'♦"Sir '-f^. .^^ .V > ^^^ f^ . k » • - THE Philosophy of History. BY S. S. HEBBERD. PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, LA CROSSE, WIS. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies Received AUG. 26 1901 COPVRIGMT ENTRY /bLASS«-XXc. N«. \ COPY B. COPYRIGHT, 1901, BV S. S. HEBBERD. PREFACE. The first chapter of this book will be a stum- bling-block to many. Those who have spent years in mastering and perhaps in teaching some obscure, intricate system of metaphysics will not be apt to listen very patiently to one who believes that both the great philosophic schools are equally in the wrong. But all such should remember that T am not here at- tempting to construct a new system of meta- physics in one short chapter. I am seeking only to establish a single law of thought which, it seems to me, makes the pages of history luminous. Let the reader regard that law merely as a working hypothesis, and then go on to study its application to the course of human development. Hegel. Comte and Spencer have done much for sociologj^; but it is easy to see that they were heavily handicapped by their metaphysi- cal bias and the consequent narrowness of their intellectual sympathies. It has been the dream of my life that much more might be PRBFACE. done by simply studying the historic facts without partisanship or prepossessions. For more than a third of a century I have labored at this task. The conclusions which I have here summarih^ sketched may prove to be erroneous; but I am supremely confident that this catholic and scientific method is the only one by which we shall ever attain to a true philosophy of history, or in other words to a science of sociology. S. S. HKBBERD. April, 1901. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.— The Nature of Thought. II. — The Civilization of India. III. — Classical Civilization. IV. — Mediaeval Civilization. V. — The Reformation and the Genesis of Science. VI. — Modern Art and Morality. VII . — Social Revolution since the Reformation. CHAPTER I. THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. Section i . The First Principle. All thinking is a relating of cause and effect, [n other words every act of thinking — whether a perception, a concept or an inference — is compounded of two factors, the one indicating a cause, the other its effect. In this synthesis of two elements causally related, the nature of thought consists. Causality. But at the outset I am met by Hume's celebrated paradox denying causality, the doctrine that experience gives us merely the succession of phenomena in time, but not any causal connection between them. But if my thesis just given can be proved true then Hume's logic is instantly overturned. If every act of thinking, every percept, concept and inference, involves the idea of causality, then evidently that idea is involved over and over again in the complex phrase "a succession of phenomena in time. ' ' The thought of causal- 8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. ity, as I hope to show, is involved in the thought of Time and Space. It is involved in theidea of things or phenomena. It is involved in the idea of succession. In fine, Hume's proposition which seemed to him a simple and primary product of experience, is complex and derivative; and each word in it is made intelligible only by that idea of causality which he was striving to eliminate. Virtually the same reasoning applies to the Kantian view that causation is subjective. If causality w^ere merely, as Kant thought, one special form of thought among other forms, we might imagine other and higher kinds of thinking from which this special form w^as excluded. But if the relating of cause and effect is the sole form, the very essence of all thinking, then to cancel it would evident! \' be to cancel all thinking. And after that questions concerning the true or the false, reality or illusion, objective or subjective would certainly be superfluous. It may be well to add that throughout I shall use the terms cause and effect as indi- cating any kind oi dependence^ physical, men- tal or moral. But I shall try to respect the boundaries between the different kinds, not passing from one to the other without notice. THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 9 And that is all that can properly be required of me. The Fundamental Law of Knowledge. If thinking is always a relating of cause and effect, then any attempt to think the cause without the effect, or the effect without the cause will evidently result in a mere half- thought, a vague, elusive fragment of an idea. Clear and distinct thought emerges only when the two complementary factors are united as the nature of thought demands; then each illumines the other. Thus we have the funda- mental law of k no wledge which may be stated as follows: Causes can be knozvn only l]irough their effects; and conversely effects can be known only through their causes. Totheproof of this fundamental law, which of course is closely bound up with the proof of the principle from which it is derived, this chapter is devoted. And when proved, it will guide us to the laws governing- the develop- ment of civilization. Section 2. Self-Consciousness. Self-consciousness, it seems to me, is the recognition of our mental activities as depend- ent upon self. Mark first of all that this de- pendence ol mental activities upon the self is 10 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. not an exclusive dependence. Psychology even v^here it claims to be most scientific, is apt to be amazingly neglectful of scientific principles; and thus celebrated theories of thought have sprung from the neglect of so simple a princi- ple as that of the intermixture of effects. A thought is a very complex effect dependent upon many causes. But the special office of self-consciousness is to make prominent the dependence of the thought upon the thinker. And here our fundamental law of knowledge is fully confirmed. We are confronted by tw^o rival theories of self-consciousness which divide the metaph^'sical world between them. And the root of their disagreement appears to be that each ignores one or the other of the two elements, united in every act of consciousness. One assumes that we can know the effects apart from their cause, the other that we can know the cause apart from its effects. The English School. On the one side we have the theor}' of Hume and his followers, w^ho eliminate the self and describe conscious- ness as mereh^ a succession of ideas or mental states. But even Hume himself admits the virtual unintelligibility of his doctrine: "all my hopes vanish," he w^rote, "when I cometo "explain the principles which unite our sue- THE NATURE OP THOUGHT. 11 "cessive perceptions in our consciousness." And Mill, while accepting the doctrine, adds the naive avowal that "it cannot be expressed "in any terms which do not deny its truth." Other writers indeed, more courageous than Mill or Hume, have attempted to show how one fleeting thought could remember a host of other thoughts long ago departed; but their eflforts seem to invariably end in some- thing fantastic. A distinguished American psychologist, for instance, explains at great length that the thought now present in con- sciousness inherits all the past thoughts just as a man inherits wealth from the departed — a theory reminding one of the old slur that Americans think of nothing but mone3^ But my design is not to ridicule. I wish only to emphasize the patent fact that con- sciousness conceived merely as a series of dis- connected ideas, each existing but for a mo- ment, and yet each capable of remembering, comparing and judging the others — is an impossible conception. It is a vague, half- thought, indistinct, unintelligible. In a word, it violates one part of the fundamental law of knowledge; effects can be known only by re- lating them to their cause. German Idealism. On the other side we find 12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. a rival school of theorists going to the other extreme of error. Thev^ violate the other half of the fundamental law of knowledge; the cause can he known only through its effects. Fichte began this movement by too literally interpreting self-consciousness as merely the self's knowledge of self. And as thus the sub- ject and object of knowledge are brought into apparent identity, although opposed to each other, it was an easy step to Hegel's great discover^' that contradictions were identical. The w^hole Post-Kantian philosophy, then, is rooted in one original error — a defective view of consciousness. To prove that it is a defective view, we need not consult Kant's antinomies, although they are conclusive enough. But a better proof is the constant experience of mankind attesting that we have no such knowledge of 'the Ego' in itself. Search as we will, it remains hidden, inscru- table. It is known to us only in its mani- festations — as the one, permanent cause of that vast and varied host of ideas or mental activities which flit across the held of con- sciousness. But this is not to say, with Kant, that the unity of consciousness is merely logical or formal, or that "the notion of self is an alto- THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 13 gather empty one. ' ' Empty enough it is when we attempt to conceive it apart from its ejects; but it gains fullness of content when related to them as their cause, just as they gain fullness of content and intelligible mean- ing onl^^ by being referred to the permanent self upon which the3^ depend. Consciousness then, I think, must be described as the recog- nition of our mental activities as depend- ent upon the self. The doubt, confusion of thought, and controversy' that have gathered around the subject have come from attempt- ing to suppress one or the other of these two inseparable factors. The cause can be known only through its effects; and conversely the effects only through their cause. Sectio 11 J . Perceptio n . Perception also is a synthesis of two fac- tors, the one indicating our perceptive states, the other that spatial world upon which these states depend. And here one part of our fundamental law — that the cause is known only through its effects — is verified at a glance. For, everj^ one who believes in the realtiy of a spatial world will regard it as a mere truism to say that such a world is known to us only through the effects — the perceptive states — which it produces upon our intelligence. 14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. But to prove the other part of the law — that the effects are known only by being related to their cause — is a far more serious task. For here we are confronted by the s^^s- tem ol idealism, the ver}^ basis of wliich*isthe assumption that we have a full, clear knowl- edge of our perceptions without anj- knowl- edge of a spatial world producing them. And out of this assumed knowledge the idealists proceed to develop a wonderful cosmos of ideas as a substitute for the universe in time and space. Now I wish to show that this assumed knowledge of perceptions apart from things perceived is a pure delusion. To this end let us make a brief survey of the idealistic argu- ment. The Intermixture of Effects. Already I have referred to this familiar principle of science as too much neglected by pS3^chologists. But the attitude taken towards it by idealists is especially bewildering. They discourse at great length upon the aether- waves, the vibrations of air, the nerve motions, etc.; and then they seem suddenly to leap to the con- clusion that these facts demonstrate the ideal- ity of the world. But surely this is not so. Because a perception, once deemed a simple THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 15 effect, is discovered to be a very complex one dependent upon man3^ causes, that does not disprove its dependence upon the object per- ceived. Least of all does it prove the percep- tion to be a merely ideal creation. Because sensations do not depend solely upon things perceived, must thcN^ depend solely upon men- tal energy? Because sights, sounds, odors are not in the things seen, heard or smelled must they be in the intellect ? Moreover this complexity of the effect, this intricate process of causation preceding the final effect proves the utter unknowableness of the sensation in itself. For, the process has this peculiarity that it darkens more and more as it approaches the final product. In vision, for instance, the first stages of the process, from the object through ather-waves to the eye, are tolerably clear; but thence on- ward it darkens rapidly. Of the nerve mo- tions we know but little; of what passes within the closed skull still less. What then can we know of the final product, the mental result, that mystery w^herein a cerebral mo- tion becomes a thought ? The Appeal to Consciousness. But it will be urged that we are conscious of our sensations; that from the physical darkness they emerg 16 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. "into the clear light of consciousness." But the task still remains of defining the knowl- edge thus acquired. To know anything we must know some at least of its attributes; what then are the attributes by which one sensation is discriminated from another in consciousness? Is it not evident that they are the attributes not of the sensations them- selves^ hilt of spatial ohjects perceived? Is the sensation of a round object itself circular? Is the sensation of a mountain, itself any taller than the sensation produced by an ant hill ? Is the sensation produced by sweet things, itself sweet and sticky? Plainly the sensa- tions have no discernible attributes of their own. We discriminate between them, we know them onh' by referring them to their causes. The Ideality of Space and Time. This is the real stronghold of all idealistic or agnostic speculation. And indeed there are so many obscurities, enigmas and apparent antino- mies hovering around our conceptions of space and time, that one seems almost justi- fied in dismissing these conceptions as mere illusions. But in unraveling these perplexi- ties we shall find, I think, a new confirmation of the fundamental law of knowledge. THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 17 For this purpose let us carefulh^ distinguish between infinite, continuous space and the spatial relations of things to each other, such as distance, direction, position, etc. Now it seems to me evident that the latter are de- pendent upon the former. Spatial relations are, of course, also dependent upon things, and would vanish if the things were anni- hilated. But amidst all annihilation ofthings space would remain unchanged and inde- structible. I have now to show that the per- plexities above mentioned have sprung from attempts to conceive of spatial relations as standing in some other connection to space than that of dependence. First, some have attempted to relate spa- tial relations to space as parts to a whole. Kant was apparenth^ led to denj^ the reality of space by the contradictions he found in- volved in the thought of its infinite divisibil- ity. But Spinoza, wiser in this respect than Kant, saw and distinctly affirmed that space was not divisible at all, either infinitely or finitely. What we conceive as a division of space is actualh^ the division of a thing real or imaginary — a surface or solid bounded b3^ definite lines. Space is absolutely continuous and therefore absolutelv indivisible. We can 18 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. not even imagine it as sepai'ated into parts, because we cannot exclude the thought oi space as still intervening between the parts. Secondly, others have described space as a mere abstraction, a general notion under which spatial relations are subsumed as indi- vidual specimens. Kant discarded this view for such excellent reasons as ought to have demolished it for- ever. But metaphysical errors have an enor- mous vitality, and this particular one has been revived by later writers. Spencer, for instance, asserts that "the abstract of all co- existences is space." And he even adds that the co-existences themselves are blank forms of abstracts, so that space would seem to be an abstraction of abstractions. Thus he doubles the force of Kant's refutation, instead of overcoming it. Space is absolutely one, continuous and infinite; therefore there can be no individual specimens of it from which to abstract. Beyond these two views I neither know nor can imagine a third except the one presented above. This view explains the obscure and enigmatic character of our space conceptions which has induced so many to acquiesce in the Kantian theory. For, according to the THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 19 fundamental la w of thought , causes are known only through their effects. Therefore space by itself is a vague, half-thought, indistinct and obscure; so also are spatial relations. But when these two are united as cause and effect each illumines the other, clear knowl- edge emerges, and no room is left for idealistic or agnostic speculation. The Imagination. Anotherresourceoi ideal- ism is its appeal to the powers of imagina- tion. Our perceptions are conceived as some- how objectified; they are "mental pictures" hung before us upon the walls of non-entity, I answer that a mental picture is an impossi- bility; it is a contradiction in terms. For, as a picture it must be spatial, and as mental, it cannot be spatial. The common use of this term mental pictures even among philoso- phers is a remarkable instance of the facility with which a metaphor transforms itself into a fact. But how then, it ma3' be asked, are dreams to be explained ? I answer that dreams, as well as other acts of imagination, voluntary or involuntary, are but memories of past sen- sations combined at will or at random. Of the mental or physical means b3' which sensa- tions are thus recalled in memory, we are in 20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. absolute ignorance. Hence this appeal to what the Kantians term the productive 'im- agination' serves onh^ to verify anew our fundamental law of knowledge. For, if per- ceptions apart from a spatial world pro- ducing them are unknowable, certainly there is no knowledge of them to be gained by likening them to memories, imaginations, dreams, etc., since these are but mj^sterious reproductions of b\^-gone perceptions. Resemblance. The primitive opinion that perceptions must resemble objects perceived, seems to have a strange tenacity of life. Even Reid,w^ho made it his chief business to explode this opinion, could not disentangle himself from some of its subtler forms. And Spencer bases all his agnosticism upon the impossi- bilit}' of knowing whether or not our percep- tions really resemble the world or its parts, i Idealism, still entangled in the old delusion but unable to comprehend how perceptive ideas can be like a spatial world, finds relief in maintaining that the world must be like our ideas ! Evidenth^ the change is but a verbal one. The onlv wav out of all this bewilderment (1) Spencer. Psychology I. 225. And throughout. THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 21 is to substitute for the crude, empirical con- ception of resemblance, the scientific concep- tion ot dependence. Perceptions do not, can not resemble a spatial world, but they are dependent upon it. This principle is not an intuition or assumption; it is based upon the unimpeachable fact that when we cancel the spatial world, nothing remains by which per- ceptions may be discriminated from each other or known; and when perceptions become un- knowable, still more so must the other forms of thought derivative from them, such as memories, imaginations, dreams, and con- cepts of every kind. Note that this has nothing to do with the further question concernmg the ultimate de- pendence of the spatial world upon infinite thought. Idealism adds to its bewilderment by confounding these two distinct questions. So far as the theory of human knowledge is concerned, the primary principle is that our perceptions are dependent upon a spatial world. That principle accepted one ma}- go on to more speculative questions; but to dis- card it is, as we have shown, to render all speculation and all thinking logically impos- sible. The fallac\^of idealism, then, lies in violating 22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. one part of the fundamental law of knowl- edge. Idealism annuls the causes, the spatial objects perceived; and still imagines that it has a full, clear knowledge of the effects, the perceptive states. But effects can be known onl}^ in so far as they are related to their causes. Section ^. Concepts. Substance and Attribute. As a transition to our main theme let us note here a dilemma over which logicians have often vexed them- selves. Attributes, it is trul}^ said, cannot exist apart from some substance or substrate in which they inhere; and yet on the other hand, if we think away all the attributes, the substance also disappears. But what is this dilemma but a new confirmation of the funda- mental law of knowledge? Substance and attributes are related to each other as acatise and its effect. Hence we cannot conceive of attributes apart from a substance, because effects are known onW when related to that upon which they depend. And conversely when we think away the attributes the sub- stance also vanishes because a cause can be known only through its effects. General Notions. Logicians have long dis- tinguished between two shades of meaning THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 23 involved in every concept — its extension and its intension — but without appreciating the full significance of this distinction. The two meanings, I think, severally point to two orders of fact which are related to each other as cause and effects. The extension points to a resemblance between a number of individual objects, the intension points to that upon which this resemblance depends. Consider, first, concepts connoting but a single attribute; especially those forming the fundamental notions of physics, such as heat, electricity, etc. The scientific mind has always been more or less conscious of a certain double- ness of meaning in these concepts. ^ Heat, for instance, indicates a similarity in the sensa- tions emanating from heated bodies, but along with this it has a quasi-substantiahtj^ of its own. The opinion that heat was liter- ally a substance, if it ever was leally held by scientific minds, is now indeed abandoned; but the truth underlying that vague opinion is as vital as ever. Heat means something more than a similarity of sensations: it means also a cause, a complex of conditions in the environment by which each particular sensa- (1) See especially Grove, Correlation of Forces, 186, 24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. tioii is produced and of which each heated body is but a temporary vehicle of transmis- sion. And so always there is this duality of import, the one referring us to similar effects or sensations, the other to that complex of causes upon w^hich the effects depend. The same double import appears in that universal concept of motion to which the other physical notions have been reduced. Motion means, in its extension, the innumer- able phenomena of moving bodies; intensively , it means that permanent cause or force wdiich remains indestructible after the moving body has ceased to move or even to exist. True we have forconveniencetwo w^ords to express these two meanings; but nevertheless theidea of force is implicated in that of motion, as the idea of motion, potential or actual, is implicated in that of force. The concept ol a natural kind involves the same two-fold meaning. The bare thought of that vast array of attributes included in the intension — all so indissolubly united that from the known presence of a few we can unerringly infer the presence of the rest — holds implicit within it the thought of some com- mon process of causation upon which they all depend. So far as the similarity of a species THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 25 is concerned common experience has always found such a process of causation in the repro- ductive process; and the law of evolution has but extended the action of this force from species to genera, to orders, kingdoms, the whole organic world. In fine, the whole progress of biological science has been but the gradual, reasoned development of that thought of a causal connection between the attributes which lies implicit in the intensive meaning of ever\'^ concept. It may be objected that these two mean- ings of the concept are subtile and elusive, not easily distinguished, tending to flow into each other. But that is precisely what the fundamental law of knowledge demands. For each of these meanings is by itself a vague half-thought, obscure and ill-defined. It is only through their combination that clear, distinct knowledge is attained. And I may add that therein lies the necessity for the two main requirements of scientific re- search — careful observation of particulars or resembling individuals combined with a pro- found conviction of the unity and independ- ence of all things. The Hegelian Universal. It is the merit of Hegel to have seen the weakness of the nomi- 26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. nalistic view of the concept as betokening only a unit}'' of resemblance. For that he would substitute "organic unity." But this theory- is only a painfully elaborated meta- phor. No known facts render it probable or show how it can be possible that the "total- it}^" of individuals in a species — say of flies or cherries — form an organism: or that the whole universe of things is either a plant or animal. Furthermore, the truth in Hegel's view of dependence can be gained without recourse to metaphors; and without abandoning the logic approved by the human understanding in all ages in favor of a new logic, invented b\' the "Pure Reason" of German\' in her darkest days. As has been shown, we have only to search deeph^ into any one of these formal and barren concepts of 'the under- standing' to find there involved that princi- ple of dependence which it has been the mis- sion of science to fully develop. Finally, so far from reconciling Nominalism and Real- ism, the Hegelian logic negates that independ- ence of the individual for which Nominalists contend and afiirms an exaggerated depend- ence which Aquinas or Duns Scotus or any sober-minded realist of the Middle Ages would have repudiated as childish. THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 27 Realism and Nominalism. The real recon- ciliation of the rival schools of logic can be effected only by recognizing them as comple- mentary systems. Realism laid a too exclu- sive emphasis upon the thought ot depend- ence involved in the intension of a concept. The realists rightly saw that the Universal was something more than a name for resem- bling particulars, that it involved the recog- nition of forces or causes upon which these multiplied and infinitely complex resemblances depended. But they expected to interpret these causes and to develop them into a sys- tem of knowledge by mere scrutiny of the concepts themselves, by dint of mere conject- ure and reverie rather than by exact observa- tion of the resembling particulars. In a word, Realism failed tosee thatcauses canbeknown only through their effects. Hence its final discomfiture and discredit. Nominalism, on the other hand, lays all its emphasis upon the concept's extension. It sees in a Natural Kind nothing but a multi- tude of resembling individuals; its thinking if consistent does not reach beyond the in- choate, inane categor}' of resemblance. This is notably shown in Berkeley's arguments, so often pronounced "impregnable," against gen- 28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. eral notions. They all revolve around the principle that thoughts must resemble their objects, that is, be images or pictures of them; but evidently one cannot picture general no- tions; hence there can be no general notions. But these arguments are all based upon a fatal fallacy; as we have seen in the previous section, no kind of ideas, either individual or general, can be pictured; a mental picture is an impossibility^, a contradiction in terms. Furthermore, the individual thus nominal- istically conceived as an isolated object merely resembling other objects, does not exist. Onl^' through its dependence upon other things does the individual come to be what it really is. In fine, the individual is an effect that can be known onh' so far as related to its causes. The overlooking this, the neglect of what is involved in the intension of every concept, is the fallacy of Nominalism. In order, then, that true knowledge may come the Realistic and Nominalistic im- pulses need to be supplemented b\^ each other. That historically it has come only on this way will be shown when in future chapters we investigate the Genesis of Science. Section 5, Reasoning. Analogy. Analogical inference is the rudi- mentary, least developed form of reasoning; THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 29 and to its consequent vagueness and indeter- minateness is due, I think, much of the dis- cussion and confusion of thought investing the theme. Even the greatest logicians, liice Aristotle and Kant, have struggled in vain ^o distinguish between analogy the lowest, and induction the highest, most consummate form of reasoning. The type of an argument from analogj^ ap- pears to be generally conceived somehow as follows: Two things agree or are alike in some respects, therefore they are alike in all. But that is not reasoning; it is nonsense. Evidently there is a concealed element which must be understood before the argument can approach the dignity of reasoning. That concealed element, I think, is the tacit pre- sumption that there is some invariable con- nection, some causal relationship between the attributes known and those inferred. Not that the analogical argument is an enthy- meme. For in thelatterthe major premise is suppressed because it is supposed to be so evi- dent as to need no statement. But in anal- ogy the premise is suppressed because it is not evident. It is but a vague presumption, felt to be true in this particular case but which the loosest reasoner would hesitate to an- 30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. nounce as a universal judgment. Analogical inference, then, is the embryo of reasoning, so formless as to seem little more than guess- work based upon mere similarities. But really it is instinct in greater or less degree with that thought of dependence which is the life of all reasoning. Syllogtst/c Inference. A syllogism is a more fully developed form of what is embryotic in the analogical reasoning. The basis of the inference is no more a tacit presumption, a vague surmise hidden in the back-ground of our thought, it has come forth as a definite proposition, a judgment applicable to many cases and conceived as being capable of exact proof. The type of this judgment is as fol- lows: A certain attribute is invariably con- nected with a certain other attribute or set of attributes. True, in formal reasoning we generally state this judgment in extension rather than intension; we affirm, for instance, that "all men are mortal," not that mortal- ity is inseparably connected with the human attributes. But the two judgments are iden- tical in purport; the former is more conven- ient in practice, the latter more clearly exhib- its the theory of the syllogism. Thus exhib- ited syllogistic inference is seen to be based THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 31 not upon the resemblance of things, much less upon a mere petitio principii, but upon the causal connection of the attribute inferred with the attributes known. The syllogism, therefore, is a second stage of the intellectual movement from the unity of resemblance to the unity of dependence. Induction. The third stage is that of per- fect or scientific induction. But how, it may be asked, can this be the third stage since induction must precede the syllogism in order to furnish the major premise? I answer that there is an imperfect, rudimentary induction which long precedes perfect or scientific induc- tion. When one event is conspicuously fol- lowed by another in close connection, reason as a cause-relating activitj^, almost automat- ically judges that there is a causal relation- ship between them; if a similar sequence oc- curs the conviction is strengthened, and after many repetitions it becomes irresistible. But this rudimentary induction is an exceedingly fallible process. Sometimes it leads to truth, but as often to error. It furnishes only an empirical rule admitting of no explanation, generally reaching over but a narrow sphere, and even then subject to many exceptions. And the greatest of all logical problems is to 32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. precisely distinguish between this empirical or rudimentary induction and that perfect or scientific induction which gives us the cer titude of exact, invariable and universal laws. From the days of Bacon downward man\' solutions of that problem have been given, but none of them seems to be generally ac- cepted as quite satisfactory. And therefore in the next section I venture to offer still another. Section 6. The Scientific Method. The secret of the scientific method is, 1 think, that it proceeds by abstracting- the causes of diffei'ence. Empiricism does not rise above the unity of resemblance; and therefore it generalizes by simply emphasizing the likenesses and ignor ing the differences of things. But this pro- cedure is faultj^ upon its verv face. For, since everything in the world has some like- ness to every other thing, empiricism is driven to arbitrarily select the more obvious resem- blances. But the more obvious a resemblance — that is, the more frequently and wideh- it recurs, the more numerous the agencies by which it is modified and varied; hence a famil- iar attribute denoted by a single term often THE xNATURE OF THOUGHT. 33 conceals within itself an infinite number of realh^ different attributes. But the scientific method always mindful of the dependence of things, of the complexity and variation of attributes, makes it its chief function, not to ignore but to investigate these differences. By discovering and excluding their causes, it seeks to unveil that one constant agency or cause that acts invariably amidst all these variations. Thus it attains to an invariable law. It rises from the superficial, misleading unity of resemblance to the true unity of de- pendence. Much of the evidence for this theory must be reserved until we come to consider the his- tory of the sciences. But a quite sufficient proof may be derived from a brief survey of the four grand divisions of the scientific method: Observation, Experiment, Mathe- matical Comparison and Verification. Observation. All the rules for scientific ob- servation may be summed up in this one prin- ciple of abstracting the causes of difference. Note for instance the care of science to exclude those causes of variation which are techni- cally described as "the personal equation of "the observer." Bacon's famous warning against the 'Idols' is of similar import. Note 34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. again that modern astronomy, and with it modern science, began when Copernicus had succeeded in eliminating from the phenomena those vast variations that were caused by the point of view or changing position of the observer. And among the most recent of great astronomic discoveries we have Brad- ley's law of the aberration of light, a varia- tion caused by the changing position of the observer as he is carried around by the revo- lutions of the earth in its orbit. Thus astro- nomic observation begins and ends almost with excluding this single cause of difference, the observer's position. Bat that is but one in a countless host of causes at work to modify even the simplest phenomenon. For illustration I select a single instance notable for its historical connections. Greek or Aristotelian empiricism generalized that in some bodies there was an occult qual- ity of weight forcing them to descend and in others an opposite quality of levity causing them to ascend. For two thousand years this delusion was a bar to all correct ideas of weight. But when observers began to note the influence of the atmosphere they found in it a cause of variation, the exclusion of which disclosed one constant force acting in all THE NATURE OP THOUGHT. 35 cases of ascending as well as descending bod- ies. And so everywhere the essence of scien- tific observation as distinguished from empi- rical is to remember the complexity of effects, to exclude causes of difference and thus to reach the constant force at work amidst all variations. Note also that the case just cited illustrates another noble prerogative of the scientific method, the ever widening universality of its laws. For, with every exclusion of a new found cause of difference, the residual law evi- dently stretches out over a new circle of phenomena. Experiment. Here the truth of our princi- ple is manifest at a glance. The whole aim of experiment is to exclude so far as possible all causes of difference so as to observe the undis- turbed action of some particular agency. Some one may here cavil that our theory is but a mere revamping of what since Mills' day has been known as the Method of Differ- ence. It is the exact opposite of that. Bal- four and others have already pointed out that this method of difference is entirely im- practicable; its requirement cannot be ful- filled; rarely, if ever, can we know^ of two instances that they^differ only in a single par- 36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. ticular. Furthermore, that method is based upon an essentially false conception of the inductive process . It conceives of the effect to be explained as simple and therefore having a cause to be found by bare inspection among equally simple antecedents. But the true theory of induction is that effects are exceed- ingly complex and are therefore to be ex- plained only by abstracting the modif\ang causes in order to find the constant force operative in this case and in many others more or less like it. It is this complexitj^ of effects, this mutability of attributes that ren- ders Mill's canon altogether inapplicable in scientific research. The method can be ap- plied only in certain cases of that rudimentary induction useful in practical life but valueless in science. Finally and most important of all, the de- mand made by this "Method of Difference" is not only impossible but unnecessary. It is not always necessary to exclude every cause of difference. The exclusion of a single modi- fying or counteracting cause, leaving others undisturbed, has often wrought marvels of scientific discover^-. The most notable in- stance thereof is afforded by the origin of chemistry. F'or centuries the alchemists of THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 37 the Middle Ages and the earlier chemists of the modern era had been devoting themselves to experiment with incomparable ardor and skill. But nothing of much value seemed to come from it. No science of chemistry arose. Now, if one reads such accounts as are acces- sible of those early experiments he will find that almost always they are vitiated by the failure to exclude a single modifying cause; and that — strange to say— the most wide- spread and active of all the agents at work in Nature, the Atmosphere. But finalh' air w^as decomposed. The modifying action of its elements was carefully observed and ex- cluded. And almost at a bound the science of chemistry sprang into being. The genesis of other sciences, as we shall see, was also largely due to the power given by the newh^ invented air-pump to exclude this great disturbing agent. Mathematical Comparison. The essence of mathematics is that it absolutely excludes all causes of variation that can affect the cer- tainty of its operations. Arithmetic, for in- stance, is a system of abbreviated processes of counting; and since all units are identical and the process of counting never changes, all modifying or disturbing agencies are excluded 38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. Hence we do not need, as Kant supposed we did, any mysterious a-priori form of thought to show us that universalh' 7+5 = 12: once proved true, it is true eternally, because by hypothesis all modifying causes have been abstracted. For the same reason we do not need the Kantian forms or any 'intuition' to prove the universal truth of the geometrical axioms; for geometry deals with spatial rela- tions abstracted from things, and b}^ that abstraction all causes of variation are ex- cluded, since the very essence of space itself is immutabilit3' . Hence the scientific method always seeks to ascend from qualitative to quantitative judg- ments. A quality varies indefinitely: and therefore the truest qualitative judgment has something loose and indeterminate in its nature. But a true quantitative judgment is exact, determinate, the type of an invariable law. Some theorists have even contended that scientific induction consists solely in this ascent from qualitative to quantitative judgments. ^ Butthatisto mistake one phase of the method for the whole method. Again, the highest inductions are reached only through long, complex trains of reason- (1) Janet. Final Causes, 439, seq. THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 39 ing. But the fallibility of qualitative reason- ing increases, at a geometrical ratio, with every new abstraction encountered and every new link added to the chain of inference. The infallibility of mathematical reasoning, on the contrary, is not in the least impaired bj^ such conditions. Verification. Some have thought that the distinctive feature of the scientific method was its insistence upon the strict verifying of its conclusions, i But strangely enough they have not inquired why modern science alone makes this demand. Did not a people so inquisitive, so given to criticism and doubt as the Greeks, for instance, feel the need of proving their affirmations? The answer is that the Greek generalizations concerning Nature were so loose and ill-defined as to pre- clude any attempt at verifying them. How could even Greek genius verify empirical rules, since these are always subject to exceptions? Or how could Aristotle have so much as at- tempted to prove his doctrine that the up- ward motion of certain bodies is produced by an occult quality of 'levity' within them ? But the judgments of science are exact, invari- (1) Lewes, for instance. Ifist. of Philosophy. 40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. able and therefore yerifiable. And because veri- fication has thus become possible, the demand for it has become a fixed habit of scientific thought. Again, our theory discloses a still deeper ground for this grand peculiarity of the mod- ern scientific method. Verification is a reverse process. An example of it is the arithmetical proof of subtraction by addition. To verify scientifically is to recombine with the action of the constant force the activities of all those disturbing agencies or causes of difference that were provisionally excluded or abstract- ed; and thus to obtain a calculated result that precisely agrees with actual observa- tions. In lunar calculations, for instance, the action of more than a hundred different irreg-- ularities have to be computed by most com- plicated processes, then recombined with the constant action of the earth's attractive power, and thus the moon's position can be calculated with an accuracy often exact and never varying more than a league or so from her actual place in the vast heavens. Scien- tific verification then is the restoring of what had been provisionally excluded; it is the return from the abstract to the concrete. As THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 41 such it is indeed the crown — the purple robe of science. Our theory of scientific induction thus seems to be fully vindicated. Its canons of Observa- tion, Experiment, Mathematical Comparison and Verification have all been shown to be but so many phases of its one constant de- mand for the exclusion or abstraction of causes of difference. As alread^^^ stated, how- ever, this theory will be still more fully verified in our historic survey of the scientific move ment. Final Results. Note now how completely the results attained through the scientific method conform to the fundamental law of knowledge. First, causes cannot be known apart from their effects. The law of gravita- tion, for instance, is but an invariable formula for the action of a causality known not in itself, but only through its manifested results. But surely there is no ground for disquietude in this principle that the ultimate and infin- ite can be revealed to us onh^ through its manifestations. Conversely, the effects cannot be known apart from their causes. That was first proved of them regarded as mere sensations; then of them conceptually regarded as re- 42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. sembling each other: and now of them in- ductively regarded as complex effects. Onh^ w^hen that obscure complexity has been disen- tangled by referring its elements to the causes upon which the\' severally depend, can the effect be comprehended. From all these three points of view, it seems to be shown that the claim to an independent knowledge of effects without any knowledge of causes cannot be maintained. This claim, the basis of all agnosticism whether positivis- tic or idealistic is pure assumption. It should be dismissed as but a survival from the first crude attempts to understand the modern scientific movement. Section j. Bothies. Duty and Happiness. All ethical systems recognize in morality two factors, duty and happiness; they differ very much however in regard to the relations which these two fac- tors hold to each other. But the only true, essential relation between them it seems to me, is that of cause and effect. That does not mean that virtuous conduct will alwa3^s insure happiness, modifying and counter- acting agencies are constanth' at work. But goodness is like gravity' which is alwa^^s act- ing upon bodies even when they are being THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 43 forced upward by other causes. That amidst even grief and pain the doing of duty always tends to happiness is indicated by the experi- ence of every individual and fully proved by the collective experience of the race. And here, as usual, I present the fundamen- tal law of knowledge as furnishing the clue to the perplexities which have divided moralists into two rival schools or rather two hostile jamps. Intuitional Ethics. The intuitionalists place all stress upon the cause,— duty or obligation —and conversely they ignore so far as possi- ble the effects, happiness. The consequence is a very defective view of duty itself: for, the cause can be known only through its effects. First, this repression of the element of hap- piness gives to morality a grim, forbidding air, even the sombre hues of asceticism. That is especially true of the nobler theorists who do not flinch from the conclusions logically involved in their premises. Kant, for in- stance, does not hesitate to define duty as "a "compulsion to a purpose or aim unwillingly "adopted:" he even maintains that virtue, in human beings at least, loses its ethical char- acter in so far as it becomes unconstrained and joyous. But that is plainly asceticism 4i THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. vStunted somewhat b3^ the cold, skeptical cli- mate of the 18th Centur\^ In the Orient and in the Middle Ages we shall see this Kant- ian opposition between duty and happiness fully developed into the cruel worship of pov- ert3^ and pain. But duty is not self-torture either ph3^sical or mental. To be known aright, duty must be known in its results as bringing gladness and freedom to human life. Secondly, moral laws are like physical ones in that the^^ can be known only through the observation of results. Do you say that they are revealed to us by mysterious 'intuitions' implanted in the human breast? How^ then shall we account for that marked diversitj^ of ethical judgments exhibited in different ages and among different people? Or again, even if we suppose a moral code intuitionally revealed some means of inter- preting it are still requisite. The Middle Ages and modern times, although bowing before the same ethical code differ much in moral sentiment because each has given a special prominence to a particular part of the code. And universally the worst iniquities of mankind have come not from the willful transgression of some moral precept THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 45 but from the unconscious obscuration of it through the over-shadowing importance at- tached to some other part of the ethical system. The only safeguard against such obliquities and distortions is the appeal to experience, the constant testing of human conduct by its bearing upon the welfare and felicity of the race. In fine, duty can be known only through its results— the conse- quences that ensue from its realization. Hedonism. The rival school lays an ex- clusive emphasis upon the results, happiness; it minifies duty into mere expediency, a means to pleasurable ends. And in thus ignoring duty, its loses the power of comprehending happiness, the effects can be know^n only through their cause. But to prove this clear- ly we must have some insight into the na- ture and office of duty or obligation; and for this end I seek to establish, so far as can be done in a mere sketch a principle which seems to me to lie at the basis of moral science. That principle is this: the conviction of obligation or the recognition of human unity and interdependence transforms feeling into moral purpose. Consider first the intimation contained in the above that the convictions of moral obli- 46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. gation and human interdependence are equiva- lent. The conviction of human interdepen- dence is one off-shoot from that principle of dependence involved in the very nature of thought; it is the form which the latter as- sumes when we are contemplating the rela- tions of man to man as a thinking, conscious being. Hence it cannot be a merely mechani- cal or organic dependence like that subsisting between things, for, mechanical laws pertain only to configuration and motion, and thought as it now almost universally con- ceded, cannot be conceived as motion. Hu- man interdependence, then, is not physical but rational and free — spiritual bonds uniting man to man as mechanical forces unite things to things. And these spiritual bonds uniting rational beings I can conceive in no other way than as moral obligations. Note in passing, that the conviction of duty or human unitj' is not an intuition, or an a-friori form of thought or something "ultimate and inexplicable." On the con- trarj^ it has its origin in the ver}' nature of thought. The thought of dependence is the first and the last product of human ex- perience. Some glimmering thought of de- pendence nestles m the dim consciousness of THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 47 the babe at the mother's breast; and it grows, or should grow clearer and stronger with every access of years and wisdom. Secondly, by this conviction of duty feeling is transformed into moral emotion. Take for instance the highest of all egoistic im- pulses, the desire for excellence, the striving for 'Perfection,' regarded by many as the basis of all morality. But how swiftly such impulses left to themselves gravitate towards insufferable self-esteem, Pharisaic pride and aloofness, one of the most repellant types of egoism. But let this impulse be vitalized by the thought of obligation, of what we owe to others. Let one fully realize that individ- ual excellence is mainly a gift from the com- mon life, alight reflected trom a hidden source —that man is hardly human, much less at- tains the highest human ideals except in so far as he binds himself with love and enthusi- asm to his fellow men —then the egoistic im- pulse is transmuted into a moral emotion. Or take the type of altruistic feeling, sympa- thy. How thin and pale and evanescent it naturally is; wasting itself upon the painted woes of the novel or the stage, or dohng out a little alms in order to feed its own conceit of goodness. But let sympathy be irradiated 48 THE PHILOSOPHY OP HISTORY. with the conviction of obHgation — of our lives being bound up with the lives of others, as that of a mother and her child. Then the natural impulse is transfigured; it becomes active, abiding, a constant blessing rather than a fleeting pleasure. And that is the reason why there is no knowledge of happiness apart from duty. Because the conviction of duty imparts to experience a new quality and a peculiar po tency without w^hich there would be no real happiness. Duty giA^es to pleasure a new digaity and value; it even robs pain of its destructive j^ower and makes it serve for the upbuilding of a better life. In fine, the real- ized conviction of duty is the divine alchemy b^^ which the baser metals of our animal sentiency are transmuted into the gold of human hap- piness. Utilita7'ianis7n. The utilitarian theory seems to me but an amorphous growth from Hed- onism. But the proof of this must be de- ferred until we come to consider the historical causes that gave such currenc}^ to that phil- osophy in the 19th century. Suffice it now that Utilitarianism gives no new knowledge of happiness apart from duty, but rather adds a new obscurity: for, it blurs the patent dis- THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 49 tinction between being happy and knowing that some one else is happy. Ethics then like all other phases of thinking seems to be governed by our fundamental law of knowledge. Section 8. Art. The Emotion of Beauty. There are alread\^ man\^ conflicting and unsatisfactory theories of the beautiful. But from our present point of view still another is irresistibh^ suggested as follows: Beauty is the dim manifestation of dependence amidst variation. The main emphasis here is to be placed upon the dimness of recognition. The rest is hardlj^ new; it is a common-place as old at least as Aristotle that beauty is the manifesta- tion of unity in variety. Still, even here the change is important; for, the word unity is equivocal as not distinguishing between the lax. misleading unity of resemblance and the true unity of dependence. Hence very little progress has ever been made in definitely deducing the characteristics of the beautiful from this old Greek definition. But of much greater importance is the em- phasis upon dimness of manifestation. First, that explains the difference between Art and Science. Art dimly suggests to feeling what 50 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. science has not yet disclosed in exact and form- ulated terms to thought. Secondly, it explains why we recognize the beautiful through the emotions: for, the very essence of the emo- tions lies in this dimness of suggestion: they stir us so profoundly because they partly un- veil what lies beyond the range of exact thought: the intellect instead of mastering them, is mastered b\^ them. Furthermore, the imagination is stimulated by the almost illimitable expansiveness of this dim sugges- tion; it is like the obscurity of night unveiling a universe that is hidden by the open light of day. I have now to show if possible that this theorv explains those empirical rules, that are universally accepted as principles of beauty. Beauty of Form. The curve has always been recognized as the line of beauty. This rule generally dismissed as something "ul- timate and inexplicable," an axiom, admits of easy explanation from our present point of view. In a curve changing its direction at every point is infinite variety, every- where dependent upon and governed b\' a principle of unity obscarely revealed to ar- THE NATURE OF THOUGHT. 51 tistic feeling, long before its mathematical formula was scientifically known. But the explanation must go deeper than this. It must explain the different aesthetic values attached to different kinds of curva- ture. Thus according to Hogarth, the ser- pentine line is pre-eminently beautiful: on the other hand, straight lines are "too lean and poor," while circles or nearly circular lines are too 'gross.' These rules, laid down by the unerring instinct of a great master, are evi- dentU^ correct; but the explanation of them is a mere metaphor naturally suggested to a portrait painter. A. circle is the least beauti- ful of all curves, not because it is too gross or fat, but because its unity is not dimly sug- gested. The regularit^s the dependence upon some one fixed law is so obvious and obtru- sive as almost to hide the aspect of infinite, incessant variation. Hence the superior beaut^^ of the ellipse, tiie parabola, etc., where the regularity or dependence is less obvious, is veiled behind open and conspicuous varia- tion. Contrast for instance the heaviness and monotony of the semi-circular Roman arch with the aerial lightness and grace of the pointed gothic style. Beauty of Color. The charm of color has 52 THE THILOSOPHi^ OF HISTORY. long been accounted something inexplicabh^ organic or primitive. But from our present point of view I think, this charm no longer remains a mystery. On the one hand colors are the ver3^ symbol of variation and con- trast; on the other, they are capable of a subtle gradation whereby one hue glides al- most imperceptibly into another with infinite grace and delicacy. And herein lies the secret of their beauty. This gradation dimlv re- veals their interdependence, their community' of nature despite all their contrasts. Hence savages and children delight most in gaudy, glaring colors. They are impressed only by contrasts and changes; their eves have not been opened to the delicate transi- tions, the gra