Chapter XXXI: Part 31

Dr. Lyons’s arguments are well put and well reasoned out. He sees clearly where the vulnerable point of the present condition of the Christian churches lies,—which the majority of Protestant theologians do not see. He sees clearly, though he does not say it, that the rococo superstructure of neo-Christian dogmatism was long and long ago undermined by science and that it is now toppling in the minds of the unscientific generally; and he justly advises all who have set their hearts on the preservation of the subtle and irrelevant externalities of religion, to forsake their ancient dwelling-place and seek a safe and easy abode in the grandly simple and grandly spacious, Roman temple of Papal infallibility. That edifice is safe against the artillery of science. It has by one simple act placed itself beyond the reach of all scientific attacks. For science, or rather the _method of science_, directly owes its origin to the consciousness of our individual liability to error and the consequent aspiration of man to establish an _objective_ criterion of truth. If it attempted to demolish doctrines of infallibility of any kind, it would simply seek to justify its own foundations, which it has long ago done. In so far as the doctrine of infallibility is the only logical outcome of a dilemma in which the Christian church has, discreetly or indiscreetly, implicated itself, science has no objection to it; or for that matter to any other conclusion that logically results from premisses it does not grant. The question really most worthy of the attention of the “thoughtful,” “truth-seeking,” and “religious” mind, as Dr. Lyons styles it, is not the doctrine of infallibility, but the questions, What is religion, What is God, etc., etc.; and such questions the _truth_-seeking mind will find it impossible to answer arbitrarily: it must, perforce, answer them in conformity with that objective criterion of truth called science. And such subjects are as much the object of science as are motion and matter.

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DER SATZ VOM GRUNDE ALS PRINZIP DES SCHLIESSENS. By Dr. _Franz Erhardt_. Halle a. S.: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891.

This little pamphlet of fifty-six pages, written and published to acquire for the author the _venia legendi_ at the philosophical faculty of the University of Jena, treats the several figures of the syllogism from the standpoint that the middle term of the premisses is, logically considered, the consequence (_Folge_) of the subject and the reason (_Grund_) of the predicate in the conclusion. A few remarks are added on induction and analogy, without, however, entering into the problem as to the rôle which the method of induction plays in the evolution of the method of deduction.

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AGNOSTICISME. Essai sur quelques Théories pessimistes de la Connaissance. By _E. de Roberty_. Paris: Félix Alcan.

By the publication of this little book M. de Roberty redeems a promise made in his larger work, on the philosophy of the present century, already reviewed in _The Monist_ (January, 1892). The pessimist theories of knowledge of which he treats are the three systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, to which he reduces contemporaneous philosophy. As these systems are regarded as parallel manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general hypotheses, they must equally adopt the doctrine of Agnosticism. It is the aim of the present work to point out the several forms assumed by this doctrine and to show its falsity by an examination of the principles on which it is based. The author properly insists on the importance of distinguishing between the affirmation of the unknown and that of the unknowable. The recognition of the former is essential to all progress in knowledge, but the latter is “the direct negation of all possibility whatever of utilising the deficiencies of knowledge,” and leads infallibly to the worship of ignorance. The best definition of the mental phenomenon of agnosticism, says M. de Roberty is the _pessimism_ of the theory of knowledge, and it is not for nothing therefore that Kant preceded Schopenhauer in the development of idealism.

Modern agnosticism is based on the old notion of the separation of the phenomenon from the noumenon, and it was Kant who cleared it from its early theological and metaphysical conceptions. He affirmed the reality of the “thing in itself” as a fundamental postulate, and then declared that we can know nothing of things considered in themselves. Among the conceptions formed by the human mind through the exercise of its imaginative faculty are three which exhaust the entire content of the Unknowable. Thus it may be reduced to the idea of a reality other than that of which we are sensible; to the idea of a subject which perceives in a different manner from the real subject; and finally to the idea that our cerebral organisation reveals the world to us under delusive colors, all of which M. de Roberty declares to be simple fiction. His own ideas on the subject will appear later on.

Positivism stands towards materialism in the same relation as criticism stands towards idealism, whose noumenon becomes the unknowable thing in itself; as the simple matter of materialism becomes the unknown existence about which positivism says we can neither affirm nor deny anything. Modern agnosticism may be regarded thus as representing the long sought synthesis of the purest materialism and the most transcendent spiritualism, and it offers a striking demonstration of the fundamental equivalence of the hypotheses hitherto formulated as to the origin and essence of things. It proves also, says M. de Roberty, that the great law of the identity of contraries is applicable directly to all our very general conceptions. Contradictory as they seem to be, universal postulates must, by virtue of that law, be fundamentally identical. This introduces a discussion of the antinomies, developed but not invented by modern criticism, which found in them ample justification for its conclusion of the reality of the unknowable.

The double antinomy of time and space is regarded by the author as always presenting itself under the aspect of a long chain of contradictions which are manifestly merely verbal. The opposition between finite and infinite may be resolved into the distinction between concrete and abstract, between particular and general, if infinity is taken as synonymous with, or the perfect substitute for, general and abstract quantity, the universal attribute of things isolated from the things themselves. As to the problems connected with the ideas of a vacuum, matter, force and motion, M. de Roberty supposes them to have a purely psychological solution. Such ideas go beyond the “conceptive” capacity of mechanics and belong to psychology considered, not as a branch of philosophy, or as philosophy itself, but as a science of abstract concepts.

The philosophy of evolution, although monistic in the sense that it recognises the law of the identity of opposites, shows itself not to be so in reality by its doctrine of the unknowable. In this monism and agnosticism contradict each other, as it is contrary to reason “to affirm at the same time the identity of every phenomenon and their unknowability. The first marks the supreme term of the second. Identity in general serves to define knowableness. So that, if we remain on the elevated summits of pure abstraction too long, we run the danger anticipated by the law of identity of contraries. We fall directly into the error of taking the apparent negation of identity or of pure knowledge, the unknowable, for something really distinct, really separated from the knowable.” This is the illusion of Spencer and of all the philosophers who have undertaken the difficult task of applying monism as a corrective of agnosticism.

M. de Roberty concludes the present work with a discussion of the relation between idea and reality, the thought and the object thought of, in which he gives us his opinion on that disputed point. He says that what philosophy calls “the object” is composed essentially of external nature, in which is included our own organism. Very complicated systems of motions are transmitted to the grey nuclei or opto-striated bodies of the central regions of the brain. Here these motions determine new motions of which the totality is described in psycho-physics by the term “unconscious ideation.” But this internal motion, continually tending to become again an initial or external motion, gives rise to unconscious reflex activity. The motion passes by the white nerve-fibres to the cortical periphery of the brain which becomes “the seat of a phenomenon, an excitation, a motion which prolongs or repeats the immediately preceding phenomenon, excitation, or motion, while giving it a shorter and more steady action.” The sensations and the reflex-actions derived from them traverse the opto-striated nuclei without retardation and without giving rise to any system of ideas; while consciousness resides in the systemisation or union of the same sensations and reflex-actions. The notion of the ego results from the union or memory of certain ideas, sensations, and actions, which before their union and preservation by the cerebral cortex were unconscious. But before becoming unconscious ideas, those “intellectual virtualities” were in every other part of the organism, and in all the media which surround it, as, “manifestations of energy or of motion, it may be objective phenomena.” Thus, says M. de Roberty, if the universe is composed of two parts, the ego and the non-ego, it can be affirmed that they form an uninterrupted circuit. He supposes that when the cosmical energy has produced the phenomena of unconscious mentality in the brain-centres, it is divided into two currents, one of which returns to its source and becomes directly cosmic energy again, and this will be the fate of the other current also when the life of the organism ceases.

This view the author supports by a consideration of the morphological and functional difference supposed to exist between the facts which constitute the notion of the “ego” and the primordial facts of unconsciousness comprised under the generic denomination of the “non-ego.” He regards conscious ideas as the telegraphic alphabet, the stenographic writing of the cosmos. Consciousness serves to coördinate the incoherent crowd of events which at each instant invades the normal brain. In these we may see effects of the cause called “universe,” and therefore its representatives and substitutes, which they could not be unless there was identity between the two. Thus the “ego” could be defined as the final synthesis of the “symbolic abridgments,” of the micrographical abbreviations, of the “non-ego.” Thus the ego serves only for the purpose of concentrating or condensing, so to say the non-ego, which it represents in a manner more or less durable and efficient.

This monistic theory gets rid of the unknowable and therefore is a great improvement on that of the materialist or of the idealist. Nevertheless it requires further elaboration. There is no difficulty in understanding that cosmic motion may become transformed within the organism into a feeling. This still, however, leaves unaccounted for the existence of the organism itself. A true monism will, therefore, require that the organism must be in some way identifiable with the cosmos. This is the true problem that has to be solved, and its solution will be greatly aided by the overthrow of agnosticism, against which M. de Roberty has made so vigorous and successful an attack in the present volume.

Ω.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] See Aug. Friedr. Böck. _Sammlung von Schriften, welche den logischen Calcul des Prof. Pl. betreffen_, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1766.

[85] The book from which we quote, namely _The Ethic of Freethought_, like the book here under discussion, contains much detail matter in which we differ most emphatically from the author; (he is, for instance, in our opinion very unjust to Martin Luther;) but it seems to us that he pursues an aim that we have in common with him.

PERIODICALS.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. III. Nos. 2 and 3.

UEBER DIE EMPFINDLICHKEIT DES GRÜNBLINDEN UND DES NORMALEN
AUGES GEGEN FARBENÄNDERUNG IM SPEKTRUM. By _E. Brodhun_.

KÜRZESTE LINIEN IM FARBENSYSTEM. By _H. v. Helmholtz_.

DIE RAUMANSCHAUUNGEN UND DIE AUGENBEWEGUNGEN. By _Th. Lipps_.

EINE BEOBACHTUNG ÜBER DAS INDIREKTE SEHEN. By _Th. Wertheim_.

UEBER EINIGE EIGENTÜMLICHKEITEN DES TASTSINNS. By _G. Sergi_.

BEITRÄGE ZUR VERGLEICHENDEN PSYCHOLOGIE. I. Das Verhalten
wirbelloser Tiere auf der Drehscheibe. By _K. L. Schaefer_.

GEGENANTWORT AUF DIE ERWIDERUNG VON O. FLÜGEL. By _J. Rehmke_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

The value of the first article on the sensitiveness of the green-blind and the normal eye in perceiving color-variations in the spectrum consists mainly in the three diagrams that exhibit the results obtained in the author’s experiments.

Professor H. v. Helmholtz published in a former number his attempt at propounding “a formula which should play the same part in the province of color-sensations as the formula of the length of the linear element plays in geometry.”... As geometry begins with the concept of a shortest line between two points, so our fundamental formula in this subject shall enable us to find that series of transitions between two given colors for which the sum of the perceptible differences is a minimum. Helmholtz proposes to call them “shortest color-lines” and comes to the conclusion that the whole domain of these apparently irregular phenomena are easily subsumed under a generalised formulation of Fechner’s law.

Professor Th. Lipps criticises Wundt with regard to the latter’s theory of measuring the visual field by ocular motion. Wundt’s theory, he declares, is in need of several auxiliary hypotheses, such as the assumption that certain ocular motions are supposed to be more difficult than others: the visual field is said to possess the form of a spherical surface, etc. The author maintains that ocular motions do contribute to the construction of our space-conception, but in a different way than Wundt assumes. The most interesting part of the article appears to be the discussion of the genesis of the third dimension which is not given in the data of sensation but added to them as a judgment concerning these data. It is an interpretation of the data. There are still psychologists who regard the third dimension as immediately given. Professor Lipps refers as an instance to Prof. William James’s article “The Perception of Space” in (_Mind_, Vol. XII), where the latter declares that “no arguments in the world can prove a feeling which actually exists, to be impossible.” While Wundt says that to the resting eye the form of the visual field is spherical because the sky appears to us as spherical; Lipps declares that we might just as well say that the visual field of the resting eye is a plane, because the earth appears to us as a level surface. We attribute to the visual field the form which certain reasons prompt us to. Certain convergences of the eyes induce us to place certain points at certain distances. We read, as it were, the distances out of the convergences of the ocular axes. Accordingly, when we cease to feel any difference in our feeling of convergency we cannot help attributing the same “depth” throughout to all the things with respect to which such feeling is wanting, and we place all objects beyond a certain range upon a spherical surface. Thus Lipps interprets the spherical form of the firmament as the result of our using both eyes, which use from habit has become the form of monocular vision also, and not as Wundt does from the spherical form of each visual field, which by habit has been transferred to binocular vision. There is a strange fact that distances on the left side are overestimated in comparison with those on the right side; and this fact is also claimed by Professor Lipps to be incompatible with Professor Wundt’s theory, but in favor of his own views.

Th. Wertheim has made an observation which tends to prove that positive as well as negative fluctuations of light-intensity, cause the disappearance of objects indirectly seen.

G. Sergi publishes the results of his investigations concerning the sense of touch made in the Institute for Anthropology and Experimental Psychology at the University of Rome.

Karl L. Schaefer’s results of experiments with invertebrate animals upon the rotatory table show that in the beginning a counter-rotation takes place, but not in all animals. It does not take place in some caterpillars; it does take place in black beetles, ants, flies, earwigs, provided they are at the time in actual motion. There is no after-affect from the rotation and thus they are not subject to vertigo as are the vertebrates. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

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VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 2.

BEITRÄGE ZUR LOGIK. (Zweiter Artikel. Schluss.) By _A. Riehl_.

ERNST PLATNER’S WISSENSCHAFTLICHE STELLUNG ZU KANT IN
ERKENNTNISSTHEORIE UND MORALPHILOSOPHIE. (Zweiter Artikel.
Schluss.) By _B. Seligkowitz_.

UEBER BEGRIFF UND GEGENSTAND. By _G. Frege_.

BEMERKUNGEN ZU RICHARD AVENARIUS’S “KRITIK DER REINEN
ERFAHRUNG.” By _R. Willy_.

A. Riehl discusses in the second instalment of his “Contributions to Logic” the forms of judgment and the different kinds of conclusion. B. Seligkowitz concludes his article on Ernst Platner’s relation to Kant, setting forth the former’s criticism of the latter’s views of synthetic judgments _a priori_, his moral theology, his psychological ideas, and moral philosophy. G. Frege explains his view of “concept and object” with reference to the idea of Benno Kerry, who does not recognise between the two any absolute difference. (Leipsic: Reisland.)

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PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 3 and 4.

CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 3.

DIE WIRKLICHKEIT ALS PHÄNOMEN DES GEISTES. By _A. Rosinski_.

RECENSIONEN.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 4.

UEBER DAS ABSOLUTE GEHÖR. By _J. v. Kries_.

DIE ZWEITEN PURKINJESCHEN BILDER IM SCHEMATISCHEN UND IM
WIRKLICHEN AUGE. By _L. Matthiessen_.

BESPRECHUNGEN.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Adolf Rosinski describes reality as a phenomenon of the mind and, following Quäbicker, he regards “the real as belonging to that complex which is given us in appearance. Being (_Wesen_) is not behind or beyond appearance; Being, being that which exists, existence is appearance. Appearance shows nothing but that which is in Being, and there is in Being nothing which is not manifested.” (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)

There are but few musicians who are able to recognise directly and without reference to another note, the pitch of a sound. This ability is called by musicians “absolutes Gehör.” Professor Kries investigates in a long article, the conditions of this absolute musical ear so called, exhibiting the difficulties of an explanation without arriving at a definite result, which, however, may be expected from further investigations of the subject. Mr. Matthiessen’s article on the second Perkinje-pictures, in the ideal and the real eye, consists exclusively of measurements and calculations of the curvature of the lens. The same number contains an appreciative and long (37 pp.) review of Prof. W. James’s “Principles of Psychology.” (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. April, 1892. Vol. IV. No. 3.

ON CERTAIN PECULIARITIES OF THE KNEE-JERK IN SLEEP IN A CASE OF
TERMINAL DEMENTIA. By _William Noyes_, M. D.

THE GROWTH OF MEMORY IN SCHOOL CHILDREN. By _T. L. Bolton_, A.
B.

STUDIES FROM THE LABORATORY OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. By Prof. _Joseph Jastrow_, Ph. D.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF REALISM. By _Alexander Fraser_,
A. B.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE: I. Nervous System. By Prof. _H. H.
Donaldson_, Clark University; II. Association, Reaction. By
Prof. _J. McK. Cattell_, Columbia College; III. Hypnotism and
Suggestion. By Prof. _Joseph Jastrow_, University of Wisconsin;
IV. Sight.

LETTERS AND NOTES.

Dr. Noyes’s investigations seem to corroborate the theory that not only the lower but also “the higher activities of the brain are also subject to a rhythmic rise and fall synchronous with vascular dilatation and contraction.” Mr. Bolton publishes the results of his examination of the span of memory in the Grammar Schools of Worcester, Mass. The memory span measuring the power of concentrated and prolonged attention, increases with age rather than with the growth of intelligence. The girls have better memories than the boys. Memory can be increased by practice. The tests made before and after school do not show that the pupils suffer fatigue from the day’s work. Memory-images before they are completely lost first suffer a confusion of order, then a loss of certain of its elements which are often replaced by similar elements. Previous ideas being one of the factors of confusion. Professor Jastrow’s article presents a description of a series of experiments made in his psychological laboratory. He reproduces the Zöllner figures, briefly summarising their different interpretations by Zöllner, Hering, Aubert, Classen, Lipps, Hoppe, Wundt, Pisco, and Helmholtz. He further presents a study of involuntary movements of the hand on the glass plate apparatus, and describes the experiments of time measurement in classifying ideas, and in finding a given object within a given field. Mr. Fraser defends the Natural Realism of the Scotch school, making the tactumotor sense the ultimate test of reality. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University.)

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REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.

CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 196.

LES PROCESSUS NERVEUX DANS L’ATTENTION ET LA VOLITION. By
_Charlton Bastian_.

LA RESPONSABILITÉ. By _F. Paulhan_.

REVUE GÉNÉRALE: LE SPIRITISME CONTEMPORAIN. By _Janet_
(_Pierre_).

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS: Der Positivismus vom Tode August
Comte’s bis auf unsere Tage. By _H. Gruber_. Die Psychologie
der Suggestion. By _H. Schmidkunz_.

TRAVAUX DU LABORATOIRE DE PSYCHOLOGIE PHYSIOLOGIQUE: Etude
expérimentale sur deux cas d’audition colorée. By _Beaunis and
Binet_. Etude sur un nouveau cas d’audition colorée. By _Binet
and Philippe_.

CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 197.

DU SENS DE L’INÉGALITÉ. By _G. Mauret_.

LA RESPONSABILITÉ (concluded). By _F. Paulhan_.

LE PROBLÈME DE LA VIE (third and last article). By _Dunan_.

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS: Leçons cliniques sur l’hystérie
et l’hypnotisme By _Pitres_. Corps et âme. Essais sur la
philosophie de St. Thomas. By _J. Gardair_. Agnosticisme.
By _E. de Roberty_. La physique de Straton de Lampsaque.
By _Rodier_. Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte des
Physikers, des Physiologen und des Philosophen. By _H. Schwarz_.

REVUE DES PÉRIODIQUES ÉTRANGERS: Vierteljahrsschrift für
wissenschaftliche Philosophie.

CORRESPONDANCE ET INFORMATIONS.

The processes of attention and volition lie at the basis of all our mental and physical activities. Mr. Charlton Bastian discusses their nervous condition and comes to the conclusion _Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt_. M. Paulhan treats the problem of responsibility under healthy and morbid conditions, in two consecutive articles. M. Mouret, whose former articles on relations will be reviewed in a future number by Mr. F. C. Russell, treats in a long article of the sense of inequality. M. Ch. Dunan concludes his essay on the problem of life, viewing the subject from a rather metaphysical standpoint. M. Pierre Janet presents us with a very accurate review of the importance of the contemporary spiritism and spiritualism. He calls attention to the fact that modern psychology owes to the researches of the spiritualists, many new, startling, and interesting facts. He does not share their standpoint, yet his review is kind and sympathetic. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)

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VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[86] Vol. III. No. 12. March, 1892.

POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. (Continuation).
By _B. N. Tchitcherin_. Article crowned by the Psychological
Society of Moscow.

HOW DOES THE MINISTRATION TO THE GENERAL GOOD OF ALL RELATE TO
THE CARE FOR THE SALVATION OF OUR OWN SOUL? A letter to the
Editor. By the _Archimandrite Antonii_.

HUXLEY AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MODERN SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF THE
WORLD.

TELEPATHY. (Concluded.) By _Petrovo-Solovo_.

THE BASIS OF ETHICAL OBLIGATION. By _N. Grote_.

SPECIAL DEPARTMENT. About Ethical Fragments from Democritus. By
_J. Radloff_. One of the Possible Cosmic Theories. A Study. By
_A. Wilkins_.

CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. I. Review of Periodicals. II.
Review of Recent Publications. Transactions of the Moscow
Psychological Society. (Moscow, 1892.)

MIND. New Series. No. 2. April, 1892.

PLEASURE AND PAIN. By _A. Bain_.

THE CHANGES OF METHOD IN HEGEL’S DIALECTIC. II. By _J. Ellis
McTaggart_.

THE LEIPSIC SCHOOL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. By _E. Bradford
Titchener_.

THE LOGICAL CALCULUS. II. By _W. E. Johnson_.

DISCUSSIONS: Dr. Münsterberg and his Critics. By _S. Alexander_.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Prof. A. Bain criticises Mr. H. R. Marshall’s theory of pleasure and pain as being determined by the relation between the energy given out and the energy received, saying that it leaves a very large region untouched and inexplicable. J. Ellis McTaggart defends the Hegelian dialectic system which, he declares, “is not so wonderful or mystic as it has been represented to be. It makes no attempt,” he says, “to deduce existence from essence; it does not even attempt to eliminate the element of immediacy, in experience, and to produce a self-sufficient and self-mediating thought.” E. Bradford Titchener gives a general survey of the researches carried out in Wundt’s Institute, and of the other psychological contents of the _Philosophische Studien_, from the date of Professor Cattell’s paper on “The Psychological Laboratory at Leipsic” to the present time. W. E. Johnson, in his paper on “The Logical Calculus,” brings out some of the underlying principles and assumptions which belong equally to the ordinary Formal Logic, to Symbolic Logic, and to the so-called Logic of Relatives. Prof. S. Alexander takes issue with Mr. Titchener’s criticism of Professor Münsterberg’s psychological investigations. Mr. Titchener’s article which appeared in the October number of _Mind_, 1891, leaves the impression that the whole of the work under review is valueless. “Many of his objections,” however, says Professor Alexander, “refer to unimportant points, and the graver theoretical ones are really groundless,” and thus the critic “has contrived to give a one-sided judgment by neglecting the other considerations which give Dr. Münsterberg’s work its value and significance.” (London: Williams & Norgate.)

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THREE AMERICAN MAGAZINES.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. April, 1892. Vol. II. No. 3.

ECONOMIC REFORM SHORT OF SOCIALISM. By _E. Benj. Andrews_.

PLEASURE AND PAIN IN EDUCATION. By _Miss M. S. Gilliland_,
London.

THE ESSENTIALS OF BUDDHIST DOCTRINE AND ETHICS. By Prof.
_Maurice Bloomfield_.

THE THREE RELIGIONS. (Concluded.) By _J. S. Mackenzie_, M. A.

DISCUSSIONS AND REVIEWS.

THE SCHOOL OF APPLIED ETHICS.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I. No. 3. May, 1892.

HERBERT SPENCER’S ANIMAL ETHICS. By Prof. _Henry Calderwood_.

THE ULTIMATE GROUND OF AUTHORITY. By Prof. _J. Macbride
Sterrett_.

WHAT IS REALITY? By _David G. Ritchie_.

NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. By Dr. _B. C.
Burt_.

A MATHEMATICAL VIEW OF FREE WILL. By Prof. _J. E. Oliver_.

DISCUSSIONS: Professor Ladd’s Criticism of James’s Psychology.
By Prof. _J. P. Gordy_.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.

THE NEW WORLD. Vol. I. No. 1. March, 1892.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY. By _Lyman Abbott_.

THE HISTORIC AND THE IDEAL CHRIST. By _Charles Carroll Everett_.

THE FUTURE OF LIBERAL RELIGION IN AMERICA. By _J. G. Schurmann_.

THE COMMON, THE COMMONPLACE AND THE ROMANTIC. By _William
Rounseville Alger_.

ABRAHAM KUENEN. By _Crawford Howell Toy_.

THE THEISTIC EVOLUTION OF BUDDHISM. By _J. Estlin Carpenter_.

“BETWEEN THE TESTAMENTS.” By _Thomas R. Slicer_.

THE NEW ORTHODOXY. By _Edward H. Hall_.

THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THOMAS HILL GREEN. By
_Charles B. Upton_.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

BOOK REVIEWS.

There have sprung up within the last two years not less than four American magazines of progressive thought, which now compete in the proposition of their religious and philosophical conceptions to the world. These four magazines are, in the chronological order in which they were founded, _The Monist_, _The International Journal of Ethics_, _The Philosophical Review_, and _The New World_. _The Monist_ represents that world-conception which takes its stand upon facts and systematises facts into a unitary view. Thus it recognises the methods of science as the methods of all knowledge, to the exclusion of supernatural revelation, or intuitionalism, or any kind of mysticism. But _The Monist_ does not rest satisfied with this. _The Monist_ preaches a religion; and the prophets of this religion are not only the great ethical teachers of mankind, but everybody who reveals truth, Kant and Comte, Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, and all living representatives of scientific inquiry. Thus _The Monist_ is a magazine that points out the religious import of science and philosophy.

_The International Journal of Ethics_ follows in the same line in so far only as it has nothing to say to the old orthodox conceptions of religion. It tries to teach a higher morality, but in establishing ethics it pursues quite another course. It is the organ of the Ethical Societies and the leaders of the Ethical Societies are confident that they can have ethics not only without theology but also without religion, science, or philosophy. They consider the world-conception of a man as something indifferent, or unessential, in ethics, and by proposing a non-committal policy with respect to religious and philosophical views, they expect to be the better fitted to preach good conduct. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)

_The Philosophical Review_ represents a philosophical conception which has still a strong hold upon the Universities on this side of the Atlantic. Transcendentalism, metaphysicism, and that theological philosophy which still operates with supernatural quantities, or at least has not discarded the dualistic features of supernaturalism, are represented in its columns. Certainly they are well represented and by their best upholders of the present time, and authors of more modern and positivistic views are not excluded. Exactly so in _The Monist_, the representatives of metaphysicism and those who still believe in the dual existence of man, in his self, or ego, and his transcendental existence are welcome; but there is nevertheless a fundamental difference in the world-conception of the two magazines. (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co.)

_The New World_ is the latest new-comer in the field of magazine literature, and we welcome its appearance most cordially. There are strongly marked differences between _The New World_ and _The Monist_, for the former is a theological magazine that deepens religion with the assistance of philosophy while the latter, rather the reverse, is a philosophical magazine that widens philosophy and applies it to practical life so as to become a religion. But for that very reason _The New World_ seems to meet _The Monist_ half way. _The New World_ is an offshoot of modern theology. Its contributors come largely from the ranks of the maturest unitarian thinkers. They practically accept the principles of criticism and scientific inquiry and thus they are approaching rapidly that common goal of human thought, which _The Monist_ propounds as the leading maxim of philosophy and religion, namely, to regard nature as the only revelation and experience as our guide in life; to base religion upon and to derive ethics from a critically-sifted statement of facts. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

κρς.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._

APPENDIX TO THE MONIST, VOL. II, NO. 4

KANT AND SPENCER

TWO ARTICLES REPRINTED FROM NOS. 51, 52, AND 158
OF THE OPEN COURT

1. THE ETHICS OF KANT
2. KANT ON EVOLUTION

BY
DR. PAUL CARUS

CHICAGO:
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY

THE ETHICS OF KANT.

IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has published in _The Popular Science Monthly_ for August, an essay on the Ethics of Kant; a translation of this article had appeared in the July Number of the _Revue Philosophique_, and it cannot fail to have been widely noticed. It is to be regretted that unfamiliarity with the German language and perhaps also with Kant’s terminology has led Mr. Spencer into errors to which attention is called in the following discussion.[87]

Mr. Spencer says:

“If, before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in which,
with the stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience of Man, as
being the two things that excited his awe, he had known more
of Man than he did, he would probably have expressed himself
somewhat otherwise.”

Kant, in his famous dictum that two things excited his admiration, the starry heaven above him and the conscience within him, contrasted two kinds of sublimity.[88] The grandeur of the Universe is that of size and extension, while the conscience of man commands respect for its moral dignity. The universe is wonderful in its expanse and in its order of mechanical regularity; the conscience of man is grand, being intelligent volition that aspires to be in harmony with universal laws.

Mr. Spencer continues:

“Not, indeed, that the conscience of Man is not wonderful
enough, whatever be its supposed genesis; but the wonderfulness
of it is of a different kind according as we assume it to
have been supernaturally given or infer that it has been
naturally evolved. The knowledge of Man in that large sense
which Anthropology expresses, had made, in Kant’s day, but
small advances. The books of travel were relatively few, and
the facts which they contained concerning the human mind as
existing in different races, had not been gathered together and
generalized. In our days, the conscience of Man as inductively
known has none of that universality of presence and unity of
nature which Kant’s saying tacitly assumes.”

Mr. Spencer apparently supposes that Kant believed in a supernatural origin of the human conscience. This, however, is erroneous.

Mr. Spencer’s error is excusable in consideration of the fact that some disciples of Kant have fallen into a similar error. Professor Adler, of New York, who attempts in the Societies for Ethical Culture to carry into effect the ethics of Pure Reason, maintains that the commandments of the _ought_ and “the light that shines through them come from beyond, but its beams are broken as they pass through our terrestrial medium, and the full light in all its glory we can never see.”

Ethics based on an unknowable power, is mysticism; and mysticism does not essentially differ from dualism and supernaturalism.

Kant’s reasoning is far from mysticism and from supernaturalism. He was fully convinced that civilized man with his moral and intellectual abilities had naturally evolved from the lower state of an animal existence. We read in his essay, “Presumable Origin of the History of Mankind” (Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte. Editio Hartenstein, Vol. IV, p. 321):

“From this conception of the primitive history of mankind it
follows that the departure of man from the paradise represented
to him by his reason as the earliest place of sojourn of his
race, has been nothing else than the transition from the rude
condition of a purely animal existence to the condition of a
human being; a transition from the leading-strings of instinct
to direction by reason, in a word, from the protectorate of
nature to a status of freedom.”

The view that the conscience of man is innate, in the sense of a non-natural, of a mysterious, or even of a supernatural origin, is untenable. Those disciples of Kant who entertain such views have certainly misinterpreted their great master, and the passages adduced by Mr. Spencer from so many sources are sufficient evidence of the fact that “there are widely different degrees” [we should rather say kinds] “of conscience in the different races.” Mr. Spencer continues:

“Had Kant had these and kindred facts before him, his
conception of the human mind, and consequently his ethical
conception, would scarcely have been what they were. Believing,
as he did, that one object of his awe—the stellar Universe—has
been evolved,[89] he might by evidence like the foregoing
have been led to suspect that the other object of his awe—the
human conscience—has been evolved; and has consequently a
real nature unlike its apparent nature.” ... “If, instead of
assuming that conscience is simple because it seems simple to
careless introspection he had entertained the hypothesis that
it is perhaps complex—a consolidated product of multitudinous
experiences received mainly by ancestors and added to by
self—he might have arrived at a consistent system of Ethics.”
...

“In brief, as already implied, had Kant, instead of his
incongruous beliefs that the celestial bodies have had an
evolutionary origin, but that the minds of living beings on
them, or at least on one of them, have had a non-evolutionary
origin, entertained the belief that both have arisen by
Evolution, he would have been saved from the impossibilities of
his Metaphysics, and the untenabilities of his Ethics.”

Mr. Spencer believes that Kant had assumed conscience to be “simple, because it seems simple to careless introspection.” But there is no evidence in Kant’s works for this assumption. On the contrary, Kant reversed the old view of so-called “rational psychology” which considered conscience as innate and which was based on the error that consciousness is simple. Des Cartes’s syllogism _cogito ergo sum_ is based on this idea, which at the same time served as a philosophical evidence for the indestructibility and immortality of the _ego_. The simplicity of consciousness had been considered as an axiom, until Kant came and showed that it was a fallacy, a paralogism of pure reason. Dr. Noah Porter has written, from an apparently dualistic standpoint, a sketch entitled “The Ethics of Kant,” in which he says:

“The skepticism and denials of Kant’s speculative theory
in respect to noumena, both material and psychical, had
unfortunately cut him off from the possibility of recognizing
the personal _ego_ as anything more than a logical fiction.”

Kant says in his “Critique of Pure Reason”:[90]

“In the internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the
_Ego_ is but the consciousness of my thought.... From all this
it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere
misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at
the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition
of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is
applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than
the unity in _thought_, by which no object is given; to which
therefore the category of substance cannot be applied.”[91]

Concerning the statement that Kant had believed in the non-evolutionary origin of living beings, we quote from his essay on _The Different Races of Men_, Chap. III, where Kant speaks of “the immediate causes of the origin of these different races.” He says:

“The conditions (_Gründe_) which, inhering in the constitution
of an organic body, determine a certain evolutionary process
(_Auswickelung_[92]) are called, if this process is concerned
with particular parts, _germs_; if, on the other hand, it
touches only the size or the relation of the parts to one
another, I call it _natural capabilities_ (_natürliche
Anlagen_).”[93]

And in a foot-note Kant makes the following remark:

“Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science
(_Naturbeschreibung_) and natural history in one and the
same sense. But it is evident that the knowledge of natural
phenomena, as they _now are_, always leaves to be desired
the knowledge of that which they _have been_ before now and
through what succession of modifications they have passed in
order to have arrived, in every respect, to their present
state. _Natural History_, which at present we almost entirely
lack, would teach us the changes that have affected the form
of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the
earth (plants and animals), that they have suffered by natural
transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the
prototype of the original species, that they have experienced.
It would probably trace a great number of apparently different
varieties back to species of one and the same kind and would
convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural
Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.”[94]

Kant has nowhere, so far as we know, made any objection to the idea of evolution. But he opposed the theory that all life should have originated from _one single_ kind. In reviewing and epitomizing Joh. Gottfr. Herder’s work, “_Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit_,” Kant says:

... “Book II, treats of organized matter on the earth.... The
beginnings of vegetation.... The changes suffered by man and
beast through climatic influences.... In them all we find one
prevailing form and a similar osseous structure.... These
transitional links render it not at all impossible that in
marine animals, in plants, and, indeed, possibly in so-called
inanimate substances, one and the same fundamental principle
of organization may prevail, although infinitely cruder and
more complex in operation. In the sight of eternal being, which
beholds all things in one connection, it is possible that the
structure of the ice-particle, while receiving form, and of
the snowflake, while being crystallized, bears an analogous
relation to the formation of the embryo in a mother’s womb....
The third book compares the structure of animals and plants
with the organization of man.... It was not because man was
ordained to be a rational creature that upright stature was
given him for using his limbs according to reason; on the
contrary he acquired his reason as a consequence of his upright
stature.... From stone to crystals, from crystals to metals,
from metals to plant-creation, from thence to the animal,
and ultimately to man, we have seen the form of organization
advancing, and with it the faculties and instincts of creatures
becoming more diversified, until at last they all became united
in the human form, in so far as the latter could comprise
them.... As the body increases by food, so does the mind by
ideas; indeed, we notice here the same laws of assimilation, of
growth, and of generation. In a word, an inner spiritual man is
being formed within us, which has a nature of its own and which
employs the body as an instrument merely.... Our humanity is
merely a preliminary training, the bud of a blossom to come.
Step by step does nature cast off the ignoble and the base,
while it builds and adds to the spiritual and continues to
fashion the pure and refined with increasing niceness; thus are
we in a position to hope from the artist-hand of nature that in
that other existence our bud of humanity will also appear in
its real and true form of divine manhood.” ...

[Herder’s idea of evolution would stand on the whole if his conception of “the spiritual” did not imply a preternatural agent.]

“The present state of man is probably the link of junction
between two worlds.... Yet man is not to investigate himself in
this future state; he is to believe himself into it.”

Kant makes no objection whatever to the evolutionary ideas of Herder. But Herder was not free from supernaturalism and from fantastic ideas in reference to the future development of man. He had not yet dropped the dualistic conception of the ‘duplicity’ of man and believed in the immortality of a distinct spiritual individual within his body. Kant’s objection, therefore, is two-fold; 1) against Herder’s supernaturalism which leads him beyond this world; and, 2) against the descent of _all_ species from _one and the same genus_. He says:

“In the gradation between the different species and individuals
of a natural kingdom, nature shows us nothing else than the
fact that it abandons individuals to total destruction and
preserves the species alone.... As concerns that _invisible_
kingdom of active and independent forces, we fail to see why
the author, after having believed he could confidently infer
from organized beings, the existence of the rational principle
in man did not rather attribute this principle directly to
him merely as spiritual nature, instead of lifting it out of
chaos through the structural form of organised matter.... As
to the gradation of organized beings, our author is not to
be too severely reproached, if the scheme has not met the
requirements of his conception, which extends so far beyond
the limits of this world; for its application even to the
natural kingdoms here on earth leads to nothing. The slight
differences exhibited when species are compared with reference
to their common points of resemblance, are, where there is
such great multiplicity, a necessary consequence of just this
multiplicity. The assumption of common kinship between them,
inasmuch as one kind would have to spring from another and all
from one original and primitive species, or from one and the
same creative source (Mutterschoss)—the assumption of such
a common kinship would lead to ideas so strange that reason
shrinks from them, and we cannot attribute this idea to the
author without doing him injustice. Concerning his suggestions
in comparative anatomy through all species down to plants,
the workers in natural science must judge for themselves
whether the hints given for new observations, will be useful
and whether they are justified.... It is desirable that our
ingenious author who in the continuation of his work will find
more _terra firma_, may somewhat restrain his bright genius,
and that philosophy (which consists rather in pruning than in
fostering luxuriant growth) may lead him to the perfection of
his labors not through hints but through definite conceptions,
not by imagination but by observation, not by a metaphysical or
emotional phantasy but by reason, broad in its plan but careful
in its work.”

Kant rejected certain conceptions of evolution, but he did not at all show himself averse to the idea in general. He touched upon the subject only incidentally and it is certain that he did not especially favor or entertain the belief in a non-evolutionary origin of living beings.

Before proceeding to the main points of his criticism, Mr. Spencer calls attention to what he designates as Kant’s _abnormal_ reasoning. Mr. Spencer says:

“Something must be said concerning abnormal reasoning as
compared with normal reasoning.” ...

“Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the
negation is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of
which the affirmation is inconceivable, and therefrom proceeds
to draw conclusions” ...

“The first sentence in Kant’s first chapter runs thus: ‘Nothing
can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it,
which can be called good without qualification, except a Good
Will.’” ...

“Most fallacies result from the habit of using words without
fully rendering them into thoughts—passing them by with
recognitions of their meanings as ordinarily used, without
stopping to consider whether these meanings admit of being
given to them in the cases named. Let us not rest satisfied
with thinking vaguely of what is understood by ‘a Good Will,’
but let us interpret the words definitely. Will implies the
consciousness of some end to be achieved. Exclude from it every
idea of purpose, and the conception of Will disappears. An
end of some kind being necessarily implied by the conception
of Will, the quality of the Will is determined by the quality
of the end contemplated. Will itself, considered apart from
any distinguishing epithet, is not cognizable by Morality at
all. It becomes cognizable by Morality only when it gains its
character as good or bad by virtue of its contemplated end as
good or bad.” ...

“Kant tells us that a good will is one that is good in and for
itself without reference to ends.”

It is unfortunate that Mr. Spencer misunderstood the first sentence of Kant’s book (_Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_). Kant does not speak of “a good will without qualification,” nor does the expression “without qualification” refer to “a will without reference to ends.” Kant speaks of good will in opposition to other good things. Nothing, he says, can without qualification (_ohne Einschränkung_) be called good, except a good will.[95] Dr. Porter sums up the first page of Kant’s essay in the following words:

“The first section of the treatise opens with the memorable
and often-quoted utterance, that ‘nothing can be possibly
conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called
good without qualification, except a good will.’ If character
is compared with gifts of nature, as intelligence, courage,
and gifts of fortune, as riches, health, or contentment, all
these are defective, ‘if there is not a good will to correct
their possible perversion and to rectify the whole principle of
acting, and _adapt it to its end_.’[96] A man who is endowed
with every other good can never give pleasure to an impartial,
rational spectator unless he possesses a good will. ‘Thus a
good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition of
being worthy of happiness.’ ... ‘Moreover, a good will is good
not for what it effects but for what it intends, even when it
fails to accomplish its purposes, ... as when the man wills
the good of another and is impotent to promote it, or actually
effects just the opposite of what he proposes or wills.’”

In the passages quoted by Dr. Porter, Kant speaks of “the _end_ to which good will adapts other goods”; and in another passage of the same book, Kant directly declares that “it is the _end_ that serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determination.” Mr. Spencer must have overlooked these sentences. Kant says:

“The will is conceived as a power of determining itself to
action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And
such a power can only be met with in rational beings. _Now it
is the END that serves the will as the objective ground of its
self-determination_, and this end, if fixed by reason alone,
must hold equally good for all rational creatures.”

* * * * *

Mr. Spencer interrupts his essay on the Ethics of Kant by a digression on Kant’s conception of time and space. It would lead us too far at present if we would follow Mr. Spencer on this ground also. A comparison of Spencer’s remarks on the subject with Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” will show that Kant’s view of space and time is radically different from that view which Mr. Spencer represents as the Kantian conception of time and space.

* * * * *

Kant rejects the idea that happiness is the end and purpose of life and at the same time he declares that ethics must be based not on the pursuit of happiness but on the categorical imperative or more popularly expressed on our sense of duty.

Mr. Spencer argues:

“One of the propositions contained in Kant’s first chapter is
that ‘we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself
with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness,
so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction.’” ...

“That which Kant should have said is that the _exclusive_
pursuit of what are distinguished as pleasures and amusements
is disappointing.” ...

“It is not, as Kant says, guidance by ‘a cultivated reason,’
which leads to disappointment, but guidance by an uncultivated
reason.”

The passage quoted by Mr. Spencer from Kant, reads in its context as follows:

“In the physical constitution of an organized being we take it
for granted[97] that no organ for any purpose will be found
in it but such as is also the fittest and best adapted for
that purpose. If in a being possessing reason and will, the
preservation, the prosperity, in a word, the happiness of that
being, constituted the actual purpose of nature, nature had
certainly adopted an extremely unwise expedient to this end,
had it made the reason of that being the executive agent of its
purposes in this matter. For all actions that it had to perform
with this end in view, and the whole rule of its conduct, would
have been far more exactly prescribed by _instinct_, and this
end would have been far more safely attained by this means than
can ever take place through the instrumentality of _reason_.”
...

“As a matter of fact we find that the more a cultivated
reason occupies itself with the purpose of enjoying life and
happiness, the farther does the person possessing it recede
from the state of true contentment; and hence there arises in
the case of many, and pre-eminently in the case of those most
experienced in the exercise of reason, if they are only frank
enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology or hate of
reason; for after weighing every advantage that they derive,
I will not say from the invention of all arts facilitating
ordinary luxury, but even from the sciences, (which after
all are in their eyes a luxury of the intellect,) they still
discover that virtually they have burdened themselves more with
toil and trouble than they have gained in point of happiness,
and thus, in the end, they are more apt to envy than contemn
the commoner type of men who are more immediately subject to
the guidance of natural instinct alone, and who do not suffer
their reason to influence in any great degree their acts and
omissions.”

Kant uses the expression “cultivated reason” not in opposition to “uncultivated reason,” but to “instinct” as that inherited faculty which teaches a being to live in accordance with nature and its natural conditions, without the interference of thought and reflection.

That uncultivated reason would lead to disappointment, Kant never would have denied. He would have added: “It does more, it leads to a speedy ruin.”

But if reason does not produce happiness, what then is the use of reason? Kant answers, reason produces in man the good will.

It is reason which enables man to form abstractions, to think in generalizations and to conceive the import of universal laws. When his will deliberately and consciously conforms to universal laws, it is good. Kant says:

“Thus will (viz. the good will) can not be the sole and whole
Good, but it must still be the highest Good and the condition
necessary to everything else, even to all desire of happiness.”
...

“To know what I have to do in order that my volition be good,
requires on my part no far-reaching sagacity. Unexperienced
in respect of the course of nature, unable to be prepared for
all the occurrences transpiring therein, I simply ask myself:
Can’st thou so will, that the maxim of thy conduct may become a
universal law? Where it can not become a universal law, there
the maxim of thy conduct is reprehensible, and that, too, not
by reason of any disadvantage consequent thereupon to thee or
even others, but because it is not fit to enter as a principle
into a possible enactment of universal laws.”