UBRARY OF CONGRil^, S-helf.,....k.§ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. MAY 7 188/ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/outlinesoflogicoOOIo.tz M LOTZE'S Outlines of Philosophy VI LOGIC AND ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY OUTLINES OF LOGIC AND OF ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY DICTATED PORTIONS U, fLJi OF THE / LECTURES OF HERMANN LOTZE > M TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY GEORGE T. LADD PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE COLLEGE BOSTON GINN & COMPANY 1887 THE LIBRARY Of CONGRESS WASHINGTON Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by GEORGE T. LADD, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. J. S. Cushing & Co., Printers, Boston. EDITOR'S PREFACE. This volume is a translation of the second Ger- man edition of Lotze's " Outlines of Logic and En- cyclopaedia of Philosophy," which appeared in 1885. The second edition differed from the earlier one chiefly in the abbreviation of certain parts of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. The matter thus omitted consisted largely either of opinions ex- pressed elsewhere in the Philosophical Outlines, or of a somewhat special criticism of certain views of Schelling, Fichte, and Herbart. It has therefore been thought best to take for translation the more recent but somewhat less voluminous German text. Although Lotze dealt with the subject of Logic in a large and technical treatise, which constituted one of the two volumes of his System of Philosophy, completed by him before his death, it must be said that his contributions to it are perhaps less distinc- tive and valuable than those to any other of the several branches of philosophy upon which he wrote and lectured. Notwithstanding this, his views upon some important topics under the general subject will be found very suggestive and valuable. This seems VI EDITOR S PREFACE. to me particularly true of the chapter on the " For- mation of Concepts/' There can be little doubt that the distinction between the association of mental images and the definitely logical processes of the mind is far too little drawn and too loosely held by certain English writers on Logic. Part Second, which treats of the " Encyclopaedia of Philosophy," so-called, will be found to contain a number of articles which throw considerable addi- tional light upon the author's general philosophical position. His peculiar doctrine of "Values," as dis- tinguished from a knowledge of what is necessitated or real, his view of the general method of philosophy-, and of the relation in which the Theory of Cognition stands to the whole of Metaphysics, and his attitude toward philosophical Scepticism and Criticism, will doubtless receive some elucidation from the careful study of these sections. A first draught of the translation of §§ 6-38 of the Pure Logic was made by John F. Crowell, graduate student of Philosophy in Yale University, 1885-86. The rest of the work upon the volume is by my own hand. With this sixth number of the series of Lotze's Philosophical Outlines, I regard my task as completed. GEORGE T. LADD. New Haven, March, 1887. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE I. LOGIC. Introduction i FIRST PRINCIPAL DIVISION. PURE LOGIC. Chapter I. The Formation of Concepts . 9 Chapter II. Of Judgments .... A. Preliminary Remarks and the Customary Division of Judgments .... 24 B. System of the Forms of Judgment . . 31 C. Immediate Inferences from Judgments . 48 Chapter III. Of Syllogisms .... 56 A. The Aristotelian Figures .... 56 B. The Forms of Calculation .... 75 C. Systematic Forms ..... 84 SECOND PRINCIPAL DIVISION. APPLIED LOGIC. Chapter I. Application of the Forms of the Concept 97 Chapter II. Concerning the Adducing of Proof, 106 Chapter III. The Process of Thought in Discovery, 120 II. ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. Introduction 145 Section I. Theoretical Philosophy . . .155 Section II. Practical Philosophy . . . 179 Section III. Philosophy of Religion . . .182 I. LOGIC INTRODUCTION. § l. According to the combination in which the external stimuli happen to act upon us, there arise within us manifold ideas, simultaneous or succes- sive, which do not always have an interior coherence that agrees with the nature of their Content. And, further, since memory and recollection retain and reproduce these ideas in the same connections which they had at their origin, certain ideas that are quite foreign to each other and without any interior cohe- rence, very often appear in our mental train in a connection which, although it is matter of fact, is without any real reason. § 2. Besides, perception by the senses affords us the impressions of at least one sense, — namely, that of sight, — in an arrangement with reference to each other which has space-form ; and this arrangement is not, like the connection referred to above, a merely accidental coexistence of the single colored points, OUTLINES OF LOGIC, but undoubtedly depends upon the peculiar nature of what is perceived. Nevertheless, we do not call this ' thought ' but ' intuition/ — and for the very reason that, while we discover the arrangement of the single points to be unalterable, we yet perceive it as a bare matter of fact without understanding the reasons on account of which each point has its position toward others. § 3. We are accustomed to distinguish thought both from the aforesaid train of ideas and also from such process of intuition, as a higher and self-coher- ing activity, which elaborates, shapes, and connects the material of ideas furnished by both of the others. Its essential tendency can be expressed as follows ; — that the thinking spirit is not satisfied to receive the ideas simply in those combinations in which what is accidental to the physical mechanism has brought them to it. Thought is rather of the nature of a continuous ' critique,' which the spirit practises upon the material of the train of ideas, when it sep- arates the ideas whose connection is not founded upon some such justification for the combination as lies in the very nature of their content ; while it not only combines those ideas whose content permits or requires some connection, but likewise reconstructs their combination in some new form of apprehen- THE TRAIN OF IDEAS. sion and expression, from which the justification of this connection admits of being discerned. § 4. If we assume (not as a positive assertion, but only as an aid to the exposition of the subject) that the animals, although possessing the train of ideas alluded to, do not possess thought specifically ; then the distinction between these two achievements would lie in what follows. In the animal, with the idea of the stick when swung, the idea of the pain that follows thereupon is connected ; and the renewal of the first alone is sufficient to reproduce in anticipation the second also, and to determine the behavfor of the animal in some purposeful way. Practically, therefore, the animal obtains fairly well from the mere association of ideas the same service as though it had, by thinking in the strict meaning of the word, expressed its experience in the form of judgments and conclusions, as follows: 'The stick strikes — the stroke smarts — therefore, etc/ Still in each of these logical judgments there would be involved an apprehension of the state of the case quite other and more profound than is involved in such mere association. That is to say, when we apprehend the stick as the subject or cause from which the stroke proceeds, we do not merely repeat OUTLINES OF LOGIC. the psychological fact that the ideas of the two occur in connection, but likewise express the adjunct thought that both belong together by an inner bond uniting their content, — in this case, by a causal relation. The same thing is true in all cases, as will subsequently be shown in particular. Thought, therefore, carries the merely subjective association of ideas — that is, their mere occurrence together in consciousness as a matter of fact — back to principles that govern the objective synthesis of their content. § 5. In order that the process of thinking may be able to accomplish such an achievement, it must have in its possession the principles for it, — that is to say, certain universal rules or grounds of right, according to which, in general, the content of differ- ent ideas may, or may not, be capable of connection. Or, to express the same thing in another way : if we are to be able to distinguish truth and untruth, then there must exist within us some absolutely valid and universal standard determining what is permissible, and what is not permissible, as to the connections of ideas. Moreover, the general principles contained in it must stand in a very close connection with the presuppositions which we are compelled to make concerning the nature and the reciprocal relations of all 'Things.' THOUGHT AND "THINGS." These latter we are accustomed to style metaphys- ical principles. And, accordingly, a near relation- ship would exist between logical and metaphysical truths. This Introduction is not the place to treat this relationship exhaustively; the following remark is sufficient at this point. We assume that the process of thinking is deter- mined so as to lead to the knowledge of the true nature of ' Things.' Now every means must be directed, on the one hand toward the object which it is to work out, and on the other hand toward the nature of that which is to employ it. On this account, the forms and the laws also, in which and according to which thought connects the ideas, must be such that by means of them the knowledge of truth can be conclusively attained ; but they need not be such that the ideas shall directly copy the essence of the ' Things' themselves. The rather, since it is man who, by means of them, is to arrive at the truth, must they attach themselves to the nature and stand-point of man ; and accordingly they must have peculiarities which are comprehensible only from this fact, and not from the nature of the ' Things ' which are to be known. In other words (to answer, at least in a prelimi- nary way, a question which is not to be exhaustively treated in this place) : The forms and laws of thought, OUTLINES OF LOGIC. with which we are to become acquainted, have neither a ' merely formal ' nor a ' perfectly real ' significance. They are neither mere results of the organization of our subjective spirit, without respect to the nature of the objects to be known, nor are they direct copies of the nature and reciprocal relations of these objects. They are rather ' formal ' and ' real ' at the same time. That is to say, they are those subjective modes of the connection of our thoughts which are necessary to us, if we are by thinking to know the objective truth. First Principal Division. PURE LOGIC First Principal Division. PURE LOGIC. CHAPTER I. THE FORMATION OF CONCEPTS. § 6. It is well known that most of the operations of thought consist in acts connecting together differ- ent simple ideas. Wherever, then, some such * con- nection ' is spoken of, the question at once arises, How must the simple elements themselves be formed in order to be able to enter at all into the connection designated ? Out of purely spherical elements it is impossible to make a coherent structure. That can be done only by means of prismatic elements which present to each other surfaces that are definitely laid out. Just so, from mere impressions, in so far as they are nothing more than our affections (moods, that is, of our feeling), no logical connection is to be established ; but each individual impression, in IO OUTLINES OF LOGIC. order to be capable, in the logical sense, of being combined with another into a thought, must be already apprehended by the spirit in such a quite definite form as renders this combination possible. § 7. This, the first work of logical thought, be- comes most distinctly apparent to us in the circum- stance, that almost all languages divide the whole stock of the content of ideas into definite, formally different classes ; and that even those languages which do not distinguish externally this difference between substantives, adjectives, verbs, etc., still cherish, in forming each one of their words, the adjunct thought, that its content must be conceived of either substantively, as something in itself valid, permanent, independent of every other; or adjec- tively, as quality dependent and presupposing some other to which it adheres ; or verbally, as a move- ment or relation passing between different contents. In the first place, by means of these forms in which they are cast by the act of thinking, ideas become elements of a thought ; and, like the pris- matic stones in the comparison made above, they turn toward one another definite surfaces which allow a connection in the logical sense. So long, on the other hand, as ideas are only different modes of being apprehended in our consciousness, although LOGICAL ACT OF THOUGHT. II they can, of course, like tones in music, be signifi- cantly connected with one another in other ways (in this case, cesthetically), yet as such no thought arises from them. § 8. The next question seems necessarily to be, How must thought always proceed in order to ac- complish this arrangement of any content whatever in one of these forms taken by the parts of speech ? Since the question relates quite generally to every content, simple as well as composite, this second logical act of thought must consist in a very sim- ple process which can occur in both cases. Now it does consist in the following : — As often as language forms a word for some content, which is to be ascribed to this particular content and to it alone, it necessarily expresses therewith the presup- position that this content is something which holds good of itself, is identical with itself, and different from others ; that, on this very account, it is able to bear a name of its own. That is, when the sec- ondary thought, which occurs along with the act of thinking, forms in speech a word for a thing (that is, apart from speech, when it fixes some con- tent, and distinguishes it from others), it consists particularly in this, that it conceives of it as a whole which in itself belongs together, and as thus belong- ing together is marked off from every other. 12 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. Expression in speech permits this act to be man- ifest in different classes of words with different degrees of distinctness. An adjective, as 'blue/ expresses least of this logical import. Verbs sig- nify by means of their ending, that the content indicated by them is thought of as a unity in a def- inite sense, — namely, in that of the verbal relation. In the case of substantives, certain languages make it most palpable that the content designated should be thought of as something identical with itself, exclusive, one and entire, by means of the prefixed article. § 9. This logical form of the * idea ' (so we will call this second act of thought) accordingly appre- hends its content, be it simple or composite, only in such a way that it comes in general to be regarded as unity or as totality. In reference to simple content, that which admits of being realized at all stands highest. For exam- ple ; the impressions, 'blue/ 'sweet/ 'warm/ cannot undergo any other logical elaboration than that of being apprehended as having a content which is identical with itself, different from others, and of course adjective in its nature. For the composite content, on the other hand, this form of the idea which asserts in a general way GENERAL IDEA AND CONCEPT. 1 3 nothing more than that its parts belong together, without rendering cognizable the kind, the ground, and the rule of the same, is an unsatisfactory mode of apprehension ; although we very frequently cannot get beyond this in the ordinary course of thought. 1 The words ' nature,' 'life,' 'state,' 'government,' indicate for the majority of men nothing but the consciousness that in every case a manifold of phe- nomena and events is united into a totality ; without their being able to specify the definite plan, the laws and the forces, according to which and through which this totality is produced. These same words, however, will indicate a higher apprehension of their content, a 'concept' of the same, in case, besides the bare fact that the parts of the content belong to- gether, some reason for the latter is also thought. §10. Now it is this principle of 'belonging to- gether' which thought seeks to discover; since it has regard either to that which, in several ideas that differ from each other, appears as common and homogeneous (the universal) ; or to that which, throughout all changes of one and the same con- 1 Especially useful kinds of expression for anything thought of merely in the form of idea, are such as these : in the Greek the neuter plural, — ra (pva-LKa, r a T)9iKa, ra iro\ir lkol) in the German, compounds with . . . ' wesenl — Munzwesen, Zollwesen, Heerwesen, etc. 14 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. tent, continually remains homogeneous (the constant). For there naturally seems to lie in both, somewhat which coheres together more firmly and legitimately than the other changing and heterogeneous marks, and which, just for these marks, composes the prin- ciple of their coexistence and determines the kind of their combination. Should a composite content be thought, however, in such a way that somewhat universal or constant, but distinct from the sum-total of its 'marks/ be thought along with it as the determining law on which that whole circle of marks is dependent ; then is that content thought in the form of a concept. The name 'linden/ 'oak/ and the like, moreover, designates for the ordinary course of thought a con- tent apprehended in accordance with a concept. For every one conceives of the general image of ' tree/ or the still more general image of 'plant/ as the outline, the schema, or the norm, according to which all parts of the afore-mentioned individual ideas are bound together into a whole. So, too, all nomina propria of persons are real concepts. ' Alcibiades/ or ' Napoleon/ never means merely a totality of parts ; but both are explained and conceived of under the accompanying universal men- tal image of ' man/ CONCEPT AS UNIVERSAL. 1 5 § 11. Very rarely will such a general image admit of being produced from several comparable individual ideas through the retention of their marks that are completely alike, and the simple omission of those unlike. For the marks of ideas are not wont to be alike and unlike, but similar and dissimilar. If indeed we should merely retain what little is pre- cisely alike, we should arrive at a meaningless uni- versal which would sustain a relation of complete indifference toward the omitted constituents, and not that of a principle regulating them. But in fact we do not so proceed. The compari- son of several bodies does not result in the general image of body, — because one is blue, hard, elastic, light, and the other is yellow, soft, ductile, and heavy, — by omitting all of these properties ; as though the idea of ' body ' would have any meaning at all regardless of 'color,' 'cohesion,' and 'weight.' Of these dissimilar marks the comparison omits merely what is different, but retains what is common to them (for example, in this case, ' color in general,' ' weight in general ') ; and it combines these general marks themselves into the desired general image of a body, to which it is therefore quite essential that it should have some color, some cohesion, some weight, or other. l6 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. § 12. The ordinary theory of logic is accustomed simply to teach that, from comparable individual ideas (iiotiones speciales) we ascend to the more uni- versal one (notio generalis) by 'abstracting' from the unlike marks (notae) of the former, and retain- ing only the like ones. This theory adds the statement, therefore, that the content {materia com- plexus) of a general idea is ' poorer/ that is, can count fewer marks than that of the particular ones out of comparison of which it arose. The foregoing remark must at all events be im- proved upon to this extent, that each universal has exactly so many marks, which it is indispensable should be thought together, as belong to the indi- viduals corresponding to it. Nevertheless, while all these marks are perfectly defined in the particular or in the individual, as respects both kind and quantity ; in the universal, certain general or undefined marks have taken the place of many of them. The universal, as compared with the particular, is therefore poorer in defined marks, but not poorer in marks in general. § 13. We distinguish, therefore, two different kinds of universals. In the first place, there is the afore- said general image, through the entrance of which into the group of marks belonging to an idea, this idea is itself raised to a concept ; and, besides this, FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT. 1 7 those universal marks out of whose connection to- gether the general image itself arises. These latter, the universal marks, in the simplest case require no special logical work of thought for their origin, but arise out of the immediate impres- sion without our logical assistance. That 'green/ 'blue/ 'red/ for example, have something in common, is a matter of immediate experience ; and although this common possession may not admit of being sep- arated by a logical operation from that by which these impressions are distinguished; still the name ' color ' points to this as to the something experienced as common. So, too, differences of magnitude are immediately perceived as true ; and the general name of magnitude expresses, side by side with these dis- tinctions, the common characteristic. In this manner there arise from the consideration of the different marks, which are presented in the individual ideas, the general marks as the elements out of which the aforesaid general image is then composed ; and the latter holds good for those individual ideas as a common type comprising them all. § 14. For the formation of a 'concept' it is not sufficient that its general marks, nor indeed for the formation of the 'idea/ is it enough that its indi- 1 8 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. victual marks, be merely present in general ; but the essential thing is their mode of combination. No idea, and no concept, consists of a mere summation of marks in such a way that every first one should enter into combination with every second one just as the second with every third ; but in the universal the marks limit, define, or determine one another in such manifold and characteristic ways, that a first one is connected with the second otherwise than the second is connected with the third, or the third with the fourth. In the case of mere ideas which only combine marks in general into a totality, without logically characterizing the way in which they belong to- gether, the intuitions of time and space take the place of such strictly logical work. Through these intuitions we then know in what way, for in- stance, the distinctive marks of an animal — color, skin, head, swiftness, etc. — are to be brought to- gether and combined. If, on the other hand, we form an abstract concept of ' motion/ for example, and designate it as ' constant change of place/ then it is seen that no one of these three marks is thought as of like species with the other ; but, strictly speak- ing, simply the general idea of ' change/ in so far as it is restricted by reference to the idea of 'place/ and through the mark belonging to it is defined THE CONCEPT AND ITS NAME. I9 as 'constant/ forms the content of the concept of motion. The general image which arises out of the com- parison of several individual ideas is formed, not simply when the general marks are put in the place of the particular, but also when a general mode of connection corresponding to them is put in the place of the particular modes of connection among the marks. The general mental image ' metal ' — for instance — connects together the general marks of ' color/ 'weight/ etc., in a form, or according to a scheme, of which the modes of combination are only par- ticular examples, wherein gold combines the color yellow, its specific gravity, etc., copper the color red, and its specific gravity, etc. § 15. To recapitulate the foregoing ; we give the name of l concept' to an idea whenever, in addition to its group of marks, a universal is thought along with it as an explanatory law. 'Gold' or 'Caitis' is thus thought as concept, in so far as the marks of both are regulated by the general schemata, 'metal' and 'man/ respectively. The universal itself, by whose entrance into it the idea becomes the concept, is not necessarily hor always itself thought as concept, but frequently only 20 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. as idea. It is then, indeed, concept only when its own marks also are not merely thought in general as a whole belonging together, but as combined by means of a new universal in accordance with some definite scheme. There are accordingly just as much individual, singular concepts (notiones singulares) — like all names of persons, for instance — as there are uni- versal concepts (notiones generates) in manifold gra- dations. The name of higher general concept is given to that one, which is thought as an explanatory schema in addition to the marks of another concept, which latter is then the lower of the two. It is then said that the content {materia) of the higher general concept (genus) is ' contained ' in the content of the lower (species) ; that is, that all the marks which are essential to the genus occur also in the species. But, conversely, the content of the species is not entirely contained in that of the genus ; but the former possesses, besides the particular marks of the latter, certain ones peculiar to it as species. On this matter a corrective remark is made above (§ 12). It is further said — and rightly, too — that each higher general concept occurs in a greater number of kinds or individual concepts (or holds good of RELATION OF EXTENT AND INTENT. 21 them) than the lower concept. The name of ' extent ' (ambitus) is given to the number of these lower concepts, of which the higher holds good. And since to the latter there is ascribed, as previously remarked, a smaller number of marks or smaller content (materia complexus) ; therefore it is said that "the extent and the content of two concepts are in inverse ratio to each other " : the one poorer in content — that is, the more general — commands a greater aggregate of individual cases ; the one richer in content occurs in fewer kinds, perhaps only in a single individual. According to the foregoing, this proposition would correctly run thus : A concept with clearly defined marks is always individual. In case it has undefined or general marks besides the defined ones, then with the number of the undefined marks (or, conversely, with the number of the defined ones), the number of cases increases in which it is valid, — that is, its extent. § 16. Two relations of subordination, since they are essentially different logically, are to be held as excluding each other. That is to say, every concept can be ranked in respect to one part of it, under its higher concept of species, — for example, ' gold ' (G) under ' metal ' (M) ; in respect to another part, under 22 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. any one of its marks at pleasure, — for example, 'gold' (G) under < fusible' (F). Fig. I. Fig. 2. The first of the foregoing relations (Fig. i.) is called subordination. In this case the whole nature of G is included in the universal M, in such a man- ner that there is in G no part, no mark and no com- bination of marks, which may not be essentially comprehended by means of the universal principle M ; for example, the ' yellow ' of gold is a certain lustrous yellow peculiar to the metal, which does not occur otherwise. Within this M, finally, G- is found * co-ordinated ' with its natural kindred (copper, lead, silver, — C, Ii, — etc.) ; that is, it stands in the same logical relation to M with all the rest of them. The other species of arrangement of one concept under another (Fig. 2) is called subsumption. Here G touches upon the universal concept F with only one part of its content; the remaining parts of its content lie outside F and are not defined by F. Be- sides, G (gold) is found in this case to be co-ordi- SUBORDINATION AND SUBSCRIPTION. 23 nated, in reference to F (fusible), not merely with its own related species, but also with other con- cepts of content altogether heterogeneous (sugar, pitch, sulphur, — S, P, — etc.). § 17. If we ascend by continued abstraction to more and more general concepts, we shall, accord- ing to a frequent assertion, reach one single highest general concept, — that of the 'thinkable.' Such an abstraction, however, would only be performed through subsiimption (Fig. 2), if the concept should have entirely let go of the characteristic content of the concepts, and confined itself simply to a common mark through which its content is not defined. If we proceed by way of subordination, then it is found that our system of concepts does not ter- minate in one point, but in several independent points. The substantive concepts lead to one highest concept of Being ; the verbal to that of Becoming; the adjective to that of Property, etc.; and there is absolutely no concept still higher, to which these fundamental concepts may be referred as to a common principle of their content. As for the rest, it is obvious, — and the reason why it must be so needs no explanation, — that these fundamental concepts are nothing more than the meanings belonging to the different parts of speech. CHAPTER II. OF JUDGMENTS. A, Preliminary Remarks and the Customary Division of Judgments, § 18. The consideration of the subject up to this point leads to a new problem. In the concept we have distinguished the universal and the special circle of marks. Concerning the reciprocal rela- tions of these two members we had, however, only expressions characteristic of like species. The uni- versal served us only as a nucleus, as a normative principle, as a rule for the disposition and combi- nation of the marks. The question now arises ; what this means, when taken strictly, and what power the universal can exercise over the marks, and in what way. We consequently seek for an explanation of the relation of the two members to each other. Every assertion which thought can utter on this question, and by means of which it can answer the same, must consequently take this form ; that it connects two members S and P through the affirmation of a definite mode of relation X. This is essentially NATURE OF THE JUDGMENT. 25 the form of a proposition or a judgment, in which S is subject, P is predicate, and X copula between the two. § 19. The ground of the fact that different im- pressions belong together, however, we have sought, not merely in somewhat universal which is common to the different impressions, but likewise in some- what constant which appertains to one and the same content of the idea, while it experiences changes in other respects by accession or diminution of its marks. This relation, too, of an unchanging nucleus, which is at once the ground of the possi- bility of the changing marks and the law of their connection, requires a similar investigation. We must know how any P can ' adhere ' to an S, and how it is possible that it disappears again and another mark, P', occupies its place, — and every assertion on this matter must bear the form of the judgment, § 20. Apart from such systematic coherency, the doctrine of judgment may be introduced as fol- lows : — In the train of ideas it must frequently occur that, in the first place, two impressions a and b, which have for us become united in part (as, for example, the shape of a tree and its green 26 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. ■ — — — ^ — ■ . > color), are apprehended as a whole whose distinguish- able parts are not actually distinguished, because all reason for it is wanting. If now, by a second experience, the tree is shown without leaves, then, in a third instance in which it is again seen to be green, the two ideas of its shape and color will no longer form an undivided whole in the same naiVe way; on the contrary, the recollection of their being separable will keep them apart from each other; and therewith arises the idea of two impressions which are combined, instead of that of one impression, in which there is no inner difference. This process of the simultaneous association and separation of two ideas without doubt takes place in animals also. It supplies for them the place of the logical judgment of human thought ; yet it is not such itself, but only the occasion of a judgment. If we, for instance, affirm in judgment, 'the tree is green' or 'is not green/ then we interpret the co- existence of separable ideas and do not simply express over again the fact of such coexistence. When we conceive of the tree as subject (or in this case as substance) and the predicate green as attri- bute or accident, we point to that inner connection in which, according to our view, the property stands related to the i Thing' or the accident to its subject, as in each case constituting the legitimate ground CLASSIFICATION OF JUDGMENTS. 2/ according to which both of the ideas ' tree ' and 'green' do not merely exist together, but belong together precisely as they are together, — to wit, as separable yet conjoined. § 21. The essential part of a judgment is, then, precisely this secondary thought which the process of thinking has, when it connects subject and predi- cate in definite form. As many as are the essentially different points of view, grounds, or models, to which this process of thought rightly refers the combina- tion of S and P, — that is, as many as the essentially different meanings of the copula actually are ; so many are the essentially different logical forms of the judgment which are to be systematically devel- oped later on. We previously made mention of a classification of the judgment usually given, — namely that by Kant. According to him, every judgment must at the same time be determined in four different respects, and must in each of these have one of the three mutually exclusive forms ; namely, is — i) According to quantity either universal or par- ticular or singular. 2) According to quality it is either affirmative or negative or limitative. 3) According to relation, — that is, the meaning of 28 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. the connection between S and P — either categorical or hypothetical or disjunctive, 4) According to modality, — that is, the relation of the whole content to actuality — either problematic or assertory or apodictic. § 22. These differences are not of equal value : 1) To begin with, in the three quantitative forms : This S is P, Some S are P, All SareP,— the kind of combination between S and P is entirely the same ; and they differ simply in respect to the number of the subjects, and consequently in respect to the material, to which this entirely identical con- nection is extended. Accordingly, although the quan- titative differences remain of great importance for other purposes, — for example, the drawing of con- clusions from judgments, — they are nevertheless not essentially different steps in the development of the judgment as such. 2) As to what further concerns the qualitative forms, it is obvious that the affirmative and the negative judgment, S is P, S iS not P, must understand the kind of combination that takes QUALITY OF JUDGMENTS. 29 place between S and P, in the same manner. For the negative judgment could not be the exact opposite of the affirmative, if it did not deny pre- cisely what the latter asserts. This judgment is there- fore fitly presented in such a way that, to one entirely identical thought of a combination of S and P, there is added the two secondary judgments; — it is true, or it is not true. They differ then in their content very essentially, but not in their form. — The limita- tive judgment should attach a negative predicate to S by means of a positive copula, and so have the form S is non-P. On the other hand, it must be kept in mind that non-P is a definite idea and not of any use at all to the predicate, only in those cases where it does not merely indicate that which is in general not P, but that which is co-ordinated with P under a higher general concept, and therefore has a meaning of its own, — as for instance, ' not-round ' in so far as it must still always have some form, either straight or angular and the like. If, on the contrary, non-P is intended to comprehend everything that is simply not P in general, — for example, the ' not-round ' is to include, besides the angular, things like the ' bitter/ the ' future/ the ' cheap/ etc.; then non-P is no longer an idea at all, such as could be apprehended and given to some subject S as its predicate. The 30 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. attempt to do this invariably has in time this issue, that S is excluded from the circle of the predicate P, and the judgment consequently, according to its meaning, is negative. 3) The third distinction, that according to rela- tion, is of such essential significance that it is passed by here in order to be thoroughly examined later. 4) The differences of modality, likewise, have no essentially logical value ; since the possibility of the combination of S and P in the problematical judg- ment, and its necessity in the apodictic judgment, is expressed only by means of the auxiliary verbs, S may be P, S must be P. They are both therefore, after all, properly speaking, only assertory judgments ; that is, they affirm, exactly as does the strictly assertory judgment, S is P, an actuality — in the former case, that of possibility ; in the latter, that of necessity. But neither of the two admits of being brought forward immediately as a consequence of the pecu- liar mode of relation of S and P. This kind of modality, therefore, belongs to the content, but not to the logical form of the judgment; and there may be set beside it yet many other forms of precisely equal rank ; as, for instance, S should be P, S ought SIMPLEST FORM OF JUDGMENT. 3 1 to be P, S will be P, etc. Now, in what way the judgments are capable of expressing, by means of their form, at the same time a claim to the possi- bility, actuality, or necessity of their content, will be shown by what follows. B. System of the Forms of Judgment. § 23. In the classification of the forms of judg- ment, we start from the point of view that thought should declare itself as to how it conceives of the coherency of that previously so-called 'nucleus' of an idea with its own circle of marks ; or, in other words, of an S with P. Every such declaration will be ex- pressed by a separate form of judgment ; and the series of the forms of judgment must therefore form a series of increasingly better attempts at the com- plete and adequate expression of the aforesaid rela- tion between S and P. § 24. The simplest form of judgment is the impersonal. In the propositions, 'It lightens,' 'It thunders/ etc., the whole content of the judgment is completely contained in the predicate. The indefi- nite pronoun i it ' adds nothing thereto, but formally marks the place of the concept of the subject, which is missing. But just this alone — that the process of thinking is not satisfied with the bare reproduction 32 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. of the simple content which stands in the predicate, that it consequently does not employ for its expres- sion the infinitive 'to thunder/ but inflects the word and joins it as predicate to the 'it' — proves most evidently this fundamental necessity of analyzing every content of an idea into two component parts, the one of which is the regulative principle, and the other the phenomenon dependent on it. Of course, this requirement is here only formally satisfied. For the case does not admit of specifying any subject, with complete content, to which the phenomenon is attached. We are, therefore, under the necessity of joining the phenomenon taken as predicate to itself taken as subject. 1 § 25. The next advance must consist in this, that the separation of the ideated content in S and P, which is here only indicated, is brought to comple- 1 According to their modality, the impersonal judgments are naturally assertory; that is, affirmations of actuality. In the natural process of thinking, they uniformly express perceptions. The ' it ' in the subject is, according to its content, either nothing more than the predicate, or, if it is to be distinguished from it, is only the thought of the universal Being, which in the different phenomena is defined now in one way and now in another. One might therefore say, instead of ' it lightens,' ' the Being is [now] light- ening,' or conversely, 'the lightning is.' That is to say, it is possible to convert the impersonal judgments into existential propositions, in which * to be ' is the predicate. Such conversion is, however, an artificial work of the schools. The natural process of thought never apprehends the indi- vidual phenomenon as subject and the Being as predicate, but only univer- sal Being as subject and the phenomenon as a single predicate of the same. THE CATEGORICAL JUDGMENT. 33 tion by the rise of a special conception of the subject as different from the predicate. This gives the so-called categorical form of judg- ment, S is P, in which P is unconditionally and without further justification asserted of S (Kai]«yop€iT (M). And now the concluding proposition has to ex- press with complete definiteness what predicate must belong to S ; because the combination of marks sub- stituted for M in the major premise has, in the con- clusion, experienced the special influence of the conditions designated by + in the minor premise. One needs no reminder to comprehend that this way of drawing a conclusion is directly and strictly applicable only in mathematics. In the case of other objects of thought, — for example, concepts of nat- MATHEMATICAL ARGUMENT. 79 ural species and genera, — we cannot carry out the substitution in the major premise ; because we never perfectly know all the marks of any genus, and still less accurately all its modes of combination. Fur- ther : we can never perfectly show in the minor prem- ise by what determination, <)>, the genus M passes over into the species S. If we should be satisfied, however, with making prominent some single mark (as x) by which S is distinguished from other spe- cies of M (without positively learning from x the entire nature of $), then we should not be able in the conclusion to demonstrate what transforming influence this x must exercise upon all, or upon any one, of the marks qualitatively different from it (to which allusion is made in the major premise) or upon the combination of such marks. All this is possible only in the domain of mathe- matics. Since every magnitude is comparable with the rest, and all are resolvable into the same units, and producible from them by different combinations ; and, finally, since they are perfectly defined in their content, — that is, in their value, and since there are rules of calculation which determine accurately the ' Facit ' that results in case a definite operation is applied to a definite combination of magnitudes ; it is, therefore, possible in this domain actually to carry out the concluding proposition, and to fill out 80 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. in it the schema <|> (M) by assigning it a definite value. For example : S = M 2 S = a 2 + 2at>+P. This limitation to mathematics, nevertheless, does not rob such a conclusion of its place in Logic. For calculation, too, is a process of thought, — and that not the most unimportant. On the other hand, it is to be considered that we succeed in an abso- lutely certain expansion of knowledge only in so far as we can refer the objects of our reflection to relations of magnitude, and can make calculations with them. § 54. But if such an application of calculation to concepts of qualitatively different content is to take place, and if we are to be able to conclude from the existence and value of one mark to the existence and value of another, then the connection of the two and the dependence of one on the other, al- though it does not admit of being placed upon a strictly logical basis, must be presupposed as a mat- ter of fact ; and nothing further can be done than by calculating according to a general law which holds good for such a condition of dependency, to assign to every given value of the one mark the value of EXPRESSION Of A PROPORTION. 8 1 the other belonging to it. This is done in the form of a proportion : The proportion does not refer the content of the one mark back to the qualitatively different con- tent of the other mark, but allows both to be what they are. It also makes, in general, no comparison whatever between the absolute magnitudes of the changes which the two correspondingly experience. For these two, — since they are measured by quite different standards, — are frequently not comparable. Strictly speaking, it only compares the number of the units of change which both marks undergo (the change in each one as measured according to its own standard), and from the given number for the one mark determines the corresponding number for the other. It is self-evident that almost all application of mathematics to real objects depends upon this man- ner of drawing conclusions ; further, that propor- tions are possible exactly only where the marks of the real object are determinable quantitatively; but that they run into inexact comparisons with refer- ence to other objects of thought. § 55. The above-mentioned expression for a pro- portion contains one further inaccuracy. If E be 82 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. the expansion and T the temperature, then the afore- said expression leads to the idea that there are two marks which, absolutely and without reference to the subject in which they occur, stand in an unalter- able relation to each other. But how much the ex- pansion increases for every additional degree of temperature, depends on the nature of the body heated, and is different in the case of different bodies. Indeed, the necessity that one mark should exercise any influence on the other depends simply on the fact that they are marks of one and the same subject. This is true for every pair of marks. And we are on this account obliged to apprehend the nature of the subject as a law such that from it flow the proportions of all its single pairs of marks. Mathematics, and that in Analytical Geometry, has, indeed, approximately discovered a formal ex- pression for this logical demand in the comparison, for example, of the different curves, in which it defines the entire nature of a curved line, its shape and its direction, etc., by means of a proportion between the corresponding increments of the ab- scissas and ordinates. Such comparison also depends, of course, on the fact that all the properties which can belong to a spatial figure — for example, its curvature and the like — after all depend simply upon different mag- CONCEPTS AND IDEAS. 83 nitudes of the same species ; and no qualitatively incomparable properties occur. An extension of this logical form to the treatment of real objects — for example, the attempt to discover a formula for the nature of man similar to that which we possess for the nature of the ellipse — is a problem of in- finite complexity and quite impracticable with any exactness. But approximately the attempt has al- ways been made to solve it, since there has been an effort to discover a so-called i constitutive con- cept' for every object. That is to say : — a merely ' distinguishing ' con- cept, such as barely suffices to render its object dis- tinct from other objects but does not positively and exhaustively tell in what it consists, is held to be different from a 'descriptive' concept, which as far as possible specifies completely the content of its object, but makes no essential distinction in order of rank between marks that are more original and Maw- giving' (as it were) and such as are derived and dependent. Finally, there are distinguished those ' constitutive ' or 'speculative ' concepts (or the ' Ideas ') which are limited to designating a certain primitive content (Ur-Inhalt) of the object, from which all its individual marks and their combinations are then derived as its necessary consequences. 84 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. C. The Systematic Forms. § 56. For the discovery of such a ' constitutive concept,' we remind ourselves — as we have already done in the doctrine of the concept, — of the fact, that the isolated consideration of an object in itself does not teach us how to distinguish the essential and i law-giving ' marks in it from the unessential and dependent. That in it which gives it its law we find in the ' universal' which is common to it with others of its species. By this means we are con- ducted to the path of Classiftcatio7i ; and we suppose that we know the ' essence' of an object just as soon as we are able to assign to it its position in a * Sys- tem,' which begins with some most general concept, subordinates to.this many general concepts as spe- cies, — and finally, to the latter a variety of partic- ular concepts. § 57. It is not quite this problem, but a more superficial one, which is fulfilled by the so-called ' artificial classification ' ; such as either develops all its species or single instances from one general con- cept M, or one general case M, — or else subordi- nates these particulars to M as though they were already well recognized. The following operations are distinguished : MODES OF CLASSIFICATION. 85 1) The Partition of M into its different marks, a, b, c . . . 2) The Disjunction of each of these marks into its species ; of a into % a 2 . . . , of b into & /3 2 . . . etc. 3) The Combination of every single species of each predicate with every species of every other predicate ; hence %&Yi, ai/?iy 2 ...» ^iAyi • • • $ «2/8i7i ■ • • 4) The Arrangement of the species of M thus deduced, either according to well-known lexical prin- ciples, or according to some other that answers the ends of use. 5) A Correction by which the non-valid or impos- sible species are again removed ; — species which, accordingly, originated from the fact that we have had regard only to the presence and not to the mode of the combination of the marks a b c in M. It is possible that some modifications of these marks, — for instance, some far higher general notion as our point of depar- ture ; for in that case the ' Nota specifica ' does not always admit of being included in such a way that nothing else, too, falls under this definition. This mistake is frequently met with in the practical domain, in that it is customary to use a very high and pre-eminent general concept for better recom- mending some proposition. Too narrow definitions adduce marks that are not necessary to what is to be defined, and therefore exclude some of its kinds. They easily originate from the limited nature of our circle of experience, which accustoms us to only a few of the more nearly allied species of the universal. Definition perpetrates a ' Circle,' in case it assumes in the explanation that which is to be explained, although under another form. This mistake always TASK OF DEFINITION. IOI originates, in case we aim to define constructively simple concepts — like ' Being/ ' Becoming/ and others similar — which are to be made clear only by means of abstraction. Finally, the custom of apprehending substantively all things that are to be defined, even when they are by nature verbal or adjective, although not itself a mistake, is one inducement to mistakes. It is more natural and conformable to our purposes to define thus: "A body is elastic, in case it, etc/'; or, "An organism is alive (or is diseased), in case it, etc.," than to define thus: "Elasticity is" . . . or, "Life (disease) is, etc." The latter modes of expression are indeed often quite harmless ; but they are also often produc- tive of the habit of treating states, properties, and events as though they were substantial and inde- pendent beings. § 66. The task of definition, which is not merely to specify the content of the concept, but also to limit it with respect to other concepts, can often be accomplished only by arbitrarily fixing the usage of speech. In the first place, there are certain concepts which have no secure point of departure for their validity, like the collective ones, i throng/ 'heap/ 'bald- headed ' ; then there are others contradictory to 102 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. each other, between which a point of indifference exists, such as 'cold' and ( warm,' and the like. In all the former cases a limit is wanting, at which the concept begins to be valid ; in the latter, the limit is also wanting at which they pass over into the contradictory concept. We do not know where 'warm' ceases and 'cold' begins; we only know in what direction of the series the cold diminishes and the warmth increases, and the reverse. Another great multitude of concepts has originated in the living formation of speech, in such manner that, when comparing what is particular, we, at one and the same time hold to several points of view that are independent of each other. Accordingly, those species which fall under the concept attained, agree- ably to all these points of view at once, indubitably belong there ; on the contrary, other species, although they appear to fall under it as judged in one respect, in other respects, on the other hand, appear to be excluded from it. In such a case nothing remains to be done but to fix, for the exact use of science, the extent of the concept, and accordingly the sig- nificance of its name, in a way that agrees with our purpose but is somewhat arbitrary ; and not to take too much pains simply to remain in accord with the usage of speech. The concept of 'dis- ease,' for example, comprehends, on the one hand, LIMITATION OF CONCEPTS. IO3 every deviation from the normal condition ; on the other, it signifies a condition which has a variable course; in the third place, it signifies such an one as is fraught with danger. Just so the conception of ' crime' has respect, simultaneously, to the bad will, to the execution of the deed, to the magnitude of the harm done, etc. § 67. With reference to the value which we ascribe to the fixed limitation of concepts as set over against each other, our ordinary process of thought controls, sometimes by means of a principle of logical pedantry, and sometimes by means of one of logical frivolity. The former holds every distinction in concepts insurmountable (the well-known mode of speaking : " that is something quite different ") ; the other regards every distinction as fluid, and teaches how to change every concept by intermediate stages into any other that is in any degree allied to it. This change is accomplished by altering at pleasure the magnitude of individual marks, — many (such as are necessary to the new general concept, but wanting in the given concept) being considered as present but of no value, and others (such as are present but do not belong to the new general concept) being regarded as such that they must be inserted in these examples also, and that they are wont to occur only in certain of its kinds without being of any value. 104 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. All these logical transformations have their correct use in art, where they are the servants of wit ; and in ordinary life they are most frequently employed in excuses, in cases where the intent is to deceive con- cerning the real worth of some action by means of approximating its content, piecemeal, as it were, as much as possible toward something innocent. Even in science they are of the greatest value in the right place. But proof is always to be demanded that in the nature of the realities with whose concepts we are dealing, there lies the possibility or the actual custom and the effort, of making such transitions. § 68. Of every object a variety of concepts is pos- sible, since it can be subordinated to each of its own marks and to every possible combination of them. Among these concepts one may be preferred, — namely, that constitutive concept, which we previously sought for, but found only approximately and in a few domains, such as in the concepts of species be- longing to the creations of nature. Nevertheless, the interests of our thinking seldom require this concept ; and every process of investiga- tion is accustomed only to consider certain single sides of an object from which it deduces conse- quences in accordance with general laws. Accord- ingly, it is for the most part only a prolixity, and SOURCES OF SOPHISTRY. 105 often a source of inaccuracy as well, when we forci- bly aim to have an exhaustive speculative conception for an object which we are treating ; and then, when after all we cannot for the most part attain it, pursue an inaccurate approximation thereto. It is more use- ful to take our point of departure from ' partial defi- nition,' which unites into one general concept only the properties important for the shifting investigation ; and then, of course, modifies the consequences that flow from the subordination of the object under this general concept, by having regard to the other peculi- arities of the object. Thus, for example, medicine has to bring 'man' under the concept of a mechanism consisting of physical elements ; while national econ- omy has to bring him under the concept of capital to be produced. But both must limit the consequences drawn therefrom by the reflection, that this ' mechan- ism' and this ' capital' possesses likewise reason and will. One of the principal sources of sophistry will be such partial definitions, in cases where we draw con- sequences from them but neglect to introduce into them the modifications which are requisite on ac- count of the rest of the nature of the object, although this is not included in the definition. Little as this mode of procedure is scientifically permissible, yet its application is justified in poetry and rhetoric. CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THE ADDUCING OF PROOF. § 69. In a judgment, what interests us practically is its truth. Now the simpler case is this, that a proposition with a definite content is given and its proof is required ; the more difficult case is this, that the discovery of a proposition still unknown is de- manded. All adducing of proof — to which we now turn our attention — must begin with the demonstration of the validity in fact of the given proposition. That is to say, if it is discovered by means of a test which is made of it either by experience or by single examples, that it has no such validity whatever, then all pains taken with adducing proof is wasted. This rule is not always sufficiently observed, and numberless pro- lixities arise in science as well as in ordinary life from the attempt to explain facts — that is, to demonstrate them as necessary — which have no existence at all. Only after the validity of the proposition is estab- lished, does the adducing of proof for its justification begin, — that is, the demonstration that it has a right to be held valid as a consequence of other truths and facts. NATURE OF AXIOMS. IO7 § 70. The fact needs no explanation, that all ad- ducing of proof whatever presupposes a number of propositions which are not, in their turn, in need of proof, and which are also not capable of such proof. These propositions are ordinarily comprehended under the name of axioms. Fundamentally consid- ered, they fall into two classes : the one comprehends ' assertory judgments' which express certain actual facts, and which, taken collectively, are derived from experience and admit only of the above-mentioned proof of their validity. The other comprehends the just as undemonstrable ' principles of reason and con- sequent,' in accordance with which alone, from any fact or truth a conclusion can be drawn to some other. The latter, strictly speaking, are hypothetical general judgments, which do not tell what is, but merely what must be if something else is. A criterion for affirming that any proposition is an axiom of the latter kind lies only in the unconditioned nature of the evidence with which it announces itself in consciousness as necessarily valid. Nevertheless, since erroneous prejudgments also can, from a variety of reasons, unlawfully attain in our mind such evi- dence, it is necessary to test the truth of any propo- sition in question, not merely on its own evidence but also on that of the impossibility of its contradic- tory opposite. If the latter is not demonstrable, then I08 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. the axiomatic and unconditional validity of the propo- sition in question does not stand beyond doubt. § 71. Proofs are distinguished, in accordance with their proximate aim, as direct, which demonstrate the given proposition immediately, and indirect ('apa- gogic '), which primarily demonstrate the impossibil- ity of its opposite. Only the first kind are able to specify, in explanatory fashion, the grounds in right for the truth of the proposition ; the second always prove only its validity in fact. In convincing force, however, the first is not always unqualifiedly to be ranked as superior to the second. The direct, as well as the apagogic, proof is uni- formly either * a principio ad principiatum,' from rea- sons to consequents (progressive, forward-moving) ; or else it proceeds 'a principiato ad principium,' from consequents to reasons (regressive, backward-moving). The different forms of proof that spring out of the foregoing fact have a very different value ; — partly in general, and partly different according to the do- mains of the content to which they are applied. § 72. The ' direct ' proof can be progressively (and therefore in such a manner that the process of think- ing takes the same course, from reasons to conse- quents, as the nature of the thing) carried on in two forms. THE DIRECT PROOFS. IO9 1) The proposition in question is considered as the terminal point of a conclusion ; we therefore take our start from truths that are more general and already established, and from them, by subordinating other general or special sub-propositions, deduce the re- quired thesis as a necessary conclusion. This form is of all most to be preferred ; because it contains, or may contain, the complete exposition of the thesis. 2) The thesis may be regarded as a point of start- ing, and since it is considered valid, its consequences developed. If these are at variance neither with general truths nor with established facts, then the validity of the thesis is — not indeed certain, but probable. For since all the consequences can never be developed, it remains possible that, in case we were to proceed yet further, some contradiction would still be revealed. As proof of the truth, ac- cordingly, this form is not perfectly stringent. On the other hand, it occurs in practical life, for recom- mending certain proposals, as a proof of their con- formity to an end. Regressively also, ascending from consequents to reasons, the direct proof may run its course in two forms. That is to say — 1) The thesis in question serves as a point of starting, and is, therefore, here regarded as a consequent from which we ascend to its reasons. Now if the reasons IIO OUTLINES OF LOGIC. which must hold good, in case the thesis is to hold good, are in thorough accord with general truths, then primarily only the conceivability or possibility of the thesis is demonstrated thereby ; and only in domains where (as in mathematics) all that is con- ceivable has eo ipso the truth which appears in the particular case, does such proof include the truth of the thesis. In relation to everything actual, acces- sory proof would be necessary, to the effect that the causes are in existence which must actualize the thesis, as yet in itself only possible. In practical life, on the other hand, this form of proof is perfectly sufficient — for example — to found or defend a legit- imate claim. Finally — 2) The thesis can in turn be regarded as the ter- minal point ; and therefore in this case as a reason. We then take our start from certain other proposi- tions or facts that are known to be valid, and show that the sole ground of their possibility is to be found in the validity of the thesis, which thereby is made necessary. This proof is therefore conclusive, but is difficult to adduce; and it often stands in need of accessory proofs, in order to show that the thesis is not merely an adequate reason for the aforesaid facts, but is the exclusively possible and sole reason for them. THE INDIRECT PROOFS. Ill § 73. i Indirect ' proof cannot, strictly speaking, immediately demonstrate that the opposite of the given thesis — that is, the antithesis — is not valid in fact ; or, in more general terms, the refutation of a proposition can never be the immediate conclusion of a proof. For never do anything but merely posi- tive — that is to say — valid consequences (such as, for the rest, can consist in affirmative and negative judg- ments) follow from all such principles as could be chosen for grounds of proof ; and only on account of the fact that these consequences exclude the an- tithesis, is the latter explained as not valid. The first progressive form, which sets out from general truths and shows the antithesis to be im- possible, accordingly cannot occur. What appears as this, is invariably a direct progressive proof, which exhibits the necessity of some proposition by which the antithesis is excluded. On the contrary, the second progressive form, that proceeds from the antithesis, which is assumed as true, to its consequences, and the first regressive ', that proceeds from the same to its presuppositions, are both of great value as apagogic proofs (' Deductiones ad absurdum '). They demonstrate the invalid nature of the assumed proposition by showing that, either the consequences which would flow from it, or the reasons which must validate it if it is to be valid, are 112 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. not compatible with general truths or existing facts. Now although they do not contain the grounds for the validity of the thesis whose antithesis they dem- onstrate to be impossible, still they are often to be preferred to the tedious and involved direct proofs, on account of the pictorial way in which they show the absurdity of every proposition contradictory of the thesis. The second regressive form would draw a conclu- sion from facts to the impossibility of explaining them by the antithesis as their ground ; and this obviously is practicable only in case the necessary properties of such a ground are first positively de- fined, and it is then shown that the antithesis is thereby excluded. § 74. Besides the distinctions already alluded to, a further one is made which has to do with whether a universal proposition (for example, one concerning the triangle) is directly proved in its universality, or in such manner that the demonstration first applies to all individual instances (first for the right-angled tri- angle, then for the acute-angled, and finally for the obtuse-angled) and then the proofs are summarized. Such collective proof requires that we should be in a condition to enumerate all possible individual in- stances which the general case can contain ; and PROOF BY EXCLUSION. II3 even when this is done, it always has the disadvan- tage of simply establishing the validity in fact of the proposition demonstrated for all examples of the universal; but it neither proves nor explains how this validity follows from the proper nature of the univer- sal. Although it is often quite indispensable, since the nature of a concept or of some general case is often not so widely known, that we should be able to recognize the grounds which it contains for the universal validity of some assertion concerning it. Related to the foregoing is the proof by exclusion. This form, likewise, in case of a complete disjunc- tion, enumerates all the conceivable individual in- stances of a general case, and proves of all the rest, except one, that they are impossible ; so that in case it is established at all that some one species of the universal must occur, then this one left remaining is necessarily valid. Finally, the limitation of a given value between two limits — for example, the proof that a is neither greater nor less than b, and accordingly equals b — belongs in this connection. § 75. In all the forms of proof alluded to, we have assumed that the conclusion follows as to the whole, according to the first figure, — that is, by sub- sumption of one proposition under others. We 114 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. speak of the proofs by analogy and induction fur- ther on. This being presupposed, the question may arise, how proofs are discovered, — by which we mean, the superior propositions on which the validity of the proposition in question depends ; as well as how the inferior propositions or auxiliary construc- tions are divined by whose mediation the latter flow from the former. On the whole, Logic cannot teach how to 'dis- cover ' such proof ; but it can only admonish us that in every science stereotyped methods of proof for the single groups of related problems are de- veloped, which put every one, who understands how to bring a problem under its own group, upon the right way. Besides this only one indication is possible, — namely, that the ground for the truth of a proposition, which expresses not merely a fact, but some mode of procedure that is dependent on other truths, must invariably be contained in the content of the proposition itself, when the latter is perfectly thought out. Synthetic judgments cannot be given in such a way as to add to the subject S a predicate P, which is neither contained, nor has its ground, in the complete concept of S. Such a predicate would be false. All correct judgments are as re- spects their content, analytic ; or rather they are SERIES OF PROPOSITIONS. II5 'identical' and merely appear synthetic in form, since one and the same content can be designated in both subject and predicate, from points of view that are very different and arbitrarily chosen. Ac- cordingly, in order to find the proof on which the correctness of a proposition is founded, one must analyze subject and predicate and the combination between the two, and add all the latent accessory thoughts which are meant thereby ; in this way one will see in this complete content of the proposition, for the most part, its own proof of itself. It frequently proves of advantage to consider as not yet valid the subject of the thesis, or the prem- ise to which this is attached as a consequent ; and to let it originate from another subject or another premise whose predicate or conclusion has already been established. In this way it is more easily shown how, by the changes of this other subject into the one in question, the predicate in question also originates from this other. If the different instances of a universal proposition constitute a series, — as often happens in mathematics, — this proof takes the form of a f proof from n to (n + 1) ' ; in such manner that the given thesis is first verified for some special ' case or value of n, and then it is shown that, in the formation of each next case (n + 1) from the case n, the conditions, by virtue Il6 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. of which the proposition of n holds good either are maintained unchanged or are reproduced, or else equivalent conditions take their place. § 76. The Fallacies in proof, which logic, alas! can only mention and not teach us to shun, are the following : 'Petitio principii/ or 'the circle in proof' (Diallele) is committed, in case what is only some other expres- sion for it, or some consequence of the conclusion which is first to be demonstrated, is employed as an argument. ' Fallacia falsi medii ' (Quaternio terminorum) con- sists in the fallacy of taking, in one of the conclusions that constitute the proof, the medius terminus in both premises, in a different signification. The inducement to this is not far to seek in the case of abstract conceptions, whose signification has equivocal elements ; and also in the case of such empirical concepts (to which allusion has already been made) as are likewise formed by abstraction in accordance with different points of view. In this connection the ' Fallacia de dicto simplici- ter ad dictum secundum quid ' may be referred to ; that is to say, the fallacy of applying a proposition, which in itself holds true universally and absolutely, to definite circumstances, without limiting and modi- KINDS OF FALLACY. 117 fying it in such a manner as these circumstances require. This fallacy is in ordinary life the princi- ple of Doctrinairism and unpractical Idealism, — of i riding principles horseback/ Conversely, the 'Fal- lacia de dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter' extends a principle, valid in a single instance, to all instances, — even to such as are lacking in those conditions that give grounds to or recommend its validity. In practical life this is the principle of pedantry and 'philistrosity/ 'Nimium probare,' and therefore i nihil probare/ is the fallacy of demonstrating the validity of a proposition, not merely for the subjects and cases for which it holds good, but also for others for which it does not in fact hold good, or should not hold good. The fallacy comes from the choice of a false argument, or from an otherwise correct argument not being limited to those of its sub-species which alone perfectly contain the ground for the validity of the proposition. ' Parum probare ' is in itself only a fallacy of method, because that which is proved is correct. It becomes a logical fallacy only when the validity of the proposition which is demonstrated for a number of cases, is at the same time appre- hended as a negation of its validity in the other cases, in which it in fact also holds good. 'Hysteron-proteron ' (varepov irporepov), in dis- Il8 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. tin ct ion from petitio principii, is the awkwardness in method which from two propositions A and B, that may be in turn deduced from each other, makes that one the ground of the proof which would be more fitly exhibited as the result of the other. Finally, ' Heterozetesis ' (erepov Zqrrio-is), or ' Ig- noratio elenchi,' is the complete aberration of the proof, — arriving at a conclusion which was not to be demonstrated at all. § 77. Finally, we distinguish ' Paralogisms ' (' erro- neous conclusions ') as undesigned fallacies in proof, from ' Sophisms ' (' fraudulent conclusions'), — that is to say, thoughts designedly so combined that from them, in a way formally correct, either something wholly absurd and false originates, or contradictory assertions flow from them with equal correctness. The first case, again, always depends upon designedly committing some one of the customary fallacies in argument. The others, the so-called 'Dilemmas' that were specially celebrated under that title in antiquity (the 'liar/ the i crocodile,' etc., — comp. § 46 at the end) originate in this way ; the content of a judgment A, which taken logically by itself must be either correct or incorrect (without any regard to the circumstances under which it is ut- KINDS OF FALLACY. 119 tered, or to facts not as yet established) is never- theless apprehended as though it were conditioned in its meaning or in its validity, by just those cir- cumstances ('the liar') or by these not yet estab- lished facts ('the crocodile'). CHAPTER III. THE PROCESS OF THOUGHT IN DISCOVERY. § 78. The second problem, to which allusion was previously made (§ 69),- — namely, to discover some general proposition — divides again into several, the first of which is the discovery of a universal judg- ment, that comprises a number of particular facts. This may take place either in such manner that the same content which a single fact expresses is demon- strated as valid in general for all instances of its re- currence ; or in such manner that a more general proposition is sought for, which embraces within itself as classes all the given facts. § 79. The first case only furnishes us the occa- sion to observe that the assertions — " Experience teaches nothing universal" ; and "What is correct in one case need not be so in another/' — are not rightly made. Quite the contrary, it follows from the law of Identity, that a truth which is valid once cannot fail to be valid a second time ; accordingly, that every individual experience is once for all valid, — that is to say, the same predicate is again valid at all times for all cases of the recurrence of the same subject. THE IMPERFECT INDUCTION. 121 The difficult thing is simply to determine in praxi whether a second instance does actually repeat pre- cisely the subject observed in the first case. For this the probabilities are different in different domains of research. For example, it is enough for the chem- ist, if he once knows that he has some element be- fore him in a pure state, to observe its reaction toward some other element a single time, in order to establish it forever. The zoologist, on the con- trary, will hold some peculiarity of a new animal, only one example of which has been discovered, to be 'normal/ that is, to be valid in general (since disease and malformation are possible in such a case), only when the analogies of other classes of animals justify him in this assumption. § 80. The second problem would be to deduce a general judgment of the form — "All S are M" — from individual perceptions, which (as previously alluded to) bear the form : P is M, Q is M, R is M, etc. This is the simple conclusion by imperfect In- duction, to which allusion was previously made. It was shown in the Pure Logic that this induc- tive conclusion serves for the widening of our knowl- edge only in case it is imperfect, — that is to say, it follows, without strict conclusive force, from the fact that some kinds of S have the predicate M, 122 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. that all kinds of S possess it. The precautionary rules, which would be required to make the con- clusion at least as probable as possible, are simply as follows. With the rising number of cases in which M oc- curs among the species of S, the probability that it belongs to all S increases of itself. Nevertheless, every circle of human experience is limited, and we can at least never be sure from that which we learn to know only by experience, whether we are not merely getting a view of certain particular species, nearly allied, which do indeed all possess the predi- cate M, and yet do not possess it by virtue of their general concept, but on account of their other con- cordant special marks. For this reason it is neces- sary to show that the M, which we wish to ascribe as universal to the concept S, occurs not merely in the case of very manifold and very diverse species of the S, but also occurs specifically in the case of such pairs of them as are related to each other, with reference to some mark which can be depended on for having some influence on the establishment of M, in the most contrary fashion possible. It can then be concluded that the reason for M, or for the subject to which M belongs, can only be some ge- neric concept like S, which is common to all the species. MORE COMPLEX PROBLEMS. 123 § 81. This same problem is much more important for us in another form. That is to say, it is only rarely of much use to us to show that a P is united with a general generic concept S, and belongs to all species of S. As a rule, we desire still further to know on what ground P belongs to S. This, ex- pressed in general form, leads to the problem of searching for the conditions on which the occur- rence of an event depends in all the otherwise di- verse instances of its repetition. In experience we almost uniformly meet with a complex of diverse facts, a + J> + c + • • • = U, with which another just as composite complex, a + ft + 7 + • • • = W, stands in combination. The problem is to ascertain whether in general U is the condition of W, and what particular part of U forms the condi- tion of what particular part of W. The means for such investigation are, either the facts which observation yields spontaneously, or like- wise such others as we add by experimentation. Observation, for the most part, shows us effects which depend on a large number of conditions at the same time ; many of which, moreover, are wholly withdrawn from observation. The main end of ex- periment does not consist simply in multiplying facts, but in permitting only a fixed and accurately known number of conditions to be in every trial. Experi- 124 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. ment further consists in separating these conditions, whenever it is possible, so that in every trial only one is active, and yields an unmixed result, or, at least, so that in every trial only a small number of conditions co-operate, and, accordingly, the part of each single condition in the collective result admits of being determined by comparison of the different trials, in the way of elimination. Finally (a matter concerning which we shall speak later), experiment especially seeks to secure the measureableness of the magni- tudes of the conditions and of the results. § 82. The following general cases serve simply as examples of investigation : i) If "W (the effect) uniformly follows upon U (the cause), then it is possible that the reason for W lies in U ; and it remains a matter for inquiry whether the whole of U furnishes the reason for W, and whether some other condition besides U, that is uniformly connected with it but unobserved, is not necessary in addition. But it is just as possible that U and "W are ^-effects of a common cause, Z ; and also possible, finally, that U and W occur to- gether by a merely fictitious coincidence, without any causal connection whatever. 2) After U has occurred, W is sometimes wanting. Then U either is not the cause of W, or U and W CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 1 25 are £ + c alone produces W ; in which case a would be a superfluous part of XJ. On the other hand, if the whole of W disappears with the vanishing of a, then a alone may be the sufficing condition of W. Such condition, however, may just as well lie in the entire sum (a + b + c), CAUSES AND EFFECTS. \2J so that W always vanishes whatever part of U is removed, but does not depend on any one of them alone. This is often overlooked ; — for example, when some one part of the brain, a, after the de- struction of which a function W ceases, is physio- logically considered as the sole organ of W. 7) If two different complexes of causes — U = (a + b + c) and V = (m + n + c) — produce the same effect W, then W will for the most part undoubtedly depend on the c common to both. Still it is possible that c is quite without any direct significance ; and that, on the contrary, (a + b) and (m + n) furnish two equivalent pairs of causes, in which one and the same condition for W is only differently distributed to the single elements. 8) Finally : if again (compare what is said under 6) U = (a + b + c), and W also vanishes with the re- moval of a, then a may be the sole cause of W ; but it is also possible that such cause lies only in c, but b is a hindrance to the efficiency of c, which was, on its side, balanced by a. The foregoing possibilities might be indefinitely multiplied. § 83. Now tne ascertainment of the fact that any particular a is the condition of some a or other, does not give us satisfying knowledge, as long as we are 128 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. unable to subsume under such a proposition certain others, not wholly like it but only of similar kind ; — that is to say, as long as we do not know according to what general law a is changed by a fixed difference, in case a is also changed by another fixed difference. Now since determinations of number merely, and not marks of quality, are deducible from each other in thought according to general laws, the problem is as follows ; — to seek for the law according to which the values of the magnitude of the results depend upon the magnitudes of the conditions belonging to them. This is a problem which must be solved for the most part experimentally. § 84. If it is found that, when the magnitude of the condition remains uniformly the same, or increases uniformly or diminishes uniformly, the results de- pendent on it do not alter their values in a perfectly parallel way ; but — for example — when the value of a increases, that of a for some time increases, and then while a keeps on always increasing, assumes a diminishing value : then this is a proof that a alone does not contain the complete reason of a, but that still other conditions co-operate ; and that these either consist in accessory conditions which are independ- ent of a, or in alterations which the object affected by a experiences through the earlier influence of a, USE OF HYPOTHESES. 1 29 and which oppose resistance, sometimes uniformly and sometimes periodically, to the further influence of a. In all such cases as the foregoing, there is a de- mand for a further preliminary investigation. For although we can often discover very simple general laws for the course of such a composite effect, — as, for example, the laws of Kepler show ; yet after all we can only grasp perfectly the whole of it, in case it can be demonstrated as the resultant of a combina- tion of single effects, whose laws are such that a constant increase in the result belonging to it always corresponds to the constant increase of each single condition. The place of such a preliminary investi- gation is in part supplied by a further employment of the previous artifices, and in part by hypotheses. § 85. If we have discovered experimentally a series of corresponding values for the conditions and the results, then the intricate nature of the thing some- times compels us (for example, in many problems of statistics), inasmuch as many conditions that are changing independently of each other always co- operate, to confine ourselves to the collection in tab- ular form of the appropriate material. On the contrary, where it is possible to make the transition to a general law which expresses the de- 130 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. pendence of every member in the series of results upon the corresponding member in the series of con- ditions, this transition always remains a kind of logi- cal saltus. For no measuring, since it all invariably depends upon nothing but the sharpness of our per- ception by the senses, gives us absolutely accurate numbers. Accordingly, if the series of values dis- covered for the results accords accurately with that calculated by a general formula from the values of the conditions, it is only extremely probable but not certain that such formula is the correct law. If it does not agree with them, but must be corrected in order to agree, then it is possible that another cor- rection would make it explicable with equal facility by another law. Nevertheless, if perfect certainty is wanting, still a probability, which is to be estimated as quite equal to it, may be attained for the correct- ness of a law. This is principally done by measuring the discovered series of values according to different standards of measurement, and arranging the experi- ments so that the dependence of the results on the conditions is subject to observation from different points of view. If the same formula fits in all such altered expressions of the thing, then it will be the correct one. § 86. On this account, the discovery of a general law is frequently called an ' Hypothesis.' CRITERION OF SIMPLICITY. I3I We employ this word in a more limited meaning. Hypotheses are conjectures by which we endeavor to divine something real that is not given in percep- tion, but of which we make the supposition that it must be existent in actuality, in order that what is given in perception may be possible ; — that is, may be comprehensible in the light of those laws of the connection of ' Things' which are recognized as supreme. Among the rules, by following which we endeavor to give the greatest possible certainty to hypotheses, it is incorrect to lay down the general one, that sim- plicity is a criterion of truth. We must rather dis- tinguish the nature of the cases. If we have to do with establishing by hypothesis a relation which is very general and which unites almost all that is actual, then ' simplicity ' is most probably the correct thing. On the other hand, to explain a fact which manifestly depends on very many co-operating con- ditions, a very simple hypothesis about it only awak- ens the suspicion that all the difficulties of the matter are not observed, and therefore not explained. As for the rest, no rules can be given which assist the intelligent process of discovery in the formation of hypotheses, but only certain ones which limit it. It is of use in the first place, to make it perfectly obvious, what are the demands which some matter of 132 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. reality, when hypothetically assumed, must necessarily fulfil, in order to satisfy the phenomenon that is to be explained. This admits of being established with a perfect cogency by concluding backwards from the phenomenon itself. From these abstract but unques- tionable parts of the hypothesis, a further special elab- oration of it is to be distinguished, which endeavors to divine the concrete matter of fact in which the aforesaid demands are found to be actually fulfilled. Very often several such matters of fact are possible. The hypothesis should not blindly choose the one which first falls in our way ; but it must previously survey the entire domain of related phenomena, in order to ascertain what kind of matter of fact is wont to occur therein. Now if a hypothesis has been framed with this ref- erence to a rather large number of related phenom- ena, then it very often happens that the progress of experience contains new facts, for whose explanation the previous hypothesis does not suffice. It must, accordingly, be altered by new additions. This • build- ing of hypothesis on hypothesis ' is not to be avoided in the course of our scientific labors ; and, on this account, it is incorrect to forbid it. Only it is cer- tain that the investigation is not to be regarded as ended until these hypotheses, composed piecemeal, at last admit of being gathered together again into FICTIONS IN ARGUMENT. 1 33 one simple assumption corresponding to the sim- plicity of the thing itself. Finally, the rule — " not to frame any hypothesis whose content lies beyond the borders of a possible counter-proof" — is indeed an excellent one; but in many domains of investigation, exactly where we are most in need of hypotheses, it is not practicable. § 87. Hypotheses are conjectures by means of which we suppose that we are divining an actual matter of fact. Fictions are assumptions which we make with the consciousness of their incorrectness. We are compelled to resort to fictions, when — for example, in practical life — judgment must be passed upon a case which does not exactly fall under any single known rule ; we are then compelled to indicate it in such a way that it can be subsumed under that rule which is recognized as over some content most nearly related to its own. We are further compelled to adopt fictions, when in science there are no modes of experience which admit of a direct application to the data of some prob- lem before us. In this way, for example, curved lines are regarded as interrupted straight lines (which they never are), and reckoned accordingly. In both cases it is, of course, necessary to correct the consequences which flow from the general ground 134 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. of judgment assumed by the fiction, with reference to the fact, that the case in hand is not exactly sub- ordinated thereto. And on this supposition, fictions lead — for example, in mathematics — back again to exact results and not merely to approximations. Finally, fictions are very frequently, besides, em- ployed as means of illustration, with the purpose of bringing intricate relations, that obviously, as frequent perception shows, belong to some case a, to apply to a case h which possesses relations that, although not wholly the same, are essentially similar. § 88. Fictions of themselves lead to the procedure called ' Analogy / which, although it does not propose to extend a proposition to a subject that is certainly not to be subsumed under it, still does transfer a proposition from one subject to another, on account of the similarity of the two. This procedure depends upon the perfectly cogent principle, that what is like must under like conditions assume like predicates, and under unlike conditions unlike predicates ; just as what is unlike must under like conditions assume unlike predicates. But the first half of this proposition avails nothing for the extension of our knowledge; and the other only slightly, because it yields no positive result, but only teaches us that the predicates are not like. REASONING BY ANALOGY. 1 35 Accordingly, such principles, strictly speaking, are productive only in mathematics, where it is possi- ble to determine the degree of the unlikeness of the subjects and that of the conditions, and consequently also to reduce the unlikeness of the predicates to a definite measure, and to give them a positive content. Outside of mathematics, the principle that what is similar assumes similar predicates under like con- ditions, although always correct in abstractor is still a very difficult one to apply ; and after all, every- thing comes to this, that we gather from it what group of marks (x+y) is present in A as a cause of the predicate P being attributed to the A. For if P is to be transferred from A to some B, on account of the similarity of the two subjects, then B must be like or similar to A in relation to (x + y) ; — that is to say, must have this group of marks in common with A; in which case, on the contrary, all other similarity of A and B is of no avail whatever. Now that (x + y) is the condition of P can be demonstrated partially on other grounds ; and, in case P is ascribed to the subject B, is no longer a conclusion from analogy, but a direct sequence. If such proof can not be adduced, then different subjects must be compared as far as possible : and it must be shown that all their other similarities cannot produce the common predicate P, unless I36 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. (x + y) is a common constituent of all the subjects; and that, on the other hand, difference of the marks, otherwise, does not destroy the common character of P, as long as (x + y) remains common to all the subjects. From this, finally, the conclusion is drawn with a satisfactory degree of probability, that the predicate P will belong to all subjects in which (x + y) is found. § 89. The other kind of problem (§ 78) is this, — to demonstrate the reality of a single fact. Three different points of starting may be discov- ered for this purpose. That is to say, we have be- fore us given facts which we can apprehend either as causes, or as results, or as accompanying signs of the fact in question. In none of these ways is a strict demonstration possible. For even if what is given always contains the complete cause of what is to be proved, yet this cause after all — since we are here not dealing with valid truths, but with actual occurrences — may be hindered by counter-forces from the production of its effect. But if what is given can be explained from what is to be proved, as its result, still it is never demonstrable with such perfect cogency that other equivalent causes could not also be assigned for the same given fact. Finally, that the mere PROOF BY INDICIAE. 137 reciprocal companionship of two facts, because it ordinarily occurs, does not establish any certain con- clusion from one to the other, is self-evident. § 90. The general principles, in pursuance of which we try to give as much of probability as possible to this 'proof from indiciaej depend upon the follow- ing general views. In reality a multitude of different causal nexuses, which do not issue from one principle, constantly run on side by side. Now it is not probable that any one of them will, escaping all disturbance from the others, produce the effect, abstractly belonging to it, in its entirety and without abatement. On this account, finely spun plans, which do not have regard to 'accidents,' appear to us in practical life convicted of folly ; and in art and history all repre- sentations appear improbable which make an intrigue succeed in all its results, or an important factor ac- complish all its theoretically correct results for hun- dreds of years together. But, on the other hand, it is just as improbable that an extraordinarily great multitude of causal nexuses, independent of each other, should have in- tersected each other in such a manner as to pro- duce exactly one special matter of fact that, in the form in which it exists, is comprehensible from some I38 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. single other cause. Accordingly, we do not believe in the efficiency of a thousand minute causes for the production — for example, in history — of a result which flows of itself from some one ' direction of the Zeitgeist/ so-called. Nor in medicine do we credit the view, that every symptom of a patient has its separate harmless cause, as soon as the sum of all the symptoms exhibit the unity of a ( disease/ as arising from which they are all comprehensible. Just so in jurisprudence we do believe in such a diabolical concatenation of a thousand minutiae that from them the appearance of single coherent ' crime ' originated. § 91. The importance of the single indicise is estimated according to the same rules as in cases of inductive proof ; consequently, the probability of the instance to be proved is referred back to internal grounds of actual fact. Now there are instances enough where the proba- bility of the occurrence of an event cannot be judged at all from grounds of mere fact ; either because, as in the case of future events, we do not by any means know them all, or because it would take us into details too much to estimate actually even the part of them that is known. Here, however, it may not be necessary to have an opinion about the occurrence GROUNDS OF PROBABILITY. 1 39 or non-occurrence of the event, in order to base upon it some practical procedure. Nothing remains for us in such a case but first to enumerate together, as precisely alike possible, all the possible instances for the occurrence of which wholly like reasons tes- tify ; and then to ascribe to each of them a like probability of its occurrence, or else (in case of prob- lems where we are dealing with a manifold repeti- tion of analogous events) the same frequency of ap- pearance. Its probability is therefore measured by a magnitude which divides the certainty that some one case must occur (which is here put at unity) by the number of all the cases alike possible with it. This probability is distinguished from that pre- viously discussed, which rested on grounds lying in the very nature of the single case, as one which occurs precisely where no such grounds exist. It is in no respect a theoretical assertion about what will actually occur in the future. For nothing prevents, in spite of the calculation, the one case from always occurring, and all the rest of the equally possible cases, from not occurring. Such probability is rather, in reality, a practical standard by which we endeavor to determine the measure of the future confidence that ought still to be cherished in the occurrence of a definite single event among many that are alike possible. I4O OUTLINES OF LOGIC. § 92. The purely logical interest taken in choices, votes, etc., does not consist merely in the attaining of some result, but also in this, that each of the single judgments from which it is to be attained (that is, in this case, each opinion) should find oppor- tunity for a complete and direct expression. Prac- tical interests, on the contrary, and the considera- tions which are had besides in both cases, are opposed to this in many ways. The logical interest is perfectly satisfied only when a choice is direct, — that is, when it relates only to one object of choice, is followed by 'aye' and 'no/ and accordingly makes it possible to give an unmixed expression to the negation. All other choices, which are directed to several objects of choice at the same time, which are followed merely with positive votes, and therefore permit the negation of the one ob- ject to be made only by affirmation of some other, are logically deficient. They do indeed furnish a result by means of the majority. But it remains pos- sible that some other result would have satisfied in like manner the collective will of those voting ; since, although the result actually reached is somewhat preferable to the majority, it is on the contrary de- cidedly disagreeable to the minority ; while the other result would have been scarcely less agreeable to the majority and the only one agreeable to the minority. THE LOGIC OF VOTES. I4I It depends upon the nature of the relation which the choice induces, whether the more decided satisfaction of the majority, or one less perfect but more equal- ized among the entire collection of choices, is to be preferred. As a purely logical question it is taken for granted that the constituency of voters all vote together on a certain matter (that is, as united into one collection), and form only a single decisive majority. On prac- tical grounds, however, they are frequently divided into a multitude of groups to be treated separately, and the establishment of the definite result of the choice follows on the ground of the majorities which appear in the single groups ; so that, if the vote for a candidate should be taken by aye and no, he would be chosen as soon as — in case the whole were divided into nine groups — he had for him five of these groups (each one, according to its majority). It can easily be understood that in this way the decision may be reached by a minority of those entitled to vote at all in the matter on hand. If we divide ioo votes into 10 groups of 10 each, or into 20 groups of 5 each ; then we have, in the first case, 6 X 6 = 36, in the other 11X3 = 33, as the number of votes necessary for a decision, — instead of 51, which without this partition into groups, in case the 100 voters gave their vote together, would 142 OUTLINES OF LOGIC. be required for a majority. It can be calculated that, under such circumstances, the number of votes nec- essary to a decision may perhaps fall as low as a quarter of the whole number. And a still smaller number is sufficient, in case the number of the votes is not placed as equal (as we have done hitherto), but different, in the single groups. § 93. In voting on proposals for laws, which seek to satisfy one and the same necessity by formulating it in ways different and exclusive of each other, the usage employed accords, strictly speaking, at only one point with the logical interest. That is to say, if the voting assembly wishes not to recognize in principle the general thought which underlies all these ways of formulating it, or the necessity itself ; then this cannot be satisfactorily done by successive negations of the single proposals, but only by a 'motion to fix the order of the day,' which must always be established as soon as such a vote of the whole body is expected. From this point on, however, the logical procedure must either be such that a decision must be reached by an aye-and-no vote upon every proposal of the kind, and that one of them all retained which gets the majority of affirmative votes ; or else, at least, one of the proposals must first be selected by merely THE LOGIC OF VOTES. I43 the votes in favor of it, without any further issue, so as to make obvious what is the condition of opin- ion thereupon. The actual procedure is frequently much more speculative as to its want of obvious significance, or at least admits the existence of such speculation. For whatever the order of questions may be, yet custom hinders, by the affirmative of any question of all those that follow being excluded from the vote, as well the free expression of opinions as also the attainment of a result that is wholly accommo- dated to them. For every aye or no has in this case a double significance ; either it means a choice (or non-choice) of the individual proposal in itself considered, or an affirmative (or negative) for it from fear (or hope) of defeating (or carrying) by this means some subsequent less (or more) agreeable measure. Accordingly, the procedure passes out of the purely logical domain into that of practical politi- cal calculation and trickery. II. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, INTRODUCTION. § 1. ' Philosophy ' should not be considered as an employment of the thinking faculty, which attempts to solve problems of its own, that are otherwise wholly unknown, by means and methods just as peculiar and otherwise unheard of ; and which, therefore, makes its appearance as a kind of luxury superfluous to our real life. The rather is it nothing else than the strenuous effort of the human spirit, by a coherent investigation, to find a solution, that is universally valid and free from contradictions, for those riddles by which our mind is oppressed in life, and about which we are perforce compelled to hold some view or other, in order to be able really to live at all. Life itself involves, in that which we are wont to call 'education/ numerous attempts at such a solu- tion. As well concerning the nature of things and their connection under law, as concerning the grounds of beauty in phenomena, and, finally, concerning the I46 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. rules obligatory for human conduct, education is accustomed to establish a number of trains of thought that excite a great interest on account of the liveli- ness and warmth which they possess as witnesses, not for unprejudiced reflection but for life's immedi- ate experience. Their disadvantage, however, con- sists in this, that they are not connected systemati- cally together, are often contradictory of each other, and are as a rule interrupted before they have at- tained the ultimate ground of certainty. Aroused by certain events, which happen to one man in one way and to another in a different way, all these reflec- tions retreat in a lively manner some steps backward, in order to discover the reasons that will explain such experiences. They then ordinarily come to a halt, and regard as sufficiently ultimate principles certain points of view, which themselves include what is yet more of a riddle. It is natural that many such trains of thought, setting out as they do from different points of view, should not coincide in one whole but leave gaps and contradictions between them. The same relation maintains itself with the indi- vidual sciences. They attach themselves to single domains of actuality, and are satisfied when they discover principles which are constantly valid within such a domain, but which at once become doubtful in their application on being carried over to any other EXISTENCE OF TRUTH. I47 domain. Thus the conception of a cause that acts according to law is undoubtedly valid in physics. But the consideration of organic life, as well as ethi- cal speculations, frequently oppose to it the concep- tion of a cause that is determined only by its ends and not by laws, or of one that acts with a complete freedom. It is the problem of philosophy to deter- mine the claims of these different principles and the circuit within which they are valid. Accordingly it admits, for the present, of being defined as the en- deavor, by means of an investigation which has for its object that which is the principle of investigation in education and in the particular sciences, to estab- lish a view of the world that is certain, coherent, and of universal validity. § 2. To this entire undertaking two presupposi- tions are necessary. The first is this, that there exists in the world at large a 'truth' which affords a sure object for cog- nition. This assumption has seldom been called in doubt. To its denial there stands opposed, princi- pally, the moral conviction that without such truth the world would be absurd ; and that the world can- not after all be this. The other presupposition is, that we are in a con- dition to apprehend this truth, — although by no I48 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. means necessarily the whole of it ; and yet some part which shall serve us as a firm basis for an in- vestigation that is not perfectible in particulars. In opposition to this assumption, doubt arises in three forms : a) A Scepticism that is without motif raises the question whether, at last, all may not be quite dif- ferent from what we are necessarily compelled to think it. This doubt we pass by. For since it does not arise out of the content of what is necessary to thought, but only demands in a general way some pledge for the truth of our thinking, that lies out- side of all our thought, no satisfaction can ever -be given it, but it can only be overcome by a conviction of the absurdity of its own content. b) A second kind of Scepticism, with a motif, endeavors to show that the thoughts which we are compelled to think according to the necessary rules of our cognition are frequently impossible according to rules just as necessary; and, therefore, that what is a necessity to our thought does not lead us to any true knowledge. Such doubts are not to be refuted or confirmed, without investigation. We derive from them simply the rule of circumspection, accurately to test the most general conceptions and principles which appear to us as necessities of thought ; to sep- arate what they in truth mean and prescribe from SCEPTICISM AND CRITICISM. I49 the more special and not necessary adjunct thoughts, such as have attached themselves to the former dur- ing their application to limited circles of objects ; and then to see whether, in this way, the contradic- tions are made to vanish. c) As related to scepticism and derived from it, Criticism endeavors to establish cognition more securely, since it premises an investigation of the nature of the faculty of cognition, and thereby seeks to determine the limits of the validity of our forms of cognition, previous to their application to their objects. Nevertheless, although a preliminary ori- entating of ourselves concerning the origin and connection of our knowledge may guard us against many vain undertakings, yet we cannot regard the undertaking of criticism as anything more than a petitio principii. That is to say, previous to the application of knowledge to things, we cannot do anything but become conscious of those grounds of judgment which our reason contributes to the consideration of things as necessities of its thought. Whether these principles are applicable to 'things themselves,' does not .admit of being decided in a preliminary way from the history of the genesis of our cognition ; because, in order to have such a his- tory at all, one must necessarily already have taken one's point of departure from actual presuppositions I50 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. concerning the nature of things cognizable, concern- ing the nature of the cognizing spirit, and concern- ing the kind of reciprocal action that takes place between them. § 3. We therefore enter upon our philosophizing with the confidence which reason has toward itself, — that is to say, with the principle that all propositions which remain, after the correction of all accidental and changeable errors, as always and universally necessary to thought, are put by us at the founda- tion of everything as confessedly true ; and that according to them must our views concerning the nature of things be determined, and from them alone must a theory of our cognition be obtained. But as concerns the way which we are to take in our philosophizing, two views are distinguished. Both are at one so far as this, that the world itself must be a unity ; and consequently the perfected cognition of it must be, as it were, a closed system, which can contain no parts that are not united, or that stand toward each other without any ordering whatever. One view, however, believes that it is both able and obligated to divine at the beginning the One Real Principle, on which the world actually depends, and from it to deduce or construe the entire actuality INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH. I 5 I as the sum of its consequences. Such a beginning for cognition would be the best if we were gods. On the contrary, as finite beings, we do not ourselves stand in the creative centre of the world, but eccen- trically in the hurly-burly of its individual sequences. It is not at all probable and is never certain, that we should perfectly divine the one true Principle of the world in any one fundamental thought, however noble and important, to which some sudden intui- tion might lead us ; still more uncertain that we should formally apprehend it so accurately that the series of its true consequences should obviously pro- ceed from it. It is rather altogether probable that the first expression of the principle will be defective, and that mistakes will always multiply in the course of the deduction ; since one has regard to no inde- pendent point of view from which they might be corrected. The second view — of which we fully approve — distinguishes the investigation from the exhibition of truth. The mere search for the truth is by no means under the necessity of taking its point of departure from one principle, but is justified in set- ting forth from many points of attachment that lie near each other. It is only bound to the laws of thought, — beyond that, to no so-called ' method ' whatever. All direct and indirect means of getting 152 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY/ behind the truth must be applied by it in the freest manner possible. The. latter, however, — the exhibi- tion of truths already gained — has only to satisfy the need for unity and systematic coherency. But for it, too, this is a problem of which we do not know beforehand in how far it is solvable. § 4. A preliminary division of Philosophy may be attempted simply with the design of separating the different groups of the problems, each one of which appears to be self-coherent and to require an inves- tigation of a specific kind. We attribute little value to the reciprocal arrangement of these single groups under each other. In the history of science, too, names for these single groups are customary before any definite usage as to their systematic arrange- ment. Two domains are now, in the first place, distin- guished. We require, on the one hand, certain in- vestigations concerning that which exists; and, on the other hand, concerning the value which we attach to what is actual or to what ought to be. We now see that nothing in relation to its value follows im- mediately from insight into the origin and continued existence of anything actual whatever ; and nothing in relation to the possibility of its being actual fol- lows from insight into its value. Accordingly, al- DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. I53 though we assume that at the end of the investiga- tion a close connection will be shown between that which exists and that which is of some value, still, at the beginning we separate the two investigations, — the one concerning the actuality and the one con- cerning the value of things. § 5. Of the further organization of the subject, what follows may be presupposed : Inducements to questions that concern the expla- nation of actuality come to us in part from external nature and in part from the life of the soul. The two domains do not immediately exhibit the appearance of complete similarity ; but the consideration of both leads to a series of quite similar inquiries, — for ex- ample, concerning the possibility of the alteration of one and the same Being, concerning the possibility of the influence of one Thing upon another, etc. Such inquiries may be separated from others and combined into a universal preliminary investigation, Metaphysic, upon which the Philosophy of Nature and Psychology should then follow, as applications of the results reached in it to special cases. The second main division finds two obviously re- lated subjects in the kinds of value which we ascribe to the existent, and in those which we ascribe to such actions or sentiments as ought to be ; these are, 1 54 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. however, primarily distinguished by the fact that only the latter directly include an obligation. On this account, the investigation of the two divides into ^Esthetics and Ethics ; and for these two inves- tigations a third, common to both, may be conceived, but has hitherto never been carried out, — namely, an investigation concerning the nature of all deter- minations of value (corresponding to Metaphysic). SECTION FIRST. THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. § 6. In life and in the particular sciences we are constantly employed with the explanation of phenom- ena which, in the form in which they are presented to us, are full of riddles through their contradictions, gaps, and lack of coherence, — a fact to which allu- sion has already been made. In doing this we nec- essarily start from certain general presuppositions to which nature and the coherency of things must correspond in order to be true. These presupposi- tions are ordinarily employed only in an uncritical way and without any clear consciousness of their meaning ; but Metaphysic endeavors to make a col- lection of them, to explain their true meaning, and to remove the prejudgments which have become at- tached to them from being accustomed to a limited circle of experience. Three great groups of inves- tigations appear at this point : i) one, concerning the most general conceptions and propositions which we apply in judging of every actuality ; 2) a second, concerning the most general forms I56 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. in which this actuality appears in the existences of nature (Space, Time, Motion) ; 3) a third, concerning the possibility of the ' recip- rocal being (Fureinandersein) of things/ by which the one becomes a perceivable object, and the other a perceiving subject. These three groups appear under different titles, with somewhat of deviating limitations and, of course, very differently treated, in most systems of Metaphysic. In the Metaphysic of the older school the first part appears as Ontology ; the second as Cosmology, having the problem of showing how the individual things are connected together into an orderly world- whole, — a problem which, although it is related to the second of those mentioned above, is still not identical with it. Rational Psychology corresponds to the third group. On the contrary, the fourth part of such Metaphysic, rational theology, must be distinguished as a constituent of a foreign kind and not strictly belonging to Metaphysic. Just so in Herbart's Metaphysic, if we count out the first part, the ' Methodology', then the others correspond perfectly to the above-mentioned divis- ion : Ontology, Synechology, as the doctrine of what is permanent, and Eidolology, or the doctrine of images (el'SwXa), which arise in one being as com- ing from the others. QUESTIONS OF ONTOLOGY. 1 57 In the same way does Hegel's ' Logic/ by its par- tition into the doctrines of Being, of Phenomenon (from which, of course, though to its disadvantage, space and time remain excluded), and of Idea, ex- hibit the plainest analogies to the foregoing division of such problems. § 7. Ontology, from its being employed with expe- rience, is led to the following principal inquiries : i) What, exactly, is the absolute Subject, which is not a predicate of another ; that is to say, in what does that consist which is the truly existent in all ' Things/ whose nature we ordinarily believe our- selves able to specify by a number of so-called prop- erties ; and which is the support (Trager) of these properties and not itself in turn a property of any other ? 2) How is the possibility of a variety of simulta- neous and successive properties belonging to one and the same subject to be comprehended? 3) How can such a unity exist among a variety of Things that the states of one become causes for alter- ations in the states of another ? § 8. Before we consider the different answers which have been given to these inquiries, we make prominent some very general kinds of error. I58 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. The first is the confounding of the logical analysis of our mental representations and the metaphysical explanation of the things to which the mental repre- sentations relate. It is in general quite obvious that there cannot be, in the matter of fact itself and as developments of its own nature, as many movements and turnings as would correspond to the various steps, the separations and combinations, and in gen- eral to all the turnings which we must make in thought, in order from our point of view to appre- hend the nature of such matters of fact. This is perfectly clear to every one, in case one has to do, for example, with the more intricate artifices of inves- tigation through which we endeavor to discover any secret fact. Here the whole expenditure of the oper- ations of thought is quite obviously nothing but our subjective exertion, as it were, to get behind the in itself simple thing. On the contrary, all this be- comes obscure, in case one has to do with the simplest logical operations. And at this point we very gen- erally fall into the error of regarding our logical sep- arations and combinations of the mental images and their parts as events which happen also in the nature of the things themselves. For example ; in definition we premise for the individual a general conception, and elaborate this by added modifications up to the point of likeness JUDGMENT AND REALITY. 1 59 with the individual in question. Hence the frequent error, as though in reality some ' primitive animal/ some 'primitive matter,' some 'primitive substance/ must precede as a substratum in fact, from which, as something secondary, the individual subordinate spe- cies might originate through the influence of modify- ing conditions. The logical dependence of the sepa- rate members of a classification is, therefore, con- founded with a real, matter-of-fact derivation of one from the other. In judgment we divide the object of a perception into a subject, from which we as yet exclude a pred- icate ; then into such predicate ; and, finally, into the third mental representation, that of the copula by which the predicate is united again with the subject. These operations are necessary in order to secure clearness to the process of thinking. But it is an error to assume that, in general, any like transaction corresponds to them as a matter of fact, so that there can really be, in the last analysis, a somewhat that is without all predicates, and only just a some- what, but not any definite somewhat ; and, further, that there can be predicates which were somewhat previous to their being actualized in some subject ; and, finally, that there is in rerum natitra some 'cement/ as it were, similar to the logical copula by means of which the predicates are brought to l6o ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. ' inhere ' — as the customary expression goes — in the subject. One of the most frequent inducements to such errors as the foregoing lies in the comparisons which we are able at will to establish in the pro- cess of thinking between the contents of any two ideas we please. We are very much inclined to regard the predicates — for example, 'greater/ 'smaller/ 'different/ 'opposed/ and the like — which belong ' to the content compared, only after the com- parison is made, as essential, integrating properties of the content itself. From these mistakes there originate, in part, a multitude of artificial difficulties, inasmuch as we begin to seek for an explanation of matter-of-fact properties of things which we have previously cre- ated for them (as, for example, when the question is raised, how an x can be at the same time ' greater ' and 'smaller/ — that is, greater than y and smaller than z) : and, in part, many actual difficulties are met with and no solution for them found, because we imagine that we have succeeded in exhibiting the development of a matter of fact, when we have in truth merely depicted the development of our conceptions of the matter of fact. To this latter case belongs, for example, the application of the conceptions of 'potentia' and 'actus/ or of 'dynamis' EXPLANATION OF PRINCIPLES. l6l and 'entelechy,' or of 'power' and 'expression/ — faults of a kind which is especially frequent in ancient philosophy (compare ' Microcosmus,' vol. II, pp. 321 ff.). § 9. A second very general mistake, the exact opposite of the previous one, consists in the effort to make clear the supreme principles by explanations that have no meaning except in the case of individual phenomena dependent on the principles ; and that even here have their meaning only in virtue of the principles themselves. The simplest way of making this obvious is, in brief, the following. Our cognition is accustomed to the investigation of individual events. These have their definite con- ditions, under which they are produced and main- tained. On this account, w r e can often show step by step in a pictorial manner, how the phenomenon arises from the co-operation of its conditions ; that is to say, we know the mechanism of its coming to be, the way in which it is produced. Now this same inquiry may also very easily be raised with reference to the general principles, which are the very foundation of the possibility of the aforesaid mechanism, or of every way in which any thing whatever can be produced. For example, the ques- tion is asked, how does it happen that in all 1 62 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. ' becoming ' one state follows upon the others ; or how does a ' cause ' begin to produce its appropriate effect. This is as though one should wish to inves- tigate some internal mechanism, by which the points of relation existing between these two most general conceptions were held together; although — just the other way — every possible mechanism presupposes the validity of these two conceptions. It is just so in many other cases. This fault is the opposite of the foregoing, inasmuch as in the case of objects of thought that are absolutely incomprehen- sible except in the form of abstract concepts and are definable only as to their essential meaning, it is not satisfied with such apprehension as belongs to the concept, but demands for them a kind of intuitive knowledge such as in this case is quite impossible. § 10. The difference in different treatises on Met- aphysic admits of being referred to two antithetic principles which are dependent on fundamental pre- suppositions that are together introduced to consid- eration. One view, which is realistic, finds the inducement to investigation exclusively in the ' contradictions ' of experience. If there were none of these, then Realism would take no offence at letting the world pass in the form in which it exists as bare matter METAPHYSIC OF REALISM. 163 of fact ; and would raise no further inquiries. Ac- cordingly, if it succeeds in placing underneath this world of experience, a world of what is existent truly and devoid of contradictions, out of which the former becomes comprehensible ; then it regards its problems as solved. The other and idealistic view sees in every fact, even although it include no contradiction, some rid- dle ; and it believes that we ought to recognize as truly existent only such matter-of-fact as, by virtue of its meaning and significance, admits of being demonstrated to be an essential member of the rational world-whole. § 11. The Metaphysic of Realism is more inclined to the pursuit of special investigations which are at- tached to single groups of problems ; and it is only afterward that it endeavors to combine the results it has attained into one whole. The Metaphysic of Idealism, on the contrary, prefers to apprehend as its single main problem the meaning of the world as a whole ; and it believes that the solution of this problem includes that of all the special problems, and that thereby a coherent, uninterrupted develop- ment can best be obtained. The methods of both partake of this distinction. Realism takes its point of departure from the abso- 164 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. lute certainty of the law of identity. Accordingly, it sees so-called ' contradictions ' everywhere that ordinary experience shows us a ' unity of the one and the many ' (for example, the ' many properties ' of .a 'Thing' and their 'alteration'). It further tries to find a general solution for the contradiction in the assertion that the unity is here only appar- ent ; and that what corresponds as subject to the many properties (whether simultaneous or succes- sive) is not one Being that remains the same with itself and yet undergoes change, but is a complex of many beings which, in themselves always simple and always self-identical, only appear to us as one i Thing ' through their relations to each other and through their changes — as one Thing with many properties, as one changeable thing. § 12. The Metaphysic of Idealism sets itself a single main problem, which is as follows ; to dis- cover the nature of the truly Existent, against the recognition of which as absolute, independent, and supreme Ground of actuality, none of those presup- positions which our reason is compelled to make concerning such a principle, any longer protests. Such a problem leads to a method of its own. That is to say, the aforesaid 'truly Existent,' which we wish to discover, hovers before us, at the begin- METAPHYSIC OF IDEALISM. 1 65 ning of philosophy, in the form of a very obscure although very lifelike presentiment. Positively, we are not able exhaustively to express what we mean by it. But yet, in case some thought not identical with it is mentioned to us, we are able very definitely to deny that it is this which we mean. If we there- fore assume that we have first established for this obscure content X some definition a, which contains those features of X that are relatively most clear to us ; then we can next compare a with X, and there- upon observe not merely in general that a does not perfectly represent what we mean by X, but also why or wherein a is unlike X, and consequently stands in need of improvement. Thus there origi- nates a second definition a — X, with which the same procedure is instituted as with a : and so on, until we finally discover a definition A = X in which we see all that we obscurely meant under X trans- formed into clear conceptions. Thus regarded, this method is nothing but a series of subjective operations of thought by which we in- tend to transform a knowledge of our object which is at first unsatisfactory into one more adequate ; — that is, of operations executed, with an altogether defi- nite purpose in view, £y us as interpreting subjects. If the object X still remains as obscure as are those high-flying thoughts called 'the truly Existent/ 'the l66 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. Absolute/ etc., then, as a rule, it becomes very diffi- cult to get any altogether accurate consciousness of the precise reasons why a first definition a is not sat- isfactory. We indeed feel its unsatisfactoriness in a general way, and this of itself urges us toward a sec- ond definition a which much better corresponds to the X. But the logical motives for this transition remain obscure. It merely follows with a certain poetic justice ; and now it appears to us, since we have lost hold of the reins that are to guide the process of thought, as an inner development pecu- liar to X itself, of which we as thinking subjects are simply spectators. On the other hand, Idealism took its point of departure from the matter-of-fact supposition of a single Ground of the world, of an ' Absolute/ which ' develops ' into the variety of phenomena. If it had been known what this Absolute is, then we should have been able to deduce from its nature a mode of development corresponding to it. But this was not known ; on the contrary, the name ' Abso- lute ' merely designated the value of a Supreme Prin- ciple to which a content as yet unknown was, so to speak, to be elevated. No definite mode of devel- opment could therefore be divined, but it could sim- ply be asserted what mode may possibly be attrib- uted to the Absolute ; and so in any case it must BEING IN ITSELF. 167 at least correspond to the general conception of 'development.' Now the following thoughts are involved in the foregoing conception, — namely, that the self-devel- oping being is not yet that which it is to become, but that at the same time the possibility of its be- coming this lies in it alone. It therefore appears as a ' germ ' which is not yet fully unfolded, but which is ' in itself ' what it will later become. Fur- ther, the germ must not remain germ, but must develop into a variety of actual phenomena ; none of which, although they all correspond perfectly to its essence, is exclusively correspondent thereto, with- out having others beside itself. Therefore that which is 'in itself {das An Sick) is at the same time realized and brought to an end in this development, which is the ' being other than itself ' ; since it assumes a defi- nite form, and thus excludes other possible forms which it might have assumed. This incongruity between that which the Being is ' in itself ' and the ' being other than itself ' of the phenomenon must be in turn removed : and it is a further step neces- sary to the development, by which the one-sidedness of the phenomenon is negated and the Being re- turns into its own infiniteness ; although since it has this definite development behind it, it does not return to the simplicity of Being ' in itself/ l68 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. but to the higher state of ' Being for self ' (Filr- sichseiu). These three steps deduced from the conception of development in abstracto have been established, be- sides, by many significant examples taken from expe- rience, — as, for example, from vegetable, animal, and spiritual life ; and so it came about that the afore- said primary and subjective method of explaining obscure conceptions blended with this objective 'rhythmus' of development; and philosophy came to believe that it possesses herein a method at once subjective and objective, according to which things have unfolded themselves before our consciousness (compare ' Geschichte der Aesthetik in Deutschland] Miinchen, 1868, pp. 176-183). § 13. It is obvious that, from the foregoing method, there is to be expected only a development in which a certain poetic justice more or less clearly rules; but not such an one as that every step in it can be made good by definite proofs as necessary or as alone possible to the exclusion of others. In fact, the use of the same method by different philosophers of this school has led to wholly diver- gent results. Only the fundamental thought of their Ontology remains; and it is this, that ' Being' is never simple, RESULTS OF REALISM. 169 unchangeable ' Position,' but is constant movement through the three ' Moments ' above alluded to, — namely, ' Being-in-itself/ i Being-other-than-self,' and ' Being-for-self.' It is further agreed that there is only one i Existent,' whose finite and limited mani- festation is the individual things ; and, finally (a fact which may be observed here in a preliminary way), that this one Absolute does not remain a wholly empty name for an obscure point, but has essen- tially the nature of the Spirit, and its development is the advance from the 'being-in-itself of uncon- scious existence to the ' being-f or-self ' of self-con- sciousness. § 14. The results of Realism are different. Di- rected primarily toward the explanation of the pos- sibility of phenomena, it naturally required, in oppo- sition to the change which would include a contra- diction, that Being should be considered as a simple, irremovable 'position.' It further required, that the primary elements, from whose changeable combina- tion the phenomena proceed, should be seen in a variety of ultimate subjects or real beings. The original nature of these beings it believed cannot be recognized ; but it simply concluded, from the facts that 'appear, back to relations which must take place between them in order to make this appearance possible. I/O ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. Both views, Idealism and Realism, come from dif- ferent sides on one and the same difficulty. The former can perchance develop, in a general way, from the one Idea which it presupposes, those prob- lems which reality must solve in order to correspond to this Idea. Only it is not able to explain the spe- cial actions and reactions which take place between the individual examples of those species of Being that are derived from it ; but for this it needs the ' plural- istic ' assumption that the aforesaid Idea, in a manner that requires additional demonstration, has previously divided into a variety of elements which are in the future to act independently. Realism, on the contrary, in order to comprehend an action and reaction between its many elements, must assume a unity of general laws to which they are all subjected. The explanation of how this sub- ordination of the many under this unity is possible, is the counterpart of the before-mentioned problem of Idealism. We may therefore consider as the final problem of Ontology — a problem not yet satisfac- torily solved — this inquiry after the connection between the necessary unity and the alike neces- sary manifoldness of the Existent. § 15. After Ontology has established certain gen- eral conceptions of Being, of the Existent, of Hap- COSMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. 171 pening and Acting, cosmological investigations raise the inquiry after the relation of this Being and Act- ing to Space and Time. Under this head the prin- cipal problems are the following three : 1) The problem whether 'space' exists in itself, and things are in it, so that the latter are partially distinguished by their place in space ; or whether space is in things only as a form of intuiting them, and the latter are accordingly distinguished only qualitatively, and appear at different points in one space intuited of them, in consequence of their qualitative differences toward each other. Connected with this inquiry after the * reality ' or ' ideal character ' of space stands — 2) The inquiry after the nature of ( matter/ although the two do not coincide. The question is : Should the spatial volume of any body of matter be held to be a continuous volume full of what is real ? Or is it only a space-volume within which many active elements exist that are distinguished by their place but are in themselves unextended ? This is the question in dispute between the dynamic filling of space and Atomism, — the meaning of which, how- ever, it appears must be apprehended in a way the very reverse of what customarily happens. The conception of matter as continuous asserts that what is real accomplishes an actual achievement by filling 172 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. up space ; and, indeed, by filling it up with its pres- ence. The other view allows space to be simply controlled and not ' crammed ' full, as it were, by real existence. It alone, besides, would be compati- ble with the correct view concerning the ideal char- acter of space. 3) A third question in dispute arises from the consideration of what happens in the physical realm. On the one hand, we are necessitated to recognize the origin of phenomena from the co-operation of many previously unconnected elements, and at the same time the validity of general laws according to which these elements act in every case ; so that they are dependent for their effect only upon these laws, upon their own permanent nature, and upon the momentary disposition of circumstances, and not at all upon a result which, according to hypoth- esis, has not as yet been attained. Over against this so-called ' mechanical view' of forces working blindly according to general laws, there stands the idealistic view, which regards only 'active Ideas' as truly effec- tive in the world of things. Such Ideas are ever striving to realize themselves, and on this account are not bound to constantly uniform laws of their action, but modify their mode of behavior at every moment with a teleological reference to the result for which they strive. Now it needs no explanation VALIDITY OF COGNITION. 1 73 to see that, as long as the l Ideas' use means for their actualization, this actualization cannot follow without certain general laws being valid, in accordance with which these means act. But just so, on the other hand, would the world be absurd if there existed in it mere i mechanism ' without any power of Ideas or final purposes. The ultimate object of Cosmology will therefore be the inquiry, how Ideas and final purposes can be effective within a world whose events are subject to the laws of a mechanism. § 16. After we have, in Ontology and Cosmology, formed a view concerning the nature of Things and their reciprocal actions, we should in the last part of Metaphysic investigate Cognition itself as a single but important case of the reciprocal action between two elements, — to wit, the case in which the one being is capable of apprehending as conscious ideas the impressions which it receives from the others. In the first place, we should in realistic fashion discover from the consideration of this reciprocal action, that the image of the one being A cannot be formed like A within the other being B ; be- cause, although it always on the one side depends upon the impression from A, it likewise on the other side depends on the nature of B. This, therefore, is the same as saying that, by virtue of 174 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. this unavoidable ' subjectivity of all ideation/ cog- nition cannot be ' true ' in the sense that it copies the essence of objects in form similar to the objects themselves ; but at most in the sense that it repeats the relations between things in the form of relations of their mental images. The foregoing result, however, causes us to raise the inquiry of Idealism after the significance of this entire mode of procedure. The Realism of common opinion is wont to regard the world, apart from cog- nition, as a ready-made matter-of-fact that subsists entirely complete in itself ; and cognition as only a kind of appendage by means of which this subsist- ing matter-of-fact is simply recapitulated for the best good of the cognizing being, but without in this way experiencing any increment of reality. Now Idealism establishes the truth that the pro- cess of ideation itself is one of the most essen- tial constituents of the world's ongoing course ; that objectivity is not a goal the attainment and further shaping of which is a task set before idea- tion ; but that ideation or, rather, the whole spir- itual life is a goal, to the attainment of which is summoned the entire world of objects that do not share in the process, and the entire ordering of relations between them. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 175 § 17. The design in dividing theoretical Philoso- phy into Metaphysic and its applications, the Phi- losophy of Nature and Psychology, is that the first shall answer the question : How must all that be which is really to be at all ? or, If anything what- ever really is, to what necessary laws of all thought is it subjected? Over against this abstract science are the two other concrete ones. That is to say, they must consider the actuality which, although it obeys the laws of Metaphysic, still does so in a spe- cial form that might be otherwise, and that therefore is provisionally regarded as only an example, empi- rically given, of the aforesaid necessary laws of thought. But the design of this distinction is neither accurately carried out, nor does it possess any great value. The problem of the Philosophy of Nature would accordingly be the following; not so much to describe the elements which are in existence, as rather to show what general habitudes of action and reaction occur in this definite ' Nature ' so-called ; and, there- fore, what ones among the different forces conceivable in abstracto actually occur and what ones among the many possible dispositions of them actually subsist from the beginning and maintain themselves amid manifold forms of change. For example, that the mass of matter in the world is separated into indi- I76 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. vidual material bodies ; that these are distinguished among themselves into cohering and -reciprocally exclusive systems ; that on our planet the three dif- ferent forms of inorganic, vegetable, and animal existence occur ; that what exists in these three kingdoms is — or how far it is — divided into spe- cies, kinds, etc. ; that a systematic action and reac- tion, which is necessary for their continued exist- " ence, takes place between everything living and the inorganic material, — all this constitutes the prob- lems of the concrete Philosophy of Nature. From the realistic point of view, we take an interest in investigating the effective conditions upon which all these facts concerning the ordering of nature de- pend ; from the idealistic, in showing that it is an ordering in which, if one knows it once for all, the striving after the fulfilment of those universal prob- lems that are unavoidable in every conceivable rational world may be recognized again and again. But Ideal- ism claims far too much when it, as in Schilling's philosophy of nature, aims to ' deduce ' all these con- crete forms of existence, as consequences necessary to thought, from one Supreme Idea. § 18. In Psychology, too, the same principal views stand in contrast with one other. The realistic aims by investigations in causality to discover the condi- PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 1 77 tions under which every single phenomenon of the life of the Soul occurs, endures, or changes, and by- reciprocal action with other phenomena lays the foundation for new states. Such investigations may either be founded, in a manner quite like that of natural science, upon experience and experiment, or philosophically upon metaphysical presuppositions. The larger gain with reference to the explanation of the individual comes in the former way ; but a more secure apprehension for the whole of a theory is only to be gained in the second way. But the entire real- istic investigation is indispensable, because it is only the knowledge of the working forces in the life of the Soul which admits of practical applications, — in Paed- agogics, Psychiatry, etc. Idealism also upon this point investigates, in the first place, the constitutive conception of the Soul, — that is to say, the special Idea for the realization of which the Soul is summoned to a definite place in the whole coherent system of the world ; and it then aims at demonstrating the individual activities of the Soul as a cohering series of steps of develop- ment, which gradually construct for this conception an ever more adequate realization. The previous attempts (Schelling, Hegel, etc.) suffer, in part, from inaccu- racies to which the previous article alludes, and, in part, from an over-estimate (that is without sufficient I78 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. motif) of mere intelligence in comparison with the whole spiritual life. They look upon mere self-knowl- edge, the most perfect self-consciousness, as the final goal of the Soul and of the World ; while in our view all intelligence is only the conditio sine qua non y under which alone the final purposes that are really supreme — personal love and hate, the moral culture of char- acter — and, in general, the whole content of life so far as it has value appears possible at all. SECTION SECOND. PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. § 19. Realism takes up those claims, of the con- science that obligates us to a definite form of con- duct, which urge themselves upon our interior life, as though they were mere problems of fact, — problems on this account because, in spite of the clearness with which the claims of conscience fol- low in many individual cases, still in other cases we feel ourselves obligated in a contradictory fash- ion to irreconcilable modes of conduct. Investigation, accordingly, proceeds in the first place to the confirming of the matter of fact, — that is to say, to establishing certain fundamental moral principles in which, since they refer to the most simple relations of several personal wills toward one another, a uniformly similar and un- changeable judgment of approbation or disappro- bation is expressed concerning a definite mode of the will's behavior. Whence these judgments of conscience originate within us ; in what connection they stand with the laws that govern what happens in reality ; whether, finally, they admit of being de- l8o ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. duced from one supreme command or not, — all these are allied questions, the answer to which, however it may turn out, neither heightens nor diminishes the obligatory force of the aforesaid moral principles. Realism pronounces it to be a capital fault to sur- render this independence of the moral principles, and to be willing to deduce the supreme rules, according to which our conduct has to be directed, from any theoretical insight whatever into the nature of real- ity. In * Being ' alone no significance with respect to what ' ought ' to be is involved. From that which is and happens, prudential maxims for conduct which will shun the dangers of this reality admit of being developed ; but not the obligations which, apart from any consequences, make any kind of conduct appear in itself valuable, honorable, and praiseworthy. The investigations of Idealism have, for the most part, justified these observations. Since it takes its point of starting from a supreme fact, — to wit, the development of the absolute ' Ground ' of the world, — it has not discovered, strictly speaking, any place for the conception of such an obligatory ' ought ' ; but it substitutes for the conceptions of the morally 'Good/ and the morally 'Bad/ simply certain theo- retical conceptions of the harmonizing or not-har- ETHICS AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. l8l monizing of any mode of conduct with the tendency of the self-development of the Absolute. § 20. The formal distinction between the two modes of treatment consists in this, that the realis- tic proceeds from general laws of conduct, from which the special maxims of conduct that are necessary in consideration of the circumstances can be deduced for each particular case of an oc- casion for conduct ; and from which, besides, since it brings into consideration the empirical nature of man and the ever recurring social relations, science is also able to develop a series of permanent life- aims that hold good both for the individual and for society. This last problem may be called that of 'Practical Philosophy ' in special; while the doctrine of the culture of character according to general ethi- cal principles is called ' Moral Science ' or ' Ethics.' Idealism, as a rule, does not reach any special dis- tinction in these two forms of ' discipline/ To it the 'Good' appears, not as that which merely ought to be, but likewise as that which eternally is. As well the individual man as society and the history of soci- ety are, in its view, ' factors in the development of the Absolute/ To it that appears as 'good/ which adapts itself to the meaning of this development. SECTION THIRD. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. § 21. A common conclusion for both theoretical and practical investigations in philosophy is sought for in the Philosophy of Religion. We designate this part of philosophy by this name, because the human mind has uniformly sought in religion for such a conclusion to its view of the world ; that is to say, for certainty concerning the final and supreme Cause of that reality, of which every indi- vidual investigation, since it proceeds from limited points of view, gives only a one-sided explanation. More particularly, however, this certainty has refer- ence to the inquiry, how it is that what appears in our conscience as the only thing that has real value, — how the Good and the Beautiful possess a validity corresponding to their value in the totality of the world. Finally, we employ the term, because the human mind has sought for a supplement to our experience of the world, that shall follow from the results of such painstaking endeavors, by means of some intuition of a supersensible extension of the world into realms withdrawn from experience. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 1 83 It is in ' Religion ' that the human mind has either solved all these problems by a lively phantasy, or some revelation has furnished the solution. In the first case, philosophy has to explain, to test, and to correct, the impulses by which the phantasy would be directed. In the second case, it has to demon- strate, to what demands of the mind, that are in themselves justifiable, the revelation vouchsafes a satisfaction which is not discoverable by the reason, but which is intelligible as soon as it exists. But even apart from this relation to religion as a fact actually met with, philosophy carries within itself the very greatest demand for reflection upon the connection between its theoretical and its ethi- cal view of the world. § 22. Should the before-mentioned problem be completely solved, then the ' Philosophy of Relig- ion ' would be in a position to make the transition from the way of investigation to the way of a con- tinuous, systematic exhibition of philosophical truth ; since it would indeed have fused all the results of investigation into a single unity. But at this point philosophy concludes with an unattainable ideal : — that is to say, with the con- viction that the universal and necessary laws of thought, in accordance with which we judge of all 184 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY. reality ; second, that the primitive facts of this reality; third, that the supreme Ideas of the Good and the Beautiful, which hover before us as the final purposes of the world, — are all perfectly coherent factors of one and the same Supreme Principle, of the nature of God, although we are unable strictly to demonstrate this fact of their coherency. From the fact that such general laws hold good in mathematics, it does not follow that this system of nature which is empirically given is necessary, and any other is impossible. Both the laws and the facts appear to us possible and valid, even although no Idea of the Good were ruling the world. In brief, laws, facts, and final purposes (Ideas) are for its three principles, dis- tinct from each other, and not deducible from each other. For this reason Philosophy can never be such an unchanging science, as to be able to deduce from one Supreme Principle all its results in uniform sequence ; but its investigations will always be sep- arated into (1) those of Metaphysic, which con- cern the possibility of the world's course ; (2) into those of the Philosophy of Nature, which concern the connection, in fact, of its reality ; and (3) into those of the Philosophy of Religion, which concern its ideal significance and final purposes. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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