It is interesting to place the two extracts side by side. In the one,
we are told that we do not know external objects by an inference from
our sensations; in the other we are taught that the piece of matter
which we regard as existing externally cannot be really known; that we
can know only certain impressions produced on us, and must refer them
to a cause; that this cause cannot be what we think it. It is
difficult for the man who reads such statements not to forget that
Spencer regarded himself as a realist who held to a direct knowledge of
something external.
There are, as it is evident, many sorts of realists that may be
gathered into the first class mentioned above--men who, however
inconsistent they may be, try, at least, to maintain that our knowledge
of the external world is a direct one. And it is equally true that
there are various sorts of realists that may be put into the second
class.
These men have been called _Hypothetical Realists_. In the last
chapter it was pointed out that Descartes and Locke belong to this
class. Both of these men believed in an external world, but believed
that its existence is a thing to be inferred.
Now, when a man has persuaded himself that the mind can know directly
only its own ideas, and must infer the world which they are supposed to
represent, he may conceive of that external world in three different
ways.
(1) He may believe that what corresponds to his idea of a material
object, for example, an apple, is in very many respects like the idea
in his mind. Thus, he may believe that the odor, taste, color,
hardness, etc., that he perceives directly, or as ideas, have
corresponding to them real external odor, taste, color, hardness, etc.
It is not easy for a man to hold to this position, for a very little
reflection seems to make it untenable; but it is theoretically possible
for one to take it, and probably many persons have inclined to the view
when they have first been tempted to believe that the mind perceives
directly only its ideas.
(2) He may believe that such things as colors, tastes, and odors cannot
be qualities of external bodies at all, but are only effects, produced
upon our minds by something very different in kind. We seem to
perceive bodies, he may argue, to be colored, to have taste, and to be
odorous; but what we thus perceive is not the external thing; the
external thing that produces these appearances cannot be regarded as
having anything more than "solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest,
and number." Thus did Locke reason. To him the external world as it
really exists, is, so to speak, a paler copy of the external world as
we seem to perceive it. It is a world with fewer qualities, but,
still, a world with qualities of some kind.
(3) But one may go farther than this. One may say: How can I know that
even the extension, number, and motion of the things which I directly
perceive have corresponding to them extension, number, and motion, in
an outer world? If what is not colored can cause me to perceive color,
why may not that which is not extended cause me to perceive extension?
And, moved by such reflections, one may maintain that there exists
outside of us that which we can only characterize as an Unknown Cause,
a Reality which we cannot more nearly define.
This last position resembles very closely one side of Spencer's
doctrine--that represented in the last of the two citations, as the
reader can easily see. It is the position of the follower of Immanuel
Kant who has not yet repudiated the noumenon or thing-in-itself
discussed in the last chapter (section 51).
I am not concerned to defend any one of the varieties of Direct or of
Hypothetical Realism portrayed above. But I wish to point out that
they all have some sort of claim to the title _Realism_, and to remind
the reader that, when we call a man a realist, we do not do very much
in the way of defining his position. I may add that the account of the
external world contained in Chapter IV is a sort of realism also.
If this last variety, which I advocate, _must_ be classified, let it be
placed in the first broad class, for it teaches that we know the
external world directly. But I sincerely hope that it will not be
judged wholly by the company it keeps, and that no one will assign to
it either virtues or defects to which it can lay no just claim.
Before leaving the subject of realism it is right that I should utter a
note of warning touching one very common source of error. It is
fatally easy for men to be misled by the names which are applied to
things. Sir William Hamilton invented for a certain type of
metaphysical doctrine the offensive epithet "nihilism." It is a type
which appeals to many inoffensive and pious men at the present day,
some of whom prefer to call themselves idealists. Many have been
induced to become "free-willists" because the name has suggested to
them a proper regard for that freedom which is justly dear to all men.
We can scarcely approach with an open mind an account of ideas and
sensations which we hear described as "sensationalism," or worse yet,
as "sensualism." When a given type of philosophy is set down as
"dogmatism," we involuntarily feel a prejudice against it.
He who reads as reflectively as he should will soon find out that
philosophers "call names" much as other men do, and that one should
always be on one's guard. "Every form of phenomenalism," asseverated a
learned and energetic old gentleman, who for many years occupied a
chair in one of our leading institutions of learning, "necessarily
leads to atheism." He inspired a considerable number of students with
such a horror for "phenomenalism" that they never took pains to find
out what it was.
I mention these things in this connection, because I suspect that not a
few in our own day are unduly influenced by the associations which
cling to the words "realism" and "idealism." Realism in literature, as
many persons understand it, means the degradation of literature to the
portrayal of what is coarse and degrading, in a coarse and offensive
way. Realism in painting often means the laborious representation upon
canvas of things from which we would gladly avert our eyes if we met
them in real life. With the word "idealism," on the other hand, we are
apt to connect the possession of ideals, a regard for what is best and
noblest in life and literature.
The reader must have seen that realism in the philosophic sense of the
word has nothing whatever to do with realism in the senses just
mentioned. The word is given a special meaning, and it is a weakness
to allow associations drawn from other senses of the word to color our
judgment when we use it.
And it should be carefully held in view that the word "idealism" is
given a special sense when it is used to indicate a type of doctrine
contrasted with the doctrine of the realist. Some forms of
philosophical idealism have undoubtedly been inspiring; but some have
been, and are, far from inspiring. They should not be allowed to
posture as saints merely because they are cloaked with an ambiguous
name.
53. IDEALISM.--Idealism we may broadly define as the doctrine that all
existence is mental existence. So far from regarding the external
world as beyond and independent of mind, it maintains that it can have
its being only in consciousness.
We have seen (section 49) how men were led to take the step to
idealism. It is not a step which the plain man is impelled to take
without preparation. To say that the real world of things in which we
perceive ourselves to live and move is a something that exists only in
the mind strikes him as little better than insane. He who becomes an
idealist usually does so, I think, after weighing the arguments
presented by the hypothetical realist, and finding that they seem to
carry one farther than the latter appears to recognize.
The type of idealism represented by Berkeley has been called
_Subjective Idealism_. Ordinarily our use of the words "subjective"
and "objective" is to call attention to the distinction between what
belongs to the mind and what belongs to the external order of things.
My sensations are subjective, they are referred to my mind, and it is
assumed that they can have no existence except in my mind; the
qualities of things are regarded as objective, that is, it is commonly
believed that they exist independently of my perception of them.
Of course, when a man becomes an idealist, he cannot keep just this
distinction. The question may, then, fairly be raised: How can he be a
_subjective idealist_? Has not the word "subjective" lost its
significance?
To this one has to answer: It has, and it has not. The man who, with
strict consistency, makes the desk at which he sits as much his "idea"
as is the pain in his finger or his memory of yesterday, cannot keep
hold of the distinction of subjective and objective. But men are not
always as consistent as this. Remember the illustration of the
"telephone exchange" (section 14). The mind is represented as situated
at the brain terminals of the sensory nerves; and then brain, nerves,
and all else are turned into ideas in this mind, which are merely
"projected outwards."
Now, in placing the mind at a definite location in the world, and
contrasting it with the world, we retain the distinction between
subjective and objective--what is in the mind can be distinguished from
what is beyond it. On the other hand, in making the whole system of
external things a complex of ideas in the mind, we become idealists,
and repudiate realism. The position is an inconsistent one, of course,
but it is possible for men to take it, for men have taken it often
enough.
The idealism of Professor Pearson (section 14) is more palpably
subjective than that of Berkeley, for the latter never puts the mind in
a "telephone exchange." Nevertheless, he names the objects of sense,
which other men call material things, "ideas," and he evidently
assimilates them to what we commonly call ideas and contrast with
things. Moreover, he holds them in some of the contempt which men
reserve for "mere ideas," for he believes that idolaters might be
induced to give over worshiping the heavenly bodies could they be
persuaded that these are nothing more than their own ideas.
With the various forms of subjective idealism it is usual to contrast
the doctrine of _Objective Idealism_. This does not maintain that the
world which I perceive is my "idea"; it maintains that the world is
"idea."
It is rather a nice question, and one which no man should decide
without a careful examination of the whole matter, whether we have any
right to retain the word "idea" when we have rubbed out the distinction
which is usually drawn between ideas and external things. If we
maintain that all men are always necessarily selfish, we stretch the
meaning of the word quite beyond what is customary, and selfishness
becomes a thing we have no reason to disapprove, since it characterizes
saint and sinner alike. Similarly, if we decide to name "idea," not
only what the plain man and the realist admit to have a right to that
name, but also the great system which these men call an external
material world, it seems right to ask; Why use the word "idea" at all?
What does it serve to indicate? Not a distinction, surely, for the
word seems to be applicable to all things without distinction.
Such considerations as these lead me to object to the expression
"objective idealism": if the doctrine is really _objective_, _i.e._ if
it recognizes a system of things different and distinct from what men
commonly call ideas, it scarcely seems to have a right to the title
_idealism_; and if it is really _idealism_, and does not rob the word
idea of all significance, it can scarcely be _objective_ in any proper
sense of the word.
Manifestly, there is need of a very careful analysis of the meaning of
the word "idea," and of the proper significance of the terms
"subjective" and "objective," if error is to be avoided and language
used soberly and accurately. Those who are not in sympathy with the
doctrine of the objective idealists think that in such careful analysis
and accurate statement they are rather conspicuously lacking.
We think of Hegel (1770-1831) as the typical objective idealist. It is
not easy to give an accurate account of his doctrine, for he is far
from a clear writer, and he has made it possible for his many admirers
to understand him in many ways. But he seems to have accepted the
system of things that most men call the real external world, and to
have regarded it as the Divine Reason in its self-development. And
most of those whom we would to-day be inclined to gather together under
the title of objective idealists appear to have been much influenced,
directly or indirectly, by his philosophy. There are, however, great
differences of opinion among them, and no man should be made
responsible for the opinions of the class as a class.
I have said a few pages back that some forms of idealism are inspiring,
and that some are not.
Bishop Berkeley called the objects of sense ideas. He regarded all
ideas as inactive, and thought that all changes in ideas--and this
includes all the changes that take place in nature--must be referred to
the activity of minds. Some of those changes he could refer to finite
minds, his own and others. Most of them he could not, and he felt
impelled to refer them to a Divine Mind. Hence, the world became to
him a constant revelation of God; and he uses the word "God" in no
equivocal sense. It does not signify to him the system of things as a
whole, or an Unknowable, or anything of the sort. It signifies a
spirit akin to his own, but without its limitations. He writes:[2]--
"A human spirit or person is not perceived by sense, as not being an
idea; when, therefore, we see the color, size, figure, and motions of a
man, we perceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own
minds; and these being exhibited to our view in sundry distinct
collections serve to mark out unto us the existence of finite and
created spirits like ourselves. Hence, it is plain we do not see a
man,--if by _man_ is meant that which lives, moves, perceives, and
thinks as we do,--but only such a certain collection of ideas as
directs us to think there is a distinct principle of thought and
motion, like to ourselves, accompanying and represented by it. And
after the same manner we see God; all the difference is that, whereas
some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas denotes a particular
human mind, whithersoever we direct our view, we do at all times and in
all places perceive manifest tokens of the Divinity--everything we see,
hear, feel, or any wise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of
the power of God; as is our perception of those very motions which are
produced by men."
With Berkeley's view of the world as a constant revelation of God, many
men will sympathize who have little liking for his idealism as
idealism. They may criticise in detail his arguments to prove the
nonexistence of a genuinely external world, but they will be ready to
admit that his doctrine is an inspiring one in the view that it takes
of the world and of man.
With this I wish to contrast the doctrine of another idealist, Mr.
Bradley, whose work, "Appearance and Reality," has been much discussed
in the last few years, in order that the reader may see how widely
different forms of idealism may differ from each other, and how absurd
it is to praise or blame a man's philosophy merely on the ground that
it is idealistic.
Mr. Bradley holds that those aspects of our experience which we are
accustomed to regard as real--qualities of things, the relations
between things, the things themselves, space, time, motion, causation,
activity, the self--turn out when carefully examined to be
self-contradictory and absurd. They are not real; they are
unrealities, mere appearances.
But these appearances exist, and, hence, must belong to reality. This
reality must be sentient, for "there is no being or fact outside of
that which is commonly called psychical existence."
Now, what is this reality with which appearances--the whole world of
things which seem to be given in our experience--are contrasted? Mr.
Bradley calls it the Absolute, and indicates that it is what other men
recognize as the Deity. How shall we conceive it?
We are told that we are to conceive it as consisting of the contents of
finite minds, or "centers of experience," subjected to "an
all-pervasive transfusion with a reblending of all material." In the
Absolute, finite things are "transmuted" and lose "their individual
natures."
What does this mean in plain language? It means that there are many
finite minds of a higher and of a lower order, "centers of experience,"
and that the contents of these are unreal appearances. There is not a
God or Absolute outside of and distinct from these, but rather one that
in some sense _is their reality_. This mass of unrealities transfused
and transmuted so that no one of them retains its individual nature is
the Absolute. That is to say, time must become indistinguishable from
space, space from motion, motion from the self, the self from the
qualities of things, etc., before they are fit to become constituents
of the Absolute and to be regarded as real.
As the reader has seen, this Absolute has nothing in common with the
God in which Berkeley believed, and in which the plain man usually
believes. It is the night in which all cats are gray, and there
appears to be no reason why any one should harbor toward it the least
sentiment of awe or veneration.
Whether such reasonings as Mr. Bradley's should be accepted as valid or
should not, must be decided after a careful examination into the
foundations upon which they rest and the consistency with which
inferences are drawn from premises. I do not wish to prejudge the
matter. But it is worth while to set forth the conclusions at which he
arrives, that it may be clearly realized that the associations which
often hang about the word "idealism" should be carefully stripped away
when we are forming our estimate of this or that philosophical doctrine.
[1] "Principles of Psychology," Part VII, Chapter VI, section 404.
[2] "Principles," section 148.
CHAPTER XIV
MONISM AND DUALISM
54. THE MEANING OF THE WORDS.--In common life men distinguish between
minds and material things, thus dividing the things, which taken
together make up the world as we know it, into two broad classes. They
think of minds as being very different from material objects, and of
the latter as being very different from minds. It does not occur to
them to find in the one class room for the other, nor does it occur to
them to think of both classes as "manifestations" or "aspects" of some
one "underlying reality." In other words, the plain man to-day is a
_Dualist_.
In the last chapter (section 52) I have called him a Naive Realist; and
here I shall call him a _Naive Dualist_, for a man may regard mind and
matter as quite distinct kinds of things, without trying to elevate his
opinion, through reflection, into a philosophical doctrine. The
reflective man may stand by the opinion of the plain man, merely trying
to make less vague and indefinite the notions of matter and of mind.
He then becomes a _Philosophical Dualist_. There are several varieties
of this doctrine, and I shall consider them a little later (section 58).
But it is possible for one to be less profoundly impressed by the
differences which characterize matter and mind. One may feel inclined
to refer mental phenomena to matter, and to deny them the prominence
accorded them by the dualist. On the other hand, one may be led by
one's reflections to resolve material objects into mere ideas, and to
claim that they can have no existence except in a mind. Finally, it is
possible to hold that both minds and material things, as we know them,
are only manifestations, phenomena, and that they must be referred to
an ulterior "reality" or "substance." One may claim that they are
"aspects" of the one reality, which is neither matter nor mind.
These doctrines are different forms of _Monism_. In whatever else they
differ from one another, they agree in maintaining that the universe
does not contain two kinds of things fundamentally different. Out of
the duality of things as it seems to be revealed to the plain man they
try to make some kind of a unity.
35. MATERIALISM.--The first of the forms of monism above mentioned is
_Materialism_. It is not a doctrine to which the first impulse of the
plain man leads him at the present time. Even those who have done no
reading in philosophy have inherited many of their ways of looking at
things from the thinkers who lived in the ages past, and whose opinions
have become the common property of civilized men. For more than two
thousand years the world and the mind have been discussed, and it is
impossible for any of us to escape from the influence of those
discussions and to look at things with the primitive simplicity of the
wholly untutored.
But it was not always so. There was a time when men who were not
savages, but possessed great intellectual vigor and much cultivation,
found it easy and natural to be materialists. This I have spoken of
before (section 30), but it will repay us to take up again a little
more at length the clearest of the ancient forms of materialism, that
of the Atomists, and to see what may be said for and against it.
Democritus of Abdera taught that nothing exists except atoms and empty
space. The atoms, he maintained, differ from one another in size,
shape, and position. In other respects they are alike. They have
always been in motion. Perhaps he conceived of that motion as
originally a fall through space, but there seems to be uncertainty upon
this point. However, the atoms in motion collide with one another, and
these collisions result in mechanical combinations from which spring
into being world-systems.
According to this doctrine, nothing comes from nothing, and nothing can
become nonexistent. All the changes which have ever taken place in the
world are only changes in the position of material particles--they are
regroupings of atoms. We cannot directly perceive them to be such, for
our senses are too dull to make such fine observations, but our reason
tells us that such is the case.
Where, in such a world as this, is there room for mind, and what can we
mean by mind? Democritus finds a place for mind by conceiving it to
consist of fine, smooth, round atoms, which are the same as the atoms
which constitute fire. These are distributed through the whole body,
and lie among the other atoms which compose it. They are inhaled with
and exhaled into the outer air. While they are in the body their
functions are different according as they are located in this organ or
in that. In the brain they give rise to thought, in the heart to
anger, and in the liver to desire.
I suppose no one would care, at the present time, to become a
Democritean. The "Reason," which tells us that the mind consists of
fine, round atoms, appears to have nothing but its bare word to offer
us. But, apart from this, a peculiar difficulty seems to face us; even
supposing there are atoms of fire in the brain, the heart, and the
liver, what are the _thought_, _anger_, and _desire_, of which mention
is made?
Shall we conceive of these last as atoms, as void space, or as the
motion of atoms? There really seems to be no place in the world for
them, and _these are the mind so far as the mind appears to be
revealed_--they are _mental phenomena_. It does not seem that they are
to be identified with anything that the Atomistic doctrine admits as
existing. They are simply overlooked.
Is the modern materialism more satisfactory? About half a century ago
there was in the scientific world something like a revival of
materialistic thinking. It did not occur to any one to maintain that
the mind consists of fine atoms disseminated through the body, but
statements almost as crude were made. It was said, for example, that
the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.
It seems a gratuitous labor to criticise such statements as these in
detail. There are no glands the secretions of which are not as
unequivocally material as are the glands themselves. This means that
such secretions can be captured and analyzed; the chemical elements of
which they are composed can be enumerated. They are open to inspection
in precisely the same way as are the glands which secrete them.
Does it seem reasonable to maintain that thoughts and feelings are
related to brains in this way? Does the chemist ever dream of
collecting them in a test tube, and of drawing up for us a list of
their constituent elements? When the brain is active, there are, to be
sure, certain material products which pass into the blood and are
finally eliminated from the body; but among these products no one would
be more surprised than the materialist to discover pains and pleasures,
memories and anticipations, desires and volitions. This talk of
thought as a "secretion" we can afford to set aside.
Nor need we take much more seriously the seemingly more sober statement
that thought is a "function" of the brain. There is, of course, a
sense in which we all admit the statement; minds are not disembodied,
and we have reason to believe that mind and brain are most intimately
related. But the word "function" is used in a very broad and loose
sense when it serves to indicate this relation; and one may employ it
in this way without being a materialist at all. In a stricter sense of
the word, the brain has no functions that may not be conceived as
mechanical changes,--as the motion of atoms in space,--and to identify
mental phenomena with these is inexcusable. It is not theoretically
inconceivable that, with finer senses, we might directly perceive the
motions of the atoms in another man's brain; it is inconceivable that
we should thus directly perceive his melancholy or his joy; they belong
to another world.
56. SPIRITUALISM.--The name _Spiritualism_ is sometimes given to the
doctrine that there is no existence which we may not properly call mind
or spirit. It errs in the one direction as materialism errs in the
other.
One must not confound with this doctrine that very different one,
Spiritism, which teaches that a certain favored class of persons called
mediums may bring back the spirits of the departed and enable us to
hold communication with them. Such beliefs have always existed among
the common people, but they have rarely interested philosophers. I
shall have nothing to say of them in this book.
There have been various kinds of spiritualists. The name may be
applied to the idealists, from Berkeley down to those of our day; at
some of the varieties of their doctrine we have taken a glance
(sections 49, 53). To these we need not recur; but there is one type
of spiritualistic doctrine which is much discussed at the present day
and which appears to appeal strongly to a number of scientific men. We
must consider it for a moment.
We have examined Professor Clifford's doctrine of Mind-stuff (section
43). Clifford maintained that all the material things we perceive are
our perceptions--they are in our consciousness, and are not properly
external at all. But, believing, as he did, that all nature is
animated, he held that every material thing, every perception, may be
taken as a revelation of something not in our consciousness, of a mind
or, at least, of a certain amount of mind-stuff. How shall we conceive
the relation between what is in our mind and the something
corresponding to it not in our mind?
We must, says Clifford, regard the latter as the _reality_ of which the
former is the _appearance_ or _manifestation_. "What I perceive as
your brain is really in itself your consciousness, is You; but then
that which I call your brain, the material fact, is merely my
perception."
This doctrine is _Panpsychism_, in the form in which it is usually
brought to our attention. It holds that the only real existences are
minds, and that physical phenomena must be regarded as the
manifestations under which these real existences make us aware of their
presence. The term panpsychism may, it is true, be used in a somewhat
different sense. It may be employed merely to indicate the doctrine
that all nature is animated, and without implying a theory as to the
relation between bodies perceived and the minds supposed to accompany
them.
What shall we say to panpsychism of the type represented by Clifford?
It is, I think, sufficiently answered in the earlier chapters of this
volume:--
(1) If I call material facts my perceptions, I do an injustice to the
distinction between the physical and the mental (Chapter IV).
(2) If I say that all nature is animated, I extend illegitimately the
argument for other minds (Chapter X).
(3) If I say that mind is the reality of which the brain is the
appearance, I misconceive what is meant by the distinction between
appearance and reality (Chapter V).
57. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ONE SUBSTANCE.--In the seventeenth century
Descartes maintained that, although mind and matter may justly be
regarded as two substances, yet it should be recognized that they are
not really independent substances in the strictest sense of the word,
but that there is only one substance, in this sense, and mind and
matter are, as it were, its attributes.
His thought was that by attribute we mean that which is not
independent, but must be referred to something else; by substance, we
mean that which exists independently and is not referred to any other
thing. It seemed to follow that there could be only one substance.
Spinoza modified Descartes' doctrine in that he refused to regard mind
and matter as substances at all. He made them unequivocally attributes
of the one and only substance, which he called God.
The thought which influenced Spinoza had impressed many minds before
his time, and it has influenced many since. One need not follow him in
naming the unitary something to which mind and matter are referred
substance. One may call it Being, or Reality, or the Unknowable, or
Energy, or the Absolute, or, perhaps, still something else. The
doctrine has taken many forms, but he who reads with discrimination
will see that the various forms have much in common.
They agree in maintaining that matter and mind, as they are revealed in
our experience, are not to be regarded as, in the last analysis, two
distinct kinds of thing. They are, rather, modes or manifestations of
one and the same thing, and this is not to be confounded with either.
Those who incline to this doctrine take issue with the materialist, who
assimilates mental phenomena to physical; and they oppose the idealist,
who assimilates physical phenomena to mental, and calls material things
"ideas." We have no right, they argue, to call that of which ideas and
things are manifestations either mind or matter. It is to be
distinguished from both.
To this doctrine the title of _Monism_ is often appropriated. In this
chapter I have used the term in a broader sense, for both the
materialist and the spiritualist maintain that there is in the universe
but one kind of thing. Nevertheless, when we hear a man called a
monist without qualification, we may, perhaps, be justified in
assuming, in the absence of further information, that he holds to some
one of the forms of doctrine indicated above. There may be no logical
justification for thus narrowing the use of the term, but logical
justification goes for little in such matters.
Various considerations have moved men to become monists in this sense
of the word. Some have been influenced by the assumption--one which
men felt impelled to make early in the history of speculative
thought--that the whole universe must be the expression of some unitary
principle. A rather different argument is well illustrated in the
writings of Professor Hoffding, a learned and acute writer of our own
time. It has influenced so many that it is worth while to delay upon
it.
Professor Hoffding holds that mental phenomena and physical phenomena
must be regarded as parallel (see Chapter IX), and that we must not
conceive of ideas and material things as interacting. He writes:[1]--
"If it is contrary to the doctrine of the persistence of physical
energy to suppose a transition from the one province to the other, and
if, nevertheless, the two provinces exist in our experience as
distinct, then the two sets of phenomena must be unfolded
simultaneously, each according to its laws, so that for every
phenomenon in the world of consciousness there is a corresponding
phenomenon in the world of matter, and conversely (so far as there is
reason to suppose that conscious life is correlated with material
phenomena). The parallels already drawn point directly to such a
relation; it would be an amazing accident, if, while the characteristic
marks repeated themselves in this way, there were not at the foundation
an inner connection. Both the _parallelism_ and the _proportionality_
between the activity of consciousness and cerebral activity point to an
_identity_ at bottom. The difference which remains in spite of the
points of agreement compels us to suppose that one and the same
principle has found its expression in a double form. We have no right
to take mind and body for two beings or substances in reciprocal
interaction. We are, on the contrary, impelled to conceive the
material interaction between the elements composing the brain and
nervous system _as an outer form of the inner ideal unity of
consciousness_. What we in our inner experience become conscious of as
thought, feeling, and resolution, is thus represented in the material
world by certain material processes of the brain, which as such are
subject to the law of the persistence of energy, although this law
cannot be applied to the relation between cerebral and conscious
processes. It is as though the same thing were said in two languages."
Some monists are in the habit of speaking of the one Being to which
they refer phenomena of all sorts as the "Absolute." The word is a
vague one, and means very different things in different philosophies.
It has been somewhat broadly defined as "the ultimate principle of
explanation of the universe." He who turns to one principle of
explanation will conceive the Absolute in one way, and he who turns to
another will, naturally, understand something else by the word.
Thus, the idealist may conceive of the Absolute as an all-inclusive
Mind, of which finite minds are parts. To Spencer, it is the
Unknowable, a something behind the veil of phenomena. Sometimes it
means to a writer much the same thing that the word God means to other
men; sometimes it has a significance at the farthest remove from this
(section 53). Indeed, the word is so vague and ambiguous, and has
proved itself the mother of so many confusions, that it would seem a
desirable thing to drop it out of philosophy altogether, and to
substitute for it some less ambiguous expression.
It seems clear from the preceding pages, that, before one either
accepts or rejects monism, one should very carefully determine just
what one means by the word, and should scrutinize the considerations
which may be urged in favor of the particular doctrine in question.
There are all sorts of monism, and men embrace them for all sorts of
reasons. Let me beg the reader to bear in mind;--
(1) The monist may be a materialist; he may be an idealist; he may be
neither. In the last case, he may, with Spinoza, call the one
Substance God; that is, he may be a Pantheist. On the other hand, he
may, with Spencer, call it the Unknowable, and be an Agnostic. Other
shades of opinion are open to him, if he cares to choose them.
(2) It does not seem wise to assent hastily to such statements as; "The
universe is the manifestation of one unitary Being"; or: "Mind and
matter are the expression of one and the same principle." We find
revealed in our experience mental phenomena and physical phenomena. In
what sense they are one, or whether they are one in any sense,--this is
something to be determined by an examination of the phenomena and of
the relations in which we find them. It may turn out that the universe
is one only in the sense that all phenomena belong to the one orderly
system. If we find that this is the case, we may still, if we choose,
call our doctrine monism, but we should carefully distinguish such a
monism from those represented by Hoffding and Spencer and many others.
There seems little reason to use the word, when the doctrine has been
so far modified.
58. DUALISM.--The plain man finds himself in a world of physical things
and of minds, and it seems to him that his experience directly
testifies to the existence of both. This means that the things of
which he has experience appear to belong to two distinct classes.
It does not mean, of course, that he has only two kinds of experiences.
The phenomena which are revealed to us are indefinitely varied; all
physical phenomena are not just alike, and all mental phenomena are not
just alike.
Nevertheless, amid all the bewildering variety that forces itself upon
our attention, there stands out one broad distinction, that of the
physical and the mental. It is a distinction that the man who has done
no reading in the philosophers is scarcely tempted to obliterate; to
him the world consists of two kinds of things widely different from
each other; minds are not material things and material things are not
minds. We are justified in regarding this as the opinion of the plain
man even when we recognize that, in his endeavor to make clear to
himself what he means by minds, he sometimes speaks as though he were
talking about something material or semi-material.
Now, the materialist allows these two classes to run together; so does
the idealist. The one says that everything is matter; the other, that
everything is mind. It would be foolish to maintain that nothing can
be said for either doctrine, for men of ability have embraced each.
But one may at least say that both seem to be refuted by our common
experience of the world, an experience which, so far as it is permitted
to testify at all, lifts up its voice in favor of _Dualism_.
Dualism is sometimes defined as the doctrine that there are in the
world two kinds of substances, matter and mind, which are different in
kind and should be kept distinct. There are dualists who prefer to
avoid the use of the word substance, and to say that the world of our
experiences consists of physical phenomena and of mental phenomena, and
that these two classes of facts should be kept separate.
The dualist may maintain that we have a direct knowledge of matter and
of mind, and he may content himself with such a statement, doing little
to make clear what we mean by matter and by mind. In this case, his
position is little different from that of the plain man who does not
attempt to philosophize. Thomas Reid (section 50) belongs to this
class.
On the other hand, the dualist may attempt to make clear, through
philosophical reflection, what we mean by the matter and mind which
experience seems to give us. He may conclude:--
(1) That he must hold, as did Sir William Hamilton, that we perceive
directly only physical and mental phenomena, but are justified in
inferring that, since the phenomena are different, there must be two
kinds of underlying substances to which the phenomena are referred.
Thus, he may distinguish between the two substances and their
manifestations, as some monists distinguish between the one substance
and its manifestations.
(2) Or he may conclude that it is futile to search for substances or
realities of any sort _behind_ phenomena, arguing that such realities
are never revealed in experience, and that no sound reason for their
assumption can be adduced. In this case, he may try to make plain what
mind and matter are, by simply analyzing our experiences of mind and
matter and coming to a clearer comprehension of their nature.
As the reader has probably remarked, the philosophy presented in the
earlier chapters of this book (Chapters III to XI) is _dualistic_ as
well as _realistic_. That is to say, it refuses to rub out the
distinction between physical phenomena and mental phenomena, either by
dissolving the material world into ideas; by calling ideas secretions
or functions of the brain; or by declaring them one in a fictitious
entity behind the veil and not supposed to be exactly identical with
either. And as it teaches that the only reality that it means anything
to talk about must be found in experience, it is a dualism of the type
described in the paragraph which immediately precedes.
Such a philosophy does not seem to do violence to the common experience
of minds and of physical things shared by us all, whether we are
philosophers or are not. It only tries to make clear what we all know
dimly and vaguely. This is, I think, a point in its favor. However,
men of great ability and of much learning have inclined to doctrines
very different; and we have no right to make up our minds on such a
subject as this without trying to give them an attentive and an
impartial hearing.
59. SINGULARISM AND PLURALISM.--There are those who apply to the
various forms of monism the title _Singularism_, and who contrast with
this _Pluralism_, a word which is meant to cover the various doctrines
which maintain that there is more than one ultimate principle or being
in the universe.
It is argued that we should have some word under which we may bring
such a doctrine, for example, as that of the Greek philosopher
Empedocles (born about 490 B.C.). This thinker made earth, water,
fire, and air the four material principles or "roots" of things. He
was not a monist, and we can certainly not call him a dualist.
Again. The term pluralism has been used to indicate the doctrine that
individual finite minds are not parts or manifestations of one
all-embracing Mind,--of God or the Absolute,--but are relatively
independent beings. This doctrine has been urged in our own time, with
eloquence and feeling, by Professor Howison.[2] Here we have a
pluralism which is idealistic, for it admits in the universe but one
_kind_ of thing, minds; and yet refuses to call itself monistic. It
will readily be seen that in this paragraph and in the one preceding
the word is used in different senses.
I have added the above sentences to this chapter that the reader may
have an explanation of the meaning of a word sometimes met with. But
the title of the chapter is "Monism and Dualism," and it is of this
contrast that it is especially important to grasp the significance.
[1] "Outlines of Psychology," pp. 64-65, English translation, 1891.
[2] "The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays," revised edition. New
York, 1905.
CHAPTER XV
RATIONALISM, EMPIRICISM, CRITICISM, AND CRITICAL EMPIRICISM
60. RATIONALISM.--As the content of a philosophical doctrine must be
determined by the _initial assumptions_ which a philosopher makes and
by the _method_ which he adopts in his reasonings, it is well to
examine with some care certain broad differences in this respect which
characterize different philosophers, and which help to explain how it
is that the results of their reflections are so startlingly different.
I shall first speak of _Rationalism_, which I may somewhat loosely
define as the doctrine that the reason can attain truths independently
of observation--can go beyond experienced fact and the deductions which
experience seems to justify us in making from experienced fact. The
definition cannot mean much to us until it is interpreted by a concrete
example, and I shall turn to such. It must, however, be borne in mind
that the word "rationalism" is meant to cover a great variety of
opinions, and we have said comparatively little about him when we have
called a man a rationalist in philosophy. Men may agree in believing
that the reason can go beyond experienced fact, and yet may differ
regarding the particular truths which may be thus attained.
Now, when Descartes found himself discontented with the philosophy that
he and others had inherited from the Middle Ages, and undertook a
reconstruction, he found it necessary to throw over a vast amount of
what had passed as truth, if only with a view to building up again upon
a firmer foundation. It appeared to him that much was uncritically
accepted as true in philosophy and in the sciences which a little
reflection revealed to be either false or highly doubtful. Accordingly, he decided to clear the ground by a sweeping doubt, and to begin his task quite independently. |
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