rectly limited to the reproduction of objects of sight only. The beautiful 
 lines of Shelley furnish an exact description of imagination relatively to 
 two other senses : 
 
 " Moffic, when soft voices die, 
 
 Vibrates in the memory; 
 
 Odors, when sweet violets sicken, 
 
 Live within tlie sense they quicken.** 
 
 But the operation of the imaginative faculty must not be confined even 
 to the general field of sensations. The important question," How many 
 presentative faculties has man? will be referred to again. The province 
 of imagination will be determined by the answer to this question, as every 
 original presentation may Ijc represented in a phantasm. 
 
 3 
 
 :'/ 
 
26 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 2T 
 
 4 
 
 } ^ 
 
 • I 
 
 image of a triangle, it must be of some individual figure, 
 equilateral, isosceles, or scalene. It is impossible that it 
 should be at the same time all of these, or none. It may 
 bear more or less resemblance to the object which it repre- 
 sents ; but it can attain resemblance at all only by being, 
 like the object itself, individual. I may recall to mind, 
 with more or less vividness, the features of an absent 
 friend, as I may paint his portrait with more or less ac- 
 curacy ; but the likeness in neither case ceases to be the 
 individual representation of an individual man. But my 
 notion of Man in general can attain universality only 
 by surrendering resemblance. It becomes the indifferent 
 representative of all mankind only in so far as it has no 
 special likeness to any one. It is thus not the adequate 
 and actual representative of any single object, but an in- 
 adequate and potential representative of many; that is, 
 it may in different acts of thought be employed in relation 
 to distinct, and in some respects dissimilar, individuals of 
 the same class. From this neglect of individual charac- 
 teristics arises the first distinguishing feature of a concept ; 
 viz. that it cannot in itself be depicted to sense or imagina" 
 tion} It is not the sensible image of one object, but an 
 intelligible relation between many. 
 
 A second important characteristic of all concepts is, that 
 they require to be fixed in a representative sign. This 
 characteristic cannot indeed be determined a jyriori, from 
 the mere notion of the concept as universal, but it may be 
 proved to a moral certainty a posteriori, by the inability 
 of which in practice every man is conscious, of advancing, 
 without the aid of symbols, beyond the individual objects 
 of sense or imagination. In the presence of several indi- 
 viduals of the same species, the eye may observe points of 
 
 1 Cf. Hamilton on Reid, p. 360. 
 
 similarity between them ; and in this no symbol is needed ; 
 but every feature thus observed is the distinct attribute of 
 a distinct individual, and, however similar, cannot be re- 
 garded as identical. B^or example: I see lying on the 
 table before me a number of shillings of the same coinage. 
 Examined severally, the image and superscription of each 
 is undistinguishable from that of its fellow ; but, in view- 
 in<^ them side by side, space is a necessary condition of 
 my perception ; and the difference of locality is sufficient 
 to make them distinct, though similar, individuals.^ The 
 same is the case with any representative image, w^hether 
 in a mirror, in a painting, or in the imagination, waking 
 or dreaming. It can only be depicted as occupying a cer- 
 tain place ; and thus as an individual and the representa- 
 tive of an individual. It is true that I cannot say that it 
 represents this particular coin rather than that ; and con- 
 sequently it may be considered as the representative of 
 all, successitfelg but not simultaneously. To find a repre- 
 sentative which shall embrace all at once, I must divest it 
 of the condition of occupying space ;- and this, experience 
 assures us, can only be done by means of symbols, verbal 
 or other, by which the concept is fixed in the understand- 
 ing. Such, for example, is a verbal description of the coin 
 in question, which contains a collection of attributes freed 
 from the condition of locality, and hence from all resem- 
 blance to an object of sense. If we substitute Time for 
 Space, the same remarks will be equally applicable to the 
 objects of our internal consciousness. Every appetite and 
 desire, every affection and volition, as presented, is an in- 
 
 "H ' On this ground Kant refutes Leibnitz's principle of the identity of in- 
 
 disceniablts, a principle applicable to concepts, but not to-objects of intu- 
 
 ition. 
 
 Compare Ilcrbart, Psychologic oLs Wissenschafl, § 120. Werke^ vl. p. 163. 
 
28 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGIOA. 
 
 29 
 
 It 
 
 dividual state of consciousness, distinguished from every 
 other by its relation to a different period of time. States 
 in other respects exactly similar may succeed one another 
 at regular intervals ; but the hunger which I feel to-day is 
 an individual feeling, as numerically distinct from that 
 which I felt yesterday, or that which I shall feel to-mor- 
 row, as a shilling lying in my pocket is from a similar 
 shilling lying at the bank. Whereas my notion of hunger, 
 or fear, or volition, is a general concept, having no relation 
 to one period of time rather than to another, and, as such, 
 requires, like other concepts, a representative sign. 
 
 r- Language, taking the word in its widest sense, is thus 
 indispensable, not merely to the communication, but to 
 the formation of Thought. This doctrine is not unfre- 
 quently estimated as the correlative or consequent of that 
 which derives all knowledge from sensation; an estimate 
 apparently warranted by the association of the two theories 
 in the philosophy of Condillac. But it would not be 
 difficult to show that the ultra-sensational j)hilosophy is 
 that which could most easily dispense with the necessity 
 of introducing language at all. Ideas, says Condillac, are 
 but transformed sensations ; and his disciple, Destutt do 
 Tracy, has earned the doctrine to its fullest development 
 in the aphorism penser c^est sentir. But who imagines 
 language to be essential to sensation ? Or who does not 
 see that the introduction of such an instrument for the 
 purpose of transforming our sensations implies the exist- 
 ence of a mental power which mere sensation can never 
 confer? It is only on the supposition that the concept is 
 something distinct from and unlike all the products of the 
 senses, that the representative symbol becomes necessary. 
 Sensation, imagination, and memoiy, so far as the latter ia 
 
 distinct from thought,* may dispense with its assistance. 
 As for the crowning extravagance of Home Tooke, who 
 tells us that what are called operations of mind are merely 
 operations of language, we have only to ask, what makes 
 language operate ? It might as reasonably be maintained 
 that a coat is not the work of the tailor, but merely of his 
 needle. But it is the perpetual error of the sensational 
 school to confound the indispensable condition of a thing 
 with the thing itself. Thought is not sensation, though 
 the exercise of the senses is a necessary preliminary to that 
 of the undei-standing. Science is not a well-constructed 
 language, as the skill of the painter is not indeutical with 
 the goodness of his brushes and colors ; yet we must 
 acknowledge that the power of the artist could neither 
 have been acquired nor exhibited, had these necessary 
 implements been withheld. 
 
 The above view of the relation of thought to language 
 is sometimes met by the following dilemma. " Language, 
 you say, is essential to thought ; yet language itself, if not 
 of divine origin, must have been thought out by man. 
 You must, therefore, be prepared to defend in its utmost 
 rigor the hypothesis of a supernatural origin of speech; or 
 you mast allow that its inventor, at least, was a man 
 capable of thinking without its aid."^ To solve this 
 
 ' So far, namely, as it corresponds to the mi^ahi, not to the iLyifiv7j<ris 
 of Aristotle. The neglect of this distinction led Condillac to deny that 
 brutes have any raemory, since they are destitute of language. Aristotle, 
 with more accuracy, allows that memory is common to men and brutes, 
 but reminiscence peculiar to the former. See De Memoria, ch. 2, ^ 25. 
 
 * See Rousseau, Discours stir Vorigitie de Vin€galil€ parmi les hommet. 
 Premiere Partie. " Franchissons pour un moment Tespace immense qui 
 dut se trouver entre le pur etat de nature et Ic besoin des langues ; et cher- 
 cbons, en les supposant n^c^saires, comment ellcs pnrent commencer li 
 s'e'tablir. Nouvellc difficultd pire cncoM2 que la pr^^dente: car si les 
 
 8* 
 
 II 
 
30 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 dilemma, we need not call in aid the curious hypothesis 
 
 of Condillac, who held that the dependence of thought 
 
 on sensation (and by implication on language) was a 
 
 consequence of the fall of Adam ; we need only observe 
 
 what actually takes place in the formation of lanjrua^-e 
 
 and thought among ourselves. To the child learning to 
 
 speak, words are not the signs of thoughts, but of intuitions; 
 
 the words man and horse do not represent a collection 
 
 of attributes, but are only the jiame of the individual now 
 
 before him. It is not until the name has bee'n successively 
 
 appropriated to various individuals, that reflection begins 
 
 to inquire into the common features of the class.^ Lan- 
 
 guage, therefore, as taught to the infant, is chronologically 
 
 prior to thought and posterior to sensation. In inquiring 
 
 how far the same process can account for the invention 
 
 of language, which now takes place in the learning it, the 
 
 real question at issue is simply this : Is the act of mvmcr 
 
 names to individual objects of sense a thing so completely 
 
 beyond the power of man, created in the full maturity 
 
 of his faculties, that we must suppose a divine Instructor 
 
 performing precisely the same oflice as is now performed 
 
 for the infant by his mother or his nurse; teaching" him. 
 
 that is, to associate this sound with this sight? This 
 
 question may be answered afiirmatively or negatively, but 
 
 in either case it has nothing to do with the relation of 
 
 language to thought, properly so called.* 
 
 hommes ont eu besoin do la parole pour apprcndre k penscr, lis ont eu 
 bien plus besoin encore de savoir penser pour trouver I'art de la parole." 
 
 1 See Adam Smith's Considerations concerning the first Formation of Lan* 
 guages, appended to his Theory of Moral Sentitnents. 
 
 > On this subject, the following remarks of Maine de Biran are well 
 worthy of attention: "Pour que ces premiers signes donnas devlcnnent 
 quelque chose pour Tindividu qui s'en sert, 11 faut qu'ilMes institue lui- 
 mfime une seconde fois par son activity propre, oo qu'U y attache on aens. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 31 
 
 In relation to this question, the reader must be careful 
 not to confuse Language with Articulations, The case 
 of the deaf and dumb, so often quoted as an instance 
 of thought without language, is in this respect utterly 
 irrelevant. The education of these persons consists in the 
 substitution of a system of signs addressed to the eye 
 or the hand in the place of one addressed to the ear. 
 This system performs precisely the same oflice in relation 
 to them that speech pei-forms in the ordinary mental 
 development of children : it constitutes, in fact, their 
 language. They are thus in no respect an exceptional 
 case; and the whole question has to be considered on 
 general, not on special data. I cannot perceive any other 
 man's thoughts as they pass in his mind : I can only infer 
 their existence by perceptible signs ; and this presupposes 
 an established system of communication. The only valid 
 method of investigating the relation between thought and 
 speech is to examine the only instances in which both 
 
 Ceux qui pensent que Thommc n'eflt pu jamais inventer le langage, si Dieu 
 meme ne le lui cfit donnd ou r^vele, ne me semblcnt pas bien entendre la 
 question do I'institution du langagc: ils confondent sans cessc le fond avec 
 les formes. Supposd que Dico efit donne a I'hommc une langue touto 
 faite ou.un systemo parfait de signes articulcs ou ecrits propres a expri- 
 mer toutes ses idecs : il s'agissait toujours pour I'homme, d'attribuer 2t 
 chaque signe sa valour ou son sons propre, c'est-iMlire d'institucrvcritable- 
 ment ce signe avec une intention ct dans un but con9u par I'etre intelli- 
 gent, de memo que I'enfant institue les premiers signes qunnd il trans- 
 forme les oris qui lui sont donnes par la nature en vc'ritables signes de 
 reclame. 
 
 " La difflcultc du problbme psychologique, qui conslste a de'terminer les 
 facultes qui ont dd concourir a institution du premier langage, subsiste 
 done la memo, solt que les signes qui sont la forme et comme le mate- 
 riel de ce langage aient ^te' donnes ou re've'Ie's par la supreme intelligence, 
 Boit qu'ils aient 6x^ inventes par Thomroe ou sugg^rds par les idecs ou les 
 sentimens dont ils sont rexprcssion." — NouveUes Considerations sur les rap' 
 ports du physique et du moral de Vhomme, p. 93. 
 
82 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 * 
 
 ji ■' 
 
 elements are presented, the operations of my own con- 
 sciousness. Accepting what is there given in combination, 
 I must endeavor by analysis to ascertain how much of 
 the compound phenomenon is necessary, and how much 
 accidental. 
 
 The concept, as thus described, is the charactenstic 
 feature of Thought j)roppr, as distinguished from other 
 facts of consciousness: and the thinking process may be 
 adequately defined as the act of knowinf/ or judglnfj of 
 things by means of concejyts} It remains to inquire what, 
 according to this definition, must be the limits within 
 which Thought is operative, and what, consequently, will 
 be the distinguishing character of its laws. 
 
 Thought is only operative within the field of possible 
 experience ; i, e., upon such objects as can be presented in 
 an actual intuition or represented in an imaginary one. 
 For the concept is the result of data furnished by intui- 
 tion ; and its legitimacy, as an object of thought, must be 
 tested by reference to the same data. It is true that the 
 concept itself, as such, cannot be presented intuitively ; 
 but it must contain no attribute which is incompatible 
 with the intuitive presentation of its object. The concept 
 is not itself individual, but it must comprehend' such 
 attributes as are capable of individualization, such as can 
 coexist in an object of intuition. The notion of a triangle, 
 
 1 " Der Tcrstand iibcrhaupt kann als ein VermoRen zu arthcilen vor- 
 gpstellt werden. Denn cr ist nach dcm Obigen ein Vermo|^en zu denkcn. 
 Dcnkcn ist das Erkenntniss durch Bej^iffc" Kant, Kritik der rein. Vem, 
 (p. 70). An exact adherent of Kant would regard the definition jpven in 
 the text as tautological; for with him the provinces of Thought and Judg- 
 ment arc coextensive, and all judgment requires concepts. Bo^ as in the 
 following remarks the province of judgment is extended beyond that of 
 thought, the limitation becomes necessary. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 33 
 
 as a rectilinear figure of three sides, does not itself contain 
 the attributes of equilateral, isosceles, or scalene ; but it is 
 capable of being combined with any one of the three in a 
 perceived or imagined figure. But a rectilinear figure of 
 two sides is, by the application of the same test, shown 
 to be no concept at all. So long as we merely unite the 
 attnbutes in speech, without attempting to combine them 
 in an individual object, we may not be aware that we are 
 talking nonsense ; the attempt to imagine the figure shows 
 at once the incompatibility of the attributes. This, then, 
 is the criterion of positive thinking. A form of words, 
 uniting attributes not presentable in an intuition, is not 
 the sign of a thought, but of the negation of all thinking. 
 Conception must thus be carefully distinguished, as well 
 from mei-e imagination, as from a mere understanding 
 of the meaning of words.* Combinations of attributes 
 logically impossible may be expressed in language per- 
 fectly intelligible. There is no difficulty in understanding 
 the meaning of the i)hrase bilinear figure, or iron-gold. 
 The language is intelligible, though the object is incon- 
 ceivable. On the other hand, though all conception 
 implies imagination, yet all imagination does not imply 
 conception. To have a valid conception of a horse, I 
 must not only know the meaning of the several attributes 
 constituting tlie definition of the animal, but I must also 
 be able to combine those attributes in a representative * 
 
 ' These have been confounded by others besides Rcid. Tims Aldrich, 
 after defining Simple Apprehension as rkudus rei conceptus inidlectivus, pro- 
 ceeds: "Si quis dixerit Trianijidum aquilaterum esse aqmavgidum^ possum 
 Apprehensione Siraplici incomplexa intelligere quid sibi vclint singula 
 Orationis hujus vocabula." Apprehension iu this sense is not a logical 
 process at all, and is not governed by any of the laws of logical thinking. 
 ~ Cf. Hamilton on Reid, p. 377. 
 
84 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 f 
 
 image; that is, to individualize them. Tliis, however, is 
 not mere imagination, it is imagination relatively to a 
 concept. I not only see as it were the image with the 
 -mind's eye, but I also think of it as a horse, as possessing 
 the attributes of a given concept, and called by a name 
 expressive of them. But mere imagination is possible 
 without any such relation. Without any effort to recall 
 an object by means of its distinctive attributes, I may 
 be passively conscious of the continuance, in a weaker 
 state, of a sensible or otherwise intuitive impression, when 
 the object which gave rise to it is no longer present. This 
 is the Imagination which is described by Aristotle as a 
 ki7ul of ipcaJc seiisation,^ and as sensitive imagination} 
 When coupled with a consciousness of the past existence 
 of the impression which it represents, it forms the Memory, 
 as distinguished from the i?emtwi5cence, of Aristotle;^ This 
 kind of imagination does not in itself involve a distinction 
 or comparison of presentations : it is compatible with an 
 ignorance or forgetfulness of the existence of any presen- 
 tations, save the one represented by the image. Concep- 
 tion, on the other hand, in its lowest degree, implies at 
 least a comparison and distinction of this from tlmt. 
 When exhibited, as for its ultimate verification it must 
 be, in the construction of an individual image answering 
 to the general notion, it is still an act of thought, rather 
 than of intuition ; and when coupled with the conscious 
 effort to recall a past impression, it answera in some 
 degree to the Reminiscence of Aristotle.* 
 
 1 Bhct. I. 11. J De Animn, III. 11. 8 pg Menuma, c. 1. 
 
 *** The Understandlnjr, thonfxht proper, notion, concept, etc., may coin- 
 cide or not with Imaj^ination, representation proper, iinajro, etc. The two 
 faculties do not coincide in a general notion; for we cannot represent Man 
 or Horso in an actual image without individualizing the universal; and 
 
 M 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 35 
 
 Conception, where it does not coincide with imagination, 
 implies imagination as the test of its validity. To form 
 the notion of a class as distinguished from an individual, I 
 must emancipate the attributes of which I am conscious 
 from their connection with a definite time and place, and 
 this, as has been already observed, requires the intervention 
 of language. The consciousness of a general notion is thus 
 an instance of sgmbolical as distinguished from intuitive 
 knowledge ;* and the act of Conception, viewed apart from 
 Imagination, could only consist in the enumeration, by 
 means of verbal or other symbols, of the different parts 
 constituting a given notion.* But the symbol, though in- 
 
 thas contradiction emerges. But In the individual, say Socrates or Bu- 
 cephalus, they do coincide ; for I see no valid ground why we should not 
 think f in the strict sense of the word, or conceive the individuals which we 
 reprefmt.*'— Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 13. The Reminiscence of 
 Aristotle will include this kind of imagination under it, as the last step of 
 the process. 
 
 1 This distinction is due to Leibnitz. Sec his Meditationes de Cognitione, 
 Veritate, et Ida's, Opera, ed. Erdmann, p. 79. 
 
 * " In cognitione symholica prima mentis operatio ahsdvitur recensione vocah- 
 ulorum, vd aliorum signorum, qitibus ea indigitantur qtue notionem rei distinc- 
 tam ingrediuntur. Etcnim in cognitione symbolica tantummodo verbis 
 ennnciamus quae in idcis continentur, vel aliis signis eadcm rcprasscuta- 
 mus, ideas vero ipsas verbis aut signis aliis indigitatas non intucmur. 
 Quare cum in cognitione intuitiva prima mentis operatio absolvatur si 
 attentionem successive in idea rei ad ea dirigimus quae notionem distinc- 
 tam generis vel speciei ingrediuntur, singula autem haec enunciabilia sint, 
 adeoquo vocabulis vel signis aliis indigituri possint; in cognitione symbol- 
 ica prima mentis operatio absolvi debet recensione voca])ulorum, vel rep- 
 raesentatione aliorum signorum, quibus ea dcnotantur, quae notionem rei 
 distinctam ingrediuntur. Ito prima mentis operatio in cognitione symbol- 
 ica arboris absolvitur, si dicimus vegitabile, quod ex trunco, ramis, surcu- 
 lis ct foliis constat; etcnim sigillatim rccensemus verba quibus ea indigi- 
 tantur quae in arboribus tanquam communia distinguimus, conscquenter 
 quae notionem arboris in genere, quatenus distincta est, ingrediuntur. 
 Non autem jam nobis quocstio est, utrum notio distincta sit completa 
 
 It 
 
86 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 87 
 
 dispensable as an instrument of thought, lends itself with 
 equal facility to every combination, and thus furnishes no 
 criterion by which we can distinguish between sense and 
 nonsense, between the conceivable and the inconceivable. 
 A round square, or a bilinear JigurCy is, as a form of 
 speech, quite as possible as a straight line^ or an equilateral 
 triangle. The mere juxtaposition of words does not indi- 
 cate the possibility or impossibility of the corresponding 
 notion, until we attempt to construct in imagination an in- 
 dividual object in accordance with it. Till this criterion is 
 applied, the act of conception is rather a substitute for 
 consciousness than a mode of consciousness itself. The 
 sign is substituted for the thing signified ; a step which 
 considerably facilitates the performance of complex opera- 
 tions of thought, but in the same proportion endangers the 
 logical accuracy of each successive step ; since we do not, 
 in each, stop to verify our signs. Words, as thus employed, 
 resemble algebraical symbols, which, during the process of 
 a long calculation, we combine in various relations to each 
 other, without at the moment thinking of the original sig- 
 nification assigned to each. But those who, on this ac- 
 count, would reduce the whole of thouijht to an algebraical 
 computation, overlook the most important feature, the ver- 
 ification, namely, of the result, according to the logical 
 conditions of conception, after the algebraical j)rocess is 
 finished. It may be convenient, in the course of a compli- 
 c:ited reasoning, to assume the logical accuracy of the sub- 
 
 atqnc dctcrminata, ntqnc oratlone ista tallu notio sl^iflcctnr, nt hrec defl- 
 niilonis loio inservire possit. Suffloit enim hie ea gigillatini enanclarl 
 qua; inentc ab idea rei separantur, dura distincte nobw genus vcl spcclem 
 repriescntare conamur. Pundet enim co;^iiio symbolica ab intuitlva, 
 quam supponit et ad quam rcfcrtur. Quicquid ij^itur huic dccst, idem 
 etiam illi deessc debet."— Wolf, Psycholofjia Empiriva, 4 3Q8. 
 
 ordinate parts, and to employ their respective symbols on 
 this assumption. But what the concept gains in flexibility 
 it loses in distinctness; and the logical and algebraical 
 perfections are thus in an inverse ratio to each other. It 
 therefore becomes necessary, at the end of the process, to 
 submit the result to the logical test, to which each step has 
 been tacitly supposed to conform ; that of the possible co- 
 existence of the several attributes in an individual object.^ 
 
 The above remarks will necessitate some modification 
 of the doctrines ordinarily taught in logical treatises con- 
 cerning general notions, or, as they are commonly though 
 not very happily called, abstract ideas. We are told that 
 the mind examines a number of individual objects, agree- 
 ing in some features and diflfering in others, that it sepa- 
 rates the points in which they agree from those in which 
 they diflfer, and makes, of the former only, an abstract idea 
 or general notion, which is indiflTerently applicable to all 
 the individuals *from which it was derived, and by virtue 
 of which they are all called by a common name. 
 
 The reality of this process of Abstraction,* and of the 
 
 1 " Plerumque, praesertim in analjsi lonfflore, non totam simul natnram 
 rei intuemur, sed rerura loco signis utimur, quorum explicationem in pr«- 
 senti aliqua cogitatione compendii causa solemus praetermittere, scientes, 
 aut credentes nos earn habere in potestate: ita cum chiliogonum, sen poly- 
 gonum milie sequalium laterum cogito, non semper naturam lateris, et 
 aequalitatis, et millcnarii (seu cub! a denario) considero, sed vocabulis istis 
 (quorum sensu obscure saltem. atque imperfecte menti obversatur) in 
 animo utor loco ideamm, quas de lis habeo, quoniam mcmini me significa- 
 tlonem istorum vocabulorum habere, explicationem autem nunc judico 
 necessariam non esse; qualem cogitationem caecam, vel etiam symbolicara 
 appellaro soleo, qua et in Algebra, et in Arithmetica utimur, imo fere 
 Ubique/'— Leibnitz, Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate el Idris. 
 
 * Drobisch observes that the term Abstraction is used sometimes In a 
 psychological, sometimes in a logical sense. In the former, we are said 
 to abstract the attention fh)m certain distinctive features of objects pr«- 
 
 I 
 
 1. 
 
38 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 |ii 
 
 • 'ii 
 
 idea to which it is supposed to give rise, has been matter 
 of considerable controversy among modern philosophers. 
 Bishop Berkeley, and subsequently Hume, denied alto- 
 gether the possibility of such an operation, on the following 
 gi'ounds. The general idea of a triangle, it was argued by 
 Locke,^ is an imperfect idea, wherein parts of several differ- 
 ent and inconsistent ideas are put together. As limited to 
 no particular kind of triangle, but comprehending all, it 
 must be neither oblique, nor rectangle, neither equilateral, 
 equicrural, nor scalene, but all and none of these at once. 
 The abstract idea, as thus described, Berkeley easily per- 
 ceived to be self-contradictory, and the doctrine suicidal. 
 " I have a faculty," he says, ** of imagining or representing 
 to myself the ideas of those particular things I have per- 
 ceived, and of variously compounding and dividing them. 
 I can imagine a man with two heads, or the upper parts of 
 a man joined to the body of a horse. I can consider the 
 hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself, abstracted or sepa- 
 rated from the rest of the body. But then, whatever hand 
 or eye I imagine, it must have some particular shape and 
 color. Likewise the idea of man that I frame to myself; 
 must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny, a straight 
 or a crooked, a tall or a low, or a middle-sized man. To 
 be plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as 
 when I consider some particular parts or qualities separa- 
 ted from others, with which though they are united in 
 some object, yet it is possible they may really exist without 
 
 Rented {abstrahere a differentih). In the latter, we are said to abstract cer- 
 tain portions of a given concept from the remainder (abstrahert* differentias). 
 The former sense must be understood here, where we are considering the 
 mental process by which concepts are formed. To the latter, as a con- 
 scious process of thought, the following remarks do not apply. 
 1 Es9ay, book It. ch. 7, § 9. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 39 
 
 them. But I deny that I can abstract one from another, 
 or conceive separately, those qualities which it is impossi- 
 ble should exist so separated ; or that I can frame a gen- 
 eral notion by abstracting from particulars in the manner 
 aforesaid."* 
 
 ** It is, I know,*' continues the Bishop, " a point much in- 
 sisted on, that all knowledge and demonstration are about 
 universal notions, to which I fully agree : but then it doth 
 not appear to me that those notions are formed by abstrac- 
 tion in the manner premised ; universality, so fiir as I can 
 comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, positive nature 
 or conception of anything, but in the relation it bears to 
 the particulars signified or represented by it : by virtue 
 whereof it is that things, names, or notions, being in their 
 own nature particular, are rendered universal. Thus when 
 I demonstrate any proposition concerning triangles, it is to 
 be supposed that I have in view the universal idea of a 
 triangle ; which ought not to be understood as if I could 
 frame an idea of a triangle which was neither equilateral, 
 nor scalene, nor equicrural. But only that the i)articular 
 triangle I consider, whether of this or that sort it matters 
 not, doth equally stand for and represent all rectilinear tri- 
 angles whatever, and is in that sense universal, .... 
 Though the idea I have in view whilst I make the demon- 
 stration be, for instance, that of an isosceles rectangular 
 triangle, whose sides are of a determinate length, I may 
 nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear 
 triangles, of what sort or bigness soever; and that, be- 
 cause neither the right angle, nor the equality, nor deter- 
 minate length of the sides, are at all concerned in the 
 demonstration. It is true, the diagram I have in view in- 
 cludes all these particulars ; but then there is not the least 
 
 I 
 
 Principles qf Human Knowledge, Introduction, § x. 
 
4« 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 41 
 
 U 
 
 i- 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 mention made of them in the proof of the proposition. . • • 
 And here it must be acknowledged, that a man may con- 
 sider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to 
 the particular qualities of the angles or relations of the 
 sides. So far he may abstract : but this will never prove 
 that he can frame an abstract general inconsistent idea of 
 a triangle."^ On the other hand, it was argued by Reid, 
 that if a man may consider a figure simply as triangular, 
 without attending to the particular qualities of the angles 
 or relations of the sides, he must have some conception of 
 this object of his consideration ; for no man can consider a 
 thing which he does not conceive. He has a conception, 
 therefore, of a triangular figure, merely as such ; and this 
 is all that is meant by an abstract general conception of a 
 triangle.' 
 
 In this controversy, the question has been needlessly 
 confused by the vague and inaccurate use of terms. Idea 
 has been indifferently employed, by modern philosophers, 
 to denote the object of thought, of imagination, and even 
 (under the representative hypothesis) of perception.* Con- 
 ception, again, has not been sufficiently distinguished, on 
 the one side, from imagination, and, on the other, fi*om a 
 mere understanding of the meaning of words; and too 
 little attention has been paid to the office of language, 
 both as a substitute for consciousness, and as contributing 
 to the distinctness of consciousness itself. It is not strictly 
 
 1 Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, ^ xv. xvl. 
 
 ' Intellectual Powers, Essay v. ch. 6. 
 
 « As it is sometimes convenient to have a (general term indifferently 
 applicable to any object of internal consciousness, I have in the present 
 worlc occasionally availed myself in this extent of the term Idea, rtycct- 
 Ing, however, the representative idea of perception. But the term has 
 been avoided wherever it is necessary to distinguish between two differeni 
 states of coDscioosness. 
 
 I 
 
 coiTect to say that the individual alone is perceived first, 
 and the general notion formed from it by abstraction ; for, 
 without the assistance of the general notion, the indi- 
 viduals themselves and their several parts could not be i 
 distinguished from each other. If I am to form a general 
 notion of man by examining the individuals Peter, James, 
 and John, and separating the accidents in which they 
 differ from the essential points in which they agree, it is 
 clear that I must previously have formed general notions 
 of the parts thus separated from each other. In order to 
 separate, by an act of thought, the figure common to a 
 number of men from the accidents of stature, complexion, 
 etc., peculiar to each, I must first be able to form distinct 
 notions of the human figure on the one side, and •f the 
 several statures, complexions, etc., on the other. Abstrac- 
 tion thus presupposes conception, no less than conception 
 presupposes abstraction ; and we have still to learn how 
 either process can be a preliminaiy condition to the other. 
 The fact is, that our earliest consciousness is neither 
 of the individual discerned as an individual, nor of the 
 universal discerned as an imiversal, but of a confused 
 mixture of the two, which it requires a further develop- 
 ment of thought to analyze into the one or the other.* 
 Whatever we perceive occupies a definite position in time 
 and space ; it is seen 9ioto and here; so far it is an indi- 
 vidual. But position in time and space does not constitute 
 a mark by which this individual can be distinguished from 
 that ; I cannot by these relations alone determine whether 
 the object seen now and here is or is not the same indi- 
 vidual that was formerly seen elsewhere. To discern the 
 individual as such or the universal as such, I must by an 
 
 1 See Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, p. 497. 
 
 4» 
 
 1^- 
 
42 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 43 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 act of thought discern certain attributes as characteristic 
 of one, and certain others as common to many ; and this 
 power of discernment is gradually imparted to each of us 
 in practice by the use of language, in which our earliest 
 abstractions are given to us already made. In this gradual 
 formation of distinct thought from confused intuition, it 
 may in one sense indeed be said that our knowledge of the 
 class is prior to that of the individual. For resemblances 
 are noticed earlier than differences ; ^ and the names dis- 
 tinctive of individuals are at first associated only with 
 their general features. " Children," says Aristotle, ** at first 
 call all men father^ and all women mother, but afterwards 
 they distinguish one person from another." ^ By degrees 
 the individual attributes are discerned and separated from 
 the generic ; but in the first instance the name is applied 
 to diflTerent objects before we have learned to analyze the 
 growing powers of speech and thought, to ask what we 
 mean by each several use of this or that appellation, and 
 to correct and ^x the signification of words at first used 
 vaguely and obscurely. Such is the actual service per- 
 formed by language in the education of mankind under 
 the existing conditions of social intercourse. What was 
 the origin of language itself, and how far the same descrip- 
 tion will apply to the mental development of the first man, 
 is matter rather of ingenious conjecture than of scientific 
 explanation. 
 
 Berkeley, therefore, was clearly right in denying the 
 existence of any such process of Abstraction as that 
 described by Locke. The error of the latter consisted 
 
 1 A contrary theory on this point is the source of most of the difflcalties 
 which Rousseau professes to find in accounting for the origin of general 
 language from the names given to individuals. 
 
 > Phui. Atuc. 1. 1. 
 
 1 
 
 in regarding Abstraction as a positive act of thought, 
 instead of the mere negation of thought. Abstraction is 
 nothing more than non-attention to certain parts of an 
 object : we do not positively think of a triangle as neither 
 equilateral, isosceles, nor scalene ; but we think of the 
 figure as composed of three sides, without asking the 
 question whether those sides are equal or unequal. But, 
 on the other hand, Berkeley, in maintaining that all 
 notions are in their own nature particular, has overlooked 
 the fact that thought, and language as the instrument 
 of thought, is necessary to distinguish the particular as 
 particular, no less than the univereal as universal ; and 
 that we are thus enabled, partially in intuitive and wholly 
 in symbolical cognition, to discern generic attributes, and 
 to constitute them an object of conception, without being 
 conscious of the particulars by which they are accom- 
 panied. Berkeley is right in denying that we can imagine 
 the universal entirely apart from the particular, but, owing 
 to the vague significance of the word idecL, he seems to 
 speak of imagination as if it were coextensive with con- 
 ception. In symbolical cognition, the latter process may 
 be earned on apart from the former, subject, however, as 
 has been already observed, to the condition of being 
 tested as valid or invalid by the power of imagining a 
 corresponding object. This distinction has been clearly 
 indicated by Berkeley in another of his works ;^ and perhaps 
 his whole discussion needs only a more exact distinction 
 between the perception of individuals in time and space 
 and the recognition of them by their peculiar attributes, to 
 render it philosophically unexceptionable. 
 
 In speaking of Imagination as the test of Conception, 
 we do not accede to the ultra-sensationalism of Condillac, 
 
 1 MinuU Philosopher, Dial. vii. § 8. 
 
44 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 45 
 
 j! ' 
 
 I ' >■ 
 
 nor even to the modified doctrine of Laromignifere, who 
 denves from the senses the whole matter of our knowl- 
 edge. Imlwidualize your concepts, does not mean sensa. 
 twnalhe them, unless the senses are the only sources of 
 presentation. If I am immediately conscious, for example, 
 of an exercise of will, as an individual act taking place 
 Mithm me, the phenomena of volition become a distinct 
 class of presentations, coordinate with, not subordinate to 
 those of the senses, and capable, like them, of being repre^ 
 sented by the imagination and thought upon by the under- 
 suinding. If I am conscious of emotions of joy or sorrow, 
 of anger or fear, existing as present individual states of 
 mmd, distinct from sensible impressions, these, in- like 
 manner, must be considered as data for thought, furnished 
 by intuition. If, on the perception of certain individual 
 acts performed by myself or by another, I am immediately 
 conscious of an idea of riff At or tcronff ; I have again a 
 distmct class of intuitions, simple and nndefinable, the 
 laws and common features of which may furnish matter 
 of further reflection, but the existence of which, as indi- 
 vidual facts, is the indispensable condition of all moral 
 speculation. 
 
 The possibility, therefore, of any branch of scientific in- 
 quiry depends upon the psychological question, JIow many 
 preventative facultie» lias man ? > Every such faculty may 
 
 > In 'PeaWnff of .he hnm.„ mind as poMOMing . plurality of facaltic, 
 
 . « perhaps hardly neccssao^ to protest against the misinterpretation of 
 
 this lansuago, as if It implied that these faculties were distinct and inde- 
 
 pendent portions of the mind, like the separate member, of the body. 
 
 Su- W. Hamilton (Z>e<ure. m ilaaphp,ic, Lect. xx.) has shown that the 
 
 ITrlT^f T,'"" T '^" *"" "'"' •^"*""^ P"^"'""' ""« ">«« vast ma. 
 
 nV / ,?'°'' '"""' '''*"" °P*"'y '"">«"' »' «"«n"y assumed 
 that the faculties of mind are nothing more than modes in which the sim- 
 
 pie indivisible principle of though, mi, »ct and exist. As thus expUined 
 
 furnish distinct materials for thonght. Physical Science 
 is possible, if the senses present us with material phenom- 
 ena whose relations and laws thought may investigate. 
 Moral Science is possible, if we are presented with the 
 fact of moral approbation and disapprobation of this or 
 that action, in itself, and for its own sake ; and the ques- 
 tion for thought to investigate is, Whence do these feelings 
 arise, and on what laws are they dependent ? -^sthetical 
 Science is again possible as a distinct branch of inquiry, 
 if the emotions arising from the contemplation of beauty 
 in the works of nature or of art can be shown to be dis- 
 tinct from any communicated by their mere relation to 
 the senses. And Metaphysics must submit to 'the same 
 criterion. Rational Cosmology and Rational Psychology 
 are possible, only if Matter and Mind, as distinct from 
 their several phenomena, can be shown to be in any way 
 presented^ as the object of an immediate intuition. 
 
 This distinction between the presentations of intuition 
 and the representations of thought, which is thus the key 
 to all the most valuable applications of Psychology, is 
 intimated with more or less accuracy in the writings of 
 several modern philosophers. The often-quoted passage 
 of Locke, in which the operations of thought ai*e com- 
 
 the term is unobjectionable. It may be that in mental, as in physical 
 mechanics, we know force only from its effects ; but the consciousness 
 of distinct effects will then form the real basis of Psychology. The fac- 
 ulties may then be retained as a convenient method of classification, pro- 
 Tided the language is properly explained, and no more is attributed to 
 them than is warranted by consciousness. The same consciousness which 
 tdls me that seeing is distinct from hearing, tells me also that volition 
 is distinct fVom both ; and to speak of the faculty of will does not neces- 
 sarily imply more than the consciousness of a distinct class of mental 
 phenomena. No one but an advocate of the grossest materialism could 
 understand such an expression as implying numerically distinct organs 
 of mind, as of body. 
 
46 
 
 PKOLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 pared to the productions of art, furnishes in this respect, 
 when understood in its proper latitude, an unexceptiona- 
 ble description of the respective provinces of the intuitive 
 and discursive faculties. « It is not in the power of the 
 most exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by any quick- 
 ness or variety of thought, to invent or frame one new 
 simple idea in the mind. The dominion of man, in this 
 little worid of his own understanding, being much the 
 same as it is in the gieat worid of visible things ; wherein 
 his power, however managed by art and skill, reaches no 
 farther than to compound or divide the materials that are 
 made to his hand; but can do nothing towards the making 
 the least particle of new matter, or destroying one atom 
 of what is already in being." » The Ideas of Sensation 
 and Ideas of Reflection of the same philosopher, however ' 
 unfortunate may be the original choice of terms, and how- 
 ever inconsistent their subsequent employment, point cor- 
 rectly enough to the two great sources of external and 
 internal intuition.' A further step in accuracy is gained 
 in the Impressions and Ideas of Hume, though the dis- 
 tinction loses most of its value in his hands by the absurd 
 ground of distinction which he has laid down between 
 them, and by the unfortunate metaphor which declares 
 every idea to be an image of an impression.' Kant, who 
 
 1 £saay, b. ii. ch. 2 ^ 2. 
 
 « Reflection, in consistency with etymology, ought to have been limited 
 to the operations of thought; in which sense we can reflect upon sensible 
 olyects as upon all other things. Locke only escapes from Roid's criti- 
 cism on this point by using reflection improperly, as Stewart has ob- 
 served, as synonymous with [internal] consciousness. This use of the 
 term, however, is not peculiar to Locke. See Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures 
 on Metaphysics, pp. 162, 406. 
 
 • According to Hume, Ideas and Impreialone differ fVom each other only 
 in theur different degrees of force and vivacity; and beUef he defines as 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 47 
 
 took up the discussion where Hume left it, with the ad- 
 vantage of a new philosophical language, unencumbered 
 with the associations of earlier systems, is the earliest phi- 
 losopher whose writings have disentangled the confusion 
 universally following on the use of the term idea, and 
 exhibited this most important distinction with any de<n*ee 
 of accuracy and precision.^ It is one of the most valuable 
 principles of the Critical Philosophy, that the understand' 
 ing has no power of intuition; a principle which does not, 
 however, necessitate the adoption of the Kantian division 
 of the mental fiiculties, nor even the determination of the 
 question, whether the mind possesses numerically distinct 
 faculties at all. It simply means, that the act of ThoughT] 
 cannot create its own object : that, being mediate and rep- 
 resentative, it requires to be based on an immediate and t 
 presentative fact of consciousness. 
 
 It cannot therefore be maintained that the senses are 
 the sole criteria of truth and of reality, unless we assume, 
 
 "aUvelyidca associated with a present impression;" a doctrine which 
 almost justifies the sarcastic application of Rcid, "it will follow, that the 
 idea of a lion is a lion of less strength and vivacity. And hence may 
 arise a ver>' important question, whether the idea of a lion may not tear 
 in pieces and devour the ideas of sheep, oxen, and horses, and even of 
 men, women, and children." 
 
 1 In this respect, nothing can be more unfair than Stewart's sneers at 
 the obscurity and new technical language of Kant. The philosophical 
 terms of English and French writers are derived from the same source, 
 and subject to the same varieties of application. The purism of German 
 writers has given to all subsequent thinkers the inestimable advantage of 
 contemplating the same thoughts under a new phraseology, and with new 
 ••TOciations of etymology and metaphor; an advantage which no one has 
 appreciated more highly, or explained more happily, than Stewart himself, 
 on another occasion. As it is impossible to comply exactly with the pre 
 cept of Locke, to judge of ideas in themselves, their names being wholly 
 laid aside, the next best course is, to examine them, as far as possible, 
 through the medium of two independent hinguagcs. 
 
lii 
 
 4d 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 49 
 
 mk 
 
 m defiance of all consciousness, that there exist no im- 
 mediate mental phenomena, but those communicated by 
 ^sensation. /Any one presentation is as true and as real as 
 ^i^F^^ and unreality can only be^in wiih 
 
 thought. The immediate judgment of presentation, that 
 am at this moment conscious of a certain object, is 
 equally true as regards any class of presentations; Un- 
 reality, m this case, can only consist in the distinctness of 
 one class of presentations from another, which latter we 
 have arbitranly selected as the test of reality; and false- 
 hood, m the assertion of the identity of distinct classes, or 
 of the distinctness of identical ones. But such a selec 
 tion or assertion involves an act of thought ; it is a 
 judgment concerning intuitions as classified under certain 
 concepts. If I choose arbitrarily to select the senses as 
 the sole test of reality, the phantasms of imagination are 
 so far unreal ; but their unreality implies no more than 
 that they are not perceived by the senses. If I gay « A 
 centaur exists as an image in my mind, therefore it exists 
 n nature the assertion is false, because, by an act of 
 thought, I judge that to be an object of possible sense, 
 which IS only gjven to me as an object of imagination : 
 
 Lrs '" ""*"" " "■' '"'" '^' "»•'"■ - 
 
 This view of the reality of all presentations, as such, 
 could not indeed be consistently held by the advocates of 
 a representative theory of perception. If, in all intuition, 
 n am immediately conscious only of certain ideas or modi- 
 / ^."?'^""7f."»y ^^" '"i"^^ I am reduced to the alternative, 
 either of disbelieving the existence of an extenial world 
 altogether, or of drawing a distinction between such ideas 
 as are representative and indicate the existence of objects 
 without my mind, and such as are purely imaginary and 
 
 I 
 
 have no objective reality corresponding.^ The former will[ 
 then be distinguished as real, the latter as unreal presenta- 
 tions. But i^ in perception, I am immediately and pre- 
 sentatively conscious of a non-ego (and such is the soundest 
 view, both in common sense and in philosophy), the repre- 
 sentative idea and its supposed claim to superior reality 
 vanishes altogether. Every presentation is real in itself 
 some as immediately informing me of the existence of 
 states of my own mind, others as immediately informing 
 me of the existence of objects without ; and my judgment 
 about each is equally true when I assert it to be what it 
 is, and equally false when I assert it to be what it is not. 
 In this respect, the philosophers of the school of Common 
 Sense have not always consistently adhered to their fun- ' 
 damental principle, in the distinction which they have 
 drawn between perception and imagination.* . 
 
 But though it is not true that the whole matter of 
 knowledge is furnished by the senses, it cannot be denied 
 that it is entirely furnished by the presentative faculties. 
 And this may throw some light on a distinction, concern- 
 ing which there frequently exists considerable confusion, 
 the distinction between what are, vaguely enough, termed 
 positive and negative ideas. A positive intuition is one 
 which has been presented to us in actual consciousness, 
 real or imaginary : a positive concept is one whose com- 
 ponent parts are capable of being so presented in combi- 
 nation. A negative concept, on the other hand, which 
 is in fact no concept at all, is the attempt to realize in 
 
 1 See Locke, Essay, b. iv. ch. 4, §§ 3—12. 
 
 2 See Reid, Inquiry, ch. ii. 4 3, and the antagonist remarks of Stewart, 
 Elements, vol. i. ch. 3. Both discussions mi<;ht have been cleared of some 
 conftislon by determining accurately what is meant by reality in Presen- 
 tations. 
 
 h 
 
60 
 
 PKOLEGOMEIfA LOGICA. 
 
 thought those combinations of attributes of which no 
 corresponding intuition is possible. The inability may be 
 absolute or relative, owing to the general limitations of all 
 human consciousness, or to peculiar deficiencies in the 
 experience of this or that individual. Thus a blind man 
 inay be said to have a negative idea of color, when he 
 attempts to supply the defects of his experience by anal- 
 ogy from other sensations; as in the case mentioned by 
 
 ir K, ,f ' "''° ^'^^ '"PP"^*** '^' "»'<>' «f ^c^rfet to 
 resemble the sound of a trumpet.^ But in like manner 
 
 any man, though in the full possession of his faculties, can 
 
 only negatively conceive those simple ideas' which have 
 
 never been actually presented in their proper intuition. 
 
 The nature of the presentation will of course depend upon 
 
 the foculty to which that class of intuitions beloU If I 
 
 have never seen objects of any other color than white and 
 
 red, I have a positive idea of these, a negative idea of 
 
 blue and yellow. If I had all my lifetime been subject 
 
 to coercion, and had never performed an act of volition, 
 
 I should have a negative idea of free agency. If I had 
 
 never in my life found my volition opposed, I should have 
 
 a negative ,dea of coercion. As it is, I have a positive 
 
 Idea of both. I desire to thrust my arm out in open space, 
 
 and my desire is carried into effect. Here is the positive 
 
 consciousness of freedom. I try to thrust it through a 
 
 wall, and am resisted. Here is the positive consciousness 
 
 > Estay, b. Ui. ch. 4, Ul. 
 
 Jn^!; f"«f ,^» ■"« ">'""' 'he immediate objeela of scneatlon or reflec 
 1" '" ^^f «e»«e Of .he term,, ,„eh ^ color and ,ou„d, whlh cTn^ 
 apprehended only by actual sio-hf nr- k^-^ 
 which can be knr^J^ , k v" *'^"^' ^^^^^^^^ and voUtlon, 
 
 tion, but the elements must be given beforehand. Compare Locke, T^ 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 61 
 
 of coercion.^ When Locke declared infinite space and 
 infinite duration to be negative ideas, he was right, if 
 we grant his hypothesis of their origin. The former he 
 derived from sensation ; and all the space which we can 
 actually perceive by the senses is finite: the latter he 
 derived from reflection; and every duration which we 
 have personally experienced is finite also. Those who do 
 not accede to his conclusion ground their dissent on a 
 denial of his premises.* The language in which the con- 
 cept is expressed is in this respect altogether indifferent. 
 We may speak of the same act as voluntary, or not con- 
 strained, as compulsory, or not voluntary. The test of 
 its positive or negative character is to be found in the 
 question, Has it ever been realized in an intuitive pre- 
 sentation ? 
 
 Those ideas whose negative character depends merely 
 on the deficiences of individual experience, and which 
 may therefore be described as accidentally or relatively 
 negative, are beyond the consideration of pure Logic, or 
 
 1 Some philosophers represent the idea of fVeedom as a negative one. 
 Thus Kant (Rechtslehre, p. i>8, cd. Schubert) and Fithte {Kritik oiler Qffen- 
 barung, § 2) describe it as mcrcly an absence of the feeling of "ompulsion. 
 This description would be correct, if we had never performed an act in 
 our lives except under coercion. As it is, the idea of freedom is as posi- 
 tive as that of restraint, both being at different times presented in actual 
 consciousness. The same is the case with heat and cold, good and evil, 
 and other pairs of contraries, each of which, as a phenomenon of con- 
 sciousness, is as positive as the other. What may be their respective rela- 
 tions to a transcendental cause beyond the sphere of consciousness, we 
 have no means of determining. 
 
 2 See Cousin, Histoire de la Philosqphie, le9on xviii. On the other hand, 
 Locke's conclusion is supported, though on different grounds, by Sir W. 
 Hamilton, Discussions^ p. 605, who shows that an absolutely first unit of 
 Space or Time, and an infinite extent of either, are both equally inconceiv- 
 able. 
 
■!» 
 
 62 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PKOI^GOUBNA LOGICA. 
 
 53 
 
 pare Metaphysics, which deal only with those conditions 
 of thought which are common to all mankind. Hence the 
 only negative ideas with which the logician or metaphysi- 
 cian as such is concerned, are those which arise from an 
 attempt to transcend the conditions of all hnman thought 
 If the hnman mind is subject to laws and limitations 
 which It IS unable to transgress by any effort of thou-^ht 
 (and that this is the case will be shown at a further sta-ro 
 of our inquiry), there will arise in relation to these a cla'ss 
 of notions which may be distinguished as essentianu or 
 ahsolutehj negative. Such negative notions, however, must 
 not be confounded with the absence of all mental activity. 
 They imply at once an attempt to think, and a failure in 
 that attempt.' The language by which such notions are 
 indicated is not like a word in an unknown tongue, which 
 excites no corresponding affection in the mind of the 
 hearer: it indicates a relation, if only of difference, to 
 that of which we are positively conscious, and a eonse- 
 qnent effort to pass from one to the other. Thus, if it be 
 true that the infinite is not a positive object of human 
 thought, it will not follow that the word is to us wholly 
 unmeaning. We may attempt to separate the condition 
 of fin.teness from our conception of a given object, though 
 the result m.ay ultimately involve a self-contradiction We 
 may attempt in like manner to conceive a space enclosed 
 by two straight lines, and it is not till after the attempt 
 has been made that we become aware that the expression 
 bilinear figure admits of no corresponding notion. And it 
 may frequently happen, owing to the use of language as a 
 substitute for positive thought, that a process of reasonin.- 
 may bo carried on to a considerable length, without the 
 reasoncr being aware of the essentially inconceivable 
 
 ' See Sir W. Hamilton's Biscitsslom, p. C02. 
 
 character of the terms which he is employing. If we 
 assume without inquiry the possible existence of a circular 
 square, we may demonstrate of it in succession all the 
 properties of the circle and all those of the square, without 
 at the moment perceiving their incompatibility with each 
 other. Such a self-deception is still easier when the nega- 
 tive character depends, not on the union of attributes 
 which cannot be conceived in conjunction, but on the 
 separation of those which cannot be conceived apart. We 
 may easily analyze in language that which it is impossible 
 to analyze in thought. Thus we can neither perceive nor 
 imagine color without extension ; an unextended color is 
 therefore a purely negative notion. Yet many philoso- 
 phers of eminence liave maintained that the connection 
 between these two ideas is merely one of association, and 
 have reasoned concerning color apart from extension with 
 as much confidence as if their language represented a 
 positive thought. The speculations concerning the seat 
 of the soul may be cited as another instance of the same 
 kind. Position in space and occupation of space arc cor- 
 relative notions; neither is conceivable apart from the 
 other. Yet the above speculations for the most part 
 proceed on the tacit assumption that it is possible to 
 assign a local habitation to an unextended substance. 
 Such is the influence of language, even when representing, 
 not thought, but its negation. 
 
 If thought is operative only within the field of possible 
 experience, it follows, that we are not entitled, in any act 
 of thought, to add to the data given in the concept, with- 
 out a fresh appeal to intuition. I have in my mind the 
 notion of a centaur, as a creature with the upper parts of 
 a man and the lower parts of a horse. But this concept 
 does not in itself contain the attribute of existence in space 
 
 5» 
 
54 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 as an object of possible perception. I am therefore not 
 warranted .n thinlcing of the centaur a, so existing, until 
 he attnbute .a supplied fro.n its proper source of p^senta- 
 tion, wh.ch ,n this case is sensible experience. If mv 
 notion of man does not contain the attribute of mortality. 
 I may th.nk of man as mortal or as immortal, but I can- 
 not determme which of these judgments is true, ,-. e., is in 
 accordance with the corresponding intuition, without con,- 
 panng them with the fact as presented by experience. In 
 the mere notion of two straight lines, it is not contained 
 that they cannot inclose a space ; and in the mere notion, 
 of the numbers 7 and 5, it is not contained that their sum 
 IS 12 Neither of these judgments, therefore, can be deter- 
 mined to be tnie without an appeal to some fact or other 
 of intuition. This limitation of the province of tliouH.t 
 implies some important consequences, which will an„ear 
 when we come to consider the character of the laws of 
 pure thinking recognized by Logic. 
 
 Before taking leave of this part of our subject, it may be 
 tiseful to point out one or two questions of controversy, 
 to which the distinction between Thought and other facts 
 of consciousness may be applied with advanta-e 
 
 It has been remarked by Sir William Hamilton,' that 
 the whole controversy of Nominalism and Conceptualism 
 IS founded on the ambiguity of the terms employed ; on 
 the want, that is, of an accurate distinction, such as is fur- 
 nished by the German Anschauung and BegHff, between 
 the individual intuitions of sense and imagination, and 
 the general concepts of the understanding. We may ob- 
 serve further, that the controversy between Nominalism 
 and Realism may be, if not absolutely decided, at least 
 considerably simplified, by attending to the same distino- 
 
 * Beid'i Works, p. 412. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 55 
 
 tion. Some recent critics, in examining this question, have 
 managed to introduce additional confusion into what was 
 sufficiently confused before. It is asked, for example, 
 whether the great division of animal, vegetable, and min- 
 eral is not to be regarded as the work of nature, rather 
 than as the arbitrary product of man's classification. Un- 
 doubtedly : but what has that to do with the question of 
 the existence of Universals out of the mind ? We admit, 
 that is, that nature has stamped on certain locally distinct 
 individuals a number of prominent features of resem- 
 blance, which cannot fail to strike the eye of an observer. 
 But has she thereby produced anything more than one 
 set of attributes existing in one individual in one place, 
 and another similar set existing in another individual ia 
 another place ? But when, by an act of mind, we have 
 abstracted from the existence in space under which 
 all objects of sense are presented, and, by virtue of that 
 abstraction, have advanced from individual similarity to 
 specific unity, from the similar attributes of several objects 
 to the mutual relation of all, the results of the process can 
 only be regarded as the offspring of our minds. This con- 
 sideration does not indeed prove decisively the impossi- 
 bility of universals a parte rei, but it shows that no argu- 
 ment in favor of their existence can be drawn from the 
 observed uniformities of nature.^ 
 
 Another subject of dispute between different schools of 
 philosophy is. What are the limits of definition ? The 
 Scholastic Logicians, holding that definition was by genus 
 and differentia, very consistently laid it down as a canon, 
 
 * Since the pablicatlon of the first edition of this work, T have been 
 gratified at finding the same view maintained in an able discossion hy 
 M. de R^musat, Abelard, vol. 11. p. 125. 
 
56 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 that no object was definable which could not be regarded 
 a^ a Species. Summa genera and individuals were by 
 this rule incapable of definition. On the other hand, Des- 
 cartes and Locke, rejecting this restriction, maintain that 
 s^mple ideas alone cannot be defined. Both are ri-ht, ac 
 cording to their different meanings of definition.^ With 
 the former, it signifies the resolution of a complex oeneral 
 cmcept into the simpler concepts which it comprehends. 
 With the latter, it is the resolution of a complex individ^ 
 ual object of sense into the simpler objects of which it is 
 composed. The one is a mental analysis of notions, the 
 other a sensible analysis of intuitions. No definition, as 
 Locke truly observes, will convey the idsa of whiteness to 
 a blind man ; t. e^ it will not enable him to form a sensible 
 image of the color. But no definition (in the scholastic 
 sense) was ever intended to accomplish this object. The 
 far-famed animal rationale does not do it for man ; and 
 tor the very sufiicient reason, that concepts, as such, are 
 not capable of being presented in sense or imagination. 
 If the purpose of logical definition were to enable us to 
 torm an .^.a, ,-. ,., a representative image of an object, 
 pointing It out with the finger would be a far more satis- 
 lactory definition than any verbal analysis.^ But ideas in 
 this sense, have no connection with logical definition. 
 Locke s Ideas of sensation, simple or complex, are all ex- 
 eluded from the province of definition, as being individu- 
 als, I. e., as not being concepts at all. On the other hand, 
 the concept whiteness, as a species of color, is capable of 
 definition by its optical differentia, as a color produced by 
 equal mixture of the simple rays. An example adduced 
 
 Cf. MiU 8 Loijic, vol. i. p. 183. -"crvAy. 
 
 67 
 
 by Descartes, as well as by Locke and Leibnitz,^ will illus- 
 trate the distinction still more clearly. The concept of a 
 chiliogon is a regular polygon of 1000 sides. As addressed 
 to the sense, this definition would not enable any man to 
 distinguish an individual figure of the kind by sight from 
 another which had 999 sides; but, as addressed to the 
 understanding, it is sufiicient for the demonstration of the 
 mathematical properties of the figure. Yet even here, in- 
 tuition, though not directly applied, is the virtual test of 
 the possibility of the conception. I may not be able dis- 
 tinctly to represent in an image or construct in a figure a 
 thousand sides at once ; but it is from ray intuitive con- 
 sciousness of the same attributes as existing on a more 
 limited scale, that I know that there is nothing incompati- 
 ble between the number of a thousand sides and the prop- 
 erty of enclosing a space. Under this conviction the sym- 
 bolical takes the place of the intuitive cognition ; and we 
 are enabled, by the aid of language, to think of the figure 
 in certain relations, without actually constructing it with 
 the hand or in the mind. 
 
 The same distinction will furnish a ground for criticizing 
 certain popular systems of logical notation. If Logic is 
 exclusively concerned with Thought, and Thought is ex- 
 clusively concerned with Concepts, it is impossible to ap- 
 prove of a practice, sanctioned by some eminent Logicians, 
 of representing the relation of terms in a syllogism by that 
 of figures in a dingram. To illustrate, for example, the 
 position of the terms in Barbara, by a diagram of three 
 circles, one within another, is to lose sight of the distinc- 
 tive mark of a concept, that it cannot be presented to the 
 sense, and tends to confuse the mental inclusion of one 
 
 1 Sec Descartes, Meditatio Sexta; Locke, Essay, ii. 29, 13; Leibnitz, Nou- 
 veaux Essais, ii. 29, 13. 
 
' flf 
 
 58 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOCrCA. 
 
 notion m the sphere of another, with the local inclusion of 
 a smaller portion of space in a larger.' The diagrams of 
 Geometry ,n th.s respect furnish no precedent ; for they do 
 not Illustrate the/orm of the thought, but the matter, not 
 the general character of the demonstration as a reasoning 
 process, but its special application as a reasoning abo«° 
 
 Tv ^h"", f V^"""- . ^"" "'^^ " ''"'' ^ practice justified 
 by the test of conce.vability which has been mentioned 
 above, the possibility, namely, of individualizing the attri- 
 butes comprehended in a concept. For, whereas that test 
 IS employed to determine the conceivability of the actual 
 contents of each separate concept, the logical diagrams are 
 designed to represent the universal relations in which all 
 concepts, whatever be their several contents, formally stand 
 towards each other. The contrast between these two, as 
 leg.t.mate and illegitimate appeals to intuition, will more 
 luJJy appear in the sequel. 
 
 1 " Da der Mcnsch die Sprache hat," says Hecel "ala d«« a., v 
 
 zToZ Tr ;r ^-'^"-^-^- --hen u' d !:^^ 
 
 ™.n f" ^^-^-y-«-. eines CalaUs, f^ha.ten rwoU^ 
 While dissenting totally from the Hejjelian view of LoHo t / "" 
 
 quoting the above passage, as appH^able tTeve^^il^'r^^^^^^^ 
 wh.h n^gnizes the essential distinction bctweelTh:!:;^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE THBEE OPERATIONS OF THOUGHT. 
 
 Concerning the threefold division of the mental opera- 
 tions usually acknowledged by Logicians, it has been 
 questioned whether they are properly to be regarded as 
 distinct acts of Thought or not. The question may be 
 considerably simplified, by discriminating between difierent 
 principles of identity or distinctness, as applicable severally 
 to mental and material objects. The only natural and 
 necessary principle of distinction between objects is the 
 numerical divereity of individuals. In this respect, not 
 only the several acts of Simple Apprehension, Judgment, 
 and Reasoning, but every single act of each class, is dis- 
 tinct from every other. An act of reasoning w^hich I 
 perform to-day is numerically distinct from any act per- 
 formed yesterday, though both may be governed by the 
 same laws and applied to the same objects. Beyond this, 
 any principle o£ specific identity or diversity is to a certain 
 extent arbitrary and artificial. The only ground of dis- 
 tinction between a natural and an unnatural classification 
 of individuals depends upon the frequency with which 
 we have occasion to view them in this or that relation ; in 
 other words, on the respective utility of diflTerent points 
 of view for certain given purposes. On this giound, 
 Apprehension, Judgment, and Reasoning are rightly and 
 necessarily regarded as distinct classes of mental opera- 
 tions, relatively to Logic, inasmuch as their several pro- 
 
60 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 I 
 
 ducts, the Concept, the Judgment, and the Syllogism, ex- 
 hibit distinct logical forms, and require a distinct logical 
 treatment. 
 
 Psychologically, the question must be examined on 
 somewhat different grounds. It may be urged, for exam- 
 ple, on the one side, that the several operations are the 
 product of the simple faculty of Comparison ; that they 
 are not in act ever separable from each other. Apprehension 
 being always accompanied by Judgment, and Judgment 
 by Apprehension, and Reasoning by both ; that the mind, 
 one and indivisible, is wholly employed in each. On the 
 other side, it may be answered, that acts of Comparison 
 may be regarded as specifically distinct, as engaged on 
 distinct objects ; that the comparison of attributes with 
 each other, of concepts, immediately in themselves, or 
 mediately with a common third concept, are pro tanto 
 distinct acts; that the same mind is not always equally 
 skilful in all three ; and other arguments of the like kind. 
 Both these opposite opinions may be accepted as true, if 
 we attend to the different points of view which render the 
 decision of all such matters of controversy in some degree 
 arbitrary. 
 
 The distinction between the faculties and parts of the 
 mind is based on a principle exactly the reverse of that 
 by which a similar distinction is made relatively to the 
 body. The membere of the latter are given as logically 
 and numerically distinct, and thus furnish a preexisting 
 basis for the classification of their several operations. 
 Thus, seeing and hearing are distinguished from each 
 other, as the operations of the eye and the ear respec- 
 tively ; and the use of the pen, the brush, and the chisel, 
 may in this point of view be classified together, as opera- 
 tions of the hand; whereas, in the mind^ the distinctness 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 61 
 
 of the operations is itself the ground on which, for mere 
 convenience of discussion, we classify and distinguish 
 different parts and faculties, as belonging to the mind 
 itself.^ The acts, therefore, must, on independent grounds, 
 be determined to be identical or distinct, before we unite 
 or separate them, as related to the same or divei*se mental 
 powere. 
 
 Hence it appears that the classification of operations, 
 relatively to distinct mental faculties, is contingent upon 
 the adoption of some independent principle for classifying 
 the same operations in themselves. In the present state 
 of Psychology, much must be left to the discretion of 
 individual inquirers; no one division having been so 
 universally adopted by philosophei-s, or having led to such 
 important results, as to render imperative its adoption as 
 the division Kar iioxrjv of psychologers. But to suppose a 
 distinct mental faculty for each of the three logical opera- 
 tions, solely on the ground of the distinct objects compared 
 in each, is, to say the least, to make Psychology unneces- 
 sarily complicated, and to offend against a rule of great 
 weight in all systems of classification, JEntia non sunt 
 multiplicanda proeter necesdtatem. Indeed, the several 
 phenomena of conception, judgment, and reasoning, 
 viewed merely as mental acts, and without reference to 
 the divei*sity of the data from which the act commences 
 and with which it deals, appear to furnish far more promi- 
 
 1 " Nous ne savons que Tame humainc possede ccrtaincs facultds, quo 
 parce que nous voyons en elle certains phenomcnes se produlre. Ainsi, 
 parce que nous observons qu'elle sent, qu'elle pense, qu'clle se souvient, 
 nous en concluons qu'elle a la capacitd de sentir, la capacitc de pcnscr, la 
 capacite' de se souvenir; et ee sont ces capaoites que nous appelons pes fae- 
 ult^s."— Jouffroy, Dcs facuUen de Vdnie humainef (Melanges PhUosophiqueSf 
 p. 313, 2d ed.) 
 
 6 
 
 II 
 
62 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 63 
 
 i 
 
 lii 
 
 h 
 
 nent features of similarity than of difference. They are 
 effected by the same means ; they are governed by the 
 same laws; they are confined within the same limits; 
 they admit of the same distinctions of material and foi-raal 
 validity. The psychological analysis of any one may be 
 applied, almost in the same words, to the others ; and so 
 far as thought alone is concerned (though not always in 
 the possession and management of the materials upon 
 which thought is exercised), the same mental qualities 
 are manifested in the right performance of each. In a 
 psychological point of view, to enumerate separate mental 
 faculties, as giving rise to the various products of thought, 
 IS, to say the least, to encumber the science with unneces' 
 sary and perplexing distinctions. It will be sufficient to 
 refer them to the single faculty of T/iouffht, the operation 
 of which is in all cases Comparison,^ 
 
 But the faculty of Thouf;ht, though uniform in its own 
 nature and in the manner of its operation, may yet give 
 use to different products, according to the diversity of the 
 materials upon which it operates ; and this difference, as 
 has already been observed, forms the basis of the classifi- 
 cation usually adopted in Logic. Hence, from the different 
 points of view in which thought is contemplated by the 
 two sciences, there arises some diversity of detail, which it 
 is desirable to point out more particulariy. 
 
 Extending the terms Apprehension and Judgment be- 
 yond the region of Thought proper,^ it may be faid down, 
 
 I See Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. xxxfv. 
 The division into Simple Apprehension, Jndgment, and Reasoning, Is 
 usually given as one of the discursive faculties. Yet even Logicians have 
 extended it to the powers of perception and imagination. Indeed, these 
 severa faculties have shared in the confusion arising fVom the vague use. 
 m modem philosophy, of the term idea. A striking instance is affonied 
 
 as a general canon of Psychology, that the unit of con- 
 sciousness is :i judgment; in other words, that every act of 
 consciousness, intuitive or discursive, is comprised in a 
 conviction of the presence of its object, either internally 
 in the mind or externally in space. The result of every 
 such act must thus be generally stated in the proposition, 
 ** This is here." Consequently, at least with reference to 
 the primary and spontaneous, as distinguished from the 
 secondary and reflex acts of consciousness, it is more cor- 
 rect to describe Apprehension as the analysis of Judgments, 
 than Judgment as the synthesis of Apprehensions.^ 
 
 In a psychological point of view, therefore, it is incor- 
 rect to describe Simple Apprehension as the first operation 
 of the mind. In one sense, indeed, the relation of prior 
 and posterior is altogether out of place : Chronologically, 
 inasmuch as every Apprehension is simultaneous with a 
 Judgment, and every Judgment with an Apprehension ; 
 and logically, inasmuch as Judgment cannot exist without 
 Apprehension, nor Apprehension without Judgment. In 
 another sense, however, we may properly say that Judg- 
 ment is prior to Apprehension ; meaning that the subject 
 and the object are first given in their mutual relation to 
 each other, before either of them can itself become a sep- 
 arate object of attention. But when a corresponding 
 division is adoj^ted of the operations of Thought, properly 
 so called, the same order of priority cannot be observed. 
 Every operation of thought is a judgment, in the psycho- 
 logical sense of the term ; but the psychological judgment 
 must not be confounded with the logical. The former is 
 
 by "Wolf, in his account of Apprehension and Judgment. PhU. Bat., 
 SS 33-39. 
 
 1 See Reid, InteJlectual Powers, Essay iv. ch. 3, with Sir W. HamUton's 
 Commentary. 
 
64 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGIC A. 
 
 the judgment of a relation between the conscious subject 
 and the immediate object of consciousness ; the latter is 
 the judgment of a relation wiiich two objects of thought 
 bear to each other. The former cannot be distinguished 
 as true or false, inasmuch as the object is thereby only 
 judged to be present at the moment when we are con- 
 scious of it as affecting us in a certain manner ; and this 
 consciousness is necessarily true. The latter is true or 
 false according as the relations thou<?ht as existing be- 
 tween certain concepts are actually found in the objects 
 represented by those concepts or not. The logical judg- 
 ment necessarily contains two concepts, and hence must be 
 regarded as logically and chronologically posterior to the 
 conception, which requires one only. The psychological 
 judgment is coeval with the iii-st act of consciousness, and 
 is implied in every mental process, whether of intuition or 
 of thought. It cannot, therefore, be called prior or poste- 
 rior to any other mental operation, for there is no mental 
 operation in which it does not take place ; but the judg- 
 ments of intuition are logically and chronologically prior 
 to the judgments of thought.* Conception is a psychologi- 
 
 ^ Of the important distinction between chronological and logical priority 
 (the tempore and natura of the scholastic post-predicaments), it will be 
 sufficient to quote one ancient and one modem exposition. Aristotle (for 
 name and thing), Categ. ch. 12: Up6Tfpov irtpov (rtpov Xtyrrou rtrpaxm^ 
 Tp&Tov ii\v KoL Kvpidn-ara Karh xp^yov, ko^' h irpf<r$vrfpoy htpov htpov koI 
 va\ai6rfpoif Ktytrai. . . . AfvTtpoy 8i rh fx^i aimarptipoy Karh, rijy rov tJyeu 
 ijco\ov^<riVf oToy rh ty rwv Ivo irp6r(pov' hvo7y fi^y yhp 6yTcoy iucoKov^u 
 tv^vs rh ty tlyaiy iyhs 8c uyrot ovK iyayxcuoy 9vo thai, Metaph. viii. 8. 2. 
 ndtrns ^ rrjs roiainris -^portpa i<rr\y ri iyipytia koI \6ytp koI rp ov<rl<^' 
 Xpi^V 8' ?<"* /iiv fis, tm 8' its oH, Cousin, Pwgramme d'un cours de 
 Philosophie: "Une connaissance est ant^rieure k une autre dans I'ordre 
 logique, en tant qu'elle I'autorlse; elle est alors son antdced(?nt logique. 
 Une connaissance est ante'rieure k une autre dans I'ordre psychologique, 
 en tant qu'elle se produit avant elle dans I'csprit humaln; ello est alors soa 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 65 
 
 M 
 
 cal judgment, but not a logical one, and is properly ranked 
 as the first operation of Thought, inasmuch as it is the 
 simplest. ' 7 
 
 As the design of the present essay is not to consider 
 Psychology in itself, but Psychology in its relation to 
 Logic, I shall content myself with accepting the three 
 operations of Thought as they are commonly distinguished 
 by Logicians, examining them with a view of ascertaining 
 what light Psychology can throw on the province and laws 
 of each. Other points of view, and other principles of 
 classification, need not be further discussed in this place. 
 In relation to their several logical products, the three I 
 operations may be distinguished as follows. 
 
 Conceiving has been already explained as the individu- 
 alizing of certain attributes comprehended in a general 
 notion and expressed in a general term; the representation, 
 namely, of such attributes as coexisting in a possible ob- 
 ject of intuition. Language, as before observed, is, in its 
 
 earliest operations, a sign, not of concepts, but of intu-; 
 
 itions. Its earliest terms are employed as the proper / 
 names of individual objects. Conception does not take 
 place till afler we have learned to give the same name to 
 various individuals presented to us with certain differences 
 of attributes, and hence to associate it with a portion 
 only, not with the whole, of what is presented in each. 
 This may be distinguished as Abstraction^ a spontaneous, 
 though not always a voluntary act, the concentration of 
 the mind on certain portions only of a given object in 
 relation to its name. This must not be treated, as is 
 frequently done by Logicians, as a conscious process of 
 
 ant^ced^nt psychologique." For some admirable applications of the above 
 distinction, see the same author's criticism of Locke, Cours de Philosophies 
 iccon 17. 
 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 67 
 
 If 
 
 I 
 
 thought, being only a preliminary condition to thinking, 
 taking place in the majority of cases unconsciously, dur- 
 ing the gi-adual acquisition of speech.* Our names thus 
 gradually acquire a signification, being transformed from 
 proper names to appellatives. Finally, the act of concep- 
 tion consists in contemplating the attributes thus com- 
 bined in the signification of a name as coexisting, alono* 
 With individual features, in a possible object of intuition, 
 and hence, apart from the individual features, as indif- 
 ferently representing all such objects. This representative 
 collection of attributes, combined by means of a si^^n, is a 
 Concept. 
 
 In the above remarks, the office of language is con- 
 sidered as it now exists and is taught, not as it might pos- 
 sibly have been originally created. We do not form our 
 own language, but receive it ready fonned ; and its teach- 
 ing, whether true or deceitful, whether promoting or dis- 
 torting the right development of the mind, does, as 
 matter of fact, impress us from our infancy upwards with 
 certain associations, and casts our earliest thoughts in a 
 certain mould, from which no future effort can wholly 
 emancipate us. I am not now considering what might 
 have been the course of our mental growth had we been 
 the original inventors of our mother tongue, or if we had 
 been born among a people with whom (as in a liypothesis 
 
 1 Abstraction, as described by Stewart, Elements, vol. I. ch. 4, answers in 
 essential points to what I have here described. It should bo observed, 
 however, that bv language as it now operates, whatever may have been 
 the case in its first formation, the question as to what attributes shall be 
 abstracted and what retained, is in a great measure determined for us. 
 The process must thus be distinguished from the voluntarv abstraction im- 
 plied in all operations of thought. On Abstraction, as distinguished from 
 Attention, see Tissot, AnOiropologie, voL i. p. 142. 
 
 of Reid's ^) every sound represented a complete sentence. 
 Lun^-uaire is not here considered as it might have been in- 
 vented by a conclave of imaginary philosophers, or as it 
 may have influenced the thoughts of Adam in Paradise ; 
 but as it does influence the thoughts of children born into 
 the world, the offspring of articulately-speaking parents. 
 
 As in Conception a single general notion is considered 
 in its relation to a possible object of intuition, so in Judg- 
 ment two such notions are considered as related to a com- 
 mon object. When I assert that A is B, I do not mean ( 
 that the attributes constituting the concept A are identical 
 with those constituting the concept B, — for this is only 
 true in identical judgments, — but that the object in which 
 the one set of attributes is found is the same as that in 
 which the other set is found. To assert that all philoso- 
 phers are liable to error, is not to assert that the significa- 
 tion of the term philosopher is identical with that ofliabl^ 
 to error; but that the attributes comprehended in these 
 two distinct terms are in some manner united in the same 
 subject. To ask what constitutes unity or identity in a 
 subject of attributes, is to enter on a deep metaphysical 
 question, the discussion of which must be postponed to a 
 later stage of our inquiry ; it is sufficient for the present 
 to observe, that the common language and common 
 thought of mankind universally acknowledge something 
 of the kind, assuming, whether they can explain it or not, 
 that a certain smell and color and form, w^hich are distinct 
 attributes, are in some way related, as parts or qualities, 
 to some one thing which we call a rose ; and that, when I 
 assert that the rose is fragrant, I imply that the thing 
 
 1 Correspondence, Letter xi. to Dr. James Gregory. See p. 71 of Sir W. 
 Hamilton's edition. 
 
68 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PBOLEOOHENA LOQICA. 
 
 69 
 
 
 i 
 
 which affects in a certain way my power of sight is in 
 some manner identical with that which affects in a cer- 
 tain way my power of smell. The metaphysical problem 
 thus lies at the bottom both of Conception and of Judg- 
 ment, and, whether it admits of satisfactory explanatio^L 
 or not, nmst be included as a fact in any description of the 
 several operations of Thought. 
 
 Reasoning is the most complex of the three operations, 
 as in it two concepts are determined to be in a certain 
 manner related to each other, through the medium of their 
 mutual relations to a third concept. This operation is 
 therefore treated last in order.^ The several relations 
 asserted in the premises and deduced in the conclusion, 
 are of the same nature as those implied in Judgment, and 
 lead to the same metaphysical difficulties. These, together 
 with the logical and psychological character of the Laws 
 of Thought, will be considered in a future chapter. For 
 the present it will be sufficient to attempt, in accord- 
 ance with the above observations, a definition of the 
 products of the several acts of Thought, the Concept, 
 the Judgment, and the Syllogism, the legitimate objecte 
 of Formal Logic. 
 
 A Concept is a collection of attributes, united by a sign, 
 and representing a possible object of intuition. 
 
 A Judgment is a combination of two concepts, related 
 to one or more common objects of possible intuition. 
 
 1 "Judicium notiones conjungit vel separat. adeoqne eas supponit. 
 Ratiocinando ex notionibus et judiciis praeviis elicitur judicium ulteriua, 
 adeoquc ratiocinatio notiones et judicia supponit. Etro notio est operatio 
 prima, judicium secunda, discureus tertia." — Wolf, PhU. Rat. ^ 53. But 
 Wolf, as before observed, has not accurately distlnj-uished between the 
 perceptive and discursive faculties. His remark is true, though only in a 
 much narrower sense than that in which he designed it. 
 
 A Syllogism is a combination of two judgments, neces- 
 sitating a third judgment as the consequence of their 
 mutual relation. 
 
 The definition above given of a Judgment renders ne- 
 cessary a few remarks on a class of propositions, whose 
 true logical character has been considerably misappre- 
 hended by eminent authorities. According to the above 
 definition, every judgment in Logic must be regarded as a 
 combination of concepts; every term of such judgment, 
 as the sign of a concept. This is no less true of singular 
 than of common judgments, and the neglect of it has 
 given rise to some errors in the logical treatment of prop- 
 ositions. "Proper names," says Mr. Mill, "denote the 
 individuals who are called by them ; but they do not indi- 
 cate or imply any attributes as belonging to those indi- 
 viduals. When we name a child by the name Mary, or 
 a dog by the name Cajsar, these names are simply marks 
 used to enable those individuals to be made subjects of 
 discourse. It may be said, indeed, that we must have had 
 some reason for giving them those names rather than any 
 others ; and this is true : but the name, once given, be- 
 comes independent of the reason. A man may have been 
 named John, because that was the name of his father ; a 
 town may have been named Dartmouth, because it is situ- 
 ated at the mouth of the Dart. But it is no part of the 
 signification of the word John, that the father of the per- 
 son so called bore the same name ; nor even of the word 
 Dartmouth, to be situated at the mouth of the Dart." ^ 
 
 These remarks are true so far as the name alone is con- 
 cerned, or as regards the reason of its being imposed, at a 
 certain time, on a certain man. But, then, the man, as an 
 individual existing at some past time, cannot become ini- 
 
 4 
 
 1 MiU's Logic, vol. i. p. 40. 
 
70 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 i! 
 
 mediately an object of thought, and hence is not, properly 
 
 speaking, the subject of any logical proposition. If I say, 
 
 « Cffisar was the conqueror of Pompey," the immediate' 
 
 object of my thought is not Caesar as an individual exist- 
 
 ing nearly two thousand years ago, but a concept now 
 
 present in ray mind, comprising certain attributes, which I 
 
 believe to have coexisted in a certain man. I may histori- 
 
 calhj know that these attributes existed in one individual 
 
 only; and hence my concept, viitually universal, is actually 
 
 singular, from the accident of its being predicable of that 
 
 individual only. But there is no logical objection to the 
 
 theory that the whole history of mankind may be repeated 
 
 at recuiTing intervals, and that the name and actions of 
 
 Caesar may be successively found in various individuals at 
 
 coiTesponding periods of every cycle. 
 
 "Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera qiu-e vehnt Argo 
 Delectos heroas: erunt etiam altera bella; 
 Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles." 
 
 These remarks will suggest a correction of the ordinary 
 logical account of the quantity of propositions, which 
 should have been made long ago. The subjects of all 
 logical judgments are concepts : the true singular proposi- 
 tion in Logic is not one in which the concept is materially 
 limited to an individual by extralogical considerations, but 
 one in which it is formally so limited by a sign of indi- 
 viduality. In scholastic language, only individua demon^ 
 strativa, and not, as is vulgariy taught, indimdua signata, 
 are properiy the subjects of singular propositions.^ In- 
 definite, or, as they should rather be called, indesignate* 
 
 1 Cf. Fries, System der Logik, § 22. His principle is sound, though some 
 of his instances are inaccurate. 
 
 2 Properly speaking, particular propositions are indeanite, singuhirs and 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 71 
 
 propositions, are an anomaly in Logic, no less when the 
 subject is a singular than when it is a common term. In 
 both, the quantity can only be known by the matter, and, 
 in both, an appeal to the matter is extralogical. 
 
 The same considerations will also show the propriety 
 of Aristotle's limitation of the logical verb to the present 
 tense only. All thought is a consciousness of present 
 mental acts, and its object is not the past event, but the 
 present concept of it. Hence the office of the verb in 
 Logic is not to declare the past or future connection of an 
 attribute with its subject in the represented fact, but to 
 declare the present coexistence of two concepts in the 
 representative act of thought.* 
 
 Before quitting this portion of the subject it will be 
 desirable to compare the conclusions arrived at with those 
 of two eminent philosophers, from both of whom they 
 appear, verbally at least, to differ in a slight degree. 
 
 Locke's well-known definition of knowledge, *'The per- 
 ception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas,*' 
 has been somewhat severely commented on by his illus- 
 trious critic, M. Cousin.* The French philosopher shows 
 clearly that, in many of our judgments, we cannot be said 
 
 
 a 
 
 universals definite. For when I say Some A is B, I leave it altogether 
 undetermined how many, and whether any given A is included or not. 
 For this reason it is better to adopt the term indesignate, suggested by Sir 
 W. Hamilton. 
 
 ^ " Copula non est nisi verbum substantivum praesentis temporis. De- 
 notat enim nexum inter subjectum et praedicatum intercedentem, qnalis 
 nempe repraesentatur in ideis nostris. Cum igitur in orani judicio nexus 
 ille semper sit aliquid praisens, copula non esse potest nisi verbum sub- 
 stantivum praesentis temporis." — Wolf, Phil. Rat. ^ 202. 
 
 * Cours de Philosophie, le9on 23. Compare Jouffroy's Reid, Preface, pp. 
 130, 133, sqq. For other criticisms, see Reid, InteUectual Powers, Essay I. 
 ch. 7; Essay VI. eh. 3; Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais, TV. 1. 
 
72 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 1/ 
 
 I 
 
 :1 
 
 i 
 
 to have distinct notions of terms united, prior to pro- 
 nouncing on the fact of their agreement. The distinc- 
 tions drawn in the preceding remarks will, I think, furnish 
 a ground for a more exact decision of the point at issue 
 than lias been given either by the English philosopher or 
 his French censor. Locke*s definition abounds in verbal 
 inaccuracy, for which, however, the author is not entirely 
 responsible, as it is partly owing to the unsettled significa- 
 tion, in his day, of philosophical terms, which have since 
 been more accurately determined. Taking Perception in 
 the strict sense to which it has been determined by Reid 
 and his successors, it is not correct to say, in general 
 terms, that the agreement of ideas is in all cases jt>ercciy<?</. 
 Extending Knowledge, as Locke himself does, Xo include 
 the evidence of the senses,* it is incorrect to say that, in 
 all knowledge, we have a distinct consciousness of two 
 ideas and their agreement. And the term Idea itself, 
 used loosely by Locke, as by Descartes, for any object 
 of consciousness, admits of a variety of subordinate senses, 
 in some of which the definition is assuredly inaccurate. 
 But, as limited to the logical judgment proper, as it has 
 been above distinguished from the psychological, the defi- 
 nition is substantially correct, though susceptible of some 
 verbal improvement. In every logical judgment there is 
 a union of concepts ; and every concept is represented by 
 a sign. The concepts themselves must be regarded as ex- 
 isting in the mind before their union ; and, the signs being" 
 practically furnished by the existing terms of a language, 
 the logical judgment may be properly described as formed 
 by the combination of concepts ; as its representative, the 
 proposition, is formed by the combination of terms. But 
 to the judgments distinguished as psychological the defi- 
 
 1 JS:*«ii/, B. IV. ch.?. k 14. . 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 73 
 
 nition of Locke is inapplicable; and here the objections of 
 M. Cousin may be urged with full effect. Such are all the 
 spontaneous judgments of the perceptive and imaginative 
 faculties. Such, too, is the Cartesian cogito, ergo sum, a 
 primitive judgment, not of the senses, but of the internal 
 consciousness, which the opponents of Descartes, from 
 Gassendi to Kant, have misrepresented as a logical reason- 
 ing from concepts.* The definition of Locke is therefore 
 correct, as far as regards judgments of thought, properly 
 so called ; judgments formed by means of concepts, and, 
 consequently, of language, and whose constituent parts 
 are given piecemeal in words, and put together by the 
 mind in the act of judging. It is incorrect, as regards all 
 judgments, whether concerning the ego or the non-ego, 
 which the mind forms for itself, by an immediate act of 
 consciousness, without the aid of verbal or other signs of 
 voluntary intuition. 
 
 From the definition of Locke we proceed to consider 
 that of Kant. In the Critical Philosophy, Thought and 
 Judgment are synonymous, and the act of the understand- 
 ing. The understanding may be defined indifferently, the 
 faculty of .iiinking, or the faculty of judging ; for all 
 thought is cognition by means of concepts ; and all con- 
 cepts are the predicates of possible judgments, and are, by 
 such judgments, referred to objects of sensible intuition, 
 either immediately, or through the interposition of lower 
 
 ' See an article In Cousin's Fragments Fhilosoph'qftes, " Sur le vrai sens 
 du cogito, ergo sum." To this I am indebted for the following quotation 
 from Descartes himself: " Cum itaque quis advertit se cogitare, atque inde 
 seqni se existere, quamvis forte nunquam antea quaesiverit quid sit cogi- 
 tatio nee quid existentia, non potest tamen non utramque satis nosse, ut 
 sibi in hac parte satisfaciat." — Responsio ad sextos objectiones. See also 
 Clauberg, Logica, Qa. clx. 
 
74 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGIC A. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 75 
 
 I: 
 
 concepts.^ The intuitions of sense being/ according to 
 Kant's theory of perception, immediate representations of 
 objects, the judgment is thus the mediate cognition of an 
 object, or the representation of a representation.* 
 
 In a psychological point of view, the Kantian definition 
 of Judgment is too narrow ; as it virtually denies that any 
 act of Judgment whatever is peiformed in the exercise of 
 the intuitive fuculties ; a denial which the author repeats 
 still more explicitly in other passages.^ In a logical point 
 of view, it is too wide ; the province of Judgment being 
 made coextensive with the whole of Thouj'ht, including, 
 therefore, under it. Conception or Simple Apprehension. 
 Every concept, according to Kant, is the predicate of a 
 possible judgment, in which it may be affirmed of any of 
 the objects of intuition included within its sphere. lie 
 might have gone further, and said that, in all positive 
 thinking, the possible judgment becomes an actual one. 
 But it is a psychological, not a logical judgment. It 
 
 1 " Wir kcinnen alle Ilandlungcn des Verstnndes auf Urthcilo znriick- 
 fuhrcn, so dass der Verstand iibcrhaupt als ein Vcrmo-ren zu urthcilcn 
 vorgestellt wcrdcn kann. Dcnn er ist nach dem Obiti:en ein Vcrm6<;ea 
 zu denken. Denken ist das Erkenntniss durth Bej^riffe. Be<n-iffe alxjr 
 beziehen sich, als Pradicate ino;;Ucher Urtheile, auf Irgend eiiie Vorstel- 
 lung von einem noch unbestimmien Gcgenstande."— JSTn/tA' der r. F. p. 70, 
 ed. Rosen kranz. 
 
 * " Da keine Vorstellung unmlttelbar auf den Gegcnstand peht, als bios 
 die Anschauung, so wird ein Begriff niemals auf einen Gegenstand ua- 
 mittelbar, sondern auf irgcnd eine andre Vorstcllung von dcmselbcn (sie 
 sey Anschauung oder selbsf schon BegriflT) bczogen. Das Urtlicil ist also 
 die mittelbare Erkenntniss eines Gegenstandes, mithin die Vorstellung 
 einer Vorstellung desselben." — ITrrtiA: der r. V. p. 69. 
 
 3 " Wahrheit oder Schein sind nicht im Gegenstande, so feme er angcs- 
 chaut wird, sondeni im, Urtheile iibcr denselben, so feme er gedacht wird. 
 Man kann also zwar richtig sagen : dass die Sinno nicht irrcn, aber nicht 
 darum, weil sie jederzeit richtig urtheilen, sondcra weU sie gar nicht 
 urtheilen."— JBTrifiA; der r. V. p. 238. 
 
 affirms only the mental existence of the object, as now 
 present in thought; and the affirmation is necessarily true, 
 whatever be the nature of the object. To make the doc- 
 trine of Kant consistent, the province assigned to Judg- 
 ment must be either extended or contracted. It must 
 either be extended, to denote every consciousness of a 
 relation between subject and object, i. e., to every opera- 
 tion of mind, or it must be contracted, to denote the con- 
 sciousness of a relation between two objects of thought ; 
 in which case it does not extend beyond the logical judg- 
 ment by means of, at least, two concepts. 
 
 Having thus pointed out the distinction of Thought 
 from other mental acts, and its various subdivisions rela- 
 tively to Logic, I shall proceed to offer a few observations 
 on the nature of Law, in so far as that term is aj^plicable 
 to a conscious subject. 
 
PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 77 
 
 ^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON LAW, AS RELATED TO THOUGHT AND OTHER OBJECTS. 
 
 The following passage from Archbishop Whately's 
 Logic may serve as an appropriate introduction to this part 
 of our subject. " What may be called a mathematical im- 
 possibility, is that which involves an absurdity and self- 
 contradiction ; e. g., that two straight lines should inclose a 
 space, is not only impossible, but inconceivable, as it would 
 be at variance with the definition of a straight line. And 
 it should be observed, that inability to accomplish any- 
 thing which is, in this sense, impossible, implies no limita- 
 tion of power, and is compatible even with omnipotence, 
 in the fullest sense of the word. If it be proposed, e, g^ to 
 construct a triangle having one of its sides equal to the 
 other two, or to find two numbers having the same ratio 
 to each other as the side of a square and its diameter, it is 
 not from a defect of power that we are precluded from 
 solving such a problem as these ; since, in fact, the problem 
 is in itself unmeaning and absurd: it is, in reality, nothing 
 that is required to be done." ^ 
 
 Substantially, perhaps, this is not far from the truth. But 
 it may be stated in a more satisfactory form by divesting 
 it of a hypothesis which, even if true (and this we have no 
 
 1 Whately's Logic, p. 353. (Sixth edition.) 
 
 means of ascertaining), may for the present purpose be 
 dispensed with.^ 
 
 When anything is said to be inconceivable, it is thereby 
 acknowledged that the human mind is not altogether un- 
 restricted in its operations. It is bounded not only as re- 
 gards the sphere of objects of w^hich it is permitted to take 
 cognizance, but also as regards the manner in which it is 
 capable of thinking about objects within that sphere. In 
 other words, there are laws under which the mind is com- 
 pelled to think, and which it cannot transgress, otherwise 
 than negatively, by ceasing to think at all. 
 
 The existence, then, of laws of thought is a fact of 
 wliich our every-day consciousness assures us. Necessity, 
 of whatsoever kind, implies a necessary agent ; that is, an 
 agent acting under a law. If, then, any question can be 
 jiroposed to the mind of man which he feels himself com- 
 pelled to decide in one way only, that compulsion is at 
 once an evidence of the -existence of laws which, as a 
 thinker, he is compelled to obey. 
 
 And this admission is all that is required for the solution 
 of such difticulties as that suggested above. If our whole 
 thinking is subject to certain laws, it follows that we can- 
 not think of any object, not even of omnipotence itself 
 except as those laws compel us. The limitation does not 
 lie in the object of which we think, but in the thinking 
 subject. "Whatsoever we imagine," says Hobbes, "is 
 finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of any- 
 thing we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an 
 
 1 In venturing to criticize this note, one of the most valuable portions 
 of the Archbishop's work, I iKjg to state, that it is to the wordin<r only of 
 the first part that my remarks are intended to apply. With the just and 
 philosophical distinction laid down in the same place between the three 
 senses of the word impossihUity, I have only to express full concurrence. 
 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 PKOLEQOMEKA LOQICA. 
 
 PBOLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 79 
 
 !l 
 
 image of infinite magnitude ; nor conceive infinite swift- 
 ness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. 
 When we say anything is infinite, we signify only that wo 
 are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the things 
 named ; having no conception of the thing, but of our own 
 inability." ^ 
 
 It may be, indeed, that the conditions of possible 
 thought correspond to conditions of possible being, that 
 what is to us inconceivable is in itself non-existent.^ But 
 of this, from the nature of the case, it is impossible to have 
 any evidence. If man, as a thinker, is subject to necessary 
 laws, he cannot examine the absolute validity of the laws 
 themselves, except by assuming the whole question at 
 issue. For such examination must itself be conducted in 
 subordination to the same conditions. Whatever weak- 
 ness, therefore, there may be in the object of criticism, the 
 same must necessarily affect the critical process itself. 
 
 We may indeed believe, and ought to believe, that the 
 powers which our Creator has bestowed upon us are not 
 given as the instruments of deception. We may believe, 
 and ought to believe, that, intellectually no less than mor- 
 ally, the present life is a state of discipline and preparation 
 
 1 Leviathan, i. 3. (p. 17, cd. Molesworth.) This opinion of Ilobbes has 
 been severely censured by Cud worth, Intellectual System, B. I. eh. v. ^ 1, 
 who, however, mistakes the meaning of the assertion, both in what it ex- 
 presses and in what it implies. The error of Cudworth in this respect has 
 been corrected by his learned translator, Mosheim, who, though no ft-iend 
 to Ilohhcs's views in general, admits that in this particular his doctrine is 
 not liable to the objections urged against it Sec Harrison's edition of 
 Cudworth, vol. ii. p. HQ2. 
 
 * In itself, distinguished from, as an ohjrct ofthmight. As the latter, it is 
 of course impossible. The distinction between things per se and things 
 as objects of thought, will be familiar to every reader of Kant It is, in 
 fact, the cardinal point of the whole Critical Philosophy. 
 
 for another; and that the portion of knowledge which our 
 limited faculties are permitted to attain to here may in- 
 deed, in the eyes of a higher Intelligence, be but partial 
 truth, but cannot be absolute falsehood. But, in believing 
 thus, we desert the evidence of Reason to rest on that 
 of Faith, and of the principles on which Reason itself 
 depends it is obviously impossible to have any other 
 guarantee. 
 
 But such a faith, however well founded, has but a regu- 
 lative and practical, not a speculative application. It bids 
 us rest content within the limits which have been assigned 
 to us : it cannot enable us to overleap them, or to exalt to 
 a more absolute character the conclusions obtained by 
 finite thinkers concerning finite objects of thought.^ For 
 the same condition which disqualifies us from criticizing 
 the laws of thought, must also deprive us of the power of 
 ascertaining how much of the results of those laws is true 
 in itself, and how much is relative and dependent upon the 
 particular bodily or ment<il constitution of man during the 
 present life. To determine this question, it would be ne- 
 cessary to examine the same conclusions with a new set of 
 faculties,* and under new conditions of thought, so as to 
 separate what is merely relative to the existing state of 
 
 1 When Kant {Kritik der r. V. p. 49) declares that the objects of our in- 
 tuition are not in themselves as they appear to us, he falls into the opposite 
 extreme to that which he is combating: the Critic becomes a Dogmatist 
 in negation. To warrant this conclusion, we must previously have com- 
 pared things as they are with things as they seem ; a comparison which 
 is, ex hi/pothesi, imi)ossibIe. We can only say that we have no means of 
 determining whether they agree or not. And, in the absence of proof 
 on either side, the presumption is in favor of what is at least subjectively 
 true. The onus pmbandi lies with the assailant, not with the defender, of 
 our faculties. Cf. Royer-Collard, Jouffroy's Reid, vol. iv. p. 412. 
 
 « See Reid, IntcU. Powers, Essay vi. ch. 5. (p. 447, ed. Hamilton.) 
 
80 
 
 PROLEaOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 81 
 
 I 
 
 [f^ 
 
 human conscionsness, from what is absolute and common 
 to other intelligences.* 
 
 In accordance with these views, we are naturally led to 
 regard all the hitherto unsolved problems of Metaphysics 
 as requiring to be treated from a i)sychological, instead of 
 an ontological point of view. Instead of asking what are 
 the circumstances, in the constitution of things, by virtue 
 of which they present such and such difficulties and con- 
 tradictions to human understanding, we must ask what are 
 the circumstances of the human understanding itself, by 
 virtue of which a distinction exists between the conceiva- 
 ble and the inconceivable. Such, in fact, was the revolu- 
 tion introduced by Kant into metaphysical speculation ; a 
 revolution which he aptly compares to that effected in 
 Astronomy by Copernicus, when he thouglit of investigat- 
 ing the apparent motion of the heavens from .the side of 
 the spectator, instead of from that of the objects. The 
 advantages of such a treatment are obvious. From the 
 objective view, we obtain only the fact that certain ques- 
 tions have up to the present time remained unsolved. 
 From the subjective view, we learn why they are insoluble; 
 and the answer to this question determines the laws and 
 limits of thought. The abuse of the method appears in 
 
 J Tmth relative to no intelligence Is a contradiction in terms, as it Implies 
 a relation existing afYer one of the correlatives has been annlhilafed. 
 Our only possible notion of absolute truth is a truth relative to all intclli- 
 pcnces. If all truth is subjective which implies a cognitive power, Omnis- 
 cience itself has but subjective truth. " Aux termes de la phllosophle 
 de Kant,'' says M. Cousin, " la ralson divine seralt done aussi frappee de 
 subjecnvite, par cela meme quo cette ralson reside dans un sujet de'ter- 
 mme (jul est Dieu." (Le^ns sur Kant, p. 350.) Within the limits of hu- 
 man knowled-e the same principle Is allowed bv Kant himself: " so l)cdeu- 
 tet die objective Gultlgkelt dcs Erfahrunj^surthcils nichts anders, als die 
 nothwendigo Allgemeingiiltigkeit desselben."- Proiegoimna, § 18. 
 
 the attempts of the successors of Kant, especially of Schel- 
 ling and Hegel, to construct a philosophy of the absolute 
 from the subjective side, by denying in certain relations 
 the validity of those laws of thought which they acknowl- 
 edge in others, and endeavoring thereby to do away with 
 relation in consciousness altogether. Such a system, with 
 whatever ability it may be constructed, carries in its funda- 
 mental conception the germ of its own refutation. It 
 commences by giving the lie to consciousness ; it proceeds 
 by dividing the human mind against itself, the understand- 
 ing against the reason, and the reason against the under- 
 standing ; it ends by leaving no test by which its own truth 
 can be determined. But the philosophy of Kant is like the 
 spear of Achilles, and possesses virtue to heal the wounds 
 which it has itself inflicted. While it is impossible to deny 
 the lineal descent of the philosophy of Schelling and of 
 Hegel from a one-sided view of Kantian principles, it is 
 equally clear that the only satisfactory refutation of the 
 extravagances of that philosophy must be based on a sober 
 acknowledjrment of those laws and limits of the mental 
 faculties which Kant has been mainly instrumental in 
 
 pointing out. 
 
 We must admit, then, that our present faculties are 
 trustworthy guides to that portion of knowledge which 
 God designs us to attain to in our present state ; that the 
 laws to which these faculties are subjected, though perhaps 
 not absolutely binding on things in themselves, are binding 
 upon our mode of contemplating them; that, while we 
 obey these laws, we seek after truth, according to our kind 
 and in conformity with the end of our intellectual being ; 
 and that, when we neglect them, we abandon ourselves to 
 every form of error ; or, rather, we lose all power of dis- 
 cerning between error and truth ; we commence by an act 
 
82 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 f 
 
 of intellectual suicide, and construct a system which, by 
 virtue of its fundamental principle, must disclaim all supe- 
 riority over, and decline to combat with, any rival theory ; 
 its sole claim to attention being, that it may, for aught we 
 know, be true or false, or both, or neither. 
 
 To apply these principles to the question with which we 
 commenced: Among the limitations to which even om- 
 nipotence is regarded as subject, none is of older birth, or 
 has been more frequently alleged, than the impossibility of 
 undoing an act already done, 
 
 fi6yov yhp auTov Kcd eths arrfpterKtreUt 
 irfivT^a TroifTy &a<r' hv J Tfirpayfitya, 
 
 Now, it maybe that Time and Space are, as Kant main- 
 tains, merely subjective conditions of human sensibility. 
 As such, they limit the whole exercise of human thouHit. 
 But the limits of the thinking faculty are limits of things 
 as objects of thought only ; and beyond that sphere we 
 know nothing. It may be that the whole distinction of 
 past, present, and future, has no place relatively to other 
 intelligences than ours. Still, that distinction continues to 
 influence all human thought ; and every act, as an object 
 of thought, must be regarded as taking i)lace according to 
 the conditions of temporal succession. If we cease to re- 
 gard it in this light, we do not extend our knowledge, but 
 abandon the problem as (humanly speaking) unthinlable. 
 The limitation, then, is not of omnipotence in itself, but 
 of all power as the object of human thought.* The ulti- 
 
 1 This distinction Is drawn by Locko, in his Second Reply to the Bishop 
 of Worcester. " But it is further urj,red, that wo cannot conceive how 
 matter can think. I {,TTint it : bat to arirue from thence that Go<l, therefore, 
 cannot give to matter a faculty of thinking, is to say God's omnipotency 
 is limited to a narrow compasp, because man's understanding is so; and 
 brings down God's infinite power to the size of our capacities." 
 
 J 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 83 
 
 mate consequence of this admission will be, that the un- 
 limited is not an object of human thought at all.* It may 
 be an object of human beliefs but the two provinces are 
 not coextensive. 
 
 So again with reference to the impossibility of reversing 
 a necessary truth, such as those of Geometry. To whom 
 is the problem to construct a triangle, one of whose sides 
 shall be greater than the other two, " unmeaning ? " 
 Clearly to the geometer, whose science has already shown 
 him the necessary truth of a contradictory proposition. 
 I>y a law of thought, he is compelled to deny that two 
 contradictory assertions can be true at the same time. 
 Why they may not both be true at different times, — why 
 a mathematical proposition once demonstrated is held al- 
 ways and everywhere true, and its contradictory always 
 and everywhere false ; while other truths, however certain 
 at present, are allowed only to a limited extent under 
 temporal or local restrictions, — requires some further con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Necessity is the result of law, and law implies an agent 
 whose working is regulated thereby.^ But it is a law only 
 to that which works under it : to an observer, who sees 
 the results of the law without being subject to its influ- 
 ence, it is no more than a fact evidenced by or inferred 
 from sensible observation, and can never obtain higher 
 value than that of a generalization from a more or less ex- 
 tended experience. Hence arise two very different kinds 
 
 4! 
 
 « 
 
 T 
 
 J See the admirable Article on M. Cousin's Philosophy by Sir Wm. Ham- 
 ilton, Discussions^ p. 1. 
 
 * *' All things that are have some operation not violent or casual 
 
 That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moder- 
 ate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure 
 of lyorking, the same we term a Law." — Hooker, J2. P. i. 2. 
 
84 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 Of necessity, the results respectively of laws of the ego and 
 of the non-ego;^ of laws under which I feel myself com- 
 pelled to think, and of laws under which I see other 
 agents invariably working. These two it is essential to all 
 sound thinking to distinguish from each otlK^r; and the 
 more so, inasmuch as they have been perpetually con- 
 founded together. The distinctive features of each have 
 been overlooked by the disciples of opposite schools. 
 By one party, laws of thought have been degraded to 
 generalizations from experience; by another, empirical 
 laws have been invested with the character and authority 
 of original principles of mlnd.^ And yet, apart from the 
 psychological tenets of any particular school, it would 
 seem as if a distinctive criterion might h priori be deter- 
 mined, from a mere analysis of the notion of law and its 
 operation. 
 
 Setting aside, for an instant, the question how the mind 
 of man is actually constituted, let us suppose an intelligent 
 being, subject to laws under which he is compelled to 
 think, and placed in the midst of a worid of material 
 
 1 It is much to be wished that these expressions, or some equivalent. 
 
 were more naturalized in English philosophy. In Germany and Franc^ 
 
 they are fully established as technical terms, and the foundation of the 
 
 most important distinctions in mental science. In adopting he,^ the Latin 
 
 expressions instead of English equivalents, I have been guided by the an- 
 
 thorny of Sir W. Hamilton, Beie:. Warks^ p. lOO. supported by that of Mr. 
 
 Hallam,i./^a/Mreo/£„rt)pe,vol.ii.p.436. (Second edition.) The latter 
 
 observes, of the term Ego, " It seems reasonable not to scruple the use of 
 
 a word so convenient, if not necessary, to express the unity of the con- 
 
 scious principle. If it had been employed earlier, I am apt to think that 
 
 some great metaphysical extravagances would have been avoided, and 
 
 some fundamental truths more clearly apprehended." 
 
 8 The opposite theories of Dr. Whewell and of Mr. Mill, on the nature 
 of axiomatic principles, exhibit the extreme views in a remarkable do- 
 gree. See Appendix^ note A. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 85 
 
 agents, subject to laws under which they must act. What 
 would be the distinctive character presented to his mind 
 by these respective laws of himself and of the world with- 
 out? The laws of the planetary motions are absolutely 
 binding on the moving bodies themselves, independently 
 of the existence of astronomical science. But it is optional 
 with an intelligent being to study astronomy or not ; and, 
 when he does so, he observes, as matter of fact, how such 
 laws influence their own subordinate agents ; but he does 
 not himself become an agent under their influence. As ficts 
 of his experience,^ they are known solely in and through his 
 observation ; as laws within their own sphere, they are in- 
 dependent of his knowing aught about them. But the 
 laws of his mind come into operation as laws when the act 
 of thinking commences, and are binding, not on this or 
 that class of physical phenomena, but upon the thinker 
 himself, in the contemplation of all of them. Hence it is 
 not optional with him whether he will think according to 
 these or other conditions. Choose what object of study he 
 will, he cannot think at all, he cannot conceive his liberty 
 of choosing, without being ipso facto under their influ- 
 ence. Hence arises an obvious criterion. A law which is 
 not binding on me as a thinker, may at any time be re- 
 versed, without affecting my mode of observing the same 
 accents under their new conditions. And I have no diffi- 
 culty in conceiving such a revei*sal as at any moment pos- 
 sible, because, antecedent to experience, I had no internal 
 bias which required the recognition of the existing law 
 rather than of any other. I have only to discard an ad- 
 
 1 " Les vdritds primitives pont dc deux sortcs, comme Ics dc'rivatives. 
 Elles sont du nombre des veritcs dc raison, ou des verites dc fait. Les 
 v<?ritc5s de raison sont ndccssaircs, ct celles de fait sont contingcntes.** 
 — Leibnitz, Nouv. Essais^ iv. 2. 
 
 d 
 
86 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 87 
 
 ventitions knowledge. But the reversal of a necessary law 
 of thought, supposing that there are such, is, from the 
 nature of the case, inconceivable ; for conception is itself 
 the serv^ant of the law, and, ex hypothec, cannot rebel 
 against it. I cannot by an act of thought annihilate the 
 conditions by which all thought is governed. I can, indeed, 
 admit the possibility that there may be other beings think- 
 ing under other laws ; but I can form no positive con- 
 ception of their nature. Such a supposition is not thought, 
 but its negation. A mind cannot think by other laws than 
 its own. 
 
 Now, how far is this hypothesis supported by facts? Is 
 it a matter of fact, that men are acquainted with certain 
 truths which they acknowledge to be necessary only while 
 the present laws of nature remain in force, and which they 
 can conceive as reversible at any moment, and others 
 which they are compelled to regard as necessary under all 
 circumstances of which they are capable of thinking? Is 
 it a matter of fact, that men do not attribute the same 
 necessity and universality to physical as to mathematical 
 truths ? Do they not acknowledge that, while the laws of 
 the physical world continue as they are, seed-time and 
 harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and 
 day and night, shall never cease ; and yet, have they any 
 difficulty in conceiving the earth's motion stopped by some 
 superior power, and one-half of the globe left from that 
 time forth in perpetual daylight ?i Or do they see the least 
 
 1 "Tons los cxemples qui confirment une vdrit^ gdn(?nile, de qnelnae 
 norabre qu ils soient, ne sufflscnt pas pour etablir la ne.-essite universelle 
 de cette raeme verite: car il ne suit pas, que ce qui est arrive arrivera tou- 
 jours de meme. Par exemple. les Grecs ct les Romains et tous les autre, 
 peuples ont toujours remarque, qu'avant le dccours de viugt quatro hemes 
 lejour se change en nuit. et la nuit en jour. Mais on se seroJt trompd si 
 
 improbability, not to say impossibility, in the supposition, 
 that in some remote part of space there may exist worlds 
 in which the alternations of the seasons have no place? 
 On the other hand, can they conceive the same power 
 forming a triangle with more or less than two right angles? 
 Can they conceive an occurrence taking place in any por- 
 tion of space without a cause ? or an object possessing 
 neither of two contradictory attributes ? If such a dis- 
 tinction exists, and our daily consciousness assures us that 
 it does, the fact at once affords at least a strong presump- 
 tion that the necessity in the one case is a necessity of 
 observation only, depending on the laws of the world 
 without, in the other a necessity of thought, depending on 
 the laws of our mental constitution. 
 
 But, granting that thought has its laws, how are these to 
 be discovered? Only by reflection upon the phenomena 
 of actual thinking, and the restriction to which, in all 
 cases, we experience it to be subject. To learn how we 
 think, we must in the first place actually think; and a 
 multitude of successive acts of thought will be necessary, 
 before we become aware that certain conditions are contin- 
 gent, and limited to some of those acts only, while others 
 are necessary, and cannot but be present in all.^ If, there- 
 fore, ^Jxperience be taken in a wide sense, as coextensive 
 with the whole of consciousness, to include all of which 
 the mind is conscious as agent or patient, all that it does 
 
 Ton avoit crti, que la meme rfegle s'observe partout, puisqu*on a vu le con- 
 trairo dans le sejour de Nova Zembla. Et celui-la se tromperoit encore, 
 qui crolroit, que c'est au moins dans nos climuts une v<?rite' necessaire ct 
 <ftemelle, puisqu'on doit juger, que la Terre et le Soleil meme n'existent 
 pas ncccssairemcnt, et qu'il y aura peut-etrc un temps, oil ce bcl astre ne 
 Bcra plus avec tout son Systeme, au moins en sa presente forme.*'— Leib- 
 nitz, NoitveatLX Essais, Avant-Propos. 
 1 See Hamilton on Reid, p. 772, and Cousin, Cours de Philosqphie,l^(^.22, 
 
 t 
 
88 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 from Within, as well as all that it suffers from without, — in 
 this sense, the laws of thought as well as the phenomena 
 of matter, in fact all knowledge whatever, may be said to 
 be derived from e7^perience> But further, experience in its 
 narrower and more common meaning, as limited to the re- 
 sults of sensation and perception only,^ is, though not the 
 source, the indispensable condition of discovering the laws 
 of mind as well as of matter. For, to think acUially, we 
 must think about something; this something, the object- 
 matter of thought, whatever it may be, must in the fii-st 
 instance be sui>plied through the medium of the senses ; 
 for thought itself does not become an object of thought 
 till after it has been called into exercise by objects jfre- 
 sented from without.^ But while the material or external 
 element varies with every successive act of thought, the 
 formal or internal remains the same in all ; and thus the 
 necessary law, binding on the thinker in every instance, is 
 distinguished from the contingent objects, about which he 
 thinks on this or that occasion. 
 
 The last consideration necessitates a^ further division of 
 those truths which have already been distinguished as 
 necessary, and therefore not derived from experience. 
 While we maintain that all necessary truths must have 
 
 1 In this extended sense. Wolf derives the principle of contradiction 
 from experience: "£xp.nW dicimur, quicquid ad pcrceptiones nostras at- 
 tenti co-noscimus. Solem lucere co-noscimus ad ea attenti, qu« visu per- 
 cipimus. Similiter ad nosmet ipsos attenti co-noscimus, nos non posse 
 assensum pra^bere contradictoriis, v. ^r. non posse sumere tanqnam verum 
 qnod simul pluat vel non pluat."-PA. Bat. § Gdl. Here it should be ob^ 
 served that perception is nsed in a wider sense than that to which Reid and 
 the Scottish Philosophers aHer him restrict it. 
 
 2 'Ek ^iy oZy alaH<r^u>, ^.Woi /.v^^,;, U 8i /xHj^„, ito\XiKiS rod airrov 
 yivofiivTii ^fixtipia. — Arist. Anal Post. ii. 19. 
 
 ' Cf. Arist. De Anima, iii. 4, 7. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 89 
 
 their origin in the constitution of the mind itself, and are 
 virtually prior to all experience, they cannot aU of them 
 be referred to Laws of Thought, property so called. For 
 thought, as thought, cannot be limited to any special class 
 of objects ; its laws must operate in all cases alike, what- 
 ever be the matter on which it is engaged. That every 
 triangle has its angles equal to two right angles, is indeed 
 a necessary truth ; but it is true of triangles only, and can- 
 not be applied to any other object. But that the same 
 subject cannot possess contradictory attributes, is a princi- 
 ple equally applicable to the objects of geometrical dem- 
 onstration and to the most contingent facts of sensible 
 experience. It is equally certain, that no man can at 
 once be standing and not standing, as that the angles of a 
 triangle cannot be both equal and unequal to two right 
 angles. Hence the criterion of absolute necessity, though 
 vaUd as far as it goes, is not adequate to determine the 
 whole question. It serves to distinguish judgments a 
 2yrioH from judgments of experience : it does not distin- 
 guish between different classes of the former, nor explain 
 tlieir several relations to the mind, which is the common 
 source of all. Of the various judgments which have been 
 enumerated by philosophers as necessary truths, it wiU be 
 sufficient for our present pui^ose to select three classes, 
 which may be severally distinguished as Mathematical, 
 Metaphysical, and Logical Necessity. All these, being in 
 different ways regarded as absolutely and universally ne- 
 cessary, must be considered as in different ways dependent 
 on laws of our mental constitution. From all must be 
 distinguished what is commonly called Physical Necessity, 
 or belief in the permanence of Laws of Nature. The 
 several distinctions may be represented by the foUowing 
 
 questions : 
 
 o 
 
90 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 91 
 
 I. Why do I judge that a triangle can, under no cir. 
 cumstances wliatever, liave its angles greater or less than 
 two right angles? 
 
 II. Why do I judge that every sensible quality must 
 belong to some subject, and that every change is and must 
 be brought about by some cause? 
 
 III. Why do I judge that two contradictory attributes 
 can, under no circumstances whatever, coexist in the same 
 subject ? 
 
 IV. Why do I judge that the alternations of day and 
 night will not, under the existing circumstances of our 
 globe, cease to take place ? 
 
 The last of these obviously stands on a different ground 
 from the other three. I am immediately cognizant of law 
 only as I am conscious of its obligation upon mxjself. 
 The law itself may be physical, intellectual, or moral ; but 
 to know it as a law, I must know it as a condition which 
 I cannot or ought not to transgress. Law, in this sense, 
 as a discerned obligation, can obviously exist only in rela- 
 tion to a conscious agent ; and even with regard to con- 
 scious agents, other than myself, I only infer the existence 
 of the law from a supposed similarity between their con- 
 stitutions and my own. But, as regards unconscious 
 agents. Law means no more than a constantly observed 
 fact in its highest generalization. When I 8i)eak of the 
 alternations of day and night as consequent on a law of 
 nature, I mean no more than that the alternation has in- 
 variably been observed to take place; and, when I resolve 
 such alternations into the law of the earth's rotation, I 
 mean only that the earth does constantly revolve on her 
 axis once in twenty-four hours. Or, if I could resolve all 
 the phenomena of the material world into a univei-sal law 
 of gravitation, I should obtain no more than the universal 
 
 fact, that all particles of matter in the universe do gravi- 
 tate towards each other, and that certain subordinate com- 
 binations of those particles present certain phenomena in 
 so doing. But I have not, by this resolution, got any 
 nearer to necessity ; for the gravitation of bodies in the 
 inverse ratio of the square of the distance is, like the ebb 
 and flow of the tides, or the elliptical orbits of the planets, 
 an observed fact in the order of nature, and it is no more.^ 
 My belief in the continuance of this observed order may 
 perhaps be explained by some law of my mental con- 
 stitution ; but, as thus explained, it is a law of mind, and 
 not of matter. Under what circumstances certain facts 
 of nature may be resolved into others, and what kinds of 
 experiment and observation will contribute to this end, 
 are questions which, with all their importance, are totally 
 distinct from those which form the object of the present 
 inquiry. 
 
 I shall only observe here, that to call such questions a 
 portion of Logic — that is, to regard the New Organon as 
 a supplement to the Old, and both as forming parts of 
 the same Science — is to confound two essentially distinct 
 branches of knowledge, distinct in their end, in their 
 means, and in their evidence.^ " We do not enlarge the 
 sciences," says Kant, " but disfigure them, when we suffer 
 their boundaries to run into one another." The con- 
 fusion produced in the present instance is perhaps the 
 most injurious of all to sound thinking — a confusion be- 
 tween the mental self and its sensible objects, the ego and 
 the non-ego^ the positive and negative poles of speculative 
 philosophy, 
 
 1 See Stewart, Ekments, vol. ii. ch. 2, § 4. 
 
 ^ On tlii)^ distinction some excellent remarks will be foand in M. Jouf- 
 twy'a Preface to his translation of Reid, p. 43. 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ;i 
 
 ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF MATHEMATICAL 
 
 NECESSITY. 
 
 It has been already observed, that whatever truths we 
 are compelled to admit as everywhere and at all times 
 necessary, must have their origin, not without, in the laws 
 of the sensible world, but within, in the constitution of the 
 mind itself.* Sundry attemi)ts have, indeed, been made to 
 derive them from sensible experience and constant associa- 
 tion of ideas;* but this explanation is refuted by a cri- 
 terion decisive of the f ite of all hypotheses : it does not 
 account for the phenomena. It does not account for the 
 fact, that other associations, as frequent and as uniform, 
 are incapable of producing a higher conviction than that 
 of a relative and physical necessity only. And, indeed, 
 this might have been expected beforehand ; for the utmost 
 rigor in a law of the sensible world may furnish a sufficient 
 reason why phenomena must take place in a certain man- 
 ner, but furnishes no reason at all why I must think so. 
 
 But it is one thing to recognize the operation of a men- 
 
 1 " La prcnve ori;;inairo des vtfritcfs iKfccssafres vfcnt du scul entcnde- 
 ment, et les autrcs veritc's vienncnt dcs experiences ou des observations 
 des sens. Notre esprit est capable de connoitre les unes et les autres, mais 
 il est la source dcs premiijres, et qaelque nombre d'exp^riences partlcu- 
 lieres qu'on puisse avoir d'une verite universelle, on ne sauroit s'cn assu- 
 rer pour toiyours par I'induction, sans en connoitre la necessity par 1a 
 raison/'— Leibnitz, Nouv. Essais, 1. 1, ch. L 
 
 * See, for example, Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 305. 
 
 PROLEGOMEXA LOGIC^V. 
 
 93 
 
 tal law, and another to discover the law itself. The dis- 
 tinction above noticed between Mathematical, Metaphysi- 
 cal, and Logical Necessity, implies, that, although the 
 ori^nn of all is to be souMit for in the mind itself, they 
 are in some way differently related to one or other of the 
 si)ecial faculties of their common source. AVe must further 
 inquire, wliat is the peculiar relation of the mind to mathe- 
 matical ideas,^ by virtue of which not merely the general 
 laws of all thinking, but the special applications of those 
 laws in Arithmetic and Geometry, possess a necessity 
 which is not found when they are applied to concepts 
 generalized from experience. How is it that in some rea- 
 sonings both matter and form can be furnished by the 
 mind itself, while in others the form alone is from the 
 mind, the matter being derived from experience ? 
 
 Before entering upon this question, it will be necessary 
 to give some account of Kant's celebrated distinction 
 between Analytical and Synthetical Judgments. An An- 
 alytical or Explicative Judgment contains nothing in the 
 predicate but what has been already implied in the concep- 
 tion of the subject. For example : since the conception 
 of body implies extension, the proposition, "All bodies are 
 extended," is an Analytical Judgment. Of this character 
 are all pro[)Ositions in which, in scholastic language, the 
 predicate is said to be of the essence of the subject; 
 whether a part of the essence, as in the predication of 
 genus or differentia, or the sum of the parts, as in a defini- 
 tion.* In a Synthetical or Ampliative Judgment, on the 
 
 1 The word idea is here used intentionally, as, in modern philosophy, 
 the most va«;ue and indeterminate that could be selected. It would be an 
 anticipation of what has yet to be determined to give any more definite 
 expression. 
 
 « The substitution of definition for species is intentional. 
 
94 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 t ■ 
 
 ■I 
 
 other hand, the predicate adds an attribute to the subject 
 which has not been already thought therein. Thus the 
 proposition, "All bodies are heavy," is a Synthetical Judg- 
 ment ; the attribute /i^avj/ not being thought in the me^e 
 conception of body. Of this kind are all propositions in 
 which the predicate is said to be joined to the essence of 
 the subject as a property or accident.^ 
 
 All Analytical Judgments are formed by the mind a 
 priori, whether the notion analyzed be empirical or not. 
 For the mind, having once gained this notion as a subject, 
 has no occasion for any additional experience to determine 
 the predicate which is already given therein.^ Any Science 
 whatever may therefore have abundance of necessary truths 
 of this kind ; but such do not contribute in any way to the 
 extension of our knowledge, but only to a more distinct 
 consciousness of what we already possess. A Synthetical 
 Judgment, on the other hand, is a positive extension of 
 our knowledge, but requires for its formation something 
 more than the concept which stands as its subject. All 
 empirical judgments are synthetical ;» but mathematical 
 necessity requires that the mind should be able to form 
 
 for itself synthetical judgments not dependent on experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The axioms of Geometry contain specimens of both 
 kinds of judgment. Those which relate exclusively to geo- 
 metncal objects, - such as, « A straight line is the shortest 
 distance between two points,"* "Two straight lines cannot 
 enclose a space," "Two straight lines which, being met by 
 a third, make the interior angles less than two right 
 
 1 See Kant, KriUlc der r. V. p. 21 ; Prolegomena, p. IG, ed. Roscnkranz. 
 
 2 Kant, Proley., p. n. 
 
 s Kant, Kritik der r. V. p. 700; Proleg., p. 18. 
 
 * This is sometimes given as a definition, but it is properly synthetical. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 95 
 
 angles, will meet if produced" — have been shown by Kant 
 to be synthetical;^ and it is with reference to these that 
 he discusses the well-known question. How are synthetical 
 judgments a priori possible ? But those axioms which are 
 not peculiar to Geometry, the common principles of Aris- 
 totle,' — such as, " The whole is greater than its part," 
 "Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other," 
 " If equals be added to equals, the sums are equal," — are ana- 
 lytical.^ The two last, indeed, may be easily shown to be 
 merely various statements of the Principle of Identity, 
 « Every thing is equal to itself," or, " A = A." Thus, if 
 the common magnitude of thie first pair of equals be rep- 
 resented by A, and that of the second by B, the axiom, 
 "If equals be added to equals, the sums are equal," is ex- 
 pressed in the identical judgment, " A -}- B = A -f- B."* 
 The former class of axioms determine the peculiar 
 
 m 
 
 * " Dies sind die Axiome, welche eigcntlich nur Grossen als solche bet- 
 reffen."— Kant, Kritik der r. V. p. 143; cf. p. 703, etc. ; Proleg. p. 20. Hence 
 the error of Leibnitz, in maintaining that all axioms (excepting, of coarse, 
 identical judgments themselves) may be demonstrated fVom definitions 
 and the judgments of identity. (Opera, Erdm. p. 81.) He selects as a 
 specimen the analytical judgment, "The whole is greater than its part," 
 and of such his theory is correct; but no s)Tithetical judgment can be 
 proved solely from analytical premises; and without synthetical axioms 
 Geometry is impossible. 
 
 * Synthetical axioms are not included, as they should have been, under 
 the peculiar principles (tJtoi ipxal)of Aristotle, which are divided into defi- 
 nitions and hypotheses. With the exception of this omission, Aristotle's 
 account of geometrical demonstration is far more accurate than any that 
 can be found in modem philosophy before Kant. 
 
 » Cf. Kant, Kritik der r. V. p. 143. 
 
 * Dr. Whewell {Phil. Ind. Sc. vol. i. p. 134) speaks of this axiom as a 
 condition of the intuition of magnitudes. This is a confusion of the com- 
 mon axioms of Logic with the peculiar axioms of Geometry. Stewart 
 {Elements, vol. ii. ch. 1) falls into the opposite error, regarding all the 
 truths of Geometry as deduced from d^mtions. 
 
 I 
 
96 
 
 PROLEGOMEXA LOGICA. 
 
 3 
 
 character of nil the conclusions of Geometry; the latter 
 have no peculiar relation to Mathematics, but depend on 
 the general conditions of all thinking whatever, and have 
 therefore a logical, not a mathematical necessity. Tho 
 whole question of the superior necessity of Geometry to 
 Physical Science depends upon the manner in which wo 
 account for the origin of the synthetical axioms relating 
 to magnitudes as such. As an instance, we may take the 
 proposition, "Two straight lines cannot enclose a space." 
 
 An eminent writer of the present day has labored hard 
 to prove that this principle is nothing but a generalizatioa 
 from experience, and, consequently, that our belief in 
 the superior necessity of mathematical as compared with 
 physical truths is a mere self deception. He lays much 
 stress on one of the characteristic properties of geometrical 
 forms, their capacity of being painted in the imagination 
 with a distinctness equal to reality; in other words, the 
 exact resemblance of our ideas of form to the sensations 
 wliich suggest them.^ But while it is impossible to deny 
 the ability with which Mr. Mill combats the notion of an 
 a/)riort necessity in Mathematics, it is impossible to assent 
 to an argument which contradicts the direct evidence of 
 consciousness. Nor docs this reasoning against Doctor 
 Whewell, however powerful as an argumentum ad homi- 
 nem, meet the real question at issue. Wiiat is required 
 is to account, not for the necessity of geometrical axioms 
 as tniths relating to objects without the mind, but as 
 thovf/hts relating to objects within. Mathematical judg- 
 ments are true of real objects only hypothetically. If 
 there exist anywhere in the M'orld a pair of perfect 
 straight lines, those lines cannot enclose a space. But 
 if such lines exist nowhere but in my imagination, it is 
 
 * Mill's Logic, vol. I. p. 30D. 
 
 IROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 97 
 
 equally the case that I cannot think of them as invested 
 with the contrary attribute. That which is to be accounted 
 for is, not the physical fact that certain visible objects 
 possess certain properties, but the psychological fact that, 
 in the case of geometrical magnitudes, I am compelled to 
 invest imagined objects with attributes not gained by 
 mere analysis of the notion under which they are thought; 
 — a compulsion of which I am not conscious with regard 
 to the most uniform associations of phenomena within the 
 field of sensible experience. A sensible object may have 
 been familiar to me from childhood ; but, suppose the 
 external reality destroyed, I can assert nothing with 
 certainty of its imaginary representative, except what is 
 contained in the concept itself So long as I have to 
 conform my judgments, not to the actual laws of the 
 existing course of nature, but to the possible conditions 
 of an imaginary state of things, I have no difficulty in 
 attributing contradictory attributes successively to the 
 same object. I may imagine the sun rising and setting 
 as now for a hundred years, and afterwards remaining 
 continually fixed in the meridian. Yet my experience 
 of the alternations of day and night has been at least 
 as invariable as of the geometrical properties of bodies. 
 I can imagine the same stone sinking ninety-nine times 
 in the water, and floating the one-hundredth; but my 
 experience invariably repeats the former phenomenon 
 only. Whereas, in the case of two straight lines, which, 
 so far as they are objects of experience, stand only on a 
 level with the above and similar instances, the mind finds 
 itself compelled to assert as necessary one attribute, not 
 contained in the concept, and to reject its contradictory 
 as impossible. 
 
 The possibility of forming synthetical judgments a priori 
 
 9 
 
 m 
 
 ri 
 
98 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 
 in Geometry admits of only one adequate explanation, 
 viz^ that the presentative intuition, as well as the repre- 
 sentative notion, is derived from within, not from without; 
 in other words, that both the matter and form of the 
 judgment are determined subjectively. If it can be shown 
 that the object of which pure Geometry treats is not 
 dependent on sensibility, but sensibility on it; that it is 
 a condition under which alone sensible experience is pos- 
 sible, it is obvious that its characteristics must accompany 
 all our thoughts concerning any possible object of such 
 experience ; that its laws must be equally binding upon 
 the imaginary representation as upon the sensible percept : 
 for, abstract as we may from this or that particular phe- 
 nomenon of experience, we are clearly incompetent to de- 
 prive it of those conditions under which alone Experience 
 itself is possible. 
 
 Such a condition is furnished to us by the intuition of 
 Space. That this is a subjective condition of all sensible 
 perception, and not a mere empirical generalization from a 
 special class of phenomena, is evident from the fact that 
 it is impossible, by any effort of thought, to contemplate 
 sensible objects, save under this condition. We may 
 shift our attention at will from this object to that ; but 
 we can think of none save as existing in space. We 
 may conceive the whole world of sensible phenomena 
 to be annihilated by the fiat of Omnipotence ; but the 
 annihilation of space itself is beyond the power of thought 
 to contemplate. That things in themselves must exist in 
 space, and, as such, must be so presented to every possible 
 intelligence, is more than we may venture to affirm ; but 
 this much is certain, that man, by a law of his nature, 
 is compelled to perceive and to think of them as so ex- 
 isting. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 99 
 
 Upon this law of the mind depends the certainty of 
 geometrical axioms as thoughts, though not as truths. 
 The peculiar figures of space must, indeed, be originally 
 suggested empirically, from observation of the actual fig- 
 ures of body ; but this experience is still subject to the 
 same condition. Bodies cannot be perceived or imagined, 
 but in space : bodies of this or that figure cannot be 
 perceived or imagined, but as occupying a similarly figured 
 space. The modifications originally suggested by the for- 
 mer become an object of thought as existing in the latter ; 
 and the features exhibited now and here in the one, we 
 are compelled to think as existing always and everywhere 
 in the other. 
 
 The sensationalist is therefore, in a certain sense, right 
 in deriving geometrical axioms from experience. It must 
 be conceded to him that, had we never seen two straight 
 lines, had we never observed that as a matter of fact they 
 did not in that particular instance enclose a space, we 
 should never have arrived at the conviction that they 
 cannot do so in any instance. But this is equally true 
 of any product of the imagination. If I had never seen 
 separately the upper parts of a man and the lower parts 
 of a horse, I could not unite them together in the fantastic 
 image of a centaur. If I had never seen a black object, I 
 could not combine that color with a known form, so as to 
 produce the imagination of a black swan. But why is it 
 that in the one case I find no difficulty whatever in going 
 beyond or against the whole testimony of my past experi- 
 ence, while in the other such transgression is altogether 
 out of my power? Experience has uniformly presented 
 to me a horse's body in conjunction with a horse's head, 
 and a man's bead with a man's body ; just as experience 
 has uniformly presented to me space enclosed within a 
 
 
 I 
 
100 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 U 
 
 pair of curved lines, and not within a pair of straight ones. 
 Why do I, in the former case, consider the results of my 
 experience as contingent only and transgressible, confined 
 to the actual phenomena of a limited field, and possessing 
 no value beyond it ; while, in the latter, I am compelled 
 to regard them as necessary and universal ? Why can I 
 give in imagination to a quadruped body what experience 
 assures me is possessed by bipeds only? And why can I 
 not, in like manner, invest straight lines with an attribute 
 which experience has uniformly presented in curves? 
 
 Can it be said that the ideas in the latter case are con- 
 tradictory, and that their union is therefore forbidden by 
 the laws of formal thinking ? By no means. Straight and 
 curved^ viewed merely as objects of sense, are opposed only 
 as black and white, or as biped and quadruped / they can- 
 not, that is, be thought as existing at the same time in the 
 same subject : but that property which experience testifies 
 to have universally accompanied curved lines is not, merely 
 by virtue of that experience, more incompatible with 
 straight ones than the head which has uniformly accom- 
 panied a biped body is incompatible with a quadruped 
 one ; or than the form which experience has uniformly con- 
 nected with a white surface is incompatible with a black 
 one. Nor does the impossibility arise from any defect in 
 the simple ideas, such as exists in the case of a man who 
 can form no idea of a color which he has never seen. We 
 have all the simple ideas, or combinations of simple ideas, 
 which experience can give ; man's head and horse's body, 
 in the one case ; straight lines and space enclosed, in the 
 other. Why is not the latter conjunction as easy to the 
 imagination as the former ? 
 
 That it is not so, is a matter not of this or that theory, 
 but of psychological fact ; and, as such, requires explana- 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 101 
 
 tion, under any theory whatever. In fact we may demand, 
 as a sine qua now, of every hypothesis concerning the 
 character of human knowledge, that it shall accept and 
 account for this fact, instead of neglecting or denying it. 
 Only two theories can be mentioned as having fairly at- 
 tempted to fulfil this condition. The one is that of Leib- 
 nitz, who treats mathematical principles as mere analytical 
 judgments, dependent on the laws of formal thought. On 
 this supposition, the distinction between Logical and 
 Mathematical necessity vanishes altogether.* But the 
 solution, though applicable to the general axioms which 
 Geometry, in common with all other Sciences, tacitly or 
 openly presupposes in so far as it contains reasoning at all, 
 fails when applied to those on which all that is especially 
 geometrical depends. By no mere analytical process, as 
 Kant has shown,* can the conception of not enclosing a 
 space be elicited from that of two straight lines. In this, 
 and all similar principles, the predicate of the proposition 
 is not developed out of, but added to, the subject. 
 
 The other, and far more satisfactory, solution, is that of 
 Kant himself Whatever we are compelled to regard as 
 necessary, must be so in consequence of laws, not of the 
 object, but of the subject. But there are subjective laws 
 of the presentations of sense, as well as of the representa- 
 tions of thought. We can perceive only as permitted by 
 the laws of our perceptive faculties, as we can think only 
 in accordance with the laws of the understanding. If, then, 
 by a law of my sensibility, I am compelled to regard all 
 external objects as existing in space, any attributes which 
 are once presented to me as properties of a given portion 
 of space, the same must necessarily be thought as existing 
 
 :\i 
 
 ;l 
 
 <lil 
 
 1 Opera, ed. Erdmann, p. 81. 
 
 2 Prolegomena, § 2. 
 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 PROLEliOMKNA LOGIC A. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 103 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 H 
 
 B 
 
 1 
 
 
 in all space, and at all times. For to imagine a space in 
 which such properties are not found, would not be to im- 
 agine merely a different combination of sensible phenom- 
 ena, such as continually takes place without any change in 
 the laws of sensibility ; it would be to imagine myself as 
 perceiving under conditions other than those to which, by 
 a law of my being, I am subjected. The attempt to realize 
 such imagination is not a new train of thinking ; it is the 
 refusal to think at all. It does not inquire what new 
 objects may possibly be presented to my present faculties; 
 it requires me to determine how objects may appear to a 
 being whose faculties are differently constituted from mine. 
 Thought, as has already been observed, is representative, 
 and can only be exercised on objects presented to it. It 
 is therefore restricted by the conditions under which alone 
 such presentation is possible. If I am to exercise my 
 thought on sensible objects at all, I must think of such 
 objects under such determinations as the conditions of my 
 sensibility require. 
 
 Geometrical principles cannot, therefore, properly be 
 called laws of thought, inasmuch as they do not govern 
 every operation of the thinking faculty, but only regulate 
 the application of thought to a special class of objects. But 
 they are laws relative to the subjective condition of one 
 portion of our intuitions — those, namely, which are pre- 
 sented to the senses — the condition of their presentation 
 being Space. But a condition is discernible only in con- 
 junction with that of which it is the condition. Space, 
 therefore, and its laws can be made known to conscious- 
 ness only on the occasion of an actual experience of sense. 
 Hence the twofold character of geometrical principles: 
 empirical, as suggested in and through an act of experi- 
 
 ence ; necessary, as relating to the conditions under which 
 alone such experience is possible to human faculties.* 
 
 The same considerations will explain another important 
 feature of geometrical judgments, in which they represent 
 a striking contrast to truths properly called empirical. 
 Imagination plays its part in both ; but in the former case 
 it determines, in the latter it is determined by, the phe- 
 nomena given in experience. The mental image which I 
 can form of this or that individual possesses more or less 
 of truth and reality, as it represents with more or less 
 accuracy the features of the sensible object ; just as the 
 value of a portrait depends on the accuracy with which it 
 represents the features of the original. The imagination, 
 again, may of itself form new combinations of attributes ; 
 but these also are hypothetically regarded as real or fic- 
 titious, according as-We may or may not hereafter discover 
 such combinations to exist in sensible objects. But in 
 Geometry the case is reversed. Its propositions are 
 primarily and necessarily true of objects existing in the 
 imagination ; they are only secondary and hypothetically 
 true of sensible objects, in so far as they conform to the 
 imaginary model. If there is such a thing in the visible 
 world as a perfect triangle, its angles are equal to two 
 right angles. But if there is not, the proposition is still 
 true of the triangle as it exists in my imagination. And 
 
 1 This character of the special axioms of Geometry is remarkably ex- 
 pressed in the lan^anre of Aristotle. For example: aXtr^ais, oifx v rwv 
 i8/«r, AxV o7qi al<r^ay6fif^a Urirh 4v rois fia^fiariKOts lla-xoi'roy rplyw 
 vo¥. — Eth. Nic. vi. 9. And again : Tavra 8* iarlv olov Spay rp yo^<rti. 
 ^Anal. Post. i. 12. With which may be compared the language of Kant, 
 Logik, ^35: " Die crstcn konnen in der Anschauung dargestellt werden." 
 Had Aristotle been aware of the distinction Ixjtween the analytical and the 
 synthetical axioms, he might almost have anticipated Kant's view of the 
 whole question. 
 
104 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 PROLEOOUENA LOGICA. 
 
 105 
 
 l*- 
 
 li 
 
 the whole of Geometry, as a speculative science, would be 
 unaffected by the annihilation of every material square 
 or triangle in existence, whatever might become of its 
 merely approximate applications to purposes of practical 
 utility. Whereas, the truths of Zoology, or Botany, or 
 Mineralogy, are dependent entirely on the existence of 
 animals, or plants, or minerals, not as images within the 
 mind, but as entities without. The cause of this distinc- 
 tion is manifest from what has been said above. The 
 truths of Geometry, though subsequent to, are not con- 
 sequent on, experience: they relate not to the empiri- 
 cal figures of body, but to the figures of that space upon 
 which sensible experience is dependent. They are there- 
 fore unaffected by the destruction of the visible bodies, 
 and could only become fictitious by the annihilation of 
 space itself But the truths of Physical Science depend 
 upon experience alone : they are true of the objects only 
 as actually presented to the senses ; and their reality de- 
 pends entirely on the real existence of the sensible type. 
 
 As Geometry is a science of necessary truths relating to 
 continuous quantities or magnitudes, so Arithmetic is a 
 science of necessary truths relating to discrete quantities 
 or numbei-s. The two sciences, however, present some 
 important features of distinction. Almost all the truths 
 of Geometry are deductive. It contains very few axioms, 
 properly so called, i. €., synthetical judgments, derived im- 
 mediately from the intuition of space ; and its processes 
 consist in the demonstration of a multitude of dependent 
 propositions, from the combination of these axioms with 
 analytical principles. On the other hand, the fundamental 
 operations of Arithmetic, Addition, and Subtraction,^ pre- 
 
 1 "Though in some things, as in numbers, besides adding and subtract- 
 
 sent to us a vast number of synthetical judgments; each 
 of which, however, is derived immediately from intuition, 
 and cannot, by any reasoning process, be deduced from any 
 of the preceding ones.^ Pure Geometry cannot advance a 
 step without demonstration ; and its processes are there- 
 fore all reducible to the syllogistic form. Pure Arithmetic 
 contains no demonstration; and it is only when its calculus 
 is applied to the solution of particular problems that rea- 
 soning takes place, and the laws of syllogism become ap- 
 plicable. It is not reasoning which tells us that two and 
 two make four;^ nor, when we have gained this prof)osi- 
 tion, can we in any way deduce from it that two and four 
 make six. We must have recoui*se, in each separate case, 
 to the senses or the imagination, and, by presenting to 
 the one or the other a number of individual objects corre- 
 
 inp^, men name other operations, as multiplying and dividing, yet they are 
 the same: for multiplicution is but adding together of things equal; and 
 division, but subtracting of one thing, as often as we can." — Ilobbes, Levi- 
 cUhan, part i. ch. 5. 
 
 1 Subtraction may be demonstrated from Addition, if all the truths of 
 the latter be supposed given, or vice versa ; though it is simpler to regard 
 Subtraction as an independent process of denumeration, as is done by Con- 
 dillac, Langtte des Calculs, ch. i. But no result of either can be derived 
 from a preceding result of the same operation. 
 
 * Nothing, at first sight, can appear more satisfactory than Leibnitz's 
 proof of this proposition. Nouv. Essais, 1. iv. ch. 7. But that demon- 
 stration assumes the definitions of the higher numbers (2 is 1 + 1 ; 3 is 1 
 -J- 1 + 1, etc.), and this, as will hereafter appear, is in fact begging the 
 whole question. The real point at issue is not whether 4 and 2 + 2 are at 
 bottom identical, so that, both being given, an analysis of each will ulti- 
 mately show their correspondence ; but whether the former — notion, defini- 
 tion and all — is contained in the latter. In other words, whether a man 
 who has never learned to count beyond two, could obtain three, four, five, 
 and all higher numbers, by mere dissection of the notions which he pos- 
 sesses already. This remark applies also to Stewart {Elements, vol. ii. ch. 
 1), and to Hegel's attempted critique of Kant ( Werke, vol. v. p. 275). 
 
106 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 ; 
 
 spending to each term separately, envisage the resulting 
 sura.^ The intuition thus serves nearly the same purpose 
 as the figure in a geometrical demonstration ; with the ex- 
 ception, that in the latter case the construction is adopted 
 to furnish premises to a proposed conclusion, while in the 
 former it gives us a judgment which we have no imme- 
 diate purpose of applying to any further use. 
 
 An apparent objection, which meets us at the outset, 
 must not be left unnoticed. If the results of Arithmetic 
 are altogether intuitive, how is it that they extend to cases 
 of which sense has never furnished us with the occasion 
 of judging ? I may have never seen a thousand objects 
 of any kind together, yet I am as fully convinced that 976 
 -f 24 = 1000, as I am that 2 + 2=4, of which I see 
 instances every day of my life. And, even if I have seen 
 examples of the former as well as of the latter, how far 
 does the observed fact help in the formation of the judg- 
 ment ? Is my sight so acute that I can distinguish at a 
 glance a group of 1000 objects from one of 999 ? Can I 
 then, in any case, be said to have seen the fact verified ? 
 And if not, how is it that I do not merely know that what 
 I have seen in a single case must be true universally, but 
 even can be assured of the necessity of truths which I 
 have never accurately observed in any actual instance ? 
 
 This objection is based on a confusion of intuition in 
 general with the special presentations of sight* When the 
 
 I 
 
 1 See Kant, Kritik der r. V. p. 703. I have availed myself of the term 
 envisage^ as the best Enj^lish equivalent that has yet been proposed to the 
 German anschauen, a word which is applied ij^enerally to any presentation 
 of individual objects in sense or imafrfnation. Etymologically, both the 
 German and the Enjjlish word are drawn from the sense of sipht only. 
 If uniformity alone were to be consulted, the substantive Anachauung, usu- 
 ally translated intuition^ should be rendered by envisaging. 
 
 2 A confusion to which Kant himself has perhaps, in some degree, cobo 
 
 PKOLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 107 
 
 propositions of Arithmetic are said to be intuitive, it does 
 not follow that their truth must have been observed in 
 visible instances ; that we must have seen, for example, 
 that two and three make five, in lines, or pebbles, or the 
 fingers of the hand. It implies only that we must have 
 perceived the truth of the proposition in some individual 
 series, it may be of visible objects, it may be of audible 
 sounds, it may be of states of our own minds present to 
 internal observation. In none of these cases do we deal 
 with representative concepts, but with individual objects 
 presented to the external or internal sense. 
 
 Now, how, as a matter of fact, are arithmetical judg- 
 ments usually formed ? We see inexperienced calculators 
 arrive at their results by running through, orally or men- 
 tally, the several units of the numbers to be added together. 
 If we do not remember that 18 and 7 make 25, as readily 
 as that 2 and 2 make 4, we supply the defect by summing 
 up severally 19, 20, 21, etc. The artificial aids to which 
 we have recourse in larger sums, by adding up, for instance, 
 the corresponding digits in separate columns, are but ab- 
 breviated steps of the same process. 
 
 Setting aside, as belonging to art rather than science, all 
 those methods whose aim is merely to extend or facilitate 
 already existing processes, the psychological foundation 
 of Arithmetic is to be found in the consciousness of suc- 
 cessive mental states ; and its eariiest actual process con- 
 sists in giving names to the several members of the series. 
 Such a process, which may be denominated natural, as 
 distinguished from artificial numeration, would proceed 
 steadily forward, from one member arbitrarily selected as 
 
 tributed, by representing {Proleg. S 2) fi^jp visible points as the intuition 
 of the number; thus by implication connecting Arithmetic with space 
 rather than with time. 
 
 h 
 
^ 
 
 108 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 109 
 
 i 
 
 > »Wi 
 
 the starting-point, acknowledging no relation between the 
 several steps beyond that of succession to its predecessor, 
 until the computation ceases from the inability of the 
 memory to carry on the series. Such a system, however 
 limited in its practical results, would rest on precisely the 
 same foundation as the more peifect methods which art 
 has supplied us, and will, consequently, contain all the data 
 required for determining the nature of the necessary truths 
 of Arithmetical Science. 
 
 As Arithmetic, as well as Geometry, contains such truths, 
 it must be equally regarded as founded on an internal law 
 or condition of our mental constitution. This condition 
 is that of Time, a condition which governs not merely our 
 external perceptions, but our universal consciousness of all 
 that takes place within or without oui-selves. Every suc- 
 cessive modification of the conscious mind can be made 
 known to us only as a change of state ; a change which is 
 only possible under the condition of succession in time, — 
 a transition from an earlier to a later phase of conscious- 
 ness. Of Time, as an absolute existence, we cannot form 
 any idea whatever : it is made known to us only as the 
 condition or form of successive states of consciousness. 
 To ask, therefore, whether Time has any existence out of 
 our own minds, is, in the only intelligible mode of putting 
 the question, to ask whether other orders of intelligent 
 beings are subject to the same conditions of intelligence 
 as oui-sclves ; whether they, like us, are conscious of vari- 
 ous mental states, one succeeding another. Put in this 
 form, the question is sufficiently intelligible, but obviously 
 one which we have no data for determining ; put in any 
 other form, it is absolutely void of meaning ; it contains not 
 the material for thought* but only a negation of all think- 
 ing whatever. 
 
 It might indeed be argued, with some show of proba- 
 bility, that the condition of successive consciousness is 
 essentially the condition of a finite and imperfect intelli- 
 gence, consequent only upon its very limited power of 
 simultaneous consciousness.* The scholastic doctrine of 
 an eternal Now, or nunc stans, so contemptuously treated 
 by Ilobbes, in this respect contains assuredly no prima 
 facie absurdity.^ The error of such speculations is of an- 
 other kind. It consists in mistaking the negation of all 
 thought for an act of positive thinking. As our whole 
 personal consciousness is subject to the condition of suc- 
 cessiveness, we can form no positive notion of a diflferent 
 state : we only know that it is something which we have 
 never experienced. The nature and attributes of an Infi- 
 nite Intelligence must be revealed to us in a manner ac- 
 commodated to finite capacities. How far the accommo- 
 dation extends, we have no means of determining, as we 
 cannot examine the same data with a different set of facul- 
 ties. The importance of this distinction between positive 
 
 1 Vide Boeth. De Consoi. PhU., lib. v. pros. vi. 
 
 * It is surprising to sec how near some of the earlier views on this point 
 approached to, without actually arriving at, the doctrine of Kant. Had 
 the question been considered sul»jectively as well as objectively, on the 
 fisychoIo«dcal as well as on the metaphysical side, the most important 
 conclusion of the Critical Philosophy would have been anticipated. When 
 Hobbes, in his controversy with Bramhall, said, "I never could conceive 
 an ever-abiding now," he was right; but he was wrong in supposing that 
 this was decisive of the point at issue. We can only conceive in thought 
 what we have experienced in presentation; and all our past presentations 
 have been given under the law of succession. But this does not enable us 
 to decide what may be the condition of other than human intelligences. 
 In this respect, the remark of Bramhall is exactly to the purpose: 
 " Though we are not able to comprehend perfectly what God is, yet wo 
 are able to comprehend what God is not; that is, he is not imperfect, 
 and therefore he is not finite." Reid (Intell Powers, Essay iii. ch. 3) treats 
 the nunc stans as a contradiction, which it is not. 
 
 10 . 
 
 i 
 
no 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 and negative thinking will be more closely examined here- 
 after. 
 
 But, to return to the question of mathematical necessity : 
 To construct the whole science of Arithmetic, it is only 
 requisite that we should be conscious of a succession in 
 time, and should be able to give names to the several 
 members of the series. And since in every act of con- 
 sciousness we are subject to the law of succession, it is 
 impossible in any form of consciousness to represent to 
 ourselves the facts of Arithmetic as other than they are. 
 To the art, not to the science, of Arithmetic belong all the 
 methods for facilitating calculation which imply anything 
 more than the mere idea of succession. Such a method, 
 and a powerful one, is afforded by the invention of Scales 
 of Notation, in which, to the idea of succession, is added 
 that of recurrence ; the series being regarded as commenc- 
 ing again from a second unit, after proceeding continuously 
 through a certain number of members, ten for example, as 
 in the common system. Hence we are enabled to repeat 
 over again, in the second and subsequent decades, the 
 operations originally performed in the fii-st, and thus indef- 
 initely to extend our calculus in the form of a continually 
 recurring series ; but the calculus, though thus rendered 
 infinitely more efficacious as an instrument, remains in iti 
 psychological basis unaltered. 
 
 From these considerations it follows that the several 
 members of an arithmetical series are incapable of defi- 
 nition. Succession in time, and the consciousness of one, 
 ttco, three, etc., are not complex notions abstracted from 
 and after a multitude of intuitions, but simple immediate 
 intuitions, differing, as far as numeration is concerned, only 
 in the order of their presentation. They are not by any 
 act of thought compounded, the latter from the earlier : 
 
 ^ 
 
 they cannot be resolved into any simpler elements of con- 
 sciousness, preseutative or representative, being themselves 
 the a priori conditions of consciousness in general. Hence 
 the fiilure of all attempts to analyze numerical calculation 
 as a deductive process. Leibnitz, and subsequently Hegel, 
 have endeavored to represent the arithmetical processes as 
 operations of pure analysis. Assuming, for example, 12 
 and 7 and 5, as give^i concepts, they show that the first 
 may be ultimately analyzed into the same constituent units 
 as the two last ; and this is regarded as an explanation of 
 the whole process of Addition. They overlook the fact 
 that, in thfit process, 12 is not given, but has to be deter- 
 mined by the addition of the two other numbers. Arith- 
 metic is not, like Geometry, a science whose definitions 
 are genetic and preliminary to its processes. The analysis 
 of any number into its constituent units presupposes the 
 whole operation which it professes to give rise to. We 
 may call, if we please, such an analysis definition ; but we 
 must not suppose that it in any degree corresponds to the 
 definitions of Geometry, or answers the same purpose in 
 the operations of the science.* 
 
 The above considerations are sufficient for our present 
 purpose, which is to determine the psychological basis of 
 mathematical judgments, and their consequent special char- 
 acter as necessary truths, in a distinct sense from that in 
 
 1 Writers of a very different school fVom that of Leibnitz or Hegel have 
 fallen into a similar error with re;^rd to the nature of arithmetical pro- 
 cesses. Mr. Mill, for example, regards the whole science of numbers as 
 derived from the common axioms concerning equality, and the definitions 
 of the several numbers. Stewart appears to have been of the same 
 opinion. On the contrary, the whole essentials of the science must be in 
 existence before the so-called definitions can be formed. The applications 
 of the calculus as an instrument must not be confounded with its essential 
 constituents as a science. 
 
 ^\ 
 
112 
 
 raOLBGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 Which the term is applied to logical or physical principles. 
 JUathematical judgments are synthetical, based on the 
 universal conditions of our intuitive faculties, and are ne- 
 cessary, not, properly speaking, as laws of thought, but 
 because thought can only operate in conjunction with mat- 
 ter given by intuition, and intuition cannot be emancipated 
 from Its own subjective conditions. Hence we are com- 
 pelled to think of our intuitions under the same laws 
 according to which they are invariably realized in con- 
 sciousness. Judgments of logical necessity, on the other 
 hand, are analytical, and rest on the laws of thought prop- 
 erly so called. Their analytical character is a necessary 
 consequence of the constitution of the thinking faculty 
 and ,3 so far from being a proof of the unsoundness or 
 Inyohty of logical speculations, that it is the strongest 
 evidence of their truth and scientific value, and leads to 
 
 most important consequences, both in Logic and in Psy- 
 
 chology. ^ 
 
 The nature of these judgments, as well as of those dis- 
 tmguished as metaphysically necessary, wiU be examined 
 m the following chapters. 
 
 r 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OP METAPHYSICAL 
 
 NECESSITY. 
 
 A DISTINCTION between necessary and contingent matter 
 is found, somewhat out of place it is true, but still it is 
 found, in most of the older, and, among English writers, in 
 most also of the recent treatises on Losric.^ The bounda- 
 ries of each, however, are not in the majority of instances 
 determined with any approach to accuracy. Among the 
 schoolmen, the favorite example of a pioposition of the 
 highest degree of necessity was omne animal rationale est 
 risibile; an example consistent enough with the mediaeval 
 state of physical science, but which in the present day will 
 scarcely be allowed a higher degree of certainty than 
 belongs to any other observed fact in the constitution of 
 things. An eminent modern Logician gives as an exam- 
 ple of a proposition in necessary matter, " All islands are 
 surrounded by water ; " an example which is only valid in 
 
 > Matter in this sense must not be confounded with the modality reco^- 
 nizcil by Aristotle, and by most of the modem German Lonricians. The 
 former Is an understood relation between the terms of a proposition, — tlio 
 form of the proposition being in all cases "A is B,"— and is supposed to 
 be of use in determining the quantity of indefinites. The latter is an ex- 
 pressed relation, the form of the necessary proposition l^eing "A must l^c 
 B;" and this is applicable to universal and particular propositions indiffer- 
 ently. The admission of the latter is still a point of dispute among emi- 
 nent authorities; the admission of the former will be tolerated by no 
 Logician who understands the nature of his own science. 
 
 10* 
 
 n 
 
 
114 
 
 PKOLKQOMEJfA LOGICA. 
 
 «o far as the predicate forms part of the notion of the 
 subject, and which, therefore, has no other necessity than 
 belon«.stoaU analytical judgments, -a necessity derived 
 
 fZf r r .""' *■■■*"" '^' '"""*=^-' The distinction 
 Itself, though altogether out of place when Thought is 
 
 consu lered merely in its relation to Logic, is, in a psycho- 
 Iog.cal pomt of view, of considerable importance The 
 following remarks will, it is hoped, throw some light on its 
 true character. ^ 
 
 ~r',!!*'''V"*'^'"'"'' '"■' "^"^^^^^ »»'» they cannot 
 p opery be said to be in necessary „,aUer. They are all 
 
 ultimately dependent on the Principles of Ideniity and 
 Contradiction, "Every A is A," and "No A is not A- 
 pnncplea^ the necessity of which arises solely from their 
 form, without any relation to this or that matter. That 
 every triangle has three sides, arises from a mere analysis 
 of the notion of a triangle; as that every island is sur- 
 rounded by water, arises from a mere analysis of the notion 
 of an island. This necessity is derived solely from the 
 laws of formal thinking. ^ 
 
 ftct IS m contingent matter; at least if the oppos te term 
 be used in its highest sense. However rijidly certain 
 phenomena may be deduced from the assumptioHf ; 
 
 in Which .he pX,: : j^t '"or r*"'"'" '"■"'" ""*"'"^ """'" 
 ' i^&nt, Anttk der r Vn ii-j. vt^j , « "*"u„iu. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 115 
 
 general law of nature, the law itself remains nothing more 
 than an observed fact, of which we can give no other 
 explanation than that it was the will of the Creator to 
 constitute things in a certain manner. For example : that 
 a body in motion, under certain conditions of projection, 
 and attracted by a force varying inversely as the square of 
 the distance, will describe an ellipse having the centre of 
 attraction in one of the foci, — this is matter of demon- 
 stration ; but that the earth is such a body, acted upon by 
 forces of this description, is matter of fact, of which we 
 can only say that it is so, and that it might have been 
 otherwise. The original premise being thus contingent, all 
 deductions from it are materially contingent likewise. 
 
 The same is the case with all psychological judgments, 
 BO far as they merely state the fact that our minds are 
 constituted in this or that manner. But there is one re- 
 markable difference between this contingency and that 
 which is presented by physical phenomena. The laws of 
 the latter impose no restraint on my powers of thought : 
 relatively to me, they are simply universally observed facts. 
 There is, therefore, no impediment to my uniting in a 
 judgment any two notions once formed; though the corre- 
 sponding objects cannot, consistently with existing laws 
 of nature, be united in fact. I may thus conceive a moun- 
 tain moving, or a stone floating on the water ; though my 
 experience has always presented to me the mountain as 
 standing, and the stone as sinking. But as regards Psy- 
 chology, the powera of my mind cannot be presented to 
 consciousness, but under one determinate manifestation. 
 The only variety is found in the objects on which they 
 operate. I am thus limited in my power of forming notions 
 at all, in all cases where I am, by mental restrictions, pre- 
 vented from experiencing the corresponding intuition. I 
 
116 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 have thus a negative idea only of the nature of an intelli- 
 gent being constituted in a different manner from myself; 
 though I have no difficulty in supposing that many such 
 exist. I can suppose, for instance, that there may exist 
 beings whose knowledge of mateiial objects is not gained 
 through the medium of bodily senses, or whose under- 
 standing has a direct power of intuition ; but to conceive 
 such a being is beyond my power; conception being 
 limited to the field of positive intuitions. In anotheT 
 point of view, both physical and psychological judgmenU 
 may be called necessary ; as the consequence of certain 
 established laws, which laws, however, might have been 
 otherwise. In this sense, both might be classified as %>o- 
 thetically necessary;'' in opposition to another class of 
 judgments, those relating to human actions, which, as will 
 hereafter appear, are, in the fullest sense of the term, con- 
 tingenU For logical purposes, however, the former classi- 
 fication is preferable. 
 
 On the other hand, mathematical judgments have been 
 almost univei-sally regarded as belonging to the province 
 of necessary matter.' We can suppose the possibility of 
 beings existing whose consciousness has no relation to 
 space or lime at all. We can suppose it possible that some 
 change in our mental constitution might present us with 
 the intuition of space in more than three dimensions. This 
 is no more than to admit the possible existence of iutelli- 
 
 I For this expression see Leibnitz, Th€odic€e, S 37; Daval^ouve, Ij^q^ 
 p. /8. 
 
 -' Universally amonp: those who have accurately distinguished intenimble 
 from sensible magnitude. The objections of Sextus Empiricus in ancient 
 and of Hume in modem times, among skeptics, so far as thev have any 
 special i-elation to Geometry, as well as those of M. Comte and Mr. MiU 
 among sensationalists, arc mainly based on a confusion of these two. ' 
 
 PBOLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 117 
 
 gent creatures otherwise constituted than ourselves, and, 
 consequently, incomprehensible by us. But to suppose the 
 existence of geometrical figures, or arithmetical numbers, 
 such as those with which we are now acquainted, is to 
 suppose the existence of space and time as we are now 
 conscious of them ; and, therefore, relatively to beings 
 whose mental constitution is so far similar to our own. 
 Such a supposition, therefore, necessarily carries with it 
 all the mathematical relations in which time and space, as 
 given to us, are necessarily thought. For mathematical 
 judgments strictly relate only to objects of thought, as 
 existing in my mind ; not to distinct entities, as existing 
 in a certain relation to my mind. They therefore imply 
 no other existence but that of a thinking subject, modified 
 in a certain manner. Destroy this subject, or change its 
 modification, and we cannot say, as in other cases, that the 
 object may possibly exist still without the subject, or may 
 exist in a new relation to a new subject ; for the object 
 exists only in and through that particular modification of 
 the subject, and on any other supposition is annihilated 
 altogether. It is thus impossible to suppose that a triangle 
 can, in relation to any intelligence whatever, have its angles 
 greater or less than two right angles, or that two and two 
 should not be equal to four ; though it is possible to sup- 
 pose the existence of beings destitute of the idea of a 
 triangle or of the number two. This is necessary matter, 
 in the strict sense of the term ; a relation which our minds 
 are incapable of reversing, not merely positively, in our 
 own acts of thought, but also negatively, by supposing 
 others who can do so. 
 
 There is one other science which has frequently been 
 supposed to share this necessity with Mathematics. Met- 
 aphysics, though, so far as it deals in merely analytical 
 
 f'i 
 
118 
 
 PROLEGOMEKA LOOICA. 
 
 judgments, it has been sufficiently shown by Kant to be 
 incapable of leading to any scientific results, is frequently 
 regarded as possessing a certain number of syntlietical 
 axioms, which, under the various names of Principles of 
 Necessary Truth, Fundamental Laws of Human Belief, 
 and sometimes even (however incorrectly) of Laws of 
 Thought,' have held a prominent place in various systems 
 of philosophy down to the present time. Two of these 
 principles may be especially selected for examination, partly 
 on account of the importance attached to them by eminent 
 wnters, and partly on account of their relation to the Forms 
 of Thought recognized by Logic. 
 
 1. The Principle of Substance. All objects of percep- 
 tion are Qualities which exist in some Subject to which 
 they belong. 
 
 2. The Principle of Caus.ility.» Whatever begins to 
 exist must take place in consequence of some Cause 
 
 «I perceive," says Reid, «in a biUiard-baU, figure, color. 
 
 ' This nomenclMnre is sanctioned by the aathori.y of M. Boyer-Collart. 
 irois lois dc la pcnsee concourent dans la perception 
 
 Jl ^'fT'^"^ "' 1'in.pcnetrabiUte ont un .^ auquel eUcs sont toher- 
 entes, et dans Icqud elles coexistent. 
 
 2o. routes les choses sont placecs dans une d«r€e aLsolue, k laquelte 
 elles particpent eomrae si elles Aaient une seule et meme chose 
 
 Inl'^T^T^ commence i exister a ^ttJ prodm, par une catue."- 
 JoufTroy's Beid, vol. iv. p. 447. 
 
 « Called also the Principle of SuJ/icien, Reason, or of Determining Season ■ 
 though these expressions, as Sir William Hamilton has observed, an, use<i 
 
 duced and, 3 , The logical or ideal principle. Why a thing Is it,«,„„ or 
 «.»c„«rf. _ Hamilton on Reid. p. m. Cf. Leibnitz's Fifth Letter to oLZ 
 
 do besom d une raison sufflsante, pour qu'une chose existe, qu'un ^vej 
 ment amve, qu'une veritc ait lieu." For a criticism on the principle 
 U.US given, see Herbart, LeHrluC .-ur EinUitun, in di, FkOaso^'l 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 119 
 
 and motion ; but the ball is not figure, nor is it color, nor 
 motion, nor all these taken together; it is something that 
 h.-»s figure, and color, and motion. This is a dictate of 
 nature, and the belief of all mankind.'" 
 
 On the other hand. Bishop Berkeley had labored hard 
 to prove that it was much more consonant to nature, and 
 to the common sense of mankind, to deny altogether the 
 existence of this imperceptible substance, the supposed 
 support of perceptible attributes. « I do not argue," he 
 says, « against the existence of any one thing th.it we 
 can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the 
 things I see with mine eyes and touch with my h.inds do 
 exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only 
 thing whose existence we deny, is that which philosophers 
 call matter, or corporeal substance. And in doing of this 
 there is nl^ damage done to the rest of mankind, who I 
 dare say, will never miss it. The atheist, indeed, will want 
 the color of an empty name to support his impiety ; and 
 the philosophers m.-xy possibly find they have lost a great 
 handle for trifling and disputation." 
 
 "It will be urged," he continues, "th.nt thus much at 
 least IS true, to wit, that we take away all corporeal sub- 
 stances. To this my answer is, that if the word substance 
 be taken in the vulgar sense, for a combination of sensible 
 qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like — 
 this we cannot be accused of taking away. But if it be 
 taken in a philosophic sense, for the support of accidents 
 or qualities without the mind— then indeed I acknowledge 
 that we take it away, if one may be said to take away that 
 
 ' Tntaiennal Pou^s. Essay ii. ch. 19. Compa.^ Descartes, Meditatio 
 Secunda, who adduces the changes in a piece of wax as an argument to 
 show that the thing Iteelf is conceived as something distinct from its sen- 
 sible qoalities. 
 
 ')ll 
 
i 
 
 120 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 
 I 
 
 which never had any existence, not even in the imagina- 
 tion." 1 
 
 But after Berkeley came Hume, who applied to the 
 phenomena of internal perception the same process of 
 reasoning which Berkeley had applied to the external. 
 Within myself, he argued, I am conscious only of impres- 
 sions and ideas. The substance called Mind is a mere 
 fiction, imagined for the support of these, as the substance 
 called Matter is imagined for the support of sensible qual- 
 ities.* In opposition to these skeptical conclusions, Reid 
 and his disciples appealed to the authority of ceilain uni- 
 versally acknowledged axioms, distinguished as Principles 
 of Common Sense, or Fundamental Laws of Human Belief, 
 of which we can give no other account than that such is 
 our constitution, and we must think accordingly. One of 
 these is the Principle of Substance, mentioned^bove. 
 
 It is necessary to speak with diffidence on a point dis- 
 puted by philosophers of such eminence ; but if there be 
 any truth in the psychological distinction between Thought 
 and Intuition, noticed in my first chapter, it will appear 
 that the Scottish philosophers, in endeavoring to overthrow 
 Hume and Berkeley at once, abandoned the only position 
 from which an attack might have been successfully made 
 on either of them separately. Hume's philosophy is not 
 a legitimate development of Berkeley's, unless we allow 
 that our consciousness of mind, as well as of matter, is 
 representative only. If it be true that neither mental nor 
 material substance, as distinguished from the various states 
 and attributes of either, is in any manner presented intui- 
 tivdy, the two theories must stand or fall together. And 
 
 1 Principles of Human Knowledge, xxxr., xxxrll. 
 ' Treatise of Human Nature, part iv. ^ 5, 6. 
 
 i' 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 121 
 
 this point is over and over again conceded by Reid and 
 Stewart.^ 
 
 Under this concession, the appeal to a fundamental law 
 of belief is insufficient. Such a law can only state the fact, 
 that we are by our constitution compelled to believe in a 
 certain relation between two given notions : it does not 
 explain how either of such notions could have entei-ed 
 into the mind in the first instance. But the appeal becomes 
 self-contradictory in the hands of any one who admits the 
 views of Locke, or of Kant, concerning the limits of the 
 understanding.' Either a presentative origin must be 
 found for the notions of substance and cause, or we must 
 admit that, in these instances, the act of thought has 
 created its own objects. 
 
 We are therefore compelled to ask. Is this asserted 
 analogy between our modes of consciousness in relation 
 
 » For example: "The attributes of individuals is all that we distinctly 
 conceive about them. It is true, we conceive a subject to which the attri- 
 butes belong; but of this subject, when its attributes are set aside we 
 have but an obscure and relative conception, whether it be body or mind " 
 -- Reid. Int. Powers, Essay v. chap. 2. " It is not matter, or bodv, which 
 I perceive by my senses; but only extension, fi^^re, color, and certain 
 other qualities, which the constitution of my nature leads me to refer to 
 something which is extended, floored, and colored. The case is precisely 
 Hmilar with respect to mind. We are not immediately conscious of its 
 existence but we are conscious of sensation, thought, and volition; oper- 
 anons^ which imply the existence of something which feels, thinks, and 
 wills. — Stewart, Elements, Introd. part I. 
 
 « Yet Kant, no less than Reid, allows that we are not immediately 
 conscious of mind, but only of its phenomena. In his hands, however 
 the concession is peri^ectly suicidal, and forms the weak part of the Criti- 
 cal Philosophy. The reader who bears this inconsistency in mind, may 
 perhaps find an easier solution to some of Kant's Paralogisms and Antl- 
 nom.es of Pure Reason than could have t>een given by the author himself. 
 On tins subject, the admirable remarks of M. Cousin, in his Sixth Lecture 
 on Kant, should be consulted. 
 
 11 
 
122 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 i| 
 
 to matter and mind really tenable? Does it not rather 
 appear a flat self-contradiction to maintain that I am not 
 immediately conscious of myself, but only of my sensations 
 or volitions ? Who, then, is this I that is conscious; and 
 how can I be conscious of such states as mine? In this case 
 it would surely be llir more accurate to say, not that I am 
 conscious of my sensations, but that the sensation is con- 
 scious of itself; but, thus worded, the glaring absurdity 
 of the theory would carry with it its own refutation.^ 
 
 The one presented substance, the source from which our 
 data for thinking on the subject are originally drawn, is 
 myseip Whatever may be the variety of the phenomena 
 
 1 Since the publication of the first edition of this work, the author has 
 met with the followin- passaj^e in Jouffroy's Nouveaux M€lauyes Fhiloso- 
 phiques, p. 275, in which the above arjniment has been anticipated in sub- 
 stance, and almost in language: "Thfese singulifere k soutenir que jc ne 
 saisis pas la cause qui est wo^ que je sens ma pcnse'e, ma volonte, ma sen- 
 sation, mais que je ne me sens pas pcnsant, voulant, sentanti Mais d'ou 
 saurais-jo alors que la pensec, la volonte, la sensation que je sens, sont 
 miennes, qu'elles cmanent de moi, et non pas d'uue autre cause ? Si ma 
 conscience ne saisissait que la pensee, je pourrais bien concevoir que la 
 pensce a une cause; mais ricn ne ra'apprcndrait quelle est cette cause, ni 
 si elle est moi ou toute autre. La pcnsde ne ra'apparaitrait done pas com'me 
 mienne. Ce qui fait qu'clle m'apparait coramc mienne, c'est que je la sens 
 emaner de moi ; et ce qui fait que jo la sens emaner de moi, c'est que je 
 sens la cause qui la produit et que jc me reconnais dans cette cause." 
 
 2 Thus Descartes observes iMeditatio Tertia): " Ex lis vero qua; in ideis 
 pcnim corporallum clara et distincta sunt, quiedum ab idea raei ipsius 
 videor mutuari potnisse, nempe substantiam, durationem, numerum, et si 
 quae alia sunt ejusmodi." This passa-e perhaps su-gested the obserra- 
 tion of an illustrious French disciple of the Scottish philosophy, who has 
 thus supplied a marked deficiency in the system of his masters: " Lo 
 moi," says M. Royer-CoUard, "est la seule unit^ qui nous solt donne'e 
 imme'diateracnt par la nature; nous ne la rcncontrons dans aucune des 
 choses que nos facultes obscrvent. Mais rentendement qui la trouve en 
 lui, la met hors de lui par induction, et d'un certain norabre de choses 
 coexistantes U crce des unites artificiclles." — Jouffi-oy's JBeid, vol. iv. p. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 123 
 
 i 
 
 V 
 
 of consciousness, sensations by this or that organ, volitions, 
 thoughts, imaginations, of all we are immediately conscious 
 as afl^ections of one and the same self It is not by any 
 after-effort of reflection that I combine together sight and 
 hearing, thought and volition, into a factitious unity or 
 compounded whole : in each case 1 am immediately con- 
 scious of myself seeing and hearing, willing and thinking. 
 This self-personality, like all other simple and immediate 
 presentations, is indefinable; but it is so because it is supe- 
 rior to definition. It can be analyzed into no simpler 
 elements, for it is itself the simplest of all ; it can be made 
 no clearer by description or comparison, for it is revealed 
 to us in all the clearaess of an original intuition, of which 
 description and comparison can furnish only faint and 
 partial resemblances. 
 
 The extravagant speculations in which Metaphysicians 
 attempted to explain the nature and properties of the 
 soul as it is not given in consciousness, furnish no valid 
 ground for renouncing all inquiry into its character as it is 
 given, as a power, conscious of itself} That there are 
 many metaphysical, or, rather, psychological difl5culties, 
 still unsolved, connected with this view of the subject, 
 must be allowed ;2 but, so long as we remain within the 
 legitimate field of consciousness, we are not justified in 
 abandoning them as insoluble. To this class belongs the 
 question of Personal Identity, or the reference of eariier 
 and later states of consciousness to the same subject ; an 
 immediate consciousness being of present objects only. 
 
 3r)0. But the French ^vritcr to whom this portion of philosophy is most 
 indebted is Maine de Biran. 
 
 1 See Cousin, Le^ns sur Kant, p. 197; Damiron, PsycMogie, 1. i. ch. iv. 
 
 * See Herbart, Lehrbuch zur EirOeUung in die Fhilosophie, § 124; Haupt- 
 puncte der Melaphj/sik, H H, 12. 
 
124 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 125 
 
 v 
 
 The following question may perhaps furnish a hint of the 
 data from which the solution of this problem may be 
 attempte<l. Time and Space are given as forms or condi- 
 tions of the several phenomena of internal or external 
 consciousness; but are the same conditions strictly appli- 
 cable to the conscious subject itself? I may speak, accu- 
 rately enough, of my earlier or later thoughts or feelings; 
 but, apart from metaphor, can I, with any philosophical 
 accuracy, speak of an earlier or later self, even as a mere 
 logical distinction for the purpose of afterwards identifying 
 the two? To identify is to connect together in thoughl 
 objects given under different relations of space or time, as 
 when I pronounce the sovereign now lying on my table to 
 be numerically one with that which I received yesterday 
 at the bank. But is the conscious self ever given under 
 these different relations at all ? Is it not rather that from 
 which our original notion of numerical identity was drawn, 
 and which cannot be subjected to later and analogical 
 applications of the same idea? 
 
 This one presented substance, myself, is the basis of the 
 other notions of substance which are thought representa- 
 tively in relation to other phenomena. When I look at 
 another man, I do not perceive his consciousness. I see 
 only a compound body, of a certain form and color, moving 
 in this or that manner. I do not immediately know tha^t 
 he perceives, feels, and thinks, as I do myself. He may 
 be an exquisitely formed puppet, requiring perhaps more 
 mechanical skill in the construction than has ever been 
 attained by man, but still a mere machine, a possible piece 
 of clockwork. When I attribute to him personality and 
 consciousness, I mediately and reflectively transfer to 
 another that of which I am directly cognizant only in 
 myself. In this case, the phenomena are given in a sen- 
 
 i 
 
 
 Bible intuition ; the substance is added to them by a repre- 
 sentative act of thought. 
 
 Beyond the range of conscious beings, we can have only 
 a negative idea of substance. The name is applied in 
 relation to certain collections of sensible phenomena, natu- 
 ral or artificial, connected with each other in various 
 ways : by locomotion, by vegetation, by contributing to a 
 common end, by certain positions in space. But here we 
 have no positive notion of substance distinct from phe- 
 nomena. I do not attribute to the billiard-ball a con- 
 sciousness of its own figure, color, and motion ; but, in 
 denying consciousness, I deny the only form in which 
 unity and substance have been presented to me. I have 
 therefore no data for thinking one way or the other on 
 the question. Some kind of unity between the several 
 phenomena may exist, or it may not ; but if it does exist, 
 it exists in a manner of which I can form no conception ; 
 and if it does not exist, my faculties do not enable me to 
 detect its absence. 
 
 Such an acknowledgment of the negative character of 
 certain supposed thoughts, L e,, of their not being really 
 thoughts at all, is very different from skepticism. It does 
 not teach a distrust of our faculties within their proper 
 limits, but only tells us that they have limits, and that 
 they cannot transgress them. In this there is no more of 
 paradox than in asserting that we cannot see a man or a 
 tower at a thousand miles' distance. The fault of Berke- 
 ley did not consist in doubting the existence of matter, 
 but in asserting its non-existence. If I cannot see a spot 
 a thousand miles off; I am, as far as sight is concerned, 
 equally incompetent to assert that there is or is not a 
 tower standing upon it In like manner, it is character, 
 istic of all mere negative notions, that we have no direct 
 
 11* 
 
 il 
 
126 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 Ir 
 
 \ 
 
 evidence whether their supposed objects exist or not. To 
 manuain that matter is a fiction, invented for the support 
 of attributes, is to dogmatize in negation, and, after all, to 
 give a partial solution only of the question ; for fictions as 
 well as facts have their psychological conditions, under 
 which alone their invention is possible.' Had Berkeley's 
 theory been accompanied by an inquiry into the ori-in of 
 negative notions and their influence on thought and lan- 
 guage. It could scarcely have given rise either to the 
 extreme skepticism of his successor, or to the stran-e 
 misunderstandings of some of his .id verearies. 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from the above remarks is 
 sufficiently obvious. The general assertion, that all sensi- 
 ble qualities belong to a subject, cannot with any propriety 
 be called a principle of necessary truth ; inasmuch as it is 
 a principle which may be either true or false, and we have 
 110 means of determining which. Nor is it correct to call 
 It a fundamental law of human belief; if by th.-xt expres- 
 sion 13 meant anything more than ^n assertion of the 
 universal tendency of men to liken other things to them- 
 selves, and to speak of them under forms of expression 
 adapted to such likeness, far beyond the point where the 
 parallel fails. The true law or principle which connect, 
 attributes with a substance extends no further than to the 
 phenomena of the personal consciousness, which are neces- 
 
 I "It seems to bo a judgment of nature." says Rcid (J. P. il. jO) « ,hat 
 the things Immediately perceired are qualities which must bclon" to » 
 .abject; and all the information that our senses give us about this sabiect 
 Is, that It is that to which such qualities belong." In point of fact, oar 
 senses tell us nothing of the kind; and, we™ these our only intuitive fac 
 nines, we should never have supposed such a subject to exist. To refer 
 any belief to a principle of our nature. Is insuBicient. unless we can at 
 the same Ume psychologically account for the origin of the notions which 
 taat oelief implies. 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 127 
 
 i 
 
 sarily apprehended as attributes of myself; and this prin- 
 ciple docs not warrant us in asserting that the whiteness 
 and roundness and hardness of the billiard-ball are attri- 
 butes of the ball, in the same manner as my thoughts and 
 feelings and sensations are attributes of me. Nevertheless 
 there is a real, though an incomplete analogy between the 
 two cases ; which may serve in some degree to account for 
 the association which has led to the apparent recognition, 
 in the universal language of mankind, of a relation which 
 has no warrant in our immediate consciousness. Though 
 bodily attrilites are not perceived as related to a sub- 
 stance, they are in all cases perceived as related to each 
 other. The perception by sense of any phenomenon of 
 matter is necessarily accompanied by an intellectual appre- 
 hension of its relations to space, as occupying it, and con- 
 tained in it. Color cannot be perceived without extension, 
 nor extension without solidity ; and solidity is not a single 
 attribute, but includes in its comprehension the th^ee 
 dimensions of length, breadth, and thickness. But we can 
 analyze in language what we cannot analyze in conscious- 
 ness; and by the appropriation of distinct names to the 
 related attributes we are enabled to speak of them apart, 
 though we cannot perceive them except in conjimction. 
 This is the real distinction indicated by the use of concrete 
 or abstract terms : the round, hard, wliite body denotes 
 the attribute as perceived in space; the roundness and 
 hardness and whiteness severally denote the same attrir^ 
 butes as separated in language. This real distinction is 
 coupled with an association transferred from the personal 
 consciousness ; and men speak of the roundness and hard- 
 ness and whiteness of the ball, as they speak of rwy thoughts 
 and my feelings and my desires, without being aware that 
 the relation which in the latter case is a fact of conscious- 
 
/ 
 
 128 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 1 1 
 
 ness, is in the other an imaginary parallel, wliich cannot 
 be positively verified by consciousness, though for the 
 same reason it cannot be positively denied. 
 I But, though there is thus no speculative reason for 
 accepting or rejecting Berkeley's theory as true or false, or 
 f for attempting to adapt to it common forms of speech, 
 there may, in certain philosophical inquiries, be a practical 
 reason for accepting or rejecting it as convenient or incon- 
 venient. If the method of metaphysical research can in 
 any degree be simplified by divesting it of the liypothesis 
 of a substratum of sensible attributes, this ^\•l be a suffi- 
 cient reason for accepting the theory as pro tanto valid. 
 Such simplification will not, however, be effected by taking 
 the Berkeleian theory in ift whole extent. The admission 
 of ideas as the immediate objects of perception, whether 
 in Berkeley's form, as entities distinct from the mind, or in 
 Fichte's, as modifications of the mind itself, and the neces- 
 sary consequence that nothing exists except when it is 
 perceived, is too repugnant to the common sense of man- 
 kind to have any ultimate value in philosophy. There is 
 still room, however, for an attempt to construct a similar 
 theory, viewed from the objective side, which, banishing 
 the hypothesis of a substratum, shall regard the sensible 
 attributes as the things themselves. Whether such a the- 
 ory would offer any ground for constructing Metaphysical 
 Science on a surer basis, or whether it would share the 
 fate of preceding systems, remains to be seen.* 
 Much of the above reasoning is applicable to the Prin- 
 
 1 Somethino; of this «!ort may perhaps Ik; attempted In connectfor. with 
 Sir William HamUton's doctrine of Natural Realism. But that doctrine, 
 admirable as it is in many of the fragments that have been published, is 
 unfortunately least complete in its ontological relaUons. On the reaJly 
 weak side of Berkeley's Philosophy, see Appendix, note B. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 129 
 
 ciple of Causality likewise. I hold a piece of wax to the 
 fire, and it begins to melt.^ Here my senses inform me 
 only of two successive phenomena: the proximity of the 
 fire, and the melting of the wax. That the one is the 
 productive cause of the other, is an addition to the sen- 
 sible data, which, so far as this particular instance is con- 
 cerned, is not given, but inferred. Here, again, it becomes 
 necessary to inquire whether we shall abandon the belief in 
 Causes altogether; whether we shall concede that Thoucrht 
 alone is competent to create the notion ; or whether we 
 can discover any intuition in which Causality, as distinct 
 from mere Succession, is immediately presented. 
 
 Hume, and subsequently Brown, denied altogether the 
 existence of Cause in this sense of the term. Witli these 
 philosophers, a cause is nothing more than something prior 
 to the change, and constantly conjoined with it.''«We 
 give the name oUause;^ says Brown, «to the object which 
 we believe to be the invariable antecedent of a particular 
 change; we give the name of effect reciprocally to that 
 invariable consequent; and the relation itself, when con- 
 sidered abstractly, we denominate i.ot..r in the object that 
 18 the invariable ^r^iece,\enU - susceptibility in the object 
 that exhibits, in its change, the invariable consequent. We 
 sny of fire, that it has the power of melting metals, and of 
 metals, that they are susceptible effusion by fire —that 
 fire ,8 the cause of the fusion, and the fusion the Iffect of 
 the application of fire; but in all this variety of words 
 we mean nothing more than our belief, that when a solid 
 metal is subjected for a certain time to the application of 
 
 Of change as perceptible by the senses. The other and verv different 
 of the theory of Maine de Biran. 
 
ISO 
 
 PROLEGOMENA l.OGICA. 
 
 Hi! 
 
 a strong beat, it will begin afterwards to exist' in tbat dif- 
 ferent state wbich is termed liquidity, — tbat in all past 
 time, in tbe same circumstances, it would bave exbibited 
 tbe same cbange, — and tbat it will continue to do so in 
 tbe same circumstances in all future time."* 
 
 Tbus far Hume and Brown are at one. Into tbe subor- 
 dinate question at issue between tbem, as to tbe origin of 
 our belief in tbe uniformity of nature, it is foreign to my 
 present purpose to enter. I bave at present to do only 
 witb tbat portion of tbe tbeory in wbicb botb pbilosopbers 
 are agreed, — tbe resolution of cause into invariable ante- 
 cedent; concerning wbicb Reid remarks, tbat we may learn 
 from it tbat nigbt is tbe cause of day, and day tbe cause 
 of nigbt ; for no two tbings bave more constantly followed 
 eacb otber since tbe beginning of tbe world. 
 
 In tbe tbeory of causation, as above stated, two very 
 distinct principles are fused into one; and tbe fusion is 
 indicated by tbe two words invariable antecedent. Admit- 
 ting for tbe moment tbat causation means no more tban 
 immediate antecedence in time, it is obviously one tbing 
 to say tbat every event must bave 807ne antecedent or other, 
 and anotber to say tbat tbis particular event must always 
 have this particular antecedent, Tbe latter assertion, wbich 
 implies tbe assumption of tbe uniformity of nature in her 
 operations, is, even granting its universal trutb, obviously 
 a law of tbings, and not of tbougbt, tbe contradictory of 
 wbicb is at any time perfectly conceivable. Tbere is no 
 absurdity in tbe supposition, wbetber it be true or not as 
 a fact, tbat tbe pbenomenon C may at one time be pre- 
 ceded by A, and at anotber by B ; tbe otber circumstances 
 being in botb cases exactly alike. Wbetber sucb a vari- 
 ation actually takes place under tbe existing constitution 
 
 1 Inquiry into the BelcUion of Cause and ^fect, p. 12. 
 
 I 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 131 
 
 Of the world which we inhabit, is another question ; but 
 there ,s certa.nly „o difficulty in conceiving that i^ an 
 .mag.„ary world it may take place. This portion of the 
 pnncp e being thus excluded from the class of necessary 
 truths, the remaining portion will not be difficult to explain 
 . The assertion that every event must have some antecedent 
 or o her, imphes no more than that we cannot conceive it 
 as standing at the absolute beginning of all time, apart 
 fim any relation to a preceding series of phenomena. 
 This IS an obvious result of the subjection of our conscious- 
 n^ to the law of time. For our consciousness of time is 
 not of time m the abstract, but of phenomena as takin<. 
 place in time ; and the law which compels us to conceive 
 every event as occurring in time, obviously compels us 
 
 But rV "' ■■"''"' '' ""^' *'^'"P-'" »ntecedent.> 
 But, as thus limited, the principle, however necessary, is 
 
 obviously inadequate as a theory of causation. We can- 
 not he p feeling that there is a deficiency even in the 
 
 original theory as stated by Hume- we feel tL 
 imnU«o o^ *i • ^Auiiic, we leel that cause 
 
 Z Rei r '"^ "r "''" '"""•''^"^ -*--'-». and 
 
 to a philosophical refutation of the theory, is at least a 
 
 practical proof of its insufficiencv The U , 
 cf."]] * . ''""i^iuucy. ine teelinc: becomes 
 
 s .11 stronger when the element of invariability it elf 
 shown to bean adventitious accretion, and the i-Hn 
 pnnciple is reduced to the mere ackiiowledg 1 ' a 
 
 antecedence that of productive power, and regard this 
 
 * In thus acknowledffino- one plomont r.f *^. 
 
 acpend on the mc„,al Taw^f "xi r „ i ' e rT "' "' '^""'■-"''' '" 
 the tbcoiy of Sir W H»mn,„ ' ™'^" '" *""<'• ' f-"™ P»«iall.v adopted 
 
 or .h« .Lr..r !;,'St: J- --^ <">--«- - t^e .^al^der 
 
132 
 
 r* ', 
 
 llr 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 addition as essential to the conception of a Cause. A 
 belief so universal, even if it be delusive in a portion of 
 its extent, can only be explained, even as a delusion, by 
 the supposition that it has an origin in truth ; that there 
 is such a notion as power given in the actual facts of 
 consciousness, however it may be extended in imagination 
 beyond the data which suggested it. 
 
 The philosophers of the school of Reid could not fairly 
 meet Hume's theory of causation, for the same reason that 
 they could not fairly meet his theory of substance ; because 
 they denied the existence of an immediate consciousness 
 of mind, as distinguished from its several states. It was 
 easy for Hume to show that volition is but one phenom- 
 enon, and motion is but another; and that the former is so 
 far from being the necessary cause of the other, that a 
 stroke of paralysis may put an end even to the uniformity 
 of the sequence. It was also easy for him to show that, 
 as the motion of the arm is not the immediate consequent 
 of the volition, but is separated from it by an intervening 
 nervous and muscular action, of which we are unconscious, 
 the one cannot be directly given as produced by the other. 
 The intuition of Power is not immediately given in the 
 action of matter upon matter ; nor yet can it be given in 
 the action of matter upon mind, nor in that of mind upon 
 matter; for to this day we are utterly ignorant how mat- 
 ter and mind operate upon each other. We know not how 
 the material refractions of the eye are connected with the 
 mental sensation of seeing, nor how the determination of 
 the will operates in bringing about the motion of the 
 muscles. We can investigate severally the phenomena of 
 mntter and of mind, as we can examine severally the consti- 
 tution of the earth and the architecture of the heavens : 
 we seek the boundary-line of their junction, as the child 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 133 
 
 chases the horizon, only to discover that it flies as we 
 pui-sue it. 
 
 There is thus no alteiTiative, but either to abandon the 
 inquiry after an immediate intuition of power, or to seek 
 for it in mind as determining/ its own modifications;^ a 
 coui-se open to those who admit an immediate conscious- 
 ness of self, and to them only. My first and only presen- 
 tation of power or causality is thus to be found in my 
 consciousness of myself as willing. In every act of voli- 
 tion I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form 
 the resolution or to abstain ; and this constitutes the pre- 
 seutative consciousness of free will and of power. Like 
 any other simple idea, it cannot be defined ; and hence 
 the difficulty of verbally distinguishing causation from 
 mere succession. But every man who has been conscious 
 of an act of will, has been conscious of power therein ; and 
 
 > This is clearly and accurately stated by M. Cousin: " Chorche-t-on la 
 notion de cause dans Taction dc la bille sur la bille, comme on le Aiisait 
 avant Hume, ou dc la main sur la bille, et des premiers muscles locomo- 
 teurs sur leurs extremit^s, ou meme dans Taction de la volonte sur le mus- 
 clc, comme I'a fait M. de Biran, on ne la trouvera dans aucun de ces cas, 
 pas meme dans le dernier, car il est possible qu'il y ait une paralysie des 
 muscles qui rende la volonte impuissante sur cux, improductive, incapable 
 d'etre cause et par consequent d'en su-prerer la notion. Mais ce qu'au- 
 rune paralysie ne pent empecher, c'est Taction de la volonte sur elle- 
 meme, la production d'une resolution, c'est-k-dire une causation touto 
 Bpirituelle, type primitif de la causalite. dont toutcs Ics actions exterieurcs, 
 a commencer par Teffort musculaire, et k finir par le mouvement dc la 
 billc sur la bille, ne sont que des symboles plus ou moins infidclcs." 
 -Fragments Philosophiqnes, Preface de la premiere Edition. James Mill 
 Umdysis of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 2.%) speaks of the idea of power 
 in the relation of cause and effect as "an item alto-ether ima-inary." 
 Such a thorou-h-oin- imajrination is a psycholoj,ncal impossibility: the 
 item must be piven in one relation before it can be imaffined in another. 
 Ao effort of imagiuution can create its object out of nothing. 
 
 12 
 
134 
 
 PROLEGOMEXA LOGICA. 
 
 i 
 
 to one who has not been so conscious, no verbal descrip- 
 tion can supply the tifficiency. 
 
 Here again, as in the case of substance, as soon as we 
 advance beyond the region of consciousness we find our- 
 selves in the midst of negative notions, which we can 
 neither conceive, nor afiirm, nor deny. Our clearest notion 
 of efficiency is that of a relation between two objects, 
 similar to that which exists between ourselves and our 
 volitions.^ But what relation can exist between the heat 
 of fire and the melting of wax, similar to that between a 
 conscious mind and its self-determinations? Or, if there 
 is nothing precisely similar, can there be anything in any 
 degree analogous ? We cannot say that there is, or, if 
 there is, how far the analogy extends, and how and where 
 it fails. We can form no positive conception of a power 
 of this kind : we can only say that it is something dif- 
 ferent from the only power of which we are intuitively 
 conscious. But, on the other hand, we are not wan-anted 
 in denying the existence of anything of the kind ; for 
 denial is as much an act of positive thought as affirmation, 
 and a negative idea furnishes no data for one or the other. 
 
 The principle of Causality is thus precisely analogous to 
 that of Substance, in its origin and legitimate application, 
 as well as in its perversion. The idea of power cannot 
 legitimately be extended beyond the phenomena of per- 
 sonal consciousness in which it is directly manifested. 
 But the phenomena of matter are thus far similar to those 
 of mind, that both alike are subject to the law of time ; 
 the phenomena of nature being in all cases preceded by 
 other phenomena, as the phenomena of volition are pre- 
 ceded by a productive energy of the person willing. The 
 relation which is given in the latter alone is transferred by 
 
 • * See Reid, Active Powers, Essay i. ch. v. 
 
 I 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 135 
 
 association to the former; and men speak of the power of 
 fire to melt wax, as they speak of their own power of self- 
 determination, without being aware that, in departing 
 from the field of consciousness, they have departed from 
 the only province in which the term poioer has any posi- 
 tive significance.^ What is meant by power in a fire to 
 melt wax? How and when is it exerted, and in what 
 manner does it come under our cognizance? Supposing 
 such^ower to be suspended by an act of omnipotence, 
 the^ipreme Being at the same time producing the suc- 
 cession of phenomena by the immediate interposition of 
 his own will, — could we in any way detect the change? 
 Or suppose the course of nature to be governed by a 
 preestablished harmony, which ordained that at a certain 
 moment fire and wax should be in the neicrhborhood of 
 each other; that, at the same moment, fire by itself should 
 burn, and wax by its own laws should melt, neither aflfect- 
 ing the other, — would not all the perceptible phenomena 
 be precisely the same as at present ? These suppositions 
 may be extravagant, though they are supported by some 
 of the most eminent names in philosophy ; but the mere 
 possibility of making them shows that the rival hypothesis 
 is not a necessary truth; the various principles being 
 opposed, only like the vortices of Descartes and the gravi- 
 
 t> 
 
 * Thus M. Engel observes : " Dans ce que nous nppclons force d'attrac- 
 tlon, d'afllnitd, ou meme d 'impulsion, la seule chose connue (c'est a-dire 
 representee k rima<;ination et aux sens), c'est I'effor ope're, savoir, le rap- 
 prochement des deux corps attires et attirant. Aucune lanjnie n'a de mot 
 pour cxprimer ce jc ne mis qnoi {p/Tort, tendance, nisus), qui reste absolument 
 cachd, mais que tous les esprits con<,"oivent nccessairemcnt commc ajoutc? a 
 la representation phe'nome'ntile." (Sec Do Biran, Nonvellcs Considerations^ 
 p. 23.) Tlie ce je ne sais quoi expresses exactly the negative character of 
 the notion in question. 
 
136 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 li 
 
 tation of Newton, as more or less plausible methods of 
 accounting for the same physical phenomena. 
 
 Before we can positively assert, as a principle of neces- 
 sary truth, that all physical phenomena must have a cause, 
 we must ascertain clearly what meaning we attach to the 
 word cause. If we eliminate the notion of power, which 
 has no positive significance in this relation, and confine 
 ourselves to that of chronological succession, we may 
 assign three diflferent meanings to the term cause, and 
 three different degrees of certainty to the corresponding 
 principle. If we mean no more than that every even^ 
 must have some chronological antecedent, the principle is 
 a necessary truth, dependent upon an original law of the 
 human consciousness, by which we are compelled to con- 
 template all phenomena as taking place in time. If we 
 advance a step beyond this, and add to the notion of 
 succession that of invariahilitij, or repetition of similar 
 phenomena under similar circumstances, the principle 
 may be stated in two different ways. We may inter- 
 pret Cause to mean simply invariable antecedent, in which 
 case the principle may be expressed as follows: Every 
 phenomenon which takes place in nature is preceded by 
 some other phenomenon, or aggregate of phenomena,* 
 with which it is invariably conjoined. Or, secondly, re- 
 garding the invariability as one of consequence and not 
 of antecedence, we may enunciate the principle in a some- 
 
 This last limitation is necessary : the cause, to speak accurately, is the 
 sum total of the conditions, whose united presence is followed invariably 
 by the effect. It is not any single phenomenon, unless we can, by succes- 
 sive experiments, eliminate all the concomitants save one, and thus show 
 that, as far as the given effect is concerned, they are indifferent. This 
 however, in practice, is seldom the case. On this subject some valuable 
 remarks wiU be found in Mill's Logic, book iii. ch. 5 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 137 
 
 what more complex form: Every phenomenon which 
 takes place has, among its immediate antecedents, some 
 one phenomenon or aggregate of phenomena, which being 
 repeated, the same consequent phenomenon will invariably 
 recur. 
 
 As stated in the first of the above forms, the Principle 
 of Causality is no more than an induction from experience, 
 and can never at highest amount to more than the asser- 
 tion of a general fact in nature. We are not warranted in 
 stating, prior to observation, that the two phenomena A 
 and B are so invariably connected together that nature 
 never presents, and man can never produce, a single 
 instance of the latter without the precedence of the for- 
 mer. Such a conclusion may be established, as a matter of 
 fact, by a long course of observation : it may be regarded 
 as extremely probable beforehand, from what observation 
 teaches us of the uniformity of nature in other instances : 
 but in these cases it is not a principle of necessary truth ; 
 it is an inductive law or general fact in the constitution of 
 nature as now established by the will of God. It is thus, 
 and it might be otherwise. 
 
 In point of fact, the principle, as thus explained, is so far 
 from being necessary, that it has not yet been ascertained 
 to be true. As far as observation has hitherto gone, the 
 same phenomenon occura at different times with totally 
 different antecedents. Thus, as Mr. Mill has observed, 
 one set of observations or experiments shows that the sun 
 is a cause of heat ; another, that friction is a cause of it ; 
 others, that percussion, electricity, and chemical action, are 
 also causes. It is very possible, indeed highly probable, 
 that further observation may hereafter discover some one 
 uniform feature running through these several sources; 
 but this is only a probability supported by the analogy of 
 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 li 
 
 !i 
 
 nature in other instances ; it is not a necessary law of our 
 own minds compelling us, prior to experience, to pronounce 
 tliat a plurality of physical causes is impossible. 
 
 The second form of the principle is less open to excep- 
 tion. For, though it may be a matter of question whether 
 the same phenomenon may not proceed from a variety of 
 physical causes, it appears to be beyond all doubt that any 
 one of those causes, whenever it takes i)lace, will be ade- 
 quate to the production of the effect. Thus expressed, 
 the law m question is identical with that belief in the 
 universal connection of similar events, which Ilumo re- 
 duces to the result of association, which his antagonists of 
 the Scottish school refer to an original principle of our 
 nature ; while Mr. Mill holds it to be itself an instance of 
 induction, and induction by no means of the most obvious 
 kind. 
 
 Kone of these solutions is entirely satisfactory. That 
 of Hume has been sufficiently refuted even by the disciple 
 of his general theory, Brown; and the refirtation holds 
 good, whether we suppose, with Brown, that the theory in 
 question is a dogmatic position maintained by Hume him- 
 self, or whether, with Sir W. Hamilton, we regard it 
 merely as the reductio ad ahsurdum of the dogmatism 
 then in vogue. That of an original principle of our nature, 
 though true as far as it goes, is too vague, and confounds 
 under one general term things which it should be the 
 principal object of any mental classification to distinguish 
 There are some original principles of our nature of immuta- 
 ble obligation ; and there are others which are perpetually 
 leading us astray. There are some which lead us to truths 
 which we cannot reverse even in thought; and there are 
 others which point out only contingent and variable phe- 
 nomena. Sight and hearing, appetite and desire, the law 
 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 139 
 
 of conscience, and the intuitions of space and time, are all 
 equally original principles of our nature ; that is, we can 
 ultimately give no account of them, but that it has i)leased 
 our Maker so to constitute us. Mr. Mill's explanation over- 
 looks the fact, that when the principle in question is found 
 in apparent conflict with experience, it is invariably as- 
 sumed to be in the right, and experience in the wrong; 
 which is not the case with merely inductive laws : to say 
 nothing of the paralogism of making the ground and prin- 
 ciple of all induction itself dependent upon induction, and 
 upon induction only. Our earliest and uni)hilosophical 
 inductions appear as often to indicate variety in the opera- 
 tions of nature as uniformity. The sun rises and sets, the 
 tide ebbs and flows, with regularity ; but storm and calm, 
 rain and sunshine, appear to observe no fixed order of 
 succession. But, in any instance whatever of physical 
 causation, let an apparent repetition of the cause not be 
 followed by that of the effect, and all men alike, philo- 
 sophical or unphilosophical, will at once assert that there 
 was some latent variety in the circumstances, and not a 
 change in the uniformity of their succession. 
 
 The Principle of Causality, as thus exhibited, seems to 
 combine in one formula two separate elements, the one 
 necessary, the other empirical. That matter in every rela- 
 tion is subject to some law, by virtue of which a given 
 antecedent admits at any one time of only one possible 
 consequent, seems to be a necessary and unavoidable con- 
 viction. That this law will be manifested by the production 
 of similar phenomena on similar occasions, is the result of 
 a combination of this necessary conviction with the expe- 
 rience of the actual evidence of law in our own world, in 
 those cases which are most open to observation. I can 
 suppose it possible that in another world the law may be 
 
140 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 I 
 
 manifested iu another way, according to which the phe- 
 nomena of matter may have no settled relations to each 
 other, but phenomena at one time and in one place con- 
 nected, as cause and effect, may at another time or in 
 another place have no connection at all. But even in this 
 case, I can only conceive the material agents as passively 
 obeying tlie law of their organization, not as enabled, by 
 their own caprice, to obey or disobey on different occasions. 
 Whether the perceptible results be more or less regular, I 
 am still compelled to believe that, in any single instance, 
 the antecedent circumstances being given, the consequent 
 cannot but be determined by them in one-way and in one 
 way only ; whether a similar antecedent will on a future 
 occasion be followed by a similar consequent or not. 
 
 At the same time I am not entitled to pronounce, a 
 priori, that matter cannot possibly disobey its own law ; 
 though assuredly I am unable to conceive how it can do' 
 so. And we have thus a remarkable parallel between the 
 general law of causation, as applicable to physical phenom- 
 ena, and the psychological facts of our own constitution, 
 the reverse of which, as was observed at the beginning of 
 the present chapter, may be mpposed, but cannot be \on^ 
 ceivecl And this parallel, I am inclined to think, furnishes 
 a key to the true character of the law. If we were told 
 of an instance on our own globe in which the repetition 
 of exactly similar phenomena had apparently not been 
 followed by the same effect, we should without hesitation 
 account for it on one of two grounds : either the phenom- 
 ena were not really exactly similar, or the interposition 
 of some intelligent being had prevented the natural result 
 And if we were asked why these two alternatives alone 
 are admissible, we should probably reply, -Because matter 
 cannot change of itselil" And probably, if we were 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 141 
 
 informed that in some other world, where the laws of 
 matter are manifested otherwise than by regular succes- 
 sion, the natural relation had in any given instance not 
 taken place, we should ascribe it in like manner to some 
 external intervention, not to any power of obedience or 
 disobedience residing in the matter itself. Whatever rela- 
 tion of cause and effect is conceived as existing between 
 two material phenomena, whether limited to a single 
 occasion or repeated in orderly recuiTence, we find it 
 impossible to attribute to the phenomena at that particular 
 time anything like self-action, or a choice of alternatives 
 to determine or be determined in this way or that. Now, 
 why cannot we think of matter as acting by itself? Be- 
 cause power and self-determination have never been given 
 to us, save in one form, that of the actions of the conscious 
 self. What I am to conceive as taking place, I must con- 
 ceive as taking place in the only manner of taking place 
 in which it has ever been presented to me. This reduces 
 the law of Causality, in one sense indeed, to an empirical 
 principle, but to an empirical principle of a very peculiar 
 character; one, namely, in which it is psychologically 
 impossible that experience should testify in more than one 
 way. Such principles, however empirical in their origin, 
 are coextensive in their application with the whole domain 
 of thought. They cannot, properly speaking, be called 
 inductive truths; for they require no accumulation of 
 physical experience. The course of Nature is thought as 
 uniform, because, so long as Nature alone is spoken of, that 
 element is absent which alone we can think of as origin- 
 ating a change -— Intelligence. And for the same reason, so 
 long as the several phenomena of Nature are believed to 
 be each under the control of a separate intelligence, the 
 axiom of her uniformity will admit of perpetual modifica- 
 
 % 
 
 1 
 
 ? 
 
142 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 143 
 
 f 
 
 II 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 tion. The winds may blow north or south, as suits the 
 caprices of ^olus; Xanthus may neglect the laws of his 
 periodical rise and fall, to arrest the progress of Achilles; 
 and even the steady-going coachman, Phcebus, may alter 
 upon occasion the pace of his chariot, to gratify the wishes 
 of his roving parent. 
 
 To call the Principle of Causality, as thus explained, a 
 Law of Thought, would be incorrect. We cannot think 
 the contrary, not because the laws of thought forbid us, 
 but because the material for thought is wanting. Thought 
 is subject to two different modes of restriction : firstly, 
 from its own laws, by which it is restricted as to its foi-ra ; 
 and, secondly, from the laws of intuition, by which it is 
 restricted as to its matter. The restriction, in the present 
 instance, is of the latter kind. We cannot conceive a 
 course of nature without causation, as we cannot conceive 
 a being who sees without eyes or hears without ears ; be- 
 cause we cannot, under existing circumstances, experience 
 the necessary intuition. But such things may, notwith- 
 standing, exist ; and, under other circumstances, they might 
 become objects of possible conce[)tion, the laws of the 
 process of conception remaining unaltered. This will be 
 more clearly seen hereafter, when we come to treat of 
 Logical Necessity and the Laws of Thought. 
 
 The Principle of Causality may thus, as far as its ne- 
 cessity is concerned, be referred to an intermediate place 
 between the axioms of mathematics and the generaliza- 
 tions of physical science, being contingent in some degree 
 as compared with the former, and necessary in some degree 
 as compared with the latter. It is contingent, inasmuch 
 as it relates to circumstances to which our experience is 
 subjected in the present state of things, and those circum- 
 stances might possibly have been different. It is necessary, 
 
 inasmuch as, while those circumstances remain as they are, 
 the conviction produced by them is unavoidable, in thought 
 no less than in fact. The necessity has thus a negative, 
 not a positive origin ; and this origin suggests a practical 
 caution as regards the employment of the principle. Our 
 immediate intuition of power, as has been before observed, 
 is to be found in the consciousness of mind as modifying 
 itself, the ego determining its own volitions. That mind 
 operates upon matter, we are not immediately conscious. 
 It is not given in any intuition that the determination of 
 the will acta upon the muscles of the arm ; though the 
 motion of the latter follows the generation of the former. 
 Hence, though we are compelled to ascribe all change to 
 the only power of which we are conscious, we are unable 
 to ascribe it in the only manner of operation of which we 
 are conscious. For purposes of scientific investigation, the 
 principle is thus purely negative, though it serves to regu- 
 late our belief. We know not to this day, and we never 
 can know in this life, how mind operates upon matter; 
 though we must believe that, in some way or other, it does 
 so operate. It is impossible, therefore, to construct de- 
 ductively any system of Natural Philosophy from the 
 Principle of Causality, or from any other axiom exi)ressing 
 the agency of mind upon matter. The value of such prin- 
 ciples is purely psychological. 
 
 From the view above given of the Principle of Causality, 
 some important consequences might be drawn relatively to 
 other sciences ; which, however, my present limits do not 
 permit me to attempt. One such remark, however, will, I 
 trust, be tolerated, both from the intrinsic importance of 
 the question to which it relates, and from its connection 
 with the doctrines of an eminent author,* to whom I have 
 
 * For the argument of Mr. MUl, here alluded to, see Appendix, note D. 
 
14i 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 'i 
 ii 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 been considerably indebted in the preceding pages. If 
 the view above taken be sound, we are enabled to detect 
 a fundamental fallacy in the argument in favor of necessity 
 from the determination of the will by motives. If every 
 thing in nature, it is argued, must have a cause or sufficient 
 reason, the determinations of the will cannot be exempted 
 from this general law. If I am determined by motives in 
 the formation of every act of volition, then there is some- 
 thing previous to such act which made it to be necessarily 
 produced. If I am not so determined, there is an effect in 
 nature without a cause. In this argument, there is a latent 
 ambiguity of language. As applied to Physics, the cause 
 of a phenomenon is a certain antecedent fact, which bein<T 
 repeated, the phenomenon will recur. This notion of cause 
 is gathered from material phenomena, and can only by an 
 imperfect analogy be applied to mental. In this sense, 
 motives addressed to the will are not causes ; for, in every 
 act of volition, I am fully conscious that I can at this mo- 
 ment act in either of two ways, and that, all the antecedent 
 phenomena being precisely the same, I may determine one 
 wjfy to-day, and another way to-morrow. To speak of the 
 determinations of the will as caused by phenomena, in the 
 same sense in which the fusion of metal is caused by fire, is 
 to give the lie to consciousness for the sake of theory. On 
 the other hand, if cause be interpreted to mean an agent 
 with power, my only positive notion of cause in this sense 
 is derived from the consciousness of myself as determining, 
 not as determined. Of the power of motives upon my will, 
 consciousness tells me nothing; but only that the one is 
 presented and the other follows ; not, however, as in Phys- 
 ics, uniformly. My notion of causes with power, other 
 than myself, is derived from the primary intuition of my- 
 self as a cause, and cannot be made to react upon that 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 145 
 
 intuition, without the fallacy of deducing the known from 
 the unknown. Of myself, as necessitated by motives, my 
 immediate consciousness tells me nothing. It is a mere 
 inference from a supposed general law of causality, which 
 law is itself derived from the consciousness of the very 
 reverse. You are conscious, says the necessitarian, of 
 yourself as a determining cause ; therefore you must be a 
 determined effect. By what logic does this follow ? If 
 these considerations suggest a limit to the univei-sality of 
 the principle of sufficient reason, so be it. Ko principle 
 can consistently be allowed so much universality as to 
 overthrow the intuition from which it had its rise.^ 
 
 Another observation will not be deemed unimportant 
 by those who are aware how many philosophical theories 
 have been constructed on the sole basis of philosophical 
 phraseology.* Locke has laid some stress on the fact, that 
 the names which stand for insensible actions and notions 
 are derived from those of sensible objects. « To imagine, 
 apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust,' 
 disturbance, tranquillity, etc., are all words taken from the 
 operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes 
 of thinking. By which we may give some kind of guess 
 what kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which 
 filled their minds who were the first beginners of Ian- 
 
 I 
 
 J The above cursory remarks are of course not desifrned as a full exam- 
 ination of the problem of necessity, but only as a hint for examining one 
 of the arguments advanced in its support. More would be out of place 
 here. A few additional observations will be found in the Appendix, note E. 
 
 « It will scarcely be credited that a philosopher of Hegel's eminence 
 should have connected a logical theory of judgment with the fact that 
 the German word Urtheil etymologically means original part. Such a 
 method of philosophizing could hardly have been surpassed by Conradus 
 Crambe, or his facctioua relaUve Mr. Swan, Gamester and Punster of the 
 City of London. 
 
 13 
 
146 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 i 
 
 
 guages; and how nature, even in the naming of things, 
 unawares suggested to men the originals and principles 
 of all their knowledge." * The fallacy of the theory at- 
 tached to this foct by Locke himself, and by Horne Tooke, 
 has been fully exposed by Dugald Stewart ; but it should 
 also have been observed that, in point of fact, the obliga- 
 tion is not entirely on one side. While, as regards attri- 
 butes and phenomena, the language of mental science has 
 mostly been borrowed from that of sensation ; in all that 
 relates to the notions of cause or force, as has been well 
 remarked by Maine de Biran, the language property be- 
 longing to the mental fact has been transferred by analogy 
 to the physical. As the basis of a theory, the fact is of no 
 great value ; but its weight, such as it is, should at least 
 be acknowledged to bear on both sides of the question. 
 
 Before closing the present remarks it is necessary to 
 say a few words in reference to an objection which will 
 probably have frequently suggested itself to those conver- 
 sant with the literature of the subject. The origin here 
 assigned to the principle of causality (and the same may 
 in some degree be said of that of substance also) may 
 perhaps appear to be of too empirical a character to con- 
 sist with the amount of universality assigned to the prin- 
 ciple itself; besides being in some respects at variance 
 with the opinions of those philosophers to whom the pre- 
 ceding pages are mostly indebted.^ Sir William Hamilton 
 has remarked, that, if the conception of active power is 
 derived, as Reid asserts, from our voluntary exertions, our 
 notion of causality would be of an empirical derivation, 
 
 1 Essaj/, b. iii. ch. i. 4 5. 
 
 « A point at issue between two eminent French philosophers, to whose 
 writings I am under considerable obligations, wiU be considered in the 
 Appendix, note F. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOaiCA. 
 
 147 
 
 and without the quality of universality and necessity.^ 
 Reid himself, in another passage, admits the same thing. 
 " The proposition to be proved," he says, « is not a contin- 
 gent, but a necessary proposition. It is not that things 
 which begin to exist commonly have a cause, or even that 
 they always in fact have a cause; but that they must have 
 a cause, and cannot begin to exist without a cause. Prop- 
 ositions of this kind, from their nature, are incapable of 
 proof by induction. Experience informs us only of what 
 is or has been, not of what must be ; and the conclusion 
 must be of the same nature with the premises."* 
 
 That experience is the chronological antecedent of all 
 our knowledge, even of the most necessary truths, is now 
 generally admitted. But a distinction is frequently drawn, 
 and has been more than once adverted to in the precedino- 
 pages, between truths or notions of which experience is 
 the source, and those of which it is only the occasion. The 
 mind, instead of being compared to a tabula rasa, on which 
 experience impresses the whole writing, is likened to a 
 seed, which must indeed be planted before it will grow; 
 but contact with the soil is only the occasion which calls 
 forth the hidden germ of the plant. Both analogies are 
 impeifect ; and both, as regards the present question, tend 
 rather to darken than to illustrate. The point may be 
 better explained by laying aside, as far as is possible, phys- 
 ical imagery altogether, and by examining separately the 
 relation to experience of notions or concepts, and of judg- 
 ments ; instead of confounding both under the vague 
 expression, origin of ideas. 
 
 Every general concept is in one sense empirical; for 
 every concept must be formed from an intuition, and every 
 
 J Rfid's Works, p. 604. 
 
 » LiteU. Powers, F^say vi. ch. 6 (p. 455 of Sir W. Hamilton's edition). 
 
 i 
 
148 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 III 
 
 intuition is experienced. But there are some intuitions 
 which, from our constitution and position in tlie world, we 
 cannot help experiencing; and there are others which, 
 according to circumstances, we may experience or not. 
 The former will give rise to concepts which, without any 
 great impropriety of language, may be called native, or a 
 priori; being such as, though not coeval with the mind 
 itself, will certainly be formed in every man as he grows 
 up, and such as it was preordained that every man should 
 have. The latter will give rise to concepts which, for a 
 like reason, may be called adventitious, or a posteriori ; 
 being such as may or may not be formed, according to the 
 special experience of this or that individual. To the for- 
 mer class belong the notions of time and space, as implied 
 in all our intuitions, internal or external: to this class 
 belong also the notions of seeing, hearing, and such other 
 mental operations as, in some manner or other, are per- 
 formed by every man not physically deficient in the requi- 
 site organs. Of the same kind are the notions of right and 
 wrong, which must necessarily arise in the mind of every 
 man who has ever performed an action of which his con- 
 science approves or disapproves, — and all men must at 
 times do both. The numerous controversies concernin<» 
 the existence of a moral sense may be considerably simpli- 
 fied by this consideration.* On the other hand, to the 
 class of adventitious notions belong those of this or that 
 color, sound, etc. ; in short, of all simple or complex objects 
 of perception which it is possible may have been presented 
 to the experience of one man and not to that of another. 
 
 But a necessity of which I am conscious, can, like truth 
 and falsehood, exist only in judgments. It may be or- 
 dained by the laws of my constitution that I must neces- 
 
 ^ See Appendix^ note G. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 149 
 
 garily form certain notions; but those notions are not 
 therefore thought by me as necessary. The simplest form 
 in which necessity can be presented to my consciousness is 
 that of a judgment, A must be B. This character belongs 
 to all such judgments as. by the laws of his constitution a 
 man must form, supposing^ him to be possessed of the con- 
 stituent concepts. 
 
 There are certain concepts which, whether native or 
 adventitious in their own origin, must, when once gained, 
 necessarily be thought in conjunction ; there are others 
 which we are at liberty to connect or not, according to 
 circumstances. This necessity or contingency of judg- 
 ments is generally confounded with necessity or contin- 
 gency in the corresponding concepts ; but the fact is, that 
 they are not even coextensive in their provinces. There 
 may be thousands of men who never heard of a circle or 
 its radius : there is not one who, those notions being once 
 acquired, can fail to see that all the radii of a circle must 
 be equal to each other. 
 
 Necessity in judgments is dependent sometimes on the 
 laws of thought, sometimes on the laws of other parts of 
 our constitution ; and the terra may, in another sense, be 
 applied to that character in certain judgments which arises 
 from the limitation of our faculties, and from the circum- 
 stances in which all men alike are placed. Thus, by the 
 laws of thought, every part of any given concept, be its 
 origin what it may, must be thought as identical with 
 itself; and hence arises the logical necessity of all analyti- 
 cal judgments. By the laws of our intuitive faculties, all 
 objects of external perception have a certain relation to 
 Space, and all objects of internal perception to Time; and 
 hence arises the mathematical necessity of geometrical and 
 arithmetical judgments. Again, the limitations imposed 
 
 13» 
 
150 
 
 n 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 i 
 
 r « < 
 
 '!! ^ 
 
 on our intuitive faculties restrict us, in the case of certain 
 intuitions, to one relation only between them ; and hence 
 arises the psychological necessity of certain judgments, of 
 which we can suppose, but cannot conceive, the contrary. 
 The restriction in this case is not properly a law regulatin- 
 acts which we can perform, but a bar separating us fron" 
 acts which we cannot perform. None of these classes of 
 judgments can properly be termed empirical ; being de- 
 pendent, not on experience alone, but on experience in 
 conjunction with certain laws and limitations of our mental 
 constitution. They are thus, to adopt Shaftesbury's cor- 
 rection of Locke, if not innate, at least connatural; the 
 constitution of man being such that, being adult or grown 
 up, at such or such a time, sooner or later (no matter 
 when), they will infallibly, inevitably, necessarily spring 
 up m hmi. These laws and limitations of our constitution 
 render necessary the adoption of Leibnitz's addition to the 
 sensationalist axion^ "Nihil est in intellectu, quod non 
 fuerit m sensu, nisi ipse intellectusr And even with this 
 addition, sense must be understood with extreme latitude, 
 foT every possible kind of external or internal presentation. 
 There is another class of judgments in regard to which 
 our experience is restricted by the circumstances in which 
 
 ^Nouvenux Essais, 1. ii. ch. 1. This axiom has been attributed to Aris- 
 totle, who, in De Anima, iii. 4, compares the intellect before its actual exei^ 
 dse to a tablet with nothing actually written upon it iypa^ruo. <? ;.,3i. 
 ^<^X« iKr*A*x«ra -yry^M^Vo.). But Aristotle does not regard the blank 
 as filled up by the senses, but by the activity of the intellect itself A 
 nearer approach to the sensational tabula rasa may be found in the doo 
 trine attributed to the Stoics by (Pseudo) Plutarch. De Plac PM iv U- 
 
 ^ux7,5, &^,p xdprns 4y,py&^ «', i^oypa<t>^y' •»» rovro fda^ i^d^rmy rAr 
 i^ou.. iua.ayp<i^,r<u- .punas »4 6 rris i^aypa^s rp<hras 6 8^ rA. a.V3V*- 
 •w. Compare Zeller, PhUosophie der Griechen, Ui. p. 31. 
 
 151 
 
 we are universally placed. This is the case with the results 
 of existing physical laws of the universe, which we can 
 perfectly conceive revei-sed, though within our actual 
 experience they never are so. I am fully convinced, for 
 example, that, under the existing state of things, a stone 
 thrown into the water will sink to the bottom ; but it is 
 perfectly conceivable that it might float. Lastly, there is 
 a class of judgments which are, in the strictest sense, con- 
 tingent ; such as relate to the conduct of a voluntary agent, 
 who is subject to no necessary restraint, whatever may be 
 his moral obligations. 
 
 The above remarks are not designed as an exact state- 
 ment of the theory of any previous philosopher,^ nor as an 
 explanation of language which has been hitherto employed 
 in describing a supposed origin of our ideas. They are 
 offered only as expressing what I believe to be a more 
 exact and accurate account than is conveyed by the physi- 
 cal analogies already mentioned, by the vague phraseology 
 of source and occasion, or by the obscure notions of poten- 
 tial and actual consciousness. They likewise help to dis- 
 tinguish, what it is important to keep separate from each 
 other, necessity in the acquisition of concepts, and neces- 
 sity in their combination in judgments. It is hardly cor- 
 rect, for example, to call mathematical notions native, or 
 a priori; since it is by no means necessary or universal 
 among mankind to form the concept of a circle or a tri- 
 angle, still less of an ellipse or a parabola. But the judg- 
 ments aflirming the properties of these figures are necessary 
 in the highest possible degree. On the other hand, the 
 
 1 They approach closely to the view ^iven by Maine de Biran in his 
 6th and 7th Answer to the objections of Stapfer; but that philosopher 
 has hardly marked with sufficient distinctness the positive and negative 
 elements. 
 
152 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 153 
 
 li 
 
 III 
 
 ! 
 
 I 
 
 conception of a cause is necessary in its origin ; all men 
 being, in some degree, conscious of the exertion of power 
 in their voluntary acts. But the necessity of the principle 
 of causality, as a proposition, is of an inferior degree to 
 that of mathematical judgments. 
 
 rThe general results may be summed up as follows : 
 1. Judgments necessary in the first degree, or logical 
 and mathematical necessity. These are dependent on the 
 laws of our mental operations ; and their contradictious 
 are neither conceivable nor supposable. 
 
 2. Judgments necessary in the second degree, or psy- 
 chological necessity. These are dependent on the restric- 
 tions of our mental constitution ; and their contradictories 
 are supposable, but not conceivable. To this class belon^* 
 the principles of causality and of substance. 
 
 3. Judgments necessary in the third degree, or physical 
 necessity. These are dependent on the laws of the mate- 
 rial world ; and their contradictories are both supposable 
 and conceivable, but never actuallv true. 
 
 4. Judgments purely contingent, where either contra- 
 
 Ldictory may be the true or the false alternative. Such are 
 all judgments reducible to no law of causation. 
 
 To this class belong at the present moment many jud^^- 
 ments on physical phenomena ; but here the contingency 
 solely arises from our ignorance of the law, and may here- 
 after be removed. Thus I am certain that the sun will 
 rise to-morrow ; but I am uncertain whether the wind will 
 blow from the north or south. But this only means that 
 we are acquainted with the laws of the one phenomenon, 
 and ignorant of those of the other. The progress of 
 science may raise all these judgments to cases of physical 
 necessity. But my whole consciousness assures me that my 
 own voluntary acts are subject to no invariable law, and 
 
 that to dream of any amount of future science enablino- 
 a man to predict these, as he can now predict an eclipse, 
 and may hereafter predict a change of weather, is perfectly 
 chimerical. These last judgments are, therefore, in the 
 strictest sense of the term, contingent; while those of the 
 second and third class, as before observed, may be called 
 contingent or necessary, according to the different points 
 of view in which they are regarded. 
 
 It only remains to point out the relation of the present 
 chapter to Logical Science. Accidentally, it may be ap- 
 plied to the correction of a few perversions of the Scholas- 
 tic Logic, such as the theory of demonstrative syllogisms ; 
 but its essential connection with the Science will be found 
 in the different forms of conceptions and judgments. 
 Though the notions of substance and of cause are obscure 
 and negative only, the processes of conception and judg- 
 ment, in their primitive form, proceed upon the tacit 
 acknowledgment of the existence of something of the 
 kind. In the act of conception, for example, different 
 attributes are regarded as forming one whole by relation 
 to a common substance. My conception of gold, for ex- 
 ample, is that of a yellow, hard, heavy body; but the color 
 is perceived by the eye, the hardness is discerned by 
 touch, the weight is made known by its pressure as it lies 
 in my hand. When I conceive these various attributes as 
 forming one thing, the gold is neither the color, nor the 
 hardness, nor the weight, but the something to which all 
 these qualities belong. Again, having conceived gold as 
 yellow, and hard, and heavy, I afterwards discover it to be 
 soluble. Here, in forming the judgment, gold is soluble, I 
 regard the attributes forming the subject and the predicate 
 as coexisting in a common substance ; and this identity of 
 substance is expressed by the copula. Our ordinary mod- i 
 
li!!!' 
 
 154 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 II 
 
 ifications of thought and speech thus contain certain neg- 
 ative elements, the notions attached to which no amount 
 of reflection or analysis can render perfectly clear and 
 distinct ; though they have been instinctively adopted by 
 all mankind, and underlie forms of speech and thought 
 which are found among all nations. No language can in 
 these respects be constructed upon principles of philosoph- 
 ical analysis ; for analysis cannot take place till language 
 has arrived at a certain stage of maturity ; and, till that 
 period, it must be suffered to grow up with all the imper- 
 fections consequent on a hasty generalization from the 
 data of personal intuition. The logical character of these 
 negative notions will be more fully explained when we 
 come to examine the distinction between the matter and 
 the form of thought. 
 
 A preliminary examination of the piinciples of substance 
 and causality is also necessary, before we can inquire into 
 the character of the logical laws of thought. If it were 
 strictly accurate to regard the principle of causality, with 
 M. Cousin,^ as a Principle of the Reason ; — if it were 
 true that one terra of the judgment, that of change, being 
 given, the mind is competent by its own act to add the 
 other, and assert "change supposes a cause ;" and that this 
 term thus added contains a positive element of thought, 
 and not a mere negation of the existence of data for think- 
 ing ; — if this were the case, the whole Science of Logic 
 would have to be remodelled accordingly. The Reason, 
 as distinguished in Kant's sense from the Understanding^, 
 would become a source of speculative truth ; its principles 
 would assume the character of Laws of Thoudit : and 
 Logic would become, according to M. Cousin's conception, 
 the passage from Psychology to Ontology : the process of 
 
 ^ Gmn de Fhihsophie, Le9on 19. 
 
 PROLEGOMEXA LOGICA. 
 
 155 
 
 pure Thinking would conduct us to the science of pure 
 Being. A Logic of the Reason would thus become a 
 necessary complement of the Logic of the Understanding; 
 and a considerable portion, if not the whole, of the Hegelian' 
 Dialectic must be incorporated with the Formal Science of 
 Kant. To show that such a treatment, instead of being a 
 completion, would be a corruption of the Science, — instead 
 of making Logic fruitful of truths, would make it prolific 
 of chimeras, — instead of attaining knowledge, would aim 
 at impossibilities, -has been one of the main objects of 
 the preceding inquiry. 
 
 
PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 151 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON LOGICAL NECESSITY AND THE LAWS OP THOUGHT. 
 
 The result of the two preceding chapters has been to 
 mark off two classes of Necessary Truths, which, though 
 dependent, as all such truths must be, upon mental laws 
 and limitations, do not, properly speaking, exhibit the 
 operation of Laws of Thought, nor come within the prov- 
 ince of Logic. We have now to examine the psychological 
 character of ^e laws of pure thinking, and the kind of 
 necessity exhibited in consequence by strictly logical pro- 
 cessesTJ The following passage from Mr. Mill's Logic may 
 serve to introduce the subject: 
 
 " This maxim (the dictum de omni et nulla), when con- 
 sidered as a principle of reasoning, appeai-s united to a 
 system of metaphysics once indeed generally received, but 
 which for the last two centuries has been considered as 
 finally abandoned, though there have not been wantin^r, in 
 our own day, attempts at its revival. So lon^r as what 
 were termed Universals were regarded as a peculiar kind 
 of substances, having an objective existence distinct from 
 the individual objects classed under them, the dictum 
 de omni conveyed an important meaning; because it 
 exi)rcssed the intercommunity of nature, which it was 
 necessary upon that theory that we should suppose to exist 
 between those general substances and the particular sub- 
 stances which were subordinated to them. That everything 
 predicable of the universal was predicable of the various 
 
 m 
 jl I 
 
 individuals contained under it, was then no identical 
 proposition, but a statement of what was conceived as a 
 fundamental law of the universe. The assertion that the 
 entire nature and properties of the substantia secunda 
 formed part of the properties of each of the individual 
 substances called by the same name, — that the proper- 
 ties of Man, for example, were properties of all men, — 
 was a proposition of real significance when man did not 
 mean all men, but something inherent in men, and vastly 
 superior to them in dignity. Now, however, when it 
 is known that a class, a universal, a genus or species, is 
 not an entity per se, hut neither more nor less than the 
 individual substances themselves which are placed in the 
 class, and that there is nothing real in the matter except 
 those objects, a common name given to them, and common 
 attributes indicated by the name ; what, I should be glad 
 to know, do we learn by being told that whatever can be 
 aflSrmed of a class may be affirmed of every object con- 
 tained in the class? The class is nothing but the objects 
 contained in it ; and the dictum de omni merely amounts 
 to the identical proposition, that whatever is true of cer- 
 tain objects, is true of each of those objects. If all ratioci- 
 nation were no more than the application of this maxim 
 to particular cases, the syllogism would indeed be, what 
 it has so often been declared to be, solemn trifling. The 
 dictum de omrii is on a par with another truth, which in 
 its time was also reckoned of great importance, ' Whatever 
 is, is;* and not to be compared in point of significance 
 to the cognate aphorism, 'It is impossible for the same 
 thing to be and not to be;' since this is, at the lowest, 
 equivalent to the logical axiom that contradictory proposi- 
 tions cannot both be true. To give any real meaning to 
 the dictum de omniy we must consider it not as an axiom, 
 
 14 
 
158 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 159 
 
 but as a definition ; we must look upon it aa intended 
 to explain, in a circuitous and paraphrastic manner, the 
 meaning of the word class,^^ ^ 
 
 I quote the above passage from a work of high and in 
 many respects of deserved reputation, as a remarkable 
 instance of the total misconception of the nature and 
 purpose of Logic, arising from that erroneous view to 
 which I have before alluded, which regards the Aristo- 
 telian and the Baconian Organon as forming portions of 
 the same system, and as subservient to the same end, that 
 of physical investigation or the discovery of " fundamental 
 laws of the universe." That the deductive method may 
 be advantageously applied to purposes of physical inquiry 
 is unquestionable; and in this respect Mr. Mill has cer- 
 tainly not underrated its value. Any single proposition 
 of any syllogism or chain of syllogisms may thus materially 
 contain a fact or a law of nature ; but that the funda- 
 mental principle on which all reasoning is supposed to 
 depend can by any possibility exhibit a law of external 
 nature and not a law of mind, is a supposition which, if 
 tenable, would make a science of Logic impossible. If 
 the dictum de omni were, as Mr. Mill supposes, formed on 
 the hypothesis that universals had a distinct existence in 
 nature apart from the mind that contemplates them, Logic 
 might be entitled to rank with Optics or Astronomy, 
 as a science of the laws of this or that order of natural 
 phenomena ; or it might, perhaps, aspire to the character 
 of a general Cosmology, including these and other physical 
 sciences as subordinate branches ; but it could not pretend 
 to the slightest knowledge of the laws which the mind 
 obeys in thinking; and its principles, as mere generaliza- 
 tions from experience, could never attain to more than a 
 
 * MUl's Logic, vol. i. p. 234. 
 
 physical necessity, as the statement of cei^tain facts in the 
 existing constitution of the world. 
 
 A science is never ultimately benefited by dissembling 
 any conclusion to which its principles appear fairly to 
 lead ; still less can it gain by adulterating those principles 
 themselves with foreign matter, borrowed from .other de- 
 partments, in the hope of obviating the apprehended 
 results. In the case of Logic especially, it may be confi- 
 dently asserted that nine-tenths of the confusion and mis- 
 understanding which still prevail concerning its nature 
 and capabilities, have arisen from ill-judged attempts to 
 invest it with an appearance of utility in matters alien to 
 its province.* Let us therefore look the supposed charge 
 fairly in the face, and ask what will be the consequences 
 if we admit that the fundamental principles of pure think- 
 ing are, as they seem to be, analytical or identical judg- 
 ments. Is Logic thereby determined to be false or futile ? 
 By no means. A system is futile only when it aims at the 
 solution of questions beyond the reach of human faculties : 
 and even then, the prosecution of such inquiries is attended 
 with an indirect benefit ; inasmuch as it is only after re- 
 peated failures that men learn to know the true limits of 
 their mental powers, and can profit by the precept ulti- 
 mately enjoined by a critical psychology : 
 
 " Tecum habita, et noris, quam sit tibi curta supellex." 
 
 It may indeed be humiliating to learn, what such an 
 admission necessarily implies, that the understanding of 
 man is not furnished with a power of intuition as well as 
 
 1 Rosenkranz, in his preface to Kant's Lo*?ic, speaks severely but truly 
 on this point : " So ist denn auch die Lopk hundertfach von philosophis- 
 chen Stumpcm utUiter gemisshandelt worden." 
 
1i 
 
 if 
 
 160 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 PKOLEGOUENA LOOICA. 
 
 161 
 
 !i 
 
 * .( 
 
 
 of thought; but only in the same way as it is humiliating 
 to know that he cannot fly like a bird, nor swim like a fish. 
 The restriction is one which the Maker of mankind has 
 thought fit to impose upon his creatures ; and, regret it as 
 they may, they cannot escape from it. If Logic, indeed, 
 supplied us with nothing but identical principles, it would 
 by no means follow that the study of it is altogether use- 
 less ; but, in point of fact, it does very much more. Viewed 
 in connection with Psychology, it points to the important 
 fact, that these principles are laws of mind ; and this fact 
 alone, applied to the past history and future prospects of 
 Philosophy, will give rise to a series of practical rules of 
 inestimable value in the direction of the mental powers. 
 
 To prove, then, that Logic is either futile or false, it must 
 be shown either that it is impossible for a thinking bein<r 
 to attain to a knowledge of the laws by which he thinks, 
 and to test thereby the legitimacy of the products of 
 thought, or that the laws by which the human mind is 
 actually governed are different from those universally as- 
 sumed and insisted upon by Logicians. But if, on these 
 two points. Logic and Psychology are found to be at one, 
 each becomes the strongest possible guarantee of the truth 
 and scientific value of the other. The laws which the 
 logician has all along assumed as the basis of his system 
 are now shown to be the very ones by which, from the 
 actual constitution of the human mind, the operations of 
 thought are regulated; the conclusions arrived at by a 
 critical examination of the mental powers are shown to 
 be the same laws of thinking which had before been ac- 
 cepted as principles from a critical examination of the 
 mental products. Thus, by the united forces of Logic and 
 Psychology, we advance a step in the most important of 
 all speculative knowledge, the knowledge of ourselves and 
 
 I 
 
 of our capacities ; and so far is either science from being 
 thereby proved futile, that they become the strongest pos- 
 sible safeguard against all futile speculations, by pointing 
 out clearly the nature of the laws of the pure understand- 
 ing, and the exact limits within which they are operative. 
 Enough has, I trust, been said to vindicate Logic from 
 the charge of frivolity, whatever may be the conclusion 
 concerning its principles to which our inquiries finally lead 
 us. But, in the eyes of a philosopher, such a vindication is 
 wholly unnecessary. The only question worthy of a liberal / 
 mind, as regards the result of any investigation, is not, Is 
 it useful ? but, Is it true ? .However fully persuaded we 
 may be that every speculative truth has its practical ad- 
 vantages, to require a foresight of such advantages before 
 entering on the inquiry, is to interpose the most effectual 
 bar that can be devised to the progress of any knowledge, 
 and the attainment of any benefit.^ The only tenable po- 
 
 1 This Is indeed admitted, and ably maintained, by some of that class of 
 ■writers whose researches are most to the taste of the Utilitarian. I am 
 happy to be able to quote the following admirable vindication of the pur- 
 suit of truth for its own sake, from a philosopher with whose general prin- 
 ciples I am by no means inclined to sympathize: 
 
 " Si la puissance preponderantc dc notre organisation ne corrigeait, 
 mt*me involontairement, dans I'esprit dcs savans, ce qu'il y a sous ce rap- 
 port d'ineomplet et d'e'troit dans la tendance penerale de notre epoque, I'in- 
 telligence humaine, reduite a nc s'occupcr que de recherches susceptibles 
 d'une utilite pratique immediate, se trouverait par cela seul, comme I'a 
 tresjustement remarque' Condorcet, toutafait arretee dans ses progr^s, 
 xnvme k regard de ces applications auxquelles on aurait imprudemment 
 sacritie Ics travaux purement spe'culatifs ; car, les applications les plus ini- 
 portantes de'rivent constamment dc theories formees dans une simple inten- 
 tion scientifique, et qui 8«)uvent ont it6 cultiv<5e6 pendant plusieurs sic'cles 
 Bans produire ancun rdsultat pratique. On en pent citer un exemple 
 bien remarquabic dans les belles speculations des geometres grecs sur les 
 sections coniques, qui, apres une longue suite de ge'nerations, ont scrvi, en 
 determinant la renovation de Ta^stronomie, It conduire finalement I'art de 
 
162 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 163 
 
 if 
 
 li 
 
 f 
 
 li ti 
 
 ! 
 
 Bition that can be occupied by the assailants of Logic mnst 
 be acquired by showing that men do not, as a matter of 
 fact, reason consciously or unconsciously according to its 
 rules; that the thinking process is not governed by laws at 
 all ; or that its laws are totally different from those which 
 the logician lays down. 
 
 But it is time to examine the question itself which has 
 given rise to these observations. Are the Laws of Thought 
 in reality identical judgments or not? It may, perhaps, 
 appear that the so-called frivolity of such judgments is 
 the result of unsuspected causes, having their root in the 
 nature of the mind itself; that the very feature which is 
 selected as the especial object of contempt and ridicule is 
 the strongest evidence of the truth and value of the prin- 
 ciples which it characterizes. Supposing, then, that the 
 act of thinking is goveraed by certain laws, what might 
 we naturally expect to find as the prominent feature by 
 which such laws will be distinguished ? A new truth is in 
 its very nature partial : it is new only because it is partial ; 
 — the discovery of the particular attributes of some par- 
 ticular thing or class of things. In a psychological point 
 of view, the determination of the laws of thought (be their 
 
 la navi«ration an dcgr^ de perfectionnement qu'il a atteintdans ces demiers 
 temps, et auquel il ne serait jamais parvenu sans les travaux si pureraent 
 theoriques d'Archimfede et d'Apollonius; tellement que Condorcet a pu 
 dire avec raison k cet ejjard : * le matelot, qu'une exacte observation de la 
 lonfritude prc'serve du naufrajre, doit la vie a une the'orie con9ue, deux 
 mille ans auparavant, pardes hommes de ge'nie qni avaient en vue de sim- 
 ples spc'culations g<5om(<triqnc8.* "— Comte, Cours de FMosophie Positive, 
 vol. i. p. 64. 
 
 An English philosopher, who has treated of the same subjects in a very 
 different spirit, has expressed the same sentiment briefly and well : " It 
 may be universally true, that Knowled-e is Power; but we have to do 
 with it not as Power, but as Knowled^jc." 
 
 character as judgments what it may) is as much a new 
 truth as any other ; being the discovery of a particular 
 fact in the constitution of the human mind. But when we 
 consider the same laws logically, in their application to the 
 products of thought, how is it possible for any new truth 
 to be determined by them? As general laws, they can 
 have no special relation to this object of thought rather 
 than that ; and it is upon such special relations that the 
 discovery of every new property must depend. Material 
 knowledge arises from the observation of differences : the 
 essential feature of laws of thought must be the abstrac- 
 tion from all differences.' A necessary law of all thinking, 
 which shall at the same time ascertain the definite prop- 
 erties of a definite class of things, is a contradiction in 
 terms ; for it is optional, and therefore contingent, whether 
 we shall apply our thoughts to that particular class of 
 things or not. But if all men have been thinking, some 
 on this thing, some on that, but all under one code of laws, 
 what marvel if, when their attention is called to those 
 laws, they should recognize them as what they have all 
 along virtually acknowledged ? Herein at once lies the 
 explanation and the justification of the so-called frivolity 
 of principles of this kind. They can determine only the 
 general attributes common to all objects of thought as 
 such ; and these attributes must constitute the very analyt- 
 ical judgments which Logic is so much decried for offering. 
 Surely, in the name of common sense and common honesty, 
 never was outcry more absurd than that which finds fault 
 with a science for accomplishing the very purpose which it 
 professes to attempt, and for exhibiting the very features 
 which, if its pretensions are well founded, and its method 
 sound, it necessarily must exhibit. 
 
 1 Kant, Logik, Einlcitung vii. p. 219. Ed. Rozenkrani. 
 
! i 
 
 164 
 
 M^i 
 
 i 
 
 '} ! 
 
 1 1 'I 
 
 1 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA, 
 
 It is a remarkable fact in the modern history of philos- 
 ophy, as regards identical judgments, that, while English 
 philosophers, taking their departure from the principles of 
 Locke, have been unsparing in their expressions of scorn 
 and censure of them as mere verbal trifling, German philos- 
 ophei-s, taking their departure from the principles of Kant, 
 Lave placed them at the head of all philosophy, as the 
 only absolute principles of truth and certainty. Yet Kant, 
 as well as Locke, and with far more accuracy of discrim- 
 ination, perceived and pointed out the impossibility of 
 constructing a system of philosophy upon these judgments 
 only. That both extremes are equally in enor, — that 
 both arise from a crude and one-sided view of a philosophy 
 not perhaps in all respects consistent with itself, — and 
 that the truth lies between the two, is a natural and obvi- 
 ous conclusion. To enter into the extravagances of FLchte 
 and Schelling would be foreign to the purposes of the 
 present work ; but as regards the disciple of Locke, it 
 may be observed, that he has no choice but of two alter- 
 natives: either to repudiate the attack of his master on 
 frivolous propositions, or to retract his refutation of the 
 doctrine of innate ideas. If the principles of thought are 
 competent to supply any positive addition to what is given 
 m intuition, it follows that the act of thought can in so flir 
 create its own materials. This brings us back, of necessity, 
 to the theory of innate ideas. If, on the other hand, the 
 understanding can only modify what is given out of the 
 act of thought, it follows that analytical judgments are 
 not mere verbal frivolities, but fundamental laws of the 
 thinking faculty. 
 
 The Laws of Thought, properiy so called, may thus be 
 psychologically distinguished from the other elements of 
 the process by the answers to the following questiona: 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 165 
 
 1. What is the material which must be gfven prior to any 
 act of pure thinking? 2. How is that material modified 
 by the act of thought itself? 3. What are the conditions 
 by which the understanding is bound in such modification ? 
 The third question will determine the fundamental laws 
 of the several operations of Conception, Judgment, and 
 Reasoning. 
 
 The act of conception consists in regarding certain 
 attributes as coexisting in a possible object of intuition. 
 It has before been remarked, that when the object of intu- 
 ition is actual, i. c, now and here present, an act of thought 
 is necessary to distinguish it as such from other objects 
 simultaneously presented. This, however, is not pure con-/ 
 ception, but conception in conjunction with intuition. In 
 pure conception, the attributes are not presented in thera-{ 
 selves, but represented by their signs. Hence the necessity, ; 
 in some form or other, of language ; and hence the object ' 
 of intuition, in an act of pure conception, is not presented 
 as actual, but represented as possible.^ 
 
 Two preliminary conditions are thus requisite, prior to 
 any act of pure conception. Fii*stly, attributes must be 
 given which, in some combination or other, have been pre- 
 sented in a former intuition. For, as thought cannot create 
 intuition, attributes which have never been experienced 
 are not conceivable. They need not indeed have been 
 experienced in their present relation, but in some relation 
 or other. Thus, though I have never seen that combina- 
 tion of a man's head with a horse's body, which is sup- 
 posed to constitute a centaur, yet the notion of such a 
 conjunction is perfectly conceivable, because both the 
 horse's body and the man's head have been presented in 
 other combinations. Secondly, as the attributes are nowf 
 
 1 Cf. Krug, Logik, ^ 15. 
 
I! 
 
 Ill 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 166 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 ' given in and through their signs, the import of those signs 
 is presupposed to be known. A word which I cannot con- 
 nect with some known attribute is, for all purposes of 
 thought, like the terms of an unknown tongue. Pure 
 thought can neither supply defects in the experience of 
 things, nor ignorance of the meaning of words. Informa- 
 tion on both these points is therefore presupposed. 
 
 These materials being given, how are they dealt with 
 by the act of thought, and what are the laws and limits 
 which govern or confine the operation ? By the act of 
 conception, the given attributes are combined in a unity 
 of representation. Are there, then, any cases in which, 
 certain attributes being given, I am compelled to think 
 them as representing an object? are there any cases in 
 which I am forbidden to do so? and are there any in 
 which, as far as thought is concerned, I am left at liberty 
 to do as I please ? Pure conception being concerned with 
 possible objects of intuition only, the first and third cases 
 merge into one. The actual existence of any object can 
 be determined only by its actual presence in this or that 
 intuition ; and even then the evidence extends only to its 
 present existence now and here, not to its necessary exist- 
 ence at any future time when it may become an object of 
 thought. As an object of a past intuition, it has then a 
 possible and representative existence ouly.^ The first law 
 of pure thinking applicable to conception is thus indicated 
 
 » "As not now present in time, an immediate Itnowledge of the pa*/ is im- 
 possible. The past is only mediately cognizable in and through a present 
 modification relative to and representative of it, as having been. To 
 speak of an immediate knowledge of the past involves a contradiction in 
 adjecto. For, to know the past immediately, it must be known in itself - 
 and to be known in itself, it must be known as now existing. But the past 
 is just a negation of the now existent; its very notion, therefore, excludes 
 the possibility of its being immediately known." - Sir W. HamUton Beid's 
 Works, p. 810. ' 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 167 
 
 by the negative criterion, that there are certain attributes 
 which we cannot think as coexisting in any possible object 
 of intuition. This leads us to the well-known Principle 
 of Contradiction,* the most general form of which is, 
 "Nothing can be A and not-A ; " or, " No object can be 
 thought under contradictory attributes." But, though 
 everything which is contradictory is thus inconceivable, it 
 cannot be maintained, on the other hand, that everything 
 which is not contradictory is conceivable.* 
 
 But the Principle of Contradiction, as above enunciated, 
 can only be applied in thought coordinately with another 
 and a positive principle. If an object cannot be thought 
 under contradictory attributes, the impossibility arises 
 from its having a definite character of its own, including 
 one of the contradictories and excludins: the other. The 
 universe of conceivable objects embraces both A and not- 
 A: it is only when definitely conceived as the one that an 
 object cannot be conceived as the other. Every object of 
 thought, as such, is thus conceived by limitation and diflTer- 
 ence; as having definite characteristics by which it is 
 marked off and distinguished from all others; as being, 
 in short, itself, and nothing else. The indefinite ideas, 
 therefore, corresponding to the general terms Thing, Ob- 
 ject, Being in general, are not concepts, as containing no 
 distinctive attributes ; and the general object denoted by 
 such terms is inconceivable. This second Law of Thought 
 is expressed by the Principle of Identity, " Every A is A ; " 
 or, "Every object of thought is conceived as itself."* 
 
 * This law, as Krug has remarked {Logik, § 18), ought rather to be called 
 the Principle of Non-Contradiction. 
 
 2 On conceivability as a test of logical possibility, see Sir W. Hamilton, 
 Beid's Works, p. 377. 
 
 • Cf. Krug, Logik, § 17, who contemplates the principle from the oppo- 
 
168 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 I i.| 
 
 
 But these two Laws of Thought necessarily involve a 
 third. The object which I conceive is, by the Law of 
 Identity, discerned as being that which it is, and by the 
 Law of Contradiction is distinguished from that which it 
 is not But these two correlatives must also be regarded 
 as constituting between them the universe of all that is 
 conceivable ; for the distinction above made is not between 
 two definite objects of thought, but between the object of 
 which I think and all those of which I do not think. Not- 
 A implies the exclusion of A only, and of nothing else, 
 and thus denotes the universe of all conceivable objects 
 with that one exception. This relation, in its more gen- 
 eral expression, constitutes a third Law of Thought, the 
 Principle of Excluded Middle,^ "Every possible olyect is 
 either A or not-A.** These three Principles, of Contradic- 
 tion, Identity, and Excluded Middle, constitute the Laws 
 of Pure Thinking, or of Thought as Thought. 
 
 Another limitation must be noticed, which, though per- 
 haps not properly an a pHoH law arising out of the nature 
 of thought itself, is at least a univei-sally valid a posteriori 
 restriction arising from the practical limits of our intuitive 
 powers. Thought can only deal with such attributes as 
 have been in some manner presented in intuition. Hence, 
 in all cases where intuition is impossible, thought is im- 
 
 Bite side. He is wron- however, in deducing from it the principle of 
 Contradiction, which is an independent axiom. The two have been Un- 
 founded or identified by many eminent philosophers; as Leibnitz (Bejlex 
 surl^), Wolf (Ph. Bat, ^ 07,,, Kant (I^k, Einl. vii.), Herbart (Eini. 
 in dte Philosophie, f 39). IIotTbaucr (Loyi*-. ^ 23) shows that the two prin- 
 ciples are independent, and that neither can be deduced from the other 
 without a petitio prinrtpii. 
 
 1 Primupium exclusi medii inter dm contradictaria. For the history of this 
 expression, and of the Law denoted by it, see Sir W.Uamiiton'a Leoturu 
 <m Logic, p. 65. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 169 
 
 possible likewise. Hence arises a class of practical lim- 
 itations of thought based on the limitations of possible 
 experience. Some of these are partial and accidental only ; 
 as in the case of a blind man, who can have no intuitive 
 experience of colons. But one at least is common to all 
 men, and, so far, psychologically, if not logically, necessary. 
 Though, as far as the laws of thought are concerned, it is 
 permitted to unite in an act of conception all attributes 
 which are not contradictory of each other, it is impossible 
 in practice to go beyond a very limited number. The 
 number of attributes in the universe not logically repug- 
 nant to each other is infinite; and the mind can therefore 
 find no absolute limits to its downward progress in the 
 formation of subordinate notions. To arrive at a notion 
 which shall comprehend within itself all conceivable com- 
 patible attributes, and which shall therefore admit of no 
 further possible limitation but that of the individual con- 
 ditions of presence in space and time, is an act which, if 
 not a priori self-destructive, will at least in practice require 
 an infinite grasp of mind and an infinite length of time for 
 its accomplishment.^ 
 
 Hence it follows at once that a logical Highest Genus, 
 and a logical Lowest Species — t. e., a notion so simple as 
 to admit of no further subtraction, and a notion so complex 
 as to admit of no further addition — are both inconceivable. 
 The meaning of these two terms in Logic must not be ' 
 
 ' This and the preceding condition are sometimes given as the Laws of 
 Hom^gendfy and Specification. See Kant, Kritik der r. V. p. 510, ed. Rosen- 
 krans; Krug, Loyik, M5, b; Fries, Sytt. der Logik, ^ 2L I prefer to regard 
 them as deductions from a higher law. It may be observed, that those 
 logicians who insist on the Law of Homogeneity are not consistent in call- 
 ing thing or ob)ect a concept ( Begriff). The third law joined with these two, 
 that of Logical Affinity, or Continuity, is questionable, both as regards truth 
 And raltte. 
 
 15 
 
1j 
 
 170 
 
 PROLEGOMENA L06ICA. 
 
 PROLEQOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 171 
 
 1 
 
 
 confounded with that which is applicable to this or that 
 branch of material science. The Highest Genus in any 
 special science is the general class, comprehending all the 
 objects whose properties that science investigates ; the dif- 
 ferent Lowest Species are the classes at which that special 
 investigation terminates. In Geometry, for example, under 
 the stimmitm r/enus of magnitudes in space, Ave find three 
 coordinate inflrn(B species of tnangles, the equilateral, the 
 isosceles, and the scalene. The geometrical properties of 
 the figures are not affected by any further subdivision. 
 These three classes are therefore lowest species in Geom- 
 etry, but not in Logic. For of geometrical limitations, the 
 logician, as such, knows nothing. In a mere relation of 
 concepts, the notion of an equilateral triangle whose sides 
 are three feet long, is a further subdivision of the notion 
 of an equilateral triangle ; and out of this again we may 
 form the subordinate notion, "an equilateral triangle 
 whose sides are three feet long and divided into inches.'' 
 This process may, as far as Logic is concerned, be contin- 
 ued ad hifinitum. 
 
 The extreme limits of generalization and specification 
 being thus inconceivable, we obtain from these conditions 
 two characteristics of all logical concepts, namely, that 
 they must have both comprehension and extension. Every 
 notion, that is to say, as a condition of its conceivability, 
 must contain a plurality of attributes, in consequence of 
 which it is capable of subordination to a higher notion ; 
 and it must contain a limited number only of attributes, 
 in consequence of which lower notions may be subordi- 
 nated to it. This canon of conceivability, as we have 
 seen, is not invalidated by the supposed highest and lowest 
 classes of the logicians, which are limits never amved at 
 in any process of actual thought. Neither is it invalidated 
 
 by the so-called simple ideas, which, according to the 
 doctrine of Descartes and Locke, are the limits beyond 
 which analysis is impossible. For a simple idea, like a 
 summum genus^ is by itself inconceivable. In every intu- 
 ition it is presented as part of a complex object ; and it 
 can in no act of positive thought be contemplated out of 
 that connection. Whiteness and redness, for example, are 
 given to us in combination with extension ; motion, with 
 a moving body ; pleasure and pain, with a conscious sub- 
 ject. We cannot represent to ourselves, as a possible 
 object of intuition, a color unextended,^ a motion without 
 a moving body, a feeling without a mind. Simple ideas 
 are thus never conceived as' such, but only forming parts 
 of a complex object. That they are indefinable (in Locke's 
 view of definition), has been remarked in a former chap- 
 ter; but this arises, not from their forming absolutely 
 simple concepts, but from their being simple portions of a 
 complex intuition. 
 
 From these two characteristics of all concepts follows 
 their capability of Definition and Division — the former 
 being an enumeration of the higher notions contained in 
 the comprehension of a given concept; the latter, an 
 enumeration of the lower notions contained in its exten- 
 sion. The manner, however, in which these two operations 
 are commonly treated in logical writings manifests an utter 
 confusion between the general laws of thinking as appli- 
 cable to any matter, such as they are laid down in pure 
 Logic, and the performance of a special act of thought 
 about this or that matter, which forms a portion of this or 
 that branch of applied Logic. The so-called Logical Laws 
 
 ' The error of those philosophers who suppose that color can be con- 
 ceived apart from extension, has been noticed by Sir W. Uamilton, Reid's 
 Works, p. 800. 
 
m\ 
 
 M 
 
 • 1 
 
 i 
 I 
 
 172 
 
 PROLEGOMENA L0OJCA« 
 
 of Definition and Division are merely derived from an 
 
 analysis of the notions of the operations themselves ; 
 
 notions such as might be borrowed concerning any object 
 from the art or science to which it materially belongs. In 
 the ffiven notion of Definition, as the enumeration of the 
 parts comprehended in a concept, it is of course implied 
 that it must be adequate, otherwise the parts are not 
 enumerated ; and that it is clear, otherwise they are not 
 parts. And so of Division, substituting parts of exten- 
 sion for those of comprehension. Such an analysis fur- 
 nishes no test even of the formal validity of any single 
 act of division or definition ; it only takes to pieces the 
 general notion of the process: But it is obvious that any 
 given notion, borrowed from any source whatever, may be 
 analyzed in like manner by an application of thought. 
 From the notion of weighing a pound of cheese, it follows 
 of course, firstly, that the whole quantity weighed must 
 be exactly a pound ; secondly, that any part of the same 
 must be less than a pound ; thirdly, that the same ounce 
 must not be weighed twice over. If this criterion be 
 adopted, a chapter on cheese-weighing has as good a right 
 to be placed in Logic, as a chapter on Division or Defini- 
 tion. 
 
 The question necessary to determine the true logical 
 character of these processes is not, *' Given the. general 
 notions of the two operations, to determine by analysis 
 I \ what those notions imply;" but, "Given any particular 
 \ Iconcept, how much can be ascertained by pure thinking 
 ^Iconcerning its relation to higher or lower concepts?" 
 Viewed in this light. Definition, as a logical operation, is a 
 portion of the act of Conception, governed by the same 
 laws, and subject to the same limitations. We can deter- 
 mine thereby nothing concerning the actual possession of 
 
 PROLEQOMENA LOGIC A. 
 
 173 
 
 certain attributes by certain objects: we cannot even 
 ascertain that objects of any kind really exist in nature. 
 Conception being limited to possible objects of intuition 
 only. Definition is confined to the analysis and separate 
 exposition of the attributes contained in a given concept, 
 and determines not their reality but their conceivability. 
 Its only logical laws are the Principles of Identity and 
 Contradiction : the one compelling us to regard any given 
 concept as identical with the sum of its constituent parts, 
 and the other pronouncing that a definition which enu- 
 merates attributes directly or by implication incompatible 
 with each other is logically self-destructive. If the attri- 
 butes are compatible, the definition is allowed as valid, as 
 far as Logic is qualified to pronounce judgment : for further 
 examination it must be referred to the tribunal of ex- 
 perience. The purpose of logical definition is thus not 
 material accuracy, but formal distinctness as regards the 
 intension or comprehension ^ of the concept. 
 
 It is obvious that the rules of definition commonly given 
 in logical treatises have no value or significance except in 
 extralogical applications. To say that a definition must 
 be adequate to the 7iotion which I entertain, is only to say 
 that what I assign as the contents of a notion must be 
 what I think to be the contents ; which is, of course, im- 
 plied in the fact of my assigning them. The rule acquires 
 a material significance when interpreted to mean that the 
 attributes assigned in the definition must exactly corre- 
 spond to the characteristic features of the object as it exists 
 in nature. But, then, to detei-mine whether this rule is 
 complied with or not is clearly beyond the province of the 
 
 * See Drobisch, Neue DarsteUung der Logik, § 102. That analytical dis- 
 tinctness alone falls within the province of Logic is shown by Kant, Logik, 
 Einl. viii. 
 
 ]5* 
 
iM 
 
 174 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 175 
 
 i 
 
 j 
 1 '' 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 ,i 
 
 1 
 
 •I 
 
 
 
 
 logician. I may assign « rational animal," as an analysis of 
 my notion of man ; but to ascertain, as a matter of fact, 
 that all men possess reason, and that all other animals are 
 without it, is manifestly a question not of thought, but of 
 experience. There is no alternative between exemptin<r 
 the logician as such from all material knowledge whatever, 
 and requiring from him a minute acquaintance with every 
 possible branch of human knowledge. If he is bound to 
 know, as a matter of fact, that men are rational and horses 
 hinnible, he is by the same rule bound to be conversant 
 with the constitution and properties of every object which 
 nature can present or art produce. 
 
 It is obvious also that Logic can admit one kind of de- 
 finition, and one only. The so-called nominal definition 
 by synonym or etymology would require of the logician a 
 material knowledge of the vocabulary and construction of 
 any given language, thus making Logic a compendium 
 of all dictionaries and all grammai-s.» The so-called acci- 
 dental definitimi is a logical absurdity. If the notion 
 homo, for example, is composed of the notions animal 
 rationale, it cannot at the same time contain the distinct 
 attributes of hipes implume. To use the same word for 
 both combinations is simply to employ language equivo- 
 
 1 "In thi8 place," says Archbishop Whately, "we are concerned with 
 nominal definitions only, because all that is requisite for the purposes of 
 rmsoning (which is the proper province of Logic) is, that a term shall not 
 be used m different senses : a r^ definition of anything belongs to the scL 
 ence or system which is employed about that thing." In the sense in 
 which nominal and real definition were distinguished by the scholastic lo- 
 gicians. the exact reverse is the truth. Logic is concerned with real i e 
 with notional definitions only: to explain the meaning of particular words 
 belongs to the dictionaries or grammars of particular languages. But this 
 is onfy one out of thousands of errors committed by various writers 
 through confounding the thing or notion in the mind with the things or in' 
 dividuals out of it. Even Kant {Logik, S 106^ has not quite avoided this 
 ambiguity. 
 
 cally. It may so happen that all the individuals possessed 
 of reason are also provided with two legs and destitute of 
 feathers ; but this is not implied in the notion of ration- 
 ality, and cannot be elicited by any act of pure thinking. 
 For this reason those logicians are clearly right who con- 
 sider the enumeration of properties or accidents, not as a 
 definition of notions, but as a description of individuals. 
 But such a description has clearly no connection with 
 Logic, but solely with the natural history of the object 
 described. 
 
 Division, on the other hand, corresponds in one sense to 
 the remaining portion of the act of Conception, the union 
 of the attributes in a possible object of intuition, and is 
 thus regulated by the same laws as Definition. But Divi- 
 sion, in this sense of the term, is not Specification, but 
 Individualization; and moreover pays no attention to 
 any coordinate members of the same class, but is solely 
 occupied with the one object conceived. It thus belon^'s, 
 not' to symbolical, but to intuitive coornition ; beinff not 
 the mere enumeration of the constituent elements of a 
 concept, but the verification of their conceivability by the 
 aid of the imagination. Such an imagination is in one 
 sense a Division ; for it is impossible for me to imagine an 
 individual triangle which shall be neither equilateral, isos- 
 celes, nor scalene : one of these attributes therefore enters 
 into every actual intuition of a triangle, and thus far limits 
 and divides the general notion. But, then, the attributes 
 added are not in this case contemplated as the constituents 
 of a lower class, but of a possible individual. In like man- 
 ner, I cannot imagine a man of no color and no stature; 
 but in adding these particulars to my conception, I do not 
 think of them as related to any coordinate class, as consti- 
 tuting a division of men into tall and short, or white and 
 
 ,)' 
 
176 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 not white. I tliink of them only as necessary to test the 
 conceivability of the generic attributes with which they 
 are combined. The office of Division in this respect is to 
 make our conceptions clear, as that of Defiuitiou is to make 
 them distinct} 
 
 Beyond this, the process of Division, as contributing to 
 distinctness in the extension of a Concept, cannot be re- 
 garded as an act of pure thinking,* or as solely determined 
 by logical laws. Even in the case of dichotomy by contra- 
 diction, the princij)le of division must be given, as an 
 addition to the attributes comprehended in the concept, 
 before the logician can take a single step. For Division 
 is not, like Definition, a mental analysis of given materials: 
 the specific difference must be added to the given attri- 
 butes of the genus ; and to gain this additional material, 
 it is necessary to go out of the act of thought, to seek for 
 new empirical data. ''Divide animal" is a command 
 which no logician, as such, can obey ; for the mere notion 
 animal does not of itself suggest rational or irrational, 
 any more than mortal or immortal, virtuous or vicious, or 
 any other attributes not logically incompatible with the 
 genus.^ The principle of division must be given in addi- 
 tion to the concept to be divided ; and when it is given, 
 the process, thus raised from a material to a formal one, 
 
 r*. 
 
 I 
 
 1 A conception Is ctfar wlien its object, as a whole, can bo distinguished 
 from any other; it is d/«/»nrt when its several constituent parts vmx be dis- 
 tinj^uished from each other. The merit of first pointing out these charac- 
 teristics of tlie logical perfection of thought belongs to Leibnitz. See his 
 
 editattones de Cognitione Veritate et Ideis. 
 By pure thinking is not meant thinking which has no relation to any past 
 experience; for without some experience, all thought is impossible. It 
 means only that we can proceed to the act of thought without additional 
 data iKjing required prior to and out of the act Itself. The relation of ex- 
 perience to thought is too often lost sight of in the Kautian philosophy. 
 
 * See Fries, System der Logik, § 92. 
 
 PKOLEGOMBNA LOGICA. 
 
 177 
 
 has, like definition, a potential only, not an actual value in 
 relation to experience. If the differentia rational is given, 
 I can divide animal into rational and not-rational ; but if 
 the differentia mortal is given, I can also, as far as Logic 
 is concerned, divide into mortal and immortal. I must 
 appeal to experience, and not to thought, to determine 
 whether one or the other of these divisions is actually tnie ; 
 whether the Struldbrugs of Luggnagg or the Undying 
 Fish of Bowscale Tarn are really existing animals or not. 
 Every concept is potentially divisible by any two given 
 differentiae, contradictory of each other, and both compati- 
 ble with the genus. And the laws by which the process 
 is governed are, firstly, the Principle of Contradiction ; 
 and, secondly, that of Excluded Middle. By the first, wo 
 are forbidden to think that two contradictory attributes 
 can both be present in the same object ; by the second, we 
 are forbidden to think that both can be absent. The first 
 tells us that both differentiae must be compatible with the 
 genus: I cannot, for example, divide animal into animate 
 and inanimate. The second tells us that one or the other 
 must be found in every member of the genus; but in what 
 manner this is actually carried out, whether by every ex- 
 isting member possessing one of the differentife and none 
 the other, or by some possessing one and some the other, 
 experience alone can determine.^ 
 
 It thus appears that even dichotomy by contradiction is 
 not, strictly speaking, a formal process, as Kant considers 
 It;* but that it is partly material, and so far extralogical ; 
 and that the material element predominates still more, 
 according as any other principle of division is adopted. 
 Where the specific differences are not contradictory, so 
 
 ' Trendelenburg, Zogisthe ITntersuchungen, I. 4. 
 
 * Logik, S 113. See, on the other side, Hoffbauer, LogOc, \S 134, 138. 
 
 ;i 
 
 It 
 
 I 
 
178 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 that each naturally suggests the other, every one of them 
 must be given, prior to any possible act of formal thinking. 
 The only division of a concept which can be regarded as 
 a purely logical process is that sometimes distinguished as 
 Determinatioti, which consists in the reunion of attributes 
 previously separated by definition.^ In a formal point of 
 view, therefore, the arrangement of those logicians who 
 treat of Definition before Division is preferable to the 
 inverse order adopted by Aldrich, Dioisionem excipit 
 Dejinitio, 
 
 Throughout the preceding remarks, the presence of all 
 the antecedent conditions requisite to the logical perfec- 
 tion of cognitions is presupposed. It is taken for granted 
 that we are, prior to any act of conception, in i)ossession 
 of the materials necessary to complete clearness and dis- 
 tinctness, and that the act of thought consists merely in 
 eliciting the concept with these qualities out of the suffi- 
 cient data. And this supposition is the only one which 
 can be admitted into a system of pure Logic, or into 
 Psychology in its purely logical relation. The failure of 
 materials for conception is precisely analogous to the fail- 
 ure of materials for reasoning. In the latter case, if a 
 single premise only is given, or two premises so related 
 that no necessary conclusion follows from them, the logician 
 is not called upon to remedy the deficiency; he simply 
 decides that the data are insufficient for reasoninjr at alL 
 In like manner, if the empirical data for clear or distinct 
 conception are wanting, the logician, as such, can only say 
 that the materials for the thought are insufficient. The 
 distinction between clear and obscure, distinct and indis- 
 tinct conceptions, is as much out of the province of pure 
 Logic, as a distinction between syllogisms whose prembes 
 
 1 Sec Drobisch, H 17, 29, 30. 
 
 179 
 
 necessitate their conclusion, and reasonings in which the 
 consequence may with more or less probability be conjec- 
 tured. In conception and in judgment, as well as in 
 reasoning, there are processes necessitated by the laws of 
 thought from certain data; there are othera which are not 
 necessitated, but which may be hazarded with more or less 
 risk of error ; the presumption in their favor amounting in 
 some cases to a moral certainty, and binding upon ''our 
 practice, but never reaching the height of logical necessity 
 or speculative perfection.^ The first class alone are recog- 
 nized by Pure Logic, and that in relation not merely to 
 reasoning, but to all three operations of thought. Applied 
 Logic, in the Kantian sense of the term, may treat of the 
 several practical imperfections of human thought, which 
 lower in this or that special instance tlie logical standard 
 . of perfection. Here we may treat of notions more or less 
 obscure or confused, of judgments more or less uncertain, 
 of reasonings more or less inconsequent. The object of 
 the present observations is rather to ascertain what light 
 may be thrown by psychological considerations on the 
 purely logical processes, and to call attention to the fact, 
 that th^istinction between material and formal thinking] 
 may and ought to be consistently carried out in reference 
 to all the operations of the understanding. 
 
 Judgment is distinguished from Conception by the dif- 
 ference of its data. In Conception, attributes are given, 
 to be united by thought in a possible object of intuition ;' 
 mfJudgment, concepts are given, to be united by thought 
 m a common object] Like Conception, also, Judgment ntny 
 be considered either as pure, or as combined with a present 
 intuition. Pure judgments are those in which the given 
 concepts are of such a character that their mutual relation 
 
 > Cf. Knig,Xosfifc, S 35, Anm. 1. 
 
 I 
 
 '^1 
 
 I 
 
 !■ 
 
180 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PBOLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 181 
 
 of agreement or difference can be determined by an act of 
 thought alone, without any appeal to experience. (This is 
 the case when the attributes comprehended in the one con- 
 cept form either the whole or apaiJ; of those comprehended 
 in the other ; or where some attribute comprehended in the 
 one is contradictory of one of those comprehended in the 
 other. In the former case we are enabled at once, by the 
 law of Identity, to imite the two concepts in an affirmative 
 judgment, and in the latter, by the law of Contradiction, 
 to separate them by a negative judgment. But this class 
 of judgments (being those commonly known as analytical 
 or explicative) may, with more propriety, be included un- 
 der the head of Conception. The affirmative analytical 
 judgment is in fact nothing more than the Definition, com- 
 plete or partial, of the subject-notion ; while the negative 
 judgment expresses only the necessary condition of all 
 conception, which, by discerning any notion as being that 
 which it is, necessarily excludes it from all that it is not. 
 
 In synthetical or ampliative judgments, the act of 
 thought is not sufficient to determine the relation of the 
 concepts to each other, without the accompaniment of an 
 intuition, pure or empirical. For example: in order to 
 form the judgment, "Two straight lines cannot inclose a 
 space," I must not only be able to conceive separately the 
 two notions of a straight line and of an inclosing of space, 
 but I must also, by the aid of imagination, construct a 
 representation in my mind of two actual straight lines and 
 their actual positions in space. I must perceive that these 
 two straight lines are incapable of inclosing a space, before 
 I pronounce the universal judgment concerning all pairs 
 of straight lines. Here the relation between the two con- 
 cepts is presented in a pure or a priori intuition^ t. e., in 
 an intuition containing no adventitious element external 
 
 to the mind itself Again, in order to form the judgment, 
 " Gold is heavy," supposing that my conception of gold 
 does not in itself include the attribute of weight, I cannot, 
 by merely thinking of gold as a hard, yellow, shining body', 
 determine what effect it will produce when laid ''on the' 
 hand. I must actually place an individual piece of gold 
 on my hand, and ascertain by experience the fact of its 
 pressure. Here the relation between the two concepts is 
 presented in a mixed or empirical intuition, i. e., in an 
 intuition caused by the presence of a body external to the 
 mind itself. 
 
 Yet in this class of judgments, as well as in the former,"^ 
 when the necessary intuition has once been given^ the act 
 of thought itself is governed by the same laws of Identity 
 and Contradiction. In pronouncing that two distinct 
 notions are united in one and the same object, that it is 
 the ff old which is heavy, I unite the concepts "gold" and "^ 
 « heavy " in a comjilex notion comprehending both, and 
 denoting the union of both in a common object. That 
 which was before conceived as "gold," is now conceived 
 as " heavy gold " (whether the new attribute becomes part 
 of the meaning of the term gold or not is of no conse- 
 quence), and this complex notion is now exhibited in the 
 act of judgment, as analyzed into its constituent parts, and 
 identified with them.» Synthetical judgments may thus, 
 as far as the mere act of thought is concerned, be brought 
 under the same law as analytical ones, namely, the PHn- 
 ciple of Identity when the judgment is affirmative, and 
 that of Contradiction when it is negative. "^ 
 
 Another law of thought is sometimes given as the 
 foundation of Judgment, under the name of the Lo-ical 
 Principle of Sufficient Reason. This law, which mu^t be 
 
 1 See Drobisch, Neue Darstdlung dcr Logik 4 3G 
 
 16 ^ >» • 
 
 \s 
 
182 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 carefully distinguished from the Metaphysical Principle 
 of Causality, is enunciated, ** Every judgment must have 
 a sufficient ground for its assertion." * But, in truth, the 
 relation of this principle to the act of judgment is merely 
 negative : it forbids us in certain cases to judge at all, and 
 it does no more. If the judgment is analytical, the law of 
 Identity or of Contradiction is the sufficient reason for 
 making it. If the judgment is synthetical, we have, pre- 
 viously to the given intuition, no reason at all; and, accord- 
 ingly, we suspend our thought till we have referred the 
 decision to the tribunal of experience. The only logical 
 reason for a thought of any kind is its relation to some 
 other thought ; and this relation will in each case be de- 
 termined by its own proper law. The Principle of Suffi- 
 cient Keason is therefore no law of thought, but only the 
 statement that every act of thought must be governed by 
 some law or other.* 
 
 1 See Kant, Logik, Einlcitang vii.; Fries, Syst. der Logih, S 41; Krug, 
 Logik, § 20; Thomson, Laws of Thought, p. 20C. 
 
 2 In excluding the Principle of Sufficient Reason from tbo laws of 
 thought I am happy to find myself supported by the authority of Sir 
 William Hamilton in the philosophical Appendix to his Viscusshm, pub- 
 lished subsequently to the first edition of the present work. "The Princi- 
 ple of Sufficient Beason," he says, " should l)c excluded from Loj^ic. For, 
 inasmuch as this principle is not material (material = non-formal) it is 
 only a derivation of the three formal laws ; and inasmuch as it is ma- 
 terial, it coincides with the principle of Causality, and is cxtralogical." 
 Kant {Logik, Einleitung vii.) takes a different view. He rej^rds the Princi- 
 ple of Contradiction as the criterion of the lojrical possibility of a judg- 
 ment, that of Sufficient Reason as the criterion of its logical reality.^ Bat 
 of judgments, as distinguished fVom the conclusions of syllogisms, the 
 only logical reality is possibility. Directly I have ascertained two notions 
 not to be contradictory to each other, I have made an actual judgment of 
 the logical possibility of their coexistence; and to take any step beyond 
 this, experience is required, and not logic. The difference between prob- 
 lemaUcal and assertorial judgments is extralogical, and depends on the 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 183 
 
 H^-pothetical and Disjunctive Judgments must be re- 
 served for a separate examination. At present, we must 
 proceed to investigate the laws of Reasoning. This pro- 
 cess differs from Judgment, as Judgment differs from 
 Conception, in the nature of its preliminary data. In 
 Judgment, concepts are given, thought being required to 
 determine their possible coexistence in an object. In Rea- 
 soning, one or more judgments are given, thought being 
 required to determine what further judgments may be 
 elicited from them. Under this head will thus be included 
 not merely the ordinary Syllogism, but likewise (so far as 
 they contain processes of thought at all) the immediate 
 inferences of Opposition and Conversion. In all these, 
 the material given prior to the act of thought is a judg' 
 ment; and the process of judging from concepts is thus 
 not included, but presupposed; the conclusion being 
 always a different judgment, either in form, as regards 
 Quantity, Quality, or Relation, which is the case in imme- 
 diate consequences; or partially in matter, which is the 
 case in mediate reasoning by syllogism.^ The common 
 arrangement, therefore, which places immediate inference 
 ill the second part of Logic, is objectionable.^ 
 
 question whether a logical judgment is or is not determined by experience 
 to be materially true. 
 
 1 Sec Kant, Logik, ^ 44. His theory of contraposition affecting the 
 modality o{ the judgment is untenable, and seems to result merely from 
 that excessive love of system which must bring in four forms somehow. 
 The supposed demonstrative character of the conclusion in contraposition 
 is merely a necessity of consequence from the position of the premise; a 
 character which is found in all logical reasoning whatever. 
 
 2 This order, however, has by no means Iwen uniformly adopted by Lo- 
 l?icians. Aristotle treats of Opposition in the De Interpntatione, and of 
 Conversion in the Prior Analytics. Wolf separates Opposition and Con- 
 version, considered as relations between two given propositions, from the 
 processes of inference derivable from each. The former is treated in con- 
 
 i- 
 
 ' ^4 
 
 > 
 
184 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 Opposition may be treated in two points of view. 
 Firstly, as a relation between two given propositions; 
 secondly, as a process of inference, in which, one proposi- 
 tion being given, another may be determined. In the for- 
 mer character, it is merely an explanation of the meanin<y 
 of certain logical terms ; in the latter, it is a process of 
 reasoning, a deduction of one proposition as conclusion 
 from another as premise, and governed, as we shall see, by 
 the same laws as the mediate inference.* The primary 
 processes, on which the rest may be made to depend, are 
 those of Subaltern and Contradictory Opposition; the 
 former being grounded on the Principle of Identity, and 
 the latter on those of Contradiction and Excluded Middle. 
 Thus in the proposition, "All A is some B," an identity is 
 stated between the whole of the objects thought under 
 the concept A, and a portion of those thought under B.* 
 
 nectlon with Judf?ment; the latter, under the name of Immediate Conse- 
 quence, in connection with reasoning. Kant and his followers treat im- 
 mediate consequences as reasonings, under the name of Syllogisms of the 
 Understanding ; an arrangement which is logically correct, whatever may 
 be the psychological objections to the nomenclature. 
 
 J On account of this identity of law, various attempts have been made 
 by ingenious writers to reduce immediate consequence to the mediate form. 
 Thus Wolf exhibits subaltern opposition as a syllogism with the minor 
 premise, "Some A is A;" thus per\ersely representing the law of thought, 
 which governs the reasoning process in general, as a part of the special 
 matter given preliminary to a particular act. Still more absurd is the 
 elaborate system which Krug, after a hint from Wolf, has constructed, in 
 which all immediate inferences appear as hypothetical syllogisms; a ma- 
 jor premise being supplied in the form, " If all A is B, some A is B." 
 The author appears to have forgotten that either this premise is an addi- 
 tional empirical truth, in which case the immediate reasoning is not a logi- 
 cal process at all, or it is a formal inference, presupposing the very reason- 
 ing to which it is prefixed, and thus begging the whole question. 
 
 * Throughout the following pages, in order to exhibit the law of 
 thought more clearly in each case, I have, in conformity with the views of 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 185 
 
 % h 
 
 The conclusion, " Therefore some A is some B," proceeds 
 
 on the principle that every part of A must be identical 
 with a part of that which has been given as identical with 
 all A. This process resembles the inference in an affirma- 
 tive syllogism, except that in the latter there is given a 
 double identity ; firstly, of the middle term with a part of 
 the major; and secondly, of the minor with a part of the 
 middle. The inferences of Contradictory Opposition are 
 based on the Principles of Contradiction and Excluded 
 Middle. By the former, when one of two contradictory 
 judgments is given as true, we infer that the other is false; 
 and by the latter, when one is given as false, we infer that 
 the other is true. The remaining inferences of Opposition 
 may be reduced to combinations of the above. 
 
 The several processes of Conversion, if the predicate is 
 quantified as well as the subject, may be reduced to Sim- 
 ple Conversion only; and even under the old system, 
 Conversion per accidens may be regarded as a combination 
 of Simple Conversion with one of the inferences of Oppo- 
 sition.* Simple Conversion is thus the only one which it 
 is necessary to examine. This cannot properly be regarded 
 
 ':^| 
 
 Sir William Hamilton, stated the quantity of the predicate as well as of 
 the sulycct in each proposition. Of the value of this addition to the ordi- 
 nary logical forms, I have elsewhere expressed my opinion (North British 
 Beview, No. 29). I have not, therefore, thought it necessar}' to enter into 
 an elaljorate examination of it here; especially as it is sufficient for my 
 purpose to bring forward only those forms of reasoning universally ad- 
 mitted by logicians. In quantifying the predicate in these instances, we 
 only express what every treatise on Logic tells us to understand, viz., 
 that the predicate of an affirmative proposition is not distributed; t. c, is 
 thought as particular. 
 
 1 Thus Aldrich analyzes conversion per acddens. " Sit vera E : Ergo ct 
 ejus simpliciter conversa: Ergo et conversae subaltemata: qua; esrex- 
 posit« conversa per accidens. Sit vera A: Ergo et ejus subaltemata: 
 Ergo et subalteniataj siiupUciter conversa : qua est exposita per accidens." 
 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 
 as a process of judgment; for either the converted prop- 
 osition is a new judgment distinct from the original one, 
 or it is merely the same judgment expressed in different 
 language. In the former case, it is an inference from a 
 premise, and consequently a process of reasoning; in the 
 latter, there is no process of thinking at all, but merely a 
 change in the language by which a given thought is ex- * 
 pressed. The former is the preferable view, so long as the 
 subject and predicate of a proposition are viewed in the 
 relation of whole and pait, whether by the inclusion of 
 the subject under the extension of the predicate, or of the 
 predicate in the comprehension of the subject. For the 
 inversion of the relations of whole and part is sufficient to 
 constitute a new judgment. But in the system of Sir W. 
 Hamilton, in which every proposition is reduced to an 
 equation, or rather to an identification of object between 
 the two terms, the latter view seems more accurate ; it 
 being manifestly the same thing to identify the object 
 thought under A with that of B, and that thought under 
 B with that of A. 
 
 To opposition and conversion must be added a third 
 process, that of the immediate consequence of one equi- 
 pollent proposition from another.^ The equipollence in 
 some cases can only be determined materially ; and the 
 consequence is then extralogical ; as in the instance cited 
 by Wolf, Titim est pater Caii,ergo Caiua eatfilius Titii; 
 but there are other instances in which the consequence is 
 formal, and determined solely by the laws of thought. 
 Thus, by the principle of contradiction, from the premise, 
 
 1 See Wolf. PhUosophia Bationa2is, 4 445; Fries. System der LogOc, S 47. 
 The former has not accurately distin^niished the material fVom the formal 
 ^es of this consequence; and it was, probably, this confusion that led 
 ikant to reject the inference altogether. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 187 
 
 All A is B, follows the immediate inference, No A is not- 
 B, in which is produced a change of quality from affinn- 
 ative to negative. In this way, when one predicate is 
 affirmed of a subject, its contradictory may always be 
 denied. The process commonly called Conversion by Con- 
 traposition, is property the simple conversion of this equi- 
 pollent proposition.* 
 
 The whole of the preceding observations clearly point 
 out the view in which Logic and Psychology must coincide 
 concei-ning the nature and principles of the Syllogism. 
 The foimer, as the science of the laws of pure thinking,'^ 
 has nothing to do with the inferences of more or Icm 
 probability furnished by the analogies of this or that branch 
 of physical science, nor even with the general constitution 
 of the material worid, so far as it is known to us only 
 empirically as a fact. Its only province is with those infer- 
 ences which are necessitated by the laws of thought; 
 which, certain data being furnished, we cannot but d^raw 
 as consequences. That the premises of a syllogism neces- 
 sarily imply and contain the conclusion, is so far from' 
 being an imperfection in Logic, that it is a necessary con- 
 sequence of the supposition that thought is governed by 
 laws at all. And in accordance with this conclusion. Psy- 
 chology teaches us that thought is representative and 
 reflective, not preaentative and intuitive ; that, having no 
 positive operation beyond the field of possible experience, 
 its laws can only be analytical, and its processes must lead 
 not to the acquisition of new knowledge, but to the mod- 
 ification of the old. It only remains to exemplify this 
 result by applying it to the ordinary forms of the logical 
 syllogism. 
 
 1 This has I>een remarked by Fries ih 49, e.), and recently by Mr. Kars- 
 lake {Aids to the Study of Logic, p. 65). 
 
I 
 
 188 
 
 All M is some P. 
 All S is some M. 
 .*. All S is some P. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 FlR. 1. 
 
 No M is any P. 
 
 All S is some M. 
 .-. No S is any P. 
 
 ¥\e. 2. 
 
 No P is any M. 
 All S is some M. 
 .'. No S is any P. ' 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 All M is some P. 
 All M is some S. 
 .*. Some S is some P. 
 
 No M is any P. 
 * All M is some S. 
 .*. Some S is not any P. 
 
 The above examples will suffice as specimens of the dif- 
 ferent forms of affirmative and negative reasoning admitted 
 by the three Aristotelian figures. The fourth figure might 
 be easily subjected to the same treatment ; but it is pref- 
 erable to regard its moods as inverted forms of the first. 
 On inspection of these specimens, it appears, that the 
 Principle of Identity is immediately applicable to affirm- 
 ative moods in any figure, and the Principle of Contradic- 
 tion to negatives. In Barbara, for example, the minor 
 term all S is identical with a part of M, and consequently 
 with a part of that which is given as identical with all 
 M, namely, some P. In Darapti, the minor term some S 
 is identical with all M, and consequently with some P. 
 The i)rinciple immediately applicable to both is the axiom, 
 that what is given as identical with the whole or a part 
 of any concept, must be identical with the whole or a part 
 of that which is identical with the same concept. This 
 may be briefly expressed by the Principle of Identity, 
 Every A is A. In Celarent, Cesare, and Felapton, some or 
 all S, being given as identical with all or some M, is dis- 
 tinct from every part of that which is distinct from all M.* 
 
 J Under the system of a quantified predicate, the second fi^re admits 
 of affirmative sylloj^isms, which, like the rest, may be referred to the 
 principle of Identity. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 189 
 
 This is briefly expressed by the Principle of Contradiction, 
 No A is not-A. 
 
 These two laws govern all the moods of Categorical 
 Syllogism, including under them, as subordinate rules, the 
 dictum de omni et nuUo, or the neariy equivalent axiom, 
 nota notce est nota rei ipsius ; as well as the distinct ax- 
 ioms which have been framed by diflferent logicians as 
 rules of the second and third figures.* The process of 
 Reduction, which is property and necessarily adopted by 
 those logicians who, with Aristotle and Kant, acknowledge 
 the principle of the first figure only, now becomes unnece^'s- 
 sary and inconsistent ; inasmuch as all the syllogistic fig- 
 ures are exhibited as equally direct exemplifications of the 
 same general law. For the same reason, the distinction 
 adopted by Kant between Syllogisms of the Understanding 
 and Syllogisms of the Reason, in addition to the psych(^ 
 logical impropriety of distinguishing two faculties of 
 thought,' is now shown to be logically untenable also; 
 the processes of immediate and mediate reasoning being 
 exhibited as cognate acts of thought, governed by the 
 same general laws, and differing only in their material 
 data. 
 
 By bearing in mind what has been above said of the 
 nature of thought and its laws, we shall also be enabled to 
 take a juster view of a process more or less misrepresented 
 m the majority of logical treatises, Induction. Scarcely 
 any logician has accurately distinguished between Formal 
 Induction, in which the given premises necessitate the 
 
 > As by Lambert, Neues Organon, part f. § 232; Kant, Logfk, § 71 • Sir 
 W. Hamilton in Mr. Thomson's Laws of Tf,ought, p. 248, where they are 
 given correctly as special applications of a more general principle. 
 
 «0n this question, see Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 17; Cousin 
 i«foiw 8ur la Philosophic de Kant, p. 108; Krug, Logik, ^ 74. ' 
 
190 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 Hi 
 
 conclusion in conformity with tlie laws of thought, and 
 Material Induction, in which the conclusion may be in- 
 ferred with more or less probability from additional data 
 not furnished by the premises; between what we must 
 know as thinkers, and what we may know as investigators 
 of nature. By some logicians, Induction is treated as a 
 Syllogism in Barbara, with the major or minor premise 
 suppressed ; the advocates of this view overlooking the 
 fact, that the suppression of either premise leaves a°defi- 
 ciency to be supplied independently of the act of thought, 
 and thus reduces the whole process from formal to mate- 
 rial; to say nothing of the inversion of the reasonincr as 
 actually performed, and the destruction of all foundaUon 
 for the syllogistic process from univei-sals to particulars, by 
 making every universal premise itself a deduction from a 
 higher one. By others, Induction is represented, accord- 
 mg to the Baconian view, as an interrogation of nature, 
 by the selection, in any physical investigation, of such 
 phenomena as may indicate the existence of a general law. 
 Here it is forgotten that the fact that nature proceeds by 
 uniform laws at all is a truth altogether distinct from the 
 laws of thought, and, if not of wholly empirical origin,.at 
 least one which cannot be ascertained a priori by the pure 
 understanding. Others again, struck by the physical diffi- 
 culty of an exhaustive enumeration of individual cases, 
 endeavor to effect a compromise between material proba- 
 bility and formal necessity, by describing the instances 
 cited as representatives or samples of their class ; as if the 
 nature of samples and representatives could be made 
 known by an innate principle of the mind, independently 
 of experience. Even the wonderful acuteness of Kant in 
 all questions between matter and fonn appears to have 
 deserted him here; and by describing Induction as a SyU 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 191 
 
 log^sm of the judgment, furnishing a logical presumption 
 of a general conclusion, he not only encumbers the science 
 with an extralogical process, but neglects altogether the 
 really formal reasoning which it is the duty of the logician 
 to take into account.* 
 
 The truth is that there are two totally distinct processes'^ 
 confounded under the general name of Induction. The 
 Baconian or Material Induction proceeds on the assumn- 
 turn of general laws in the relations of physical phenomena, 
 and endeavo,^ by select observations and experiments, to 
 detect the law in any particular case. This, whatever be 
 Its value as a general method of physical investigation, has 
 DO place in Formal Logic. The Aristotelian or Formal 
 Induction proceeds on the assumption of general laws of 
 thought, and inquires into the instances in which, bv such 
 laws, we are necessitated to reason from an accumulation 
 of particular instances to a general or partial rule. The 
 process in this case may be affirmative or negative; and it 
 18 governed, like other formal reasonings, by the general 
 laws of Identity and Contradiction. Specimens'' of its 
 several forms may be exhibited as follows : 
 
 X, Y, Z, are some B. 
 X, Y, Z, are all A. 
 .'. All A is some B. 
 
 Affirmative Induction. 
 
 X, Y, Z, are some B. 
 X, Y, Z, are some A. 
 .•. Some A is some B. 
 
 X, Y, Z, are not any B. 
 X, Y, Z, are all A. 
 .*. No A is any B. 
 
 Negative Induction. 
 
 X, Y, Z, arc not any B. 
 X, Y, Z, are some A. 
 .*. Some A is not any B. 
 
 Other moods may be added to these, by varying the 
 quantity of the predicate in the major premise. By assign- 
 
 » Two distinguished exceptions to tliis general error must however bo 
 nouced. Aristotle's account of Induction, in Anal. Fr. il. 23, incomplete as 
 
 'Ft 
 
192 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 ing, in conformity with the system of Sir W. Hamilton, a 
 definite quantity to the predicate in all affirmative propo- 
 sitions, we are enabled to avoid that ambiguity of the 
 copula which has hitherto been the main defect in the 
 logical analysis of inductive reasoning.^ The relation of 
 whole and part between the terms of the proposition being 
 thus dispensed with, the subject is no longer represented 
 as at one time contained under, at another constituting iu 
 predicate ; but each term, in every case, is equated, or iden^ 
 tifiedas to its object, with the whole or a part of the other. 
 Under this system it is no longer necessary to distin- 
 guish Induction from the third figure of Syllogism, as this 
 figure, with a definite predicate, will admit of universal as 
 well as particular conclusions. Indeed, every Syllogism in 
 this figure, in which the minor premise is collectiv°e, may 
 be regarded as a logical Induction. In this point of view 
 it is manifestly governed by the same laws as the syllogism, 
 the affirmative moods by the Principle of Identity,°and 
 the negative by the Principle of Contradiction. The so- 
 called imperfect Induction is altogether extralogical. The 
 constituted whole can in thought be identijied on\y ^f/li\i 
 the sum total of its parts, not with a few representatives; 
 and without such identification no inference can be neces- 
 sitated by the laws of thought. The physical difficulty of 
 adducing all the members of a given class is a purely mate- 
 rial consideration, like that of the truth of the premises in 
 a syllogism, and is assumed, not investigated, by the logi- 
 cian. But without such a preliminary datum, we have no 
 
 it is In many respects, has the merit of adhering accurately to the formal 
 view of the process. And the admirable Article on Logic by Sir W Ham- 
 ilton, in x\o. 113 of the Edinburgh Review (reprinted in his Di^us^om\ 
 exhibits for the first time the logical character of InducUon, divested of 
 its material incumbrances and formal perversions. 
 * See Sir W. Hamilton, I>iscussions, p. 103. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOaiCA. 
 
 193 
 
 materials for drawing a universal conclusion by logical 
 Induction. '^ ^ 
 
 Thu8 far we have shown the several forms of mediate 
 categorical reasoning to depend on two necessary laws of 
 thought, the Principles of Identity and Contradiction. A 
 separate examination is needed to ascertain the character 
 of the Hypothetical Propositions and Syllogisms, which, 
 as I am mchned to think, has not hitherto been accurately 
 exhibited, even by the best logicians of the formal school 
 
 By Kant and his followers, the Hypothetical Proposition 
 « desenbed as representing a form of judgment essentially 
 distinct from the Categorical ; the latter being thoroughly 
 assertonal, the former problematical in its constituent 
 parts, assertorial only as regards the relation between 
 them Two judgments, each in itself false, may thus be 
 hypothetically combined into a single truth ; and this com- 
 bination cannot be reduced into categorical form.' The 
 Hypothetical Syllogism, in like manner, is a form of rea- 
 soning distinct from the Categorical, and not reducible to 
 ^ being based on a different law of thought, namely, the 
 ogical Principle of Sufficient Reason, a ration, ad rJioruz- 
 ««m, a negatione rationati ad mgatiomm rationia valet 
 congeqtientia* 
 
 rllT^ ''.f '.^'^ '' 'PP"'*^ *" judgments, I have before 
 remarked that u is not a law of thought, but only a state- 
 ment of the necessity of some law or other. As applied 
 to sy logisms, it has the same character. It states the 
 fact, that whenever a condition, whether material cause 
 of a fact or formal reason of a conclusion, exists, the con- 
 ditioned fact or conclusion exists also. Thus viewed, it 
 
 17 
 
 iH 
 
194 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 195 
 
 is not the law of any distinct reasoning process, but a 
 statement of the conditions in which laws of nature or 
 of thought are operative. When a material cause exists, 
 its material effect follows, and the phenomenon indicates 
 a law of nature ; when a logical premise is given, its 
 logical conclusion follows, and the result indicates a law 
 of thought. What law, must in each case be determined 
 by the particular features of the phenomenon or reasoning 
 in question ; but a statement of this kind is distinguished 
 from laws of thought, properly so called, by the fact, that 
 it cannot be expressed in a symbolical form : we require 
 the introduction of a definite notion, Cause, Reason, 
 Condition, or something of the kind, which is a special 
 object of thought, not the general representative of all 
 objects whatever. The principle in question is thus only 
 a statement of the peculiar character of certain matters 
 about which we may think, and not a law of the form of 
 thought in general. 
 
 It is obvious that the relation of premises and conclusion 
 in a syllogism may, like any other relation of condition 
 and conditioned, be expressed in the form of a hypotheti- 
 cal proposition : « If all A is B, and all C is A, then all 
 C is B;" and the actual assertion of the truth of these 
 premises will furnish at once a so-called hypothetical syllo- 
 gism : "But all A is B, and all C is A, therefore all C 
 is B." This was observed by Fries, who hence rightly 
 maintains that analytical hypothetical judgments are for- 
 raal syllogisms.^ It is strange that, after this, he should 
 not have gone a step further, and discovered that syn- 
 thetical hypothetical judgments are assertions of material 
 consequences. The judgment, « If A is B, C is D," asserts 
 the existence of a consequence necessitated by laws other 
 
 1 System der Logik, ^ 44. 
 
 than those of thought, and consequently out of the prov- 
 ince of Logic. The addition of a minor premise and con- 
 elusion in the so-called hypothetical syllogism, is merely 
 the assertion that this general material consequence is 
 verified in a particular case. 
 
 The distinction so much insisted on by the Kantians, 
 of the problematical character of the two members of a 
 hypothetical judgment, is, like the whole Kantian doctrine 
 of modality, of no consequence in formal Lo-ic AH 
 formal thinking is, as regards the material character of 
 Its objects, problematical only. Formal Conception pro- 
 nounces that certain objects of thought may possibly exist, 
 leavmg their actual existence to be determined by expe- 
 nence. Formal Judgment decides on the possible coex- 
 istence of certain concepts ; and Formal Reasoning, on 
 the truth of a conclusion, subject to the hypothesis of the 
 truth of its premises. 
 
 To state that this hypothesis is in a certain instance 
 true, adds nothing to the logical part of the reasoning but 
 only venfies the empirical preliminaries which the logician 
 m every case assumes as given. To exhibit a formal 
 consequence hypothetically, is only a needless reassertion 
 of the existence of data which the act of thought presup- 
 poses. To exhibit a material consequence hypothetically 
 IS not to make it formal, but only to assert that, in a 
 certain given instance, a consequence not cognizable by 
 Logic takes place. The sequence of « C is D," from « A 
 IS B," is not one whit more logical than it was before ; it 
 IS only stated to take place materially in the present case. 
 The omission of hypothetical syllogisms has frequently 
 been deemed a defect in Aristotle's Organon ; and his 
 l^rcnch translator takes some fruitless pains to strain his 
 text, ,n order to make out that he does in fact treat of 
 
 I 
 
196 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 197 
 
 i 
 
 P 
 
 them.> If there is any truth in the preceJing observa- 
 tions, It will follow, that Aristotle understood the limits 
 of Logic better than his critics ; and that his translator 
 had better have allowed the omission as a merit than have 
 attempted to deny it as a fault. When the hypothetical 
 proposition states a formal consequence, the rea8onin<r 
 grounded upon it may always be reduped to categorical! 
 When It states a material consequence, it states what the 
 logician, as such, cannot take into account. Aristotle is 
 therefore quite right in saying, that in this case the con- 
 elusion IS not proved, but conceded.' Syllogism may be 
 employed as a logical proof of the antecedent: the conse- 
 quent IS admitted to follow on grounds which the logician, 
 as such, does not investigate, but which maybe waiTanted 
 by the principles of this or that material science. 
 
 The true character of hypothetical reasoning is lost 
 sight of m the examples commonly selected by logicians, 
 which have for their subject a proper name, and indicate, 
 not a general relation of reason and consequent between 
 two notions, but certain accidental circumstances in the 
 history of an individual. The adoption of this type has 
 led to the logical anomaly, that the propositions of a 
 hypothetical syllogism are generally stated without any 
 designate quantity; whereas it is obvious that, wherever 
 concepts are compared together in any form of reasoning, 
 two distinct conclusions may follow, according to tire 
 quantity assigned. For example, to the premise, « If men 
 are wise, they will consult their permanent interests," we 
 may supply two minors and conclusions, in the construc- 
 tive form, according as we affirm the antecedent of aU 
 men or of some. It thus becomes necessary to distinguish 
 
 » St. Hilairc, Lo<jifpte d'Aristote TraduUe en Francais, Preface, p U 
 2 ^«a/. Pnor. i. 23, 11. * 
 
 between two different kinds of apparently hypothetical 
 syllogisms, -~ those in which the inference is from a gen- 
 eral hypothesis to all or some of its special instances, and 
 those in which a relation between two individual facts is 
 assumed as a hypothesis leading to a singular conclusion. 
 The former contain a general relation of determining and 
 determined notion, which may always be expressed in 
 three terms; the occasional employment of four being 
 only an accidental variety of language. Thus the general 
 assertion, '*If any country is justly governed, the people 
 are happy," is equivalent to, « If any country is justly 
 governed, it has happy people." This we may apply to 
 si>ecial instances ; aU countries, some countries, or this 
 country, being asserted to be justly governed : and this 
 is properiy hypothetical reasoning. The latter denote 
 only a material connection between two single facts, either 
 of which may, to certain minds possessed of certain addi- 
 tional knowledge, be an indication of the other; but the 
 true ground of the inference is contained in this additional 
 knowledge, and not in the mere hypothetical coupling 
 of the facts by a conjunction. This is not hypothetical 
 rensoning ; i. e,, it is not reasoning/rom the hypothesis, but 
 
 from other circumstances not mentioned in the hypothesis 
 at all.i 
 
 1 This may be made clearer by an example. The following is cited by 
 Fries as an instance of a hypothetical proposition not reducible to cate- 
 gorical form : " If Caius is free from business, he is writing poetry » 
 This may be interpreted to mean either, genemlly, " Whenever Caius is 
 disengaged, he writes poetry; " or, specially, " If he is now disengaged he 
 18 now writing poetry." Under the former interpretation, it Is a general 
 hypothesis, which may be applied as a major premise to particular in- 
 stances; but in this case the true form of the reasoning is, "All times 
 when Caius is disengaged are times when he writes poetry; and the pres- 
 em IS such a time." Under the latter interpretation, it is one of the cases 
 
 17* 
 
I 
 
 *! 
 
 )i:' 
 
 (t J 
 
 198 
 
 PKOLEOOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 It thus appears that the only hypothetical judgmcn„ 
 which can be employed as the real major premise of a 
 syllogism may be expressed in the form, " If A is B, it is 
 C," where A, B, and C, represent concepts, or general 
 notions. The complete categorical equivalent to this is 
 "Every A which is B is C, because it is B," which admits' 
 of two interpretations, according as B stands for the 
 physical cause of the fact, or for the logical reason of our 
 knowing It. In the latter case, the judgment is analytical, 
 and represents a disguised formal consequence, with B as 
 a middle term; e. g., "Every man who is learned has 
 studied, because he b learned." Here the notion of study 
 18 implied in that of learning, and the major premise is, « All 
 learned beings have studied." The hypothetical proposi- 
 tion thus becomes a complete syllogism, to which the sub- 
 sequent consequence is related as an episyliogism.' In the 
 former case, where B stands for a physical cause, the judg- 
 ment is synthetical, and indicates a material consequence, 
 which It requires some additional knowledge of facts to 
 
 of a material connection of two facts mentioned in the text. Now in 
 th,8 I^t case it is obvious that the inference is really made, not from ll." 
 hypothesis, but m>m some circumstan« .cnown to the ^a^oner. b„T o 
 .ppearmg m the proposition. Any man being asked. " Why do on infer 
 that Caius. bemg now disengaged, is writing poetry?" would repiy "Z 
 cause he toid me he should do so; " or something of the kind. HL^ 
 he would never dream of „,plying, " Because ./ he is now disengagj^^ 
 b wntmg." In this case, then, he doe. no. reason fron. 0. l.yJL,l^ 
 the expressed propositions do not compose a syllogism. ^^ 
 1 Thus: 
 
 Hiipolhetical Si/Bcgism. 
 
 It any man Is learned, be has 
 
 studied : 
 Some men are learned; 
 •. Some men have studied. 
 
 Categorical Analfsu. 
 All learned beings have studied: 
 All learned men are learned be- 
 ings; 
 
 '. All learned men have studied : 
 
 Some men are learned men; 
 •. Some men have studied. 
 
 rROLEOOMENA LOGICA. I99 
 
 reduce to formal ; .. g., « All wax exposed to the fire melts, 
 because it is exposed." Here, on material grounds, we 
 know that we cannot supj.Iy the premise, «A11 bodies 
 exposed to the fire melt;" but only, "All bodies soluble 
 by heat and exposed to the fire melt." In this case the 
 consequence is extralogical, and requires additional data 
 not given m the thought. But here, also, when the judg- 
 ment ,n question is employed as the premise of a ret 
 soning, the conclusion follows categorically; though the 
 
 foir t "'"'^ """""'' ^ '* "^-""''^ •»« ""^"d by ^ Prosyl- 
 
 The Disjunctive Judgment is usually described as repre- 
 senting a whole divided into two or more parts mutually 
 exclusive of each other; and the Disjunctive Syllogism is 
 supposed to proceed either from the affirmation of one 
 member to the denial of the rest, or from the denial of all 
 
 v' ,T iV/"! ,''®^'°''»'°'' <^f that one, by the Principle of 
 Excluded Middle.' ^ 
 
 This can scarcely be regarded as a correct analysis of 
 the process, unless the two members are fonnaa^ stated 
 as contradictory. The Principle of Excluded Middle as- 
 serts that everything is either A or not A; that of two 
 contradictories, one must exist in every object; as the 
 PrmcipU of Contradiction asserts that they cannot both 
 exist. But If the two members are not stated as contra- 
 dictories, if my disjunctive premise is, "All C is either A 
 
 ' The analysis in this case may be exhibited thus: 
 
 HypMetical SyUogism. 
 
 If any wax is exposed to the flie, 
 
 it melts: 
 This wax is exposed to the fire; 
 
 •■■ This wnx melts. 
 
 ».. • • *"» yi-An. mens. 
 
 Kant, SS 27 sqq., 77, 78; Krug, H 57, 81, 85; Fries, §§ 33, 59. 
 
 Categorical Eqmvalent. 
 All wax exposed to the fire melts 
 
 (because exposed): 
 This wax is exposed to the fire; 
 This wax melts. 
 
200 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 
 or B," I make the material assertion that All C which is 
 not A is B. If then I reason, " This C is not A,» therefore 
 It 18 B," I employ the Principle of Identity in addition to 
 that of Excluded Middle. Again, if I maintain that No C 
 can be both A and B, I make the material assertion that 
 No C which is A is B ; and from hence to reason, "This C 
 is A, therefore it is not B," requires not the Principle of 
 Excluded Middle, but that of Contradiction. In the first 
 case, the Excluded Middle does not lead directly to the 
 conclusion, but only to the contraposition of the minor 
 premise. When we deny this C to be A, this principle 
 enables us to assert that it is not-A, and hence to brincr the 
 reasoning under the Principle of Identity. But in th^sec- 
 end case, in which one of the opposed members is affirmed, 
 the ground on which we deny the other is not because 
 both cannot be false, but because both cannot be true. 
 
 It may be questioned whether this second inference 
 
 IS warranted by the form of the disjunctive premise. 
 
 Boethius calls it a material consequence;^ and, in spite 
 
 of the many eminent authorities on the other side, I am 
 
 still disposed to think he is right. But let us grant for a 
 
 moment the opposite view, and allow that the proposition, 
 
 ''AH C is either A or B,'' implies, as a condition of its truth, 
 
 « No C can be both."^ Thus viewed, it is in reality a com- 
 
 plex proposition, containing two distinct assertions, each 
 
 of which may be the ground of two distinct processes of 
 
 reasoning, governed by two opposite laws. Surely it is 
 
 essential to all clear thinking that the two should be sepa- 
 
 rated from each other, and not confounded under one form 
 
 1 The indefinite minor, "But it is not A." is as objectionable in this 
 syllourism as m the conditional. 
 
 2 De Si/ll. Hyp. lib. i.; Opera, p. 616; Cf. Galen; Isagoge Dial p 11 
 Aquinas, Opusc. xlviii.; De Enunciatione, c. xiv.; Kn.- Logik, § 86. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 201 
 
 by assuming the Law of Excluded Middle to be, what it 
 is not, a complex of those of Identity and Contradiction. 
 Thus distinguished, the moods of the disjunctive syllogism* 
 are mere verbal variations from the categorical forai, and 
 may easily be brought under its laws.^ 
 
 The preceding discussion may appear to some readers 
 of trifling importance ; and some apology for its length 
 may be thought necessary. I believe nothing to be unim- 
 portant, in a logical work, which tends to mark out more 
 accurately the nature of thought and its laws, to exhibit 
 more precisely the formal character of logical processes, 
 and to clear the subject from the remaining excrescences 
 and inconsistencies with which, even in the writings of 
 the best modern Logicians, it is still occasionally encum- 
 bered.2 Either Logic is not worth studying at all, or it is 
 worth studying in the utmost completeness and exactitude 
 
 1 Thus : 
 
 Modus toUendo ponens. 
 Every C which is not A is B. 
 Every \ 
 
 Some V C is a C which is not A. 
 This ) 
 .'. It is B. 
 
 Modtis ponendo toUens. 
 No C which is A is B. 
 Every 1 
 
 Some [• C is a C which is A. 
 This ) 
 It is not B. 
 
 The first is governed by the Prmciple of Identity, and the second by the 
 Principle of Contradiction. 
 
 «For example: Fries, after expressly distinj-uishing the Principle of 
 Sufficient Reason from the other Formulae of Thought, as not being a 
 principle of philosophical or formal Logic, places it in his next chapter in 
 a coordinate position with them, as the distinctive law of hypothetical syl- 
 logisms. Krug describes it in one place as the highest principle of syllo- 
 gism in general, and in another as the special principle of a single class 
 of reasonings. It is proper to speak with respect even of the errors of the 
 great philosopher of Konigsburg; but perhaps even Kant was in some 
 degree biassed, in his examination of logical processes, by an almost pe- 
 dantic love of reproducing in every relation his four Functions of Judg- 
 ment, and by the strange metaphysical theory which deduced the three 
 Ideas of Pure Reason from the three kinds of dialectical syllogism. 
 
 ii).i 
 
I i 
 
 202 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 Of Which it is snsceptible. The length to which these 
 remarks have run is justified, indeed demanded, by the 
 eminence of the authors from whom the writer has ven- 
 tured to dissent, — authors whose mere assertions in mat- 
 ters of logical science are not to be lightly regarded nor 
 hastily departed from. Even if the views here advanced 
 should be found, on examination, to be less tenable 
 than the author believes them to be, they will not have 
 been without their use, if, by calling the attention of others 
 to one or two of the weaker defences of the received doc- 
 trines of Formal Logic, they should indirectly lead to a 
 more satisfactory vindication of the positions assailed. 
 • It only remains to sum up as briefly as possible the re- 
 sults of the present chapter. Formal or Logical Necessity 
 IS dependent on one negative condition, and on three 
 positive laws. The negative condition, or sine qua non 
 of thought in general, is contained in the Principle of 
 Sufficient Reason, which, however, in this relation, belongs 
 to Psychology, and not to Logic ; being only a generll 
 statement of the conditions under which, in the existing 
 constitution of man's mind, thought is possible ; — its de^ 
 pendence, that is to say, on a higher thought, or on a fact 
 of intuition. The three positive laws, or fundamental 
 principles, assumed by Logic, as regulating all its actual 
 processes, are those of Identity, of Contradiction, and of 
 Excluded Middle ; the last, however, operating in most 
 cases in subordination to the other two. These three are 
 the highest and simplest forms of identical judgments, to 
 one of which all analytical thinking may ultimately be 
 referred : and all pure thinking may be shown, on psycho- 
 logical grounds, to be of a strictly analytical character. 
 The necessity arising from these laws is that of the har- 
 mony of thought with itself, -of its conformity to its own 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 203 
 
 ruling principles ; as the forms of necessity noticed in the 
 previous chapters were those arising from the relation of 
 thought to the laws and condition of intuition, — the re- 
 quisite harmony of the several mental faculties one with 
 another. These two harmonies constitute respectively 
 Formal and Material Truth. Truth, relatively to man, 
 cannot be defined as consisting in the conformity of knowl- 
 e.lge with its object ; for to man the object itself exists 
 only as it is known by one faculty or another. Material 
 Truth consists rather in the conformity of the object as 
 represented in thought with the object as presented in 
 intuition ; and of this no general law or criterion can be 
 given ; its essence consisting in its adapting itself in every 
 case to the diversities of this or that special presentation. 
 But Logical Truth, which consists in the conformity of 
 thought to Its own laws, can be submitted to those laws as 
 gener.al and sufficient criteria ; criteria, however, not of the 
 real and existent, but of the thinkable and possible. Of 
 actual truth it furnishes one element only, which becomes 
 truth or not in combination, according as, upon further 
 examination, it is found to be in conformity or at variance 
 with the coordinate decisions of experience. By the same 
 cntena we shall also be able to determine the logical or 
 extralogical character of any portion of the contents of 
 existing treatises on the science ; according as it is a de- 
 duction of pare thinking from given materials, or a mixed 
 process, combining the act of thought with the acquisition 
 of further empirical data. On the distinction established 
 between material and formal thinking, some further obser- 
 vations will be made in the next chapter. 
 
PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 205 
 
 
 §, 
 
 I 
 
 '1 
 
 ill 
 
 H 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON THE MATTER AND FORM OF THOUGHT. 
 
 The distinction adopted between Matter and Form in 
 common, language, relatively to works of Art, will servo 
 to illustrate the character of the corresponding distinction 
 in Thought. The term Matter is usually applied to what- 
 ever is given to the artist, and consequently, as given, does 
 not come within the province of the art itself to supply. 
 The I'orm is that which is given in and through the 
 proper operation of the art. In Sculpture, for example, 
 the Matter is the marble in its rough state as given to 
 the sculptor; the Form is that which the sculptor, in the 
 exercise of his art, communicates to it.* The distinction 
 between Matter and Form in any mental operation is 
 analogous to this. The former includes all that is given 
 to, the latter all that is given ^y, the operation. In the 
 division of notions, for example, whether performed by an 
 act of pure thinking or not, the generic notion is that 
 given to be divided ; the addition of the difference in the 
 act of division constitutes the species. And, accordingly, 
 Genus is frequently designated by logicians the material, 
 Difference, the formal part, or the Species. So, likewise, in 
 any operation of pure thinking, the Matter will include all 
 that is given to and out of the thought; the Form is what 
 j^is conveyed in and by the thinking act itself. 
 
 1 See Fries, Si/stem der Logik, S 19. His division corresponds to the 
 above, though based on a somewhat different principle. 
 
 The same analogy may be carried on in relation to what 
 are called material and formal processes of thinking. It 
 may happen on certain occasions that the marble given to 
 the sculptor is insufficient for the completion of the statue. 
 It becomes necessary, therefore, to suspend the artistic 
 process itself, in order to obtain additional material ; and 
 this provision of new material the artist does not under- 
 tike purely as a sculptor. So in relation to any process 
 of thinking. The empirical data requisite for an act of 
 conception, judgment, or reasoning, may be insufficient, 
 and require the addition of fresh material not furnished 
 by the mere act of thinking. The operation in this case 
 is one of mixed or material thinking; t.e., of thinking pre- 
 ceded by an appeal to experience for the provision of 
 further data ; and this appeal is no part of the duty of the 
 logician, as such. Whereas, if the materials originally 
 given are alone sufficient to necessitate, in obedience to 
 the laws of thought, an act of conception, judgment, or 
 reasoning, the process is properly distinguished as one 
 oi pure or formal thinking. 
 
 Notwithstanding this analogy, it is in many respects im- 
 portant that the matter and form of a thought should not 
 be confounded with material and formal thinking respect- 
 ively. Thinking is not always formal because its product 
 has form, nor does the presence of a form in the antece- 
 dent of thought always necessitate a formal process in 
 consequence. The sculptor, to continue our image, may 
 ultimately complete his work with all the form and finish 
 of art : it does not therefore follow that all his material 
 must have been given to him at once in the fii-st instance, 
 ^r he may have carved with exactness one subordinate 
 figure of a group : it does not therefore follow that his 
 material is sufficient to enable him to complete the whole. 
 
 18 
 
206 
 
 PROLEGOMENA hOQICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 !#' 
 
 1 
 
 The present chapter is intended to point out more clearly 
 the distinction and relation between the form of thought 
 and formal thinking. 
 
 The antithesis of matter and form, — the objective and 
 the subjective, — the variable and the permanent, — the 
 contingent and the necessary, runs through all the phenom- 
 ena of consciousness. The manifold elements presented 
 by any object of consciousness constitute the matter ; the 
 relations which the mind, acting by its own laws, insti- 
 tutes between the several elements as it combines them 
 into an object, constitute the form.^ In this point of view, 
 Space and Time are called by Kant the Forms of the Sensi- 
 bility in general, external or internal ; the objects of the 
 former being necessarily regarded by the mind as lying 
 out of ourselves in Space, the objects of the latter, as 
 succeeding one another in Time. These may thus bo 
 regarded as the subjective conditions under which sensi- 
 bility in general is possible. The same antithesis may be 
 carried through those special acts of consciousness, in 
 which the understanding operates, whether in conjunction 
 with the presentative faculties, as in an act of mixed think- 
 ing, or representatively, as in pure thinking. A savage, 
 to adopt an illustration of KantV sees a house in the dis- 
 tance, not knowing what it is. It is thus present to him 
 only as an intuition in space. But the very same complex 
 phenomenon is presented to a man who knows it to be 
 a building designed for the habitation of men. To the 
 same sensible data the understanding now adds its own 
 contribution, by which the several presentations of sense 
 are combined into one whole, under the general notion of 
 
 1 See Kant, Kritik der r, V. p. 32 (ed. Rosenkranz). 
 > £/>gik, Einleitung v. 
 
 207 
 
 a house. The sensible attributes here constitute the mat- 
 ter; their union in a concept is the form. 
 
 In Thought, as in Intuition, there is thus a variable and 
 a permanent, an objective and a subjective element, a 
 matter given to the thinker, a form communicated by the 
 thinking act. In respect to the matter, concepts differ one 
 from another, as being composed of this or that variety 
 of given attributes. In respect of the form, all agree, as 
 being a collection of attributes constituting an object. 
 The universal conditions under which attributes are con- 
 ceived in this relation have been pointed out in the last 
 chapter, as the Principles of Identity, Contradiction, and 
 Excluded Middle. From these three laws we may deduce, 
 with some amendment, the Forms which have been re- 
 garded by logical writers as distinctive of the Concept 
 proper.! The concept is necessarily conceived as one, as 
 one out of many, and as constituting with the many a 
 universe of all that is conceivable. From the last of these 
 three conditions it follows that the concept must possess a 
 generic or universal feature, by which it is characterized 
 as a concept in general, or a member of the conceivable 
 universe. From the second it follows, that it must also 
 possess a differential or peculiar feature, by which it is dis- 
 tinguished from all others. And from the first it follows, 
 that these two features must be united in a single whole. 
 Hence every concept, as such, must possess in some degree 
 the attributes of distinctness, as having complex contents ; 
 of clearness, as being, by one portion of its contents, dis- 
 tmguishable from other notions ; and of relation to a pos^ 
 sible object of intuition, inasmuch as the unity of a complex 
 
 * Sec Kant, LogOc, § 2; Fries, System derLogik, § 20. The former places 
 the form of a concept in its universality; the latter adopts the same view 
 subdividing universality into extension and comprehension. 
 
208 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PKOI.K(iOMKNA LOGIOA. 
 
 I 
 
 i; 
 
 notion depends not on a mere juxtaposition of terms, but 
 npon its being the representative of one object.* These 
 three forms may be otherwise denominated (for the differ- 
 ence is merely verbal) comprehension, limitation, and ex- 
 tension. As having complex contents, every concept 
 comjyrehends certain attributes; as distinguishable from 
 others, it is limited by its specific difference ; and, as rep- 
 resentative of a class of possible objects, it has a certain 
 field over which it is extended. The forms of the concept 
 proper may thus be indifferently enumerated as Distinct- 
 ness, Clearness, and Relation to an object ; or as Compre- 
 hension, Limitation, and Extension. 
 
 The matter and form of Judgments may be dis- 
 tinguished in the same manner as those of Concepts. 
 Omitting those judgments which involve merely the 
 enumeration of the attributes comprehended in a concept 
 (the analytical or explicative judgments of Kant), which 
 may be more property classed as acts of Conception ; and 
 confining ourselves to those in which the contents of the 
 given concepts are distinct from each other (the syntheti- 
 cal or ampliative '^xx^gmenU of Kant), we may distinguish, 
 as before, between the preexisting materials, which must 
 be given before the act of judging takes place, and the 
 additions contributed by the act itself. 
 
 Thus, to take an example adduced in a former chapter: 
 If I poise a piece of gold in my hand, in order to ascertain 
 whether it is heavy, the presented phenomena belong to 
 distinct acts of sensation. The evidence of sight attests. 
 
 1 Arist. MdapK vi. 12. 'E^i ^iv yi^ -rod t^bp^ot k^ X.vkIv itoAAA f.4^ 
 ioTiv, tray ^^ Mpxv bar4p<f »ar4poy, tv 8i, 5t«,. {nrapxv koI t<£^ n rh 
 tnroK.l,.,voy & &,»pa,^os- r6r. yhp %y ylyy.ra. ^^ r^rr^v & X.VKhs Up^os. 
 Ih^d yd. 6. -O «' Sp^e^hs Xiyos i<n\y ,h oh avyiiat^ ^aS^dr^p ^ 'IW,, 
 
 209 
 
 tlie presence of a round, yellow, shining bo.ly; the evi-, 
 dence of touch, or rather of muscular pressure, attests its 
 weight. To unite these attributes as belonging to one 
 and the same thing, is an act, not of sensation, but of/ 
 thought. The mere sensation, aided by the concepts, 
 presents us with three things -the body which is seen 
 and a certain temporal and local juxtaposition of the two' 
 To combine the present attributes as belonging to one 
 thing— to pronounce that it is the ffohl which is heavy 
 -IS an act of thought constituting a judgment. Here, 
 then, we have one form of the judgment expressed in the 
 copula, "Gold is heavy:" this indicates the identification 
 of the two concepts as related to a common object ; an 
 identification usually known as the Quality of the Judg- 
 ment. . 
 
 The same is the case with the Quantify of Judgments. 
 I see a number of balls lying on a table, and pronounce at 
 once that they are all white ; I see another collection, and 
 assert m like manner that some are white and some black 
 Here the senses, even when aided by the concepts in 
 distinguishing the balls as such, yet present to us only 
 individual objects. This, this, and this, are within their 
 province ; but they know nothing of all or some. It is by 
 an act of thought that the several individuals arc regarded 
 as constituting a whole, and a judgment pronounced con- 
 cerning that whole or a portion of it. 
 
 A third Form of the Judgment, as indeed of all thought, 
 la Limitation. In predicating one notion of another, I at 
 the same time necessarily exclude everything to which 
 that predicate is opposed, and thereby limit the subject to 
 one alone of those contradictory determinations which 
 make up the universe of thought. In asserting, for exam- 
 pie, that gold is heavy, I as mnch exclude it from the class 
 
 18* 
 
210 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 ' InlRI 
 
 !«: 
 
 .•I , ' 
 
 of imponderables as I include it in that of bodies pos- 
 sessing weight. The canon that predicatio7i is limita- 
 tion is now indeed generally admitted as an axiom in 
 philosophy;! and the various metaphysical systems of 
 modem Germany, since the days of Kant, may be briefly 
 described as so many attempts to evade the consequences 
 of this principle, by constructing a philosophy of the un- 
 limited on a basis independent of logical predication. 
 
 The two forms of Quantity and Quality are generally 
 recognized by logicians of the school of Kant. To these 
 are added two others, delation and Modality/. The former 
 of these includes the three subdivisions of Categorical, 
 Hypothetical, and Disjunctive, and is necessarily included 
 among the forms of thought by those who adopt Kant's 
 theory of the nature of these three kinds of propositions. 
 But the view which has been taken of these in the last 
 chapter precludes the admission of Relation as a distinct 
 form from Quantity and Quality. Disjunctive judgments 
 have there been treated as reducible to Categorical forms ; 
 and Hypotheticals as containing, not a judgment, properly 
 speaking, but a consequence, formal or material. In this 
 case, the relation is not between the diflferent parts of a sin- 
 gle judgment, but between two judgments, one dependent 
 on the other. The judgment proper being thus confined 
 to the categorical form only, Relation becomes only a gen- 
 eral expression for the connection of subject and predicate 
 under certain conditions of quantity and quality, and thus 
 is not a special form of judgment, but a term equivalent 
 to Form in general. 
 
 1 Sec for example, among others, Fichte, Ueber den Grxtnd unseres Glau- 
 b^ an etne gOttliche Wdiregierung, p. 16 (Werke, y. p. 157); Gerichtliche 
 Verantwortung, p. 47 ( Werke, v. p. 2G5) ; Bestimnwng des Menschen ( Werke, 
 ii. p. 304); Hegel, Zoy,*:, P. i. b. ii. eh. 2, P. ii. ch. 2 ( Werke, iv. p. 26, r. 
 p. 70). 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 211 
 
 As regards Modality, judgments, according to Kant, are 
 of three kinds: problematical, assertorial, and apodeictical. 
 The first are accompanied by a consciousness of the bare 
 possibility of the judgment ; the second, by a conscious- 
 ness of its reality; the third, by a consciousness of 
 Its necessity. Modality is thus dependent on the man- 
 ner in which a certain relation between two concepts 
 is maintained, and may vary according to the state of 
 different minds; the given concepts, and consequently the 
 matter of the judgment, remaining unaltered.^ These 
 grounds are fully sufticient to establish modality, in the 
 extent to which it is acknowledged by Kant and by Aris- 
 totle,^ as, in a psychological point of view, belonging to 
 the form, not to the mamr, of judgment. It is conveyed 
 m the act of judging, not given in the preliminary mate- 
 rials, and affects the copula, not the predicate. But the 
 forms cognizable by Psychology must not be confounded 
 with the forms cognizable by Logic. The latter sciencTI 
 is not concerned, as is sometimes maintained, with the I 
 Forms of Thought in general, but only with the Forms 
 of Thought as related to pure or formal thinking. The \ 
 meaning of this limitation will appear more cleariy in thej 
 sequel. In this point of view. Modality stands on a very 
 different footing from Quantity and Quality. In cases 
 
 1 Kant, Logik, S 30. 
 
 « Aristotle, in the Be Interprelatione, ch. 12, enumerates four modes of 
 judgment: the necessary, the impossible, the contingent, and the possible. 
 The addition of the true and the false is, I think, founded on a misinter- 
 pretation. These modes he reduces, in the Prior Analytics, i. 2, to the ne- 
 cessary and the contingent (roC ^| kviyKr,, {,rdpxuy and rod 4yS4x^a^ai 
 inrapx^y). These, with the addition of the pure judgment (toC {nrdpxety) 
 correspond to the division of Kant. The spurious modes admitted in 
 abundance by the scholastic logicians are not forms of the judgment, but 
 modifications of one of its terms only. They affect, that is, the subject 
 alone, or the predicate alone, not the relation between the two. 
 
212 
 
 PROLBaOMKNA LOOICA. 
 
 Where a modal conclusion is drawn from modal premises, 
 It IS only the form of the conclusion a» a judgment that 
 differe from that of the pure syllogism : its relation to 
 the premises as a conclusion from them, consequently 
 the entire farm of th^ reasoning, is the same in both 
 Whereas, by the substitution of a negative premise for 
 an affirmative, or of a particular for a universal, the con- 
 clusiveness of the premises as necessitating a consequence, 
 and hence the whole form of the reasoning, will, in most 
 cases, vanish altogether. For this reason. Modality, though 
 psychologically a form of judgment, is not one of those 
 forms that properly fall within the province of Logic. This 
 will be made clearer when we come to treat of the matter 
 and form of syllogisms.' 
 
 As conception furnishes the material for an act of judg- 
 ment, so judgment furnishes the material for an act of 
 reasoning. The JIatter of the inference consisU in the 
 several propositions of which it is composed, and which 
 vary in every different instance : its Form appears in the 
 manner in which those propositions are invariably thought 
 as connected together as premises and conclusion. This 
 connection consists in the recognition of a relation of 
 identity or contradiction between the terms as given in 
 the antecedent and those connected by the act of reason- 
 Ing in the consequent. The Forms of the Syllogism may 
 thus be determined by the following question : Given two 
 judgments (no matter what may be their material signifi- 
 cation), what relations must exist between them to warrant 
 us in inferring a third judgment as their consequent? 
 
 In the first place, the premises and conclusion must 
 stand to Mch other in the relation of condition and con- 
 
 • On the disputed question of the relation of Modms to Logic, some flir- 
 ther rcmarlcs wiU bo found in the JppewKr, note H. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 213 
 
 ditioned. As the predicate of a judgment limits and 
 determines the subject, so the premises of a syllogism 
 must limit and determine the conclusion. Limitation is 
 thus a form of reasoning, as of all thinking ; the act of 
 reasoning being such as to determine the mind to one 
 actual conclusion out of two contradictory possibilities. 
 
 In the second place, since the terms of the conclusion 
 are not compared together directly, but through the 
 medium of a third, it is necessary that this third Concept 
 should be compared with each of the others. This com- 
 parison, as we have seen in the last chapter, results in a 
 reLition either of identity or contradiction ; the objects 
 denoted by the two concepts being pronounced identical 
 when the premise is affirmative, and contradictory when 
 It IS negative ; and a similar relation being consequently 
 inferred to exist between the concepts compared together 
 in the conclusion. The Forms which the Syllogism ex- 
 hibits in these relations are those of Mood andlfgure 
 affirmative or negative, which show us what relations of 
 Identity or contradiction in the premises of a Sylloc^ism 
 may legitimately determine a similar relation in the con- 
 elusion. 
 
 Inferences, as well as judgments, are in some cases the 
 result of an act of mixed thinking; of reasoning, that is, in 
 conjunction with an appeal to experience. This is some- 
 times distinguished by logicians as material consequence: 
 the strictly logical operation being designated formal. In 
 the eariier portion of the present chapter it has been neces- 
 sary to avoid this nomenclature; the object havinrr been 
 to show that in every act of thought, pure or mixed, the 
 product exhibits the distinct features of a matter ..iven to 
 and a form given bg, the thinker. The matter and form 
 01 thought are thus by no means coextensive with material 
 
214 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LO(JICA. 
 
 «l 
 
 l|l#' 
 
 and formal thinking; and it becomes, therefore, necessary 
 to examine separately the propriety of these last expres- 
 sions, and to determine what is the exact sense in which 
 Logic is defined to be a Formal Science. 
 P The distinction between formal and material, or, as for 
 tlie present it is better to term them, between pure and 
 mixed thinking, has not in general been consistently fol- 
 lowed out by logicians. They have allowed the existence 
 of material consequences in which the conclusion does not 
 follow from the given premises, but requires additional 
 data from experience; and these they have rightly regarded 
 as extralogical; but tliey have not observed that the same 
 distinction is applicable to Apprehension and Judgment, 
 as well as to reasoning; that there are pure and mixed 
 concepts and judgments, as well as pure and mixed rea- 
 sonings; and that in every case the province of Logic is 
 with the first only. In consequence of this, the province 
 of Logic has been by some too much widened, and by 
 others too much narrowed. On the one side, we are told 
 that it can remedy indistinctness of apprehension and fal- 
 sity of judgment — a pretension which, announced without 
 limitation, is peifectly absurd; and on the other side, it 
 has been described as concerned with the operation of rea- 
 soning only; apprehension and judgment being considered 
 only in subordination to tliis. Keither view has been con- 
 sistently carried out. The advocates of the former ought 
 to have included within the province of Logic, Induction, 
 Analogy, and the whole field of probable reasoning; while 
 the advocates of the latter ought to have exten'ded the 
 signification of the term reasoning;, so as to include those 
 forms of pure thinking which are governed by the same 
 laws as the formal syllogism. 
 It would be more coiTect to distinguish, with regard to 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 215 
 
 all the three operations of the understanding, between 
 those errors which arise from a defect in the thought itself, 
 and those which arise from a defect in the corresponding 
 experience. For example : my conception of a particular 
 flower is obscure, when I have not noticed it so closely as 
 to be able to distinguish it as a whole from certain others ; 
 it is indistinct, when I know it as a whole, but have not 
 analyzed it so minutely as to be able to enumerate its 
 botanical characteristics. In these cases the defect is em- 
 pirical, and can only be remedied by closer attention to 
 the individual flowers of that kind. But, on the other 
 hand, my conception may be obscure, as containing attri- 
 butes inconsistent with the existence of its object as an 
 individual whole; or it may be indistinct, as containing 
 attributes incapable of coexisting with each other as parts 
 of a whole. Thus we may be told to conceive a flower of 
 no color at all, or a flower which shall be both red and 
 white on the same part of the same leaf In these cases 
 the defect is in the thought itself; and, accordingly, Logic 
 18 competent to declare the supposed object inconceivable. 
 Again, a judgment may be empirically false, as asserting a 
 combination of attributes never actually found in experi- 
 ence ; as if it is asserted that a horse has five legs. It 
 may be logically false, as coupling together attri butes'which 
 contradict each other; as if it is asserted that a quadruped 
 has five legs. In the former case, I can contradict the as- 
 sertion only by an appeal to the experience of all who are 
 acquainted with the animal ; in the latter, I can contradict 
 n on logical grounds, as false in the thought itself An 
 inference, in like manner, may be empirically inconsequent, 
 as grounded on a relation of phenomena not invariable in 
 nature ; it may be logically inconsequent, as deduced from 
 premises not necessitating it by the laws of thought. Thus, 
 
216 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 m 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 if I am asked whether tliis particular fall of the barometer 
 is a ground for asserting that it will rain within twelve 
 hours, I can only reply, as a logician, that it is so, if all 
 falls of the barometer are so ; but whether this is the case 
 in flict, cannot be decided by logic, but by experience. On 
 the other hand, if it be expressly stated that some falls only 
 of the barometer are indications of rain within twelve hours, 
 I can at once decide that it is logically inconsequent to 
 reason from a merely partial rule to any single instance : 
 the rain may in this case be expected with more or less 
 probability, but it cannot be inferred as a certainty. 
 
 It thus appears that, in all the three operations of the 
 understanding, Logic is equally competent to detect their 
 internal vices, as thoughts transgressing their own laws; 
 and that in all it is equally incompetent to detect their 
 external vices, as thoughts inconsistent with experience. 
 It can detect the inconceivability of a notion, the self- 
 contradiction of a judgment, the inconsequence of a con- 
 ( elusion, as not necessitated by given premises. It cannot 
 supply the empirical deficiencies of a notion, nor determine 
 the real existence of its object; it cannot ascertain the 
 truth or falsehood of a judgment as a statement of a fact ; 
 it cannot decide as to the necessary sequence of a conclu- 
 sion from understood premises, or the probability of its 
 truth where the given premises are insufficient to necessi- 
 tate it by the laws of thought. It remains to ascertain 
 the exact meaning of the expressions fonnal and material 
 thinUng, as applied respectively to those operations which 
 do or do not fall within the province of Logic. 
 
 Law and Form, though correlative terms, must not, in 
 strict accuracy, be used as synonymous. The former is 
 used properly with reference to an operation ; the latter, 
 with reference to its product. Conceiving, Judging, Rea- 
 
 21T 
 
 Boning, are subject to certain laws ; Concepts, Judgments, 
 Syllogisms, exhibit certain forms. But the laws of tliought 
 are not always competent to determine its form, as has 
 been already shown in the case of all the products oV mixed 
 thinking. In a synthetical judgment, for example, the 
 laws of thought can determine only its possible truth, which 
 equally implies its possible falsehood ; thus leaving it alto- 
 gether undecided whether the form of the judgmen't should 
 be affirmative or negative, universal or particular. The 
 form in all these cases is determined by that universal ten- 
 dency of the human mind, which has been noticed in a 
 foi-mer chapter, the tendency to regard physical phenomena 
 fts indicating the existence of a substance or a cause similar 
 to that of which we are directly conscious in our own men- 
 tal states and operations. It is thus that, when experience 
 presents certain phenomena in juxtaposition, the mind is 
 invariably led to regard them as attributes of one and the 
 same substance ; and this constitutes the form of all mixed 
 concepts and judgments. And in like manner, when one 
 phenomenon is the invariable consequent of another, the 
 mind is irresistibly led to regard them as respectively cause 
 and effi.»ct; and this constitutes the form in all cases of 
 mixed inference. The same tendencies which thus co- 
 operate with the presentations of experience in the acts of 
 mixed thinking, cooperate in like manner with the laws of 
 thought in acts of pure thinking. In the former case, the 
 attributes are given as empirically related as intuitions; 
 in the latter, they are given as logically related as thoughts; 
 and in both they are regarded as mutually related to some' 
 unknown substance or cause. But that these tendencies, 
 however universal or irresistible, cannot properiy be re- 
 garded as laws of thought or of intuition, is manifest from 
 the fact, that they furnish no criterion for determining the 
 
 19 
 
218 
 
 PBOLEQOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 219 
 
 
 :l 
 
 legitimacy or illegitimacy of any product. Thoughts, 
 whether empirically true or false, whether logically sound 
 or unsound, in this rcsi)ect present precisely the same 
 features. An assertion, false in point of fact, or self-con- 
 tradictory in point of thought, contains, as regards the 
 supposed relation of attributes to a common substance, 
 precisely the same form as one logically and empirically 
 valid. The Principles of Substance and Causality are thus 
 rather negative conditions than positive laws of thought. 
 They have a psychological relation to thought as it actu- 
 ally exists, explaining and accounting for the fact of its 
 invariably assuming a certain form ; but they have no logi- 
 cal relation to thought as it ought to be, and furnish no 
 criterion of its validity in any special instance. 
 
 Logical or pure thinking is not, therefore, called formal, 
 because its product exhibits a form ; for the coexistence 
 of matter and form is common to all thought, and to all 
 spurious imitations of thought. But the justification of 
 the terms formal and material^ as applied to pure and 
 mixed processes of thinking, is to be found in the circum- 
 stance, that in tlie former the act of thought is based on 
 the form only of the preliminary data, without reference 
 to the particular matter ; while, on the other hand, matter 
 is necessarily taken into account in every process of 
 mixed thinking. To an act of logical conception, for ex- 
 ample, it is not necessary to examine in any case the 
 special character of the attributes, as having been actually 
 combined in experience ; but only that they should be 
 compatible with the possible existence of an object in 
 space or time. In an act of logical judgment, one of the 
 given concepts being always comprehended in the other, 
 it is indifferent of what special attributes either is com- 
 posed, provided they possess sufficient clearness and dis- 
 
 tinctness to enable the mind to discern the relation 
 between them. In an act of logical reasoning, the validity 
 of the conclusion depends solely on the quantity and 
 quality of the given premises, without any reference to 
 the particular terms of which they are composed. In allTl 
 so long as the formal relation of the data remains the » 
 same, the matter may be changed as we please, without 
 affecting the logical value of the thought. In mixed 
 thinking, on the other hand, the matter is of principal im- 
 portance. To determine that this or that object of con- 
 ception actually exists, that this or that judgment is in 
 accordance with experience, that this or that inference is 
 sufficiently probable to furnish a reasonable motive to 
 action, we require to be guided by a knowledge of the 
 nature and circumstances of the particular object in ques- 
 tion. And it is for this reason that all examples of logical 
 thinking are better expressed by means of arbitrary sym- 
 bols than of significant terms ; not that it is in any case 
 possible to think without some matter or other, but be- 
 cause it is wholly indiflferent what matter we may at the 
 time be thinking about ; and, therefore, by employing an , 
 unmeaning sign, indifferently representative of any object' 
 of thought, we are enabled to clear the process from any , 
 accidental admixture of material knowledge, and to ex- i 
 hibit the form alone in its proper relation to the laws of i 
 thought. ^ 
 
 In accordance with the view here given of Form and 
 Formal Processes, it will be proper to modify slightly 
 some of the definitions of Logic given by those philos- 
 ophers whose views have been principally followed in the 
 present work. Logic, to omit less accurate views of its 
 nature, has been defined as the Science of the bare Form 
 

 220 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 of Thought,! or as the Science of the Formal Laws of 
 Thought; 2— definitions which, though substantially ap- 
 proaching far nearer to the truth than any antagonist 
 view, still leave something to desire in point of verbal 
 accuracy. The term formal strictly belongs rather to the 
 process of pure thinking than to the laws by which it is reg- 
 ulated, or to the science which takes cognizance of thenT; 
 and Logic is not the science of the Forms of Thought in 
 general, but only of such as are subservient to other pro- 
 cesses of formal thinking. Other forms, such as modality, 
 fall without the province of Logic, and within that of 
 Psychology ; to which latter science, indeed, all the forms 
 and laws of thought belong in their relation to the consti- 
 tution of the thinking subject. To Logic, on the other 
 hand, belong the same forms and laws in relation to those 
 acts and products of pure thinking which are suggested 
 by the one and governed by the other. If, therefore, 
 slightly altering the language of the above definitions, wj 
 define Logic as the Science of the Laws and Products of 
 Pure or Formal Thinking,^ we shall express with tolerable 
 accuracy its character and province, according to the views 
 advocated in the preceding pages. 
 
 1 Kant, Logtlc, Einleltunj!: T- ; HoflTbaner, Logik, S 17. 
 ' Sir W. Hamilton, Diacusitiom, p. 119. 
 
 8 This coincides nearly with the definition given by Sir W. Hamilton 
 (Beid's Works, p. 698), The science of the laws of thought as thought. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE THOUGHT. 
 
 Logic has been described by Kant as the science of the 
 necessary laws of the understanding and of the reason. 
 Psychologically, the propriety of this division of the men- 
 tal faculties has been called in question by eminent critics.^ 
 And in a logical point of view it is untenable, i^ as I have 
 endeavored to show, judgment and reasoning, in so far as 
 they are logical processes, are both governed by the same 
 laws, and must be referred to the same faculty. In the 
 present chapter, however, it is proposed to examine an- 
 other expression of the same definition, and to inquire in 
 what sense the Laws of Thought can properly be called 
 necessary. Kant employed this term to distinguish the 
 laws of thought in general from those of thought as em-, 
 ployed upon any definite class of objects ; it being optional 
 with every man, and therefore contingent, whether he shall 
 exercise his understanding on one class of objects rather 
 than another.^ This distinction I have preferred to express 
 m other words, by separating pure or formal from mixed 
 or material thinking; but the Kantian phraseology may 
 serve to introduce a subject, the right understanding of 
 which is of considerable importance in Logic : the diflfer- 
 
 I Amonp: others, by Sir William Hamilton {Biscussions, p. 17), and by »f. 
 Cousin {L&^ns sur la phUosaphie de Kant, L. vi.). 
 * Kant, Logik, Einleitung I. 
 
 19* 
 
222 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 223 
 
 ence, namely, between positive and negative thinking. 
 The phrase necessary laws of thought, if such language is 
 allowable, ought to imply that we cannot think at all ex- 
 cept under their conditions ; and yet it is notorious that 
 such laws are daily transgressed, that nothing is more com- 
 mon than illogical reasoning. To reconcile the language 
 with the fact is the object of the following observations. 
 
 Illogical reasoning may be of two very different kinds. 
 It may violate the laws of thought in cases where they are 
 applicable, or it may endeavor to extend them to cases 
 where they are not applicable. The oifence in the former 
 case consists in attempting to draw a conclusion opposed 
 to that which the laws require ; in the latter, in attempt- 
 ing to draw a conclusion where none can be legitimately 
 inferred. Thus we may, verljally at least, reason, "All A 
 is B ; all C is A ; therefore no C is B." Or we may reason, 
 "All A is B; some C is not A; therefore some C is not 
 B." If the laws of thought are in the strict sense ne- 
 cessary, i. e,, obligatory upon every act of thinking, it will 
 follow that these supposed reasonings are neither of them 
 acts of thought at all. 
 
 It is, of coui-se, always possible to compose a verbal rcjv 
 resentation of a thought in which the rules of Logic shall 
 be violated, and to understand fully the meaning of each 
 word of which it is composed. The test, however, of the 
 reality of a thought does not lie in the possibility of asser- 
 Hon, but in the possibility of conception ;^ in the power, 
 that is to say, of combining the given attributes in a single 
 image representative of an individual object of intuition.* 
 
 1 Ov ykp vphs rhy r^a> \Syoy r} iir<J«€i(it, AXAi vphs thy iy if t^wxi?* ^^^^ 
 oitZ^ avWoyiafi6s. 'Afi yiip tcriy dytrrTjyai irphs rhy K^m A^oif, iAAi wpbs 
 why tffti Xiyoy ovk if/. — Arist. Anal. Post. I. 10, 6. 
 I * It will be necessary here to bear in mind what has been observed before, 
 
 I may make use of the words a round square, or a bilinear 
 figure; but the terms imply no conception, because the 
 attributes cannot be united in an image. These words, 
 therefore, are not the signs of thought, but only express the 
 negation of any object on which thought can be exercised.^ 
 
 And such, in ultimate analysis, will be seen to be the 
 case with all verbal combinations in which the laws of 
 formal thinking are violated ; whether directly, by denying 
 their authority in cases to which they are applicable, or 
 indirectly, by attempting to apply them to cases where 
 they are not applicable. The only difference between 
 these two offences is, that in the former case the product 
 is no thought whatever ; in the latter, it is not that kind 
 of thought which it professes to be. 
 
 Let us suppose, for example, a syllogistic conclusion! 
 verbally asserted, the reverse of that which the laws of i 
 thought require ; such as, "All A is B, all C is A, therefore! 
 some C is not B." This reasoning supposes the possibility^ 
 of conceiving a C which shall at the same time be B and 
 not B. Tried by this test, the form of words is ascertained 
 to be representative of no thought at all. 
 
 On the other hand, in a case where the law of reasonin"* 
 18 not applicable, as in the apparent syllogism, « All Y is 
 [some] Z, no X is [any] Y, therefore no X is [any] Z," the 
 thought is annihilated as a syllogism only : as a mere judg- 
 ment, the concluding proposition may or may not be true ; 
 and there is no impossibility in conceiving an X which is 
 neither Y nor Z. But, as a syllogism, it maintains that X 
 is not Z, because it is not Y; in other words, that nothing 
 
 that all conception implies imajjinatlon, though* all Imagination does not 
 imply conception. See p. 33. 
 
 1 See, on this subject, an excellent note in Sir W. Hamilton's edition of 
 iiod, p. 377. 
 
224 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 41 
 
 225 
 
 \ 
 
 which is not Y can be Z, or that all Z is Y; — an assertion 
 which again involves a contradiction of the major premise, 
 which, in asserting that all Y is some Z only, implies at 
 the same time that some Z is not Y. This contradiction 
 is not so apparent in the ordinary form of the affirmative 
 proposition, in which the predicate is expressed as indefi- 
 nite, though thought as particular ; and thus the elliptical 
 and imperfect language of common Logic has caused to be 
 overlooked the important truth, that illogical thinking is 
 j inrealltg no thinking at all. 
 
 The language of this chapter may recall to the mind of 
 the reader a distinction made in an earlier portion of the 
 present work, between positive and negative ideas. A 
 comparison of the two cases will serve to show that the 
 expression negative thinking, or negation of thought, is 
 properly applicable to both, though in different relations 
 and on different grounds. Positive thinking implies two 
 conditions : firstly, the material condition, that certain at- 
 tributes be given as united in a concept ; secondly, the 
 formal condition that the concept be capable of individu- 
 alization, i. e., that the attributes be such as can coexist in 
 an object perceived or imagined. If either of these con- 
 ditions be wanting, we are deficient in the sine qua non of 
 actual thought. A given fonn of words may thus in two 
 different ways be void of a thought corresponding. We 
 may be unable to conceive separately one or more of the 
 attributes given, or we may be unable to conceive them in 
 combination. The former is the case when we have never 
 been personally conscious of the said attribute as presented; 
 the latter is the case when the several presentations are 
 incompatible with each other. 
 
 From defect in the first of these conditions, a man bom 
 blind may be said to have a negative idea of light, which 
 
 he knows only as something different from darkness, and, 
 consequently, of the various colors, which are different 
 modifications of light ; and any man, in like manner, has 
 but a negative idea of a color which he has not actually 
 sceu.^ The blind man may be able to distinguish a sphere 
 from a cube, by touch ; but if he is told that the ball which 
 he has in his hand is white, he cannot connect the word 
 with any sensation of which he has been at any time con- 
 scious. And in like manner, a man who has seen white 
 objects only has no idea of red ; he knows it only as some 
 color which he has not seen. In this manner it is that we 
 have negative ideas only of many of the objects on which 
 men most boldly speculate. Such is the case with all our 
 speculations on causality, as existing apart from the con- 
 scious exertion of power ; on substance, other than as a 
 conscious self; on consciousness in general, apart from the 
 conditions of space and time. Of these we can only speak 
 as a causality which is not our causality; as a substance 
 different from our substance ; as a consciousness unlike our 
 consciousness.^ The same is the case with all tlie spec- 
 ulations of our reason concerning infinity and infinite 
 attributes as such. By removing the condition of limi- 
 tation, we remove the only condition under which such 
 attributes have ever been presented to our consciousness. 
 Further speculation is not thought, but its negation. 
 
 ' In the first of these instances the nej^ative Idea is so obscure as to be 
 tantamount in its actual result to no idea at all. Still the corresponding 
 state of mind is not one of pure quiescence, or mere absence of thouj^^ht. 
 A blind man who had lived all his life among a nation of blind men, and 
 who had thus never been led to infer the existence of visible objects at all, 
 would be in a different state from one who is continually told of things 
 which he is unable to see, and whose mind is consequently roused to an 
 effort, though an ineffectual one. 
 
 * Cf. Damiron, Psj/chohgie, vol. ii. p. 221. 
 
ill 
 
 «i 
 
 226 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 The second condition fails in cases of illogical thinking, 
 all of which may be shown ultimately to annihilate them- 
 selves by involving a contradiction. And in these cases 
 the attempt to individualize the thought furnishes at once 
 a decisive criterion of its negative character. In the for- 
 mer instances, the thought is only ultimately discovered 
 to be unattainable from the failure of every attempt to 
 realize it ; in the present case, the attributes can be im- 
 mediately determined to be unthinkable, as mutually 
 destroying one another. The former may be distinguished 
 as materially or relatively negative from the absence of 
 the requisite data for thinking ; the latter are formally or 
 absolutely negative^ as containing data which offend against 
 the universal laws of human thought. The former might 
 become positive if man were furnished with a new sense, 
 or any additional faculty of intuition ; the latter could 
 only become so by a complete inversion of the existing 
 constitution of his mind. The negative character of the 
 first is shown by Psychology, which ascertains empirically 
 the limitations to which the mind is subject in the accu- 
 mulation of materials for thinking ; the negative character 
 of the second is shown by Logic, which lays down a priori 
 the conditions to which all materials, whencesoever de- 
 rived, must be subjected in the formation of thought. 
 
 It is of the utmost importance to distinguish these two 
 kinds of negative thinking, the material or psychological, 
 and the formal or logical, from each other. No error in 
 philosophy is more frequent in its occurrence, or more per- 
 nicious in its results, than a confusion on this point. Men 
 are apt to mistake the absence of the materials for one 
 thought for the presence of materials for its opposite ; — 
 to imagine that it is all one to be unable to think of an 
 object as existing, and to be able to think of it as not ex- 
 
 PROLEQOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 22T 
 
 ! i 
 
 isting; — to fancy that certain positions are condemned by 
 the laws of the understanding, when the fact is only that 
 their materials have not been given in an intuition ; — to 
 suppose that to be rejected by reason which in truth has 
 never come in contact with reason at all. 
 
 To examine in detail the prominent instances of the 
 above confusion, which are plentifully exhibited by some 
 of the so-called philosophers of the present time, would 
 require a work of a higher and more controversial charac- 
 ter than the present. I shall content myself with selecting 
 two examples, one ancient and one modern, as specimens 
 of the confident manner in which men of all ages, and 
 under all religious systems, have been prone to dogma- 
 tize upon the highest matters of speculation, upon no 
 better basis than the absence of all materials for speculat- 
 ing at all. 
 
 Aristotle's well-known argument, to prove that the hap- 
 piness of the gods consists in contemplation, is based on 
 the ground that we cannot attribute to them moral attri- 
 butes in the only way in which such attributes come within 
 the sphere of human consciousness, viz., under the limita- 
 tions and imperfections consequent upon human passioa 
 and human error. What scope, he asks, can there be for 
 fortitude, where there is no pain to undergo ; or for tem- 
 perance, where there are no evil desires to keep in check? ^ 
 But the reasoning is incomplete. Cotta, in Cicero, pursu- 
 ing the same principle to its ultimate consequences, shows 
 clearly that we must equally deny of the Deity the pos- 
 BOflBion of any intellectual as well as of any moral quality. 
 What is the object of reason and intelligence but to gain 
 a knowledge of that which is obscure ? What is the pur- 
 pose of contemplation but to gain a closer insight into 
 
 i 
 
 s^. 
 
 » BOi. Nic. X. 8. 
 

 228 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 the nature of the things contemplated ? Intellectual at- 
 tainments have the same relation to human ignorance that 
 moral virtues have to human frailty.^ 
 
 The error of both these reasonings is the same : it con- 
 sists in mistaking a psychological deficiency for a logical 
 impossibility. To determine in thought that certain at- 
 tributes cannot exist in any being except under given con- 
 ditions of manifestation, it would be necessary that we 
 should have had personal experience of the abrogation of 
 those conditions, and of the absolute destruction of the 
 attributes in consequence. But such an experience in the 
 present case is, ex hypothesis impossible ; the conditions 
 being those to which the universal human consciousness is 
 subject. To pronounce how consciousness exists in beings 
 of a different nature from ourselves, it would be necessary 
 that we should be capable of possessing their nature and 
 faculties, as well as our own, and of comparing the two 
 together by the aid of a third power independent of 
 either. To pronounce that certain modes of* consciousness 
 cannot exist save as they exist to us, it is necessary that 
 we should have personally tried every other possible rela- 
 tion of modes of consciousness to a conscious subject. 
 Until human experience has extended thus far, to limit the 
 province of faith by that of reason, — to say that xchat we 
 cannot compass in thought we may not believe as existing^ 
 — is to pass from criticism to dogmatism, a dognmtism rest- 
 ing its claims to dictation on a complete ignorance of the 
 matter in which it dictates. 
 
 The modern Atheism of the German philosopher Feuer- 
 bach is based on a similar confusion. It assumes that the 
 measure of what man is to believe is to be determined by 
 what he can grasp in an act of positive thought ; in 6ther 
 
 1 Cicero, De Naiura Deorum, iii. 15. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 229 
 
 words, that the mere absence of the necessaiy data for 
 thinking at all is tantamount to a logical determination of 
 the non-existence of a corresponding object. God, accord- 
 ing to this system, is but humanity deified in its intel- 
 lectual, or moral, or physical attributes, according to the 
 varying condition, characters, and wants of this or that 
 people ; but in all, according to one form or another of 
 Anthropomorphism. 
 
 Falsehood is only dangerous from its possessing a certain 
 portion of a mutilated truth. The one element of truth 
 which underlies the Atheism of the Essence ofReligio^x^ 
 is the fact, that finite thought can only be positively exer- 
 cised on finite objects. Thought, on its positive side, is 
 ultimately tested by the individualization of concepts. 
 To effect this, they must be referred to the representative 
 image of some actual state of consciousness, — sensation, 
 volition, affection, etc. In attempting to grasp the Deity 
 as an object of positive thought, to speculate beyond 
 what is revealed to us of the divine attributes as mani- 
 fested in relation and accommodation to human faculties, 
 man can only bring God down to his own level, and exer- 
 cise his reason on those analogous attributes of which he 
 has had experience in his personal consciousness. The 
 error consists in overlooking the religious feelings and 
 affections, as a distinct class of psychological facts, co- 
 ordinate with, not subordinate to, the thinking faculty. 
 The history of mankind in general, as well as the con- 
 sciousness of each individual, alike testify that religion is 
 not a function of thought ; and that the attempt to make 
 
 1 With this work, and others of the same author, I am acquainted 
 through the French translation by M. Ewcrbeck, entitled, Q,n\st<e que la 
 BeUffion d'apres la nouveOe phzlosophie AUemande. 
 
 20 
 
230 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 it 
 
 im^ 
 
 IK 
 
 it so, if consistently earned out, necessarily leads, firstly 
 to Anthropomorphism, and ultimately to Atheism. 
 
 The incompetency of such reasoning to prove its con- 
 clusion is manifest from the fact, that the mental phenom- 
 ena on which alone it rests, must, from the nature of the 
 case, be precisely the same, whether that conclusion be 
 true or false. If human thought is subject to laws and 
 limitations, formal and material, the mode and the sphere 
 of positive thinking must be such as those laws and limi- 
 tations require, whether there exist objects beyond it or 
 not. But the hypothesis, indispensable to the rationalist, 
 that the sphere of thought and that of being are coexten- 
 sive, fails altogether to account for the phenomenon of 
 negative thinking ; to explain, that is, how it can be that 
 man, in the exercise of thought, ever finds himself encom- 
 passed with conditions and restrictions, which he is ever 
 striving to pass, and ever failing in the effort ; that he ever 
 feels himself in the presence of yearnings unsatisfied and 
 doubts unsolved ; — yearnings which countless accessions 
 to the domain of thought have left as vague and restless 
 as before ; — doubts which centuries of speculation have 
 made no progress toward answering. These and such like 
 humiliating truths, altogether inexplicable on the arrogant 
 assumption of a human God contemplating the products 
 of his creative intellect,^ are the natural and necessary fea- 
 tures of our position, if we believe that man, as individual 
 
 1 " Ueber die Natur philosophiren," says Schelling, " heisst die Natur 
 schaffcn." 
 
 " Die Lofrik," says Hegel, " zeigt die Erhebung der Idee zu dcr Stufo 
 von daraas sic die Schopferin der Natur wird." In the same spirit, Logic 
 is declared to be, " Die Darstellang Gottes, wie er in seinem ewigen.Wesen 
 vor der Erschaffiing dcr Natur und eines endlicben Geistes 1st.' 
 
 The mock thunder of Salrooneus was modesty itself to this. 
 
 » 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 231 
 
 or as species, is but a lower intelligence in the midst of 
 the works of a higher; a being of finite intuitions, sur- 
 rounded by partial indications of the Unlimited, of finite 
 thought, contemplating partial revelations of the Incom- 
 prehensible. 
 
 ii\ 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OP LOGIC AS RELATED TO OTHER MENTAL SCIENCES. 
 
 A DIVISION was early established in philosophy between 
 the Logica docens and the Logica utens ; the one con- 
 cerned with the pure laws and forms of thought, the other 
 with the application of thought to this or that object- 
 matter. The relations of the latter it is not ray present 
 purpose to examine. Every art or science, in so far as it 
 contains reasonings on its own special objects, may be re- 
 garded as furnishing an instance of the Logica utens; 
 and in this point of view Logic has no special affinity with 
 one branch of knowledge rather than another. But in 
 relation to the Logica docens^ there are three branches of 
 science, real or apparent, which, from community of object 
 and method, as well as from historical connection, demand 
 a more special consideration. 
 
 The three sciences in question are Grammar, Psychology, 
 and Metaphysics. Rhetoric, from an association with Logic 
 and Grammar in the mediaeval Trivium, might also bo 
 thought to have a special claim on our attention. But, in 
 truth. Rhetoric is connected by community of object-matter 
 rather with the art of Dialectic, as exhibited in the Topics 
 of Aristotle and the Probable Syllogisms of the Scholastic 
 Logic, than with the formal science as treated of in the 
 present work. Its relation to the latter is only by way of 
 application, inasmuch as logical forms may bo applied in 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICl, 
 
 233 
 
 rhetorical exercises ; a relation which reduces it to a level 
 with any other employment of the Logica utens. With 
 Psychology, indeed, its connection is far more intimate, 
 but on the opposite side from that by which the same sci- 
 ence is related to Logic. Logic, as the science of the laws 
 and products of the understanding, is related to Psychology 
 through the medium of the speculative and discursive fac- 
 ulties. Rhetoric, as concerned with the movement of the 
 will, is related on the side of the emotional and practical 
 faculties, and is thus correctly described by Aristotle as an 
 o&hoot of Dialectic and Moral Philosophy. 
 
 On the other hand, Psychology, Metaphysics, and Gram- 
 mar, are intimately connected with the faculties, the laws, 
 and the instruments of the universal process of thought,— 
 a connection which has been recognized, with more or less 
 clearness, from the origin of Logic to the present time. 
 The Categories, from the days of Aristotle downwards, 
 have been disputed ground between Logic and Metaphys- 
 ics, and are treated of by the Stagirite himself in connec- 
 tion with both sciences. The treatise ir^pi cp/ATymas, whose 
 title, sorely misnomered by various translatoi-s, might be 
 adequately expressed in English by, " Of Language as the 
 interpretation of Thought," ^ is, in the eariy portion, devoted 
 to grammatical definitions and distinctions. Psychology 
 also, though less prominently introduced, claims her share 
 in the multifarious matter of the Organon ; in the account 
 of the processes of sensation, memory, and experience, as 
 subsidiary to induction. 
 
 Were we indeed to start from the whole Organon of 
 
 1 For various interpretations of Interpretation, Bee M. St. Hilaire, De la 
 Logique d'Aristote, p. i. ch. 10. The version given in the text corresponds 
 to that by Isidore of Seville: " Omnis elocutio concept» rei interpres est: 
 Inde perihermeniam nominant qoam interpretationem nos appellamos." 
 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOIOA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 235 
 
 m 
 
 Aristotle, as a uniform treatise on a single subject, it 
 would be difficult to accommodate its contents to any 
 modern classification of the mental sciences. But it may 
 fairly be questioned whether even the authority of the 
 philosopher himself can be adduced in support of such a 
 proceeding. While we cannot help admitting, with Sir 
 William Hamilton,^ that the incorrect notions which have 
 prevailed, and still prevail, in regard to the nature and 
 province of Logic, are mainly to be attributed to the au- 
 thority of the father of the science, it may be doubted how 
 far that authority has been put to a legitimate use by his 
 followers. The same eminent critic to whom we have 
 just referred has observed, in another place, that there is 
 required for the metaphysician not less imagination than 
 for the poet ; that it may, in fact, be doubted whether 
 Homer or Aristotle possessed this faculty in greater vigor.* 
 The two authors here placed in juxtaposition may be com- 
 pared in more respects than that of their mental powers. 
 The influence of Homer in Poetry has been similar to that 
 of Aristotle in Philosophy; yet, while, from the Father of 
 Criticism to the present day, there has never been wanting 
 a champion to maintain against all impugners the unity of 
 design of the Iliad, and its exact relation to a beginning, a 
 middle, and an end, the primary argument of this *'one 
 entire and perfect chrysolite" has been almost as much 
 disputed among critics as the question of the definition of 
 Logic. Different portions of the poem have been pro- 
 nounced genuine or spurious, according to this or that 
 conception of the poet's design ; and, finally, it has even 
 been maintained that the model of all succeeding Epics is 
 little more than a fortuitous concourse of atoms, the frag- 
 
 ^ DiscussionSf p. 141. 
 
 2 Bad's Works, p. 99. 
 
 ments of distinct rhapsodists. The Organon of Aristotle 
 has had a similar fate. Various have been the conjectures 
 concerning its design and method. Portions have been at 
 different times regarded as logical, as grammatical, as meta- 
 physical ; nor have there been wanting critics to deny the 
 genuineness of this or that part. The parallel might be 
 carried further. The different portions of the Iliad are 
 said to have been collected and arranged in the time of 
 Pisistratus, about three hundred and forty years after the 
 date assigned by Herodotus (rightly or wrongly) to the 
 birth of the poet ; and the writings of Aristotle are gener- 
 ally supposed to have received their present form and ar- 
 rangement at the hands of Andronicus of Rhodes, a philos- 
 opher who flourished about three centuries later than the 
 Stagirite. I am not indeed aware that any critic has been 
 bold enough to maintain a thoroughly Wolfian hypothesis 
 of the origin of the Organon ; and yet there are not want- 
 ing grounds on which a not very different theory might bo 
 supported ; not indeed as regards the authorship, but cer- 
 tainly as regards the unity of design of the work. The 
 title by which the collected treatises are known is undoubt- 
 edly of recent origin ; it is not found in Aristotle himself, 
 nor in any of his earlier commentators ; and, as far as ex- 
 isting evidence can determine, it appeai-s not to have been 
 in common use before the fifteenth century .^ The several 
 treatises themselves are invariably mentioned by their au- 
 thor as distinct works under distinct titles ; and even after 
 the time of Andronicus, commentaries were generally writ- 
 ten, not on the Organon as a whole, but separately on its 
 constituent parts. If from the books we turn to the mat- 
 ters of which they treat, the result is the same. Logic, as 
 the name of an Art or Science, does not once occur in the 
 
 * St. Ililafre, De la Logiqne d'Aristote, vol. i. p. 19. 
 
236 
 
 PBOLEQOMENA LOQICA. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 237 
 
 If 
 
 wi-itings of Aristotle; and the cognate adjective and adverb 
 are used in a peculiar and much more restricted sense than 
 that which has subsequently been given to them. The 
 names sanctioned by the philosopher himself such as 
 Analytic and Dialectic, are commensurate with portions 
 only of the Oiganon ; the division of Philosophy into 
 Logic, Physics, and Ethics, adopted by the Stoics, and 
 sometimes attributed (on questionable grounds) to Plato, 
 receives no sanction from the Stagirite ; indeed, he adopts 
 a classification in many respects at variance with it, dis- 
 tinguishing theoretical philosophy from practical and pro- 
 ductive, and dividing the first into three branches, Physics, 
 Mathematics, and Theology.* 
 
 Leaving, then, altogether the question of authority, and 
 adopting the formal view of Logic taken in the preceding 
 pages as the only one which promises to secure for the 
 science what it has so long needed, an exact definition and 
 a determined field of inquiry, I shall proceed to examine 
 the relation in which Logic, as thus exhibited, stands to- 
 wards the cognate sciences of Psychology, Grammar, and 
 Metaphysics. 
 
 Of Psychology something has already been said in the 
 earlier portion of the present Essay. Logic deals with the 
 products of the several thinking acts, with concepts, with 
 judgments, with reasonings, as, according to certain as- 
 
 1 Metaph. T. 1. Mr. Karslakc {Aids, p. 10) speaks of the Organon ai 
 presentin;? so coherent a system, that the assertion that it contains a few 
 only of Aristotle's logical works is doabtfal. To me there appears little 
 more of coherence than may naturally be expected in distinct writings of 
 the same author on any question of Grammar, Analytic, Dialectic, or 
 Khetoric. And, as far as we can conjecture from existing evidence, it is 
 most probable that the several books were written in the reverse oi^der of 
 that in which they are now arranged. See Burgcrsdyck, Inst. Log. Praef.; 
 Fries, Systaa dor Logik, p. 15. 
 
 Bumed laws of thinking, they ought to be or not to be.^ It 
 is competent to test the validity of all such products in so 
 far as they comply or not with the conditions of pure 
 thought, leaving to this or that branch of material science 
 to determine how far the same products of thought are 
 guaranteed by the testimony of this or that special experi- 
 ence. Thus it accepts, as logically valid, all such concepts, 
 judgments, and reasonings, as do not, directly or indirectly, 
 imply contradictions ; pronouncing them thus far to be 
 legitimate as thoughts, that they do not in ultimate analy- 
 sis destroy themselves. That they will be also accepted 
 upon an appeal to experience, it does not decide ; it only 
 recommends them as qualified for further examination. It 
 is thus competent to determine the possible existence of a 
 class of objects corresponding to a given concept, the 
 necessary truth of an analytical, and \\iq possible truth of a 
 synthetical judgment, the formal validity of a conclusion 
 as necessarily following from certain assumed premises. 
 Questions concerning the real existence of this or that class 
 of objects, the actual truth of a synthetical judgment, or 
 of a conclusion out of relation to its given premises, it 
 sends up for judgment to the tribunal of Experience. 
 
 As Experience decides on the relations of any given i 
 product of thought to the actual phenomena presented by ' 
 this or that object of intuition, so Psychology decides on 
 its relations to the actual constitution of the human mind. 
 Why it is that the laws of pure thinking extend thus far 
 and no further; — what are the mental processes prelim- 
 
 » "Die ganze reine Logik hat es mit Verhaltnissen des Gedachten, des In- 
 halts unserer Vorstellungen (obglcich nicht speciell mit diesem Inhalte 
 selbst) zu thun; aber iiberall nirgends mit der Thdtiykeit des Denkens, nir- 
 gendfl mit der psychologischen, also metaphysischen, MogUchkeU desscl- 
 ben."— Herbart, Psychoiogie ids Wissenchafl. Th. U. § 119. 
 
 / 
 
I 
 
 238 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 I 
 
 inary and subsidiary to thought, and the nature of the 
 thinking act itself as giving rise to the logical products ; 
 — whence arises the phenomenon of illegitimate thinking; 
 — the nature and origin of various impediments and errors 
 to which thinking and other mental acts are subjected in 
 mankind ; — the relation of the several mental acts to one 
 or more faculties of mind, and the value of such distinction 
 as absolute or relative, implying a notional only, or an 
 actual separability ; — in short, all inquiries into the actual 
 phenomena of man's mental constitution and their expla- 
 nation, form the object-matter of Psychology.^ 
 
 From this it appeal's that Psychology, as well as Phys- 
 ical Science, is, in the widest sense of the term, empirical. 
 It inquires, that is to say, what are the actual phenomena 
 of the several acts and states of the human mind, and the 
 actual laws or conditions on which they depend; and in 
 this sense the laws of thought themselves are empirical, 
 and within the province of Psychology, inasmuch as it is 
 a matter of fact and experience that men do reason accord- 
 ing to them. Logic, on the other hand, can in no sense 
 be called empirical, inasmuch as the actual constitution, 
 whether of the world within, or of the world without, is 
 assumed indeed and implied in its researches, but in no 
 respect described or investigated. We are not to ascer- 
 tain, as a matter of fact, that men do reason in this or that 
 form, as governed by this or that law ; but, on the assump- 
 tion of certain laws, we are to determine a priori the forms 
 which legitimate thinking ought to exhibit, w^hether man- 
 kind in general do comply with them or not.' Logic is 
 
 1 Much of this is distin (fished by Kant as Applied Logic, which however 
 he allows to be more properly referred to Psychology, 
 s Kant, Logik, Einleitang; II. 4; Drobisch, Neue Darstdlung der Logik, 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 239 
 
 indeed ultimately to be referred to the test of experience ; 
 but only in respect of its conformity with facts without 
 its province, not in respect of the coherence of its parts 
 within. So far as it implies that, as a matter of fact, men 
 do reason in syllogisms, so far its pretensions maybe tested, 
 by reference to the empirical truths of Psychology. Soj 
 far as it asserts that the legitimate forms of the syllogism 
 are such and such, it is simply deductive a priori, and 
 necessarily valid for any class of thinking beinirs whose! 
 laws are such as it presupposes. An empirical science may! 
 contain much partial truth, though omitting many impor- 
 tant phenomena and erroneously accounting for many 
 which it recognizes. It offera much, therefore, for enlarged 
 experience gradually to supply and correct. An a priori' 
 Science, like Logic, is tested by experience only with refer- 
 ence to its fundamental hypotheses. If these are accepted, 
 they carry with them the whole superstructure of details. 
 If these are rejected, every portion of the science falls to 
 the ground along with them. 
 
 But though Logic and Psychology have thus each their 
 respective provinces and methods, it cannot be too often 
 repeated that neither can be taught as a science, efficiently 
 and satisfactorily, unless in connection with the other. We 
 may learn by rote a multitude of logical rules, and fondly 
 imagine that we are acquiring an art which will enable us 
 to think; — a course of Logic being in fact about as ne-' 
 cessary for making men thinkers as a course of Ethical 
 Philosophy for making them honest, 9r a course of Optics 
 for enabling them to see. Or we may analyze iti dhtione 
 and extra dictionem all sorts of imaginary fillacios |)ro- 
 pounded by imaginary sophists, and dream that we are 
 forging an impenetrable panoply against all the deceits 
 of the world ; — as if we could bind men down in heavy 
 
 I 
 
240 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOUICA. 
 
 \m 
 III 
 
 securities to lie and cheat by rule, in order that they may 
 be detected in due course of art. Or we may draw up 
 syllogisms in orthodox mood and figure, and babble about 
 Laws of Thought, and never dream of asking what is the 
 nature of Thought as a process, and with what elements 
 does it combine in the actual formation of this or that 
 compound. Or, on the other hand, starting from confused 
 or erroneous notions of the nature and powers of the hu- 
 man mind, we may blame Logic for not accomplishing what 
 no science can accomplish, and deem its whole contents a 
 tissue of jargon and imposture, because it is neither able to 
 open a Royal Road to the Encyclopajdia, nor to convert 
 natural folly into supernatural wisdom. It may safely be 
 asserted that nine-tenths of the mistaken judgments to 
 which Logic has been subjected on the part of fiiends and 
 advei-saries, unreasonable eulogy on the one hand, equally 
 unreasonable abuse or contempt on the other, have been 
 owing to its treatment out of relation to Psychology, — to 
 its having been expounded and studied without any pre- 
 liminary attempt to ascertain what are the nature and 
 limits of the thinking faculty, and what character its laws 
 and products ought to exhibit in conformity with the con- 
 stitution of the human mind. 
 
 With Grammar Logic is connected through the medium 
 of the universal instrument of thought. Language. The 
 practical necessity of this instrument for the formation as 
 well as for the communication of thought, has been noticed 
 already ; it remains to inquire in what different ways this 
 their common object is dealt with by Logic and Grammar 
 respectively. Universal Grammar, with which alone we 
 are concerned (the history and idiomatic peculiarities of 
 special languages being obviously unconnected with gen- 
 eral Logic), has been happily defined as " The science of the 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 241 
 
 relations which the constituent parts of speech bear to 
 each other in significant combination." ^ It is thus con- 
 cerned with Language primarily and essentially; Logic, 
 secondarily and accidentally. The former has given certain 
 articulate sounds, to find their relation to certain supposed 
 counterparts in thought. The latter has given to deter- 
 mine the necessary relations of concepts to each other; 
 but in so doing it is compelled secondarily to exhibit the 
 corresponding relations of the sounds by which concepts 
 are represented. 
 
 The two sciences differ also in the extent of their prov- 
 inces. Logic considers language simply as the instrument 
 and representative of thought. Grammar will include its 
 relation to intuitions and emotions, and every state of con- 
 sciousness which finds its expression in speech.* Logic 
 considers language only in so far as it is indispensable to 
 thought, and accordingly analyzes speech only to that 
 point at which it is representative of the simplest element 
 of thouglit, the concept. Any parts into which a concept 
 may be divided, which are not themselves concepts, are 
 beyond its province, as not being representative of a com- 
 plete thought, nor competent instruments alone for the 
 performance of an act of thinking. Hence all syncate^ 
 gorematic words, as not being per se significant, are not 
 recognized by Logic. ^ 
 
 In Grammar the unit of thought is a judgment, both 
 tenns being necessarily represented by words. Hence the 
 unit of speech in Grammar is a proposition ; the oflice of 
 the subordinate parts of speech being to limit or connect 
 
 1 Sir John Stoddart, Philosophy of Language, pt. I. p. 21. Universal 
 Grammar is properly a science, particular Grammar an art, as is observed 
 by Du Marsais, Encyclop€di€f Art. Grammaire, p. &12. 
 
 * See Harris, Hermes, ch. iii. 
 
 21 
 
 II 
 
If^^ 
 
 'at: 
 
 242 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 the primary parts as subjects or predicates of a given 
 assertion.^ Such connections and limitations may be 
 more conveniently effected by the invention of words ex- 
 pressive of relations between concepts, than by the use of 
 distinct signs for every new concept resulting from such 
 relations ; this, however, is one of the luxuries only, not 
 one of the necessaries of language, and, as such, is not 
 noticed by Logic. Viewed simply as an element of 
 thought, it is indifferent whether the same concept bo 
 expressed by a combination of substantive and adjective, 
 as in the English "four-footed beast," or the German 
 " vierf ussiges Thier," by the interposition of a preposition, 
 as in the French " bete k quatre pieds," or by a single sub- 
 stantive, such as the classical equivalent, "quadruped." 
 
 In Logic the unit of thought is also a judgment, but 
 not one which requires a verbal representative of both its 
 constituent parts. Conception, the simplest act of thought, 
 consists in the refemng a given concept to possible objects 
 as imagined. Here there is, in the psychological sense 
 of the term, a judgment; i. c, a consciousness of the pres- 
 ence of the objects in thought; but that consciousness 
 does not form an additional concept, nor require as its 
 necessary exponent a second verbal sign. Hence the unit 
 of speech in Logic is a terra ; such being a sufficient verbal 
 instrument for the performance of the first and the simplest 
 act of thought. 
 
 With reference to the second operation of thought, 
 judgment, wherein the two sciences come most nearly into 
 contact, the following distinction is important. Grammar 
 considei-s words objectively, as signs of things. Hence 
 
 1 For a further illustration of this doctrine, not universally held by Gram- 
 marians, the reader is referred to an article by the present author^ on the 
 Philosophy of Language, in the North British Review, No. 27. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 243 
 
 the distinction of tenses^ according as the remote or repre- 
 sented object is considered as contemporaneous with, or 
 distant in time from, the speaker. Logic considers words 
 subjectively, as signs of thoughts. Hence the only logical 
 tense is the present, the immediate or presented objects 
 being necessarily contemporaneous with the act of con- 
 sciousness by which they are now thought in conjunction.^ 
 It is sometimes said that Logic recognizes two only of 
 the grammatical parts of speech, the noun and the verb, 
 forming the two terms of the proposition with and with- 
 out time.* It would be more correct to say that Logic, 
 viewing language in a different light from Grammar, and 
 analyzing on a different principle, does not recognize 
 the grammatical parts of speech at all. The simplest ele- 
 ments of a complete assertion in Grammar are the noun 
 and the verb ;» the latter being a combination of attribute 
 and assertion. Hence the grammatical type of a proposi- 
 tion is that distinguished in scholastic language as secundi 
 a^acentis; and to this form all varieties produced by 
 
 1 Sec p. 71. 
 
 « " Grammatici enim, considerantes rocum figuras, octo orationis partes 
 annumerant. Phtlosophi vero, quorum omnis de nomine verl)oque trac- 
 tatus in significatione est constituta, duas tantum orationis partes esse 
 docucrunt: quicquid plenam significationem tenet, siquidem sine tempore 
 significat, nomcn vocantes; verbum vero, si cum tempore." — Boethius, 
 Int. ad Sj/U. p. 561. " Et sciendum est quod Dialecticus solum ponit duas 
 partes orationis, scilicet nomen et verbum. Alias autem omnes appellat 
 sjTicatcgorematicas, id est consignificativas."— Petr. Hisp. SuttL Log. Tr. i. 
 Here, as in the De Interpretatione of Aristotle, the type of the logical prop- 
 osition is the form distinguished as secundi adjacentis, the verb being 
 neither the copula alone, nor the predicate alone, but the combination of 
 the two, however expressed. A neglect of this has misled many commea- 
 tators and critics on Aristotle, from Ammonius to the present day. 
 
 * " In all languages there are only two sorts of words which are necessary 
 for the communication of our thoughts, the noun and the verb."— Tooke, 
 J>:v. of Furley, ch. 3. 
 
244 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 IMA 
 
 the accidents of particular languages must, in Fnivereal 
 Grammar, be virtually reduced.* In Logic, on the other 
 hand, for the purposes of opposition and conversion, as 
 well as from the necessity of assigning a quantity to both 
 terms of the proposition, the type is required to be of the 
 form term adjacentis; the subject and predicate being 
 regarded as two given concepts, the objects of which are 
 identified or distinguished by means of the copula. Hence, 
 in every case in which the proposition is exhibited in iu 
 logical form, the grammatical verb will coiTcspond not to 
 any single word in the proposition, but to a combination 
 formed of the copula and the quantified predicate, — to 
 all, in short, that is asserted of the subject. The predicate 
 concept may thus, in different points of view, answer to 
 two distinct grammatical relations. Taken by itself, it is 
 a noun, identified in certain respects with another noun as • 
 the subject. Taken in its predicate character, it forms a 
 portion of the verb, the remainder being supplied by the 
 copula. Those logicians who maintain the copula to be 
 the logical verb, confound the accidents of particular lan- 
 guages with the essentials of language in general as a 
 sign of thought. With them the verb is determined solely 
 by the subordinate feature of its personal inflection, not 
 by the primary characteristic of its signification. 
 
 With regard to the relation of Logic to Metaphysics, 
 some preliminary verbal explanation is necessary, owing to 
 
 1 Hence it follows that the copula is, piimmatically speaking, no verb 
 at all. It fulfils none of the functions of that part of speech ; for it implies 
 no attribute, and cannot, when united to a subject, form a complete asser- 
 tion. In such a sentence as " The meadows are white with frost," the true 
 verb is not the copula, but the copula with the adjective, are white, as may 
 >je seen by substituting the Latin, " prata canis albicant pruinis." Whether 
 this can be expressed in one word or not, is an accident of this or that Ian- 
 guage, and is Ixjyond the province of Universal Grammar. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 245 
 
 the various senses in which the latter term has been used. 
 Among modern philosophei-s, empirical psychology, which 
 the ancients regarded as a branch of physics,^ is frequently 
 classified as metaphysical. Thus the contributions of 
 Reid and Stewart to the inductive science of the human 
 mind are not unfrequently spoken of as Scotch Meta- 
 physics ; a nomenclature which the latter of these philoso- 
 phers has in some degree sanctioned by his own writings.* 
 Such a classification is, however, inconsistent with the fun- 
 damental doctrines of the Scottish School. It has been 
 before observed that one of their leading principles is, that, 
 m the investigation of mind as well as of matter, phenom- 
 ena alone are the legitimate objects of science ; the sub- 
 stance and essential nature of both being beyond the reach 
 of human faculties. Whereas Metaphysics has from the 
 earliest days been distinguished as the Science of Being as 
 Being, in opposition to all inquiries into the phenomena 
 exhibited by this or that class of objects.' How far such 
 a problem is capable of solution is another question ; but 
 the mere propounding of it implies an object totally dis- 
 tinct from that of an inquiry into the faculties and laws 
 of the human mind. 
 
 The object of the older Metaphysics has been distin- 
 
 ' See Hamilton on Reid, p. 216. 
 
 «For instance: " Nothinfir contributes so much to form this talent as 
 the study of Metaphysics; not the absurd Metaphysics of the Schools 
 but that study which has the operations of the mind for its object ''-Ek 
 vients, vol. i. ch. 2. In other places Stewart has noticed this phraseology 
 as a loose use of language, and has attempted to account for it. But the 
 term ought never to have been used at all. 
 
 ^Arist Metaph, iii. 1. "E^.y i^,„^^^^ ^„ ^ ^^^^^. ^^ ^^ . ^^ ^^ ^^ 
 Toury {nrdpxoyra ,c«^' abr6. The name Metaphysics is of much later 
 date, but Its object has always been regarded as identical with that 
 distinguished by Aristotle as First Philosophy, or Theology, Cf. Wolf 
 OtUoloyiay ^ I. * 
 
 21* 
 
 4: 
 
246 
 
 PKOLECjIOMENA L0(J1CA. 
 
 f\ 
 i m 
 
 Hid 
 
 guished in all ages as the one and the real, in opposition 
 to the many and the apparent.^ Matter, for example, as 
 perceived by the senses, is a combination of distinct and 
 heterogeneous qualities, discernible, some by sight, some 
 by smell, some by touch, some by hearing. What is the 
 thinr/ Itself, the subject and owner of these several qual- 
 ities, and yet not identical with any one of them ? What 
 is it by virtue of wh ch these several attributes constitute 
 or belong to one and the same thing? Mind, in like man- 
 ner, presents to consciousness so many distinct states and 
 operations and feelings. What is the nature of that one 
 mind, of which all these are so many modifications? The 
 inquiry may be carried higher still. Can we attain to any 
 single conception of Being in general, to which both Mind 
 and Matter are subordinate, and from which the essence 
 of each may be deduced ?* 
 
 Ontology, or Metaphysics proper, as thus explained, 
 may be treated in two different methods, according as its 
 exponent is a believer in to 6v or in ra ovra, in one or in 
 many fundamental principles of things. In the former, all 
 objects whatever are regarded as phenomenal modifica- 
 tions of one and the same Substance, or as self-determined 
 effects of one and the same Cause. The necessary result 
 of this method is to reduce all metaphysical philosophy 
 to a Rational Theology, the one Substance or Cause 
 being identified with the Absolute, or the Deity. Accord- 
 ing to the latter method, which professes to treat of dif- 
 ferent classes of Beings independently, Metaphysics will 
 contain three coordinate branches of inquiry; Rational 
 Cosmology, Rational Psychology, and Rational Theology.' 
 
 1 Arist. Metaph. iii. 2. 
 
 » Wolf, Phil. Bal. Disc. Prcd. k 73; Herbait, Allgemeine Metaphysik, \ 27. 
 ' Herbart, Lehrbuch zur Philosophie, ^ 7; AUyenmne Metaphysik, \ 31. 
 Anm. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 247 
 
 The first aims at a knowledge of the real essence, as dis- 
 tinguished from the phenomena, of the material worid ; 
 the second discusses the nature and origin, as distinguished 
 from the faculties and affections, of the human soul, and 
 of other finite spirits;* the third aspires to comprehend 
 God Himself, as cognizable a prion in his essential nature, 
 apart from the indirect and relative indications furnished 
 by his works, as in Natural Theology, or by his word, as 
 in Revealed Religion. These three objects of metaphysi- 
 cal inquiry — God, the Worid, the Mind — correspond to 
 Kant's three Ideas of the Pure Reason ; and the object 
 of his Critique is to show that, in relation to all three, 
 the attainment of a system of speculative philosophy is 
 impossible. 
 
 The former of these methods is the bolder and the more 
 consequent; and, moreover, the only one which can be 
 consistently followed by those who believe in the possi- 
 bility of a Philosophy of the Absolute. For, a plurality 
 of real objects being once admitted as the highest reach 
 attainable by human faculties, these must necessarily be 
 regarded as related to, and limited by, each other. Ac- 
 cordingly, this method has been followed by the hardiest 
 and most consistent reasoners on metaphysical questions ; 
 by Spinoza, under the older form of Speculation, and by 
 Hegel, after the Kantian revolution. But thus treated, 
 metaphysiciil speculation necessarily leads to Pantheism ; 
 
 1 " Man findet hier die Trennung der empirischen von der rationalen 
 Psycholojne; die erstc durchlauft die einzelnen son^enannten Seelenvermo- 
 gen ; die andre spricht uber Natar and Ureprung der Seele, iiber Unster- 
 blichkelt, Zustand nach dem Tode* Unterschied zwischen den Seelen der 
 Mcnschen, der Tliiere, und den hohercn Geistern."— Herbart, AUgemeine 
 Metaphysik, § 29. For a curious account of theories and theorists in 
 rational pt^ychologj, see Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, P. i. sect. i. 
 Mem. 2, Subs. 9. 
 
 \\ 
 
 
248 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 and Pantheism, at this elevation, is for all religions pur- 
 poses equivalent to Atheism.^ The method is thus con- 
 demned by its results ; and the condemnation will not be 
 retracted upon a psychological examination of its princi- 
 ples. Its fundamental conception is not thought, but its 
 negation. The Thought which is identified with Being in 
 general, is not my thought, nor any form of consciousness 
 which I can personally realize.^ My whole consciousness 
 is subject to the conditions of limitation and relation of 
 subject and object. A system which commences by deny- 
 ing this relation, starts with an assumption concerning the 
 possible character of an intelligence other than human, and 
 consequently incapable of verification by any human being. 
 Yet the system is the product of a human thinker, and 
 addressed to human disciples. 
 
 The second method of metaphysical inquiry is less pre- 
 sumptuous, though perhaps also less consistent. It starts 
 with the assumption of a plurality of Beings, thus virtu- 
 ally abandoning the Philosophy of the Absolute. This 
 plurality is primarily manifest in the contrast between the 
 Subject and the Object of Consciousness, between self and 
 
 ! 
 
 i 
 
 ^ It has of late been a favorite criticism of Spinoza to sny, with Hejjel, 
 that his system is not Atheism, bat Acosmism; and this is true in a spccu> 
 lative point of view. But if I allow of no God distinct from the a^<^p;ato 
 of the Universe, myself included, what object have I of worship? Or if, 
 according to the later manifestation of Pantheism, the Divine Mind is but 
 the sum total of every finite consciousness, my own included, what rell- 
 pous relation between God and man is compatible with the theory ? And, 
 accordingly, the Pantheism of Ile^l has found its natural development in 
 the Atheism of Feuerbach. 
 
 * This is expressly stated by an eminent disciple of Hep;el, who professes 
 to discover in Aristotle's Metaphysics an anticipation of He^elianism: 
 *' La pense'e que nous venons de de'crire est la pensee absolue. II ne s'ajjit 
 pas ici de la pensee subjective, qui est une fonction psychologique restreinte 
 a Tame humaine." — Michelct, Examen deUx Mtflaphpsique d'AristUe^it. 276. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 249 
 
 not-self, as related to and limiting each other. But the 
 consciousness of the relative and limited suggests by con- 
 trast the idea of the absolute and unlimited ; and thus 
 gives nse to three distinct branches of metaphysical spec- 
 ulation: the ego being identified with the substance of the 
 human soul, as distinguished from its phenomenal modes; 
 the non-ego being identified with the reality which under- 
 lies the phenomena of the sensible world ; and the absolute 
 or unconditioned with the Deity.^ Of the last of these 
 three branches, that commonly known as Rational Theol- 
 ogy, which endeavors from the conception of God as an 
 absolutely perfect Being to deduce the necessary attributes 
 of the Divine Nature, I shall say nothing in this place. 
 The question of the relation of the human mind to reli- 
 gious intuitions is one of the most delicate and the most 
 diflScult in Psychology, and to treat it adequately would 
 require a separate volume. On the two latter branches of 
 Metaphysics, which Kant regarded as equally unattainable 
 with the first, something has been said in a former chapter. 
 It was the opinion of Kant, as well as of Reid and Stewart, 
 that the subject of mental as well as of bodily attributes is 
 not an immediate object of consciousness; in other words, 
 that in mind, as well as in body. Substance and Unity 
 are not presented, but represented. Those who accept this 
 doctrine are only consistent in fegarding metaphysical in- 
 quiry in all its branches as a delusion. But a philosophical 
 examination is incomplete unless it not only points out 
 the truth, but likewise explains the cause of error. The 
 weak point of the above doctrine is, that it fails in 
 
 These three branches of Metaphysics have been considered somewhat 
 more in detail, by the present author, in the Article Metaphifsics, in the 
 eighth edition of the Enrp^loptedia Britannica, vol. xiv. pp. C04 sqq., 615 sqq 
 
 
250 
 
 FBOLEGOMENA XJOQICA. 
 
 m i 
 
 explaining, on psychological grounds, how the supposed 
 delusion onginated. Experience furnishes, if not the 
 cause, at least the occasion of every object of our cogni- 
 tion ; and, unless upon the supposition that a knowledge 
 of Unity and Substance is immediately ffioen in one phase 
 at least of consciousness, it is impossible to account for its 
 invention in any. The multifarious phenomena of in- 
 ternal as well as of external sense, present, on the opposite 
 hypothesis, nothing in any respect analogous to the sub- 
 stance to which they are attributed, — nothing that can 
 operate in any way even as the occasional cause from 
 which the existence of such a substance could be suggested. 
 Metaphysical philosophy may contain much that is ground- 
 less, much that is deceptive ; but the whole analogy of 
 deception and hypothesis in other branches of speculation 
 leads to the conviction that it can only arise from rashly 
 transfeiTing to new relations ideas which are given in some 
 relation or other. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of considering the whole of Meta- 
 physics to be based on a delusion, and its ultimate destiny 
 to be utter extinction, we shall probably come nearer to 
 the truth if we regard its unsound portions as based on a 
 perverted intuition, and anticipate that it will be finally 
 absorbed in that science to which the intuition in its orig- 
 inal relation properly belongs. If, for example, it should 
 ultimately be made manifest that to the material world we 
 have no relation except through the various phenomena 
 of sense, but that in the mental world SelfJ as well as the 
 phenomena of self, is an immediate presentation of con- 
 sciousness, it will follow that in the former we have no 
 ground for maintaining the existence of things other than 
 the phenomena presented ; and that consequently, in this 
 department, Ontology, as distinct fi'ora Phenomenology, 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 251 
 
 is occupied solely with chimeras of our own invention : 
 whereas. Psychology, being called upon to extend its 
 inquiries from the phenomena of self to that of which 
 they are phenomena, will legitimately include the remain- 
 ing portion of those problems which have hitherto been 
 appropriated to Metaphysics. 
 
 But this question cannot be discussed here. My present 
 concern is only with the relation supposed to exist between 
 Metaphysics, as above described, and Logic. In the eariier 
 form of Metaphysics, which prevailed from Aristotle to 
 Kant, an intimate connection was supposed to exist be- 
 tween the two sciences. The Principles of Contradiction 
 and Excluded Middle, which have been exhibited in a 
 former chapter as Laws of Thought, are found in the met- 
 aphysical as well as in the logical writings of Aristotle ;i 
 and the former, together with that of Sufficient Reason, is 
 placed by Wolf, the immediate predecessor of Kant, at the 
 head of Ontology .2 But, after the Kantian Critique, this 
 association was no longer possible. Kant showed cleariy 
 that, without synthetical judgments a priori, Metaphysical 
 science is impossible ; and this at once put an end to all 
 attempts which had hitherto been made to elicit a science 
 of Being from the laws of formal thinking, which are the 
 foundation of Logic. The two sciences, thus divorced, be- 
 come apparently united again in the system of Hegel ; but 
 the union is apparent only. For the Hegelian Logic is 
 
 I For the principle of Contradiction 8ee Arist. Metaph. iii. 3. x. 5; AnaJ. 
 Pr. ii. 2; Anal. Post. i. 11. For that of Excluded Middle, see Metaph. iil. 
 7, ix. 4; AnaL Pr. i. 1; Anal. Post. i. 2, ii. 13. They may also be traced 
 to Plato. See Phcedo, p. 103; Bepublic, iv. p. 436; Sophist, pp. 250, 252. 
 They are given more explicitly in the Second Alcihiades, p. 139; but this 
 dialogue is generally considered spurious. 
 
 « Cf. Wolf, Ontologia, ^§ 27, 29, 56, 71, 498. 
 
252 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 |l«*l 
 
 based, not ou an acknowledgment, but on a defiance of 
 the Laws of Tliought. It is a Logic of the Reason, of 
 which the fundamental position is, that the Laws of the 
 Understanding are applicable to finite objects only, and 
 that Thought in relation to the infinite is free from their 
 dominion. Logic thus returns, as regards its object, not to 
 the Aristotelian Analytic, but to the Platonic Dialectic, as a 
 science of the Ileal and the Absolute ; though the method 
 pursued is opposed to Plato as much as to Aristotle.* On 
 the other hand, in proportion as we adhere more closely to 
 the formal view of Logic, the separation of that science 
 from Metaphysics becomes more complete. An eminent 
 advocate of that view, who is far from adopting Kant's 
 opinion of the impossibility of Metaphysics, expresses his 
 conviction of the very different objects and methods of 
 the two sciences, by likening the union of Metaphysics and 
 Logic to a lecture on the Integral Calculus and the Rule 
 of Three.^ And there is much truth implied in this some- 
 what overstrained comparison. With formal Logic, Meta- 
 physics stands rather in opposition than in connection. 
 The former is the science of the ultimate laws of the 
 thinking subject ; the latter, of the ultimate realities of 
 the objects about which we think. 
 
 Metaphysical inquiry, if capable of a successful prose- 
 cution, may furnish a criticism or explanation of certain 
 forms of thought assumed by Logic ; for a form of thought 
 implies a certain relation between given objects, — a re- 
 lation which might be further elucidated if the nature of 
 objects in general could be satisfactorily determined. Thus 
 we have seen that the form of logical judgments and rea- 
 
 * 
 
 1 On the contrast between the methods of Plato and Hegel, see Trendel- 
 enbarg, Logische Untentuchungen, i. p. SO. 
 ' Herbart, Lehrbuch zur Philosophies Vorrede zur zwdten Ausgaht, 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOGICA. 
 
 253 
 
 sonings contains by implication those negative notions of 
 substance and cause, the investigation of which is the 
 special object of metaphysical inquiries. The science of 
 Metaphysics, therefore, if it could be constructed on a solid 
 basis, would furnish a criticism of those principles which 
 are tacitly acknowledged in every mental process. But, 
 for the purposes of formal Logic, such a criticism is not 
 needed. It is sufficient for that science to accept the prin- 
 ciples in the obscure form in which they are acknowledged 
 by common thought and common language ; especially as, 
 being indiflferently implied in sound and unsound thinking, 
 they furaish no criterion by which we can distinguish the 
 one from the other. 
 
 This view is confirmed by the history of philosophy 
 down to the present time. While Logic, from the days 
 of Aristotle, has been in possession of a scientific method 
 and a definite contents, whose truth, whatever opinion may 
 be entertained of their utility, no critic has succeeded in 
 impugning; Metaphysics has, from the same period, been 
 equally conspicuous as the changing Proteus of philosophy, 
 whose concealed wisdom, sought after by ceaseless efforts 
 of strength and countless varieties of artifice, has invaria- 
 bly eluded the inquiries of his worshippers. The union 
 of the two, so far from contributing to the scientific com- 
 pleteness of the former, has only served to mar its beauty 
 and simplicity by extralogical details, and to misrepresent 
 its true purpose and value by obscure intimations of deeper 
 mysteries lying hid beneath its apparent surface. On the 
 other hand, in proportion as the true character of Logic 
 as a science has become better known and appreciated, it 
 has gradually been separated from Metaphysics, and been 
 associated with Psychology. As the science of the laws of 
 thought, it is absurd to expect that its object and character 
 
 22 
 
Wi 
 
 V 
 
 mj$ 
 
 254 
 
 PROLEGOMENA LOOICA. 
 
 can be rightly estimated by those who are unacquainted 
 with the nature and powers of the understanding itself — 
 with its relation to the cognate faculties and operations of 
 the human mind, — with its legitimate province and duties. 
 It is only in this connection that we can hope to see Logic 
 finally freed from the unsightly excrescences with which 
 it has hitherto been deformed, yet still retaining a clearly 
 defined portion of valuable scientific truth, and cultivated 
 in a spirit of enlightened appreciation and criticism, equally 
 removed from the blind veneration of the idolater and the 
 blind hostility of the iconoclast. It is only in this connec- 
 tion that the boundaries of the two sciences can be clearly 
 marked out, and those portions of psychological matter 
 and phraseology whose random introduction has contrib- 
 uted so much to deface and obscure the pages of logical 
 treatises, can become of inestimable value as part and 
 parcel of a cognate and complementary, but by no means 
 identical study. And if, in this association, it becomes 
 necessary to abase considerably the once towering ambi- 
 tion of the Art of Arts and Science of Sciences, the loss is 
 more than compensated by the substitution of a humbler 
 indeed, but more attainable and more serviceable aim, — 
 the knowledge of the distinct provinces to be assigned to 
 Thought and Experience respectively, of the true value of 
 each within its province, and its worse than uselessness 
 beyond; — the knowledge of ourselves and our faculties, 
 of our true intellectual wealth, the nature of its tenure, 
 and the conditions of its lawful increase. By such culti- 
 vation alone can we hope to see Logic finally exhibited in 
 its true character, and estimated at its true value ; neither 
 encumbered with fictitious wealth by a spurious utilitari- 
 anism, nor unprofitably buried in the earth of an isolated 
 and barren formalism. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A, p. 84. 
 
 It is much to be rej^retted that Dr. Whcwcll, who has made good use 
 of Kantian principles in many parts of his " Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences/* has not more accurately observed Kant's distinction between 
 the necessary laws under which all men think, and the continf^ent laws 
 under which certain men think of certain things. His neglect of this 
 distinction has given a seeming advantage to the empirical arguments 
 of his antagonist, Mr. Mill, who is thus enabled apparently to decide the 
 question at issue by what is in reality no more than an argumentum ad 
 hominem. Thus Dr. Whewell says, of certain discoveries of physical laws, 
 " So complete has been the victory of truth in most of these instances, 
 that at present we can hardly imagine the struggle to have been necessary. 
 The very essence of these triumphs is that they lead us to regard the views 
 we reject as not only false, but inconceivable." In this relation, it is obvi- 
 ous that the inconceivability is, with reference to the human mind, merely 
 contingent, and relative to the particular studies of particular men. Before 
 the days of Copernicus, men could not conceive the apparent motion of 
 the sun on the heliocentric hypothesis : the progress of science has re- 
 Yersed the difficulty; but the progress of science itself is contingent on 
 the will of ceruin men to apply themselves to it. By thus endeavoring 
 to exalt inductive laws of matter into a priori laws of mind, Dr. Whewell 
 has unintentionally contributed to give an undue plausibility to the oppo- 
 site theory, which reduces all laws of mind into the mere associations of 
 this or that material experience. 
 
 But, on psychological grounds, it would seem as if the point of separa- 
 tion between a priori principles and empirical generalizations ought not to 
 be very difficult of determination. The difference is not one of degree, but 
 of kind ; and the separation between the two classes of truths is such that 
 no conceivable progress of science can ever convert the one into the other. 
 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 That which is inconceivable, not accidentally from the peculiar circum- 
 stances of certain men, but universally to all, must be so in consequence 
 of an orij^inal law of the human mind ; that which is universally true 
 within the field of experience indicates an original law of the material 
 world. No transformation of the one into the other is possible, unless the 
 progress of science can change mind to matter or matter to mind. It is 
 therefore incumbent on the philosopher who would extend mathematical 
 certainty to the domain of physical science, to confirm, in every instance, 
 bis theory by a psychological deduction of his principles, as Kant has 
 done in the instances of Space and Time. 
 
 Dr. Whewell lays much stress on clearness and distinctness of conceptions 
 as the basis of the axiomatic truths of physical science. But the clear- 
 ness or distinctness of any conception can only enable us more accurately 
 to unfold the virtual contents of the concept itself; it cannot enable us to 
 add o priori any new attribute. In other words, the increased clearness 
 and distinctness of a conception may enable us to multiply to any extent 
 our analytical judgments, but cannot add a single synthetical one. 
 Without something more than this, the philosopher has failed to meet the 
 touchstone of the Kantian question : How are synthetical judgments a priori 
 possible f 
 
 The spirit of Dr. Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences is 
 beyond all praise. In these days of Positivism and Empiricism it is re- 
 freshing to find a writer of such vast attainments in the details of physical 
 science comprising them under such truly philosophical principles. But 
 it is to be regretted that the accuracy of his theory has been in some 
 instances vitiated by a stumble on the threshold of the Critical Philosophy. 
 The distinction laid down by Kant between the synthetical, or, properly, 
 geometrical, and the analytical or general axioms, seems to have been 
 altogether overlooked. Thus, almost at the outset of the Philosophy of 
 the Inductive Sciences, the analytical judgment, " If equals are added to 
 equals, the wholes are equal," is given as a condition of the intuition of 
 magnitudes; ^ and the same oversight runs through the Essay on Math- 
 ematical Reasoning, in which he speaks of " self-evident principles, not 
 derived in any immediate manner from experiment, but involved in the 
 very nature of the conceptions which we must possess, in order to reason 
 upon such subjects at all." The very nature of the conceptions, however 
 clearly apprehended, can give rise only to analytical judgments. 
 
 And such, I think, may be shown to be the character of all the mechan- 
 ical axioms derived from the idea of Force. Of force, apart from the 
 cooscious exertion of will, we have no positive conception per sej we know 
 
 1 Book ii. ch. Ix. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 259 
 
 it only by its effects. Of equal forces we have no positive conception 
 beyond that of the protluction of equal eflTects. To assert, therefore, that 
 equal forces will balance each other at the two extremities of a lever, is to 
 assert no more than that effects universally equal will be equal in any par- 
 ticular case.^ 
 
 But to establish Mechanics as an a priori science upon the idea of force, 
 it will be necessary to commence with some axioms at least of a syntheti- 
 cal character, analogous to the geometrical principles, " Two straight lines 
 cannot enclose a space;" or, " If a straight line meets two straight lines, so 
 as to make the two interior angles on the same side together less than two 
 right angles, the two straight lines will meet if produced." 
 
 As a matter of fact, I do not think that Dr. Whewell has hitherto suc- 
 ceeded in establishing, in the science of Mechanics, a system of a priori 
 synthetical truths derived from the idea of force as distinct from those 
 which are mere applications of the mathematical intuitions of time or 
 space. But as regards mere hypothetical mechanics, such a system is not 
 inconceivable. A more exact psychological analysis of the intuitive fac- 
 
 1 We must distinguish between the general theoretical statement of this axiom 
 and its practical application to any given object. In Geometry, the axiom, " If 
 equals are added to eqnals the wholes are equal," is a mere analytical judgment 
 derived from the principle of Identity ; but to ascertain whether two given mag- 
 nitudes are equal, is a question of experiment or observation. So in Mechanics, 
 the axiom that bodies acting with equal forces to turn a lever in opposite direc- 
 tions will retain it in equilibrium, is analytical; and as thus stated, it is unneces- 
 sary to add either that the directions of both forces must be perpendicular, or 
 the arms of the lever equal. But in any special application of the axiom there 
 arises at once the question, How can we ascertain that any two given forces are 
 equal as forces acting upon the lever? If the force, for example, be gravity, and 
 two equal weights be suspended, one perpendicularly, the other obliquely, the 
 whole weight of the latter does not act to turn the lever in opposition to the 
 former, and the hypothesis of the axiom is violated ; the forces not being in 
 that relation equal. Or if both are suspended perpendicularly, but at unequal 
 distances from the fulcrum, the moments, or forces in relation to the lever, are 
 not equal. The axiom, as stated by Dr. Whewell, " If two equal forces act per- 
 pendicularly at the extremities of equal arms of a straight line," has the appear- 
 ance of a synthetical judgment, by comprehending under one formula the mere 
 analysis of the notion of equal forces, and the empirical determination of equal- 
 ity in any particular instance. If by equal forces is meant forces equal in effect 
 on the lever, the axiom, as stated by Dr. Whewell, is tautological ; if the mean- 
 ing is, forces equal in their effects in some other situation^ the axiom is empirical 
 only, and not even universally true. But, except by its effect in some situation 
 or other ^ what test have we of the magnitude of a force? 
 
260 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ulties may possibly establish the existence of other sabjcctivo conditions 
 of intuition besides those of space and time, and, consequently, of other 
 synthetical jud«;ment3 a priori besides those of Geometry and Arithmo- 
 tic.i But when the same theory comes to be applied, not to hypothetical 
 rigid bodies without weight, but to the actual phenomena of natural 
 agents, as in the " Demonstration that all matter is heavy," and, verbally 
 at least, in speaking of the incoixceivability of the prc-Copernican astron- 
 omy, we see at once that the boundary is overleaped which separates the 
 necessary laws of thought from the generalized phenomena of matter. 
 This absolute boundary is sufficiently marked. No matter of fact can, in 
 any possible state of human knowledge, he a matter of demonstration.^ Nay, 
 even supposing such a demonstration possible, it would not add one tittle 
 to the evidence of the fact, as such, in the eyes of any one but an egoist. 
 By him it would be accepted as an additional proof that what are com- 
 monly considered as phenomena of the non-ego, are really only modifica- 
 tions of the percipient mind, and governed solely by mental hiws. But to 
 the Realist it would at most only suggest the possibility of a preestablished 
 harmony between the laws of mind and matter, — a suggestion which 
 would require, in every special case, to be verified by the empirical exam- 
 ination of the latter. Mental laws, which alone determine conceivability, 
 are primarily operative only on mental objects, and are applicable to 
 external things only on the hypothesis of their conformity. This hypoth- 
 esis can only be verified empirically. That every triangle, for example, 
 has its angles equal to two right angles, is strictly true only of the perfect 
 triangle as contemplated by the mind. That this bit of paper lying before 
 me has its angles equal to two right angles, is only true on the supposition 
 of its being a perfect triangle; and the truth of this supposition, in any 
 possible state of perfection of human senses and instruments, can only be 
 determined empirically. It remains always conceivable that there may be 
 an error in the measurement, and that the paper may not have exactly 
 two right angles. The probability of such an error may be diminished to 
 any degree, according to the perfection of our means of measurement; 
 but no approximation of this kind can ever become absolute certainty. 
 
 It is not without some hesitation that I have ventured thus far to crit- 
 icize a work which I believe to be, in its whole spirit and conception, by 
 far the most valuable contribution of modem times to the philosophy of 
 the physical sciences. To those who would survey this branch of knowl- 
 
 1 Per8<mality may perhaps be specified as another condition of this kind, and 
 the d priori principles of morals as consequent upon it. On this I have remarked 
 at greater length in the Bampton Lecturen, Lectg. III. and VII. 
 
 3 Compare Hume, Eamy on the Academical PkHoaophy^ Part iL 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 261 
 
 edge In a sound philosophical spirit, alike removed from the idealism of 
 Schelling and from the positivism of Comte, the writings of Dr. Whewell 
 are especially valuable. To those who believe, with the present writer, 
 that the future hopes of speculative philosophy rest on the possibility of 
 a union of the critical principles of Kant with the sober practical spirit 
 which is characteristic of English thinkers, the writings of the same 
 author afford one of the most cheering assurances that the spirit of phi- 
 losophy, under all its discouragements, is not yet extinct in this country. 
 With this declaration, the spirit that has dictated the preceding criticism 
 will not, I trust, be misunderstood.! 
 
 Note B, p. 128. 
 
 That Berkeley was fully aware of the inconsequence of the conclusions 
 which ilume afterwards attempted to draw from his principles, is manifest 
 ftnom the third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, in which he meets 
 by anticipation the argument of the skeptic,* by maintaining that we are 
 directly conscious of our own being. He is wrong, indeed, in calling this 
 consciousness Befledion ; this term being properly applicable only to at- 
 tention directed to our internal phenomena ; — an attention which does 
 not make known, but presupposes, the attending self. But when he 
 asserts, "I know or am conscious of my own being; and that I myself 
 am not my ideas, but somewhat else, a thinking, active principle, that 
 perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas,*' he states the true 
 ground on which we may refute the skeptical conclusions of Hume. In- 
 deed, this part of the Dialogue wants little more than a more complete 
 
 1 Ttie preceding note remains nearly as it appeared in the first edition of this 
 work, published in 1851. Since that time, some additional remarks on the matter 
 in question have ajjpeared in Sir William Hamilton's Discussions, p. 323 (8econd 
 edition, p. 335), in Dr. Whewell's Letter to the Author qf Prolegomena Logica, 
 and in the Author's pamphlet in reply, entitled, The Limits of Demonstrative 
 Science considered. Sir W. Hamilton's view is substantially the same as my 
 own; and I cannot help regarding this independent coincidence as a confirma- 
 tion of my original criticism. At the same time I feel bound to express my ac- 
 knowledgments to Dr. Whewell for the instruction which his Letter has afforded 
 me, and for the liberal and courteous tone in which his objections are urged. 
 
 2 This part of Berkeley's Dialogue is meant as an answer to Locke, Essay, B. 
 II. ch. 28, i 6, but the same reasoning is also valid against Hume. 
 
i 
 
 262 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 exposition of the natare of the will to anticipate in principle the position 
 aftenvards talcen ag:ainst the great skeptic by Maine de Biran. 
 
 The weak side of Berkeley's Idealism is not to be found in its relation 
 to Hume, but in its relation to Fichte. The object proposed by Berkeley 
 was to get rid of the contradictions and difficulties contained in the notion 
 of matter as existing distinct from mind, and thus to leave the existence 
 of minds, divine and human, beyond question. For this purpose he 
 availed himself of two arguments, one of which was borrowed from the 
 Cartesian philosophy, the other was added by himself. 
 
 The Cartesians, denying the possibility of any direct influence of matter 
 upon mind or of mind upon matter, explained the phenomena of percep- 
 tion by the hypothesis of Divine Assistance and Occasional Causes. Ac- 
 cording to this theory, the mental phenomena of sensation are not pro- 
 duced by any direct action of body upon mind, bat by the immediate 
 agency of God, who produces certain sensations in the conscious mind, 
 upon the occasion of certain corresponding movements in the bodily 
 organism.! Berkeley, while denying the existence of matter, and there- 
 fore rejecting the supposition of a bodily occasional cause, retained the 
 Cartesian theory so far as to maintain that the presence of ideas in the 
 mind is caused by the direct agency of the Deity. Thus he says, " When 
 in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether 
 I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present 
 themselves to my view ; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses ; 
 the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is, there- 
 fore, some other iviU or spirit that produces them." « 
 
 With this argument, which represents God as the efficient cause of our 
 ideas, Berkeley combined another, in which the Deity is regarded as a 
 constantly perceiving mind. Accepting, as allowed on all hands, the 
 opinion that sensible qualities cannot subsist by themselves, and rejecting 
 the oi-dinary hypothesis of their existence in an insensible substratum, he 
 concluded that they must therefore exist in a mind which perceives them, 
 and that they have no existence apart from being perceived. If, therefore, 
 
 1 This theory is hinted at by Descartes, Principia, 1. il. J 88, and more fblly 
 elaborated by De la Forge, Traiti de f esprit de Vhomme^ oh. xvi. ; Malebranche, 
 Jieclierche de la V&ritiy 1. vi. p. ii. cb. 8; Entretiens tur la Metaphysique, Ent. 
 vii. Compare Laromigui^re, Legons de PhUoaophie, p. ii. 1. 9, and Hamiltou, 
 Lectures on Metaphysics^ p. 208. 
 
 S Priiunples qf Human Knowledge^ S xxix. Compare H Ivii. Ixli. In S Hii. he 
 expressly refers to some modern philosophers, i. «., the Cartesians, a^ agreeing 
 with liim in making God the immediate cause of all thinga. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 263 
 
 they continue to exist when we do not perceive them (and that they do so 
 is the irresistible conviction of all men), they must be perceived by some 
 other mind. Hence the continuous duration of things implies the exist- 
 ence of a constantly percipient mind ; that is, of God.i 
 
 The relation between the divine and the human mind, as thus conceived, 
 may be adapted either to a presentative or to a representative theory of ideal- 
 ism. We may hold that the ideas perceived at any particular time by a 
 given man arc numerically one with those constantly perceived by tho 
 Divine Mind ; or we may regard them as having only a specific identity, 
 the former being the copy, and the latter the archetype. Under the first 
 hypothesis, the divine ideas are presented to us as the direct objects of our 
 perception ; under the second, they are represented by similar ideas excited 
 in ourselves. The former thcorj', though susceptible of various develop- 
 ments in detail, is in principle that of Vision in God, and is accordingly 
 distinctly maintained by Malebranche, who asserts that a thousand men 
 can see the same individual object, namely, the intelligible extension which 
 is perceived in God.2 Berkeley, by rejecting the theory of Malebranche, 
 was logically driven to the representative hypothesis, though his language 
 occasionally wavers between the two.* 
 
 But to make this hypothesis the foundation of a theistic argument, it is 
 necessary' to retain, as Berkele}' in fact did retain, the supposition of a real 
 distinction iKJtween the idea or object perceived and the mind perceiving. 
 The idea, though existing only as perceived and in the act of perception, 
 must yet not be identified with that act, nor regarded as a mere modifica- 
 tion or mode of being of the percipient mind. If this simpler form of 
 representationism be once adopted, the legitimate inference is not Theism, 
 but Pantheism. The ideas of which I am conscious being admitted to 
 exist only as modes of my own being, it is concluded, by parity of reason- 
 ing, that the archetypal world exists only in the form of various modes of 
 the being of God. 
 
 V ;, 
 
 1 Principles (if Human Knowledge^ H xc. xci. ; Second Dialogue between Hylas 
 and Philanous, sub init. 
 
 t See his R^ponse au lAvre des vraies et des/ausses Idies^ eh. xiii. 
 
 S I must acknowledge my obligations to Professor Webb, the author of " The 
 Intellectualism of Locke," both for the instruction derived from his able and in- 
 teresting work, and also for some unpublished communications on Berkeley's 
 philosophy, of which 1 have availed myself in revising this note for the present 
 edition. At the same time I am unable to agree with him in regarding Locke's 
 and Berkeley's theory of ideas as identical with that of Arnauld, in which the 
 representative idea is regarded as a modification of the mind. Indeed, in Berke- 
 ley's system the relation of substance and mode has properly no place. 
 
264 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 And such is in fact the fonn which Idealism assamcs in the hands of 
 Fichte and Schelling. The theory of perceptions essentially representative^ 
 which virtually re^^ards the act and its immediate object as produced by 
 the inherent power of the mind itself, was not, in Amauld's hands, carried 
 into any consequences beyond those required by his controversy with 
 Malebranche. But a similar theory in the hands of the German philos- 
 ophers became the basis, first, of an absolute £;;oism, and finally, of an 
 absolute Pantheism. Consciousness being only possible in the form of 
 this or that special modification, it is but one step further to regard the 
 true substance as an unmodified substratum existing out of consciousness, 
 though manifested only in the consciousness of its several modes. We 
 have thus the Absolute Ego of Fichte, and, by a still further generalization, 
 the Absolute Being of Schelling, which, as the one substance from which 
 personal and impersonal phenomena alike proceed, may indifferently be 
 called Ego or God ; the conscious self and the objects of its consciousness 
 being but opposite modes of the Divine One and All. 
 
 Nor will the Idealism of Berkeley, however opposed to these conclu- 
 sions, offer any effectual bartier against them. The distinction between 
 ideas existing as objects in the mind, and ideas existing as modes of the 
 mind, is too slight to stand against that tendency to simplification which 
 forms at once the chief virtue and the chief vice of philosophical specula- 
 tion. The natural judgment of mankind, which affirms the knowledge 
 of an external world existing independently of perception, being once 
 abandoned, the only question which remains is, how to account for the 
 phenomena on the simplest hypothesis. And the simplest hypothesis is 
 that which postulates only one real existence underlying the multiplicity 
 of phenomena, the hypothesis whose various subordinate theories ^ 
 finally convei^ in Pantheism. 
 
 These consequences can only be avoided by abandoning the Idealistic 
 theory, and substituting a Natural Realism, Dualism though it be. Admit, 
 with Berkeley, that the real things are those very things which I see and 
 feel and perceive by my senses ; but deny his other main position, that the 
 mind perceives only its own ideas. We may thus open the way for the 
 direct recognition in consciousness, first of our own organism as extended, 
 and secondly of an external world in relation to that organism .^ On this 
 theory we may get rid of the metaphysical distinction between pheiwmena 
 |ind noumenaj or between representations and things in themselves. The im- 
 mediate object of perception is the thing; and the representation is not 
 opposed to the unperceived thing in itself, but to the presentationf or thing 
 as given in immediate relation to the conscious subject. 
 
 1 See Sir W. Hamilton's edition of EeieTs WorhSf Notes D and D*. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 265 
 
 Another weak point of Berkeley's philosophy is his theory of the nature 
 of Belief. He considers that real things differ from chimeras in being 
 more vivid and clear, and not dependent on the will. This accords with 
 Hume's definition of Belief, "A lively idea, related to or associated with 
 a present impression." But the will is completely inactive in a dream; 
 and phantasms may be as lively and vivid when excited by a fiction as by a 
 true relation. The truth is that Belief cannot be defined, being presup- 
 posed in all consciousness. Every act of consciousness is a judgment, 
 and therefore a belief in the presence of its object: the question of reality 
 or unreality depends upon where and how we judge it to be present. If an 
 object present to the imagination is declared to be present to the sense, the 
 judgment is false; but the object is unreal only if by real we mean sensible. 
 All presentations, as such, may be called real relatively to their proper 
 intuition, and unreal relatively to any other. The further question, which 
 of our intuitions indicate the presence of external objects, and which are 
 merely affections of the mind or the sensitive organism, is one which, 
 however important on the realist hypothesis, is out of place m a system 
 of idealism. I 
 
 Note C, p. 131. 
 
 The following is Sir William Hamilton's analysis of the causal judg- 
 ment, as the result of the mental law of the conditioned. " The phenom- 
 enon is this : — When aware of a new appearance, we are unable to conceive 
 that therein has originated any new existence, and are, therefore, constrained 
 to think that what now appears to us under a new form had previously 
 an existence under others, — others conceivable by us or not. These others 
 (for they are always plural) are called its cause; and a cause (or, more 
 properly, causes) we cannot but suppose; for a cause is simply every thing 
 without which the effect would not result; and all such concurring, the 
 eflfect cannot but result. We are utterly unable to construe it in thought 
 as possible that the complement of existence has been either increased or 
 diminished. We cannot conceive, either, on the one hand, nothing be- 
 coming something, or, on the other, something becoming nothing. When 
 God is said to create the universe out of nothing, we think this by sup- 
 posing that he evolves the universe out of nothing but himself; and, in 
 
 1 For some remarks on this question, see the Author's article Metaphysics^ in 
 the eighth edition of the Encyclopcsdia BritaniUca^ p. 613. 
 
 23 
 
266 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 like manner, we conceive annihilation only by conceiving the creator to 
 withdraw his creation, by withdrawing his creative energy from actuality 
 into power." 
 
 " Our judgment of causality," he continues, "simply is : — We necessa- 
 rily deny, or, rather, are unable to affirm in thought-, that the object which 
 we apprehend as beginning to be, really so begins; but, on the contrary, 
 affirm, as we must, the identity of its present sum of being with the sum 
 of its past existence. And here it is not requisite for us to Itnow, or even 
 to be able to conceive, under what form or under what combination this 
 quantum previously existed; in otlier words, it is unnecessary for us to 
 recognize the particular causes of this particular effect. A discovery of 
 the determinate antecedents into which a determinate consequent may bo 
 refunded, is merely contingent, — merely the result of experience ; but the 
 judgment that every event should have its causes, is necessary, and im- 
 posed on us as a condition of our human intelligence itself. This necessity 
 of so thinking is the only phenomenon to be explained. The question of phi- 
 losophy is not concerning the cause, but concerning a cause." ^ 
 
 Such is Sir W. Hamilton's statement of the phenomenon. The follow- 
 ing is his explanation of it. 
 
 " The phenomenon of Causality seems nothing more than a corollary 
 of the law of the Conditioned, in its application to a thing thought under 
 the form or mental category of Existence Relative in Time. We cannot 
 know, wo cannot think a thing, except under the attribute of Existence ; 
 we cannot know or think a thing to exist, except as in Time; and wo 
 cannot know or think a thing to exist in Time, and think it al)soluteIy to 
 commence or terminate. Now this at once imposes on us the judgment of 
 causality. Unable positively to think an absolute commencement, our 
 impotence to this drives us backwards on the notion of Cause; unablo 
 positively to think an absolute termination, our impotence to this drives us 
 forwards on the notion of EJ^cct." " We are compelled," he continues, 
 " to believe that the object (that is, the certain quale and quantum of being 
 whose phenomenal rise into existence wo have witnessed) did really exist, 
 prior to this rise, under other forms (and by form, Ije it observed, I mean 
 any mode of existence, conceivable by us or not). But to say that a thing 
 previously existed under different forms, is only to say in other words 
 that a thing had rarises. (It would be here out of place to refUte the error 
 of philosophers in supposing that anything can have a single cause; — 
 meaning always by a cause that without which the effect would not have 
 been. I speak of course only of second causes, for of the Divine causa- 
 tion wo can pretend to no conception.")* 
 
 1 DiscussionSt pp. 609, 610 (2d edition). 
 
 S DiscusiionSy pn. 618, 621. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 267 
 
 To these extracts fVom Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions maybe added a 
 short passage from the Appendix to his Lectures on Metaphysics, containing 
 his latest explanation of his theory .i " Causation is, therefore, necessarily 
 within existence; for we cannot think of a change either from non-exist- 
 ence to existence, or from existence to non-existence. The thought of 
 power, therefore, always precedes that of creation, and follows that of 
 annihilation; and as the thought of power always involves the thought 
 of existence, therefore, in so far as the thoughts of creation and annihila- 
 tion go, the necessity of thinking a cause for these changes exemplifies 
 the facts, — that change is only from one form of existence to another, 
 and that causation is simply our inability to think an absolute commence- 
 ment or an absolute termination of being. The sum of being (actual and 
 potential) now extant in the mental and material worlds, together with that 
 in their Creator, and the sum of being (actual and potential) in the Creator 
 alone, before and after those worlds existed, is necessarily thought as pre- 
 cisely the same. Take the instance of a neutral salt. This is an effect, 
 the product of various causes, — and all are necessarily powers. We have 
 here, 1. an acid involving its power (active or passive) of combining with 
 the alkali; 2. an alkali, involving its power (active or passive) of combin- 
 ing with the acid; 3. (since, as the chemical brocard has it, 'Corpora noa 
 agunt nisi soluta') a fluid, say water, with its power of dissolving and 
 holding in solution the acid and alkali; 4. a translative power, say the 
 human hand, capable of bringing the acid, the alkali, and the water, into 
 correlation, or within the sphere of mutual affinity. These (and they 
 mi^'ht Imj subdivided) are all causes of the effect; for, abstract anyone, 
 and the salt is not produced. It wants a coefficient cause, and the con- 
 currence of every cause is requisite for an effect." 
 
 In describing the a!)ove four conditions as all in different ways causes of 
 the effect. Sir W. Hamilton will probably meet with the concurrence of 
 most of his readers; but the further statement, that these causes are aU 
 forms under which the effect previously existed, will probably strike them 
 as being at least verbally different from the common view. Most men 
 would readily admit that the acid, and the alkali, and the portion of water 
 necessary for combining them, are but previous forms of the salt itself; 
 but they would hesitate to admit the hand or its action into the same list. 
 I.I other words, they would allow that the earlier and the later substances 
 nre identical in the material particles of which they are composed; but 
 they would Insist on distingmshing these particles from the efficient cause 
 by which the composition is effected. But when the identity is stated in 
 this way, the judgment assumes a totally new character. Whether it be 
 
 1 Page 690. 
 
268 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I 
 
 true or not that we cannot conceive the quantity of existetice to be increased 
 or diminished, there is at any rate no such inability as re;rards the quantity 
 of matter. It may be true as a fact that no material atom has been added 
 to the world since the first creation; but the assertion, however true, is 
 certainly not necessary. The power which created once must be conceived 
 as able to create again, whether that ability is actually exercised or not. 
 
 The same conclusion is still more evident when we proceed from the 
 consideration of matter to that of mind. Of matter we maintain that the 
 creation of new portions is perfectly conceivable, as a result at least, If 
 not as a process ; of mind we believe that such creation actually takes 
 place. Every man who comes into the world comes into it as a distinct 
 individual, having a personality and consciousness of his own; and that 
 personality is a distinct accession to the number of persons previously 
 existing. Whatever may be thought concerning the material particles of 
 which my body is composed, it cannot be maintained that I, as a person, 
 hatl a previous existence in the personality of my parents, however I may 
 i*egard them as the causes of my Ijcing. 
 
 If, then, we are to identify the effect with the sum of its causes, we miuit 
 rise aliove the conceptions of matter as matter and of mind as mind, and 
 rise to the highest abstraction of existence in general, which is not any 
 particular existence. "The sum of Iwiing (actual and potential) now ex- 
 tant in the mental and material worlds, together with that in their Creator, 
 and the sum of being (actual and potential) in the Creator alone, before 
 and after those worlds existed, is necessarily thought as precisely the 
 same." This assertion involves a previous question: Is Being in this 
 abstract form necessarily thought as a sum at all^ or indeed necessarily 
 thought in any way ? 
 
 It is admitted that we not only can conceive, but actually know by 
 experience, the origination of new forms of existence: it is questioned 
 whether these forms are regarded as new existences. But strip off the 
 form, and what is left to constitute the existence? The world, as a world, 
 is not identical with its Creator; the Creator, as a Creator, is not identical 
 with the world. The identity, if it is admitted at all, can only be admitted 
 as regards an unmodified substratum of existence in general, which is no 
 existence in particular. But existence, as an abstract substratum of this 
 kind, is to human thought absolute zero : thus far the Hegelian paradox is 
 true; pure being is pure nothing. When we have abstracted from the 
 world all that distinguishes it as a world, and from the Creator all that 
 dit^tinguishes him as a Creator, we have nothing left to constitute the iden- 
 tity of existence. From the mere general statement that cause and effect 
 both exist, wo have no more right to say that they are the some existence. 
 
 i 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 269 
 
 than, fVom the general statement that they both appear, we have a right 
 to say that they are the same phenomenon. 
 
 Our conception of existence, as of appearance, is not singular, but 
 plural. We are not conscious of existence in general, but of existing 
 things ; as we are not conscious of appearance in general, but of apparent 
 objects. The two may not indeed be always regarded as coextensive. 
 Diversity of phenomena docs not always imply diversity of existence; but 
 neither, on the other hand, does it always imply identity of existence. The 
 primary fact of consciousness, the distinction between the ego and the non- 
 eyo, is a distinction, not of phenomena, but of realities. I know myself as 
 a distinctly existing being; — indeed, it is probably from that knowledge 
 that my conception of being, as distinguished from appearance, is derived; 
 — and I know the external worid as something different from myself. 
 Arguing by analogy from this primary conviction, I believe every man to 
 be a distinct being from every other man and from all the other objects 
 around him; and I believe that every new person that comes into the 
 world is, as a person, a new existence. How far the same distinction may 
 be extended to impersonal objects is another question ; for in these we 
 have no immediate knowledge of any principium individualionis, constitut- 
 ing a single reality out of this or that aggregate of phenomena. But if 
 we are unable to affirm the existence of such a principle, we are also 
 unable to deny it; and hence we are not justified in asserting that all phe- 
 nomena are but different modes of one and the same reality. 
 
 From this point of view, the conception of potential existence, on which 
 Sir W. Hamilton's theory mainly depends, vanishes altogether. If our 
 conception of existence, like all other conceptions, is subject to the con- 
 ditions of plurality and difference, — if we have no conception of being at 
 all except in the form of this being as distinguished from that, — it fol- 
 lows that, where the definite characteristics of this or that being are 
 absent, the being itself has no existence in any form. The mere possi- 
 bility of the existence of a man is not the existence of a man under an- 
 other form; for the man, as such, has no existence except in the particular 
 form by which he is actually constituted. To say that everything which 
 begins had a previous existence in another form, is to say that the form is 
 no part of the existence; — a position which necessarily leads us back to 
 the Eleatic theory of the unity of all things, and identifies Existence with 
 Indifference. 
 
 If these objections are tenable, the common statement of the causal 
 judgment, in which the cause is regarded as something different from 
 the effect, is more accurate, and more in accordance with the philosophy 
 of the Conditioned, than that of Sir W. Hamilton, in which the cause Is 
 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 271 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 It iaetiticml with the effect. Both statements equally repudiate 
 akMudity of supposinj? existence to have ori{;inateU fVora absolute 
 »; for lioth alike suppose that nothin;; can bepn to exist unless some- 
 thinc had previously existed. The question between them is merely this : 
 Is MBrnmUkuty a different existence, or only the same existence in another 
 form? 
 
 Keitber on the one supposition nor on the other do wo obtain any pos- 
 itive conception of the nature of Causation, beyond that which is Aimished 
 lif , tmi limited to, our own volitions. Mere temporal antecedence of one 
 thiols to another is not the whole of causation, any more than the mcro 
 antcvwlence of the same thin^ under other forms. Wo are compelled still 
 to ask, what is that peculiar relation between antecedent and consequent, 
 by which the one gives birth to the other, or is changed into the other? 
 Tbe oritnnation of the consequent by the antecedent, and the evolution of 
 the actual from tho potential, alike require a further cause to account for 
 i; and this caui»ative energy, call it by what name you will, — power, 
 iMcy, — still remains absolutely unknown, but is still supposed as 
 alMolttteiy indispensable. 
 
 Note D, p. 143. 
 
 following is Mr. Mill's argument for the subjection of the human 
 win to the law of physical causation : ** To the universality which man- 
 li ^ l are agreed in ascribing to the Law of Causation, there is one claim 
 of exception, one disputed case, that of the Human Will; the detcrmi- 
 natious of which a hirge class of metaphysicians are not willing to regard 
 as following the causes called motives, according to as strict la^'s as those 
 which they suppose to exist in the world of mere matter. This contro- 
 verted point will undergo a special examination when we come to treal 
 particularly of the Logic of the Moral Sciences. In the mean time I may 
 remark, that those metaphysicians who, it must be observed, ground the 
 main part of their objection upon tho supposed repugnance of the doc- 
 trine in question to our consciousness, seem to me to mistake the fact 
 which consciousness testifies against. What is really in contradiction to 
 consciousness, they would, I think, on strict self-examination, find to be 
 the application to human actions and volitions of the ideas involved in 
 the common use of the term Necessity; which I agree with them in think- 
 ing highly objectionable. But if they would consider that by saying that 
 
 a man's actions necessarily follow from his character, all that is really 
 meant (for no more is meant in any case whatever of causation) is that 
 he invariably does act in conformity to his character, and that any one 
 who thoroughly knew his character could certainly predict how he would 
 act in any supposable case; they probably would not find this doctrine 
 cither contrary to their experience or revolting to their feelings. And no 
 more than this is contended for by any one but an Asiatic fatalist." i 
 lit And no more than this, we might add, is needed to construct a system 
 of fatalism as rigid as any Asiatic can desire. But we must proceed to 
 Mr. Mill's further remarks in the Logic of the Moral Sciences. In this 
 latter portion of his work, the author has done little more than repeat his 
 belief that the law of causality applies in the same strict sense to human 
 actions as to other phenomena, involving in both cases, not constraint, but 
 ** invariable, certain, and unconditional sequence; " so that, " given the 
 motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the 
 character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will 
 act may be unerringly inferred : that if we knew the person thoroughly, 
 and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could fore- 
 tell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical 
 event." He adds a distinction, intended to rescue his theory from the 
 charge of fatalism, as usually implied in the term Necessity. "That 
 Word, in its other acceptations, involves much more than mere uniformity 
 of sequence; it implies irresistibleness. Applied to the wiU, it only means 
 that the given cause will bo followed by the effect, subject to aU possibil- 
 ities of counteraction by other causes; but in common use it stands for 
 the operation of those causes exclusively which are supposed too power- 
 ftil to be counteracted at all." " The causes, therefore," he continues, 
 " on which action depends, are never uncontrollable; and any given effect 
 is only necessary provided that the causes tending to produce it are not 
 controlled. That whatever happens could not have happened otherwise, 
 unless something had taken place which was capable of preventing it, no 
 one surely needs hesitate to admit." a 
 
 That there is some fundamental weakness in the above theory, appears 
 almost on the surface, fVom the fact that so acute a thinker as Mr. Mill can 
 imagine that he has saved the principle of causality from the charge of 
 fatalism by this concluding sentence. That whatever happens could not 
 have happened otherwise, unless something had taken place capable of pre- 
 venting it, is indeed in one sense a perfectly harmless position, but also a 
 perfectly unproductive one. It is the mere truism of the Nursery Rhyme: 
 
 1 Miirs Loffie, vol. I. p. 419. 
 
 f Mill's Logic, book vi. chap. 2. 
 
270 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 regarded as identical with the effect. Both statements equally repudiate 
 the absurdity of supposing existence to have originated from at>soIute 
 zero; for both alike suppose that nothing can begin to exist unless some- 
 thing had previously existed. The question between them is merely this : 
 Is this something a different existence, or only the same existence in another 
 
 form? 
 
 Neither on the one supposition nor on the other do we obtain any pos- 
 itive conception of the nature of Causation, beyond that which is Aimished 
 by, and limited to, our own volitions. Mere temporal antecedence of one 
 thing to another is not the whole of causation, any more than the mere 
 antecedence of the same thing under other forms. We are compelled still 
 to ask, what is that peculiar relation between antecedent and consequent, 
 by which the one gives birth to the other, or is changed into the other? 
 The origination of the consequent by the antecedent, and the evolution of 
 the actual from the potential, alike require a further cause to account for 
 them; and this causative energy, call it by what name you will, — /wuw, 
 ^ort, tendency, — still remains absolutely unknown, but is still supposed as 
 absolutely indispensable. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 271 
 
 Note D, p. 143. 
 
 The following is Mr. Mill's argument for the subjection of the human 
 will to the law of physical causation : " To the universality which man- 
 kind are agreed in ascribing to the Law of Causation, there is one claim 
 of exception, one disputed case, that of the Human Will; the determi- 
 nations of which a large class of metaphysicians are not willing to regard 
 as following the causes called motives, according to as strict laws as those 
 which they suppose to exist in the world of mere matter. This contro- 
 verted point will undergo a special examination when we come to treat 
 particularly of the Logic of the Moral Sciences. In the mean time I may 
 remark, that those metaphysicians who, it must be observed, ground the 
 main part of then: objection upon the supposed repugnance of the doc- 
 trine in question to our consciousness, seem to me to misUke the fact 
 which consciousness testifies against. What is really in contradiction to 
 consciousness, they would, I think, on strict self-examination, find to be 
 the application to human actions and volitions of the ideas involved in 
 the common use of the term Necessity; which I agree with them in think- 
 ing highly objectionable. But if they would consider that by saying that 
 
 a man's actions tiecessarHj, follow from his character, aU that is really 
 meant (for no more is meant in any case whatever of causation) is that 
 he mvariably does act in conformity to his character, and that any one 
 who thoroughly knew his character could certainly predict how he would 
 act in any supposable case; they probably would not find this doctrine 
 either contrary to their experience or revolting to their feelings. And no 
 more than this is contended for by any one but an Asiatic fatalist."! 
 . % And no more than this, we might add, is needed to construct a system 
 of fatalism as rigid as any Asiatic can desire. But we must proceed to 
 Mr. Mill's further remarks in the Logic of the Moral Sciences. In this 
 latter portion of his work, the author has done little more than repeat his 
 belief that the law of causality applies in the same strict sense to human 
 actions as to other phenomena, involving in both cases, not constraint, but 
 "invariable, certain, and unconditional sequence;" so that, "given the 
 motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the 
 character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will 
 act may be unerringly inferred : that if we knew the person thoroughly, 
 and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could fore^ 
 tell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical 
 event." Ho adds a distinction, intended to rescue his theory from the 
 charge of fatalism, as usually implied in the term Necessity. " That 
 Word, in its other acceptations, involves much more than mere uniformity 
 ( f sequence; it implies irresistibleness. Applied to the wiU, it only means 
 that the given cause will bo followed by the effect, subject to aU possibil- 
 Ities of counteraction by other causes; but in common use it stands for 
 the operation of those causes exclusively which are supposed too power- 
 ful to be counteracted at all." " The causes, therefore," he continues, 
 " on which action depends, are never uncontrollable; and any given effect 
 is only necessary provided that the causes tending to produce it are not 
 controlled. That whatever happens could not have happened otherwise, 
 unless something had taken place which was capable of preventing it, no 
 one surely needs hesitate to admit." * 
 
 That there is some fundamental weakness in the above theory, appears 
 almost on the surface, ftx>m the fact that so acute a thinker as Mr. Mill can 
 imagine that he has saved the principle of causality fVom the charge of 
 fatalism by this concluding sentence. That whatever happens could"^not 
 have happened otherwise, unless something had Utken place capable of pre- 
 venting it, is indeed in one sense a perfecUy harmless position, but also a 
 perfectly unproductive one. It is the mere truism of the Nursery Rhyme: 
 
 1 Miirs Logic, vol. i. p. 419. « Mill's Logic, book vi. chap. 2. 
 
 'I' 
 
 k. 
 
272 APPENDIX. 
 
 " There wt8 an old woman lived under a hill, 
 And if she '« twt gmie^ she lives there gtill." 
 
 Examine it closer, and the question at once arises, Whence is this counter- 
 acting something to come? If from myself, from a self-determined act of 
 free will, this concedes the whole question at issue. If from an act of will 
 determined by preexisting causes, or altogether from without, I am still 
 in the iron grasp of Necessity. If the preventing circumstance, come 
 whence it may, comes as the certain sequence of antecedent phenomena, i 
 am still the slave of circumstances ; if otherwise, the whole resembUince 
 between moral and physical causation vanishes. 
 
 But let us go up to the fundamental principle of the theory itself. The 
 conduct of a man, we are told, is the invariable consequent of motives 
 present to his mind ; so that, given the motives and the man's character, 
 we could certainly predict the action. Character, it must be observed, is 
 not here to l>e understood in Aristotle's sense, as a disposition caused by a 
 series of voluntary acts; it must be something coeval with the tirst act of 
 so-called volition. At the earliest period at which I am capable of acting, 
 I possess a character of some sort; and that character, together with the 
 motives presented, determines certainly how I shall act. 
 
 The plausibility of the theory arises from an ambiguity in the terra 
 motive. In knowing the phenomena present to a man's mind at the mo- 
 ment of any act of volition, is it included that we are to know their relation 
 to his mil ? If so, the supposed prediction is a mere liegging of the ques- 
 tion. When I know how he will be inclined to act, I know how he will act. 
 If not, the advocate of the doctrine must succumb to the sophism of the 
 Assinus Buridani, and concede that the unfortunate animal, between two 
 bundles of hay exactly alike, must starve. The solution of this sophism, 
 supposing, of course, that the ass in that instance represents a voluntary, 
 and not merely a spontaneous agent, is likewise the solution of Mr. Mill's 
 argument. What is meant by two bundles of hay exactly alike? They 
 must be indistinguishable by sight, smell, touch, and so forth. But are 
 objects exactly similar as regards the senses, therefore exactly similar as 
 regards the will? A lump of salt and a lump of sugar may be similar to 
 the eye : are they therefore similar to the palate ? If taste is not dependent 
 upon another sense, why may not will be independent of all the senses? 
 If, on the other hand, the two bundles of hay are to be exactly similar, 
 as motives in relation to the will, the argument amounts to the mere truism, 
 that if the ass does not choose one he will choose neither. 
 
 Exactly the same fallacy runs through Mr. Mill's theory of the causality 
 of actions. The so-called motives are either a set of phenomena viewed 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 273 
 
 in their relation to the will, or viewed out of that relation. If the former 
 the argument has long ago been refuted by Reid.i The strongest motive 
 prevails ; but I only know the strength of motives in relation to the will 
 by the test of ultimate prevalence ; so that this means no more than that 
 the prevailing motive prevails. I have no measure of strength but its 
 effects. I only know certain things to be motives at all by the fact of 
 their ultimate prevalence. If, on the other hand, the phenomena are con- 
 sidered out of their relation to the will, my consciousness testifies at once 
 that my actions are not subject to the same invariable sequence as physical 
 changes. I know, that is, whenever I lift my arm to my head, that it is at 
 that moment in my power not to lift it; and that, the antecedent circum- 
 stances being precisely the same, I may decide not to do so at any future 
 time. But, says Mr. Mill, this decision of the will is itself a new antece- 
 dent.* Certainly, a new antecedent to the act ; but with what propriety can 
 it be called a new antecedent to itself? The question is not whether the 
 act of motion follows certainly upon that of volition, but whether the act 
 of volition follows certainly upon antecedent circumstances. The former 
 sequence depends on purely physical laws; and the preventing causes, 
 such as a stroke of paralysis, are purely physical also. But if the latter 
 sequence is invariable also, we admit, not one new phenomenon, but mil- 
 lions; since an opposite determination of the will can only come in with 
 its determinant, and the determinant of that determinant, and so on, ad 
 infinitum. For to suppose that two opposite volitions can follow from the 
 same determinant is incompatible with the whole hypothesis of causality. 
 If, on the other hand, the sequence of volition from given antecedents is 
 variable, what becomes of the power of predicting a man's actions? The 
 contingency of a single link affects all the subsequent portion of the 
 chain. 
 
 In reply, then, to the question. Are our volitions, like other events, the 
 result of causes? Certainly not, in the only intelligible senses of the 
 term. I have only two positive notions of causation: one, the exertion 
 of power by an intelligent being; the other, the uniform sequence of phe- 
 nomenon B from A. (A may here stand for a single phenomenon, or a 
 group; for that antecedent or sum of antecedents which constitutes the 
 Sufficient Beason.) The former hypothesis is Fatalism. If my will results 
 
 1 Active Powers, Essay iv. ch. 4, p. 610, ed. Hamilton. 
 
 t Mr. Mill says, " The wish is a new antecedent." If this term is meant to be 
 synonymous with will, it would be an improvement in language to change it; if 
 it is meant to be synonymous with desire, the confusion of desire with will viti- 
 ates his whole argument. 
 
 iil 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 1 1 1 
 
274 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 fVom the coercion of some other intelligence, I am the slave of Destiny. 
 The latter hypothesis is Determinism, a necessity no less rij^id than fatal- 
 ism, besides beinj; at variance with the whole testimony of consciousness 
 and with the experience of every day. Besides these two, there is no 
 alternative but to admit, in the fullest sense, the freedom of the will, by 
 denying the applicability of the principle of causality to human actions. 
 " This objection, if not removed," says Mr. Mill, " would be fatal to the 
 attempt to treat human conduct as a subject of science." Be it so. It is 
 better to accept the consequence than to admit the alternative. But it is 
 fatal only according to Mr. Mill's view of science. Ethology, as ho con- 
 ceives it, in relation to individuals, as the science of characters as they must 
 he according to laws of physical and mental causation, I do believe to be, 
 in its idea and pretensions, chimerical; but Ethics, as the science of such 
 characters as they ought to be according to the laws of moral obligation, 
 remains undisturl)ed, or, rather, more securely established. It seems to bo 
 forgotten by writers of this school that these two systems are absolutely 
 exclusive of each other; that physical causation and moral obligation 
 cannot in perfection exist side by side; and that where they do coexist, 
 each must be in the inverse ratio of the other. In proportion as we extend 
 the domain of Necessity, we must diminish that of Duty; and Necessity, 
 notwithstanding all that Mr. Mill has advanced, I still believe to be the 
 inevitable result of subjecting moral acts to the laws of physical causa- 
 tion. But Ethology, in relation to classes of men, as affected by national, 
 professional, educational, physiological, or even moral circumstances, may, 
 notwithstanding, attain to a vast amount of important practical principles 
 and rules, though still subject to the influence of individual contingency. 
 The actuary of an insurance company, if he were to predict the duration 
 of life of any one individual on the books of his office, would in all probar 
 bility guess wrong; — as a matter of fact, it is true, mainly from his igno- 
 rance of physical circumstances ; but as a matter of theory also, if we 
 allow that the individual in question may falsify the prediction by a volun- 
 tar}- act of suicide. But if the same experiment is tried on a sufficiently 
 large scale, opposite errors will counteract each other, and the general 
 approximate result attains almost to a moral certainty. The general re- 
 sults of Ethology, as applied to classes, are dependent in a great degree 
 on similar circumstances, and may attain to the same or a higher amount 
 of practical utility. 
 
 In the course of the above remarks I have purposely avoided touching 
 on a subject alluded to by Mr. Mill, the compatibility of man's free-'.viU 
 with God's foreknowledge. This question is insoluble, because we have 
 nothing but negative notions to apply to it. To enable us to determine 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 275 
 
 the exact manner in which an Infinite Intelligence contemplates succession 
 in time, it would be necessary that our intelligence should be infinite also 
 In this, as in all other revelations of God's relation to man, we must bo 
 content to believe, without aspiring to comprehend. The fact of God's 
 foreknowledge is all that is revealed to us : the manner He has left in 
 darkness, and we cannot enlighten it. But we are not justified in rejecting 
 what we can comprehend because we do not understand its possible rela- 
 tion to what we cannot.i That no conceivable amount of information 
 cotihl enable a being of human constitution to predict with certainty the 
 acts of another, is established by the same evidence of consciousness by 
 which we know that there is a human constitution at all. How far the 
 same conclusion can be transferred to other orders of finite beings, still 
 less to an Infinite Intelligence, we have no data for determining. 
 
 The Necessitarian theory has recently been stated anew, in two works, 
 both of high ability and reputation, but written in very different spirits 
 and with very different purposes. The author of the first of these works, 
 while professedly writing in the name and in support of the principles of 
 Necessitarianism, strenuously asserts, at the same time, the apparently 
 opposite doctrine of the freedom of the will and the responsibility of man, 
 and writes with the avowed purpose of reconciling these seemingly con- 
 flicting beliefs. The author of the second work pushes his principles to a 
 conclusion which cannot be otherwise understood than as exonerating 
 human actions from all voluntariness, and their agents from all responsi- 
 bility. The former of these works, Dr. McCosh's " Method of the Divine 
 Government," is one from which I cannot dissent without extreme reluc- 
 
 I "Sed quia jam Deum a/jnoscentes, tam immensam in eo potestatem esse per- 
 clpimus, ut nefas esse putemus exiMimare, aliquid unquara a nobw fieri posse, 
 quod ante non ab ipso fuerit praeordinatum ; facile possumus nos ipsos magniii 
 difficultatlbus intricare, si banc Dei pneordinationera, cum arbitrii noetri liber- 
 tate conciliare, atque utramque simul comprehendere couemur. 
 
 *♦ nils vero dob expediemus, si recordemur mentem nostram es8e finltam ; Dei 
 autem potentiam, per quam non tantum omnia, qua sunt aut esse possunt, ab 
 «temo pnescivit, sed etiara voluit ac praeordinavit, esse infinitam: ideoque banc 
 qidem 4 nobis satis attingi, ut clare et distiucte percipiamus ipsam in Deo esse; 
 non autem satis comprehendi,utvideamu8 quo pacto liberas homiuum actione^ 
 indeterminatas relinquat; libertatis autem et indifferentia qua in nobis est, nos 
 Itaconscios esse, ut nihil sit, quod evidentiuset perfectius comprehendamus. Ab- 
 surdum enim esset, propterea quod non comprehendimus unara rem, quam sci- 
 mus ex naturasua nobis esse debere incomprehensibilem, de aliSL dubitare, quam 
 Intime comprehendimus, atque apud nosmet ipsos experimur." — Descartes 
 Priticipia, P. J. 40, 41. * 
 
 JM 
 
276 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tance, regarding it, as I do, as one of the most valuable contributions to 
 Christian philosopiiy which the present age has produced. With many of 
 the author's remarks on the present question I fully concur, and in others 
 I am inclined to hope that the difference between us is more verbal than 
 real. But there arc some of his statements which, even if not substan- 
 tially erroneous in themselves, may lead to eiTor from their language and 
 
 its associations. 
 
 Dr. McCosh takes his position, as a Necessitarian, on the ground " thnt 
 the principle of cause and effect reigns in the domains of mind as in the 
 territories of matter." » Thus ho considers the doctrine of Necessity to 
 be founded "on one of the very intellectual intuitions of man's mind, 
 which leads us, in mental as in material phenomena, to anticipate the 
 same eflTects to follow the same causes." Of this intellectual intuition ho 
 says, in another part of his work, " In regard to any one thought or feel- 
 ing, we affirm that it must have had a cause in some property of the mind, 
 or in some antecedent state of the mind, or in the two combined. It is by 
 an intuition of our nature that we believe that this thought or feeling 
 could not have been produced without a cause, and that this same cause 
 will again and forever produce the same effects. And this intuitive princi- 
 ple leads us to expect the reign of causation, not only among the thoughts 
 and feelings generally, but among the wishes and volitions of the soul."* 
 
 I cannot help thinking that what Dr. McCosh here describes as an intu- 
 itive principle of the mind, is in fact a combination of two principles, 
 differing both in their nature and in their origin. That a given phenome- 
 non, whether material or mental, " could not have been produced without 
 a cause," is one assertion ; that " this same cause will again and forever 
 produce the same effects," is another. Setting aside for the moment what 
 we know empirically of the uniformity of nature, it is perfectly conceiv- 
 able that the worid might have been so constituted that there should be 
 no regularity in the succession of events, but that the same cause which 
 at one time is followed by a particular effect should at another have no 
 such consequence. The latter portion, therefore, of Dr. McCosh's princi- 
 ple is not entitled to rank among the original intuitions of the mind, 
 because, even if experience assures us that, as a matter of fact, it never is 
 violated, we have no difficulty in conceiving that it may be. 
 
 But when the knowledge of the uniformity of nature is discarded, what 
 remains to constitute the intuitive principle? How much or how little is 
 implied in the mere conviction that every phenomenon must have a cause 
 on the particular occasion of its occurrence, if we know nothing about 
 
 1 Appendix, p. 541. 
 
 a p. 276. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 277 
 
 similiarity of recurrence? In the first place, with regard to voluntary and 
 involuntary phenomena alike, it is implied that some other phenomenon 
 has immediately preceded. This is a necessary consequence of the sub- 
 jection of our consciousness to the law of time. In the next place, with 
 regard to voluntary actions alone, of which I am the cause, it is implied 
 that, at the moment of doing them, I am conscious of being able to abstain 
 from them; and this is an immediate consciousness of poiver, in the proper 
 sense of the term. In the third place, with regard to involuntary occur- 
 rences, there is the assumption of an unknown something in the antecedent 
 phenomenon analogous to the productive power in voluntary agents. i 
 This unknown something, however, is not power in the only form in which 
 we are conscious of it; nay, it is the direct negation of it; for power is 
 positively conceived only in the form of ability to choose between two 
 altematives.2 
 
 It seems, then, that the apparent universality of the axiom, " Every event 
 must have a cause," is partly due to the ambiguity of its terms. Define 
 clearly what is meant by a cause, and the general axiom is at once divided 
 into two special ones. I am the cause of my actions, inasmuch as I do 
 them voluntarily, with a power at the same time to abstain from them. 
 In this sense we cannot speak of a cause in relation to the phenomena of 
 matter. It is not in this sense that the heat of the fire is the cause of the 
 melting of the wax. On the other hand, in the sense in which Hume and 
 Brown define a cause, it is applicable to material phenomena, but not to 
 voluntary actions. A cause, in the sense of these philosophers, means 
 some one invariable antecedent, or group of antecedents, the presence of 
 which is always followed by the phenomenon in question. In this sense, 
 it cannot be asserted that the determinations of the will have a cause, 
 meaning that the will is always determined in a similar manner by the 
 presence of similar antecedent chrcumstances. Or, tliirdly, if we discard 
 
 1 See above, p. 184. 
 
 « Dr. McCoeh, p. 526, maintains that" power is implied in our very idea of sub- 
 stance," and that "this power, these properties of substances, are permanently 
 in tliem, and ready to be exercised at all times." But power, in this sense, is not 
 an idea distinct from the actual sequence of the effect; it is merely that sequence 
 viewed hypothetically. When I speak of the power of fire to melt wax, that 
 power not being in actual exercise, I mean no more than that the melting would 
 follow if the wax were exposed to it. In this sense we know nothing of power 
 or property except as the manifestation of an eflTect, hypothetical or actual. 
 Moreover, power in this sense, as a permanent property, involves the empirical 
 idea of the uniformity of nature as well as the mere conception of a substance 
 w existing. 
 
 24 
 
278 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 279 
 
 the conception of invariability, the axiom indeed becomes universol, but 
 does not amount to an assertion of a cause. It then asserts positively no 
 more than that every phenomenon has some other preceding it; i. c, that 
 no given phenomenon can be conceived as standing at the begmnmg of 
 all time. The unknown something, which we term power in the cause to 
 produce its effect, can neither be included in this universal assertion nor 
 referred to an original intuition of the mind; for there can be no mtuition 
 of that which is unknown, and no universality in that which is denied of 
 one class of actions in the only sense in which it is affirmed of another. 
 
 But it is urged on the other side that human actions can be calculated 
 beforehand, and thercfon) are clearly subject to the operation of lav.. 
 « We anticipate," says Dr. McCosh, " the voluntarj' actions of mankmd, 
 as wc anticipate their judgments. No doubt we are at times mistaken in 
 the one case as in the other in our anticipations, but we do not in these 
 cases conclude that the voluntary actions of mankind have had no cause, 
 any more than we infer that their judgments have had no cause ; we con- 
 clude merely that we did not know the cause, and that if we had known 
 the full cause, we could have certainly anticipated the result. There are 
 statistics of the voluntary actions of mankind - as of crimes, for in- 
 stance -which are as accurate as the laws of mortality." » This state- 
 ment would be a sufficient answer to a theory of complete indifference, 
 which regards the will as entirely uninfluenced by motives up to the time 
 when its choice is made ; but it does not meet the objections of those who, 
 while fully allowing the influence of motives, yet maintain that that in- 
 fluence is different in its nature from any relation of material phenomena, 
 and therefore should not be called by the same name. Doubtless there 
 are -encral anticipations to be drawn from mental inclinations no less than 
 from physical successions. If I throw a piece of wax into the fire, I ex- 
 pcct that it will melt. If I offer money to an avaricious man, I expect 
 that he will take it. The question is: Is the expectation in both <:as«8 
 equally certain? or is the difference only such as can be accounted for by 
 our greater or less knowledge of circumstances? To assume this is to 
 be- the entire question; and, on the strength of this assumption, to call 
 both relations by the common name of causation, is only to confound to- 
 gether two different things under an ambiguity of language^ 
 
 \ " IMn moral reasoning it be mere mockery to use the language of demon- 
 rtration, and to build up systems by trains of d prion reasoning upon a siugle 
 principle; it is assuredly not less absurd to affect the forms of induct ve proof 
 in political speculation. Every political as well as every moral principle pracU- 
 cally involves the determinaUon of the wUl. and thereby becomes at once sepa- 
 
 wh H ;f^ ^^ '''"'•'' "^' '^^^'^""^ ^^ ^ selMrtnntp of the will; 
 which, if it means anything, means a power of resisting or yieldin<r to 
 the motives presented to it, and of resisting at one time and yielding at 
 another, the concurrent circumstances being identical on both occasions 
 Is there anything similar to this in the relation of a physical cause to its 
 effect? If not, why call two dissimilar things by the same name^ 
 
 In the other work to which I have above alluded, Mr. Buckle's " Histor.- 
 Of Cn^ilization in England," the "statistics of the voluntary actions of 
 mankind are adduced to prove a further conclusion, which* not merely 
 
 h m ftx,mal personal responsibility. Rejecting " the metaphysical dogma 
 of free-will, as resting on the fallible testimony of consciousness, Mr. 
 Buckle maintains that the actions of men "vary in obedience to the 
 changes in the surrounding society; " and "that such variations are the 
 result of large and general causes, which, working upon the aggregate of 
 society, „.ust produce certain consequences, without regard to the volition 
 of those particular men of whom the society is composed." 2 And in 
 applying this doctrine to particular cases, he carries it out so consistently 
 as to maintain, "that suicide is merely the product of the geneml condl- 
 
 ullt I7n1 ""' Tl "' - vestigations in which we consider the immutable rela- 
 tions of physical phenomena. That the will is influenced by motives noTne 
 p..tends to deny; but to compare that influence to a physical ca^r^low^ 
 by an unvaried physical effect, is only to confound thinV essentia.ry'dl^^r nt 
 and must ever end ,n metaphysical paradox or practical folly." -Sedgwick 
 I>^scour.eo.tneS.ui^^^ University of CanU^,,e, ,. SI, Mt^ edulon. ' 
 
 T» e above remarks were written before the publication of Dr. McCosh's 
 recent work on the " Intuitions of the Mind." I do not flnd any substantial dif 
 ference between tbe author's view, as stated in this later work, and 1 at previ 
 ously given in the " Method; " though there are some expressions which tend to 
 confirm my suspicion that the difference between us is more verbal ZlZ^ 
 Thus he asserts (p. 472, that "causation in the will is entirely differe'f^om 
 causation another action;" a statement in which I fully concur^on^rn" 
 the propriety of calling the former by this name of causation at ^ll. If tC ^s 
 a causation, though of a diffen^ut kind, in mora, as well ., i„ physical c7on 
 ».e generic notion of cause should be the same i„ both, the specific features alone' 
 be.ng different, as distinguishing this kind of cause from that But can any un" 
 vocal generic notion be pointed out, amounting to an adequate conception of 
 ca sation as such? If not, the definition of causation, as a common genus, I 
 not the same in both, and we have not the subdivisions of a generic noUon bu^ 
 only the different senses of au equivocal term ' 
 
 8 p. 21. 
 
 I 
 
280 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion of society, and that the inclivirlual felon only carries into effect what 
 is a necessary consequence of preceding circumstances." " In a given 
 state of society," he continues, "a certain numl^er of persons nmst put 
 an end to their own life. This is the general law ; and the special question 
 as to who shall commit the crime depends of course upon special laws, 
 which however, in their total action, must obey the lar^^ social law to 
 which'they are all subordinate. And the power of the larger law is so 
 irresistible, that neither the love of life nor the fear of another world caa 
 avail anything towards even checking its operation." i This conclusion 
 he endeavors to support by the evidence of statistics, " a branch of knowl- 
 edge which, though still in its infancy, has already thrown more light on 
 th^ study of human nature than all the sciences put together." a 
 
 It is surprising that this acute writer should not have seen that, in oppos- 
 ing the evidence of statistics to that of consciousness, he is comparing 
 together two witnesses who are not speaking of the same thing. Tlie 
 fact to which consciousness bears witness is the freedom of our own per- 
 Bonal actions. The fact which the statistical evidence is adduced to prove 
 is the recurrence, within certain limits of greatest and least frequency, of 
 actions distributed over an entire community. The former evidence tells 
 us nothing directly concerning the actions of societies; the latter tells us 
 nothing directly concerning the actions of individuals. Nay, it is precisely 
 because the individual actions are not reducible to any fixed law, or capa- 
 ble of representation by any numerical calculation, that the statistical 
 averages acquire their value as substitutes. No one dreams of applying 
 statistical averages to calculate the period of the earth's rotation, by 
 showing that four and twenty hours is the exact medium of time, com- 
 paring one month's or one year's revolutions with another s. It is only 
 where the individual movements are Irregular that it is necessary to aim 
 at a proximate regularity by calculating in masses. To what cause the 
 individual irregularity is due, whether to the complexity and minuteness 
 of the physical conditions of the problem, or to the presence of moral 
 conditions and fn^e agency, - whether it indicates contingency in the facts 
 themselves, or only a defect in our means of calculatmg, - this ,s a 
 question which can only be answered by an acquaintance with the indl- 
 vidual objects under examination, and which gains no elucidation from 
 the statistics of large classes.^ 
 
 1 pp. 25, 2o. „, . - J 1 
 
 3 Some good remarks on the fallacy of this kind of reasoning will be found In 
 
 the Rev. W. B. Jones's Assize Sermon. The liespomibility qfMan to the Law qf 
 
 God. Oxford, 1859, p. 16. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note E, p. 145. 
 
 281 
 
 sir W. Hamilton, in connection with Iiis fhnnr^ ^r *i, ^ 
 causal judgment, maintains that the chc 1 of ,1.^ '"' T'' "' *'« 
 
 both equally inconceivable; n^o^ZTZ^JJ^^^^^^ T'^'^ "' 
 diately or mediatPiv thn ♦ *• ^"^ ^^ ^^^e, imme- 
 
 Imperative, fiives a decisive p«.po„dem„ce to tl,e doctrine ZtZZ 
 over the doctrine of fate. We are tr^ ,„ . . •)• """"^ "^ f'^'dom 
 oar actions." 1 "* '" "='' "^ "* "« accountable for 
 
 , ™' f""^' "'°.:''"' '""''=""*^ ^''™'"''" '" 'he mode of masoning 1, in 
 to conclusion similar to that previously arrived at hv !(•„„. '^''""K' " "» 
 
 .ley, with the view of showing that each is in^istible in its attack nZ 
 the other. Kant, too like .Sir w iio»i. . "P"" 
 
 iih— I T' Hamilton, maintains that the fact of 
 
 iberty Is guaranteed by the testimony of the morul law. who e C«elr 
 toU Imperative <Ao« sHalt uecssaHly implies a corresponding" L^^" 
 Kant, however denies that the liberty as a fact can claim the diLT^ «. 
 mony Of consciousness; for conscLusness In his philosophy is itait^o 
 
 T,^TT" """""^ '" '•""' """^ "'-' ^"ereas the Ledom Sal 
 .n^d by the moral law is a purely transcendental idea, s^bStf^ 
 
 ^on that we are no. directly conscious of self as a reality, b^ only of 
 te «ve™i modes and affections. If my fi,.t consclousne s n^Iathl "o 
 TO It on is not that of myself as willing, but only of will as a phermenor 
 -:f in the judgment " I will " there is no consciousness of 7, Z^ot 
 
 tK^Z'/' ^ ^ ''^ ««r*o/6„. ,. „. p. 66. ed. Ro«nkr.az. 
 A«,a rfcr r. y. p. 414; M^apn ^ «««. p. 92; Xr. *,^. k. p. 224. 
 
 24* 
 
282 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tern, — to this phenomenon of volition I am compelled by the principle of 
 causality to suppose an antecedent determining phenomenon; and to that 
 ajjain another, and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 But this conclusion is no longer forced upon ns, if we admit the exist- 
 ence of an immediate consciousness, not merely of the phenomena of 
 mind, but of the personal self as actively and passively related to them. 
 We thus obtain for the fact of liberty not merely the indirect testimony 
 of consciousness through the medium of the moral law, but the direct 
 testimony by the presence of the fact itself. I am conscious not merely 
 of the phenomenon of volition, but of myself as producing it, and as 
 producing it by choice, with a power to choose the opposite alternative. 
 In this case I am not compelled to go back to any prior cause whatever. 
 I need not suppose a prior intelligent cause; for my only positive notion 
 of such a cause is myself determining, which does not imply myself deter- 
 mined. I need not suppose a prior phenomenal cause; for I am conscious 
 of the influence of motives as inclining only, not as necessitating. The 
 whole point at issue thus turns on the following question : Can the fact of 
 consciousness expressed in the judgment I will, be analyzed into a relation 
 of phenomena subject to the law of causality? Is the principle which we 
 invariably apply to the sequence of one phenomenon on another also 
 applicable to the relation of any phenomenon to the one given cause, 
 
 myselft 
 
 Sir William Hamilton lays much stress on the impossibility of conceiv- 
 ing an absolute commencement. If by this is meant that I cannot con- 
 ceive myself standing at the beginning of all time, out of all relation to 
 any antecedent series of phenomena, it is undeniably true. But is such a 
 conception needed to render the scheme of Liberty comprehensible? Is 
 it not sufficient for me to know that none of the chronological antecedents 
 stand to my volition in the parUcular relation of a determining cause? 
 And this is the case if it is neither given as an active power coercing, nor 
 as a passive phenomenon invariably preceding. To say that some antece- 
 dent or other must go before my will, is only to say that I do not stand at 
 the beginning of all time; but does this imply some one antecedent which 
 is invariably followed by volition, or some active power, necessitating in 
 each particular case? If, on the presence of the antecedent, or group of 
 antecedents, A, my voUtion sometimes takes place one way, and some- 
 times another, it is not determined in the same manner as physical phenom- 
 ena. If there is not always present some conscious being, exerting his 
 power over my will, it is not determined in the same manner as it deter- 
 mines its own volitions. But, excepting these two senses, what is meant 
 by determining cause f 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 283 
 
 I there then, extant any definition of will which does not imply another 
 w. preceding? Perhaps not; but the fault lies only in the autho. of the 
 defi „t.ons. To „.f„te a given definition does not prove the non-existence 
 of the thmg defined. If liberty itself is a simple fact of consciousness! 
 the error lies m the attempt to define it at all. The definition will neces! 
 sanly involve a circle, and upon that circle, and not on the fact, the anta- 
 omst reasons. But, then, if the definition and the fact of consciousness a^ 
 
 l^M ! '°"^'.'* '"'"^ ^'^^ ^«^> »«' ^he latter. Now, consciousness tells 
 me not that my unU wills, but that /«,/«. fa it necessary to the conceiv- 
 abUuy Of the fac. that I should be able to analyze it intT two constHueL 
 elements, - to place an abstract / on one side, and an abstract will on the 
 other ; thus literally fulfilling the satirical dirt^ction for the turbulent 
 Puntans bunal, by laying John apart from Lilbum and Lilburn from 
 John? >V many other state or act of mind bear a similar analysis? Can 
 I in any case separate the state from the mind and the mind from the 
 state; or give any definition which does not virtually repeat itself ? But 
 is it correct, on that account, to call states which I experience every day 
 In consciousness inconceivable f 
 
 If. indeed, the freedom of the will be supposed to mean an absolute indif- 
 ference to and independence of motives, such a liberty would be not only 
 Inconceivable as a fact, but worthless as a principle of moral action. But 
 such IS not the liberty to which consciousness bears witness; nor is such a 
 liberty required as the only alternative against fatalism. The influence of 
 motives on the will is not denied; only it is maintained that influence is 
 not necessary determination; and that motives are not causes, in any 
 proper sense of the latter term. Thus interpreted, I believe the scheme of 
 hberty is inconceivable only if the determinist argument is unanswerable- 
 and its answer is what I have attempted in this and the preceding note' 
 If the attempt to establish a contradictory conclusion fails, liberty, though 
 not definable, is surely as conceivable as any other simple datum of con- 
 sciousncss. 
 
 Note F, p. 146. 
 
 That oureariiest notion of Causality arises from the fact given in the 
 determination of our own volitions, is suggested by Locke, and established 
 beyond all question by Maine de Biran. But then arises the question : By 
 What process do wc transcend our personal consciousness, and acknowl- 
 edge, in relation to the changes of the sensible world, the operation of 
 
 I. J; 
 
284 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 causes other than ourselves? This process is called by De BIran and 
 Royer-Collard a Natural Induction, a term severely criticized by M. Cousin. 
 Were the process really inductive, he arjjues, we must believe every cause 
 in nature to be, like ourselves, voluntary, conscious, and free; and even 
 then the belief in question mij^ht perhaps be regarded as universally true 
 within the limits of experience, but could never rise to the character of a 
 necessary truth. For a more satisfactory explanation, M. Cousin has re- 
 course to the principle of causality, which he regards as a necessary law 
 of the reason, by virtue of which it disengages, in the fact of conscious- 
 ness, the necessary element of causal relation from the contingent element 
 of my personal production of this or that particular movement. This 
 necessity, which compels the reason to suppose a cause whenever the 
 senses or the consciousness present a phenomenon, is the Principle of 
 Causality .1 
 
 It is obvious to ask, What do we gain by the principle of causality thus 
 supposed? Does it explain in any degree the nature of that power which 
 we are supposed to attribute to inanimate objects ? Does it explain how 
 we divest our original notion of the attribute of personality, and what is 
 left when we have done so? Does it furnish the slightest hint or help for 
 investigating the true character of efficient causes? By no means. The 
 principle itself is a mere statement of the fact, that we do invariably sup- 
 pose a cause of physical changes, and that we cannot but do so. It offers 
 no psychological explanation of the fact ; it merely gives it the name of a 
 principle of reason. It does not give us any positive notion of the cause 
 in question; this remains, we know not what, — a something different 
 from our own causality, and, as such, supposable perhaps, but inconceiv- 
 able. It does not tell us how we can attain to a more positive knowledge. 
 Not by the senses ; for these present to us only successive phenomena. 
 Not by the internal consciousness; for this informs us only of personal 
 causation. Not by the reason; for this only tells us in general terms that 
 there is a cause, but furnishes no means of observing and distinguishing 
 its character and varieties. The cause of physical changes still remains, 
 like the subject of physical attributes, a negative idea, ajc ne sais quoi. 
 
 Nor does M. Cousin's theory, any more than that of De Biran, explain 
 how we get rid of the personal element with which all intuitive causality 
 is involved. It only says that we do so, and that we must do so. The 
 term Induction, employed by De Biran and Royer-Collard, is indeed objec- 
 tionable, whether it be taken in the Aristotelian or in the Baconian sense. 
 The former is objectionable, inasmuch as our personal acts are not sup- 
 
 1 Coun de PhUosophie, Le^on 19. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 285 
 
 posed to constitute, or even adequately to represent, the whole body of 
 causal relations. The latter is objectionable; for the same acts cannot be 
 selected instances showing diverse operations of a law, but must, from the 
 nature of the case, be all of one kind. But this objection affects only the 
 anguage, and not the basis of the theor>^. indeed, the two philosophers 
 in question have expressly stated that their natural induction must be 
 carefully distinguished from that of physics.i But in point of language 
 the phrase pn>,op/e of reason is equally objectionable; partly as tending^'to 
 check all further psychological investigation into a point bv no means as 
 yet satisfactorily explained, and partly as opening the way to the thousand 
 extravagances of ontological speculation, by concealing the purely neg- 
 ative character of the notion of physical power. On M. de Biran's theory 
 says M. Cousin, anthropomorphism becomes the universal and necessar^ 
 law of thought.2 It might be replied, that in all cases where the presenta- 
 tton is given by internal consciousness only, anthropomorphism is in fact 
 the condition and the limit of all positive thinking. 
 
 I conceive, therefore, that there is nothing in M. Cousin's theoiy which 
 dispenses with the obligation of a further psychological examination of 
 the origin and character of the supposed principle of causality, such as I 
 have attempted in the text of the present work. Whether that explana- 
 tion Itself be right or wrong, must be judged by others; but, whatever 
 may be its fate in this respect, I shall deem its purpose sufficiently an- 
 swered if it serves to call the attention of philosophers to a point hitherto 
 too much neglected in speculation - the important distinction between 
 positive and negative iutuitioua and thoughts. 
 
 Note G, p. 148. 
 
 In the controversy concerning the existence of a Moral Sense, the ques- 
 tion at Issue has suffered considerable misrepresentation from the want of 
 an accurate distinction between intuitive or prescntative consciousness 
 whose object is an Individual thing, act, or state of mind, and reflective or 
 representative consciousness, whose Immediate object Is a general notion 
 or principle. Stewart, for example. In his Life of Adam Smith, observes : 
 
 ^(Etarrw de Maine de Biran, vol. Iv. p. 893; Joulfroy's Reid, voLiv. pp. 383, 
 8 (Euvre* de Maine de Biran, voL iy. Fr6&ee de rEditeur, p. xxxyL 
 
286 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tt 
 
 "It was the opinion of Dr. Codworth, and also of Dr. Oarke, that moral 
 distinctions are perceived by that power of the mind which distinffuishea 
 truth from falsehood. This system it was one great object of Dr. Hutch- 
 eson's philosophy to refute, and in opposition to it, to show that the words 
 right and wrong express certain agreeable and disagreeable qualities in 
 actions, which it is not the province of reason, but of feeling, to perceive; 
 and to that power of perception which renders us susceptible of pleasure 
 or of pain from the view of virtue or of vice, he gave the name of the 
 Moral Sense." The same philosopher, in his Philosophical Essays, en- 
 deavors to obviate Hume's deductions from Hutcheson's theory, by falling 
 back, in some degree, upon the views of Cudworth and Clarke, and refer- 
 ring the origin of our notions of right and wrong to reason instead of sense. 
 "Tastes and colors," said Hume, " and all other sensible qualities, lie not 
 in the bodies, but merely in the senses. The case is the same with beauty 
 and deformity, virtue and vice.'' To this Stewart replies : " The decisions 
 of the understanding, it must be owned, with respect to moral truth, 
 differ from those which relate to a mathematical theorem, or to the result 
 of a chemical experiment, inasmuch as they are always accompanied 
 with some feeling or emotion of the heart; but on an accurate analysis of 
 this compounded sentiment it will be found that it is the intellectual judg- 
 ment which is the groundwork of the feeling, and not the feeling of the 
 
 judgment." 
 
 In a Lecture on Moral Relations, by the late Professor Mills, the differ- 
 ent opinions concerning our perception of Morality are summed up as 
 
 follows : 
 
 " 1. Some ascribe our apprehension of it, with Hutcheson, to a peculiar 
 internal sense, similar in its operations to the external senses, and con- 
 found moral perception with taste; this is, strictly speaking, the theory 
 
 of a moral sense. 
 
 "2. Others attribute moral perception, not to any peculiar sense, but 
 yet to a peculiar faculty of the understanding distinct from its general 
 powers, and they appear to identify conscience with the moral faculty. 
 
 " 3. Many deny the existence of a peculiar moral faculty, and maintain 
 that moral principles are apprehended by the same powers of the intellect 
 which perceive other kinds of truth. 
 
 "4. The Utilitarian theory implies that moral relations are ascertained 
 and embraced by the operations of the discursive faculty only." i 
 
 The whole controversy may be considerably cleared by distinguishing 
 Moral Facts from Moral Principles. Facts of all kinds are presented to, and 
 
 1 Essays and Lectures by the late Rev. W. Mills, p. 204. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 287 
 
 perceived by, different faculties of intuition, similar in the manner of 
 Iheir operation to the perceptions of sense; and hence, with some allow- 
 ance for metaphor, we may speak of internal or external senses.^ Is it 
 then asked whether we discern morality in individual, acts by the same 
 faculties by whicli we discern other qualities of individual objects pre- 
 sented to us? But, of these qualities, some arc visible, some audible, and 
 so on. Is it meant that an act can literally be seen, heard, smelt, felt or 
 tasted, to be virtuous or vicious ? If not, the perception of the moral char- 
 actcr of acts is a distinct presentation, and, as such, to be referred to a 
 distmct faculty; though, being, as will appear, an object of internal, not 
 of external perception, it is not, like the external senses, connected with a 
 distinct bodily organ. 
 
 The question, whether right and wrong are apprehended by the same 
 powers of the intellect which perceive other kinds of truth, is only appli- 
 cable to the general concepts or prindples through which morality is repre- 
 sented as an object of thought. Truth and Falsehood can be distinguished 
 in representative knowledge only; and all such knowledge is most con- 
 veniently classified by reference to the single faculty of the Understanding. 
 The same power of thought may inquire into the ground of various pre- 
 sentations; it may investigate, for example, why one object is white, why 
 another is harmonious, why a third is sweet, why a fourth is beautiful, 
 why a fifth is virtuous; but in all such investigations, the fact of a given 
 object possessing a given quality must be presupposed as the groundwork 
 of the investigation. The distinction between a true and a false theory of 
 morals will be determined by the same test as that between truth and 
 falsehood in any other inquiry — its agreement or not, with the facts as 
 given in intuition. 
 
 It thus appears that a power of discerning right and wrong in individ- 
 ual acta must be allowed as the presentative basis, without which no 
 system of Moral Philosophy is possible. Such a power, thus limited, it is 
 
 1 This has been observed by Aristotle, whose account of the Practical Sen4ie, or 
 Intelligence, is in this reppect more accurate than that of modem philosophers. 
 Kal Tip Ti,y irp<i,Ta>y Bpwv koI riv 4(rxdrwy yovs i<rr\ koI oh \6yos, Kcd 6 /xh 
 Karh TO J &vo6fl^fis ru>y ^Kiy^ruy Zpu,y koX irpaJrwi/, b 5' iy rah irfKucriKcus 
 rov iffxarov nal 4ybt xofJifyov Kal rrjs ir4pas irpord- 
 tr^ws- ipx<d ykp rov ol HvtKa atnai- U r&y ko^' liKaara y^ rh KaSt6\ov. 
 To{rru>y oly J^x^ty Sc? aXff^riiTiy, atrri «' itrrl yovs. — Eth. Nic. vi. 11. 
 Compare Pol. I 2: lovro ykp wphi t5aAo Cv« "tois aybpdirois tStoy, rh fi6yoy 
 iya^ov Kal KOKOv Kal Binalov Kal iiSiKov koI ra>y &\J^toy aia^ri<riy ^x^iy. 
 These passages may serve as a qualification of Smith's assertion, that the word* 
 moral sense is of very late formation. 
 
288 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 impossible for the Utilitarian to explain away by any theory of association 
 or education. Education may corrupt and pervert our presented ideas, 
 but it cannot originate them : it may teach me to regard an act as right 
 which is really wrong, or vice versa, but it cannot create the original im- 
 pression of either. To deny, with Locke and Paley, the existence of a 
 moral sense, l)ecause one man holds to be wrong what another holds to be 
 right, is like denying the existence of a faculty of sight, because a man 
 with the jaundice sees all objects yellow. The existence of the faculty is 
 shown by our approving or disapproving at all ; it cannot therefore be 
 disproved by the fact of our sometimes approving or disapproving wrongly. 
 The opposite error of Hume, in holding that virtue and vice exist in the 
 sense only, lies in a confusion of the subjective feeling of approbation 
 with the objective quality which gives rise to it. The same confusion 
 has taken place with regard to the secondary qualities of body. Heat and 
 color, as sensations, exist only in a sentient being; but that such sensations 
 originate from nothing at all in the bodies themselves, is an absurdity long 
 ago exploded, if indeed ever seriously maintained. 
 
 This presentation of right and wrong, however, is by no means accurately 
 exhibited in the account commonly given of moral sense. It is not correct 
 to describe our perception of the moral character of actions in general as 
 coordinate with or including the judgment of our own conduct in particu- 
 hir.i Right and wrong are not directly presented to me in any other actions 
 than my own. If I see a murder committed in a puppet-show, I have all 
 the same presented phenomena as if I see a murder committed by a man. 
 I do not feel the same moral disapprobation, because I do not attribute to 
 the puppet the same internal consciousness of obligation as to the man. But 
 this consciousness is not presented except in the case of my own acts, and, 
 from these, is transferred representatively to other men, whose mental consti- 
 tntion I believe to be in this respect similar to my own. The intuitive faculty 
 is properly limited to the approbation or disapprobation of my personal acts ; 
 and to this personal consciousness must thus be traced the original notions 
 of Right and Wrong, as of Cause, and of Substance, and of all internal 
 phenomena. Hence, if the terms Moral Sense and Conscience be used ac- 
 cording to the ordinary philosophical distinction, it will be more correct to 
 describe Moral Sense as an extension of Conscience, than Conscience as a 
 limitation of Moral Sense.^ 
 
 1 As is done by Bishop Sanderson, in his Pralectionea de OMlfjatione Conacien- 
 tiaiy as well as by Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and most of the advocates of a moral 
 aeuse, and still more by Smith, in his theory of Sympathy. 
 
 8 This is exactly the reverse of the theory of Adam Smith, who maintains that 
 our judgments concerning the morality of our own acts is entirely derived from 
 
 : 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note H, p. 212. 
 
 289 
 
 The difference between the relations of the several Forms of Thou-rht u> 
 Psycholoa^ and to U>Sic has not hitherto been accurately marked "ps^ 
 ^.onfst l''J """ '' ~'-»""-'«0 '>y. »<" eiven to, the'act of think^^ 
 
 tolTf h"™' ""• '" •"" ""'"*'' »'■ '"o P-^""- B»' '^<^ Psycho. 
 
 flmher process of pu« or formal thinking is affected by them. In its 
 psychologic., relation, modality is cleariy one of the forms of jud.Jnenr 
 The necessaj judgment, "A m^ be B," exp,.sscs the existence of'a J' 
 
 the contingent judgment, whose full expression is, "A mayor r«ay not^ 
 
 \ tT IrTV °' ""'' """ "' ""^ "'"" ' ''■"""' '"« P-* Judgment, 
 A w B, states the fact of an existing connection, without takin" int<^ 
 
 •coount the question of law at all. The psychological question is°this: 
 Is the presence or absence of a law connecting the terms of a judgment 
 ^ven roor f^ the act of judging? Is it part of the given phenomena or a 
 m«ner m which the mind regaMs them? In other words. Is modal! y an 
 affecnon of the predicate, or of the copuU? Do I in thought decide on 
 the actual connection of A with a given nece^ry-B, or on the necessarv 
 connection of A with a given B ? In the former le, he J^^^L 
 to the matter of the judgment, in the latter, to the form ^ 
 
 The true answer to this question is sufficiently plain. If sensible experi- 
 ence is incompetent to furnish the notion of identity between two phenom- 
 
 m1 " ^" '' ""•"■"P"""' 'o '»""■''' *« Of necessary or contingent 
 Mentity. These are additional products of the act of thought; experience 
 having only presented the phenomena in a constant or variable juxtaposi- 
 Hon Nay, further, the hypothesis that modality is gi^ m the predicate 
 Of a judgment not t},ongU i„ ,he copula, becomes, in ultimate- analysis, 
 destrucve of ..self. For, if in though, we connect A with what is gij. 
 « necessanly B, this implies that B has p„,viously been thought as nfcT 
 »nly connected with some subject or other. A «.essa,^.B has no intelli- 
 gible sense except in notation to some previous judgment, " C ,„„.. fe B." 
 The Identification of A with B, then, takes place through the medium of C; 
 
 T^^^Z!T^ " """"• ■™'' '""'^ *■* '""" •» f" " to assert, " Were 
 
 ojTu rl r 1 "^T""'""™ """ "" »'" •!«''-. he could no more think 
 duo ofTh L ■ "'"" """'"'^ "' "'"■"" """• <»"■ -"""»'"« -d eon. 
 
 ZocT:j::'Z^: '^''""""^ "^"^^ «"" •^■^'' «-- "^^^^ --"^ -^ "erom.- 
 
 25 
 
290 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 291 
 
 and the supposition that modality can be given as an affection of the 
 predicate, implies that it has been previously thought as an affection of the 
 copula. This is sufficient to establish the psychological position of mo- 
 dality as a form of the judgment. But, thus admitted, it is indispensable 
 that it should be expressed in the copula, and not, as is frequently done, 
 left to be gathered from our knowledge of the matter. A judgment of 
 the form "A is B," whatever notions may be expressed by the terms, 
 can never be thought as other than a pure or assertorial judgment. An 
 apodeictical or problematical judgment requires a different statement of 
 the copula relation, "A must be B," or "A may be B." 
 
 On the other hand, the criticism of Sir W. Hamilton, though accurately 
 expressed in relation to one process of thought only, may be so extended 
 as to be decisive as regards the exclusion of modality from Logic. 
 " Necessity, Contingency, etc.," he says, " are circumstances which do not 
 affect the logical copula or the logical inference. They do not relate to the 
 connection of the subject and predicate, of the antecedent and conse- 
 quent, as terms in thought, but as realities in existence; they are met- 
 aphysical, not logical conditions. The syllogistic inference is always 
 necessary; is modified by no extraformal condition; is equally apodicUc 
 in contingent as in necessary matter." ^ 
 
 As regards the syllogistic inference, these remarks are strictly accurate, 
 and would be conclusive against any modality proposed as a form of 
 reasoning. Were a distinction, for example, set up between syllogisms in 
 which the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises, and syllogisms 
 in which it may be inferred with more or less probability, the latter would 
 rightly be condemned as extralogical — the true syllogistic inference being 
 always necessary. As regards the copula in judgments, the criticism 
 cannot be accepted as verbally accurate unless we distinguish the logical 
 copula from the psychological. That modality relates to realities in 
 existence, is not conclusive; for quantity and quality, in all synthetical 
 judgments, do the same in the same degree, and yet are rightly classed as 
 forms of thought. But if we extend the distinction between formal and 
 material thinking, so as to embrace judgment and conception, as well as 
 reasoning, it is clear that the copula is always necessary in analytical or 
 formal judging, as the inference is always necessary in formal reasoning. 
 Material judgments, however, cannot be entirely excluded (Vom Logic, in 
 so far as they furnish data for formal reasoning. They are admissible, 
 however, only in relation to this latter process; and hence those forms of 
 judgment only are rightly to be regarded as logical which affect the formal 
 inference derivable from them. This is the case with quantity and quality, 
 
 1 DUcussions^ p. 148. 
 
 but not with modality: the latter affects the conclusion of a syllogism not 
 •s a conclusion, in its relation to the premises, but only in itself, as a prop- 
 osition. For this reason, it is logically preferable to exclude modality as 
 a form, and to treat it as if it affected the predicate only of the judgment. 
 The logfajj copula thus becomes in every instance assertorial only and if 
 this be carefully distinguished from the psychological copula, the remarks 
 of Sir W. Hamilton may be regarded as appUcable to the whole of Logic 
 and to eveiy process of thought. ' 
 
 THE END. 
 
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