{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11984/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11984","id":"gutenberg_11984","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11984","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy","Philosophy, Modern"],"text":"A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE\n\n\nHibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in\nPhilosophy\n\n\nBY WILLIAM JAMES\n\n\n\n\n1909\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nLECTURE I\n\nTHE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING 1\n\n  Our age is growing philosophical again, 3. Change of tone since 1860, 4.\n  Empiricism and Rationalism defined, 7. The process of Philosophizing:\n  Philosophers choose some part of the world to interpret the whole by, 8.\n  They seek to make it seem less strange, 11. Their temperamental\n  differences, 12. Their systems must be reasoned out, 13. Their tendency\n  to over-technicality, 15. Excess of this in Germany, 17. The type of\n  vision is the important thing in a philosopher, 20. Primitive thought,\n  21. Spiritualism and Materialism: Spiritualism shows two types, 23.\n  Theism and Pantheism, 24. Theism makes a duality of Man and God, and\n  leaves Man an outsider, 25. Pantheism identifies Man with God, 29. The\n  contemporary tendency is towards Pantheism, 30. Legitimacy of our demand\n  to be essential in the Universe, 33. Pluralism versus Monism: The 'each-\n  form' and the 'all-form' of representing the world, 34. Professor Jacks\n  quoted, 35. Absolute Idealism characterized, 36. Peculiarities of the\n  finite consciousness which the Absolute cannot share, 38. The finite\n  still remains outside of absolute reality, 40.\n\n\nLECTURE II\n\nMONISTIC IDEALISM 41\n\n  Recapitulation, 43. Radical Pluralism is to be the thesis of these\n  lectures, 44. Most philosophers contemn it, 45. Foreignness to us of\n  Bradley's Absolute, 46. Spinoza and 'quatenus,'47. Difficulty of\n  sympathizing with the Absolute, 48. Idealistic attempt to interpret it,\n  50. Professor Jones quoted, 52. Absolutist refutations of Pluralism, 54.\n  Criticism of Lotze's proof of Monism by the analysis of what interaction\n  involves, 55. Vicious intellectualism defined, 60. Royce's alternative:\n  either the complete disunion or the absolute union of things, 61.\n  Bradley's dialectic difficulties with relations, 69. Inefficiency of the\n  Absolute as a rationalizing remedy, 71. Tendency of Rationalists to fly\n  to extremes, 74. The question of 'external' relations, 79. Transition to\n  Hegel, 91.\n\n\nLECTURE III\n\nHEGEL AND HIS METHOD 83\n\n  Hegel's influence. 85. The type of his vision is impressionistic, 87.\n  The 'dialectic' element in reality, 88. Pluralism involves possible\n  conflicts among things, 90. Hegel explains conflicts by the mutual\n  contradictoriness of concepts, 91. Criticism of his attempt to transcend\n  ordinary logic, 92. Examples of the 'dialectic' constitution of things,\n  95. The rationalistic ideal: propositions self-securing by means of\n  double negation, 101. Sublimity of the conception, 104. Criticism of\n  Hegel's account: it involves vicious intellectualism, 105. Hegel is a\n  seer rather than a reasoner, 107. 'The Absolute' and 'God' are two\n  different notions, 110. Utility of the Absolute in conferring mental\n  peace, 114. But this is counterbalanced by the peculiar paradoxes which\n  it introduces into philosophy, 116. Leibnitz and Lotze on the 'fall'\n  involved in the creation of the finite, 119. Joachim on the fall of\n  truth into error, 121. The world of the absolutist cannot be perfect,\n  123. Pluralistic conclusions, 125.\n\n\nLECTURE IV\n\nCONCERNING FECHNER 131\n\n  Superhuman consciousness does not necessarily imply an absolute\n  mind, 134. Thinness of contemporary absolutism, 135. The\n  tone of Fechner's empiricist pantheism contrasted with that of the\n  rationalistic sort, 144. Fechner's life, 145. His vision, the 'daylight\n  view,' 150. His way of reasoning by analogy, 151. The whole universe\n  animated, 152. His monistic formula is unessential, 153. The\n  Earth-Soul, 156. Its differences from our souls, 160. The earth as\n  an angel, 164. The Plant-Soul, 165. The logic used by Fechner,\n  168. His theory of immortality, 170. The 'thickness' of his imagination,\n  173. Inferiority of the ordinary transcendentalist pantheism,\n  to his vision, 174.\n\n\nLECTURE V\n\nTHE COMPOUNDING OF CONSCIOUSNESS 179\n  The assumption that states of mind may compound themselves, 181. This\n  assumption is held in common by naturalistic psychology, by\n  transcendental idealism, and by Fechner, 184. Criticism of it by the\n  present writer in a former book, 188. Physical combinations, so-called,\n  cannot be invoked as analogous, 194. Nevertheless, combination must be\n  postulated among the parts of the Universe, 197. The logical objections\n  to admitting it, 198. Rationalistic treatment of the question brings us\n  to an _impasse_, 208. A radical breach with intellectualism is required,\n  212. Transition to Bergson's philosophy, 214. Abusive use of concepts,\n  219.\n\n\nLECTURE VI\n\nBERGSON AND HIS CRITIQUE OF INTELLECTUALISM 223\n\n  Professor Bergson's personality, 225. Achilles and the tortoise, 228.\n  Not a sophism, 229. We make motion unintelligible when we treat it by\n  static concepts, 233. Conceptual treatment is nevertheless of immense\n  practical use, 235. The traditional rationalism gives an essentially\n  static universe, 237. Intolerableness of the intellectualist view, 240.\n  No rationalist account is possible of action, change, or immediate life,\n  244. The function of concepts is practical rather than theoretical, 247.\n  Bergson remands us to intuition or sensational experience for the\n  understanding of how life makes itself go, 252. What Bergson means by\n  this, 255. Manyness in oneness must be admitted, 256. What really exists\n  is not things made, but things in the making, 263. Bergson's\n  originality, 264. Impotence of intellectualist logic to define a\n  universe where change is continuous, 267. Livingly, things _are_ their\n  own others, so that there is a sense in which Hegel's logic is true,\n  270.\n\n\nLECTURE VII\n\nTHE CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE 275\n\n  Green's critique of Sensationalism, 278. Relations are as immediately\n  felt as terms are, 280. The union of things is given in the immediate\n  flux, not in any conceptual reason that overcomes the flux's aboriginal\n  incoherence, 282. The minima of experience as vehicles of continuity,\n  284. Fallacy of the objections to self-compounding, 286. The concrete\n  units of experience are 'their own others,' 287. Reality is confluent\n  from next to next, 290. Intellectualism must be sincerely renounced,\n  291. The Absolute is only an hypothesis, 292. Fechner's God is not the\n  Absolute, 298. The Absolute solves no intellectualist difficulty, 296.\n  Does superhuman consciousness probably exist? 298.\n\n\nLECTURE VIII\n\nCONCLUSIONS 301\n\n  Specifically religious experiences occur, 303. Their nature, 304.\n  They corroborate the notion of a larger life of which we are a part,\n  308. This life must be finite if we are to escape the paradoxes of\n  monism, 310. God as a finite being, 311. Empiricism is a better\n  ally than rationalism, of religion, 313. Empirical proofs of larger\n  mind may open the door to superstitions, 315. But this objection\n  should not be deemed fatal, 316. Our beliefs form parts of reality,\n  317. In pluralistic empiricism our relation to God remains least\n  foreign, 318. The word 'rationality' had better be replaced by the\n  word 'intimacy,' 319. Monism and pluralism distinguished and\n  defined, 321. Pluralism involves indeterminism, 324. All men use\n  the 'faith-ladder' in reaching their decision, 328. Conclusion, 330.\n\n\nNOTES 333\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\n  A. THE THING AND ITS RELATIONS 847\n\n  B. THE EXPERIENCE OF ACTIVITY 870\n\n  C. ON THE NOTION OF REALITY AS CHANGING 895\n\n\nINDEX 401\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I\n\n\nTHE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING\n\nAs these lectures are meant to be public, and so few, I have assumed\nall very special problems to be excluded, and some topic of general\ninterest required. Fortunately, our age seems to be growing\nphilosophical again--still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford,\nlong the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by\nKant and Hegel, has recently become the nursery of a very different\nway of thinking. Even non-philosophers have begun to take an interest\nin a controversy over what is known as pluralism or humanism. It\nlooks a little as if the ancient english empirism, so long put out of\nfashion here by nobler sounding germanic formulas, might be repluming\nitself and getting ready for a stronger flight than ever. It looks as\nif foundations were being sounded and examined afresh.\n\nIndividuality outruns all classification, yet we insist on classifying\nevery one we meet under some general head. As these heads usually\nsuggest prejudicial associations to some hearer or other, the life\nof philosophy largely consists of resentments at the classing, and\ncomplaints of being misunderstood. But there are signs of clearing up,\nand, on the whole, less acrimony in discussion, for which both Oxford\nand Harvard are partly to be thanked. As I look back into the sixties,\nMill, Bain, and Hamilton were the only official philosophers in\nBritain. Spencer, Martineau, and Hodgson were just beginning. In\nFrance, the pupils of Cousin were delving into history only, and\nRenouvier alone had an original system. In Germany, the hegelian\nimpetus had spent itself, and, apart from historical scholarship,\nnothing but the materialistic controversy remained, with such men as\nB\u00fcchner and Ulrici as its champions. Lotze and Fechner were the sole\noriginal thinkers, and Fechner was not a professional philosopher at\nall.\n\nThe general impression made was of crude issues and oppositions, of\nsmall subtlety and of a widely spread ignorance. Amateurishness was\nrampant. Samuel Bailey's 'letters on the philosophy of the human\nmind,' published in 1855, are one of the ablest expressions of english\nassociationism, and a book of real power. Yet hear how he writes of\nKant: 'No one, after reading the extracts, etc., can be surprised to\nhear of a declaration by men of eminent abilities, that, after years\nof study, they had not succeeded in gathering one clear idea from the\nspeculations of Kant. I should have been almost surprised if they had.\nIn or about 1818, Lord Grenville, when visiting the Lakes of England,\nobserved to Professor Wilson that, after five years' study of Kant's\nphilosophy, he had not gathered from it one clear idea. Wilberforce,\nabout the same time, made the same confession to another friend of\nmy own. \"I am endeavoring,\" exclaims Sir James Mackintosh, in the\nirritation, evidently, of baffled efforts, \"to understand this\naccursed german philosophy.\"[1]\n\nWhat Oxford thinker would dare to print such _na\u00eff_ and\nprovincial-sounding citations of authority to-day?\n\nThe torch of learning passes from land to land as the spirit bloweth\nthe flame. The deepening of philosophic consciousness came to us\nenglish folk from Germany, as it will probably pass back ere long.\nFerrier, J.H. Stirling, and, most of all, T.H. Green are to be\nthanked. If asked to tell in broad strokes what the main doctrinal\nchange has been, I should call it a change from the crudity of the\nolder english thinking, its ultra-simplicity of mind, both when it was\nreligious and when it was anti-religious, toward a rationalism\nderived in the first instance from Germany, but relieved from german\ntechnicality and shrillness, and content to suggest, and to remain\nvague, and to be, in, the english fashion, devout.\n\nBy the time T.H. Green began at Oxford, the generation seemed to\nfeel as if it had fed on the chopped straw of psychology and of\nassociationism long enough, and as if a little vastness, even though\nit went with vagueness, as of some moist wind from far away, reminding\nus of our pre-natal sublimity, would be welcome.\n\nGreen's great point of attack was the disconnectedness of the reigning\nenglish sensationalism. _Relating_ was the great intellectual activity\nfor him, and the key to this relating was believed by him to\nlodge itself at last in what most of you know as Kant's unity of\napperception, transformed into a living spirit of the world.\n\nHence a monism of a devout kind. In some way we must be fallen angels,\none with intelligence as such; and a great disdain for empiricism\nof the sensationalist sort has always characterized this school of\nthought, which, on the whole, has reigned supreme at Oxford and in the\nScottish universities until the present day.\n\nBut now there are signs of its giving way to a wave of revised\nempiricism. I confess that I should be glad to see this latest wave\nprevail; so--the sooner I am frank about it the better--I hope to\nhave my voice counted in its favor as one of the results of this\nlecture-course.\n\nWhat do the terms empiricism and rationalism mean? Reduced to their\nmost pregnant difference, _empiricism means the habit of explaining\nwholes by parts, and rationalism means the habit of explaining parts\nby wholes_. Rationalism thus preserves affinities with monism, since\nwholeness goes with union, while empiricism inclines to pluralistic\nviews. No philosophy can ever be anything but a summary sketch, a\npicture of the world in abridgment, a foreshortened bird's-eye view of\nthe perspective of events. And the first thing to notice is this, that\nthe only material we have at our disposal for making a picture of the\nwhole world is supplied by the various portions of that world of\nwhich we have already had experience. We can invent no new forms of\nconception, applicable to the whole exclusively, and not suggested\noriginally by the parts. All philosophers, accordingly, have conceived\nof the whole world after the analogy of some particular feature of it\nwhich has particularly captivated their attention. Thus, the theists\ntake their cue from manufacture, the pantheists from growth. For one\nman, the world is like a thought or a grammatical sentence in which a\nthought is expressed. For such a philosopher, the whole must logically\nbe prior to the parts; for letters would never have been invented\nwithout syllables to spell, or syllables without words to utter.\n\nAnother man, struck by the disconnectedness and mutual accidentality\nof so many of the world's details, takes the universe as a whole to\nhave been such a disconnectedness originally, and supposes order to\nhave been superinduced upon it in the second instance, possibly\nby attrition and the gradual wearing away by internal friction of\nportions that originally interfered.\n\nAnother will conceive the order as only a statistical appearance, and\nthe universe will be for him like a vast grab-bag with black and white\nballs in it, of which we guess the quantities only probably, by the\nfrequency with which we experience their egress.\n\nFor another, again, there is no really inherent order, but it is we\nwho project order into the world by selecting objects and tracing\nrelations so as to gratify our intellectual interests. We _carve out_\norder by leaving the disorderly parts out; and the world is conceived\nthus after the analogy of a forest or a block of marble from which\nparks or statues may be produced by eliminating irrelevant trees or\nchips of stone.\n\nSome thinkers follow suggestions from human life, and treat the\nuniverse as if it were essentially a place in which ideals are\nrealized. Others are more struck by its lower features, and for them,\nbrute necessities express its character better.\n\nAll follow one analogy or another; and all the analogies are with some\none or other of the universe's subdivisions. Every one is nevertheless\nprone to claim that his conclusions are the only logical ones, that\nthey are necessities of universal reason, they being all the while, at\nbottom, accidents more or less of personal vision which had far better\nbe avowed as such; for one man's vision may be much more valuable than\nanother's, and our visions are usually not only our most interesting\nbut our most respectable contributions to the world in which we play\nour part. What was reason given to men for, said some eighteenth\ncentury writer, except to enable them to find reasons for what they\nwant to think and do?--and I think the history of philosophy largely\nbears him out, 'The aim of knowledge,' says Hegel,[2] 'is to divest\nthe objective world of its strangeness, and to make us more at home\nin it.' Different men find their minds more at home in very different\nfragments of the world.\n\nLet me make a few comments, here, on the curious antipathies which\nthese partialities arouse. They are sovereignly unjust, for all the\nparties are human beings with the same essential interests, and no one\nof them is the wholly perverse demon which another often imagines him\nto be. Both are loyal to the world that bears them; neither wishes to\nspoil it; neither wishes to regard it as an insane incoherence; both\nwant to keep it as a universe of some kind; and their differences are\nall secondary to this deep agreement. They may be only propensities to\nemphasize differently. Or one man may care for finality and security\nmore than the other. Or their tastes in language may be different.\nOne may like a universe that lends itself to lofty and exalted\ncharacterization. To another this may seem sentimental or rhetorical.\nOne may wish for the right to use a clerical vocabulary, another a\ntechnical or professorial one. A certain old farmer of my acquaintance\nin America was called a rascal by one of his neighbors. He immediately\nsmote the man, saying,'I won't stand none of your diminutive\nepithets.' Empiricist minds, putting the parts before the whole,\nappear to rationalists, who start from the whole, and consequently\nenjoy magniloquent privileges, to use epithets offensively diminutive.\nBut all such differences are minor matters which ought to be\nsubordinated in view of the fact that, whether we be empiricists or\nrationalists, we are, ourselves, parts of the universe and share the\nsame one deep concern in its destinies. We crave alike to feel more\ntruly at home with it, and to contribute our mite to its amelioration.\nIt would be pitiful if small aesthetic discords were to keep honest\nmen asunder.\n\nI shall myself have use for the diminutive epithets of empiricism. But\nif you look behind the words at the spirit, I am sure you will not\nfind it matricidal. I am as good a son as any rationalist among you to\nour common mother. What troubles me more than this misapprehension is\nthe genuine abstruseness of many of the matters I shall be obliged\nto talk about, and the difficulty of making them intelligible at one\nhearing. But there two pieces, 'zwei st\u00fccke,' as Kant would have said,\nin every philosophy--the final outlook, belief, or attitude to which\nit brings us, and the reasonings by which that attitude is reached and\nmediated. A philosophy, as James Ferrier used to tell us, must indeed\nbe true, but that is the least of its requirements. One may be true\nwithout being a philosopher, true by guesswork or by revelation.\nWhat distinguishes a philosopher's truth is that it is _reasoned_.\nArgument, not supposition, must have put it in his possession. Common\nmen find themselves inheriting their beliefs, they know not how. They\njump into them with both feet, and stand there. Philosophers must\ndo more; they must first get reason's license for them; and to the\nprofessional philosophic mind the operation of procuring the license\nis usually a thing of much more pith and moment than any particular\nbeliefs to which the license may give the rights of access. Suppose,\nfor example, that a philosopher believes in what is called free-will.\nThat a common man alongside of him should also share that belief,\npossessing it by a sort of inborn intuition, does not endear the man\nto the philosopher at all--he may even be ashamed to be associated\nwith such a man. What interests the philosopher is the particular\npremises on which the free-will he believes in is established, the\nsense in which it is taken, the objections it eludes, the difficulties\nit takes account of, in short the whole form and temper and manner\nand technical apparatus that goes with the belief in question.\nA philosopher across the way who should use the same technical\napparatus, making the same distinctions, etc., but drawing opposite\nconclusions and denying free-will entirely, would fascinate the first\nphilosopher far more than would the _na\u00eff_ co-believer. Their common\ntechnical interests would unite them more than their opposite\nconclusions separate them. Each would feel an essential consanguinity\nin the other, would think of him, write _at_ him, care for his good\nopinion. The simple-minded believer in free-will would be disregarded\nby either. Neither as ally nor as opponent would his vote be counted.\n\nIn a measure this is doubtless as it should be, but like all\nprofessionalism it can go to abusive extremes. The end is after all\nmore than the way, in most things human, and forms and methods may\neasily frustrate their own purpose. The abuse of technicality is\nseen in the infrequency with which, in philosophical literature,\nmetaphysical questions are discussed directly and on their own merits.\nAlmost always they are handled as if through a heavy woolen curtain,\nthe veil of previous philosophers' opinions. Alternatives are wrapped\nin proper names, as if it were indecent for a truth to go naked. The\nlate Professor John Grote of Cambridge has some good remarks about\nthis. 'Thought,' he says,'is not a professional matter, not something\nfor so-called philosophers only or for professed thinkers. The best\nphilosopher is the man who can think most _simply_. ... I wish that\npeople would consider that thought--and philosophy is no more than\ngood and methodical thought--is a matter _intimate_ to them, a portion\nof their real selves ... that they would _value_ what they think, and\nbe interested in it.... In my own opinion,' he goes on, 'there is\nsomething depressing in this weight of learning, with nothing that can\ncome into one's mind but one is told, Oh, that is the opinion of such\nand such a person long ago. ... I can conceive of nothing more noxious\nfor students than to get into the habit of saying to themselves about\ntheir ordinary philosophic thought, Oh, somebody must have thought it\nall before.'[3] Yet this is the habit most encouraged at our seats of\nlearning. You must tie your opinion to Aristotle's or Spinoza's; you\nmust define it by its distance from Kant's; you must refute your\nrival's view by identifying it with Protagoras's. Thus does all\nspontaneity of thought, all freshness of conception, get destroyed.\nEverything you touch is shopworn. The over-technicality and consequent\ndreariness of the younger disciples at our american universities is\nappalling. It comes from too much following of german models and\nmanners. Let me fervently express the hope that in this country you\nwill hark back to the more humane english tradition. American students\nhave to regain direct relations with our subject by painful individual\neffort in later life. Some of us have done so. Some of the younger\nones, I fear, never will, so strong are the professional shop-habits\nalready.\n\nIn a subject like philosophy it is really fatal to lose connexion with\nthe open air of human nature, and to think in terms of shop-tradition\nonly. In Germany the forms are so professionalized that anybody who\nhas gained a teaching chair and written a book, however distorted and\neccentric, has the legal right to figure forever in the history of the\nsubject like a fly in amber. All later comers have the duty of quoting\nhim and measuring their opinions with his opinion. Such are the rules\nof the professorial game--they think and write from each other and for\neach other and at each other exclusively. With this exclusion of the\nopen air all true perspective gets lost, extremes and oddities count\nas much as sanities, and command the same attention; and if by chance\nany one writes popularly and about results only, with his mind\ndirectly focussed on the subject, it is reckoned _oberfl\u00e4chliches\nzeug_ and _ganz unwissenschaftlich_. Professor Paulsen has recently\nwritten some feeling lines about this over-professionalism, from\nthe reign of which in Germany his own writings, which sin by being\n'literary,' have suffered loss of credit. Philosophy, he says, has\nlong assumed in Germany the character of being an esoteric and\noccult science. There is a genuine fear of popularity. Simplicity of\nstatement is deemed synonymous with hollowness and shallowness. He\nrecalls an old professor saying to him once: 'Yes, we philosophers,\nwhenever we wish, can go so far that in a couple of sentences we can\nput ourselves where nobody can follow us.' The professor said this\nwith conscious pride, but he ought to have been ashamed of it. Great\nas technique is, results are greater. To teach philosophy so that the\npupils' interest in technique exceeds that in results is surely a\nvicious aberration. It is bad form, not good form, in a discipline\nof such universal human interest. Moreover, technique for technique,\ndoesn't David Hume's technique set, after all, the kind of pattern\nmost difficult to follow? Isn't it the most admirable? The english\nmind, thank heaven, and the french mind, are still kept, by their\naversion to crude technique and barbarism, closer to truth's natural\nprobabilities. Their literatures show fewer obvious falsities and\nmonstrosities than that of Germany. Think of the german literature of\naesthetics, with the preposterousness of such an unaesthetic personage\nas Immanuel Kant enthroned in its centre! Think of german books on\n_religions-philosophie_, with the heart's battles translated into\nconceptual jargon and made dialectic. The most persistent setter of\nquestions, feeler of objections, insister on satisfactions, is the\nreligious life. Yet all its troubles can be treated with absurdly\nlittle technicality. The wonder is that, with their way of working\nphilosophy, individual Germans should preserve any spontaneity of\nmind at all. That they still manifest freshness and originality in so\neminent a degree, proves the indestructible richness of the german\ncerebral endowment.\n\nLet me repeat once more that a man's vision is the great fact about\nhim. Who cares for Carlyle's reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's?\nA philosophy is the expression of a man's intimate character, and all\ndefinitions of the universe are but the deliberately adopted reactions\nof human characters upon it. In the recent book from which I quoted\nthe words of Professor Paulsen, a book of successive chapters by\nvarious living german philosophers,[4] we pass from one idiosyncratic\npersonal atmosphere into another almost as if we were turning over a\nphotograph album.\n\nIf we take the whole history of philosophy, the systems reduce\nthemselves to a few main types which, under all the technical verbiage\nin which the ingenious intellect of man envelops them, are just so\nmany visions, modes of feeling the whole push, and seeing the whole\ndrift of life, forced on one by one's total character and experience,\nand on the whole _preferred_--there is no other truthful word--as\none's best working attitude. Cynical characters take one general\nattitude, sympathetic characters another. But no general attitude\nis possible towards the world as a whole, until the intellect has\ndeveloped considerable generalizing power and learned to take pleasure\nin synthetic formulas. The thought of very primitive men has hardly\nany tincture of philosophy. Nature can have little unity for savages.\nIt is a Walpurgis-nacht procession, a checkered play of light and\nshadow, a medley of impish and elfish friendly and inimical\npowers. 'Close to nature' though they live, they are anything but\nWordsworthians. If a bit of cosmic emotion ever thrills them, it is\nlikely to be at midnight, when the camp smoke rises straight to the\nwicked full moon in the zenith, and the forest is all whispering with\nwitchery and danger. The eeriness of the world, the mischief and the\nmanyness, the littleness of the forces, the magical surprises, the\nunaccountability of every agent, these surely are the characters most\nimpressive at that stage of culture, these communicate the thrills\nof curiosity and the earliest intellectual stirrings. Tempests and\nconflagrations, pestilences and earthquakes, reveal supramundane\npowers, and instigate religious terror rather than philosophy. Nature,\nmore demonic than divine, is above all things _multifarious_. So many\ncreatures that feed or threaten, that help or crush, so many beings\nto hate or love, to understand or start at--which is on top and which\nsubordinate? Who can tell? They are co-ordinate, rather, and to adapt\nourselves to them singly, to 'square' the dangerous powers and keep\nthe others friendly, regardless of consistency or unity, is the chief\nproblem. The symbol of nature at this stage, as Paulsen well says,\nis the sphinx, under whose nourishing breasts the tearing claws are\nvisible.\n\nBut in due course of time the intellect awoke, with its passion for\ngeneralizing, simplifying, and subordinating, and then began those\ndivergences of conception which all later experience seems rather\nto have deepened than to have effaced, because objective nature has\ncontributed to both sides impartially, and has let the thinkers\nemphasize different parts of her, and pile up opposite imaginary\nsupplements.\n\nPerhaps the most interesting opposition is that which results from the\nclash between what I lately called the sympathetic and the cynical\ntemper. Materialistic and spiritualistic philosophies are the rival\ntypes that result: the former defining the world so as to leave man's\nsoul upon it as a soil of outside passenger or alien, while the latter\ninsists that the intimate and human must surround and underlie the\nbrutal. This latter is the spiritual way of thinking.\n\nNow there are two very distinct types or stages in spiritualistic\nphilosophy, and my next purpose in this lecture is to make their\ncontrast evident. Both types attain the sought-for intimacy of view,\nbut the one attains it somewhat less successfully than the other.\n\nThe generic term spiritualism, which I began by using merely as the\nopposite of materialism, thus subdivides into two species, the more\nintimate one of which is monistic and the less intimate dualistic. The\ndualistic species is the _theism_ that reached its elaboration in the\nscholastic philosophy, while the monistic species is the _pantheism_\nspoken of sometimes simply as idealism, and sometimes as\n'post-kantian' or 'absolute' idealism. Dualistic theism is professed\nas firmly as ever at all catholic seats of learning, whereas it has\nof late years tended to disappear at our british and american\nuniversities, and to be replaced by a monistic pantheism more or less\nopen or disguised. I have an impression that ever since T.H. Green's\ntime absolute idealism has been decidedly in the ascendent at Oxford.\nIt is in the ascendent at my own university of Harvard.\n\nAbsolute idealism attains, I said, to the more intimate point of view;\nbut the statement needs some explanation. So far as theism represents\nthe world as God's world, and God as what Matthew Arnold called a\nmagnified non-natural man, it would seem as if the inner quality of\nthe world remained human, and as if our relations with it might be\nintimate enough--for what is best in ourselves appears then also\noutside of ourselves, and we and the universe are of the same\nspiritual species. So far, so good, then; and one might consequently\nask, What more of intimacy do you require? To which the answer is\nthat to be like a thing is not as intimate a relation as to be\nsubstantially fused into it, to form one continuous soul and body with\nit; and that pantheistic idealism, making us entitatively one with\nGod, attains this higher reach of intimacy.\n\nThe theistic conception, picturing God and his creation as entities\ndistinct from each other, still leaves the human subject outside of\nthe deepest reality in the universe. God is from eternity complete, it\nsays, and sufficient unto himself; he throws off the world by a free\nact and as an extraneous substance, and he throws off man as a third\nsubstance, extraneous to both the world and himself. Between them, God\nsays 'one,' the world says 'two,' and man says 'three,'--that is the\northodox theistic view. And orthodox theism has been so jealous of\nGod's glory that it has taken pains to exaggerate everything in the\nnotion of him that could make for isolation and separateness. Page\nupon page in scholastic books go to prove that God is in no sense\nimplicated by his creative act, or involved in his creation. That his\nrelation to the creatures he has made should make any difference to\nhim, carry any consequence, or qualify his being, is repudiated as a\npantheistic slur upon his self-sufficingness. I said a moment ago that\ntheism treats us and God as of the same species, but from the orthodox\npoint of view that was a slip of language. God and his creatures\nare _toto genere_ distinct in the scholastic theology, they have\nabsolutely _nothing_ in common; nay, it degrades God to attribute to\nhim any generic nature whatever; he can be classed with nothing. There\nis a sense, then, in which philosophic theism makes us outsiders and\nkeeps us foreigners in relation to God, in which, at any rate, his\nconnexion with us appears as unilateral and not reciprocal. His action\ncan affect us, but he can never be affected by our reaction. Our\nrelation, in short, is not a strictly social relation. Of course in\ncommon men's religion the relation is believed to be social, but that\nis only one of the many differences between religion and theology.\n\nThis essential dualism of the theistic view has all sorts of\ncollateral consequences. Man being an outsider and a mere subject to\nGod, not his intimate partner, a character of externality invades the\nfield. God is not heart of our heart and reason of our reason, but our\nmagistrate, rather; and mechanically to obey his commands, however\nstrange they may be, remains our only moral duty. Conceptions of\ncriminal law have in fact played a great part in defining our\nrelations with him. Our relations with speculative truth show the\nsame externality. One of our duties is to know truth, and rationalist\nthinkers have always assumed it to be our sovereign duty. But in\nscholastic theism we find truth already instituted and established\nwithout our help, complete apart from our knowing; and the most we\ncan do is to acknowledge it passively and adhere to it, altho such\nadhesion as ours can make no jot of difference to what is adhered to.\nThe situation here again is radically dualistic. It is not as if the\nworld came to know itself, or God came to know himself, partly through\nus, as pantheistic idealists have maintained, but truth exists _per\nse_ and absolutely, by God's grace and decree, no matter who of us\nknows it or is ignorant, and it would continue to exist unaltered,\neven though we finite knowers were all annihilated.\n\nIt has to be confessed that this dualism and lack of intimacy has\nalways operated as a drag and handicap on Christian thought. Orthodox\ntheology has had to wage a steady fight within the schools against the\nvarious forms of pantheistic heresy which the mystical experiences\nof religious persons, on the one hand, and the formal or aesthetic\nsuperiorities of monism to dualism, on the other, kept producing. God\nas intimate soul and reason of the universe has always seemed to some\npeople a more worthy conception than God as external creator. So\nconceived, he appeared to unify the world more perfectly, he made\nit less finite and mechanical, and in comparison with such a God an\nexternal creator seemed more like the product of a childish fancy. I\nhave been told by Hindoos that the great obstacle to the spread\nof Christianity in their country is the puerility of our dogma\nof creation. It has not sweep and infinity enough to meet the\nrequirements of even the illiterate natives of India.\n\nAssuredly most members of this audience are ready to side with\nHinduism in this matter. Those of us who are sexagenarians have\nwitnessed in our own persons one of those gradual mutations of\nintellectual climate, due to innumerable influences, that make the\nthought of a past generation seem as foreign to its successor as if\nit were the expression of a different race of men. The theological\nmachinery that spoke so livingly to our ancestors, with its finite age\nof the world, its creation out of nothing, its juridical morality and\neschatology, its relish for rewards and punishments, its treatment of\nGod as an external contriver, an 'intelligent and moral governor,'\nsounds as odd to most of us as if it were some outlandish savage\nreligion. The vaster vistas which scientific evolutionism has opened,\nand the rising tide of social democratic ideals, have changed the type\nof our imagination, and the older monarchical theism is obsolete or\nobsolescent. The place of the divine in the world must be more organic\nand intimate. An external creator and his institutions may still be\nverbally confessed at Church in formulas that linger by their mere\ninertia, but the life is out of them, we avoid dwelling on them, the\nsincere heart of us is elsewhere. I shall leave cynical materialism\nentirely out of our discussion as not calling for treatment before\nthis present audience, and I shall ignore old-fashioned dualistic\ntheism for the same reason. Our contemporary mind having once for all\ngrasped the possibility of a more intimate _Weltanschauung_, the only\nopinions quite worthy of arresting our attention will fall within the\ngeneral scope of what may roughly be called the pantheistic field of\nvision, the vision of God as the indwelling divine rather than the\nexternal creator, and of human life as part and parcel of that deep\nreality.\n\nAs we have found that spiritualism in general breaks into a more\nintimate and a less intimate species, so the more intimate species\nitself breaks into two subspecies, of which the one is more monistic,\nthe other more pluralistic in form. I say in form, for our vocabulary\ngets unmanageable if we don't distinguish between form and substance\nhere. The inner life of things must be substantially akin anyhow to\nthe tenderer parts of man's nature in any spiritualistic philosophy.\nThe word 'intimacy' probably covers the essential difference.\nMaterialism holds the foreign in things to be more primary and\nlasting, it sends us to a lonely corner with our intimacy. The brutal\naspects overlap and outwear; refinement has the feebler and more\nephemeral hold on reality.\n\nFrom a pragmatic point of view the difference between living against\na background of foreignness and one of intimacy means the difference\nbetween a general habit of wariness and one of trust. One might call\nit a social difference, for after all, the common _socius_ of us all\nis the great universe whose children we are. If materialistic, we\nmust be suspicious of this socius, cautious, tense, on guard. If\nspiritualistic, we may give way, embrace, and keep no ultimate fear.\n\nThe contrast is rough enough, and can be cut across by all sorts\nof other divisions, drawn from other points of view than that of\nforeignness and intimacy. We have so many different businesses with\nnature that no one of them yields us an all-embracing clasp. The\nphilosophic attempt to define nature so that no one's business is left\nout, so that no one lies outside the door saying 'Where do _I_ come\nin?' is sure in advance to fail. The most a philosophy can hope for is\nnot to lock out any interest forever. No matter what doors it closes,\nit must leave other doors open for the interests which it neglects.\nI have begun by shutting ourselves up to intimacy and foreignness\nbecause that makes so generally interesting a contrast, and because it\nwill conveniently introduce a farther contrast to which I wish this\nhour to lead.\n\nThe majority of men are sympathetic. Comparatively few are cynics\nbecause they like cynicism, and most of our existing materialists are\nsuch because they think the evidence of facts impels them, or because\nthey find the idealists they are in contact with too private and\ntender-minded; so, rather than join their company, they fly to the\nopposite extreme. I therefore propose to you to disregard materialists\naltogether for the present, and to consider the sympathetic party\nalone.\n\nIt is normal, I say, to be sympathetic in the sense in which I use the\nterm. Not to demand intimate relations with the universe, and not to\nwish them satisfactory, should be accounted signs of something wrong.\nAccordingly when minds of this type reach the philosophic level, and\nseek some unification of their vision, they find themselves compelled\nto correct that aboriginal appearance of things by which savages are\nnot troubled. That sphinx-like presence, with its breasts and claws,\nthat first bald multifariousness, is too discrepant an object for\nphilosophic contemplation. The intimacy and the foreignness cannot be\nwritten down as simply coexisting. An order must be made; and in that\norder the higher side of things must dominate. The philosophy of the\nabsolute agrees with the pluralistic philosophy which I am going\nto contrast with it in these lectures, in that both identify human\nsubstance with the divine substance. But whereas absolutism thinks\nthat the said substance becomes fully divine only in the form of\ntotality, and is not its real self in any form but the _all_-form, the\npluralistic view which I prefer to adopt is willing to believe that\nthere may ultimately never be an all-form at all, that the substance\nof reality may never get totally collected, that some of it may\nremain outside of the largest combination of it ever made, and that\na distributive form of reality, the _each_-form, is logically as\nacceptable and empirically as probable as the all-form commonly\nacquiesced in as so obviously the self-evident thing. The contrast\nbetween these two forms of a reality which we will agree to suppose\nsubstantially spiritual is practically the topic of this course of\nlectures. You see now what I mean by pantheism's two subspecies. If\nwe give to the monistic subspecies the name of philosophy of the\nabsolute, we may give that of radical empiricism to its pluralistic\nrival, and it may be well to distinguish them occasionally later by\nthese names.\n\nAs a convenient way of entering into the study of their differences,\nI may refer to a recent article by Professor Jacks of Manchester\nCollege. Professor Jacks, in some brilliant pages in the 'Hibbert\nJournal' for last October, studies the relation between the universe\nand the philosopher who describes and defines it for us. You may\nassume two cases, he says. Either what the philosopher tells us is\nextraneous to the universe he is accounting for, an indifferent\nparasitic outgrowth, so to speak; or the fact of his philosophizing\nis itself one of the things taken account of in the philosophy, and\nself-included in the description. In the former case the philosopher\nmeans by the universe everything _except_ what his own presence\nbrings; in the latter case his philosophy is itself an intimate\npart of the universe, and may be a part momentous enough to give a\ndifferent turn to what the other parts signify. It may be a\nsupreme reaction of the universe upon itself by which it rises to\nself-comprehension. It may handle itself differently in consequence of\nthis event.\n\nNow both empiricism and absolutism bring the philosopher inside\nand make man intimate, but the one being pluralistic and the other\nmonistic, they do so in differing ways that need much explanation. Let\nme then contrast the one with the other way of representing the status\nof the human thinker.\n\nFor monism the world is no collection, but one great all-inclusive\nfact outside of which is nothing--nothing is its only alternative.\nWhen the monism is idealistic, this all-enveloping fact is represented\nas an absolute mind that makes the partial facts by thinking them,\njust as we make objects in a dream by dreaming them, or personages in\na story by imagining them. To _be_, on this scheme, is, on the part of\na finite thing, to be an object for the absolute; and on the part of\nthe absolute it is to be the thinker of that assemblage of objects. If\nwe use the word 'content' here, we see that the absolute and the world\nhave an identical content. The absolute is nothing but the knowledge\nof those objects; the objects are nothing but what the absolute knows.\nThe world and the all-thinker thus compenetrate and soak each other\nup without residuum. They are but two names for the same identical\nmaterial, considered now from the subjective, and now from the\nobjective point of view--gedanke and gedachtes, as we would say if we\nwere Germans. We philosophers naturally form part of the material, on\nthe monistic scheme. The absolute makes us by thinking us, and if we\nourselves are enlightened enough to be believers in the absolute, one\nmay then say that our philosophizing is one of the ways in which the\nabsolute is conscious of itself. This is the full pantheistic scheme,\nthe _identit\u00e4tsphilosophie_, the immanence of God in his creation, a\nconception sublime from its tremendous unity. And yet that unity is\nincomplete, as closer examination will show.\n\nThe absolute and the world are one fact, I said, when materially\nconsidered. Our philosophy, for example, is not numerically distinct\nfrom the absolute's own knowledge of itself, not a duplicate and copy\nof it, it is part of that very knowledge, is numerically identical\nwith as much of it as our thought covers. The absolute just _is_ our\nphilosophy, along with everything else that is known, in an act of\nknowing which (to use the words of my gifted absolutist colleague\nRoyce) forms in its wholeness one luminously transparent conscious\nmoment.\n\nBut one as we are in this material sense with the absolute substance,\nthat being only the whole of us, and we only the parts of it, yet in a\nformal sense something like a pluralism breaks out. When we speak of\nthe absolute we _take_ the one universal known material collectively\nor integrally; when we speak of its objects, of our finite selves,\netc., we _take_ that same identical material distributively and\nseparately. But what is the use of a thing's _being_ only once if it\ncan be _taken_ twice over, and if being taken in different ways makes\ndifferent things true of it? As the absolute takes me, for example, I\nappear _with_ everything else in its field of perfect knowledge. As\nI take myself, I appear _without_ most other things in my field\nof relative ignorance. And practical differences result from its\nknowledge and my ignorance. Ignorance breeds mistake, curiosity,\nmisfortune, pain, for me; I suffer those consequences. The absolute\nknows of those things, of course, for it knows me and my suffering,\nbut it doesn't itself suffer. It can't be ignorant, for simultaneous\nwith its knowledge of each question goes its knowledge of each answer.\nIt can't be patient, for it has to wait for nothing, having everything\nat once in its possession. It can't be surprised; it can't be guilty.\nNo attribute connected with succession can be applied to it, for it\nis all at once and wholly what it is, 'with the unity of a single\ninstant,' and succession is not of it but in it, for we are\ncontinually told that it is 'timeless.'\n\nThings true of the world in its finite aspects, then, are not true of\nit in its infinite capacity. _Qu\u00e2_ finite and plural its accounts of\nitself to itself are different from what its account to itself _qu\u00e2_\ninfinite and one must be.\n\nWith this radical discrepancy between the absolute and the relative\npoints of view, it seems to me that almost as great a bar to intimacy\nbetween the divine and the human breaks out in pantheism as that which\nwe found in monarchical theism, and hoped that pantheism might not\nshow. We humans are incurably rooted in the temporal point of view.\nThe eternal's ways are utterly unlike our ways. 'Let us imitate the\nAll,' said the original prospectus of that admirable Chicago quarterly\ncalled the 'Monist.' As if we could, either in thought or conduct!\nWe are invincibly parts, let us talk as we will, and must always\napprehend the absolute as if it were a foreign being. If what I mean\nby this is not wholly clear to you at this point, it ought to grow\nclearer as my lectures proceed.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II\n\n\nMONISTIC IDEALISM\n\nLet me recall to you the programme which I indicated to you at our\nlast meeting. After agreeing not to consider materialism in any\nshape, but to place ourselves straightway upon a more spiritualistic\nplatform, I pointed out three kinds of spiritual philosophy between\nwhich we are asked to choose. The first way was that of the older\ndualistic theism, with ourselves represented as a secondary order of\nsubstances created by God. We found that this allowed of a degree of\nintimacy with the creative principle inferior to that implied in the\npantheistic belief that we are substantially one with it, and that the\ndivine is therefore the most intimate of all our possessions, heart of\nour heart, in fact. But we saw that this pantheistic belief could be\nheld in two forms, a monistic form which I called philosophy of the\nabsolute, and a pluralistic form which I called radical empiricism,\nthe former conceiving that the divine exists authentically only when\nthe world is experienced all at once in its absolute totality, whereas\nradical empiricism allows that the absolute sum-total of things may\nnever be actually experienced or realized in that shape at all, and\nthat a disseminated, distributed, or incompletely unified appearance\nis the only form that reality may yet have achieved.\n\nI may contrast the monistic and pluralistic forms in question as\nthe 'all-form' and the 'each-form.' At the end of the last hour I\nanimadverted on the fact that the all-form is so radically different\nfrom the each-form, which is our human form of experiencing the\nworld, that the philosophy of the absolute, so far as insight and\nunderstanding go, leaves us almost as much outside of the divine being\nas dualistic theism does. I believe that radical empiricism, on the\ncontrary, holding to the each-form, and making of God only one of the\neaches, affords the higher degree of intimacy. The general thesis of\nthese lectures I said would be a defence of the pluralistic against\nthe monistic view. Think of the universe as existing solely in the\neach-form, and you will have on the whole a more reasonable and\nsatisfactory idea of it than if you insist on the all-form being\nnecessary. The rest of my lectures will do little more than make this\nthesis more concrete, and I hope more persuasive.\n\nIt is curious how little countenance radical pluralism has ever had\nfrom philosophers. Whether materialistically or spiritualistically\nminded, philosophers have always aimed at cleaning up the litter with\nwhich the world apparently is filled. They have substituted economical\nand orderly conceptions for the first sensible tangle; and whether\nthese were morally elevated or only intellectually neat they were\nat any rate always aesthetically pure and definite, and aimed at\nascribing to the world something clean and intellectual in the way of\ninner structure. As compared with all these rationalizing pictures,\nthe pluralistic empiricism which I profess offers but a sorry\nappearance. It is a turbid, muddled, gothic sort of an affair, without\na sweeping outline and with little pictorial nobility. Those of you\nwho are accustomed to the classical constructions of reality may be\nexcused if your first reaction upon it be absolute contempt--a\nshrug of the shoulders as if such ideas were unworthy of explicit\nrefutation. But one must have lived some time with a system to\nappreciate its merits. Perhaps a little more familiarity may mitigate\nyour first surprise at such a programme as I offer.\n\nFirst, one word more than what I said last time about the relative\nforeignness of the divine principle in the philosophy of the absolute.\nThose of you who have read the last two chapters of Mr. Bradley's\nwonderful book, 'Appearance and reality,' will remember what an\nelaborately foreign aspect _his_ absolute is finally made to assume.\nIt is neither intelligence nor will, neither a self nor a collection\nof selves, neither truthful, good, nor beautiful, as we understand\nthese terms. It is, in short, a metaphysical monster, all that we are\npermitted to say of it being that whatever it is, it is at any rate\n_worth_ more (worth more to itself, that is) than if any eulogistic\nadjectives of ours applied to it. It is us, and all other appearances,\nbut none of us _as such_, for in it we are all 'transmuted,' and its\nown as-suchness is of another denomination altogether.\n\nSpinoza was the first great absolutist, and the impossibility of being\nintimate with _his_ God is universally recognized. _Quatenus infinitus\nest_ he is other than what he is _quatenus humanam mentem constituit_.\nSpinoza's philosophy has been rightly said to be worked by the word\n_quatenus_. Conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs play indeed the\nvital part in all philosophies; and in contemporary idealism the words\n'as' and 'qu\u00e2' bear the burden of reconciling metaphysical unity with\nphenomenal diversity. Qu\u00e2 absolute the world is one and perfect, qu\u00e2\nrelative it is many and faulty, yet it is identically the self-same\nworld--instead of talking of it as many facts, we call it one fact in\nmany aspects.\n\n_As_ absolute, then, or _sub specie eternitatis_, or _quatenus\ninfinitus est_, the world repels our sympathy because it has no\nhistory. _As such_, the absolute neither acts nor suffers, nor loves\nnor hates; it has no needs, desires, or aspirations, no failures or\nsuccesses, friends or enemies, victories or defeats. All such things\npertain to the world qu\u00e2 relative, in which our finite experiences\nlie, and whose vicissitudes alone have power to arouse our interest.\nWhat boots it to tell me that the absolute way is the true way, and\nto exhort me, as Emerson says, to lift mine eye up to its style, and\nmanners of the sky, if the feat is impossible by definition? I am\nfinite once for all, and all the categories of my sympathy are knit up\nwith the finite world _as such_, and with things that have a history.\n'Aus dieser erde quellen meine freuden, und ihre sonne scheinet meinen\nleiden.' I have neither eyes nor ears nor heart nor mind for anything\nof an opposite description, and the stagnant felicity of the\nabsolute's own perfection moves me as little as I move it. If we were\n_readers_ only of the cosmic novel, things would be different: we\nshould then share the author's point of view and recognize villains to\nbe as essential as heroes in the plot. But we are not the readers but\nthe very personages of the world-drama. In your own eyes each of you\nhere is its hero, and the villains are your respective friends or\nenemies. The tale which the absolute reader finds so perfect, we spoil\nfor one another through our several vital identifications with the\ndestinies of the particular personages involved.\n\nThe doctrine on which the absolutists lay most stress is the\nabsolute's 'timeless' character. For pluralists, on the other hand,\ntime remains as real as anything, and nothing in the universe is great\nor static or eternal enough not to have some history. But the world\nthat each of us feels most intimately at home with is that of beings\nwith histories that play into our history, whom we can help in their\nvicissitudes even as they help us in ours. This satisfaction the\nabsolute denies us; we can neither help nor hinder it, for it stands\noutside of history. It surely is a merit in a philosophy to make the\nvery life we lead seem real and earnest. Pluralism, in exorcising the\nabsolute, exorcises the great de-realizer of the only life we are\nat home in, and thus redeems the nature of reality from essential\nforeignness. Every end, reason, motive, object of desire or aversion,\nground of sorrow or joy that we feel is in the world of finite\nmultifariousness, for only in that world does anything really happen,\nonly there do events come to pass.\n\nIn one sense this is a far-fetched and rather childish objection, for\nso much of the history of the finite is as formidably foreign to us as\nthe static absolute can possibly be--in fact that entity derives its\nown foreignness largely from the bad character of the finite which it\nsimultaneously is--that this sentimental reason for preferring the\npluralistic view seems small.[1] I shall return to the subject in my\nfinal lecture, and meanwhile, with your permission, I will say no more\nabout this objection. The more so as the necessary foreignness of the\nabsolute is cancelled emotionally by its attribute of _totality_,\nwhich is universally considered to carry the further attribute of\n_perfection_ in its train. 'Philosophy,' says a recent american\nphilosopher, 'is humanity's hold on totality,' and there is no doubt\nthat most of us find that the bare notion of an absolute all-one is\ninspiring. 'I yielded myself to the perfect whole,' writes Emerson;\nand where can you find a more mind-dilating object? A certain loyalty\nis called forth by the idea; even if not proved actual, it must be\nbelieved in somehow. Only an enemy of philosophy can speak lightly\nof it. Rationalism starts from the idea of such a whole and builds\ndownward. Movement and change are absorbed into its immutability as\nforms of mere appearance. When you accept this beatific vision of\nwhat _is_, in contrast with what _goes on_, you feel as if you had\nfulfilled an intellectual duty. 'Reality is not in its truest nature\na process,' Mr. McTaggart tells us, 'but a stable and timeless\nstate.'[2] 'The true knowledge of God begins,' Hegel writes, 'when\nwe know that things as they immediately are have no truth.'[3] 'The\nconsummation of the infinite aim,' he says elsewhere, 'consists merely\nin removing the illusion which makes it seem yet unaccomplished. Good\nand absolute goodness is eternally accomplishing itself in the world:\nand the result is that it needs not wait upon _us_, but is already ...\naccomplished. It is an illusion under which we live. ... In the course\nof its process the Idea makes itself that illusion, by setting an\nantithesis to confront it, and its action consists in getting rid of\nthe illusion which it has created.'[4]\n\nBut abstract emotional appeals of any kind sound amateurish in the\nbusiness that concerns us. Impressionistic philosophizing, like\nimpressionistic watchmaking or land-surveying, is intolerable to\nexperts. Serious discussion of the alternative before us forces\nme, therefore, to become more technical. The great _claim_ of the\nphilosophy of the absolute is that the absolute is no hypothesis, but\na presupposition implicated in all thinking, and needing only a little\neffort of analysis to be seen as a logical necessity. I will therefore\ntake it in this more rigorous character and see whether its claim is\nin effect so coercive.\n\nIt has seemed coercive to an enormous number of contemporaneous\nthinkers. Professor Henry Jones thus describes the range and influence\nof it upon the social and political life of the present time:[5] 'For\nmany years adherents of this way of thought have deeply interested the\nbritish public by their writings. Almost more important than their\nwritings is the fact that they have occupied philosophical chairs in\nalmost every university in the kingdom. Even the professional critics\nof idealism are for the most part idealists--after a fashion. And when\nthey are not, they are as a rule more occupied with the refutation of\nidealism than with the construction of a better theory. It follows\nfrom their position of academic authority, were it from nothing else,\nthat idealism exercises an influence not easily measured upon the\nyouth of the nation--upon those, that is, who from the educational\nopportunities they enjoy may naturally be expected to become the\nleaders of the nation's thought and practice.... Difficult as it is\nto measure the forces ... it is hardly to be denied that the power\nexercised by Bentham and the utilitarian school has, for better or\nfor worse, passed into the hands of the idealists.... \"The Rhine has\nflowed into the Thames\" is the warning note rung out by Mr. Hobhouse.\nCarlyle introduced it, bringing it as far as Chelsea. Then Jowett\nand Thomas Hill Green, and William Wallace and Lewis Nettleship, and\nArnold Toynbee and David Eitchie--to mention only those teachers whose\nvoices now are silent--guided the waters into those upper reaches\nknown locally as the Isis. John and Edward Caird brought them up the\nClyde, Hutchison Stirling up the Firth of Forth. They have passed up\nthe Mersey and up the Severn and Dee and Don. They pollute the bay of\nSt. Andrews and swell the waters of the Cam, and have somehow crept\noverland into Birmingham. The stream of german idealism has been\ndiffused over the academical world of Great Britain. The disaster is\nuniversal.'\n\nEvidently if weight of authority were all, the truth of absolutism\nwould be thus decided. But let us first pass in review the general\nstyle of argumentation of that philosophy.\n\nAs I read it, its favorite way of meeting pluralism and empiricism is\nby a _reductio ad absurdum_ framed somewhat as follows: You contend,\nit says to the pluralist, that things, though in some respects\nconnected, are in other respects independent, so that they are not\nmembers of one all-inclusive individual fact. Well, your position is\nabsurd on either point. For admit in fact the slightest modicum of\nindependence, and you find (if you will only think accurately) that\nyou have to admit more and more of it, until at last nothing but an\nabsolute chaos, or the proved impossibility of any connexion whatever\nbetween the parts of the universe, remains upon your hands. Admit, on\nthe other hand, the most incipient minimum of relation between any two\nthings, and again you can't stop until you see that the absolute unity\nof all things is implied.\n\nIf we take the latter _reductio ad absurdum_ first, we find a good\nexample of it in Lotze's well-known proof of monism from the fact of\ninteraction between finite things. Suppose, Lotze says in effect, and\nfor simplicity's sake I have to paraphrase him, for his own words are\ntoo long to quote--many distinct beings _a, b, c_, etc., to exist\nindependently of each other: _can a in that case ever act on b_?\n\nWhat is it to act? Is it not to exert an influence? Does the influence\ndetach itself from _a_ and find _b_? If so, it is a third fact, and\nthe problem is not how _a_ acts, but how its 'influence' acts on _b_.\nBy another influence perhaps? And how in the end does the chain of\ninfluences find _b_ rather than _c_ unless _b_ is somehow prefigured\nin them already? And when they have found _b_, how do they make _b_\nrespond, if _b_ has nothing in common with them? Why don't they go\nright through _b_? The change in _b_ is a _response_, due to _b_'s\ncapacity for taking account of _a_'s influence, and that again seems\nto prove that _b_'s nature is somehow fitted to _a_'s nature in\nadvance. _A_ and _b_, in short, are not really as distinct as we at\nfirst supposed them, not separated by a void. Were this so they would\nbe mutually impenetrable, or at least mutually irrelevant. They would\nform two universes each living by itself, making no difference to each\nother, taking no account of each other, much as the universe of your\nday dreams takes no account of mine. They must therefore belong\ntogether beforehand, be co-implicated already, their natures must have\nan inborn mutual reference each to each.\n\nLotze's own solution runs as follows: The multiple independent things\nsupposed cannot be real in that shape, but all of them, if reciprocal\naction is to be possible between them, must be regarded as parts of a\nsingle real being, M. The pluralism with which our view began has\nto give place to a monism; and the 'transeunt' interaction,\nbeing unintelligible as such, is to be understood as an immanent\noperation.[6]\n\nThe words 'immanent operation' seem here to mean that the single real\nbeing M, of which _a_ and _b_ are members, is the only thing that\nchanges, and that when it changes, it changes inwardly and all over at\nonce. When part _a_ in it changes, consequently, part _b_ must also\nchange, but without the whole M changing this would not occur.\n\nA pretty argument, but a purely verbal one, as I apprehend it. _Call_\nyour _a_ and _b_ distinct, they can't interact; _call_ them one,\nthey can. For taken abstractly and without qualification the words\n'distinct' and 'independent' suggest only disconnection. If this be\nthe only property of your _a_ and _b_ (and it is the only property\nyour words imply), then of course, since you can't deduce their mutual\ninfluence from _it_, you can find no ground of its occurring between\nthem. Your bare word 'separate,' contradicting your bare word\n'joined,' seems to exclude connexion.\n\nLotze's remedy for the impossibility thus verbally found is to change\nthe first word. If, instead of calling _a_ and _b_ independent, we now\ncall them 'interdependent,' 'united,' or 'one,' he says, _these_ words\ndo not contradict any sort of mutual influence that may be proposed.\nIf _a_ and _b_ are 'one,' and the one changes, _a_ and _b_ of course\nmust co-ordinately change. What under the old name they couldn't do,\nthey now have license to do under the new name.\n\nBut I ask you whether giving the name of 'one' to the former 'many'\nmakes us really understand the modus operandi of interaction any\nbetter. We have now given verbal permission to the many to change all\ntogether, if they can; we have removed a verbal impossibility\nand substituted a verbal possibility, but the new name, with the\npossibility it suggests, tells us nothing of the actual process by\nwhich real things that are one can and do change at all. In point\nof fact abstract oneness as such _doesn't_ change, neither has it\nparts--any more than abstract independence as such interacts. But then\nneither abstract oneness nor abstract independence _exists_; only\nconcrete real things exist, which add to these properties the other\nproperties which they possess, to make up what we call their total\nnature. To construe any one of their abstract names as _making their\ntotal nature impossible_ is a misuse of the function of naming. The\nreal way of rescue from the abstract consequences of one name is not\nto fly to an opposite name, equally abstract, but rather to correct\nthe first name by qualifying adjectives that restore some concreteness\nto the case. Don't take your 'independence' _simpliciter_, as Lotze\ndoes, take it _secundum quid_. Only when we know what the process of\ninteraction literally and concretely _consists_ in can we tell whether\nbeings independent _in definite respects_, distinct, for example, in\norigin, separate in place, different in kind, etc., can or cannot\ninteract.\n\n_The treating of a name as excluding from the fact named what the\nname's definition fails positively to include, is what I call\n'vicious intellectualism_.' Later I shall have more to say about this\nintellectualism, but that Lotze's argument is tainted by it I hardly\nthink we can deny. As well might you contend (to use an instance from\nSigwart) that a person whom you have once called an 'equestrian' is\nthereby forever made unable to walk on his own feet.\n\nI almost feel as if I should apologize for criticising such subtle\narguments in rapid lectures of this kind. The criticisms have to be as\nabstract as the arguments, and in exposing their unreality, take\non such an unreal sound themselves that a hearer not nursed in the\nintellectualist atmosphere knows not which of them to accuse. But\n_le vin est vers\u00e9, il faut le boire_, and I must cite a couple more\ninstances before I stop.\n\nIf we are empiricists and go from parts to wholes, we believe that\nbeings may first exist and feed so to speak on their own existence,\nand then secondarily become known to one another. But philosophers of\nthe absolute tell us that such independence of being from being known\nwould, if once admitted, disintegrate the universe beyond all hope of\nmending. The argument is one of Professor Royce's proofs that the only\nalternative we have is to choose the complete disunion of all things\nor their complete union in the absolute One.\n\nTake, for instance, the proverb 'a cat may look at a king' and adopt\nthe realistic view that the king's being is independent of the cat's\nwitnessing. This assumption, which amounts to saying that it need make\nno essential difference to the royal object whether the feline subject\ncognizes him or not, that the cat may look away from him or may even\nbe annihilated, and the king remain unchanged,--this assumption, I\nsay, is considered by my ingenious colleague to lead to the absurd\npractical consequence that the two beings _can_ never later acquire\nany possible linkages or connexions, but must remain eternally as if\nin different worlds. For suppose any connexion whatever to ensue, this\nconnexion would simply be a third being additional to the cat and the\nking, which would itself have to be linked to both by additional links\nbefore it could connect them, and so on _ad infinitum_, the argument,\nyou see, being the same as Lotze's about how _a_'s influence does its\ninfluencing when it influences _b_.\n\nIn Royce's own words, if the king can be without the cat knowing him,\nthen king and cat 'can have no common features, no ties, no true\nrelations; they are separated, each from the other, by absolutely\nimpassable chasms. They can never come to get either ties or community\nof nature; they are not in the same space, nor in the same time, nor\nin the same natural or spiritual order.'[7] They form in short two\nunrelated universes,--which is the _reductio ad absurdum_ required.\n\nTo escape this preposterous state of things we must accordingly revoke\nthe original hypothesis. The king and the cat are not indifferent to\neach other in the way supposed. But if not in that way, then in no\nway, for connexion in that way carries connexion in other ways; so\nthat, pursuing the reverse line of reasoning, we end with the\nabsolute itself as the smallest fact that can exist. Cat and king are\nco-involved, they are a single fact in two names, they can never have\nbeen absent from each other, and they are both equally co-implicated\nwith all the other facts of which the universe consists.\n\nProfessor Royce's proof that whoso admits the cat's witnessing the\nking at all must thereupon admit the integral absolute, may be briefly\nput as follows:--\n\nFirst, to know the king, the cat must intend _that_ king, must somehow\npass over and lay hold of him individually and specifically. The cat's\nidea, in short, must transcend the cat's own separate mind and somehow\ninclude the king, for were the king utterly outside and independent of\nthe cat, the cat's pure other, the beast's mind could touch the king\nin no wise. This makes the cat much less distinct from the king than\nwe had at first na\u00efvely supposed. There must be some prior continuity\nbetween them, which continuity Royce interprets idealistically as\nmeaning a higher mind that owns them both as objects, and owning them\ncan also own any relation, such as the supposed witnessing, that may\nobtain between them. Taken purely pluralistically, neither of them can\nown any part of a _between_, because, so taken, each is supposed shut\nup to itself: the fact of a _between_ thus commits us to a higher\nknower.\n\nBut the higher knower that knows the two beings we start with proves\nto be the same knower that knows everything else. For assume any third\nbeing, the queen, say, and as the cat knew the king, so let the king\nknow his queen, and let this second knowledge, by the same reasoning,\nrequire a higher knower as its presupposition. That knower of the\nking's knowing must, it is now contended, be the same higher knower\nthat was required for the cat's knowing; for if you suppose otherwise,\nyou have no longer the _same king_. This may not seem immediately\nobvious, but if you follow the intellectualistic logic employed in all\nthese reasonings, I don't see how you can escape the admission. If it\nbe true that the independent or indifferent cannot be related, for\nthe abstract words 'independent' or 'indifferent' as such imply no\nrelation, then it is just as true that the king known by the cat\ncannot be the king that knows the queen, for taken merely 'as such,'\nthe abstract term 'what the cat knows' and the abstract term 'what\nknows the queen' are logically distinct. The king thus logically\nbreaks into two kings, with nothing to connect them, until a higher\nknower is introduced to recognize them as the self-same king concerned\nin any previous acts of knowledge which he may have brought about.\nThis he can do because he possesses all the terms as his own objects\nand can treat them as he will. Add any fourth or fifth term, and you\nget a like result, and so on, until at last an all-owning knower,\notherwise called the absolute, is reached. The co-implicated\n'through-and-through' world of monism thus stands proved by\nirrefutable logic, and all pluralism appears as absurd.\n\nThe reasoning is pleasing from its ingenuity, and it is almost a pity\nthat so straight a bridge from abstract logic to concrete fact should\nnot bear our weight. To have the alternative forced upon us of\nadmitting either finite things each cut off from all relation with\nits environment, or else of accepting the integral absolute with no\nenvironment and all relations packed within itself, would be too\ndelicious a simplification. But the purely verbal character of the\noperation is undisguised. Because the _names_ of finite things and\ntheir relations are disjoined, it doesn't follow that the realities\nnamed need a _deus ex machina_ from on high to conjoin them. The same\nthings disjoined in one respect _appear_ as conjoined in another.\nNaming the disjunction doesn't debar us from also naming the\nconjunction in a later modifying statement, for the two are absolutely\nco-ordinate elements in the finite tissue of experience. When at\nAthens it was found self-contradictory that a boy could be both tall\nand short (tall namely in respect of a child, short in respect of a\nman), the absolute had not yet been thought of, but it might just as\nwell have been invoked by Socrates as by Lotze or Royce, as a relief\nfrom his peculiar intellectualistic difficulty.\n\nEverywhere we find rationalists using the same kind of reasoning. The\nprimal whole which is their vision must be there not only as a\nfact but as a logical necessity. It must be the minimum that can\nexist--either that absolute whole is there, or there is absolutely\nnothing. The logical proof alleged of the irrationality of supposing\notherwise, is that you can deny the whole only in words that\nimplicitly assert it. If you say 'parts,' of _what_ are they parts? If\nyou call them a 'many,' that very word unifies them. If you suppose\nthem unrelated in any particular respect, that 'respect' connects\nthem; and so on. In short you fall into hopeless contradiction. You\nmust stay either at one extreme or the other.[8] 'Partly this and\npartly that,' partly rational, for instance, and partly irrational,\nis no admissible description of the world. If rationality be in it at\nall, it must be in it throughout; if irrationality be in it anywhere,\nthat also must pervade it throughout. It must be wholly rational or\nwholly irrational, pure universe or pure multiverse or nulliverse; and\nreduced to this violent alternative, no one's choice ought long to\nremain doubtful. The individual absolute, with its parts co-implicated\nthrough and through, so that there is nothing in any part by which\nany other part can remain inwardly unaffected, is the only rational\nsupposition. Connexions of an external sort, by which the many became\nmerely continuous instead of being consubstantial, would be an\nirrational supposition.\n\nMr. Bradley is the pattern champion of this philosophy _in extremis_,\nas one might call it, for he shows an intolerance to pluralism so\nextreme that I fancy few of his readers have been able fully to share\nit. His reasoning exemplifies everywhere what I call the vice of\nintellectualism, for abstract terms are used by him as positively\nexcluding all that their definition fails to include. Some Greek\nsophists could deny that we may say that man is good, for man, they\nsaid, means only man, and good means only good, and the word _is_\ncan't be construed to identify such disparate meanings. Mr. Bradley\nrevels in the same type of argument. No adjective can rationally\nqualify a substantive, he thinks, for if distinct from the\nsubstantive, it can't be united with it; and if not distinct, there is\nonly one thing there, and nothing left to unite. Our whole pluralistic\nprocedure in using subjects and predicates as we do is fundamentally\nirrational, an example of the desperation of our finite intellectual\nestate, infected and undermined as that is by the separatist\ndiscursive forms which are our only categories, but which absolute\nreality must somehow absorb into its unity and overcome.\n\nReaders of 'Appearance and reality' will remember how Mr. Bradley\nsuffers from a difficulty identical with that to which Lotze and Royce\nfall a prey--how shall an influence influence? how shall a relation\nrelate? Any conjunctive relation between two phenomenal experiences\n_a_ and _b_ must, in the intellectualist philosophy of these authors,\nbe itself a third entity; and as such, instead of bridging the one\noriginal chasm, it can only create two smaller chasms, each to be\nfreshly bridged. Instead of hooking _a_ to _b_, it needs itself to be\nhooked by a fresh relation _r\u0092_ to _a_ and by another _r\u0094_ to _b_.\nThese new relations are but two more entities which themselves require\nto be hitched in turn by four still newer relations--so behold the\nvertiginous _regressus ad infinitum_ in full career.\n\nSince a _regressus ad infinitum_ is deemed absurd, the notion that\nrelations come 'between' their terms must be given up. No mere\nexternal go-between can logically connect. What occurs must be more\nintimate. The hooking must be a penetration, a possession. The\nrelation must _involve_ the terms, each term must involve _it_, and\nmerging thus their being in it, they must somehow merge their being in\neach other, tho, as they seem still phenomenally so separate, we can\nnever conceive exactly how it is that they are inwardly one. The\nabsolute, however, must be supposed able to perform the unifying feat\nin his own inscrutable fashion.\n\nIn old times, whenever a philosopher was assailed for some\nparticularly tough absurdity in his system, he was wont to parry the\nattack by the argument from the divine omnipotence. 'Do you mean to\nlimit God's power?' he would reply: 'do you mean to say that God could\nnot, if he would, do this or that?' This retort was supposed to close\nthe mouths of all objectors of properly decorous mind. The functions\nof the bradleian absolute are in this particular identical with those\nof the theistic God. Suppositions treated as too absurd to pass muster\nin the finite world which we inhabit, the absolute must be able to\nmake good 'somehow' in his ineffable way. First we hear Mr. Bradley\nconvicting things of absurdity; next, calling on the absolute to vouch\nfor them _quand m\u00eame_. Invoked for no other duty, that duty it must\nand shall perform.\n\nThe strangest discontinuity of our world of appearance with the\nsupposed world of absolute reality is asserted both by Bradley and\nby Royce; and both writers, the latter with great ingenuity, seek to\nsoften the violence of the jolt. But it remains violent all the same,\nand is felt to be so by most readers. Whoever feels the violence\nstrongly sees as on a diagram in just what the peculiarity of all this\nphilosophy of the absolute consists. First, there is a healthy faith\nthat the world must be rational and self-consistent. 'All science, all\nreal knowledge, all experience presuppose,' as Mr. Ritchie writes, 'a\ncoherent universe.' Next, we find a loyal clinging to the rationalist\nbelief that sense-data and their associations are incoherent, and that\nonly in substituting a conceptual order for their order can truth\nbe found. Third, the substituted conceptions are treated\nintellectualistically, that is as mutually exclusive and\ndiscontinuous, so that the first innocent continuity of the flow of\nsense-experience is shattered for us without any higher conceptual\ncontinuity taking its place. Finally, since this broken state of\nthings is intolerable, the absolute _deus ex machina_ is called on to\nmend it in his own way, since we cannot mend it in ours.\n\nAny other picture than this of post-kantian absolutism I am unable\nto frame. I see the intellectualistic criticism destroying the\nimmediately given coherence of the phenomenal world, but unable to\nmake its own conceptual substitutes cohere, and I see the resort to\nthe absolute for a coherence of a higher type. The situation has\ndramatic liveliness, but it is inwardly incoherent throughout, and the\nquestion inevitably comes up whether a mistake may not somewhere have\ncrept in in the process that has brought it about. May not the remedy\nlie rather in revising the intellectualist criticism than in first\nadopting it and then trying to undo its consequences by an arbitrary\nact of faith in an unintelligible agent. May not the flux of sensible\nexperience itself contain a rationality that has been overlooked,\nso that the real remedy would consist in harking back to it more\nintelligently, and not in advancing in the opposite direction away\nfrom it and even away beyond the intellectualist criticism that\ndisintegrates it, to the pseudo-rationality of the supposed absolute\npoint of view. I myself believe that this is the real way to keep\nrationality in the world, and that the traditional rationalism has\nalways been facing in the wrong direction. I hope in the end to make\nyou share, or at any rate respect, this belief, but there is much to\ntalk of before we get to that point.\n\nI employed the word 'violent' just now in describing the dramatic\nsituation in which it pleases the philosophy of the absolute to make\nits camp. I don't see how any one can help being struck in absolutist\nwritings by that curious tendency to fly to violent extremes of which\nI have already said a word. The universe must be rational; well\nand good; but _how_ rational? in what sense of that eulogistic but\nambiguous word?--this would seem to be the next point to bring up.\nThere are surely degrees in rationality that might be discriminated\nand described. Things can be consistent or coherent in very diverse\nways. But no more in its conception of rationality than in its\nconception of relations can the monistic mind suffer the notion of\nmore or less. Rationality is one and indivisible: if not rational\nthus indivisibly, the universe must be completely irrational, and no\nshadings or mixtures or compromises can obtain. Mr. McTaggart writes,\nin discussing the notion of a mixture: 'The two principles, of\nrationality and irrationality, to which the universe is then referred,\nwill have to be absolutely separate and independent. For if there were\nany common unity to which they should be referred, it would be that\nunity and not its two manifestations which would be the ultimate\nexplanation ... and the theory, having thus become monistic,'[9] would\nresolve itself into the same alternative once more: is the single\nprinciple rational through and through or not?\n\n'Can a plurality of reals be possible?' asks Mr. Bradley, and answers,\n'No, impossible.' For it would mean a number of beings not dependent\non each other, and this independence their plurality would contradict.\nFor to be 'many' is to be related, the word having no meaning unless\nthe units are somehow taken together, and it is impossible to take\nthem in a sort of unreal void, so they must belong to a larger\nreality, and so carry the essence of the units beyond their proper\nselves, into a whole which possesses unity and is a larger system.[10]\nEither absolute independence or absolute mutual dependence--this,\nthen, is the only alternative allowed by these thinkers. Of course\n'independence,' if absolute, would be preposterous, so the only\nconclusion allowable is that, in Ritchie's words, 'every single event\nis ultimately related to every other, and determined by the whole\nto which it belongs.' The whole complete block-universe\nthrough-and-through, therefore, or no universe at all!\n\nProfessor Taylor is so _na\u00eff_ in this habit of thinking only in\nextremes that he charges the pluralists with cutting the ground from\nunder their own feet in not consistently following it themselves. What\npluralists say is that a universe really connected loosely, after the\npattern of our daily experience, is possible, and that for certain\nreasons it is the hypothesis to be preferred. What Professor Taylor\nthinks they naturally must or should say is that any other sort of\nuniverse is logically impossible, and that a totality of things\ninterrelated like the world of the monists is not an hypothesis that\ncan be seriously thought out at all.[11]\n\nMeanwhile no sensible pluralist ever flies or wants to fly to this\ndogmatic extreme.\n\nIf chance is spoken of as an ingredient of the universe, absolutists\ninterpret it to mean that double sevens are as likely to be thrown out\nof a dice box as double sixes are. If free-will is spoken of, that\nmust mean that an english general is as likely to eat his prisoners\nto-day as a Maori chief was a hundred years ago. It is as likely--I am\nusing Mr. McTaggart's examples--that a majority of Londoners will\nburn themselves alive to-morrow as that they will partake of food, as\nlikely that I shall be hanged for brushing my hair as for committing\na murder,[12] and so forth, through various suppositions that no\nindeterminist ever sees real reason to make.\n\nThis habit of thinking only in the most violent extremes reminds me\nof what Mr. Wells says of the current objections to socialism, in his\nwonderful little book, 'New worlds for old.' The commonest vice of the\nhuman mind is its disposition to see everything as yes or no, as black\nor white, its incapacity for discrimination of intermediate shades.\nSo the critics agree to some hard and fast impossible definition of\nsocialism, and extract absurdities from it as a conjurer gets rabbits\nfrom a hat. Socialism abolishes property, abolishes the family, and\nthe rest. The method, Mr. Wells continues, is always the same: It\nis to assume that whatever the socialist postulates as desirable is\nwanted without limit of qualification,--for socialist read pluralist\nand the parallel holds good,--it is to imagine that whatever proposal\nis made by him is to be carried out by uncontrolled monomaniacs, and\nso to make a picture of the socialist dream which can be presented to\nthe simple-minded person in doubt--'This is socialism'--or pluralism,\nas the case may be. 'Surely!--SURELY! you don't want _this!_'\n\nHow often have I been replied to, when expressing doubts of the\nlogical necessity of the absolute, of flying to the opposite extreme:\n'But surely, SURELY there must be _some_ connexion among things!' As\nif I must necessarily be an uncontrolled monomanic insanely denying\nany connexion whatever. The whole question revolves in very truth\nabout the word 'some.' Radical empiricism and pluralism stand out for\nthe legitimacy of the notion of _some_: each part of the world is in\nsome ways connected, in some other ways not connected with its other\nparts, and the ways can be discriminated, for many of them are\nobvious, and their differences are obvious to view. Absolutism, on its\nside, seems to hold that 'some' is a category ruinously infected\nwith self-contradictoriness, and that the only categories inwardly\nconsistent and therefore pertinent to reality are 'all' and 'none.'\n\nThe question runs into the still more general one with which Mr.\nBradley and later writers of the monistic school have made us\nabundantly familiar--the question, namely, whether all the relations\nwith other things, possible to a being, are pre-included in its\nintrinsic nature and enter into its essence, or whether, in respect to\nsome of these relations, it can _be_ without reference to them, and,\nif it ever does enter into them, do so adventitiously and as it\nwere by an after-thought. This is the great question as to whether\n'external' relations can exist. They seem to, undoubtedly. My\nmanuscript, for example, is 'on' the desk. The relation of being 'on'\ndoesn't seem to implicate or involve in any way the inner meaning\nof the manuscript or the inner structure of the desk--these objects\nengage in it only by their outsides, it seems only a temporary\naccident in their respective histories. Moreover, the 'on' fails to\nappear to our senses as one of those unintelligible 'betweens' that\nhave to be separately hooked on the terms they pretend to connect.\nAll this innocent sense-appearance, however, we are told, cannot pass\nmuster in the eyes of reason. It is a tissue of self-contradiction\nwhich only the complete absorption of the desk and the manuscript into\nthe higher unity of a more absolute reality can overcome.\n\nThe reasoning by which this conclusion is supported is too subtle and\ncomplicated to be properly dealt with in a public lecture, and you\nwill thank me for not inviting you to consider it at all.[13] I feel\nthe more free to pass it by now as I think that the cursory account of\nthe absolutistic attitude which I have already given is sufficient for\nour present purpose, and that my own verdict on the philosophy of\nthe absolute as 'not proven'--please observe that I go no farther\nnow--need not be backed by argument at every special point. Flanking\noperations are less costly and in some ways more effective than\nfrontal attacks. Possibly you will yourselves think after hearing my\nremaining lectures that the alternative of an universe absolutely\nrational or absolutely irrational is forced and strained, and that\na _via media_ exists which some of you may agree with me is to\nbe preferred. _Some_ rationality certainly does characterize our\nuniverse; and, weighing one kind with another, we may deem that the\nincomplete kinds that appear are on the whole as acceptable as\nthe through-and-through sort of rationality on which the monistic\nsystematizers insist.\n\nAll the said systematizers who have written since Hegel have owed\ntheir inspiration largely to him. Even when they have found no use\nfor his particular triadic dialectic, they have drawn confidence\nand courage from his authoritative and conquering tone. I have said\nnothing about Hegel in this lecture, so I must repair the omission in\nthe next.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III\n\n\nHEGEL AND HIS METHOD\n\nDirectly or indirectly, that strange and powerful genius Hegel has\ndone more to strengthen idealistic pantheism in thoughtful circles\nthan all other influences put together. I must talk a little about him\nbefore drawing my final conclusions about the cogency of the arguments\nfor the absolute. In no philosophy is the fact that a philosopher's\nvision and the technique he uses in proof of it are two different\nthings more palpably evident than in Hegel. The vision in his case\nwas that of a world in which reason holds all things in solution and\naccounts for all the irrationality that superficially appears by\ntaking it up as a 'moment' into itself. This vision was so intense in\nHegel, and the tone of authority with which he spoke from out of the\nmidst of it was so weighty, that the impression he made has never been\neffaced. Once dilated to the scale of the master's eye, the disciples'\nsight could not contract to any lesser prospect. The technique which\nHegel used to prove his vision was the so-called dialectic method, but\nhere his fortune has been quite contrary. Hardly a recent disciple has\nfelt his particular applications of the method to be satisfactory.\nMany have let them drop entirely, treating them rather as a sort of\nprovisional stop-gap, symbolic of what might some day prove possible\nof execution, but having no literal cogency or value now. Yet these\nvery same disciples hold to the vision itself as a revelation that can\nnever pass away. The case is curious and worthy of our study.\n\nIt is still more curious in that these same disciples, altho they are\nusually willing to abandon any particular instance of the dialectic\nmethod to its critics, are unshakably sure that in some shape the\ndialectic method is the key to truth. What, then, is the dialectic\nmethod? It is itself a part of the hegelian vision or intuition, and\na part that finds the strongest echo in empiricism and common sense.\nGreat injustice is done to Hegel by treating him as primarily a\nreasoner. He is in reality a na\u00efvely observant man, only beset with a\nperverse preference for the use of technical and logical jargon. He\nplants himself in the empirical flux of things and gets the impression\nof what happens. His mind is in very truth _impressionistic_; and his\nthought, when once you put yourself at the animating centre of it, is\nthe easiest thing in the world to catch the pulse of and to follow.\n\nAny author is easy if you can catch the centre of his vision. From\nthe centre in Hegel come those towering sentences of his that are\ncomparable only to Luther's, as where, speaking of the ontological\nproof of God's existence from the concept of him as the _ens\nperfectissimum_ to which no attribute can be lacking, he says: 'It\nwould be strange if the Notion, the very heart of the mind, or, in\na word, the concrete totality we call God, were not rich enough\nto embrace so poor a category as Being, the very poorest and most\nabstract of all--for nothing can be more insignificant than Being.'\nBut if Hegel's central thought is easy to catch, his abominable habits\nof speech make his application of it to details exceedingly difficult\nto follow. His passion for the slipshod in the way of sentences,\nhis unprincipled playing fast and loose with terms; his dreadful\nvocabulary, calling what completes a thing its 'negation,' for\nexample; his systematic refusal to let you know whether he is talking\nlogic or physics or psychology, his whole deliberately adopted policy\nof ambiguity and vagueness, in short: all these things make his\npresent-day readers wish to tear their hair--or his--out in\ndesperation. Like Byron's corsair, he has left a name 'to other times,\nlinked with one virtue and a thousand crimes.'\n\nThe virtue was the vision, which was really in two parts. The first\npart was that reason is all-inclusive, the second was that things\nare 'dialectic.' Let me say a word about this second part of Hegel's\nvision.\n\nThe impression that any _na\u00eff_ person gets who plants himself\ninnocently in the flux of things is that things are off their balance.\nWhatever equilibriums our finite experiences attain to are but\nprovisional. Martinique volcanoes shatter our wordsworthian\nequilibrium with nature. Accidents, either moral, mental, or physical,\nbreak up the slowly built-up equilibriums men reach in family life\nand in their civic and professional relations. Intellectual enigmas\nfrustrate our scientific systems, and the ultimate cruelty of the\nuniverse upsets our religious attitudes and outlooks. Of no special\nsystem of good attained does the universe recognize the value as\nsacred. Down it tumbles, over it goes, to feed the ravenous appetite\nfor destruction, of the larger system of history in which it stood\nfor a moment as a landing-place and stepping-stone. This dogging of\neverything by its negative, its fate, its undoing, this perpetual\nmoving on to something future which shall supersede the present,\nthis is the hegelian intuition of the essential provisionality, and\nconsequent unreality, of everything empirical and finite. Take any\nconcrete finite thing and try to hold it fast. You cannot, for so\nheld, it proves not to be concrete at all, but an arbitrary extract or\nabstract which you have made from the remainder of empirical reality.\nThe rest of things invades and overflows both it and you together,\nand defeats your rash attempt. Any partial view whatever of the world\ntears the part out of its relations, leaves out some truth concerning\nit, is untrue of it, falsifies it. The full truth about anything\ninvolves more than that thing. In the end nothing less than the whole\nof everything can be the truth of anything at all.\n\nTaken so far, and taken in the rough, Hegel is not only harmless, but\naccurate. There is a dialectic movement in things, if such it please\nyou to call it, one that the whole constitution of concrete life\nestablishes; but it is one that can be described and accounted for in\nterms of the pluralistic vision of things far more naturally than in\nthe monistic terms to which Hegel finally reduced it. Pluralistic\nempiricism knows that everything is in an environment, a surrounding\nworld of other things, and that if you leave it to work there it will\ninevitably meet with friction and opposition from its neighbors. Its\nrivals and enemies will destroy it unless it can buy them off by\ncompromising some part of its original pretensions.\n\nBut Hegel saw this undeniable characteristic of the world we live in\nin a non-empirical light. Let the _mental idea_ of the thing work in\nyour thought all alone, he fancied, and just the same consequences\nwill follow. It will be negated by the opposite ideas that dog it,\nand can survive only by entering, along with them, into some kind\nof treaty. This treaty will be an instance of the so-called 'higher\nsynthesis' of everything with its negative; and Hegel's originality\nlay in transporting the process from the sphere of percepts to that of\nconcepts and treating it as the universal method by which every kind\nof life, logical, physical, or psychological, is mediated. Not to the\nsensible facts as such, then, did Hegel point for the secret of what\nkeeps existence going, but rather to the conceptual way of treating\nthem. Concepts were not in his eyes the static self-contained things\nthat previous logicians had supposed, but were germinative, and passed\nbeyond themselves into each other by what he called their immanent\ndialectic. In ignoring each other as they do, they virtually exclude\nand deny each other, he thought, and thus in a manner introduce each\nother. So the dialectic logic, according to him, had to supersede the\n'logic of identity' in which, since Aristotle, all Europe had been\nbrought up.\n\nThis view of concepts is Hegel's revolutionary performance; but so\nstudiously vague and ambiguous are all his expressions of it that one\ncan hardly tell whether it is the concepts as such, or the sensible\nexperiences and elements conceived, that Hegel really means to work\nwith. The only thing that is certain is that whatever you may say of\nhis procedure, some one will accuse you of misunderstanding it. I make\nno claim to understanding it, I treat it merely impressionistically.\n\nSo treating it, I regret that he should have called it by the name of\nlogic. Clinging as he did to the vision of a really living world, and\nrefusing to be content with a chopped-up intellectualist picture\nof it, it is a pity that he should have adopted the very word that\nintellectualism had already pre-empted. But he clung fast to the old\nrationalist contempt for the immediately given world of sense and all\nits squalid particulars, and never tolerated the notion that the form\nof philosophy might be empirical only. His own system had to be a\nproduct of eternal reason, so the word 'logic,' with its suggestions\nof coercive necessity, was the only word he could find natural. He\npretended therefore to be using the _a priori_ method, and to be\nworking by a scanty equipment of ancient logical terms--position,\nnegation, reflection, universal, particular, individual, and the like.\nBut what he really worked by was his own empirical perceptions, which\nexceeded and overflowed his miserably insufficient logical categories\nin every instance of their use.\n\nWhat he did with the category of negation was his most original\nstroke. The orthodox opinion is that you can advance logically through\nthe field of concepts only by going from the same to the same. Hegel\nfelt deeply the sterility of this law of conceptual thought; he\nsaw that in a fashion negation also relates things; and he had the\nbrilliant idea of transcending the ordinary logic by treating advance\nfrom the different to the different as if it were also a necessity of\nthought. 'The so-called maxim of identity,' he wrote, 'is supposed to\nbe accepted by the consciousness of every one. But the language which\nsuch a law demands, \"a planet is a planet, magnetism is magnetism,\nmind is mind,\" deserves to be called silliness. No mind either speaks\nor thinks or forms conceptions in accordance with this law, and no\nexistence of any kind whatever conforms to it. We must never view\nidentity as abstract identity, to the exclusion of all difference.\nThat is the touchstone for distinguishing all bad philosophy from what\nalone deserves the name of philosophy. If thinking were no more than\nregistering abstract identities, it would be a most superfluous\nperformance. Things and concepts are identical with themselves only in\nso far as at the same time they involve distinction.'[1]\n\nThe distinction that Hegel has in mind here is naturally in the first\ninstance distinction from all other things or concepts. But in his\nhands this quickly develops into contradiction of them, and finally,\nreflected back upon itself, into self-contradiction; and the immanent\nself-contradictoriness of all finite concepts thenceforth becomes the\npropulsive logical force that moves the world.[2] 'Isolate a thing\nfrom all its relations,' says Dr. Edward Caird,[3] expounding Hegel,\n'and try to assert it by itself; you find that it has negated itself\nas well as its relations. The thing in itself is nothing.' Or, to\nquote Hegel's own words: 'When we suppose an existent A, and another,\nB, B is at first defined as the other. But A is just as much the other\nof B. Both are others in the same fashion.... \"Other\" is the other by\nitself, therefore the other of every other, consequently the other of\nitself, the simply unlike itself, the self-negator, the self-alterer,'\netc.[4] Hegel writes elsewhere: 'The finite, as implicitly other than\nwhat it is, is forced to surrender its own immediate or natural being,\nand to turn suddenly into its opposite.... Dialectic is the universal\nand irresistible power before which nothing can stay.... _Summum jus,\nsumma injuria_--to drive an abstract right to excess is to commit\ninjustice.... Extreme anarchy and extreme despotism lead to one\nanother. Pride comes before a fall. Too much wit outwits itself. Joy\nbrings tears, melancholy a sardonic smile.'[5] To which one well\nmight add that most human institutions, by the purely technical and\nprofessional manner in which they come to be administered, end by\nbecoming obstacles to the very purposes which their founders had in\nview.\n\nOnce catch well the knack of this scheme of thought and you are lucky\nif you ever get away from it. It is all you can see. Let any one\npronounce anything, and your feeling of a contradiction being implied\nbecomes a habit, almost a motor habit in some persons who symbolize by\na stereotyped gesture the position, sublation, and final reinstatement\ninvolved. If you say 'two' or 'many,' your speech betrayeth you, for\nthe very name collects them into one. If you express doubt, your\nexpression contradicts its content, for the doubt itself is not\ndoubted but affirmed. If you say 'disorder,' what is that but a\ncertain bad kind of order? if you say 'indetermination,' you are\ndetermining just _that_. If you say 'nothing but the unexpected\nhappens,' the unexpected becomes what you expect. If you say 'all\nthings are relative,' to what is the all of them itself relative? If\nyou say 'no more,' you have said more already, by implying a region\nin which no more is found; to know a limit as such is consequently\nalready to have got beyond it; And so forth, throughout as many\nexamples as one cares to cite.\n\nWhatever you posit appears thus as one-sided, and negates its other,\nwhich, being equally one-sided, negates _it_; and, since this\nsituation remains unstable, the two contradictory terms have together,\naccording to Hegel, to engender a higher truth of which they both\nappear as indispensable members, mutually mediating aspects of that\nhigher concept of situation in thought.\n\nEvery higher total, however provisional and relative, thus reconciles\nthe contradictions which its parts, abstracted from it, prove\nimplicitly to contain. Rationalism, you remember, is what I called the\nway of thinking that methodically subordinates parts to wholes, so\nHegel here is rationalistic through and through. The only whole by\nwhich _all_ contradictions are reconciled is for him the absolute\nwhole of wholes, the all-inclusive reason to which Hegel himself gave\nthe name of the absolute Idea, but which I shall continue to call 'the\nabsolute' purely and simply, as I have done hitherto.\n\nEmpirical instances of the way in which higher unities reconcile\ncontradictions are innumerable, so here again Hegel's vision, taken\nmerely impressionistically, agrees with countless facts. Somehow life\ndoes, out of its total resources, find ways of satisfying opposites\nat once. This is precisely the paradoxical aspect which much of our\ncivilization presents. Peace we secure by armaments, liberty by laws\nand constitutions; simplicity and naturalness are the consummate\nresult of artificial breeding and training; health, strength, and\nwealth are increased only by lavish use, expense, and wear. Our\nmistrust of mistrust engenders our commercial system of credit; our\ntolerance of anarchistic and revolutionary utterances is the only way\nof lessening their danger; our charity has to say no to beggars in\norder not to defeat its own desires; the true epicurean has to observe\ngreat sobriety; the way to certainty lies through radical doubt;\nvirtue signifies not innocence but the knowledge of sin and its\novercoming; by obeying nature, we command her, etc. The ethical and\nthe religious life are full of such contradictions held in solution.\nYou hate your enemy?--well, forgive him, and thereby heap coals of\nfire on his head; to realize yourself, renounce yourself; to save your\nsoul, first lose it; in short, die to live.\n\nFrom such massive examples one easily generalizes Hegel's vision.\nRoughly, his 'dialectic' picture is a fair account of a good deal of\nthe world. It sounds paradoxical, but whenever you once place yourself\nat the point of view; of any higher synthesis, you see exactly how\nit does in a fashion take up opposites into itself. As an example,\nconsider the conflict between our carnivorous appetites and hunting\ninstincts and the sympathy with animals which our refinement is\nbringing in its train. We have found how to reconcile these opposites\nmost effectively by establishing game-laws and close seasons and by\nkeeping domestic herds. The creatures preserved thus are preserved for\nthe sake of slaughter, truly, but if not preserved for that reason,\nnot one of them would be alive at all. Their will to live and our\nwill to kill them thus harmoniously combine in this peculiar higher\nsynthesis of domestication.\n\nMerely as a reporter of certain empirical aspects of the actual,\nHegel, then, is great and true. But he aimed at being something far\ngreater than an empirical reporter, so I must say something about that\nessential aspect of his thought. Hegel was dominated by the notion of\na truth that should prove incontrovertible, binding on every one,\nand certain, which should be _the_ truth, one, indivisible, eternal,\nobjective, and necessary, to which all our particular thinking\nmust lead as to its consummation. This is the dogmatic ideal,\nthe postulate, uncriticised, undoubted, and unchallenged, of all\nrationalizers in philosophy. '_I have never doubted_,' a recent Oxford\nwriter says, that truth is universal and single and timeless, a single\ncontent or significance, one and whole and complete.[6] Advance in\nthinking, in the hegelian universe, has, in short, to proceed by the\napodictic words _must be_ rather than by those inferior hypothetic\nwords _may be_, which are all that empiricists can use.\n\nNow Hegel found that his idea of an immanent movement through\nthe field of concepts by way of 'dialectic' negation played most\nbeautifully into the hands of this rationalistic demand for something\nabsolute and _inconcussum_ in the way of truth. It is easy to see how.\nIf you affirm anything, for example that A is, and simply leave the\nmatter thus, you leave it at the mercy of any one who may supervene\nand say 'not A, but B is.' If he does say so, your statement doesn't\nrefute him, it simply contradicts him, just as his contradicts you.\nThe only way of making your affirmation about A _self-securing_ is by\ngetting it into a form which will by implication negate all possible\nnegations in advance. The mere absence of negation is not enough; it\nmust be present, but present with its fangs drawn. What you posit as A\nmust already have cancelled the alternative or made it innocuous, by\nhaving negated it in advance. Double negation is the only form of\naffirmation that fully plays into the hands of the dogmatic ideal.\nSimply and innocently affirmative statements are good enough for\nempiricists, but unfit for rationalist use, lying open as they do to\nevery accidental contradictor, and exposed to every puff of doubt.\nThe _final_ truth must be something to which there is no imaginable\nalternative, because it contains all its possible alternatives inside\nof itself as moments already taken account of and overcome. Whatever\ninvolves its own alternatives as elements of itself is, in a phrase\noften repeated, its 'own other,' made so by the _methode der absoluten\nnegativit\u00e4t_.\n\nFormally, this scheme of an organism of truth that has already fed as\nit were on its own liability to death, so that, death once dead\nfor it, there's no more dying then, is the very fulfilment of the\nrationalistic aspiration. That one and only whole, with all its\nparts involved in it, negating and making one another impossible if\nabstracted and taken singly, but necessitating and holding one another\nin place if the whole of them be taken integrally, is the literal\nideal sought after; it is the very diagram and picture of that notion\nof _the_ truth with no outlying alternative, to which nothing can be\nadded, nor from it anything withdrawn, and all variations from which\nare absurd, which so dominates the human imagination. Once we have\ntaken in the features of this diagram that so successfully solves\nthe world-old problem, the older ways of proving the necessity of\njudgments cease to give us satisfaction. Hegel's way we think must\nbe the right way. The true must be essentially the self-reflecting\nself-contained recurrent, that which secures itself by including its\nown other and negating it; that makes a spherical system with no loose\nends hanging out for foreignness to get a hold upon; that is forever\nrounded in and closed, not strung along rectilinearly and open at its\nends like that universe of simply collective or additive form which\nHegel calls the world of the bad infinite, and which is all that\nempiricism, starting with simply posited single parts and elements, is\never able to attain to.\n\nNo one can possibly deny the sublimity of this hegelian conception.\nIt is surely in the grand style, if there be such a thing as a grand\nstyle in philosophy. For us, however, it remains, so far, a merely\nformal and diagrammatic conception; for with the actual content\nof absolute truth, as Hegel materially tries to set it forth, few\ndisciples have been satisfied, and I do not propose to refer at all to\nthe concreter parts of his philosophy. The main thing now is to grasp\nthe generalized vision, and feel the authority of the abstract scheme\nof a statement self-secured by involving double negation. Absolutists\nwho make no use of Hegel's own technique are really working by his\nmethod. You remember the proofs of the absolute which I instanced in\nmy last lecture, Lotze's and Royce's proofs by _reductio ad absurdum_,\nto the effect that any smallest connexion rashly supposed in things\nwill logically work out into absolute union, and any minimal\ndisconnexion into absolute disunion,--these are really arguments\nframed on the hegelian pattern. The truth is that which you implicitly\naffirm in the very attempt to deny it; it is that from which every\nvariation refutes itself by proving self-contradictory. This is the\nsupreme insight of rationalism, and to-day the best _must-be's_ of\nrationalist argumentation are but so many attempts to communicate it\nto the hearer.\n\nThus, you see, my last lecture and this lecture make connexion again\nand we can consider Hegel and the other absolutists to be supporting\nthe same system. The next point I wish to dwell on is the part played\nby what I have called vicious intellectualism in this wonderful\nsystem's structure.\n\nRationalism in general thinks it gets the fulness of truth by turning\naway from sensation to conception, conception obviously giving the\nmore universal and immutable picture. Intellectualism in the vicious\nsense I have already defined as the habit of assuming that a concept\n_ex_cludes from any reality conceived by its means everything not\nincluded in the concept's definition. I called such intellectualism\nillegitimate as I found it used in Lotze's, Royce's, and Bradley's\nproofs of the absolute (which absolute I consequently held to be\nnon-proven by their arguments), and I left off by asserting my own\nbelief that a pluralistic and incompletely integrated universe,\ndescribable only by the free use of the word 'some,' is a legitimate\nhypothesis.\n\nNow Hegel himself, in building up his method of double negation,\noffers the vividest possible example of this vice of intellectualism.\nEvery idea of a finite thing is of course a concept of _that_ thing\nand not a concept of anything else. But Hegel treats this not being a\nconcept of anything else as if it were _equivalent to the concept of\nanything else not being_, or in other words as if it were a denial\nor negation of everything else. Then, as the other things, thus\nimplicitly contradicted by the thing first conceived, also by the same\nlaw contradict _it_, the pulse of dialectic commences to beat and the\nfamous triads begin to grind out the cosmos. If any one finds\nthe process here to be a luminous one, he must be left to the\nillumination, he must remain an undisturbed hegelian. What others feel\nas the intolerable ambiguity, verbosity, and unscrupulousness of the\nmaster's way of deducing things, he will probably ascribe--since\ndivine oracles are notoriously hard to interpret--to the 'difficulty'\nthat habitually accompanies profundity. For my own part, there seems\nsomething grotesque and _saugrenu_ in the pretension of a style so\ndisobedient to the first rules of sound communication between minds,\nto be the authentic mother-tongue of reason, and to keep step more\naccurately than any other style does with the absolute's own ways\nof thinking. I do not therefore take Hegel's technical apparatus\nseriously at all. I regard him rather as one of those numerous\noriginal seers who can never learn how to articulate. His would-be\ncoercive logic counts for nothing in my eyes; but that does not in\nthe least impugn the philosophic importance of his conception of the\nabsolute, if we take it merely hypothetically as one of the great\ntypes of cosmic vision.\n\nTaken thus hypothetically, I wish to discuss it briefly. But before\ndoing so I must call your attention to an odd peculiarity in the\nhegelian procedure. The peculiarity is one which will come before us\nagain for a final judgment in my seventh lecture, so at present I only\nnote it in passing. Hegel, you remember, considers that the immediate\nfinite data of experience are 'untrue' because they are not their own\nothers. They are negated by what is external to them. The absolute\nis true because it and it only has no external environment, and has\nattained to being its own other. (These words sound queer enough, but\nthose of you who know something of Hegel's text will follow them.)\nGranting his premise that to be true a thing must in some sort be its\nown other, everything hinges on whether he is right in holding that\nthe several pieces of finite experience themselves cannot be said\nto be in any wise _their_ own others. When conceptually or\nintellectualistically treated, they of course cannot be their own\nothers. Every abstract concept as such excludes what it doesn't\ninclude, and if such concepts are adequate substitutes for\nreality's concrete pulses, the latter must square themselves with\nintellectualistic logic, and no one of them in any sense can claim to\nbe its own other. If, however, the conceptual treatment of the flow of\nreality should prove for any good reason to be inadequate and to have\na practical rather than a theoretical or speculative value, then an\nindependent empirical look into the constitution of reality's pulses\nmight possibly show that some of them _are_ their own others, and\nindeed are so in the self-same sense in which the absolute is\nmaintained to be so by Hegel. When we come to my sixth lecture,\non Professor Bergson, I shall in effect defend this very view,\nstrengthening my thesis by his authority. I am unwilling to say\nanything more about the point at this time, and what I have just said\nof it is only a sort of surveyor's note of where our present position\nlies in the general framework of these lectures.\n\nLet us turn now at last to the great question of fact, _Does the\nabsolute exist or not_? to which all our previous discussion has been\npreliminary. I may sum up that discussion by saying that whether\nthere really be an absolute or not, no one makes himself absurd\nor self-contradictory by doubting or denying it. The charges of\nself-contradiction, where they do not rest on purely verbal reasoning,\nrest on a vicious intellectualism. I will not recapitulate my\ncriticisms. I will simply ask you to change the _venue_, and to\ndiscuss the absolute now as if it were only an open hypothesis. As\nsuch, is it more probable or more improbable?\n\nBut first of all I must parenthetically ask you to distinguish the\nnotion of the absolute carefully from that of another object with\nwhich it is liable to become heedlessly entangled. That other object\nis the 'God' of common people in their religion, and the creator-God\nof orthodox christian theology. Only thoroughgoing monists or\npantheists believe in the absolute. The God of our popular\nChristianity is but one member of a pluralistic system. He and we\nstand outside of each other, just as the devil, the saints, and the\nangels stand outside of both of us. I can hardly conceive of anything\nmore different from the absolute than the God, say, of David or of\nIsaiah. _That_ God is an essentially finite being _in_ the cosmos,\nnot with the cosmos in him, and indeed he has a very local habitation\nthere, and very one-sided local and personal attachments. If it should\nprove probable that the absolute does not exist, it will not follow in\nthe slightest degree that a God like that of David, Isaiah, or Jesus\nmay not exist, or may not be the most important existence in the\nuniverse for us to acknowledge. I pray you, then, not to confound the\ntwo ideas as you listen to the criticisms I shall have to proffer.\nI hold to the finite God, for reasons which I shall touch on in the\nseventh of these lectures; but I hold that his rival and competitor--I\nfeel almost tempted to say his enemy--the absolute, is not only not\nforced on us by logic, but that it is an improbable hypothesis.\n\nThe great claim made for the absolute is that by supposing it we make\nthe world appear more rational. Any hypothesis that does that will\nalways be accepted as more probably true than an hypothesis that makes\nthe world appear irrational. Men are once for all so made that they\nprefer a rational world to believe in and to live in. But rationality\nhas at least four dimensions, intellectual, aesthetical, moral, and\npractical; and to find a world rational to the maximal degree _in all\nthese respects simultaneously_ is no easy matter. Intellectually, the\nworld of mechanical materialism is the most rational, for we subject\nits events to mathematical calculation. But the mechanical world\nis ugly, as arithmetic is ugly, and it is non-moral. Morally,\nthe theistic world is rational enough, but full of intellectual\nfrustrations. The practical world of affairs, in its turn, so\nsupremely rational to the politician, the military man, or the man of\nconquering business-faculty that he never would vote to change the\ntype of it, is irrational to moral and artistic temperaments; so that\nwhatever demand for rationality we find satisfied by a philosophic\nhypothesis, we are liable to find some other demand for rationality\nunsatisfied by the same hypothesis. The rationality we gain in one\ncoin we thus pay for in another; and the problem accordingly seems at\nfirst sight to resolve itself into that of getting a conception which\nwill yield the largest _balance_ of rationality rather than one which\nwill yield perfect rationality of every description. In general, it\nmay be said that if a man's conception of the world lets loose any\naction in him that is easy, or any faculty which he is fond of\nexercising, he will deem it rational in so far forth, be the faculty\nthat of computing, fighting, lecturing, classifying, framing schematic\ntabulations, getting the better end of a bargain, patiently waiting\nand enduring, preaching, joke-making, or what you like. Albeit the\nabsolute is defined as being necessarily an embodiment of objectively\nperfect rationality, it is fair to its english advocates to say that\nthose who have espoused the hypothesis most concretely and seriously\nhave usually avowed the irrationality to their own minds of certain\nelements in it.\n\nProbably the weightiest contribution to our feeling of the rationality\nof the universe which the notion of the absolute brings is the\nassurance that however disturbed the surface may be, at bottom all is\nwell with the cosmos--central peace abiding at the heart of endless\nagitation. This conception is rational in many ways, beautiful\naesthetically, beautiful intellectually (could we only follow it into\ndetail), and beautiful morally, if the enjoyment of security can be\naccounted moral. Practically it is less beautiful; for, as we saw in\nour last lecture, in representing the deepest reality of the world as\nstatic and without a history, it loosens the world's hold upon our\nsympathies and leaves the soul of it foreign. Nevertheless it does\ngive _peace_, and that kind of rationality is so paramountly demanded\nby men that to the end of time there will be absolutists, men who\nchoose belief in a static eternal, rather than admit that the finite\nworld of change and striving, even with a God as one of the strivers,\nis itself eternal. For such minds Professor Royce's words will always\nbe the truest: 'The very presence of ill in the temporal order is the\ncondition of the perfection of the eternal order.... We long for the\nabsolute only in so far as in us the absolute also longs, and seeks\nthrough our very temporal striving, the peace that is nowhere in time,\nbut only, and yet absolutely, in eternity. Were there no longing in\ntime there would be no peace in eternity.... God [_i.e._ the absolute]\nwho here in me aims at what I now temporally miss, not only possesses\nin the eternal world the goal after which I strive, but comes to\npossess it even through and because of my sorrow. Through this my\ntribulation the absolute triumph then is won.... In the absolute I am\nfulfilled. Yet my very fulfilment demands and therefore can transcend\nthis sorrow.'[7] Royce is particularly felicitous in his ability to\ncite parts of finite experience to which he finds his picture of this\nabsolute experience analogous. But it is hard to portray the absolute\nat all without rising into what might be called the 'inspired' style\nof language--I use the word not ironically, but prosaically and\ndescriptively, to designate the only literary form that goes with the\nkind of emotion that the absolute arouses. One can follow the pathway\nof reasoning soberly enough,[8] but the picture itself has to be\neffulgent. This admirable faculty of transcending, whilst inwardly\npreserving, every contrariety, is the absolute's characteristic form\nof rationality. We are but syllables in the mouth of the Lord; if the\nwhole sentence is divine, each syllable is absolutely what it should\nbe, in spite of all appearances. In making up the balance for or\nagainst absolutism, this emotional value weights heavily the credit\nside of the account.\n\nThe trouble is that we are able to see so little into the positive\ndetail of it, and that if once admitted not to be coercively proven\nby the intellectualist arguments, it remains only a hypothetic\npossibility.\n\nOn the debit side of the account the absolute, taken seriously, and\nnot as a mere name for our right occasionally to drop the strenuous\nmood and take a moral holiday, introduces all those tremendous\nirrationalities into the universe which a frankly pluralistic theism\nescapes, but which have been flung as a reproach at every form of\nmonistic theism or pantheism. It introduces a speculative 'problem\nof evil' namely, and leaves us wondering why the perfection of the\nabsolute should require just such particular hideous forms of life as\ndarken the day for our human imaginations. If they were forced on it\nby something alien, and to 'overcome' them the absolute had still to\nkeep hold of them, we could understand its feeling of triumph, though\nwe, so far as we were ourselves among the elements overcome, could\nacquiesce but sullenly in the resultant situation, and would never\njust have chosen it as the most rational one conceivable. But the\nabsolute is represented as a being without environment, upon which\nnothing alien can be forced, and which has spontaneously chosen from\nwithin to give itself the spectacle of all that evil rather than a\nspectacle with less evil in it.[9] Its perfection is represented as\nthe source of things, and yet the first effect of that perfection is\nthe tremendous imperfection of all finite experience. In whatever\nsense the word 'rationality' may be taken, it is vain to contend that\nthe impression made on our finite minds by such a way of representing\nthings is altogether rational. Theologians have felt its irrationality\nacutely, and the 'fall,' the predestination, and the election which\nthe situation involves have given them more trouble than anything else\nin their attempt to pantheize Christianity. The whole business remains\na puzzle, both intellectually and morally.\n\nGrant that the spectacle or world-romance offered to itself by the\nabsolute is in the absolute's eyes perfect. Why would not the world be\nmore perfect by having the affair remain in just those terms, and\nby not having any finite spectators to come in and add to what was\nperfect already their innumerable imperfect manners of seeing the same\nspectacle? Suppose the entire universe to consist of one superb copy\nof a book, fit for the ideal reader. Is that universe improved or\ndeteriorated by having myriads of garbled and misprinted separate\nleaves and chapters also created, giving false impressions of the book\nto whoever looks at them? To say the least, the balance of rationality\nis not obviously in favor of such added mutilations. So this question\nbecomes urgent: Why, the absolute's own total vision of things\nbeing so rational, was it necessary to comminute it into all these\ncoexisting inferior fragmentary visions?\n\nLeibnitz in his theodicy represents God as limited by an antecedent\nreason in things which makes certain combinations logically\nincompatible, certain goods impossible. He surveys in advance all the\nuniverses he might create, and by an act of what Leibnitz calls his\nantecedent will he chooses our actual world as the one in which the\nevil, unhappily necessary anyhow, is at its minimum. It is the best of\nall the worlds that are possible, therefore, but by no means the most\nabstractly desirable world. Having made this mental choice, God next\nproceeds to what Leibnitz calls his act of consequent or decretory\nwill: he says '_Fiat_' and the world selected springs into objective\nbeing, with all the finite creatures in it to suffer from its\nimperfections without sharing in its creator's atoning vision.\n\nLotze has made some penetrating remarks on this conception of\nLeibnitz's, and they exactly fall in with what I say of the absolutist\nconception. The world projected out of the creative mind by the\n_fiat_, and existing in detachment from its author, is a sphere of\nbeing where the parts realize themselves only singly. If the divine\nvalue of them is evident only when they are collectively looked at,\nthen, Lotze rightly says, the world surely becomes poorer and not\nricher for God's utterance of the _fiat_. He might much better have\nremained contented with his merely antecedent choice of the scheme,\nwithout following it up by a creative decree. The scheme _as such_ was\nadmirable; it could only lose by being translated into reality.[10]\nWhy, I similarly ask, should the absolute ever have lapsed from the\nperfection of its own integral experience of things, and refracted\nitself into all our finite experiences?\n\nIt is but fair to recent english absolutists to say that many of them\nhave confessed the imperfect rationality of the absolute from this\npoint of view. Mr. McTaggart, for example, writes: 'Does not our very\nfailure to perceive the perfection of the universe destroy it? ... In\nso far as we do not see the perfection of the universe, we are not\nperfect ourselves. And as we are parts of the universe, that cannot be\nperfect.'[11]\n\nAnd Mr. Joachim finds just the same difficulty. Calling the hypothesis\nof the absolute by the name of the 'coherence theory of truth,' he\ncalls the problem of understanding how the complete coherence of all\nthings in the absolute should involve as a necessary moment in\nits self-maintenance the self-assertion of the finite minds, a\nself-assertion which in its extreme form is error,--he calls this\nproblem, I say, an insoluble puzzle. If truth be the universal _fons\net origo_, how does error slip in? 'The coherence theory of truth,' he\nconcludes, 'may thus be said to suffer shipwreck at the very\nentrance of the harbor.'[12] Yet in spite of this rather bad form\nof irrationality, Mr. Joachim stoutly asserts his 'immediate\ncertainty'[13] of the theory shipwrecked, the correctness of which\nhe says he has 'never doubted.' This candid confession of a fixed\nattitude of faith in the absolute, which even one's own criticisms and\nperplexities fail to disturb, seems to me very significant. Not only\nempiricists, but absolutists also, would all, if they were as candid\nas this author, confess that the prime thing in their philosophy\nis their vision of a truth possible, which they then employ their\nreasoning to convert, as best it can, into a certainty or probability.\n\nI can imagine a believer in the absolute retorting at this point that\n_he_ at any rate is not dealing with mere probabilities, but that\nthe nature of things logically requires the multitudinous erroneous\ncopies, and that therefore the universe cannot be the absolute's book\nalone. For, he will ask, is not the absolute defined as the total\nconsciousness of everything that is? Must not its field of view\nconsist of parts? And what can the parts of a total consciousness be\nunless they be fractional consciousnesses? Our finite minds _must_\ntherefore coexist with the absolute mind. We are its constituents, and\nit cannot live without us.--But if any one of you feels tempted to\nretort in this wise, let me remind you that you are frankly employing\npluralistic weapons, and thereby giving up the absolutist cause. The\nnotion that the absolute is made of constituents on which its being\ndepends is the rankest empiricism. The absolute as such has _objects_,\nnot constituents, and if the objects develop selfhoods upon their own\nseveral accounts, those selfhoods must be set down as facts additional\nto the absolute consciousness, and not as elements implicated in its\ndefinition. The absolute is a rationalist conception. Rationalism\ngoes from wholes to parts, and always assumes wholes to be\nself-sufficing.[14]\n\nMy conclusion, so far, then, is this, that altho the hypothesis of the\nabsolute, in yielding a certain kind of religious peace, performs\na most important rationalizing function, it nevertheless, from\nthe intellectual point of view, remains decidedly irrational. The\n_ideally_ perfect whole is certainly that whole of which the _parts\nalso are perfect_--if we can depend on logic for anything, we can\ndepend on it for that definition. The absolute is defined as the\nideally perfect whole, yet most of its parts, if not all, are\nadmittedly imperfect. Evidently the conception lacks internal\nconsistency, and yields us a problem rather than a solution. It\ncreates a speculative puzzle, the so-called mystery of evil and of\nerror, from which a pluralistic metaphysic is entirely free.\n\nIn any pluralistic metaphysic, the problems that evil presents are\npractical, not speculative. Not why evil should exist at all, but how\nwe can lessen the actual amount of it, is the sole question we need\nthere consider. 'God,' in the religious life of ordinary men, is the\nname not of the whole of things, heaven forbid, but only of the ideal\ntendency in things, believed in as a superhuman person who calls us to\nco-operate in his purposes, and who furthers ours if they are worthy.\nHe works in an external environment, has limits, and has enemies. When\nJohn Mill said that the notion of God's omnipotence must be given up,\nif God is to be kept as a religious object, he was surely accurately\nright; yet so prevalent is the lazy monism that idly haunts the region\nof God's name, that so simple and truthful a saying was generally\ntreated as a paradox: God, it was said, _could_ not be finite. I\nbelieve that the only God worthy of the name _must_ be finite, and I\nshall return to this point in a later lecture. If the absolute exist\nin addition--and the hypothesis must, in spite of its irrational\nfeatures, still be left open--then the absolute is only the wider\ncosmic whole of which our God is but the most ideal portion, and which\nin the more usual human sense is hardly to be termed a religious\nhypothesis at all. 'Cosmic emotion' is the better name for the\nreaction it may awaken.\n\nObserve that all the irrationalities and puzzles which the absolute\ngives rise to, and from which the finite God remains free, are due to\nthe fact that the absolute has nothing, absolutely nothing, outside of\nitself. The finite God whom I contrast with it may conceivably have\n_almost_ nothing outside of himself; he may already have triumphed\nover and absorbed all but the minutest fraction of the universe; but\nthat fraction, however small, reduces him to the status of a\nrelative being, and in principle the universe is saved from all the\nirrationalities incidental to absolutism. The only irrationality left\nwould be the irrationality of which pluralism as such is accused, and\nof this I hope to say a word more later.\n\nI have tired you with so many subtleties in this lecture that I will\nadd only two other counts to my indictment.\n\nFirst, then, let me remind you that _the absolute is useless for\ndeductive purposes_. It gives us absolute safety if you will, but\nit is compatible with every relative danger. You cannot enter the\nphenomenal world with the notion of it in your grasp, and name\nbeforehand any detail which you are likely to meet there. Whatever the\ndetails of experience may prove to be, _after the fact of them_\nthe absolute will adopt them. It is an hypothesis that functions\nretrospectively only, not prospectively. _That_, whatever it may be,\nwill have been in point of fact the sort of world which the absolute\nwas pleased to offer to itself as a spectacle.\n\nAgain, the absolute is always represented idealistically, as the\nall-knower. Thinking this view consistently out leads one to frame\nan almost ridiculous conception of the absolute mind, owing to the\nenormous mass of unprofitable information which it would then seem\nobliged to carry. One of the many _reductiones ad absurdum_ of\npluralism by which idealism thinks it proves the absolute One is as\nfollows: Let there be many facts; but since on idealist principles\nfacts exist only by being known, the many facts will therefore mean\nmany knowers. But that there are so many knowers is itself a fact,\nwhich in turn requires _its_ knower, so the one absolute knower has\neventually to be brought in. _All_ facts lead to him. If it be a fact\nthat this table is not a chair, not a rhinoceros, not a logarithm, not\na mile away from the door, not worth five hundred pounds sterling, not\na thousand centuries old, the absolute must even now be articulately\naware of all these negations. Along with what everything is it must\nalso be conscious of everything which it is not. This infinite\natmosphere of explicit negativity--observe that it has to be\nexplicit--around everything seems to us so useless an encumbrance as\nto make the absolute still more foreign to our sympathy. Furthermore,\nif it be a fact that certain ideas are silly, the absolute has to have\nalready thought the silly ideas to establish them in silliness. The\nrubbish in its mind would thus appear easily to outweigh in amount the\nmore desirable material. One would expect it fairly to burst with such\nan obesity, plethora, and superfoetation of useless information.[15]\n\nI will spare you further objections. The sum of it all is that the\nabsolute is not forced on our belief by logic, that it involves\nfeatures of irrationality peculiar to itself, and that a thinker\nto whom it does not come as an 'immediate certainty' (to use Mr.\nJoachim's words), is in no way bound to treat it as anything but an\nemotionally rather sublime hypothesis. As such, it might, with all its\ndefects, be, on account of its peace-conferring power and its formal\ngrandeur, more rational than anything else in the field. But meanwhile\nthe strung-along unfinished world in time is its rival: _reality MAY\nexist in distributive form, in the shape not of an all but of a set of\neaches, just as it seems to_--this is the anti-absolutist hypothesis.\n_Prima facie_ there is this in favor of the eaches, that they are at\nany rate real enough to have made themselves at least _appear_ to\nevery one, whereas the absolute has as yet appeared immediately to\nonly a few mystics, and indeed to them very ambiguously. The advocates\nof the absolute assure us that any distributive form of being is\ninfected and undermined by self-contradiction. If we are unable to\nassimilate their arguments, and we have been unable, the only course\nwe can take, it seems to me, is to let the absolute bury the absolute,\nand to seek reality in more promising directions, even among the\ndetails of the finite and the immediately given.\n\nIf these words of mine sound in bad taste to some of you, or even\nsacrilegious, I am sorry. Perhaps the impression may be mitigated by\nwhat I have to say in later lectures.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV\n\n\nCONCERNING FECHNER\n\nThe prestige of the absolute has rather crumbled in our hands.\nThe logical proofs of it miss fire; the portraits which its best\ncourt-painters show of it are featureless and foggy in the extreme;\nand, apart from the cold comfort of assuring us that with _it_ all is\nwell, and that to see that all is well with us also we need only rise\nto its eternal point of view, it yields us no relief whatever. It\nintroduces, on the contrary, into philosophy and theology certain\npoisonous difficulties of which but for its intrusion we never should\nhave heard.\n\nBut if we drop the absolute out of the world, must we then conclude\nthat the world contains nothing better in the way of consciousness\nthan our consciousness? Is our whole instinctive belief in higher\npresences, our persistent inner turning towards divine companionship,\nto count for nothing? Is it but the pathetic illusion of beings with\nincorrigibly social and imaginative minds?\n\nSuch a negative conclusion would, I believe, be desperately hasty,\na sort of pouring out of the child with the bath. Logically it is\npossible to believe in superhuman beings without identifying them with\nthe absolute at all. The treaty of offensive and defensive alliance\nwhich certain groups of the Christian clergy have recently made with\nour transcendentalist philosophers seems to me to be based on a\nwell-meaning but baleful mistake. Neither the Jehovah of the old\ntestament nor the heavenly father of the new has anything in common\nwith the absolute except that they are all three greater than man;\nand if you say that the notion of the absolute is what the gods of\nAbraham, of David, and of Jesus, after first developing into each\nother, were inevitably destined to develop into in more reflective\nand modern minds, I reply that although in certain specifically\nphilosophical minds this may have been the case, in minds more\nproperly to be termed religious the development has followed quite\nanother path. The whole history of evangelical Christianity is there\nto prove it. I propose in these lectures to plead for that other line\nof development. To set the doctrine of the absolute in its proper\nframework, so that it shall not fill the whole welkin and exclude all\nalternative possibilities of higher thought--as it seems to do for\nmany students who approach it with a limited previous acquaintance\nwith philosophy--I will contrast it with a system which, abstractly\nconsidered, seems at first to have much in common with absolutism, but\nwhich, when taken concretely and temperamentally, really stands at the\nopposite pole. I refer to the philosophy of Gustav Theodor Fechner, a\nwriter but little known as yet to English readers, but destined, I am\npersuaded, to wield more and more influence as time goes on.\n\nIt is the intense concreteness of Fechner, his fertility of detail,\nwhich fills me with an admiration which I should like to make this\naudience share. Among the philosophic cranks of my acquaintance in the\npast was a lady all the tenets of whose system I have forgotten except\none. Had she been born in the Ionian Archipelago some three thousand\nyears ago, that one doctrine would probably have made her name sure\nof a place in every university curriculum and examination paper. The\nworld, she said, is composed of only two elements, the Thick, namely,\nand the Thin. No one can deny the truth of this analysis, as far as it\ngoes (though in the light of our contemporary knowledge of nature it\nhas itself a rather 'thin' sound), and it is nowhere truer than in\nthat part of the world called philosophy. I am sure, for example, that\nmany of you, listening to what poor account I have been able to\ngive of transcendental idealism, have received an impression of its\narguments being strangely thin, and of the terms it leaves us with\nbeing shiveringly thin wrappings for so thick and burly a world as\nthis. Some of you of course will charge the thinness to my exposition;\nbut thin as that has been, I believe the doctrines reported on to have\nbeen thinner. From Green to Haldane the absolute proposed to us to\nstraighten out the confusions of the thicket of experience in which\nour life is passed remains a pure abstraction which hardly any one\ntries to make a whit concreter. If we open Green, we get nothing but\nthe transcendental ego of apperception (Kant's name for the fact that\nto be counted in experience a thing has to be witnessed), blown up\ninto a sort of timeless soap-bubble large enough to mirror the whole\nuniverse. Nature, Green keeps insisting, consists only in\nrelations, and these imply the action of a mind that is eternal;\na self-distinguishing consciousness which itself escapes from the\nrelations by which it determines other things. Present to whatever is\nin succession, it is not in succession itself. If we take the Cairds,\nthey tell us little more of the principle of the universe--it is\nalways a return into the identity of the self from the difference of\nits objects. It separates itself from them and so becomes conscious of\nthem in their separation from one another, while at the same time it\nbinds them together as elements in one higher self-consciousness.\n\nThis seems the very quintessence of thinness; and the matter hardly\ngrows thicker when we gather, after enormous amounts of reading, that\nthe great enveloping self in question is absolute reason as such, and\nthat as such it is characterized by the habit of using certain jejune\n'categories' with which to perform its eminent relating work. The\nwhole active material of natural fact is tried out, and only the\nbarest intellectualistic formalism remains.\n\nHegel tried, as we saw, to make the system concreter by making the\nrelations between things 'dialectic,' but if we turn to those who use\nhis name most worshipfully, we find them giving up all the particulars\nof his attempt, and simply praising his intention--much as in our\nmanner we have praised it ourselves. Mr. Haldane, for example, in his\nwonderfully clever Gifford lectures, praises Hegel to the skies, but\nwhat he tells of him amounts to little more than this, that 'the\ncategories in which the mind arranges its experiences, and gives\nmeaning to them, the universals in which the particulars are grasped\nin the individual, are a logical chain, in which the first presupposes\nthe last, and the last is its presupposition and its truth.' He hardly\ntries at all to thicken this thin logical scheme. He says indeed\nthat absolute mind in itself, and absolute mind in its hetereity or\notherness, under the distinction which it sets up of itself from\nitself, have as their real _prius_ absolute mind in synthesis; and,\nthis being absolute mind's true nature, its dialectic character must\nshow itself in such concrete forms as Goethe's and Wordsworth's\npoetry, as well as in religious forms. 'The nature of God, the nature\nof absolute mind, is to exhibit the triple movement of dialectic, and\nso the nature of God as presented in religion must be a triplicity,\na trinity.' But beyond thus naming Goethe and Wordsworth and\nestablishing the trinity, Mr. Haldane's Hegelianism carries us hardly\nan inch into the concrete detail of the world we actually inhabit.\n\nEqually thin is Mr. Taylor, both in his principles and in their\nresults. Following Mr. Bradley, he starts by assuring us that reality\ncannot be self-contradictory, but to be related to anything really\noutside of one's self is to be self-contradictory, so the ultimate\nreality must be a single all-inclusive systematic whole. Yet all he\ncan say of this whole at the end of his excellently written book is\nthat the notion of it 'can make no addition to our information and can\nof itself supply no motives for practical endeavor.'\n\nMr. McTaggart treats us to almost as thin a fare. 'The main practical\ninterest of Hegel's philosophy,' he says, 'is to be found in the\nabstract certainty which the logic gives us that all reality is\nrational and righteous, even when we cannot see in the least how it is\nso.... Not that it shows us how the facts around us are good, not that\nit shows us how we can make them better, but that it proves that they,\nlike other reality, are _sub specie eternitatis_, perfectly good, and\n_sub specie temporis_, destined to become perfectly good.'\n\nHere again, no detail whatever, only the abstract certainty that\nwhatever the detail may prove to be, it will be good. Common\nnon-dialectical men have already this certainty as a result of the\ngenerous vital enthusiasm about the universe with which they are born.\nThe peculiarity of transcendental philosophy is its sovereign contempt\nfor merely vital functions like enthusiasm, and its pretension to turn\nour simple and immediate trusts and faiths into the form of logically\nmediated certainties, to question which would be absurd. But the whole\nbasis on which Mr. McTaggart's own certainty so solidly rests, settles\ndown into the one nutshell of an assertion into which he puts Hegel's\ngospel, namely, that in every bit of experience and thought, however\nfinite, the whole of reality (the absolute idea, as Hegel calls it) is\n'implicitly present.'\n\nThis indeed is Hegel's _vision_, and Hegel thought that the details of\nhis dialectic proved its truth. But disciples who treat the details of\nthe proof as unsatisfactory and yet cling to the vision, are surely,\nin spite of their pretension to a more rational consciousness, no\nbetter than common men with their enthusiasms or deliberately adopted\nfaiths. We have ourselves seen some of the weakness of the monistic\nproofs. Mr. McTaggart picks plenty of holes of his own in Hegel's\nlogic, and finally concludes that 'all true philosophy must be\nmystical, not indeed in its methods but in its final conclusions,'\nwhich is as much as to say that the rationalistic methods leave us\nin the lurch, in spite of all their superiority, and that in the end\nvision and faith must eke them out. But how abstract and thin is\nhere the vision, to say nothing of the faith! The whole of reality,\nexplicitly absent from our finite experiences, must nevertheless\nbe present in them all implicitly, altho no one of us can ever see\nhow--the bare word 'implicit' here bearing the whole pyramid of the\nmonistic system on its slender point. Mr. Joachim's monistic system of\ntruth rests on an even slenderer point.--_I have never doubted_,'\nhe says, 'that universal and timeless truth is a single content or\nsignificance, one and whole and complete,' and he candidly confesses\nthe failure of rationalistic attempts 'to raise this immediate\ncertainty' to the level of reflective knowledge. There is, in short,\nno mediation for him between the Truth in capital letters and all\nthe little 'lower-case' truths--and errors--which life presents. The\npsychological fact that he never has 'doubted' is enough.\n\nThe whole monistic pyramid, resting on points as thin as these, seems\nto me to be a _machtspruch_, a product of will far more than one of\nreason. Unity is good, therefore things _shall_ cohere; they _shall_\nbe one; there _shall_ be categories to make them one, no matter what\nempirical disjunctions may appear. In Hegel's own writings, the\n_shall-be_ temper is ubiquitous and towering; it overrides verbal and\nlogical resistances alike. Hegel's error, as Professor Royce so well\nsays, 'lay not in introducing logic into passion,' as some people\ncharge, 'but in conceiving the logic of passion as the only logic....\nHe is [thus] suggestive,' Royce says, 'but never final. His system as\na system has crumbled, but his vital comprehension of our life remains\nforever.'[1]\n\nThat vital comprehension we have already seen. It is that there is a\nsense in which real things are not merely their own bare selves, but\nmay vaguely be treated as also their own others, and that ordinary\nlogic, since it denies this, must be overcome. Ordinary logic denies\nthis because it substitutes concepts for real things, and concepts\n_are_ their own bare selves and nothing else. What Royce calls Hegel's\n'system' was Hegel's attempt to make us believe that he was working\nby concepts and grinding out a higher style of logic, when in reality\nsensible experiences, hypotheses, and passion furnished him with all\nhis results.\n\nWhat I myself may mean by things being their own others, we shall see\nin a later lecture. It is now time to take our look at Fechner, whose\nthickness is a refreshing contrast to the thin, abstract, indigent,\nand threadbare appearance, the starving, school-room aspect, which the\nspeculations of most of our absolutist philosophers present.\n\nThere is something really weird and uncanny in the contrast between\nthe abstract pretensions of rationalism and what rationalistic methods\nconcretely can do. If the 'logical prius' of our mind were really the\n'implicit presence' of the whole 'concrete universal,' the whole of\nreason, or reality, or spirit, or the absolute idea, or whatever it\nmay be called, in all our finite thinking, and if this reason worked\n(for example) by the dialectical method, doesn't it seem odd that\nin the greatest instance of rationalization mankind has known, in\n'science,' namely, the dialectical method should never once have been\ntried? Not a solitary instance of the use of it in science occurs\nto my mind. Hypotheses, and deductions from these, controlled by\nsense-observations and analogies with what we know elsewhere, are to\nbe thanked for all of science's results.\n\nFechner used no methods but these latter ones in arguing for his\nmetaphysical conclusions about reality--but let me first rehearse a\nfew of the facts about his life.\n\nBorn in 1801, the son of a poor country pastor in Saxony, he lived\nfrom 1817 to 1887, when he died, seventy years therefore, at Leipzig,\na typical _gelehrter_ of the old-fashioned german stripe. His means\nwere always scanty, so his only extravagances could be in the way\nof thought, but these were gorgeous ones. He passed his medical\nexaminations at Leipzig University at the age of twenty-one, but\ndecided, instead of becoming a doctor, to devote himself to physical\nscience. It was ten years before he was made professor of physics,\nalthough he soon was authorized to lecture. Meanwhile, he had to make\nboth ends meet, and this he did by voluminous literary labors. He\ntranslated, for example, the four volumes of Biot's treatise on\nphysics, and the six of Th\u00e9nard's work on chemistry, and took care of\ntheir enlarged editions later. He edited repertories of chemistry\nand physics, a pharmaceutical journal, and an encyclopaedia in eight\nvolumes, of which he wrote about one third. He published physical\ntreatises and experimental investigations of his own, especially in\nelectricity. Electrical measurements, as you know, are the basis of\nelectrical science, and Fechner's measurements in galvanism, performed\nwith the simplest self-made apparatus, are classic to this day.\nDuring this time he also published a number of half-philosophical,\nhalf-humorous writings, which have gone through several editions,\nunder the name of Dr. Mises, besides poems, literary and artistic\nessays, and other occasional articles.\n\nBut overwork, poverty, and an eye-trouble produced by his observations\non after-images in the retina (also a classic piece of investigation)\nproduced in Fechner, then about thirty-eight years old, a terrific\nattack of nervous prostration with painful hyperaesthesia of all the\nfunctions, from which he suffered three years, cut off entirely from\nactive life. Present-day medicine would have classed poor Fechner's\nmalady quickly enough, as partly a habit-neurosis, but its\nseverity was such that in his day it was treated as a visitation\nincomprehensible in its malignity; and when he suddenly began to get\nwell, both Fechner and others treated the recovery as a sort of divine\nmiracle. This illness, bringing Fechner face to face with inner\ndesperation, made a great crisis in his life. 'Had I not then clung to\nthe faith,' he writes, 'that clinging to faith would somehow or other\nwork its reward, _so h\u00e4tte ich jene zeit nicht ausgehalten_.' His\nreligious and cosmological faiths saved him--thenceforward one great\naim with him was to work out and communicate these faiths to the\nworld. He did so on the largest scale; but he did many other things\ntoo ere he died.\n\nA book on the atomic theory, classic also; four elaborate mathematical\nand experimental volumes on what he called psychophysics--many persons\nconsider Fechner to have practically founded scientific psychology in\nthe first of these books; a volume on organic evolution, and two works\non experimental aesthetics, in which again Fechner is considered by\nsome judges to have laid the foundations of a new science, must be\nincluded among these other performances. Of the more religious and\nphilosophical works, I shall immediately give a further account.\n\nAll Leipzig mourned him when he died, for he was the pattern of the\nideal german scholar, as daringly original in his thought as he was\nhomely in his life, a modest, genial, laborious slave to truth and\nlearning, and withal the owner of an admirable literary style of the\nvernacular sort. The materialistic generation, that in the fifties and\nsixties called his speculations fantastic, had been replaced by one\nwith greater liberty of imagination, and a Preyer, a Wundt, a Paulsen,\nand a Lasswitz could now speak of Fechner as their master.\n\nHis mind was indeed one of those multitudinously organized cross-roads\nof truth which are occupied only at rare intervals by children of men,\nand from which nothing is either too far or too near to be seen in due\nperspective. Patientest observation, exactest mathematics, shrewdest\ndiscrimination, humanest feeling, flourished in him on the largest\nscale, with no apparent detriment to one another. He was in fact a\nphilosopher in the 'great' sense, altho he cared so much less than\nmost philosophers care for abstractions of the 'thin' order. For him\nthe abstract lived in the concrete, and the hidden motive of all he\ndid was to bring what he called the daylight view of the world into\never greater evidence, that daylight view being this, that the whole\nuniverse in its different spans and wave-lengths, exclusions and\nenvelopments, is everywhere alive and conscious. It has taken fifty\nyears for his chief book, 'Zend-avesta,' to pass into a second edition\n(1901). 'One swallow,' he cheerfully writes, 'does not make a summer.\nBut the first swallow would not come unless the summer were coming;\nand for me that summer means my daylight view some time prevailing.'\n\nThe original sin, according to Fechner, of both our popular and\nour scientific thinking, is our inveterate habit of regarding the\nspiritual not as the rule but as an exception in the midst of nature.\nInstead of believing our life to be fed at the breasts of the greater\nlife, our individuality to be sustained by the greater individuality,\nwhich must necessarily have more consciousness and more independence\nthan all that it brings forth, we habitually treat whatever lies\noutside of our life as so much slag and ashes of life only; or if we\nbelieve in a Divine Spirit, we fancy him on the one side as bodiless,\nand nature as soulless on the other. What comfort, or peace, Fechner\nasks, can come from such a doctrine? The flowers wither at its breath,\nthe stars turn into stone; our own body grows unworthy of our spirit\nand sinks to a tenement for carnal senses only. The book of nature\nturns into a volume on mechanics, in which whatever has life is\ntreated as a sort of anomaly; a great chasm of separation yawns\nbetween us and all that is higher than ourselves; and God becomes a\nthin nest of abstractions.\n\nFechner's great instrument for vivifying the daylight view is\nanalogy; not a rationalistic argument is to be found in all his\nmany pages--only reasonings like those which men continually use in\npractical life. For example: My house is built by some one, the world\ntoo is built by some one. The world is greater than my house, it\nmust be a greater some one who built the world. My body moves by the\ninfluence of my feeling and will; the sun, moon, sea, and wind, being\nthemselves more powerful, move by the influence of some more powerful\nfeeling and will. I live now, and change from one day to another; I\nshall live hereafter, and change still more, etc.\n\nBain defines genius as the power of seeing analogies. The number\nthat Fechner could perceive was prodigious; but he insisted on the\ndifferences as well. Neglect to make allowance for these, he said, is\nthe common fallacy in analogical reasoning. Most of us, for example,\nreasoning justly that, since all the minds we know are connected with\nbodies, therefore God's mind should be connected with a body, proceed\nto suppose that that body must be just an animal body over again, and\npaint an altogether human picture of God. But all that the analogy\ncomports is _a_ body--the particular features of _our_ body are\nadaptations to a habitat so different from God's that if God have\na physical body at all, it must be utterly different from ours in\nstructure. Throughout his writings Fechner makes difference and\nanalogy walk abreast, and by his extraordinary power of noticing\nboth, he converts what would ordinarily pass for objections to his\nconclusions into factors of their support.\n\nThe vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders of body. The\nentire earth on which we live must have, according to Fechner, its own\ncollective consciousness. So must each sun, moon, and planet; so must\nthe whole solar system have its own wider consciousness, in which the\nconsciousness of our earth plays one part. So has the entire starry\nsystem as such its consciousness; and if that starry system be not the\nsum of all that _is_, materially considered, then that whole system,\nalong with whatever else may be, is the body of that absolutely\ntotalized consciousness of the universe to which men give the name of\nGod.\n\nSpeculatively Fechner is thus a monist in his theology; but there is\nroom in his universe for every grade of spiritual being between man\nand the final all-inclusive God; and in suggesting what the positive\ncontent of all this super-humanity may be, he hardly lets his\nimagination fly beyond simple spirits of the planetary order. The\nearth-soul he passionately believes in; he treats the earth as our\nspecial human guardian angel; we can pray to the earth as men pray to\ntheir saints; but I think that in his system, as in so many of the\nactual historic theologies, the supreme God marks only a sort of limit\nof enclosure of the worlds above man. He is left thin and abstract in\nhis majesty, men preferring to carry on their personal transactions\nwith the many less remote and abstract messengers and mediators whom\nthe divine order provides.\n\nI shall ask later whether the abstractly monistic turn which Fechner's\nspeculations took was necessitated by logic. I believe it not to have\nbeen required. Meanwhile let me lead you a little more into the\ndetail of his thought. Inevitably one does him miserable injustice\nby summarizing and abridging him. For altho the type of reasoning he\nemploys is almost childlike for simplicity, and his bare conclusions\ncan be written on a single page, the _power_ of the man is due\naltogether to the profuseness of his concrete imagination, to the\nmultitude of the points which he considers successively, to the\ncumulative effect of his learning, of his thoroughness, and of the\ningenuity of his detail, to his admirably homely style, to the\nsincerity with which his pages glow, and finally to the impression he\ngives of a man who doesn't live at second-hand, but who _sees_, who in\nfact speaks as one having authority, and not as if he were one of the\ncommon herd of professorial philosophic scribes.\n\nAbstractly set down, his most important conclusion for my purpose in\nthese lectures is that the constitution of the world is identical\nthroughout. In ourselves, visual consciousness goes with our eyes,\ntactile consciousness with our skin. But altho neither skin nor eye\nknows aught of the sensations of the other, they come together and\nfigure in some sort of relation and combination in the more inclusive\nconsciousness which each of us names his _self_. Quite similarly,\nthen, says Fechner, we must suppose that my consciousness of myself\nand yours of yourself, altho in their immediacy they keep separate\nand know nothing of each other, are yet known and used together in a\nhigher consciousness, that of the human race, say, into which they\nenter as constituent parts. Similarly, the whole human and animal\nkingdoms come together as conditions of a consciousness of still wider\nscope. This combines in the soul of the earth with the consciousness\nof the vegetable kingdom, which in turn contributes its share of\nexperience to that of the whole solar system, and so on from synthesis\nto synthesis and height to height, till an absolutely universal\nconsciousness is reached.\n\nA vast analogical series, in which the basis of the analogy consists\nof facts directly observable in ourselves.\n\nThe supposition of an earth-consciousness meets a strong instinctive\nprejudice which Fechner ingeniously tries to overcome. Man's mind is\nthe highest consciousness upon the earth, we think--the earth itself\nbeing in all ways man's inferior. How should its consciousness, if it\nhave one, be superior to his?\n\nWhat are the marks of superiority which we are tempted to use here? If\nwe look more carefully into them, Fechner points out that the earth\npossesses each and all of them more perfectly than we. He considers in\ndetail the points of difference between us, and shows them all to\nmake for the earth's higher rank. I will touch on only a few of these\npoints.\n\nOne of them of course is independence of other external beings.\nExternal to the earth are only the other heavenly bodies. All the\nthings on which we externally depend for life--air, water, plant and\nanimal food, fellow men, etc.--are included in her as her constituent\nparts. She is self-sufficing in a million respects in which we are not\nso. We depend on her for almost everything, she on us for but a small\nportion of her history. She swings us in her orbit from winter to\nsummer and revolves us from day into night and from night into day.\n\nComplexity in unity is another sign of superiority. The total earth's\ncomplexity far exceeds that of any organism, for she includes all our\norganisms in herself, along with an infinite number of things that our\norganisms fail to include. Yet how simple and massive are the phases\nof her own proper life! As the total bearing of any animal is sedate\nand tranquil compared with the agitation of its blood corpuscles, so\nis the earth a sedate and tranquil being compared with the animals\nwhom she supports.\n\nTo develop from within, instead of being fashioned from without, is\nalso counted as something superior in men's eyes. An egg is a higher\nstyle of being than a piece of clay which an external modeler makes\ninto the image of a bird. Well, the earth's history develops from\nwithin. It is like that of a wonderful egg which the sun's heat, like\nthat of a mother-hen, has stimulated to its cycles of evolutionary\nchange.\n\nIndividuality of type, and difference from other beings of its type,\nis another mark of rank. The earth differs from every other planet,\nand as a class planetary beings are extraordinarily distinct from\nother beings.\n\nLong ago the earth was called an animal; but a planet is a higher\nclass of being than either man or animal; not only quantitatively\ngreater, like a vaster and more awkward whale or elephant, but a being\nwhose enormous size requires an altogether different plan of life. Our\nanimal organization comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to\nand fro, of stretching our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only\nour defect. What are our legs but crutches, by means of which, with\nrestless efforts, we go hunting after the things we have not inside\nof ourselves. But the earth is no such cripple; why should she who\nalready possesses within herself the things we so painfully pursue,\nhave limbs analogous to ours? Shall she mimic a small part of herself?\nWhat need has she of arms, with nothing to reach for? of a neck, with\nno head to carry? of eyes or nose when she finds her way through space\nwithout either, and has the millions of eyes of all her animals to\nguide their movements on her surface, and all their noses to smell the\nflowers that grow? For, as we are ourselves a part of the earth, so\nour organs are her organs. She is, as it were, eye and ear over her\nwhole extent--all that we see and hear in separation she sees and\nhears at once. She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon\nher surface, and their multitudinous conscious relations with each\nother she takes up into her higher and more general conscious life.\n\nMost of us, considering the theory that the whole terrestrial mass is\nanimated as our bodies are, make the mistake of working the analogy\ntoo literally, and allowing for no differences. If the earth be a\nsentient organism, we say, where are her brain and nerves? What\ncorresponds to her heart and lungs? In other words, we expect\nfunctions which she already performs through us, to be performed\noutside of us again, and in just the same way. But we see perfectly\nwell how the earth performs some of these functions in a way unlike\nour way. If you speak of circulation, what need has she of a heart\nwhen the sun keeps all the showers of rain that fall upon her and all\nthe springs and brooks and rivers that irrigate her, going? What need\nhas she of internal lungs, when her whole sensitive surface is in\nliving commerce with the atmosphere that clings to it?\n\nThe organ that gives us most trouble is the brain. All the\nconsciousness we directly know seems tied to brains.--Can there be\nconsciousness, we ask, where there is no brain? But our brain, which\nprimarily serves to correlate our muscular reactions with the external\nobjects on which we depend, performs a function which the earth\nperforms in an entirely different way. She has no proper muscles or\nlimbs of her own, and the only objects external to her are the other\nstars. To these her whole mass reacts by most exquisite alterations in\nits total gait, and by still more exquisite vibratory responses in\nits substance. Her ocean reflects the lights of heaven as in a mighty\nmirror, her atmosphere refracts them like a monstrous lens, the\nclouds and snow-fields combine them into white, the woods and flowers\ndisperse them into colors. Polarization, interference, absorption,\nawaken sensibilities in matter of which our senses are too coarse to\ntake any note.\n\nFor these cosmic relations of hers, then, she no more needs a special\nbrain than she needs eyes or ears. _Our_ brains do indeed unify and\ncorrelate innumerable functions. Our eyes know nothing of sound, our\nears nothing of light, but, having brains, we can feel sound and light\ntogether, and compare them. We account for this by the fibres which in\nthe brain connect the optical with the acoustic centre, but just how\nthese fibres bring together not only the sensations, but the centres,\nwe fail to see. But if fibres are indeed all that is needed to do that\ntrick, has not the earth pathways, by which you and I are physically\ncontinuous, more than enough to do for our two minds what the\nbrain-fibres do for the sounds and sights in a single mind? Must every\nhigher means of unification between things be a literal _brain_-fibre,\nand go by that name? Cannot the earth-mind know otherwise the contents\nof our minds together?\n\nFechner's imagination, insisting on the differences as well as on the\nresemblances, thus tries to make our picture of the whole earth's life\nmore concrete. He revels in the thought of its perfections. To carry\nher precious freight through the hours and seasons what form could be\nmore excellent than hers--being as it is horse, wheels, and wagon all\nin one. Think of her beauty--a shining ball, sky-blue and sun-lit over\none half, the other bathed in starry night, reflecting the heavens\nfrom all her waters, myriads of lights and shadows in the folds of her\nmountains and windings of her valleys, she would be a spectacle of\nrainbow glory, could one only see her from afar as we see parts of her\nfrom her own mountain-tops. Every quality of landscape that has a\nname would then be visible in her at once--all that is delicate or\ngraceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or\ncheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. That landscape is her face--a\npeopled landscape, too, for men's eyes would appear in it like\ndiamonds among the dew-drops. Green would be the dominant color, but\nthe blue atmosphere and the clouds would enfold her as a bride is\nshrouded in her veil--a veil the vapory transparent folds of which\nthe earth, through her ministers the winds, never tires of laying and\nfolding about herself anew.\n\nEvery element has its own living denizens. Can the celestial ocean of\nether, whose waves are light, in which the earth herself floats, not\nhave hers, higher by as much as their element is higher, swimming\nwithout fins, flying without wings, moving, immense and tranquil, as\nby a half-spiritual force through the half-spiritual sea which they\ninhabit, rejoicing in the exchange of luminous influence with one\nanother, following the slightest pull of one another's attraction, and\nharboring, each of them, an inexhaustible inward wealth?\n\nMen have always made fables about angels, dwelling in the light,\nneeding no earthly food or drink, messengers between ourselves and\nGod. Here are actually existent beings, dwelling in the light and\nmoving through the sky, needing neither food nor drink, intermediaries\nbetween God and us, obeying his commands. So, if the heavens really\nare the home of angels, the heavenly bodies must be those very angels,\nfor other creatures _there_ are none. Yes! the earth is our great\ncommon guardian angel, who watches over all our interests combined.\n\nIn a striking page Fechner relates one of his moments of direct vision\nof this truth.\n\n'On a certain spring morning I went out to walk. The fields were\ngreen, the birds sang, the dew glistened, the smoke was rising, here\nand there a man appeared; a light as of transfiguration lay on all\nthings. It was only a little bit of the earth; it was only one moment\nof her existence; and yet as my look embraced her more and more it\nseemed to me not only so beautiful an idea, but so true and clear\na fact, that she is an angel, an angel so rich and fresh and\nflower-like, and yet going her round in the skies so firmly and so\nat one with herself, turning her whole living face to Heaven, and\ncarrying me along with her into that Heaven, that I asked myself how\nthe opinions of men could ever have so spun themselves away from life\nso far as to deem the earth only a dry clod, and to seek for angels\nabove it or about it in the emptiness of the sky,--only to find them\nnowhere.... But such an experience as this passes for fantastic. The\nearth is a globular body, and what more she may be, one can find in\nmineralogical cabinets.'[2]\n\nWhere there is no vision the people perish. Few professorial\nphilosophers have any vision. Fechner had vision, and that is why one\ncan read him over and over again, and each time bring away a fresh\nsense of reality.\n\nHis earliest book was a vision of what the inner life of plants may be\nlike. He called it 'Nanna.' In the development of animals the nervous\nsystem is the central fact. Plants develop centrifugally, spread their\norgans abroad. For that reason people suppose that they can have no\nconsciousness, for they lack the unity which the central nervous\nsystem provides. But the plant's consciousness may be of another type,\nbeing connected with other structures. Violins and pianos give out\nsounds because they have strings. Does it follow that nothing but\nstrings can give out sound? How then about flutes and organ-pipes?\nOf course their sounds are of a different quality, and so may the\nconsciousness of plants be of a quality correlated exclusively with\nthe kind of organization that | they possess. Nutrition, respiration,\npropagation take place in them without nerves. In us these functions\nare conscious only in unusual states, normally their consciousness is\neclipsed by that which goes with the brain. No such eclipse occurs in\nplants, and their lower consciousness may therefore be all the more\nlively. With nothing to do but to drink the light and air with their\nleaves, to let their cells proliferate, to feel their rootlets draw\nthe sap, is it conceivable that they should not consciously suffer\nif water, light, and air are suddenly withdrawn? or that when the\nflowering and fertilization which are the culmination of their life\ntake place, they should not feel their own existence more intensely\nand enjoy something like what we call pleasure in ourselves? Does\nthe water-lily, rocking in her triple bath of water, air, and light,\nrelish in no wise her own beauty? When the plant in our room turns to\nthe light, closes her blossoms in the dark, responds to our watering\nor pruning by increase of size or change of shape and bloom, who has\nthe right to say she does not feel, or that she plays a purely passive\npart? Truly plants can foresee nothing, neither the scythe of the\nmower, nor the hand extended to pluck their flowers. They can neither\nrun away nor cry out. But this only proves how different their modes\nof feeling life must be from those of animals that live by eyes and\nears and locomotive organs, it does not prove that they have no mode\nof feeling life at all.\n\nHow scanty and scattered would sensation be on our globe, if the\nfeeling-life of plants were blotted from existence. Solitary would\nconsciousness move through the woods in the shape of some deer or\nother quadruped, or fly about the flowers in that of some insect, but\ncan we really suppose that the Nature through which God's breath blows\nis such a barren wilderness as this?\n\nI have probably by this time said enough to acquaint those of you who\nhave never seen these metaphysical writings of Fechner with their more\ngeneral characteristics, and I hope that some of you may now feel like\nreading them yourselves.[3] The special thought of Fechner's with\nwhich in these lectures I have most practical concern, is his\nbelief that the more inclusive forms of consciousness are in part\n_constituted_ by the more limited forms. Not that they are the mere\nsum of the more limited forms. As our mind is not the bare sum of\nour sights plus our sounds plus our pains, but in adding these terms\ntogether also finds relations among them and weaves them into schemes\nand forms and objects of which no one sense in its separate estate\nknows anything, so the earth-soul traces relations between the\ncontents of my mind and the contents of yours of which neither of\nour separate minds is conscious. It has schemes, forms, and objects\nproportionate to its wider field, which our mental fields are far too\nnarrow to cognize. By ourselves we are simply out of relation with\neach other, for it we are both of us there, and _different_ from each\nother, which is a positive relation. What we are without knowing, it\nknows that we are. We are closed against its world, but that world is\nnot closed against us. It is as if the total universe of inner life\nhad a sort of grain or direction, a sort of valvular structure,\npermitting knowledge to flow in one way only, so that the wider might\nalways have the narrower under observation, but never the narrower the\nwider.\n\nFechner's great analogy here is the relation of the senses to our\nindividual minds. When our eyes are open their sensations enter into\nour general mental life, which grows incessantly by the addition of\nwhat they see. Close the eyes, however, and the visual additions stop,\nnothing but thoughts and memories of the past visual experiences\nremain--in combination of course with the enormous stock of other\nthoughts and memories, and with the data coming in from the senses\nnot yet closed. Our eye-sensations of themselves know nothing of this\nenormous life into which they fall. Fechner thinks, as any common man\nwould think, that they are taken into it directly when they occur,\nand form part of it just as they are. They don't stay outside and\nget represented inside by their copies. It is only the memories and\nconcepts of them that are copies; the sensible perceptions themselves\nare taken in or walled out in their own proper persons according as\nthe eyes are open or shut.\n\nFechner likens our individual persons on the earth unto so many\nsense-organs of the earth's soul. We add to its perceptive life so\nlong as our own life lasts. It absorbs our perceptions, just as they\noccur, into its larger sphere of knowledge, and combines them with the\nother data there. When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world\nwere closed, for all _perceptive_ contributions from that particular\nquarter cease. But the memories and conceptual relations that have\nspun themselves round the perceptions of that person remain in the\nlarger earth-life as distinct as ever, and form new relations and grow\nand develop throughout all the future, in the same way in which our\nown distinct objects of thought, once stored in memory, form new\nrelations and develop throughout our whole finite life. This is\nFechner's theory of immortality, first published in the little\n'B\u00fcchlein des lebens nach dem tode,' in 1836, and re-edited in greatly\nimproved shape in the last volume of his 'Zend-avesta.'\n\nWe rise upon the earth as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow out of\nher soil as leaves grow from a tree. The wavelets catch the sunbeams\nseparately, the leaves stir when the branches do not move. They\nrealize their own events apart, just as in our own consciousness, when\nanything becomes emphatic, the background fades from observation. Yet\nthe event works back upon the background, as the wavelet works upon\nthe waves, or as the leaf's movements work upon the sap inside the\nbranch. The whole sea and the whole tree are registers of what has\nhappened, and are different for the wave's and the leaf's action\nhaving occurred. A grafted twig may modify its stock to the roots:--so\nour outlived private experiences, impressed on the whole earth-mind as\nmemories, lead the immortal life of ideas there, and become parts of\nthe great system, fully distinguished from one another, just as we\nourselves when alive were distinct, realizing themselves no longer\nisolatedly, but along with one another as so many partial systems,\nentering thus into new combinations, being affected by the perceptive\nexperiences of those living then, and affecting the living in their\nturn--altho they are so seldom recognized by living men to do so.\n\nIf you imagine that this entrance after the death of the body into a\ncommon life of higher type means a merging and loss of our distinct\npersonality, Fechner asks you whether a visual sensation of our own\nexists in any sense _less for itself_ or _less distinctly_, when\nit enters into our higher relational consciousness and is there\ndistinguished and defined.\n\n--But here I must stop my reporting and send you to his volumes. Thus\nis the universe alive, according to this philosopher! I think you\nwill admit that he makes it more _thickly_ alive than do the other\nphilosophers who, following rationalistic methods solely, gain the\nsame results, but only in the thinnest outlines. Both Fechner and\nProfessor Royce, for example, believe ultimately in one all-inclusive\nmind. Both believe that we, just as we stand here, are constituent\nparts of that mind. No other _content_ has it than us, with all the\nother creatures like or unlike us, and the relations which it finds\nbetween us. Our eaches, collected into one, are substantively\nidentical with its all, tho the all is perfect while no each is\nperfect, so that we have to admit that new qualities as well as\nunperceived relations accrue from the collective form. It is thus\nsuperior to the distributive form. But having reached this result,\nRoyce (tho his treatment of the subject on its moral side seems to\nme infinitely richer and thicker than that of any other contemporary\nidealistic philosopher) leaves us very much to our own devices.\nFechner, on the contrary, tries to trace the superiorities due to the\nmore collective form in as much detail as he can. He marks the various\nintermediary stages and halting places of collectivity,--as we are to\nour separate senses, so is the earth to us, so is the solar system\nto the earth, etc.,--and if, in order to escape an infinitely long\nsummation, he posits a complete God as the all-container and leaves\nhim about as indefinite in feature as the idealists leave their\nabsolute, he yet provides us with a very definite gate of approach to\nhim in the shape of the earth-soul, through which in the nature of\nthings we must first make connexion with all the more enveloping\nsuperhuman realms, and with which our more immediate religious\ncommerce at any rate has to be carried on.\n\nOrdinary monistic idealism leaves everything intermediary out. It\nrecognizes only the extremes, as if, after the first rude face of the\nphenomenal world in all its particularity, nothing but the supreme in\nall its perfection could be found. First, you and I, just as we are in\nthis room; and the moment we get below that surface, the unutterable\nabsolute itself! Doesn't this show a singularly indigent imagination?\nIsn't this brave universe made on a richer pattern, with room in\nit for a long hierarchy of beings? Materialistic science makes it\ninfinitely richer in terms, with its molecules, and ether, and\nelectrons, and what not. Absolute idealism, thinking of reality only\nunder intellectual forms, knows not what to do with _bodies_ of\nany grade, and can make no use of any psychophysical analogy or\ncorrespondence. The resultant thinness is startling when compared with\nthe thickness and articulation of such a universe as Fechner paints.\nMay not satisfaction with the rationalistic absolute as the alpha\nand omega, and treatment of it in all its abstraction as an adequate\nreligious object, argue a certain native poverty of mental demand?\nThings reveal themselves soonest to those who most passionately want\nthem, for our need sharpens our wit. To a mind content with little,\nthe much in the universe may always remain hid.\n\nTo be candid, one of my reasons for saying so much about Fechner has\nbeen to make the thinness of our current transcendentalism appear\nmore evident by an effect of contrast. Scholasticism ran thick; Hegel\nhimself ran thick; but english and american transcendentalisms run\nthin. If philosophy is more a matter of passionate vision than of\nlogic,--and I believe it is, logic only finding reasons for the vision\nafterwards,--must not such thinness come either from the vision being\ndefective in the disciples, or from their passion, matched with\nFechner's or with Hegel's own passion, being as moonlight unto\nsunlight or as water unto wine?[4]\n\nBut I have also a much deeper reason for making Fechner a part of my\ntext. His _assumption that conscious experiences freely compound and\nseparate themselves_, the same assumption by which absolutism explains\nthe relation of our minds to the eternal mind, and the same by\nwhich empiricism explains the composition of the human mind out of\nsubordinate mental elements, is not one which we ought to let pass\nwithout scrutiny. I shall scrutinize it in the next lecture.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V\n\n\nTHE COMPOUNDING OF CONSCIOUSNESS\n\nIn my last lecture I gave a miserably scanty outline of the way\nof thinking of a philosopher remarkable for the almost unexampled\nrichness of his imagination of details. I owe to Fechner's shade an\napology for presenting him in a manner so unfair to the most essential\nquality of his genius; but the time allotted is too short to say more\nabout the particulars of his work, so I proceed to the programme\nI suggested at the end of our last hour. I wish to discuss the\nassumption that states of consciousness, so-called, can separate and\ncombine themselves freely, and keep their own identity unchanged while\nforming parts of simultaneous fields of experience of wider scope.\n\nLet me first explain just what I mean by this. While you listen to\nmy voice, for example, you are perhaps inattentive to some bodily\nsensation due to your clothing or your posture. Yet that sensation\nwould seem probably to be there, for in an instant, by a change of\nattention, you can have it in one field of consciousness with the\nvoice. It seems as if it existed first in a separate form, and then as\nif, without itself changing, it combined with your other co-existent\nsensations. It is after this analogy that pantheistic idealism thinks\nthat we exist in the absolute. The absolute, it thinks, makes the\nworld by knowing the whole of it at once in one undivided eternal\nact.[1] To 'be,' _really_ to be, is to be as it knows us to be, along\nwith everything else, namely, and clothed with the fulness of our\nmeaning. Meanwhile we _are_ at the same time not only really and as it\nknows us, but also apparently, for to our separate single selves we\nappear _without_ most other things and unable to declare with\nany fulness what our own meaning is. Now the classic doctrine of\npantheistic idealism, from the Upanishads down to Josiah Royce, is\nthat the finite knowers, in spite of their apparent ignorance, are one\nwith the knower of the all. In the most limited moments of our private\nexperience, the absolute idea, as Dr. McTaggart told us, is implicitly\ncontained. The moments, as Royce says, exist only in relation to it.\nThey are true or erroneous only through its overshadowing presence. Of\nthe larger self that alone eternally is, they are the organic parts.\nThey _are_, only inasmuch as they are implicated in its being.\n\nThere is thus in reality but this one self, consciously inclusive of\nall the lesser selves, _logos_, problem-solver, and all-knower; and\nRoyce ingeniously compares the ignorance that in our persons breaks\nout in the midst of its complete knowledge and isolates me from you\nand both of us from it, to the inattention into which our finite minds\nare liable to fall with respect to such implicitly present details as\nthose corporeal sensations to which I made allusion just now. Those\nsensations stand to our total private minds in the same relation in\nwhich our private minds stand to the absolute mind. Privacy means\nignorance--I still quote Royce--and ignorance means inattention. We\nare finite because our wills, as such, are only fragments of the\nabsolute will; because will means interest, and an incomplete will\nmeans an incomplete interest; and because incompleteness of interest\nmeans inattention to much that a fuller interest would bring us to\nperceive.[2]\n\nIn this account Royce makes by far the manliest of the post-hegelian\nattempts to read some empirically apprehensible content into the\nnotion of our relation to the absolute mind.\n\nI have to admit, now that I propose to you to scrutinize this\nassumption rather closely, that trepidation seizes me. The subject is\na subtle and abstruse one. It is one thing to delve into subtleties by\none's self with pen in hand, or to study out abstruse points in\nbooks, but quite another thing to make a popular lecture out of them.\nNevertheless I must not flinch from my task here, for I think that\nthis particular point forms perhaps the vital knot of the present\nphilosophic situation, and I imagine that the times are ripe, or\nalmost ripe, for a serious attempt to be made at its untying.\n\nIt may perhaps help to lessen the arduousness of the subject if I put\nthe first part of what I have to say in the form of a direct personal\nconfession.\n\nIn the year 1890 I published a work on psychology in which it became\nmy duty to discuss the value of a certain explanation of our higher\nmental states that had come into favor among the more biologically\ninclined psychologists. Suggested partly by the association of ideas,\nand partly by the analogy of chemical compounds, this opinion was\nthat complex mental states are resultants of the self-compounding of\nsimpler ones. The Mills had spoken of mental chemistry; Wundt of a\n'psychic synthesis,' which might develop properties not contained in\nthe elements; and such writers as Spencer, Taine, Fiske, Barratt, and\nClifford had propounded a great evolutionary theory in which, in the\nabsence of souls, selves, or other principles of unity, primordial\nunits of mind-stuff or mind-dust were represented as summing\nthemselves together in successive stages of compounding and\nre-compounding, and thus engendering our higher and more complex\nstates of mind. The elementary feeling of A, let us say, and the\nelementary feeling of B, when they occur in certain conditions,\ncombine, according to this doctrine, into a feeling of A-plus-B, and\nthis in turn combines with a similarly generated feeling of C-plus-D,\nuntil at last the whole alphabet may appear together in one field of\nawareness, without any other witnessing principle or principles beyond\nthe feelings of the several letters themselves, being supposed to\nexist. What each of them witnesses separately, 'all' of them are\nsupposed to witness in conjunction. But their distributive knowledge\ndoesn't _give rise_ to their collective knowledge by any act, it _is_\ntheir collective knowledge. The lower forms of consciousness 'taken\ntogether' _are_ the higher. It, 'taken apart,' consists of nothing\nand _is_ nothing but them. This, at least, is the most obvious way\nof understanding the doctrine, and is the way I understood it in the\nchapter in my psychology.\n\nSuperficially looked at, this seems just like the combination of H_2\nand O into water, but looked at more closely, the analogy halts badly.\nWhen a chemist tells us that two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen\ncombine themselves of their own accord into the new compound substance\n'water,' he knows (if he believes in the mechanical view of nature)\nthat this is only an elliptical statement for a more complex fact.\nThat fact is that when H_2 and O, instead of keeping far apart, get\ninto closer quarters, say into the position H-O-H, they _affect\nsurrounding bodies differently_: they now wet our skin, dissolve\nsugar, put out fire, etc., which they didn't in their former\npositions. 'Water' is but _our name_ for what acts thus peculiarly.\nBut if the skin, sugar, and fire were absent, no witness would speak\nof water at all. He would still talk of the H and O distributively,\nmerely noting that they acted now in the new position H-O-H.\n\nIn the older psychologies the soul or self took the place of the\nsugar, fire, or skin. The lower feelings produced _effects on it_,\nand their apparent compounds were only its reactions. As you tickle\na man's face with a feather, and he laughs, so when you tickle his\nintellectual principle with a retinal feeling, say, and a muscular\nfeeling at once, it laughs responsively by its category of 'space,'\nbut it would be false to treat the space as simply made of those\nsimpler feelings. It is rather a new and unique psychic creation which\ntheir combined action on the mind is able to evoke.\n\nI found myself obliged, in discussing the mind-dust theory, to urge\nthis last alternative view. The so-called mental compounds are simple\npsychic reactions of a higher type. The form itself of them, I said,\nis something new. We can't say that awareness of the alphabet as\nsuch is nothing more than twenty-six awarenesses, each of a separate\nletter; for those are twenty-six distinct awarenesses, of single\nletters _without_ others, while their so-called sum is one awareness,\nof every letter _with_ its comrades. There is thus something new in\nthe collective consciousness. It knows the same letters, indeed, but\nit knows them in this novel way. It is safer, I said (for I fought shy\nof admitting a self or soul or other agent of combination), to treat\nthe consciousness of the alphabet as a twenty-seventh fact, the\nsubstitute and not the sum of the twenty-six simpler consciousnesses,\nand to say that while under certain physiological conditions they\nalone are produced, other more complex physiological conditions result\nin its production instead. Do not talk, therefore, I said, of the\nhigher states _consisting_ of the simpler, or _being_ the same with\nthem; talk rather of their _knowing the same things_. They are\ndifferent mental facts, but they apprehend, each in its own peculiar\nway, the same objective A, B, C, and D.\n\nThe theory of combination, I was forced to conclude, is thus\nuntenable, being both logically nonsensical and practically\nunnecessary. Say what you will, twelve thoughts, each of a single\nword, are not the self-same mental thing as one thought of the whole\nsentence. The higher thoughts, I insisted, are psychic units, not\ncompounds; but for all that, they may know together as a collective\nmultitude the very same objects which under other conditions are known\nseparately by as many simple thoughts.\n\nFor many years I held rigorously to this view,[3] and the reasons for\ndoing so seemed to me during all those years to apply also to the\nopinion that the absolute mind stands to our minds in the relation of\na whole to its parts. If untenable in finite psychology, that opinion\nought to be untenable in metaphysics also. The great transcendentalist\nmetaphor has always been, as I lately reminded you, a grammatical\nsentence. Physically such a sentence is of course composed of clauses,\nthese of words, the words of syllables, and the syllables of letters.\nWe may take each word in, yet not understand the sentence; but if\nsuddenly the meaning of the whole sentence flashes, the sense of each\nword is taken up into that whole meaning. Just so, according to\nour transcendentalist teachers, the absolute mind thinks the whole\nsentence, while we, according to our rank as thinkers, think a clause,\na word, a syllable, or a letter. Most of us are, as I said, mere\nsyllables in the mouth of Allah. And as Allah comes first in the order\nof being, so comes first the entire sentence, the _logos_ that forms\nthe eternal absolute thought. Students of language tell us that speech\nbegan with men's efforts to make _statements_. The rude synthetic\nvocal utterances first used for this effect slowly got stereotyped,\nand then much later got decomposed into grammatical parts. It is not\nas if men had first invented letters and made syllables of them, then\nmade words of the syllables and sentences of the words;--they actually\nfollowed the reverse order. So, the transcendentalists affirm, the\ncomplete absolute thought is the pre-condition of our thoughts, and\nwe finite creatures _are_ only in so far as it owns us as its verbal\nfragments.\n\nThe metaphor is so beautiful, and applies, moreover, so literally to\nsuch a multitude of the minor wholes of experience, that by merely\nhearing it most of us are convinced that it must apply universally.\nWe see that no smallest raindrop can come into being without a whole\nshower, no single feather without a whole bird, neck and crop, beak\nand tail, coming into being simultaneously: so we unhesitatingly lay\ndown the law that no part of anything can be except so far as the\nwhole also is. And then, since everything whatever is part of the\nwhole universe, and since (if we are idealists) nothing, whether part\nor whole, exists except for a witness, we proceed to the conclusion\nthat the unmitigated absolute as witness of the whole is the one sole\nground of being of every partial fact, the fact of our own existence\nincluded. We think of ourselves as being only a few of the feathers,\nso to speak, which help to constitute that absolute bird. Extending\nthe analogy of certain wholes, of which we have familiar experience,\nto the whole of wholes, we easily become absolute idealists.\n\nBut if, instead of yielding to the seductions of our metaphor, be\nit sentence, shower, or bird, we analyze more carefully the notion\nsuggested by it that we are constituent parts of the absolute's\neternal field of consciousness, we find grave difficulties arising.\nFirst, the difficulty I found with the mind-dust theory. If the\nabsolute makes us by knowing us, how can we exist otherwise than _as_\nit knows us? But it knows each of us indivisibly from everything else.\nYet if to exist means nothing but to be experienced, as idealism\naffirms, we surely exist otherwise, for we experience _ourselves_\nignorantly and in division. We indeed differ from the absolute not\nonly by defect, but by excess. Our ignorances, for example, bring\ncuriosities and doubts by which it cannot be troubled, for it owns\neternally the solution of every problem. Our impotence entails pains,\nour imperfection sins, which its perfection keeps at a distance. What\nI said of the alphabet-form and the letters holds good of the absolute\nexperience and our experiences. Their relation, whatever it may be,\nseems not to be that of identity.\n\nIt is impossible to reconcile the peculiarities of our experience with\nour being only the absolute's mental objects. A God, as distinguished\nfrom the absolute, creates things by projecting them beyond himself as\nso many substances, each endowed with _perseity_, as the scholastics\ncall it. But objects of thought are not things _per se_. They are\nthere only _for_ their thinker, and only _as_ he thinks them. How,\nthen, can they become severally alive on their own accounts and think\nthemselves quite otherwise than as he thinks them? It is as if the\ncharacters in a novel were to get up from the pages, and walk away and\ntransact business of their own outside of the author's story.\n\nA third difficulty is this: The bird-metaphor is physical, but we\nsee on reflection that in the _physical_ world there is no real\ncompounding. 'Wholes' are not realities there, parts only are\nrealities. 'Bird' is only our _name_ for the physical fact of a\ncertain grouping of organs, just as 'Charles's Wain' is our name for a\ncertain grouping of stars. The 'whole,' be it bird or constellation,\nis nothing but our vision, nothing but an effect on our sensorium when\na lot of things act on it together. It is not realized by any organ\nor any star, or experienced apart from the consciousness of an\nonlooker.[4] In the physical world taken by itself there _is_ thus no\n'all,' there are only the 'eaches'--at least that is the 'scientific'\nview.\n\nIn the mental world, on the contrary, wholes do in point of fact\nrealize themselves _per se_. The meaning of the whole sentence is\njust as much a real experience as the feeling of each word is; the\nabsolute's experience _is_ for itself, as much as yours is for\nyourself or mine for myself. So the feather-and-bird analogy won't\nwork unless you make the absolute into a distinct sort of mental agent\nwith a vision produced in it _by_ our several minds analogous to the\n'bird'-vision which the feathers, beak, etc., produce _in_ those same\nminds. The 'whole,' which is _its_ experience, would then be its\nunifying reaction on our experiences, and not those very experiences\nself-combined. Such a view as this would go with theism, for the\ntheistic God is a separate being; but it would not go with pantheistic\nidealism, the very essence of which is to insist that we are literally\n_parts_ of God, and he only ourselves in our totality--the word\n'ourselves' here standing of course for all the universe's finite\nfacts.\n\nI am dragging you into depths unsuitable, I fear, for a rapid lecture.\nSuch difficulties as these have to be teased out with a needle, so to\nspeak, and lecturers should take only bird's-eye views. The practical\nupshot of the matter, however, so far as I am concerned, is this, that\nif I had been lecturing on the absolute a very few years ago, I should\nunhesitatingly have urged these difficulties, and developed them at\nstill greater length, to show that the hypothesis of the absolute\nwas not only non-coercive from the logical point of view, but\nself-contradictory as well, its notion that parts and whole are only\ntwo names for the same thing not bearing critical scrutiny. If you\nstick to purely physical terms like stars, there is no whole. If you\ncall the whole mental, then the so-called whole, instead of being one\nfact with the parts, appears rather as the integral reaction on those\nparts of an independent higher witness, such as the theistic God is\nsupposed to be.\n\nSo long as this was the state of my own mind, I could accept the\nnotion of self-compounding in the supernal spheres of experience no\nmore easily than in that chapter on mind-dust I had accepted it in\nthe lower spheres. I found myself compelled, therefore, to call\nthe absolute impossible; and the untrammelled freedom with which\npantheistic or monistic idealists stepped over the logical barriers\nwhich Lotze and others had set down long before I had--I had done\nlittle more than quote these previous critics in my chapter--surprised\nme not a little, and made me, I have to confess, both resentful and\nenvious. Envious because in the bottom of my heart I wanted the same\nfreedom myself, for motives which I shall develop later; and resentful\nbecause my absolutist friends seemed to me to be stealing the\nprivilege of blowing both hot and cold. To establish their absolute\nthey used an intellectualist type of logic which they disregarded when\nemployed against it. It seemed to me that they ought at least to have\nmentioned the objections that had stopped me so completely. I had\nyielded to them against my 'will to believe,' out of pure logical\nscrupulosity. They, professing to loathe the will to believe and to\nfollow purest rationality, had simply ignored them. The method was\neasy, but hardly to be called candid. Fechner indeed was candid\nenough, for he had never thought of the objections, but later writers,\nlike Royce, who should presumably have heard them, had passed them by\nin silence. I felt as if these philosophers were granting their will\nto believe in monism too easy a license. My own conscience would\npermit me no such license.\n\nSo much for the personal confession by which you have allowed me to\nintroduce the subject. Let us now consider it more objectively.\n\nThe fundamental difficulty I have found is the number of\ncontradictions which idealistic monists seem to disregard. In the\nfirst place they attribute to all existence a mental or experiential\ncharacter, but I find their simultaneous belief that the higher and\nthe lower in the universe are entitatively identical, incompatible\nwith this character. Incompatible in consequence of the generally\naccepted doctrine that, whether Berkeley were right or not in saying\nof material existence that its _esse_ is _sentiri_, it is undoubtedly\nright to say of _mental_ existence that its _esse_ is _sentiri_ or\n_experiri_. If I feel pain, it is just pain that I feel, however I\nmay have come by the feeling. No one pretends that pain as such only\nappears like pain, but in itself is different, for to be as a mental\nexperience _is_ only to appear to some one.\n\nThe idealists in question ought then to do one of two things, but they\ndo neither. They ought either to refute the notion that as mental\nstates appear, so they are; or, still keeping that notion, they\nought to admit a distinct agent of unification to do the work of\nthe all-knower, just as our respective souls or selves in popular\nphilosophy do the work of partial knowers. Otherwise it is like a\njoint-stock company all shareholders and no treasurer or director. If\nour finite minds formed a billion facts, then its mind, knowing our\nbillion, would make a universe composed of a billion and one facts.\nBut transcendental idealism is quite as unfriendly to active\nprinciples called souls as physiological psychology is, Kant having,\nas it thinks, definitively demolished them. And altho some disciples\nspeak of the transcendental ego of apperception (which they celebrate\nas Kant's most precious legacy to posterity) as if it were a combining\nagent, the drift of monistic authority is certainly in the direction\nof treating it as only an all-witness, whose field of vision we finite\nwitnesses do not cause, but constitute rather. We are the letters, it\nis the alphabet; we are the features, it is the face; not indeed as if\neither alphabet or face were something additional to the letters or\nthe features, but rather as if it were only another name for the very\nletters or features themselves. The all-form assuredly differs from\nthe each-form, but the _matter_ is the same in both, and the each-form\nonly an unaccountable appearance.\n\nBut this, as you see, contradicts the other idealist principle, of\na mental fact being just what it appears to be. If their forms\nof appearance are so different, the all and the eaches cannot be\nidentical.\n\nThe way out (unless, indeed, we are willing to discard the logic of\nidentity altogether) would seem to be frankly to write down the all\nand the eaches as two distinct orders of witness, each minor witness\nbeing aware of its own 'content' solely, while the greater witness\nknows the minor witnesses, knows their whole content pooled together,\nknows their relations to one another, and knows of just how much each\none of them is ignorant.\n\nThe two types of witnessing are here palpably non-identical. We get a\npluralism, not a monism, out of them. In my psychology-chapter I\nhad resorted openly to such pluralism, treating each total field of\nconsciousness as a distinct entity, and maintaining that the higher\nfields merely supersede the lower functionally by knowing more about\nthe same objects.\n\nThe monists themselves writhe like worms on the hook to escape\npluralistic or at least dualistic language, but they cannot escape it.\nThey speak of the eternal and the temporal 'points of view'; of the\nuniverse in its infinite 'aspect' or in its finite 'capacity'; they\nsay that '_qu\u00e2_ absolute' it is one thing, '_qu\u00e2_ relative' another;\nthey contrast its 'truth' with its appearances; they distinguish the\ntotal from the partial way of 'taking' it, etc.; but they forget that,\non idealistic principles, to make such distinctions is tantamount to\nmaking different beings, or at any rate that varying points of view,\naspects, appearances, ways of taking, and the like, are meaningless\nphrases unless we suppose outside of the unchanging content of reality\na diversity of witnesses who experience or take it variously, the\nabsolute mind being just the witness that takes it most completely.\n\nFor consider the matter one moment longer, if you can. Ask what this\nnotion implies, of appearing differently from different points of\nview. If there be no outside witness, a thing can appear only to\nitself, the eaches or parts to their several selves temporally, the\nall or whole to itself eternally. Different 'selves' thus break out\ninside of what the absolutist insists to be intrinsically one fact.\nBut how can what is _actually_ one be _effectively_ so many? Put your\nwitnesses anywhere, whether outside or inside of what is witnessed,\nin the last resort your witnesses must on idealistic principles be\ndistinct, for what is witnessed is different.\n\nI fear that I am expressing myself with terrible obscurity--some of\nyou, I know, are groaning over the logic-chopping. Be a pluralist or\nbe a monist, you say, for heaven's sake, no matter which, so long as\nyou stop arguing. It reminds one of Chesterton's epigram that the only\nthing that ever drives human beings insane is logic. But whether I be\nsane or insane, you cannot fail, even tho you be transcendentalists\nyourselves, to recognize to some degree by my trouble the difficulties\nthat beset monistic idealism. What boots it to call the parts and the\nwhole the same body of experience, when in the same breath you have to\nsay that the all 'as such' means one sort of experience and each part\n'as such' means another?\n\nDifficulties, then, so far, but no stable solution as yet, for I have\nbeen talking only critically. You will probably be relieved to hear,\nthen, that having rounded this corner, I shall begin to consider what\nmay be the possibilities of getting farther.\n\nTo clear the path, I beg you first to note one point. What has so\ntroubled my logical conscience is not so much the absolute by itself\nas the whole class of suppositions of which it is the supreme\nexample, collective experiences namely, claiming identity with their\nconstituent parts, yet experiencing things quite differently from\nthese latter. If _any_ such collective experience can be, then of\ncourse, so far as the mere logic of the case goes, the absolute may\nbe. In a previous lecture I have talked against the absolute from\nother points of view. In this lecture I have meant merely to take it\nas the example most prominent at Oxford of the thing which has given\nme such logical perplexity. I don't logically see how a collective\nexperience of any grade whatever can be treated as logically identical\nwith a lot of distributive experiences. They form two different\nconcepts. The absolute happens to be the only collective experience\nconcerning which Oxford idealists have urged the identity, so I took\nit as my prerogative instance. But Fechner's earth-soul, or any stage\nof being below or above that, would have served my purpose just\nas well: the same logical objection applies to these collective\nexperiences as to the absolute.\n\nSo much, then, in order that you may not be confused about my\nstrategical objective. The real point to defend against the logic that\nI have used is the identity of the collective and distributive anyhow,\nnot the particular example of such identity known as the absolute.\n\nSo now for the directer question. Shall we say that every complex\nmental fact is a separate psychic entity succeeding upon a lot of\nother psychic entities which are erroneously called its parts, and\nsuperseding them in function, but not literally being composed of\nthem? This was the course I took in my psychology; and if followed in\ntheology, we should have to deny the absolute as usually conceived,\nand replace it by the 'God' of theism. We should also have to deny\nFechner's 'earth-soul' and all other superhuman collections of\nexperience of every grade, so far at least as these are held to be\ncompounded of our simpler souls in the way which Fechner believed\nin; and we should have to make all these denials in the name of the\nincorruptible logic of self-identity, teaching us that to call a thing\nand its other the same is to commit the crime of self-contradiction.\n\nBut if we realize the whole philosophic situation thus produced,\nwe see that it is almost intolerable. Loyal to the logical kind of\nrationality, it is disloyal to every other kind. It makes the universe\ndiscontinuous. These fields of experience that replace each other\nso punctually, each knowing the same matter, but in ever-widening\ncontexts, from simplest feeling up to absolute knowledge, _can_\nthey have no _being_ in common when their cognitive function is so\nmanifestly common? The regular succession of them is on such terms an\nunintelligible miracle. If you reply that their common _object_ is\nof itself enough to make the many witnesses continuous, the same\nimplacable logic follows you--how _can_ one and the same object appear\nso variously? Its diverse appearances break it into a plurality; and\nour world of objects then falls into discontinuous pieces quite as\nmuch as did our world of subjects. The resultant irrationality is\nreally intolerable.\n\nI said awhile ago that I was envious of Fechner and the other\npantheists because I myself wanted the same freedom that I saw them\nunscrupulously enjoying, of letting mental fields compound themselves\nand so make the universe more continuous, but that my conscience held\nme prisoner. In my heart of hearts, however, I knew that my situation\nwas absurd and could be only provisional. That secret of a continuous\nlife which the universe knows by heart and acts on every instant\ncannot be a contradiction incarnate. If logic says it is one, so\nmuch the worse for logic. Logic being the lesser thing, the static\nincomplete abstraction, must succumb to reality, not reality to logic.\nOur intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in its\nchrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the\nuniverse that engendered it. Fechner, Royce, and Hegel seem on the\ntruer path. Fechner has never heard of logic's veto, Royce hears the\nvoice but cannily ignores the utterances, Hegel hears them but to\nspurn them--and all go on their way rejoicing. Shall we alone obey the\nveto?\n\nSincerely, and patiently as I could, I struggled with the problem for\nyears, covering hundreds of sheets of paper with notes and memoranda\nand discussions with myself over the difficulty. How can many\nconsciousnesses be at the same time one consciousness? How can one and\nthe same identical fact experience itself so diversely? The struggle\nwas vain; I found myself in an _impasse_. I saw that I must either\nforswear that 'psychology without a soul' to which my whole\npsychological and kantian education had committed me,--I must, in\nshort, bring back distinct spiritual agents to know the mental states,\nnow singly and now in combination, in a word bring back scholasticism\nand common sense--or else I must squarely confess the solution of\nthe problem impossible, and then either give up my intellectualistic\nlogic, the logic of identity, and adopt some higher (or lower) form\nof rationality, or, finally, face the fact that life is logically\nirrational.\n\nSincerely, this is the actual trilemma that confronts every one of us.\nThose of you who are scholastic-minded, or simply common-sense minded,\nwill smile at the elaborate groans of my parturient mountain resulting\nin nothing but this mouse. Accept the spiritual agents, for heaven's\nsake, you will say, and leave off your ridiculous pedantry. Let but\nour 'souls' combine our sensations by their intellectual faculties,\nand let but 'God' replace the pantheistic world-soul, and your wheels\nwill go round again--you will enjoy both life and logic together.\n\nThis solution is obvious and I know that many of you will adopt it. It\nis comfortable, and all our habits of speech support it. Yet it is not\nfor idle or fantastical reasons that the notion of the substantial\nsoul, so freely used by common men and the more popular philosophies,\nhas fallen upon such evil days, and has no prestige in the eyes of\ncritical thinkers. It only shares the fate of other unrepresentable\nsubstances and principles. They are without exception all so barren\nthat to sincere inquirers they appear as little more than names\nmasquerading--Wo die begriffe fehlen da stellt ein wort zur rechten\nzeit sich ein. You see no deeper into the fact that a hundred\nsensations get compounded or known together by thinking that a 'soul'\ndoes the compounding than you see into a man's living eighty years by\nthinking of him as an octogenarian, or into our having five fingers by\ncalling us pentadactyls. Souls have worn out both themselves and\ntheir welcome, that is the plain truth. Philosophy ought to get the\nmanifolds of experience unified on principles less empty. Like the\nword 'cause,' the word 'soul' is but a theoretic stop-gap--it marks a\nplace and claims it for a future explanation to occupy.\n\nThis being our post-humian and post-kantian state of mind, I will ask\nyour permission to leave the soul wholly out of the present discussion\nand to consider only the residual dilemma. Some day, indeed, souls may\nget their innings again in philosophy--I am quite ready to admit that\npossibility--they form a category of thought too natural to the human\nmind to expire without prolonged resistance. But if the belief in the\nsoul ever does come to life after the many funeral-discourses which\nhumian and kantian criticism have preached over it, I am sure it will\nbe only when some one has found in the term a pragmatic significance\nthat has hitherto eluded observation. When that champion speaks, as\nhe well may speak some day, it will be time to consider souls more\nseriously.\n\nLet us leave out the soul, then, and confront what I just called\nthe residual dilemma. Can we, on the one hand, give up the logic\nof identity?--can we, on the other, believe human experience to be\nfundamentally irrational? Neither is easy, yet it would seem that we\nmust do one or the other.\n\nFew philosophers have had the frankness fairly to admit the necessity\nof choosing between the 'horns' offered. Reality must be rational,\nthey have said, and since the ordinary intellectualist logic is\nthe only usual test of rationality, reality and logic must agree\n'somehow.' Hegel was the first non-mystical writer to face the\ndilemma squarely and throw away the ordinary logic, saving a\npseudo-rationality for the universe by inventing the higher logic of\nthe 'dialectic process.' Bradley holds to the intellectualist logic,\nand by dint of it convicts the human universe of being irrationality\nincarnate. But what must be and can be, is, he says; there must and\ncan be relief from _that_ irrationality; and the absolute must already\nhave got the relief in secret ways of its own, impossible for us to\nguess at. _We_ of course get no relief, so Bradley's is a rather\nascetic doctrine. Royce and Taylor accept similar solutions, only they\nemphasize the irrationality of our finite universe less than Bradley\ndoes; and Royce in particular, being unusually 'thick' for an\nidealist, tries to bring the absolute's secret forms of relief more\nsympathetically home to our imagination.\n\nWell, what must we do in this tragic predicament? For my own part, I\nhave finally found myself compelled to _give up the logic_, fairly,\nsquarely, and irrevocably. It has an imperishable use in human life,\nbut that use is not to make us theoretically acquainted with the\nessential nature of reality--just what it is I can perhaps suggest\nto you a little later. Reality, life, experience, concreteness,\nimmediacy, use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows and\nsurrounds it. If you like to employ words eulogistically, as most\nmen do, and so encourage confusion, you may say that reality obeys a\nhigher logic, or enjoys a higher rationality. But I think that\neven eulogistic words should be used rather to distinguish than\nto commingle meanings, so I prefer bluntly to call reality if not\nirrational then at least non-rational in its constitution,--and by\nreality here I mean reality where things _happen_, all temporal\nreality without exception. I myself find no good warrant for even\nsuspecting the existence of any reality of a higher denomination than\nthat distributed and strung-along and flowing sort of reality which we\nfinite beings swim in. That is the sort of reality given us, and that\nis the sort with which logic is so incommensurable. If there be any\nhigher sort of reality--the 'absolute,' for example--that sort, by\nthe confession of those who believe in it, is still less amenable\nto ordinary logic; it transcends logic and is therefore still less\nrational in the intellectualist sense, so it cannot help us to save\nour logic as an adequate definer and confiner of existence.\n\nThese sayings will sound queer and dark, probably they will sound\nquite wild or childish in the absence of explanatory comment. Only the\npersuasion that I soon can explain them, if not satisfactorily to all\nof you, at least intelligibly, emboldens me to state them thus baldly\nas a sort of programme. Please take them as a thesis, therefore, to be\ndefended by later pleading.\n\nI told you that I had long and sincerely wrestled with the dilemma. I\nhave now to confess (and this will probably re-animate your interest)\nthat I should not now be emancipated, not now subordinate logic with\nso very light a heart, or throw it out of the deeper regions of\nphilosophy to take its rightful and respectable place in the world of\nsimple human practice, if I had not been influenced by a comparatively\nyoung and very original french writer, Professor Henri Bergson.\nReading his works is what has made me bold. If I had not read\nBergson, I should probably still be blackening endless pages of paper\nprivately, in the hope of making ends meet that were never meant to\nmeet, and trying to discover some mode of conceiving the behavior of\nreality which should leave no discrepancy between it and the accepted\nlaws of the logic of identity. It is certain, at any rate, that\nwithout the confidence which being able to lean on Bergson's authority\ngives me I should never have ventured to urge these particular views\nof mine upon this ultra-critical audience.\n\nI must therefore, in order to make my own views more intelligible,\ngive some preliminary account of the bergsonian philosophy. But here,\nas in Fechner's case, I must confine myself only to the features\nthat are essential to the present purpose, and not entangle you in\ncollateral details, however interesting otherwise. For our present\npurpose, then, the essential contribution of Bergson to philosophy\nis his criticism of intellectualism. In my opinion he has killed\nintellectualism definitively and without hope of recovery. I don't\nsee how it can ever revive again in its ancient platonizing r\u00f4le of\nclaiming to be the most authentic, intimate, and exhaustive definer\nof the nature of reality. Others, as Kant for example, have denied\nintellectualism's pretensions to define reality _an sich_ or in its\nabsolute capacity; but Kant still leaves it laying down laws--and laws\nfrom which there is no appeal--to all our human experience; while what\nBergson denies is that its methods give any adequate account of this\nhuman experience in its very finiteness. Just how Bergson accomplishes\nall this I must try to tell in my imperfect way in the next lecture;\nbut since I have already used the words 'logic,' 'logic of identity,\nintellectualistic logic,' and 'intellectualism' so often, and\nsometimes used them as if they required no particular explanation, it\nwill be wise at this point to say at greater length than heretofore in\nwhat sense I take these terms when I claim that Bergson has refuted\ntheir pretension to decide what reality can or cannot be. Just what I\nmean by intellectualism is therefore what I shall try to give a fuller\nidea of during the remainder of this present hour.\n\nIn recent controversies some participants have shown resentment\nat being classed as intellectualists. I mean to use the word\ndisparagingly, but shall be sorry if it works offence. Intellectualism\nhas its source in the faculty which gives us our chief superiority to\nthe brutes, our power, namely, of translating the crude flux of our\nmerely feeling-experience into a conceptual order. An immediate\nexperience, as yet unnamed or classed, is a mere _that_ that we\nundergo, a thing that asks, '_What_ am I?' When we name and class it,\nwe say for the first time what it is, and all these whats are abstract\nnames or concepts. Each concept means a particular _kind_ of thing,\nand as things seem once for all to have been created in kinds, a far\nmore efficient handling of a given bit of experience begins as soon as\nwe have classed the various parts of it. Once classed, a thing can be\ntreated by the law of its class, and the advantages are endless. Both\ntheoretically and practically this power of framing abstract concepts\nis one of the sublimest of our human prerogatives. We come back\ninto the concrete from our journey into these abstractions, with an\nincrease both of vision and of power. It is no wonder that earlier\nthinkers, forgetting that concepts are only man-made extracts from the\ntemporal flux, should have ended by treating them as a superior type\nof being, bright, changeless, true, divine, and utterly opposed in\nnature to the turbid, restless lower world. The latter then appears as\nbut their corruption and falsification.\n\nIntellectualism in the vicious sense began when Socrates and Plato\ntaught that what a thing really is, is told us by its _definition_.\nEver since Socrates we have been taught that reality consists of\nessences, not of appearances, and that the essences of things are\nknown whenever we know their definitions. So first we identify\nthe thing with a concept and then we identify the concept with a\ndefinition, and only then, inasmuch as the thing _is_ whatever the\ndefinition expresses, are we sure of apprehending the real essence of\nit or the full truth about it.\n\nSo far no harm is done. The misuse of concepts begins with the habit\nof employing them privatively as well as positively, using them not\nmerely to assign properties to things, but to deny the very properties\nwith which the things sensibly present themselves. Logic can extract\nall its possible consequences from any definition, and the logician\nwho is _unerbittlich consequent_ is often tempted, when he cannot\nextract a certain property from a definition, to deny that the\nconcrete object to which the definition applies can possibly possess\nthat property. The definition that fails to yield it must exclude or\nnegate it. This is Hegel's regular method of establishing his system.\n\nIt is but the old story, of a useful practice first becoming a method,\nthen a habit, and finally a tyranny that defeats the end it was used\nfor. Concepts, first employed to make things intelligible, are clung\nto even when they make them unintelligible. Thus it comes that when\nonce you have conceived things as 'independent,' you must proceed to\ndeny the possibility of any connexion whatever among them, because\nthe notion of connexion is not contained in the definition of\nindependence. For a like reason you must deny any possible forms or\nmodes of unity among things which you have begun by defining as a\n'many.' We have cast a glance at Hegel's and Bradley's use of this\nsort of reasoning, and you will remember Sigwart's epigram that\naccording to it a horseman can never in his life go on foot, or a\nphotographer ever do anything but photograph.\n\nThe classic extreme in this direction is the denial of the possibility\nof change, and the consequent branding of the world of change as\nunreal, by certain philosophers. The definition of A is changeless,\nso is the definition of B. The one definition cannot change into\nthe other, so the notion that a concrete thing A should change into\nanother concrete thing B is made Out to be contrary to reason. In Mr.\nBradley's difficulty in seeing how sugar can be sweet intellectualism\noutstrips itself and becomes openly a sort of verbalism. Sugar is just\nsugar and sweet is just sweet; neither is the other; nor can the\nword 'is' ever be understood to join any subject to its predicate\nrationally. Nothing 'between' things can connect them, for 'between'\nis just that third thing, 'between,' and would need itself to be\nconnected to the first and second things by two still finer betweens,\nand so on ad infinitum.\n\nThe particular intellectualistic difficulty that had held my own\nthought so long in a vise was, as we have seen at such tedious length,\nthe impossibility of understanding how 'your' experience and 'mine,'\nwhich 'as such' are defined as not conscious of each other, can\nnevertheless at the same time be members of a world-experience defined\nexpressly as having all its parts co-conscious, or known together. The\ndefinitions are contradictory, so the things defined can in no way be\nunited. You see how unintelligible intellectualism here seems to make\nthe world of our most accomplished philosophers. Neither as they\nuse it nor as we use it does it do anything but make nature look\nirrational and seem impossible.\n\nIn my next lecture, using Bergson as my principal topic, I shall enter\ninto more concrete details and try, by giving up intellectualism\nfrankly, to make, if not the world, at least my own general thesis,\nless unintelligible.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI\n\n\nBERGSON AND HIS CRITIQUE OF INTELLECTUALISM\n\nI gave you a very stiff lecture last time, and I fear that this one\ncan be little less so. The best way of entering into it will be to\nbegin immediately with Bergson's philosophy, since I told you that\nthat was what had led me personally to renounce the intellectualistic\nmethod and the current notion that logic is an adequate measure of\nwhat can or cannot be.\n\nProfessor Henri Bergson is a young man, comparatively, as influential\nphilosophers go, having been born at Paris in 1859. His career has\nbeen the perfectly routine one of a successful french professor.\nEntering the \u00e9cole normale sup\u00e9rieure at the age of twenty-two, he\nspent the next seventeen years teaching at _lyc\u00e9es_, provincial or\nparisian, until his fortieth year, when he was made professor at the\nsaid \u00e9cole normale. Since 1900 he has been professor at the College de\nFrance, and member of the Institute since 1900. So far as the outward\nfacts go, Bergson's career has then been commonplace to the utmost.\nNeither one of Taine's famous principles of explanation of great\nmen, _the race, the environment, or the moment_, no, nor all three\ntogether, will explain that peculiar way of looking at things that\nconstitutes his mental individuality. Originality in men dates from\nnothing previous, other things date from it, rather. I have to confess\nthat Bergson's originality is so profuse that many of his ideas baffle\nme entirely. I doubt whether any one understands him all over, so to\nspeak; and I am sure that he would himself be the first to see that\nthis must be, and to confess that things which he himself has not yet\nthought out clearly, had yet to be mentioned and have a tentative\nplace assigned them in his philosophy. Many of us are profusely\noriginal, in that no man can understand us--violently peculiar ways\nof looking at things are no great rarity. The rarity is when great\npeculiarity of vision is allied with great lucidity and unusual\ncommand of all the classic expository apparatus. Bergson's resources\nin the way of erudition are remarkable, and in the way of expression\nthey are simply phenomenal. This is why in France, where _l'art de\nbien dire_ counts for so much and is so sure of appreciation, he has\nimmediately taken so eminent a place in public esteem. Old-fashioned\nprofessors, whom his ideas quite fail to satisfy, nevertheless speak\nof his talent almost with bated breath, while the youngsters flock to\nhim as to a master.\n\nIf anything can make hard things easy to follow, it is a style like\nBergson's. A 'straightforward' style, an american reviewer lately\ncalled it; failing to see that such straightforwardness means a\nflexibility of verbal resource that follows the thought without a\ncrease or wrinkle, as elastic silk underclothing follows the movements\nof one's body. The lucidity of Bergson's way of putting things is what\nall readers are first struck by. It seduces you and bribes you in\nadvance to become his disciple. It is a miracle, and he a real\nmagician.\n\nM. Bergson, if I am rightly informed, came into philosophy through the\ngateway of mathematics. The old antinomies of the infinite were,\nI imagine, the irritant that first woke his faculties from their\ndogmatic slumber. You all remember Zeno's famous paradox, or sophism,\nas many of our logic books still call it, of Achilles and the\ntortoise. Give that reptile ever so small an advance and the swift\nrunner Achilles can never overtake him, much less get ahead of him;\nfor if space and time are infinitely divisible (as our intellects\ntell us they must be), by the time Achilles reaches the tortoise's\nstarting-point, the tortoise has already got ahead of _that_\nstarting-point, and so on _ad infinitum_, the interval between the\npursuer and the pursued growing endlessly minuter, but never becoming\nwholly obliterated. The common way of showing up the sophism here is\nby pointing out the ambiguity of the expression 'never can overtake.'\nWhat the word 'never' falsely suggests, it is said, is an infinite\nduration of time; what it really means is the inexhaustible number of\nthe steps of which the overtaking must consist. But if these steps are\ninfinitely short, a finite time will suffice for them; and in point of\nfact they do rapidly converge, whatever be the original interval\nor the contrasted speeds, toward infinitesimal shortness. This\nproportionality of the shortness of the times to that of the spaces\nrequired frees us, it is claimed, from the sophism which the word\n'never' suggests.\n\nBut this criticism misses Zeno's point entirely. Zeno would have been\nperfectly willing to grant that if the tortoise can be overtaken at\nall, he can be overtaken in (say) twenty seconds, but he would still\nhave insisted that he can't be overtaken at all. Leave Achilles and\nthe tortoise out of the account altogether, he would have said--they\ncomplicate the case unnecessarily. Take any single process of change\nwhatever, take the twenty seconds themselves elapsing. If time be\ninfinitely divisible, and it must be so on intellectualist principles,\nthey simply cannot elapse, their end cannot be reached; for no matter\nhow much of them has already elapsed, before the remainder, however\nminute, can have wholly elapsed, the earlier half of it must first\nhave elapsed. And this ever re-arising need of making the earlier half\nelapse _first_ leaves time with always something to do _before_ the\nlast thing is done, so that the last thing never gets done. Expressed\nin bare numbers, it is like the convergent series 1/2 plus 1/4 plus\n1/8..., of which the limit is one. But this limit, simply because it\nis a limit, stands outside the series, the value of which approaches\nit indefinitely but never touches it. If in the natural world there\nwere no other way of getting things save by such successive addition\nof their logically involved fractions, no complete units or whole\nthings would ever come into being, for the fractions' sum would always\nleave a remainder. But in point of fact nature doesn't make eggs by\nmaking first half an egg, then a quarter, then an eighth, etc., and\nadding them together. She either makes a whole egg at once or none\nat all, and so of all her other units. It is only in the sphere of\nchange, then, where one phase of a thing must needs come into being\nbefore another phase can come that Zeno's paradox gives trouble.\n\nAnd it gives trouble then only if the succession of steps of change\nbe infinitely divisible. If a bottle had to be emptied by an infinite\nnumber of successive decrements, it is mathematically impossible that\nthe emptying should ever positively terminate. In point of fact,\nhowever, bottles and coffee-pots empty themselves by a finite number\nof decrements, each of definite amount. Either a whole drop emerges or\nnothing emerges from the spout. If all change went thus drop-wise,\nso to speak, if real time sprouted or grew by units of duration of\ndeterminate amount, just as our perceptions of it grow by pulses,\nthere would be no zenonian paradoxes or kantian antinomies to trouble\nus. All our sensible experiences, as we get them immediately, do thus\nchange by discrete pulses of perception, each of which keeps us saying\n'more, more, more,' or 'less, less, less,' as the definite increments\nor diminutions make themselves felt. The discreteness is still more\nobvious when, instead of old things changing, they cease, or when\naltogether new things come. Fechner's term of the 'threshold,' which\nhas played such a part in the psychology of perception, is only one\nway of naming the quantitative discreteness in the change of all our\nsensible experiences. They come to us in drops. Time itself comes in\ndrops.\n\nOur ideal decomposition of the drops which are all that we feel into\nstill finer fractions is but an incident in that great transformation\nof the perceptual order into a conceptual order of which I spoke in\nmy last lecture. It is made in the interest of our rationalizing\nintellect solely. The times directly _felt_ in the experiences of\nliving subjects have originally no common measure. Let a lump of sugar\nmelt in a glass, to use one of M. Bergson's instances. We feel the\ntime to be long while waiting for the process to end, but who knows\nhow long or how short it feels to the sugar? All _felt_ times coexist\nand overlap or compenetrate each other thus vaguely, but the artifice\nof plotting them on a common scale helps us to reduce their aboriginal\nconfusion, and it helps us still more to plot, against the same scale,\nthe successive possible steps into which nature's various changes may\nbe resolved, either sensibly or conceivably. We thus straighten out\nthe aboriginal privacy and vagueness, and can date things publicly, as\nit were, and by each other. The notion of one objective and 'evenly\nflowing' time, cut into numbered instants, applies itself as a common\nmeasure to all the steps and phases, no matter how many, into which we\ncut the processes of nature. They are now definitely contemporary,\nor later or earlier one than another, and we can handle them\nmathematically, as we say, and far better, practically as well as\ntheoretically, for having thus correlated them one to one with each\nother on the common schematic or conceptual time-scale.\n\nMotion, to take a good example, is originally a turbid sensation, of\nwhich the native shape is perhaps best preserved in the phenomenon of\nvertigo. In vertigo we feel that movement _is_, and is more or less\nviolent or rapid, more or less in this direction or that, more or less\nalarming or sickening. But a man subject to vertigo may gradually\nlearn to co-ordinate his felt motion with his real position and that\nof other things, and intellectualize it enough to succeed at last in\nwalking without staggering. The mathematical mind similarly organizes\nmotion in its way, putting it into a logical definition: motion is now\nconceived as 'the occupancy of serially successive points of space\nat serially successive instants of time.' With such a definition we\nescape wholly from the turbid privacy of sense. But do we not also\nescape from sense-reality altogether? Whatever motion really may be,\nit surely is not static; but the definition we have gained is of the\nabsolutely static. It gives a set of one-to-one relations between\nspace-points and time-points, which relations themselves are as fixed\nas the points are. It gives _positions_ assignable ad infinitum, but\nhow the body gets from one position to another it omits to mention.\nThe body gets there by moving, of course; but the conceived positions,\nhowever numerously multiplied, contain no element of movement, so\nZeno, using nothing but them in his discussion, has no alternative\nbut to say that our intellect repudiates motion as a non-reality.\nIntellectualism here does what I said it does--it makes experience\nless instead of more intelligible.\n\nWe of course need a stable scheme of concepts, stably related with\none another, to lay hold of our experiences and to co-ordinate them\nwithal. When an experience comes with sufficient saliency to stand\nout, we keep the thought of it for future use, and store it in our\nconceptual system. What does not of itself stand out, we learn to\n_cut_ out; so the system grows completer, and new reality, as it\ncomes, gets named after and conceptually strung upon this or that\nelement of it which we have already established. The immutability\nof such an abstract system is its great practical merit; the same\nidentical terms and relations in it can always be recovered and\nreferred to--change itself is just such an unalterable concept. But\nall these abstract concepts are but as flowers gathered, they are only\nmoments dipped out from the stream of time, snap-shots taken, as by\na kinetoscopic camera, at a life that in its original coming is\ncontinuous. Useful as they are as samples of the garden, or to\nre-enter the stream with, or to insert in our revolving lantern, they\nhave no value but these practical values. You cannot explain by them\nwhat makes any single phenomenon be or go--you merely dot out the path\nof appearances which it traverses. For you cannot make continuous\nbeing out of discontinuities, and your concepts are discontinuous. The\nstages into which you analyze a change are _states_, the change itself\ngoes on between them. It lies along their intervals, inhabits what\nyour definition fails to gather up, and thus eludes conceptual\nexplanation altogether.\n\n'When the mathematician,' Bergson writes, 'calculates the state of\na system at the end of a time _t_, nothing need prevent him from\nsupposing that betweenwhiles the universe vanishes, in order suddenly\nto appear again at the due moment in the new configuration. It is\nonly the _t_-th moment that counts--that which flows throughout the\nintervals, namely real time, plays no part in his calculation.... In\nshort, the world on which the mathematician operates is a world which\ndies and is born anew at every instant, like the world which Descartes\nthought of when he spoke of a continued creation.' To know adequately\nwhat really _happens_ we ought, Bergson insists, to see into the\nintervals, but the mathematician sees only their extremities. He\nfixes only a few results, he dots a curve and then interpolates, he\nsubstitutes a tracing for a reality.\n\nThis being so undeniably the case, the history of the way in which\nphilosophy has dealt with it is curious. The ruling tradition in\nphilosophy has always been the platonic and aristotelian belief that\nfixity is a nobler and worthier thing than change. Reality must be one\nand unalterable. Concepts, being themselves fixities, agree best with\nthis fixed nature of truth, so that for any knowledge of ours to be\nquite true it must be knowledge by universal concepts rather than\nby particular experiences, for these notoriously are mutable and\ncorruptible. This is the tradition known as rationalism in philosophy,\nand what I have called intellectualism is only the extreme application\nof it. In spite of sceptics and empiricists, in spite of Protagoras,\nHume, and James Mill, rationalism has never been seriously questioned,\nfor its sharpest critics have always had a tender place in their\nhearts for it, and have obeyed some of its mandates. They have not\nbeen consistent; they have played fast and loose with the enemy; and\nBergson alone has been radical.\n\nTo show what I mean by this, let me contrast his procedure with that\nof some of the transcendentalist philosophers whom I have lately\nmentioned. Coming after Kant, these pique themselves on being\n'critical,' on building in fact upon Kant's 'critique' of pure reason.\nWhat that critique professed to establish was this, that concepts do\nnot apprehend reality, but only such appearances as our senses\nfeed out to them. They give immutable intellectual forms to these\nappearances, it is true, but the reality _an sich_ from which in\nultimate resort the sense-appearances have to come remains forever\nunintelligible to our intellect. Take motion, for example. Sensibly,\nmotion comes in drops, waves, or pulses; either some actual amount of\nit, or none, being apprehended. This amount is the datum or _gabe_\nwhich reality feeds out to our intellectual faculty; but our intellect\nmakes of it a task or _aufgabe_--this pun is one of the most memorable\nof Kant's formulas--and insists that in every pulse of it an infinite\nnumber of successive minor pulses shall be ascertainable. These minor\npulses _we_ can indeed _go on_ to ascertain or to compute indefinitely\nif we have patience; but it would contradict the definition of an\ninfinite number to suppose the endless series of them to have actually\ncounted _themselves_ out piecemeal. Zeno made this manifest; so the\ninfinity which our intellect requires of the sense-datum is thus\na future and potential rather than a past and actual infinity of\nstructure. The datum after it has made itself must be decompos_able_\nad infinitum by our conception, but of the steps by which that\nstructure actually got composed we know nothing. Our intellect casts,\nin short, no ray of light on the processes by which experiences _get\nmade_.\n\nKant's monistic successors have in general found the data of immediate\nexperience even more self-contradictory, when intellectually treated,\nthan Kant did. Not only the character of infinity involved in the\nrelation of various empirical data to their 'conditions,' but the very\nnotion that empirical things should be related to one another at all,\nhas seemed to them, when the intellectualistic fit was upon them, full\nof paradox and contradiction. We saw in a former lecture numerous\ninstances of this from Hegel, Bradley, Royce, and others. We saw also\nwhere the solution of such an intolerable state of things was sought\nfor by these authors. Whereas Kant had placed it outside of and\n_before_ our experience, in the _dinge an sich_ which are the causes\nof the latter, his monistic successors all look for it either _after_\nexperience, as its absolute completion, or else consider it to be even\nnow implicit within experience as its ideal signification. Kant and\nhis successors look, in short, in diametrically opposite directions.\nDo not be misled by Kant's admission of theism into his system.\nHis God is the ordinary dualistic God of Christianity, to whom his\nphilosophy simply opens the door; he has nothing whatsoever in common\nwith the 'absolute spirit' set up by his successors. So far as this\nabsolute spirit is logically derived from Kant, it is not from his\nGod, but from entirely different elements of his philosophy. First\nfrom his notion that an unconditioned totality of the conditions of\nany experience must be assignable; and then from his other notion that\nthe presence of some witness, or ego of apperception, is the most\nuniversal of all the conditions in question. The post-kantians make\nof the witness-condition what is called a concrete universal, an\nindividualized all-witness or world-self, which shall imply in its\nrational constitution each and all of the other conditions put\ntogether, and therefore necessitate each and all of the conditioned\nexperiences.\n\nAbridgments like this of other men's opinions are very unsatisfactory,\nthey always work injustice; but in this case those of you who are\nfamiliar with the literature will see immediately what I have in mind;\nand to the others, if there be any here, it will suffice to say that\nwhat I am trying so pedantically to point out is only the fact that\nmonistic idealists after Kant have invariably sought relief from the\nsupposed contradictions of our world of sense by looking forward\ntoward an _ens rationis_ conceived as its integration or logical\ncompletion, while he looked backward toward non-rational _dinge an\nsich_ conceived as its cause. Pluralistic empiricists, on the other\nhand, have remained in the world of sense, either na\u00efvely and because\nthey overlooked the intellectualistic contradictions, or because, not\nable to ignore them, they thought they could refute them by a superior\nuse of the same intellectualistic logic. Thus it is that John Mill\npretends to refute the Achilles-tortoise fallacy.\n\nThe important point to notice here is the intellectualist logic. Both\nsides treat it as authoritative, but they do so capriciously: the\nabsolutists smashing the world of sense by its means, the empiricists\nsmashing the absolute--for the absolute, they say, is the quintessence\nof all logical contradictions. Neither side attains consistency.\nThe Hegelians have to invoke a higher logic to supersede the purely\ndestructive efforts of their first logic. The empiricists use their\nlogic against the absolute, but refuse to use it against finite\nexperience. Each party uses it or drops it to suit the vision it has\nfaith in, but neither impugns in principle its general theoretic\nauthority.\n\nBergson alone challenges its theoretic authority in principle. He\nalone denies that mere conceptual logic can tell us what is impossible\nor possible in the world of being or fact; and he does so for reasons\nwhich at the same time that they rule logic out from lordship over the\nwhole of life, establish a vast and definite sphere of influence where\nits sovereignty is indisputable. Bergson's own text, felicitous as\nit is, is too intricate for quotation, so I must use my own inferior\nwords in explaining what I mean by saying this.\n\nIn the first place, logic, giving primarily the relations between\nconcepts as such, and the relations between natural facts only\nsecondarily or so far as the facts have been already identified with\nconcepts and defined by them, must of course stand or fall with the\nconceptual method. But the conceptual method is a transformation which\nthe flux of life undergoes at our hands in the interests of practice\nessentially and only subordinately in the interests of theory. We\nlive forward, we understand backward, said a danish writer; and to\nunderstand life by concepts is to arrest its movement, cutting it up\ninto bits as if with scissors, and immobilizing these in our logical\nherbarium where, comparing them as dried specimens, we can ascertain\nwhich of them statically includes or excludes which other. This\ntreatment supposes life to have already accomplished itself, for the\nconcepts, being so many views taken after the fact, are retrospective\nand post mortem. Nevertheless we can draw conclusions from them and\nproject them into the future. We cannot learn from them how life made\nitself go, or how it will make itself go; but, on the supposition that\nits ways of making itself go are unchanging, we can calculate what\npositions of imagined arrest it will exhibit hereafter under given\nconditions. We can compute, for instance, at what point Achilles\nwill be, and where the tortoise will be, at the end of the twentieth\nminute. Achilles may then be at a point far ahead; but the full detail\nof how he will have managed practically to get there our logic never\ngives us--we have seen, indeed, that it finds that its results\ncontradict the facts of nature. The computations which the other\nsciences make differ in no respect from those of mathematics. The\nconcepts used are all of them dots through which, by interpolation or\nextrapolation, curves are drawn, while along the curves other dots are\nfound as consequences. The latest refinements of logic dispense\nwith the curves altogether, and deal solely with the dots and their\ncorrespondences each to each in various series. The authors of these\nrecent improvements tell us expressly that their aim is to abolish the\nlast vestiges of intuition, _videlicet_ of concrete reality, from the\nfield of reasoning, which then will operate literally on mental dots\nor bare abstract units of discourse, and on the ways in which they may\nbe strung in naked series.\n\nThis is all very esoteric, and my own understanding of it is most\nlikely misunderstanding. So I speak here only by way of brief reminder\nto those who know. For the rest of us it is enough to recognize this\nfact, that altho by means of concepts cut out from the sensible flux\nof the past, we can re-descend upon the future flux and, making\nanother cut, say what particular thing is likely to be found there;\nand that altho in this sense concepts give us knowledge, and may be\nsaid to have some theoretic value (especially when the particular\nthing foretold is one in which we take no present practical interest);\nyet in the deeper sense of giving _insight_ they have no theoretic\nvalue, for they quite fail to connect us with the inner life of the\nflux, or with the causes that govern its direction. Instead of being\ninterpreters of reality, concepts negate the inwardness of reality\naltogether. They make the whole notion of a causal influence between\nfinite things incomprehensible. No real activities and indeed no real\nconnexions of any kind can obtain if we follow the conceptual logic;\nfor to be distinguishable, according to what I call intellectualism,\nis to be incapable of connexion. The work begun by Zeno, and continued\nby Hume, Kant, Herbart, Hegel, and Bradley, does not stop till\nsensible reality lies entirely disintegrated at the feet of 'reason.'\n\nOf the 'absolute' reality which reason proposes to substitute for\nsensible reality I shall have more to say presently. Meanwhile you see\nwhat Professor Bergson means by insisting that the function of the\nintellect is practical rather than theoretical. Sensible reality is\ntoo concrete to be entirely manageable--look at the narrow range of it\nwhich is all that any animal, living in it exclusively as he does, is\nable to compass. To get from one point in it to another we have to\nplough or wade through the whole intolerable interval. No detail is\nspared us; it is as bad as the barbed-wire complications at Port\nArthur, and we grow old and die in the process. But with our faculty\nof abstracting and fixing concepts we are there in a second, almost as\nif we controlled a fourth dimension, skipping the intermediaries as\nby a divine winged power, and getting at the exact point we require\nwithout entanglement with any context. What we do in fact is to\n_harness up_ reality in our conceptual systems in order to drive it\nthe better. This process is practical because all the termini to which\nwe drive are _particular_ termini, even when they are facts of the\nmental order. But the sciences in which the conceptual method chiefly\ncelebrates its triumphs are those of space and matter, where the\ntransformations of external things are dealt with. To deal with moral\nfacts conceptually, we have first to transform them, substitute\nbrain-diagrams or physical metaphors, treat ideas as atoms, interests\nas mechanical forces, our conscious 'selves' as 'streams,' and the\nlike. Paradoxical effect! as Bergson well remarks, if our intellectual\nlife were not practical but destined to reveal the inner natures.\nOne would then suppose that it would find itself most at home in the\ndomain of its own intellectual realities. But it is precisely there\nthat it finds itself at the end of its tether. We know the inner\nmovements of our spirit only perceptually. We feel them live in us,\nbut can give no distinct account of their elements, nor definitely\npredict their future; while things that lie along the world of space,\nthings of the sort that we literally _handle_, are what our intellects\ncope with most successfully. Does not this confirm us in the view that\nthe original and still surviving function of our intellectual life\nis to guide us in the practical adaptation of our expectancies and\nactivities?\n\nOne can easily get into a verbal mess at this point, and my own\nexperience with pragmatism' makes me shrink from the dangers that lie\nin the word 'practical,' and far rather than stand out against you for\nthat word, I am quite willing to part company with Professor Bergson,\nand to ascribe a primarily theoretical function to our intellect,\nprovided you on your part then agree to discriminate 'theoretic' or\nscientific knowledge from the deeper 'speculative' knowledge aspired\nto by most philosophers, and concede that theoretic knowledge,\nwhich is knowledge _about_ things, as distinguished from living or\nsympathetic acquaintance with them, touches only the outer surface of\nreality. The surface which theoretic knowledge taken in this sense\ncovers may indeed be enormous in extent; it may dot the whole diameter\nof space and time with its conceptual creations; but it does not\npenetrate a millimeter into the solid dimension. That inner dimension\nof reality is occupied by the _activities_ that keep it going, but the\nintellect, speaking through Hume, Kant & Co., finds itself obliged to\ndeny, and persists in denying, that activities have any intelligible\nexistence. What exists for _thought_, we are told, is at most the\nresults that we illusorily ascribe to such activities, strung along\nthe surfaces of space and time by _regeln der verkn\u00fcpfung_, laws of\nnature which state only coexistences and successions.[1]\n\nThought deals thus solely with surfaces. It can name the thickness\nof reality, but it cannot fathom it, and its insufficiency here is\nessential and permanent, not temporary.\n\nThe only way in which to apprehend reality's thickness is either to\nexperience it directly by being a part of reality one's self, or to\nevoke it in imagination by sympathetically divining some one else's\ninner life. But what we thus immediately experience or concretely\ndivine is very limited in duration, whereas abstractly we are able to\nconceive eternities. Could we feel a million years concretely as we\nnow feel a passing minute, we should have very little employment for\nour conceptual faculty. We should know the whole period fully at every\nmoment of its passage, whereas we must now construct it laboriously by\nmeans of concepts which we project. Direct acquaintance and conceptual\nknowledge are thus complementary of each other; each remedies the\nother's defects. If what we care most about be the synoptic treatment\nof phenomena, the vision of the far and the gathering of the scattered\nlike, we must follow the conceptual method. But if, as metaphysicians,\nwe are more curious about the inner nature of reality or about what\nreally makes it go, we must turn our backs upon our winged concepts\naltogether, and bury ourselves in the thickness of those passing\nmoments over the surface of which they fly, and on particular points\nof which they occasionally rest and perch.\n\nProfessor Bergson thus inverts the traditional platonic doctrine\nabsolutely. Instead of intellectual knowledge being the profounder,\nhe calls it the more superficial. Instead of being the only adequate\nknowledge, it is grossly inadequate, and its only superiority is the\npractical one of enabling us to make short cuts through experience\nand thereby to save time. The one thing it cannot do is to reveal the\nnature of things--which last remark, if not clear already, will become\nclearer as I proceed. Dive back into the flux itself, then, Bergson\ntells us, if you wish to _know_ reality, that flux which Platonism, in\nits strange belief that only the immutable is excellent, has always\nspurned; turn your face toward sensation, that flesh-bound thing which\nrationalism has always loaded with abuse.--This, you see, is exactly\nthe opposite remedy from that of looking forward into the absolute,\nwhich our idealistic contemporaries prescribe. It violates our mental\nhabits, being a kind of passive and receptive listening quite contrary\nto that effort to react noisily and verbally on everything, which is\nour usual intellectual pose.\n\nWhat, then, are the peculiar features in the perceptual flux which the\nconceptual translation so fatally leaves out?\n\nThe essence of life is its continuously changing character; but our\nconcepts are all discontinuous and fixed, and the only mode of making\nthem coincide with life is by arbitrarily supposing positions of\narrest therein. With such arrests our concepts may be made congruent.\nBut these concepts are not _parts_ of reality, not real positions\ntaken by it, but _suppositions_ rather, notes taken by ourselves, and\nyou can no more dip up the substance of reality with them than you can\ndip up water with a net, however finely meshed.\n\nWhen we conceptualize, we cut out and fix, and exclude everything\nbut what we have fixed. A concept means a _that-and-no-other_.\nConceptually, time excludes space; motion and rest exclude each other;\napproach excludes contact; presence excludes absence; unity excludes\nplurality; independence excludes relativity; 'mine' excludes 'yours';\nthis connexion excludes that connexion--and so on indefinitely;\nwhereas in the real concrete sensible flux of life experiences\ncompenetrate each other so that it is not easy to know just what is\nexcluded and what not. Past and future, for example, conceptually\nseparated by the cut to which we give the name of present, and defined\nas being the opposite sides of that cut, are to some extent, however\nbrief, co-present with each other throughout experience. The literally\npresent moment is a purely verbal supposition, not a position; the\nonly present ever realized concretely being the 'passing moment' in\nwhich the dying rearward of time and its dawning future forever mix\ntheir lights. Say 'now' and it _was_ even while you say it.\n\nIt is just intellectualism's attempt to substitute static cuts\nfor units of experienced duration that makes real motion so\nunintelligible. The conception of the first half of the interval\nbetween Achilles and the tortoise excludes that of the last half, and\nthe mathematical necessity of traversing it separately before the last\nhalf is traversed stands permanently in the way of the last half ever\nbeing traversed. Meanwhile the living Achilles (who, for the purposes\nof this discussion, is only the abstract name of one phenomenon of\nimpetus, just as the tortoise is of another) asks no leave of logic.\nThe velocity of his acts is an indivisible nature in them like the\nexpansive tension in a spring compressed. We define it conceptually as\n[_s/t_], but the _s_ and _t_ are only artificial cuts made after the\nfact, and indeed most artificial when we treat them in both runners\nas the same tracts of 'objective' space and time, for the experienced\nspaces and times in which the tortoise inwardly lives are probably\nas different as his velocity from the same things in Achilles. The\nimpetus of Achilles is one concrete fact, and carries space, time, and\nconquest over the inferior creature's motion indivisibly in it. He\nperceives nothing, while running, of the mathematician's homogeneous\ntime and space, of the infinitely numerous succession of cuts in both,\nor of their order. End and beginning come for him in the one onrush,\nand all that he actually experiences is that, in the midst of a\ncertain intense effort of his own, the rival is in point of fact\noutstripped.\n\nWe are so inveterately wedded to the conceptual decomposition of life\nthat I know that this will seem to you like putting muddiest confusion\nin place of clearest thought, and relapsing into a molluscoid state\nof mind. Yet I ask you whether the absolute superiority of our higher\nthought is so very clear, if all that it can find is impossibility in\ntasks which sense-experience so easily performs.\n\nWhat makes you call real life confusion is that it presents, as\nif they were dissolved in one another, a lot of differents which\nconception breaks life's flow by keeping apart. But _are_ not\ndifferents actually dissolved in one another? Hasn't every bit of\nexperience its quality, its duration, its extension, its intensity,\nits urgency, its clearness, and many aspects besides, no one of which\ncan exist in the isolation in which our verbalized logic keeps it?\nThey exist only _durcheinander_. Reality always is, in M. Bergson's\nphrase, an endosmosis or conflux of the same with the different: they\ncompenetrate and telescope. For conceptual logic, the same is nothing\nbut the same, and all sames with a third thing are the same with each\nother. Not so in concrete experience. Two spots on our skin, each of\nwhich feels the same as a third spot when touched along with it, are\nfelt as different from each other. Two tones, neither distinguishable\nfrom a third tone, are perfectly distinct from each other. The whole\nprocess of life is due to life's violation of our logical axioms.\nTake its continuity as an example. Terms like A and C appear to be\nconnected by intermediaries, by B for example. Intellectualism calls\nthis absurd, for 'B-connected-with-A' is, 'as such,' a different term\nfrom 'B-connected-with-C.' But real life laughs at logic's veto.\nImagine a heavy log which takes two men to carry it. First A and B\ntake it. Then C takes hold and A drops off; then D takes hold and B\ndrops off, so that C and D now bear it; and so on. The log meanwhile\nnever drops, and keeps its sameness throughout the journey. Even so\nit is with all our experiences. Their changes are not complete\nannihilations followed by complete creations of something absolutely\nnovel. There is partial decay and partial growth, and all the while a\nnucleus of relative constancy from which what decays drops off, and\nwhich takes into itself whatever is grafted on, until at length\nsomething wholly different has taken its place. In such a process we\nare as sure, in spite of intellectualist logic with its 'as suches,'\nthat it _is_ the same nucleus which is able now to make connexion with\nwhat goes and again with what comes, as we are sure that the same\npoint can lie on diverse lines that intersect there. Without being one\nthroughout, such a universe is continuous. Its members interdigitate\nwith their next neighbors in manifold directions, and there are no\nclean cuts between them anywhere.\n\nThe great clash of intellectualist logic with sensible experience is\nwhere the experience is that of influence exerted. Intellectualism\ndenies (as we saw in lecture ii) that finite things can act on one\nanother, for all things, once translated into concepts, remain shut up\nto themselves. To act on anything means to get into it somehow; but\nthat would mean to get out of one's self and be one's other, which is\nself-contradictory, etc. Meanwhile each of us actually _is_ his own\nother to that extent, livingly knowing how to perform the trick which\nlogic tells us can't be done. My thoughts animate and actuate this\nvery body which you see and hear, and thereby influence your thoughts.\nThe dynamic current somehow does get from me to you, however numerous\nthe intermediary conductors may have to be. Distinctions may be\ninsulators in logic as much as they like, but in life distinct things\ncan and do commune together every moment.\n\nThe conflict of the two ways of knowing is best summed up in the\nintellectualist doctrine that 'the same cannot exist in many\nrelations.' This follows of course from the concepts of the two\nrelations being so distinct that 'what-is-in-the-one' means 'as such'\nsomething distinct from what 'what-is-in-the-other' means. It is like\nMill's ironical saying, that we should not think of Newton as both an\nEnglishman and a mathematician, because an Englishman as such is not\na mathematician and a mathematician as such is not an Englishman. But\nthe real Newton was somehow both things at once; and throughout the\nwhole finite universe each real thing proves to be many differents\nwithout undergoing the necessity of breaking into disconnected\neditions of itself.\n\nThese few indications will perhaps suffice to put you at the\nbergsonian point of view. The immediate experience of life solves the\nproblems which so baffle our conceptual intelligence: How can what is\nmanifold be one? how can things get out of themselves? how be their\nown others? how be both distinct and connected? how can they act on\none another? how be for others and yet for themselves? how be absent\nand present at once? The intellect asks these questions much as we\nmight ask how anything can both separate and unite things, or how\nsounds can grow more alike by continuing to grow more different. If\nyou already know space sensibly, you can answer the former question by\npointing to any interval in it, long or short; if you know the musical\nscale, you can answer the latter by sounding an octave; but then you\nmust first have the sensible knowledge of these realities. Similarly\nBergson answers the intellectualist conundrums by pointing back to our\nvarious finite sensational experiences and saying, 'Lo, even thus;\neven so are these other problems solved livingly.'\n\nWhen you have broken the reality into concepts you never can\nreconstruct it in its wholeness. Out of no amount of discreteness\ncan you manufacture the concrete. But place yourself at a bound, or\n_d'embl\u00e9e_, as M. Bergson says, inside of the living, moving, active\nthickness of the real, and all the abstractions and distinctions\nare given into your hand: you can now make the intellectualist\nsubstitutions to your heart's content. Install yourself in phenomenal\nmovement, for example, and velocity, succession, dates, positions, and\ninnumerable other things are given you in the bargain. But with only\nan abstract succession of dates and positions you can never patch up\nmovement itself. It slips through their intervals and is lost.\n\nSo it is with every concrete thing, however complicated. Our\nintellectual handling of it is a retrospective patchwork, a\npost-mortem dissection, and can follow any order we find most\nexpedient. We can make the thing seem self-contradictory whenever\nwe wish to. But place yourself at the point of view of the thing's\ninterior _doing_, and all these back-looking and conflicting\nconceptions lie harmoniously in your hand. Get at the expanding centre\nof a human character, the _\u00e9lan vital_ of a man, as Bergson calls it,\nby living sympathy, and at a stroke you see how it makes those who see\nit from without interpret it in such diverse ways. It is something\nthat breaks into both honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice,\nstupidity and insight, at the touch of varying circumstances, and you\nfeel exactly why and how it does this, and never seek to identify\nit stably with any of these single abstractions. Only your\nintellectualist does that,--and you now also feel why _he_ must do it\nto the end.\n\nPlace yourself similarly at the centre of a man's philosophic vision\nand you understand at once all the different things it makes him write\nor say. But keep outside, use your post-mortem method, try to build\nthe philosophy up out of the single phrases, taking first one and then\nanother and seeking to make them fit, and of course you fail. You\ncrawl over the thing like a myopic ant over a building, tumbling\ninto every microscopic crack or fissure, finding nothing but\ninconsistencies, and never suspecting that a centre exists. I hope\nthat some of the philosophers in this audience may occasionally have\nhad something different from this intellectualist type of criticism\napplied to their own works!\n\nWhat really _exists_ is not things made but things in the making. Once\nmade, they are dead, and an infinite number of alternative conceptual\ndecompositions can be used in defining them. But put yourself _in the\nmaking_ by a stroke of intuitive sympathy with the thing and, the\nwhole range of possible decompositions coming at once into your\npossession, you are no longer troubled with the question which of\nthem is the more absolutely true. Reality _falls_ in passing into\nconceptual analysis; it _mounts_ in living its own undivided life--it\nbuds and bourgeons, changes and creates. Once adopt the movement of\nthis life in any given instance and you know what Bergson calls the\n_devenir r\u00e9el_ by which the thing evolves and grows. Philosophy should\nseek this kind of living understanding of the movement of reality,\nnot follow science in vainly patching together fragments of its dead\nresults.\n\nThus much of M. Bergson's philosophy is sufficient for my purpose in\nthese lectures, so here I will stop, leaving unnoticed all its other\nconstituent features, original and interesting tho they be. You may\nsay, and doubtless some of you now are saying inwardly, that his\nremanding us to sensation in this wise is only a regress, a return to\nthat ultra-crude empiricism which your own idealists since Green\nhave buried ten times over. I confess that it is indeed a return to\nempiricism, but I think that the return in such accomplished shape\nonly proves the latter's immortal truth. What won't stay buried must\nhave some genuine life. _Am anfang war die tat_; fact is a _first_; to\nwhich all our conceptual handling comes as an inadequate second,\nnever its full equivalent. When I read recent transcendentalist\nliterature--I must partly except my colleague Royce!--I get nothing\nbut a sort of marking of time, champing of jaws, pawing of the ground,\nand resettling into the same attitude, like a weary horse in a stall\nwith an empty manger. It is but turning over the same few threadbare\ncategories, bringing the same objections, and urging the same answers\nand solutions, with never a new fact or a new horizon coming into\nsight. But open Bergson, and new horizons loom on every page you read.\nIt is like the breath of the morning and the song of birds. It tells\nof reality itself, instead of merely reiterating what dusty-minded\nprofessors have written about what other previous professors have\nthought. Nothing in Bergson is shop-worn or at second hand.\n\nThat he gives us no closed-in system will of course be fatal to him in\nintellectualist eyes. He only evokes and invites; but he first annuls\nthe intellectualist veto, so that we now join step with reality with\na philosophical conscience never quite set free before. As a french\ndisciple of his well expresses it: 'Bergson claims of us first of all\na certain inner catastrophe, and not every one is capable of such a\nlogical revolution. But those who have once found themselves flexible\nenough for the execution of such a psychological change of front,\ndiscover somehow that they can never return again to their ancient\nattitude of mind. They are now Bergsonians ... and possess the\nprincipal thoughts of the master all at once. They have understood in\nthe fashion in which one loves, they have caught the whole melody and\ncan thereafter admire at their leisure the originality, the fecundity,\nand the imaginative genius with which its author develops, transposes,\nand varies in a thousand ways by the orchestration of his style and\ndialectic, the original theme.'[2]\n\nThis, scant as it is, is all I have to say about Bergson on this\noccasion--I hope it may send some of you to his original text. I must\nnow turn back to the point where I found it advisable to appeal to his\nideas. You remember my own intellectualist difficulties in the last\nlecture, about how a lot of separate consciousnesses can at the same\ntime be one collective thing. How, I asked, can one and the same\nidentical content of experience, of which on idealist principles the\n_esse_ is to be felt, be felt so diversely if itself be the only\nfeeler? The usual way of escape by 'quatenus' or 'as such' won't\nhelp us here if we are radical intellectualists, I said, for\nappearance-together is as such _not_ appearance-apart, the world _qu\u00e2_\nmany is not the world _qu\u00e2_ one, as absolutism claims. If we hold to\nHume's maxim, which later intellectualism uses so well, that whatever\nthings are distinguished are as separate as if there were no manner of\nconnexion between them, there seemed no way out of the difficulty save\nby stepping outside of experience altogether and invoking different\nspiritual agents, selves or souls, to realize the diversity required.\nBut this rescue by 'scholastic entities' I was unwilling to accept any\nmore than pantheistic idealists accept it.\n\nYet, to quote Fechner's phrase again, 'nichts wirkliches kann\nunm\u00f6glich sein,' the actual cannot be impossible, and what _is_ actual\nat every moment of our lives is the sort of thing which I now\nproceed to remind you of. You can hear the vibration of an electric\ncontact-maker, smell the ozone, see the sparks, and feel the thrill,\nco-consciously as it were or in one field of experience. But you can\nalso isolate any one of these sensations by shutting out the rest. If\nyou close your eyes, hold your nose, and remove your hand, you can get\nthe sensation of sound alone, but it seems still the same sensation\nthat it was; and if you restore the action of the other organs, the\nsound coalesces with the feeling, the sight, and the smell sensations\nagain. Now the natural way of talking of all this[3] is to say that\ncertain sensations are experienced, now singly, and now together\nwith other sensations, in a common conscious field. Fluctuations of\nattention give analogous results. We let a sensation in or keep it out\nby changing our attention; and similarly we let an item of memory in\nor drop it out. [Please don't raise the question here of how these\nchanges _come to pass_. The immediate condition is probably cerebral\nin every instance, but it would be irrelevant now to consider it, for\nnow we are thinking only of results, and I repeat that the natural way\nof thinking of them is that which intellectualist criticism finds so\nabsurd.]\n\nThe absurdity charged is that the self-same should function so\ndifferently, now with and now without something else. But this it\nsensibly seems to do. This very desk which I strike with my hand\nstrikes in turn your eyes. It functions at once as a physical object\nin the outer world and as a mental object in our sundry mental worlds.\nThe very body of mine that _my_ thought actuates is the body whose\ngestures are _your_ visual object and to which you give my name. The\nvery log which John helped to carry is the log now borne by James. The\nvery girl you love is simultaneously entangled elsewhere. The very\nplace behind me is in front of you. Look where you will, you gather\nonly examples of the same amid the different, and of different\nrelations existing as it were in solution in the same thing. _Qu\u00e2_\nthis an experience is not the same as it is _qu\u00e2_ that, truly enough;\nbut the _qu\u00e2s_ are conceptual shots of ours at its post-mortem\nremains, and in its sensational immediacy everything is all at once\nwhatever different things it is at once at all. It is before C and\nafter A, far from you and near to me, without this associate and with\nthat one, active and passive, physical and mental, a whole of\nparts and part of a higher whole, all simultaneously and without\ninterference or need of doubling-up its being, so long as we keep to\nwhat I call the 'immediate' point of view, the point of view in which\nwe follow our sensational life's continuity, and to which all living\nlanguage conforms. It is only when you try--to continue using the\nhegelian vocabulary--to 'mediate' the immediate, or to substitute\nconcepts for sensational life, that intellectualism celebrates\nits triumph and the immanent-self-contradictoriness of all this\nsmooth-running finite experience gets proved.\n\nOf the oddity of inventing as a remedy for the inconveniences\nresulting from this situation a supernumerary conceptual object\ncalled an absolute, into which you pack the self-same contradictions\nunreduced, I will say something in the next lecture. The absolute is\nsaid to perform its feats by taking up its other into itself. But\nthat is exactly what is done when every individual morsel of the\nsensational stream takes up the adjacent morsels by coalescing with\nthem. This is just what we mean by the stream's sensible continuity.\nNo element _there_ cuts itself off from any other element, as concepts\ncut themselves from concepts. No part _there_ is so small as not to be\na place of conflux. No part there is not really _next_ its neighbors;\nwhich means that there is literally nothing between; which means\nagain that no part goes exactly so far and no farther; that no part\nabsolutely excludes another, but that they compenetrate and are\ncohesive; that if you tear out one, its roots bring out more with\nthem; that whatever is real is telescoped and diffused into other\nreals; that, in short, every minutest thing is already its hegelian\n'own other,' in the fullest sense of the term.\n\nOf course this _sounds_ self-contradictory, but as the immediate facts\ndon't sound at all, but simply _are_, until we conceptualize and name\nthem vocally, the contradiction results only from the conceptual\nor discursive form being substituted for the real form. But if, as\nBergson shows, that form is superimposed for practical ends only, in\norder to let us jump about over life instead of wading through it;\nand if it cannot even pretend to reveal anything of what life's inner\nnature is or ought to be; why then we can turn a deaf ear to its\naccusations. The resolve to turn the deaf ear is the inner crisis or\n'catastrophe' of which M. Bergson's disciple whom I lately quoted\nspoke. We are so subject to the philosophic tradition which treats\n_logos_ or discursive thought generally as the sole avenue to truth,\nthat to fall back on raw unverbalized life as more of a revealer, and\nto think of concepts as the merely practical things which Bergson\ncalls them, comes very hard. It is putting off our proud maturity of\nmind and becoming again as foolish little children in the eyes of\nreason. But difficult as such a revolution is, there is no other way,\nI believe, to the possession of reality, and I permit myself to hope\nthat some of you may share my opinion after you have heard my next\nlecture.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII\n\n\nTHE CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE\n\nI fear that few of you will have been able to obey Bergson's call upon\nyou to look towards the sensational life for the fuller knowledge of\nreality, or to sympathize with his attempt to limit the divine right\nof concepts to rule our mind absolutely. It is too much like looking\ndownward and not up. Philosophy, you will say, doesn't lie flat on its\nbelly in the middle of experience, in the very thick of its sand and\ngravel, as this Bergsonism does, never getting a peep at anything from\nabove. Philosophy is essentially the vision of things from above.\nIt doesn't simply feel the detail of things, it comprehends their\nintelligible plan, sees their forms and principles, their categories\nand rules, their order and necessity. It takes the superior point of\nview of the architect. Is it conceivable that it should ever forsake\nthat point of view and abandon itself to a slovenly life of immediate\nfeeling? To say nothing of your traditional Oxford devotion to\nAristotle and Plato, the leaven of T.H. Green probably works still\ntoo strongly here for his anti-sensationalism to be outgrown quickly.\nGreen more than any one realized that knowledge _about_ things was\nknowledge of their relations; but nothing could persuade him that our\nsensational life could contain any relational element. He followed\nthe strict intellectualist method with sensations. What they were not\nexpressly defined as including, they must exclude. Sensations are not\ndefined as relations, so in the end Green thought that they could\nget related together only by the action on them from above of a\n'self-distinguishing' absolute and eternal mind, present to that which\nis related, but not related itself. 'A relation,' he said, 'is not\ncontingent with the contingency of feeling. It is permanent with\nthe permanence of the combining and comparing thought which alone\nconstitutes it.'[1] In other words, relations are purely conceptual\nobjects, and the sensational life as such cannot relate itself\ntogether. Sensation in itself, Green wrote, is fleeting, momentary,\nunnameable (because, while we name it, it has become another), and for\nthe same reason unknowable, the very negation of knowability. Were\nthere no permanent objects of conception for our sensations to be\n'referred to,' there would be no significant names, but only noises,\nand a consistent sensationalism must be speechless.[2] Green's\nintellectualism was so earnest that it produced a natural and an\ninevitable effect. But the atomistic and unrelated sensations which he\nhad in mind were purely fictitious products of his rationalist fancy.\nThe psychology of our own day disavows them utterly,[3] and Green's\nlaborious belaboring of poor old Locke for not having first seen that\nhis ideas of sensation were just that impracticable sort of thing, and\nthen fled to transcendental idealism as a remedy,--his belaboring of\npoor old Locke for this, I say, is pathetic. Every examiner of the\nsensible life _in concreto_ must see that relations of every sort, of\ntime, space, difference, likeness, change, rate, cause, or what not,\nare just as integral members of the sensational flux as terms are, and\nthat conjunctive relations are just as true members of the flux as\ndisjunctive relations are.[4] This is what in some recent writings of\nmine I have called the 'radically empiricist' doctrine (in distinction\nfrom the doctrine of mental atoms which the name empiricism so\noften suggests). Intellectualistic critics of sensation insist that\nsensations are _disjoined_ only. Radical empiricism insists\nthat conjunctions between them are just as immediately given as\ndisjunctions are, and that relations, whether disjunctive or\nconjunctive, are in their original sensible givenness just as fleeting\nand momentary (in Green's words), and just as 'particular,' as terms\nare. Later, both terms and relations get universalized by being\nconceptualized and named.[5] But all the thickness, concreteness, and\nindividuality of experience exists in the immediate and relatively\nunnamed stages of it, to the richness of which, and to the standing\ninadequacy of our conceptions to match it, Professor Bergson so\nemphatically calls our attention. And now I am happy to say that we\ncan begin to gather together some of the separate threads of our\nargument, and see a little better the general kind of conclusion\ntoward which we are tending. Pray go back with me to the lecture\nbefore the last, and recall what I said about the difficulty of seeing\nhow states of consciousness can compound themselves. The difficulty\nseemed to be the same, you remember, whether we took it in psychology\nas the composition of finite states of mind out of simpler finite\nstates, or in metaphysics as the composition of the absolute mind out\nof finite minds in general. It is the general conceptualist difficulty\nof any one thing being the same with many things, either at once or\nin succession, for the abstract concepts of oneness and manyness must\nneeds exclude each other. In the particular instance that we have\ndwelt on so long, the one thing is the all-form of experience, the\nmany things are the each-forms of experience in you and me. To call\nthem the same we must treat them as if each were simultaneously\nits own other, a feat on conceptualist principles impossible of\nperformance.\n\nOn the principle of going behind the conceptual function altogether,\nhowever, and looking to the more primitive flux of the sensational\nlife for reality's true shape, a way is open to us, as I tried in my\nlast lecture to show. Not only the absolute is its own other, but the\nsimplest bits of immediate experience are their own others, if that\nhegelian phrase be once for all allowed. The concrete pulses of\nexperience appear pent in by no such definite limits as our conceptual\nsubstitutes for them are confined by. They run into one another\ncontinuously and seem to interpenetrate. What in them is relation and\nwhat is matter related is hard to discern. You feel no one of them as\ninwardly simple, and no two as wholly without confluence where they\ntouch. There is no datum so small as not to show this mystery, if\nmystery it be. The tiniest feeling that we can possibly have comes\nwith an earlier and a later part and with a sense of their continuous\nprocession. Mr. Shadworth Hodgson showed long ago that there is\nliterally no such object as the present moment except as an unreal\npostulate of abstract thought.[6] The 'passing' moment is, as I\nalready have reminded you, the minimal fact, with the 'apparition of\ndifference' inside of it as well as outside. If we do not feel both\npast and present in one field of feeling, we feel them not at all. We\nhave the same many-in-one in the matter that fills the passing time.\nThe rush of our thought forward through its fringes is the everlasting\npeculiarity of its life. We realize this life as something always off\nits balance, something in transition, something that shoots out of a\ndarkness through a dawn into a brightness that we feel to be the dawn\nfulfilled. In the very midst of the continuity our experience comes as\nan alteration. 'Yes,' we say at the full brightness, '_this_ is what I\njust meant.' 'No,' we feel at the dawning, 'this is not yet the full\nmeaning, there is more to come.' In every crescendo of sensation, in\nevery effort to recall, in every progress towards the satisfaction\nof desire, this succession of an emptiness and fulness that have\nreference to each other and are one flesh is the essence of the\nphenomenon. In every hindrance of desire the sense of an ideal\npresence which is absent in fact, of an absent, in a word, which the\nonly function of the present is to _mean_, is even more notoriously\nthere. And in the movement of pure thought we have the same\nphenomenon. When I say _Socrates is mortal_, the moment _Socrates_ is\nincomplete; it falls forward through the _is_ which is pure movement,\ninto the _mortal_ which is indeed bare mortal on the tongue, but\nfor the mind is _that mortal_, the _mortal Socrates_, at last\nsatisfactorily disposed of and told off.[7]\n\nHere, then, inside of the minimal pulses of experience, is realized\nthat very inner complexity which the transcendentalists say only the\nabsolute can genuinely possess. The gist of the matter is always the\nsame--something ever goes indissolubly with something else. You cannot\nseparate the same from its other, except by abandoning the real\naltogether and taking to the conceptual system. What is immediately\ngiven in the single and particular instance is always something pooled\nand mutual, something with no dark spot, no point of ignorance. No one\nelementary bit of reality is eclipsed from the next bit's point of\nview, if only we take reality sensibly and in small enough pulses--and\nby us it has to be taken pulse-wise, for our span of consciousness is\ntoo short to grasp the larger collectivity of things except nominally\nand abstractly. No more of reality collected together at once is\nextant anywhere, perhaps, than in my experience of reading this page,\nor in yours of listening; yet within those bits of experience as\nthey come to pass we get a fulness of content that no conceptual\ndescription can equal. Sensational experiences _are_ their 'own\nothers,' then, both internally and externally. Inwardly they are one\nwith their parts, and outwardly they pass continuously into their next\nneighbors, so that events separated by years of time in a man's life\nhang together unbrokenly by the intermediary events. Their _names_,\nto be sure, cut them into separate conceptual entities, but no cuts\nexisted in the continuum in which they originally came.\n\nIf, with all this in our mind, we turn to our own particular\npredicament, we see that our old objection to the self-compounding of\nstates of consciousness, our accusation that it was impossible for\npurely logical reasons, is unfounded in principle. Every smallest\nstate of consciousness, concretely taken, overflows its own\ndefinition. Only concepts are self-identical; only 'reason' deals with\nclosed equations; nature is but a name for excess; every point in\nher opens out and runs into the more; and the only question, with\nreference to any point we may be considering, is how far into the\nrest of nature we may have to go in order to get entirely beyond its\noverflow. In the pulse of inner life immediately present now in each\nof us is a little past, a little future, a little awareness of our own\nbody, of each other's persons, of these sublimities we are trying to\ntalk about, of the earth's geography and the direction of history,\nof truth and error, of good and bad, and of who knows how much more?\nFeeling, however dimly and subconsciously, all these things, your\npulse of inner life is continuous with them, belongs to them and they\nto it. You can't identify it with either one of them rather than with\nthe others, for if you let it develop into no matter which of those\ndirections, what it develops into will look back on it and say, 'That\nwas the original germ of me.'\n\nIn _principle_, then, the real units of our immediately-felt life are\nunlike the units that intellectualist logic holds to and makes its\ncalculations with. They are not separate from their own others, and\nyou have to take them at widely separated dates to find any two of\nthem that seem unblent. Then indeed they do appear separate even as\ntheir concepts are separate; a chasm yawns between them; but the chasm\nitself is but an intellectualist fiction, got by abstracting from the\ncontinuous sheet of experiences with which the intermediary time was\nfilled. It is like the log carried first by William and Henry, then\nby William, Henry, and John, then by Henry and John, then by John and\nPeter, and so on. All real units of experience _overlap_. Let a row of\nequidistant dots on a sheet of paper symbolize the concepts by which\nwe intellectualize the world. Let a ruler long enough to cover at\nleast three dots stand for our sensible experience. Then the conceived\nchanges of the sensible experience can be symbolized by sliding the\nruler along the line of dots. One concept after another will apply to\nit, one after another drop away, but it will always cover at least two\nof them, and no dots less than three will ever adequately cover _it_.\nYou falsify it if you treat it conceptually, or by the law of dots.\n\nWhat is true here of successive states must also be true of\nsimultaneous characters. They also overlap each other with their\nbeing. My present field of consciousness is a centre surrounded by a\nfringe that shades insensibly into a subconscious more. I use three\nseparate terms here to describe, this fact; but I might as well use\nthree hundred, for the fact is all shades and no boundaries. Which\npart of it properly is in my consciousness, which out? If I name what\nis out, it already has come in. The centre works in one way while the\nmargins work in another, and presently overpower the centre and are\ncentral themselves. What we conceptually identify ourselves with and\nsay we are thinking of at any time is the centre; but our _full_ self\nis the whole field, with all those indefinitely radiating subconscious\npossibilities of increase that we can only feel without conceiving,\nand can hardly begin to analyze. The collective and the distributive\nways of being coexist here, for each part functions distinctly, makes\nconnexion with its own peculiar region in the still wider rest of\nexperience and tends to draw us into that line, and yet the whole is\nsomehow felt as one pulse of our life,--not conceived so, but felt so.\n\nIn principle, then, as I said, intellectualism's edge is broken; it\ncan only approximate to reality, and its logic is inapplicable to our\ninner life, which spurns its vetoes and mocks at its impossibilities.\nEvery bit of us at every moment is part and parcel of a wider self, it\nquivers along various radii like the wind-rose on a compass, and the\nactual in it is continuously one with possibles not yet in our present\nsight.[8] And just as we are co-conscious with our own momentary\nmargin, may not we ourselves form the margin of some more really\ncentral self in things which is co-conscious with the whole of us? May\nnot you and I be confluent in a higher consciousness, and confluently\nactive there, tho we now know it not?\n\nI am tiring myself and you, I know, by vainly seeking to describe\nby concepts and words what I say at the same time exceeds either\nconceptualization or verbalization. As long as one continues\n_talking_, intellectualism remains in undisturbed possession of the\nfield. The return to life can't come about by talking. It is an _act_;\nto make you return to life, I must set an example for your imitation,\nI must deafen you to talk, or to the importance of talk, by showing\nyou, as Bergson does, that the concepts we talk with are made for\npurposes of _practice_ and not for purposes of insight. Or I must\n_point_, point to the mere _that_ of life, and you by inner sympathy\nmust fill out the _what_ for yourselves. The minds of some of you,\nI know, will absolutely refuse to do so, refuse to think in\nnon-conceptualized terms. I myself absolutely refused to do so\nfor years together, even after I knew that the denial of\nmanyness-in-oneness by intellectualism must be false, for the same\nreality does perform the most various functions at once. But I hoped\never for a revised intellectualist way round the difficulty, and it\nwas only after reading Bergson that I saw that to continue using the\nintellectualist method was itself the fault. I saw that philosophy had\nbeen on a false scent ever since the days of Socrates and Plato, that\nan _intellectual_ answer to the intellectualist's difficulties will\nnever come, and that the real way out of them, far from consisting in\nthe discovery of such an answer, consists in simply closing one's ears\nto the question. When conceptualism summons life to justify itself\nin conceptual terms, it is like a challenge addressed in a foreign\nlanguage to some one who is absorbed in his own business; it is\nirrelevant to him altogether--he may let it lie unnoticed. I went thus\nthrough the 'inner catastrophe' of which I spoke in the last lecture;\nI had literally come to the end of my conceptual stock-in-trade, I was\nbankrupt intellectualistically, and had to change my base. No words\nof mine will probably convert you, for words can be the names only of\nconcepts. But if any of you try sincerely and pertinaciously on your\nown separate accounts to intellectualize reality, you may be similarly\ndriven to a change of front. I say no more: I must leave life to teach\nthe lesson.\n\nWe have now reached a point of view from which the self-compounding of\nmind in its smaller and more accessible portions seems a certain\nfact, and in which the speculative assumption of a similar but wider\ncompounding in remoter regions must be reckoned with as a legitimate\nhypothesis. The absolute is not the impossible being I once thought\nit. Mental facts do function both singly and together, at once, and we\nfinite minds may simultaneously be co-conscious with one another in a\nsuperhuman intelligence. It is only the extravagant claims of coercive\nnecessity on the absolute's part that have to be denied by _a priori_\nlogic. As an hypothesis trying to make itself probable on analogical\nand inductive grounds, the absolute is entitled to a patient hearing.\nWhich is as much as to say that our serious business from now onward\nlies with Fechner and his method, rather than with Hegel, Royce, or\nBradley. Fechner treats the superhuman consciousness he so fervently\nbelieves in as an hypothesis only, which he then recommends by all the\nresources of induction and persuasion.\n\nIt is true that Fechner himself is an absolutist in his books, not\nactively but passively, if I may say so. He talks not only of the\nearth-soul and of the star-souls, but of an integrated soul of all\nthings in the cosmos without exception, and this he calls God just\nas others call it the absolute. Nevertheless he _thinks_ only of\nthe subordinate superhuman souls, and content with having made his\nobeisance once for all to the august total soul of the cosmos, he\nleaves it in its lonely sublimity with no attempt to define its\nnature. Like the absolute, it is 'out of range,' and not an object for\ndistincter vision. Psychologically, it seems to me that Fechner's\nGod is a lazy postulate of his, rather than a part of his system\npositively thought out. As we envelop our sight and hearing, so the\nearth-soul envelops us, and the star-soul the earth-soul, until--what?\nEnvelopment can't go on forever; it must have an _abschluss_, a total\nenvelope must terminate the series, so God is the name that Fechner\ngives to this last all-enveloper. But if nothing escapes this\nall-enveloper, he is responsible for everything, including evil, and\nall the paradoxes and difficulties which I found in the absolute\nat the end of our third lecture recur undiminished. Fechner tries\nsincerely to grapple with the problem of evil, but he always solves it\nin the leibnitzian fashion by making his God non-absolute, placing\nhim under conditions of 'metaphysical necessity' which even his\nomnipotence cannot violate. His will has to struggle with conditions\nnot imposed on that will by itself. He tolerates provisionally what he\nhas not created, and then with endless patience tries to overcome it\nand live it down. He has, in short, a history. Whenever Fechner tries\nto represent him clearly, his God becomes the ordinary God of theism,\nand ceases to be the absolutely totalized all-enveloper.[9] In this\nshape, he represents the ideal element in things solely, and is our\nchampion and our helper and we his helpers, against the bad parts of\nthe universe.\n\nFechner was in fact too little of a metaphysician to care for perfect\nformal consistency in these abstract regions. He believed in God in\nthe pluralistic manner, but partly from convention and partly from\nwhat I should call intellectual laziness, if laziness of any kind\ncould be imputed to a Fechner, he let the usual monistic talk about\nhim pass unchallenged. I propose to you that we should discuss the\nquestion of God without entangling ourselves in advance in the\nmonistic assumption. Is it probable that there is any superhuman\nconsciousness at all, in the first place? When that is settled, the\nfurther question whether its form be monistic or pluralistic is in\norder.\n\nBefore advancing to either question, however, and I shall have to deal\nwith both but very briefly after what has been said already, let me\nfinish our retrospective survey by one more remark about the curious\nlogical situation of the absolutists. For what have they invoked the\nabsolute except as a being the peculiar inner form of which shall\nenable it to overcome the contradictions with which intellectualism\nhas found the finite many as such to be infected? The many-in-one\ncharacter that, as we have seen, every smallest tract of finite\nexperience offers, is considered by intellectualism to be fatal to the\nreality of finite experience. What can be distinguished, it tells us,\nis separate; and what is separate is unrelated, for a relation, being\na 'between,' would bring only a twofold separation. Hegel, Royce,\nBradley, and the Oxford absolutists in general seem to agree about\nthis logical absurdity of manyness-in-oneness in the only places where\nit is empirically found. But see the curious tactics! Is the absurdity\n_reduced_ in the absolute being whom they call in to relieve it? Quite\notherwise, for that being shows it on an infinitely greater scale, and\nflaunts it in its very definition. The fact of its not being related\nto any outward environment, the fact that all relations are inside of\nitself, doesn't save it, for Mr. Bradley's great argument against the\nfinite is that _in_ any given bit of it (a bit of sugar, for instance)\nthe presence of a plurality of characters (whiteness and sweetness,\nfor example) is self-contradictory; so that in the final end all that\nthe absolute's name appears to stand for is the persistent claim of\noutraged human nature that reality _shall_ not be called\nabsurd. _Somewhere_ there must be an aspect of it guiltless of\nself-contradiction. All we can see of the absolute, meanwhile, is\nguilty in the same way in which the finite is. Intellectualism sees\nwhat it calls the guilt, when comminuted in the finite object; but\nis too near-sighted to see it in the more enormous object. Yet the\nabsolute's constitution, if imagined at all, has to be imagined after\nthe analogy of some bit of finite experience. Take any _real_ bit,\nsuppress its environment and then magnify it to monstrosity, and you\nget identically the type of structure of the absolute. It is obvious\nthat all your difficulties here remain and go with you. If the\nrelative experience was inwardly absurd, the absolute experience is\ninfinitely more so. Intellectualism, in short, strains off the gnat,\nbut swallows the whole camel. But this polemic against the absolute\nis as odious to me as it is to you, so I will say no more about that\nbeing. It is only one of those wills of the wisp, those lights that\ndo mislead the morn, that have so often impeded the clear progress of\nphilosophy, so I will turn to the more general positive question of\nwhether superhuman unities of consciousness should be considered as\nmore probable or more improbable.\n\nIn a former lecture I went over some of the fechnerian reasons for\ntheir plausibility, or reasons that at least replied to our more\nobvious grounds of doubt concerning them. The numerous facts of\ndivided or split human personality which the genius of certain medical\nmen, as Janet, Freud, Prince, Sidis, and others, have unearthed were\nunknown in Fechner's time, and neither the phenomena of automatic\nwriting and speech, nor of mediumship and 'possession' generally, had\nbeen recognized or studied as we now study them, so Fechner's stock of\nanalogies is scant compared with our present one. He did the best with\nwhat he had, however. For my own part I find in some of these abnormal\nor supernormal facts the strongest suggestions in favor of a superior\nco-consciousness being possible. I doubt whether we shall ever\nunderstand some of them without using the very letter of Fechner's\nconception of a great reservoir in which the memories of earth's\ninhabitants are pooled and preserved, and from which, when the\nthreshold lowers or the valve opens, information ordinarily shut out\nleaks into the mind of exceptional individuals among us. But those\nregions of inquiry are perhaps too spook-haunted to interest an\nacademic audience, and the only evidence I feel it now decorous to\nbring to the support of Fechner is drawn from ordinary religious\nexperience. I think it may be asserted that there _are_ religious\nexperiences of a specific nature, not deducible by analogy or\npsychological reasoning from our other sorts of experience. I think\nthat they point with reasonable probability to the continuity of\nour consciousness with a wider spiritual environment from which\nthe ordinary prudential man (who is the only man that scientific\npsychology, so called, takes cognizance of) is shut off. I shall begin\nmy final lecture by referring to them again briefly.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VIII\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\n\nAt the close of my last lecture I referred to the existence of\nreligious experiences of a specific nature. I must now explain just\nwhat I mean by such a claim. Briefly, the facts I have in mind may\nall be described as experiences of an unexpected life succeeding upon\ndeath. By this I don't mean immortality, or the death of the body. I\nmean the deathlike termination of certain mental processes within the\nindividual's experience, processes that run to failure, and in some\nindividuals, at least, eventuate in despair. Just as romantic love\nseems a comparatively recent literary invention, so these experiences\nof a life that supervenes upon despair seem to have played no great\npart in official theology till Luther's time; and possibly the best\nway to indicate their character will be to point to a certain contrast\nbetween the inner life of ourselves and of the ancient Greeks and\nRomans.\n\nMr. Chesterton, I think, says somewhere, that the Greeks and Romans,\nin all that concerned their moral life, were an extraordinarily solemn\nset of folks. The Athenians thought that the very gods must admire the\nrectitude of Phocion and Aristides; and those gentlemen themselves\nwere apparently of much the same opinion. Cato's veracity was so\nimpeccable that the extremest incredulity a Roman could express of\nanything was to say, 'I would not believe it even if Cato had told\nme.' Good was good, and bad was bad, for these people. Hypocrisy,\nwhich church-Christianity brought in, hardly existed; the naturalistic\nsystem held firm; its values showed no hollowness and brooked no\nirony. The individual, if virtuous enough, could meet all possible\nrequirements. The pagan pride had never crumbled. Luther was the first\nmoralist who broke with any effectiveness through the crust of all\nthis naturalistic self-sufficiency, thinking (and possibly he was\nright) that Saint Paul had done it already. Religious experience of\nthe lutheran type brings all our naturalistic standards to bankruptcy.\nYou are strong only by being weak, it shows. You cannot live on pride\nor self-sufficingness. There is a light in which all the naturally\nfounded and currently accepted distinctions, excellences, and\nsafeguards of our characters appear as utter childishness. Sincerely\nto give up one's conceit or hope of being good in one's own right is\nthe only door to the universe's deeper reaches.\n\nThese deeper reaches are familiar to evangelical Christianity and\nto what is nowadays becoming known as 'mind-cure' religion or 'new\nthought.' The phenomenon is that of new ranges of life succeeding on\nour most despairing moments. There are resources in us that naturalism\nwith its literal and legal virtues never recks of, possibilities that\ntake our breath away, of another kind of happiness and power, based on\ngiving up our own will and letting something higher work for us, and\nthese seem to show a world wider than either physics or philistine\nethics can imagine. Here is a world in which all is well, in _spite_\nof certain forms of death, indeed _because_ of certain forms of\ndeath--death of hope, death of strength, death of responsibility,\nof fear and worry, competency and desert, death of everything that\npaganism, naturalism, and legalism pin their faith on and tie their\ntrust to.\n\nReason, operating on our other experiences, even our psychological\nexperiences, would never have inferred these specifically religious\nexperiences in advance of their actual coming. She could not suspect\ntheir existence, for they are discontinuous with the 'natural'\nexperiences they succeed upon and invert their values. But as they\nactually come and are given, creation widens to the view of their\nrecipients. They suggest that our natural experience, our strictly\nmoralistic and prudential experience, may be only a fragment of real\nhuman experience. They soften nature's outlines and open out the\nstrangest possibilities and perspectives.\n\nThis is why it seems to me that the logical understanding, working in\nabstraction from such specifically religious experiences, will always\nomit something, and fail to reach completely adequate conclusions.\nDeath and failure, it will always say, _are_ death and failure\nsimply, and can nevermore be one with life; so religious experience,\npeculiarly so called, needs, in my opinion, to be carefully considered\nand interpreted by every one who aspires to reason out a more complete\nphilosophy.\n\nThe sort of belief that religious experience of this type naturally\nengenders in those who have it is fully in accord with Fechner's\ntheories. To quote words which I have used elsewhere, the believer\nfinds that the tenderer parts of his personal life are continuous\nwith a _more_ of the same quality which is operative in the universe\noutside of him and which he can keep in working touch with, and in a\nfashion get on board of and save himself, when all his lower being has\ngone to pieces in the wreck. In a word, the believer is continuous,\nto his own consciousness, at any rate, with a wider self from which\nsaving experiences flow in. Those who have such experiences distinctly\nenough and often enough to live in the light of them remain quite\nunmoved by criticism, from whatever quarter it may come, be it\nacademic or scientific, or be it merely the voice of logical\ncommon sense. They have had their vision and they _know_--that is\nenough--that we inhabit an invisible spiritual environment from which\nhelp comes, our soul being mysteriously one with a larger soul whose\ninstruments we are.\n\nOne may therefore plead, I think, that Fechner's ideas are not without\ndirect empirical verification. There is at any rate one side of life\nwhich would be easily explicable if those ideas were true, but of\nwhich there appears no clear explanation so long as we assume either\nwith naturalism that human consciousness is the highest consciousness\nthere is, or with dualistic theism that there is a higher mind in the\ncosmos, but that it is discontinuous with our own. It has always been\na matter of surprise with me that philosophers of the absolute should\nhave shown so little interest in this department of life, and so\nseldom put its phenomena in evidence, even when it seemed obvious that\npersonal experience of some kind must have made their confidence in\ntheir own vision so strong. The logician's bias has always been too\nmuch with them. They have preferred the thinner to the thicker method,\ndialectical abstraction being so much more dignified and academic than\nthe confused and unwholesome facts of personal biography.\n\nIn spite of rationalism's disdain for the particular, the personal,\nand the unwholesome, the drift of all the evidence we have seems to\nme to sweep us very strongly towards the belief in some form\nof superhuman life with which we may, unknown to ourselves, be\nco-conscious. We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our\nlibraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having\nno inkling of the meaning of it all. The intellectualist objections\nto this fall away when the authority of intellectualist logic is\nundermined by criticism, and then the positive empirical evidence\nremains. The analogies with ordinary psychology and with the facts of\npathology, with those of psychical research, so called, and with those\nof religious experience, establish, when taken together, a decidedly\n_formidable_ probability in favor of a general view of the world\nalmost identical with Fechner's. The outlines of the superhuman\nconsciousness thus made probable must remain, however, very vague, and\nthe number of functionally distinct 'selves' it comports and carries\nhas to be left entirely problematic. It may be polytheistically or\nit may be monotheistically conceived of. Fechner, with his distinct\nearth-soul functioning as our guardian angel, seems to me clearly\npolytheistic; but the word 'polytheism' usually gives offence, so\nperhaps it is better not to use it. Only one thing is certain, and\nthat is the result of our criticism of the absolute: the only way\nto escape from the paradoxes and perplexities that a consistently\nthought-out monistic universe suffers from as from a species of\nauto-intoxication--the mystery of the 'fall' namely, of reality\nlapsing into appearance, truth into error, perfection into\nimperfection; of evil, in short; the mystery of universal determinism,\nof the block-universe eternal and without a history, etc.;--the only\nway of escape, I say, from all this is to be frankly pluralistic and\nassume that the superhuman consciousness, however vast it may be, has\nitself an external environment, and consequently is finite. Present\nday monism carefully repudiates complicity with spinozistic monism. In\nthat, it explains, the many get dissolved in the one and lost, whereas\nin the improved idealistic form they get preserved in all their\nmanyness as the one's eternal object. The absolute itself is thus\nrepresented by absolutists as having a pluralistic object. But if even\nthe absolute has to have a pluralistic vision, why should we ourselves\nhesitate to be pluralists on our own sole account? Why should we\nenvelop our many with the 'one' that brings so much poison in its\ntrain?\n\nThe line of least resistance, then, as it seems to me, both in\ntheology and in philosophy, is to accept, along with the superhuman\nconsciousness, the notion that it is not all-embracing, the notion,\nin other words, that there is a God, but that he is finite, either in\npower or in knowledge, or in both at once. These, I need hardly tell\nyou, are the terms in which common men have usually carried on their\nactive commerce with God; and the monistic perfections that make the\nnotion of him so paradoxical practically and morally are the colder\naddition of remote professorial minds operating _in distans_ upon\nconceptual substitutes for him alone.\n\nWhy cannot 'experience' and 'reason' meet on this common ground? Why\ncannot they compromise? May not the godlessness usually but needlessly\nassociated with the philosophy of immediate experience give way to a\ntheism now seen to follow directly from that experience more widely\ntaken? and may not rationalism, satisfied with seeing her _a priori_\nproofs of God so effectively replaced by empirical evidence, abate\nsomething of her absolutist claims? Let God but have the least\ninfinitesimal _other_ of any kind beside him, and empiricism and\nrationalism might strike hands in a lasting treaty of peace. Both\nmight then leave abstract thinness behind them, and seek together, as\nscientific men seek, by using all the analogies and data within reach,\nto build up the most probable approximate idea of what the divine\nconsciousness concretely may be like. I venture to beg the younger\nOxford idealists to consider seriously this alternative. Few men are\nas qualified by their intellectual gifts to reap the harvests that\nseem certain to any one who, like Fechner and Bergson, will leave the\nthinner for the thicker path.\n\nCompromise and mediation are inseparable from the pluralistic\nphilosophy. Only monistic dogmatism can say of any of its hypotheses,\n'It is either that or nothing; take it or leave it just as it stands.'\nThe type of monism prevalent at Oxford has kept this steep and brittle\nattitude, partly through the proverbial academic preference for thin\nand elegant logical solutions, partly from a mistaken notion that the\nonly solidly grounded basis for religion was along those lines. If\nOxford men could be ignorant of anything, it might almost seem that\nthey had remained ignorant of the great empirical movement towards\na pluralistic panpsychic view of the universe, into which our own\ngeneration has been drawn, and which threatens to short-circuit their\nmethods entirely and become their religious rival unless they are\nwilling to make themselves its allies. Yet, wedded as they seem to\nbe to the logical machinery and technical apparatus of absolutism,\nI cannot but believe that their fidelity to the religious ideal in\ngeneral is deeper still. Especially do I find it hard to believe that\nthe more clerical adherents of the school would hold so fast to its\nparticular machinery if only they could be made to think that religion\ncould be secured in some other way. Let empiricism once become\nassociated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange\nmisunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion, and I\nbelieve that a new era of religion as well as of philosophy will be\nready to begin. That great awakening of a new popular interest in\nphilosophy, which is so striking a phenomenon at the present day in\nall countries, is undoubtedly due in part to religious demands. As\nthe authority of past tradition tends more and more to crumble, men\nnaturally turn a wistful ear to the authority of reason or to the\nevidence of present fact. They will assuredly not be disappointed if\nthey open their minds to what the thicker and more radical empiricism\nhas to say. I fully believe that such an empiricism is a more natural\nally than dialectics ever were, or can be, of the religious life. It\nis true that superstitions and wild-growing over-beliefs of all\nsorts will undoubtedly begin to abound if the notion of higher\nconsciousnesses enveloping ours, of fechnerian earth-souls and the\nlike, grows orthodox and fashionable; still more will they superabound\nif science ever puts her approving stamp on the phenomena of which\nFrederic Myers so earnestly advocated the scientific recognition, the\nphenomena of psychic research so-called--and I myself firmly believe\nthat most of these phenomena are rooted in reality. But ought one\nseriously to allow such a timid consideration as that to deter one\nfrom following the evident path of greatest religious promise? Since\nwhen, in this mixed world, was any good thing given us in purest\noutline and isolation? One of the chief characteristics of life is\nlife's redundancy. The sole condition of our having anything, no\nmatter what, is that we should have so much of it, that we are\nfortunate if we do not grow sick of the sight and sound of it\naltogether. Everything is smothered in the litter that is fated to\naccompany it. Without too much you cannot have enough, of anything.\nLots of inferior books, lots of bad statues, lots of dull speeches, of\ntenth-rate men and women, as a condition of the few precious specimens\nin either kind being realized! The gold-dust comes to birth with the\nquartz-sand all around it, and this is as much a condition of religion\nas of any other excellent possession. There must be extrication; there\nmust be competition for survival; but the clay matrix and the noble\ngem must first come into being unsifted. Once extricated, the gem can\nbe examined separately, conceptualized, defined, and insulated. But\nthis process of extrication cannot be short-circuited--or if it is,\nyou get the thin inferior abstractions which we have seen, either\nthe hollow unreal god of scholastic theology, or the unintelligible\npantheistic monster, instead of the more living divine reality with\nwhich it appears certain that empirical methods tend to connect men in\nimagination.\n\nArrived at this point, I ask you to go back to my first lecture and\nremember, if you can, what I quoted there from your own Professor\nJacks--what he said about the philosopher himself being taken up into\nthe universe which he is accounting for. This is the fechnerian as\nwell as the hegelian view, and thus our end rejoins harmoniously our\nbeginning. Philosophies are intimate parts of the universe, they\nexpress something of its own thought of itself. A philosophy may\nindeed be a most momentous reaction of the universe upon itself. It\nmay, as I said, possess and handle itself differently in consequence\nof us philosophers, with our theories, being here; it may trust itself\nor mistrust itself the more, and, by doing the one or the other,\ndeserve more the trust or the mistrust. What mistrusts itself deserves\nmistrust.\n\nThis is the philosophy of humanism in the widest sense. Our\nphilosophies swell the current of being, add their character to it.\nThey are part of all that we have met, of all that makes us be. As\na French philosopher says, 'Nous sommes du r\u00e9el dans le r\u00e9el.' Our\nthoughts determine our acts, and our acts redetermine the previous\nnature of the world.\n\nThus does foreignness get banished from our world, and far more so\nwhen we take the system of it pluralistically than when we take it\nmonistically. We are indeed internal parts of God and not external\ncreations, on any possible reading of the panpsychic system. Yet\nbecause God is not the absolute, but is himself a part when the system\nis conceived pluralistically, his functions can be taken as not wholly\ndissimilar to those of the other smaller parts,--as similar to our\nfunctions consequently.\n\nHaving an environment, being in time, and working out a history just\nlike ourselves, he escapes from the foreignness from all that is\nhuman, of the static timeless perfect absolute.\n\nRemember that one of our troubles with that was its essential\nforeignness and monstrosity--there really is no other word for it than\nthat. Its having the all-inclusive form gave to it an essentially\nheterogeneous _nature_ from ourselves. And this great difference\nbetween absolutism and pluralism demands no difference in the\nuniverse's material content--it follows from a difference in the form\nalone. The all-form or monistic form makes the foreignness result, the\neach-form or pluralistic form leaves the intimacy undisturbed.\n\nNo matter what the content of the universe may be, if you only allow\nthat it is _many_ everywhere and always, that _nothing_ real escapes\nfrom having an environment; so far from defeating its rationality, as\nthe absolutists so unanimously pretend, you leave it in possession of\nthe maximum amount of rationality practically attainable by our minds.\nYour relations with it, intellectual, emotional, and active, remain\nfluent and congruous with your own nature's chief demands.\n\nIt would be a pity if the word 'rationality' were allowed to give us\ntrouble here. It is one of those eulogistic words that both sides\nclaim--for almost no one is willing to advertise his philosophy as a\nsystem of irrationality. But like most of the words which people used\neulogistically, the word 'rational' carries too many meanings. The\nmost objective one is that of the older logic--the connexion between\ntwo things is rational when you can infer one from the other, mortal\nfrom Socrates, _e.g.;_ and you can do that only when they have a\nquality in common. But this kind of rationality is just that logic\nof identity which all disciples of Hegel find insufficient. They\nsupersede it by the higher rationality of negation and contradiction\nand make the notion vague again. Then you get the aesthetic or\nteleologic kinds of rationality, saying that whatever fits in any way,\nwhatever is beautiful or good, whatever is purposive or gratifies\ndesire, is rational in so far forth. Then again, according to Hegel,\nwhatever is 'real' is rational. I myself said awhile ago that whatever\nlets loose any action which we are fond of exerting seems rational. It\nwould be better to give up the word 'rational' altogether than to get\ninto a merely verbal fight about who has the best right to keep it.\n\nPerhaps the words 'foreignness' and 'intimacy,' which I put forward\nin my first lecture, express the contrast I insist on better than the\nwords 'rationality' and 'irrationality'--let us stick to them, then.\nI now say that the notion of the 'one' breeds foreignness and that of\nthe 'many' intimacy, for reasons which I have urged at only too great\nlength, and with which, whether they convince you or not, I may\nsuppose that you are now well acquainted. But what at bottom is meant\nby calling the universe many or by calling it one?\n\nPragmatically interpreted, pluralism or the doctrine that it is\nmany means only that the sundry parts of reality _may be externally\nrelated_. Everything you can think of, however vast or inclusive, has\non the pluralistic view a genuinely 'external' environment of some\nsort or amount. Things are 'with' one another in many ways, but\nnothing includes everything, or dominates over everything. The word\n'and' trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes.\n'Ever not quite' has to be said of the best attempts made anywhere in\nthe universe at attaining all-inclusiveness. The pluralistic world is\nthus more like a federal republic than like an empire or a kingdom.\nHowever much may be collected, however much may report itself as\npresent at any effective centre of consciousness or action, something\nelse is self-governed and absent and unreduced to unity.\n\nMonism, on the other hand, insists that when you come down to reality\nas such, to the reality of realities, everything is present\nto _everything_ else in one vast instantaneous co-implicated\ncompleteness--nothing can in _any_ sense, functional or substantial,\nbe really absent from anything else, all things interpenetrate and\ntelescope together in the great total conflux.\n\nFor pluralism, all that we are required to admit as the constitution\nof reality is what we ourselves find empirically realized in every\nminimum of finite life. Briefly it is this, that nothing real is\nabsolutely simple, that every smallest bit of experience is a _multum\nin parvo_ plurally related, that each relation is one aspect,\ncharacter, or function, way of its being taken, or way of its taking\nsomething else; and that a bit of reality when actively engaged in one\nof these relations is not _by that very fact_ engaged in all the other\nrelations simultaneously. The relations are not _all_ what the French\ncall _solidaires_ with one another. Without losing its identity a\nthing can either take up or drop another thing, like the log I spoke\nof, which by taking up new carriers and dropping old ones can travel\nanywhere with a light escort.\n\nFor monism, on the contrary, everything, whether we realize it or not,\ndrags the whole universe along with itself and drops nothing. The log\nstarts and arrives with all its carriers supporting it. If a thing\nwere once disconnected, it could never be connected again, according\nto monism. The pragmatic difference between the two systems is thus a\ndefinite one. It is just thus, that if _a_ is once out of sight of _b_\nor out of touch with it, or, more briefly, 'out' of it at all, then,\naccording to monism, it must always remain so, they can never get\ntogether; whereas pluralism admits that on another occasion they may\nwork together, or in some way be connected again. Monism allows for\nno such things as 'other occasions' in reality--in _real_ or absolute\nreality, that is.\n\nThe difference I try to describe amounts, you see, to nothing more\nthan the difference between what I formerly called the each-form and\nthe all-form of reality. Pluralism lets things really exist in the\neach-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or\ncollective-unit form is the only form that is rational. The all-form\nallows of no taking up and dropping of connexions, for in the all the\nparts are essentially and eternally co-implicated. In the each-form,\non the contrary, a thing may be connected by intermediary things, with\na thing with which it has no immediate or essential connexion. It\nis thus at all times in many possible connexions which are not\nnecessarily actualized at the moment. They depend on which actual path\nof intermediation it may functionally strike into: the word 'or' names\na genuine reality. Thus, as I speak here, I may look ahead _or_ to the\nright _or_ to the left, and in either case the intervening space and\nair and ether enable me to see the faces of a different portion of\nthis audience. My being here is independent of any one set of these\nfaces.\n\nIf the each-form be the eternal form of reality no less than it is the\nform of temporal appearance, we still have a coherent world, and not\nan incarnate incoherence, as is charged by so many absolutists. Our\n'multiverse' still makes a 'universe'; for every part, tho it may not\nbe in actual or immediate connexion, is nevertheless in some possible\nor mediated connexion, with every other part however remote, through\nthe fact that each part hangs together with its very next neighbors in\ninextricable interfusion. The type of union, it is true, is different\nhere from the monistic type of _all-einheit_. It is not a universal\nco-implication, or integration of all things _durcheinander_. It is\nwhat I call the strung-along type, the type of continuity, contiguity,\nor concatenation. If you prefer greek words, you may call it the\nsynechistic type. At all events, you see that it forms a definitely\nconceivable alternative to the through-and-through unity of all things\nat once, which is the type opposed to it by monism. You see also that\nit stands or falls with the notion I have taken such pains to defend,\nof the through-and-through union of adjacent minima of experience, of\nthe confluence of every passing moment of concretely felt experience\nwith its immediately next neighbors. The recognition of this fact of\ncoalescence of next with next in concrete experience, so that all\nthe insulating cuts we make there are artificial products of the\nconceptualizing faculty, is what distinguishes the empiricism which\nI call 'radical,' from the bugaboo empiricism of the traditional\nrationalist critics, which (rightly or wrongly) is accused of chopping\nup experience into atomistic sensations, incapable of union with one\nanother until a purely intellectual principle has swooped down upon\nthem from on high and folded them in its own conjunctive categories.\n\nHere, then, you have the plain alternative, and the full mystery of\nthe difference between pluralism and monism, as clearly as I can\nset it forth on this occasion. It packs up into a nutshell:--Is the\nmanyness in oneness that indubitably characterizes the world we\ninhabit, a property only of the absolute whole of things, so that you\nmust postulate that one-enormous-whole indivisibly as the _prius_\nof there being any many at all--in other words, start with the\nrationalistic block-universe, entire, unmitigated, and complete?--or\ncan the finite elements have their own aboriginal forms of manyness in\noneness, and where they have no immediate oneness still be continued\ninto one another by intermediary terms--each one of these terms being\none with its next neighbors, and yet the total 'oneness' never getting\nabsolutely complete?\n\nThe alternative is definite. It seems to me, moreover, that the two\nhorns of it make pragmatically different ethical appeals--at least\nthey _may_ do so, to certain individuals. But if you consider the\npluralistic horn to be intrinsically irrational, self-contradictory,\nand absurd, I can now say no more in its defence. Having done what\nI could in my earlier lectures to break the edge of the\nintellectualistic _reductiones ad absurdum_, I must leave the issue\nin your hands. Whatever I may say, each of you will be sure to take\npluralism or leave it, just as your own sense of rationality moves and\ninclines. The only thing I emphatically insist upon is that it is a\nfully co-ordinate hypothesis with monism. This world _may_, in the\nlast resort, be a block-universe; but on the other hand it _may_ be a\nuniverse only strung-along, not rounded in and closed. Reality _may_\nexist distributively just as it sensibly seems to, after all. On that\npossibility I do insist.\n\nOne's general vision of the probable usually decides such\nalternatives. They illustrate what I once wrote of as the 'will to\nbelieve.' In some of my lectures at Harvard I have spoken of what\nI call the 'faith-ladder,' as something quite different from the\n_sorites_ of the logic-books, yet seeming to have an analogous form. I\nthink you will quickly recognize in yourselves, as I describe it, the\nmental process to which I give this name.\n\nA conception of the world arises in you somehow, no matter how. Is it\ntrue or not? you ask.\n\nIt _might_ be true somewhere, you say, for it is not\nself-contradictory.\n\nIt _may_ be true, you continue, even here and now.\n\nIt is _fit_ to be true, it would be _well if it were true_, it _ought_\nto be true, you presently feel.\n\nIt _must_ be true, something persuasive in you whispers next; and\nthen--as a final result--\n\nIt shall be _held for true_, you decide; it _shall be_ as if true, for\n_you_.\n\nAnd your acting thus may in certain special cases be a means of making\nit securely true in the end.\n\nNot one step in this process is logical, yet it is the way in which\nmonists and pluralists alike espouse and hold fast to their visions.\nIt is life exceeding logic, it is the practical reason for which the\ntheoretic reason finds arguments after the conclusion is once there.\nIn just this way do some of us hold to the unfinished pluralistic\nuniverse; in just this way do others hold to the timeless universe\neternally complete.\n\nMeanwhile the incompleteness of the pluralistic universe, thus assumed\nand held to as the most probable hypothesis, is also represented by\nthe pluralistic philosophy as being self-reparative through us, as\ngetting its disconnections remedied in part by our behavior. 'We use\nwhat we are and have, to know; and what we know, to be and have still\nmore.'[1] Thus do philosophy and reality, theory and action, work in\nthe same circle indefinitely.\n\n\nI have now finished these poor lectures, and as you look back on them,\nthey doubtless seem rambling and inconclusive enough. My only hope is\nthat they may possibly have proved suggestive; and if indeed they have\nbeen suggestive of one point of method, I am almost willing to let\nall other suggestions go. That point is that _it is high time for the\nbasis of discussion in these questions to be broadened and thickened\nup_. It is for that that I have brought in Fechner and Bergson, and\ndescriptive psychology and religious experiences, and have ventured\neven to hint at psychical research and other wild beasts of the\nphilosophic desert. Owing possibly to the fact that Plato and\nAristotle, with their intellectualism, are the basis of philosophic\nstudy here, the Oxford brand of transcendentalism seems to me to have\nconfined itself too exclusively to thin logical considerations, that\nwould hold good in all conceivable worlds, worlds of an empirical\nconstitution entirely different from ours. It is as if the actual\npeculiarities of the world that is were entirely irrelevant to the\ncontent of truth. But they cannot be irrelevant; and the philosophy\nof the future must imitate the sciences in taking them more and more\nelaborately into account. I urge some of the younger members of\nthis learned audience to lay this hint to heart. If you can do so\neffectively, making still more concrete advances upon the path which\nFechner and Bergson have so enticingly opened up, if you can gather\nphilosophic conclusions of any kind, monistic or pluralistic, from\nthe _particulars of life_, I will say, as I now do say, with the\ncheerfullest of hearts, 'Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, but\nring the fuller minstrel in.'\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\nLECTURE I\n\nNote 1, page 5.--Bailey: _op. cit._, First Series, p. 52.\n\nNote 2, page 11.--_Smaller Logic_, \u00a7 194.\n\nNote 3, page 16.--_Exploratio philosophica_, Part I, 1865, pp.\nxxxviii, 130.\n\nNote 4, page 20.--Hinneberg: _Die Kultur der Gegenwart: Systematische\nPhilosophie_. Leipzig: Teubner, 1907.\n\n\nLECTURE II\n\nNote 1, page 50.--The difference is that the bad parts of this finite\nare eternal and essential for absolutists, whereas pluralists may hope\nthat they will eventually get sloughed off and become as if they had\nnot been.\n\nNote 2, page 51.--Quoted by W. Wallace: _Lectures and Essays_, Oxford,\n1898, p. 560.\n\nNote 3, page 51.--_Logic_, tr. Wallace, 1874, p. 181.\n\nNote 4, page 52.--_Ibid._, p. 304.\n\nNote 5, page 53.--_Contemporary Review_, December, 1907, vol. 92, p.\n618.\n\nNote 6, page 57.--_Metaphysic_, sec. 69 ff.\n\nNote 7, page 62.--_The World and the Individual_, vol. i, pp. 131-132.\n\nNote 8, page 67.--A good illustration of this is to be found in a\ncontroversy between Mr. Bradley and the present writer, in _Mind_\nfor 1893, Mr. Bradley contending (if I understood him rightly) that\n'resemblance' is an illegitimate category, because it admits of\ndegrees, and that the only real relations in comparison are absolute\nidentity and absolute non-comparability.\n\nNote 9, page 75.--_Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic_, p. 184.\n\nNote 10, page 75.--_Appearance and Reality_, 1893, pp. 141-142.\n\nNote 11, page 76.--Cf. _Elements of Metaphysics_, p. 88.\n\nNote 12, page 77.--_Some Dogmas of Religion_, p. 184.\n\nNote 13, page 80.--For a more detailed criticism of Mr. Bradley's\nintellectualism, see Appendix A.\n\n\nLECTURE III\n\nNote 1, page 94.--Hegel, _Smaller Logic_, pp. 184-185.\n\nNote 2, page 95.--Cf. Hegel's fine vindication of this function of\ncontradiction in his _Wissenschaft der Logik_, Bk. ii, sec. 1, chap,\nii, C, Anmerkung 3.\n\nNote 3, page 95--_Hegel_, in _Blackwood's Philosophical Classics_, p.\n162.\n\nNote 4, page 95--_Wissenschaft der Logik_, Bk. i, sec. 1, chap, ii, B,\na.\n\nNote 5, page 96--Wallace's translation of the _Smaller Logic_, p. 128.\n\nNote 6, page 101--Joachim, _The Nature of Truth_, Oxford, 1906, pp.\n22, 178. The argument in case the belief should be doubted would be\nthe higher synthetic idea: if two truths were possible, the duality of\nthat possibility would itself be the one truth that would unite them.\n\nNote 7, page 115.--_The World and the Individual_, vol. ii, pp. 385,\n386, 409.\n\nNote 8, page 116.--The best _un_inspired argument (again not\nironical!) which I know is that in Miss M.W. Calkins's excellent book,\n_The Persistent Problems of Philosophy_, Macmillan, 1902.\n\nNote 9, page 117.--Cf. Dr. Fuller's excellent article,' Ethical monism\nand the problem of evil,' in the _Harvard Journal of Theology_, vol.\ni, No. 2, April, 1908.\n\nNote 10, page 120.--_Metaphysic_, sec. 79.\n\nNote 11, page 121.--_Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic_, secs. 150,\n153.\n\nNote 12, page 121.--_The Nature of Truth_, 1906, pp. 170-171.\n\nNote 13, page 121.--_Ibid._, p. 179.\n\nNote 14, page 123.--The psychological analogy that certain finite\ntracts of consciousness are composed of isolable parts added together,\ncannot be used by absolutists as proof that such parts are essential\nelements of all consciousness. Other finite fields of consciousness\nseem in point of fact not to be similarly resolvable into isolable\nparts.\n\nNote 15, page 128.--Judging by the analogy of the relation which our\ncentral consciousness seems to bear to that of our spinal cord, lower\nganglia, etc., it would seem natural to suppose that in whatever\nsuperhuman mental synthesis there may be, the neglect and elimination\nof certain contents of which we are conscious on the human level might\nbe as characteristic a feature as is the combination and interweaving\nof other human contents.\n\n\nLECTURE IV\n\nNote 1, page 143.--_The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, p. 227.\n\nNote 2, page 165.--Fechner: _\u00dcber die Seelenfrage_, 1861, p. 170.\n\nNote 3, page 168.--Fechner's latest summarizing of his views, _Die\nTagesansicht gegen\u00fcber der Nachtansicht_, Leipzig, 1879, is now, I\nunderstand, in process of translation. His _Little Book of Life after\nDeath_ exists already in two American versions, one published by\nLittle, Brown & Co., Boston, the other by the Open Court Co., Chicago.\n\nNote 4, page 176.--Mr. Bradley ought to be to some degree exempted\nfrom my attack in these last pages. Compare especially what he says of\nnon-human consciousness in his _Appearance and Reality_, pp. 269-272.\n\n\nLECTURE V\n\nNote 1, page 182.--Royce: _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, p. 379.\n\nNote 2, page 184.--_The World and the Individual_, vol. ii, pp. 58-62.\n\nNote 3, page 190.--I hold to it still as the best description of\nan enormous number of our higher fields of consciousness. They\ndemonstrably do not _contain_ the lower states that know the same\nobjects. Of other fields, however this is not so true; so, in the\n_Psychological Review_ for 1895, vol. ii, p. 105 (see especially pp.\n119-120), I frankly withdrew, in principle, my former objection to\ntalking of fields of consciousness being made of simpler 'parts,'\nleaving the facts to decide the question in each special case.\n\nNote 4, page 194.--I abstract from the consciousness attached to the\nwhole itself, if such consciousness be there.\n\n\nLECTURE VI\n\nNote 1, page 250.--For a more explicit vindication of the notion of\nactivity, see Appendix B, where I try to defend its recognition as\na definite form of immediate experience against its rationalistic\ncritics.\n\nI subjoin here a few remarks destined to disarm some possible critics\nof Professor Bergson, who, to defend himself against misunderstandings\nof his meaning, ought to amplify and more fully explain his statement\nthat concepts have a practical but not a theoretical use. Understood\nin one way, the thesis sounds indefensible, for by concepts we\ncertainly increase our knowledge about things, and that seems a\ntheoretical achievement, whatever practical achievements may follow in\nits train. Indeed, M. Bergson might seem to be easily refutable out of\nhis own mouth. His philosophy pretends, if anything, to give a better\ninsight into truth than rationalistic philosophies give: yet what is\nit in itself if not a conceptual system? Does its author not reason by\nconcepts exclusively in his very attempt to show that they can give no\ninsight?\n\nTo this particular objection, at any rate, it is easy to reply.\nIn using concepts of his own to discredit the theoretic claims of\nconcepts generally, Bergson does not contradict, but on the contrary\nemphatically illustrates his own view of their practical role, for\nthey serve in his hands only to 'orient' us, to show us to what\nquarter we must _practically turn_ if we wish to gain that completer\ninsight into reality which he denies that they can give. He directs\nour hopes away from them and towards the despised sensible flux. _What\nhe reaches by their means is thus only a new practical attitude_. He\nbut restores, against the vetoes of intellectualist philosophy, our\nnaturally cordial relations with sensible experience and common sense.\nThis service is surely only practical; but it is a service for which\nwe may be almost immeasurably grateful. To trust our senses again with\na good philosophic conscience!--who ever conferred on us so valuable a\nfreedom before?\n\nBy making certain distinctions and additions it seems easy to meet the\nother counts of the indictment. Concepts are realities of a new order,\nwith particular relations between them. These relations are just as\nmuch directly perceived, when we compare our various concepts, as the\ndistance between two sense-objects is perceived when we look at it.\nConception is an operation which gives us material for new acts of\nperception, then; and when the results of these are written down,\nwe get those bodies of 'mental truth' (as Locke called it) known as\nmathematics, logic, and _a priori_ metaphysics. To know all this truth\nis a theoretic achievement, indeed, but it is a narrow one; for the\nrelations between conceptual objects as such are only the static\nones of bare comparison, as difference or sameness, congruity or\ncontradiction, inclusion or exclusion. Nothing _happens_ in the realm\nof concepts; relations there are 'eternal' only. The theoretic gain\nfails so far, therefore, to touch even the outer hem of the real\nworld, the world of causal and dynamic relations, of activity and\nhistory. To gain insight into all that moving life, Bergson is right\nin turning us away from conception and towards perception.\n\nBy combining concepts with percepts, _we can draw maps of the\ndistribution_ of other percepts in distant space and time. To know\nthis distribution is of course a theoretic achievement, but the\nachievement is extremely limited, it cannot be effected without\npercepts, and even then what it yields is only static relations. From\nmaps we learn positions only, and the position of a thing is but the\nslightest kind of truth about it; but, being indispensable for forming\nour plans of action, the conceptual map-making has the enormous\npractical importance on which Bergson so rightly insists.\n\nBut concepts, it will be said, do not only give us eternal truths\nof comparison and maps of the positions of things, they bring new\n_values_ into life. In their mapping function they stand to perception\nin general in the same relation in which sight and hearing stand to\ntouch--Spencer calls these higher senses only organs of anticipatory\ntouch. But our eyes and ears also open to us worlds of independent\nglory: music and decorative art result, and an incredible enhancement\nof life's value follows. Even so does the conceptual world bring new\nranges of value and of motivation to our life. Its maps not only serve\nus practically, but the mere mental possession of such vast pictures\nis of itself an inspiring good. New interests and incitements, and\nfeelings of power, sublimity, and admiration are aroused.\n\nAbstractness _per se_ seems to have a touch of ideality. ROYCE'S\n'loyalty to loyalty' is an excellent example. 'Causes,' as\nanti-slavery, democracy, liberty, etc., dwindle when realized in their\nsordid particulars. The veritable 'cash-value' of the idea seems to\ncleave to it only in the abstract status. Truth at large, as ROYCE\ncontends, in his _Philosophy of Loyalty_, appears another thing\naltogether from the true particulars in which it is best to believe.\nIt transcends in value all those 'expediencies,' and is something to\nlive for, whether expedient or inexpedient. Truth with a big T is a\n'momentous issue'; truths in detail are 'poor scraps,' mere 'crumbling\nsuccesses.' (_Op. cit._, Lecture VII, especially \u00a7 v.)\n\nIs, now, such bringing into existence of a new _value_ to be regarded\nas a theoretic achievement? The question is a nice one, for altho a\nvalue is in one sense an objective quality perceived, the essence of\nthat quality is its relation to the will, and consists in its being\na dynamogenic spur that makes our action different. So far as their\nvalue-creating function goes, it would thus appear that concepts\nconnect themselves more with our active than with our theoretic life,\nso here again Bergson's formulation seems unobjectionable. Persons who\nhave certain concepts are animated otherwise, pursue their own\nvital careers differently. It doesn't necessarily follow that they\nunderstand other vital careers more intimately.\n\nAgain it may be said that we combine old concepts into new ones,\nconceiving thus such realities as the ether, God, souls, or what not,\nof which our sensible life alone would leave us altogether ignorant.\nThis surely is an increase of our knowledge, and may well be called\na theoretical achievement. Yet here again Bergson's criticisms hold\ngood. Much as conception may tell us _about_ such invisible objects,\nit sheds no ray of light into their interior. The completer, indeed,\nour definitions of ether-waves, atoms, Gods, or souls become, the less\ninstead of the more intelligible do they appear to us. The learned\nin such things are consequently beginning more and more to ascribe a\nsolely instrumental value to our concepts of them. Ether and molecules\nmay be like co-ordinates and averages, only so many crutches by the\nhelp of which we practically perform the operation of getting about\namong our sensible experiences.\n\nWe see from these considerations how easily the question of whether\nthe function of concepts is theoretical or practical may grow into\na logomachy. It may be better from this point of view to refuse to\nrecognize the alternative as a sharp one. The sole thing that is\ncertain in the midst of it all is that Bergson is absolutely right\nin contending that the whole life of activity and change is inwardly\nimpenetrable to conceptual treatment, and that it opens itself only to\nsympathetic apprehension at the hands of immediate feeling. All the\n_whats_ as well as the _thats_ of reality, relational as well as\nterminal, are in the end contents of immediate concrete perception.\nYet the remoter unperceived _arrangements_, temporal, spatial, and\nlogical, of these contents, are also something that we need to know as\nwell for the pleasure of the knowing as for the practical help. We may\ncall this need of arrangement a theoretic need or a practical need,\naccording as we choose to lay the emphasis; but Bergson is accurately\nright when he limits conceptual knowledge to arrangement, and when he\ninsists that arrangement is the mere skirt and skin of the whole of\nwhat we ought to know.\n\nNote 2, page 266.--Gaston Rageot, _Revue Philosophique_, vol. lxiv, p.\n85 (July, 1907).\n\nNote 3, page 268.--I have myself talked in other ways as plausibly\nas I could, in my _Psychology_, and talked truly (as I believe) in\ncertain selected cases; but for other cases the natural way invincibly\ncomes back.\n\n\nLECTURE VII\n\nNote 1, page 278.--_Introduction to Hume_, 1874, p. 151.\n\nNote 2, page 279.--_Ibid._, pp. 16, 21, 36, _et passim_.\n\nNote 3, page 279.--See, _inter alia_, the chapter on the 'Stream of\nThought' in my own Psychologies; H. Cornelius, _Psychologie_, 1897,\nchaps, i and iii; G.H. Luquet, _Id\u00e9es G\u00e9n\u00e9rales de Psychologie_, 1906,\n_passim_.\n\nNote 4, page 280.--Compare, as to all this, an article by the present\nwriter, entitled 'A world of pure experience,' in the _Journal of\nPhilosophy_, New York, vol. i, pp. 533, 561 (1905).\n\nNote 5, page 280.--Green's attempt to discredit sensations by\nreminding us of their 'dumbness,' in that they do not come already\n_named_, as concepts may be said to do, only shows how intellectualism\nis dominated by verbality. The unnamed appears in Green as synonymous\nwith the unreal.\n\nNote 6, page 283.--_Philosophy of Reflection_, i, 248 ff.\n\nNote 7, page 284.--Most of this paragraph is extracted from an address\nof mine before the American Psychological Association, printed in the\n_Psychological Review_, vol. ii, p. 105. I take pleasure in the\nfact that already in 1895 I was so far advanced towards my present\nbergsonian position.\n\nNote 8, page 289.--The conscious self of the moment, the central self,\nis probably determined to this privileged position by its functional\nconnexion with the body's imminent or present acts. It is the present\n_acting_ self. Tho the more that surrounds it may be 'subconscious'\nto us, yet if in its 'collective capacity' it also exerts an active\nfunction, it may be conscious in a wider way, conscious, as it were,\nover our heads.\n\nOn the relations of consciousness to action see Bergson's _Mati\u00e8re\net M\u00e9moire, passim_, especially chap. i. Compare also the hints in\nM\u00fcnsterberg's _Grundz\u00fcge der Psychologie_, chap, xv; those in my own\n_Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii, pp. 581-592; and those in W.\nMcDougall's _Physiological Psychology_, chap. vii.\n\nNote 9, page 295.--Compare _Zend-Avesta_, 2d edition, vol. i, pp. 165\nff., 181, 206, 244 ff., etc.; _Die Tagesansicht_, etc., chap, v, \u00a7 6;\nand chap. xv.\n\n\nLECTURE VIII\n\nNote 1, page 330.--Blondel: _Annales de Philosophie Chr\u00e9tienne_, June,\n1906, p. 241.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\n\nAPPENDIX A\n\nTHE THING AND ITS RELATIONS[1]\n\nExperience in its immediacy seems perfectly fluent. The active\nsense of living which we all enjoy, before reflection shatters our\ninstinctive world for us, is self-luminous and suggests no paradoxes.\nIts difficulties are disappointments and uncertainties. They are not\nintellectual contradictions.\n\nWhen the reflective intellect gets at work, however, it discovers\nincomprehensibilities in the flowing process. Distinguishing its\nelements and parts, it gives them separate names, and what it thus\ndisjoins it cannot easily put together. Pyrrhonism accepts the\nirrationality and revels in its dialectic elaboration. Other\nphilosophies try, some by ignoring, some by resisting, and some by\nturning the dialectic procedure against itself, negating its first\nnegations, to restore the fluent sense of life again, and let\nredemption take the place of innocence. The perfection with which any\nphilosophy may do this is the measure of its human success and of its\nimportance in philosophic history. In an article entitled 'A world of\npure experience,[2] I tried my own hand sketchily at\n\n[Footnote 1: Reprinted from the _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology,\nand Scientific Methods_, vol. ii, New York, 1905, with slight verbal\nrevision.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific\nMethods_, vol. i, No. 20, p. 566.]\n\nthe problem, resisting certain first steps of dialectics by insisting\nin a general way that the immediately experienced conjunctive\nrelations are as real as anything else. If my sketch is not to appear\ntoo _n\u00e4if_, I must come closer to details, and in the present essay I\npropose to do so.\n\n\nI\n\n'Pure experience' is the name which I gave to the immediate flux of\nlife which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its\nconceptual categories. Only new-born babes, or men in semi-coma\nfrom sleep, drugs, illnesses, or blows, may be assumed to have an\nexperience pure in the literal sense of a _that_ which is not yet any\ndefinite _what_, tho ready to be all sorts of whats; full both of\noneness and of manyness, but in respects that don't appear; changing\nthroughout, yet so confusedly that its phases interpenetrate and no\npoints, either of distinction or of identity, can be caught. Pure\nexperience in this state is but another name for feeling or sensation.\nBut the flux of it no sooner comes than it tends to fill itself with\nemphases, and these salient parts become identified and fixed and\nabstracted; so that experience now flows as if shot through with\nadjectives and nouns and prepositions and conjunctions. Its purity is\nonly a relative term, meaning the proportional amount of unverbalized\nsensation which it still embodies.\n\nFar back as we go, the flux, both as a whole and in its parts, is that\nof things conjunct and separated. The great continua of time, space,\nand the self envelop everything, betwixt them, and flow together\nwithout interfering. The things that they envelop come as separate in\nsome ways and as continuous in others. Some sensations coalesce with\nsome ideas, and others are irreconcilable. Qualities compenetrate one\nspace, or exclude each other from it. They cling together persistently\nin groups that move as units, or else they separate. Their changes are\nabrupt or discontinuous; and their kinds resemble or differ; and, as\nthey do so, they fall into either even or irregular series.\n\nIn all this the continuities and the discontinuities are absolutely\nco-ordinate matters of immediate feeling. The conjunctions are\nas primordial elements of 'fact' as are the distinctions and\ndisjunctions. In the same act by which I feel that this passing minute\nis a new pulse of my life, I feel that the old life continues into it,\nand the feeling of continuance in no wise jars upon the simultaneous\nfeeling of a novelty. They, too, compenetrate harmoniously.\nPrepositions, copulas, and conjunctions, 'is,' 'isn't,' 'then,'\n'before,' 'in,' 'on,' 'beside,' 'between,' 'next,' 'like,' 'unlike,'\n'as,' 'but,' flower out of the stream of pure experience, the stream\nof concretes or the sensational stream, as naturally as nouns and\nadjectives do, and they melt into it again as fluidly when we apply\nthem to a new portion of the stream.\n\n\nII\n\nIf now we ask why we must translate experience from a more concrete\nor pure into a more intellectualized form, filling it with ever more\nabounding conceptual distinctions, rationalism and naturalism give\ndifferent replies.\n\nThe rationalistic answer is that the theoretic life is absolute and\nits interests imperative; that to understand is simply the duty of\nman; and that who questions this need not be argued with, for by the\nfact of arguing he gives away his case.\n\nThe naturalist answer is that the environment kills as well as\nsustains us, and that the tendency of raw experience to extinguish the\nexperient himself is lessened just in the degree in which the elements\nin it that have a practical bearing upon life are analyzed out of the\ncontinuum and verbally fixed and coupled together, so that we may know\nwhat is in the wind for us and get ready to react in time. Had pure\nexperience, the naturalist says, been always perfectly healthy, there\nwould never have arisen the necessity of isolating or verbalizing\nany of its terms. We should just have experienced inarticulately and\nunintellectually enjoyed. This leaning on 'reaction' in the naturalist\naccount implies that, whenever we intellectualize a relatively pure\nexperience, we ought to do so for the sake of redescending to the\npurer or more concrete level again; and that if an intellect stays\naloft among its abstract terms and generalized relations, and does not\nreinsert itself with its conclusions into some particular point of\nthe immediate stream of life, it fails to finish out its function and\nleaves its normal race unrun.\n\nMost rationalists nowadays will agree that naturalism gives a true\nenough account of the way in which our intellect arose at first, but\nthey will deny these latter implications. The case, they will say,\nresembles that of sexual love. Originating in the animal need\nof getting another generation born, this passion has developed\nsecondarily such imperious spiritual needs that, if you ask why\nanother generation ought to be born at all, the answer is: 'Chiefly\nthat love may go on.' Just so with our intellect: it originated as a\npractical means of serving life; but it has developed incidentally the\nfunction of understanding absolute truth; and life itself now seems to\nbe given chiefly as a means by which that function may be prosecuted.\nBut truth and the understanding of it lie among the abstracts and\nuniversals, so the intellect now carries on its higher business wholly\nin this region, without any need of redescending into pure experience\nagain.\n\nIf the contrasted tendencies which I thus designate as naturalistic\nand rationalistic are not recognized by the reader, perhaps an example\nwill make them more concrete. Mr. Bradley, for instance, is an\nultra-rationalist. He admits that our intellect is primarily\npractical, but says that, for philosophers, the practical need is\nsimply Truth.[1] Truth, moreover, must be assumed 'consistent.'\nImmediate experience has to be broken into subjects and qualities,\nterms and relations, to be understood as truth at all. Yet when\nso broken it is less consistent than ever. Taken raw, it is all\nundistinguished. Intellectualized, it is all distinction without\noneness. 'Such an arrangement may _work_, but the theoretic problem is\nnot solved' (p. 23). The question is, '_How_ the diversity can exist\nin harmony with the oneness' (p. 118). To go back to pure experience\nis unavailing. 'Mere feeling gives no answer to our riddle' (p. 104).\nEven if your intuition is a fact, it is not an _understanding_. 'It is\na mere experience, and furnishes no consistent view' (pp. 108-109).\nThe experiences offered as facts or truths 'I find that my intellect\nrejects because they contradict themselves. They offer a complex of\ndiversities conjoined in a way which it feels is not its way and which\nit cannot repeat as its own.... For to be satisfied, my intellect must\nunderstand, and it cannot understand by taking a congeries in\nthe lump' (p. 570). So Mr. Bradley, in the sole interests of\n'understanding' (as he conceives that function), turns his back on\nfinite\n\n[Footnote 1: _Appearance and Reality_, pp. 152-133.]\n\nexperience forever. Truth must lie in the opposite direction,\nthe direction of the absolute; and this kind of rationalism and\nnaturalism, or (as I will now call it) pragmatism, walk thenceforward\nupon opposite paths. For the one, those intellectual products are most\ntrue which, turning their face towards the absolute, come nearest to\nsymbolizing its ways of uniting the many and the one. For the other,\nthose are most true which most successfully dip back into the finite\nstream of feeling and grow most easily confluent with some particular\nwave or wavelet. Such confluence not only proves the intellectual\noperation to have been true (as an addition may 'prove' that a\nsubtraction is already rightly performed), but it constitutes,\naccording to pragmatism, all that we mean by calling it true. Only in\nso far as they lead us, successfully or unsuccessfully, into sensible\nexperience again, are our abstracts and universals true or false at\nall.\n\n\nIII\n\nIn Section the 6th of my article, 'A world of pure experience,' I\nadopted in a general way the common-sense belief that one and the same\nworld is cognized by our different minds; but I left undiscussed the\ndialectical arguments which maintain that this is logically absurd.\nThe usual reason given for its being absurd is that it assumes one\nobject (to wit, the world) to stand in two relations at once; to my\nmind, namely, and again to yours; whereas a term taken in a second\nrelation cannot logically be the same term which it was at first.\n\nI have heard this reason urged so often in discussing with\nabsolutists, and it would destroy my radical empiricism so utterly,\nif it were valid, that I am bound to give it an attentive ear, and\nseriously to search its strength.\n\nFor instance, let the matter in dispute be a term _M_, asserted to be\non the one hand related to _L_, and on the other to _N_; and let the\ntwo cases of relation be symbolized by _L--M_ and _M--N_ respectively.\nWhen, now, I assume that the experience may immediately come and be\ngiven in the shape _L--M--N_, with no trace of doubling or internal\nfission in the _M_, I am told that this is all a popular delusion;\nthat _L--M--N_ logically means two different experiences, _L--M_ and\n_M--N_, namely; and that although the absolute may, and indeed must,\nfrom its superior point of view, read its own kind of unity into _M_'s\ntwo editions, yet as elements in finite experience the two _M_'s\nlie irretrievably asunder, and the world between them is broken and\nunbridged.\n\nIn arguing this dialectic thesis, one must avoid slipping from the\nlogical into the physical point of view. It would be easy, in taking\na concrete example to fix one's ideas by, to choose one in which the\nletter _M_ should stand for a collective noun of some sort, which\nnoun, being related to _L_ by one of its parts and to _N_ by another,\nwould inwardly be two things when it stood outwardly in both\nrelations. Thus, one might say: 'David Hume, who weighed so many stone\nby his body, influences posterity by his doctrine.' The body and the\ndoctrine are two things, between which our finite minds can discover\nno real sameness, though the same name covers both of them. And then,\none might continue: 'Only an absolute is capable of uniting such a\nnon-identity.' We must, I say, avoid this sort of example; for the\ndialectic insight, if true at all, must apply to terms and relations\nuniversally. It must be true of abstract units as well as of nouns\ncollective; and if we prove it by concrete examples, we must take the\nsimplest, so as to avoid irrelevant material suggestions.\n\nTaken thus in all its generality, the absolutist contention seems\nto use as its major premise Hume's notion 'that all our distinct\nperceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives\nany real connexion among distinct existences.' Undoubtedly, since we\nuse two phrases in talking first about '_M_'s relation to _L_' and\nthen again about '_M_'s relation to _N_,' we must be having, or must\nhave had, two distinct perceptions;--and the rest would then seem to\nfollow duly. But the starting-point of the reasoning here seems to be\nthe fact of the two _phrases_; and this suggests that the argument\nmay be merely verbal. Can it be that the whole dialectic achievement\nconsists in attributing to the experience talked-about a constitution\nsimilar to that of the language in which we describe it? Must we\nassert the objective doubleness of the _M_ merely because we have to\nname it twice over when we name its two relations?\n\nCandidly, I can think of no other reason than this for the dialectic\nconclusion![1] for, if we think, not of our words, but of any simple\nconcrete matter which they may be held to signify, the experience\nitself belies the paradox asserted. We use indeed two separate\nconcepts in analyzing our object, but we know them all the while to be\nbut substitutional, and that the _M_ in _L--M_ and the _M_ in _M--N_\n_mean_ (_i.e._, are capable of leading to and terminating in) one\nself-same piece, _M_, of sensible experience. This persistent identity\nof certain units, or emphases, or points, or objects, or members--call\nthem what you will--of the experience-continuum, is just one of\nthose conjunctive features of it, on which I am obliged to insist so\nemphatically. For samenesses are parts of experience's indefeasible\nstructure. When I hear a bell-stroke and, as life flows on, its\nafter-image dies away, I still hark back to it as 'that same\n\n[Footnote 1: Technically, it seems classable as a 'fallacy of\ncomposition.' A duality, predicable of the two wholes, _L--M_ and\n_M--N_, is forthwith predicated of one of their parts, _M_.]\n\nbell-stroke.' When I see a thing _M_, with _L_ to the left of it and\n_N_ to the right of it, I see it _as_ one _M_; and if you tell me I\nhave had to 'take' it twice, I reply that if I 'took' it a thousand\ntimes, I should still _see_ it as a unit.[1] Its unity is aboriginal,\njust as the multiplicity of my successive takings is aboriginal. It\ncomes unbroken as _that M_, as a singular which I encounter; they come\nbroken, as _those_ takings, as my plurality of operations. The unity\nand the separateness are strictly co-ordinate. I do not easily fathom\nwhy my opponents should find the separateness so much more easily\nunderstandable that they must needs infect the whole of finite\nexperience with it, and relegate the unity (now taken as a bare\npostulate and no longer as a thing positively perceivable) to the\nregion of the absolute's mysteries. I do not easily fathom this, I\nsay, for the said opponents are above mere verbal quibbling; yet all\nthat I can catch in their talk is the substitution of what is true of\ncertain words for what is true of what they signify. They stay with\nthe words,--not returning to the stream of life whence all the meaning\nof them came, and which is always ready to reabsorb them.\n\n[Footnote 1: I may perhaps refer here to my _Principles of\nPsychology_, vol. i, pp. 459 ff. It really seems 'weird' to have to\nargue (as I am forced now to do) for the notion that it is one sheet\nof paper (with its two surfaces and all that lies between) which is\nboth under my pen and on the table while I write--the 'claim' that it\nis two sheets seems so brazen. Yet I sometimes suspect the absolutists\nof sincerity!]\n\n\nIV\n\nFor aught this argument proves, then, we may continue to believe that\none thing can be known by many knowers. But the denial of one thing in\nmany relations is but one application of a still profounder dialectic\ndifficulty. Man can't be good, said the sophists, for man is _man_ and\n_good_ is good; and Hegel and Herbart in their day, more recently H.\nSpir, and most recently and elaborately of all, Mr. Bradley, inform us\nthat a term can logically only be a punctiform unit, and that not one\nof the conjunctive relations between things, which experience seems to\nyield, is rationally possible.\n\nOf course, if true, this cuts off radical empiricism without even a\nshilling. Radical empiricism takes conjunctive relations at their\nface-value, holding them to be as real as the terms united by them.\nThe world it represents as a collection, some parts of which are\nconjunctively and others disjunctively related. Two parts, themselves\ndisjoined, may nevertheless hang together by intermediaries with which\nthey are severally connected, and the whole world eventually may hang\ntogether similarly, inasmuch as _some_ path of conjunctive transition\nby which to pass from one of its parts to another may always be\ndiscernible. Such determinately various hanging-together may be called\n_concatenated_ union, to distinguish it from the 'through-and-through'\ntype of union, 'each in all and all in each' (union of _total\nconflux_, as one might call it), which monistic systems hold to obtain\nwhen things are taken in their absolute reality. In a concatenated\nworld a partial conflux often is experienced. Our concepts and our\nsensations are confluent; successive states of the same ego, and\nfeelings of the same body are confluent. Where the experience is not\nof conflux, it may be of conterminousness (things with but one thing\nbetween); or of contiguousness (nothing between); or of likeness; or\nof nearness; or of simultaneousness; or of in-ness; or of on-ness; or\nof for-ness; or of simple with-ness; or even of mere and-ness, which\nlast relation would make of however disjointed a world otherwise, at\nany rate for that occasion a universe 'of discourse.' Now Mr. Bradley\ntells us that none of these relations, as we actually experience them,\ncan possibly be real.[1] My next duty, accordingly, must be to rescue\nradical empiricism from Mr. Bradley. Fortunately, as it seems to me,\nhis general contention, that the very notion of relation is\n\n[Footnote 1: Here again the reader must beware of slipping from\nlogical into phenomenal considerations. It may well be that we\n_attribute_ a certain relation falsely, because the circumstances of\nthe case, being complex, have deceived us. At a railway station we\nmay take our own train, and not the one that fills our window, to be\nmoving. We here put motion in the wrong place in the world, but in its\noriginal place the motion is a part of reality. What Mr. Bradley\nmeans is nothing like this, but rather that such things as motion\nare nowhere real, and that, even in their aboriginal and empirically\nincorrigible seats, relations are impossible of comprehension.]\n\nunthinkable clearly, has been successfully met by many critics.[1]\n\nIt is a burden to the flesh, and an injustice both to readers and to\nthe previous writers, to repeat good arguments already printed. So,\nin noticing Mr. Bradley, I will confine myself to the interests of\nradical empiricism solely.\n\n\nV\n\nThe first duty of radical empiricism, taking given conjunctions at\ntheir face-value, is to class some of them as more intimate and some\nas more external. When two terms are _similar_, their very natures\nenter into the relation. Being _what_ they are, no matter where or\nwhen, the likeness never can be denied, if asserted. It continues\npredicable as long as the terms continue. Other relations, the _where_\nand the _when_, for example, seem adventitious. The sheet of paper\nmay be 'off' or 'on' the table, for example; and in either case the\nrelation involves only the outside of its terms. Having an outside,\nboth of them, they contribute by it to the relation. It is external:\nthe term's inner nature is irrelevant to it. Any\n\n[Footnote 1: Particularly so by Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, in his\n_Man and the Cosmos_; by L.T. Hobhouse, in chapter xii (the Validity\nof Judgment) of his _Theory of Knowledge_; and by F.C.S. Schiller,\nin his _Humanism_, Essay XI. Other fatal reviews (in my opinion) are\nHodder's, in the _Psychological Review_, vol. i, 307; Stout's, in\nthe _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_, 1901-02, p. 1; and\nMacLennan's, in the _Journal of Philosophy_, etc., vol. i, 403.]\n\nbook, any table, may fall into the relation, which is created _pro hac\nvice_, not by their existence, but by their casual situation. It\nis just because so many of the conjunctions of experience seem so\nexternal that a philosophy of pure experience must tend to pluralism\nin its ontology. So far as things have space-relations, for example,\nwe are free to imagine them with different origins even. If they could\nget to _be_, and get into space at all, then they may have done so\nseparately. Once there, however, they are _additives_ to one another,\nand, with no prejudice to their natures, all sorts of space-relations\nmay supervene between them. The question of how things could come\nto be, anyhow, is wholly different from the question what their\nrelations, once the being accomplished, may consist in.\n\nMr. Bradley now affirms that such external relations as the\nspace-relations which we here talk of must hold of entirely different\nsubjects from those of which the absence of such relations might\na moment previously have been plausibly asserted. Not only is the\n_situation_ different when the book is on the table, but the _book\nitself_ is different as a book, from what it was when it was off the\ntable. He admits that 'such external relations\n\n[Footnote 1: Once more, don't slip from logical into physical\nsituations. Of course, if the table be wet, it will moisten the book,\nor if it be slight enough and the book heavy enough, the book will\nbreak it down. But such collateral phenomena are not the point at\nissue. The point is whether the successive relations 'on' and 'not-on'\ncan rationally (not physically) hold of the same constant terms,\nabstractly taken. Professor A.E. Taylor drops from logical into\nmaterial considerations when he instances color-contrast as a proof\nthat _A_, 'as contra-distinguished from _B_, is not the same thing as\nmere _A_ not in any way affected' (_Elements of Metaphysics_, 1903, p.\n145). Note the substitution, for 'related,' of the word 'affected,'\nwhich begs the whole question.]\n\nseem possible and even existing.... That you do not alter what you\ncompare or rearrange in space seems to common sense quite obvious,\nand that on the other side there are as obvious difficulties does not\noccur to common sense at all. And I will begin by pointing out these\ndifficulties.... There is a relation in the result, and this relation,\nwe hear, is to make no difference in its terms. But, if so, to what\ndoes it make a difference? [_doesn't it make a difference to us\nonlookers, at least?_] and what is the meaning and sense of qualifying\nthe terms by it? [_Surely the meaning is to tell the truth about their\nrelative position_.[1]] If, in short, it is external to the terms, how\ncan it possibly be true _of_ them? [_Is it the 'intimacy' suggested by\nthe little word 'of,' here, which I have underscored, that is the root\nof Mr. Bradley's trouble?_].... If the terms from their inner nature\ndo not enter into the relation, then, so far as they are concerned,\nthey seem related for no reason at all.... Things are spatially\nrelated, first in one way, and then become related in another way, and\nyet in no way themselves\n\n[Footnote 1: But 'is there any sense,' asks Mr. Bradley, peevishly,\non p. 579, 'and if so, what sense, in truth that is only outside and\n\"about\" things?' Surely such a question may be left unanswered.]\n\nare altered; for the relations, it is said, are but external. But I\nreply that, if so, I cannot _understand_ the leaving by the terms of\none set of relations and their adoption of another fresh set. The\nprocess and its result to the terms, if they contribute nothing to it\n[_surely they contribute to it all there is 'of' it!_] seem irrational\nthroughout. [_If 'irrational' here means simply 'non-rational,'\nor non-deducible from the essence of either term singly, it is no\nreproach; if it means 'contradicting' such essence, Mr. Bradley should\nshow wherein and how_.] But, if they contribute anything, they must\nsurely be affected internally. [_Why so, if they contribute only their\nsurface? In such relations as 'on,' 'a foot away,' 'between,' 'next,'\netc., only surfaces are in question_.] ... If the terms contribute\nanything whatever, then the terms are affected [_inwardly altered?_]\nby the arrangement.... That for working purposes we treat, and do well\nto treat, some relations as external merely, I do not deny, and that\nof course is not the question at issue here. That question is ...\nwhether in the end and in principle a mere external relation [_i.e.,\na relation which can change without forcing its terms to change their\nnature simultaneously_] is possible and forced on us by the facts.'[1]\n\nMr. Bradley next reverts to the antinomies of space, which, according\nto him, prove it to be unreal, although it appears as so prolific a\nmedium of external relations;\n\n[Footnote 1: _Appearance and Reality_, 2d edition, pp. 575-576.]\n\nand he then concludes that 'Irrationality and externality cannot be\nthe last truth about things. Somewhere there must be a reason why this\nand that appear together. And this reason and reality must reside in\nthe whole from which terms and relations are abstractions, a whole in\nwhich their internal connexion must lie, and out of which from the\nbackground appear those fresh results which never could have come\nfrom the premises' (p. 577). And he adds that 'Where the whole is\ndifferent, the terms that qualify and contribute to it must so far be\ndifferent.... They are altered so far only [_how far? farther than\nexternally, yet not through and through?_], but still they are\naltered.... I must insist that in each case the terms are qualified by\ntheir whole [_qualified how?--do their external relations, situations,\ndates, etc., changed as these are in the new whole, fail to qualify\nthem 'far' enough?_], and that in the second case there is a whole\nwhich differs both logically and psychologically from the first whole;\nand I urge that in contributing to the change the terms so far are\naltered' (p. 579).\n\nNot merely the relations, then, but the terms are altered: _und\nzwar_ 'so far.' But just _how_ far is the whole problem; and\n'through-and-through' would seem (in spite of Mr. Bradley's somewhat\nundecided utterances[1])\n\n[Footnote 1: I say 'undecided,' because, apart from the 'so far,'\nwhich sounds terribly half-hearted, there are passages in these very\npages in which Mr. Bradley admits the pluralistic thesis. Read, for\nexample, what he says, on p. 578, of a billiard ball keeping its\n'character' unchanged, though, in its change of place, its 'existence'\ngets altered; or what he says, on p. 579, of the possibility that\nan abstract quality A, B, or C, in a thing, 'may throughout remain\nunchanged' although the thing be altered; or his admission that in\nred-hairedness, both as analyzed out of a man and when given with\nthe rest of him, there may be 'no change' (p. 580). Why does he\nimmediately add that for the pluralist to plead the non-mutation of\nsuch abstractions would be an _ignoratio elenchi_? It is impossible to\nadmit it to be such. The entire _elenchus_ and inquest is just as to\nwhether parts which you can abstract from existing wholes can also\ncontribute to other wholes without changing their inner nature. If\nthey can thus mould various wholes into new _gestalt-qualit\u00e4ten_,\nthen it follows that the same elements are logically able to exist in\ndifferent wholes [whether physically able would depend on\nadditional hypotheses]; that partial changes are thinkable, and\nthrough-and-through change not a dialectic necessity; that monism is\nonly an hypothesis; and that an additively constituted universe is\na rationally respectable hypothesis also. All the theses of radical\nempiricism, in short, follow.]\n\nto be the full bradleyan answer. The 'whole' which he here treats as\nprimary and determinative of each part's manner of 'contributing,'\nsimply _must_, when it alters, alter in its entirety. There _must_\nbe total conflux of its parts, each into and through each other. The\n'must' appears here as a _Machtspruch_, as an _ipse dixit_ of Mr.\nBradley's absolutistically tempered 'understanding,' for he candidly\nconfesses that how the parts _do_ differ as they contribute to\ndifferent wholes, is unknown to him (p. 578).\n\nAlthough I have every wish to comprehend the authority by which Mr.\nBradley's understanding speaks, his words leave me wholly unconverted.\n'External relations' stand with their withers all unwrung, and remain,\nfor aught he proves to the contrary, not only practically workable,\nbut also perfectly intelligible factors of reality.\n\n\nVI\n\nMr. Bradley's understanding shows the most extraordinary power of\nperceiving separations and the most extraordinary impotence in\ncomprehending conjunctions. One would naturally say 'neither or both,'\nbut not so Mr. Bradley. When a common man analyzes certain _whats_\nfrom out the stream of experience, he understands their distinctness\n_as thus isolated_. But this does not prevent him from equally well\nunderstanding their combination with each other as _originally\nexperienced in the concrete_, or their confluence with new sensible\nexperiences in which they recur as 'the same.' Returning into the\nstream of sensible presentation, nouns and adjectives, and _thats_ and\nabstract _whats_, grow confluent again, and the word 'is' names\nall these experiences of conjunction. Mr. Bradley understands the\nisolation of the abstracts, but to understand the combination is to\nhim impossible.[1] 'To understand a complex _AB_,' he\n\n[Footnote 1: So far as I catch his state of mind, it is somewhat like\nthis: 'Book,' 'table,' 'on'--how does the existence of these three\nabstract elements result in _this_ book being livingly on _this_\ntable? Why isn't the table on the book? Or why doesn't the 'on'\nconnect itself with another book, or something that is not a table?\nMustn't something _in_ each of the three elements already determine\nthe two others to _it_, so that they do not settle elsewhere or float\nvaguely? Mustn't the whole fact be _prefigured in each part_, and\nexist _de jure_ before it can exist _de facto_? But, if so, in what\ncan the jural existence consist, if not in a spiritual miniature of\nthe whole fact's constitution actuating; every partial factor as its\npurpose? But is this anything but the old metaphysical fallacy of\nlooking behind a fact _in esse_ for the ground of the fact, and\nfinding it in the shape of the very same fact _in posse_? Somewhere we\nmust leave off with a _constitution_ behind which there is nothing.]\n\nsays, 'I must begin with _A_ or _B_. And beginning, say with _A_, if\nI then merely find _B_, I have either lost _A_, or I have got beside\n_A_, [_the word 'beside' seems here vital, as meaning a conjunction\n'external' and therefore unintelligible_] something else, and in\nneither case have I understood.[1] For my intellect cannot simply\nunite a diversity, nor has it in itself any form or way of\ntogetherness, and you gain nothing if, beside _A_ and _B_, you offer\nme their conjunction in fact. For to my intellect that is no more\nthan another external element. And \"facts,\" once for all, are for my\nintellect not true unless they satisfy it.... The intellect has in its\nnature no principle of mere togetherness' (pp. 570, 572).\n\nOf course Mr. Bradley has a right to define 'intellect' as the power\nby which we perceive separations but not unions--provided he give\ndue notice to the reader. But why then claim that such a maimed and\namputated power must reign supreme in philosophy, and accuse on its\nbehoof the whole empirical world of irrationality? It is true that he\nelsewhere (p. 568) attributes to the intellect a _proprius motus_ of\ntransition, but says that\n\n[Footnote 1: Apply this to the case of 'book-on-table'! W.J.]\n\nwhen he looks for _these_ transitions in the detail of living\nexperience, he 'is unable to verify such a solution' (p. 569).\n\nYet he never explains what the intellectual transitions would be like\nin case we had them. He only defines them negatively--they are not\nspatial, temporal, predicative, or causal; or qualitatively or\notherwise serial; or in any way relational as we na\u00efvely trace\nrelations, for relations _separate_ terms, and need themselves to be\nhooked on _ad infinitum_. The nearest approach he makes to describing\na truly intellectual transition is where he speaks of _A_ and _B_\nas being 'united, each from its own nature, in a whole which is the\nnature of both alike' (p. 570). But this (which, _pace_ Mr. Bradley,\nseems exquisitely analogous to 'taking a congeries in a lump,' if\nnot to 'swamping') suggests nothing but that _conflux_ which pure\nexperience so abundantly offers, as when 'space,' 'white,' and 'sweet'\nare confluent in a 'lump of sugar,' or kinesthetic, dermal, and\noptical sensations confluent in 'my hand.'[1] All that I can verify\nin the transitions which Mr. Bradley's intellect desiderates as\nits _proprius motus_ is a reminiscence of these and other sensible\nconjunctions (especially space-conjunctions),\n\n[Footnote 1: How meaningless is the contention that in such wholes\n(or in 'book-on-table,' 'watch-in-pocket,' etc.) the relation is an\nadditional entity _between_ the terms, needing itself to be related\nagain to each! Both Bradley (_Appearance and Reality_, pp. 32-33) and\nRoyce (_The World and the Individual_, i, 128) lovingly repeat this\npiece of profundity.]\n\nbut a reminiscence so vague that its originals are not recognized.\nBradley, in short, repeats the fable of the dog, the bone, and its\nimage in the water. With a world of particulars, given in loveliest\nunion, in conjunction definitely various, and variously definite,\nthe 'how' of which you 'understand' as soon as you see the fact of\nthem,[1] for there is no how except the constitution of the fact as\ngiven; with all this given him, I say, in pure experience, he asks for\nsome ineffable union in the abstract instead, which, if he gained\nit, would only be a duplicate of what he has already in his full\npossession. Surely he abuses the privilege which society grants to all\nof us philosophers, of being puzzle-headed.\n\nPolemic writing like this is odious; but with absolutism in possession\nin so many quarters, omission to defend my radical empiricism against\nits best known champion would count as either superficiality or\ninability. I have to conclude that its dialectic has not invalidated\nin the least degree the usual conjunctions by which the world, as\nexperienced, hangs so variously together. In particular it leaves an\nempirical theory of knowledge intact, and lets us continue to believe\nwith common sense that one object _may_ be known, if we have any\nground for thinking that it _is_ known, to many knowers.\n\n[Footnote 1: The 'why' and the 'whence' are entirely other questions,\nnot under discussion, as I understand Mr. Bradley. Not how experience\ngets itself born, but how it can be what it is after it is born, is\nthe puzzle.]\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX B\n\n\nTHE EXPERIENCE OF ACTIVITY[1]\n\n... Mr. Bradley calls the question of activity a scandal to\nphilosophy, and if one turns to the current literature of the\nsubject--his own writings included--one easily gathers what he means.\nThe opponents cannot even understand one another. Mr. Bradley says to\nMr. Ward: 'I do not care what your oracle is, and your preposterous\npsychology may here be gospel if you please; ... but if the revelation\ndoes contain a meaning, I will commit myself to this: either the\noracle is so confused that its signification is not discoverable,\nor, upon the other hand, if it can be pinned down to any definite\nstatement, then that statement will be false.'[2] Mr. Ward in turn\nsays of Mr. Bradley: 'I cannot even imagine the state of mind to which\nhis description applies.... It reads like an unintentional travesty of\nHerbartian Psychology by one who has tried to improve upon it without\nbeing at the pains to master it.' M\u00fcnsterberg excludes a view opposed\nto his own by saying that with any one who holds it a _verst\u00e4ndigung_\nwith him is '_grunds\u00e4tzlich ausgeschlossen_'; and Royce,\n\n[Footnote 1: President's Address before the American Psychological\nAssociation, December, 1904. Reprinted from the _Psychological\nReview_, vol. xii, 1905, with slight verbal revision.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Appearance and Reality_, p. 117. Obviously written _at_\nWard, though Ward's name is not mentioned.]\n\nin a review of Stout,[1] hauls him over the coals at great length for\ndefending 'efficacy' in a way which I, for one, never gathered from\nreading him, and which I have heard Stout himself say was quite\nforeign to the intention of his text.\n\nIn these discussions distinct questions are habitually jumbled and\ndifferent points of view are talked of _durcheinander_.\n\n(1) There is a psychological question: Have we perceptions of\nactivity? and if so, what are they like, and when and where do we have\nthem?\n\n(2) There is a metaphysical question: Is there a _fact_ of activity?\nand if so, what idea must we frame of it? What is it like? and what\ndoes it do, if it does anything? And finally there is a logical\nquestion:\n\n(3) Whence do we _know_ activity? By our own feelings of it solely? or\nby some other source of information? Throughout page after page of the\nliterature one knows not which of these questions is before one; and\nmere description of the surface-show of experience is proffered as if\nit implicitly answered every one of them. No one of the disputants,\nmoreover, tries to show what pragmatic consequences his own view\nwould carry, or what assignable particular differences in any one's\nexperience it would make if his adversary's were triumphant.\n\n[Footnote 1: _Mind_, N.S., VI, 379.]\n\nIt seems to me that if radical empiricism be good for anything, it\nought, with its pragmatic method and its principle of pure experience,\nto be able to avoid such tangles, or at least to simplify them\nsomewhat. The pragmatic method starts from the postulate that there\nis no difference of truth that doesn't make a difference of fact\nsomewhere; and it seeks to determine the meaning of all differences of\nopinion by making the discussion hinge as soon as possible upon some\npractical or particular issue. The principle of pure experience is\nalso a methodical postulate. Nothing shall be admitted as fact, it\nsays, except what can be experienced at some definite time by some\nexperient; and for every feature of fact ever so experienced, a\ndefinite place must be found somewhere in the final system of reality.\nIn other words: Everything real must be experienceable somewhere, and\nevery kind of thing experienced must somewhere be real.\n\nArmed with these rules of method, let us see what face the problems of\nactivity present to us.\n\nBy the principle of pure experience, either the word 'activity' must\nhave no meaning at all, or else the original type and model of what\nit means must lie in some concrete kind of experience that can be\ndefinitely pointed out. Whatever ulterior judgments we may eventually\ncome to make regarding activity, _that sort_ of thing will be what the\njudgments are about. The first step to take, then, is to ask where in\nthe stream of experience we seem to find what we speak of as activity.\nWhat we are to think of the activity thus found will be a later\nquestion.\n\nNow it is obvious that we are tempted to affirm activity wherever\nwe find anything _going on_. Taken in the broadest sense, any\napprehension of something _doing_, is an experience of activity. Were\nour world describable only by the words 'nothing happening,' 'nothing\nchanging,' 'nothing doing,' we should unquestionably call it an\n'inactive' world. Bare activity, then, as we may call it, means the\nbare fact of event or change. 'Change taking place' is a unique\ncontent of experience, one of those 'conjunctive' objects which\nradical empiricism seeks so earnestly to rehabilitate and preserve.\nThe sense of activity is thus in the broadest and vaguest way\nsynonymous with the sense of 'life.' We should feel our own subjective\nlife at least, even in noticing and proclaiming an otherwise inactive\nworld. Our own reaction on its monotony would be the one thing\nexperienced there in the form of something coming to pass.\n\nThis seems to be what certain writers have in mind when they insist\nthat for an experient to be at all is to be active. It seems to\njustify, or at any rate to explain, Mr. Ward's expression that we\n_are_ only as we are active,[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Naturalism and Agnosticism_, vol. ii, p. 245. One thinks\nnaturally of the peripatetic _actus primus_ and _actus secundus_\nhere.]\n\nfor we _are_ only as experients; and it rules out Mr. Bradley's\ncontention that 'there is no original experience of anything like\nactivity.' What we ought to say about activities thus simply given,\nwhose they are, what they effect, or whether indeed they effect\nanything at all--these are later questions, to be answered only when\nthe field of experience is enlarged.\n\nBare activity would thus be predicable, though there were no definite\ndirection, no actor, and no aim. Mere restless zigzag movement, or a\nwild _ideenflucht_, or _rhapsodie der wahrnehmungen_, as Kant would\nsay, would constitute an active as distinguished from an inactive\nworld.\n\nBut in this actual world of ours, as it is given, a part at least of\nthe activity comes with definite direction; it comes with desire\nand sense of goal; it comes complicated with resistances which it\novercomes or succumbs to, and with the efforts which the feeling of\nresistance so often provokes; and it is in complex experiences like\nthese that the notions of distinct agents, and of passivity as opposed\nto activity arise. Here also the notion of causal efficacy comes\nto birth. Perhaps the most elaborate work ever done in descriptive\npsychology has been the analysis by various recent writers of the more\ncomplex activity-situations. In their descriptions, exquisitely subtle\nsome of them,[1] the activity appears as the _gestalt-qualit\u00e4t_\n\n[Footnote 1: Their existence forms a curious commentary on Professor\nMunsterberg's dogma that will-attitudes are not describable. He\nhimself has contributed in a superior way to their description, both\nin his _Willenshandlung_, and in his _Grundz\u00fcge_, Part II, chap, ix, \u00a7\n7.]\n\nor the _fundirte inhalt_ (or as whatever else you may please to call\nthe conjunctive form) which the content falls into when we experience\nit in the ways which the describers set forth. Those factors in those\nrelations are what we _mean_ by activity-situations; and to the\npossible enumeration and accumulation of their circumstances and\ningredients there would seem to be no natural bound. Every hour of\nhuman life could contribute to the picture gallery; and this is the\nonly fault that one can find with such descriptive industry--where is\nit going to stop? Ought we to listen forever to verbal pictures of\nwhat we have already in concrete form in our own breasts?[1]\nThey never take us off the superficial plane. We knew the facts\nalready--less spread out and separated, to be sure--but we knew them\nstill. We always felt our own activity, for example, as 'the expansion\nof an idea with which our Self is identified, against an obstacle';\nand the following out of such a definition through a multitude of\ncases elaborates the obvious so as to be little more than an exercise\nin synonymic speech.\n\nAll the descriptions have to trace familiar outlines, and to use\nfamiliar terms. The activity is, for example,\n\n[Footnote 1: I ought myself to cry _peccavi_, having been a voluminous\nsinner in my own chapter on the will.]\n\nattributed either to a physical or to a mental agent, and is either\naimless or directed. If directed, it shows tendency. The tendency may\nor may not be resisted. If not, we call the activity immanent, as when\na body moves in empty space by its momentum, or our thoughts wander at\ntheir own sweet will. If resistance is met, _its_ agent complicates\nthe situation. If now, in spite of resistance, the original tendency\ncontinues, effort makes its appearance, and along with effort, strain\nor squeeze. Will, in the narrower sense of the word, then comes upon\nthe scene, whenever, along with the tendency, the strain and squeeze\nare sustained. But the resistance may be great enough to check the\ntendency, or even to reverse its path. In that case, we (if 'we' were\nthe original agents or subjects of the tendency) are overpowered.\nThe phenomenon turns into one of tension simply, or of necessity\nsuccumbed--to, according as the opposing power is only equal, or is\nsuperior to ourselves.\n\nWhosoever describes an experience in such terms as these, describes an\nexperience _of_ activity. If the word have any meaning, it must denote\nwhat there is found. _There_ is complete activity in its original and\nfirst intention. What it is 'known-as' is what there appears. The\nexperiencer of such a situation possesses all that the idea contains.\nHe feels the tendency, the obstacle, the will, the strain, the\ntriumph, or the passive giving up, just as he feels the time, the\nspace, the swiftness or intensity, the movement, the weight and\ncolor, the pain and pleasure, the complexity, or whatever remaining\ncharacters the situation may involve. He goes through all that ever\ncan be imagined where activity is supposed. If we suppose activities\nto go on outside of our experience, it is in forms like these that we\nmust suppose them, or else give them some other name; for the word\n'activity' has no imaginable content whatever save these experiences\nof process, obstruction, striving, strain, or release, ultimate\n_qualia_ as they are of the life given us to be known.\n\nWere this the end of the matter, one might think that whenever we had\nsuccessfully lived through an activity-situation we should have to be\npermitted, without provoking contradiction, to say that we had\nbeen really active, that we had met real resistance and had really\nprevailed. Lotze somewhere says that to be an entity all that is\nnecessary is to _gelten_ as an entity, to operate, or be felt,\nexperienced, recognized, or in any way realized, as such. In our\nactivity-experiences the activity assuredly fulfils Lotze's demand.\nIt makes itself _gelten_. It is witnessed at its work. No matter what\nactivities there may really be in this extraordinary universe of ours,\nit is impossible for us to conceive of any one of them being either\nlived through or authentically known otherwise than in this dramatic\nshape of something sustaining a felt purpose against felt obstacles\nand overcoming or being overcome. What 'sustaining' means here is\nclear to any one who has lived through the experience, but to no one\nelse; just as 'loud,' 'red,' 'sweet,' mean something only to beings\nwith ears, eyes, and tongues. The _percipi_ in these originals of\nexperience is the _esse_; the curtain is the picture. If there is\nanything hiding in the background, it ought not to be called activity,\nbut should get itself another name.\n\nThis seems so obviously true that one might well experience\nastonishment at finding so many of the ablest writers on the subject\nflatly denying that the activity we live through in these situations\nis real. Merely to feel active is not to be active, in their sight.\nThe agents that appear in the experience are not real agents, the\nresistances do not really resist, the effects that appear are not\nreally effects at all.[1] It is evident from this that\n\n[Footnote 1: _Verborum grati\u00e2_:'The feeling of activity is not able,\nqu\u00e2 feeling, to tell us anything about activity' (Loveday: _Mind_,\nN.S., X., 403); 'A sensation or feeling or sense of activity ... is\nnot, looked at in another way, a feeling of activity at all. It is a\nmere sensation shut up within which you could by no reflection get the\nidea of activity.... Whether this experience is or is not later on a\ncharacter essential to our perception and our idea of activity, it, as\nit comes first, is not in itself an experience of activity at all. It,\nas it comes first, is only so for extraneous reasons and only so for\nan outside observer' (Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, 2d edition,\np. 605); 'In dem t\u00e4tigkeitsgef\u00fchle leigt an sich nicht der\ngeringste beweis f\u00fcr das vorhandensein einer psychischen t\u00e4tigkeit'\n(M\u00fcnsterberg: _Grundz\u00fcge_, etc., p. 67). I could multiply similar\nquotations, and would have introduced some of them into my text to\nmake it more concrete, save that the mingling of different points of\nview in most of these author's discussions (not in M\u00fcnsterberg's) make\nit impossible to disentangle exactly what they mean. I am sure in any\ncase to be accused of misrepresenting them totally, even in this note,\nby omission of the context, so the less I name names and the more\nI stick to abstract characterization of a merely possible style of\nopinion, the safer it will be. And apropos of misunderstandings, I may\nadd to this note a complaint on my own account. Professor Stout, in\nthe excellent chapter on 'Mental Activity,' in vol. i of his _Analytic\nPsychology_, takes me to task for identifying spiritual activity with\ncertain muscular feelings, and gives quotations to bear him out. They\nare from certain paragraphs on 'the Self,' in which my attempt was to\nshow what the central nucleus of the activities that we call 'ours'\nis. I found it in certain intracephalic movements which we habitually\noppose, as 'subjective,' to the activities of the transcorporeal\nworld. I sought to show that there is no direct evidence that we feel\nthe activity of an inner spiritual agent as such (I should now say the\nactivity of 'consciousness' as such, see my paper 'Does consciousness\nexist?' in the _Journal of Philosophy_, vol. i, p. 477). There are, in\nfact, three distinguishable 'activities' in the field of discussion:\nthe elementary activity involved in the mere _that_ of experience, in\nthe fact that _something_ is going on, and the farther specification\nof this _something_ into two _whats_, an activity felt as 'ours,' and\nan activity ascribed to objects. Stout, as I apprehend him, identifies\n'our' activity with that of the total experience-process, and when I\ncircumscribe it as a part thereof, accuses me of treating it as a sort\nof external appendage to itself (pp. 162-163), as if I 'separated the\nactivity from the process which is active.' But all the processes in\nquestion are active, and their activity is inseparable from their\nbeing. My book raised only the question of _which_ activity deserved\nthe name of 'ours.' So far as we are 'persons,' and contrasted and\nopposed to an 'environment,' movements in our body figure as our\nactivities; and I am unable to find any other activities that are ours\nin this strictly personal sense. There is a wider sense in which\nthe whole 'choir of heaven and furniture of the earth,' and their\nactivities, are ours, for they are our 'objects.' But 'we' are here\nonly another name for the total process of experience, another name\nfor all that is, in fact; and I was dealing with the personal and\nindividualized self exclusively in the passages with which Professor\nStout finds fault.\n\nThe individualized self, which I believe to be the only thing properly\ncalled self, is a part of the content of the world experienced. The\nworld experienced (otherwise called the 'field of consciousness')\ncomes at all times with our body as its centre, centre of vision,\ncentre of action, centre of interest. Where the body is is 'here';\nwhen the body acts is 'now'; what the body touches is 'this'; all\nother things are 'there' and 'then' and 'that.' These words of\nemphasized position imply a systematization of things with reference\nto a focus of action and interest which lies in the body; and the\nsystematization is now so instinctive (was it ever not so?) that no\ndeveloped or active experience exists for us at all except in that\nordered form. So far as 'thoughts' and 'feelings' can be active, their\nactivity terminates in the activity of the body, and only through\nfirst arousing its activities can they begin to change those of\nthe rest of the world. The body is the storm centre, the origin\nof co-ordinates, the constant place of stress in all that\nexperience-train. Everything circles round it, and is felt from its\npoint of view. The word 'I,' then, is primarily a noun of position,\njust like 'this' and 'here.' Activities attached to 'this' position\nhave prerogative emphasis, and, if activities have feelings, must be\nfelt in a peculiar way. The word 'my' designates the kind of emphasis.\nI see no inconsistency whatever in defending, on the one hand, 'my'\nactivities as unique and opposed to those of outer nature, and, on the\nother hand, in affirming, after introspection, that they consist in\nmovements in the head. The 'my' of them is the emphasis, the feeling\nof perspective-interest in which they are dyed.]\n\nmere descriptive analysis of any one of our activity-experiences is\nnot the whole story, that there is something still to tell _about_\nthem that has led such able writers to conceive of a _Simon-pure_\nactivity, of an activity _an sich_, that does, and doesn't merely\nappear to us to do, and compared with whose real doing all this\nphenomenal activity is but a specious sham.\n\nThe metaphysical question opens here; and I think that the state of\nmind of one possessed by it is often something like this: 'It is\nall very well,' we may imagine him saying, 'to talk about certain\nexperience-series taking on the form of feelings of activity, just as\nthey might take on musical or geometric forms. Suppose that they do\nso; suppose that what we feel is a will to stand a strain. Does our\nfeeling do more than _record_ the fact that the strain is sustained?\nThe _real_ activity, meanwhile, is the _doing_ of the fact; and what\nis the doing made of before the record is made? What in the will\n_enables_ it to act thus? And these trains of experience themselves,\nin which activities appear, what makes them _go_ at all? Does the\nactivity in one bit of experience bring the next bit into being? As an\nempiricist you cannot say so, for you have just declared activity\nto be only a kind of synthetic object, or conjunctive relation\nexperienced between bits of experience already made. But what made\nthem at all? What propels experience _\u00fcberhaupt_ into being? _There_\nis the activity that _operates_; the activity _felt_ is only its\nsuperficial sign.'\n\nTo the metaphysical question, popped upon us in this way, I must pay\nserious attention ere I end my remarks, but, before doing so, let me\nshow that without leaving the immediate reticulations of experience,\nor asking what makes activity itself act, we still find the\ndistinction between less real and more real activities forced upon us,\nand are driven to much soul-searching on the purely phenomenal plane.\n\nWe must not forget, namely, in talking of the ultimate character of\nour activity-experiences, that each of them is but a portion of a\nwider world, one link in the vast chain of processes of experience\nout of which history is made. Each partial process, to him who lives\nthrough it, defines itself by its origin and its goal; but to an\nobserver with a wider mind-span who should live outside of it,\nthat goal would appear but as a provisional halting-place, and the\nsubjectively felt activity would be seen to continue into objective\nactivities that led far beyond. We thus acquire a habit, in discussing\nactivity-experiences, of defining them by their relation to something\nmore. If an experience be one of narrow span, it will be mistaken as\nto what activity it is and whose. You think that _you_ are acting\nwhile you are only obeying some one's push. You think you are doing\n_this_, but you are doing something of which you do not dream. For\ninstance, you think you are but drinking this glass; but you are\nreally creating the liver-cirrhosis that will end your days. You think\nyou are just driving this bargain, but, as Stevenson says somewhere,\nyou are laying down a link in the policy of mankind.\n\nGenerally speaking, the onlooker, with his wider field of vision,\nregards the _ultimate outcome_ of an activity as what it is more\nreally doing; and _the most previous agent_ ascertainable, being the\nfirst source of action, he regards as the most real agent in the\nfield. The others but transmit that agent's impulse; on him we put\nresponsibility; we name him when one asks us, 'Who's to blame?'\n\nBut the most previous agents ascertainable, instead of being of longer\nspan, are often of much shorter span than the activity in view.\nBrain-cells are our best example. My brain-cells are believed to\nexcite each other from next to next (by contiguous transmission of\nkatabolic alteration, let us say), and to have been doing so long\nbefore this present stretch of lecturing-activity on my part began.\nIf any one cell-group stops its activity, the lecturing will cease or\nshow disorder of form. _Cessante causa, cessat et effectus_--does not\nthis look as if the short-span brain activities were the more real\nactivities, and the lecturing activities on my part only their\neffects? Moreover, as Hume so clearly pointed out, in my mental\nactivity-situation the words physically to be uttered are represented\nas the activity's immediate goal. These words, however, cannot be\nuttered without intermediate physical processes in the bulb and vagi\nnerves, which processes nevertheless fail to figure in the mental\nactivity-series at all. That series, therefore, since it leaves out\nvitally real steps of action, cannot represent the real activities. It\nis something purely subjective; the _facts_ of activity are elsewhere.\nThey are something far more interstitial, so to speak, than what my\nfeelings record.\n\nThe _real_ facts of activity that have in point of fact been\nsystematically pleaded for by philosophers have, so far as my\ninformation goes, been of three principal types.\n\nThe first type takes a consciousness of wider time-span than ours to\nbe the vehicle of the more real activity. Its will is the agent, and\nits purpose is the action done.\n\nThe second type assumes that 'ideas' struggling with one another are\nthe agents, and that the prevalence of one set of them is the action.\n\nThe third type believes that nerve-cells are the agents, and that\nresultant motor discharges are the acts achieved.\n\nNow if we must de-realize our immediately felt activity-situations for\nthe benefit of either of these types of substitute, we ought to know\nwhat the substitution practically involves. _What practical difference\nought it to make if_, instead of saying naively that 'I' am active now\nin delivering this address, I say that _a wider thinker is active_,\nor that _certain ideas are active_, or that _certain nerve-cells are\nactive_, in producing the result?\n\nThis would be the pragmatic meaning of the three hypotheses. Let us\ntake them in succession in seeking a reply.\n\nIf we assume a wider thinker, it is evident that his purposes envelop\nmine. I am really lecturing _for_ him; and altho I cannot surely know\nto what end, yet if I take him religiously, I can trust it to be a\ngood end, and willingly connive. I can be happy in thinking that my\nactivity transmits his impulse, and that his ends prolong my own. So\nlong as I take him religiously, in short, he does not de-realize my\nactivities. He tends rather to corroborate the reality of them, so\nlong as I believe both them and him to be good.\n\nWhen now we turn to ideas, the case is different, inasmuch as ideas\nare supposed by the association psychology to influence each other\nonly from next to next. The 'span' of an idea, or pair of ideas, is\nassumed to be much smaller instead of being larger than that of my\ntotal conscious field. The same results may get worked out in both\ncases, for this address is being given anyhow. But the ideas supposed\nto 'really' work it out had no prevision of the whole of it; and if\nI was lecturing for an absolute thinker in the former case, so,\nby similar reasoning, are my ideas now lecturing for me, that is,\naccomplishing unwittingly a result which I approve and adopt. But,\nwhen this passing lecture is over, there is nothing in the bare notion\nthat ideas have been its agents that would seem to guarantee that my\npresent purposes in lecturing will be prolonged. _I_ may have ulterior\ndevelopments in view; but there is no certainty that my ideas as such\nwill wish to, or be able to, work them out.\n\nThe like is true if nerve-cells be the agents. The activity of a\nnerve-cell must be conceived of as a tendency of exceedingly short\nreach, an 'impulse' barely spanning the way to the next cell--for\nsurely that amount of actual 'process' must be 'experienced' by the\ncells if what happens between them is to deserve the name of activity\nat all. But here again the gross resultant, as _I_ perceive it, is\nindifferent to the agents, and neither wished or willed or foreseen.\nTheir being agents now congruous with my will gives me no guarantee\nthat like results will recur again from their activity. In point of\nfact, all sorts of other results do occur. My mistakes, impotencies,\nperversions, mental obstructions, and frustrations generally, are also\nresults of the activity of cells. Altho these are letting me lecture\nnow, on other occasions they make me do things that I would willingly\nnot do.\n\nThe question _Whose is the real activity?_ is thus tantamount to the\nquestion _What will be the actual results?_ Its interest is dramatic;\nhow will things work out? If the agents are of one sort, one way; if\nof another sort, they may work out very differently. The pragmatic\nmeaning of the various alternatives, in short, is great. It makes more\nthan a merely verbal difference which opinion we take up.\n\nYou see it is the old dispute come back! Materialism and teleology;\nelementary short-span actions summing themselves 'blindly,' or far\nforeseen ideals coming with effort into act.\n\nNa\u00efvely we believe, and humanly and dramatically we like to believe,\nthat activities both of wider and of narrower span are at work in life\ntogether, that both are real, and that the long-span tendencies yoke\nthe others in their service, encouraging them in the right direction,\nand damping them when they tend in other ways. But how to represent\nclearly the _modus operandi_ of such steering of small tendencies\nby large ones is a problem which metaphysical thinkers will have to\nruminate upon for many years to come. Even if such control should\neventually grow clearly picturable, the question how far it is\nsuccessfully exerted in this actual world can be answered only by\ninvestigating the details of fact. No philosophic knowledge of the\ngeneral nature and constitution of tendencies, or of the relation\nof larger to smaller ones, can help us to predict which of all the\nvarious competing tendencies that interest us in this universe are\nlikeliest to prevail. We know as an empirical fact that far-seeing\ntendencies often carry out their purpose, but we know also that they\nare often defeated by the failure of some contemptibly small process\non which success depends. A little thrombus in a statesman's meningeal\nartery will throw an empire out of gear. Therefore I cannot even hint\nat any solution of the pragmatic issue. I have only wished to show you\nthat that issue is what gives the real interest to all inquiries into\nwhat kinds of activity may be real. Are the forces that really act in\nthe world more foreseeing or more blind? As between 'our' activities\nas 'we' experience them, and those of our ideas, or of our\nbrain-cells, the issue is well defined.\n\nI said awhile back (p. 381) that I should return to the 'metaphysical'\nquestion before ending; so, with a few words about that, I will now\nclose my remarks.\n\nIn whatever form we hear this question propounded, I think that it\nalways arises from two things, a belief that _causality_ must be\nexerted in activity, and a wonder as to how causality is made. If we\ntake an activity-situation at its face-value, it seems as if we caught\n_in flagrante delicto_ the very power that makes facts come and be. I\nnow am eagerly striving, for example, to get this truth which I seem\nhalf to perceive, into words which shall make it show more clearly. If\nthe words come, it will seem as if the striving itself had drawn or\npulled them into actuality out from the state of merely possible being\nin which they were. How is this feat performed? How does the pulling\n_pull_? How do I get my hold on words not yet existent, and when they\ncome, by what means have I _made_ them come? Really it is the problem\nof creation; for in the end the question is: How do I make them _be?_\nReal activities are those that really make things be, without which\nthe things are not, and with which they are there. Activity, so far as\nwe merely feel it, on the other hand, is only an impression of ours,\nit may be maintained; and an impression is, for all this way of\nthinking, only a shadow of another fact.\n\nArrived at this point, I can do little more than indicate the\nprinciples on which, as it seems to me, a radically empirical\nphilosophy is obliged to rely in handling such a dispute.\n\nIf there _be_ real creative activities in being, radical empiricism\nmust say, somewhere they must be immediately lived. Somewhere the\n_that_ of efficacious causing and the _what_ of it must be experienced\nin one, just as the what and the that of 'cold' are experienced in one\nwhenever a man has the sensation of cold here and now. It boots not to\nsay that our sensations are fallible. They are indeed; but to see the\nthermometer contradict us when we say 'it is cold' does not abolish\ncold as a specific nature from the universe. Cold is in the arctic\ncircle if not here. Even so, to feel that our train is moving when the\ntrain beside our window moves, to see the moon through a telescope\ncome twice as near, or to see two pictures as one solid when we look\nthrough a stereoscope at them, leaves motion, nearness, and solidity\nstill in being--if not here, yet each in its proper seat elsewhere.\nAnd wherever the seat of real causality _is_, as ultimately known 'for\ntrue' (in nerve-processes, if you will, that cause our feelings of\nactivity as well as the movements which these seem to prompt), a\nphilosophy of pure experience can consider the real causation as no\nother _nature_ of thing than that which even in our most erroneous\nexperiences appears to be at work. Exactly what appears there is what\nwe _mean_ by working, tho we may later come to learn that working was\nnot exactly _there_. Sustaining, persevering, striving, paying with\neffort as we go, hanging on, and finally achieving our intention--this\n_is_ action, this _is_ effectuation in the only shape in which, by\na pure experience-philosophy, the whereabouts of it anywhere can be\ndiscussed. Here is creation in its first intention, here is causality\nat work.[1] To treat this offhand as the bare illusory\n\n[Footnote 1: Let me not be told that this contradicts a former article\nof mine, 'Does consciousness exist?' in the _Journal of Philosophy_\nfor September 1, 1904 (see especially page 489), in which it was said\nthat while 'thoughts' and 'things' have the same natures, the natures\nwork 'energetically' on each other in the things (fire burns, water\nwets, etc.), but not in the thoughts. Mental activity-trains are\ncomposed of thoughts, yet their members do work on each other: they\ncheck, sustain, and introduce. They do so when the activity is merely\nassociational as well as when effort is there. But, and this is my\nreply, they do so by other parts of their nature than those that\nenergize physically. One thought in every developed activity-series is\na desire or thought of purpose, and all the other thoughts acquire a\nfeeling tone from their relation of harmony or oppugnancy to this.\nThe interplay of these secondary tones (among which 'interest,'\n'difficulty,' and 'effort' figure) runs the drama in the mental\nseries. In what we term the physical drama these qualities play\nabsolutely no part. The subject needs careful working out; but I can\nsee no inconsistency.]\n\nsurface of a world whose real causality is an unimaginable ontological\nprinciple hidden in the cubic deeps, is, for the more empirical way of\nthinking, only animism in another shape. You explain your given fact\nby your 'principle,' but the principle itself, when you look clearly\nat it, turns out to be nothing but a previous little spiritual copy\nof the fact. Away from that one and only kind of fact your mind,\nconsidering causality, can never get.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: I have found myself more than once accused in print of\nbeing the assertor of a metaphysical principle of activity. Since\nliterary misunderstandings retard the settlement of problems, I should\nlike to say that such an interpretation of the pages I have published\non effort and on will is absolutely foreign to what I meant to\nexpress. I owe all my doctrines on this subject to Renouvier; and\nRenouvier, as I understand him, is (or at any rate then was) an out\nand out phenomenist, a denier of 'forces' in the most strenuous\nsense. Single clauses in my writing, or sentences read out of their\nconnexion, may possibly have been compatible with a transphenomenal\nprinciple of energy; but I defy any one to show a single sentence\nwhich, taken with its context, should be naturally held to advocate\nthat view. The misinterpretation probably arose at first from my\nhaving defended (after Renouvier) the indeterminism of our efforts.\n'Free will' was supposed by my critics to involve a supernatural\nagent. As a matter of plain history, the only 'free will' I have\never thought of defending is the character of novelty in fresh\nactivity-situations. If an activity-process is the form of a whole\n'field of consciousness,' and if each field of consciousness is not\nonly in its totality unique (as is now commonly admitted), but has\nits elements unique (since in that situation they are all dyed in\nthe total), then novelty is perpetually entering the world and what\nhappens there is not pure _repetition_, as the dogma of the literal\nuniformity of nature requires. Activity-situations come, in short,\neach with an original touch. A 'principle' of free will, if there were\none, would doubtless manifest itself in such phenomena, but I never\nsaw, nor do I now see, what the principle could do except rehearse the\nphenomenon beforehand, or why it ever should be invoked.]\n\nI conclude, then, that real effectual causation as an ultimate nature,\nas a 'category,' if you like, of reality, is _just what we feel it\nto be_, just that kind of conjunction which our own activity-series\nreveal. We have the whole butt and being of it in our hands; and the\nhealthy thing for philosophy is to leave off grubbing underground for\nwhat effects effectuation, or what makes action act, and to try to\nsolve the concrete questions of where effectuation in this world is\nlocated, of which things are the true causal agents there, and of what\nthe more remote effects consist.\n\nFrom this point of view the greater sublimity traditionally attributed\nto the metaphysical inquiry, the grubbing inquiry, entirely\ndisappears. If we could know what causation really and\ntranscendentally is in itself, the only _use_ of the knowledge would\nbe to help us to recognize an actual cause when we had one, and so to\ntrack the future course of operations more intelligently out. The mere\nabstract inquiry into causation's hidden nature is not more sublime\nthan any other inquiry equally abstract. Causation inhabits no more\nsublime level than anything else. It lives, apparently, in the dirt of\nthe world as well as in the absolute, or in man's unconquerable mind.\nThe worth and interest of the world consists not in its elements,\nbe these elements things, or be they the conjunctions of things; it\nexists rather in the dramatic outcome of the whole process, and in the\nmeaning of the succession stages which the elements work out.\n\nMy colleague and master, Josiah Royce, in a page of his review of\nStout's _Analytic Psychology_, in _Mind_ for 1897, has some fine words\non this point with which I cordially agree. I cannot agree with his\nseparating the notion of efficacy from that of activity altogether\n(this I understand to be one contention of his), for activities are\nefficacious whenever they are real activities at all. But the inner\nnature both of efficacy and of activity are superficial problems, I\nunderstand Royce to say; and the only point for us in solving them\nwould be their possible use in helping us to solve the far deeper\nproblem of the course and meaning of the world of life. Life, says\nour colleague, is full of significance, of meaning, of success and of\ndefeat, of hoping and of striving, of longing, of desire, and of inner\nvalue. It is a total presence that embodies worth. To live our own\nlives better in this presence is the true reason why we wish to know\nthe elements of things; so even we psychologists must end on this\npragmatic note.\n\nThe urgent problems of activity are thus more concrete. They all\nare problems of the true relation of longer-span to shorter-span\nactivities. When, for example, a number of 'ideas' (to use the name\ntraditional in psychology) grow confluent in a larger field of\nconsciousness, do the smaller activities still coexist with the wider\nactivities then experienced by the conscious subject? And, if so, do\nthe wide activities accompany the narrow ones inertly, or do they\nexert control? Or do they perhaps utterly supplant and replace them\nand short-circuit their effects? Again, when a mental activity-process\nand a brain-cell series of activities both terminate in the same\nmuscular movement, does the mental process steer the neural processes\nor not? Or, on the other hand, does it independently short-circuit\ntheir effects? Such are the questions that we must begin with. But so\nfar am I from suggesting any definitive answer to such questions,\nthat I hardly yet can put them clearly. They lead, however, into that\nregion of panpsychic and ontologic speculation of which Professors\nBergson and Strong have lately enlarged the literature in so able and\ninteresting a way. The results of these authors seem in many respects\ndissimilar, and I understand them as yet but imperfectly; but I cannot\nhelp suspecting that the direction of their work is very promising,\nand that they have the hunter's instinct for the fruitful trails.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX C\n\n\nON THE NOTION OF REALITY AS CHANGING\n\nIn my _Principles of Psychology_ (vol. ii, p. 646) I gave the name of\nthe 'axiom of skipped intermediaries and transferred relations' to a\nserial principle of which the foundation of logic, the _dictum de omni\net nullo_ (or, as I expressed it, the rule that what is of a kind is\nof that kind's kind), is the most familiar instance. More than the\nmore is more than the less, equals of equals are equal, sames of the\nsame are the same, the cause of a cause is the cause of its effects,\nare other examples of this serial law. Altho it applies infallibly\nand without restriction throughout certain abstract series, where the\n'sames,' 'causes,' etc., spoken of, are 'pure,' and have no properties\nsave their sameness, causality, etc., it cannot be applied offhand to\nconcrete objects with numerous properties and relations, for it is\nhard to trace a straight line of sameness, causation, or whatever it\nmay be, through a series of such objects without swerving into some\n'respect' where the relation, as pursued originally, no longer holds:\nthe objects have so many 'aspects' that we are constantly deflected\nfrom our original direction, and find, we know not why, that we are\nfollowing something different from what we started with. Thus a cat is\nin a sense the same as a mouse-trap, and a mouse-trap the same as a\nbird-cage; but in no valuable or easily intelligible sense is a cat\nthe same as a bird-cage. Commodore Perry was in a sense the cause\nof the new r\u00e9gime in Japan, and the new r\u00e9gime was the cause of the\nrussian Douma; but it would hardly profit us to insist on holding to\nPerry as the cause of the Douma: the terms have grown too remote to\nhave any real or practical relation to each other. In every series of\nreal terms, not only do the terms themselves and their associates\nand environments change, but we change, and their _meaning_ for\nus changes, so that new kinds of sameness and types of causation\ncontinually come into view and appeal to our interest. Our earlier\nlines, having grown irrelevant, are then dropped. The old terms can no\nlonger be substituted nor the relations 'transferred,' because of so\nmany new dimensions into which experience has opened. Instead of a\nstraight line, it now follows a zigzag; and to keep it straight, one\nmust do violence to its spontaneous development. Not that one might\nnot possibly, by careful seeking (tho I doubt it), _find_ some line in\nnature along which terms literally the same, or causes causal in the\nsame way, might be serially strung without limit, if one's interest\nlay in such finding. Within such lines our axioms might hold, causes\nmight cause their effect's effects, etc.; but such lines themselves\nwould, if found, only be partial members of a vast natural network,\nwithin the other lines of which you could not say, in any sense that\na wise man or a sane man would ever think of, in any sense that would\nnot be concretely _silly_, that the principle of skipt intermediaries\nstill held good. In the _practical_ world, the world whose\nsignificances we follow, sames of the same are certainly not sames of\none another; and things constantly cause other things without being\nheld responsible for everything of which those other things are\ncauses.\n\nProfessor Bergson, believing as he does in a heraclitean 'devenir\nr\u00e9el,' ought, if I rightly understand him, positively to deny that in\nthe actual world the logical axioms hold good without qualification.\nNot only, according to him, do terms change, so that after a certain\ntime the very elements of things are no longer what they were, but\nrelations also change, so as no longer to obtain in the same identical\nway between the new things that have succeeded upon the old ones. If\nthis were really so, then however indefinitely sames might still\nbe substituted for sames in the logical world of nothing but pure\nsameness, in the world of real operations every line of sameness\nactually started and followed up would eventually give out, and cease\nto be traceable any farther. Sames of the same, in such a world, will\nnot always (or rather, in a strict sense will never) be the same\nas one another, for in such a world there _is_ no literal or ideal\nsameness among numerical differents. Nor in such a world will it be\ntrue that the cause of the cause is unreservedly the cause of\nthe effect; for if we follow lines of real causation, instead of\ncontenting ourselves with Hume's and Kant's eviscerated schematism, we\nfind that remoter effects are seldom aimed at by causal intentions,[1]\nthat no one kind of causal activity continues indefinitely, and that\nthe principle of skipt intermediaries can be talked of only _in\nabstracto_.[2]\n\nVolumes i, ii, and iii of the _Monist_ (1890-1893) contain a number of\narticles by Mr. Charles S. Peirce, articles the originality of which\nhas apparently prevented their making an immediate impression, but\nwhich, if I mistake not, will prove a gold-mine of ideas for thinkers\nof the coming generation. Mr. Peirce's views, tho reached so\ndifferently, are altogether congruous with Bergson's. Both\nphilosophers believe that the appearance of novelty in things is\ngenuine. To an observer standing outside of its generating causes,\nnovelty can appear only as so much 'chance'; to one who stands inside\nit is the expression of 'free creative activity.' Peirce's 'tychism'\nis thus practically synonymous with Bergson's 'devenir r\u00e9el.' The\ncommon objection to admitting novelties is that by jumping abruptly\nin, _ex nihilo_, they shatter the world's rational continuity. Peirce\nmeets this objection by combining his tychism\n\n[Footnote 1: Compare the douma with what Perry aimed at.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Compare Appendix B, as to what I mean here by 'real'\ncasual activity.]\n\nwith an express doctrine of 'synechism' or continuity, the two\ndoctrines merging into the higher synthesis on which he bestows the\nname of 'agapasticism (_loc. cit._, iii, 188), which means exactly the\nsame thing as Bergson's '\u00e9volution cr\u00e9atrice.' Novelty, as empirically\nfound, doesn't arrive by jumps and jolts, it leaks in insensibly, for\nadjacents in experience are always interfused, the smallest real datum\nbeing both a coming and a going, and even numerical distinctness being\nrealized effectively only after a concrete interval has passed. The\nintervals also deflect us from the original paths of direction, and\nall the old identities at last give out, for the fatally continuous\ninfiltration of otherness warps things out of every original rut.\nJust so, in a curve, the same direction is _never_ followed, and the\nconception of it as a myriad-sided polygon falsifies it by\nsupposing it to do so for however short a time. Peirce speaks of an\n'infinitesimal' tendency to diversification. The mathematical notion\nof an infinitesimal contains, in truth, the whole paradox of the same\nand yet the nascent other, of an identity that won't _keep_ except so\nfar as it keeps _failing_, that won't _transfer_, any more than the\nserial relations in question transfer, when you apply them to reality\ninstead of applying them to concepts alone.\n\nA friend of mine has an idea, which illustrates on such a magnified\nscale the impossibility of tracing the same line through reality, that\nI will mention it here. He thinks that nothing more is needed to make\nhistory 'scientific' than to get the content of any two epochs (say\nthe end of the thirteenth and the end of the nineteenth century)\naccurately defined, then accurately to define the direction of the\nchange that led from the one epoch into the other, and finally to\nprolong the line of that direction into the future. So prolonging the\nline, he thinks, we ought to be able to define the actual state\nof things at any future date we please. We all feel the essential\nunreality of such a conception of 'history' as this; but if such a\nsynechistic pluralism as Peirce, Bergson, and I believe in, be what\nreally exists, every phenomenon of development, even the simplest,\nwould prove equally rebellious to our science should the latter\npretend to give us literally accurate instead of approximate, or\nstatistically generalized, pictures of the development of reality.\n\nI can give no further account of Mr. Peirce's ideas in this note, but\nI earnestly advise all students of Bergson to compare them with those\nof the french philosopher.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nINDEX TO THE LECTURES\n\n  Absolute, the, 49, 108-109, 114 ff., 173, 175, 190 ff., 203, 271, 292 ff.,\n  311; not the same as God, 111, 134; its rationality, 114 f.; its\n  irrationality, 117-129; difficulty of conceiving it, 195.\n\n  Absolutism, 34, 38, 40, 54, 72 f, 79, 122, 310. See Monism.\n\n  Achilles and tortoise, 228, 255.\n\n  All-form, the, 34, 324.\n\n  Analogy, 8, 151 f.\n\n  Angels, 164.\n\n  Antinomies, 231, 239.\n\n  ARISTIDES, 304.\n\n\n  BAILEY, S., 5.\n\n  BERGSON, H., Lecture VI, _passim_. His characteristics, 226 f, 266.\n\n  'Between,' 70.\n\n  Block-universe, 310, 328.\n\n  BRADLEY, F.H., 46, 69, 79, 211, 220, 296.\n\n  Brain, 160.\n\n\n  CAIRD, E., 89, 95, 137.\n\n  CATO, 304.\n\n  Causation, 258. See Influence.\n\n  Change, 231, 253.\n\n  CHESTERTON, 203, 303.\n\n  Compounding of mental states, 168, 173, 186 f., 268, 281, 284, 292, 296.\n\n  Concepts, 217, 234 f.\n\n  Conceptual method, 243 f., 246, 253.\n\n  Concrete reality, 283, 286.\n\n  Confluence, 326.\n\n  Conflux, 257.\n\n  Consciousness, superhuman, 156, 310 f.; its compound nature, 168, 173,\n  186 f., 289.\n\n  Continuity, 256 f., 325.\n\n  Contradiction, in Hegel, 89 f.\n\n  Creation, 29, 119.\n\n\n  Death, 303.\n\n  Degrees, 74.\n\n  Dialectic method, 89.\n\n  Difference, 257 f.\n\n  Diminutive epithets, 12, 24.\n  Discreteness of change, 231.\n\n\n  'Each-form,' the, 34, 325.\n\n  Earth, the, in Fechner's philosophy, 156; is an angel, 164.\n\n  Earth-soul, 152 f.\n\n  Elan vital, 262.\n\n  Empiricism, 264, 277; and religion, 314; defined, 7.\n\n  Endosmosis, 257.\n\n  Epithets. See Diminutive.\n\n  Evil, 310.\n\n  Experience, 312; religious, 307.\n\n  Extremes, 67, 74.\n\n\n  'Faith-ladder,' 328.\n\n  'Fall,' the, 119, 310.\n\n  FECHNER, Lecture IV, _passim._ His life, 145-150; he reasons by analogy,\n  151; his genius, 154; compared with Royce, 173, 207; not a genuine\n  monist, 293; his God; and religious experience, 308.\n\n  FERRIER, Jas., 13.\n\n  Finite experience, 39, 48, 182, 192-193.\n\n  Finiteness, of God, 111, 124, 294.\n\n  Foreignness, 31.\n\n\n  German manner of philosophizing, 17.\n\n  GOD, 24 f., 111, 124, 193, 240, 294.\n\n  GREEN, T.H., 6, 24, 137, 278.\n\n\n  HALDANE, R.B., 138.\n\n  HEGEL, Lecture III, _passim_, 11, 85, 207, 211, 219, 296. His vision,\n  88, 98 f., 104; his use of double negation, 102; his vicious\n  intellectualism 106; Haldane on, 138; McTaggart on, 140; Royce on, 143.\n\n  HODGSON, S.H., 282.\n\n  Horse, 265.\n\n  HUME, 19, 267.\n\n\n  Idealism, 36. See Absolutism.\n\n  Identity, 93.\n\n  Immortality, Fechner's view of, 171.\n\n  'Independent' beings, 55, 58.\n\n  Indeterminism, 77.\n\n  Infinity, 229.\n\n  Influence, 258, 561.\n\n  Intellect, its function is practical, 247 f., 252.\n\n  Intellectualism, vicious, 60, 218.\n\n  Intellectualist logic, 216, 259, 261.\n\n  Intellectualist method, 291.\n\n  Interaction, 56.\n\n  Intimacy, 31.\n\n  Irrationality, 81; of the absolute, 117-129.\n\n\n  JACKS, L.P., 35.\n\n  JOACHIM, H., 121, 141.\n\n  JONES, H., 52.\n\n\n  KANT, 19, 199, 238, 240.\n\n\n  LEIBNITZ, 119.\n\n  Life, 523.\n\n  Log, 323.\n\n  Logic, 92, 211; Intellectualist, 217, 242.\n\n  LOTZE, 55, 120.\n\n  LUTHER, 304.\n\n\n  McTAGGART, 51, 74 f., 120, 140 f., 183.\n\n  Manyness in oneness, 322. See Compounding.\n\n  Mental chemistry, 185.\n\n  MILL, J.S., 242, 260.\n\n  Mind, dust theory, 189.\n\n  Mind, the eternal, 137. See Absolute.\n\n  Monism, 36, 117, 125, 201, 313, 321 f.; Fechner's, 153. See Absolutism.\n\n  Monomaniacs, 78.\n\n  Motion, 233, 238, 254; Zeno on, 228.\n\n  MYERS, F.W.H., 315.\n\n\n  Nature, 21, 286.\n\n  Negation, 93 f.; double, 102.\n\n  Newton, 260.\n\n\n  Other, 95, 312; 'its own other,' 108 f., 282.\n\n  Oxford, _3_, 313, 331.\n\n\n  Pantheism, 24, 28.\n\n  PAULSEN, 18, 22.\n\n  Personality, divided, 298.\n\n  Philosophers, their method, 9; their common desire, 11 f.; they must\n  reason, 13.\n\n  Philosophies, their types, 23, 31.\n\n  PHOCION, 304.\n\n  Plant-soul, 165 f.\n\n  Pluralism, 45, 76, 79, 311, 319, 321 f.\n\n  Polytheism, 310.\n\n  Practical reason, 329.\n\n  Psychic synthesis, 185. See Compounding.\n\n  Psychical research, 299.\n\n\n  'Qu\u00e2,' 39, 47, 267, 270.\n\n  'Quatenus,' 47, 267.\n\n\n  Rationalism defined, 7, 98; its thinness, 144, 237.\n\n  Rationality, 81, 112 f., 319 f.\n\n  Reality, 262 f., 264, 283 f.\n\n  Reason, 286, 312.\n\n  Relating, 7.\n\n  Relations, 70, 278 ff.; 'external,' 80.\n\n  Religious experiences, 305 f.\n\n  RITCHIE, 72.\n\n  ROYCE, 61 f., 115, 173, 182 f., 197, 207, 212, 265, 296.\n\n\n  Same, 269, 281.\n\n  Savage philosophy, 21.\n\n  Science, 145.\n\n  Sensations, 279.\n\n  Socialism, 78.\n\n  SOCRATES, 284.\n\n  Soul, 199, 209.\n\n  'Some,' 79.\n\n  Sphinx, 22.\n\n  SPINOZA, 47.\n\n  Spiritualistic philosophy, 23.\n\n  Sugar, 220, 232.\n\n  Synthesis, psychic. See Compounding.\n\n\n  TAYLOR, A.E., 76, 139, 212.\n\n  Theism, 24.\n\n  Thick, the, 136.\n\n  'Thickness' of Fechner's philosophy, 144.\n\n  Thin, the, 136.\n\n  Thinness of the current transcendentalism, 144, 174 f.\n\n  Time, 232.\n\n\n  Units of reality, 287.\n\n\n  Vision, in philosophy, 20.\n\n\n  WELLS, H.G., 78.\n\n  Will to believe, 328.\n\n  Witnesses, as implied in experience, 200.\n\n  WUNDT, W., 185.\n\n\n  ZENO, 228.","title":"A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":74696}