MASTER NEGA TIVE NO . 92 -80503 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code ~ concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: DUNHAM, JAMES HENRY TITLE: FREEDOM AND PURPOSE; AN... PLACE: PRINCETON, N.J DA TE : [1916] Master Negative # COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT L^l.-^. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARHFT Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 105 P9G2 v.l Dunham, James Henry, 1870- 1953 . ... Freedom and purpose; an interpretation of the psyc]i()lon:y of Spinoza, by James II. Dunham ... Princeton, N. J., and Lancaster, Pa., Psychological review company [1910] 3 p. 1., 12G i». 24**. ( Psychological review publications. Philosf)pliicnl raonographs . . vol. i, no. 3. March, 1910) Published jIso as thesis (ph. d.) University of Pennsylvania. 1. Si)inoza, Bonedictiis de, 1G32-1G77. i. Title. — — 1(V-1140L» (Continued on next card) Library oC Congress Hl.PT vol. 1, no. 3 i40blj .» Dunham, James Henry, 1870-1953. Freedom and purpose. cl9163 (Card Z) D193Sp4 Copy in Philosophy, c 1916 a DD2 Another copy in Special Collections (Spinoza) cl916^ I ! i ! A%%,«^I.A AVLXV/AtO *^lt WDC TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: 3A^j:^ REDUCTION RATIO: 1/ >^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA QX IB IIB DATE FlLMED:__:b_lll\^ INITIALS.,!?!"^!^ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. 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' . ?*» !, YtH Nl.3 PSVCHOLOOJCAL REVIEW PUBLICATIONS NARCH, 1911 Philosophical Monographs EDITED BY HOWARD C WARREN, Princeton University (Review) JOHN B. WATSON, Johns Hopkins University (/. of Exp. Psych.) JAMES ROWLAND ANGELL, University of Chicago SHEPHERD I. FRANZ, Govt. Hosp. tor Insane (Bulletin) and MADISON BENTLEY, University of Illinois (Index) FREEDOM AND PURPOSE An Interpretation of the Psychology of SPINOZA u ( By JAMES H. DUNHAM, Ph.D. vx-v Professor of Philosophy, Temple University, Philadelphia PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW COMPANY PRINCETON, N. J. AND LANCASTER, PA. Agents: G. E. STECHERT & CO., London (2 Star Yard, Carey St., W. C.;, Leipzig (Koenig Str., 37) ; Paris (16, Rue d« Cond«) PREFACE The following essay is an attempt to interpret Spinoza's ideas of human consciousness in terms of modern psychology. It is extremely hazardous to project the feelings and methods of one age mto the mental habits of earlier thinkers. The difficulty is ot a peculiar kin.I when we examine the shell of scholastic for- mulae from which the author never wholly released himself. iNevertheless, the consensus of opinion has given him a place second to none among the progenitors of the scientific study of rnmd. Indeed he is held by some, and with good reason, to be the unwittrng founder of the historic school known as Parallel- ism. Be this as it may, it is certain that no man before the rise of empirical methods understood as well as he the meaning and -scope of psychic conation. The structural phenomena of the orgamsm were hidden from his view, but their functional values which we now subsume under the rubric of teleology were grasped with an accuracy that astonishes the inquirer ' We submit the results of our study not as a complete account of the Spinozistic philosophy-for the inquiry is limited to a particular field-but as a practical solution of a problem which has persistently vexed the reader of the Ethics. Freedom in whatsoever manner described, reveals a network of unexplained difficulties. The mesh grows thicker andtmore tangled if we treat Spinoza's problem in the cavalier fashion usually accorded It. Either freedom vanishes altogether, or its terms become tantahsingly vague. The form of argument which we have adopted allows room for the scientific verification of material Its virtue, if any, lies here. We cannot undertake to list the array of authorities con- suIted,--on the one side the direct expositors of the text, on the other the standard works on the meaning of consciousness. It IS not invidious, however, to single out two books, which have measurably affected the framing of our conclusions, viz Joa- \ PREFACE chimes A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza and Hobhouse's De- velopment and Purpose. One word of personal acknowledgment should be added. For the initial suggestion of subject and repeated counsels in its un- folding, the writer is indebted to Professor Edgar A. Singer, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania. The references in the body of the essay are from the Ethics, except as otherwise noted, and are cited by book and proposition. When the page is named the reference is to the authoritative Latin text of VanVloten and Land. It will appear that the English translation by Elwees in the Bohn Library has been freely used, as being in most cases substantially correct. Philadelphia, January i, 191 6. CONTENTS PAGE Chapter L The Problem of Servitude i Chapter IL Purpose the Mark of Freedom 19 Chapter III. The Quest of Character 48 Chapter IV. The Realization of Self. (i) The Meaning of Selfhood... 72 Chapter V. The Realization of Self. (2) The Mode of Development 86 W I I . I I CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF SERVITUDE The philosophy of Spinoza is first of all a transcript of his own experience. He found himself confronted with a serious problem, and he set about solving it to the best of his ability. He was conscious of two facts, the inflexibility of the natural order, together with his own inevitable place therein, and a well defined sense of freedom. Could these two facts be reconciled? The method proposed has been variously appraised by succeeding thinkers. Some have scorned it; others liave altered its terms, so as to bring it into agreement with their own views; a third group have enthusiastically accepted it as a new Gospel. But whatever be the critical attitude of his readers, for him it was sufficient, and for him it became a genuine confession of faith. Let us understand at the outset his idea of human servitude. I The world in which we live, viewed as extended substance, can only be conceived as one and indivisible. For if it could be di- vided as sense-perception avers, then each segment would or would not possess all the properties of substance. If it did, in- finity, e.g., could be predicated of each, and we should have an infinite number of infinite segments; if it did not, then the whole of substance having been divided into finite parts must surely lose its original character. Both alternatives, however, are absurd.^ To prove the same thing from another angle, let us suppose that a particular segment is destroyed, the other parts remaining unchanged in position. Immediately a vacuum is created; but as this is abhorrent to nature, all its parts being obliged to seek a junction, we conclude that quantitative divi- sions are inconceivable. From this point of view nature is a continuum ; and all objects, such as water, which the individuat- M, 12. Ill r JAMES II. DUNHAM FREEDOM AND PURPOSE ( ing eye distinguishes as separate, are only modal variations, un- dulations on the unbroken sea, by means of which fundamental unity is expressed.- But it is extremely difficult for the mind to grasp the idea of unqualified substance, inured as it is to the presence and activity of individuals. Let us approach the case from the opposite di- rection. We deal at once with simple bodies, exhibiting the most primary properties, viz., rest and motion. These may be com- pounded with one another, the aggregate maintaining a due rela- tion in its parts, even though the modes of motion be changed. If now we advance another step and combine compound indi- viduals, the product will include a great variety of possible modifications, let us say organic reactions, or orbital movements, without working any change in the new nature. By continuing this process to infinity, we at length reach the conception of the whole of nature, tota fades mundi, an individual whose parts undergo an infinite and infinitely complex variety of changes, without endangering the unity of the w^hole.^ Nature as thus conceived is not a dreary waste of substance, with nothing upon which the mind can seize; it is stocked with bodies of different degrees of "animation", that is, with different meanings as re- lated to the whole.* The upshot of this view is that the world cannot be conceived without its parts,^'^ the smallest organ and the most fleeting idea having their appointed place in the uni- versal system, because they form the modes by which the attri- butes of God (or nature) are expressed in a fixed and definite manner.^ Given, then, a world whose continuity is not interrupted, but defined by its modal parts, we inquire next how the parts are related to one another. That relationship is causal. Everything that exists, exists either through itself or something else.*^ If it exist through something else, it will be the effect of a cause.* Thus, a body at rest cannot supply its own impulse to motion ; it *I, 15, Scholium (=Sch.). •II, Lem. 7, Sch. *II, 13, Sch. •IV, 2. •I, 25, Corollary (=•€.) ' I, Ax. i. • I, Ax. iii. I I must be moved by another body. Nor can a body in motion come to rest without the interposition of a second body.^ In measur- ing the exact amount of work done we must take account of the texture of bodies in contact, hard, soft, or fluid. If the im- pinging body fails to move a body at rest, the effect of the mo- tion is measured by the recoil of the first object, the path of the subsequent motion being determined by the angle of incidence.^® Again, the constitution of compound bodies is a more intricate application of the same principle. For the constituent parts are determined to their relative positions by the "compulsion" of other bodies and their reciprocal motions preserve a fixed ratio among themselves. ^^ If now we examine the world as a whole, we find the un- deviating dependence of one individual upon another. Every thing is determined to exist or to act by another thing determined in the same way, in a regress that goes to infinity. ^^ Take an example. A stone is dislodged from its place on the roof, and falls to the ground, killing a passing pedestrian. The cause of the event was a tempestuous wind that came in from the sea. The wind was raised by the agitation of the sea on the preceding day. The agitation of the waves was produced by a definite cause, a mechanical series thus beginning which cannot be closed until its every member has been ascertained. But inasmuch as the number of links in the chain is infinite, we can never reach the ultimate cause of a particular act, and must simply say that all things which are, *are in God (or nature) and so depend on \ Him; that without Him they can neither be nor be conceived. We do not thereby give up the pursuit of a mechanical ideal as an explanation of the world, and take refuge in the "sanctuary of ignorance", the will or purpose of God. Final causes cannot ; jexplain how a particular thing is determined in space and time. Tor in the first place the dogma reverses the actual order of events, taking the cause from its position of priority and making it the effect. It removes, also, the element of perfection from the world as immediately constituted and argues that perfection • II, Lem. iii. *• Ihid., Ax. i, ii. 11 II, Lem. iii. Definition. " I, 28. !l 4 JAMES H. DUNHAM can only be attained when purpose is realized. "If the immediate creations of God were made with a view to His attaining a cer- tain end, then the last things for which the first were made must be the most excellent of all".^^ Mechanism on the other hand insists that everything is de- termined to existence, and to a particular state of existence by God, that is, by the laws of nature. It affirms that a definite effect always follows a definite cause, the essence in each beine the same,^^ that the only way to estimate the power of a cause is to compare the essential natures of the affecting and affected bodies.*'* Thus, if man be the effect, we must look for the cause not in the lifeless stone, but in the germinating seed. If the nature of the tree be the cause, we must look for the eft'ect not in articulate sounds, such as men utter, but in umbrageous foliage or luscious fruit.'*^ Moreover, the principle of causality concerns not only the nature of the bodies, but their numerical status:' To account for a group of similar individuals the determination of the essence, e.g., man, is not enough; we must alsd determine why there is a prescribed number of them. Let us posit twenty men, existing simultaneously and without mutual relationship. They possess the same properties and can be understood by the same formulas. But the definition of finite things does not in- volve existence;*' the nature of man does not require that there should be twenty units of the class at the same time. Hence, we are forced to seek a causal nexus for each one in turn, in order to understand why he exists.*** In other words, mechanism lays its grip uix)n every element in nature, forces it into an infinite regress of causes, and sets upon it the inerasable mark of neces- sity.*® There is nothing contingent in the wide spaces of the universe ; nothing, that is to say, which is dependent on the oper- ation of causes whose entrance into the sphere of influence we cannot positively determine.-*^ Still another fact confronts us; the rule of causality can not be broken. When a body has been endowed with certain prop- ^* I, App. " I, Def . 4. " V, Ax. ii. "I, 8, Sch. ii. " I, 24. '• I, 29. '•I, 33, Sch. i. 18 I, 8, Sch. :i'^ FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 5 erties, and conditioned to act in a certain way, it can never dis- avow its condition ; it can never act in a different fashion.^* The most conspicuous interruption to the natural order is alleged to have occurred in the miracles of religion. They have woven themselves so intimately into the faith of the masses and are so manifestly the instruments of priestcraft for cementing its authority, that any one who attempts to examine them as natural phenomena, links in the causal chain, is branded as an impious heretic. Nevertheless we are warranted in inquiring into their character, proceeding on the assumption that the order of nature is immutable, as the being of God.22 It will then appear that a miracle has no meaning, except in relation to the opinion of men. For it reflects not an activity in the mechanical world, but the limits of human knowledge. It is an event whose cause cannot be explained by those principles which natural reason has de- duced from observed phenomena. In many of the recorded mir- acles an uncritical age declined to institute a search into causes, a search which would doubtless have removed once and for all the unusual character of the event. The necessity of mechanism remains unimpaired.-^ From a different point of view the application of this rule is denied. Men allege there is a break in the observed order. Sen- sations pressing thick and fast upon consciousness give us the impression of a confused, unarticulated mass. They do not conform to the sequence and order with which we have hedged natural phenomena. Disharmonies in sights and sounds, fetid, decomposing matter, bitterness or insipidity in taste, disease, in- equalities in social condition, — these are to us evidences of an unbalanced scheme of nature ; we are wont to charge it up against the inadequacy of the governing rule, forgetting.that our'"order" is simply a synthesis of the sensuons manifold, a concept of the understanding. In nature there is no "order", there is nothing ' but irresistible law.^* Everything is determined to act in a par- ticular way, and in that way it must act. More than that, it is the only way in which it could act; that is to say, the world in -^ I, 27. I, App. 23 33 Trac. Theol. Pol. I, 446. ^ I, App. w 6 JAMES II. DUNHAM which we live, and all its constituent parts, could have assumed no other form, developed no other causal series, than that which science reveals. The argument adduced by Spinoza to prove this point is strictly scholastic ; you could not make a new nature without making a new substance, which would mean the con- structing of two infinities, an absurd proposition. But there is an empirical basis for his contention ; for, granting the physicist's principle, the conservation of energy, we are assured that how- ever much you may alter the relations of individuals you cannot reduce the actual amount of force at work within the world. Hence, all si>eculation as to what might have hapi)ened is on the face of it inept. The fact remains inevitable and emphatic, — the rule of causality is universal. iii I II To the rule as thus formulated the body of man does not pre- sent an exception. It follows in every detail the laws of physics and chemistry. Man comes into existence through the medium of a necessary cause, that is, by the action of another body, and is determined to his particular form and function by forces over which he has no control.-^ His corporeal constituents are pre- cisely the same as those which enter into the making of a purely mechanical body, e.g., a planet. Like it his organization is not simple, but a congeries of minute and infinitely diversified bodies. Like it, too, his component parts reveal the usual variety of texture, hard, soft, fluid. He is affected by the same impact of foreign bodies, while all the organs and functions within the compound sustain an undeviating relation to one another.-^ The vegetative system requires the introduction of bodies from with- out for its constant "regeneration" — a fact which apparently unique to organic structure may yet be paralleled by magnetic in- fluences in unorganized bodies. Again, the human body receives impressions through the sense-organs, in such a way that the impressions endure after the stimulus is removed, by virtue of the fact that the fluid parts of our body impinge on the softer I, 17, Sch. M Cf. II, Lem. vi. ;.:>i ■ i / K FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 7 parts of the same and register there an effect, undisturbed until a new reaction is set up. This transaction is subject to the com- mon calculus of chemistry. Man has also a reciprocating power; he can "do work" on his neighbor; he can "arrange" external bodies in various ways, especially by bodily motion, or change of place.-^ It is there- fore true to say that man is conformed to nature in an almost infinite number of ways,-^ that he is inexorably a part of nature, and cannot undergo any changes save such as are determined by the laws of physical activity, his own body as well as outside forces being examined ;-^ and that his every act mirrors the gen- eral constitution of the world and not exclusively the properties which make him a man.^^ In this way he fulfills the universal axiom that there is in nature no individual thing which is not surpassed in intrinsic strength by another individual, and which consequently is liable to destruction by it.^^ The axiom is em- pirically verifiable, and in no case more clearly than in the life of man. Man thus becomes a member of the causal series, which grows ever more powerful in its regress. The slightest ex- perience proves to him that his own ix)wer is infinitely exceeded by the power of external causes. But the account of man which we h^ve so far given has made no reference to intellect as the special endowment of our subject. This is the element which is thought to distinguish him from other objects in nature, even conscious animals. It must be his certificate of freedom, if he have any. We therefore ask, how mental processes arise and what relation they bear to body. The primary fact is, that the order and nexus of ideas is the same as the order and nexus of things.^^ For every individual in the world there is an idea in the mind of God, since he is both thought and extension ; that is, everything has a "mind".^^ But man alone of all modes is able to express his ideas in language; hence his experience must be studied in order to ascertain the relation between mind and body. Now the first element in con- *" II, Posts, i-vi. "IV, App. vi. - IV, 4. '•IV, 37, Sch. " IV, Ax. "II, 7. »Jl', 13. Sch. / i 8 J AM US H. UVNHAM scionsness, the fact which first makes us aware that there is such a thmg as mind is the idea of an existing object, viz., the •wdy.- Ihe relation between them is indestructible The moment a reaction, even of the most rudimentary kind, takes place m body, the mind registers its image as an idea. Mental action corresponds point by point with physical changes- the concomitance is exact.-'= Hence, the finer the articulation of the organs of body, and the acuter the senses to receive and co- ordinate their ijerceptions, that is to say, the greater the reactive ixjwer o body, the more fitted will mind be to work the sensuous manifold into a conceptual system. In other words, i^ercept and concept are inevitably joined ; there is no distinction between them •• The mind is not a plastic surface, a tab^ila rasa, on which images are successively engraved. It is another aspect of l)ody. just as body is another asj^ct of mind. What happens to one happens simultaneously to the other, whether the "happen- ing be viewed from the standi)oint of ideas or their objective equivalent.-'^ Now we know what happens to body, and from these data we can judge what happens to mind. When the bodv is affected bv external forces, the impact of the affection is registered in con- sciousness. The mind, however, does not perceive the nature ot the impinging body, except as it is mediated through the con- stitution of its own body."" Thus. Peter's idea of Paul will be different from Paul's idea of himself, inasmuch as the one passes through the sense-organs of the observer, while the other is the product of a man's experience with his own organic system. ; 1 he modification of body determines the image in the mind ^^ When, then, two or more sensations occur simultaneously in the mind, the return of one of them will induce a modification kindred to that sustained when both were present. This is pos- sible because the body retains the impression of an external agent even after its withdrawal, and until such impression has been effaced by a new sensation. On this basis memory cannot be an originative act of the mind ; it is the sequence of images, caused "11, II. "II, 12. M "V, I. **!!, 16, Cor. n, 17, Sch. so If t I FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 9 by corresponding reactions in the body. For example, the soldier sees the prints of the horses' hoofs in the sand and at once con- jures up the image of a horse, a horseman, and the tumult of battle ; while a farmer observing the same tracks would think of the plow, the furrow, and the hard-working animal. In this way, too, objects which have no natural affinities are joined together; as when a Roman hearing the word poinum, would at once think of the fruit bearing that name, the two images having nothing in common except the fact that both had at the same moment produced modifications in the percipient's senses.^^ One con- clusion alone can be deduced from these considerations, viz., that the mind is framed to think in a particular way, by a definite cause, which in turn is subject to a like determination, until a causal series develops in the oi)eration of mind, parallel to, and as rigorous as, that which governs the affections of body.*^ But to many students of human nature such a conclusion is obnoxious. They cannot understand how the laws of physics or chemistry can be the sole and originating "causes of pictures, buildings, and all things of that kind, which are produced only by human act." They affirm that the body of man, unguided by the mind, is incapable of unfolding the genius, enshrined in a classic temple. We answer that no one has as yet explored the resources stored within the body's confines. The fineness of texture, the complexity of organization, far transcending the products of art, are such that they may of themselves account tor many esthetic achievements, which we have hitherto ascribed to deliberate intent. Nor has anyone gained so complete a knowl- edge of the structure of organs, or of the bundle of nerves which now we call the motor-sensory system, as to explain adequately their functional offices. There are many performances in sub- conscious life, e.g., somnambulism, which throw us into surprise when we waken, and which when we are awake we should not venture to repeat. Animal psychology discloses certain instincts, leading to action, which in sagacity quite excel the voluntary efforts of man. Again, it is averred that the body remains inert and passive, so long as the mind is in no condition to think. , •"n, 18, Sch. «c/. 11,48. i» A .; / "^^r..* lO JAMES H. DUNHAM But we answer, the state of body has much to do with the capacity for mental exertion. If the body be sunken in sleep, the mind is torpid; if the body suffer from fatigue or disease, or if the nerve-centres be subject to some particular stimulation, the mind cannot adjust itself to think on a given theme.'*- These illus- trations are adduced to prove, not that body is superior to mind, but that mind and body are one and the same individual, con- ceived now under the aspect of thought, again under the aspect of extension.^^ There is no interaction ; the mind cannot change the functioning of bodily organs, nor can the body give to mind the power of thinking; they act with a united impulse.^^ The relation of mind and body as thus sketched is diametrically opposed to that adopted by Descartes. He held the rules of physics to be inviolable until man is reached. The instincts of sentient creatures are mere automatisms, combinations of phys- ical and chemical elements. Man however is of a different fibre. He possesses thought and extension, soul and body. Descartes agreed with many less critical thinkers in "conceiving man to be situated in nature as a kingdom within a kingdom." The bearer of intelligence does not passively follow the natural order; he interrupts and often shatters it. To trace the emotions of body to their primary causes was one of the secure triumphs of this philosopher. But he did it only to assure to man an absolute dominion over them. Hence his question was, how the transit from soul to body, from thought to motion could be effected. Preestablished harmony, as afterwards worked out by Leibnitz, would be a poet's dream, not a scientific hypothesis. The single substance of Spinoza obliterated the agelong division, accepted by religion and philosophy as final. A solitary alternative re- mained to the exponent of Rationalism: man must break into the mechanism of nature, he must master his physical environ- ment. How shall he do it ? By translating volition into mechan- ical action. The pineal gland in the ''midst of the brain" fur- nished the point of contact. All the diverse agitations of animal spirits impinge upon it, and from it receive in turn the impulses which drive them back to the state of equilibrium. Probably in FREEDOM AND PURPOSE II infancy this connecting gland dealt with a single thought, let us say the most rudimentary reaction; but in time it became as- sociated with the great complex of thought and motion, and at length stood out as the fulcrum by which a man could lift him- self above the murk and bondage of circumstance on to the level of independence.^^ To Spinoza such a transgression of 'mechanical law was un- thinkable. Man is not a privileged being in a world of de- termined bodies. He may acquire a lordship over nature, if he will; but he can win it not by overriding her precepts, but by ■ obeying everyone to the uttermost. The device proposed by Descartes was a childish invention, unworthy of a mind which had deliberately shivered the idols of Scholastic occultism. For if the uniting gland be equally agitated by impinging passion and volitional decision, the one neutralizing the other, it can yield no assurance that decision will not be checked and perhaps de- stroyed through the excess of passion. Nor does this theory answer the objection that there is no common denominator be- tween idea and motion, and hence no basis for comparing their relative powers. For how shall I find out the strength of the mental assertion required to lift the arm in the act of felling an opponent, when my instrument of measure is practically un- known to me ? When however we understand that the emotions of body follow from the necessary order of nature, that they can be traced back to determinate causes, that they involve no defect in nature, such as is described by the terms pain and vice, but rather register a little known aspect of her perfection, then we shall not decline to exEibit them in geometrical fashion, as we do lines, planes and solids, believing that by such a survey we shall be driven to oppose and conquer the restraints which have been forced upon us.*® Ill Having accepted the thesis that man shares the causal rela- tions of mechanism, we proceed to inquire how they find ex- pression in his emotional life. His body, as we saw, comes into III, 2, Sch. II, 21, Sch. Ill, 2. V, Pref. Ill, Pref. iidi I 1 I 12 JAMES H. DUNHAM being wholly without his connivance. Inasmuch as mutually- destructive elements cannot operate within the same body, we must attribute to man as to other individuals the endeavor to preserve his own existence. This endeavor can be nothing else than the essence or constitutive nature with which he makes his entrance into the world/' Hence the Conatus is a determined quantum, an appetite governed solely by the laws of chemical reaction. It is a something which we cannot change. We can- not, for example, do injury to ourselves with a view to ultimate benefit. To hate an object, and sustain thereby a distinct loss of emotional vigor, expecting to attain later a degree of mental "^perfection" hitherto unknown, is a type of sacrifice utterly repugnant to natural law.^** Moreover, the same impulse, even when associated with consciousness and called desire, receives not a shred more of self-initiating power than it formerly had. Desire is not an outreaching for a benison which we would make our own. We do not desire a thing because it is good ; a thing lis good because we desire it; that is, because the organic function responds most readily to the stimulus. Now the realisation of a good, or more strictly, the functioning of desire, brings with it lan increase of the body's powers and a corresponding increase |of the mind's capacity. The movement is purely reflexive; it springs from the properties of our nature. We could not be men if we did not pursue a conduct like this. Thus, the emotions of love and hate are not careful discriminations on the part of an agent, as many moralists contend. They are mental registra- tions of physical facts. The forces of body are enlarged or 'diminished, and the mind cultivates or shrinks from a conception of the same.^'* Hatred and envy do not in the first instance imply deliberate intent. They are impulses which record an automatic revolt against any interference with a man's comfort, or his right to live. Parents have often fed the fires of such emotion by inciting their children to virtue, precisely for the sake of eclipsing the prestige of a neighbor's family or neutralizing their efforts. But all the training bom of ambition would have been fruitless and dead except for the tendency already implanted in FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 13 the youthful nature.*^*^ Whatever be the emotion that struggles for utterance, we may be sure that it forges one new fetter upon hands already heavily loaded with the tokens of human en- slavement. We have nothing to do with the rise of emotion ; we have as little to do with its development. This consideration accounts for the wide variation of types in a given society, a measurable difference here, an extraordinary contrast there. Whence comes such diversity? The answer is: Elemental passions depend altogether on the way a body receives its modifications through the medium of external forces.^ ^ That our emotional nature is stirred to activity in this way only, is the common testimony of observers.^2 Thus, the child is constrained to laugh or cry when similar phenomena are found in the behavior of its attendants,''^ an imitative reaction which in later life develops into a determi- nate attempt to emulate the word, look or dress of one whom we love.''* Again, the tremor of lip and the pallor of brow are traceable directly to a nervous shock administered by some foreign body of higher potency than ours. These are emotional experiences which every man involuntarily repeats; pieces of ''fossilized intelligence" (Lamarck), not drafts on the mind, as the reservoir of thought.^^ Another group of emotions distin- guish one agent from another. These admit of a diversity of intellectual judgments; and yet these, too, are based upon the empirical fact that every man tends to react to given conditions in certain well defined ways. Thus, courage and fear are first"* of all physical phenomena; a man does not make himself brave or timid ; he is that, by the tendency of his nature. More than that; no man can form an opinion on a particular act involving hardihood, without revealing at the same time his own emotional synthesis. "I shall call a man intrepid when he makes light of an evil which I am disposed to fear; ancj^ if in addition I con- sider the fact that his desire of injuring his enemy and benefit- ing his friend is not restrained through fear of danger, I shall call him audacious." The value of my judgment depends on 4T III. 7. Ill, 44, Sell. Ill, 13, C. -Ill, 55, Sch. " ni. 56. "Ill, 13, Sch. "111,32, Sch. HI, 27. Ill, 59, Sch. LT*\ r I 14 JAMES H. DUNHAM FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 15 my personal idea of courage, and that can be appraised only in terms of the physical power which I myself feel in face of evils.°* C individual peculiarities, then, instead of guaranteeing inde- pendence, serve only to prove how deeply intrenched in private experience are the rigorous laws of organic life. We are subject ' to an external constraint which we can neither throw off nor reduce. We are forced to be whatever our sensory reactions make us; and they in turn are shaped by the stimulating bodies about them. We are a prey to passioitrj For, in last analysis, drunkenness and avarice are not merely changes in a particular body. The words imply correlatives. If a man be drunken, it is because he has been lured by the cup and has imbibed its con- tents. If a man is avaricious, it is because he has conceived the possibiHties wrapped up in the possession of gold. **They pro- claim," says Spinoza, "the nature of each affection through the objects to which they sustain the most intimate (i.e. causal) relation. "^^ In general, sympathy and antipathy, words intro- duced by certain authors to indicate an occult property in things, really describe our emotional life; we are victims of passivity, whether for good or for ill. Nature has driven her thongs into man's flesh and heart.^® ^^The servitude of man is further strengthened by his vacillation m face of conflicting emotions.^® The sensory nerves cannot always communicate the same steady vitalizing power; there ^must be alternations of uplift and depression. This situatiofi, / so familiar in purely organic experience, stands typical of the V entire emotional career of man. Consider for example the per- son whose temperament is antithetical to our own, who yet strongly resembles in face and behavior a third person, counted among our dearest friends. In our mind two distinct and con- tradictory emotions are aroused, attraction and repulsion, love and hate. Two attitudes strive for ascendency, and we are un- able by untrammeled choice to adopt either.*® The situation ••III, 51, Sch. " III. 56, Sch. -Ill, 15, Sch. Ill, 41, C. >» 111,17. finds a parallel in the sphere of imagination. The mind is simul- taneously affected by two images, because two several impressions concur in the sensory system. When one image returns the other is automatically called up. If now the first image be as- sociated on another occasion with a fhird object, its fresh ap- pearance will superinduce a conflict of expectations : will Y or Z follow X ? The percipient is incapable of rendering a decision.®^ In the sphere of emotion the fluctuation arises not from the mere concurrence of sensations, but because the causes operate dif- ferently in producing the effects. In the case just cited, hatred is the result of a direct clash of antagonistic natures, while the feeling of love is engendered by the presence of another cause. Generally, however, both emotions may be incited by the same cause, by virtue of the extraordinary diversity of our sensory reactions. Furthermore, in the last analysis, contradictory de- sires will be found to be variations of the same emotion, as e.g,, \1 avarice and luxury of self-love; the one expressing greediness for personal gain, the othe- lavish expenditure for personal gratification.*^ IV Such is the situation which meets every man, even the most advanced and experienced. What will be the outcome? What shall determine the issue ? The man himself by "decree of mind" cannot settle the case once for all. That is out of the question. The settlement takes place by a change in tone of one or both of the contrary passions.*^ A new "state of mind" then exists. Thus, when hunger has been appeased by food, the digestive organs are no longer in the same condition of susceptibility. What appealed strongly before, now palls on the taste. We could not if we tried excite the sharp appetite which a moment ago craved for satisfaction.** But such a quick adjustment is not always to be expected. There are certain conditions which na- ture imposes, and which she insists should be met. The whim or alleged volition of the agent has no part in effecting the •*II, 44. Sch. -V, I. -IV, Def. V. -111.59, Sch. I i6 JAMES H. DUNHAM FREEDOM AND PURPOSE C 17 change. Emotions with the stimulating cause present exceed in strength emotions whose cause has disappeared. Emotions re- specting future objects are fainter in proportion to the remote- ness of attainment. Emotions conceived to be necessary make a far deeper impression on the mind than those which are con- tingent on unknown circumstances.®^ \Xn intelhgent grasp of the principles of good and evil cannot of itself overcome the effect of impulsive desire. We may be thoroughly convinced of the advisability of a certain course, we may have carefully esti- mated its ethical advantages, we may have worked up a genuine enthusiasm for its virtuous possibilities; but when a sudden im- pulse, yielding immediate results, fastens upon us, all the fervor of intention expires like a dying flame, and we are left with the dead ashes of a natural passion.®^ Indeed, it is true to say that the violence of the conflict exhausts a man's power of activity, and confirms the word of Sacred Writ: "He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." Thus our boasted freedom turns out to be a hidden chain, binding us with links of steel back to the tyranny of unrationalized appetite.*^" Appetite, sensation, stimulus, fetters of sense, signs of bondage, from these we shall struggle in vain to win release. Having this convincing array of facts before us, we wonder how men will venture to afiirm their independence. The paradox arrests attention. It is not a sporadic challenge, here and there. It is the judgment of many dispassionate observers. How can we dispel the illusion? We might compare man to a flying stone, which has been set in motion by an external force. If it be- comes conscious during transit, it would regard itself as free in determining its direction and would think of the impulse which carries it along as the product of its own action.^^ This parable suggests two things; first, a definition of the will, and next a discovery of the actual cause of mental exertion. The will is not, as Cartesians hold, a separate faculty, by which a man exe- cutes his ideas. It is the same as intellect, composed of conscious units, each one of which answers to a particular change in the 'IV, 9, 10, II. 'IV, 16. •'IV, 17, Sch. •* Epis. 62. organic structure. If a mind cannot perceive a thing, it cannot will it. That which we call will is the sum of volitions, nothing more.®^ Yet it is a convenient term under which to group de- terminate acts, in the same way that we classify certain indi- viduals under the term man, or abstract a common quality, lapidify, from several particular stones. Now the common prop- erty in volitions, the residual fact in all exertions of mind, is consciousness; it is this fact which awards to us a constructive part in the making of conduct. For instance, the impulses of childhood, desire for food, flashes of temper, instinct to run from danger, the maudlin behavior of an intoxicated man, the delirium of the fevered patient, the inconsequential loquacity of gossiping women, are thought by their subjects to be free decisions of will, just because they are conscious of a change in sensation. As a matter of fact, such activities express no freedom whatsoever; they register only the functioning of physical appetites. Trace the volition to its source and we see how helpless the agent is to hew his own way. The man who is caught in the cross-currents of incompatible impulses yields to uncertainty and doubt and cannot conceive a moral policy steady enough to steer him to safety. The man with no commanding emotion, no love, no hatt, no ambition, no honor, — an anemic and undefined complex of sensations, — will be the buffet of circumstances, a prey to every inconsiderable fancy that meets his eye. Each man is conscious of his subjective states; he cannot make a single one of them permanent by a free decision of mind.''^^ Hence, volition as an originative power is a delusion. As well hold that we can by act of will recover to conscious thought the name or fact which has dropped into the abysm of forgetfulness — as well maintain that the thrilling events of the dreamworld are acts of deliberate intent, as suppose that the most refined hypothesis of the philosopher is palpitant with any other energy than that which courses through the arteries of nature. The laws of thought are the same as the laws of matter; they belong to the same substance.''* To suspend judgment is to disrupt the order of ideas, an impossible procedure. Judgment cannot be "II, 49, C 'Mil, 2, Sch. "11,36. /I i8 JAMES H. DUNHAM suspended, for the attempt to do so is itself a judgment, and the sequence of thought is inviolably preserved. Nor can a man exercise the pov^rer of contrary choice, that is, decide upon a thing in contravention of all prior motives; for such an act v^^ould have no constitutive cause, would be a spar cast upon an uncharted sea, with its origin a mysterious blank.'^^ "Where- fore," says the author, "these decisions of mind arise in con- sciousness by the same necessity as the images of things which exist in the phenomenal world. Hence, those who believe that they speak, or keep silent, or perform any action by the free election of mind, do but dream with their eyes open."'^ By this definition of will, too, we understand how error takes hold upon the mind of man. For error is not a real fact, but a privation of knowledge. Thus, we conceive the sun to be about two hundred feet from the surface of the earth. If we decline to test our sensuous experience by the principles of scientific inquiry, then, it may be said, we acquiesce in what is false. For knowledge unverified by true standards cannot be certain ; we may have no doubts as to its correctness ; but we can never affirm its universal validity. In the case mentioned, an- other man might estimate the distance to be three hundred feet, because the rays of the sun were less potent to his senses. But when knowledge is sure, when we have ascertained by exact computation the relation of the sun to its planets, then error is eliminated ; and private acceptance of the fact counts for nothing in establishing its validity.'^* The lesson which this experience teaches is that much of man's vaunted knowledge is derived from the falsifying impressions of the body. We are driven into ignorance by the involuntary reactions of sense-organs. Intel- lectual judgments as well as reflex actions proclaim the depth of our captivity. " II, 49. Sch. "Ill, 2. Sch. "II. 49, Sch. CHAPTER II PURPOSE THE MARK OF FREEDOM The case is now closed, and a unanimous verdict is rendered on the basis of convincing testimony. Man is the bondman of nature. He dwells in a world whose every atom is immersed in an inflexible causal series. His ideas are governed in origin and development by a necessary coordination of mind. His emo- tions are aroused, shaped and swayed by rigid contact with ex- ternal bodies. The hypothesis that he can change his behavior or. environment at will is a fatuous mistake, due to ignorance. Yet in face of such cumulative evidence confirming the enslave- ment of man, Spinoza hears thrilling through his being the note of freedom. He beholds his body weighted with the chains of matter; but he is not satisfied. His soul is struggling with a mighty hope. Can it be released ? Can the fact of servitude so rigorously enforced be offset by another fact, which reflects the rule of freedom? This is the problem. He is unhesitating in its solution. Man is in part free, in part not free. To demon- strate man's right to freedom is the business of the Ethics. Is the proof conclusive? Various opinions have been handed down. We select two historic criticisms, one denying freedom utterly, the other granting a limited kind to human nature, as he de- fines it. Jacobi denies that rational freedom can be found in Spinoza's treatment of man.* The structure of the self, he avers„ is strictly mechanical ; its one and only duty being to preserve the power of existence. The desire stirring in man is typical; it knows no genus, species or sex. Yet it is individualized in the conscious self, and being endowed with intelligence appears to act by volitibnal intent. It is, however, subject to exact de- ( termination by physical causes, both in its organic and ideational f *Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza. Werke; 4. Band, erste Abt; S. 17, u. ig. Leipzig. 1819. 20 JAMES H. DUXHAM forms. The conatus alone explains the personal feeling which organizes reflective thought and irrational impulses into a co- herent whole. Hence the genius of Newton can be reduced to the terms of organic reaction. The practical life of man is in like manner shaped by its control. If constituent desires con- flict, they will eventually be harmonized by the action of the same basic endeavor. The result will be a more perfect type of character, that is, one more highly developed; for there is nothing intrinsically bad in nature. Being necessary, nature must be the best. So what man secures for himself must be the best. His very assumption of freedom is proof of his integration into the common order of mechanism, and springs from a sub- jective interest in his own condition; just as we might watch a valuable plant unfolding, knowing that we could assist it only by giving its chemical formulas the best field in which to work out their applications. Freedom like this is nil. One special point in the doctrine is cordially condemned, znc, the exclusion of Liberty of Indifference, or the power of con- trary choice. There are three possible attitudes towards moral ability: physical necessity, the operation of the machine; moral necessity, the choice of the best; unrestrained freedom of the will. The first only is agreeable with Spinoza's premises.. The second resolves itself into the first; the third is explicitly denied. rVVill is a succession of mental acts, each one of which is duly caused by antecedent conditions. It cannot therefore exercise the power of choosing a course when different paths are open. In fact, the mind is confronted with an alternative. The privi- lege of rejecting every proposed motive and pursuing an inde- pendent course, is excluded by the nature of man. The only power possible in human life is the play of appetite, which is another aspect of mechanical force, and the freedom felt in the exertion of power, instead of being self-originated, is simply the obverse of necessity. Another and quite different judgment is pronounced by a commentator like Kuno Fischer.- Freedom, he says, as defined by Spinoza is a real experience; but freedom in such a system ' Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, Bd. II, S. 415 u.s.f. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 21 has nothing to do with the framing of conduct. It is not an ethical fact ; it is a predicate of intelligence. To be free we must endeavor to fashion clear and distinct ideas of all emotions ; and since ideas are the organ of mind, we can realize freedom only in knowledge. Now we know first of all our own body and the physical objects which touch it. But we only know that they exist; we cannot understand by organic reactions the infinitude of their parts and relations. The same thing is true of the mind; the single image, or the sum-total of consciousness, is very imperfectly apprehended. But we are prone to accept part- knowledge as authoritative ; hence we frame misleading concepts, like freedom, purpose, and generic notions. We can make our ideas clear and our knowledge adequate by tracing each image, each reaction, to its cause. By this method we perceive the rela- tion of each object to the "common order of nature" and find that ideas and things are one and the same, expressing eternal substance under different attributes. The result will be that men are no longer deceived by the representations of sense. Reason has universalized the individual, and eventually intuitive knowl- edge will open up the essence of all things, that is to say, the being of God. At this point the ethical implications of the system of knowl- edge begin to emerge. Emotion is the key to character. It is at first entirely passive, an organic fact. But it may become act- ive by being idealized, that is, by being understood in its rela- tion to the common order. Desire and volition belong to the sphere of reaction; they are marks of subjection until we find their cause, stamp them with reason, and lift them to a place of supremacy in mental experience. Clear ideas, following neces- sarily from our nature, constitute virtue and command the as- sent of will. They alone give freedom, for they alone register our growing independence of desires that are fed by sensuous experience. Hence, we must sharpen in thought the distinction between good and evil, falsity and truth. Moral perfection being the highest emotion is won by adequate knowledge. Men are deceived now; they fancy themselves free; they are in the bit- terest bondage. Let them perceive the order of nature and 22 JAMES H. DUNHAM come into conceptual relations with the world-laws. Then the claims of sense are silenced, and reason, pointing to virtue, guides their hesitating steps to perfect knowledge. The spirit of this imperative, not its form, says Fischer, is communicated by Spinoza's theory. For ethics, as taught by him, is not a categorical command, but a mathematical demonstration. It does not issue precepts, it conceives the laws of life. Hence, knowledge cannot be defined as a purpose, but as the analysis of man's essential nature. Hence, too, the attainment of knowl- edge will be the realization of his perfect freedom.^ The first of these interpretations places Spinoza in an un- enviable light before the eyes of history. He stands no longer as a figure to the rejected but as a dreamer so grossly deceived as to be an object of pity. At one moment he maintains with convincing detail the thesis: Man is not free; the next, he an- nounces a program whose key note is: Man ought to be and is free. Does he mean by freedom the same thing in each case? If he does, the judgment of Jacobi is true; and the book which so many eager spirits have fed upon becomes a tissue of con- tradictions. If he does not, then we ask. What are the two senses in which we may use the word, one of which may be denied, the other asserted with perfect consistency? That man is free, as some fondly fancy, to change the course of nature or disregard her laws, — this is the sense which Spinoza ve- hemently denies. Man in this respect is not free. Is he also in some respect free? The second interpretation finds his freedom in the winning of clear ideas. The reflective part of man is free, the part by which he rises to the contemplation of the whole of nature. But the part which is free proves on this view to be so very small as well nigh to elude our quest, and so difficult to develop that it exerts no influence in the life of ordinary men, but be- longs if to any dhe to the intellectual saint. On the other hand the freedom which Spinoza means is not prohibitive in its terms. It is embodied in every, even the simplest purposeful act, and is exercised by man at every moment of his life. Every act is in •Geschichte der neueren Philosophic. Band II, S. 540. \^ FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 23 part free, in part not free. It is not free, insofar as it is con- ceived as the outcome of the action of physico-chemical forces. It is free, when it can be clearly understood through the proper- ties of man's nature.^ We may arrange such acts in a series in which the degree of freedom increases and which has for its limit the fascinating but baftiing concept of an absolutely free soul.^ Thus the development of human life includes, first, the recognition of primary or typical impulses, next the weaving of these into a systematic whole called character, and finallv the conceiving of a Self which interprets its purpose and unity by the purpose and unity of the world. Our present duty is to ascertain how the purposes belonging to the type man afford a basis for freedom. We begin by pointing out that the order of nature is not fully explained by the category of mechanism. That category answers the question, how a thing is done. If we ask how a body per- forms the actions which we assign to it, we must examine its structure, its material properties, the kind of force at work, molecular attraction, elasticity, chemical reaction and the like. The examination will show that one element depends upon an- other by rigid necessity; that this result could never have been obtained apart from that combination of conditions.^ Thus, to take a simple example, the seizure and assimilation of food is a serial relating of cause to effect. Every movement which grasps the prey and conveys it to the body can be estimated in terms of physical force. The digestive apparatus which is set going as soon as food is at hand, is a group of organs, extremely in- tricately appointed in some species, whose every reaction records a definite amount of power in the stimulus. So too, there are fixed formulas, to which may be reduced all the chemical fluids which enter into the activity of the organ. Hence it is possible to calculate precisely how much work is done in changing an organism from the state of hunger to the satisfaction of an appeased appetite."^ * III, Def. ii. •II, Def. vii. • I, 2%. 'Cf. Ill, 59, Sch. 24 JAMES H. DUNHAM But our account so far has paid no heed to certain facts which do not answer the question, How. They are as essentially con- nected with the frame of the world as the others and must be duly explained if we are to leave no problem standing. These facts invite us to determine why a thing is done, to what end a given act tends. They do not ask how a thing is constructed, or under what laws or by what means it has attained its position. To set out the several structural stages by which the pinch of hunger is subdued, may be sufficient for the demands of physi- ology. The student of vital phenomena, however, believes his work only half done. Why the cells and tissues combine to form an organ which reacts to definite stimuli, is the problem before him. Mechanism does not yield an answer. It cannot yield any. The problem is not of structure, but of function. The same materials are under review, but they are differently ap- praised. Heretofore we asked how they operated; now we ask what they do. It is the idea, the mind, the conceptual being of a thing (to tI riv elvai), which is expressed in the new defini- tion.® On the level of intelligence, where man fashions his conduct to suit his needs, we have no hesitation in calling the idea teleological.^ Closer reflection will convince us that every act, whether of impulse or reflection, has its inherent purpose. We may carry the test further and hold that the frame of the world bears the marks of purposive coordination, not in the sense that a governing Mind has conceived an end to which all nature is inexorably driven, ^^ but in the sense that the several parts into which it is critically broken up cannot be understood save as contributing to the meaning of the whole. ^^ Everything, then, possesses an idea or "soul," and between idea and object, that is, between purpose and structural arrange- ment, there is a point-to-point correspondence.^- To rank the category of teleology side by side and of equal authority with that of mechanism, is to offer an exhaustive explanation of all facts in the field of nature. Brute force is not the only vehicle of causality. It is found as a cause in planet and organism, in FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 25 •IT, 7. Sch. •IV, 24, ^ I. App. Cf. I, 15, Sch. " II, 7. 13. Sch. 11 the speck of dust and the undeveloped germ. It is allgueltig, but it is not alleingueltig,^'^ The force of a thing's essence, the purpose of its existence, exercises a causation just as valid and just as universal.*^ But in the organic world the teleological principle can be more readily identified than among purely physi- cal forces. Life, the peculiar mark of the organism, can not be seen, felt or weighed, and yet no organic body can be defined without it. Life is the idea of the thing called, say, man; him- self certainly a compound of gases, liquids and solids,*^ a clus- ter of cells, that never deviate in action from the prescribed rules of chemistry; yet at the same time a ''force" which insists on viewing the structure as a whole. To say that an organism lives, is to read its constituents from the standix)int of their purpose. Since life belongs by definition to it, we are bound to regard purpose as a cause evincing the same efficacy that we find in the mechanical order. ^** But it may be alleged that teleology is a concept of the ob-jo serving mind and has no real place in the course of nature; that I - it is an epi phenomenon, imposed by us on familiar facts, but in- capable of exerting any influence on their adjustment. We study now the conscious body, for man, our particular subject, finds his purlieu here. If the objection implies that to be effective teleology must be a new material force ushered in to counteract mechanical forces already in operation, we grant it at oncc:; Teleology has no power to frustrate the movements of mechan- ism. Nor, conversely, can physical laws interfere with the true application of purpose. They are different aspects of the same phenomena, viewed, as Spinoza says, now under the attribute of ^ thought, and again under the attribute of extension.^' If the objector conceives that teleology is designed to throw new light on the workings of mechanism, he misconstrues the doctrine. Purpose is not brought in to piece out an explanation which mechanical formulas cannot complete. It deals with factors in organic life which mechanism does not contemplate. Mechan- "Cossman, Die Elemente der empirischen Teleologie. "II, 45, Sch. 'Mil, 57, Sch. "•11, Post. ii. "Ill, 2, Sch. If i a6 JAMES H. DUNHAM ism, we say, considers the attachment of one term to its im- mediate antecedent. Teleology asks how the term or terms are related to the whole; that is to say, how they conspire to effect an end. Parts and whole, means and end are at base statements of the same thing. Thus, parts in a whole, when that whole is organic, cannot be merely quantities added together. Adding the number of organs and the weight of cellular tissues would never produce a total organism. Even when we reckon up the mechanical units of work which the combined parts could do, we are no nearer the goal. To assess the value of the parts, we must find what is common between them and the whole. Spinoza calls this conceiving an object adequately.*^ This can only mean that the action of the part is conditioned on the action of the organic whole. The particular act of an organ is not like the flight of a stone, which being projected by the hand comes to earth again and sustains no further connection with the force that gave the impulse. The organic act is inevitably construed in terms of the structure of the body in which it occurs. When the arm is raised and the fist clenched, and a violent expulsion of physical force made through the sensori-motor system, we con- strue the movement as perfectly harmonious with the frame and power of the body.*'** The parts have combined into a unity. They possess the common elements binding them to the organ- ism. The same effect may be demonstrated by negative proof. For suppose a certain reaction, e.g., for drink, were greatly heightened and threatened to become the controlling impulse in conduct. Its ascendancy would disturb the due proportion of power as between part and whole, and in damaging the whole would react upon itself to its own disadvantage, — an impossible condition, as we shall see.-^ But the connection of part and whole goes even deeper than this. It is possible to conceive of a machine so subtly contrived and put together that its parts would contribute infallibly to the working of the whole. Such parts, successful as they are when together in realizing the purpose of the mechanism, are by themselves colorless bits. They do not body forth the composite 11,38. '• IV, 59, Sch. IV, 60. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 27 meaning of the whole. Organic interaction is different. Every organ not only has properties in common with the organism ; it is so constructed that we can find the motives of the body's action in the action of a part.-* Thus, the sex-impulse is a mirror of the lust for life. For not only does it serve as the medium for the preservation of species; its exercise duly restrained inures also to the health of the organism, and in the case of man to his ethical uplift.-^ The same is true of every other organic reaction. Hence we have an infinitely varied and complex net- work of impulses, each one participating in the nature of the organism, or as Spinoza puts it, every desire being derived from the primary appetite which affirms the existence of the individual.-^ The relation of means and end may be treated in the same way. An organ acts toward a defined end. Its function is determined by the result to be achieved. Hence, an organic act must be sharply distinguished from one simply mechanical. We must, interpret it in terms of its effect, not of its cause. The most rudimentary impulse, vis., for food, stands over against the end subserved, the preservation of the body. Hunger and life are correlated facts; they too go hand in hand. But how can an effect, as yet unaccomplished, mould the character of the cause ? How can a future goal determine a present course of action? Have we not committed the fallacy of hysteron proteron, the effect before the cause, as the older teleology persistently did P^* Are we not deliberately making volition an instrument for re- arranging the members of the mechanical series? We answer, It is precisely this last step that we have not taken, and cannot take. Every analysis that makes purpose a term in efficient causation is mistaken. The end we mean is not dramatically conceived as an object of quest; it is implied in the nature of the organism. There is a "good*' which every impulse realizes, must realize potentially, if not in concrete effect; it is bound up with the processes of the body's life.^^ The tendency involved in a given impulse may or may not arrive at its goal. In many " II, 16. "Ill, II, Sch. " IV, 68, Sch. ; cf. infra, pg. 1 16-7. -I, App. »III, 9, Sch. \ 28 JAMES //. DUNHAM cases the attempt at functioning is abortive. Means are not at hand of sufficient strength or precise quaHty to stimulate re- action. The "end" is never reached.-** But such a lapse does not destroy the values of the function. They remain, in effect, persistent elements in organic experience. Torn tissue and deteriorated organ do not proclaim the failure of the teleologi- cal scheme; they cut still more clearly the issue between it and mechanism. For if a cleft appear in the physical series, we must either revise the data upon which induction was based, or confess that we have thus far missed the secrets of mechanical law.-^ On the other hand purpose, in order to support its char- acter, does not need to reach an objective goal. Purpose, then, evinces a tendency in which the nature of the end is mirrored. Spinoza adopts for his central term a word which signalizes this fact. He calls the individual a Conatus, an endeavor, a complex of related impulses which unite in a common end.-'* The business of man is to strive with all his powers to realize his appointed end as fully as possible; that is to say, develop to the best of his ability his particular organic impulses. Take the instinct of gregariousness, held in common with many members of lower species. Can we rightly call it a propension of matured humanity? Suspicion, hatred, warfare argue strongly for the opposite conclusion. Hence, satirists have praised the life of pastoral simplicity, or compared men to beasts, to the obvious disparagement of the former. But the facts of ex[)erience do not bear out the stricture. Whatever be the origin of the coalescing instinct,^ — desire for warmth, ties of blood, protection to life and limb, a crude distribution of eco- nomic labors, — it is true that human beings cannot live per- manently apart without serious injury. Men need the clash and friction, the sympathy and help of their kind, both for individual growth and racial progress.^® The instinct which works its way into the most refined type of government is, at the start, a natural impulse seeking outlet. It is a tendency that must be interpreted by reference to the end in view. Thus, it can never "• IV, 3. ''I, 29. "Ill, 7- " IV, 35, Sch. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE ^ be satisfied by contact with inarticulate animals. They belong to one order of reality, man to another. They may evince a kind of affection and elicit from us a genuine feeling of regard ^^ But tendencies move only on horizontal lines. They are gauged by the nature of the organism in which they operate, such organ-* ism being coincident with the end proposed. We are therefore brought back to the first principle of organic character, vis that the part will inevitably reflect the properties of the whok and vice versa.«^ But we get an advance in thought from a static to a dynamic point of view. We see now the continuous unfolding of the individual's powers. The conation, the push, the strong aggressive principle of organization in man, animal and plant sharpens the division between facts which show purpose and facts which express the mechanical ideal. Purpose as a cause IS conditioned in result by its own impulsive type. The world, then, to which man is introduced is two-faced It looks out upon a scene throbbing with the activity of force Man is under constraint. He is bound hand and foot to the wheel of law. His every act bespeaks the uniformity of nature from whose dominion he cannot withdraw. The same worid presents another view, not to contradict but to expound the first Here man is free. He has not put off the garments of serfdom ; he has transfigured them with a new meaning. Cells and tissues and physical reactions are not the whole tale of his life. They could be of no value to him, could not constitute him a man, apart from an organizing principle. Chemical formulas do not include It; it is teleological. So conspicuous a fact we may not venture to neglect. Hence, we ask. How does purpose moving in conation insure freedom? Or rather, if purpose be the mark of freedom, what kind of freedom shall we get? It cannot be the kind of freedom which Jacobi invokes. That springs full- orbed from an unpurposed mind, a kind of mental vacuum. Freedom, says Spinoza, is generated from within.*^ Man, we know, is not free on the plane of sense-perception. He responds to stimulus, whether he will or no. But on the other hand can the unguided exertion of will yield freedom? Deeper still, can r, ,.)j "IV, 37, Sch. n, 2^, II, 29, Sch. 30 JAMES H. DUNHAM FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 31 the mind ever give birth to thought without sufficient cause? Thinkers Hke Fichte have accepted a formal freedom,^^ which selects its point of departure. But on examination it turns out to be nothing but an ideal, standing at the end of a dialectic indefinitely continued. Real freedom has its direction deter- mined and moves within bounds; like the rushing river, whose definition prescribes a channel beyond whose limits it may not pass; like the triangle, whose interior angles must be equal to two right angles or it ceases to l)e triangular.^^ Hence, we are guilty of error if we set ^'necessary" and ''free" over against one another. They are not contrary terms. For if they were, God would know himself freely, but not by necessity,— which would drive the wedge of chance into the divine nature. Pari passu, if a man wills to live and love, he acts by unpremeditated thrust,— a sort of spontaneous combustion of soul. The will is a property of the understanding, subject at all times to its laws. Freedom is not unleashed volition ; freedom is determined.^^ But determined by what? What is the thing which requires the interior angles to make a particular equation? What fact of body submits its several qualities to a searching test, with a view to ascertaining their relations ?3« We answer. The nature of the individual determines the field of freedom. An organism can do just that for which it is fitted by the structure and co- herence of its parts, and nothing more. Its grade of freedom corresponds to the type of purpose involved. To seek the kind of action belonging to an insect in the body of a horse is pal- pably absurd.37 Jq interpret the mind of man by the data of animal psychology is to misjudge the office of purpose and hope- lessly confuse our ideas of freedom. To attribute to vegetable life the functions which only the highly intellectualized nature of man can exercise shows gross ignorance of the idea of cause.^® Yet while this is true, it is not the whole truth. There are cer- tain type-purposes common to all branches of the organic king- dom. Man is heir to these, and so are the oak, the lily, and the ■Wissenschaftslehre, 1801. 2. Teil, sect. 31. •• Cf. II, 49, Demonstration (=Dem.) *Epis. 56. ^. * II, 29, Sch. "IV, Pref. " I, 8, Sch. ii. blade of grass. There are other conations which find a place only in conscious life. Man shares his treasures here with the amoeba, the insect and the dog.^^ There are still other purposes which are found in the type man, and these determine the grade of freedom peculiar to reason. But freedom does not wait for its sceptre until the highest grade is reached. It follows the line of purpose. For wherever purpose appears, at that point appears too the "power to begin by itself/"*^ Thus, given the same conditions in either case, the reaction is set up when life is present; when life is extinct there is no reaction. Hence we con- clude that freedom is not a predicate of reflective mind alone;, but may be applied also to the simplest impulse of organic life; — i which means that every emotion in the sphere of human conduct, whether elementary or refined, is ultimately a fit subject of ethi-i cal valuation.*^ j II What are the type-purposes which man has in common with all organized beings ? To answer this question we must examine the field in which they are at work. Confining ourselves to the grade of consciousness, we discern in each body a certain equip- ment which it has had no part in producing.*^ This individual man, brought into existence by natural causes,^^ is a complex of appetites, each one being determined to its own activity by a calculable modification of its organ.'** Life then is impulsive in the sense not only that it is acted upon, but that it acts. The organism is the seat of power. '*^ But power is not merely a complex of mechanical forces moving as we conceive them to move in, e.g., an electric charge. Power here is coupled with the idea of purpose, an end to be pushed towards. Hence, physi- cal force emerging in bodily reaction is appetite or purpose at work. By a phenomenon which organization alone exhibits, beginning and end are joined. "That for the sake of which we do anything is desire."** If now the power of an organism be 41 111,28. ^'III, 57, Sch. Kant, Kritik der Urtheilskraft, § 65. IV, App. XXX. *• I, 17, Sch. •• III, Def . Emot. i. *»III, 12. - IV, Def. vii. 32 JAMES H. DUNHAM appetite, it must be subject to variations in intensity, since every new approach to an object changes the attitude of the agent and sets up new reactions. The change in attitude is a readjust- ment of the relations of motion and rest within the body,*^ that is to say, in the sensori-motor system. It follows from the satisfaction of a definite appetite.** Thus, in the example al- ready cited, hunger is the impulse, and food the means for grat- ifying it. When food has entered the body and been assimilated, instantly an agreeable feeling is superinduced, and the body af- firms a new state of perfection."*^ When the emotion is not periodic, but a steady experience, we call it love; and the wish accompanying it is not, as some think, a deliberate aim con- ceived in the mind, but the contentment incident to the reaching of its end.^® When we rise to the consideration of psychic states, we may compare the impressions made by images of things present and things past or future, and weigh their respec- tive pleasures, — being warned, however, that memory is apt to bring contrary images in its train, disturbing and perhaps pain- ing the mind.^^ These are samples of the increasing degree of gratification, parallel to the kind of purpose at work. The greater the scope of gratification, the greater the capacity for freedom. Impulse defines the nature of life and blocks out its stadium. But what is its content? Is it a single, comprehensive, sovereign impulse, a universal type-purpose, or is it broken into constitu- tive bits? "Everything,'* says Spinoza, "insofar as it is in it- self endeavors to persevere in its own being. "^^ This is the first and fundamental truth: there is nothing prior to it.^^ The mechanical analogue of this truth lies in the fact that two forces, contrary to one another, e.g., fire and water, cannot coexist in the same body;^* the teleological, lies in the definition of organ- ism, which includes a tendency at least ideally to reach the end.^** The actual lasting-time of the body cannot affect the application of the law. Just so soon as an infant draws its first breath, it has *'II, Lem. ii. ••Ill, Def. Emot. vi. " IV, 22, C ^III, II, Sch. " III, i8, Sch. i. -111,5. -Ill, 59, Sch. ■111,6. -III. 7. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 33 affirmed the will to live. If we adopted the point of view of Schopenhauer, we might say that finite things, insofar as they express universal reality, cannot be destroyed.^* Will, impulse, purpose are permanently real. Their embodiment in person or thing is subject to decay. > Spinoza accepts the eternity of type- character, or essence, — "so careful of the type'' ; but type-charac- ter can no more be defeated or obscured, when residing in the individual, than when thought of as a logical principle. Thus, we cannot and will not lift a finger to compass our own death. The regimen laid upon us by entrance into the sphere of purpose forbids it. When a man takes his life, we argue that constraint was put upon him,— physical force, moral obligation as when Seneca died at the emperor's command, or mental rupture. He could not by voluntary consent defy and degrade the dominant type-impulse of human nature.'^" It is here that Spinoza parts company with Schopenhauer. The will to live cannot be disan- nulled, even in face of its crumbling tenements. For after all the only experience we have with the universal precept is in the body, our own individuality. To give up that for absorption in the world-will is unreal and impractical, and offers no room for the progressive apprehension of freedom. The man who knows himself to be free guides his course by the familiar maxim that discretion is the better part of valor.^^ That the primary impulse holds the key to the meaning of an organism, is proved by the fact of its untimed duration. "The endeavor wherewith a thing endeavors to persevere in its being, involves not a definite but an indefinite time."^^ Life has no date. In this respect it differs from a term in the mechanical series. The swing of a celestial body about its orbit can be cal- culated to the fraction of a second; but who has ever reckoned with such precision the life-span of a man? "If we knew all the terms in the series, we could predict to the moment the event of death." The argument from ignorance is worth just what it says, and no more. It is here that the type-purpose yields a clear "I, 21. "IV, 20, Sch. -IV, 69. -Ill, 8. 34 JAMES H. DUNHAM guaranty of freedom. To follow a course that is unpredictable means that at some point, here or there, the agent may exert its "power to begin by itself." The clash with forces outside and foreign to the body's nature furnish the necessary occasions. They produce, if unchecked, a lowering of the bodily temper- ature.®*^ This is pain. Pain could not exist if every reaction were explained by the needs of organic maintenance. And if pain, the crush of greater forces, did not exist, life would go on undiminished in power and must prove itself infinite.®^ The history of the world is directly against this hypothesis. Not only is every individual surpassed in power by another, organized matter included, but the actual status of any reactive capacity at a given moment is defined not by its intrinsic character, but by the value of the impressions made upon it from without.®- Thus, the instinct of defense is affected by the degree of contiguity of the aggressor, on the principle that every emotion whose cause is apprehended as nearby, is stronger than if the cause is con- ceived as remote.®^ Even when the stimulus has only a resem- blance to, and is not identical with the sworn enemy, the feeling of resentment is awakened and drives the organism to remove the intruder from the field of influence. In man this same im- pulse becomes a resolute attempt to repay in kind an injury which has been undeservedly inflicted.®* Instances like these throw into sharp relief the individual's struggle to perpetuate itself against great odds, amid many de- feats, and facing eventual extermination. They assure us for one thing that alien forces, vigorous as they are, cannot put an end to organic initiative so long as life lasts. Such initiative is ingenious and diversified. The human body, for example, can determine the place of neighboring bodies and arrange them in a variety of ways. Every such arrangement receives a new definition. It is no longer read simply as a collocation of physi- cal elements. The mechanical ideal is undisturbed, but upon it a new term has been superimposed. Yonder house is a composite of materials and forces, obedient to fixed rules. Is that a full •111,13, Sch. "IV. 4, Dem. •IV, 3. 5. •IV, 9. Ill, i6, 28, 40, C ii. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 35 account? Is this structure one that has tumbled into place like a heap of rocks lying at the mountain's base? No; a new factor is added. We call it purpose. Now purpose is always connected with an organic system. A house, a nest, a honeycomb is tele- ological, because it springs from a system that has the power of adapting means to an end. The house can express the organic character of the builder, and nothing else. Hence, it is insuffi- cient to say we build our house as a place of residence, as though to conform our action to an extra-organic scheme. The builder . conceives the ''conveniences of household life," and finds germi- • nating in his mind a desire to realize them in a house of his own. Translated into teleological terms, this means that the impulse of self-preservation drives us to mould the resources of nature into shapes agreeable to our end.®^ In short, the type-end is fixed, although the means vary in proportion to the reactive capacity or degree of freedom attained. The end being defined by the appetite belongs to the system ; it cannot be sought without. For if one tried to continue his existence for the sake of something else, he would destroy the organizing principle, leave his body a prey to conflicting stimuli and defeat the very purpose, hypo- thetically proposed, vie, maintenance of life for the sake of another.®® Again, the means adopted must be harmonious to the sys- tem whose end they are to subserve. Every system responds to its own kind of stimulus, and to no other. The habits of the ant are different from the habits of the bird ; hence, their homes are different, although the instinct governing the making of hill or nest is the same. It follows that any object which f^ils to set up reaction in a neighboring organism can be of no benefit to it. They do not agree.®^ Or, if a reaction is set up,' but is ac- companied by a feeling of depression, the harmony of the sys- tem suffers impairment, temporarily at least. Thus, envy and jealousy lessen the power of body, by revealing our own inepti- tude in comparison with another's triumphs. The balance can only be redressed by misconstruing the actions of other men, or unduly magnifying our own. In either case, the harmony is -IV, Prcf. -IV, 25. "IV, 31. '1^ 1 J6 JAMES //. DUNHAM of a shadowy sort and soon vanishes.^® To insure exact adapta- tion of external objects to organizing purpose, we must fix upon those which contribute to organic growth. This is the one and sure test. The law upon which we proceed reads thus: "In proportion as a given body is more fitted than others for acting and being acted upon in many ways at the same time, in that proportion is its mind more fitted than others' to receive many simultaneous perceptions.''^^ Growth, in other words, is the increasing capacity for receiving and correlating the impressions of the outside world. Now correlation demands a something to which impressions are necessarily related, — not a substratum in which sensuous qualities inhere, but a teleological principle explaining why per- ceptions fit into the movements of the system. For this reason growth cannot be measured by bulk, shape, movability or chemi- cal reaction. Otherwise a stone would possess the same correlat- ing power as the body of man. Those properties are common to all physical objects and do not offer a basis for comparison.^® To correlate perceptions is to add a term not included in the mechanical estimate, viz., the end in view. They must affirm the value of the conation, our power of activity.^^ If the functional discharge be below the threshold of consciousness, its purposive character is just as real as though we had deliberately begun, e.g., to breathe or digest our food.'- If the action be purely re- flexive its correlative force is equally valid. Thus, we draw away the hand from a hot iron by a sudden exertion of muscular power which allows the mind no time to form a resolution. So intricate and far-reaching does the reflex become in highly organ- ized structures, that we imitate the sudden removal of another's hand, although we ourselves have felt no pain. The eye auto- matically correlates the motion, perhaps with previous exper- iences now crystallized into habit, perhaps with the type-impulse of repeating the "emotion" of another. "^^ Particular capacities for responding to external stimulus vary with diflFerent organisms. In one group the capacity is entirely FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 37 instinctive. The power to act appears to be full-grown at birth. At any rate the instinct, e.g., of a spider to weave his web is not better fitted to realize the end after a dozen exertions than at the start. "^^ On the other hand the human species passes through perceptible changes from infancy to old age. The child is ex- tremely limited in the use of his type-impulses; bright color, motion, unusual sounds, certain tactual sensations like tickling fill his repertory. Time and practice, change of environment, acquired traits transform him into a being responsive to a myriad stimuli which are eventually conceived as making for a common purpose. ^^ Potentially, we may say, in germ, man has his fac- ulties complete at birth. Actually, he takes many years to un- fold what ant and spider can exercise at once. Hence the mode of development becomes a matter of surpassing interest.*^^ How does the growth of sense-perception take place? The principle of association is the first instrument at hand. "If the mind," says Spinoza, "has been affected by two emotions at the same time, it will in the future when affected by one be also af- fected by the other. "^^ A certain type-perception, e.g., of the eye, could never progress in efficiency, could never lead to true knowledge, if it consisted of a succession of unrelated images, set up as reactions to adjacent objects. To satisfy the purpose of the primitive appetite, the lust for life, perceptions of different sense-organs must be exactly and immediately correlated. For example, the hunger of the dog, the rabbit once tasted, the sight of similar prey on the succeeding day, the juxtaposition of the percepts of sight and taste, this is the law of association, which Spinoza lays at the foundation of his psychology.^^ The pro- gressive application of the law under ever more complex con- ditions constitutes the growth of an organism, and in the course of ages also the development of a species.*^^ Again, the principle of acquired traits is central to this scheme. "Anything can by accident [i.e., not necessarily included in the ni, 55, Sch. II, 13, Sch. " IV, 32, Sch. in, 54. Tl "III, Def. Emot. i. '*III, Def. Emot. xxxiii. '•C/. Ill, 57. Sch. '"V, 39, Sch. '• IV, 38. " III, 14. ft Cf. Hobhouse, Development and Purpose. "111,14. 38 JAMES H. DUNHAM impulse] be the cause of pleasure, pain and desire. "^^ Not what a certain function does in its usual discharge but what it effects when a new stimulus acts upon it, is ofttimes the determining fact in organic life. It is thus that the house-dog is trained by successive correlations to follow the chase, and the hunting-dog no longer to react to the scent of the hare.^^ The polarizing of type-reactions into differentiating habits is the sure way of mark- ing the growth of a particular impulse. For one emotion may be fixed so deeply in the organic structure as to overcome all countervailing emotions^- and even reproduce itself in the off- spring. Then a new line is cloven, the curve of progress is shaped. This successful organism has received and correlated at one time more sense-perceptions than its nearest neighbor.*^ Still further: the principle of opposition plays an important part in developing the individual. Pain, depression, fatigue are bound to enter the scheme of life, since power is graded. But pain is contrary to the elemental conation and cannot be in- dolently harbored. Hence, the effort to remove it must be pro- portionate to the intensity of suffering.^^ The more desperate the body's plight the more determined will be the output of strength to rescue it or any part from dissolution. The curative and compensatory appliances of organic nature, eg., growth of new skin, or the heightening of the sense of touch when the optic nerve has been destroyed, prove decisively how far it has gone from the mere mechanical control of forces. ^^ Such a remark- able psychical correlation as is witnessed in the animal's endeavor to remove the instrument of pain from the presence of its young shows the possible extent of the principle.^® Indeed, for all or- ganized creatures there can be no surcease of effort until equilib- rium be restored, the body exerting its type-reactions in face of every possible stimulus, the mind correlating every experience into a conscious whole. ®^ We conclude that an organism whose fundamental tendency unfolds in a series of harmonious acts and habits is heir to a freedom none the less defined than that of the reflective mind of man. Whatever acts by purpose is free. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE III 39 Thus far we have analyzed the principle of self-preservation. We have found that it expresses the nature of an organism, vis., the adaptation of means to end, that it accounts for the changes incident to growth, that it unifies all reactions, no matter from what stimulating causes, and organizes them into a system. We have seen, too, that apparently separate type-impulses, like resentment, association, imitation, are reducible to this. There remains another appetite universally at work, that of reproduc- tion, and this we must for a moment consider. The supreme test by which organism and mechanical con- trivance are distinguished has by some been set up here.^^ Can this bundle of physical properties perpetuate its kind? If it can, its teleological character is unquestionably demonstrated. Spin- oza recognizes the importance of this impulse, and argues that while the specific nature of living bodies is different, while we define a horse in other terms than those applied to man, insect or bird, the procreative instinct is the same, a power which all possess by virtue of their common organic heritage.®^ The point now to be determined is, whether the impulse is independ- ent of the will-to-be, — a competitor for equal rank in the affec- tions of the race ; or whether it must be subsumed under the first as contributing to its realization. Spinoza, we do not hesitate to say, took the second view. The organism, insofar as it is active, can accept no stimulus save what tends to promote its lust for life. If the racial instinct entails disastrous conse- quences, as it frequently does, it is excluded as a key to the knowledge of its terms. To many this view, when applied to ethics, grafts the grossest kind of impiety and selfishness on the character of man.^^ Their mistake arises from equating the two impulses as of primary and therefore competitive value. The source of all teleological values, Ethics included, is utility, — what will secure the individual welfare. Thus the functioning of the sex-impulse, as of others, is estimated in terms of pleasure. •Ill, IS. •Ill, s6, Dem. •C/. Ill, 22. "V, Pref. -Ill, II. Sch. " IV, 45, Sch. - IV, 6. •Ill, 37, Dem. "C/. Kant, Urtheilskraft, § 8o. "111.57, Sch. IV, 19, Sch. 40 JAMES II. DUNHAM Now pleasure is not simply an empirical fact ; it is involved in the nature of the impulse. We endeavor to affirm concerning ourselves everything which we conceive to affect us favorably,^^ The racial instinct carries with it an idea of gratification, a heightening of the bodily feeling. Hence, the organism seizes upon the object which promises to effect that end. At this point the acquisitive faculty lends its aid. The animal not only desires food, but takes steps to procure it. The child not only conceives an interest in what his neighbor has, but makes a bold effort to appropriate it."- The mature man seeks to acquire both the property and so to say the personality of his fellowmen. He does his best to make other men live according to his scheme of social order."^ In no field is this instinct so inveterately urgent as in the relations of the sexes. The male desires his mate, not as in the reflective stage of human life for the propagation of the species, but solely for the nourishing of the particular organ, without whose proper satisfaction the equilibrium of the body could not be maintained."^ Individual desires incidentally foster the interests of the race; but this is not their primary purpose. Does this account seem to reverse the natural order? Must we not rather think of a JVelttrieb moving through the several strata of biologic history, an energy which this insect or that man did not create and could not refrain from objectifying? We answer. Purpose as defined by the reproductive impulse is present to us only in the individual. There is no Man, there is no Organic System, except as we find their properties at work in an infinite number of single bodies."=^ To know what an impulse is, we must know what it can do; and the theatre for every world-tendency is an organized body. In the organism, certainly of the truly conscious kind, reproduction is subordinate to self- preservation, the species to the man. Hence, we conclude that the nature of an organism is not changed by emphasizing its secondary instinct ; and that it is still free to pursue the type of purpose embodied in its particular form. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE IV 41 "111.25. "111,32, Sch. "III. 31. Sch. •* IV, App. 20, 27 MI. 40, Sch. i. Freedom, we have seen, is confined within the structural limits prescribed at birth. But freedom must have degrees, inasmuch as conscious life is infinitely diversified. To what extent is the ant free, to what extent the horse ? How does the freedom of these species fall short of that exercised by man? In general, what rule can we deduce for determining the increase of free acts ? Freedom, we reply, is in direct ratio to the mind's capacity for correlating perceptions. It goes without saying that the mature man possesses a freedom which the unweaned child does not know. Yet the human mind, even in its infancy, has within It certain ''adequate" as well as "inadequate" ideas. An idea is adequate, when it reflects an exertion entirely appropriate to its body's powers, as, e.g., when it seeks for food or cries out in pam. Though purely reflexive, such acts are free.»« We may then infer that the elementary reaction, if it and none other emerges, will be sufficient to classify its bearer as the first term in the teleological series. For that conation it must have, in order to come under the term "organic." From such a begin- ning the evolution of life proceeds by the multiplying and cross- ing of reactions till man is reached. We must not expect to find in Spinoza a scientific order such as modern biology has conceived. He recognized its general divisions, and distin- guished the psychical factor as the same in each.«^ The genetic relations of the several groups, their origin in a common an- cestor, especially the phenomenon of arrested development, were matters beyond the ken of his times. But whatever his deficiency in detail, he seized the cardinal principle of change, which is not deviation in shape or structural equipment, but a new way of •^ acting to a given stimulus. In brief, he writes a psychology, not a treatise on physiology. He does not analyze the complex forms of organic evolution; he asks how such evolution takes place in view of the end to be gained. Hence, when a new type- reaction appears, we know that the body has accommodated it- self in some new way to its environment. To that extent the }4 i !' Ill, I. •7 111,57, Sch. I 42 JAMES H. DUNHAM freedom increases, and by this means the series is to unfold step by step until a new and untried factor comes above the surface in the reflective mind of man.'*^^ Every new type of response to environment carries with it, we may believe, a feeling of increased power. When the reac- tion is of such a character as to modify radically the structural life of the organism, an entirely new species is broken in. It is then that gratification attending functional discharge is most keenly felt. "When the mind contemplates itself and its own power of activity it exi>eriences pleasure; and the pleasure is greater in proportion to the distinctness by which it conceives itself and its power. "^'-^ It follows that type-reactions in a complex structure provoke a finer kind of gratification than those, say, of the purely vegetative organs. To project human feelings into the experience of the lower forms may be precarious; yet it is extremely suggestive. If we select two widely separate impulses, one common to man and Infusorian, the other common to man and mammal, e.g., dog, compare them in our own body, and project that experience into the parallel organisms, we might get a basis for judging the relative feelings. The satisfaction of hunger and the pleasure of associating images in mind, both effects of appetition, are cases in point. ^^^ The contrast is even more glaring when we take a single impulse and run out its forms on the different levels of consciousness. Thus, the endeavor to convey an "idea" to a neighbor, to "make ourselves understood," varies as to intensity of gratification with the order of mind affected. The dog barks, the ape gesticulates, man speaks. For man there is a real plea- sure in the functioning of the vocal organs. He gives it the best title in his lexicon, z%z., freedom, not knowing that he is acting out a type-purpose of his kind. But his very self-com- placence goes to show how much more reactive value attaches to articulate speech than to shrug of shoulder or movement of hand.*®* These facts are summed up by Spinoza in a general rule: "The emotion of a given individual differs from that of C/. V. Pref. 111,53. '''Cf. Ill, 2, Sch. »•* Ibid. * FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 43 of the other. -- The p.tch of progress and the degree of free- dom are deterni.ned by the number and complexity of the mechan,sms set up in the cortical centres. But these in higher orders of hfe are so delicately framed and intricately interlaced a^ to make analysis impossible. We can only take the typkal reactions, and judge the rest by them ">« ^^ We have spoken of correlating sense-perceptions, co-ordina- t ng the elements of experience ; just what does this mean ? What s the pnncple by which the mind gives continuity to its images^ and Th 'V'"""'""'"''' *'' '■'^''■''"^ ""' ^^^-^^l things at once and the d.scr.mmatmg of their stimulating values. "•« To be conscious ,s not to add a new force to the assemblage of mech! anisms guiding them to their proper coalescence. It is to ex- press their relations by a new term, hitherto called purpose, now ca led conscious purpose. With it as correlating principk bodily own right We may define consciousness as the idea of the mind, It distinctive essence, conceived as mode of thought and mtaHs the"' ' T"' "^'°"- "' '' *^"^ "^ ^'^^ ^'^ ^-^ions th value of r "'""' '^ ^-"^^"^ °' *^^ "^y- '' -«--« he value of every reaction and ultimately of every stimulus and accept tfiat as in hne with our needs. The finer the struc- more varied the environment, the more diversified will be the nse-perceptions, and hence the more expert the work oFcon "dXirth""''';^" f ^"^ '"*^ ^ ^>-^*-- -This inte^ra S,; - tendency n the march of evolution renders the organism less and ess dependent on external stimuli, more and morrdp uppot jrd°"""'""' B"t since body always requires t'he ?hn- nit o^'tt' """"" '"dependence can never be reached, the eXi ' of' """ '" *^"'^ •" ^" '''''■''' Nevertheless, ntrXf a new T""™' °" ''^ ''''' '' ^uman intellect mtroduces a new phase of correlation and makes possible a new '•Hf, 57. in, 59. Sch. n, 29, Sch. II, 21, Sch. ^"11, 13, Sch. "^IV, 18, Sch. II v'l I •l V, / l 44 JAMES //. DUSHAM •,<1' 1 degree of freedom. It remains for us to consider what addi- tional type-purposes enter into the definition of man. V The first of these is the forming of judgment, the setting of the concrete data of experience into relations. Every perceptual act is in a certain sense a judgment. It includes something more than an image framed "at the back of the eye or in the midst of the brain." Reality is asserted or denied. Or, to put it another way, perception fixes the object in relations of time and space. The mind has a tendency to effect such co-ordination ; it cannot be mind if deprived of that principle. *'^''* Nor can mind exist without the tendency to revive j>erceptual images on the reappearance of appropriate stimulus. We cannot act in the most casual way, e.g., speak a word, without remember- ing that we have done so. Bodily modifications guarantee that. Now, memory is a renewal of previous sensory judgments.^^* Such judgments, however, being reflexive, deal with objects im- mediately before the mind, — objects to which the mind inevit- ably reacts, whether approved by antecedent experience or not. Intellectual judgments state a new term, discharge a new func- tion, viz., that of understanding. They make a synthesis of the sensuous manifold. The mind begins to think, and that is its highest office. ^^^ Intelligence as a type-purpose comes into clear light when we relate it to the conational efforts of man. For it is characteristic of Spinoza's philosophy that he does not stop with determining logical categories as such, but goes on to affirm their empirical values. Now the end of action is not defined in terms of impulse, but is dramatically set down as an idea to be aimed at. The intellect exercises a strict vigilance over the impulse life of men. It trains and directs the particu- lar appetites and restrains them from excess; not by playing one impulse off against another, — a process which must go on indefinitely, — but by representing an ideal purpose, a reflective choice. Thus the instinct of imitation, vigorous as we have seen in all organized bodies, may be checked by exposing the \m IT. 48. Sch. 10* III. 2. Scb. r» IV, 28, Dem. I FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 45 results of indiscriminately repeating the habits of another- an ant.thes.s between ends common to man and beast anS Ihe antellectual prmc.ple unique in man .»■ It is the precise ^ffer^ ence between a sensuous judgment: the hand strikes,~and the judgment of the understanding: the hand strikes to hurt 1 one an act expressing the body's nature, the other an at' .1 torcmg an ideal end."^ "" "^"-^ ^"- It is in the functioning of intellect that ethical implications ap- pear Physical appetites involve no difference in quahty The^ are always good. Whatever interferes with their free and noT mal activity is bad. Since, however, we may experknce "erL"^^ damage by reacting to every passing stimulus, it7s of greatT l>ortance to men to have a "type-character" before the r^bd a d finite mould into which tendencies may be cast. The fTming of a Type ,s proof-positive of man's advance beyond the uak o! purely perceptual judgment. He can now plan, and every plan arnes him away from the sphere of automatic ;eaction - S^ end qua end may be native to him and his unspeaking neighbor dre/CLT "^ '""" '^ -lf-Preservativ?inst.L toldld dwellings and lay up in store for future needs. But intellect S:c7arroIn7r"^ "'"^'^' '" ^ '^'-^"' manner thS insect and rodent cannot imitate. It does not keep man's bodv rom reacting differently to changed environmeLT sdects ZTJ w:'\'t^'' ^^^P"^^^ '""- *« ^- highest ad^ ^ antage. We must be careful not to think of this synthetic Trac"? : t^b"^"^ T'"'"' ''-'' '"^^'■■"^ amongst thrntvt Svll «?•'"■ ' *' "°' '''^'' '* '^ '•^ther a new reading of -erges tHe capacity for affirming. ^Jl^l, SerThtThr Hfe 1; man"'' '''"^'"'"^ ^^'"^^ ''''' ^''^ ^'^ >" ^he reflectte only ZZlllTui^r:^: '' "°* '^'•'' ""^"-'^'^^ --t^^. which y extremely high skill can conquer, but the flesh and blood *"IV, App. 30, 13. *"IV,59, Sch. "• IV, Pref . "*IV,App.7. f'i I k u r I fit ill. JAMES H. DUNHAM ^ of our own kind, intellect is alert to create values of a different sort. It devises an instrument for communication, language, and into it pours the wealth of conceptual judgment. ^^^ Man be- comes to man his most useful accessory. He can understand thought, and return in kind. Henceforward, intercourse is not on the basis of impulsive gesture, but of the progressive inter- change of ideas. Love or mutual appetition is no longer a static force; it passes into friendship, which is not content with gleam of eye or clasp of hand, or other automatic sign. It demands freedom of soul, one mind entering another. Interests now be- come common; men can desire and have the same thing, which however is not tangible, but the product of an idea,— justice, equity and harmony. And this is possible just because the mind is so constituted that it can conceive a term which does not answer to the empirical return^ of sense.^^^ But mind must not only correlate perceptual impressions; it must define the laws by which they can be brought into synthe- sis. It must, in other words, make an examination of itself; or as Spinoza puts it, it must separate emotions from the thought of an external cause and connect them with true, i.e., universally valid, ideas.^^^ Thus, the conceptualizing tendency has two general forms: resemblance and continuity. Several figures pass before us and leave their impressions on the mind. By the law of intellect we are bound to note the points of similarity. Different observers are affected by different stimuli,— height, walking on two feet, explosive sounds called laughter, exchange of communications indicating reason. But whatever be the type- . reaction induced, the percept gets permanent value solely from the fact that the mind puts two or more instances together and says, They are like. Every such judgment is an application of the constitutive principle of mind.^^'* The second form may be illustrated in this way. The child sees a succession of figures for the first time: Peter in the morning, Paul at noon, and Simon in the evening. The next day, at the rising of the sun, he will think of Peter, Paul and Simon in order as parts of the ii "•C/. De Intel. Emend, pg. n. "^ IV, App. 9, etc. 11 'V, 4, Sch. "» II, 40, Sch. FREEDOM AND PURPOSE ^y day's projected experience. Should one. however, say Simon fail to appear, and James take his place, the third day will show a modified program, with Simon and James alternately occupy- mg the third point in the series. Perceptual association has ex- panded mto the principle of continuity, which the mind forces upon the observer. Now because the mind can take two percepts and standing apart from their objects say within itself: "These are alike, these follow one another," eventually it sees itself as the judge of concepts, the subject over against object; it gets the idea of the consciousness or identity of self. Then the su- preme purpose of mind, vi:^., self-realization, comes into view, and man's proper freedom is assured.^^® How can he reach the goal? IIV IV, App. 4. CHAPTER III THE QUEST OF CHARACTER We have thus far examined the concept of purpose as em- bodying the freedom which we may claim for man in a world of mechanical law. Man is not free to break the bonds of physi- cal force. They gird him as closely as they do the motions of a planet. To act at all he must act within the sphere of body, which obeys inevitably the rules of exact determination. Never- theless, he is not like a bar of steel or flying meteor, subject only to the interpretation of mechanism. He is organic. His bodily parts combine into a unity. He is so constituted that his actions tend to a fixed end or result. In this respect he is on equal footing with all organized bodies, occupying the field of mechanism, but displaying certain properties which mechanism does not explain. Their common mark is purpose. Purpose in its typical form belongs to every creature which reacts to its environment; more restrictedly to those which possess the element of consciousness, or, as we should say, are equipped with a nervous system. Hence, the human species cannot assert here any primordial rights. The most general puri>ose, defined by Spinoza as the thing's essence, is its endeavor to persist in its own being. Annexed to this, and in the view of some of equal value, is the desire for the perpetuation of the species. Still other purposes developing from the first distinguish the steps of organic order, and define the degree of freedom. The highest of all type-purposes, vis., the powers of intellect, are found in man and guaranty to him the greatest range of freedom. The acts of man follow strictly from the appetites of body and the habits of mind. They constitute a class, being repeated by a multitude of individuals of the same nature. Thus, when the agent discharges any functional energy, e.g., when he reaches his hand in quest of food, when he shrinks from some object which threatens to limit or destroy his ability to survive, when FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 49 / he frames a concept and articulates it in speech, he is by that act obeying the mandate of his kind. But obedience to universal impulse, so far from branding him as a slave, really forms the first element in his freedom. Freedom consists at root in fulfill- ing the purpose of our nature. It is beside the point to complain that the channels of activity are charted for us ; that the lines of organic life are inexorably drawn. On the higher ranges of human experience we do not hesitate to say that the man is not free who degrades his physical desires to the uses of an animal existence. Conversely, it must appear that he who carries out the purpose embodied in the common course of nature, who per- forms such actions as are of primary importance in life and reflect his chiefest desire, will eo ipso exercise freedom, though it be as yet only of a generic kind. But purpose must be studied not alone as the expression of a type. We must seek out its values in the careers of individuals. Men do not conduct their business, perform their social duties, ponder on the deep things of philosophy, as though they were satisfying the impulses of the race. Race consciousness is the end, not the beginning of reflective thought. We act in the first instance always as individual persons. It is essential to under- stand what we mean by the term. Theoretically conceived, the individual is an abstracted part of the whole. It cannot exist as separate substance, as one of the factors into which matter is divided. The drop of water may appear to be distinct from other drops, from the flow of the river, the depth of ocean, or the unmeasured expanse of the atmos- phere. In reality it is extended substance, which the mind re- gards as individualized for its own critical purposes. ^ In the same way an organism sustains a partitive relation to the whole of nature. It exists as body, but in a modal, not real sense. It must be examined in the same way that we examine the lines, planes and solids of geometry, vis., as segments of extended M, 15, Sch. 50 JAMES H. DUNHAM In* space.^ Since we cannot comprehend infinite substance by itself, we must discover its meaning through the relations in which individuals stand to one another and the whole. Let us observe then that man is an individual in the world of extension, and that as such he is subject to reactive changes which are determined first by the nature of impinging bodies, and secondly by his own nature.^ To fix upon an individual purpose we must meet both these conditions. This man, whom i- we now look upon, has his own environment and cannot disen- tangle his body from the network of its influence. Not a single sensory current passes through his system, of which he is the unconditioned cause.* To be individuated by the coordinates of time and place, far from setting him apart, serves rather to cement more firmly his position in the common order of nature. Thus, as we shall see, percepts given by nearby objects are in- definitely more vivid than when the cause of excitation is some- what removed. Impressions derived from contingent bodies, i.e., bodies dependent for action on secondary causes, are fainter than those instilled by necessary things.^ If a man could with- draw himself from the toils of mechanism he might live his life without fear of decay or extinction. But this could only be done by giving him infinite power, or forcing nature to sub- serve his elemental impulse continually, — both of which are impossible.^ So long as a man remains an individual in a universe of individuals he cannot escape the fate incident to his place. That he must maintain his place here, is deduced by Spinoza from the fact that nature as a whole cannot be con- ceived without her constitutive parts.*^ The purpose of the man, whom we single out for study, will be in part determined by the milieu in which he finds himself. But stock, stone and man come impartially under this rule. Hence, there is a second condition. The body affected under- ^ goes just such changes, and no others, as are compatible with its nature. Here again, the rule is universally valid. Stock, stone and man evince structural changes corresponding to the •III, Pref. * IV, 4. • IV, 4. •II, i6. MV, 9. II. MV, 2 < FREEDOM AND PURPOSE ,, particular manner in which the principle of molecular attraction operates m each. Only, a serious difference now appears. In the first condition, the type of environing influence did not vary at least we could posit its substantial sameness. In the second condition, we are forced at once to recognize two divergent torms, one l^mg acted upon, the other reacting. The nature of man ,s different from the nature of a stone, and cannot be derived fron, it.« The difference lies not in the kind of chemical constituems. but in the former's tendency to adapt all influences to the maintenance of his own life. In the sphere of organism he individual does not wait, so to say, for the externallmpact to be made ; he mv.tes it ; he goes out to meet it. The absorptive power of the organism makes its attitude toward inanimate mat- ter entirely unique. But once again we meet divergences, not .n kind but in degree. How far can the organism absorb its environment? Or. what sort of stimulus awakens reaction in each case ? Evidence shows that a common impulse mky pre- vail, but different objects set up response in different organisms 1 hus, horse and man are distinguished equally by the desire of procreation; but the desire partakes always of the specific nature of the organism." Evidence shows, too. that within the species or family group divergent traits appear. Each individual, not- ably among species of more complex form, is just a little dif- ferent from Its neighbor of the same order. We do not mean that the primary appetite has changed. The horse remains a horse, and the dog a dog." But one particular element in its organic equipment has been developed; for example, the dog has been trained to follow the chase; or he belongs to a freed trained through several generations to this particular reaction We cannot hold that it is mere environment that makes his the samT.r f.'T"^-''"''= *' '^^^'^'^^^ '"^^ ^ ^"^ject to the same stimuli, but ,s certainly at first dull of response " d^fferenL'LT'".' '" "^"^' " ^''^' ""' "°<^^ ^* ^-«'°". ^hich This ,s not the same as the principle of success'.on.-one in a •m'.?Vh » IV. Pref. in.S7,Sch. "V. Prof. S2 JAMES //. DUNHAM series of units. Individuality is more than bodily separateness ; it is the nucleus of character. The fact we have just noted is attested by the nature of the gratification enjoyed. It is wellnigh\ impossible, as we have shown/2 ^Q represent to ourselves the feelings of inarticulate organisms. We can only say that they differ in intensity ac- cording to the degree of reticulation of the nervous system. Hence, we hesitate to affix the term '"character" to the dog. For, so far as we can determine, he has no power of sitting in judgment on his own reactions; he has no tendency to compare their several values, as denoted by the accruing pleasure.^^ With man the case stands otherwise. Differentiation is the key to ex- perience. The lofty look of the philosopher and the besotted leer of the drunkard express antipodal natures, whose diversity even the clogged brain of the latter cannot fail to understand. A character has developed. On what basis? Not alone by virtue -^f the presence of varying stimuli. The reason goes deeper. The individuals themselves are not agreed in their original tend- encies. The one finds himself emphasizing certain impulses which depend on a foreign source for support ; the other seeks to eliminate perceptual images, and bathe himself in the glow of ideas. Being men, they occupy a coign of vantage; they can study their own experience and detect the "special" points in which they differ from others. The pleasure of our human species consists at times in realizing that in this quality or that we excel some less favored companion ; and conversely, we sink into depression when we find another exulting in perfections which are denied us.** Again, the process of characterization may be examined from the standpoint of some particular emo- tion. Thus, love as a permanent impulse assumes several forms, the affection of husband and wife, the care of children, the broad communal interests of society. Each one of these is subject to special treatment in the lives of different agents. The types of character are infinitely diversified, the brutal father, the kind father, the indulgent father, each type being necessarily corre- " Supra, pg. 42. " III, 57, Sch. " III, 55. Sch. ■I .•i FREEDOM AND PURPOSE 53 lated to the nature of the individual under review " We con elude that men as individuals diflfer. not because they are identified by different spacial coordinates, but because they be- have in different ways towards surrounding forces.*' II The way is now cleared for inquiring how a man develops the form of behavior which we have settled to call his character We note that judgments of mind are affirmed in the same manner as perceptions of sense. They are purposeful acts, definite exer- tions of power. Every time we analyze a concept, try out a mathematical formula, criticize the technique of a picture — highly speculative modes of thought,— we discharge the function of mind. An idea is not an inanimate symbol devised by logic to interpret the meaning of conduct; it throbs with the red blood of living men. It is an act of will, recording a real change in the experience of the agent." But as an intellectual term it does not stand alone. It is the final member of a series and cannot be explained apart from the preliminary steps. Every decision depends on an adequate cause.i^ Hence, Jacobi's defi, nition of a free agent as one who can initiate a course of conduct directly opposed to, or not included in the content of proposed motives. IS baseless. Every act is precisely fortified with actuat- ing reasons; for, as Leibnitz pointed out,'» when we reject com- peting incentives, we do not relieve the mind of constraint but rather introduce a new force, vie, the caprice of judgment.' But what shall we say of a situation where we cannot decide -where impulses are evenly balanced, and reflection coming to our aid cannot by closest computation determine which side ought to prevail ? Here we are volitionally at a standstill, like Buridan s ass, and must nullify our power to act, that is, to exist,— unless we strike off at a tangent and act without suffi- cient cause. The picture, however, is not true to life. There