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PRINCETON : NEW JERSEY
But he is
careful to add that there is no reason to suppose that the
whole of life is a mere dream. This admission is highly
significant. It means that for Russell the alternatives are
independence for the thing or the abyss of solipsism. In
his Scientific Method in Philosophy, he says ‘It would be
a mistake to infer that they (colors) are dependent upon
mind, not real while we see them, or not the sole basis for
our knowledge of the external world.’’® Later he defines
a sensible object as being “‘just that patch of colour which
is momentarily seen when we look at the table, or just
that particular hardness,’’’? etc. These quotations may
seem very non-committal. In the development of his
argument, Russell often uses language that the most pro-
nounced idealist could indorse, as when he defines a thing
as a perspective (an average of all the views one may have
of the object from varying distances). Then again his
language is strongly realistic. The two pitfalls, solipsism
and utter agnosticism, are ever threatening him. His rea-
soning often inclines him to the one, his assertions save
him from the other. When he writes within the limits
of science he is clarity itself, though scientists may not
agree with him. But metaphysical issues are apparently
obtrusive annoyances to him. Well may they be, for in
metaphysics he must face dilemmas whichever way he
turns. Ina more recent work, as well as in certain maga-
zine articles, he seems even less sure of himself. He doubts
if he should longer call himself a realist, though he still
confesses sympathy with many of the realistic positions.
It is with reference to the existence of an independent real
that he has become sceptical. ‘‘Belief in the existence of
things outside my own biography,” he declares, “
must be regarded as a prejudice, not as a well Hottie
BP 34,
Meat Osts
Rs Os
THE ANSWER OF REALISM Ay,
theory. . . . . I propose to continue yielding to the
prejudice.””® This conclusion that belief in reality is a
prejudice results from his inability to bridge the chasm
between an image in the mind and such a hypothetical
reality. He also finds insuperable difficulty in accounting
for objects remembered and anticipated.
G. E. Moore, who brought the realistic movement into
prominence by his famous article® published in Mind, is
quite technical and cautious in his treatment of the ques-
tion. In the course of a discussion before the Aristotelian
Society he asks, ‘““Do sensibles (the sort of entities experi-
enced in sensory experience) ever exist at times when they
are not being experienced at all?’’*® His answer though
halting, is affirmative. Hesays, “*. .. . there is nothing
to prevent us from holding that... . all sorts of un-
experienced sensibles do exist.’ Then the questior
arises whether sensibles and physical objects are the
same. ‘This he answers tentatively in the negative. ‘The
natural view to take as to the status of sensibles gener-
ally, relatively to physical objects, would be that none of
them; whether experienced or not, were ever in the same
place as any physical object. “That none, therefore, exist
‘anywhere’ in physical space; while, at the same time,
Welcan also Say...) ... that none’ exist) in the ‘mind,’
except in the sense that some are directly apprehended by
some minds. . . . Some, and some only, resemble the
physical objects which are their source in respect of their
Babeincom Sato physical ‘objectsi/ he sayss {i.e e) bike to
say of a physical object that it existed at a given time will
always consist merely in saying of some sensible, not
that it existed at the time in question, but something quite
different and immensely complicated.’’4* These passages
apparently commit Moore to the following statements:
8 The Analysis of Mind, p. 132 f.
9‘The Refutation of Idealism,’’ Mind, 1903, pp. 433-453.
10 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1913-14, p. 366.
11P, 379.
12 P, 379 f.
nA Se fe J
138 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
(1) Sense perception involves some form of mental ac-
tivity. (2) The sensibles are mental content in so far
as they constitute the qualities of the apprehended object,
but they may exist wholly apart from and antecedent to
experience. (3) The sensibles are therefore not neces-
sarily mental, they are not physical and do not exist in
physical space. (4) Hence the sensibles have an unde-
fined sort of existence or reality intermediate between the
physical object and the mental content. “Though many
questions suggest themselves at this point, we may reason-
ably conclude that Moore indorses the realistic doctrine
of independence. [he physical for him is the source of
compulsion in sense perception.
Among American realists we find less hesitancy, espe-
cially within the group of those who call themselves New
Realists. Ralph Barton Perry defines the doctrine of in-
dependence as meaning for him “‘that things may be, and
are, directly experienced without owing either their being
or their nature to that circumstance.’’* E. G. Spaulding
is equally explicit. He says, ““The knowing process nei-
ther causally affects, modifies, or creates that which is
known, nor demands an underlying entity to mediate the
relationship between knowledge and its object.’’®
The ambiguity mentioned as lurking in the realistic
doctrine of independence is now evident. The physical
object seems to be a nondescript, neither mental content
nor strictly non-mental in character, but somehow par-
taking of both or connected with both while independent.
When the reality of the physical object is in question, its
independence is asserted with emphasis, yet there is always
a doubt whether the asseveration is to be interpreted as
meaning a total disparateness from mental content or as
accentuating the difference between the object as appre-
hended at the moment and the object in its determinate
cosmic context. Most if not all of the realists recognize
that in order to explain the possibility of a knowledge of
14 Present Philosophical Tendencies, p. 315.
15 The New Rationalism, p. 11
THE ANSWER OF REALISM 139
an independent thing, a tertium quid must mediate be-
tween the thing and the mind. One way of meeting this
requirement is to assume a preéstablished harmony. This
harmony guarantees the accuracy of the mental represen-
tative. The two entities harmonized in this way need
not be alike in qualities or appearance, but only alike in
varying together according to ascertainable laws. But un-
less the theory can guarantee all mental content, some way
must be found to differentiate illusory content from mat-
ter of fact.
This problem of illusion and error is acknowledged to
be troublesome to realists, but so is it to thinkers of every
school. It is a kind of touchstone by which to test the
adequacy of theories of knowledge. Some realists con-
tend that the mental content in illusions and dreams rep-
resents actual physical objects, but that some confusion
has been introduced on the mental side. ‘This is curious.
It suggests the question whether all the qualities appre-
hended in the mental content or only some of them are
represented in the physical thing. On this subject realists
are divided. ‘I. Percy Nunn is persuaded that the physical
object, considered as strictly physical (does he mean non-
mental?), has all the qualities attributed to it and perhaps
a great many more not represented in the mental series.1°
He even declares that the stick which appears as a straight
stick in the air and as a bent stick when partially sub-
merged is really two sticks, and both are real. “This view
seems to be held also by Alexander.'7 We are not now
criticizing the theory but trying to understand it and its
manifest implications. [hat these implications are em-
barrassing is evident; for if the mental content simply re-
produces the qualities of the physical object in so far as
the content is definite, then there must be as many objects
as apprehensions of it. In other words, the physical object
tends to vanish entirely as an independent entity, and to
16 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1909-10, pp. 191-231,
and 1915-16, pp. 156-178.
1? Mind, 1912, p. 3.
140 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
give way to the mental content as the only reality. Thus
the specter of solipsism becomes portentous.
It may seem too much to say that realists who appeal
to preéstablished harmony have no recourse but to accept
the consequence that illusions and dream objects are objec-
tively real. Are illusions real? Do dream objects have a
local habitation in the physical world? Bertrand Russell
approaches an affirmative answer when he says that “‘there
are no such things as ‘illusions of sense.’ Objects of sense,
even when they occur in dreams, are the most indubitably
real objects known to us.’’1® But we must not too has-
tily conclude that Russell means what he seems to say.
As has been noticed in other connections, he is here also
ambiguous. He is not speaking of objects in the ordinary
sense, but patches of color and other qualities of things.
By identifying sensations of quality with the quality it-
self he completes the confusion. “This confusion enables
him to say: ‘The sensation that we have when we see
a patch of colour simply is that patch of colour, an actual
constituent of the physical world. . ... The patch of
colour may be both physical and psychical.’’*® The
strange vacillation of Russell in dealing with the problem
of reality and illusion is largely accounted for by his spe-
cial type of psychology. In his Analysis of Mind, he
holds that the entire content of the mental life consists of
sensations and images.?° “The sensations are given or pro-
duced in the nervous system by external stimuli, while
images are of the same character but produced from
within.” Knowledge does not arise till we believe some-
thing in connection with sensations and images, and be-
lief is a feeling.** Sensations, images, and feelings are his
stock in trade by which to explain the complicated men-
tal processes, volition, appreciation, the knowledge of the
18 Scientific Method in Philosophy, p. 85.
19 The Analysis of Mind, p. 142 f.
20 Cf. p. 143.
21 Cf, p. 150.
BP GE D233.
THE ANSWER OF REALISM 14]
external world, and all the varied purposive activities. No
wonder that this equipment should prove inadequate
when he would tell us what the truth is about the external
world. He shifts from realism to idealism and then to
scepticism or phenomenalism. Elsewhere he suggests
that a piece of matter is not a single substance manifesting
different appearances to different observers, but is merely a
system of connected occurrences including all those which
older views would regard as appearances of the piece of
matter in question.?* ‘This is as idealistic as any statement
one could easily find in philosophical literature. From
the viewpoint of our present inquiry Russell’s devious
course is the more interesting because he tries to be just to
all the factors of knowledge and still remain within the
limitations of the scientific observer. He solves no philo-
sophical problem, and he fails most conspicuously in his
attempt to explain illusion and error.
What is the status of remembered objects? Do they
too exist in the independent realm along with illusions
and dream objects? Are they present or absent when
remembered? ‘The question could be answered in the
usual common-sense way but for the necessity on realistic
principles of having the object actually present when the
mental content of experience refers to it. “[he sense data
of which the experience consists are given by the object.
If no object, then no sense data, no sensations, no images,
unless perchance the images are somehow preserved across
the intervening time and on occasion pass from the dor-
mant to the active state. But even so, the image is not a
new sense experience but a remembered past experience.
Alexander meets the issue by saying, ‘The pastness of the
object is a datum of experience, directly apprehended. The
object is compresent with me as past.’’** On the follow-
ing page, speaking of an individual he remarks, ‘The per-
cept of him and the memory of him are two different ap-
pearances which in their connection reveal the one thing,
23 Nation and Atheneum, Jan. 6, 1923.
24 Space, Time, and Deity, vol. i. p. 113.
142 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
the man, whom we know to-day by perceiving and to have
been yesterday by remembering. Moreover the memory is
as much a physical object as the percept.’’ In the same
manner he explains the images of anticipated objects.
They are real objects. “Expectation is precisely like re-
membering except that the object has the mark of future,
that is of later than our present, instead of past or ear-
liers; 48
This theory of the compresence of remembered object
and mental content in remembering seems bizarre. Yet
it appears to be a legitimate deduction from a realism that
starts with the doctrine of independence, discounts the
constructive mental work in sense perception, relies on the
nervous system to hold the sense data for later exploita-
tion, and in consequence makes the presence of the physical
object necessary to experiencing it. “The object is com-
present whether we apprehend it directly as present or
indirectly as past. “The deduction seems legitimate, but
the hiatus between the present though independent object
and the mental content is not yet bridged.
Russell treats the question of memory with as little
illumination as Alexander. He confesses, “‘If we had re-
tained the ‘subject’ or ‘act’ in knowledge, the whole prob-
lem of memory would have been comparatively simple.
We could then have said . . . . the act of remembering
is present, though its object is past.’’*® But his objective
point of view in studying mental phenomena precludes
his recognizing the mind as other than a series of sense
data and images, and these cannot act. “They are orphans
in the mental world with no one to claim them and no
power in themselves. The best, then, that Russell can
say of memory seems to be contained in the statement,
‘“‘Memory-images and imagination-images do not differ
in their intrinsic qualities, so far as we can discover. They
differ by the fact that the images that constitute memories,
unlike those that constitute imagination, are accompanied
25 [bid., p. 115.
26 The Analysis of Mind, p. 163.
THE ANSWER OF REALISM 143
by a feeling of belief which may be expressed in the words
‘this happened.’ ’’?7 This statement is not explanation, it
is not even an attempt to meet the real difficulty; it is a
plain case of ignoring, and does not merit further discus-
sion.
The new realists and their near of kin who hold to the
doctrine of the independent object have not been able to
meet the difficulties of their position. But may not the
so-called critical realists whose realism is not so pro-
nounced be able to give a better account of the real in ex-
perience? ‘The characteristic doctrine of the critical real-
ists is that the real is essence; all else is inference, more or
less reliable. Suggestions of this doctrine are found all
through the literature of the new realists. Moore's dis-
tinction between sensibles and the physical object, Perry’s
contention that colors are neither physical nor psychi-
cal,2* and Marvin’s conception of structure or relations
as alone real,?® point to the doctrine. Spaulding, in The
New Rationalism,*® revives the ancient doctrine that uni-
versals as subsistences are real though they do not exist.
These subsistences—such as ‘‘justice,’’ “‘ideals,’’ ‘“‘num-
ber,’ and “‘ideal systems of mechanics’’—are the perma-
nent realities, while objects change.
The critical realist valiantly and hopefully attacks the
central problem of independence again from what he con-
siders an entirely different point of view. He holds that
the new realists fail because they accept the theory that
physical objects, though entirely distinct, are somehow
reproduced or represented in the mental content; that is,
the sense data as media correctly represent the physical
object from which they originate. This conception of
the relation between the object and mental content seems
to the critical realist to involve the conclusion—to use
Pratt’s illustration—that a remembered friend, long since
27 Ibid., p. 176.
28 Present Philosophical Tendencies, p. 310.
29 The History of European Philosophy, p. 415 ff.
Me Seo eae, LO
144 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
passed away, is actually present in the memory, though
known not to be present.*t his absurdity is avoided,
according to the critical realist, by giving up the “‘copy”’
theory, and adopting the view that the given is the “‘es-
sence’ of the thing, whose existence is not given but ac-
cepted as a reasonable conviction. ‘By ‘essence,’’’ says
Strong, “I mean its (the thing’s) what divorced from its
that—its entire concrete nature, including its sensible
character, but not its existence.’’°* [his passage should
be interpreted in the light of what Sellars states more ex-
plicitly. He says, “What, then, is knowledge? It is the
recognized possession by the mind of the ‘form’ of the
thing, that is, its position, size, structure, causal capacities,
etc. It is the mediated grasp of those features of the thing
which are reproducible.’’*? Again he says, ‘‘Physical
things are the objects of knowledge, though they can be
known only in terms of the data which they control
within us.’’** Objects control the data, and the data vary
with the conditions, such as distance and position.*®
Evidently the realism that calls itself critical is moving
away from the new realism toward its opposite. The
thing, though acknowledged to be independent, is no
longer known directly by its floating or sailing into con-
sciousness, but only indirectly as mediated by a causal re-
lation. ‘The effect on the mind may or may not be like
the causal element in the thing. Critical realists are not
ready to commit themselves on this point; they have no
way of determining the question of likeness or unlikeness.
In this connection the words of Pratt are significant. He
says: ‘‘Critical realism does not pretend to be meta-
physics. It is perfectly possible for the critical realist to
be a panpsychist, a metaphysical dualist, a Platonist, or
an ontological idealist of some other type. Only so much
81 Critical Realism, p. 97.
82 Ibid., p. 223.
88 Jbid., p. 218.
84 Ibid., p. 217.
85 Cf. tbid., pp. 200, 203, 210.
THE ANSWER OF REALISM 145
of the metaphysical problem need critical realists be agreed
upon as is required by the epistemological doctrine which
they holdin common. ‘They believe, namely, that ‘physi-
cal’ things exist independently of being known; that they
may be our objects, but that they are never our mental
content; that they differ in some respects from the quality-
groups of our perception (e.g. in not possessing the sec-
ondary qualities which we find in our percepts); but that
they stand in such causal relation to our percepts that it
is possible for science to investigate some of these relations
and some of the relations between the physical things, and
thus to gain trustworthy knowledge concerning the laws
of their actions. As to any exhaustive knowledge of the
inner and ultimate nature of these non-human entities,
critical realism is willing to admit itself ignorant, and, in
fact, hands over the question to the scientists and the
metaphysicians.’’?°
The metaphysics in this passage is of special interest to
us. It includes the assertion that the existent thing and
the mental content are not only distinct but are not alike,
and that their relation to each other is causal. This is
good as far as it goes. But what is the existent? Is it
the physical object? Has it any of the properties of the
physical object? Or is it what we have designated simply
as the source of stimulation? Apparently the critical real-
ists balk at this point and insist that we cannot know the
causal reality, because, whether physical or not, it is not
mental content. “The student need not be surprised, there-
fore, to see the further development of realism toward an
almost complete scepticism.
As already noted, this development was heralded by
George Santayana in his book, Scepticism and Animal
Faith. With considerable skill and literary finish, he sets
forth his reasons for theoretical doubt of everything that
makes life livable. He easily disposes of religious beliefs,
then history and literature, then the natural sciences, then
the self as a moral personality, then the past as a whole
36 Ibid., p. 109.
146 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
including consciousness and change. A quotation or two
will be interesting in this connection, “‘Belief in the exist-
ence of anything, including myself, is something radically
incapable of proof, and resting, like all belief, on some ir-
rational persuasion or prompting of life. .... The
point is, in this task of criticism, to discard every belief
that is a belief merely; and the belief in existence, in the
nature of the case, can be a belief only.’’*7 ‘“‘My thesis
(is) that nothing given exists.’"** Arguments many and
authorities not a few among the ‘‘deep-voiced philoso-
phers’’ both Oriental and Western are given as supporting
this conclusion. But the author seems to be merely ex-
hibiting the keen edge of his intellectual tools and demon-
strating their cutting power. His all-embracing scepticism
is preparing the way for the coming of his doctrine of
essence. ‘Ihe essence is for Santayana a great discovery.
He announces it somewhat dramatically. ‘“‘The unintel-
ligible accident of existence will cease to appear to lurk in
this manifest being, weighting and crowding it, and
threatening it with being swallowed up by nondescript
neighbours. It will appear dwelling in its own world,
and shining by its own light, however brief may be my
glimpse of it; for no date will be written on it, no frame
of full or of empty time will shut it in; nothing in it will
be addressed to me, nor suggestive of any spectator. It
will seem an event in no world, an accident in no experi-
ence. The quality of it will have ceased to exist; it will
be merely the quality which it inherently, logically, and
inalienably is. It will be an ESSENCE.’’*®
What after all is this essence? We are not permitted
to think of it as in any sense a logical product like a uni-
versal; its naked simplicity is beyond reason. Nor may
we identify it with an event in time and hence it cannot
be any part of our experience. Nor finally can it be
known as a thing-in-itself independent of experience, for
87 Scepticism and Animal Faith, p. 35.
38 Tbid., p. 52.
39 [bid., p.73 f.
THE ANSWER OF REALISM 147,
then it would be an inference that is not an inference. It
is certainly a nondescript that Santayana can use only after
he has by an exercise of ‘‘animal faith,’’ reclothed it and
given it a determinate place in experience. “The whole
transaction suggests opéra bouffe.*? But there is more in
it than that. We cannot understand realism and its off-
spring, scepticism, till we have penetrated to their inner
motifs and appraised their underlying assumptions.
The three main objectives of realism have been to win
for philosophy the prestige of the natural sciences, to sat-
isfy common sense in its most acceptable and enlightened
expression, and to discover a common basis of agreement
among philosophical students. The first objective has
failed of realization, because science ends in formulae,
while realism is for science a leap in the dark into the un-
explorable regions of metaphysical entities. “The second
objective is quickly satisfied, but only until common
sense becomes a little more critical. The third objective
can never be reached so long as uncertainty remains as to
what shall be the starting point. Realism undertook to
lay down principles or postulates that would be beyond
criticism, but found it necessary to modify them under
stress of critical attacks till the postulates had to be sur-
rendered as hostages to scepticism. The realistic objec-
tives have determined the method of procedure and
account for the persistent limitations of insight. In par-
ticular the realists have had to depend on analysis to fur-
nish ultimate data. [hey assumed that by analysis of
physical complexes, ultimate simples could be reached and
these would be the reals.*4 But as we have found, analy-
sis is always accompanied by a process of synthesis and
hence can never bring thought face to face with an abso-
lute simple. Then the objective point of view has forced
the realist into the camp of the behaviorists, where he
must resolve mental phenomena into activities of the
40 For a trenchant criticism of Santayana, cf. George Boas, Journal
of Philosophy, 1925, p. 645 ff.
41 The New Realism, p. 24, cf. pp. 155-247.
148 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
nervous system, plus sense data given or produced by an
independent physical object. “Thus the realistic answer to
our question becomes a logical tangle. “The physical ob-
ject is independent of being perceived, yet is the cause of
our perceiving it, yet does not actually produce the mental
content, yet is manifested in the form of mental content,
yet is not always what it seems to be in perception, yet
when correctly perceived has at least the primary qualities
of the perceived object, yet as non-mental cannot be like
the mental content in any particular, yet must somehow
function in sense perception. Since its existence cannot
be doubted, belief in its existence is a prejudice, not a rea-
soned inference.
It was this confusion that influenced the critical realist
to offer his “‘essence’’ as affording a way out. ‘The essence,
not being an existence in space and time and not being a
substance, escapes from one set of difficulties. Not being
psychical content in the particularistic sense, essence can-
not be held to involve solipsism and the absurdities that
center in that conception. But it is independent only asa
meaning is independent of the object to which it refers;
it is non-mental only as other than the individual mental
content present in a particular sense perception. ‘The
“essence’’ persists in blending with the individual object
of perception as soon as it functions at all. Nevertheless
it refuses to coalesce with the physical object, inasmuch as
the object is definite and particular, never a mere universal.
The way of advance for critical realism seems to be either
to forswear metaphysics—though realism is a metaphysi-
cal theory—or to pass into theoretical scepticism, prepara-
tory to a further advance into some form of idealism.
Before parting with realism, let us try briefly to recast
its conclusions in the light of the criticism offered. We
can start with the unqualified acceptance of the realistic
doctrine of independence, but the independent entity is not
some mystical, unreachable thing in the physical world
which though never seen is yet somehow known to be
there. It is the cause or source of the stimulations that
THE ANSWER OF REALISM 149
control the mind in sense perception. The relation be-
tween the source of stimulations and the physical object
in the world of effects is such that for all practical pur-
poses the object may be treated as if it were itself the
source of its being known—causally active in producing
itself. The physical object can always be distinguished
from the perceived object as being more definite, complex,
and permanent, but this is not to be construed as meaning
that the physical object is non-mental in origin; it is
simply the ideal of an object that satisfies other than the
immediate interests. [he physical object as apprehended
is real, but only as effect, never as cause. “Thus every diffi-
culty inherent in realism is obviated. The lesson of real-
ism for us is the necessity of affirming an independent en-
tity, and the impossibility of identifying that entity with
the physical object.
As mysticism does not profess to be primarily a theory
of the real in the external world, but refers to it only in-
cidentally, we can profitably postpone a notice of this
type of thought until the absolutistic views are considered.
It will then appear closely affiliated with idealism. We
are now ready to ask our question of the idealist.
CHAPTER IV
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM
Realism has shown in a concrete way the limitations of
the scientific approach to the problem of external reality.
It has illustrated the confusions that result when the real
is identified either with the cosmic object or with the sense
object of immediate perception. It makes a desperate ven-
ture when it takes refuge in the idea of essence as a tertium
guid, for essence is neither physical nor mental, neither
substance nor cause, and not even an event except for the
mind that thinks it. This doctrine of essence looks very
much like an extreme form of idealism or rationalism or,
better, scepticism in masquerade. As we turn to idealism
for its answer to our question, we may expect to escape
many of the difficulties that beset realism, but are not so
confident that we may not encounter others equally serious.
Idealists as a class have in modern times been primarily
philosophers, that is, they have busied themselves with the
problem of reality and the epistemological issues involved.
rather than with the objectives and methods of scientific
investigation. Instead of falling back on common sense
and locating the independently real in the outside world,
the idealists have been much more thoroughgoing in their
efforts to find a critically satisfactory theory. ‘This is the
main distinction between realists and idealists. But the
two schools shade off into each other. In fact, most ideal-
ists of the present day, except the absolutists, incline to
reckon themselves realists, since they too believe in an in-
dependent real. On the other hand, every philosopher,
from the ultra-realist of the IT. Percy Nunn type to the
mystic absolutist, is idealistic in some feature of his think-
150
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM Mee
ing. Moreover idealism has been in vogue so long that
practically every possible variation and every degree of
saturation have been tried. For this reason the distinction
between realist and idealist when not carefully qualified
is of little value in characterizing an individual thinker.
To get the contrast that may serve our purpose, we must
deal with extreme types—the realists who argue for the
strict independence of the objective world and the idealists
who would reduce the world to a form of experience.
The most consistent and thorough are likely to give the
most nearly final answer possible to their type of thought.
Idealism began with the belief that thought could find
itself in its object. It built on the insight that truth al-
ways takes the form of a concept or law and is never a
mere sense datum. ‘The two characteristics of a concept,
that of having a fixed content and that of representing
various and changing objects, constitute its truth. When
Socrates isolated these elements of truth he set the task for
science. As conceptual content is the material of all
knowledge, the substance even of our sense world, we nat-
urally treat it as the basic reality from which all else is
derived. It is thus that we reach the notion of essence or
raw material of specific existences. Apparently the only
alternative to this conception of reality is the view that
finds the reality in the continuous succession of sense im-
pressions. If we take the first alternative and hold that
reality is the abiding conceptual content, we can build an
imposing structure of intellectual elements. Every item
of experience can have its definite place and function in the
ordered whole, and the universe can be set forth in out-
line as an infinitely complex network of interrelated ele-
ments. As system, then, the universe would include all
existences, all realities, hence might properly be called the
absolute. Having reached the idea of the absolute as the
all-inclusive, we can easily take the next step and conclude
that the absolute is self-existent, a unitary whole, change-
less yet including change, timeless yet encompassing an in-
finite number of temporal series.
152 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
If we take the other alternative and locate the real in
the changing flux, we find, as we have seen, great embar-
rassment in trying to tell what the flux actually is. It
never is, but is always becoming, always vanishing at the
moment of appearing. So far from being self-sustaining,
it must be from moment to moment continuously renewed.
If, however, the real is pure process, there is nothing from
which or by which to renew it. If something is assumed
that persists and expresses itself in the process, then this
persisting thing rather than the flow of events must be the
reality. [hus the two possibilities that seem at first so
disparate and even mutually exclusive, are found to imply
each other. Idealism has wrestled with this problem and
tried to do justice to both factors; with what success we
shall presently see.
In the modern development of idealism two main cur-
rents are distinguishable, both going back to Kant and
Hegel for immediate inspiration and guidance. One
shows a strong bent toward the objective treatment of all
issues. In the thought of those who belong to this move-
ment, the ideal of system is all-determining. Consilience
and comprehensiveness are the tests of truth. “The whole
must be internally consistent and must comprehend abso-
lutely all. “he connections within the system are assumed
to be so close that nothing can be fully known till its rela-
tions to all else in the universe are understood—an ob-
viously impossible requirement. The conclusion follows
that we can know nothing as we should, that all knowl-
edge distorts reality to some extent and never does it full
justice. “This mild form of theoretical scepticism soon
becomes pernicious, infectious, and fatal. The other de-
velopment of idealism started with the Hegelian conclu-
sion that the completely adequate principle of explanation
(‘‘Idea’’ in Hegel’s terminology) cannot be a concept,
since all concepts refer to other concepts for their full
meaning. ‘The ultimate principle must furnish “‘its own
other.”’ By this rather cryptic expression Hegel meant
that the reality which would explain the world must in-
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM 153
clude the world as its own object, and hence could not be
merely an intellectual content. Only the self as having
experiences and sustaining various active relations to its
experiences can fulfil these requirements. The develop-
ment of this line of thought has yielded the body of doc-
trine that seems to us to express the utmost limit of pres-
ent-day insight into the mysteries of existence.
The interpretation of Hegel’s doctrine as the apotheo-
sis of system has been very generally accepted. It seems
to be involved in his premises, even if it is not what he
himself held to be true. Hence we have now to consider
this interpretation as marking the main current of recent
idealism. By common consent the best representatives of
this movement are F. H. Bradley and his school (includ-
ing Bernard Bosanquet, A. E, Taylor, and Josiah Royce,
not to mention the younger adherents).
In his great work entitled Appearance and Reality,
Bradley subjects realistic metaphysics to a searching criti-
cism. He finds contradictions in every part of experience
when the objective world is taken to be other than idea-
tional content. He emphasizes the somewhat ambiguous
view that reality is always the theme or subject of predi-
cation, yet holds that whatever we may say concerning it
is ideal psychic stuff and not reality. “Thus the ‘“‘what’’
becomes severed from the ‘‘that’’ and thereby declares it-
self mere appearance. ‘The inevitable conclusion would
seem to be that we can know nothing of reality, not even
that it exists.
Whenever a thinker attacks the competency of human
intelligence to discover truth, he handicaps all further pro-
gress by discrediting his only instrument. But Bradley
recovers in part by distinguishing between absolute or
theoretically complete knowledge and relative or practi-
cally useful knowledge. The latter is of course within
our limited powers. In the first book of his volume he
exposes the lurking contradictions in what is usually taken
for knowledge, in order that he may prepare the way for
the positive conclusions in the second book. He does his
154 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
first work so thoroughly that the reader who accepts
wholeheartedly his negative conclusions finds great difh-
culty in following him in his positive constructions.
Bradley’s dialectical work was made all too easy by the
use of tests that apply only under restricted conditions.
We shall need to examine these tests and their use if we
would appreciate his contribution to the problem we are
considering. Since he is attacking realism, he tests ordi-
nary conceptions of reality as if they implied the doc-
trine of independence. Contradictions of course multiply
when you treat the sense world as other than the sense
world. ‘To make that world independent while a pro-
duct of thinking is to be guilty of a fundamental absurd-
ity. This thesis is proved by Bradley with great acumen
and fullness of detail. ‘To illustrate his method we may
take his discussion of substance and attribute (“‘substan-
tive’ and “‘adjective’’ in his terminology).! He finds it
easy to point out contradictions between the two ideas.
Substance is nothing without the attributes, yet to iden-
tify them is to cancel each. A thing has qualities, but is
not any one of them. ‘Thus a piece of sugar is not sweet-
ness, nor whiteness, nor squareness, nor all of these char-
acteristics, considered severally. It is a unity, and there-
fore distinct from its qualities. But then it must estab-
lish relations among its qualities. “he puzzles increase as
we try to make out what these relations can be. Are
they independent things? ‘hen they create the problem
of relation over again. Are they mere attributes of quali-
ties? Then they fail to relate; the qualities fall apart.
Are the qualities nothing but relations? ‘Then the thing
itself disappears; it commits “‘a kind of suicide.’’ ‘‘The
thing with its adjectives,’’ Bradley concludes, ‘‘is a device
for enjoying at once both variety and concord. But the
distinctions, once made, fall apart from the thing, and
away from one another.”
The contradictions here disclosed hold for the experi-
enced thing taken as non-mental reality, but certainly do
not hold for experience as such. ‘The substance or thing
1 Appearance and Reality, chap. ii.
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM |e)
is real in its own way, and the qualities are real in their
way. Neither is the other, and both are found as aspects
of the sense world. The contradictions are avoided by
thinking of substance or thinghood as pertaining to the
relatively permanent character of the empirical law by
which the given successive experiences are thought as
changes in the states of a thing. “The qualities are quali-
ties of the thing, yet not the thing; because when we
think the qualities we are concerned with the various mani-
festations in the experience. From the diverse angles of
interest we have distinguishable features. “The relations
are not to be thought as disparate from the thing or its
parts, but are the way the mind holds the elements to-
gether while distinguishing them. This too is legitimate
and involves no contradiction. But contradictions abound
when these various aspects are thrust into a world of
things-by-themselves. Bradley has proved not that ele-
mentary experience is full of contradictions, but that con-
tradictions develop as soon as we take it for anything
other than experience.
By assuming as a conclusion from his dialectic that con-
tradictions inhere in experience as such, Bradley has made
very difficult his further task of formulating his own doc-
trine of reality. To give reality a positive content and
avoid the besetting contradictions is the problem. He is
sure that the absolutely real is both substantial and uni-
tary, though not in a sense comprehensible by us. ‘There
cannot possibly be a plurality of reals,? for that would in-
volve a contradiction nullifying the possibility of system.
Whatever the absolute is it must be system, though of
course not like the thought systems we are able to con-
struct. Our thought systems include distinctions and
relations, and these cannot without contradiction be car-
ried over into the absolute. “They would disrupt its
unity. Having discounted thought as an instrument of
knowledge, Bradley must deny to the absolute reality all
characteristics of thought as we understand it. The
2 Ibid., pp. 140, 468 f.
156 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
nearest he can come to indicating what the absolute reality
is in its inner nature is to call it experience.* But whose
experience can it be? Not yours, nor mine, nor any-
body’s in particular; nor is it any thought structure built
out of human experiences, but it is simply experience in
general. It is nobody’s and it is absolute. Although it
cannot be identified with any individual’s experience and
is not a mere blending of them all, yet everything that
happens to any individual makes a difference with it and
is “‘somehow’’ (this is a favorite word) taken up into it.
Nothing is lost, though all is changed into something
else. Our thoughts about the world—so Bradley finally
concludes, though without logical warrant—approximate
the absolute reality in varying degrees as measured by
their comprehensiveness and coherence.t This is his
famous doctrine of degrees of truth and reality.
It begins to look as if we should get very little help
from this type of thought except in a negative way. he
sense world is resolved into “‘mere’’ appearance in contrast
with the absolute (the reality), yet the absolute is noth-
ing Over against its appearances. It can tolerate none of
the qualitative distinctions in our experience, yet can dis-
pense with none of them. It is infinitely rich, yet we are
forbidden to say anything about it, lest we say that it
is something when in fact it is something else. This
heaping up of paradoxes is confusing. It is difficult to
see how Bradley can escape utter scepticism.
The doctrine of degrees of truth and reality, which is
an attempt to avoid the implied negative conclusions,
succeeds to some extent, but only in so far as it destroys
the grounds on which the conclusions were based. It
implies, for instance, the validity of thought laws. Start-
ing from this point, we might reconstruct the whole sys-
tem and reach quite different conclusions. Why then
does Bradley become so hopelessly involved? Why does
his masterly criticism of realistic theories land him in
8 Ibid., pp. 144, 173.
4Ibid., pp. 395-400.
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM 157
such a snarl of contradictions? An answer to this ques-
tion would have to take into account, among other con-
siderations, two of prime importance.
(1) As just intimated, he has to rely on thought tests
to prove that thought is mendacious. The test of non-
contradiction, in the first book, resolves everything into
‘contradictory’ appearance. In order to rescue some-
thing that he may call real, he has in the second book
to modify this test and make it twofold. It now sepa-
rates into the two principles of coherence and compre-
hensiveness. “[hese presuppose not only the logical struc-
ture of a thought system but a universe of concrete ma-
terial to be covered by it. If then—we have a right to
conclude—an all-encompassing system could be thought
through even in barest outline, it would be wholly true
in every respect, though not the whole truth. It would
be reality in structure. ‘The task then would be to fill
in the details as far as possible. Even when the elabora-
tion was carried as far as human patience and industry
were able, the system would still be far from complete,
but it would be reality up to its measure. Such is the
plausible way of reasoning from the principle of com-
prehensiveness. But this principle could be applied only
after all the practical tests had been satisfied. ‘To attain
ultimate accuracy as measured by these tests would be
the main difficulty.
(2) In maintaining that there is but one reality and
that all else is mere appearance, Bradley must deny the
reality of the finite self. This leads to all his crisscross
conclusions. At the proper time we shall have occasion
to examine this reduction of the finite self to mere ap-
pearance. For the contrast is not between subjective
states and a sense-apprehended reality, but between all
articulate experience as known to human beings and a
supposed absolute experience which is general and all-
inclusive, and at the same time, in a sense, all-exclusive.
This absolute experience must do service for two con-
trasting ideas, namely, for the being who has the experi-
158 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
ence and for that which he experiences. The resulting
confusions are limited only by the finiteness of human
wit. If one should go through Bradley’s book and col-
lect into one group all the passages that manifestly refer
to the knowing self; into another group, all that refer to
the sense world as knowledge; into still another group,
all that refer to the ultimate source of stimulation; one
would have three groups each fairly coherent internally.
Then if one should organize these three groups into a
whole in which selfhood as a creative power is recog-
nized, and the universe of knowledge treated as the expe-
rience of selves under control of an ultimate power, one
might avoid Bradley's paradoxes. But this is just what
Bradley fails to do; hence he is unable to answer our
question.
Bosanquet moves in the general direction here indi-
cated as yielding more satisfactory results than those of
Bradley. But he never quite frees himself from the
consequences of treating selfhood as a mere transient and
all but negligible manifestation of the Absolute. This
prevents his reaching a consistent view of external reality.
Royce comes still closer, as we shall see when we consider
the doctrine of the self, and approximates the conclusions
to which our own reflections bring us. As our problem
is sharply defined and must be settled not by appeal to
the authority of great names, but by discovering the pos-
sibilities in the situations themselves, we shall seem to do
scant justice to such men as Bosanquet and Royce. In
other connections we shall have occasion to make use of
their illuminating insights.
At this point the mystical conception calls for a brief
notice. “This conception allies itself with idealism rather
than with realism. It strikingly contrasts with realism
in its superficial aspects, yet the two extremes of doc-
trine are strangely akin. Whereas the realist insists upon
the independence of the real, yet tends to identify the
real with the sense object, the mystic starts with the
assumption that experience and reality are identical, yet
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM 159
is able to tell what he means by such a statement only
by recognizing a distinction between the knower and the
thing known. Mystics as a rule are not much concerned
with our specific problem. They generally affect to de-
spise the sense world as the place of illusion, distraction,
evil, and unreality. For them the beginning of wisdom
lies in withdrawing one’s self from worldly thoughts and
interests. If we would come into the immediate presence
of reality, we must rigorously exclude the things of sense.
Only thus can the spirit be purified and liberated and
made fit for union with the Ineffable.
The central idea in all this is immediacy. By this is
meant knowledge by direct contact without the mediation
of the senses or of thought processes. In advance of crit-
ical reflection, even sense knowledge seems to bear the
marks of immediacy for we are not aware of any thought
activity in apprehending an external object. The first
crude explanation of such experience is that we see by
direct vision, or because of the image on the retina of
the eye, or because effluxes of the object pass through the
senses into the mind and are there known as a matter of
course. While such notions have no standing among
critical thinkers, we nevertheless do a certain violence to
common sense when we exhibit the perceived object as
a result of a fairly complex mental activity. What, then,
of those experiences that seem to come to us without the
aid of the senses, those sudden inspirations, flashes of
insight, decisions, premonitions, convictions that give no
hint of their mental origin, yet apparently come from
nowhere? ‘The more vague, vast, and strange the expe-
rience, the less it seems to be the result of thinking. The
mystics teach that the highest mystical knowledge is
obtainable only as one withdraws entirely from the world
of ordinary experiences and shuts out all vagrant
thoughts. The mind must be emptied, as it were, and
made ready to be filled with a new content. “This may
be accomplished in many ways. By following directions
a certain virtuosity can be acquired in bringing about
160 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
this condition of waking sleep or of ecstasy. The expe-
riences that come to one in such a state are for the most
part inexpressible, but only because ordinary language
carries none but ordinary meanings, and these experiences
are not ordinary.
Much has been written to account for these experi-
ences without resorting to the hypothesis of immediacy;
but the success of such explanations is not quite complete.
At least they do not satisfy the mystically inclined. Per-
haps we approximate the truth when we say that the
mystical in experience is just that part which has not
yet been subjected to analysis and hence escapes full
expression in language. As there is very little in sense
knowledge that has not been analyzed or recognized as
analyzable, we do not think of such knowledge as mys-
tical. But as we advance to the more subtle, complex,
and unusual experiences we find more that defies effort to
separate into elements, more that refuses to be reduced
to law. Hence the mystic is at home among the ideas
that are inconceivably vast in their possible scope and
complexity. The supreme idea that to the mystic includes
all others, yet is absolute simplicity itself, is that of the
Ineffable One. ‘This is so unlike anything in routine
experience that we can find no words to express our mean-
ings. We seem to be limited to telling what it is not.
Meister Eckhart doubtless had this difficulty in mind
when he called the Ineffable One the ‘“‘Nothing,’”’ mean-
ing that in its plenitude of being, its absolute reality,
it differed entirely from all derived existence.
From the mystics we may not expect much light on
our problem. Whatever of truth mysticism may contain
is confined almost exclusively to the supersensuous world.
Yet it is interesting and instructive for its very contempt
of the external world. Like all forms of philosophical
speculation, it is compelled to begin with sense experi-
ence, and however negative its attitude, must in the end
return to experience for confirmation. Why does the
mystic abandon the perplexing problems with reference
THE ANSWER OF RECENT IDEALISM 161
to the nature of the physical world? In part it is be-
cause he is primarily interested in the inner life of feeling,
and decides that as he cannot enjoy both the inner and
the outer in fullest measure, he will seek after the inner
as being the more desirable. Becoming absorbed in the
contemplation of the Ineffable One, he yearns to be free
from all that is external, in order that he may attain the
supreme bliss of perfect union. From the point of view
of ordinary intelligence, he is attempting the impossible
and owes his apparent success to his inability to divorce
himself entirely from the influence of sense experience.
It is safe to assume that the contents of the mystical ex-
perience have the same general characteristics (temporal,
spatial, substantial, qualitatively distinct experiences) as
those that constitute our ordinary phenomenal world.
Their strangeness results from the unusual conditions
under which they occur. The credulity that accepts them
as immediate deliverances of the ultimate source of all
truth is likely to make one a victim of wild vagaries.
The basal assumption of mysticism, that the Ineffable
One is the all-encompassing reality and there is no other,
would seem to yield the inference that the outside world
about us is either the expression of his will or else the
resistless outgoings of his nature. In either case it should
not be lightly esteemed. “The mystic would reply that
the outside world is illusory, the reflection of our finitude
and limitations. We are being fed on illusions until we
are able to enter into immediate union with the Ultimate
and lose ourselves in its infinity. This may mean that
our sense world has no such reality as its abiding source.
But illusion it certainly is not, when taken for what it is,
a world of changing experience. Mysticism, by dwelling
so continuously upon the exclusive reality of the ulti-
mate unity, leaves us with a sense of its own unreality.
As soon as we neglect either type of reality, the produc-
tive or the phenomenal, the other begins to fade and
become doubtful. Hence mysticism seems to have the
162 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
haziness of a half-forgotten dream. One would expect
it to appeal for the most part to quietistic dreamers.
While this has been the case in the Orient, many West-
ern mystics have proved themselves not only keen of
mind, but fearlessly aggressive champions of freedom and
progress. Mysticism appeals in an indefinite way to
what is noblest and best in human nature. But just as
the realist insists that the external world is independently
real, though he cannot tell much about its nature, so the
mystic assures us that the things of the spirit alone are
real and thereby cuts himself off from the richest sources
of spiritual knowledge. In the realist and the mystic
we have, as intimated, the two extremes which tend to
meet. [he realist would save his doctrine of independence
by translating it into a type of immediacy; and the
mystic, in trying to make articulate what he believes he
has discovered, uses the very resources of mediation on
which the doctrine of independence is based. The diffi-
culty of keeping these two opposite thought movements
apart leads to much that is dramatic in the history of
philosophy. Both enter into our experience, and neither
has exclusive rights in the domain of theory. We can
thus see a direct connection between their one-sidedness
and their inability to answer our question about the
nature of the real in the world of sense.
From the foregoing discussion the relation of mysticism
to idealism is evident. Contrasts between the two are
superficially impressive. Nevertheless the mystical empha-
sis on experience brings them into closest affiliation.
Articulate the experience and we have the experience
world; ask the cause of the experience and we must refer
to the ultimate reality.
CHAPTER V
CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION
The true view of the status of the external world must
provide for a knowledge of that world, must leave intact
our sense of its reality, and must take over into itself all
that makes the other views plausible. Each theory in
meeting some of these requirements is partly true; each
reveals its inadequacy by failing at a critical point. Our
theory must carry us through to the end of all demands
and while doing so reveal the reasons why rival theories
fail.
We have seen that realism emphasizes analysis as the
instrument of knowledge and draws the apparently arbi-
trary and ultimately pernicious conclusion that the ele-
ments thus reached are separate realities having only ex-
ternal relations. This necessitates such an extreme view
of independence that the realist’s world, in spite of
asseverations to the contrary, resolves itself into an in-
finite multiplicity of isolated units which as such are
strictly unknowable. Each realist wrestles with this dif-
ficulty in his own way, and each succeeds in proportion
as he transcends the initial assumption. “To admit the
validity of thought synthesis for reality would obviate
the difficulty, as not a few of the realists see, but it would
also require a revision of the doctrine of independence.
More than this, it would imply the recognition of other
than intellectual structures in reality as apprehended in
experience. This reality would be saturated with emo-
tional and conative elements.
Only by an effort of abstraction do we isolate the in-
tellectual aspects, and make of them simulacra of things.
163
164 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
We might say, then, that in general the root difficulty
with realism is its false interpretation of intellectual
processes. ‘These processes are all indispensable to knowl-
edge, but they are not so much experience of reality as
activities about or upon experience. They reveal, at best,
only the structure of reality, not its content, which is
almost wholly conative. Realism, as abstract rationalism,
transcends the emptiest subjectivism only by positing,
without logical warrant, the independent reality of the
thought content. Then follow those impossible corolla-
ries about the reality of dream objects, illusions, and
abstract universals. “The end is scepticism of knowledge.
All the excellent work done by the realists in the analysis
of concepts will have to be taken over and utilized in the
final synthesis; but their exclusive rationalism must be
transcended, and the non-rational elements in experience
recognized.
When we come to mysticism we find that the difficulty
is almost exactly the same as in the case of realism. The
two types of thought while sharply contrasting are mani-
festly complementary, and both move in the realm of
abstraction. Mysticism is realism taking refuge from
itself. It is rationalism shunting away from its own
inevitable consequences and denying its nature. Hence
we see the mystic glorying in his paradoxes, exulting in
the contradictions of rationalism, and concluding, not
to the limitations as well as the value of knowledge, but
to the fatuity of all thinking. Like realism, mysticism
uses reason to defend conclusions that cancel reason. But
mysticism looks in one direction, realism in another.
They, therefore, seem to be at opposite poles, yet each
turns inevitably to the other in the moment of need be-
cause they are essentially so near of kin. ‘They are af-
flicted with the same one-sidedness. Mysticism yields a
kind of knowledge not perhaps otherwise obtainable, but
it is a knowledge of the more unusual resources of mental
functioning. ‘This is supposed to be immediate intuition,
whereas it is the result of forcing the mind by systematic
CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION 165
inhibitions to break out in novel forms of self-expression.
The resulting information is primarily of psychological
interest. It is no more knowledge of reality than is any
other subjective activity. But it is intuitive.
What do we mean by intuitive knowledge? It is the
knowledge that transcends the merely intellectual. This
does not make it peculiar or especially trustworthy. All
knowledge of reality is intuitive in this sense. To take
an extreme instance, the simple experience of change in-
volves not only intellectual elements, such as fixation of
successive experiences and their arrangement in a deter-
minable order, but also the feeling of difference in passing
along the succession. ‘The feeling of change is intuitive;
yet without the fixations and the arrangement, the feeling
of change would not arise.
We may say, then, in general, that what the mystic
seeks as a corrective of a too exclusive intellectualism is
this very feeling element. Whenever this element is prom-
inent in experience, it seems to bring reality especially
near. ‘This is the secret of the doctrine of immediacy.
It also suggests the reason why the more occult and un-
usual experiences seem to be more immediate, and so more
real. The intellectual processes of fixation, analysis, and
arrangement come between our immediate sense data and
what we consider our workaday knowledge. “The more
we think, the more we separate ourselves from the sense
of immediate apprehension. In calling attention to this
feeling element in knowledge and in opening up unusual
resources of self-expression, mysticism has a valuable con-
tribution to make. All that is true in it, however, can
be taken over in our final synthesis.
Mysticism is essentially a form of idealism, as has been
said. In emphasizing the sense of immediacy, it has
called attention to the element in experience easily over-
looked, namely, that the real is in its very being like our-
selves. [he real mirrors selfhood. While the apprehen-
sion of the real is immediate, it yet involves most intri-
cate activity of an intellectual, conative and affective
166 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
character. Idealism so-called centers our attention on the
activities rather than the immediacy. It is instructive to
note that whenever the idealist is hard pressed by virtue
of his too exclusive concern with the intellectual struc-
ture of reality, he turns to mysticism for salvation. But
mysticism cannot save him until it transcends the amor-
phically mystical and issues in a doctrine of selfhood.
‘The type of idealism that we have looked into suffers
as much as realism from the rationalistic bias. “The ideal
of system is so dominant that, for Bradley, it seems to
become itself the reality. At no point in the development
of his argument does he draw the distinction in a satis-
factory way between the reality as a system and the reality
which is manifested in the system. ‘The nearest he comes
to this is in the chapter devoted to the meanings of self.t
But there he makes the “‘subjective’’ self a sort of thing-
by-itself, and the world of experience a mere accompani-
ment. He has no difficulty in multiplying contradictions
in such a combination of incompatibilities. “Che assump-
tion that controls his criticism of our fundamental con-
cepts is that the reality which contrasts with “‘appearance’
must be extra-mental. “Thus in condemning the relation
of substance to attribute? as shot through with contra-
dictions, he fails to see that the contradictions fall away
when we take the two as mere aspects of our complex
experience and as answering two several needs in our
mental economy. As aspects, they are different; as inde-
pendent realities, they would be contradictions. Such
ambiguities recur with monotonous persistence through-
out the sinuous and labored argument. The two char-
acteristic weaknesses of Bradleyan idealism—the apoth-
eosis of system, which rules out the self as real, and the
assumption that the only real which can contrast with
“appearance” must be extra-mental—follow from his
intellectualism. The mystical element in the final con-
1 Appearance and Reality, chap. ix.
2 Ibid., chap. ii.
CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION 167
ception of reality as experience in general is the attempt
of intellectualism to recover itself.
But absolute idealism is not the only type that has
found currency. It is the extreme form because it tries
to carry through consistently the purpose to see reality
as idea. In so far as it is strictly logical, it fails to tran-
scend the theoretical goal of science as regards system.
Other idealisms differ more or less, as they take over
features of what is now being called personalism, or activ-
ism, or voiuntarism, or ethical idealism. Such labels are
of little value in differentiating the various types of cur-
rent idealism. Each lends itself with ready facility to a
broader and a narrower meaning. But the important
feature in all these idealisms is their more or less definite
recognition of the self as actively codperating with the
ultimate source of stimulation in constructing our sense
world. In proportion as the idealistic conception of the
world recognizes the decisive role played by selfhood,
both in the source of stimulation and in the finite power
of response, the intellectualistic conclusions become trans-
formed into conceivably concrete realities. We need not
now examine these improved forms of idealism; they
may be studied (in English) in the works of Bosanquet,
Sorley, Pringle-Pattison, Royce, Ward, Sir Henry Jones,
Bowne, Calkins, and Wildon Carr. Only when we rec-
ognize the full significance of the distinction between the
self as knower and the world as response, can we dis-
engage the tangled threads of realistic-mystic-idealistic
thought skeins and make of them a coherent world-view.
How this can be done we shall now indicate in broad
outline.
As the realist refuses to recognize the essentially
dynamic relation between the self and the source of stim-
ulation whereby the objective world is seen to be their
joint product, he is compelled to defend an impossible
conception of independence, to reduce the self to con-
sciousness and consciousness to a relation. By this time
his whole system explodes because of its inherent contradic-
168 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
tions, Restore the true relation between the source of
stimulation and the self, and every realistic motive finds its
rightful place in the world scheme. Independence as ap-
plied to the external world comes to mean controlled re-
sponse by the self to the activity of an independent power,
relations are recognized as being external or internal accord-
ing to the evidence of experience, reality falls plainly into
two classes, one of which includes the source of stimulation
and the finite selves, while the other includes the phe-
nomenal world and all mental states whatsoever. Accept-
ing this distinction, we can without prejudice determine
the nature of the reality in experience by a direct exami-
nation of experience itself.
We may say much the same of mysticism. By finally
abandoning reason and trusting to the unregulated vaga-
ries of trance or of what is little more than autohypnotic
states, mysticism closes the door to the possibility of a
coherent world conception. Its doctrine of immediacy
can at best give only the bare fact of presence, whereas
what we want to know is the nature of this presence
and what its relations are to ourselves and the world.
The mystic, because of his rejection of selfhood as con-
creted reason and will, misses the goal of philosophic
insight, and is always in danger of plunging into the
abyss of pantheism. He is near the truth, and needs only
to carry out the implicit logic of his vision to reach it.
His immediacy then becomes spontaneity or subconscious
response; his truth, reasoned assurance; and his reality,
selves and their world-constructing activity.
Idealism is so much committed to the personalistic con-
ception of the world that it fails to reach that conception
only by the subtle working of the oft-exposed prejudice
in favor of objectivity. Bradley, for instance, repeatedly
speaks as if he fully grasped the possibilities of person-
alism, only to shy away and turn to the conception of
an absolute which, being all things, is nothing.
We are now ready to return to our question as to the
nature of external reality. Scientific thought, in its utmost
CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION 169
reach of theoretical insight, sees the world as system, but
is unable to construe the implications of this view. As
mere system, the world is pure process, hence can have
no abiding reality. But without abiding reality, the
world cannot be even process. Hence there must be more
than system. When, over against the system, we recog-
nize selves for whom and by whom the system exists,
we are able to locate and characterize the real in the
system. ‘To find that real we need not arbitrarily think
of the external world as independent, or as illusory, or
as idea (intellectually considered), but can take it for
what it appears to be in sense perception. It is a world
of physical things which have their reality in being the
concrete responses of the mind to stimulations. They are
what the stimulations mean to the mind. They exist only
because the mind attends, becomes interested, evaluates.
Hence we can now say with assurance that the reality in
the world-system is essentially value-content. Intellectu-
ally the world is system, practically it is value. Its reality
is therefore a practical element read into the thought struc-
ture.
The doctrine that external reality is value gathers into
itself what is best in the various types of philosophy that
we have been reviewing. [he utmost reach of realism
was the doctrine of essence. [his is very close to the
doctrine that reality is value. Both make reality a uni-
versal in so far as reality has a logical structure. Both
deny reality to things as extra-~-mental and affirm it only
of meanings. But the doctrine that reality is value goes
beyond its rival in asserting that the reality is more than
logical structure; it is something that can be lived, some-
thing that affects us for good or ill, that makes a difference
to us, and is equally real in all its distinguishable features.
In this sense value has objectivity only because it is
through and through and altogether human. Further-
more value is so dependent on human factors, so com-
pletely the expression of human interests, that it has a
certain immediacy akin to the mystical experience. As all
170 WORLD OF ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
experience begins in sense perception value is primarily
intuitive; it is the sense object as directly apprehended.
On this foundation of elemental values we build our
world of derivative values, just as science builds its world
of concepts and laws on data furnished by sense percep-
tion. Finally the doctrine that reality is value is the
essence of the idealism that has not lost its way. To call
reality experience is meaningless unless it is the experience
of some intelligence; but as such it is value. Within this
idealistic doctrine we distinguish between the cosmic
reality, which is our experience extended in time and
space by legitimate inference, and the reality of immedi-
ate perception—both are values. We distinguish also
between experience as ‘‘pure sentiency,’ to use Bradley’s
phrase, and the articulated results of thinking about
experience—both are values.
Experience is never an undifferentiated whole except as
a logical abstraction; but as articulated it is always further
analyzable into smaller units, till in the end it disappears
into process. But this analysis can be stayed, not by de-
claring that the reality is undifferentiated experience, but
by recognizing the integrating value elements in objects.
As value every object is an ultimate unity. “To analyze it
is to destroy it in its concreteness, but to exhibit it at the
same time as a logical structure. ‘“[hus we see that all
lines in our thinking lead to the doctrine that reality in
the external world is value.
We are now ready to pass to our next theme, The
World as Value. Our main task will be not so much to
explain the doctrine of value as to protect it from accre-
tions and perversions and diremptions that virtually
negate it. If we could approach it with a mind free from
those prepossessions born of the objective attitude, we
could hardly help appreciating the truth of the value doc-
trine, not as a conclusion but as an immediate apprehen-
sion. ‘The only reality we know is the reality we live.
It enters into our experience and makes a difference with
us; it is value.
BAR Svat
TIE GW ORDISRAS VATCUOR
CHAPTER I
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT PRO AND CON
In the preceding discussions we examined the structure
of the world as experience and found that it is a joint
product of stimulation and response; that the response
involves a fairly complex constructive work on the part
of the mind; that only the completed sense object enters
into consciousness; that with advancing experience we
are able to develop the distinction between objective fact
and illusion or between truth and error; that the world
is replete with values in a cosmic matrix of conditions
and relations; that the special task of science is to master
the conditions for reaching or avoiding the value-content
of reality; and that when the scientific results are mistaken
for the reality, we reach an impasse from which we can
emerge only by restoring the value elements as the reality
in the system.
We saw how many lines converge on this conclusion.
To begin with, the so-called categories of sense perception
are all of practical significance. Substance appears to be
a device for satisfying the felt need for permanence in
the midst of the incipient experiences that follow one
another in rapid succession. Change is our way of uniting
the states of a substance into an abiding unity. Cause
is a further effort to hold events together and make them
manageable for practical ends. In like manner each of
the other aspects of our experience world has its unique
significance in the economy of life.
Again we saw how the mind builds its elaborate scien-
tific structure out of universals, whose only excuse for
171
Mye2 THE WORLD AS VALUE
being is their value in manipulating nature; how, too,
this scientific activity, as logically completed, issues in a
dynamic view of the world in which all that is lacking
to make it work is that which value alone can supply.
This became still more evident when we examined the
representative attempts to find the real of experience in
something other than value. These attempts failed in
so far as they, on the part of the realists, implied that
the external reality was independent of the knower; or,
on the part of the mystics, assumed that sense knowledge
was illusory because it separated thought and thing; or,
on the part of the absolute idealists, identified the real
with mere sentient experience.
But each of these attempts suggested in its own way
what seems to us the true or adequate answer. ‘he
realist’s independent reality could become known only
in so far as it entered into dynamic relation with the
knower. As it thus had to come into consciousness, it
could have any degree of complexity, dependent on the
capacity and interest of the apprehending mind. ‘The
independence belonged, not to the external thing, but
to the source of stimulation. The mystical identity of
thought and thing only emphasized the non-independence
of the thing. In trying to make out what such an identity
could mean, the mystic was compelled to distinguish the
thought process from the thought content. “The content
then became, as in the realistic view, a function of dis-
criminative attention.
Finally the idealist’s contention that reality is experi-
ence reset the problem, and suggested that the articula-
tions in experience depend on the mind’s interest. Pre-
occupation with the task of formulating a view of the
world as a thought structure prevented the absolutist
from seeing that the reality as apprehended is value-
content and nothing else. In calling it “‘appearance,’’ the
idealist did not deny that it has value, but contended that
it is not for the absolute what it is for us. This con-
tention may well be granted without prejudice to our
ARGUMENT PRO AND CON 173
own conclusion, But it means, not that we have illusion,
but that our grasp of truth is partial and needs supple-
mentation. In so far as the absolutist recognizes the
reality of articulations in experience, he makes the char-
acter of the external world dependent on the mind’s
capacity to attend.
In addition to these lines of evidence we found two
corroborative suggestions. One was, that all tests of
truth are practical; they have to do exclusively with value-
judgments. “The other was that judgments of rationality
are also value-judgments. “This second statement deserves
a further word. Unless we find in an enterprise a value
that makes the effort worth while, we question its ration-
ality. What determines our plan of action is a value;
what we use to attain our end is a nexus of values; what
rewards us at the completion of our efforts is a value.
All ideals, whether cognitive, ethical, esthetic or religious,
are ‘plans of action’’—values to be attained. “Thus from
every quarter of our experience universe we get evidence
that value has a reality as strictly objective as the reality
of the apparently independent world and in the same
sense.
This enables us to draw the conclusion that the real
is just what it reports itself to be, what we must think it
if we are to attain to the needful insight into the course
of events. The complexity of the thing measures our
interest in it. In view of its manifestly answering other
needs besides those at any moment uppermost, we form
the conception of a thing that is distinct from and vastly
richer than our immediate thought of it. But this sup-
posed real thing is itself a thought; nor is it very definite
as it looms in the background of our interests. As an
ideal it is never wholly realized. In contrast, the concrete
thing is always that which stands before us at any given
moment.
What is thus true of sense objects is even more evi-
dently true of scientific constructions. In science every
conclusion is determined by the ideal or interest to be
BAA THE WORLD AS VALUE
conserved. ‘The primal need is that of consistency; the
laws of thought must be obeyed, contradictions elimi-
nated, and the parts so related as to form a harmonious
whole. ‘To ignore these laws would land us in confu-
sion and mental bewilderment. But they are the laws
of thought, not of things, except as things are thought.
They are a practical demand to which the course of
events in nature is indifferent. [hat is, in a changing
world where every event is unique, the laws of consis-
tency have no meaning. ‘This is only another way of
saying that scientific entities are but working models,
practical devices for manipulating nature, and are instru-
mental throughout. Our cognitive interests determine
what kind of order will satisfy us, and the same interests
guide us in manipulating sense data till we attain our
desired goal.
But difficulties and misunderstandings throng about
the conclusion that external reality is exhaustively defined
as value. ‘These have thus far been scarcely more than
suggested; we must now face them in their full strength.
A very general objection might run as follows: After
all nothing has been accomplished by your argument fur-
ther than to define the two expressions, external reality
and value, in such a way as to make them identical in
meaning. ‘Ihe cosmic universe is as indifferent to human
interests as it ever was. You must either humanize the
universe—whatever that might mean—or dehumanize the
notion of value, if you would bring them together; and
if this could be done, the result would be a mere product
of logical manipulation and would deceive nobody. This
criticism is difficult to meet, principally because it so com-
pletely ignores or misapprehends the argument thus far
developed. At the same time it confuses the issue. Unless
the conclusion that reality is value does furnish additional
insight, unless it does make a difference in our outlook
upon life and does affect conduct, it is utterly empty.
The criticism is really a misleading statement of the
truth, and when taken in its proper context may be made
ARGUMENT PRO AND CON 17D
to help establish the conclusion it would discount or set
aside. Experience does and does not remain the same.
The sameness inheres only in the general features of ex-
perience. Every particular feature, when viewed as value-
content, takes on a new significance; or we might say, only
then does it acquire significance. Our conclusion brings
objective reality within the human realm and makes it,
throughout, the expression of selfhood. ‘The material
world is viewed no longer as something alien and anti-
thetical to spirit, but as of the very essence of spiritual
activity. Moreover it is a great gain just to lift the real
in experience above the possibility of dissolution by in-
exorable logic. “This saves us from intellectual embarrass-
ment if not something close to intellectual suicide. While
it does not change the laws of nature, that is, the condi-
tions we must meet to attain our ends, it makes the attain-
ing of those ends more worth while. Nature as the ex-
pression of selfhood is seen to be the instrument of self-
realization.
Yet this significance for the self may easily become a
stumbling block to the acceptance of the conclusion. It
may lead the sceptic back to the theory that after all
values are essentially subjective. This finds plausible
support in some very practical considerations. In the
struggle to obtain the goods of life, man has been met on
every hand by resistance to be overcome, forces to be
subdued, thwartings and limitations innumerable. This
necessity of putting forth effort, of exercising ingenuity
and harnessing apparently unwilling forces, naturally sug-
gests that the values belong to the subjective realm while
the difficulties in the way of realizing them are objective
and alien. We may critically dispose of this naive view,
yet we feel its influence long after it is discarded as theo-
retically untenable. It is much like the impression still
strong within us that the heavenly bodies form a daily
procession about the earth. [he one is as harmless as
the other until a question of theoretical interest arises;
then the naive view must be set aside.
176 THE ‘WORLD (AS (VALUE
But to the popular mind the most formidable objec-
tion, as already pointed out, lies in the extreme variable-
ness of values. ‘They vary for the individual evaluator
with his moods and tenses, attitudes and interests. In
contrast, the thing as physical thing may remain relatively
the same while it passes through a wide gamut of value-
differences, dependent on subjective conditions. ‘To iden-
tify reality with value seems from this point of view to
set up the most capricious, intangible, aura-like element in
the thing as its most substantial and abiding feature.
Moreover values in the large vary with degrees of culture,
native capacity, and those broad differences that distin-
guish age from age, nation from nation, community from
community. The case seems strong against reality’s
being value.
But we need to remember that variableness permeates
all experience. “The only persisting element in our expe-
rience world is the generalized content. “The nearer we
approach the limit of concreteness and individuality, the
more of change and movement we find. Were it not for
the logical work of fixating and constructing, we should
have no substantiality whatever in our world. In the
same way that permanence attaches itself to things it may
accrue also to values. or instance, the beauty of a land-
scape has the same constancy of character as the landscape
itself—-which in its definite features is changing contin-
ually. We hardly incline to call an object beautiful unless
under changing conditions it continues to excite zsthetic
emotion. Hence we are usually somewhat uncertain
whether the beauty resides in the thing or in the observer.
But utility values seem different. “They vary with the
immediate interest. An object of use like a car is valuable
for various purposes. It may be an object of indifference
till we want its services, then it takes on a temporary value,
that is, it becomes valuable for that particular service.
What could be more transient? Yet we must remind our-
selves again that the car as an object of apprehension
varies quite as much. When it is of little concern to us
ARGUMENT PRO AND CON Wis
it may appear as a mere blur of light and shade and color
which we vaguely feel to be an object identifiable at will.
The more interested we become the more definite becomes
for us the car. Just as it may be identified in an ex-
tremely vague way, when little in our thoughts, so its
values can be more or less before our mind as possibilities,
even though not realized at the time. Just as we generalize
on the different appearances of the car and give it thereby
a constancy of character, so we can consider the various
values of the car as forming.a whole and yielding a per-
manent balance of serviceableness as against expense of
upkeep. In other words we can treat values, actual and
potential, exactly as we do things, considered as mere
objects.
But can we carry this parallelism over into the world
that is shared by all, the world that fills immensity and
covers an illimitable past? Our ideas about the world
that lies beyond the reach of actual experience are the
results of inference from meager data, and hence are nec-
essarily both general and inaccurate; yet this construct of
the mind satisfies the intellectual needs that reach beyond
the here and now of experience. “There is no reason why
we should not treat values in the same way. What, for
instance, is the value of a given star to an observer? Very
little, unless he wants to know something about it, admire
its beauty, or learn of its size, chemical constitution, its
telation to other stars, distance from our solar system,
or what not. Let the interest be slight or shifting, and
the star itself would be correspondingly vague and vari-
ous. Just as we think of the star and every other object
in the phenomenal world as indefinitely more complex
than any one appearance of it, so the world has a vast
surplusage of values which we for the most part ignore
or are ignorant of. [They await discovery. This
means that they await the sense of need which will call
them into being. Wherever knowledge reaches, there
values are created. In organizing the material universe
into a scientific system, we actually construct a scheme of
178 THE WORLD AS VALUE
values. ‘The system as scientifically accurate is throughout
value, and all its actual foundations in experience are
severally values.
In viewing the world as a system of values, we should
keep in mind the problem of their objectivity, as meaning
their trustworthiness in meeting both individual and social
tests. The parallelism then becomes throughgoing be-
tween the objectivity of the world regarded as things and
the objectivity of the world regarded as values. In both
cases it is validity in a common experience world that is
decisive. Values meet the test exactly as do material
aspects of things, for material aspects turn out to be, in
fact, aspects of value. For purposes of manipulation, then,
it is a matter of indifference whether we call external reality
value or substance or energy or any other usable term.
But when we seek insight the case is different. A recog-
nition that the reality of this world in which we live is
value transforms it from an opaque mystery into a human
world full of meaning.
Viewing the world as value, we can explain many pop-
ular misconceptions and bring into relief the truth they
contain. We can see more clearly now why people intent
on practical ends should come to look upon physical ob-
jects as mere passive things endowed with active energies;
why these things along with their resident energies should
be so weak to resist resolution into mere process; why
such desperate measures should have been resorted to in
the effort to save the real in the phenomenal world from
disappearing into nothingness or the dark unknowable;
why many thinkers at this point should despair of a sat-
isfactory solution by intellectual means and fall back on
mystical intuition; why finally the primal distinction,
implied in all sense perception, between the source of stim-
ulation and the percipient’s response, should be misunder-
stood. As this misunderstanding has been and is at
present the breeding place of persistent difficulties and
confusions, it is worth noting how the theory that reality
is value serves as a corrective. If we assume that values
ARGUMENT PRO AND CON Av
alone are objectively real, then the objective world exists
only for an evaluator. This points, on the one hand, to
the creative activity of the self who evaluates, and on the
other, to the codperative activity of a power, distinct from
both the self and the world of values, yet vitally con-
cerned in both.
The conception of nature to which we have come is
that of a nexus of values. Just as we say that in nature
there is no absolute vacuum, so we may say that no por-
tion of nature is devoid of values. But to maintain this
position we must recognize two kinds of value, positive
or desired, and negative or undesired. [he values that
pack the world are of varicus character and usability.
When we want a value that is near at hand, it may be
obtained so easily as to seem a free gift of nature. When
we want a value embedded in other values which must
be set aside, the work involved makes us think of nature
as grudging. But in every situation, the values them-
selves are absolutely free, and there is not a trace of resist-
ance, except as the way to them may be over or through
other values not at the time desired. It is because we
make>these~choices and insist on having what we want
rather than what is easily accessible that difficulties and
thwartings and oppositions are encountered. [he values
that are in the way of the ones we want are classed as
negative—till the time comes when they too may be de-
sired. Our limited range of knowledge is responsible for
our not being able to utilize more of nature’s values.
The scientific study of nature has brought to light a
vast range and variety of values never before suspected. _
*‘More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of.’’
The multiplication of values makes nature bewilderingly
rich to the modern man. Along with the increase of
actual values has come a great reduction of cost in the
labor of obtaining them. ‘The negative values or the ills
and discomforts of life have also been the subject of
180 THE WORLD AS VALUE
scientific study, with the result that a great variety of
evils, intellectual and physical, have been eliminated. But
the very complexity of life tends to develop undesirable
intensities and distractions. Science has forced man to
exercise more care and intelligence in the utilization of
values, and has thereby further developed and refined
man’s capacity to appreciate. Thus as civilization ad-
vances, values multiply, capacities to enjoy are brought
into exercise, nature becomes more subservient, and its
stings and poisons are neutralized. “The negative values
are so often converted into positive ones as to suggest that,
if we knew all, we might eliminate negative values en-
tirely. It is well known that most negative values have
in them a positive value-element, as when an evil endured
calls our attention to a good we should not otherwise
have found. For the sake of simplicity, we shall, unless
otherwise expressly stated, limit ourselves to the discussion
of the positive values. Later when the problem of evil
begins to trouble us, we shall have to consider the world
of negative values.
Values not only have an inherent quality whereby they
affect us emotionally, but they may also help in obtaining
other goods. When a value is more desired for its service-
ableness in obtaining other goods than for itself, it is
called an instrumental value. “Thus a large bank account
or conveniences of travel are primarily instrumental values,
while friends and beautiful objects are intrinsic values.
But no object is entirely devoid of either type of value.
The capacity to enjoy values recognized as desirable de-
pends on the attitude and condition of the self. For in-
stance, if there is a lack of inner harmony, owing to a
wrong attitude (e.g. a bad conscience), the good that may
be desired will yield only a part of its wonted value.
This thought cannot here be developed; but when we
come to study the ethical life, we may see that the de-
pendence of appreciation on the attitude of the self is
the key to some of our most troublesome problems. In-
strumental values should of course never usurp the place
ARGUMENT PRO AND CON 181
of those that are intrinsic. In general we may say that
the values which can be shared with others and which
grow more valuable to the possessor as they are shared
are almost entirely intrinsic. Such are the ideal values of
social intercourse and mutual helpfulness.
The first thing that impresses one in studying the
world of values is that it is a manifold of universes, each
limitless in extent and corresponding to a fundamental
interest of the self. There are four of these universes.
(1) The world of cognitive values. “These are mani-
festly all-encompassing. We study nature from every
conceivable point of view in the interest of knowledge.
While the cele of aes es may furnish our initial
Thus the field of possible ieeeinere is an intricate com-
plex of both instrumental and intrinsic values. This is
the world of science and philosophy. It appears as or-
derly, analyzable, responsive to logical manipulation,
transparent to reason; it is the world of description and
interpretation. Pech alk
) e world of Be enetic values. When our in-
terest centers in the emotional satisfactions that accom-
pany the mere contemplation of an object, the emotion
is called xsthetic, and the object that awakens it is called
beautiful. Like the cognitive, the exsthetic values are
all-embracing. By this is meant that every object and
every situation within experience is capable, under proper
a
conditions, of stimulating “the xsthetic sense in varying
degree, though a person “may not always be in a mood
to appreciate this quality in things.
(3) The world of moral values. These include the
whole range of values considered as affecting human wel-
fare. They arise whenever we are called upon to make
a choice. As most goods have to be earned or obtained
by effort, it is of prime importance to know which goods
are most worth while, and how goods are related to one
another. This study forms the basis of rational choice.
182 THE WORLD AS VALUE
Practically every situation in life presents competing al-
ternatives which require us to make decisions of moral
significance. [Throughout our conscious life we are nec-
essarily exercising the moral prerogative. There is no
escape, for we choose when we refuse to choose. The
moral quality resides not in the goods themselves, but in.
the attitude we sustain toward them. Hence moral
values are related to other values in much the same way
as the scientific structure of concepts, laws, and formulae
are related to the concrete objects of experience.
(4) The world of religious values. Religious values
emerge when we become interested in the future of
values, and in the grounds of belief in their ultimate con-
servation. [his study involves especially a consideration
of our destiny as the appreciators and in a sense the origi-
nators of value. “Through the study of experience in all
its aspects we may come to the conclusion that the ulti-
mate Power manifested in the universe is the Giver of all
the goods we enjoy. ‘Ihe consciousness, then, of being
in his favor and of belonging to him in a filial sense, is
the essence of religion. From this point of view, every
object within our ken associates itself with the ultimate
Source of good, and the world becomes throughout a
universe of religious values.
Thus to the four great interests of life correspond the
four types of value in our objective world. Besides
these, or rather included in them and representing more
restricted fields, are such varieties of value as the social,
economic, educational. These all yield a world of
values as extensive as the reach of our interest, and help
to constitute the objects of our experience. Hence the
external world, far from being a mere aggregate or sys-
tem of inert and dead things, is instinct with values as
various and rich as the capacities of the evaluating self.
The world grows as the self develops. In carrying out
Herbart’s wise injunction to cultivate a many-sided in-
terest, one creates new sources of value and thereby puts
new qualities into one’s world of objects.
ARGUMENT PRO AND CON 183
The grouping of values into cognitive, esthetic, moral,
and religious is the one we shall follow in our further
study. All values that may seem to fall outside these
groups can by a little ingenuity be brought within their
scope. A brief survey of each group is now in order.
Since philosophy is primarily an attempt to satisfy cog-
nitive interests as such, there is little need of extended
treatment of this group separately. [hey are the theme
of all our discussions. We have thus far sketched the
nature of sense knowledge, and have taken one look into
the realm of philosophical insight. Our further study
will be almost entirely within the confines of strictly
philosophical issues.
CHAPTER II
COGNITIVE VALUES
That cognitive values are fundamental and all-inclu-
sive is evident. Whatever value aspect in an object may
arrest our attention we first want to know the nature
of the object—how it acts under ordinary conditions.
We must know in order to evaluate. Knowledge is also
itself an evaluation. ‘The influence of the scientific atti-
tude toward nature has led us to think of knowledge as
restricted to intellectual apprehension, in which only
thought structures have part. But such knowledge is
abstract and general, whereas knowledge may include
every element of concreteness found in our world of ap-
preciation. As every effort to acquire knowledge is con-
trolled by an interest (a value sought), so the character
of the information is determined by the degree of com-
pleteness with which we comprehend the concrete situa-
tion as a complex of values.
In furnishing the basis for action and determining
what values to seek as well as what to use, knowledge is
primarily instrumental. As such it should be accurate
and definite up to the measure of the purpose to be real-
ized. ‘The purpose in view determines how thorough
shall be the analysis and the reconstruction. Fortu-
nately our needs are so related that knowledge acquired
in satisfying one need generally serves more or less ade-
quately in meeting some other need. “Through long
ages of experience and study, types of knowledge have
been worked out that serve a maximum number of
human needs. ‘These types constitute the race’s inherit-
ance, passed on from age to age. [hey range from the
184
COGNITIVE VALUES 185
popular wisdom of tradition to the most advanced scien-
tific information. Whether popular or scientific this
knowledge is all more or less limited, vague, and subject
to revision as the interests of civilization change. The
change, however, is far less than one might suppose. A
new expression of the old belief often passes for a new
belief. “Ihe ancient doctrine thus becomes quite modern
and up-to-date. On the other hand, the same form of
expression may conceal a variety of meanings; the same-
ness then pertains only to the general aspects and not to
the specific situations. “Thus we may find in ancient
writers most if not all of the ethical principles recognized
as valid to-day. But from age to age these principles
have so changed their meaning and application that their
identity consists largely in the form of their expression.
The vagueness of the principles by which we live neces-
sitates their reexamination by each succeeding generation.
Truths of one period become problems for the next and
must be reéstablished or revised. [he constant demand
for revision makes the race inheritance not only a treasure
to be conserved but material to be worked over. ‘This
is a great advantage, as only by working over our stored
intellectual wealth can we appreciate its value and make
our contribution to it.
Knowledge is not only of prime importance as an in-
strument for obtaining the values of life; it is a con-
stituent element in those values. “To know a value is to
appreciate and enjoy it. This kind of knowledge is
first-hand acquaintance. Popularly the term knowledge
is reserved for second-hand information. But such
knowledge must be assimilated; it must in a sense be-
come a part of our experience.
The pursuit of knowledge is itself a value, It means
concentration of purpose and a consequent integration of
character. It develops a devotion to actuality as against
sham and falsity. It makes for intellectual vigor and
power of inventiveness. In fact, it exercises all our spir-
itual resources and thereby contributes to the higher
186 THE WORLD AS VALUE
ranges of self-realization. Hence in the pursuit of knowl-
edge the goal has a luster of attractiveness that it loses to
some extent after it is once reached. What may, as a fin-
ished product, seem but a register of scientific or histori-
cal items may represent the eager life-work of many in-
vestigators who were sustained in their toil by unfailing
joy. So spontaneous is mental activity that, when once
awakened by some interest, it tends to draw into its
service all other resources of the self.
The two aspects of cognitive values, the intrinsic and
the instrumental, are as experience inseparable. Knowl-
edge that is thought to be in no way serviceable may be
cherished for its own sake, but it thereby does actually
enrich the life of the possessor. As a general thing our
interests are so rooted in the problem of getting on in
life that knowledge not having direct or ascertainable
bearing on this problem tends to lose its popular appeal.
On the other hand, knowledge comes to be cherished for
its own sake when it proves instrumentally valuable.
This distinction between the intrinsic and the instru-
mental aspects of cognitive value ceases to be significant
when we reach the higher ranges of intellectual effort.
The satisfactions of such effort are their own excuse for
being.
The obvious necessity of satisfying our cognitive in-
terests determines most of life’s problems. How to ob-
tain the truth in a given situation—secure the pertinent
facts and so penetrate into their inner connection and
meaning that we may draw practically valid conclusions
from them—this is our absorbing task. As our intellec-
tual interests become more and more inclusive, we outrun
our practical needs and form the ideal of an all-inclusive,
completely unified body of knowledge. This ideal then
becomes a kind of touchstone for testing the ultimate
truth of any particular intellectual acquisition and starts
the question whether any truth is wholly true, whether
all truth is not relative.
One who denies that we can attain to absolute truth
COGNITIVE VALUES 187
is usually called a sceptic or an agnostic. Such a person
is likely to be looked upon with a certain popular dis-
favor, but in most cases unjustly. The issue is far from
simple. As we noticed when considering the nature of
scientific knowledge, truth is doubly relative; it has to
do with relations, and it is truth only for human intelli-
gences. When the sceptic defends the doctrine of rela-
tivity, he may have the second meaning in mind and
then he becomes subject to destructive criticism. When
he contends that truth is a human commodity, good for
finite creatures like ourselves but of no validity for the
absolute, we may reply that he must produce his absolute
and make sure that he is right. We all have a vague
ideal of completeness, and no one has ever come within
sight of an ultimate limit to man’s capacity to know.
In the nature of the case a limit recognized as such would
thereby be transcended. So long as a belief meets our
tests of validity, it is absolute for us. In short, all abso-
lute knowledge must be relative to a self. Where there
is no self, there is not only no knowledge, there is noth-
ing that a self might conceivably learn about.
The practical character of truth has already been
dwelt upon. ‘Truth always has reference to an end be-
yond itself. It is that which extricates us from intellec-
tual perplexity or illumines some dark spot in our ex-
perience. It is that which brings together into a rational
order what had before seemed only externally and casu-
ally related. Because of its essentially practical charac-
ter, truth cannot be wholly detached from life. This
fact is made much of by the sceptics. They argue that
truth is a matter of the will guided by the emotions and
prejudices. They point out that as soon as the initial
data of sense are before us, we begin manipulating in
order to make the data fit our preconceived notions or
satisfy our dominant interests. Everything is trans-
formed and distorted by our human point of view. This
is the way Santayana, for instance, reasons in developing
his doctrine of scepticism. By doubting whatever can
188 THE WORLD AS VALUE
be doubted in human beliefs, he reaches, as we have seen,
the ultimate datum that cannot be doubted—the realm
of essences. It is interesting to note that to believe any-
thing concerning these essences is to infect them with the
virus of doubt, since, for Santayana, all belief is extra-
rational.t Nevertheless he contends that these essences
are infinitely numerous and various, are simple in struc-
ture, changeless, and unconnected both among them-
selves and with the knower. ‘They are the definite sense
data in their utter particularity, revealed for the instant
in the act of sense perception; but as revealed, without
duration, without local habitation in space or time, with-
out substantiality, and without human reference of any
sort. “The knowledge we may have of these essences is
contemplative, not practical, though we may enjoy imag-
inative flights into the infinite wilderness of their habi-
tations.2. In thus depicting a world of ultimate reals
unconnected with human interests, Santayana is simply
deceiving himself. What he describes as the changeless,
particular, isolated essences have all the characteristics of
being human creations, playthings of the abstracting in-
tellect.
“What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not
stay for an answer.’ With these words Lord Bacon be-
gins his famous essay on truth. The question would
forever remain unanswered if what were sought were
something that could be detached from actual experi-
ences and completely isolated. “Truth is always about
something, never truth in general. When we can point
out what is the common element in particular beliefs, we
have reached the limit of generality. Truth then is
truths, and they are true only in the sense that they meet
our tests. Just as we cannot by analysis or by the method
of doubt and elimination reach the ultimately simple of
Santayana’s speculations, so, although by the method of
synthesis we may reach truths of great generality, we
1 Scepticism and Animal Faith, pp. 1-76, especially p. 35,
2 Cf. Ibid., chap. x.
COGNITIVE VALUES 189
can never attain to truth in the abstract as the quintes-
sence of all beliefs.
The opposite of truth is error. We are all sure that
we know what error is, for we dwell in the midst of it.
The struggle of life is in the direction of the truth, with
error ever present. We rest satisfied when we reach a
degree of accuracy sufficient to make the result usable for
the purpose in hand. Each of the sciences has its own
more or less elaborate technique for the elimination of
errors arising from personal bias in observation and in-
ference, the influence of social contacts and of tradition,
and such other sources of mental prepossession as inter-
fere with trustworthy thinking.
Errors are beliefs that have failed to meet the tests of
experience. They are positive in content and refer to a
possible world of reality. “This fact has given rise to a
discussion whether error may not be truth misplaced.
Is it not conceivable that, in some other world or under
some other conditions, what is error to us might be found
to be the veriest truth? An affirmative answer to this
question is given by Bradley. ‘‘Error,’’ he says, “‘is con-
tent made loose from its own reality, and related to a
reality with which it is discrepant.’’* ‘“‘Error is truth
when it is supplemented.’’* ‘The idea, rejected by real-
ity, is none the less predicable when its subject is al-
tered.’’"> These statements presuppose a background of
immutable reality, inclusive of all that can possibly be
affirmed or denied of it whether the affirmation or denial
is true or not—a curious assumption. If then, a given
statement is found not to apply, it is simply misapplied
or some qualification is wanting to complete its perfect
adjustment. Without this presupposition of an un-
changing reality that limits the range of possible affir-
mation, the quotations would amount merely to the in-
ane statement that an untruth can be made true by being
3 Appearance and Reality, p. 188.
4 Ibid., p. 195.
5 Ibid., p. 368.
190 THE WORLD AS VALUE
sufficiently modified. As we have no evidence that Brad-
ley’s absolute reality exists, his characterization of error
with reference to that reality is not very illuminating.
We may better hold that error is simply invalidated be-
lief, a belief that fails to function and hence has no ex-
istence except as belief.
The causes of error are as numerous as the forms of
carelessness in thinking, of inadequacy in observing, of
impulsive prejudice in judging. The important fact is
not that we give way to prejudice or form snap judg-
ments, but that we can recognize our mistakes and find
a way to correct them. ‘The causes of error are partly
under our control. The ideal of truth we can definitely
set before us as a goal to be striven for. Nothing in our
nature as human beings is so significant as this capacity
to lift ourselves out of error and confusion by the power
of persistent thinking. Philosophy is the search for the
ultimate principle of coherence as a prerequisite to the
attainment of the far-off goal—the kingdom of truth.
CHAPTER III
ZESTHETIC VALUES
“Esthetic values are such as cause us to pronounce an
object beautiful. As here used the term beautiful in-
cludes the sublime and the comic, though in an elaborate
treatise, the advisability of such inclusion might well be
questioned. What is beauty? No characteristic of real-
ity is more elusive. For beauty is not a homogeneous
quality of things. Whatever satisfies us, whether in the
practical, scientific, literary, ethical, or philosophical
realm is beautiful. Nor can we draw a line and say
that there is one type of beauty in nature and another in
art. Each object in nature and each creation of art has
its own unique beauty. Moreover the sense of the beau-
tiful varies with the individual and in the life of the in-
dividual at successive stages of his development. Thus
beauty has a subjective character, like taste or smell, and
yet pertains to the object, since the object alone awakens
the sense of beauty. This double reference complicates
the problem. Definition is rendered difficult also by the
fact that the zxsthetic experience stimulates to a spon-
taneous activity of self-expression, and this self-expres-
sion tends to become identified with the zxsthetic experi-
ence itself. “Ihe creative activity on the part of the mind
as it contemplates the beautiful object is one of the main
sources of satisfaction, yet it is not exactly the esthetic
attitude. Rather it is a sequential experience which
makes the beautiful object much more significant to us.
In general we may say that the esthetic satisfactions,
contrasting with the intellectual and the practical, mani-
fest themselves in a free play of the mind. Perhaps this
LO
192 THE WORLD AS VALUE
sense of liberation from constraint is the most charac-
teristic feature of the xsthetic attitude. “Throughout the
whole extent of the intellectual life, the mind is engaged
in the formulation of definite and relatively permanent
conceptual elements. Beginning with the initial act of
fixation whereby we get our sense objects, it builds its
structures out of concepts and laws that are supposed to
hold for an apparently independent world. This is
needful for manipulating nature, and also for storing
and communicating knowledge. Whether our interest
is practical or theoretical, that is, whether we would con-
trol environing conditions or merely make a record of
what the conditions are, our attention is held by the ex-
ternal situation. We are in a tensive attitude. The
bent of the mind is so dominantly practical that the atti-
tude of constraint seems native. But when one stands
before a beautiful object, this tension or constraint be-
comes perceptibly less and may cease altogether. The
esthetic attitude follows upon a sense of satisfaction. In
the presence of that which brings release from desire we
no longer strive. We do not feel for the moment the
need of prescribed thought themes, nor do we care to
bend nature to our will. Hence the forced fixities of
articulate experience give way to a spontaneous activity
in which distinctions tend to fade out and the mind en-
joys itself in free creativity. Memory and fantasy con-
tribute their treasures to heighten the experience. Aés-
thetic appreciation thus becomes a characteristic expres-
sion of the inner life. “The self revels in its own crea-
tions. It is this unique joyousness of free activity that
the poet Schiller evidently had in mind when he iden-
tified beauty with the object of the play impulse.t This
also inspired the philosopher Kant to affirm that the es-
sence of beauty in an object is its capacity to stimulate
the powers of the mind to harmonious activity.2. The
fluidity and freedom in the esthetic experience explain
1 Ueber die esthetische Erziehung des Menschen, 27 Brief.
2 Kritth of Judgment, part i. § 9, p. 65.
AESTHETIC VALUES 193
nearly all the characterizations of beauty that have
gained favor among thinkers, and show their underlying
identity.
Goethe somewhere says that “beauty is inexplicable;
it is a hovering, floating, glittering shadow, whose out-
line eludes the grasp of definition.’’ It is so because in
the zsthetic attitude, the mind does not hold itself down
to anything that remains self-identical long enough to
be defined. Under the spell of beauty, all minds respond
more or less. Some are dull and sluggish, some highly
sensitive and resourceful, some have little spontaneity,
some have much; yet none are wholly indifferent. But
the responses to the xsthetic appeal show great variation.
Schiller’s identification of esthetic satisfaction with
play is instructive. “[he two are not quite the same, yet
they have much in common. Both are of absorbing in-
terest, both bring pleasure. But play has a goal to at-
tain, while xsthetic appreciation ends in itself. Perhaps
Carritt is right when he says that Schiller used the term
play in a specific sense ‘‘as an impulse whose only object
is beauty . . . . Little more is gained by such a use of the
word ‘play’ than the distinction of beauty from truth and
morality.’’*
Benedetto Croce maintains that beauty is expression.*
He makes it consist not in the physical or outer embodi-
ment, but in the inner vision, the imaginative creation of
the artist. That an artist should produce his vision in
color or should sing his song or play his symphony is a
mere accident and not essential to the beauty itself. Since,
according to Croce, all expression is beautiful, there can
be no degrees of beauty. On all these points of his theory
he has been confronted by the critics. “They have recog-
nized that in calling beauty expression, Croce has touched
the essential character of all self-activity but has not dis-
tinguished beauty from its opposite. All activity in ex-
perience is expression, yet not all is beautiful. Croce re-
3’ Theory of Beauty, p. 15.
4 Aesthetic, trans, by Ainslie, 2d edition, part i. chaps, 1., ix., x.
4 THE WORLD AS VALUE
plies that the ugly is just that which inhibits full expres-
sion. ‘‘Faulty expression is no expression.’ Nevertheless
this reply does not do away with the distinction between
the expression that satisfies and the one that does not
(‘faulty’). The critics contend further that expression
is complete only as bodied forth in tone or color or marble
or verse, and in some way given definite form. This
would seem to harmonize with ordinary views of zsthetic
experience. The point is not vital. We need only recall
the distinction already made between the experience world
as it exists in the concrete for the individual and the same
world as prepared for social exploitation. The one is pri-
vate, the other communicable. So the individual artist
may enjoy his own fantasies. But these have a social sig-
nificance only when expressed in terms of the common
world. Finally the conclusion that there are no degrees
of beauty, while following from Croce’s premises, is
plainly at variance with actual experience. Our esthetic
experience may vary from the keenest delight and self-
absorption down to indifference and thence to distaste.
Yet we may say with Croce that the esthetic experience is
expression, provided we mean by the statement that it is
free expression. It would be better to say that the satis-
fying experience awakens to spontaneous creativity. Such
creativity is in the strictest sense self-expression.
Theodore Lipps® varies but slightly from this concep-
tion when he says that the esthetic experience is a thrill of
sympathetic feeling. (Einfthlung is the word he uses.
Titchener in his Psychology uses the word “‘empathy’’ to
express the same idea. It is to be distinguished from sym-
pathy as being more a feeling as if from within the object
than a feeling with it.) In expounding this view, Lang-
feld says that in empathy ‘‘one’s own personality is merged
and fused in that of some external thing.’’® Empathy
prompts to imitative response, revealed often only by a
slight tension of the muscles involved or a diffused feeling
5 Aesthetik, 2. Aufl. Bd. i. p. 105 ff.
6 The Aesthetic Attitude, p. 137.
JEST RE TIGA ABUES 1D
of muscular responsiveness. “The imitative motor impulse
is the characteristic feature of empathy. That we have
in this theory a large measure of truth can hardly be
doubted. But the imitative activity is only a part of the
effect, so blended with the actual experience as not to be
separated except ideally. The essential fact is that the
beautiful object satisfies and therefore sets free. “The aban-
don that follows may express itself.in a variety of ways,
dependent on capacity and interest.
Miss Puffer describes the beautiful object as one that
possesses those qualities which bring the personality into
a state of unity and self-completeness.? The sense of
unity in the self is the subjective side of beauty, the zs-
thetic attitude. Whatever inspires in one the sense of
unity and self-completeness is objectively beautiful. The
critic might find some obscurity in this characterization.
What is the state of unity? Is not the sense of unity
keenest when we gather ourselves together for a difficult
task? Does this not grow less when we relax and enjoy
esthetic satisfaction? Miss Puffer might explain that the
unity here meant is that which for the nonce looks no
further for its completion. In other words, it is the self
in possession of an experience that satisfies, and hence lib-
erates from desire, frees from tension, stimulates to joyous
activity. As the practical tension is released, the spontane-
ous activities start up. [hus the representative characteri-
zations of beauty, subjectively considered, all imply a dis-
tinctive development in the mental life consequent upon
the sense of liberation felt in the presence of the object
that satisfies.
Certain other features of the zxsthetic experience are
very generally recognized. Of these the two most im-
portant are the disinterested character of the experience
and the objective character of beauty. (By the latter is
meant that what is beautiful for one person should be
beautiful for others of like training and culture.) AEs-
thetic appreciation is disinterested. “Io be able to enjoy
7 The Psychology of Beauty, p. 49.
196 THE AWORLD VAS VALUE
a beautiful object without wanting to own it is to tran-
scend the purely practical point of view and enter into
the realm of beauty.* Perhaps the disinterestedness arises
from the fact that zsthetic appreciation is possession in
the deepest sense and needs no supplementation. The
beautiful object pleases by its mere presence, in and for it-
self; its benign influence permeates one’s nature; it is en-
joyed to the full in mere contemplation.
That the esthetic experience is rooted in the objective
world can hardly be denied, despite the extreme variety of
experiences that the same object may evoke in different
people. But is beauty itself objective? Yes, we must
answer. It is as objective as sound or color or substan-
tiality. It is subjective, too, in being so changeable and
various. ‘There is no disputing about taste, as the prov-
erb runs. Each person in judging exsthetically knows that
he is right, each enjoys the picture or the poem or the song
for himself; others may think what they please. Yet
there is a tendency to adjust our likes and dislikes so as
to make them harmonize with the judgment of those who
are known to have more highly developed taste. “That
beauty is subjective in this sense in no way compromises
its objective character. It is objective in its changeability
and individuality, just as every experience is. Further-
more it adheres to some object, whether in the physical
world or in the realm of the imagination. ‘The presence
of the object is necessary to the experience. A change of
objects brings a change of experience. Each embodiment
of beauty produces a unique, strictly incommensurable
pleasure. Moreover an object adjudged beautiful is
thought to have that quality for others besides the one
judging. In the case of beauty as in the case of any other
experience, to reach the common-to-all, there must be ad-
justment and a certain amount of substitution, since every
experience of whatever sort is unique. Finally we can
8 For criticism of this contention, see G. Santayana, The Sense of
Beauty, p. 37 ff.
/ESTHETIC VALUES 197
see, even in Croce’s idea of beauty as expression, a reason
for making it objective. From the point of view reached
in Part II we can have no difficulty in agreeing with both
conceptions, so far as they are positive. Beauty is subjec-
tive as an experience and objective as an expression. It
originates in the esthetic attitude and depends on a specific
adjustment of the self to the object.®
What in the object justifies our calling it beautiful?
What gives it the power to satisfy the mind in the mere
contemplation of it, to free the inner life for the time from
the control of practical interests and stimulate to happy
thoughts? The answer must be somewhat general and
vague. The elusiveness of beauty as a characteristic of
objects has been dwelt upon by many students, and is evi-
denced by the many attempts to define it. Palmer voices
a common experience when he writes, ‘Almost everybody
who has tried to track the shy thing has been obliged to
acknowledge that it finally takes covert in mystery.’’!°
But we can be sure of one characteristic, for every critic
makes much of it. To be beautiful an object must be
symmetrical, must express a unity that contains no ob-
trusive or inharmonious parts. “These terms—symmetry,
harmony, unity—are teleological; they have a meaning
only with reference to an ideal in the mind. Perhaps the
same thought might be better expressed by saying that an
object is adjudged beautiful if it fulfils its nature, expresses
itself fully and without fault. This statement, like the
other, implies a standard of judgment. What is the na-
ture of a thing? What constitutes an obtrusive develop-
ment? Questions of this sort can be multiplied, and each
must be answered differently for each individual object.
In the exercise of taste, therefore, there is wide room for
differences of opinion depending on the range and charac-
ter of our education, aptitudes, interests. The force of
social approval tends to reduce these differences of zsthetic
judgment. But whatever the variations of taste, the object
9Cf. Langfeld, The Aesthetic Attitude, chap. iii.
10 G. H. Palmer, The Field of Ethics, p. 94.
198 THE WORLD AS VALUE
must present to the mind such a unity as satisfies and leaves
no desire to emend.
Artistic beauty is the embodiment of an artist’s ideal,
and expresses an emotional attitude toward a depicted sit-
uation. In this embodiment there must be a completeness
of finish that excludes the suggestion of partial failure.
Besides this evidence of skill and competency in the reali-
zation, the work must possess what has been called sin-
cerity or xsthetic truth. “These expressions are meant to
exclude unbecoming triviality and such artificiality as of-
fends good taste. Whatever degrades or minimizes the
worth of the distinctively human, sins against zxsthetic
truth. Aésthetic values express so completely the inner
life of the spirit that they become self-stultifying when
they compromise human nature; but esthetic truth is pre-
served by whatever expresses or suggests some essential
aspect of the emotional life. “This requirement can be met
in depicting even the fantastic and grotesque. Further-
more beauty is so joined with life that it can hardly be
said to exist in what yields no suggestion of the vital and
organic.
In trying to summarize the wisdom of the critics as re-
gards the conditions of xsthetic satisfaction, we can hardly
do better than to follow the lead of Volkelt in his great
work on 4sthettk. He gathers into four brief statements
what seem to him the fundamental norms of esthetic
taste. In the formulation of these norms he has recog-
nized both the subjective or psychological and the objec-
tive points of view. As given below these statements are
paraphrases rather than translations of the German
Normen."
1. To be esthetically satisfying a work of art should
be emotionally picturesque, and should express harmony
of form with content.
An object is emotionally picturesque when it lifts the
percipient above the fragmentary, flat, and commonplace
11 System der Aesthetik, vol. i., pp. 392-585.
JES THETIC VALUES 199
into the ideal world of the novel, quickening, liberating
emotions. ‘That the perception should be pure emotion
is the goal never actually reached. It is approached in
music and in poetry as recited. For a poem esthetically
satisfying, the poet must select words charged with emo-
tional content, not the coin of ordinary commonplace in-
terchange. Words wear smooth and wear out. ‘The re-
quirement of emotional picturesqueness would be violated
by a painter, for instance, who should set forth on his
canvas, even with great skill, a group of figures or a situa-
tion that left the beholder indifferent. A novelist might
show great ability in portraying an utterly commonplace
character and fail to arouse a sympathetic interest in the
reader. His creation would be esthetically faulty. In
like manner a dull emotionless work in music or any
other art is rated low in esthetic quality.
The objective counterpart of emotional picturesqueness
is harmony of form and content. “The form includes all
surface features. In painting or sculpture, for instance, it
would include not only spatial aspects but materials, colors,
light and shade—whatever serves as a medium of expres-
sion, ‘Ihe content refers to the meaning or significance
of the production. [The norm requires a harmony be-
tween these two aspects. “The harmony of form and con-
tent corresponds to the blending of vision and emotion.
No meaning should be unembodied. The esthetic object
is through and through a form embodying a content. The
form full of meaning and the meaning entirely expressed
—this is the ideal.
Every medium has its own range of expressiveness.
The artist who would try to make one medium express
what is appropriate only for another medium would be
guilty of xsthetic impropriety. His work would suffer
from want of unity between form and content. For in-
stance, the attempt to depict a very complex situation
through the medium of marble is almost sure to fail. His-
torical paintings are apt to be weak in esthetic quality for
the same reason. In like manner “‘program music’’ has
200 THEAWORED TASaVABUE
been sharply criticized as violating the law of unity, since
music is supposed not to have any power in itself to ex-
press definite situations in time or space. ‘This does not
mean, however, that music may not start a train of emo-
tionally picturesque experiences that in themselves are defi-
nite, but only that the emotions may have a varied back-
sround of experiences. Purely ezxsthetic enjoyment is
diminished when a description of meaning must be fur-
nished with the music.
The norm would condemn whatever seems isolated and
without human significance. Deformities in man are not
proper subjects for esthetic treatment. “The norm excludes
also the tedious and flat. Yet the requirement of unity
does not predetermine the limits of any medium of ex-
pression. It is for the artist who ventures into the field
of program music or the commonplace in poetry or the
historical in painting to demonstrate his success in making
his work humanly significant. The development of art
has been marked by achievements in defiance of established
rules. In music, the introduction of discords and complex
harmonies, in drama, the ignoring of the ancient Greek
requirement for unity of time and place, in poetry, the
exaltation of the lowly and common, and in the field of
the novel, ventures into realism, illustrate how the scope
cf the arts has been vastly extended by transcending gen-
erally accepted norms.
But this twofold principle of emotional picturesqueness
and harmony of form with content permits of an exhaust-
less range of productivity. In a sense the principle applies
beyond the good ethically considered; for an art produc-
tion may represent the working of fate, the spontaneous
ebullition of joy or sorrow, the presence of fear, astonish-
ment, in fact, the naive in all its forms. Only that which
for us is empty, unintelligible, bizarre, or deformed is ex-
cluded.
2. Ihe work should enlarge our emotional life and
show a plenitude of human significance.
This norm is almost identical with the first, but carries
73S THETIC UV ALUES 201
us a step further. The extension of the emotional vision
results from seeing the typical in the individual and unique.
Such apprehension is not exactly the same as conceptualiz-
ing in the field of intellectual cognition, though the anal-
ogy is close. In the zxsthetic experience the typical is felt
rather than defined. We reach the typical in what is
deepest and most essential in our emotional life. The
more successfully a work of art can appeal to the elemental
emotions, the greater its xsthetic worth. Such creations
in literature, for instance, as Hamlet and Faust, unique
as individuals yet highly typical, permanently enrich our
lives.
This norm, objectively considered, limits the preceding
norm not only by excluding the trivial, worthless, foolish,
erratic, but by insisting that the content shall be essen-
tially significant. It takes issue with both the formalists
and the naturalists. [he first emphasize technique at the
expense of content; the second hold that everything
merely because existent has artistic worth. But beauty
inheres only in what interests man. To be esthetically
satisf ying a work of art must speak to us of the character-
istically human. Beauty pertains to the teleological aspect
of nature, not to the merely mechanical. When we view
life zsthetically, we find the self coming to the fore, and
we see its worth and destiny as of paramount significance.
This vitally connects the xsthetic with the moral. In
fact, it brings all the great values—the cognitive, zxsthetic,
moral, religious—into closest connection. All that is be-
low the human plane takes an xsthetic worth as symbolic
of the human. And all that is superhuman must be rep-
resented as being essentially human in emotional life,
however much it may transcend the human in power and
cognition.
3, The work should loosen the hold of reality and in-
duct us into an ideal world of the tmagination.
Into this norm are gathered such partial truths as that
tthe world of beauty is one of illusion, of play, of con-
tentless form, of disinterested contemplation. The sense
202 THE WORLD AS VALUE
of reality is developed in the presence of resistance to our
wills. . The seeking for material gain or knowledge or
moral worth is a seeking for the sense of reality. The xs-
thetic attitude, not being an attitude of work or of plan-
ning or of research, apprehends reality with less intensity
and less sharpness of outline. It creates a new type of
reality, weaker, less lasting, less obtrusive. In the pres-
ence of this less substantial reality, the commonplace, care-
producing interests fall away, and in their stead comes a
feeling of restfulness, relaxation, and freedom. “The “‘dry
and driving’ practical man of the world finds it difficult
to let go of the prosaic reality in its ordinary aspects. He
is literally bound. Whatever might free him to enter into
the world where beauty makes its alluring appeal and
brings its rest and peace would be of supreme value to him.
The artist finds beauty everywhere. He re-groups objects,
gives them a new setting, adorns them with what only
the inner eye can see. With the weakening of reality a
qualitative change comes into our world. The emotional
accompaniments of the esthetic attitude are not the same
as the emotions of real life. Love, longing, sorrow are
so transformed as rightly to be called make-believe emo-
tions. Yet they are none the less strong and genuine.
The world of beauty is an ideal world, the work of crea-
tive imagination. As detached from the world of struggle,
disappointment, anxiety, it becomes a world of conscious
illusion, or of play reality. As soon as the mind lets go
its hold upon the practical concerns of life, where the me-
chanical holds sway, it builds its world of beauty. This
attitude is not rare, it is not one that requires conscious
preparation, nor does it involve any special effort. The
mind can enjoy itself amidst objects of beauty, whenever
it can even for a moment drop its interest in practical
affairs.
4. A work of art should stimulate mental synthesis,
and should set forth the object as an organic unity.
The esthetically satisfying stimulates to mental syn-
thesis, or rather it frees the mind for a spontaneous activ-
AAS THE TIGI VALUBS 203
ity of integration. This activity begins as soon as one
realizes that further analysis is not of practical value. We
break up a whole of experience in the interest of knowl-
edge. We divide to conquer. Analysis is needed for the
life of volition and accomplishment. With that need in
abeyance for a time, the mind indulges itself in making
new combinations, tracing new connections, building new
unities. We view a situation exsthetically only when we
view it as a whole. Emerson, the poet-philosopher, ex-
pressed this thought in a concrete way when he said:
“The charming landscape which I saw this morning is
indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms.
Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the wood-
land beyond. But none of them owns the landscape.
There is a property in the horizon which no man has but
he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.’’”
Fortunately we are all poets in some measure.
Detailed study involving careful analysis is often nec-
essary to bring out the complex and half-hidden elements
of beauty; but this work is preliminary, and means noth-
ing xsthetically until the attitude, not of research, but of
appreciation is attained. “Then the details of a complex
situation are melted together by an emotional synthesis
into a living whole. Now wholeness always implies pur-
pose in some form, and purpose is practical. Yet the xs-
thetic attitude contrasts with the practical. “This seeming
conflict of ideas can easily be adjusted. The term prac-
tical may refer to practice, and then it involves desire for
change, or it may mean, pertaining to value. Only in
the second sense is the xsthetic attitude practical.
The universality of the esthetic sense points to an es-
sential human need for free play of the creative imagina-
tion. [he mind constructs for its own pleasure. The
only occasion it needs is the sight of a beautiful object, a
work of art, or a bit of nature that satisfies. This arrests
its attention and holds it fast with the greater ease, be-
12 Complete Works, Centenary edition, vol. i. p. 8.
204 THE WORLD AS VALUE
cause the mind feels most at home in the presence of
beauty. Esthetic pleasure makes the mind frolicsome.
To be ezsthetically satisfying the object must manifest
an organic structure—unity in variety and variety in
unity. The ideal is the completest unity encompassing
the greatest variety. Without manifest unity the work
would tend to distraction. Without variety the work
would soon become monotonous. A novel so simple in
plot as to give the mind little of synthetic work to do
illustrates one fault, and a long novel too intricate in plot
to be comprehended in a general view illustrates the other.
In bringing out the sense of organic unity, much depends
on the grouping of events or situations. “The parts must
be so instinct with a vital principle of connection as to
suggest life. The superfluous, the incongruous, the
loosely attached, the discordant, the meaningless, detract
from this suggestion of organic unity, and spoil the zs-
thetic effect. “They suggest weakness, if not something
worse.
We may say then, in general, that beauty resides in the
object and is of subjective origin; that it is a something
in the object which by its symmetry, proportion, and
meaningful character expresses to the mind an ideal of
completeness; that in thus satisfying, it relieves the mind
of volitional tension and sets it free to enjoy its own crea-
tions of memory and fantasy. The zsthetic attitude is
elemental in its simplicity, yet it may involve all the com-
plexity apprehensible by the human mind.
Certain questions that arise out of the foregoing dis-
cussion concerning the nature of beauty deserve a passing
notice. Is there a hierarchy of beauty? Can there be
found anywhere or conceived as an ideal a beauty so evi-
dently supreme and dominant that all other manifesta-
tions of beauty must be ranged under it? Croce and
others answer in the negative. Beauty for them is the
same in essence wherever found, and it has no degrees of
intensity or quality, since all expression is perfect expres-
sion. But their conclusion does not seem to harmonize
feos THE ICIVALUES 205
with the facts of experience. Beauty as expression may
vary in adequacy and finish, just as that which is ex-
pressed, the meaning, may be much or little. Richness or
amplitude of meaning, that is, the amount of pleasure and
inspiration that a beautiful piece of art can induce, depends
upon many factors none of which are constant. Some
beautiful objects satisfy more than others. The ideal of
perfect beauty that satisfies altogether, always, and in su-
preme measure would doubtless be found in the realm of
selfhood. It would have to be the ideal personality. But
could such an ideal be used as a principle for organizing
esthetic values into a comprehensive system? This would
hardly be possible, though the difficulties would be prac-
tical rather than theoretical. “The data are available, but
are too complex and subtle for exact scientific treatment.
While there is a sameness of essence in accordance with
which we call an object beautiful whether it be a vase or
a melody or a lyric or a painting or a cloud effect or a
mountain scene or a human face, yet each object is beau-
tiful in its own unique way. No one form can take the
place of another. There is a strict individuality in beauty
that not only differentiates it from all other forms of
value, but differentiates each expression of beauty from
every other.
Moreover each medium of expression has its own range
of possibilities, its own laws and limitations. A person
may have a preference for one of these media rather than
another; but his preference is not based on any law of
human nature, it is dependent on aptitude or some other
adventitious condition. “The worker in marble finds his
world of beauty exhaustless so long as he obeys the laws
of his medium. Likewise the poet is satisfied with his
field of creative activity, and the musician with his. Of
all media of emotional expression music has seemed to
many estheticians the best adapted to the creation of
beauty. The reason given is that in music there is so little
of the purely physical and tangible, so much of the ether-
eal and spiritual. Music seems to be pure stimulus, pure
206 THE WORLD AS VALUE
incitement, pure inspiration. While the musician might
accept this statement, it would hardly satisfy the poet or
the master of the brush. All can agree, however, that
those forms of beauty are the highest which express most
richly the aspirations of the self in its moments of fullest
life. But this statement is too vague to be used as a basis
of classification.
A question suggested at the beginning of our discussion
of xsthetic values but passed over at the time concerns the
reason for treating the sublime and the comic as forms of
beauty. As for the sublime, one might ask, is it not dis-
tinctive? Does it not characteristically overawe, enthrall,
and check the free activity of the self? And does it not
really have a depressing effect that may be far from pleas-
ant? Does it not contrast with the beautiful in many
ways? Really the main difference is one of intensity.
The sublime may be tremendously impressive, but if it
actually overpowers and terrifies it does not manifest its
sublimity until the self recovers sufficiently to appreciate
the vastness before it. “The sublime awakens in the self
unwonted activity, heightened to an almost painful inten-
sity. “This means inner liberation, self-assertion, a deep
joy in living. When once the mind gets possession of
itself in the presence of the sublime, its inspirations differ
only in degree from the joyousness felt in the presence of
beauty.
The comic is in sharp contrast. It pleases by its incon-
gruities, its quick transitions, its surprises. Can the gro-
tesquely comical be beautiful? Can a situation which
calls forth mirth by its very awkwardness have the qual-
ity of beauty? In so far as it pleases and sets the mind
free for creative activity it must be adjudged beautiful.
From this point of view the comic may have beauty in a
high degree. But its quality is dependent on the subtle
influence of the normal, working by way of contrast. The
experience of the comical is, therefore, apparently more
complex than of other forms of beauty.
Finally, what is the relation of zsthetic to moral values?
ESTHETIC VALUES 207
This might better be discussed after we have considered
moral values in detail, yet something can be said at this
point if only by way of transition. Aésthetic values like
all others are values for a self. They differ in quality ac-
cording as they promote self-development. Each makes
its own characteristic contribution, but some are more ef-
fective than others. Just as they all must be known to be
appreciated and thus become cognitive values, so they must
vary in desirability and hence furnish the basis for moral
values. In so far as any values whatever please and sat-
isfy without the need of what lies beyond them, they call
forth the esthetic attitude and reveal the elusive quality
we call beauty. The connection, then, between moral and
zsthetic values is necessarily very close. As beauty can be
shared without loss, even be enhanced by sharing, it be-
longs to the higher values of life. Its appreciation is an
unalloyed pleasure, unmixed with any elements detrimen-
tal to the interests of the self. Hence its cultivation is
one of man’s permanent duties, and hence it has direct
moral significance. Such appreciation cannot take the
place of active volitional effort, but that is not to its dis-
credit. It helps to refine and elevate the emotions, render
us more sensitive to spiritual values of all kinds, call out
the affections, and sweeten all of life. When we come to
study the self in its relation to the manifold spheres of
value, we may find reason to see still more in esthetic
values than is here indicated.%*
13 Cf, Palmer, The Field of Ethics, p. 90 ff.
CHAPTER IV
MORAL VALUES
The moral life begins with the first act of choice. How
early in the life of an individual this first choice takes
place no one can tell. Presumably we begin to choose
when we begin to live. In so far as this is true we are
moral in being human. But large allowance must be made
for immaturity and changing insight, not to mention self-
control. Just as a child at first is scarcely more than a
bundle of wants and reflex impulses, so its moral life must
begin in what is essentially sub-moral.
Distinctively moral values pertain primarily not to the
objects sought after, but to the attitude of the self toward
competing goods. This statement, rightly understood,
seems self-evident. Yet it can easily be misconstrued into
meaning that morality has to do only with intentions,
let the consequences be what they may. Such an interpre-
tation is absurd and mischievous. ‘The attempt to sepa-
rate the moral intention from the consequences of an act
must be as futile as the attempt to sever the connections of
the two poles in a magnet. “They get their whole signifi-
cance from each other. A genuinely moral attitude pre-
supposes not only a will to make the right choice, but a
knowledge of what is involved therein and a will strong
enough to realize the choice. If the requisite knowledge is
lacking the attitude is defective; and if the will is weak
in execution, good intentions will not save it from moral
condemnation.
Because of this intimately personal character of moral
value, students of ethics who would confine themselves
exclusively to the objective point of view unduly limit the
208
MORAL VALUES 209
field. They do well in striving to make ethics as far as
possible a positive science of values. By studying concrete
situations they are able to discover the rules of conduct
most conducive to human welfare. “This task is of prime
importance and is in line with the scientific treatment of
other great human interests. But such a treatment pre-
supposes a basis of general theory that needs critical ex-
amination. If revision is neglected, the underlying theo-
ries are almost sure to harbor crude and conflicting ideas.
For instance, detailed objective study must assume a work-
ing conception of man, his main interests and his destiny.
An inadequate conception of man’s nature is certain to
distort one’s estimate of values and may lead to tragic re-
sults. The world war from which we are still slowly
recovering is a case in point.
Fortunately the objective treatment of the moral life
tends to correct itself. “To the reflective student it quickly
reveals its inadequacy. Questions arise as to why certain
clamant interests rather than certain others should be
satisfied. Why should economic prosperity be such an
absorbing objective? Why should society be so exercised
over matters of dress and social prestige? What makes
life worth living? Such questions, in time, become insist-
ent. “They compel one to turn aside from the pursuit of
the objective sources of value, to consider the self as the
evaluator for whom alone the values exist. One needs to
take account not only of man’s impulsive nature, his ap-
petencies and interests, but of his possible future as a de-
veloping intelligence. Values change in relative impor-
tance as one’s conception of destiny changes. Especially
does one need to appreciate the significance of man’s power
of intelligent choice. “This may seem to have no direct
bearing on the problem of moral values. But, in fact, it
carries the heart of the moral issue. We are moral be-
cause we can assume a right or wrong attitude toward the
goods of life, can suspend or reverse a decision.
Those whose scientific interests hold them persistently
to the objective treatment of moral values discount the
210 THE WORLD AS VALUE
subjective element of choice and intent. In a moment of
depression when the problem of objective right and wrong
weighed heavily upon him, Huxley declared, “‘I protest
that if some great Power would agree to make me always
think what is true and do what is right, on condition of
being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every
morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close
with the offer.’ This can hardly be taken as his delib-
erate judgment. It would mean the loss of all that gives
zest and significance to life—the eager uncertainty of seek-
ing, the exultation of achievement, the growing conscious-
ness of mastery in overcoming, the enrichment of person-
ality through struggle, the approbation of those whose
approval we most desire. Values would become insipid,
and their insipidity would have to be taken as the upper
limit of emotional satisfaction. Fortunately to choose
among goods is not only our prerogative, but a compul-
sion from which there is no escape short of imbecility.
Since every situation presents competing goods and
these may differ widely in their desirability, the central
problem of ethics is to find a principle of organization
which can serve as a guide in making our choices. Where-
as xsthetic values are too individual and unique to yield
to classification and system building, moral values are by
their nature relative, and exist only by virtue of some or-
ganization. Until there is a basis of judgment concerning
relative desirability among values, the moral personality
remains bewildered and distraught. But to bring order
into the world of values is extremely difficult. Attempt-
ing it we are confronted by all the complexity of the ob-
jective world where the values are found, and also by the
unfolding complexity of human life where the values are
appraised. We project our wills into this world of
change, and deflect however slightly the course of events.
The result may or may not be immediately satisfying to
us; We may or may not secure the good we intended. But
the immediate effects are only the beginnings; what of
1 Methods and Results, p. 192 f.
MORAL VALUES 211
the distant consequences in the outside world and in our-
selves? Our grasp of any situation is limited to a few of
the nearer and more obvious aspects; where can we get
the larger insight that we as moral beings must have?
Who can tell how to organize our vast heritage of values?
This is the ethical problem of the ages. The quest is for
the highest good—the principle of organization—as a
standard for determining what for us as human beings is
of most worth.
The meager success attending past efforts and the con-
tinuous recurrence of the same problems have disheartened
not a few students and turned their thought to the field
of empirical generalizations, the discovery of the laws of
choice which change with social, economic and cultural
conditions. Can we ever get such a view of objective
values and such an insight into the deeper recesses of the
developing self as to see the whole dominated by a uni-
tary principle? As each period in the life of the self has
its own preferential values, so has each stage of culture in
the social whole. Must we, then, conclude that there is
no final standard of value applicable to all stages and con-
ditions? This is a position taken by some influential
writers of the present day.
A. E. Taylor summarizes his view thus: “But we say,
first, moral progress is not an ultimate fact; our moral
gains, as we can often see in particular cases, have had to
be paid for by losses of one kind and another; and next,
moral progress is progress towards the realisation of an
ideal built on compromise—an ideal that falls to pieces
the moment it is subjected to serious and honest philo-
sophical analysis; and therefore what appears as progress,
when judged with special reference to one of the materially
conflicting aspects of the ideal, may be looked upon as
retrogression when estimated with reference to the other.’’”
Much can be said for such a position. “The fashion of the
day in intellectual matters favors it. We are in revolt
against finalities of every description. Why go on a boot-
2 The Problem of Conduct, p. 302.
Pate THE WORLD AS VALUE
less search for what is really transcendental when there are
urgent practical issues close at hand?* ‘This argument has
the ring of moral earnestness and common sense. It calls
us back to the daily situations that we must confront.
It is moral realism of an appealing sort. But it is also
moral scepticism, insidious and all-pervading. It affects
deleteriously every major interest of life, lowering the
moral tone, weakening aspiration, and undermining con-
fidence in one’s self. The abandonment of the quest for
the highest good is simply intolerable to any one who
sees what it means. Many failures do not justify a final
scepticism of man’s ability to reach the coveted insight;
for nothing less than the unity and destiny of the self is
involved. Let negative criticism be as keen and destruc-
tive as it may, it can only establish more securely the solu-
tion that survives. This intellectual urge from the depths
of selfhood is itself suggestive of what the highest good
must be.
The advantageous method of approach will be to con-
sider the general characteristics that the highest good must
possess, and then look about within the compass of our
moral horizon for what may meet the requirements. In-
cidentally this will enable us to pass in review the typical
solutions of our problem and to meet the criticism of Tay-
lor and others.
Evidently a good to be supreme and of unconditional
value, capable of dominating all other goods and furnish-
ing the law of their organization, must itself be supremely
inclusive. It must be capable of taking over into itself
whatever the experience of mankind pronounces good.
In short, it cannot be a good set over against other goods,
a good to be chosen instead of them. To this extent
Leslie Stephen was right when he said: ‘The dread of
hunger, thirst, and cold; the desire to gratify the pas-
sions; the love of wife and child or friend; sympathy
8 Cf. Leslie Stephen, The Science of Ethics, p. 461; also Taylor,
OF cilia sth io ee
MORAL VALUES BAYS
with the sufferings of our neighbours; resentment of in-
jury inflicted upon ourselves—these and such as these are .
the great forces which govern mankind. When a moral-
ist tries to assign anything else as an ultimate motive, he
is getting beyond the world of realities.”’* The reason
for this requirement of inclusiveness is plain; such a good
as might come into competition with others would be
subject to the vicissitudes of our changing emotional life.
It might at any time be set aside without manifest moral
absurdity in favor of a rival good; for the issue would be
simply, which makes the greater appeal? A _ blessed-
ness that palls is ready to be superseded.
Again this supreme good must be capable of internal
development, so as to adapt itself to the capacities of the
developing self. This requirement is almost identical
with the preceding, since to be all-inclusive, the good
must have perfect adaptability to differing ages and de-
grees of culture, as well as to all the fluctuations of indi-
vidual sentiment. But to mention this requirement sep-
arately is to give added emphasis to the principle of growth
which must be embodied. Yet how can such a good, be-
ing so various, have any unity? How can it exist as the
supreme yood when it must identify itself with every
other good of life? What can save it from utter vague-
ness?
These questions bring into relief a third requirement as
important as either of the others. The summum bonum
must be sufficiently definite to serve as the principle of
organization for the whole world of values. “This require-
ment would appear to be the most difficult one to satisfy.
As an organizing principle the highest good must not only
be definite, but must maintain its identity. Otherwise
confusion would result. One need not wonder that the
quest for such a good should seem so nearly hopeless. “The
three requirements—inclusiveness, adaptability, definiteness
—are to all appearances incompatible. One thing is sure,
they decisively rule out all objective goods, that is, goods
4 The Science of Ethics, p. 461.
Mes THE WORLD AS VALUE
identified with the objects of the external world. These
are definite but exclusive. “They may have some adapta-
bility, yet not enough to prevent their being outgrown.
They depend for their value on the changing tastes and
attitudes of people.
But if the highest good is not anything we can acquire
from without—not wealth or position or power—where
can we look for it? Religiously minded people might say,
“To do God’s will is our highest good’’-—""To glorify God
and enjoy him forever,’’ as the Westminster Catechism
has it. “This comes near to meeting the conditions. It is
all-inclusive, or should be. It should be—and that is
the difficulty. What is God’s will? Every creed has -its
answer, and every individual who subscribes to a given
creed interprets it in his own way. Each one’s interpre-
tation can be justified only by appeal either to external
authority or to experience. External authority has no
place in this discussion, for it is simply a foreclosure pro-
ceeding. If we are to think our problems through, we
must not be cut short by a dictum, however sacred the
authority. In facing the issue we can recognize no author-
ity except that of insight. If we hold that God’s will is
our highest good and yet appeal to experience to learn
what that will is, experience itself appears as our real
authority and God’s will as an afterthought.
A further difficulty arises when we consider the future.
How can we adjust the theory to growing insight? We
must either acknowledge that what we had thought God’s
will was not actually his permanent will, or that the new
insight, if incompatible, is a false and pernicious belief.
In either case we encounter embarrassment. The possi-
bility of our being mistaken as to the content of God’s
will must either turn us back to experience for support or
make us into obscurantists, intent on blindly establishing
an outgrown creed. [he ‘‘will of God’’ is but a name
for the highest good. ‘The sanctity in the name tends
to fixate the content. As a people’s moral life develops,
MORAL VALUES aM Ms
this content may come to seem immoral. History fur-
nishes many illustrations.
If, however, we introduce the principle of growth, we
might look upon God’s will as always right, but as
progressively revealed to man according to man’s ability
to understand. This would allow for a good deal of
suess work, of trial and error, of misunderstanding and
revision. Thus God’s will would become practically
equivalent to the categorical command of conscience to
seek the highest good when we know what that is. Once
we find the highest good and recognize its power of
growth, we are at liberty to identify it with the will of
God. This identification has great value. It transforms
duty into an expression of personal allegiance to God,
and thus gives devotion to the right a depth of meaning
not otherwise possible. Nevertheless only mischief is
likely to result when the order is reversed.
We may conclude, therefore, that in man and in man
alone can be found the highest good. This conclusion
seems reasonable on the face of it, since the good as such
exists only for man. He is the judge; he alone can set
up a standard. If, then, we turn to the self as carrying
in its own nature the highest good, what features of the
subjective life can satisfy the conditions? Viewing the
history of thought on this subject, one is impressed with
the persistence of the hedonistic conception that the high-
est good is pleasure.
This conception makes an immediate appeal, for pleas-
ure is evidently a common element in all goods. Appar- °
ently, too, it is the only common element. Goods differ
among themselves, but they are good because they please.
No person in his right mind would freely choose discom-
fort or pain as his good, unless he were persuaded that it
had to be accepted as a means to the attainment of out-
weighing good. With pleasure regarded as our highest
good we might conceivably arrange the goods of life in
accordance with such tests as relative intensity, duration,
and quality of after effects, and thus form a hierarchy of
216 THE WORLD AS VALUE
goods. If such a scheme of relative desirability could be
worked out in detail, we might apply it with comparative
ease in every case of doubt. ‘The suggestion is near at
hand that a calculus of values, mathematically exact,
might be constructed, if only we could get the requisite
data. Hedonism then must be recognized as containing
much truth. It certainly cannot be ignored by a serious
student of the moral life. Before it can be validated,
however, it must be cleared of certain ambiguities.
What is meant by the term pleasure? It may have
the widest range of meaning. At one time it may be con-
fined to the sensuous gratifications of the voluptuary; at
another, it may be extended to cover the shrewdly cal-
culated satisfactions of the cultured but selfish man of the
world; at another, it may include the inspiration which
comes from devotion to a great social ideal. A principle
that may thus be broadened to include all possible satis-
factions, or contracted till it means only present, passing,
sensuous feelings, can be of little value as a standard. By
a mere shift of meaning from the agreeable affective states
in bodily functioning to the higher ranges of esthetic and
social interests, one may make contradictory statements
concerning pleasure. In its most restricted meaning as
the satisfaction of the physical senses, pleasure is mani-
festly inadequate, except for those who have once for all
abandoned themselves to brutishness. “The low lines of
application in this sense condemn it.
On the other hand, when we make it cover all sorts of
satisfactions, it becomes a blanket equivalent for good in
general. As such it yields no special insight into the rela-
tive desirability of goods. ‘The initial difficulty, then,
with hedonism is that its fundamental conception is am-
biguous. In attempting under the stress of criticism, to
clear the doctrine of ambiguity and develop its possibili-
ties, hedonistic thinkers, especially recent ones, have moved
toward a somewhat contrasting conception. ‘They early
recognized that hedonism must transcend not only the
lower types of sensuous pleasure (Cyrenaicism), but also
MORAL VALUES ey,
every form of merely selfish gratification, however ex-
tended and refined, if it was to commend itself to the
healthy moral consciousness. “This led to its development
into what, since the time of John Stuart Mill, has been
called utilitarianism. In several respects this doctrine is
an advance upon its prototype.
Improvements were attempted in three directions.
(1) The tests of relative desirability among pleasures
were elaborated. (2) A qualitative distinction was intro-
duced as a decisive test of desirability. (3) Social obli-
gation was recognized as equally significant with individ-
ual interest. ‘The first and last of these improvements
were developed by Jeremy Bentham; the second, by John
Stuart Mill. Bentham tried to show how pleasures could
be classified according to strict scientific tests, of which
he enumerated seven.® By applying these in any given
case, the relative desirability of a pleasure could be deter-
mined. Of any given pleasure as compared with other
pleasures, we want to know the relative intensity, dura-
tion, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or:remoteness,
fecundity, purity, and extent.
Without stopping to discuss these several tests, we note
that the last is of special significance as carrying us beyond
mere selfish or egoistic motives. [he individual should
will not only his own happiness, but the happiness of all.
“The greatest happiness to the greatest number’ should
be one’s guiding ideal. “To give definiteness to this ideal,
Bentham laid down the principle that everybody is to
count for one, and nobody for more than one. Asa basis
for reform legislation, of which England at the time was
in sore need, this exposition of hedonism was of great
service. But as a theory of morals its inadequacy was
soon revealed when the critics pointed out that all the
tests might be satisfied on a very low plane of living.
John Stuart Mill tried to save the theory by introduc-
ing the notion of quality as a mark of distinction among
pleasures. He said: ‘“‘It would be absurd that while, in
5 Principles of Morals and Legislation, p. 29 f.
218 THE’ WORLD FASOVAEUE
estimating all other things, quality is considered as well
as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be sup-
posed to depend on quantity alone. . . . It is better to
be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.’’"* Few
would question this pronouncement. But a qualitative
test seems to transcend hedonism. Dignity or worth as
the differentia refers to the self as a whole. Nor does
the conception of the greatest happiness to the greatest
number follow from the hedonistic premise. Why, for
instance, should I will the happiness of another, unless
I am persuaded that I thereby increase my own happiness?
How can I be sure that in this way my own happiness
will be increased? Experience on the whole seems to be
against such a conclusion. In uncertainty we must appeal
not to pleasure as an agreeable feeling, but to the self and
its nature as a social being.
The basis of social obligation, according to utilitarians
generally, is sympathy. But if sympathy is to meet the
requirements, it must be thought as more than mere feel-
ing. It must be able to justify all our moral judgments—
justice, benevolence, honesty—-and must explain the moral
emotions of remorse and self-approval. ‘This is a big
contract for the emotion of sympathy, unless it is sup-
ported by all the resources of the self. When, therefore,
all the elements involved in the emotion are included, the
self in its entirety stands before us.
One of the most influential moralists of recent times,
Henry Sidgwick, undertook to rehabilitate hedonistic util-
itarianism by arguing (1) that qualitative distinctions
among pleasures could be reduced to quantitative by the
simple device of giving them a higher quantitative rating
to correspond to a higher qualitative value;? and (2) that
the basis of social obligation is found in native intuitions
that give binding authority to justice, benevolence, and
their derivatives.®
6 Utilitarianism, chap. ii.
7 The Methods of Ethics, bk. i. chap. vii. § 2.
8 Ibid., bk. iii. chap. xiii.
MORAL VALUES Jat
On the first point one need hardly remark that quali-
tative distinctions are not actually reduced to quantita-
tive; they remain as unique and incommensurable as ever.
To give them quantitative expression is a matter of con-
venience in manipulation. Their uniqueness must be rec-
ognized, and can be accounted for only by reference to
the feeling of selfhood and its essential worth. ‘The sec-
ond point raises many questions, some of which we cannot
stop to consider. But plainly intuitions are not necessarily
valid. No ultimate obligation can be established by ap-
peal to them. This is so evident that it need not be
argued. If there were no other ground for setting aside
Sidgwick’s contention, the fact of conflicting intuitions
would be sufficient. “The moral judgments, justice, benev-
olence, and the like, are authoritative because they express
the fundamental demands of selfhood. “These demands
make such a spontaneous appeal to the developed moral
personality that they seem to be intuitive. They are
intuitive in the same sense that the apprehension of the
outside world is intuitive—we are not conscious of con-
structive mental activity in such acquisition.
In justice to Sidgwick we must say that he did a real
service in bringing to light certain limitations in the
theorizings of previous utilitarians, and in showing that
these limitations can be overcome by extending the mean-
ing of the term pleasure till it covers all satisfactions what-
soever. A significant statement indicates his final conclu-
sion as to the adequacy of hedonism: ‘‘For my own part,
when I reflect on the notion of pleasure—using the term
in the comprehensive sense which I have adopted, to in-
clude the most refined and subtle intellectual and emotional
gratifications, no less than the coarser and more definite
sensual enjoyments—the only common quality that I can
find in the feelings so designated seems to be that relation
to desire and volition expressed by the general term
‘desirable,’ in the sense previously explained.’’® This
statement is in harmony with the view just expressed,
9 The Methods of Ethics, bk. ii. chap. ii. § 2.
220 THE WORLD ( ASHV ALE
that the self and its attitudes determine what is good; for
a will attitude is an attitude of the self in willing. “The
good then turns out to be anything that satisfies desire.
What desires should be satisfied? Some are suppressed in
every choice. “Thinkers belonging to a school opposed to
hedonism reply that reason alone should determine the
choice.
This school has borne various names at different times
in its history—stoicism, intuitionism, rationalism. It has
expressed itself also in various forms according to the
individual thinker’s estimate of what is significant in such
questions as, Is there a moral sense? What is conscience?
Are there moral intuitions? What is the seat of author-
ity in morals? Are there unconditionally binding moral
laws? Which is more fundamental, egoism or altruism?
Yet the school is characterized in general by the doctrine
that the highest good is life according to reason. ‘This
school, more than others, has emphasized the intent of
the act rather than the objective goods as of moral worth.
‘The man of good will, even though he may under adverse
conditions fail of his purpose, is the man whom the moral
sense of a community approves. Without the good will,
all other goods are of doubtful value, nothing is what
it ought to be. “The man who consistently exemplifies
the good will has attained the highest good.
The good will, as the source of obligation, expresses
itself in a law of universal application. Kant’s formula-
tions of this law have become classic for rationalism.
Kant’s most frequently quoted statement of it, “Act as
if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will
a Universal Law of Nature,’’?° seems, on the face of it,
purely formal. Critics have maintained that any act
whatever can be universalized and made to meet the re-
quirements of the law. A liar could will that all men lie,
and a thief that all men steal if they wished. But such
a criticism borders on the absurd, as Kant himself shows
10 Kant, Theory of Ethics, trans. by Abbott, p, 39, cf. pp. 38,
119,
MORAL VALUES PAY)
in his exposition. The maxim must be worthy to become
a universal law. This is Kant’s evident meaning. An-
other formulation of this ‘‘categorical imperative,’ as
Kant calls it, brings out better the meaning he had in
mind: ‘‘So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine
own person or in that of any other, in every case as an
end withal, never as means only.’’4! This brings us to
a new point of view. ‘The good will is now represented
as good because it wills the good of rational beings. This
contention clears the moral atmosphere. It calls man to
a strict accounting for his every deed. It meets every
moral situation with a “‘Thou shalt’? or ‘““Thou shalt
not.” The thief, the liar, the slacker, the cheat, come
under condemnation; they treat other human beings as
mere means to the realization of their own selfish ends.
We can forgive Kant’s excessive zeal in emphasizing
the goodness of such a will apart from the question of
consequences, for he was calling attention to a vital but
neglected factor. When we interpret him broadly—and
his entire discussion amply justifies our doing so—we see
that he has come close to the insight we are seeking. To
treat humanity as of supreme worth and arrange all values
with reference thereto is to supply the moral life with a
basis both comprehensive and authoritative. But Kant’s
statement seems still a little abstract. “The humanity in
the individual may mean that which the individual is
because of his rationality. This evidently was Kant’s
meaning. But we are much more than merely rational,
as Kant well knew. We need to give Kant’s thought a
more concrete expression. In trying to do this we see
that whatever, in utilitarianism, is excluded by the
Kantian conception must be reinstated. “The good will
must find itself in the world of objective goods. It can
act only on a knowledge of relative values. Hence to meet
all the conditions, what is needed is a conception that
will embrace not only the good will but the principle of
relativity among objective goods. Such a conception can
11 Thid., p. 47.
222 THE WORLD AS VALUE
be none other than the conception of the self, the creator
of values, the being for whom all values exist. It is in the
well-being of the self and nowhere else that the subjective
and the objective factors are united. Goods become moral
when they are chosen in preference to some other goods.
This choice is the subjective factor. It refers the moral
quality not so much to the goods chosen as to the attitude
of the one who chooses. On the other hand, the intention
to choose the good must eventuate in a right choice, and
this involves a knowledge of objective conditions. A
completely moral act, then, must include knowledge of
consequences. ‘This is the objective element.
From our present point of view we can more accurately
appraise hedonistic doctrines. Is it pleasure that we seek?
Not always, nor even generally; rather it is the object that
we seek. Pleasure accompanies both the seeking and the
attainment of the object. But the quality of pleasure in
every case is different, depending on a multitude of sub-
jective conditions. Pleasure seems at first to furnish an
adequate basis for the organization of values, just because
it unconsciously borrows its quality from the situations
themselves in which the good is sought. As purely sub-
jective, it may simulate every variety of satisfaction and
thus seem exhaustlessly resourceful. But when taken in
this sense, it is mere feeling, and notoriously changeable.
Being without internal structure, it is devoid of any basis
for organization. All that makes it significant is derived
from that which is not mere feeling, such complex states,
for example, as relief from anxiety, the fellowship of
friends, the interest in a good book, the satisfaction fol-
lowing upon some achievement. ‘These are all qualita-
tively different and incommensurable. They involve
objective factors.
How can the exclusive subjectivity of pleasure be cor-
rected by an objectivity that does not exclude it? The
answer has already been given. Only the self with its
subjective life of emotion and its objective expression in
world construction can accomplish this union. And the
MORAL VALUES Zao
self exemplifies it perfectly in every conscious experience.
Hence whether we start with objective goods or with
some subjective factor, we are carried forward to the idea
of the self in its entirety as alone meeting the conditions
of the highest good. All other conceptions emphasize
some aspect of selfhood to the exclusion of others, and
therefore fail. The self cannot be thus divided, nor can
one of its phases be isolated from the rest without fatal
results for the moral life.
In making self-realization the goal of life and the
unconditioned good, we face many difficulties. Some of
these are cases of misunderstanding and some of confusion.
But there are some also that simply reflect the complexity
of selfhood and its indeterminate character as a growing
entity. Perhaps the most persistent ethical difficulty is
the feeling that self-realization as the supreme objective
would tend to make one self-centered, morbidly intro-
spective, and in subtle ways, selfish. Closely akin to this
criticism is the contention that since self-perfection means
perfection of function, and every experience, good or bad,
contributes to the development of function, the ideal of
self-realization fails to yield any principle of organiza-
tion, fails to distinguish the desirable from the undesir-
able. “These two are the most formidable difficulties that
beset the recognition of self-realization as the highest
good. ‘There are others of minor significance, but they
are for the most part mere specifications within the range
of the two major criticisms. For instance, How can we
reconcile self-realization with the ethico-religious ideal of
self-sacrifice and self-denial? What is the relation of this
ideal to agreeable feeling? In taking for granted that the
development of selfhood involves a corresponding increase
of happiness, are we not making an unwarranted assump-
tion of cosmic support? How can we know that an
enhancement of self-consciousness and the development of
a more sensitive attitude toward the hard facts of life
will not aggravate our sense of pain, failure, and the ulti-
mate futility of life? It would be easy to bring forward
IN i THE (WORLD AST VARUE
instances of spiritual depression following upon sensitive-
ness to the adverse conditions of living. Increase of sym-
pathy means increase of sorrow. Might we not come in
time to the oppressive conclusion that all is “vanity and
a striving after wind’? In view of this possibility would
it not be the part of wisdom to turn away from the highly
problematical ideal with its indefiniteness; its unproved
assumption of cosmic indorsement, and give our attention
to the objective values, known and proved? Not only
may we know these values by direct experience, but we
have ways of determining their relative desirability. Why
not make sure of these values and discard the vague ideal
of self-realization? What, after all, is the connection
between objective goods and the ideal? May not this
connection be such as to preclude our seeking both objec-
tive goods and self-realization at the same time? May
they not be in large measure mutually exclusive?
Critics further contend that we know too little about
the self and its possibilities to make its perfection or con-
summation the goal of life. Better abandon altogether
the fruitless task of defining the highest good and attend
to the values that experience actually reveals. Sometime
in the dim future man may know enough about himself
and his relation to the world to make the final generaliza-
tion that will exhibit all goods as having their place of
relative desirability in an all-embracing system. When
that stage is reached, the highest good will appear as just
the world of goods thus organized.
Our reply to these difficulties and objections contains
three points:
(1) The objective study of goods with a view to de-
termining relative desirability is essential. It is the whole
ethical problem viewed objectively. But this problem
cannot be solved from the exclusively objective point of
view. If we were in the midst of such an effort we should
inevitably encounter the question, What is the ultimate
reason for saying that one good is more desirable than
another? ‘This would precipitate the problem of goods
MORAL VALUES Z25
for a self. If goods are goods because a self has the capac-
ity to enjoy them, then an increase of selfhood must mean
an increase of capacity to enjoy, an increase of objective
values. From this point of view, self-realization and in-
crease of capacity to enjoy are practically interchangeable
terms. We regard as relatively undeveloped the self that
has but few contacts with its environing world of values.
Its sources of joy are few, primitive, elemental. As the
nature of the self unfolds, its contacts multiply, it becomes
capable of appreciating myriads of values in the realm of
the intangible and social that are practically non-existent
for the more rudimentary self. Its greater range and
subtlety of appreciation mean its greater development, its
movement toward ultimate self-realization.
(2) No system of moral values is possible without a
supreme principle of good, one that stands out distinct
from all others as of unconditional worth. This has
already been insisted upon. It is manifest that in a scheme
of values all other goods must get their rating from the
supreme good. Now the lesson of the centuries is that
not only do objective goods, as objective, fail to qualify
for the supreme good, but likewise all such subjective
ideals as pleasure, happiness, and reason, fail. These
ideals fall short only because they are mere phases or
aspects of the inner life. “They severally express in part
the activity of the self. When taken in their relation to
one another and as inseparably bound up in the life of
the self, they acquire a merit of a different order. It is
the self that must say what is good and what evil. We
must wait for its decisions to get any light on ethical
issues. When we say, then, that a good is a good for a
self, we must mean that the good of the self is the only
good.
(3) We know more about the self than we do about
anything else in the universe. It is our sole standard of
interpretation. When we ask what a given object is, what
its nature is, we answer in terms of selfhood. ‘There is
nothing else that we can do. The self is our principle
226 THE WORLD AS VALUE
of insight into the nature not only of other selves, but
of all objects, even the inanimate, of which we know
so little, because they have so little of the nature of the
self. They can move when started by something else,
but—if the mechanical view of nature is correct—they
can neither stop nor change the rate or direction of mo-
tion, once they are started. Something else must do it
for them. There is not much of selfhood in such objects;
yet our knowledge of their motions is derived from our
experience of our own movements. While we may not
know what in the far-off future the self may be capable
of becoming, we have even now the general lineaments
of all possible development of selfhood. The essential
nature of spirit, that is, the self in its social expression,
is known to us; and if spirit is the highest manifestation
of life, we can be sure of the direction that self-realization
must take.
True, one may reply, we know about the self, but do
we know the self? If we consider the variety of theories
as to the nature of the self, there seems to be nothing in
the range of experience so little understood. Some think
that the self is a changeless core of being in the midst of
mental states; others that it is a complex of such states;
others, that it is a canalized medium through which a
supposed ultimate power expresses itself; others, that it
is the sense of awareness accompanying mental states;
others, that it is nothing but an epiphenomenon—a bad
name for it as a troublesome non-entity. But these theo-
ries of the self need not disturb us at present. When in
the next part we have occasion to study the nature of self-
hood, we can gather up for critical review the typical
conceptions.
But the theory of self-realization ‘here advocated can-
not countenance the practical denial of the self’s existence
or its resolution into a mere interpenetrative succession of
mental states. “The minimum of assumption is that the
self has experiences, knows them as such, and is able in
some measure to control both its own inner states and
MORAL VALUES Sst
its external environment. So much is the plain teaching
of experience, and its denial is always in the interest of
some general theory born of a scientific preoccupation
with the mechanics of the thing world. The self to be
realized is the self of experience, not a psychological rep-
resentation of it.
An experience of selfhood can have a wide range and
can vary in depth. What self is to be realized? Here
we need to distinguish between the idea of the self as shut
in, centripetal, greedy, and the idea of the self as realizing
itself in society, that is, as giving of its own resources
and thereby enriching itself. These two conceptions are
not mutually exclusive, they merely mark different stages
of insight into what the self actually is. The notion of
the self as nothing more than a value-receiving center,
an appropriator of goods, is accepted as a matter of course
by those who have not thought seriously about life.
Such people conceive of the self after the analogy of
physical things that grow by accretion, at the expense of
other things. “Though ordinary experience, when care-
fully considered, does not support this crude notion, it is
all too dominant in practice. Especially is this true in
the economic world. But the self to be realized is the
social self that grows by giving and receives that it may
have more to give. ‘This self alone is the concrete reality.
Since this conception provides for unlimited growth
toward the ideal of ultimate human possibilities, it cannot
be transcended by any future development. In fact, race
progress may be measured by it. Within its scope one
may be as individualistic or as communistic as one likes;
egoism ceases to be a moral menace, altruism may no longer
mean the sacrifice of true self-interest.’?
But the critic may argue that self-realization presup-
poses that the good of society is always the good of the
individual, and vice versa. “The theory practically main-
tains that real self-denial is impossible, whereas one can
12 Cf. Warner Fite’s penetrative study, Individualism, pp. 122,
159-162.
228 THE WORLD AS VALUE
easily imagine a situation in which loyalty to the social
ideal apparently involves the sacrifice of the larger self,'®
as when one voluntarily chooses to live a cramped life in
order to help a dependent relative. The answer to such
a criticism is not easy. To be fully satisfying it would
have to draw upon all that can be known concerning the
nature and destiny of selfhood. But a suggestion may
help. Every moral situation has many unrealized possi-
bilities both of culture and of emotional satisfaction.
What may seem from the observer's point of view a dreary
monotonous task, may, to the one performing it from a
sense of duty, yield a continuous inspiration and serve as
the occasion of deepest spiritual contentment. When, for
instance, a young man gives up his cherished ambition
for a college education and returns to his old home to
take care of his indigent parents, he does not necessarily
forfeit the cultural value of such an education. He can
make himself great and spiritually rich in spite of drudgery
and pinching poverty. But it often takes a long look into
the future to make this idea effective in actual practice.
Because we are moral beings, our desires must be
dominated by the ideal of what is right. ‘The self thus
dominated can draw sustenance from any situation where
it is doing its duty. In weighing the criticism, therefore,
we should face the alternatives—the transforming, refining,
inwardly satisfying goods that are possible only to the
loyal self, and the blighting deteriorating effects of dis-
loyalty. As we further study the nature and destiny of
selfhood, the answer to the criticism may be made more
satisfactory.
The ideal of self-realization takes over and harmonizes
all competing conceptions of the summum bonum. It
does this by showing their limitations and re-interpreting
them as aspects of itself. But can it be made sufficiently
definite? Will it yield the principles whereby we may
arrange the goods of life in a true moral hierarchy? ‘This
is really the crucial issue. “There can be little question of
18 Cf, G, F. Fullerton, A Handbook of Ethical Theory, p. 262 f.
MORAL VALUES 229
the ideal’s comprehensiveness or of its adaptability; but
what of its definiteness? ‘The critic points out that any
good, or for that matter, any experience whatever tends
to realize the self. But this criticism fails to note that the
self to be realized is the social self, that is, the self in its
concrete completeness. When this is borne in mind, the
task of formulating principles of organization to guide
in the selection of goods is a matter of detail. For in-
stance, we may start with the general principle that social
goods are to be preferred to those that are exclusive. The
other principles and maxims follow."*
This conception of the highest good solves many per-
plexing problems of the moral life. It alone satisfies the
moral demand for authority. It requires that in all cases
of reasonable doubt a satisfactory investigation be made
into the relative desirability of competing goods. To be
neglectful or careless at this point is morally reprehensible;
the plea of ignorance does not save from condemnation
one who has blundered. After the decision has been
reached and one is reasonably sure what the choice should
be in the light of the ideal of self-realization, then the
authority of the ideal is absolute. From it there is no
appeal. Kant’s categorical imperative is here in place.
This ideal illuminates the meaning of duty and explains
the attractiveness of virtue. Duty is the sense of obliga-
tion felt in cases of conflict between what is impulsively
desired and what sound judgment indicates is on the
whole desirable. The old distinction between duties to
one’s self and duties to others becomes almost meaningless,
since all duties have the double reference.
Yet because of our limited insight, a question may
easily arise as to how far one is justified in devoting one’s
energies, say, to self-culture in ostensible preparation for
a career of social usefulness. When, for instance, should
one’s schooling end and active social duties be taken up?
In a general) way, such issues are met by appeal to con-
ventional verdicts, which express the wisdom of society,
14 Cf. H. W. Wright, Self-Realization, parts iii. and iv.
230 THE WORLD AS VALUE
But in all cases of doubt the ideal of the highest good
alone can decide and that decision is final. It does not
avail against this authority that we may be utterly and
flagrantly mistaken as to what the ideal requires; it is
our duty not to be mistaken; we must pay the forfeit
when we are.
Once duties are recognized, virtue is the permanent atti-
tude of loyalty to what is thought to be right. It means
inevitable progress in self-realization. At least this is a
reasonable faith, resting on wide experience as well as on
a study of the relation of the self to its world. People
usually accept it as a matter of course. Hence the center
of one’s interest in the moral life need never be self-realiza-
tion as a task. One can achieve the result better by con-
sidering what on the whole will promote social welfare,
and then undertaking to do one’s part in accordance
therewith. This requires preparation, equipment, and the
proper conservation of resources. It means care of one’s
health, freedom from undue anxiety, the cultivation of
hopefulness and good cheer, and all that may tend to
develop physical vigor and spiritual health. In short
devotion to the social ideal as embodied in home life,
society, church, state, school, carries with it devotion to
our own good.
Our ideal explains also the feeling of remorse which
follows moral lapses. ‘This feeling is not merely a sense
of disappointment or regret for failure to win a coveted
good (as utilitarians would naturally hold); it is far
more poignant and personal. It differs from disappoint-
ment also in being keenest after the first offence, and
srowing rapidly less with each repetition, till it fades
away entirely. Remorse is the consciousness that the self
has sustained a serious injury, that its integrity has been
violated, its ideal of good sacrificed. The reason why
this sense of personal loss becomes less with each repeti-
tion of the moral offense is that the moral ideal itself
becomes lowered. ‘The real social self tends to lose its
distinctive character and degenerate into a mere absorber
MORAL VALUES Zoi
of values which thereby become exclusive. The social
self shrinks into the centripetal self of ordinary selfishness.
Self-realization as here interpreted provides further for
the objectivity of moral values in a most satisfactory way.
Just as the world of experience is the individual’s own
construction, yet becomes, through a process already suf-
ficiently described, a common world with the marks of
empirical independence, so moral values, when tested by
the standard of self-realization, are seen to be values not
only for the self, but for society. When this is accepted
as a practical basis of living, a wholesome attitude of
self-devotion, or even of self-abnegation, naturally fol-
lows. In other words, we need give very little direct
attention to our governing ideal. Instead of causing us,
as some critics suggest, to brood over our own states of
mind or carefully to calculate the effect on ourselves of
a contemplated course of action, our ideal should induce
a spirit of self-forgetfulness. It should put a new and
deeper meaning into such paradoxical maxims as “‘He that
loseth his life shall find it,’’ ‘‘Die to live.”’
The conception of the self as essentially social is recog-
nized to some extent by most thinking people, though its
full significance is far from being realized. As an ethical
ideal it is as old as Christianity, if not older. But it has
never yet had a chance to reveal on a large scale its trans-
forming efficiency. Whenever it has begun to be a potent
factor in the life of Western nations, it has tended to a
one-sided expression that has really amounted to a per-
version of its true meaning. “Iwo influences “have been
at work, the lack of theoretical insight and the dominance
of institutions over the lives of the people. Christianity
had scarcely become the official religion of the Roman
Empire before the tyranny of ecclesiasticism began to sup-
press individual initiative in matters of belief and conduct.
The individual was lost in the churchly hierarchy. Sub-
mergence of the individual has burdened society with mili-
tarism, excessive nationalism, and an overgrown capitalism
—to mention only the three most influential institutions
Ao? THE WORLD AS VALUE
that have worked against the ethical ideal. Militarism
reduces the individual to a unit in a fighting machine;
nationalism provincializes the ideal and makes of it a
political shibboleth; capitalism tends to mechanize life
and reduce the individual workman to the status of an
economic factor in producing wealth. Until these insti-
tutions can be so modified as to make the ethical ideal
possible of realization in the social whole,’ we as indi-
viduals must continue to suffer together the loss of life's
supreme values.
Two outstanding problems remain. If our conception
of the highest good can dispose of these, or even show how
they may conceivably be met, it has presumably answered
every reasonable test. “These are the problem of freedom
and the problem of evil. While neither of these can be
treated with any approximation to thoroughness, we may
consider them enough to point the direction in which a
solution must be sought. As problems they confront
every theory of morals, though some theories succeed in
largely ignoring them. “The more objective the treatment
of the moral life, the less apparent the need of discussing
either freedom or the problem of evil. But the theory that
makes self-realization the moral goal encounters these
problems in their full significance. Nevertheless an ade-
quate treatment of them must wait upon a development of
the doctrine of selfhood.
From the standpoint of self-realization, freedom is the
power to act according to the ideal of the morally good.
Thus defined, freedom lies at the basis of the moral life
and makes that life possible. On first thought there
seems to be no problem. ‘The direct evidence of experi-
ence in choosing and striving is apparently sufficient to
establish the doctrine of freedom. But science, in analyz-
ing human nature and human conduct, relates them to
antecedent conditions and to the immediate environment,
and thus exhibits conduct as a resultant of natural causes.
Some who feel the force of this kind of evidence seek
a way of escape in the notion that freedom has only a
MORAL VALUES Hi
negative meaning. We are free, they would say, when
no external compulsion is felt, though at the same time
we are determined internally by the forces that build
character. These forces, expressed in the native consti-
tution of our being, are not felt as constraint, but gain
expression as impulse, desire, and even rational appeal.
Such a conception of freedom cannot satisfy the de-
mands of the moral consciousness. It makes real freedom
an illusion and leaves the moral life bound. The elab-
orate attempts to explain moral experiences while holding
the negative conception have failed and will continue to
fail, because instead of explaining choice and purposive
action with reference to a self-originated ideal, they simply
explain how terms used in moral discussion can be given
a different meaning in harmony with thoroughgoing
determinism. ‘The alternatives are the moral life, imply-
ing freedom in a positive sense, and a thoroughly mechan-
ized life that but simulates morality. In doing away
with freedom as a power of intelligent choice, the theorizer
disposes also of the self, and hence reduces the ideal of
self-realization to a case of self-deception in which
there is no self to be deceived. ‘That this is the outcome
of a strictly scientific treatment of conduct is evident as
soon as we recall the objective and observational char-
acter of scientific research. To recognize a self, one must
transcend the objective viewpoint.’° As for freedom,
nothing but a self can be free, hence the idea of freedom—
and shall we say morality ?—is extra-scientific.
But what of evil? It is ever present, thwarting en-
deavor, weakening capacity, bringing sorrow, pain, un-
rest, remorse, and ultimate failure in death. This grim
fact raises doubts concerning the worth-whileness of
moral endeavor, and tries one’s faith in the feasibility of
self-realization as the moral ideal. Before any discussion
of the subject is entered upon, it is well to recognize that
15 Cf, Morton Prince, ‘“Three Fundamental Errors of the Behav-
iorists and the Reconciliation of the Purposive and Mechanistic Con-
cepts,’ Psychological Bulletin, 1925, p. 101,
IA THE WORLD AS VALUE
no final solution of this problem is possible to finite in-
telligences. Evil pertains to the universe and involves
cosmic issues. All that is and was and is to be is impli-
cated. Yet we can come to a provisional solution, cov-
ering our moral needs, by reflecting on how life’s ills
actually help to self-realization. “To make this line of
thought entirely convincing, however, one must posit
“a life beyond life.”’ Short of this assumption, one can
get some satisfaction by considering the manifold ways
in which nature is adapted to be a training-school for
the development of selfhood. The very indifference of
nature to our individual preferences is the growing evi-
dence of its adaptability. If self-realization is possible
only through self-activity, and if that must be guided
by intelligence, then evidently the self must have un-
shaken confidence in nature’s laws. Consequences must be
inevitable, every act of ours must call forth its definitive
and appropriate reaction. In this sense the world must
be a mechanical world to be the basis of the moral life.
Suppose that the severity of the law of consequences
might at times be relaxed, what would be the effect on
us as moral beings? It would undermine the very foun-
dations of the moral life; we could never be sure of the
future, never count on nature's being true to itself; what
is order to-day might be chaos to-morrow—or rather it
would all be chaos. Neither the intellectual nor the
moral life can be developed and satisfied except in an im-
personal world that can be trusted in its mechanical pro-
cesses. In such a world evil consequences reveal our blun-
dering or our turpitude, and in so doing stimulate to
greater watchfulness, closer study of conditions, more
persistent effort. [his is the kind of world we are living
in, a world, consequently, of mixed good and evil, where
the evil in revealing itself urges us on to seek greater
goods. Every evil mastered makes available goods that
would not otherwise be within our reach. Nature is not
only on the side of the enlightened moral will, but at
every stage of human development yields goods that pre-
MORAL VALUES 935
pare the self for a larger life and greater goods. The in-
creased capacity is met by a vastly wider range of satis-
factions. The relation between the increase of capacity
and nature’s response is not reducible to a mathematical
calculus. So exhaustless are nature’s resources that a
slight increase of capacity on the part of the self is like
a key that may open up a whole new world of values.
Thus nature more than keeps pace with the needs of self-
hood.
Goods within goods and beyond goods are character-
istic of nature. As for pests and disease germs and thwart-
ings and separations and physical decay and death—these
must be viewed in the light of their service in promoting
the higher values of life. Even death, for aught we know,
may be a gain. But the mystery of evil is ever with us,
and only infinite insight can completely solve it. In later
discussion of religious values, a further step toward a
working solution of the problem can be taken. By con-
sidering how nature seems adapted to the development in
us of all the capacities of our being, for the production of
the higher values, and by considering how those values
which are of most worth are apparently least dependent
upon physical sources, we are encouraged to believe that
what is true within experience will continue to hold when
the present form of our experience ends. Whatever
strengthens the moral life makes this belief easier; but it
is not likely to become a certainty while the present life
lasts.
The sting of pessimism is removed when we advance
beyond the hedonistic outlook and see the self unfolding,
finding at each stage of its development a world of goods
adapted to its needs. The perverted or evil will may in-
fect the stream of life with a poison that generations of
suffering cannot eliminate. Wanton destruction, as in the
world war, must carry its baneful consequences into the
homes of innocent millions. We cannot escape conse-
quences, and well that it is so. But in the working of the
law of consequences the good is as inevitable as the evil.
236 THE WORLD AS VALUE
The good is good because it is stronger than the evil, so
that when given its chance it is certain to prevail. Let
the enlightened good will have its way in the world and
unimagined resources of nature will be uncovered for the
common good, society will be redeemed, the laws of hered-
ity will work for the advent of the higher type, and the
world will become a human brotherhood. Self-realiza-
tion, as the supreme good and the goal of all endeavor,
meets every test except the mystery of evil, and it comes
nearer than any other conception to solving that mystery.
It makes for faith in a progressive triumph over evil and
its utilization in the development of the higher human
values.
Self-realization, then, is the goal of life, the uncondi-
tional good to which all other goods are to be subordi-
nated. It gives the law that determines ultimately all
questions of relative goods; it is the source of all obliga-
tion, the basis of moral approval, the authority from
which there is no appeal. Granted that this is true
for the individual, what of society? Can we look for-
ward to a social life that will be adequate to the com-
pleted self of the individual? Certainly not in a society
constituted as at present. Much that seems necessary to
its very existence must be outgrown. It would be foolish
to venture into prophecy at this point, and suggest the
essential structure of the ideal society. “The many Utopias
that have been pictured are so out of touch with actual
conditions as to seem utterly impracticable. But we may
be sure that when self-realization has advanced even a
very little beyond the present, certain evils that dog us now
will be done away. While the structure of our economic
life now is pagan in its individualism, and puts a premium
on greed and cunning, we see forces at work to modify
it in fundamental respects by introducing the principle of
cooperation. When this principle is embodied in the very
structure and mechanism of society, the course of devel-
opment will seem more clearly marked and more easy to
MORAL VALUES DY.
attain. Society will be perfected in the realization of the
individual as a social being.
But doubts and questions swarm about this vision
of the future. What of the limitations of human life
as physically conditioned? With advancing civilization
human beings will become more and more specialized;
may it not be that over-specialization will end in maladap-
tation and final extinction, as has been the case with
myriad forms of life during geologic times? Furthermore
the physical sources of life are apparently becoming de-
pleted; what right have we to assume that they will not,
with the lapse of centuries and milleniums, drop below
the limits of human well-being? ‘Then, in thinking of
the future, we should not forget or ignore the selves that
are now striving ineffectually to realize their individual
good. What connection can they have with the ideal of
a society separated from them by zons of time? What,
too, of the abortive, defective, perverted, immature selves
who can have no inspiring outlook, no ideal? When the
individual ceases to live, his values go down with him.
What right have we to deny that in this way all human
values will in time vanish? Such questionings as these
make the moral ideal look like a fading dream. Life ap-
pears as a series of beginnings, full of promise but meager
in fulfilment. What right have we to believe that the
values dear to human beings will be conserved? ‘To an-
swer this question even in a provisional way, we must
pass to the consideration of religious values.
CHAPTER V
RELIGIOUS VALUES
Our present interest in religious values will be limited
for the most part to those which issue from the highest
forms of religion. The religious life of primitive and
semi-civilized peoples is full of interest to the scholar, but
is not our present concern.
What are religious values? ‘They are the values that
come into existence with an accredited belief in God as the
helper and protector of human beings. Just as different
people may have widely divergent conceptions of God, so
religious values may vary. Almost any ideal of supreme
attractiveness may coalesce with the God-idea and in this
way become the source of religious values. “Thus nature,
as physical energy, has been deified; so has the universe as
the quantitative all or absolute; so have such abstractions
as social influence, fame, wealth, culture, humanity (as a
super-individual entity). But whenever such ideals are
set forth as worthy of religious homage, doubtless much
more is implied than is expressed in these concepts. What-
ever is whole-heartedly loved calls into expression an atti-
tude closely akin to worship. ‘This fact enables the psy-
chologist to trace a connection between religious emotion
and emotions from a less exalted source, like the libidos
of the psychoanalysts. It also explains the perversions of
religious emotions by ignorant devotees who confuse in-
tense feelings, whatever their source, with worship. Like
all other experiences of value, religious values must be
tested in the light of the whole context of experience.
Religious values inhere in other values and presup-
pose them. Every interest in life has the capacity to yield
238
RELIGIOUS VALUES 239
a characteristic religious value; that is, whatever affects
us for good or ill takes on a distinctive quality when
viewed as the expression of God’s providential care. The
good is enhanced in value and the evil is transformed.
‘Thus religious values have an instrumental character. But
they are also cherished for their own sakes. They may,
in the mind of the believer, so far transcend all other
values as to seem to be the only values worth seeking. As
instrumental they give assurance that what is of greatest
worth to us will somehow continue to be ours in spite of
life’s vicissitudes, that nothing can come between us and
the supreme Source of all value. This assurance is. based
on the assumption that divine and human interests are
essentially the same, and that what man most cherishes,
God will use his power to conserve. So important is this
aspect considered by many thinkers that religion may for
them be defined, in the words of Hoeffding, as ‘‘a belief
in the conservation of value.’’?
But if religion should mean as much as this to us, it
would mean much more. The belief that what we esteem
most highly is sacred in God’s sight, and that he is deeply
interested in our well-being, would awaken in us the
strongest emotional effects of which our natures are cap-
able. The world of values would become infused with
God's presence, all goods would be looked upon as his
gifts, all thwartings, as his method of preparing us for a
closer communion with him. This intensely personal
relation to God, if realized, would be by far the most
powerful stimulus to loyalty, to high endeavor, to self-
forgetful devotion. Thus religion would become the main-
spring of all that is most forceful in us. It would con-
duce as nothing else could to spiritual health and peace.
By blending the moral ideal of self-realization with the
ideal of doing God’s will, it would complete the transcen-
dence of the egoistic attitude; the worshipper would be-
come God-centered.
An adequate definition of religion is difficult to formu-
1 The Philosophy of Religion, § 72.
240 THE WORLD VASAVACUE
late because religion is the expression of our whole nature
and permeates every interest of life. While Hoeffding may
emphasize belief, others single out the element of feeling,
and still others find the essence in good works.? As an
emotional experience religion expresses itself in worship;
as involving our active nature it issues in doing God's will;
as intellectually grounded it is a body of beliefs. Without
the beliefs the emotional expression would be hazy, if not |
impossible, and religious values could hardly exist. Hence
our concern will be primarily with the nature and grounds
of religious beliefs.
Have we a right to believe in the validity of religious
values? May they not be illusory? “This portentous ques-
tion cannot be wholly evaded, though most people avoid
its deeper consideration. Many who do not care to think
much on the subject satisfy themselves in part by assuring
themselves that in the realm of religion everything depends
on faith. If we believe that the values are real, they by
that act come into being for us. May not a strong faith
remove mountains of difficulty? “The quantum of truth
in this view readily assimilates with the accompanying
emotional experiences, and thereby renders the believer
immune to criticism. The circle of his thought is com-
plete. He knows because he has faith to believe, and his
experiences establish his faith. Nothing could be simpler
or more convincing—until we become critical and want
to know the real grounds of our beliefs. Doubtless faith
does play an important part in beliefs. As an act of will
supported by emotional prejudice, faith can determine what
facts of life shall be admitted to consideration, and what
their relative importance shall be. It can pack the jury
and insure the verdict. But in doing so it demonstrates,
not the authority of truth, but one’s capacity to believe.
Among devout people may be found abundant illustration
of faith in puerilities that have become sacred by being
believed. Such an attitude toward doctrinal matters in
2 For definitions of religion see Leuba, A Psychological Study of
Religion, Appendix; Pratt, The Religious Consciousness, chap. i,
RELIGIOUS VALUES 241
religion blocks inquiry, impedes progress, and perpetuates
ancient errors that the world at large has cast out. It
means, first, self-deception, and then obscurantism. Even
as a demonstration of faith, the attitude is faulty. To
doubt reason is the fundamental heresy, and when the
devotee takes refuge from rational inquiry in an appeal to
faith, he exemplifies a pernicious type of scepticism. He
virtually says that if all the facts were faced with an open
mind, his beliefs would be confounded. Faith has its
essential place in the religious life, as elsewhere; but being
based on evidence, it must not usurp the place of evidence.
Faith, however, as the act of venturing upon evidence,
making the hazard in spite of uncertainties, brings to light
further evidence. It is the primary means of testing con-
clusions, whether in the field of religion or elsewhere.
Moreover the word faith may cover the unanalyzed
residuum of our experiences that impels to belief. We
seldom, if ever, can tell all the reasons for a given deci-
sion. This is true even in the most ordinary affairs of
life. It is more manifestly true in those complex and less
understood realms of the higher sentiments and abstract
constructions. A belief represents the assent of the entire
self, and no one, however skilled in self-analysis, can set
forth all the hidden sources of conviction. Hence after all
the known reasons are given we often have to say that we
believe because we believe, recognizing that the main
sources lie in the unfathomed depths of the self. Psycho-
logical analysis is bringing to light some of these sources—
racial inheritances, habits of thought and emotional expres-
sion, drives and bents of nature that assert themselves in
unaccountable ways. “These and many not yet singled out
have their place and influence in determining belief. The
term faith may by a legitimate adaptation include belief
arising from such elemental sources. It is also true that
we act upon genuine evidence of which we may not at the
time be conscious. We interpret a quality of voice, a foot-
step, a motion of the body in walking, as meaning a par-
ticular individual in a particular mood, We act thus on
242 THE WORLD AS VALUE
faith. Accordingly the term faith has an honorable place
in the vocabulary of religious belief, even though it cannot
take the place of such evidence as can be logically tested
according to recognized principles of evidence. There is
no substitute for facing the facts of experience and letting
them have their due authority over us. Yet when, with-
out prepossessions, we seek to read the indications of nature
and of human life, we find a mass of confusingly ambigu-
ous evidence. “To make this yield any plausible conclusion
whatever, it must be broadly interpreted in the light of all
we have thus far studied. When the evidence is all in,
faith will have its right to appropriate and apply.
The question of validity may be considered from three
points of view—the historical, the authoritative, and the
philosophical. Each gives important material affecting our
decision. Later we shall see how these are interrelated.
Let us consider them in order.
So far as is known, every group of people, whether
clan, tribe, or nation, has some form of religion. In the
earlier stages of civilization, religion was so intertwined
with social custom as to seem its supernatural sanction.
Since tribal customs were the essence of tribal wisdom and
had divine sanction, variations from them were severely
punished. ‘Tradition ruled supreme. As intelligence ad-
vanced, the distinctive features of religion were slowly
differentiated from the workaday life, and a sacred caste
srew up that had charge of religious interests. [hus the
priesthood became a part of the institutional life of the
people. ‘The priest by virtue of his position as custodian
of sacred things—temples, totems, ritual, sacrifices, magic
formulae—was the main conservator of the old as against
innovations. But as tribe was compelled to join with
tribe for mutual protection or by reason of defeat in battle,
traditions were disturbed and the way was opened for
progress. At first the gods were looked upon as little
removed in power and wisdom from the worshippers.
Hence the ethical element in religious observances was not
much in evidence. But the changes that were introduced
RELIGIOUS VALUES 243
with the rise of nations tended to exalt the gods and stim-
ulate the worshippers to a higher type of living. Morals
became an increasingly vital part of religious practice.
‘There seems to be trustworthy evidence that practically
all primitive peoples believed in a diffused spiritual power,
quasi personal and manifested in the activities of external
objects. This all-pervasive power has been christened
mana (a Melanesian word, meaning about the same as the
Indian word, manitou). Some students of early religions
have inclined to the belief that the widespread worship of
mana indicates that the original religion of mankind was
monotheistic. But this theory has little except an im-
perfect analogy to support it. The conception of mana
seems to have been extremely vague and elusive. Even
now after much observation and study, anthropologists
are not agreed as to whether mana was an all-pervasive,
attenuated substance called spirit, unitary in nature though
many in its manifestations, or whether it was as multi-
farious as the forms of its expression. “The evidence seems
to indicate that primitive man had a confused sense of a
presence which could pass from object to object, from
person to person, bestowing unusual power on the recipi-
ent. It was one in being power, yet it became so much
a part of the object it inhabited that it seemed capable of
unlimited division. That primitive man did not think
of this presence as a definite personality is evident from all
that we know of primitive ideas and customs. In the ini-
tial stages of culture people did not possess the conception
of personality as we now understand the term. “They had
the tribal consciousness. [he individual tribesman simply
thought and acted in accordance with tribal traditions.
Nevertheless they peopled their world with quasi per-
sonal spirits, infused with the power of mana. ‘These
spirits were charged with responsibility for all that hap-
pened. Because the modern conception of natural law
had not yet been worked out, the technique of control over
3 Cf. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, p.
192 ff.
244 THE: WORLDIVASIN AIOE
the spirits was extremely crude. ‘The practice of magic was
all the applied science that primitive peoples knew. It
entered into every phase of their religious and social life.
So implicitly did early man believe in magic that, even
among relatively intelligent peoples like the Hindus and
Persians, the power of magic formulae was thought to be
irresistible, controlling the great gods of heaven. ‘These
pre-scientific methods of influencing the higher powers seem
childish to us now, but they testify to the universality of
a certain god-consciousness.
With the advent of modern science a new way of look-
ing at the forces in nature began to prevail. No longer
did it seem necessary to assume a God in the heavens;
nature's activities could all be referred to the “‘reign of
law.’’ But even with such an outlook, man continued
to be religious. His innate cravings sought satisfaction
in various ways. Many devout people turned against the
findings and reasonings of science. “They preferred to cling
to their beliefs at all hazards. Others tried to hold their
science in One compartment of their intellectual life and
their religious beliefs in another. “This worked badly for
obvious reasons. Still others, accepting science as their
guide, yet unable to avoid sceptical conclusions, invented
the “Religion of Humanity.’’ This religion was sufh-
ciently vague to appeal to the emotions and fire the imagi-
nation. It kept the mind and heart of the worshipper
close to the moral task of service to society, and thus
satisfied in large measure the moral sense. So long as
no attempt was made to interpret the ideal of humanity
in terms of actual human beings, the object of worship
might be a god who looked like a man. Yet these vari-
ous attitudes were essentially makeshifts, and could not
permanently meet the needs of growing intelligence.
Their persistence even into the present emphasizes the
ineradicable need of religion.
History, then, points to the prevalence of religion in
some form, but does not, except in a general way, indi-
cate what beliefs the consensus genttum would validate..
RELIGIOUS VALUES 245
May we conclude that in this way we are authorized to
believe in the overruling Power who shapes human des-
tiny? If we could find in history a justification for this
belief, we might by means of it validate many other be-
liefs. But a general demurrer against this conclusion
might run as follows: Belief in God or gods has here-
tofore been a necessity, because man lived in the presence
of forces he did not understand. But he is slowly bring-
ing all these forces under natural law, and thereby making
belief in supernatural interposition quite unnecessary. In
time life will adjust itself to this intellectual situation,
and religion will vanish from the earth. ‘To set this
reasoning aside, something more than history will be
needed.
In the confusion and uncertainty of conflicting beliefs,
the vast majority of people take refuge in authority as
determining for them what they should believe—the
authority of sacred scriptures, of an inspired church, of a
general council, or even of some great personality. ‘The only
difference, as indicated in this passage, between the human
self and the infinite self is that the one is a finite represen-
tative system, while the other includes all the systems in
the same interrelated whole. Each finite self is thus a sort
of mirror of the infinite. “The conception is not sun clear.
21 [bid., vol. ii. p. 269.
22 Ibid., p. 272.
23 Ibid., p. 290.
24 Ibid., p. 276.
25 Ibid., p. 298.
304 THE SEL RVING DTS OW Onaga
Royce maintains that selves are free in the sense that their
life-plan is unique and expresses their nature. “The prob-
lem then of my freedom is simply the problem of my in-
dividuality. If I am I and nobody else, and if I am I as
an expression of purpose, then I am in so far free just be-
cause, as an individual, I express by my existence no will
except my own. And that is precisely how my existence
expresses, or results from, God’s Will.’ 2° This passage is
important as indicating how Royce relates the self to the
Power on which it must ultimately depend. ‘The de-
pendence is mutual, according to Royce. ‘‘God cannot
be One except by being Many. Nor can we various Selves
be Many, unless in Him we are One.’’?” Further light on
Royce’s conception of the self comes from his treatment
of moral evil. The self that develops the evil will schools
itself to ignore the right ideal in favor of one of its own
choosing.’ "The: ‘rebellious "Self; (7.07 acts wn ee
viciously acquired naiveté. . . . . Tosin is consciously to
choose to forget.’’?® Finally Royce speaks with great posi-
tiveness on the reality of the self. “‘Unless the finite is real,
the Absolute itself has no Reality.’’*°
These quotations suggest how readily Royce’s concep-
tion of the self gains plausibility by illuminating the deep-
est problems of life. Royce marks an advance upon Brad-
ley and Bosanquet in giving the self a more positive char-
acter. For the other two thinkers the self as an individ-
ual is ephemeral. All that gives it individuality is unes-
sential, being the effect of bodily connections and certain
affective states. But Royce places a strong emphasis on the
reality, uniqueness, and permanence of the finite self. So
pronounced is Royce in his insistence on the essential per-
manence of the self that its survival of death seems a mat-
ter of course. “The self is bound up in the life of the Ab-
solute. For Royce the Absolute, instead of being an all-
28 bidy) pi330 f.
27 Ibid., p. 331.
28 Ibid., p. 358 f.
29 Jbid., p. 364,
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES 305
comprehending system, is a community of selves, ‘‘the Be-
loved Community,”’ as he later called it. All this is reas-
suring. His theory seems to come nearer to doing justice
to the various aspects of experience than has any other
that we have thus far examined.
Royce’s insistence on the self’s being an ideal rather
than an accomplished fact, a life-plan always in process
of realization, is profoundly true of the self viewed as con-
stituted by its own activity. We come to selfhood gradu-
ally, and never attain it in full measure. All the forces
that play upon the self in experience contribute to its un-
folding. Nevertheless we should not lose sight of the
complementary fact that the self is more than a life-plan
plus self-consciousness, it is the deviser of the plan. It
finds itself in its work, but it is not its work, nor the plan
of the work, nor any or all aspects thereof. It is the
worker, the agent, the originator of plans. This remark
may seem an unessential addition to Royce’s thought, but
in fact it can be shown to be of prime significance. So
important is it and so manifest even to a wayfarer, that
we must believe Royce to have been fully cognizant of it.
Why did he ignore it? Evidently he was preoccupied
with the activity aspect of the self.
We have noted two ways of approaching the problem
of the self. The self may be viewed as an object held in
the cosmic matrix, where it can adjust itself to some ex-
tent to its environment. In this role it appears as one of
the many forms of dependent activity, unique in its com-
plexity and in its manifesting the phenomenon of con-
sciousness, but still only a part of the cosmic whole. It
may seem to be a more or less permanent finite center, it
may develop unique values, but in the end it must be dis-
solved into other expressions of the Absolute. ‘This is be-
cause it never rises above the system, never has any exist-
ence in its own right.
The other method of approach is to study the self at
work and recognize the patent fact of its agency. Then
the question arises, What assumptions must we make to
306 THE SELF INVUTS i WORT
understand its activities, its evident dependence on an en-
vironment that it does not make, and its world of values
which so far as we can see are the only values that exist?
In seeking an answer, we recognize the humble origin of
the self, how it gradually differentiates itself from its
world, how it slowly and blunderingly feels its way into
the consciousness of itself and its power to modify its sur-
roundings, how it remains to the end profoundly depend-
ent on the physical instrument called its body. Such facts
have their meaning. But of themselves they cannot give
us a theory of selfhood. Whatever assumptions we must
make to explain the known facts of self-activity should
therefore have such authority as nothing else can possibly
have. ‘They must be accepted as true or the whole prob-
lem of explanation must be given up.
Now Royce seems to have tried to hold to the first type
of exposition while recognizing the more vital elements
in the second. NHence we find, scattered through his later
writings, statements that appear to satisfy the utmost de-
mands of the second type; yet whenever he explains these
statements they are shorn of all that cannot be harmon-
ized with the first. “The self for him is really never more
than a conscious life-plan, expressing a unique form of
activity on the part of the Absolute. It is the Absolute
who makes the life-plan, the Absolute who is free in its
realization, the Absolute who alone is responsible for de-
viations from the way of moral rightness, and the Abso-
lute alone who makes amends. ‘This hides the self away
from itself in the all-containing Absolute. Because the
self is thus misconceived, all else continues to be only
partly explained. Or rather, because the known charac-
ter of the self is not recognized and made the basis of ex-
planation, the whole realm of experience remains in the
end unexplained.
Hence while we recognize the value of Royce’s concep-
tion of the self’s activity, we need to maintain with all
emphasis that the self is more and other than a life-plan;
that freedom is not synonymous with uniqueness, that the
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES 307
problem of survival is not solved by assuming that a finite
life-plan as such, in its specific content, is of permanent
value to the Absolute.
It is hardly worth while at this point to turn back and
consider at any length the many variants from the types
of theory that we have been reviewing. Yet there is one
that deserves a word because of its specious appeal to a
wide circle. “The reference is to Wilhelm Ostwald’s con-
ception of consciousness as a force or energy which can be
equated with other forms found in the physical world.*°
This conception suggests Woodbridge’s theory of con-
sciousness as an objective relation. “The ambiguity is evi-
dent. If Ostwald means that just as thermal energy may
‘pass over into electrical or mechanical energy, so it may
take the form of consciousness without changing its na-
ture as energy, he is simply describing observable phenom-
ena and indicating that he can group under one concept
all known forms of activity, including consciousness.
This is at best a triumph of classification. “The differences
remain untouched. But if he means that consciousness,
as manifesting energy, points to a something other than
consciousness which somehow maintains itself as energy in
all forms of its manifestation, the term energy must be
practically synonymous with the old term ‘“‘force.’’ It
would then be exposed to all the destructive criticism
heaped upon that much belabored concept. As already
pointed out, if a force is posited to explain a given mo-
tion, it can have the unity only of that particular motion.
Any change in direction or rate requires a new force to
account for it. [hese infinitely multiple forces can have
no connection among themselves, unless the whole trans-
action is taken over from the non-mental into the thought
world.*?
30 Natural Philosophy, p. 185 ff.
31 In the further discussion of our theme—the nature and destiny
of the self—-we shall feel free to utilize the best insights of those
whom we have been criticizing as well as those with whom we more
fully agree. Among the latter should be included—to mention here
only recent English and American thinkers—James Ward, The Realm
308 THE -SERPRVING IDS Gitte
of Ends; A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God in the Light of
Recent Philosophy; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of
God; Hastings Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil; John Laird,
Problems of the Self; H. W. Carr, A Theory of Monads; C. D.
Broad, Mind and its Place in Nature; B. P. Bowne, Metaphysics,
Theism, Personalism; WW. E. Hocking, The Meaning of Ged in
Human Experience; M. W. Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Phil-
osophy; E. S. Brightman, An Introduction to Philosophy, Religious
Values.
CHAPTER III
THE NATURE OF THE SELF
The more we study the nature of selfhood the more
we are impressed with the importance of a right point of
view. The authors whom we have been criticizing fell
short of a satisfactory conception of the self because they
persisted in treating the self as an object that can be in-
spected and described. Apparently no amount of evidence
against such a method is sufficient to stay successive
thinkers from trying again. But the self, we must repeat,
cannot be identified with its experiences taken either sever-
ally or as a connected whole. ‘To insist on such identifi-
cation is to bar the way to insight and to land in ultimate
scepticism. Whatever else we may have to say concerning
the self must follow from recognizing it as an agent whose
nature it is to bring new experiences into being. In the
attempt to work out a conception of the self from this
point of view, it is well to be economical of theories.
Unless a theory actually helps to explain the facts to
which it refers, it can be discarded without great loss.
This rule of economy is a philosophical truism. Yet we
must recognize the practical value of devices that rest the
mind without informing it. We have already met several
of these mental easements. As regards these, the only dif-
ference between common sense and critically chastened
thought is that the former mistakes them for truth and the
latter knows them for what they are—devices and nothing
more. Some courage is required to hold to this rule of
economy and face the consequences. Misunderstandings
are likely to swarm about one. But to refuse to have a
309
310 THE SBLEE IN TES! WORK
theory where no theory that meets the requirements of
explanation has been formulated is a mark of intellectual
freedom.
If the self is to be the ultimate principle of explanation
in philosophy, it cannot itself be explained. This seems
evident. As the active principle the self can explain all
else, just because everything not a self can be encased in a
concept, can be grasped intellectually. But the self can
never resolve itself into a mere content. Hence to the con-
firmed intellectualist the self seems to be nothing at all.
Because it escapes from the net of its own categories, it
has no place in a logical scheme of things; it cannot be
ruled in or ruled out by the law of contradiction. This is
what we might have antecedently expected. “The move-
ment of thought is from concept to concept. There is no
end to this movement, since all concepts point to some
concept other than themselves as their explanation. Let
an intellectualist start on this course of explaining by con-
necting and with a kind of mental inertia he will insist
on explaining everything conceptually. When the limits
of possibility are pointed out to him he is apt to draw one
of two conclusions. Either he will continue to push on
into intellectual darkness by trying to explain selfhood
conceptually, or he will solemnly declare that all knowl-
edge ends in mystery and nothing is really knowable.
Neither conclusion is justified. Logically there must be a
terminus ad quem to explanation, and for philosophy the
self is that terminus.
The inference that we cannot know the self because we
cannot resolve it into something else is far from the truth.
We know the self—or can know it—more completely
than we know the objective world. “Through its experi-
ences it stands revealed in its innermost nature. Our
knowledge of it is far more intimate and concrete than
our knowledge of anything else. In fact, this direct ap-
prehension of the self by the self may well be called pri-
mary knowledge, since it is the model of all other types,
Whatever the self distinguishes from itself is known in
THE NADURESOR THE SEUP io
terms of itself, is known only representatively. Thus
things are, strictly speaking, forms of the self’s activity.
The self is more than feeling, more than intellection, more
than volition; these are distinguishable aspects of its living,
active unity. Knowledge of the self by the self, then, in-
cludes all expressions of its nature as active in apprehend-
ing and appreciating experience. If, for instance, we should
study any object as thoroughly as our scientific resources
might permit, our knowledge woud still be fragmentary
and incomplete. It would necessarily be abstract. But
the self can be known as having the experience, with all
the infinitely varied shades of meaning and all the play of
sentiment and interest connected with the apprehension of
the object. We know ourselves in this direct immediate
way, while we know all else derivatively.
This statement runs counter to the surface meaning of
much psychological literature of the day. It is well rec-
ognized that the child comes to know first the outside
world, and does not consciously distinguish itself there-
from until the period of reflective thought is reached.
The theorizer, having started with this observation, is in
a fair way to conclude that the self is a derived idea, a
construct, a concept, and at best a mere “‘appearance.”’
The trick is patent. The self constructs its ‘“‘appearance,”’
and in the act of constructing, disappears, while it con-
tinues to think of its construct. Its interest in itself has
not yet been sufficiently developed to cause it to take ac-
count of itself as the agent by which its conceptual world
comes into being. Only because the self is essential agency
does it explain all else. Whatever can be looked upon as
an agent is the beginning and end of explanation. ‘The
closer the approximation to the complexity of selfhood,
the more there is that needs to be explained. Inanimate
objects are relatively simple. Tying them together in
bundles with proper labels, exhibiting them as related in
certain mechanical ways, is all that can be done with them.
They have the minimum of selfhood in them, and hence
are seen to be mere activities of something other than
BZ THESSELESINGETS swOR MD
themselves. When we pass up through the organic into
the psychic and social, our knowledge becomes progres-
sively richer, because the knowing self finds ever more of
itself in these objects of its experience. But the self is not
subject to explanation. Nothing in its nature can be ex-
plained except its limitations, and they indicate more what
it is not than what it is. Ina sense, then, we must grant
that the self is a mystery; it cannot be referred to some-
thing other than itself in the usual scientific method of
procedure. We can afford to live with one mystery if that
mystery is ourselves, concerning which we directly know
so much. In studying selfhood we propose to confine
our attention largely to the human self, with only a casual
reference to the more outstanding questions concerning the
subhuman and the superhuman selves.
As agent, the self contrasts with all that is not-self,
with all objects whatsoever. This insight taken in its
generality may seem little more than a truism, yet it carries
implications that only the more thoroughgoing accept.
What, for instance, is the relation of the self to space and
time and the other structural principles of experience?
‘The self is not in space though its activities have the form
of space. Does this mean that the self is indifferent to
space, that it can be anywhere or nowhere? No. It
means that the self cannot be thought as in space at all
without denying its nature as agent. When we try to
think of the self as real and yet as occupying not even a
point of space, we are baffled. Our imagination rebels.
We need to fortify ourselves by a review of the reasons for
the conclusion that the self is non-spatial and then see
what we can make of the doctrine. Why, then, must we
conclude that the self, as the most fundamentally real of
all existences, is non-spatial?
(1) Space is the form of the self’s activity. If the
activity were self-explaining, that is, if we could start with
pure activity and make it the key to all insight—as some
have tried to do—we might be able to make space-filling
1Cf, B. P. Bowne, Theism, p. 41 f.
TENA DORE ORR URE OS BiG a5
the sine qua non of reality. But activity is not agency.
It is simply a name for a form of manifestation. The term
may be applied to movement of translation or to chemical
reactions. It may also refer to the mental processes in-
volved in having experiences. But in no construable sense
is activity other than manifestation implying an actor.
Now the self is not activity, nor is it activity plus a non-
active center of pure being. As actor, the self cannot be
put among its own objects as one of them. It is distinct
from them all and cannot have their form. Of all the
attempts to avoid identifying the self with its activities,
the least successful is to assume that it is an inactive core
of being. Such a conception not only fails to explain
anything, but multiplies difficulties when we try to apply
it to the problems it creates.
(2) The self as agent must be a monad, an indivisible
unity, that is, it must act in its entirety whenever it acts.
This is a logical requirement and should appear self-evi-
dent to the reflective mind. If the self could be actually
broken up into parts, each acting separately, the parts
themselves would be exclusive of one another and each
would function as a separate self; each would be unique
and unitary. If, then, the self is essential agency and
therefore unitary in the absolute sense, it cannot occupy
space, since space is the principle of separation and mutual
externality. There can be no ultimate unity in space.
This statement is the testimony of scientific research as
well as of logical deduction. For instance, the atoms of
science break up into electrons and protons variously ar-
ranged. These turn out to be merely the imaginary rep-
resentations of complicated activities called an electrical
charge. It may include an indefinite number of parts.
Quite in harmony with the findings of recent science Pascal
called upon his reader long ago to see in the (abridged)
atom ‘‘an infinity of universes.”’
(3) The self as agent must have an inner life, unan-
alyzable into disparate elements. “This inner life manifests
itself as a synthesizing activity, holding in an ideal form
Oat THE SELEINGIUS WORK
the past that has ceased to be and the future that can only
be anticipated. This inner life contrasts at every point
with what merely occupies space. Space-occupying is pure
externality; agency is the principle of internality.
If, then, we conclude that the self is not spatial, we
should expect that all attempts to read space into the self
or the self into space would be futile. “They seem to suc-
ceed because they substitute for the self as agency some-
thing essentially different. Examples in point are the the-
ory of W. P. Montague,” that as a form of energy, con-
sciousness (equated with mind) is space-occupying; and
that of W. H. Sheldon® that the self is essentially spatial
because it operates spatially.
A specious counter argument builds upon experience to
show that the unity of the self is derived and is the prod-
uct of a slow development. We are not conscious of the
self as a distinct and unitary entity till years after we be-
gin to think and exercise volition—if even then we are
conscious of it. What the self was before it became aware
of itself as unitary, we cannot say; but experience shows
that its unity was acquired. Furthermore this unity can
easily be lost, as when through illness or injury a pro-
found change occurs in our emotional life and memory be-
comes defective. In fact, all breaks in memory mean
breaks in the continuity and hence in the unity of the self.
The phenomena of multiple personality are only extreme
forms of such mental disturbances. In the thought of
those who argue thus, the self is an experienced unity and
nothing more. But the self we are considering is neces-
sarily unitary because it is an agent. The necessity is
strictly logical. Agency cannot be multiple except in the
sense of codperation by many individual agents. The
unity of the self as a condition of its own synthetic activ-
2 “Consciousness as Energy,’’ Essays Philosophical and Psychologi-
cal in Honor of William James, p. 105 ff. Cf. The Ways of Knowing,
Dio. gull.
8““The Soul and Matter,’’ Philosophical Review, vol. xxxi. p.
133 ff:
Mai B ANA DO REVOP (PHETSELE 315
ity should be distinguished from the consciousness of sub-
jective unity as revealed to reflective thought. ‘The first is
certainly non-spatial; the second, being a product, has spa-
tial relations, at least in the sense that it is where it acts.
But this form of expression need not mislead us.
A similar line of thought leads to the denial that the
self, strictly speaking, is in time. By this is meant that it
is not, in any thinkable sense, a mere succession. But one
may ask, Does it not change? Do not all its experiences
have a place in the time series? Can one conceive of a
non-temporal existence—one that has no past or future
or present, no duration? If the self is not in time, is it
not strictly a nonentity? Such questions come naturally
to mind. And they are not easy to answer. The tem-
poralist points out that the self is conditioned by its cos-
mic environment and must therefore be subject to the
same law of temporal succession. The self, moreover,
changes not merely in its apprehension of external events
that come and go, but in its innermost nature. No con-
ceivable experience can rise above the temporal flow.
Hence the self, so the temporalist would conclude, is either
in time and subject to temporal conditions or it is outside
the universe altogether, that is, it is non-existent.
In considering this argument, we need to bear in mind
that the issue is not whether our experiences have the tem-
poral form, but whether that which apprehends objects as
in time is itself subject to temporal conditions. Our prob-
lem would not arise if experience were self-explanatory.
He who cannot see that the self is the essential unity pre-
supposed in all synthetic activity, fails as a matter of
course to see the reason for the conclusion that the self
must transcend temporal relations in order to apprehend
the succession of events as a succession. One way of meet-
ing his difficulty has already been referred to as offered by
Bergson, who identifies the self with duration. For him
the self is the unity and continuity of the succession. But
as it stands, this conception leaves the self stripped of its
essential character as agent. [hough the self endures and
316 THE SELB INGE TS WORKS
all duration is for a self, the self is not duration. We have
only to recall, in this connection, how time originates in
the act of the mind as it creates a past, present, and future
in which it arranges its experiences. [his temporal dis-
tribution of the complex mental content is so spontaneous
and so involved in the possibility of any experience what-
ever, that, in advance of criticism or in spite of it, we in-
cline to detach the time element in experience and set it up
as an independent real. What could be more real than
duration, since it alone encompasses the succession and re-
ceives all new members of the temporal series as they
emerge into the present? ‘This question mistakes a func-
tion of consciousness for the self that is conscious.
Nevertheless he who would maintain that the self 1s
not in time must face the two disturbing facts mentioned
above. ‘The one is that we not only have temporal ex-
periences, but we are a part of the interrelated universe
and subject to the conditions that are themselves in time.
As thus controlled in our activities, we must belong to the
cosmic process. [he other disturbing fact, following
from the first, is that we undergo change in the very cen-
ter of our being as the result of interaction with the en-
vironment. We pass from youth to old age and thus ex-
emplify a time process. In what, then, consists our time-
lessness? Have we a changeless center of being that man-
ages to remain outside of the temporal flow merely because
it does nothing? ‘That view has already been discarded
and must not at this point be brought in to increase our
difficulties.
The way to positive insight is to remind ourselves
again of the facts revealed by the analysis of sense knowl-
edge. Whenever we apprehend a temporal series, we
grasp it as a whole. This may and generally does mean
that we have lived through it or a similar experience. Buc
we live through the successive stages of the experience and
know them as successive only because we ourselves are not
successive but continuously exist through the series. “To
grasp the series as a whole and as temporal we must be
ob Owe Orr a Ti By SL rs 317
more and other than the series. The succession is the
work of memory and anticipation, a construct of the self.
As such it is in the present, though it means a past and to
some extent a future. If, then, we are entirely clear in our
apprehension of the self as agent, we may be able to accept
two statements that seem to contradict each other. One
of these is that the self is not its experiences and hence has
not the temporal form of those experiences. “The other is
that the self is manifested in its experience. All the fun-
damental characteristics of the experience world, including
its temporal form, are so many revelations of the nature
of selfhood. ‘The self and its experiences are strictly rela-
tive to each other, yet neither is the other. Keeping this
paradox in mind we can appreciate the truth in Bergson’s
identification of the self with duration. ‘The self endures;
we know of nothing else that does, except as an experi-
ence of a self. Duration then expresses a fundamental
characteristic of selfhood. But duration is a descriptive
term that applies to a series of manifestations that have
the temporal form. Manifestations can exist only in the
present. Duration, then, in so far as it includes the past
and the future, exists only ideally as a mental construct.
We may, therefore, at this point conclude that time, either
as a succession of instantaneous present moments or as
duration in which the past, present, and future are ar-
ranged, has meaning only with reference to the activities
of the self, not to the self as the active agent. “Though for
us time begins when we begin to have experiences and will
end when we cease to be, yet as selves we are not the tem-
poral flow.
But the temporalist might reply that this doctrine
makes of the self nothing but the logical subject of men-
tal states, whereas the reality is all in the flow. This criti-
cism has all the advantage of being easily expressed in
words and of holding strictly to experience. In contrast,
the view that the self is timeless in relation to its world
suffers from the handicap that no form of language can
carry the thought unambiguously. It is further embar-
318 THE SELF. IN IFS) WORLD
rassed by having to set over against experience something
that by its very nature is excluded from experience. There
surely must be some truth in the contention that the self
is in time, even though there is ground for holding that
it is timeless. “[he temporal character of the self is a con-
viction too persistent to be set aside. In what sense, then,
is the self in time though actually timeless? It is in time
for any one who objectifies it. The observer notes
changes of attitude, interest, conduct in the self observed;
time infects it all. But the self observed is a construct of
the observer and as such is an experience having the tem-
poral form. We are usually so engrossed in practical af-
fairs and assume so easily the attitude of the observer and
manipulator that when we would consider the self as a
reality, we incline to set it in our midst and inspect it as
we would any other object. “Thus viewed it is of course
subject to all the conditions of any other features of expe-
rience. As we have grounds for believing that the cosmic
power is an Intelligence, we may hold that we are com-
pletely enfolded in the time of his world. But this again
can mean only that we are in his time series as object, not
that we are in the time of our own experience. Now when
we view our experience as ours—not as it appears to
others but as it is for ourselves—we cannot identify our-
selves with our experience, whether in whole or in part.
We as actor, thinker, agent, contrast with our experience
as that which possesses the experience. We can confi-
dently assert, then, that the laws of organization and con-
struction in experience do not apply to selfhood, and that
the self, therefore, is not in the time of our own experi-
ences. ‘To get the full force of this conclusion we need
to remember that the only time we know is the time of
our experience world.
But what of the changing self? If it really changes is it
not actually in time? Does it not form in its very being
a temporal series, including the stages of development
and the linkages we call time? In reply we might ask,
What in the series would you call the self? Is it the sep-
THESNASORE SOR THES SELE 319
arate states, or is it the linkage, or is it the series as a
whole? ‘The first would resolve the self into elements and
make knowledge impossible; the second would make the
self pure duration, which is an abstraction; the third
would make the self impossible till it ceased to be. That
the self progressively realizes itself, then, can be construed
only as meaning that at any time in its career it is all that
it can then experience, and that as developing it never is
complete. We must not forget that when we speak of the
changing self, we are viewing it objectively, exactly as we
would a physical thing. It changes for an observer. We
seem to ourselves to change only because we gather past
experiences together and compare them with those of the
present, and then think of ourselves as different from what
we were. But the difference is recognized as consonant
with the identity. We are the same though different.
The conviction we have of our identity is normally more
pronounced than the sense of changing. In fact, we are
disposed to refer the permanence and identity to ourselves
as agents and the changes to our mental states. Here we
face a mystery. Not much light can be thrown upon it
from any source. How can a self be permanent when
nothing exists except in the present and the present must
continuously be renewed? A semblance of explanation
is found in the idea that the self is a permanent potential-
ity that is continuously realizing itself. Growth would
mean an increase in the process of self-realization. In
view of the fact that there are no assignable limits to its
potential resources, we may think of it as never exhausting
itself, never becoming completely expressed. ‘The self as
thus viewed can hardly be said to exist, it is rather an ideal
progressively becoming real. This manner of speech gives
an illusive sense of insight. It is no more an explanation
of permanence and identity in selfhood than is a topo-
graphical map an explanation of the country it represents.
Another suggestive way of making the timelessness of
the self intelligible is to identify it, as does Royce in cer-
tain passages already referred to, with a life-plan. The
320 THEYSEDE GUNEDTS UW OR?
timelessness of a plan is evident and indisputable; it holds
over while being realized and exists at one time or another
indifferently. But this confuses the self with a form of
its activity. [he timelessness of the plan is the timeless
grasp by the self of its own ideals. ‘The self lives in its
activities, all of which have the temporal form, all of
which express the self, but none of which are the self.
‘These statements about the self—that it is timeless, that
it lives through the temporal series which it apprehends,
that it changes internally—cannot of course be built into
a system of knowledge. “They seem to be mutually in-
consistent because they are considered objectively. A sys-
tem of knowledge is nothing if not consistent. ‘The self
that constructs the system is nothing if it is consistent.
In fact, consistency loses its meaning when applied to the
self. With what, for instance, might it be consistent?
With another self? But the two would agree or disagree
only as regards their intellectual constructs. Should the
self be consistent with itself? But every experience
changes the nature of the self. It is continually becoming
something new. It is the only being in the universe that
can change, because it alone can maintain itself in becom-
ing something other than itself. Change is read into its
world of experiences by an act of transferring into that
world a semblance of its own permanent nature. If then
it changes, with what shall it be consistent? We say of
two opposing predicates that the one excludes the other.
Both cannot be true. But in the process of detecting the
inconsistency, the self harbors both alternatives, passes
from one to the other, compares, contrasts, rejects, recalls,
with never a thought of its own consistency. Only when
interested in the question of truth or falsity in the con-
sideration of thought-content does it bring forward and
apply its rule of consistency. The self is inclusive of every
possible inconsistency, but in matters of belief it cannot
accept as true two propositions that are mutually exclu-
sive.
He TEN AC eNO ec rd ream ted Fe di
But after all that we have said about the permanence
of the self, must we not still acknowledge that the self is
a part of the world process and therefore in time? ‘The
self is conditioned in all its activities. It can never rise
above these conditions; they affect every part of its being.
In answer we can only say that in so far as externally con-
ditioned, the self exemplifies the time process; but in so
far as it has selfhood, it is superior to the process. The
finitude of the self as we know it makes this double refer-
ence possible. A complete self would be an infinite self,
and hence independent of the conditions of any and every
temporal succession.
After what has just been said it is hardly necessary to
insist that none of the other constructive principles of the
internal or external world can describe the self. It is
neither substance nor attribute, neither one nor many, in
the sense in which these categories refer to experience. The
term substance has repeatedly been employed to character-
ize the self, but generally with unfortunate results. Sub-
stance as experienced is a mental construct. Yet the term,
when carefully defined as meaning that which maintains
itself through its experiences, expresses exactly one aspect
of selfhood. In this sense the self is preéminently a sub-
stance—the only substance that exists ontologically. But
neither the term substance nor the Bergsonian term dura-
tion quite expresses what we mean by the power of the
self to know itself as having lived through a past, and as
having a capacity to maintain itself through a succession
of new experiences. But is not the self one rather than
many? Yes, if we make a qualification similar to that
made in the case of substance. It is not one in the sense
that it is a purposive whole, for that would make it exist
only as the expression of a back-lying self. As an agent
it is not only unitary, but the source of all derived uni-
ties. So we might run the entire gamut of categories and
show that none of. them, without fundamental change of
meaning, can apply to the self.
io ¥. THE ‘SELFOIN (ITS WORED
When we have done cataloguing what the self is not,
have we not disposed of it entirely, bowed it out of the
universe? The inclination is to turn for light to such a
writer as F. H. Bradley, and with him identify the self
with experience. ‘Ihe need is desperate to make this the-
ory work at all hazards. We could then have experience
to build on and to refer to as our final court of appeal.
May not experience, after all, be the whole of reality?
We may call it life if we please, all-pervasive, ever chang-
ing, indestructible, and under certain conditions attaining
consciousness, even self-consciousness.t Only experience
can be directly studied, it alone is susceptible of proof or
disproof. As experience is potentially rich beyond all
computation, we have no right in advance of an exhaus-
tive study to say that it may not include all that we have
tried to set over against it as a self. What may seem to
be deeper than experience is not self but life, and life is
just the constant factor viewed as expressed in experience.
Such attempts to escape the necessity of positing a reality
that sharply contrasts with experience and yet is wholly
expressed in experience is successful only so long as we re-
main close to the surface and refuse to be persistently crit-
ical. The self is not any or all of its experiences, though
these tell what it can do. It is not a life-plan, though
without a life-plan the self could not know itself as a uni-
tary whole. It is not a feeling nor a psychic content of
any kind, though Bradley is right in saying that it is
nothing (objectively) beyond or besides the “‘psychical
filling.”
All these reiterations are for the purpose of making im-
pressive the truth that the self belongs to a different order
of being from the rest of the universe. This truth might
be taken for granted were it not for the fact that the self
is so persistently objective in its interests; it is so absorbed
_ in the task of adjusting itself to its environment. It is at
home in its world and insists on remaining contented
there. It is fascinated by the game of living; its eye is
4Cf. H. Wildon Carr, A Theory of Monads, chap. xiii.
THE NATURE OF THE SELF BLO
fixed on the goods that experience reveals in such exhaust-
less profusion. Why should it concern itself with what
cannot be objectified or experienced or even imagined?
So the self reasons itself away from the deepest, most sig-
nificant truth concerning its own real nature. That we
as selves exist, few would gainsay; but what we are and
what we may become, people generally are not much in-
terested to know. Or rather they quite uncritically locate
the self where it cannot possibly be found. Assuming
that the self as a reality in the midst of realities must be
an object with apprehensible qualities, they look upon the
self as a space-filling, continuous substance capable of
functioning in ways recognized by introspection. “They
can hardly fail to see the shortcomings of their theory
when they try to explain how such a self as they portray
confronts its characteristic task of relating, changing, ap-
preciating its experiences. Better far to have no theory
than such as this, which lands one in hopeless confusion.
The only reason for affirming a self distinct from its world
is to explain the possibility of experience. If the self
could be explained as experience, it would presuppose an-
other self as its creator. In passing from experience to a
self, we pass out of one world into another toto celo dif-
ferent. ‘his difference is so fundamental that the self
cannot be expressed in thought terms.
What, then, is the self? we ask again. To give our
answer positive content we must tell what is included in
the oft-repeated statement that the self is agent. “To do
this we need to turn again to experience where the self is
at work. For although we do not experience the self, we
do experience what it does, and what it does tells us what
it is. Hence all the interests that have appealed to us as
worth considering, all the difficulties encountered, all the
issues met, must come up again in a general way for final
review in studying the self as the originator of its world
and as constituted by its world. We are at the center of
insight, and as we look out over the world of experience,
we see it all in a new light, with a new perspective. The
Oat THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
world is seen to exist in and for the self, while the self is
revealed as living in and through the world.
From this central viewpoint the universe is a world of
concreted values. When studying the world as value, we
had to face the problem of moral choice, and found that
the basal issue was whether the choice was real, whether it
expressed a free act of the self. This problem of freedom
must again be taken up in its broader aspects as involving
the most decisive issue in the discussion of selfhood. When
studying xsthetic values, we found that the heart of the
esthetic experience was the playlike spontaneity of the
self in creating an ideal world. To what extent is the
self creative? is another question that we shall have to
consider. In sketching some of the more outstanding cog-
nitive values, we felt keenly our intellectual limitations
as human beings. Having an infinite world of possible
knowledge all about us, we are, to use the Newtonian
figure, like one who gathers a few pebbles by the sea-
shore. With defective memories, blurred vision, a con-
fused thought life, a will that all too easily falters, and
an emotional bias that clings to prejudices, we seem to
be foredoomed to small attainment in the way of knowl-
edge. ‘his raises the question of the relation of the mind
to the body as the seat of our limitations. What signifi-
cance has the body for the life of the self? “This moot
question cannot be dismissed without some consideration.
Finally our study of religious values accentuated the prob-
lem of human destiny—the self facing its future. This
question of destiny, the most difficult as well as the most
vital to the thoughtful mind, involves the relation of the
self to the cosmic Power. With a brief examination of this
problem we shall close our study of selfhood.
As agent the self is unique. There is nothing more
fundamental and nothing like it. The universe is a dual-
ity: agent, on the one hand, and activity, process, energy,
experience, on the other. This duality cannot be cancelled.
Neither type of existence can be reduced to the other,
neither can exist without the other. To know the self as
eaten AOR ee Obra Ghih SEL ba
agent is to know its character as revealed in its activities.
Its world is itself manifested. If we would understand
the nature of the objective world, we must ultimately turn
to the self for the answer; if we would know the self,
we must point to its world of experience as the expression
of itself. Furthermore the self is not merely a constructor
of objects out of preexisting material; it is not a mere
artificer, but is in very truth a creator.
The intellectualist is likely to take umbrage at the
statement that the self is literally a creator, and that crea-
tivity is of the essence of selfhood. He can find nothing
in the realm of concepts that even remotely resembles the
activity of creation. For that reason he is tempted to put
off the issue by referring the apparent creativity of finite
selves to the ultimate Source of things. But this helps to
insight not at all. It simply makes the difficulties in-
volved less pressing for the man of the street. It were
better to face the evidence and take the consequences. If
we cannot intellectually construe creativity, one of two
courses is Open to us; we may deny creativity altogether
and take refuge in the concept of potentiality, or we may
insist on accepting the facts of experience just as they
present themselves and draw the obvious conclusion with-
out recognizing the right of the intellect to adjudicate the
case. In favor of the first alternative is the logic of the
old dictum, Ex nthilo nihil fit. It seems self-evident and
it seems to apply. The so-called creative act would mean
bringing into existence what did not exist before, making
something out of nothing—a palpable absurdity. When
stated negatively, the principle of criticism seems self-
evident: nothing can come of nothing. But when given
a positive expression, that is, when its positive implica-
tions are considered, it does not make the same logical ap-
peal. Positively it means that all things have existed from
the beginning; change is illusory. Apparently the only
escape from this conclusion is into the dark, mysterious
realm of potentiality. But this is only a catch-word. The
denial then of creativity gives us a ‘“‘block universe’ and
326 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
flouts experience. We know from experience that the
future does not exist in rerum natura until it is set before
us as constituting our present. To say that it lurked in
the recesses of the past waiting for the moment of mani-
festation, is to talk gibberish. Change is a fact, however
little the intellect can make of it, and change means the
appearance of what did not exist before. What right have
we to say that? May not change be the appearance of
what existed but was for the time invisible? Realists gen-
erally hold this view. But we have seen how unmanage-
able it iss A phenomenal world that is independent of
us and exists changelessly could not possibly be known to
us as the changing world of our experience, a world that
is continuously coming into being. But the word “‘poten-
tiality’’ arrests the imagination. The potential is pictured
as the exhaustless reservoir of all future events. It pro-
vides for all contingencies, even our blunders, inaccuracies,
and contradictions. And so we rest from our troublesome
questions, till we again become critical and want to know
the facts.
The facts of experience cannot be gainsaid. Every fea-
ture of our known world comes into being by an act of
the self, and every feature is something entirely new. To
be sure, this creativity, so far as the outside world is con-
cerned, is strictly under control by a Power not ourselves.
At least this is true of the initial stages. Yet without
question the response to stimulation is in every respect
different from the stimulation itself. So great is the crea-
tive impulse in the self that only a small portion of any
familiar stimulus-complex is ordinarily needed to phe-
nomenalize a whole group of objects. Nothing is easier
than the act of creating. The mind indulges not only
when goaded from without, but on its own initiative.
Perhaps the keenest pleasure of which we as thinking be-
ings are capable comes in the act of imaginative creation.
Our emotions become enlisted, self-stimulation reacts to
increase itself, and we revel in a world that is all our own,
a plaything that we can change at will. In fact, the world
THE NATURE OF THE SELF B27
we live in is an intermingling in varied proportions of
direct responses to cosmic stimulations and the free play
of fantasy.
No amount of such activity seems to lessen the mind’s
capacity to create. This is a marvel too great for some
sober thinkers to accept. They would make a distinction
between creating a world and having images of external
objects. The one is the act of bringing into existence what
did not exist before, except possibly in the thought of the
ultimate Reality, the other is an act of apprehending what
is given. But we have seen that this distinction will not
hold as against the conclusion that the mind is essentially
creative in all its work. The distinction has its place and
value when we are interested in contrasting the inaccurate
notions that we carelessly take to be true with the appar-
ently independent world of objects that compel us to re-
vise our erroneous conceptions. But when we speak of
the mind's creativity, this contrast does not come into view.
Both terms of the contrast—the images and the phenom-
enal objects—have their origin in the mind, but one is
valid and the other is not. If we deny the marvel of
creativity, we must abandon all hope of explaining how
knowledge is possible. “This is the testimony of history as
well as of logic.
The intellectualist speaks again. Is there no way of
satisfying the desire to understand creativity? Must the
choice be between potentiality and nescience—a choice that
is no choice? Apparently these are the alternatives until
we pass out of the domain of changeless concepts into the
midst of volitional experiences where the self is enacting
the role of creator. “There we may note what it does,
may see how the new appears as a result of its agency.
The mystery of how the non-existent can come into being
remains a mystery, but it is carried back not to an impos-
sible objective world of potential existences that have no
actuality, but into the life of the self that can know itself
as having been in the past, as active in the present, and
as holding a power of future action. Permanence, re-
328 THE SELB WIN TTS WORED
vealed in memory, belongs by inherent right to selfhood
alone. In the life of the self the term potentiality has a
serviceable meaning, as we have already pointed out. “The
self may know enough of the present situation to antici-
pate the future. In that sense the future is potential in
the present. When the barometer falls rapidly, we have
reason to expect rain or high wind. ‘The rain or wind is
potential in the atmospheric conditions that cause the baro-
metric pressure to lessen. But we are not at liberty to use
the word in this sense when we would make it hold the
future as a quasi present existence. “The future exists only
for a self and in the act of anticipation. “[he mystery of
mysteries, then, is the self in its power to know and to do.
The self is creative, but is it free? We can readily see
how those who discount the self as merely the name for a
stream of consciousness, or as identical with its world, or
as mere ‘‘psychical filling,’’ should not only deny the free-
dom of the self, but should be annoyed that anybody
should still raise the question.° But from our point of
view, freedom might be taken for granted. We could
recognize all the evidence pointing to the limitations of
human freedom, and yet maintain that these limitations
only accentuate the fact of freedom within the prescribed
limits. “The burden of proof would seem to rest with
those who deny freedom, or with those even who would
limit it. In other words, it seems to us that the self is
free except as the indubitable facts of experience establish
a limit beyond which the self cannot exercise its freedom.
‘This reversal of the current attitude toward the question
has thus far been based largely on moral considerations,
though at every critical stage in our discussion of sense
perception as well as of elaborated knowledge, we came
upon evidence of the self’s power to act on its own initia-
tive. In facing the implications of the moral life, we had
to conclude that to be moral the self must be free. It
must be free not only in the negative sense—free to run
its preéstablished course unobstructed—but free to plan
5 Cf. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, pp. 393n, 435n,
Une ONA TURE Ob? Poni SELB a29
and execute its will in the light of its own ideals of good.
Against the doctrine of human freedom in the positive
sense have been ranged (1) all the considerations drawn
from the scientific study of human conduct, and (2) the
metaphysical scruples arising from the utter dependence
of the finite on the infinite. “These difficulties are formid-
able. “They combine apparently the weight of scientific
authority with that of metaphysics. “They must be met,
therefore, by counter evidence both indisputable and con-
clusive, if the doctrine of freedom is to have any stand-
ing among thoughtful people. ‘The first impulse is to
point as we did to the exigencies of the moral life as fur-
nishing such evidence. But ethical literature is replete with
attempts to explain the facts of our moral consciousness in
accordance with determinism. For instance, the conscious-
ness of freedom, on which the libertarian stakes much,
may mean merely that no effective opposition is felt to a
thoroughly predetermined course of action. If such an in-
terpretation be allowed, then the consciousness of freedom
can at best mean only a possible absence of restraint, free-
dom in the negative sense, such as the proverbial flying
arrow might have. With the same ease every requirement
of a theory of morals might plausibly be met by deter-
minism. Is it a question of responsibility? The deter-
minist can say that the individual is responsible for his acts
only in the sense that they are the result of his character—
rational and emotional—interacting with his environment.
The man is his character, and his character is the accumu-
lated effect of his conduct. Do we mention the possibility
of following the weaker motive? “The motive we actually
follow is demonstrably the strongest, else why should we
follow it? But what of the sense of guilt and remorse?
They can be explained psychologically without recourse
to the doctrine of freedom. Moreover, whatever one’s
theory, it is eternally right to be just, benevolent, temper-
ate, true. Consequences do not wait upon opinions about
the self. Thus the determinist can apparently undermine
all the usual arguments for freedom as popularly under-
330 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
stood. For this reason it will be better to find, if possible,
a less debatable starting point for the positive argument in
support of freedom. We can then turn with greater as-
surance to the consideration of the determinist’s attempt to
banish freedom from the field of morals.
The advocates of determinism make their strongest ap-
peal by pointing out that their doctrine is grounded in the
scientific law of causal connection. ‘This law, they urge,
holds not only throughout physical nature, but in the life
of thought, feeling, and volition. No event without a
cause; nothing isolated, nothing unconnected with what
preceded it. ‘The law is as true of self-activities as of the
external world. What is the self? Is it not, so the de-
terminist argues, a complex product of growth? Did it
not start with a definite equipment of potentialities and
tendencies? Were these not elicited and developed by inter-
action with environing conditions? Do not the results
show themselves in reflexes, impulses, habits, tastes, inter-
ests, and whatever constitutes the character of the indi-
vidual? Character is the expression of causal laws working
with resistless certainty. Character changes under the in-
fluence of new experiences. It is subject to continuous
growth. Every act, whether volitional or impulsive, leaves
its impress. hus while every so-called free act is but the
outgoing of a character impulse, it reacts to make a new
type of action possible.
This argument of the determinist has many elements of
strength. Can it be answered in such a way as to retain
the truth that it embraces and exhibit the whole situation
as involving freedom? ‘There iscommon ground in certain
propositions which both parties to the controversy doubt-
less accept. First, the self has a nature; that is, all its ac-
tivities are subject to law. No other conception of the self
is thinkable. Secondly, the past of the self enters into its
present life as a controlling factor in determining what the
self may consider desirable. Thirdly, however free the
self may seem to be, its every act can be viewed objectively
as a member of a causal chain. Every act, that is, takes its
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 55)
place in the world order and thus becomes related to what
precedes and what follows. Fourthly, every so-called free
act is completely motivated by the needs, interests, and
capacities of the self at the time. No act of self-expression
is isolated. Fifthly, freedom does not pertain to the acts
but always and only to the self as intelligent agent.
With these acknowledgments of the truth embedded in
determinism, we would call attention to certain conclu-
sions already established. The scientific doctrine of causal
connection is recognized as not a theory of productive effi-
ciency, but only an emphatic assertion of orderliness in
nature. It is an a priori assumption involved in the know-
ability of our experience world. No objective proof could
avail to establish it if it were not presupposed in all think-
ing. Asa law of thought it requires that every situation,
however chaotic it may at first appear, must be so analyzed
and adjusted as to exhibit orderliness. Every event must
have its selected antecedents from which it follows accord-
ing to rule. But does this mean the more law the less
freedom? Is freedom excluded from a mechanistic view
of the world? Not at all.
The conception of the world as mechanism simply ex-
presses the perfection of intelligence and power. If either
were lacking to any appreciable extent, unthinkable con-
fusion and chaos would result, and life would be impos-
sible. The causal law then is the requirement of thought
in its effort to satisfy its own ideal of order. In so far as
the thinker is free he will endeavor to realize this ideal.
His success will measure his freedom. We must then revise
the ordinary dictum and say, the more order the more
freedom. But such a conclusion would apply only to con-
scious volition. From this point of view the entire mass
of scientific achievement is the consummate expression of
freedom. We may carry this line of reflection a step
further.
We take orderliness to be a fundamental law of thought
because the purpose of thinking is to attain certitude in
beliefs. We would form workable conceptions of our
332 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
world. We would know the truth. But our efforts are
beset by difficulties. Error lurks in every conclusion that
is not critically thought out. How may we know this fact
of error? Evidently only as we can test our conclusions
in the light of criteria set up by the mind itself. In short,
to know the simplest fact of nature, we must be able, first,
to distinguish between truth and error, and secondly, to
find grounds for establishing the one while discarding the
other. Both these conditions reveal the presence of freedom
in the positive sense. Without the power to apply a stan-
dard we could not know when we had the truth. Every
belief would have to be taken at its face value as a matter
of course, merely because it existed; or utter and all-
inclusive scepticism would result. Either alternative would
paralyze volitional activity and cut us off from ever attain-
ing to real knowledge. But this act of holding up to view
a conclusion or belief and asking if it be true is strictly
an expression of freedom. It would be inconceivable
as anything less. “Then the machinery of testing, the criti-
cal review of previous thought, the marshaling of new evi-
dence, the application of the method of “‘trial and error,”’
all mean the exercise of freedom. Without freedom the self
could not take one step in the acquisition of knowledge,
could not even know that such a thing as truth or error
existed.
When once we catch the force of such considerations,
we can combine them with the moral argument and see
how they support each other. As the moral argument for
freedom has already been stated, we need not review it
here. The deterministic interpretation of moral facts and
implications is specious, and gains most of its plausibility
through the focusing of attention on the relation of an
act to preceding conditions—a relation which a libertarian
has no interest in questioning. Asa counter to the determi-
nistic argument it would not be difficult to show that its
scientific support when rightly understood falls away, or
even passes over to the indirect support of libertarianism.
All that the argument drawn from psychology and related
JORUNA DURE OR DE Se Lr 330
sciences proves is that the question of freedom not only
can but must be ignored if we are to be scientific. Until
we transcend the standpoint of science, the question of
freedom does not arise. Why then does the scientific stu-
dent so persistently conclude to determinism? Because he
inconsequently carries the problem of freedom over into
science and there demands a solution. The only solution
is an artificial one, because from the scientific point of
view the question is itself artificial and essentially absurd.
Science can say no more than that the self, treated
objectively, is a series of states connected in an orderly
way. Scientific determinism, in so far as it is a theory of
real or productive causation, is a denial not only that the
self is free but that there is any self. The last word of
science is process. What is not process does not exist—and,
we may add, what is process exists only for that which is
not process. The dilemma is familiar to us. Its very es-
sence is the denial of freedom. For unless the self is free,
there is nothing in it to distinguish it from the rest of
objective nature, hence it passes away into process. Unless
it is free, it is not an agent in any conceivable sense. Un-
less it is free, it can at best be only a center of activity by
a back-lying agent. We thus get a hint of how all problems
in philosophy, all questions we may ask about the world
or ourselves, culminate in the question of freedom. The
first step in explanation cannot be taken without implying
freedom, and each advance accentuates its reality.
But how are we to meet the metaphysical difficulty of
our essential dependence on the ultimate Power? It cannot
be met on its own plane, because its assumption is that
the connection between the ultimate Power and ourselves
is analogous to that between an external substance and its
states, or between the law of a system of interacting units
and the units themselves. We thus start with an a priori
conception of what the dependence must be, and in its
name deny that the dependent can exercise freedom. But
the analogy does not hold. Every consideration pointing
to the fundamentally different status of selfhood from that
334 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
of mere events emphasizes the ineptness of the analogy.
Even at the risk of further repetition it may be worth
while to bring this fact into relief.
The objective attitude is so much a matter of habit
and is so important in reckoning with nature, that its
influence remains potent in ordinary thinking even after a
person is convinced of its inappropriateness for certain
philosophical investigations. It is a persistent bent in
human nature to demand that experience explain experi-
ence, that events control events, that things cause change
in things, and that the whole constitute a self-explaining
system. Any given event is thus assumed to be adequately
accounted for by showing that its invariable antecedent is
a certain group of preceding events. “This assumption is
abetted by the crude notion that something—substance,
energy, force, or influence—actually passes from the ante-
cedent into what follows and explains the resulting change.
“Does not the antecedent,’’ one may say, “‘disappear in
producing the event? The continuity of nature is thus
preserved. There is no evidence that matter is ever de-
stroyed. It simply changes its form of manifestation.”
The plausibility of such reasoning gains decidedly in con-
vincing power since the doctrine of the conservation of
matter apparently solves the problem of sameness and dif-
ference. Ihe sameness is provided for by the assumption
that whatever appears in the resultant was already in the
antecedent and only required the appropriate conditions to
emerge. The difference is evidenced in the modification of
the thing affected. Hence nothing has really changed; the
potentialities of nature have been realized.
Such are the thoughts behind the notion that the Power
to which we must refer all reality cannot create free beings.
He is conceived as essentially a thing with a thing’s limi-
tations. The only way, then, that he can produce finite
beings must be by diremption, partition, fission, or some
form of degradation of himself The mystery of change is
disposed of by impliedly denying the fact of change. No
other outcome, indeed, is possible to a purely mechanistic
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 335
explanation. It must carry back into preceding sources all
the complexity of the later manifestations, or else leave
something unprovided for. Thus nothing is explained.
The relation of the ultimate Power to finite selves is left
absolutely opaque. The ultimate Power is reduced to a
mere aggregate, and change becomes a shifting of material
from one part of the time series to another. Only the most
reckless self-stultification can accept such an outcome. To
deny change, to reduce the self to a phase of the Infinite,
to look upon the Infinite as an aggregate, the quantitative
all, is to abandon explanation. It may impress one as in-
tellectual humility, but it makes the victim a martyr by
mistake.
That the difficulty in the conception of independence
has no ground in reason but is merely the result of a
blunder may be seen by reflecting on the obvious fact that
in nature all is activity, movement, change, and nothing
survives of itself across the smallest interval of time. The
process is continuous. Nothing is, but all is becoming.
Nowhere in the process is there the slightest self-depen-
dence; no portion can maintain itself. This means that
the explanation of apparent permanence and continuity
in nature can be found only in that which is distinct
from nature, a Power whose characteristic is its ability
to maintain itself while ceaselessly producing a world of
activities. In this connection it cannot be too much em-
phasized that no back-lying world essentially similar to
the world of experience can possibly supply the permanent
element. Neither a potential world nor an actual world can
meet this sine gua non of real existence. Only a self can
satisfy the requirements. And we know it can do this
only because it demonstrates its capacity in experience.
The self can because it does. We reach the end of insight
when we recognize this fact and build upon it. Me-
chanism does not help us except to set before us a scheme
that satisfies the imagination, though it ignores reason. We
presumably have a choice of alternatives. Either we may
limit ourselves to the mechanistic type of explanation,
336 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
which not only fails to provide for creativity, but leaves
all change an impenetrable mystery, or we may accept the
theory of continuous productivity, for which we have the
best analogy in our own mental life.
Once we admit that the ultimate Power is pure crea-
tivity, the problem of freedom involves no insuperable
difficulty. We need simply refer to this Power as the ade-
quate Source of all that experience reveals. he question
of how a free intelligence can be created, just as the ques-
tion of how anything can come into being, remains un-
answered. We have no revelation on that point.
But the objector may interpose a demurrer. ‘‘Depend-
ence we must grant, and if that is thoroughgoing, what
becomes of freedom? Even though you assume that the
ultimate Self fashions the universe according to his sover-
eign will, it is still his will that dominates. Nothing can
defy him or swerve in the slightest degree from what he
requires.’ We may answer that this is in essence a repe-
tition of the difficulty just considered. It is a turning again
to the a priori method of deciding beforehand what can
be by assuming what must be, rather than going to experi-
ence to find out what is, and then trying to explain it.
We carry over into the unique world of agency the limi-
tations characteristic of the world of mere activities. Re-
pudiating this blunder we may ask, “‘Can the ultimate
Power create free beings?’” and answer our own question
with confidence, ““Yes, if he does.’’ It is well to remember
that our only ground for affirming the existence of an ulti-
mate Power is our need of explaining how we, as finite
creatures, come into being and maintain ourselves in a cos-
mic environment. This Power must be assumed as the
adequate Source of all existences, for he is our only ex-
planation of selfhood. He is what we must think him.
‘The creative act by which a finite self comes into being
cannot in the nature of the case be construed intellectually,
because it is not an intellectual transaction; it is dynamic
and volitional. As well try to bottle a sentiment or im-
prison an aspiration by physical means. When we try to
THE NA VURE OF) THE SELF Bo 7.
compass the act by concepts we encounter the same diffi-
culty as in trying to explain change. Change is an ultimate
fact, and so is creativity. Every attempt at explanation
from whatever angle of approach involves us in the tread-
mill motions of the mechanistic conception. Hence we raise
a false issue when we ask how it is possible for the ulti-
mate Power to bring anything new into existence. That
he does, we know from experience. In like manner we
must rest in the plain fact of experience that this Power
creates selves. If we must think about the mystery of crea-
tion, we should take our own volitional activity as the
model. We create for ourselves a world in which other
selves move as real. We influence one another by social
appeals. We have a sense of freedom which increases with
the development of social ties and tasks. ‘Thus in the
world of social forces, the more elaborate and binding the
connections, the freer we become. Hence freedom means
power, influence, effectiveness. If we consider the ultimate
Power after the analogy of our own social creativity, the
special difficulty of dependence need not trouble us. To
deny his ability to create free intelligence leaves us in the
dark on every question concerning ourselves or the world.
The mystery of creativity remains; but creativity itself is
the commonest of common experiences.
We conclude, then, that determinism has not made out
its case, that it fails to explain experience, and makes the
simplest item of knowledge a logical puzzle, while it re-
duces the moral life to a purely fatalistic illusion. It says
with science that if you want the cause of an event, you
must look for it in something that preceded it. This of
course means the infinite regress. It practically ignores the
self, or else reduces it to a member of the phenomenal
series, ‘“‘But has the past nothing to do with our acts?”’
one may ask. Certainly. ‘The self’s past and its environ-
ment contain the ground of preference in choosing. Out of
these sources arise the sense of need, the consciousness of
capacity, the knowledge of method, and all that can be
included in the preparation for an expression of choice.
338 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
But until the self is recognized as willing the result and
controlling the means to that end, the choice itself is not
explained.
This conclusion seems so evident that many of the
more thoughtful determinists undertake to provide for
freedom under the form of self-determination. In so doing
they are concerned to give full value to the influences that
mold character and thereby affect choice. ‘‘What are we,”
they say, ‘‘but developed characters? We started with cer-
tain inherited capacities and tendencies of nature, and these
were developed by interaction with the environment. In
this way our characters, including interests, tastes, tenden-
cies, impulsions, were slowly formed. To the character
of the individual must be referred everything that the in-
dividual does. From the depths of his character arise
every motive and every preference in the choice of goods.
Moral reasoning is the organized appeal of the developed
and developing self as constituted by its character.”’ “This
theory is championed by some of the sanest writers on
ethics. The theory seems to meet the two fundamental
requirements as revealed in experience: (1) the significance
of the self’s original endowment, unique in every indi-
vidual and varying widely in scope and vigor; and (2)
the ineradicable sense of responsibility. The argument is
simple and plausible. Unless freedom is seen as the ex-
pression of the slowly unfolding character, inherited pro-
pensities and native limitations mean nothing. The self,
in acting without reference to them, would be not free
but a slave to caprice. Responsibility could have no in-
telligible meaning, since the self would not really be
acting.
This line of thought has great convincing power, be-
cause every contention of the self-determinists must be
granted, Inherited traits do play their part in determining
conduct. And so do acquired dispositions and interests.
The self is its character. But danger lurks in emphasiz-
ing heredity and environment. As soon as we begin to
think of character as a resultant, the moral life begins to
MHE NATURE OF Sine SET 639
resemble a mere mechanism, in which freedom is annulled.
We seem to be confronted again by the dilemma—either
heredity and environment determine conduct, and then
there is no freedom; or they do not, and then freedom is
meaningless caprice. The difficulty is real. “There is no
way of meeting it so long as we try to think a free act.
Thought, as we have had occasion to point out, can
set forth the antecedent and sequent events, but not the
freedom of the act. “hat escapes, absolutely and always,
any intellectual formulation. We face here the ultimate
mystery of selfhood. Asan agent the self cannot be an ob-
ject of intellectual contemplation. By studying the past of
the self, its habits, interests, and contacts, one may get val-
uable information bearing on the problem of motivation.
Practical ethics is occupied almost exclusively with this
problem. Yet every intelligent volition, however moti-
vated, when viewed by the actor is seen to be the unique
expression of the self as agent. It involves the weighing
of evidence and the rendering of a decision in the light of
what the self at the moment judges desirable. Character,
then, is the self considerd as having a developed nature.
Because the self in free volition acts with a modicum of in-
telligence, the course of events as studied by an observer
can be representd more or less accurately in a mechanistic
scheme. But that does not mean that the self is a char-
acter mechanism.
This reference to the orderly procedure of the self in
Overcoming external conditions brings us to the next
question. “To what extent is the self a cause and therefore
free? In answer we may say at once that the self is con-
ditioned on every hand by the infinitely complex network
of events called the universe. “This constitutes a perma-
nent though changing order of limitations. But the phy-
sical environment is not in absolute control; it only marks
limits and prescribes methods of action. It indicates the
measure of freedom that the self can exercise in the phy-
sical realm. ‘These limitations permit a much larger scope
of free activity than is immediately evident. Every time
340 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
we do anything volitionally, that is, with intelligent pur-
pose, we actually change the nexus of environing conditions
(the physical order). Both by direct bodily contact and
by those manifold indirect methods invented by man’s
ingenuity, we can affect nature over wide areas. When-
ever we change the conditions we modify the scope and
character of our freedom, either to lessen it, as when we
sustain an injury, or to extend it, as when we learn a
new way to make nature manipulate nature in accordance
with our desires.
In our relation to environing nature we continually
exercise the power of selection, and thereby determine in
a way what feature of the enveloping conditions shall
constitute our distinctive environment. When we select
intelligently we proceed in accordance with the general-
ized knowledge of the permanent factors. Our ignoring is
based on knowledge, on that which we have learned is sig-
nificant to the matter in hand. No environment can hold
us bound by its individual and specific character. We can
bring to bear upon it the stored wealth of experience and
loosen its hold by applying general principles. We know
how to circumvent, to escape from the toils of “‘brute
fact.’’ In so far as this is possible, knowledge is liberat-
ing, and our environment itself becomes an expression of
freedom. Instead of being controlled by it we make it
serve our ends.
Furthermore our sentiments enter into our environment
and give it a distinctive character. If we allow the hap-
penings of the day to depress us, we not only see the
more somber side of nature, but we actually render it
somber; whereas under other conditions of our inner life,
we should see attractive beauty. Values in the world
about us are made and remade in a twinkling, as we
change our moods and interests. These values, along
with all that they imply, are the very essence of our real
environment. ‘Thus we get a suggestion of how exten-
sive the range of the self’s freedom really is. “he condi-
tions that limit the self have been studied minutely by
THEI NA DURE OFTHE SEL Bat
highly trained specialists; but far less critical attention
has been given to the study of the self’s free activity within
those limits. Hence we have a distorted conception of
the self, one that exhibits it as cramped, shut in, and con-
trolled by its surroundings. It is progressively reduced
from a commanding figure in the world to one of less and
less significance, till the conclusion seems near at hand that,
if we knew more, we should view the self as nothing but
a name for a peculiarly complex set of conditions. Perhaps
it might turn out to be a mere epiphenomenon. In the
popular mind, the conviction has become deep-seated that
the scientist is continually reducing the range of freedom
and that only the more obscure forms of mental activity
remain unconquered.
This view receives a kind of support from the phenom-
ena of habit. We are creatures of habit, so the saying
goes. But what is a habit? It seems to be a mechaniza-
tion of conduct. A given act by frequent repetition not
only becomes easier but gives rise to a tendency to further
repetition. This tendency may result in the practical
elimination of conscious attention even in the performance
of complex activities. [hus the action approximates the
reflex type. But does this mean that freedom is thereby
curtailed? Is habit-forming a species of bondage? Not
necessarily. Viewed from within, a habit may mean the
reduction of effort and strain in doing a given piece of
work. Habit enters largely into what we call skill. Of
course some habits tend to weaken our capacity for volli-
tion, limit our range of interests, and reduce our intellec-
tual grasp. In any complete discussion of habit such facts
must be carefully set forth. But at present we need only
note that habit may be the ally of freedom; it may mean
a lessening of tension and strain in the performance of the
lower types of activity and a releasing of power for the
higher expressions of the self’s nature. Objectively life
is becoming more mechanized, but this is a triumph of
freedom, through the achievement of science in setting its
world in order. Since freedom does not come within the
ote THE SELRVINVITS WORBD
purview of science, a free act will always be for science
simply a problem in mechanical adjustment. It may re-
main an unsolved problem, because of its complexity or
the obscurity of the factors involved. But science will
never consent to solve it by reference to freedom, for that
would mean the abandonment of the distinctively scien-
tific task. Nevertheless all conduct viewed from within,
as philosophy insists on viewing it, is orderly in propor-
tion to its expression of freedom. If no law, then no free-
dom; for a free act is an intelligent act and therefore the
expression of order.
We may conclude then, first, that the self, so far as
it is cause, is free, and it is cause in a positive sense when
it exercises its power of choice and volitionally effects a
change in its environment. ‘This conclusion stands with-
out qualification, and leads to the second, namely, that
instead of taking the limitations for granted and requiring
decisive proof of free activity, we should reverse the order
and maintain that the self is free in all that it does, except
where positive proof is furnished that it is controlled by
influences outside itself. “Thus in placing the burden of
proof on the one who would in any given situation deny
freedom, we change the whole aspect of our world-view.
To show this in broad impressionistic outlines will be our
next task.
What truth is there, we may ask, in the statement that
the self is a real determining factor in the ongoings of the
world at large? It volitionally produces changes in its
immediate surroundings and through these affects re-
moter regions. But it would seem that the scope of such
influences is quite limited. How much is it limited? We
know without giving the subject more than a moment’s
thought that our influence on the outlying regions of the
universe is infinitely slight—at least we think we know.
We are fairly sure also that this is true of the larger fea-
tures of the earth’s activities. But to recognize that our
influence in these macrocosmic realms is practically neg-
ligible is not to deny that in a genuinely positive sense we
TEE NO CORE ORD THB VSELE a ny
share with the ultimate Power both the capacity and the
responsibility of world ordering. If our part seems in-
finitely slight, we can assure ourselves that from the stand-
point of self, the seeming is not all fact.
We can at least call to our aid the lightning, the steam,
the power of the waterfall, the heat stored in coal beds,
and so on. A\ll these servants do our work for us; they
bend to our wills. How much farther we may in the
future be able to go in this process, no one can say.
This much exploited argument in support of a belief
in freedom encounters a curious rejoinder, not from the
determinists but from certain champions of freedom. One
of the most interesting of these attempts, considering the
high standing of the author in the scientific world, is con-
tained in Sir Oliver Lodge’s Life and Matter, a book
written with the avowed purpose of combatting Ernst
Haeckel’s fatalistic materialism. Lodge holds that the
doctrine of the conservation of energy is not to be called
in question. Any view of freedom that hopes to command
the interest of a scientist must square with this doctrine.
“My contention then is—and in this contention I am
practically speaking for my brother physicists—that
whereas life or mind can neither generate energy nor di-
rectly exert force, yet it can . .. . exercise guidance and
control: it can so prepare any scene of activity, by arrang-
ing the position of existing material, and timing the liber-
ation of existing energy, as to produce results concordant
with an idea or scheme or intention: it can, in short, ‘aim’
and ‘fire.’ Guidance of matter can be effected by a pas-
sive exertion of force without doing work; as a quiescent
rail can guide a train. . . . It will be said some energy is
needed to pull a hair-trigger, to open the throttle-valve
of an engine, to press the button which shall shatter a
rock. Granted: but the work-concomitants of that
energy are all familiar, and equally present whether it be
arranged so as to produce any predetermined effect or not
.... The energy is independent of the determination or
arrangement. Guidance and control are not forms of
oat THE SEEF IN PTS OW ORED
energy.” On the basis of this conception of energy,
Lodge concludes his defense of freedom by declaring, ‘““We
are free, in so far as our sensible surroundings and imme-
diate environment are concerned; that is, we are free for
all practical purposes, and can choose between alternatives
as they present themselves. We are controlled, as being
intrinsic parts of an entire cosmos suffused with law and
order . . . . If we could grasp the totality of things we
should realize that everything was ordered and definite,
linked up with everything else in a chain of causation, and
that nothing was capricious and uncertain and uncon-
trolled.’’®
This attempt of the noted physicist to find scientific
ground for a belief in freedom is especially interesting, if
for no other reason, because in the end he is forced to con-
clude that freedom is only a seeming, and that if we knew
all we should realize that “everything was... . linked
up with everything else in a chain of causation.”
In recognizing that the law of the conservation of
energy is abstract and purely descriptive of results without
reference to causes, Lodge is in line to transcend the scien-
tific conception of experience. ‘he transcendence cannot
be effected by denying or questioning the law, but by
realizing that it holds only among objects and their move-
ments in so far as they are essentially passive. Whatever
is passive can be mechanically moved and mechanically
stopped and mechanically adjusted. “he law of conserva-
tion must hold in such a world. Philosophy, building
on this view of the world, would call attention to certain
other features of the problem, features already dwelt upon
in the preceding discussions. (1) ‘The distinction be-
tween energy of action and energy of guidance is artificial.
The physical universe is a nexus of activities, nothing
more, and the self in making adjustments to this nexus
is able to react upon it and change the form of its activity.
The very life of the self depends on this dual relationship
—it can adjust itself to conditions and can modify them.
6Pp. 164-178.
HEB ONA GUREIOR CLME SELLE 345
(2) The laws of nature are man’s nearest approxima-
tion to the expression of perfect objective order; and per-
fect objective order, where the law of conservation holds,
is the condition of freedom on the part of the self. (3)
Freedom is not caprice in contravention of law; it is intelli-
gent manipulation, it is the ability to change the course of
events in accordance with a plan. ‘That this should be
possible nature must be the realm of inexorable law. (4)
But a “‘reign of law’’ in nature cannot mean that events are
literally held together in a causal chain, if by causal we
mean the activity of a mysterious physical force distinct
from the events themselves and binding them together.
The events as such disappear. All the resources of the
physical universe are not sufficient to make one of them
hold over into the next instant. (5) Hence the differ-
ence between the conception of freedom advocated by
Lodge, the scientist, and that which philosophy would
defend grows out of the more thorough analysis by philos-
ophy of the meaning and implications of such terms as
natural law, causal connection, matter, force, energy, as
applied to the world of experience. With these terms
cleared of ambiguity, a belief in freedom as defined by
philosophy seems to have the entire support of experience.
The more we reflect on the interrelations between the
finite self and the ultimate Power, a relationship infinitely
close and sensitive, the more we appreciate what human
interests must mean in the cosmic whole, how much man’s
freedom in volition may accomplish. Do we, for instance,
really influence the earth as a whole or the stars in their
courses? We do not know; but we have a strong con-
viction born of considerations we dare not set aside, that
the stars would have no courses and the universe no on-
goings, were it not for the Infinite’s purpose to develop
spiritual beings, essentially like ourselves. Our free ac-
tivity, then, is cosmic in ways that experience does not and
perhaps never will reveal. Within experience our free-
dom is considerable and beyond experience probably ex-
346 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
tends with diminishing influence to the outermost reaches
of the universe.
From the viewpoint of philosophy the case for freedom
seems to us conclusive. “The doctrine is shrouded in mys-
tery for the intellect: it cannot be construed. But if we
would catalogue whatever in our world cannot be intellec-
tually construed, we should need to include every experi-
ence that involves change—and what experience does not?
The self and its free activity must be appealed to if we
would get the slightest understanding of change. In deal-
ing with change the intellect must translate it into change-
less elements of a temporal series, Moreover all ultimate
facts are mysterious; that is, nothing beyond them can help
in their explanation. ‘The task of the reflective thinker
is to find the well attested mystery that clears up all the
other mysteries of experience and remains itself a mystery
only because it is an ultimate fact. ‘The self as a free agent
is such a mystery: it illuminates all other mysteries and,
we may add, it is the only one that does.
Before leaving the subject of freedom, we may say a
word concerning the relation between freedom and creativ-
ity. [he connection is obviously so close that where we
find the one we are practically certain to find the other.
A genuinely free act is essentially creative, since it involves
making actual and existent what before was only a guiding
ideal. Conversely the creative act can be referred to the
self as its originator only if the self has sufficient power in
itself to account for it. An act of blind impulse could
hardly be thus referred. ‘The self, when acting impulsively
or instinctively, is largely controlled from without. Prac-
tically, then, if not also logically, freedom means creativity
and creativity means freedom. ‘This conclusion can be
maintained while recognizing the dependence of the self
on the ultimate Power. When the self acts creatively it
neither refashions a preéxistent raw material nor molds
pure emptiness into forms of existence. The new crea-
tion is a joint achievement—the self works in free codp-
eration with the ultimate Power. In view of the fact that
THE NA DORE*YOR THE SELF 347
this codperation is an essential feature of all experience,
we can ignore it as a differentia of freedom, and emphasize
the self-originated ideal or purpose and its actualization
in free volition. There is always a great temptation, as
we have remarked before, to force the free act into the
molds of conceptual thinking. But when the psycholo-
gist tries—as did Hugo Miinsterberg in his Willenshand-
lung—even to describe an act of volition, the best he can
do is to trace the preparatory muscular adjustments and
the subsequent muscular and neural releases together with
the accompanying emotional states; he has not a word for
the volition itself. “Thought-content may serve as guide
to the self, but cannot perform the free creative act.
It is usual to distinguish the creativity of finite selves
from the creative acts of the ultimate Power, but the dis-
tinction throws no light on the problem of how any-
thing can come into being. In creating the cosmic uni-
verse of changing conditions that make possible the life
and well-being of finite selves, the ultimate Power evi-
dently has resources that we do not possess. But this
fact is only another aspect of the infinite mystery that en-
velops the whole of experience. All that we need to
maintain, in order to account for our part in the joint
transaction of world-building is that we as selves are free
and creative under the limitations that experience reveals.
Of all the creative activity by the self, the apprehension
of other selves and the social whole is the crowning attain-
ment. It is here that the world of the self most nearly
approximates the creativity usually ascribed to the infinite
Being as his exclusive domain. We might not think it
strange or beyond the powers of a finite self to construct,
under the compulsion of stimulations, the physical world
in so far as that world becomes known to the individual.
This would seem from one point of view to be merely a
case of following directions and reproducing an original
that already existed in the divine mind. But when we
have to account for the presence of other selves in our
348 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
experience, we hesitate to draw the obvious conclusion.
If we are correct in our analysis thus far, there is nothing
for us to do but to push ahead and “go where reason
leads,’’ just as Huxley thought he was doing. We know
others before we know much about ourselves. ‘They dic-
tate our conventional life in its broader aspects, produce
for us our social values, humanize us, and bring us to
the richer self-realizations. They constitute our life in
so far as our main interests and activities are concerned.
It would be difficult to overstate our dependence on so-
ciety.
How can another self come into our world and produce
such changes in our innermost nature? ‘The only answer
consistent with the facts is that another self in becoming
a self for us is as much a part of our creative activity as
is the rest of our experience world. ‘That the other self
exists for itself apart from our knowing it is not now the
issue. It is simply an interesting and highly significant
fact which compels us to look upon selves as fundamen-
tally different from all other forms of existence. But this
in no way weakens the conclusion that selves, whatever
they are for themselves, are for us who know them our
own creation. In the act of apprehending another self we
really produce a duplicate of our own self-activity in the
body of the other self, while at the same time we make
such changes in detail of expression as the facts of our
experience require. We may describe this as a projection
of ourselves into the body of another self; or we may call
it Einfihlung or sympathetic rapport, or any other cur-
rent expression, but nothing really explains it. The lack
of explanation, however, need not prevent our seeing what
takes place. As nearly as psychologists of selfhood can
make out, the following aspects may be roughly distin-
guished.
On occasion of appropriate stimulations sufficiently
complex and varied, the self responds, creating the other
self or group of selves in the same way as it responds to
WEIN A WO BO Bn Bash Lr 349
the appropriate stimulations in getting an experience of
physical things. The difference lies in the manifest fact
that more of the apprehending self is expressed in the one
case than in the other. It is literally a matter of more or
less. . Whenever the self has occasion to respond to stimu-
lations its first impulse seems to be to posit another self,
and only when that is found to be out of harmony with
the evidence does it modify its response by reducing the
apprehended object to a lower type of existence. As the
self passes down the scale of complexity in the stimula-
tions, it learns to subtract more and more from its ideai
of selfhood, till it reaches the limit of descent in the purely
physical. “Thus it fashions its world with itself as a
model. What is essentially different from the model is
taken to be less than a self. We may generalize, then,
with a fair degree of accuracy, and say that all construc-
tive activity of a self in response to stimulation is as nearly
a duplication of the apprehending self as the context of
experience will warrant.
We learn from experience that the tendency to attrib-
ute selfhood to objects must be held in check, and in con-
sequence we incline to interpret indications of intelligence
in the sub-human with increasing care, lest we make our-
selves ridiculous. Yet our judgment concerning animal
life generally depends to some extent on whether our in-
terest is scientific or sympathetic. If it is scientific, an
attitude of detachment and objectivity is appropriate,
since we seek such information as can be formulated in a
general statement. “The influence of the scientific ideal of
mechanism is also evident to some extent. Hence the
tendency is to credit the animal with only the minimum
of intelligence. Every evidence of essentially human char-
acteristics is called in question and interpreted, as far as
possible, on a purely reflex plane. On the other hand,
when we become sympathetically attached, as in the case
of a household pet, we seem to attain a more intimate
350 FALE SEDER EN WhSi WORRIES
knowledge of the animal’s nature. “The influence of the
social ideal becomes evident. We incline to attribute an
undue measure of human traits to our brute companions.
We may talk to them as if they understood and were con-
scious of what was going on in our own thought life; as
if they had a sense of gratitude, shame, affection. Some
carry this tendency to great lengths. In this field, how-
ever, assertion is out of place. At least we must allow a
wide range of difference in judgment. As we recede from
the plane of the human, we know less and less of the ob-
ject, for the sufficient reason that there is less to know.
The temptation is to supplement knowledge. The
tendency to read more into the evidence than a strictly
critical attitude might justify is practically universal. All
interpretation is upward until the human plane is reached.
Social intercourse on the human plane is revelatory in both
directions. Each person discovers in his fellow new com-
plexities of nature, new depths of emotional life. At the
same time, social life discloses to each individual more and
more of himself. Under the stimulus of social life, each
unfolds hidden potentialities of his nature. While selves
are essentially alike, they differ widely in particular mani-
festations. The differences in taste, interest, point of
view, and capacity are multiplied by differences in actual
experience. Hence in so far as we can enter socially into
the lives of others, we draw out our own natures. This
process is never complete, and there seems to be no limit
within the span of life to the growing complexity of the
results.
We cannot fully know the self, for it grows through-
out its career. “This commonplace remark should not be
interpreted as meaning that all the self’s past is saved to
it in the process. ‘The self passes from one form of ex-
pression to another. ‘Thus every experience reveals some-
thing of the inner nature. We are forbidden, therefore,
to start with a preconception of the capacities and limita-
Weleoi yeu Wey Oe ai eh otiele 0 9 351
tions of the self, and in the name of this prejudice proceed
to deny what experience may suggest or reveal of a vaster
self. We should not be bound by the conception of self-
hood given in unreflective experience. When we try to
understand the self by taking into account all that it does,
we find that we must think cosmically. The nature of
the self as revealed at any moment in its unfolding must
include not only the world as then experienced, but all
that the self may at the time hope or fear or dream. This
does not mean that the self is its world—a manifest error
—hbut that it is all that is necessary to create such a world.
‘The experienced universe, then, is the measure of the pres-
ent self. If we would know all that the self is, we should
have to take much else into account. The world of ex-
perience is changing moment by moment. We are learn-
ing more and more of our friends, making new acquaint-
ances, getting new information about society and its mani-
fold problems. All this must be reckoned as expressing
the nature of the apprehending self. Besides we must con-
sider that although the self forgets most of its doings,
there is no telling when or under what circumstances the
forgotten will come again before the self as a remembered
experience.
Furthermore both the capacity to remember and the
variety of new experiences depend on conditions that are
apparently inherent not in the nature of the self, but in
the bodily organism. ‘The self, in other words, is limited
in the range of its activities only externally, both as re-
gards present experiences and those that are referred to the
past and the future. ‘There is no real evidence that in any
functioning of the self there is even an approach to a limi-
tation from within. We become weary, but that is mani-
festly physical; we soon reach the limits of our intellectual
or volitional activity, but that too is traceable to the bod-
ily conditions. A better brain, and we think better. “The
better thinking is as easy as the other kind, when the
52 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
physical conditions permit it. Give the body needed rest,
and the capacity of the self is renewed. In short we never
experience self-weariness or self-limitations; what seem to
be such are all traceable to bodily functioning. This po-
tential infinity of the self is not ordinarily appreciated.
We are as a usual thing, and for our own good, immersed
in the routine of life, and must first reckon with the com-
monplace, before we can advance and get the larger vistas.
We find ourselves in the measure that we find a world.
CHAPTER IV.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD
We enter now upon the discussion of special problems
of selfhood. One of the most pressing of these problems,
much discussed both by psychologists and by philoso-
phers, is the relation of the self to the body, the ‘‘mind-
body problem.’ It cannot be ignored by any serious stu-
dent of selfhood. Even the behaviorist is forced to con-
sider it before he can finally dispose of the self as any-
thing other than the body in action. In fact few of his
problems are so troublesome. He prospers so long as he
moves on the plane of physics and psycho-physics, but
whenever he has occasion to consider such psychic phe-
nomena as perception, conation, evaluation, the mind-
body problem becomes acute and he has no resources with
which to meet it. The only course open to him is to sub-
stitute for the psychic activities, forms of physical func-
tioning. This deceives no one, not even the behaviorist,
unless he considers that his methodological device yields
not only scientific but also philosophical truth. The
mind-body problem is really not so unmanageable if we
start with the facts of experience and remain true to them.
There is mystery here as everywhere else; but within the
broad limits of the knowable we can find a fairly satisfac-
tory theory.
The self and the body are profoundly interrelated.
Whatever the question concerning the activity of the self,
the answer must recognize the part played by the body;
whatever the issue concerning bodily functioning, no ex-
planation can be final that ignores the self. The reality is
353
354 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
not the self nor the body, not even the self and the body,
but the self body unity. If asked, What is the body? we
might do worse than answer, It is the self as expressed in
physical functioning. And if asked, What is the self? we
might answer, It is that which is manifested in what con-
stitutes for us the body. Heretofore we have been refer-
ring to the self as if it might conceivably function apart
from the body and in accordance with its own spiritual
nature. “This assumption must now be either justified or
discarded; we face the mind-body problem.
That the self depends on the body is manifest. The
effects of bodily injury, of malnutrition, disease, growth
and decay, all indicate this dependence. On the other
hand, the evidence that the body is conditioned in subtle
ways by the self is not quite so unmistakable, though
quite as abundant. Confusion arises when the living body
in continuous contact with the self is not sharply distin-
guished from the body after this connection has been sev-
ered—the mass of slowly disintegrating material that we
call the dead body. ‘The living body utilizes energy, re-
places worn-out or deénergized tissue, carries on the com-
plex activities involved in the maintenance of bodily
structure and function, responds to emotions, passions,
conations, and in a variety of ways reveals the controlling
influences of the life principle. It serves as the sole
medium of communication between the self and the outside
world. It remains itself while continuously appropriating
and discarding physical elements from the environment.
In contrast the dead body is characterized by the absence
of all these forms of activity. All that means organiza-
tion, unity, sensitivity, responsiveness to psychic influ-
ences, ceases with the passing of life from the body.
Nothing is left but the discarded material that happened
to constitute the physical elements at the moment of
death. This has no conceivable connection with the self.
Our problem is the connection between the self and the
living body. ‘The vast literature on this subject witnesses
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD 355
to its continued interest. Psychology, psychoanalysis, ab-
normal psychology—to mention no more—are largely
devoted to it. We can attempt only general suggestions
on the nature of the self as related to the body and the
nature of the body as related to the self.
Certain abnormal bodily functionings, such as the so-
called automatisms, raise the question, Which is primary,
the self or the body? The phenomena of dreams suggest
the question whether the self may not under certain con-
ditions detach itself from the body and temporarily, if not
permanently, take on a different form of physical manifes-
tation. ‘The rare experiences known as dissociation or
dual (multiple) personality point to the possibility of the
self being split up into several selves. Finally the facts of
growth and decay are susceptible of more than one inter-
pretation as to the permanence of the self. “These four is-
sues—the primacy, independence, integrity, and perma-
nence of the self—are philosophy’s chief concern with the
mind-body problem.
In studying automatisms, the scientist has rarely hesi-
tated to make the body primary, and to treat the self as
a mere accompaniment or even a mere name for the com-
plex physical activities. If the mind shows abnormalities,
the physician looks for a lesion in the body, some organic
or at least functional trouble. But more and more inves-
tigators of these maladies are coming to appreciate the
subtle influence of mental conditions in the patient. The
physician very correctly places the emphasis upon the
physical maladjustments, for they can be directly studied,
and the problem for him is one of effecting a cure. But
when we would know what the facts under discussion
signify as to the nature of the mind-body connections, we
need to give special attention to the psychic elements.
Can the facts be interpreted in harmony with the conclu-
sions already reached as to the essential agency of the self
and the essential passivity of the body? If so, this con-
clusion must continue to hold against all rival theories.
We believe we can do justice to all the facts concerned by
356 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
maintaining that these physical maladies indicate an ab-
normal functioning of the self: the power of self-expres-
sion is impaired. The self may still, therefore, be looked
upon as the active principle in the mind-body combina-
tion.
What have dreams to tell us? Is there any truth in the
ancient superstition that the soul in dreams can leave the
body and wander forth either bodiless or with an ether-
eal, phantom body? ‘To ask such a question marks one
as visionary and wanting in scientific acumen. We mod-
ern folk are far removed from the crudities and credulities
of primitive peoples, at least we believe we are. Never-
theless certain well-known experiences of the dream con-
sciousness are hard to explain on any other theory than
that of spiritual detachment. The self seems in the dream
to break away and roam at will while the actual body re-
mains in one place. Whatever our final conclusion as to
the meaning of these experiences, they cannot be brushed
aside as of no significance. “They are rooted in the essen-
tial nature of selfhood. The revival of interest in the in-
terpretation of dreams following upon the researches of
Freud, Jung, Adler, and others, makes our question seem
less bizarre. “The psychoanalysts were at first satisfied to
explain dream experiences as mechanical functioning of
the bodily organism while under special tension. But
the more carefully these dream experiences were studied,
the more the self appeared as a determining factor. How
far may we go in recognizing this dominance of the self?
Can we accept the subjective evidence at its face value and,
with certain religious sects, contend that the self may, un-
der exceptional conditions, actually leave the body for a
season? Evidently the theory is no more grotesque than
the contrasting theory that the body itself does the dream-
ing while the self is a figment of bodily activity. If we
dared to believe that the self has this power of independ-
ent action, certain doctrines of survival might be much
more easily accepted.
BePOCIALAPROBEEMS OR VSELRHOOD | 9357
But we are not justified in such a belief, and for two
principal reasons. (1) The belief implies that the self
is a space-filling substance, capable of locomotion through
space. This is tantamount to denying that the self is
strictly and wholly an agent, for as agent it is non-spatial.
(2) The dream experiences can all be accounted for in
closer harmony with both the findings of psychology
and the conclusions of philosophical reflection. We need
only to recognize that the self is an agent, creating and
modifying its experience world, and that in all its activi-
ties it is under limitations which determine for it the struc-
ture of its world. As limited the self must express itself
in forms of activity that have a definite structure and
mode of operation. In short, the self can give effective ex-
pression to its inner life of agency only through a body.
A self without a body would be ineffective, if indeed it
could exist at all. On the other hand, the self thus lim-
ited need not be attached to any particular group of physi-
cal elements such as compose the body at any one time.
It could not be so attached if it would; the anabolic and
catabolic processes that mean the life of the body, judged
from the objective side, preclude such a possibility. The
body as the structure expressing the limitations of. finite
selfhood remains, while the physical elements are ever pass-
ing and being replaced. This manner of speech is in har-
mony with the ordinary common-sense view of the physi-
cal world. If we should express the thought more in ac-
cordance with the results of our previous discussions, we
should say that the body is merely the flowing expression
of the self in manifesting itself to others and in producing
changes in its experience world. The continuity and in-
tegrity of the body is the continuity and organic char-
acter of the self’s activity. “The movements of the body
express the limitations under which the self works.
When, therefore, the self passes through a series of dream
experiences that seem to indicate a power of detachment
from the body, we must conclude that it is manifesting its
creative energy under a different type of limitations. The
358 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
new dream type may well be called a dream body since it
is effective in the dream world. But it ceases to be effec-
tive when the self passes out of the dream state. In this
sense the self may have as many bodies as it has dreams,
but none of these bodies could belong to the phenomenal
world.
The phenomena of dissociation suggest that the unity
and the integrity of the self can be disrupted or else that
more than one self can occupy the same body. This raises
the question of the self’s essential integrity. Under cer-
tain conditions the self may apparently suffer such com-
plete breaks in the continuity of its life that it seems to be
quite another self. It can have a different set of interests,
different modes of activity, different vocabulary, different
memories. Everything that manifests selfhood may be
different. These strikingly different groups of psychic
phenomena may alternate at intervals and each represent
a complete cycle of experiences. In extreme cases, neither
‘‘personality’’ remembers the experiences of the other. Do
these phenomena point to the conclusion that the unity of
the self is a function of the body? or do they mean that a
single body may successively function for numerically dif-
ferent selves? One of the most subtle and effective attacks
upon the primacy of the self in the mind-body combina-
tion is the insistence upon the unity of the body in the
phenomena of dissociation. “Though we do not know
enough about these phenomena to dogmatize, we are free
to suggest that they are susceptible of quite another inter-
pretation. In fact, several other interpretations have been
brought forward and defended. If the dissociation were
complete and final, if no connections could be discovered or
developed between the alternating personalities, the inter-
pretation might possibly be that separate and distinct selves
successively manifest themselves in the one body, each
finding the physical system suitable to its nature. Under
the conditions as stated, it would seem less reasonable that
the original self had actually been broken up into two or
more. But neither of these conceptions is quite satisfac-
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD 359
tory. As against the theory of a divided self we may urge
that the self is not a space-filling organism capable of fis-
sion. It is essential unity because it is pure agency and
therefore not made up of parts that can be separated.
From the physician’s point of view, the observed phe-
nomena may mean literal dissociation, because for him the
physical facts are the significant ones. “To the student of
selfhood this view is simply impossible as a final explana-
tion. Besides the close observer of the phenomena is al-
most certain to discover subtle connections between the
personalities, connections that may consist in subconscious
mannerisms or in actual though vague recollections of each
other’s experiences. It is the task of the physician to de-
velop these connections until the two personalities blend;
the patient is then pronounced cured. ‘These facts could
mean that throughout the experiences of alternating per-
sonalities the self remained itself, but because of physical
conditions was compelled to manifest two sets of widely
differing experiences. “That the self is capable of thus sim-
ulating more than one personality is abundantly evidenced
in the phenomena of dreams. It is also at least suggested
by the sympathetic rapport of one self with a fellow self
in society. Every self that we learn to know as another
self is in a real sense ourselves manifested. “The main ob-
jection to the other interpretation of the phenomena,
namely, that different selves alternately inhabit the same
body, is that selves do not occupy or inhabit a body, they
manifest themselves in bodily form.
The mind-body entity grows, matures, passes into sen-
ility, and finally ceases to be. How may these facts be
interpreted? “[hey may mean that the self grows as does
the body, that it starts at the zero point of effective living,
waxes with the increase of bodily vigor, and wanes with
the weakening of the body. This is the ordinary inter-
pretation, but it is open to certain obvious criticisms. For
instance, the body as the manifestation of the self depends
for its effectiveness on the organization and utilization of
physical elements. What, then, appears as the growth
360 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
and decay of the self is in reality the increasing or decreas-
ing capacity of the self to dominate the physical modes of
expression. It is well known that at any moment in the
life of the self a sudden change may take place in its ca-
pacity to exercise these prerogatives. [he excessive loss
of blood, the effect of stimulants, the reception of deeply
moving information or any one of many disturbing influ-
ences may profoundly modify for good or ill the physical
expression of the self. This physical expression depends
for its efficiency and normality upon a certain balance and
harmony of parts in the organization, a certain respon-
siveness of function. This harmony may be so disturbed
that the self misinterprets its experiences. Forms of de-
mentia may result in which all expression seems awry.
It is difficult to believe that the self as an entity fluctuates
in these various ways; that on occasion it all but ceases
to be, that, following a physical change, it augments its
nature up to or above the normal; that with physical mal-
adjustment it becomes itself deranged and demented, in-
capable of normal functioning; and that this condition
may .pass and the self become its true self again under the
surgeon's knife. A belief in such utter dependence of the
self upon the varying and unstable aspects of bodily ac-
tivity is the more difficult when we take into account the
qualitative complexity of the psychic life as compared
with the qualitative monotony and simplicity of the dis-
tinctively physical functionings. ‘The self overflows the
physical at every point.
But if we draw the conclusion that the self is not sub-
ject to the same fluctuations of growth and decay as the
body, we must meet manifest difficulties. Is the self full
grown in infancy? Is it still in possession of all its inner
psychic resources at the period of senility? Is the self su-
perior to change? We are not prepared to answer these
questions, we can only throw out tentative suggestions.
1Cf. Bergson, Matter and Memory, Introduction, and Mind-
Energy, vii.; also H. Wildon Carr, A Theory of Monads, chap. viii.
SPECIAL RPROBEEMS Ob SELPHOOD | 361
We are persuaded that the self is vaster, more complex,
more enduring than any or all possible physical expres-
sions of it. The physical expressions must be learned,
they are in very truth only expressions. When by a clot
of blood on the brain the intellectual and moral giant is
reduced to imbecility in emotional and intellectual life, or
when by the removal of the clot, he is restored to his orig-
inal brilliant career, it is purely a matter of adequacy of
expression. After certain lesions of the brain the patient
on recovery must often re-learn the most ordinary physi-
cal movements, such as walking, eating, speaking. This
re-learning is manifestly a problem in mastering a method
of the self’s expression. Whenever the self is forced out
of harmony with one system of expressional conditions
into another system, it must perforce learn the methods
of the new set of conditions, and while doing so will seem
to grow pati passu with the mastery of the new condi-
tions. In other words, the self may on occasion have to
learn a new set of physical reactions, new methods, new
habits—the same self all the time, yet not the same, be-
cause it cannot manifest itself so adequately. Over against
these reflections we must place the fact that all the experi-
ences of the self affect its inner life. It is never the same
after as before a given experience. In this sense it is a
growing entity. But growth of inner nature through suc-
cessive experiences is quite a different thing from such
identification of the self with the bodily activities as
equates every variation of the physical capacity with a
variation of selfhood.
We may now sketch certain plausible conclusions from
our study of the mind-body problem. (1) The self is
always the agent expressing itself in bodily functioning,
whether conscious and volitional, or subconscious and re-
flex. Whatever distinguishes the living body from the dead
body is a mode of the self’s expression. (2) The body
is a living organism carrying on the complicated processes
of anabolism and catabolism in the objectification of the
self’s activities. It is for the self an intricate nexus of
362 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
unique experiences, the locus of all sensations, the instru-
ment of all thinking and conation, the condition of con-
sciousness, the basis of all goods within the reach of the
self. It is the mechanism of communication between
selves. It measures the self’s capacity to modify its en-
vironment. It exists for the self only as a part of the self’s
constructed experience; it exists for other selves only as
they too construct it in response to stimulations. (3) All
abnormal phenomena in the life of the self must be inter-
preted as deranged expressions of selfhood under the limi-
tations of its finitude, though for obvious reasons they
seem to originate in the physical organism. We can say
the same of all normal experiences of the self; in so far
as they reveal an orderly sequence and predictable charac-
ter, they may be referred to the body as their source. But
this reference of experiences to the body should be recog-
nized as merely a matter of convenience. Otherwise we
progressively distort the real nature of the situation. If
we start with treating the body as the source of ordinary
experiences, we tend to make the self only the mysterious
background of psychic phenomena not yet explained.
The self is thus in process of being eliminated from its
own world.
Certain interesting questions grow out of these conclu-
sions. If it is true that the body is a mode of manifesta-
tion on the part of the self and marks the limit of the
self’s power to manifest itself, then we are close to tautol-
ogy when we say that with a more facile brain one might
think better, or with a more vitalized blood supply and
firmer muscles and steadier nerves, one could accomplish
more. But if a better brain means a better self and an
injured brain a suppressed self, what of the statement in
the last chapter that the self’s limitations are external to
it? It is true that the body merely expresses the limita-
tions and only the self has causative or ontological reality.
The conditions, then, that control the self and circum-
2 Cf. supra, p. 351.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD 363
scribe the range of its activity are apparently not external
to it; at least they do not emanate from the body. But
in that case are they inherent? Do they pertain to the es-
sence of the self? Must it be limited in order to be a self?
‘The answer to these questions is that the self as we know
it is limited, but selfhood is not. The idea of the self as
agent does not involve any particular system of limita-
tions. ‘These are matters of fact. As characteristic modes
of response by the self to controlling stimulations, the
bodily changes may vary through wide limits. They are
not only evanescent but non-recurring, and hence bear the
marks of being strictly adventitious. “The purely physi-
cal functions are far from being the only forms of self-
expression. We are cognitive beings with capacity to
think, evaluate, and form purposes. “Thinking as an act
of the mind contains no limitation within itself; that is,
there is no reason in the nature of thinking why the finite
self should not compass all possible knowledge. Know-
ing the simplest fact is the same as knowing all things.
Memory might be perfect instead of intermittent and
weak. All the processes that enter into discovery and
appreciation might conceivably be carried to such effec-
tiveness as to compass the physical universe and penetrate
the innermost secrets of the spiritual life. We might be
able to appreciate all beauty, all meaning, all value. As
for volition, nothing is easier, when the conditions justify
the act. When we are once convinced that the thing de-
sired can be obtained without undue effort, the volition
wills itself, as it were. ‘The difficulties lie altogether in
the objective conditions. Until certain inventions were
perfected one could not actually will to ride in a motor
car, but now for many people the volition to use such a
conveyance is a mere routine. Willing the most insignifi-
cant change is the same essentially as willing a universe
into being. All the activities of the self above the plane
of physical functioning are thus potentially limitless.
We may conclude then that the bodily limitations
might conceivably be other than they are without annull-
364 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
ing the identity of the self. Whatever else it is, the body
is a tool, an instrument of expression, a means of reach-
ing and influencing other selves. As such it is not to be
lightly esteemed. It is indispensable to our present mode
of living. But that does not mean that it is the only
possible way in which the self can express its nature. As
finite the self must work under limitations of some sort,
hence cannot exist without a body and an external world
with which it must reckon. But the body as we know
it might become other than it is with greatly enhanced
powers, and the self would expand in its activities corre-
spondingly. What this might mean is suggested by the
fact that even a slight increase in brain power adds enor-
mously to the possible range and richness of the spiritual
life. We do not know what we shall be, for we know
not what we are.
Being finite the self is never in full possession of its
potentialities. It not only must express itself in successive
experiences, but is limited in the grasp and understanding
of any given situation within its experience. It never
can command all the resources of selfhood. Hence to the
student of psychic phenomena the conception of a sub-
conscious self has proved useful. The term covers not
only the latent possibilities of the self, but also and more
especially the wide range of psychic activities that do not
ordinarily emerge into clear consciousness. It compre-
hends the unexpressed life of the self, including the vital
functions of the bodily organism, all reflex and instinctive
activities, the processes in sense perception and intellection,
the abiding effects of past experiences as tendencies and
dispositions, and in short whatever in the conduct of the
self is not at the time an object of consciousness. Most of
the mental and conative functioning is not a matter of
direct experience. Only the results come into clear con-
sciousness. As James pointed out, we concern ourselves
with the stopping places in thought rather than with the
transitional features. “These termini of thought may seem
fixed elements, given to the mind in their completed form,
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD 365
yet we know that they are reached only by a process,
sometimes very complicated, and they continue to exist
only as the constructive activity of the self sustains them.
We need to enlarge our conception of the self to include
whatever may at any time, under any circumstances, either
emerge into consciousness or indirectly influence our con-
scious life. The conception of the subconscious to cover
the unknown and inferential is a great convenience. It
invites us to investigate, it appeals as a terra incognita ly-
ing close at hand. Moreover it satisfies the imagination
when we do not need to be especially critical. “To its un-
charted spiritual possibilities we can refer all our forgot-
ten experiences, all our propensities, all the strange out-
croppings of character, all impulses, aspirations, habit-
tyrannies. It makes picturable the phenomena of multiple
personality, it furnishes what may be needed to explain
in an uncritical way telepathy, clairvoyance, and even
divine revelation. How, forsooth, can the ultimate Will
make its purposes known to man with infallible certainty?
One might answer with James that it is by their break-
ing through into the subconscious, where they take their
chances of crowding above the threshold of consciousness.
The conception of the subconscious is ideally adapted to
support any crudity or vagary that may gain currency,
concerning the nature of experience. It is the natural
home of allerlet Schwarmeret. Hence we should be on our
guard against its careless or uncritical use. Especially
should we not be trapped by the notion that when a bit
of conscious experience, say a perception or a thought-con-
tent, drops below the threshold, it remains intact and es-
sentially unchanged. We have no reason to believe that
any experience whatever continues to exist in any sense
when it ceases to be a conscious experience. As a store-
house of experiences, the subconscious is pure fiction. At
best it is a place of mystery reached for the most part by
inference of doubtful validity.
Other questions grow out of our discussion of the
self as finite and conditioned but capable of indefinitely
366 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
extending the range of its activities: If the finite self were
fully realized, would it be less than infinite? Would it
be longer opposed by a resisting power? Could it be
conscious? Fortunately these questions do not need to
be answered, since the possibility of the conditions being
realized by any of us is so utterly remote. However we
are at liberty to assume in a tentative way that whatever
is essential to the fullest expression of selfhood may, in the
course of time, be possible to the developing human self,
though not of course in this life. We cannot conceive of
what it would mean even to approximate the goal, but we
know that the limitations under which we now live are
mere matters of experience and far from necessary to self-
hood. From the standpoint of selfhood, the limitations
are the real mystery. We know that we as finite beings
are selves in the making, but we do not know why we are
limited in the particular manner revealed in experience.
It is perfectly conceivable that we as selves should be able
to retain our integrity and identity while passing, through
zons of time, from one set of limitations (body) to an-
other in widening ranges of activity, forever approximat-
ing the goal of complete selfhood. On occasion of each
fundamental change of environing conditions, we should
probably need to learn a new method of self-expression,
and thereby pass through stages roughly corresponding to
the career of a human self in this present life.
One reason given for believing that the ultimate Power
is not conscious is that nothing can possibly exist in op-
position to his will. Nothing, therefore, can test that
will and compel it to consider. But this is pure specula-
tion in the objectionable meaning of the term. It starts
with a definition of the ultimate Power and then deduces
what must be the relation of such a Being to finite and
conditioned selves. But the only safe method of proce-
dure is to study selfhood as partly revealed in ourselves.
From the controlled character of our experiences we can
pass inferentially to the nature of a being equal to exer-
cising such control and thereby making the experience of
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD 36/
a practically infinite physical universe possible to us. If
we follow this ‘‘sure method of science’ and avoid unnec-
essary hypotheses, we must recognize that the ultimate
Power, though infinite, is confronted by the wills of all
other selves. This of itself is enough to make and keep
him conscious. He must be conscious if he is to manage
the infinite nexus of environing conditions in such a man-
ner as to realize the potentialities of finite selves.
The self comes from mystery into being, and all its un-
folding capacities root in mystery. [he best we can do
is to follow with care the observable changes in its life
history and draw tentative conclusions therefrom concern-
ing its inner nature and possible destiny. Some light on
special problems may come from a study of the sub-
human realm, but always with the uncertainty attaching
to an interpretation of what is confessedly not quite
human by standards that are necessarily human, though
these standards are hypothetically reduced to make them
applicable. In this transaction sympathy helps, as it does
in all interpretation, but this act of “‘reading in’’ has its
drawbacks. Its lack of trustworthiness is indicated by
the wide range of opinion concerning the degree and ex-
tent of animal intelligence.
Having considered the nature of the self as expressed
in its physical and social environment, we have now to
point out certain tentative conclusions concerning its rela-
tion to other selves and to the supreme Self. “The discus-
sion concerning the nature of the body led us to the asser-
tion that whatever else it may be, the body serves as the
means of communication between the self and other selves.
All the results of our activity as affecting other selves begin
with the movements of the body and are passed on to the
nexus of physical conditions to be taken up and inter-
preted by the other selves. “This is the observed course in
all social life.
The body, then, is the immediate instrument and the
rest of the world the mediate instrument of communica-
tion. From this point of view the universe consists of the
368 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
ultimate Power and the community of selves who act
partly on their own initiative and partly—-so far as they
experience an objective common-to-all world—on the im-
pulsion of this Power. Such a view seems to make of the
body and the physical world generally a mere shell of con-
ditions; but as we have seen, this is not true. If one
should ask what else is included, the reply would be that
the physical world—body and all—is just what it appears
to be. We found that this solid earth was helpless to re-
sist resolution into mere process except as its reality be-
comes value-content. This conclusion reduces it to exist-
ence for selves; it cannot be construed as anything more.
Nowhere below the plane of living organisms can we find
a trace of self-maintenance. Whatever exists in this realm
is strictly “‘psychic content,’ or better, the controlled ac-
tivity of the self. Its very reality depends on the finiteness
of the self, that is, on the compulsion exercised over the
self by the independent Source. Logically antecedent to
the physical universe is a realm of selves, who by means of
a complicated mechanism of conditions are able to com-
municate with one another and form societies for mu-
tual advantage. Society, then, is the fact for which the
physical world exists. We might express the conclusion
in another way by saying that the selves are the causal, the
ontological reality; the physical realm is the evidence that
they have found a way to communicate with one another
and to maintain themselves.
In one sense the individual self is the unit; in another,
society; in still another, the entire universe as it presents
itself to the individual. So necessary is society to the
individual that we cannot see how anything more than
the most rudimentary existence would be possible without
the social contact. Even in elementary sense perception
the apparent independence of the object involves the appli-
cation of the social test. “The term objective means
common-to-all. From this most elementary functioning
of the self through the entire range of experiences, every
stage is subject to the social test. “This is illustrated by
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD | 369
the way a hermit, separated from his kind, makes pets of
animals and endows them with essential humanity.
The persistent social reference of all self-activity gives
a peculiar individuality and quasi personality to society.
When human beings are studied in the aggregate and social
bonds are considered in the abstract, society takes on the
form and significance of a super-individual self with
powers, impulsions, tastes, and destiny all its own. Not
much training is needed in the art of reifying abstractions
to conclude that the real is not-the individual selves, but
society asa whole. It is then in place to talk of this
mysterious personality as the Divine Nature or as the
“Beloved Community’’ or as essential Humanity. The
temptation is great. In the first place, this theory has
the support of a striking analogy. Just as the objects of
our sense world lose their apparent independence as soon
as we note the connections that bind them together, so
the individual selves may seem entirely disparate until we
give due weight to social influences. Carrying this an-
alogy through to its logical outcome, we seem to get light
on many troublesome problems of selfhood. Instead of
having to stop with the idea of a multiverse of separate
individuals, each an irreducible entity—an idea obnoxious
to the intellect—-we may now find relief in the theory
that the knowable world constitutes a universe in which
all individuals are but changing aspects and the whole is
a harmonious system. In satisfying the intellectual de-
mand for ultimate unity, the theory furnishes an adequate
basis for the thriving science of sociology. Psychology
also inclines to welcome it as being in line with the
scientific need to reduce psychic life to a series of phenom-
ena. Furthermore the religious value of the theory is
considerable, especially to those who put their trust in
mysticism. If society and not the individual self is the
real unit, the way is open to conclude that the ultimate
Power is the infinite Socius in whom all individual selves
find their destiny. Theologians of a speculative bent have
reveled in such a conception, and philosophers have found
370 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
it a haven of rest from their perplexities. But the value
of the theory is fictitious and its support in experience is
vaporous. There is really no evidence whatever that
society is anything more than the aggregate of discrete
selves who have the unique power of influencing one an-
other. The analogy of physical things vanishing into
dynamic connections, we have long since learned, is utterly
misleading. Asa speculative way out of perplexities, the
theory is a complete failure. ‘This need not be dwelt
upon after our study of pantheism and its fatuous nega-
tions. The integrity of the self is at stake. We must
steadfastly hold to an individualism of the most pro-
nounced sort, if we would resist the alluring fallacy of
exalting society into a reality distinct from its members.
But the individual unit is the social, not the centripetal
self,
Just what do we mean by the social self? A summary
answer would include the following items: (1) that
the self comes into consciousness in experiencing other
selves; (2) that the world of values is largely social in
origin and significance; (3) that society is literally an
expression of the apprehending self’s own nature; (4)
that the realization of the social self is bound up with
the realization of society; and (5) that the will to realize
the ideal of society is the same ultimately as the will to
realize the social self. “This brings us to the much
discussed conception of the Kingdom of Selves.
This Kingdom as an ideal becomes an experience to the
self who lives for its realization. ‘The literal truth of this
statement is seen when we reflect that society is for each
self an objectification of its own nature, concreting its
social interests and purposes. In a very real sense we see
in those about us what we will that they should become,
This ideal of them is the controlling influence of our lives
in so far as we come into contact with them. Our ideal
of society is its reality for us. If, for instance, we are
willing to remain passive as regards social betterment, we
incline to form a conception of society on the plane of its
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD 37]
lower average of expression. A relaxed attitude toward
its welfare tends to make the less significant and desirable
aspects dominant in our thought. We excuse ourselves to
ourselves for our indifference and lower the moral quality
of our living. We are drawn downward in our tastes,
interests, purposes, by the phases of society that we toler-
ate but do not try to improve. If, on the other hand, we
devote ourselves to the upbuilding of society, the ideal for
which we strive becomes identified with all that is best in
society. Its latent possibilities—-what we see that it is
capable of becoming—constitute our actual social environ-
ment. Hence not what society is as seen from the stand-
point of the onlooker, but what it means for us as an
object of endeavor, is of paramount significance in our
self-development. We can make it mean, so far as we
are concerned, all that we would have it become, if we
concentrate on its realization. By doing so we become
members of the Kingdom for which, in its perfect realiza-
tion, the whole creation waits. The self then comes to
itself in creating society. Whatever it learns about people
or any other part of its environing universe is self-
expression. But how can a self create society? Is not
this an extravagant claim based on a confusion of knowing
and being? No. ‘The question itself involves the con-
fusion. We have no occasion to consider what society is
apart from its apprehension by the several selves that con-
stitute it. [here is no such metaphysical entity; it exists
only in and for its members. Society is what it is “‘ex-
perienced as,’ to use James’s expression. We are
considering it because it helps us to know what the self is.
It reveals the self as bewilderingly complex, akin to the
Infinite.
Whatever the self is, its complete dependence on the
ultimate Power must be assumed. This relation of de-
pendence cannot be construed; it cannot be intellectually
grasped. From whatever angle we approach the subject,
we confront mystery. If, with many, we try to formu-
late a theory of this dependence after the analogy of the
ia? HEU SEER sEN Saw RIED
relation of human beings to their thought creations, we
run imminent danger of reducing the finite self to a mere
thought of the Infinite. Or if we try to envisage the
connection as of part to whole, the selves become frag-
ments, temporary phases, mere effluxes of Deity, to be
cancelled in due time, perhaps to be absorbed or trans-
muted. But if with less imagination and more
intellectual penetration, we think of human beings as
essentially divine in nature though temporarily compressed
within the bodily organ, we seem to explain both finite-
ness and self-consciousness. ‘To be finite would be to live
in a body subject to bodily conditions. Self-consciousness
would be the turning of the self back on itself when it
must face difficulties. The theory seems to provide also
for such aspects of experience as the sense of freedom, the
possibility of knowledge, and the temporary loss of
consciousness, in swoon or sleep. Freedom could be
represented as quite consistent with absolute dependence,
for it would be merely self-dependence. Knowledge
would be our birthright even though carelessness or
physical limitations might cause us to fall into error.
Sleep would be dependent on physical conditions. Con-
sciousness, being an expression of our finite status, would
be suspended whenever bodily functioning was impaired
in certain ways.
But this theory is open to serious criticisms. While
seeming to exalt personality, it really does the opposite.
Personality is made a mark of finitude, to be abolished
when the spirit leaves the body. Whatever is most
characteristic of the self as we know it must be looked
upon as strictly temporary. All values in so far as they
depend on conscious evaluation must be denied perman-
ence. ‘This leaves nothing worth mentioning in our
world of value. The identity of the self could not
survive such a degradation. [he theory seems to depend
for its appeal on the conception of an infinite plenitude
of resources which each self may share because it is a part
of the whole. But to give up belief in the self’s per-
SPECIAL PROBUEMS OF SELFHOOD’ '373
manence and the continuity of consciousness and the
conservation of all values as we know them is too great a
price to pay for a merely formal explanation in which
no aspect of experience is really accounted for. It sets
before us the picture of the infinite Intelligence limiting
itself for no conceivable reason and enduring the conse-
quences—self-imposed consequences—that might with
perfect ease have been avoided, only to have the suffering
and striving and remorse and spiritual unrest cancelled
by the very Being that had compelled itself to endure the
misery and degradation. From the point of view of the
theory all moral aspiration is as ineffective as moral
wallowing. So long as the divine game of self-deception
lasted, there would inevitably be a certain amount of evil
to endure; but when the game was over, all this would
be transmuted.
We really have no light on this subject of finite depen-
dence, and must refuse to follow speculations in their
vague wanderings. Our only recourse is to take life as
it reveals itself to us and make such inferences as seem
to help to insight and intellectual satisfaction. The facts
of experience teach us that the finite self is free, yet
limited; that it may blunder, yet find ways of correcting
its false conclusions; that it can adjust itself to its environ-
ment in such a way as to make considerable progress
toward a larger life; that it has sufficient value in the
sight of its Creator to justify a hope that it may continue
to live after it departs this life; that it may live in such
close communion with its Creator as will bring to fruition
its highest aspirations. But to see that experience actually
does suggest these conclusions, we need to think beyond
the surface of ordinary routine and formulate for ourselves
a world-view that will do justice to all phases of life. To
stop short of such a view is to rest in a distorted, unsatis-
factory conception of both the finite self and the ultimate
Source of being.
It is not easy to be thoroughgoing in our intellectual
life and at the same time hold steadfastly to the plain
374 THE SELF IN ITS WORLD
teachings of experience. [he overweening influence of
the ideal of system is the source of nearly all our difficul-
ties. The intellect can make nothing of creativity or
freedom or value, except to reduce them to something
essentially different. It is because of this that we have
such a plenitude of purely verbal explanations. One of
the lessons of our investigation into philosophical thinking
is the advisability of living without a theory on many
subjects of controversy. The spiritual release from
theories that do not explain is worth all it costs. Yet we
should always be open to new light and eager to test
every new suggestion. By holding steadfastly to the
conclusions already attained, we can get suggestive hints
as to our relation to the ultimate Source of our being and
of our destiny in Him. ‘The religious conception of the
Fatherhood of God, when interpreted in the light of the
whole of experience, gives us the most satisfactory view
of God’s relation to human selves. This view carries
with it a fairly convincing argument for belief in a future
life.
INDEX
AMbsDiuten TDL. cl 5 a iy
PSB 297 i. sO OST:
Absolutism, 129 f., 132, 150 ff.,
V5 Oo el 7 ih.
Wbstraction;) |) tallacy 4, of,))\75,
100 ff.
Activism, 167
Adler, 356
fEsthetic—
judgment, 195 ff.
norms, 198, 200 ff.
Values a) Pol ae 19 1) fe;
324.
Agnosticism, 7, 136, 187 f.
Alexander, S., 47, 99, 133, 135,
p39 01s The,
Altruism, 220, 227
Analysis) ot 0,197 £2,599 f.,° 107;
Taf 1607 165 f5)1:70,)203
1G LAAN te
2/O0its)
Animal oworld;, 105, 260°f.,
349 f., 367
Anselm, 250
Peopeatance,./7.4,. 1195. ff, 172 £.,
295 To 1 |
Art—
contrasted with practical inter-
estspn 95 f., 201 f.
distinguished from philosophy,
Lyf;
norms of, 198, 200 ff.
AUthOriTyy oe 95) LL Asa thes
245 ff.
Automatisms, 355 f.
Bacon, Sir F., 188
Baillie, J., 294
Beauty, 17 f., 191 ff.
Behaviorism, 147, 290, 353
Belief, 188, 214, 240 f., 245 ff.,
262
Beloved Community, 265, 305,
369 ff.
Bentham, J., 217
Bergson hia O OO) Vos. likey
280 Teaiolo We oe) os 60
Boas, G., 147
Body 967351) £.4095 3.8.
Bosanquet, B., 153, 158,
294, 299 ff., 304
167,
Bowne, BY Pate 7) 2594/0308,
312
Bradley Peri) 797135, 0l 530m.
EGG TGR PUL O OE eI 25g,
294 ff., 300, 304, 322, 328
Brine oo Uri roo Lf,
364
Brightman, E. S., 308
Broad G25. 508
Calculus, moral, 216
Calkins, M. W., 167, 294, 308
Correia Wacol toy) S08 7322,
360
Carniter be rl o os
Categorical imperative, 220f.,
229
Mategoriess wea 7oiriiirilso LAL
MEE ede lL
Causation; 60,)63 f., (98 £.,.°171;
S50 Tis 339, O42, O4>
Centers of activity, 57, 60, 149
@hanves 639 60-1478 176. £.,
270 ges 2 9) fi 3 4. 46
Character, 330, 338'f,
Choicesealoduty 20 Sita, 220i.
DT lh Ladin to Aeee
375
376
Civilization, 179 f., 185
Clifford, W. K., 284
Cognitive values, 181, 184 ff.,
270 ff., 324
Comic, 191, 206
Common sense, | ff., 58, 85 ff.,
92,96. 14750150
Comprehensiveness, 152
Concept, (62.0 108; 100 le 292i,
310
Concrete, 8 f., 173
Conscience, 215, 220
Consciousness, 167, 283 ff., 302,
307,93 14.5316 1372
Consensus gentium, 244, 247
Conservation of energy, 343 ff.
Consistency, 116, 152, 174, 320
Contradiction) (2) )57 5295 8:;
298, 310
Codperation—
in economic world, 236 f., 265
of self with Source, 31 ff., 40,
TOOT OF MO Zoo Nee to,
346 f.
Copernicus, 11
Cosmological argument, 249 ff.,
253 £.
Creativity, 19 Lik, SAAT)
335 ff., 346 ff.
Creeds, 214, 245 f.
Critical regress, 11 f.
Croce B Oibo3iio) 96.0704
Cyrenaicism, 216
Darwin, 11
Deathy105) 123259295, 4261 oF
Degrees of reality, 156 f.
Dependence, 333 ff., 371 ff.
Descartes, 250
Description, 114 f., 117 ff.
Determinism, 235: 329 ff.,
BS7iE:
Disorder, 112
Dissociation, 355, 358 f,
Dogmatism, 29, 132
INDEX
Douba le7 fa i ilaeeeos
Drakes
Dream: world; 43) 453555) 07 &
140, 355 ff.
Duration, 86 f., 98, 287, 315 ff.,
Gipea
Durkheim, E., 243
Duty, (215 02S ore
Dynamism, 30 f.,) 59,259,095)
113 1 20262 oe
Eckhart, Meister, 160
Eddington, A. S., 46 f.
Effluxes; «29.f.. 159395 72
Ego-centric predicament, 134
Egoism, 85, 217, 220, 227; 239
Einfuhlung, 194, 348
Einstein, A., 46 f.
Electrons, 95, 101, 113, 313
Emerson, R. W., 203, 283
Emotions, 17 f., 90f., 198 ff.,
213, 238, 240, 340
Empiricism, 29 f., 281 ff.
Environment, 70f., 109, 225,
Boe ithe
Epiphenomenon, 226, 284, 341
Error, 35 £2°139 £4289 toe
ay
Essence, 108, 143°h.fe190t)
169, 188, 274
Ethics, 208 ff., 339
Bvil, 105.9233) f..249 4275 oe
Evolution, 104, 110, 262, 280,
286 f.
Experience, 10 ff., 50, 82, 86,
94,106,132, 163 faa
175,249, 122.6 cole
CH be Byes Me
Explanation, 64 ff., 102, 275 f.,
310f., 346
Externality, 114f., 168, 313 f.
Faith, 128, 240 ff.
Fantasy, 41, 101, 192 ff., 327
Fite, W., 227
INDEX
Force. 05 ff.) 100227516), 307
Fourth dimension, 46
Mreedom, 1255232 £.;
324, 328 ff.,
344 ff., 372
Freud, S., 356
Fullerton, G. F., 228
Functionalism, 290 f.
SOG,
338 ff.,
Given, the, 31
God—
aeecelfeu 4s ocl Oates 5 ie,
e618 Rp Ar As BOVEY OD Loe BT
as limited, 256 f.
as non-moral, 256
Fatherhood of, 263 f., 266,
374
Wi Ores 1 + £51240) 205. 2745
304
Goethe, 193
Good, highest—
adaptability of, 213 f.
a principle of organization,
ZLOVE.
as God’s will, 214 f.
as good will, 220 f.
as life according to reason, 220
as pleasure, 215 ff.
as self-realization, 221 ff., 280
definiteness of, 213 f.
inclusiveness of, 212 f.
Greek philosophy, 29 f., 60, 151,
216, 220
Growth, 214f., 306,
Ol fee 55) 55:9) fF.
S18 f7,
Habite 259523947 041
Haeckel, E., 284, 343
Harmony, preéstablished, 81,
139 f.
Hedonism, 215 ff., 222 f.
Pee 14, 97, 152-6,
Zo? fr:
Heracleitus, 60
Herbart, 2, 182
250,
BAN
Heredity, 259 f,, 338 f.
Heresy, 241
Peks Gru. L335
History, 14 ff.
Hocking, W. E., 308
Hodgson, R., 284 f.
Hocffding, H., 239
Holt) babe 1335
Humanity, 238, 244, 369
Fumes 25 lok.
Huxley, T., 97, 210, 348
Idealism, absolute, 129 f., 132 f.,
PID ESILGGO EL Pe Tree 1)
291 ff.
Illusion, 54, 74, 79, 88, 139 ff.,
LO Osea GY ule 20 bf
Imagination, 41, 94f., 191 ff.,
201 ff.
Immediacy, 159 ff., 168
Immortality, 234, 261 f., 292,
374
Imperative, categorical, 220 f.,
229
Independence, 31 ff., 42, 55, 87,
94 f., 134 ff., 148 f.,
t6eT,
Individualaw7 ff:: 7.3 ftw 176 ff.,
300, 304
Individualism, 227 ff., 236 f.
Inference, 101 f., 253
Intellectualism, Go tis. Z20;
ZOUMP ALS AN a O Ect :,
DO 399, ,4
Intelligence, 103 ff., 253 ff., 349,
367
Internality, 114 f., 168, 313 f.
Interpretation, 14 ff., SL;
U7 8246019502367
Intuitionism, 164 f., 218 ff.
JAMESON OF 2.0) 26D. f.,:305;
371
Jones, Sir H., 167
Judgment, 78 f,, 173
Jung, 356
378
Kant 3173363 ):69) wat oaseeo 2,
LO 2220 fie ee 2 OT,
ZS 285t 9 Pate
Kelvin, Lord, 58
Kingdom—
of God, 265
of selves, 370 f.
Knowledge, 12 f., 27 ff., 106 ff.,
132, 164 f., 184 ff., 310 ff.,
De Ae iin Rat
Ears oS
Langfeld, H. S., 194, 197
Law seenatural, “LOS ity oue 4 ts
266)f., a4)
Leuba, J. H., 240
Libido, 238
Lipps, T., 194
Literature, 16 ff., 201
Locke, 30
Lodge, Sir O., 343 ff.
Topic. We 6 a5 6 Ait Dio 27,
Lovejoy, A. O., 133
Loyalty,2253)230;258, 272
Macrocosm, 107, 342 f.
Magic, 244
Mana, 243
Manifold of sense, 30 f., 291
Mansel, sHi it, 2253!
Marvin, W. T., 132 f.
Materialism, 25, 343
McTaggart, J. M., 256
Meaning, 119°.) 109,175
Mechanism, 124i) 27 byt 3 2
B34. f(OAL fui 44. f
Memory, 49 f., 54, 104, 141 f.
Metaphysics, 13, 136, 145, 148,
153,329
Mill.4i.up. 21/7: £,
Mind, 30 ff., 40 ff.,
LOCO We. hoo tes
107, 287
Mind-body problem, 301, 324,
309 fi,
SET AROZ:
94 f.,
INDEX
Monadism, 81
Monism, 300 f.
Montague, W. P., 133, 314
Moore}, G. Es, 133; 1374s
Moral—
argument, 250, 256 ff.
calculus, 216
obligation, 215, 218, 229
scepticism, 212, 237
test in religion, 270 ff.
universe, 258, 267 ff.
values, 181 f., 208 ff., 270 f.,
324
Minsterberg, H., 347
Mystery of selfhood, 312, 328,
339, 346, 366 f.
Mysticism, 129 f., 149, 158 ff.,
164 ff., 172, 369
Nature, 69: ff.) 72.401 09 sae
248, (257 £4 260 fee2oonr
334 f. .
Necessity, natural, 266 f.
Nescience, 132, 327
Newton, 46, 324
Nominalism, 76
Norms, esthetic, 198, 200 ff.
Number, 67 ff., 75
Nunn; TP. 133 1Se also
Object, external, 28 ff., 34, 37 ff.,
415 77; 1087814
Objectivity—
as the common-to-all, 368
as trustworthiness, 178
contrasted with subjectivity, 2,
10, LIZ 1977 200m
213 ff.) 266 52)" eerie
S22 fae
of value, 173, 178, 208 ff.
prejudice, 298
Obligation, moral, 215, 218, 229
Obscurantism, 214, 241
Ontological argument,
2D 2;
249 Es
INDEX
Girderm 103-f.,
wef .49> }
Organisms, 70f., 368
Ostwald, W., 307
RE fet ee oul es
Palmer, G. H:,' 197, 207
Pantheism, 151ff., 168, 370
Perevert loo LaLa
Personalism, 130, 167, 274
Peteonality; 9205; "300, 355,
Se AE PA ee
Pessmism, 250i bia 257) 261
Philosophy—
as interpretation, 14 ff.,
17st, 291
as practical, 24 f.
as world-view, 7 f., 20, 24 ff.
criticism of, 19 ff., 26
defined, 1 ff., 5 ff., 24 ff., 190
distinguished from art, 17 f.
distinguished from common
sense, | ff.
distinguished from history,
14 ff.
distinguished from literature,
Portt,
distinguished from science,
iret lot, U7 ff:
distinguished from theology,
Le 7.
subjective viewpoint of, 10 ff.,
117 ff., 342
validity of, 19 ff.
value of, 23 ff.
Pitkin; WwW. BS 133
Pleasure, 215 ff.
Positivism, 7, 130
Potentiality, 99, 319,
350 ff., 364, 367
Power, ultimate, 14, 104 f., 245,
BO ss Oe Oo fh, eons
pao iti, 3969 f., 3/71 ff:
Pragmatism, 116
Bratton.) >, 143 f£., 240
Seo eihas
379
Prayer, 264 ff.
Prince, M., 233
Pringle-Pattison, A. S., 167, 308
Process, 24, 88 ff., 124 ff., 152,
L69)7293 3/333 4223.08
Psychoanalysis, 94, 238, 355 f.
Psychology, 27, 29, 74, 165,
DISH LOR LO ns 200%
289 0348; (99951369
Puffer, E. D., 195
Purpose .69f iz s iy Zon.
345 ff.
Quality, 2s Oy an Loni 79:
L2O W128 TAS bait
218 f.
Onantitye 67 teh 20. 2b Bie,
Rashdall, H., 256, 308
Rationalism, 129, 150, 164 ff.,
22025 O29 Tie OL a:
LOS 23
Rationality as value, 79, 172 f.
Realisnien7 67) 129i oa Vi loo:
LGAs Elie zee
Reality—
esthetic, 201 f.
as experience, 132, 170,
| EPAOAS SP SAAS fla hn aioe gy JP
as extra-intellectual, 152 f.,
293
as extra-scientific, 5f., 88 ff.
as growing, 113, 370 ff.
as interpretation, 119 ff.
astiifenro lia 2
as meaning, 168 f.
as» process;) 1Z01f?, 152,169
as value, 120 ff., 168 ff.,
L717 3308
degrees of, 156 f.
for mysticism, 161 f.
of sense world, 72 ff., 161 f.,
L Ooty
of space, 44 f,
nan
380
of time, 53 f.
of universals,
151
Regress—
critical, 11 f.
infinite, 337
Relativity, 46 f.
Relations, theory of external, 134,
163
Religiou—
definitions of, 239 f.
moral test of, 270 ff.
of humanity, 244
primitive, 242 ff.
Religious values,
324
Remorse, 230, 329
Responsibility, 259 f., 338, 343
Rogers, A.2K 133
Royee) 0.9) 000155; 0158 1075
2943028 22319
Russell BV) 3o.b aout er Oat.
7D faye Osh
LS2 cen SO 4b.
Santayana, Gs 1728.51.35 )0b45 mh:
188, 196
DeePEicisime ts OF LO dic amoe,
VATE LAS ie 5 Oa Oe
1LS7if.)) 237,249
Schiller, F. von, 192 f.
Science—
asvabstracts J .ticr oven Lees
1:25
as creator of values, 24, 177 ff.
as description, 10, 114, 117 ff.
as organized knowledge,
106 ff.
as partly extra-scientific,
LS,
gsupracticaly 7 ified Vee Poul Gitte
as value scheme, 173 f., 177 f.
distinguished from philosophy,
As fe be ies
ideal of, 168 f.
its results external, 114 f.
pot concerned with freedom,
Cine
INDEX
Self—
SS 2:63 9 10ers
objective viewpoint of, 10,
VES tie
and body, 96, 351 f., 353 ff.
as. | agent,’ \ 29'L) ff aaeea eer
S113 23 fi 33 See
361
as appearance, 311
as centripetal, 227 f., 231, 370
as
as
as
as
as
as
as
a
as
a
as
a
i)
as
as
a
as
”n
as
a
mn
as
as
as
as
as
as
changing, 318 f., 359 ff.
conditioned, 306, 321,
333 ff," 339 fie oo
EV ATS y
consciousness, 167, 283 ff.,
302 ff.
core of being, 296
creative, 324 ff., 335 ff.,
346 ff.
evaluator, 116 ff., 209,
IAG i? Bs i
experience, 295 f., 322
feeling, 296, 299
free, 306 f:, 324,037 oun
implicate of change, 276 ff.
implicate of external world,
276
implicate of
278 £.
implicate of value, 279 f.
infinite, 302; 321, 363/f:
key to problem of causa-
tion, 102
orderliness,
life-plan,- 302 fase
3:19 f24322
manifested in the world,
255 PaAPSe:
monad,, 295,44 30234150)
mystery, 312; ) 328, yoa9,
346, 366 f.
non-consistent, 320
non-spatial, 312 ff.
observer, 28
social, 227 ff., 248, 299 f.,
370
INDEX
as standard of interpretation,
eof:
as subconscious, 364 f,
as substance, 321
as synthesizer, 313 ff.
as system, 297 f.
as time-transcending, 99 f.,
Sb ft.
as unique, 324 f., 348
asLunity; 13.1.) 321
as where it acts, 315
central position of, 273 ff.,
302
contemporary theories of, 166,
ZEGsILOLEs
implied in interpretation,
118 ff.
in xsthetic appreciation, 191 ff.
in empiricism, 281 ff.
in idealism, 166 ff., 291 ff.
in mysticism, 168
in psychology, 283 ff., 289 f.,
301
in realism, 167 f.
knowledge of, 310 ff.
nature of, 309 ff.
permanence: of, 319 ff.,.355,
Lek.
potentialities of, 319, 350 ff.,
364 ff.
viewed objectively, 318 ff.
Self-consciousness, 264, 302, 372
Self-determination, 338 f.
Selfhood—
integration of, 264 f,
problems of, 353 ff.
Self-realization, 175, 221 ff., 319
Self-sacrifice and self-denial, 223,
227 f30 251
Sellars, R. W., 133, 144
Sensa, 30, 59, 281
Sense organs, 27 ff., 93, 96
Sense perception, 27 ff.,
meee 2 1. 13.5,
276 ff,
Cait
148,
381
Sensibles, 137 f.
Sheldon, W. H., 314
Sidgwick, H., 218 f.
NOCIELY 4.227 250 fi 256k
ZAG F929 9 Ae LOS A290 f
337, 347 f., 368 ff.
Sociology, 369
Socrates, 151
Solipsism, 80, 127, 133, 136,
140, 148, 263
Sorley, W. R., 167, 308
Source of stimulation—
as causal, 33, 92 ff., 101 ff.
as conscious, 366 f.
as force, 100 f.
as independent, 33, 42, 86 f..
168
as intelligent, 103 ff., 253 ff.
as knowable, 84, 101, 253,
279
as non-spatial, 33, 97 ff,
as space-time, 99
as substance, 97 f., 100
as time-transcending, 98
as unitary, 97f., 102 ff.
not the object, 31 ff., 84
theories of, 92 ff.
Space, 38 ff., 97 ff., 312 ff.
Spaulding, E. G., 133, 138, 143
Spencer, H., 100f., 25]
Spiritism, 243 f,
Stephen, (Mrs.) K., 86 f.
Stephen, L., 212 f,
Stoicism, 220
Strong, C. A., 133, 144
Structuralism, 289 f,
Subconscious self, 78, 107, 364 f.
Subjectivity, 2, 10, 112 ff., 197,
ZOOS Tee21 Su 2 6740s bO, £-
334
Sublime, 191, 206
Onbstance >on th 6.1,
Petite ly Las?)
bot,
382
Succession, 56 ff., 151, 277
Summum bonum, see Good,
highest
Swain, J. W.. 16
Sympathy. 1 Lo4, ne Love ee
348 ff., 367
Synthesis, 55, 60, 107, 163 f.,
170/188) ZOOL tao
System (6S 2h 2a
PSU Pid a7 Lobo OG
LT PMESVLOS
"Taylor *Avsby Clone Mir.
Teleological argument, 249 ff.,
254 f.
Teleology, 69 ff., 197, 201, 203,
249 ff., 254 £., 291, 345 ff.
Tests of truth, 74 ff., 79, 116 f.,
LLOQ ye eae:
Theistic arguments,
Theology, 14, 17
Things—
as meanings, 119 f.
as modes of activity, 42, 59 f.
as substances, 56 ff., 155
as values, 122 f., 170
Thought—
activity of, 34. ff.,. 42, 112
as judgment, 78 f.
as prejudgmental, 78
as purposive, 255
as thinker. 286
content of, 34 ff.
its laws practical, 174
nature of, 42, 107 ff.,
363
Time, 46 ff., 98 ff., 315 ff., 328
Titchener, E. B., 194
Truth—
esthetic, 198
as coherence or
1h6, 152591 90
as concept, 151
as ideal, 190
249 ff.
WAP
consilience,
INDEX
as pertaining to
110 f.
as practical, 111 ff., 116 ff.
as teleological, 187 f.
relativity of, 83 f., 186 ff.
structure,
tests of, 74 -f., 792716.
P52: £327 Of
Turner, J. E., 274
Unity, ||97 £..) . 202 fie oe
170,°195,0197 (fer aee
Z9L (135i eet
Universals, 9, 73 ff.,
£43,0171;:294
Universe, 125, 151, 181, 255 ff.,
DA SWRS ar 15.190 0
Utilitarianism, 217 ff.
108 ff.,
Validity—
as value, 178
copy theory of, 143 f.
of inference from effect to
cause, 101 f.
of philosophy, 19 ff.
of religious values, 240 ff.
tests! of), 72 is
Value—
xsthetic,. 181, 19108, 270 fe
324
as constituting unity, 119 f.,
170
as implying a self, 279 f.
as objective, 173, 177 f.
as reality, 6120 fh. 16a
171 ff., 368
cognitive, 181, 184 ff., 270 ff.,
324
in various theories, 172 f.
intrinsic and instrumental,
180 f.
moral, 181 f., 208 ff., 270 ff.,
324
of philosophy, 23 ff.
positive and negative,
179.4;
122,
INDEX
religious, 182, 238 ff., 324
variability of, 118, 176 f.
varieties of, 176, 179 ff.
Virtue, 230
Vitalism, 287
Vogt, K., 35
Volition, 64 ff., 91, 264, 267 ff.,
326.\358-f., 347; 363
Volkelt, J., 198
Voluntarism, 167,
Ward, J., 167, 308
Whitehead, A. N., 46
Will 208,214 £., 220 f,, 264-f.,
Zoro 20; 350.ff,, 54/7,
“cb fety Poe to on te
World—
as common to all, 79 ff., 368
anmconstruct;).i2 /aft.; 237 f.;
Wee Seite OG fi,
POH els roo OS
383
as implying a self, 120 ff., 129,
17 SiN DD wee Ot Zoi.
365 ff.
as interpretation of symbols,
ee EE ah
as oknowable; > 2/) fs / 2 f.,
106 ff., 254
as mechanism, 124 ff., 234 f.,
tM do Dh Gale Noid tarts eG Oe Pee EB A pe
344 f.
as moral order, 224, 234,
293.) 206 fo 260,05 24)£.,
367 ff.
asitealeasorricws 2 tae OAT tes
163 ff.
as ouvalien (AZO feel 68. fr.
VRE eo 68
external 2 sews ae oc iee
LEIA HG 68 ff:
World-view, 5 ff., 20ff., 249,
PV Aoi WAS Glas IF EON ih
Woodbridge, F. J. E., 135, 288,
307
Wright, H. W., 229
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IN U.S.A.
PRINTED
©
BD21.W74
The self and its world,
Th
eol
er Librar
ogical Seminary—Spe y
Princeton
1 1012 00008 3057