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Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/essentialsofphilOOsellrich 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF 
 PHILOSOPHY 
 
 BY 
 R. W. SELLARS 
 
 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, 
 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 
 
 ^m fark 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
c- 
 
 Copyright, 1917 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1917. 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Page 
 What Philosophy Is 1 
 
 1. A Preliminary Definition. 2. The Attitude of the 
 Philosopher. 3. The Difference between Scientists and 
 Philosophers. 4. The Competency of the Philosopher. 5. The 
 Older and the Newer Conceptions of Philosophy. 6. The 
 General Philosophical Disciplines. 7. The Special Philosoph- 
 ical Disciplines. 8. The Topics which need Stress. 
 
 E^^'>'OJ!>^»n <r<lryy chapter n 
 
 Common Sense and Philosophy 17 
 
 1. The Common-Sense View of the World. 2. Natural 
 Realism. 3. The Recognition of Natural Realism in Philos- 
 ophy. 4. Philosophy must start from Natural Realism. 
 5. Natural Realism and Science. 6. Natural Realism not a 
 System. 7. DiflSculties Confronting Natural Realism. 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 The Breakdown of Natural Realism .... 30 
 
 1. A Systematic Attack upon Natural Realism. 2. Per- 
 ceived Objects are Functions. 3. The Physical Thing and 
 its Appearance. 4. The Lack of Correspondent Variation. 
 
 5. The Differences between the Perceptions of Individuals. 
 
 6. Can Natural Realism account for Memory? 7. What is 
 Perceived involves Construction. 8. The Physiological 
 Theory of Perception. 9. Conclusion and Warning. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Representative Realism 42 
 
 1. The Value of an Historical Approach. 2. Representa- 
 tive Realism follows Natural Realism. 3. Rationalistic 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Representative Realism. 4. Cartesian Metaphysics. 5. Des- 
 cartes' Method. 6. Representative Realism raises New Prob- 
 lems. 7. Locke's Position. 8. Locke's View of Knowledge. 
 9. Doubts Confronting Representative Perception. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Rise op Idealism 55 
 
 1. What is Idealism? 2. Berkeley's Position. 3. The First 
 Stage. 4. Berkeley attacks Locke's Philosophy. 5. Berke- 
 ley's Animus. 6. Berkeley's Disproof of Representative 
 Realism. 7. Berkeley's Construction. 8. Idealism does not 
 change our Experience. 9. Gaps in Berkeley's System. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Skepticism 65 
 
 1. Bewilderment. 2. Hume's Summary of Results. 3. 
 Hume's Attack upon Mental Substance. 4. Consciousness 
 is a Flux. 5. Hume's Rejection of Berkeley's Spiritualism. 
 6. Taking Stock. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Period of Preparation ...... 74 
 
 1. Kant tries to meet Hume's Skepticism. 2. Kant Stresses 
 Conceptual Knowledge. 3. Two Meanings of the Word 
 Knowledge. 4. Kant and Hume Skeptical of the First Kind of 
 Knowledge. 5. Kant's Doctrine of the Categories. 6. Kant 
 Thinks of the Categories as Subjective. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Field of the Individual's Experience ... 86 
 
 1. From Natural Realism to Descriptive Empiricism. 2. 
 Whose Experience? 3. Mental Pluralism and Solipsism. 
 4. Kant's Appeal to Consciousness — In General. 5. The 
 Standpoint of Descriptive Empiricism. 6. The Subject- 
 Object Contrast. 7. The Elementary Unity of Togetherness. 
 8. Is the Self Dominant in the Field of Experience? 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Page 
 
 Distinctions within the Field ...... 98 
 
 1. Two Dimensions of the Field. 2. The Coexistential Di- 
 mension favors Realism. 3. The Temporal Dimension op- 
 poses Natural Realism. 4. Things and Ideas. 5. Sense and 
 Imagination. 6. A Thing and the Thought of it. 7. Reflec- 
 tion on these Distinctions. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Reflective Development of these Distinctions . 108 
 
 1. What is a Percept? 2. The Logical Function of Percep- 
 tion. 3. Scientific Knowledge an Achievement. 4. A Re- 
 statement of the Distinction between Things and Ideas. 
 5. The False vs. the Correct Form of this Question. 6. Is the 
 Distinction between Consciousness and a Realm outside Jus- 
 tifiable.' 7. Analysis of the Term Extra-Mental. 8. A Defini- 
 tion of Critical Realism. 9. Theory of Knowledge needs 
 Logic. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Reference of Knowledge . . . . . ,122 
 1. Knowledge involves Judgment. 2. Judgment Defined. 
 
 3. Logic takes both Knowledge and Reality for Granted. 
 
 4. The Reference of Judgment. 5. Reference for Critical 
 Realism. 6. Is Reality present to Thought? 7. Is each Indi- 
 vidual Confined to his Consciousness? 8. Being distinct from 
 Knowledge. 9. We want to be the Reality known. 10. Knowl- 
 edge our only Escape from Individuality. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 
 Traditional Assumptions and Attitudes .... 135 
 1. Important Distinctions. 2. Rationalism. 3. Sensation- 
 alism. 4. Apriorism. 5. Empiricism. 6, Attitudes toward 
 Knowledge. 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I, Page 
 
 i Epistemological Theories 146 
 
 -'^ 1. The Value of an Epistemological Summary. 2. The 
 
 .^ Nature of Epistemology. 3. Idealism. 4. Objective Idealism. 
 
 H 5. Realism. 6. Gnostic vs. Agnostic Realism. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Truth and Error 157 
 
 1. Knowledge and Truth. 2. The Meaning of Knowledge. 
 3. Three Common Theories of Truth. 4. The Correspondence 
 Theory. 5. The Coherence Theory. 6. Pragmatism. 7. Truth 
 as a Cognitive Value. 8. The Criteria of Truth. 8. How 
 Non-apprehensional Realism Avoids the Copy View. 10. 
 Knowledge is a UtiUty. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Materialism and Spiritualism 171 
 
 1. Epistemology and Metaphysics. 2. Materialism and 
 Y Spiritualism. 3. Materialism. 4. Spiritualism. 5. Two 
 
 Types of Spiritualism. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Dualism and Critical Naturalism 183 
 
 1. Natural Dualism. 2. What are Mind and Matter.? 
 3. Why Mind and Matter are held to be distinct. 4. The 
 Setting of Physical Science. 5. The Setting of Psychology. 
 6. Is this Contrast Justified? 7. Cartesian Dualism. 8. We 
 do not Apprehend the Physical World. 9. A Monistic Inter- 
 pretation of the Distinction between Consciousness and the 
 Physical World. 10. Critical Naturalism. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The World as known by the Physical Sciences: Space . 195 
 1. About the Categories. 2. Space a Category of the Phys- 
 ical Sciences. 3. Five Kinds of Space. 4. Sensational Space. 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 Page 
 5. Perceptual Space. 6. Conceptual Space. 7. Mathematical 
 Space. 8. Is Space Infinite and Infinitely Divisible? 9. Space 
 as a Category. 10. Is the Physical World Finite? 11. Is 
 Consciousness Extended? 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 -J Time 205 
 
 \iA 1. About Time. 2. Three Kinds of Time. 3. Perceptual, 
 
 or Personal, Time. 4. Mathematical Time. 5. Time as a 
 Category of Scientific Knowledge. 6. Change the Objective 
 Basis of Scientific Time. 7. Had the World a Beginning? 
 8. Conclusions. 9. Consciousness and Time. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Substance and Substantiality 216 
 
 1. The Physical World consists of Things. 2. The more 
 Abstract Idea of Matter. 3. Descartes and Locke. 4. Em- 
 pirical Things and their Attributes. 5. Knowledge-About vs. 
 Being. 6. Nature is Substantial. 7. Properties express 
 
 ^ Knowledge about Nature. 8. Constant Properties. 9. Mat- 
 
 I ter for Physics. 10. What is Energy? 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Mind, Soul and Consciousness 229 
 
 1. The Nature of Mind a Problem. 2. Primitive Notions 
 ^ of Mind. 3. Mind in Ancient Philosophy. 4. Mind in Mod- 
 ern Philosophy. 5. Consciousness displaces Soul. 6. Mind 
 and Consciousness. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Reflections on Psychology 230 
 
 1. The Subject-Matter of Psychology. 2. Orthodox Psy- 
 chology. 3. The Purpose of the Psychologist. 4. A Current 
 Paradox. 5. Psychology as the Study of Behavior. 6. The 
 Value of Behaviorism. 7. An Inclusive Definition of Psy- 
 chology. 8. What is Mind? 9. Consciousness and Mind. 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Page 
 The Relation between Mind and Body .... 252 
 1. The Mind-Body Problem. 2. Solutions Offered. 3. Du- 
 alistic Theories. 4. Interactionism. 5. Parallelism. 6. Epi- 
 phenomenalism. 7. Monistic Theories, 8. Psychical Monism. 
 9. The Double-Aspect Theory. 10. The Unity Theory. 
 11. What is the Mind? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Purpose and Mechanism 268 
 
 1. The Presence of sharp Contrasts. 2. The Mechanical 
 View of the World. 3. The Teleological View of the World. 
 4. The Present Situation. 5. The Criticism of Mathematical 
 Rationalism. 6. The Ambiguity of the Mechanical View. 
 7. The Revival of Vitalism. 8. Are there Levels of Causality? 
 9. Efficient Causality and Purpose. 10. Is the Brain as Mind 
 a Mechanical System? 11. How shall we Conceive of the 
 Efficacy of Consciousness? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The Place of Values 284 
 
 1. Knowledge and Valuation. 2. Naive Realism and 
 Values. 3. A Realism still more Primitive. 4. The Stand- 
 point of Non-apprehensional Realism. 4. The Place of Values 
 for these Levels. 5. The Science of Axiology. 6. The Objec- 
 tivity of Values. 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 
 
 A Preliminary Definition. — Speaking in general terms, 
 we may say that philosophy is a persistent attempt to 
 understand the world in which we live and of which we 
 are a part. This preliminary definition stresses the broad- 
 ness of aim characteristic of philosophy. It is an effort 
 of the intellect of man to answer fundamental problems 
 and gain a comprehensive view of the universe. 
 
 The conception of the exact nature of philosophy has 
 varied from period to period as man's view of the world 
 and of his place in it has changed. Hence the history of 
 philosophy has usually been the best index of those gradual 
 alterations in the dominant interpretation of man and 
 reality in which science and religion find their focus. 
 Plato believed that a supersensible realm of ideas existed 
 apart from the world of perceptual appearance, and his 
 philosophy was at once a cause and an effect of this out- 
 look. It explained what reality was and how the human 
 mind obtained valid glimpses of it. During the Middle 
 Ages, man was prone to consider earthly things the crea- 
 tion of a supernatural deity, and his philosophy was 
 simply the earnest search for a systematic and consistent 
 answer to such riddles as forced themselves upon his 
 attention. In the eighteenth century, men were con- 
 
 1 
 
2 THE F-SSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 vinced that there was an external physical world and that 
 their knowledge of it was contingent upon the sensations 
 produced in their minds by the stimulation of their sense- 
 organs. Certain general problems immediately resulted, 
 and philosophy was the persistent reflection upon these 
 general problems. Thus philosophy has always been reflec- 
 tion upon basic problems such as the nature of reality, the 
 distinction between the apparent and the real, the conditions 
 of human knowledge. It has always been the conviction of 
 the philosopher that these questions are unavoidable and 
 that they can be solved only by intensive reflection. A 
 definite part of our task in the present introduction will 
 be to explain the specific nature and inevitableness of 
 these problems with which the philosophers of all ages 
 have busied themselves. Only in proportion as a concrete 
 understanding of philosophical problems grows upon the 
 student will he really imderstand what the veritable 
 function of philosophy is. 
 
 The Attitude of the Philosopher. — ^The attitude and 
 ideals of the philosopher are essentially the same as those 
 of the scientist. Both have the same mental curiosity 
 and keen desire for valid knowledge, the same willingness 
 to bend theories into line with experience, the same faith 
 in methodical analysis and persistent investigation and 
 reflection. Were we defining philosophy by reference to 
 the trained mental attitude and intellectual habits de- 
 manded, we should identify it with science. In this sense 
 it is a science. Probably the philosopher ought to em- 
 phasize this aspect of his subject in this day in which so 
 many people know something of the spirit of science. 
 The philosopher at his best is inspired with the same dis- 
 interested zeal to solve intellectual problems as is the 
 specialist in some branch of theoretical science. 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS S 
 
 In this age of early instruction in the special sciences, 
 the student who finally comes to philosophy with mixed 
 feelings of hope and doubt has already some acquaintance 
 with the lives of such men as Newton, Galileo and Darwin. 
 He knows and admires in them their whole-hearted en- 
 deavors to solve problems in the domain of nature. It is 
 this spirit, as much as what they have accomplished in 
 the solution of specific problems, which attracts the gen- 
 erous minded. We can, therefore, best convey to the be- 
 ginner a true idea of the philosopher by saying that he 
 has the outlook of the scientist. Both concern themselves 
 with knowledge and both seek it openly and in disregard of 
 consequences. The philosopher is not a mystic nor the 
 champion of some esoteric cult; he is a scientist. 
 
 The Difference Between Scientists and Philosophers. 
 — And yet there is a difference. When a man is called a 
 scientist, we tend to ask whether he is a botanist or a 
 physicist or a mathematician or a chemist and so on, with 
 the other alternatives in view. We don't think of a man 
 as being a scientist-in-general. We suppose that he is 
 pursuing some particular kind of investigation which is 
 easily classified as along with other lines of investigation. 
 But to a good many a philosopher is just such a strange 
 creature, a man who wants to be a scientist-in-general. 
 Let us see whether we can explain the difference between 
 the work of a specialist in science, a devotee of some 
 particular science, and the work of a philosopher, without 
 leaving the impression that the philosopher is a sort of 
 jack of all trades and master of none, a man who wants to 
 be a scientist and yet won't adopt a specific field. 
 
 The real question is this, Do the special sciences exhaust 
 science? Philosophy is not a special science with a par- 
 ticular subject-matter as a field for exploitation outside 
 
4 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of and coordinate with the subject-matters of other special 
 sciences. "The important distinction is that the sciences 
 concentrate attention on particular parts or aspects of the 
 knowable world, abstracting from the rest; while it is, in 
 contrast, the essential characteristic of philosophy that it 
 aims at putting together the parts of knowledge thus at- 
 tained into a systematic whole; so that all the methods 
 of attaining truth may be grasped as parts of one method; 
 and all the conclusions attained may be presented, so far 
 as possible, as harmonious and consistent." H. Sidgwick, 
 Philosophy, Its Scope and Relations, p. 11. Philosophy 
 has for its aim, then, not the discovery of some province 
 which has not already been worked by the usual methods 
 of observation, experimentation and conjecture, but the 
 interpretation in a critical and coordinating fashion of the 
 principles, assumptions and conclusions of the special 
 sciences. 
 
 Philosophy attempts to round out and develop the con- 
 tributions of the special sciences into a consistent view of 
 the world and of our knowledge of it. Let us take the 
 latter point first. All of the sciences assume that man can 
 gain knowledge of the world; but none of them investigate 
 the nature and conditions of knowledge. Yet surely science 
 cannot be complete until this fundamental assumption of 
 all science is investigated. Again, the sciences employ such 
 concepts as space, and time, and matter, and mind, and 
 causality without always giving a searching examination 
 of the meanings these terms ought to have. Philosophy 
 regards such a critical investigation of commonly used 
 terms as imperative if a harmonious and satisfactory view 
 of the world is to be achieved. Why.^ Because it has 
 found again and again that no synthesis can be begun 
 without running up against general problems involving 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 5 
 
 the interpretation of such terms. "What the metaphysi- 
 cian asserts is not that there are facts with which the 
 various special branches of experimental science cannot 
 deal, but that there are questions which can and ought to 
 be raised about the facts with which they do deal other 
 than those which experimental inquiry can solve." Taylor, 
 Elements of Metaphysics, p. 9. The student will be intro- 
 duced to these questions in the main part of the book and 
 will be able to judge for himself how necessary and real 
 they are. He will see that they are problems which can 
 be met only by reflection. The senses and the devices 
 of the laboratory will not help. We conclude that philos- 
 ophy must not be contrasted w^ith science but only with 
 the particular sciences. It seeks to perform a work of 
 supplementary reflection. 
 
 The Competency of the Philosopher. — ^To-day we 
 associate science with a method, that of detailed investiga- 
 tion and tested conjecture. Has philosophy a method or 
 is it forced to rely on unmethodical inspiration? Is the 
 philosopher more like a poet than like a scientist? Much 
 has been said about the speculative method and about 
 speculation in a derogatory way. It is often hinted that 
 the philosopher spins his conclusions out of his own con- 
 sciousness and that they can, therefore, have little tested 
 validity. Such statements are, however, of tenest made by 
 those who know practically nothing about philosophical 
 systems and, themselves, entertain the strangest ideas 
 about the world at large. The chapters that follow must 
 justify philosophy to the serious reader if anything can 
 that is written in this book; but a few words can be 
 said in anticipation of the proof by eating. 
 
 Just because philosophy is a reflective criticism and 
 synthesis of the theoretical conclusions of the sciences, it 
 
e THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cannot test its conclusions by detailed facts of its own 
 finding. It can, however, and must test them by the 
 theories and principles put forward by the various sciences. 
 In a very real sense, these are its data. Just as a particular 
 hypothesis in any field must be comprehensive enough to 
 cover all the facts, so a philosophical hypothesis must be 
 capable of covering the better founded theories. It goes 
 farther than this, so far as it criticises concepts and dis- 
 tinctions which are not well founded. The method of the 
 philosopher is to raise necessary questions of a general 
 character, examine the concepts employed, suggest modi- 
 fications and adjustments, and so to assist the process of 
 unification which is all the time under way. The philos- 
 opher must have a well-trained and instructed mind and 
 be in close touch with science. The logic of his method 
 does not differ from the logic of systematic conjecture, for 
 even the specialist needs a creative imagination. His data 
 are principles and distinctions which conflict more or less 
 and must be so changed as to result in an adequate and 
 consistent view. His speculation is reflection, and he re- 
 fuses to believe that even the laboratory has made reflec- 
 tion unnecessary. 
 
 But the philosopher possesses a peculiar advantage by 
 reason of his training in logic and psychology. These af- 
 ford him a knowledge of knowledge and of its conditions 
 and genesis that is extremely valuable. Why this is so 
 will become clearer as we proceed. But a couple of points 
 may be noted here. 
 
 Logic is a science of thinking and has given much atten- 
 tion to the mental processes involved in all investigation. 
 It is an abstract science which stresses the foundations of 
 knowledge and makes the enquirer more aware of the 
 relative strength of the different parts of a science. There 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 1 
 
 is also a comparative side to logic. The assumptions and 
 methods of the different types of sciences are compared. 
 It is easy to see why training in logic gives the philosopher 
 an advantage over the narrow specialist. 
 
 A knowledge of psychology is of advantage because it is 
 the fundamental mental science. A thinker who knew 
 only the physical sciences would be unable to gain as 
 comprehensive a view of reality as one who was also ac- 
 quainted with mind. We shall see that psychology throws 
 a deal of light upon many problems. 
 
 But the philosopher has another advantage in his knowl- 
 edge of past attempts at solving world-problems. Distinc- 
 tions have grown up gradually which are of the greatest 
 assistance to reflection. What men like Plato, Aristotle, 
 Kant and Leibnitz thought cannot help but be of value 
 to the thinker of to-day. There can be little doubt 
 that training in the understanding of the various sys- 
 tems of the past develops the power of abstract thought. 
 It likewise warns the thinker what mistakes to avoid 
 and what concepts have been outgrown. Thus the 
 history of philosophy gives an invaluable perspec- 
 tive. 
 
 The Older and the Newer Conceptions of Philosophy. 
 — ^As we have hinted, philosophy is a very old subject and 
 its view-point has changed from age to age while yet re- 
 taining a certain continuity. "The word philosophy is of 
 Greek origin. It was first employed, not as a technical 
 term, but as a word in general use. The reader of Herodo- 
 tus will find it in the well-known story of Solon's meeting 
 with Croesus. Croesus welcomes the Athenian with the 
 remark that the fame of his wisdom and of his travels has 
 already reached him, *that thou, philosophizing, hast 
 visited a vast part of the world for the sake of reflection.' 
 
8 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Evidently, the expression *for the sake of reflection' in- 
 tends to explain the word * philosophizing.' What makes 
 Solon a * philosopher' traveller is the surprising circum- 
 stance that he does not, like the merchant or soldier, pursue 
 a practical object in his journeys. Thucydides, Isocrates, 
 and others use the word philosophy in a like sense, to 
 characterize a general theoretical education as distin- 
 guished from the technical or practical one." Paulsen, 
 Introduction to Philosophy, p. 20. 
 
 The first technical philosophers were men who sought 
 to offer a general theory of reality as a whole. These men 
 were called physicists because they speculated about the 
 stuff and constitution of nature. Their advent was im- 
 portant because they were the first to turn their backs on 
 mythology or the account of the world in terms of super- 
 personal agency and to assume the possibility of natural 
 processes in an independent world. Their guesses were 
 crude and yet daring. Sometimes, indeed, they showed 
 a remarkable measure of insight into principles of explana- 
 tion which have since been re-discovered and developed 
 by the special sciences. The physicists were metaphysi- 
 cians who did not have the precious advantage of the 
 knowledge since painfully gleaned by the methodical in- 
 vestigations of science. They made rational hypotheses 
 about nature on the basis of such experience as they could 
 gather. Every student should read the fragments of the 
 teaching of Heraclitus in order to realize how much a keen 
 mind can discern by reflecting upon the broad aspects of 
 human experience. Everything is in flux; yet there is 
 measure and law in this constant flow of things. Later 
 came the system of Democritus who first clearly broached 
 the hypothesis that all things are made of atoms, of small 
 bits of matter whose external relations can change. Even 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 9 
 
 mind was for him made up of the finer, smoother, subtler 
 atoms. He is the first materiaHst. 
 
 Gradually more specific knowledge was gathered and 
 men became more accustomed to reflective thought. 
 Mathematics and astronomy began to grow and take 
 shape. Observations in meteorology, medicine, anatomy, 
 psychology were made and held together by theories. But 
 there was little division of labor and one man often made 
 himself master of nearly all the fields. The philosopher 
 was the investigator and speculative genius who sought 
 to bring such knowledge as he had into line with some 
 unified view of the world as a whole. 
 
 As time passed, the social and mental sciences were 
 added to the subjects investigated and theorized about 
 by the philosopher. Such geniuses as Plato and Aristotle 
 created wonderful intellectual systems purporting to or- 
 ganize together in one comprehensive view the various 
 aspects and implications of human experience. Thus 
 Aristotle's system covered physics, zoology, psychology, 
 ethics, politics, economics, rhetoric, poetics and meta- 
 physics. He endeavored to advance these special disci- 
 plines and yet bind them together into a system which 
 would furnish an interpretation of the world. 
 
 For the Middle Ages, also, philosophy was synonymous 
 with human knowledge. The philosopher was both the 
 lover of wisdom and its possessor. Abelard, Albertus 
 Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were learned men and keen 
 thinkers; but the task they set themselves would appear 
 to the man of the twentieth century impossible. How 
 can one man ever hope to cover so many fields success- 
 fully? The reason was, of course, that knowledge was 
 yet pretty limited in its scope. "Gil Bias, in Le Sage's 
 famous romance, finds it possible to become a skilled 
 
10 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 physician in the twinkling of an eye, when Dr. Sangrado 
 has imparted to him the secret that the remedy for all 
 diseases is to be found in bleeding the patient and in 
 making him drink copiously of hot water. When little 
 is known about things, it does not seem impossible for 
 one man to learn that little. During the Middle Ages 
 and the centuries preceding, the physical sciences had a 
 long sleep. Men were much more concerned in the thir- 
 teenth century to find out what Aristotle has said than 
 they were to address questions to nature. The special 
 sciences, as we now know them, had not been called into 
 existence." FuUerton, An Introduction to Philosophy y p. 9. 
 
 Modern philosophy is usually connected with the names 
 of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Ren6 Descartes (1596- 
 1650). For these men, also, philosophy was universal 
 knowledge and included the special sciences as its parts. 
 To-day we are more apt to make a distinction and to 
 speak of Descartes as both a scientist and a philosopher. 
 His chief work was entitled Pnndpia Philosophice and 
 consisted of four books. The first book contained a brief 
 discussion of theory of knowledge and metaphysics; the 
 second, the principles of mechanical physics; the third, 
 the cosmology; the fourth, a series of physical, chemical, 
 and physiological studies. It was believed that all these 
 studies would converge upon a unified view of things. 
 
 During the last two centuries while the special sciences 
 were growing as never before, they were partially estranged 
 from philosophy. The Newtonian view of the world gave 
 the physical sciences a setting which seemed to them 
 fairly satisfactory, and they were, besides, engrossed in 
 the solution of specific problems. On the other hand, the 
 teachers of philosophy in the universities, following the 
 trend toward specialism, had concerned themselves, in the 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 11 
 
 main, with the mental sciences and with the traditional 
 metaphysical systems. In other words, the philosophers 
 unconsciously became specialists by having parts of their 
 over-broad domains removed. This was, of course, an 
 inevitable process, but it had a momentous effect. It led^ 
 on the whole, to a temporary estrangement between science 
 and philosophy, an estrangement which lasted the greater 
 part of the nineteenth century. Only of late has there 
 grown up a frank interaction between the two. 
 
 The General Philosophical Disciplines. — This inter- 
 action between science and philosophy comes out most 
 clearly in the so-called general philosophical disciplines, 
 metaphysics, theory of knowledge and logic. 
 
 Since the other philosophical disciplines minister 
 to metaphysics, this discipline is often identified with 
 philosophy. Metaphysics has for its aim the achievement 
 of a comprehensive and consistent theory of reality. It 
 is evident to-day that no such theory can be achieved 
 which does not take careful account of the conclusions of 
 the various sciences. Metaphysics would seem, then, to 
 be an attempt to correlate the results of science with such 
 other information about reality which it may admit and, 
 in a way, to anticipate the course of science in the future 
 to the degree that practical necessity and the speculative 
 impulse dictate. We may say, then, that this branch of 
 philosophy is distinct from the special sciences but is 
 forced to be in intimate touch with them. 
 
 The second discipline is theory of knowledge. This 
 branch of philosophy is practically a special science. It is 
 the science of the nature, conditions, and reach of knowl- 
 edge. What is knowledge? How is it related to conscious- 
 ness .^^ How does it tell us about reality? Can we have 
 knowledge of a reality outside of consciousness? These 
 
12 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 are typical questions of theory of knowledge. It is readily 
 seen that metaphysics must be relative to the conclusions 
 reached in this preliminary philosophical discipline. It is 
 not too much to say that modern philosophy differs from 
 ancient in its stress upon the necessity of theory of 
 knowledge. 
 
 L og ic covers a wide ground extending, as it does, from 
 theory of knowledge to formal logic. The logician ex- 
 amines the principles of correct thinking in both ordinary 
 argumentation and scientific investigation. The logic of 
 science carefully investigates the methods and presuppo- 
 sitions of science. How are facts determined.'^ What is 
 the nature of explanation .^^ What is the role played 
 by hypotheses? These are a few of the questions whose 
 answers are sought by the logician. When he further 
 asks what is meant by cause and the uniformity of nature, 
 by space and by time, he approaches the domain of theory 
 of knowledge just as this other discipline shades off into 
 metaphysics. The truth is, that there is no hard and fast 
 line between these general philosophical disciplines. As 
 a rule, logic does not allow itself to ask certain questions 
 which grow out of its own investigations. And it is this 
 restraint which separates it from theory of knowledge. 
 Theory of knowledge, again, has definite problems which 
 have a unity of their own. The philosopher who is work- 
 ing in this field concentrates his attention upon these 
 problems, and regards the further questions which open 
 up on their solution as metaphysical. Thus there is a 
 continuous development from logic to theory of knowledge 
 and thence to metaphysics. 
 
 The Special Philosophical Disciplines. — Besides these 
 general philosophical disciplines, there are particular disci- 
 plines which are usually assigned to the philosopher. The 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 13 
 
 reason for this situation is twofold. When we examine the 
 history of philosophy, we find that one of its functions has 
 always been the discovery and fostering of new special 
 sciences. After these have secured a healthy growth, they 
 separate off from philosophy and adopt the characteristic 
 methods of empirical investigation. But philosophy usu- 
 ally retains an interest in the problems which they repre- 
 sent and is constantly making suggestions as to the larger 
 bearings of these problems. At the same time, many of 
 these special disciplines involve the mental sciences, in 
 which realm the philosopher is peculiarly at home because 
 of his training in logic and psychology. Where there is 
 a recognized division of labor between the special in- 
 vestigator and the philosopher, the function of the phi- 
 losopher is to study the general principles involved and 
 the relation of the field to other fields, while the investi- 
 gator, who is more apt to think of himseK as a scientist, 
 gathers and organizes his data. 
 
 ^hics, or moral philosophy, is a special philosophical 
 discipline which has the science of ethics as its scientific 
 counterpart. It is the philosophy of conduct, and exam- 
 ines those principles which underlie the distinction be- 
 tween good and bad, right and wrong. The teachers of 
 this discipline seek to be both investigators and philos- 
 ophers. In other words, they usually try to unite in them- 
 selves the double function of philosophy and science. 
 
 Political philosophy has a history similar to that of 
 ethics. It was a discipline nourished by philosophy and 
 still retaining this old connection. Alongside of it has 
 grown up political science which deals with the empirical 
 facts and established principles of that aspect of human 
 relations. Here, again, a division of labor has developed. 
 Philosophy concerns itself more with the fundamental 
 
14 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 principles and distinctions, while political science keeps 
 its feet planted pretty firmly on the ground of concrete 
 fact. 
 
 Esthetics is, once more, both the science and the 
 philosophy of the beautiful. Just because the human 
 element in art is so large, sesthetics is inevitably a philo- 
 sophical discipline. It raises questions of value which lead 
 on into the farthest reaches of human life. 
 
 These special disciplines concern themselves primarily 
 with human life. They deal with values and aspira- 
 tions. 
 
 The Topics Which Need Stress. — So many subjects 
 are touched upon by philosophy that it is a matter of some 
 difficulty to know just what to stress in an introductory 
 work. There is the temptation to cover all the philo- 
 sophical disciplines in a cursory manner, giving here a 
 short summary of the problems of theory of knowledge, 
 there a description of various metaphysical positions, in 
 the next section a brief discussion of ethics and ending 
 with a hasty account of sesthetics and philosophy of re- 
 ligion. It is, however, my own conviction that it is far 
 better to present a pretty thorough discussion of the 
 general basic disciplines, theory of knowledge and meta- 
 physics, which underlie all the others. There are intro- 
 ductory courses in ethics, logic and sesthetics which deal 
 with these special philosophical disciplines in a far more 
 satisfactory manner than a general introduction could do. 
 An introduction to philosophy is therefore more and more 
 coming to mean an introduction to those general problems 
 which confront all knowledge. He who has wrestled with 
 these can face the more empirical questions of the second- 
 ary philosophical subjects with equanimity. 
 
 Acting upon this decision not to scatter our attention 
 
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS 15 
 
 over too wide and heterogeneous a field, we shall concen- 
 trate, first, upon the problems of theory of knowledge and, 
 then, upon those of metaphysics or ontology. We shall, 
 I believe, become convinced that the answer to ontological 
 problems depends in a larger measure than has been ac- 
 knowledged upon the answer given to epistemological 
 problems. Only the final chapter will concern itself with 
 values. 
 
 The method we shall use may be called the genetic for 
 want of a better name. We shall begin with a description 
 of the outlook of ordinary experience and gradually pass, 
 as the facts warrant, to a more critical position. We shall 
 not make definitions or doctrinaire assumptions our 
 starting-point as has too often been done. In order to 
 make use of the genuine contributions of past thinkers in 
 the way of discovering what assumptions have led into 
 blind alleys and what have further possibilities in them, 
 we shall consider in some detail the systems of a few pivotal 
 writers. But the history of philosophy will always be 
 kept subordinate to the main purpose, that of a clear and 
 consistent statement of problems and their solutions, so 
 far as solutions are realizable. 
 
 He who wishes to profit from work in philosophy must 
 be willing to live into the subject and to make it his in- 
 timate companion. He must try to grasp abstract dis- 
 tinctions and follow out their implications in a persistent 
 way. For such a one the reward is very great. The world 
 becomes clothed with deeper meaning, and man's mind 
 opens up depths which are otherwise hidden from view. 
 The secret of the universe is not open to casual inspection. 
 I venture to predict that the student will have a quite 
 different view of the world he lives in before he has mas- 
 tered many of the following chapters. 
 
16 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 References 
 
 Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, chap. 1. 
 
 Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 1. 
 
 James, A Pluralistic Universe, chap. 1. 
 
 Jerusalem, Introduction to Philosophy, First Division. 
 
 Kiilpe, Introduction to Philosophy, chaps. 1 and 4. 
 
 Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction. 
 
 Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1 . 1-32. 
 
 Sidgwick, Philosophy, Its Scope and Relations, lectures 1 and 2. 
 
 Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, chap. 1. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The Common-Sense View of the World. — The outlook 
 upon the world which people have before they study 
 science or philosophy very deeply may be called that of 
 common sense. Certain distinctions are accepted as a 
 matter of course, although they are not worked out clearly 
 or in detail. Every one is aware of and uses the contrast 
 between the mental and the physical, between himself as 
 a perceiver and the objects which he perceives, between 
 himself and others. Nature is, again, a term for a per- 
 durable realm about whose history something is known 
 and which will outlast the human beings who come and 
 go upon its surface. It would be foolish for the philosopher 
 to attempt to belittle this knowledge which hard expe- 
 rience has forced upon mankind. The plain man knows 
 as well as the scientist, the poet as well as the philosopher, 
 certain elementary and brutal truths about man's place 
 in nature. The latest dramatist but repeats what Soph- 
 ocles already knew. Man is so obviously only a part of a 
 larger whole. 
 
 We have good reason to believe that the common dis- 
 tinctions we all make are the result of adjustments and 
 experiences which could have led to no other conclusions. 
 I sit in my study and listen to the sounds which come to 
 me from the street. They mean to me a busy life of traffic 
 and enterprise. I pick up a newspaper and read about 
 the course of the war in Europe, about a destructive earth- 
 
 17 
 
18 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 quake in Italy, about the completion of a railroad in 
 Alaska. I divert myself in the evening after the day's 
 work by reading a chapter in Gibbon's History. Thus I 
 distinguish the past history of peoples from their present, 
 the physical world and its catastrophes from the activities 
 of men. I can picture to myself the quiet scenery around 
 the Huron or lose thought of myself in following the ad- 
 ventures of such a remarkable man as Napoleon. 
 
 Common sense would, then, seem to present an organi- 
 zation of many and diverse experiences into a stable world 
 of objects and events classified, on the whole, in a satis- 
 factory way. The individual can no more escape from 
 these classifications and distinctions than he can from his 
 feelings of pleasure and pain. To develop them is pos- 
 sible, as science has proved, but to ignore them strikes 
 us all as impossible and even unthinkable. When the 
 spring comes, I look in the cellar for the spade I placed 
 there last fall, find it and go out to dig up the soil and 
 prepare it for the seed I intend to plant. As a matter of 
 course, I assume the reality of all these objects and of 
 the relations between them. At every moment in the 
 day, I am called upon to make adjustments to my sur- 
 roundings and to other people, and it does not enter 
 my head to doubt that they are as real as myseK. I am 
 one among many in a tremendously large and complex 
 world. 
 
 Natural Realism. — The plain man is a realist. He 
 perceives what he unhesitatingly calls physical things and 
 reacts to them in established ways. He lives among these 
 perceived things adapting himself to them and making 
 them his instruments. Physical things are out there in 
 space away from his body yet in relations with it. Other 
 individuals can see the same things in much the same 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 19 
 
 way, for they are independent and open to inspection 
 through the sense-organs. There the things are, quite un- 
 affected by his seeing them. 
 
 But we must modify this dominant view somewhat. 
 Common sense is always naively realistic whenever there 
 is no pressing reason why it should cease to be so. And 
 this is the situation in the vast majority of cases. "When 
 we see a tree we think that it is really green and really 
 waving about in precisely the same way as it appears to 
 be. We do not think of our object of perception being 
 *like' the real tree, we think that what we perceive is the 
 tree, and that it is just the same at a given moment 
 whether it be perceived or not, except that what we per- 
 ceive may be only a part of the real tree." Broad, Per- 
 ceptioriy Physics and Reality, p. 1. 
 
 The physical world is, then, regarded as common to all 
 observers and independent for its existence and properties 
 of this intermittent inspection. When we try to discover 
 what the plain man means by perceiving, we are left with 
 the impression that it is of the nature of an event in which 
 the independent object is revealed to the individual. The 
 only condition of this event which is clearly recognized 
 is the use of the sense-organs. He who does not have eyes 
 cannot see things. But, however conditioned, perceiving 
 is an event in which the physical world, itself, is present in 
 his field of vision. The individual opens his eyes and turns 
 them in this or that direction, and at once definite things 
 are present to his conscious self. In large measure, seeing 
 would appear to be simply a name for this fact of presence, 
 of openness to observation when the eyes are used, just 
 as hearing is a name for the presence of sounds when the 
 ears are stimulated. Perceiving is a more general term 
 having a less definite reference to any one of the senses. 
 
20 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It would seem, therefore, not to explain anything but 
 just to describe a fact. 
 
 Common sense has no reflective theory of the nature 
 and conditions of the event which it calls perceiving a 
 thing. Certainly there is no awareness of the activity of 
 any peculiar ego or self from which energy goes forth to 
 touch the thing and, as it were, light it up. We see what 
 is around us, and we who see these things are concrete 
 individuals not so very different from the things we see. 
 Probably, the plain man of to-day accepts the teachings 
 of science in the main and has some thought that the 
 sense-organs must be stimulated and these stimulations 
 carried to the central nervous system. But just why this 
 physical process should lead to the vision of the physical 
 world out there in space he does not know. 
 
 Again, common sense has developed and possesses 
 certain meanings which it firmly and automatically at- 
 taches to these perceived objects. They are independent 
 of the event of perception, which is a purely human affair. 
 We cannot stare rocks and trees out of countenance though 
 we may break them into pieces by means of dynamite 
 judiciously planted and exploded. The physical world is 
 also judged to be permanent. The hills and heaths are 
 eternal as measured against the brief span of life granted 
 to human beings. These meanings have their factual 
 foundation and seem to us inevitable and unavoidable. 
 In a sense they are hypotheses but they are satisfactory so 
 far as they enable us to account for the order of our ex- 
 periences. We see the same things again and again be- 
 cause they are permanent and open to inspection. Why, 
 indeed, should not these things we see and to which we 
 react be as permanent as ourselves? There would seem 
 to be a fundamental validity in these realistic meanings 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 21 
 
 which have grown up so naturally in human experi- 
 ence. 
 
 When the student is startled by the attack upon Natural 
 Realism made by the philosopher, he should bear in mind 
 the frank recognition which has been here given to the 
 plain man's realism. If the philosopher teaches that 
 Natural Realism is untenable, he will present what appear 
 to him to be good and sufficient reasons. 
 
 The Recognition of Natural Realism in Philosophy. — 
 Even philosophers who have been forced by their reflec- 
 tion to doubt the independent reality of the visible world 
 have acknowledged that humanity is ordinarily realistic. 
 Let us glance at the testimony of Berkeley and Hume, two 
 thinkers whose arguments have done much to break down 
 Natural Realism. "It is indeed an opinion strangely 
 prevailing amongst men," writes Berkeley, "that houses, 
 mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have 
 an existence natural or real, distinct from their being 
 perceived by the understanding." Principles of Human 
 Knowledge y Sec. 4. Similarly, Plume observes "That how- 
 ever philosophers may distinguish betwixt the objects and 
 the perceptions of the senses; which they suppose co- 
 existent and resembling; yet this is a distinction, which is 
 not comprehended by the generality of mankind, who as 
 they perceive only one being, can never assent to the 
 opinion of a double existence and representation. Those 
 very sensations^ which enter by the eye or ear, are with them 
 the true objects, nor can they readily conceive that this pen 
 or paper, which is immediately perceived, represents another 
 which is different from, but resembling it. In order, there- 
 fore, to accommodate myself to their notions, I shall at 
 first suppose that there is only a single existence, which 
 I shall call indifferently object or perception, according as 
 
22 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 it shall seem best to suit my purpose, understanding by 
 both of them what any common man means by a hat, or 
 a shoe, or stone, or any other impression, conveyed to 
 him by his senses." Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 
 p. 202. In short, Hume agrees that the generality of men 
 regard their perceptions as physical objects and physical 
 objects as their perceptions. Hence, he criticises a theory, 
 to which we shall refer later, that our perceptions are 
 only copies in the mind of physical things. 
 
 It would be easy to quote other philosophers as testifying 
 to the universality of Natural Realism. Sir William Ham- 
 ilton compiled more than thirty closely printed pages of 
 references in evidence of "the Universality of the Philos- 
 ophy of Common Sense, or its general recognition in Real- 
 ity and in Name." There can be no doubt, also, that to-day 
 there is a strong tendency to keep as near to common- 
 sense realism as possible. I shall satisfy myself with just 
 one more reference. "Naive Consciousness always takes 
 sensation to be perception of a complete, externally exist- 
 ing, real thing. It believes that the world lies around us 
 illuminated by its own radiance, and that outside of us 
 tones and odours cross and meet one another in the im- 
 measurable space that plays in the colours belonging to 
 things. Our senses sometimes close themselves against 
 this continual abundance, and confine us to the course 
 of our inner life; sometimes they open like doors to the 
 arriving stimulus, to receive it as it is in all its grace or 
 ugliness. No doubt disturbs the assurance of this belief, 
 and even the illusions of the senses, insignificant in com- 
 parison with the preponderance of consentient experience, 
 do not shake the assurance that we here everywhere look 
 into an actual world that does not cease to be as it appears 
 to us, even when our attention is not turned to it. The 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 23 
 
 brightness of the stars seen by the night watcher will, 
 he hopes, continue to shine over him in slumber; tones and 
 perfumes, unheard and unsmelt, will be fragrant and har- 
 monious afterwards as before; nothing of the sensible 
 world will perish save the accidental perception of it which 
 consciousness formerly possessed." Lotze, Microcosmos^ 
 Book III, Chap. IV, par. 1. Surely we have done justice 
 to the outlook of common sense. 
 
 Philosophy Must Start from Natural Realism. — 
 Philosophy cannot have an arbitrary beginning any more 
 than an arbitrary ending. Like science it must grow out 
 of ordinary experience as a supplementation or correction 
 of it. Science arises out of genuine problems which must 
 be faced. This origin gives it its strength and reality. 
 The power to recognize the existence of problems which 
 must be met is the distinguishing characteristic of men 
 like Galileo and Newton and Faraday. Now philosophy 
 is likewise founded on specific problems which have 
 slowly been discovered and formulated by men of insight. 
 The general setting is ordinary experience. Were this not 
 so, philosophy would be unreal and artificial. "Philos- 
 ophy properly begins in a description of human experience. 
 It must give close attention to the distinctions, meanings, 
 and attitudes which are characteristic of man's natural 
 view of the world in which he lives. Such a preliminary 
 study prepares a foundation upon which the thinker may 
 work. . . . The advance of philosophy, like that of 
 science, must be gradual, and the starting-point must 
 be the experience of everyday life." Sellars, Critical 
 Realism^ p. 1. 
 
 Natural Realism and Science. — We shall see that the 
 conclusions and constructions of science conflict with the 
 outlook of Natural Realism. But as long as possible this 
 
24 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 conflict is ignored by the specialist in science. He lives 
 and thinks within the outlines set by common sense. The 
 physical world which physics and chemistry study is out 
 there in space and essentially perceivable. It is true that 
 color is now considered an effect produced in the sensitive 
 organism by light waves which impinge upon the eye, and 
 that sound is judged to be a sensation caused by sound- 
 waves in the air. But knowledge is still thought of as 
 dependent upon a perceptual observation of an independ- 
 ent world. The scientist often solves particular problems 
 by making distinctions between the real process in nature 
 and the perceptual experience of the observer — a distinc- 
 tion which runs directly counter to the outlook of common 
 sense — without realizing that his assumption implies that 
 the objects seen by him are not physical things but effects 
 in his mind. The power of an habitual outlook with which 
 he has not reflectively broken is so great that he can be- 
 lieve at the same time that the real world is colorless and 
 soundless and that it is colored and sonorous, that it is 
 composed of small particles in ceaseless motion and that 
 it is just as it is seen. The reason for this lack of con- 
 sistency is, of course, the fact that the solution of particular 
 problems bulks larger for the specialist than the attain- 
 ment of a harmonious view of reality as a whole. The 
 fact of knowledge is more important than its nature and 
 means of attainment. 
 
 While science begins with the outlook of common sense 
 and seldom reflectively breaks with it, it is forced to sub- 
 stitute conception more and more for perception. Atoms 
 and molecules and electrons and ether-waves can only 
 be conceived for they have never yet been literally per- 
 ceived. The scientist knows that knowledge about the 
 world is not as easy a matter as the untrained man is 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 25 
 
 apt to suppose. He is aware how many hypotheses have 
 been erected only to be given up, and he more than sus- 
 pects that the physical world as presented in many text- 
 books is only a temporary construct which will be modified 
 with the growth of knowledge. The old assurance of 
 common sense has departed never to return. The problem 
 of the nature and conditions of knowledge is ripe for for- 
 mulation. But until it is formulated, consciously, the 
 scientist hesitates to break with the outlook of common 
 sense, the chief reason for his hesitation perhaps being his 
 inability to replace it by another definite outlook. It is 
 here that the philosopher sees his function. Do the facts 
 which the scientist has gained force reflection to remodel 
 Natural Realism in a radical fasliion? Is the real table 
 the one I see before my eyes, or the one I conceive in terms 
 of physics and chemistry.^ And how is it that I am able 
 to conceive things which I am not able to perceive.^ 
 
 Natural Realism not a System. — But we must not 
 make the mistake of believing that the ordinary man's 
 outlook is a systematic and harmonious one. We have 
 just indicated that the point of view of the scientist fluc- 
 tuates from a stress upon perception to a faith in the pow- 
 ers of conception. The situation is much the same with 
 enlightened common sense. Natural Realism is a practical 
 adjustment which organizes the facts of experience in a 
 rough-and-ready fashion. When difficulties arise, new 
 distinctions are made without any very serious attempt 
 to see how they fit into the more usual ones. We have 
 given a broad outline of the outlook and must now pass 
 to the qualifications which are made. 
 
 Why is it that I see one side of a thing while you who are 
 standing in another position see another side? Common 
 sense replies ** because you are standing in one position in 
 
26 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 regard to it and I in another." Position has, then, some- 
 thing to do with what I see as well as do my sense-organs. 
 Why is this.f* Common sense by itself has no answer to 
 give except the empirical fact that what we see varies 
 with certain changes which we call changes of position. 
 But if perception is merely an event in which things are 
 revealed, why cannot we see all the sides of a thing at 
 once and even the interior of it.'^ The fact is that we don't; 
 and common sense naturally accepts the fact and finds out 
 certain empirical relations such as that between position 
 and aspect seen. But it is not until science discovers the 
 laws of optics and proves that light-waves must be re- 
 flected into the eyes that this relation receives an explana- 
 tion. Common sense has accepted the theory of science 
 which stresses a causal relation between the physical thing 
 and the eye while still adhering to its original outlook. 
 It is the task of philosophy to determine whether the old 
 and the new can be reconciled. The implications of the 
 new fact must be worked out and compared with Natural 
 Realism. 
 
 Again, common sense sometimes speaks of seeing the 
 side of a thing as though the side seen were a geometrical 
 part of the thing; at other times it speaks of seeing an 
 aspect of the thing or the way a thing appeared from a par- 
 ticular angle. An aspect seems to be more intangible and 
 somehow more a function of the position of the observer. 
 It does not have the same objectivity as the term side. 
 Yet common sense uses now one term and now the other. 
 What it is certain of is that the physical thing itself is 
 seen. Further than that it has not worked the situation 
 out. 
 
 In order to be concrete, let us take the shape of 
 a table. "We are all in the habit of judging as to the 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 27 
 
 'real* shapes of things, and we do this so unreflectingly 
 that we come to think we actually see the real shapes. 
 But, in fact, as we all have to learn if we try to draw, a 
 given thing looks different in shape from every point of 
 view. If our table is * really' rectangular, it will look, 
 from almost all points of view, as if it had two acute an- 
 gles and two obtuse angles. If opposite sides are parallel, 
 they will look as if they converged to a point away from 
 the spectator; if they are of equal length, they will look 
 as if the nearer side were longer. All these things are not 
 commonly noticed in looking at a table, because experi- 
 ence has taught us to construct the *rear shape from the 
 apparent shape, and the *rear shape is what interests 
 us as practical men. But the 'real' shape is not what we 
 see; it is something inferred from what we see. And what 
 we see is constantly changing in shape as we move about 
 the room; so that here again the senses seem not to give us 
 the truth about the table itself, but only about the ap- 
 pearance of the table." Russell, The Problems of Philoso- 
 phy, pp. 15-6. 
 
 In this example we meet with the distinction between 
 the physical thing and its appearance to individuals under 
 certain conditions. We see the physical thing .^^ Yes; 
 but we do not always see it the same. That is an empirical 
 fact which common sense has had to recognize and some- 
 how appear to explain. It does this by making a distinc- 
 tion between the physical thing and its appearances. But 
 the word appearance does not, of course, explain anything. 
 A moment's thought shows that there is need for reflection. 
 Philosophy is just such reflection. 
 
 Difficulties Confronting Natural Realism. — Ever since 
 its inception, philosophy has brooded over difficulties 
 which seemed to be destructive to Natural Realism. 
 
28 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Just because the philosopher could not be satisfied with 
 the lack of system characteristic of common sense, he felt 
 the sharp edge of the problems indicated above and of 
 others like them. Take the color of an object for ex- 
 ample. It varies according to the nature of the illumina- 
 tion, the distance of the observer, the condition of the 
 intervening medium. But if the color I see is actually the 
 color of the physical thing I see, as I ordinarily take it 
 to be, how can it vary in this way in relation to factors 
 outside of the thing .^ The color I see would seem to be a 
 function of conditions of which the physical thing is only 
 one. And so it is held to be by science. It is true that I 
 am apt to speak of the real color in contrast to the apparent 
 color. But a little reflection convinces me that this is only 
 a contrast between a more satisfactory experience and a 
 less satisfactory one. The real color of this piece of cloth 
 is that seen in the daytime and from near by; its apparent 
 color is that which it has at a distance or under the gas- 
 light. I make a choice between two colors and disavow 
 one for good empirical reasons. But both colors, the real 
 as well as the apparent, are functions of conditions. I can 
 never observe a color which is not; and so it seems natural 
 to conclude — though it does not strictly follow — that the 
 physical thing by itself and in its own right has no color. 
 
 Another example which has always attracted attention 
 is the case of the straight stick which appears bent in water. 
 I know that it is straight because I can take it out again 
 and look at it. Even while it is in the water I may test 
 its shape by running my hand down over it. I am com- 
 pelled to conclude that what I see is conditioned by 
 processes external to the stick. Science has, as we all 
 know, worked out the problem in some detail. 
 
 Reflecting on these and similar diflBculties confronting 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 29 
 
 Natural Realism, men soon began to doubt the testimony 
 of the senses, i. e., began to wonder whether the thing 
 seen was the physical thing at all. When there was no 
 adequate construction following upon this doubt, the 
 movement away from common-sense realism was called 
 scepticism. Natural Realism broke down and philosoph- 
 ical systems took its place. How can these difficulties 
 be met? 
 
 References 
 
 Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues 
 Between Hylas and Philonous. These are quite basic for 
 modern philosophy. 
 
 FuUerton, An Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 5. Suggestive 
 but inconclusive. 
 
 Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, pt. IV. 
 
 Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chap. 1. 
 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 1. 
 
 Weber, History of Philosophy, sec. 22, 
 
CHAPTER in 
 THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM 
 
 A Systematic Attack upon Natural Realism.— Dif- 
 ferent groupings of the main objections to Natural Realism 
 can and have been made. For our present purposes the 
 following, although it does not claim to be exhaustive, 
 will suffice: (1) the fact that what we perceive is a function 
 of many processes both extra-organic and intra-organic; 
 (2) the distinction between the physical thing and its 
 appearances; (3) the lack of correspondent variation be- 
 tween things and that which is perceived; (4) the differ- 
 ences between the perceptions of individuals; (5) the dif- 
 ficulty experienced in explainiag images, dream-life and 
 memory on the basis of Natural Realism; (6) the synthetic 
 or composite character of that which is perceived. Our 
 aim will be to examine these objections and to weigh their 
 cumulative force. It is obvious that they bid fair to force 
 us beyond the main outlines of Natural Realism, viz., 
 that we perceive the physical thing itself. 
 
 An important question of method arises here for con- 
 sideration. Because of these objections to Natural Real- 
 ism, many writers have swung entirely away from realism 
 to what is called idealism. We must, I think, set our 
 faces sternly against any such hasty leap. Reflection 
 arises within an experience already organized. To sepa- 
 rate the problems and their assumed answers from the con- 
 text in which they have arisen is surely unjustified. Our 
 first endeavor should be to remodel and develop Natural 
 
 30 
 
THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM 31 
 
 Realism in order to make it meet objections. I hope that 
 the sequel will show that the realistic meanings of both 
 common sense and science can be retained while a more 
 adequate theory of knowledge can be substituted for the 
 view that in perception we apprehend the physical world 
 itself. 
 
 Perceived Objects are Functions. — What we perceive 
 is a function of processes which may be divided into two 
 classes, the extra-organic and the intra-organic. Thus it 
 is an object which has conditions. But these conditions 
 are not given, they must be discovered. I see this book 
 which I hold in my hand. My experience is something 
 which presents itself and investigation is required to enable 
 me to know all that must take place before this apparently 
 simple event can occur. Now even common sense is well 
 aware of many of these conditions, although it has not 
 realized their significance. We all know that organs of 
 vision are necessary, that there must be a source of il- 
 lumination, that opaque objects must not intervene. This 
 knowledge is elementary and easily gained but science 
 alone has developed its implications. If perception is 
 merely an event in which things are revealed, why cannot 
 I see the things on the other side of a brick wall? The 
 fact is that I do not and so common sense says that I 
 cannot. But, as was pointed out a while ago, the reason 
 has been given only by the tested theory that something 
 comes from the source of illumination, is reflected to the 
 eye, and somehow there conditions what we see. The 
 opaque object prevents the arrival of this something which 
 we call light. Science has even measured the rate of trans- 
 mission of such processes as light and sound. Only he 
 who is willing to contest the empirical data of science has 
 the right to doubt these conclusions. 
 
32 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 What we see is, then, a function of what arrives at the 
 eye; what we hear, of what arrives at the ear. But internal 
 processes now intervene. In the case of sight, the retina 
 and optic nerve in general must function; in the case of 
 hearing, the auditory nerve must be stimulated in complex 
 ways. Such processes must be extended to the cortical 
 centres even before perception takes place. Admitted 
 that we know comparatively little of what occurs in these 
 centres, we still have reason to beUeve that it is complex 
 and fundamental. 
 
 The direction of the mediatory processes of which what 
 we perceive is a function is provedly from the physical 
 object to the brain, while the direction of the attention 
 seems to be from the concrete individual to the object. 
 Immediate experience seems to inform us that we see the 
 physical thing, while reflection urges upon us the position 
 that what we see is a function of processes in the organism 
 as controlled by extra-organic processes. Can these two 
 positions be reconciled? An easy and natural way to 
 reconcile them is to conclude that what we perceive is not 
 actually the physical thing although it is inevitably so 
 taken by common sense. What common sense sees is a 
 product of whose conditions it is not informed and which 
 is not labelled for it. Reflection suggests that we must re- 
 classify it. It must be home in mind, however, that such re- 
 classification does not change its texture or the way it is given 
 one jot. 
 
 The Physical Thing and its Appearance. — We have 
 already touched upon this distinction and suggested its 
 significance. It will be noted at once that it reenforces 
 the argument offered above. When closely examined, this 
 distinction is found to be a recognition of the fact that 
 objects are perceived differently under different conditions. 
 
THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM 33 
 
 "For example, we look from our window and see, as we 
 say, a tree at a distance. What we are conscious of is a 
 small bluish patch of color. Now, a small bluish patch of 
 color is not, strictly speaking, a tree; but for us it repre- 
 sents the tree. Suppose that we walk toward the tree. 
 Do we continue to see what we saw before? Of course, 
 we say that we continue to see the same tree; but it is 
 plain that what we immediately perceive, what is given 
 in consciousness, does not remain the same as we move. 
 Our blue patch of color grows larger and larger; it ceases 
 to be blue and faint; at the last it has been replaced by an 
 expanse of vivid green, and we see the tree just before us. 
 
 "During our whole walk we have been seeing the tree. 
 This appears to mean that we have been having a whole 
 series of visual experiences, no two of which were just 
 alike, and each of which was taken as a representative of 
 the tree. Which of these representatives is most like the 
 tree? Is the tree really a faint blue, or is it really a vivid 
 green? Or is it some intermediate color?" FuUerton, An 
 Introduction to Philosophyy p. 60. 
 
 Now what holds for color in the above example holds 
 also for shape and size. What is the real shape and the 
 real size? Do we not have to pass a judgment of choice 
 between the various ones presented? But so long as we 
 are concerned with a selection among presented objects, 
 such a choice is assuredly practical in its motivation. I 
 get very near a small object and quite far away from a 
 large one like the Capitol at Washington. 
 
 But once I have made my selection, a further diflSculty 
 ensues. What are these other rejected objects? To call 
 them appearances does not explain anything. Are they 
 physical things? But, if so, what space do they occupy, 
 and how can we deal with them? Can I reside in apparent 
 
34 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 houses, and are they built by masons? I shall leave it to 
 the reader to exercise his ingenuity upon appearances. 
 But, if they are non-physical, how am I able to pass from 
 my perception of them to my perception of the actual 
 physical thing without noticing any marked difference? Is 
 it not obvious that what I call the perceived physical thing 
 is merely the standard appearance, not differing in kind 
 from the others? All of them are functions of extra- 
 organic and intra-organic processes. And these functions 
 are transient, not independent of the individual, and, 
 therefore, not external. Let us speak of them henceforth 
 as percepts or thing-experiences. 
 
 The Lack of Correspondent Variation. — ^The third 
 objection to the main thesis of Natural Realism falls into 
 the same group as the two which we have already exam- 
 ined. The principle under which this objection operates 
 has been formulated as follows: "If anything X exhibits 
 variations which are not shared by Y, X and Y must be 
 distinct existences." Now what we see varies from mo- 
 ment to moment when we have every reason to believe 
 that the physical thing itself does not. Common sense 
 believes that the real table is square although I see it as 
 possessing obtuse and acute angles. What I see, moreover, 
 varies with every change in my position. Thus the color 
 I see as well as the shape and the size of the percept varies, 
 while I am firmly convinced that the physical thing re- 
 mains essentially the same. Such is the situation so long 
 as I accept the meanings of independence and permanence 
 for the physical world. Reflection seems forced to con- 
 clude that percepts are non-physical. 
 
 Experience forces us to accept a still more basic varia- 
 tion. May not physical things have even ceased to exist 
 while we are perceiving what we ordinarily identify with 
 
THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM S5 
 
 them? Thus far we have stressed changes in position and 
 the resultant modifications in what we perceive; let us now 
 introduce the time element along with space. We are in- 
 formed by astronomers, for example, that a star which 
 we just now perceive may have been destroyed centuries 
 ago; so long does it take light to travel to us through inter- 
 stellar space. How, then, can we possibly identify what 
 we see with the star itself.'^ Again, the relations between 
 our percepts are often not the same as the relations between 
 the objective occurrences themselves. Thunder succeeds 
 lightning for us, but we are certain that they arise at about 
 the same time. Now these differences in temporal order 
 can be easily accounted for by reference to physical proc- 
 esses of which what we see and hear are functions. 
 
 The Differences between the Perceptions of Individ- 
 uals. — ^The next three arguments against Natural Real- 
 ism also fall into one group. They stress the intra-organic 
 factors, especially those which are admitted by common 
 sense to be mental. 
 
 What is perceived by an individual is partly determined 
 by his interests and his training. The artist will note 
 shades of color which can hardly be distinguished by the 
 untrained. The same is true for sounds and harmonies 
 and for flavors and odors. It has been discovered that 
 people do not observe the same events when they are ap- 
 parently in a position to do so. At the least, there is 
 selection; at the most, personal elements in what is per- 
 ceived. The psychologist is convinced that what is seen 
 is largely what we expect to see; and it is obvious that 
 what we expect to see is a function of what we have ex- 
 perienced in the past. But the past introduces the per- 
 sonal history of the individual, which is always more or 
 less unique. 
 
36 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But if what is perceived is different to any degree for 
 different individuals, it is impossible to say that they see 
 the same physical thing. It would, perhaps, be possible to 
 assert that different persons saw similar things. Yet these 
 similar things are believed to occupy the same part of 
 space, a claim which conflicts with the belief of common 
 sense that only one thing can occupy one portion of space 
 at any one time. But my percept has no more right to 
 be regarded as the physical thing than has yours. 
 
 Can Natural Realism Account for Memory? — Common 
 sense is inclined to think that memory and ideas in general 
 are personal and mental. Yet, if perception be merely an 
 event in which physical things reveal themselves, how can 
 things leave traces behind them? We would have to re- 
 gard it as an event in which the physical thing acted upon 
 some more or less permanent part of the individual. The 
 physical thing would have to leave its impress behind. 
 But perception would then involve a double action, the 
 reaching out of the individual to the thing and the ex- 
 tension of the thing to the mind. It is difficult to see how 
 the impress in the mind could be an exact copy of the 
 physical thing. And yet Natural Realism would be forced 
 to some such assertion. Certainly our images are like our 
 percepts; but this may be because both are mental. 
 
 It is interesting in this connection to note how soon the 
 outlook of Natural Realism was replaced in ancient philos- 
 ophy by the theory that perceptions are impressions pro- 
 duced upon the mind by the causal action of the physical 
 world. The sensible impression is, according to Cleanthes, 
 the Stoic, like an impression made upon a material object, 
 like the mark of a seal upon wax. Memories are reproduc- 
 tions of these original impressions. Of course, all this is 
 crude, for these thinkers had no adequate idea of the 
 
THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM 37 
 
 mechanism of perception. But the drift of the thinking 
 is clear. 
 
 To meet the problem raised by the existence of images, 
 concepts and memories, the advocate of Natural Realism 
 must theorize. It is evident that, there is some sort of a 
 genetic relation between what is perceived and what is 
 remembered and conceived. But if what is perceived is 
 physical, how comes it that we have this power of volun- 
 tarily recalling an experience like it? Either memory is 
 another kind of perception and what is remembered is 
 physical, or an effect is left in the individual which is the 
 source of memory. But such a change in the individual 
 must be dated with the perception. It is obvious that 
 perception is not the passive event that unenlightened 
 common sense supposes it to be. Reflecting upon these 
 facts and implications, enlightened common sense has 
 swung more and more to the conclusion that perceptions 
 are mental and are of the nature of conditioned changes in 
 the individual. It is true that the plain man gets along 
 very nicely with the assumption that he can somehow 
 pass back and forth between physical things and ideas, be- 
 tween the world out there, as it is called, and ideas referred 
 more or less vaguely to the body. But as soon as he re- 
 flects, he begins to speak of sensations as mental elements 
 produced in his mind by the stimulation of his senses. The 
 philosopher realizes that common sense tries to hold more 
 or less contradictory positions at the same time. 
 
 We are now more than ever convinced that common 
 sense has no systematic view of things and that many 
 problems lurk in the background of Natural Realism which 
 are not often noted because practical interests do not re- 
 quire it. The outlook of everyday life is vague and self- 
 contradictory, and doubts are beginning to arise whether 
 
38 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 it can be rendered consistent by the exercise of any amount 
 of ingenuity. We have not, indeed, seen reason to question 
 the existence of a physical world, but we have seen good 
 reason to doubt that what we perceive is the physical 
 world. 
 
 What Is Perceived Involves Construction. — The 
 philosopher works cooperatively with science. He must 
 accept his facts in large measure from special investigators 
 who are masters of technique and of relevant methods of 
 verification. Hence the philosopher has the right to appeal 
 to the conclusions drawn by psychologists in regard to 
 perception. There is such general agreement upon the 
 constructive character of perception and the facts are so 
 well founded that this conclusion can be used with assur- 
 ance. The child does not see what the adult sees. Past 
 experience, training and knowledge play into and condition 
 what is perceived. "The results of all of the various ex- 
 periences cooperate in giving the object that is seen the 
 appearance it has. To put it the other way, the object 
 that is seen is the one that serves to explain the earlier 
 experiences; it is the one that harmonizes all of the uses 
 and observations of it in the past. By constant trial and 
 use, a construction develops that proves true when tested 
 in any way. This is accepted as the real object as opposed 
 to mere sensations. Whenever the sensation presents it- 
 self, this developed object arises in consciousness." Pills- 
 bury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 159. It would certainly 
 seem to follow that each individual perceives an ob- 
 ject which is largely a function of his past experience. 
 But who, then, perceives a truly independent physical 
 thing.? 
 
 We need not labor this point. All the objections to 
 Natural Realism which we have examined converge cumu- 
 
THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM 39 
 
 latively upon the theory that what is perceived is a func- 
 tion of many factors, some external to the organism and 
 some internal. And it is just because these factors are 
 not announced in the perception that it is so naturally 
 taken to be an independent and permanent reality simply 
 revealed to the percipient. Natural Realism needs no 
 excuse; it is an outlook which could not help developing. 
 Yet analysis and reflection break down its plausibility. It 
 should be noted, however, that we are limiting Natural 
 Realism to the view of perception held by common sense. 
 We have not challenged the realistic meanings which ac- 
 company it but only their special application to what is 
 perceived. 
 
 The Physiological Theory of Perception. — We are now 
 in a position to examine the account of perception accepted 
 by psychology and physiology and to see its lack of har- 
 mony with the characteristic thesis of Natural Realism. 
 According to the dominant theory, the sense-organs must 
 be stimulated before perception arises. The excitation is 
 transmitted to the cortex, and only then does there appear 
 what is called by psychologists a percept and by common 
 sense the physical thing. Thus the percept is connected 
 with the end-term of a complex process. How, then, can 
 it be identified with the physical thing which is part of the 
 beginning of this process? It would seem that the plain 
 man has been identifying the effect with the cause. Most 
 naturally, of course, because only the percept is given in 
 the field of experience. But must we not separate these 
 two things which have been identified? Must we not dis- 
 tinguish between the physical thing, which helps to stimu- 
 late the body, and the percept which, we perceive as a 
 result? I think that it is obvious that this distinction 
 must be made. Thus, the physiological theory of percep- 
 
40 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tion fits in with the objections to Natural ReaHsm which 
 we have already considered. 
 
 Conclusion and Warning. — This brief examination of 
 the inadequacies and difficulties which confront Natural 
 Realism raises many important questions. It is surely 
 evident by now that philosophy cannot be escaped, i. e., 
 that there are grounds for serious and prolonged reflection. 
 He who has gone thus far can hardly turn back. I do not 
 think that it is an exaggeration to say that Natural 
 Realism has broken down. Perception cannot be an 
 event in which physical things, themselves, are present to 
 the individual perceiver. That which is present in the 
 field of experience is a function of many conditions and 
 must be considered non-physical. There is good reason 
 to consider it mental even, but we must not be too hasty 
 in our classification. Besides, the term mental needs 
 definition. 
 
 Another point must be noted. Because the theory of 
 perception characteristic of Natural Realism breaks down, 
 must we give up those realistic meanings and distinctions 
 which we found in experience? When we come to look 
 at the movement of reflection, we soon note that the 
 physical thing, while no longer present to perception, is 
 assumed to be one of the conditions of that which is per- 
 ceived. But that which conditions must be as real as that 
 which is conditioned. We assume the existence of the 
 physical thing which is independent and permanent. But 
 if it is not perceived, how is it known? The question which 
 we must seriously ask ourselves is this: Can a theory of 
 knowledge be achieved which will do justice to these 
 realistic distinctions and meanings and will accept the 
 existence of a physical world and yet not be open to the 
 objections which have proved fatal to Natural Realism? 
 
THE BREAKDOWN OF NATURAL REALISM 41 
 
 The history of philosophy presents us with the efforts 
 of the human mind to break loose from Natural Realism 
 and still retain a belief in a physical world not too different 
 from that which common sense supposes itself to be per- 
 ceiving. The first hesitating step beyond common sense 
 is usually called representative, or Lockian, realism. We 
 shall now betake ourselves to a study of this development. 
 
 References 
 
 The references are essentially the same as for the first chapter. 
 To these may be added the treatment of perception to be 
 found in any good psychology. The following are suggested: 
 
 Angell, Psychology, chap. 6. 
 
 James, Principles of Psychology, bk. 2, chap. 19. 
 
 Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, chap. 7. 
 
 Stout, Manual of Psychology, bk. 4, chap. 6. 
 
 A glance at causal theories of perception in ancient philosophy 
 will also be suggestive. Let the student look up the teaching 
 of Protagoras in Gomperz's Greek Thinkers or Weber's 
 History of Philosophy, 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 
 
 The Value of an Historical Approach. — The human 
 mind has always taken one step at a time. When a new 
 reflective position is achieved, it is worked over carefully 
 and practically all of its possibilities exhausted before 
 another step is taken. Hence the individual thinker who 
 has seriously adventured himself on the path of philosophy 
 can usually find at least the preliminary steps which his 
 mind is inclined to take already examined by past thinkers. 
 What extremely able men have so carefully done cannot 
 help but be of assistance to those who come after. It is 
 for this reason that philosophy cannot be successfully 
 separated from the history of philosophy. 
 
 The three British thinkers, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, 
 raised the essential problems of philosophy so clearly and 
 stated their own conclusions so simply and unambiguously 
 that no better introduction to philosophical problems can 
 be found than their writings. Benefiting by their analyses 
 and reflections, the student is prepared to state philo- 
 sophical questions from different angles and with a fairly 
 precise idea of what mistakes to avoid and what distinc- 
 tions to make. These thinkers of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries supplement one another to a remark- 
 able degree, and there is a marked deepening of reflection 
 as we pass from Locke through Berkeley to Hume. The 
 student is led to comprehend different points of view and 
 is thus induced, and even obligedj to think for himself. 
 
 42 
 
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 43 
 
 Representative Realism Follows Natural Realism. — 
 Many of the difficulties which we have raised as very 
 serious objections to Natural Realism were noted by the 
 Greeks. Many thinkers passed to relativism as a result 
 and concluded that man cannot have a genuinely objective 
 knowledge of things because he only knows how they af- 
 fect him. Sensations, they taught, are effects in us rather 
 than apprehensions of the inherent characteristics of 
 things. This outlook goes back at least as far as Protagoras 
 (circa 411, B. C.) and was further developed by Pyrrho, 
 Arcesilaus and Carneades. Man is the measure of all 
 things. Protagoras had little faith in reason as a means 
 to a more adequate knowledge, and science had not de- 
 veloped far enough to suggest ways of accounting for those 
 illusions which impressed these early thinkers and deter- 
 mined their skepticism of perception. 
 
 But modern philosophy arose in touch with a vigorously 
 developing science. As a result, skepticism did not easily 
 gain sway. That man obtains knowledge of the world 
 few doubted. The real question was the nature and source 
 of this knowledge which he actually possesses. Another 
 interesting fact is that Natural Realism was rejected from 
 the first. In its place was put representative realism. 
 Knowledge is now thought of as a function of human ideas 
 instead of as a direct apprehension of the physical world. 
 Ideas are supposed to intervene between the knower and 
 that which is known and to serve as cognitively satisfac- 
 tory substitutes for the independent, extra-mental world 
 which is still believed in. To know the corporeal world 
 is not to apprehend it directly but to apprehend ideas 
 which are somehow like it and so reveal it. Thus knowl- 
 edge is an indirect apprehension or an apprehension 
 through the medium of ideas. The apprehension of ideas 
 
44 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is the best we can do, and it is almost the same as the ap- 
 prehension of the corporeal world itself because ideas are 
 similar to physical things. This reflective step away from 
 Natural Realism is usually called representative realism. 
 Sometimes it is called the copy theory of knowledge. It 
 early took two forms, the rationalistic and the empirical. 
 The rationalistic form arose on the continent and is asso- 
 ciated with the name of Rene Descartes, while the em- 
 pirical form arose in England and is connected with the 
 writings of John Locke. 
 
 Rationalistic Representative Realism. — Descartes was 
 a rationalist, that is, he believed that the human mind is 
 able to produce concepts somewhat independently of sense- 
 perception. He accepted the concept of the physical world 
 achieved by the science of his day, but he realized that 
 this was not the world which we perceive. It is the world 
 as we conceive it after due reflection. 
 
 Some historians of philosophy have held that the 
 Copernican theory of the solar system, so opposed to what 
 we perceive, encouraged this excessive rationalism. Prob- 
 ably it had its part. But the fundamental cause was the 
 rise of mathematics and the inability of the logicians of 
 the day to connect mathematics genetically with percep- 
 tion. Perception and conception tended to fall apart into 
 two mental spheres having little commerce with one 
 another. Thus rationalism has always displayed an ex- 
 cessive disdain for perception and has encouraged a de- 
 ductive method of investigation. 
 
 [^ The following account of the Cartesian theory of knowl- 
 edge illustrates rationalistic representative realism very 
 weU. "We find in the mind, to use Descartes* own 
 illustration {Meditations y Veitch's trans., p. 120), two 
 wholly diverse ideas of the sun: the one idea, the sense- 
 
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 45 
 
 image, by which the sun appears extremely small, seems 
 to come to us directly from the sun through the senses; 
 the other idea, whereby it is represented as many times 
 larger than the whole earth, we have constructed for our- 
 selves in physical science. These two ideas cannot both 
 resemble the same sun, and reason teaches us that the one 
 which is given us in sense, and which seems to have imme- 
 diately emanated from the sun, is the most unlike. The 
 true nature of the sun, as it exists without us, is thus re- 
 vealed not by sense but by thought. Our sense-images 
 are but pictures in our minds, and do not represent, but 
 misrepresent, the true nature of the real. There are two 
 external worlds, the one rich w^th its bright variety of 
 diverse qualities, appearing to the 'senses,' the other, 
 poverty-stricken, constituted only of matter and motion, 
 and discovered by the understanding.' j Norman Smith, 
 Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy, pp. 16-17. 
 
 This dualism between perception and conception char- 
 acteristic of rationalism must be held in mind. It has 
 done more harm to philosophy than any one other false 
 assumption. Conceptions are, for Descartes, mental 
 objects which the mind contemplates, but they are not 
 derived from perceptions. They are, instead, wholly dis- 
 tinct from them in nature. *' By this strange opposition 
 of conceptions to perceptions, which he makes to be ab- 
 solute, Descartes aggravates the difficulties, already great 
 enough in all truth, of his dualism, and lands himself, 
 founder though he be of the physical sciences, in a rational- 
 ism more extreme in its antagonism to sense-experience 
 than even the idealism of Plato. The causes leading Des- 
 cartes to this position are to be found in his absorbing 
 interest in the mathematical sciences, whose method he 
 misconceived." Ibid., pp. 17-18. We shall have occasion 
 
46 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to refer to the consequences of this vicious dualism in 
 connection with several problems. 
 
 Cartesian Metaphysics. — What view of the world was 
 affirmed by Cartesian rationalism? Since much of our 
 energy in the latter part of the book will be expended in 
 showing that the Cartesian view of nature has been out- 
 grown by modern science, it will be best to make his 
 outlook very clear. We shall call his position mathematical 
 rationalism or rationalistic representative realism. Such 
 an expression sounds pedantic but is really descriptive. 
 The real physical world is quite different from the world 
 given in perception. It is only extended, not colored and 
 heavy and sonorous. "The nature of body consists not 
 in weight, hardness, color, and the like, but in extension 
 alone ... in its being a substance extended in length, 
 breadth, and height." The real world is the world as con- 
 ceived by the mathematician. 
 
 Descartes is spoken of as a dualist. He taught that there 
 are two substances or independent realities, mind and 
 matter, and that these have nothing in common. Matter 
 is extended substance and mind is thinking substance. He 
 is no skeptic and is quite convinced that he can penetrate 
 to the very defining essence of these substances and so 
 know that they are fundamentally and inherently differ- 
 ent. But how does he know all this? This brings us to 
 his method which is an essential part of his theory of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Descartes' Method. — Descartes invented the method 
 of systematic doubt. He would doubt everything he could. 
 This method has exercised a malign influence upon philos- 
 ophy. "It looks sometimes as though the main purpose 
 of philosophy were to doubt whenever doubt is at all 
 possible, as though its main purpose were not to explain. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 47 
 
 but to explain away." The real basis of his position is his 
 mathematical rationalism, but he writes as though he had 
 found a fixed starting-point in a mere thinking self — 
 cogito ergo sum — whence he passes to God and thence to the 
 world. Modern logic maintains that doubts must be 
 specific and definitely motivated. Descartes' universal 
 doubt is of no value. The method we are adopting in this 
 book and which we believe is justified is a gradual crit- 
 ical advance from Natural Realism under the motive- 
 force of reflective problems. A general doubt is only too 
 apt to lead to a new dogmatism because it can be met 
 only by an arbitrary standard of truth. Let us listen to 
 his own words: "But after I have recognized the exist- 
 ence of a God, and because I have at the same time recog- 
 nized the fact that all things depend upon him, and that 
 he is no deceiver, and in consequence of that I have judged 
 that all I conceive clearly and distinctly cannot fail to be 
 true ... no opposing reason can be brought against me 
 which should make me ever call it in question; and thus I 
 have a true and certain knowledge of it." Such a criterion 
 of truth is altogether too formal and personal. 
 
 Representative Realism Raises New Problems. — 
 Representative realism brings with it problems which do 
 not exist for Natural Realism. The idea is immaterial; 
 the physical reality is material. But we know the ideas 
 directly because they are objects which we contemplate, 
 while we can know the physical world only indirectly 
 and through these ideas. Ideas are cognitive representa- 
 tives of the material realities. They are mental substi- 
 tutes for, or signs of, the physical world which is no longer 
 regarded as perceptible. This situation is characteristic 
 of representative realism. 
 
 The more empirical form of representative realism was 
 
48 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 developed by John Locke (1632-1704). His frank hand- 
 ling of the problem made it clear that, while the position 
 as a whole might be a necessary advance upon Natural 
 Realism, it needed further working out. Are these ideas 
 copies of physical things.? Or are they mere signs not re- 
 sembling them? What is the exact nature of scientific 
 knowledge? These questions were soon raised and led to 
 heated discussions. Unfortunately, the assumption that 
 knowledge is a likeness between physical things and mental 
 objects called ideas dominated thought for a long time. 
 Working within this current assumption, Berkeley startled 
 philosophers by questioning the existence of the physical 
 world. How can we be sure that there are physical 
 things if we cannot perceive them? The consideration of 
 this problem in the light of the first two questions led 
 Berkeley to conclude that the simplest way out of the 
 difficulty is to deny the existence of the physical world. 
 
 Lockers Position. — Locke's purpose was "to inquire 
 into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge." 
 lie decided that all ideas come from sensation or reflection. 
 In other words, he believed that he could classify ideas 
 into two great classes according to their conditions. Those 
 ideas which we connect with the operation of the sense- 
 organs he calls ideas of sensation, while all other ideas 
 are assigned to more internal sources. In opposition to 
 Descartes and the continental rationalists in general, he 
 believed that all objects of attention have an empirical 
 origin. We need not take up such questions as his use of 
 the term experience and his conception of the mind. He is 
 unclear and self-contradictory at times, and often confuses 
 questions of origin with questions of function and validity. 
 But, in spite of these shortcomings, it is easy to make out 
 the drift of his thinking. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 49 
 
 "Ideas" are for Locke the objects of the understanding 
 when a man thinks. To-day we would be less likely to 
 use such a general term and be content to speak of per- 
 cepts, and concepts. But as soon as we realize Locke's 
 standpoint no misunderstanding need arise from his use 
 of the term idea. Whatever is present in the field of the in- 
 dividual's experience and can be the object of attention is an 
 idea. Locke seeks to analyze such objects and to discover 
 the more primitive mental elements from which they are 
 formed. It is evident, then, that Locke believes that all 
 objects of which we can be aware are mental and that such 
 knowledge of the physical world as we possess must be 
 somehow in terms of these objects. 
 
 But Locke nodded at times. He did not realize the com- 
 plexity of the problem he had fearlessly raised. He is 
 absolutely certain of the existence of the physical world 
 distinct from the ideas to which the mind is existentially 
 confined. He even drops back into Natural Realism at 
 times; and even when he does not commit this self-contra- 
 diction, he mistakes his certainty of the existence of the 
 physical world for a proof. The student who is first break- 
 ing away from Natural Realism should have a deal of sym- 
 pathy with Locke and a sort of fellow-feeling. Dogmatic 
 common sense rings in his protest: "I think nobody can, 
 in earnest, be so skeptical as to be uncertain of the exist- 
 ence of those things which he sees and feels." In the fol- 
 lowing passage, Locke indicates why he is so certain that 
 the physical world exists and his reasons certainly appeal 
 to all of us: "Thus I see, whilst I write this, I can change 
 the appearance of the paper, and by designing the letters 
 tell beforehand what new idea it shall exhibit the very 
 next moment, by barely drawing my pen over it, which 
 will neither appear (let me fancy as much as I will), if 
 
50 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 my hand stands still, or though I move my pen, if my eyes 
 be shut; nor, when those characters are once made on the 
 paper, can I choose afterward but see them as they are; 
 that is, have the ideas of such letters as I have made. 
 Whence it is manifest, that they are not barely the sport 
 and play of my own imagination, when I find that the 
 characters that were made at the pleasure of my thought 
 do not obey them; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall 
 fancy it; but continue to affect the senses constantly and 
 regularly, according to the figures I made them.'' Locke, 
 Essay, Bk. IV, Chap. XI, Sec. 7. 
 
 But the problem for the thinker is to work out a system 
 which will justify and explain his beliefs. Let us see 
 whether Locke did this successfully. 
 
 Locke's View of Knowledge. — Locke's view of knowl- 
 edge has been called representative perception. We shall 
 limit ourselves to his conception of the physical world and 
 show what knowledge of the physical world means for him. 
 It is best to distinguish between the assurance that there 
 is a physical world and the conception of it that is enter- 
 tained. He admits that our assurance that there are things 
 existing without us cannot reach demonstration; *'yet it 
 is an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge." It 
 is a confidence or faith that has a good basis in experience. 
 His chief reliance for this confidence seems to be the dis- 
 tinction between perception and imagination. 
 
 When we pass to an examination of his conception of the 
 physical world, we note that he accepts the outlook of the 
 science of his day. He distinguishes between the primary 
 and the secondary qualities of things and holds that only 
 those ideas of ours which are designated primary are copies 
 of the actual qualities of physical things. "I say, then, 
 that to have ideas of substances which, hy being conform- 
 
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 51 
 
 able to things, may afford us real knowledge, it is not 
 enough, as in modes, to put together such ideas as have 
 no inconsistence, though they did never before so ex- 
 ist. . . . But our ideas of substances, being supposed 
 copies, and referred to archetypes without us, must still be 
 taken from something that does or has existed; they must 
 not consist of ideas put together at the pleasure of our 
 thoughts without any real pattern they were taken from, 
 though we can perceive no inconsistence in such a com- 
 bination." Essay, Bk. IV, Chap. IV, Sec. 12. In other 
 words, the properties which we assign to a particular 
 physical substance must have been found to co-exist. 
 Such co-existence is a matter of experience. Thus the 
 chemist works out the properties of the various substances 
 in this experiential fashion. Gold has certain properties 
 and phosphorus still others. "And our ideas, being thus 
 true, though not perhaps very exact copies, are yet the sub- 
 jects of real (so far as we have any) knowledge of them: 
 which, as has been already showed, will not be found to 
 reach very far; but so far as it does, it will still be real 
 knowledge." 
 
 Let us examine these important statements. Locke, 
 first of all, distinguishes between the primary and second- 
 ary qualities of things. He removes color, sound, taste 
 and smell from his conception — or shall we say picture? — 
 of the physical world. He conceives the world in terms of 
 solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest and number. In 
 other words, he pictured the world as the physicists, his 
 friends, would. Were he living to-day, he would try to 
 understand the view of the physical world held by modern 
 science and would accept that. Note farther that he ad- 
 mits that our ideas are perhaps not very exact copies. 
 He can think of no other meaning for this cognitive signifi- 
 
52 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cance of our ideas than copying; but he realizes that he 
 has no right to be dogmatic about the degree of similarity. 
 Why? Because we cannot get to the physical things them- 
 selves to compare them vyiih our ideas. It is obvious that 
 this difficulty exists; for, if all the objects of which we are 
 aware are ideas and physical things are existentially dis- 
 tinct from them, no comparison can be instituted by the 
 human mind. 
 
 Doubts Confronting Representative Perception. — On 
 the whole, Locke stated his position mildly. It was not 
 long, however, before objections of a fundamental nature 
 were raised. The chief objection philosophers have felt 
 can be put in the form of a question. "How do we know 
 that, corresponding to our ideas, there are material things, 
 if we have never perceived, in any single instance, a ma- 
 terial thing? And the doubt here suggested may be rein- 
 forced by the reflection that the very expression *a ma- 
 terial thing' ought to be meaningless to a man who, having 
 never had experience of one, is compelled to represent it 
 by the aid of something so different from it as ideas are 
 supposed to be. Can material things really be to such a 
 creature anything more than some complex of ideas?" 
 FuUerton, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 166. 
 
 Those who have felt the force of this doubt and yet have 
 not wished to relinquish realism of the Lockian type have 
 sought to escape by making sensations merely signs and 
 not copies of physical things. Thus in the famous Physio- 
 logical Optics Helmholtz wrote as follows: "In so far as 
 the quality of our sensation indicates to us the peculiarity 
 of the external influence through which it is aroused, it 
 can stand as an indication but not as a copy of it. . . . An 
 indication need be in no way similar to that which it in- 
 dicates. The relation between the two reduces itself to 
 
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM 53 
 
 this, that a similar object, coming into action under similar 
 circumstances, calls up a similar indication. We call our 
 ideas of the external world true^ when they give us suffi- 
 cient information about the consequences of our actions 
 throughout the external world, and bring us to proper 
 conclusions regarding its expected changes." For such an 
 outlook, we should speak only of an external or extra- 
 mental world and should regard such a world as only the 
 most plausible hypothesis to account for the temporal and 
 spatial order of our perceptions. This sign-theory, which 
 has been adopted by several modern scientists, is of special 
 significance for the beginner who has arrived at this point; 
 for it makes him realize as nothing else will that the very 
 expression *a material thing* may be meaningless. If we 
 are confined to ideas which are signs merely, we can have 
 no well-grounded idea of the content and matter of ma- 
 terial things; if we retain the term, we must be on our 
 guard against carrying over the concrete objects of 
 common-sense realism. What the physical is in itself 
 becomes a problem which, by hypothesis, can never be 
 solved. One must immerse himself in the consequences 
 of this sharp break with Natural Realism before he is 
 prepared to take philosophy seriously. 
 
 It is not a far step from representative perception to 
 idealism. Locke had decided that all the objects of the 
 understanding are ideas, though he cherished the faith 
 that these mental objects are copies of, and therefore cog- 
 nitive substitutes for, physical realities. Berkeley doubted 
 that ideas could be accepted as representatives of that 
 which is non-mental. If all that we can experience is 
 mental, why assume the existence of something which we 
 can define only in negative terms? To say that the 
 physical world is non-mental surely does not give us much 
 
54 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 information about the content of it. Moreover, we need 
 not grieve over the loss of something whose nature we 
 cannot form an idea of. We can suffer no loss by losing 
 what we have never had. But we are now ready to 
 grapple with ideaHsm. 
 
 References 
 Alexander, Locke. 
 Descartes, Meditations. 
 
 FuUerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 12. 
 Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. 4. 
 Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chap. 2. 
 Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, chap. 4. 
 Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy, chap. 1. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE RISE OF IDEALISM 
 
 What Is Idealism? — The term idealism has different 
 shades of meaning. What we shall try to do here is to 
 take the simplest meaning and connect it with the teaching 
 of Berkeley. Berkeley's idealism is directed against 
 Lockian realism and can best be understood in this setting. 
 He agrees with Locke that we can apprehend only our 
 ideas, but goes farther and maintains that we have no 
 good reason to believe that there is a physical world corre- 
 sponding to them. Thus his idealism is a denial of the 
 existence of a physical world and, on the positive side, 
 may be described as mentalism. Spiritualism is another 
 term which is sometimes used to describe his position. 
 Nothing exists but spirits and the objects of their per- 
 ception, which are inseparable from them and have no 
 independent existence. 
 
 Berkeley's Position. — On the whole, Berkeley devel- 
 oped his arguments against Natural Realism so keenly and 
 systematically that later writers have done little more 
 than add to them here and there and re-state them. In 
 doing this he was, however, only following in the footsteps 
 of Descartes, Hobbes and Locke. But these thinkers still 
 believed in the existence of an independent physical world 
 and held that we can possess knowledge about it. Berke- 
 ley was more radical and went on to doubt the existence 
 of this physical world which cannot be perceived. 
 
 There are, then, two stages in Berkeley's argument. 
 
 55 
 
56 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The first stage consists in the proof that the things we 
 perceive by sense are really complexes of sensations or ele- 
 mentary ideas. In the Principles of Human Knowledge 
 he adopts the terminology made familiar by Descartes and 
 Locke and speaks of these objects as ideas. In the Three 
 Dialogues between Hylas and Philonousy he calls these 
 immediate objects of perception sensible things. His 
 thesis is that sensible things cannot exist by themselves 
 as we suppose physical things do and that they cannot 
 therefore be physical things. The student should rea d 
 the First Dialogue, at least, and ponder over i^ . 7 ? SaJiUjm^ d 
 
 The second stage consists in an attack upon representa-,„yk^^ 
 tive perception. He attempts to show that the copy-5ihJ2a. 
 theory of knowledge is absurd and even self-contradictory.'w-^J 
 Since this is the really new element in his philosophy, we)|J<P^ 
 must examine it in some detail. EI^ 
 
 After he has disproved Locke's position to his own M 
 satisfaction, he goes on to construct a spiritualistic philos- 
 ophy based on the contention that the only active reality 
 of which we can conceive is mind or spirit. It is obvious, 
 however, that this construction presupposes his destruc- 
 tion of physical realism. I presume that most of us would 
 contend that a physical realism has the preference and 
 must be put thoroughly out of the running before spiritual- 
 ism has any chance. 
 
 The First Stage. — When we brush away certain tech-- 
 nicalities inherited from traditional philosophy, Berkeley's 
 arguments against Natural Realism are of two kinds. He 
 attempts to prove that what we perceive is a function of 
 the senses and is not substantial enough to exist by itself. 
 He seems even to assert that we can apprehend a relation 
 between the self and that which is perceived which makes 
 it clear that sensible things are adjectives of the self. In 
 
THE RISE OF IDEALISM 57 
 
 the second place, he seeks to prove that what we perceive 
 is bound up with elements like pleasure and pain which 
 are avowedly mental. Many of his terms are insufficiently 
 defined and we are left in doubt as to what the senses are 
 and what the nature of * being perceived' is. The self, 
 spirit, mind, or soul to which he appeals so confidently is 
 more of a theory than an element within experience. But 
 the drift of his argument is clear and, it seems to me, 
 convincing. The sensible world does not have the inde- 
 pendence and permanence which common sense assigns it. 
 
 But it is evident that his conclusion thus far is essen- 
 tially the same as that which we have already reached. 
 Are we necessarily forced into idealism? Or is there some 
 way out ? Let us study the setting of Berkeley's philosophy 
 more closely to see why he was convinced that the break- 
 down of Natural Realism involved idealism. Other 
 thinkers had gone thus far and had still retained physical 
 realism. To answer this question we must pass to a study 
 of the second stage of his argument. 
 
 Berkeley Attacks Locke's Philosophy. — Philosophies 
 are intimately bound up with one another. It is often 
 impossible to understand just why some thinker drew the 
 conclusions he did until we know the system which he is 
 attacking. We realize, then, that he assumes that a refuta- 
 tion of his opponent's theory involves the truth of his 
 own — a big assumption but one only too often made. 
 The truth is, that Berkeley attacks Locke's construction 
 of a physical realism less naive than that of common sense 
 and argues from a victory over it to the necessity of his 
 own idealism, Locke tried to develop a realism which 
 would meet the demands of the science of his day, but, of 
 course, we have the right to doubt whether Locke's inter- 
 pretation is the only valid one. Of that more later. The 
 
58 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 point to bear in mind, at present, is that Berkeley attacks 
 first Natural Realism and then Lockian realism. 
 
 Berkeley's Animus. — It is often of importance to 
 understand the controlling outlook which lies back of a 
 thinker's reasoning and determines what he desires to 
 prove or disprove. Philosophy is such a complex affair 
 and affects questions which are so personal and usually so 
 emotionally held that very few thinkers can escape a dis- 
 torting bias. A preference, at least, is at work. It is not 
 surprising, then, that some have allowed their prejudices 
 to dictate a thesis to be proved. It can be said in their 
 defense, however, that this dictation is largely unconscious 
 and that the problems are often so subtle that the historian 
 can explain unfortunate omissions and over-hasty con- 
 clusions without appeal to conscious deception. 
 
 Now Berkeley makes it plain that he desires to refute 
 and confound atheist and materialist. We shall expect, 
 therefore, that he will not spend so much time on an 
 attempt to think out a new and more adequate form of 
 realism as on the discovery of contradictions in the ac- 
 cepted forms. And this is actually the situation. While 
 Locke was the admirer of physical science and a con- 
 vinced believer in the physical world, Berkeley was a 
 theologian who suspected science of being the friend of 
 skepticism and materialism and their chief support. Locke 
 wished to construct a system which retained the physical 
 world and conceived it in the language of physics. Berke- 
 ley, on the other hand, was desirous of disproving the 
 possibility of such a world. Hence, it was Locke's con- 
 struction that Berkeley naturally attacked. 
 
 Berkeley's Disproof of Representative Realism. — We 
 have seen that Berkeley and Locke have much in common. 
 Both accept the position that the objects of the under- 
 
THE RISE OF IDEALISM 59 
 
 standing are ideas. They part company, however, on the 
 question of the significance of these ideas. 1 The prime 
 basis of Berkeley's criticism of Locke's construction lies 
 in his denial that ideas can be like anything without the 
 mind. " But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not 
 exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, 
 whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist 
 without the mind in an unthinking substance. I answer, 
 an idea can he like nothing but another idea; a color or figure 
 can be like nothing but. another color or figure. If we 
 look but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it 
 impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only be- 
 tween our ideas." Principles of Human Knowledge, Sec. 8. 
 In other words, Berkeley asserts that the principle at the 
 foundation of representative realism is self-contradictory. 
 It is impossible for the mental to be like the non-mental. 
 Does not likeness imply comparison? And can compari- 
 son operate beyond experience? J 
 
 ^Another argument of his is extremely interesting and 
 meets us again in Hume (1711-1776). "All our ideas, 
 sensations, notions, or the things which we perceive, by 
 whatsoever names they may be distinguished, are visibly 
 inactive — there is nothing of power or agency included in 
 them. So that one idea or object of thought cannot pro- 
 duce or make any alteration in another. To be satisfied 
 of the truth of this, there is nothing else requisite but a 
 bare observation of our ideas. For, since they and every 
 part of them exist only in the mind, it follows that there 
 is nothing in them but what is perceived: but whoeVer shall 
 attend to his ideas, whether of sense or reflection, will not 
 perceive in them any power or activity; there is, therefore, 
 no such thing contained in them." Sec. 25. The signif- 
 icance of this argument grows upon one the more one 
 
60 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 reflects. Do we divine any activity in our percepts and 
 concepts? Can we intuit in what we perceive any source 
 of activity which would account for those changes we 
 witness? But if we actually perceived the physical 
 world itself, it would be strange that the inner springs of 
 action, the toil and moil of growth and creation, were not 
 visible. Even magnification does not reveal the activity 
 of change in what we perceive; all it does is to enlarge the 
 objects seen and to render smaller ones perceivable. And, 
 as Berkeley points out, motion is not activity but only a 
 change in position. The conclusion he draws must be 
 admitted. "A little attention will discover to us that 
 the very being of an idea implies passiveness and inertness 
 in it, insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do any- 
 thing, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything: 
 neither can it be the resemblance or pattern of any active 
 being, as is evident from sect. 8. Whence it plainly fol- 
 lows that extension, figure and motion cannot be the cause 
 of our sensations. To say, therefore, that these are the 
 effects of powers resulting from the configuration, number, 
 motion, and size of corpuscles, must certainly be false." 
 
 These are the two main arguments which Berkeley 
 uses against representative perception. The mental can- 
 not be like the non-mental, and the activity which we 
 must conceive of as at the heart of reality is not present 
 in what we perceive. - 
 
 Berkeley's Construction. — Having convinced himself 
 that representative perception of the Lockian type was 
 untenable, Berkeley proceeds to an idealistic construction. 
 He assumes that we can have no conception of the phys* 
 ical world which assigns activity to it. Matter must be 
 inert and passive. But if so, it must be incapable of pro- 
 ducing ideas in our minds. What is passive cannot, he 
 
THE RISE OF IDEALISM 61 
 
 asserts, be the cause of anything. But ideas must have a 
 cause since they are not under our control; they are func- 
 tions of something outside of the individual mind. Now 
 the only experience of activity which we have is that of 
 our own minds. Volition is, for Berkeley, an experience 
 of genuine activity. But it is obvious that we do not pro- 
 duce these ideas in our minds though we can reproduce 
 them in the form of images. Hence, the only thinkable 
 cause of ideas must be something analogous to the finite 
 mind, however different from it in power and vastness of 
 comprehension. Ideas, therefore, must be conceived as 
 the signs of the controlling activities of a supreme mind. 
 Put at its best and simplest and eliminating additional doc- 
 trines which are scarcely as defensible, this is Berkeley's 
 construction. 
 
 It is quite possible to give up representative perception, 
 as Berkeley does, and still hesitate to speculate so boldly 
 about the nature of that which controls in us these orderly 
 percepts of ours. In the preceding chapter, we pointed out 
 how such men as Herz and Helmholtz adopted a sign- 
 theory founded on the recognition of arguments essentially 
 like those of Berkeley. Such a more modest and negative 
 position is the reflex of a hesitation to admit that the phys- 
 ical world must be conceived of as inert and of a doubt 
 whether the analogy from the human mind to a supreme, 
 creative mind is a valid one. Historically, these doubts 
 were first and best expressed by David Hume to whose 
 development of English empiricism we shall next turn. 
 Just as Locke raised questions which he did not satis- 
 factorily answer but which led forward to deeper analyses, 
 so Berkeley forced the human mind to delve more deeply 
 into theory of knowledge. After we have thoroughly di- 
 gested Berkeley's arguments against both Natural Realism 
 
62 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and Representative Realism, we are apt to be baffled in 
 our quest after a reasonable theory of the physical world. 
 What seemed so evidently given to our senses is still there 
 but has lost its stability and permanence. We become con- 
 vinced that the sensible world does not exist apart from 
 perception. Yet we demand that there be something per- 
 manent and stable to control what we perceive and to de- 
 termine the order of our perceptions. What is this con- 
 trolling reality.'* If we still call it the physical world, what 
 justification have we for this use, and how shall we con- 
 ceive it? Berkeley's searching critique of Lockian realism 
 threatened the destruction of all forms of physical realism. 
 Idealism does not Change our Experience. — The be- 
 ginner is only too prone to mis-interpret idealism. It 
 cannot too often be stated that idealism does not change 
 any feature of the individual's experience. It is for this 
 reason that Berkeley claimed, so earnestly, that his outlook 
 was really nearer to that of common sense than was that 
 of Locke with its separation of the primary from the 
 secondary qualities. The sensible world, says Berkeley, is 
 the only physical world and it is as you perceive it. Only 
 it does not exist when it is not perceived. He attacks the 
 independence of the physical world of common sense and 
 not its empirical traits. It is the truth of those realistic 
 meanings of independence, commonness and permanence 
 which he denies. To give them a home, Locke had con- 
 structed a world which could not be directly perceived. 
 Berkeley's solution was different. Having successfully 
 disproved Locke's construction, he appealed to a spiritual 
 realism. *' You may indeed, nay, you must, live and think 
 as if everything remained independently real. That 
 is part of your education for heaven, which God in his 
 goodness provides for you in this life. He will send into 
 
THE RISE OF IDEALISM 63 
 
 your soul at every moment the impressions needed to ver- 
 ify your necessary hypotheses and support your humble 
 and prudent expectations. Only you must not attribute 
 that constancy to the things themselves which is due to 
 steadfastness in the designs of Providence. Think and 
 act as if a material world existed, but do not for a moment 
 believe it to exist." Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, 
 p. 115. 
 
 Gaps in Berkeley's System. — ^A closer examination 
 soon reveals gaps in Berkeley's system. In the first place, 
 he passes too quietly over the question of a common world. 
 We have seen that his arguments lead logically to the con- 
 clusion that the sensible world, which I ordinarily take to 
 be an independent, physical world, is really only my 
 idea. It is a complex of my sensations perceived by my- 
 self. It would seem to follow that we do not perceive 
 the same world but only corresponding and, supposedly, 
 fairly similar worlds. But Berkeley did not wish to break 
 too harshly with common sense; so he slurs over this 
 problem. But one of his main arguments for the existence 
 of a God depends upon the existence of a sensible world 
 which exists whether I perceive it or not, but which must 
 exist in relation to some mind. The only mind which is 
 adequate to perform this function of guaranteeing a per- 
 manent sensible world is a supreme mind. Hence God 
 exists. But we must remember that this sensible world 
 cannot be the sensible world which we individually per- 
 ceive, since that is unique. Thus he really only asserts 
 another mind of a higher calibre, quite arbitrarily, when he 
 believes that he proves the existence of a God in this 
 fashion. 
 
 Another weakness, as we shall see in the next chapter, 
 is his quite inadequate psychology of the self and of voli- 
 
64 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tion. He assumes that we can apprehend the self in the 
 creative role of producing images. He does not distin- 
 guish clearly between his inherited concept of the self as a 
 soul or spirit and the empirical self which he actually 
 experiences. Before philosophy could go much farther, 
 a deeper analysis of * mind * was necessary. 
 
 Keferences 
 
 / Berkeley, Three Dialogues and Principles of Human Knowledge, 
 
 passim. -"•^-^ 
 
 Fraser, Berkeley. 
 
 Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 12. 
 ff^Sd'mg, Histgry^pf Modern Philosophy, vol. 1. 
 Kiilpe, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 3, sec. 26. 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chaps. 4 and 7. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SKEPTICISM 
 
 Bewilderment. — The step from representative realism 
 to idealism was well calculated to produce bewilderment 
 in the minds of those who took philosophy seriously and 
 were able to follow Berkeley's process of reasoning. Many, 
 of course, did not try to understand his arguments. Be- 
 cause they did not know Locke's position, they did not 
 see that idealism was a daring challenge to it. "It has 
 been assumed that he drew no distinction between real 
 things and imaginary things, that he made the world no 
 better than a dream, etc. Arbuthnot, Swift, and a host 
 of the greater and lesser lights in literature, from his time 
 to ours, have made merry over the supposed unrealities 
 in the midst of which the Berkeleian must live." Fuller- 
 ton, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 169. But idealism 
 could not be conquered in this way, for it was the expres- 
 sion of a genuine reflective problem. Natural Realism 
 had broken down. Could representative realism be car- 
 ried through in its place.? To deny that it could involved 
 idealism or something very like it. A more fundamental 
 analysis of human experience had to be made. It was 
 David Hume who began this more searching analysis 
 which has occupied philosophy ever since and is only now 
 showing signs of having reached a satisfactory goal. 
 Hume's reflections led him to skepticism. He could not 
 see that either representative realism or idealism was well 
 based. Locke and Descartes had obviously destroyed 
 
 65 
 
66 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Natural Realism, and Berkeley had just as obviously 
 undermined representative realism. The task which re- 
 mained was to take stock. 
 
 Hume's Summary of Results. — Locke had taught that 
 the primary qualities of matter, which are copied in human 
 ideas, inhere in a material substance of an unknowable 
 character. Descartes' matter is extension and is known; 
 Locke's matter is a "something I know not what in which 
 qualities inhere and which supports them." While ad- 
 mitting that he had no idea of the nature of this underly- 
 ing, unknowable substance which possesses the archetypal 
 primary qualities, he felt unable to relinquish it. His 
 argument is dialectical. Even primary qualities are only 
 qualities and imply something more substantial as a 
 correlative. They must be qualities of something. This 
 something was Locke's corporeal substance. Locke's 
 metaphysical reflection stopped at this point. He was not 
 altogether satisfied and was inclined to express himself hu- 
 morously about the theory. It was Berkeley who showed 
 that the conceptual schema of an underlying, unknowable 
 substance and supported primary qualities was essen- 
 tially meaningless. Hence he rejected such a material 
 substance and refused to go back of sensible things. In 
 this, Hume agreed with him. *' Thus the first philosophi- 
 cal objection to the evidence of sense or to the opinion of 
 external existence consists in this, that such an opinion, 
 if rested on natural instinct, is contrary to reason, and 
 if referred to reason, is contrary to natural instinct, and at 
 the same time carries no rational evidence with it, to con- 
 vince the impartial enquirer. The second objection goes 
 farther, and represents this opinion as contrary to reason: 
 at least, if it be a principle of reason, that all sensible 
 qualities are in the mind, not in the object. Bereave 
 
SKEPTICISM 67 
 
 matter of all its intelligible qualities, both primary and 
 secondary, you in a manner annihilate it, and leave only 
 a certain unknown, inexplicable something y as the cause of 
 our perceptions; a notion so imperfect, that no skeptic 
 will think it worth while to contend against it." Hume, 
 An Enquiry Concerning Human Under standing ^ Sec. XII, 
 Pt. 1. In other words, Hume admits that we are all nat- 
 urally realists but that reason is unable to justify either 
 Natural Realism or representative realism. 
 
 Hume's Attack upon Mental Substance. — Berkeley's 
 animus led him to direct all his critical energy against the 
 physical world. Consequently, he was traditionalistic 
 in his treatment of the mind. It was in this domain that 
 he left an opening for the keen analysis of Hume. Hume 
 was not satisfied to speak of the self, soul, spirit or mind 
 as though these were identical terms and easily understood. 
 Berkeley had spoken of the self as an object of human 
 intuition and had distinguished it from the sensible 
 things perceived. He seems to have regarded it as a sub- 
 stance and the active cause of changes in our images. He 
 also seems to have held that it somehow possessed what 
 is perceived. As a true empiricist, Hume asked the 
 vital question, How do we know this self? Is it, like 
 Locke's material substance, a hypothesis? Or is it pres- 
 ent in experience? His conclusion was epoch-making and 
 began that psychology without a soul which has been 
 dominant. Reflection on the mind-body problem, how- 
 ever, will lead us to an organic mind, a naturalistic 
 version of Berkeley's mental realism. 
 
 Consciousness Is a Flux.^Modern psychologists have 
 decided that the field of the individual's experience is 
 constantly changing. This changing field of experience 
 they call consciousness. Hume was one of the first to state 
 
68 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 this doctrine clearly and unambiguously and with a def- 
 inite idea of its implications. It is such a classic state- 
 ment that it deserves full quotation and interpretation. 
 "For my part," he writes, "when I enter most intimately 
 into what I call myself, I always stumble on some partic- 
 ular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, 
 love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself 
 at any time without a perception, and never can observe 
 any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are 
 removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I in- 
 sensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. . . . 
 Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our 
 perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our 
 sight; and all our other senses and faculties contribute 
 to this change; nor is there any single power of the soul 
 which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for a mo- 
 ment. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several per- 
 ceptions successively make their appearance; pass, repass, 
 glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures 
 and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it 
 at one time, nor identity in different; whatever natural 
 propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and 
 identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mis- 
 lead us. They are the successive 'perceptions only, that consti- 
 tute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place, 
 where these scenes are represented, or of the materials, of 
 which it is composed'^ Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 
 Bk. I, Part IV, Sec. VI.3 
 
 Hume is convinced that we are confined to our changing 
 experiences. There is nothing permanent or substantial 
 about these. The mind is for him but a term for this ever- 
 changing flow of experiences to which each individual 
 is confined. If we suppose that there is a larger world 
 
SKEPTICISM 69 
 
 of existence in which these minds somehow are, we must 
 admit that we cannot experience this world-setting of our 
 minds. We cannot peep out in any Hteral sense to see 
 where we are. We may call this logical conclusion of 
 English empiricism mental pluralism. There are many 
 minds — why should we allow ourselves to doubt that.^ — 
 but how these minds are joined to the rest of reality — ^if 
 there be something more inclusive — we cannot tell. Such 
 is Hume's rugged and fearless skepticism. He has car- 
 ried Locke's representative realism with its theory of 
 knowledge to its logical conclusion. 
 
 Hume*s Rejection of Berkeley's Spiritualism. — It will 
 be remembered that Berkeley based his construction upon 
 certain premises. He assumed with Locke and Descartes 
 that our ideas must be caused or controlled by something 
 external. This something must be active. But the only 
 experience of activity which we have is that of our own 
 minds. Hence mind must be assumed to be the active 
 agent. Our own minds are obviously not powerful and 
 comprehensive enough to account for our orderly percep- 
 tual experiences. Hence we must postulate a supreme 
 mind as the controlling and active agent whose deeds 
 lead us to conceive of physical nature. Such is Berke- 
 ley's chain of reasoning. Let us examine Hume's objec- 
 tions. 
 
 We have already noted that Berkeley had not sufficiently 
 analyzed the subjective side of experience. He seems to 
 have taken it for granted that he experienced a sense of 
 activity in volition of an almost creative or productive 
 sort. It is this that Hume denies. Ideas arise in our 
 minds but we do not know why. The psychologist speaks 
 of the association of ideas and tries to explain their com- 
 ing and going by association processes. But assuredly we 
 
70 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 are not aware of any productive agency in our will which 
 brings forth thoughts. When thoughts come, we are 
 often enough surprised by them. " Volition is surely an 
 act of the mind, with which we are sufficiently acquainted. 
 Reflect upon it. Consider it on all sides. Do you find 
 anything in it like this creative power, by which it raises 
 from nothing a new idea, and with a kind of Fiat, imitates 
 the omnipotence of its Maker, if I may be allowed so to 
 speak, who called forth into existence all the various 
 scenes of nature? So far from being conscious of this 
 energy in the will, it requires a certain experience as that 
 of which we are possessed, to convince us that such ex- 
 traordinary effects do ever result from a simple act of vo- 
 lition." Enquiry, Sec. VII, Pt. I. 
 
 Thus Hume appeals to a keener analysis of experience 
 than Berkeley had made to refute the latter's superficially 
 persuasive argument. We are ignorant of anything of the 
 nature of productive or creative activity as much in our- 
 selves as in sensible nature. ^ , We are aware of directed 
 change hut not of production.\ Modern psychology agrees 
 with Hume's analysis although it is more voluntaristic. 
 
 By means of this extension of analysis, Hume showed 
 that Berkeley's arguments against the existence of a 
 physical world apply equally against the existence of a 
 creative spiritual source. "Were our ignorance, therefore, 
 a good reason for rejecting anything, we should be led 
 into that principle of denying all energy in the Supreme 
 Being as much as in the grossest matter. We surely 
 comprehend as little the operations of one as of the 
 other. Is it more difficult to conceive that motion 
 may arise from impulse than that it may arise from 
 volition? All we know is our profound ignorance in 
 both cases." 
 
SKEPTICISM 71 
 
 Taking Stock. — Many thinkers have been too impa- 
 tient to do justice to Hume's searching analysis. They 
 either have not seen that it was a necessary step or have 
 been offended by his frank rejection of impossible posi- 
 tions. But theory of knowledge is a science and must 
 follow the facts. Let us, therefore, ask ourselves what 
 Hume proved. His very skepticism had its positive side 
 which few thinkers have been capable of seeing because 
 they have been attending to its negative side. This 
 negative interpretation was due to the fact that they could 
 perceive no way out. As soon as such a way opens up, an 
 entirely different setting can be given to Hume's veracious 
 skepticism. 
 
 In the first place, Hume gives up the substance-quality 
 schema for both the physical world and the mental. The 
 mind is for him simply the flow of the individual's field of 
 experience, his changing consciousness. This empirical 
 mind is given and is somehow experienced together. He 
 takes it for granted, moreover, that each individual is con- 
 fined to his own consciousness. In the second place, he 
 sees that, if there are realities outside of these minds, they 
 cannot be perceived nor intuited. He is completely dis- 
 satisfied with representative perception as a theory of 
 knowledge, also, for the reasons advanced by Berkeley. 
 So long as we think of sensible things, it is impossible to 
 separate the primary from the secondary qualities, and it 
 does not seem meaningful to think of something mental 
 as like something non-mental. But a deeper motive ap- 
 pears to have lurked in the background. Our ideas do not 
 introduce us into the dynamic processes in nature. We 
 are obviously outsiders looking at shadow shapes but 
 unable to penetrate into the very process of immanent 
 change which, we are yet convinced, expresses the reality 
 
72 TPIE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of the world. Even the primary qualities are passive and 
 reveal nothing of the tension of creative activity. And the 
 only way to account for this externality of our ideas to things 
 is to admit that Natural Realism has suggested a wrong ideal 
 to the human mind. If physical things themselves were 
 present in the field of experience, more of the secret of 
 their powers and capacities should be revealed in percep- 
 tion. For Natural Realism, to know is essentially to intuit 
 the thing, that is, to be the thing. Its life and nature should 
 not be hidden from us if it, itself, is present for our inspec- 
 tion. There is no reason why this inspection should not 
 be penetrative, sympathetic, revelatory, why the thing 
 should not lose all shame and present its most hidden 
 springs and energies. Such possible knowledge is the 
 knowledge the thing might be supposed to have of 
 itself. 
 
 The question which Hume raises in our minds is this. 
 Has he not shown once for all that such knowledge as the 
 human mind has does not involve either the presence of 
 that which is known in the field of experience or the pres- 
 ence of a substitute copy? His skepticism is a reduction 
 to absurdity of this naive view of knowledge and the 
 preparation for a more searching investigation into the 
 nature of our actual knowledge about the physical world. 
 What, indeed, is the nature of human knowledge? And 
 what are its conditions? It is generally supposed that a 
 German thinker, Immanuel Kant, added to the analysis 
 of experience which Hume had made certain essential ele- 
 ments. For instance, Kant speaks of the categories as 
 essential forms of human knowledge. Let us see what he 
 means by this term and whether it offers a clue to a new 
 departure. 
 
^/ 
 
 SKEPTICISM 73 
 
 References 
 
 Hume, Tjre^we^onJIuman Naturcy Selby-Bigge edition. An 
 
 Enquiry ConcerniJig Human Understanding. 
 Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, chap. 6. 
 Hoffdin^, Histqryi of Modern Philosophy , vol. 1. 
 Huxley, Hume. 
 Knight, Hume, 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 
 
 Kant Tries to Meet Hume's Skepticism. — After Hume, 
 the main current of philosophy swings from the British 
 Isles to Germany. The German philosopher, Immanuel 
 Kant (1734-1804), sought a way of escape from the ap- 
 parently negative conclusions to which Hume had been 
 led. I shall try to give as simple and clear a statement 
 as I can of Kant's teaching and outlook. Kant did not 
 refute Hume, but suggested a more adequate empiricism 
 than Hume's. The strange thing about this empiricism, 
 however, is that it masqueraded as a blend of British 
 sensationalism and Continental rationalism. Experience 
 is, for Kant, a combination of a 'posteriori sensations, due 
 to the stimulation of the mind by an external world, and 
 a priori forms inherent in the mind. 
 
 Thus it is generally acknowledged that Kant stressed 
 the constructive character of the human mind. The world 
 as we experience it is not a gift to our senses but a very 
 complex piece of architecture. Kant tries to lay bare the 
 plans of this mental construction by means of which sensa- 
 tions are organized together and made into sensible things 
 regarded as permanent and common and independent of 
 the self. He speaks of this active production of the 
 distinctions with which we are all familiar as due to the 
 categories, which are asserted by him to be expressions 
 of a Transcendental Ego. 
 
 Into the more technical aspects of Kant's analysis we 
 
 74 
 
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 75 
 
 need not enter. It has been pointed out again and again 
 that Kant's statement of the problem is preevolutionary. 
 He does not regard the mind as a growth but as a creation 
 endowed once for all with certain fixed capacities. When 
 we remember that he wrote in the eighteenth century and 
 under the influence of the Continental philosophers of the 
 seventeenth century we are not surprised at this ungenetic 
 approach. 
 
 Kant Stresses Conceptual Knowledge. — Hume had 
 tended to reduce all our knowledge to the level of associa- 
 tions. He did not do justice to the work of active con- 
 struction and organization which goes on in our minds. 
 On the whole, he was a sensationalist; and this was because 
 he was attacking the older forms of rationalism with their 
 acceptance of a reason that did not have a genetic relation 
 to immediate experience. The consequence was that he 
 did not do justice to actual experience. Association 
 dominates over judgment. 
 
 Hence, in opposition to the over-simplifying tendency 
 of sensationalistic empiricism, Kant inaugurated what has 
 finally come to be a more adequate empiricism. He be- 
 gan by analyzing mathematical knowledge as an actual 
 possession to see what it involved. He came to the correct 
 conclusion that such knowledge is not a mere reproduction 
 of what is given in perception but is a genuine achievement 
 in which new truths are discovered. This result he ex- 
 pressed technically by saying that in mathematics we 
 have a priori synthetic knowledge. It is a priori in the 
 sense that it is not based on particular observations, and 
 it is synthetic in the sense that it is not the statement 
 of a mere analysis of concepts we already possess. We 
 must admit that Kant's protest had value against the 
 psychology and logic of Hume but it is, nevertheless, true 
 
76 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 that he gave his own position a mythological setting by re- 
 taining the older rationalism. Both Hume and Kant have 
 been superseded by the more adequate analyses of modern 
 philosophers. Theory of knowledge is to-day based on 
 the conclusions of modern psychology and logic. 
 
 Two Meanings of the Word Knowledge. — From Locke 
 to Hume, the British thinkers had concerned themselves 
 with the problem of the physical world and the nature 
 and extent of our knowledge of it. Starting with the ac- 
 ceptance of representative perception, they gradually were 
 convinced that we do not possess this kind of knowledge 
 of the physical world. We have seen that their reflections 
 culminated in the idealism of Berkeley and the skepticism 
 of Hume. Thus physical realism came to an impasse. 
 On the whole, philosophers were unwilling to relinquish 
 their belief in a physical world but did not see how they 
 could justify it nor what the content of their knowledge 
 could be. In Scotland, there arose a reaction led by Reid 
 (1710-1796) which sought to return to common sense by 
 sheer force of reiteration. Reid is valuable as a proof of 
 the strength of those realistic meanings to which we have 
 so frequently referred. 
 
 But knowledge can have another meaning. It is that 
 which the human mind accepts. It is that which is judged 
 to be universal and necessary. We all pass judgments and 
 accept propositions. The various sciences are, indeed, 
 nothing but systems of knowledge in this sense. Data, 
 laws, theories, hypotheses, what are these but examples of 
 knowledge.^ We may say, then, that human knowledge 
 consists of those propositions which are tested and ac- 
 cepted as true. That we have such knowledge is an em- 
 pirical fact which nobody doubts. The methods by which 
 it is built up are carefully studied by logic. 
 
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 77 
 
 It is obvious that a 'philosopher can devote his attention to 
 the study of the nature and conditions of actual human 
 knowledge without settling the question of whether there is a 
 physical world and whether we possess knowledge about it. 
 This second kind of knowledge can be examined by the 
 mental sciences without regard to the first meaning of the 
 term. 
 
 Kant and Hume Skeptical of the First Kind of Knowl- 
 edge. — As a matter of fact when it comes to a question 
 of the first kind of knowledge, there is little to choose 
 between Hume and Kant. "Kant did not try to refute, 
 as did Reid, the doctrine, urged by Descartes and by his 
 successors, that all those things which the mind directly 
 perceives are to be regarded as complexes of ideas. On 
 the contrary, he accepted it, and has made the words 
 'phenomenon' and 'noumenon' household words in 
 philosophy." Fullerton, An Introduction to Philosophy^ 
 p. 176. Let us glance at the main outlines of his theory of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Kant speaks of the world we perceive and conceive, the 
 sensible world and the conceptual world of science, as 
 phenomenal. He teaches that sensible things are products 
 of the ordering of sensations under the mental forms of 
 space and time. These spatial and temporal sensation- 
 complexes are then solidified and organized in relation to 
 one another by the categories of substance and causality. 
 The result of all this ordering and organizing of sensations 
 by the mind is the objective world which we actually 
 experience and ordinarily take to be independent of the 
 mind. But Kant admits that there is a real world which 
 controls our sensations. His position in this regard is 
 essentially the same as Hume's. Perhaps the only dif- 
 ference between them is that Hume was better acquainted 
 
78 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with Berkeley's idealism and so expressed himself more 
 skeptically of this ghost of the physical world. So far as 
 theory of knowledge is concerned, then, there is little 
 difference between Kant and Hume. Happily, Kant has 
 expressed himself clearly on this point. "Idealism con- 
 sists in the assertion that there are none but thinking be- 
 ings, all other things, which we think are perceived in 
 intuition, being nothing but representations in the think- 
 ing beings, to which no object external to them corresponds 
 in fact. Whereas I say, that things as objects of our 
 senses existing outside us are given, but we know nothing 
 of what they may be in themselves, knowing only their 
 appearances, i. e.y the representations which they cause 
 in us by affecting our senses. Consequently I grant by 
 all means that there are bodies without us, that is, things 
 which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are in 
 themselves, we yet know by the representations which 
 their influence on our sensibility procures us, and which 
 we call bodies, a term signifying merely the appearance of 
 the thing which is unknown to us, but not therefore less 
 actual. Can this be termed idealism? It is the very con- 
 trary." Kant's Prolegomena^ Sec. 6, Remark 2. 
 
 While Kant's use of terms is not as accurate as could be 
 desired, it is easy to make out his meaning. The objects 
 within the field of human experience are mental and are 
 to be called phenomena, while the conditions of those 
 objects, which are extra-mental, are to be called things-in- 
 themselves or noumena. The Kantian thing-in-itself is 
 that "unknown, inexplicable something, as the cause of 
 our perceptions^' of which Hume speaks. The phenome- 
 non is, for Kant, a function of the interaction of the mind 
 and this necessarily assumed realm of things-in-themselv6s. 
 Like Hume, he has rejected representative realism and has 
 
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 79 
 
 landed in skepticism. Because he does not doubt the 
 existence of this realm outside of the field of the individ- 
 ual's experience but only our possession of knowledge of it, 
 his position is called agnosticism. We are forced to believe 
 that there is an extra-mental world but we can never know 
 its nature. 
 
 Kant's Doctrine of the Categories. — We have already- 
 said that Kant began a more adequate analysis of experi- 
 ence than had been developed up to his time. What we 
 shall try to do now is to indicate the real contribution he 
 made and to separate the drift of his teaching from his 
 somewhat confused statement of it. Hume did not do 
 justice to the structural side of experience. He was too 
 much of a sensationalist to be a true empiricist. From 
 Berkeley he had accepted the view that we do not possess 
 abstract ideas but are actually limited to 'impressions' 
 and their fainter reproductions called images. He seems 
 to have thought of the field of the individual's experience 
 as simply a cluster of such impressions and images. 
 
 Kant saw that this analysis was quite inadequate. 
 Knowledge involves very complex ideas somehow under- 
 stood as wholes. "Columbus discovered America in 
 1492" is a complex proposition which is yet grasped to- 
 gether as a significant assertion. Logic can never admit 
 Hume's atomistic sensationalism for a moment. It is not 
 true to experience as we actually have it. Kant sought 
 to remedy Hume's error by introducing another kind of 
 mental element which, combined with sensations and im- 
 ages, would account for experience as it is. His problem 
 may be called one in structural psychology. What can 
 we add to sensations to make percepts, concepts, judg- 
 ments and systems of scientific knowledge.? Kant taught 
 that the mind in its own right contributes unsensational 
 
80 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 elements, or forms, and combines these with sensations 
 in such a way as to give us our actual experience. These 
 unsensational elements he calls the categories. 
 
 The problem which Kant raised is, as we have suggested, 
 one for psychology and logic to solve. Do we ever begin 
 with atomic sensations? Are not relations and meaning^ 
 present in our Experience from the first .^ Modern psychol- 
 ogy answers "no" to the first question and "yes" to the 
 second. Hume made a false start and Kant was too much 
 influenced by the old rationalistic notion of the reason as 
 a distinct faculty to make a fresh beginning. 
 
 Percepts are experienced as unitary objects having 
 various distinguishable aspects. The meaning of per- 
 manence is infused into them and so we regard them as 
 things. Along with this meaning is that of independence. 
 These meanings give the percept the appearance of sub- 
 stantiality and together constitute what Kant calls the 
 category of substance. In other words, percepts are prod- 
 ucts into whose making we can penetrate somewhat only 
 by reflection and experimental analysis. The psycholo- 
 gist thinks of the percept as the reflection in consciousness 
 of the functioning together of a system of neurones asso- 
 ciated together. Is the unity of the percept an element 
 which corresponds to this functioning together.^ At any 
 rate, Kant, who thought of it as contributed by a rational 
 faculty, calls it a category. 
 
 Perceptual objects, again, appear in the field of experi- 
 ence as suggesting other objects with which they have 
 been connected. The individual reflects upon the order 
 in which his experiences come and is led to postulate a 
 causal relation. This objective relation by means of which 
 events are combined into systems is a further distinction 
 which must be recognized. It, too, Kant calls a category. 
 
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 81 
 
 When, at the present day, we come to reflect upon 
 Kant's demand, we see more clearly than he did that he is 
 demanding an adequate logic of science and a psychology 
 which harmonizes with it. This demand is being met by 
 both logic and psychology, by the latter perhaps more 
 slowly than by the former. Both of these mental sciences 
 acknowledge the presence of meanings and concepts in 
 the field of the individual's experience. Such is the more 
 adequate empiricism for which Kant almost unwittingly 
 paved the way. 
 
 Kant Thinks of the Categories as Subjective. — Sup- 
 pose we take space, time, substantiality, causality and 
 individuality as categories, that is, as fundamental charac- 
 teristics of our organized knowledge. Kant thinks of these 
 elements as subjective in a double sense. They do not 
 arise in our experience as meanings growing out of the 
 behavior of perceptual objects, and they are contributed 
 by an Ego which has no apparent relation to the world 
 of things-in-themselves. Thus Kant has no evolutionary, 
 genetic idea of the categories which would permit of their 
 being responsible to an objective control. On the contrary, 
 they are innate possessions of a determinate and subjective 
 understanding. 
 
 For Kant, then, the categories are subjective in two 
 senses. They are innate and they have no significance 
 for the world of things-in-themselves. Let us consider 
 the first meaning of the term subjective first. The his- 
 torical setting of Kant's teaching will make this meaning 
 clear. 
 
 Wolff, a predecessor of Kant, had taught that the cate- 
 gories are actual entities in a world independent of the 
 mind, a view which savors of Cartesianism. The mind 
 possesses concepts of these categories and these concepts 
 
82 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 are intuitions or representations of an independent reality. 
 We may speak of this outlook as representative conception 
 or intuitionalistic rationalism. The idea of knowledge 
 is evidently analogous, to say the least, to representative 
 perception. Wolff's theory of knowledge is of interest 
 to us because our own view must be contrasted with both 
 his and Kant's. The point is, that Kant makes an ad- 
 vance upon Wolff's representative conception that cor- 
 responds to the step taken by Berkeley and Hume past 
 representative perception. Knowledge cannot be a copy- 
 ing of an external reality. Wolff's theory of knowledge 
 can be outlined as follows : 
 
 World of Consciousness World of Reality Indepen- 
 dent of Conscious- 
 ness. 
 Sensations of Color 
 Sensations of Sound, etc. 
 Conceptions of Substances Real Substances 
 Conception of Cause Real Causality 
 
 Conception of Space Real Space 
 
 Conception of Time, Real Time, 
 
 etc. etc. 
 
 (cf. Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy ^ p. 199.) 
 
 Sense 
 
 Thought 
 
 It is interesting to find that Hobbes (1588-1679) main- 
 tains an essentially similar position. He distinguishes 
 between real and imaginary space and asserts that the 
 latter is an effect in us of the former. Based upon this 
 causal relation, he seems to imply a cognitive value for 
 the imaginary space. It is a category in the Wolffian 
 sense. "The extension of a body is the same thing with 
 the magnitude of it, or that which some call real space. 
 
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 83 
 
 But this magnitude does not depend upon our cogitation 
 as imaginary space doth; for this is an effect of our imagi- 
 nation, but magnitude is the cause of it; this is an accident 
 of the mind, that of a body existing out of mind." Hobbes, 
 Concerning Body, chap. VIII, sec. 4. And he defines this 
 term accident for us in the following way: "They answer 
 best that define an accident to be the manner by which 
 any body is conceived; which is all one as if they should 
 say, an accident is that faculty of any body by which it 
 works in us a conception of itself." Ibid., sec. 2. 
 
 In opposition to Wolff and Hobbes, Kant taught that 
 the categories exist only in the mind. He did not believe 
 that they could possibly have any reality or significance 
 apart from human consciousness. We might paraphrase 
 Berkeley's teaching and say that Kant's view was that a 
 category could be like nothing but a category. Imaginary 
 space cannot be like or furnish a conception of a real space 
 or magnitude outside of the mind. Hence Kant drew again 
 the skeptical conclusion already drawn by Hume. Knowl- 
 edge can be only a presentation of constructs within ex- 
 perience. Knowledge is a knowledge of phenomena within 
 experience. But if the world of things-in-themselves is 
 neither spatial nor temporal, it would seem to be nonsense 
 to speak of it as the physical world. The only physical 
 world there is for Kant is, therefore, the world of sensible 
 things as this is developed and organized by the physical 
 sciences; and this realm of objects obviously exists in 
 human experience only. While different from the ob- 
 jects of the imagination and not, like these, under 
 the control of our desires and wishes, it is yet only 
 mental. 
 
 We shall now make use of the more adequate empiri- 
 cism which has grown up since the days of Hume and 
 
84 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Kant in order to find a way out of skepticism. Is there 
 not another possible meaning for knowledge besides rep- 
 resentation? And if so, may we not possess genuine 
 knowledge of an independent reality which can rightly 
 be called physical? Two investigations are necessary 
 if we are to fulfil this purpose. We must study the field 
 of the individual's experience and the distinctions char- 
 acteristic of it, and we must analyze the reference and 
 character of the knowledge actually possessed by us.rMay 
 it not be that representative realism is the expression of a 
 wrong interpretation of knowledge, an interpretation still 
 biased by the assumptions of Natural Realism? Must 
 knowledge be considered the possession of mental objects 
 which are like entities outside the mind? If representative 
 realism is founded on a misconception of knowledge, the 
 idealism of Berkeley and the agnosticism of Hume and 
 Kant can be regarded as its reductio ad dbsurdum. \ As yet, 
 I can only give the hint that reflection must pass from the 
 attitude and habits associated vnth perception to the dis- 
 tinctions characteristic of judgment if it is to gain the proper 
 notion of what knowledge is. I think that it must by now 
 be clear to the student that representative realism did not 
 take this step. To know by means of ideas which are 
 like physical reality is only an indirect perception. For 
 this reason, the view of knowledge held by representa- 
 tive realism has usually been called representative per- 
 ception. 
 
 We shall now try to avoid the psychological and 
 logical blunders of Hume and Kant by getting in touch 
 with the advances made in these two mental sciences 
 since their day. The result should be a more adequate 
 empiricism than Kant, with the best of intentions, could 
 achieve. We shall be led to distinguish between the 
 
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 85 
 
 categories, as characteristic features of both percepts 
 and cognitive ideas, and the mental capacities which con- 
 dition the individual's consciousness. Kant confused 
 these two things because of his rationalistic bias toward 
 innate ideas and his acceptance of a given manifold. 
 
 References 
 
 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason and Prolegomena. 
 
 Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, chap. 7. 
 
 Hoffding , History o£ Modern Philosophy, vol.^ 2. 
 
 Paulsen, Kant. 
 
 Prichard, Kant's Theory of Knowledge. 
 
 Wenley, Kant and His Philosophical Revolution. 
 
/ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FIELD OF THE INDIVIDUAL'S 
 EXPERIENCE 
 
 From Natural Realism to Descriptive Empiricism. — 
 In the preceding pages, our thinking has moved progress- 
 ively from the standpoint of Natural Realism to what 
 may be called descriptive empiricism. After the break- 
 down of common-sense realism, we passed to the study of 
 certain typical thinkers of the past and watched the deep- 
 ening of the problem set for our thought. More and more 
 the conclusion grew up within us that a critical knowledge 
 of the individual's experience was a pre-condition of the 
 solution of these problems. Instead of starting with a 
 hasty view of what knowledge must be, let us try to dis- 
 cover what human knowledge actually is and how it arises. 
 Let us carefully examine the distinctions characteristic of 
 experience and then watch them develop under the stimu- 
 lus of reflection. The brief study we have made of certain 
 typical philosophies, will surely help us in our effort to 
 carry through such a critical study. Philosophy must be 
 founded upon a genuine empiricism. 
 
 / Both common sense and science hold that there is an in- 
 /dependent, material world and that we have pretty direct 
 * knowledge of it. At the more naive level, the belief is 
 that the individual perceives physical things and that the 
 actual physical world is thus open to his inspection. 
 Knowing is seeing. "All unreflective thought is in a 
 certain sense sensualistic, because it regards sense percep- 
 
 86 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE 87 
 
 tion as the most reliable source of knowledge. The Greek 
 word oida — I know, is the perfect tense of the root id, 
 which signifies to see. Knowledge, therefore, in the popu- 
 liir understanding of the Greeks, was originally equivalent 
 to having seen. An interesting proof for this popular con- 
 ception is found in the passage of Homer's Iliad, 2, 484ff., 
 where the poet appeals to the muses, who are able to see 
 everything and who, therefore, know all things. It is, 
 furthermore, characteristic of this stage of thought to 
 identify the processes of perception and reflection, the 
 latter being regarded as a species of sense perception." 
 Jerusalem, An Introduction to Philosophy^ p. 89. At a 
 more critical level, either something of the nature of a 
 copy-theory of knowledge is implicitly held or the nature 
 of knowledge is shoved into the background by the cer- 
 iainty that we do have knowledge. That this should be 
 the case is very natural, and it is very interesting to find 
 that Locke often slips back into this attitude in spite of 
 his evident desire to be critical. With Locke, there was 
 a fair balance between the certainty that we have knowl- 
 edge and the curiosity to know exactly what knowledge 
 is. With the less speculative man, on the contrary, assur- 
 ance overpowers such tendency to analysis as may exist. 
 
 The critical examination of the history of modern philos- 
 ophy has led to the following conclusions: Reflection early 
 breaks down Natural Realism and some form of repre- 
 sentative realism takes its place. Knowledge is now re- 
 garded as the possession of ideas which are like the physical 
 world. This outlook is obviously an adjustment to the 
 forced admission that ideas and not physical things are 
 present to inspection. Only think of ideas as like things 
 and you need scarcely regret Natural Realism. Locke 
 pushed forward to selective representative realism under 
 
88 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the suggestion of physics. Only certain aspects of our 
 ideas are really like physical things. These are the pri- 
 mary qualities. But further reflection (Berkeley, Hume 
 and Kant) revealed that this adjustment is untenable. 
 Can ideas be like things? More and more this view of our 
 knowledge of the physical world was doubted. The result 
 was skepticism or, to use a more modern term, agnosticism. 
 It is true that Berkeley hastily erected a spiritualistic meta- 
 physics to take the place of the deposed physical world, 
 but his hasty construction was set aside by Hume.QBut 
 Hume's skepticism has a positive as well as a negative side. 
 This positive side is the anticipation of what is to-day 
 called positivism. If we can gain no knowledge of an inde- 
 pendent realm, does not such a realm lose all meaning for 
 science? Must we not consider the physical world, then, 
 as only a name for the objects which we perceive and con- 
 ceive and which we organize into a system characterized 
 by empirically discovered laws? Of only one kind of 
 knowledge can we be certain, the knowledge which con- 
 sists of the objects which we apprehend, and this un- 
 deniable knowledge exhausts the content of both science 
 and common sense. We called this the second meaning of 
 knowledge. All that can be known, sensible things, facts, 
 laws and theories, is within experience. What we appre- 
 hend and understand is mental. The skeptic will say: 
 "There may or may not be an independent physical world; 
 we may or may not have knowledge of it; but we can at 
 least be certain of the mental objects we apprehend." 
 Skepticism is, after all, a relative position.^) 
 
 Whose Experience? — Hobbes, Berkeley, Locke and 
 Hume did not doubt that the individual is confined to his 
 own field of experience or to his own consciousness as it is 
 usually called. You cannot share with me in any literal 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE 89 
 
 sense my feelings, percepts, concepts and judgments. 
 Your consciousness does not overlap mine as one line 
 crosses another and so shares with it a common point. 
 Each person somehow lives in his own world even though 
 he 'communicates' with others and understands what 
 they are thinking about. Of course, we have here a gen- 
 uine problem for reflection. If each of us lives in his own 
 consciousness, what is communication and mutual under- 
 standing? 
 
 Locke contrasted the one physical world with the many 
 minds which know it and which it affects. Berkeley fol- 
 lowed Locke and accepted a plurality of minds. Hume 
 adopted the same position as obvious and indisputable. 
 Unfortunately, these thinkers were so engrossed with the 
 problem of the physical world that they did not see that 
 this pluralism of minds which they accepted involved a 
 similar problem. If I am confined to my own conscious- 
 ness, how can I know that you exist any more than I can 
 know that an independent physical world exists.? In a 
 very real sense, you are for me a construct in my conscious- 
 ness just as the perceived and conceived objects are which 
 common sense takes to be physical things. We must 
 conclude that these thinkers did not carry their analysis 
 to its logical implication and so missed a real clue to the 
 correct meaning of knowledge. 
 
 Mental Pluralism and Solipsism. — Solipsism is a term 
 which we shall meet with again later and we may as well 
 become acquainted with it in the present connection. As 
 a term in theory of knowledge, it means that the individual 
 can know only objects which are in his personal field of 
 experience or consciousness. But if an individual can 
 know only his own personal mental objects, what right 
 has he to assert that there are other persons besides him- 
 
90 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 self? Assertions must be based on knowledge. He may 
 have faith that there are other persons, but faith is a dif- 
 ferent affair. Now the majority of critical thinkers to-day 
 are of the opinion that Hume*s position involves solipsism. 
 But we all feel that a position that involves solipsism is 
 imperfect, that it has not solved the problem of knowledge. 
 In fact, I am inclined to regard solipsism as one of the 
 crucial tests of a theory of knowledge. If it leads to such 
 an absurdity, we must think again. 
 
 If we cannot apprehend an independent reality either 
 directly (Natural Realism) or indirectly (representative 
 realism), how can we know anything outside of our own 
 consciousness? But other selves are in the same situation 
 as the physical world; for they are by definition inde- 
 pendent realities. He who has failed to solve the problem 
 of knowledge for the one has failed for the other. Knowl- 
 edge seems to involve an impossible transcendence of one's 
 own consciousness. Can it be denied that reflection faces 
 genuine problems? 
 
 Kant's Appeal to Consciousness-In-General. — The 
 British empiricists held to mental pluralism to the last 
 though the rejection of representative realism logically 
 landed them in solipsism. They did not realize their 
 danger because they were interested in the problem of the 
 physical world and in psychological analysis. The rejec- 
 tion of Natural Realism by John Locke is partly founded 
 on, and is certainly bound up with, the physiological theory 
 of perception to which we referred in an earlier chapter 
 (Chapter III). If my ideas are caused by the stimulation 
 of my senses, they cannot be identical with yours which 
 are functions of the stimulation of your senses, however 
 similar we may suppose them to be. Both Berkeley and 
 Hume presuppose this way of approach even though they 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE 91 
 
 reach conclusions not entirely harmonizable with it. Thus 
 Hume calls sensations impressions and Berkeley speaks of 
 the senses. We may say, then, that the British empiricists 
 assume that each individual is confined to his own field of 
 experience. I analyze my consciousness and state what I 
 find and expect that you who analyze your own experience 
 will reach similar distinctions. 
 
 But Kant made a new departure which has had vicious 
 results. From it has flowed what is called objective idealism, 
 which may best be described as an attempt to combine 
 realism with idealism by an appeal either to a supreme 
 and all inclusive mind or to a logical abstraction called 
 consciousness-in-general. Because Kant's departure from 
 the previous tradition in philosophy had such important 
 consequences, it is necessary to study it in some detail. 
 
 Kant distinguishes between what he calls the tran- 
 scendental self and another self which he calls the empirical 
 self. The transcendental self is essentially a logical func- 
 tion which expresses itself in the categories to which we 
 referred in the previous chapter. It is identical and per- 
 manent while the empirical self is momentary and many- 
 colored. This transcendental self is a thinking, active, 
 synthetic, organizing self which lies in the background and 
 builds up the field of experience from the manifold of pas- 
 sive sensations which are presented to it. To express 
 this theory of a necessary agent Kant often refers to it as 
 the synthetic unity of apperception. But he goes even 
 farther than this. He asserts that the transcendental self 
 is a universal self. Let us see why he does this. It must 
 be remembered that Kant sometimes writes as though he 
 were making a descriptive analysis of experience and 
 sometimes as though he were developing theories to ac- 
 count for what is given in experience. His main argument 
 
92 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 for the belief that there is a universal self is, however, as 
 follows: There are things in space outside me and I am 
 able to contrast these things with my private ideas. 
 Kant insists that there is a fundamental difference be- 
 tween these two types of objects. Apparently, he assumes 
 that percepts are private ideas while phenomenal objects 
 are common and essentially neutral objects. But both 
 of these objects are mental. Therefore we must assume 
 two different kinds of selves to which to attach them. 
 Corresponding to the phenomenal object in space is the 
 transcendental self which is a universal self. Correlative 
 to the percept is the empirical self. What must we say 
 of this construction? 
 
 A little reflection must convince one that Kant is build- 
 ing upon an unreal distinction. We do not perceive per- 
 cepts which are non-spatial. What the common-sense 
 man calls a physical thing, open to his observation, the 
 psychologist calls a percept. Kant duplicates the im- 
 mediate objects of apprehension in the field of the in- 
 dividual's experience (consciousness) and calls the one a 
 personal idea and the other an object or phenomenon out- 
 side of me. And this is a tremendous blunder which 
 vitiates his whole philosophy. Had he read Hume a little 
 more carefully, he would have become aware that he was 
 guilty of what Hume calls the philosophical hypothesis, 
 that is, the duplication into thing and percept of w^hat is 
 immediately perceived. Thus Kant duplicates objects in 
 the field of the individual's experience and connects one 
 with the empirical self of the individual and the other 
 with a self created for the purpose, a universal, tran- 
 scendental self. In this way, he is able to be a realist, so 
 far as the individual is concerned, and yet be an idealist, 
 in an abstract sense, by making the neutral object mental 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE 93 
 
 and correlative to this universal self. But as soon as we 
 realize that there is no need for this duplication, we see 
 that his construction is false and ungrounded. Mental 
 objects, whether dominantly perceptual or conceptual, exist 
 only in the fields of experience of particular individuals. 
 Kant*s analysis is a blunder. We must return to the men- 
 tal pluralism of the British thinkers. 
 
 The Standpoint of Descriptive Empiricism. — Let me, 
 then, attempt to describe my field of experience in the hope 
 that others will discover this description holds for their 
 fields. I shall endeavor to find what elements are given 
 in my field and how they are arranged. Such an empirical 
 description, which is not in the service of any epistemologi- 
 cal theory, is the only satisfactory foundation for an episte- 
 mology. But what is this descriptive empiricism.? It is 
 a description by the individual of his field of experience on 
 the basis of an inspection deepened here and there by 
 introspection. 
 
 The Subject-Object Contrast. — Philosophers have 
 been accustomed to speak of a subject-object relation as 
 present in experience. We must ask ourselves whether 
 there is anything of this nature given in the field of the 
 individual's experience. When I remark that I see this 
 book, what exactly is given in my experience? So far as I 
 can make out, nothing but the perceptual object which I 
 call the book and, in contrast to it, a self-feeling merging 
 with my attitude of attention to the book. This self- 
 feeling merged with the attitude of attention is called by 
 philosophers the subject-self. Thus my present field of 
 experience is a togetherness of elements in which there is a 
 duahty, the perceptual object in spatial relation to my 
 body and the feeling of attention centered in my body and 
 surrounded, as it were, with my sense of bodily existence 
 
94 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and attitude. Such ideas as come and go float vaguely 
 between these two poles of my field though they tend to 
 approach the subject-self more closely than they do the 
 perceptual object. 
 
 The object pole of the field is usually clearly given. We 
 are outward-looking and mainly interested in the things 
 which we apprehend. At this moment, the object side 
 of my field is clear and complex. I see many objects, 
 books, scattered sheets of paper, a typewriter in the fore- 
 ground, a wall covered with light wall-paper and a pic- 
 ture hanging a fit tie above in the background. At the level 
 of Natural Realism, these apprehended objects would 
 be called physical, and for me they are penetrated by these 
 realistic meanings. But other kinds of objects may also 
 be apprehended. I can think of mathematical objects, 
 physical hypotheses, ideals of conduct, policies of state, 
 and the gods of Greece. In all of these cases, I am outward- 
 looking and inspect the more or less changing pole of ob- 
 jects known. And I know now that all these things are 
 parts of my field of experience. 
 
 The subject pole is less clearly given as a rule. Some- 
 times I am so engrossed in the object side that I forget 
 myself, that is, hardly feel myself. The college student 
 who witnesses a crisis in a foot-ball game lives in the visual 
 field of moving players. But, ordinarily, I am more or 
 less aware of myself in both perception and conception. 
 What is this self, and what is the nature of this awareness? 
 So far as I can make out, it is entirely empirical and con- 
 sists of a more or less conscious purpose suffused with or- 
 ganic sensations and with the sensations coming from the 
 head, especially the eyes and forehead. This contrasted 
 background over against which the object is set is an at- 
 titude which fluctuates from a sense of bodily presence to 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE 95 
 
 the higher level of plans and purposes experienced dimly 
 as my plans and purposes. And this me which enters is 
 the self which has grown up in my body in touch with, 
 and as qualifying, this subject pole of outward-looking at- 
 tention. As I become more and more self-conscious in my 
 inspection of objects, this subjective background swells 
 by the intussusception of self-elements which, though 
 within the field of attention, accept the contrast of the 
 two poles of experience and ally themselves with the back- 
 ground of attitudes. It is clear that descriptive empiri- 
 cism leads me, at least, to side with Hume as against Berke- 
 ley. Hume, however, did not do justice to the structure 
 of the field of experience; he did not realize the importance 
 of this contrast between the two poles of the field. 
 
 The Elementary Unity of Togetherness. — The field of 
 the individual's experience, however complex, is yet a 
 unity. It is, as it were, an expanse in which many things 
 and feelings are present together. They are relatively dis- 
 tinct, yet continuous. Thus the subject-object contrast 
 exists within a more comprehensive unity. It is a differ- 
 entiation within the field which does not really separate 
 what are contrasted. It is this fact of presence together 
 which the contrast presupposes and which makes the one 
 pole really an object and the other pole really a subject. 
 Philosophy has been accustomed to recognize this situa- 
 tion of presence together in contrast by the use of the rather 
 ambiguous term, relation. There is no subject without an 
 object, it is said, and there is a subject-object relation 
 between them. I fear that this relation is a fictitious 
 entity if it means more than this presence together in the 
 field of experience. 
 
 Is the Self Dominant in the Field of Experience? — 
 Many of the older philosophers assumed that the seK was 
 
96 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 an agent which dominated the field of experience. It will 
 be remembered that this was Berkeley's view. Ideas 
 (objects in the field) are satellites of the self. But de- 
 scriptive empiricism cannot assent to this view which is 
 too evidently a theory rather than a fact. The role played 
 by the self varies in different situations. In ordinary 
 perception, the subject-self is only a vaguely felt presence 
 which can best be described as an attitude and the seat of 
 shifts in attention so far as these are voluntary. In all 
 clear apprehension, this is the case. But when problems 
 arise which demand reasoning and interpretation, the face 
 of the field of experience changes. Reasoning and inter- 
 pretation are processes which seem to intervene between 
 the subject-self and the objective pole. They are processes 
 wliich take time and involve the intervention of ideas, 
 or thoughts, which are tentative objects which have a 
 function to perform and therefore occupy a middle posi- 
 tion between the subject-self and the object pole. The 
 self is more conscious of a purpose at this time, more 
 visited by bustling plans and feelings, more vibrant to 
 the presence of these ideas and suggestions in the middle 
 ground of the field. I am reasoning about these things. 
 The subject pole reaches out farther into the field and 
 the middle of the field is now a swift current flowing 
 between the subject-self and the more stable realm of 
 objects. 
 
 In desire, and still more in conscious planning and will- 
 ing, the subject-self acquires new emphasis. There is a 
 swing inward of the attention to ideas which are thought 
 of as ways of expressing personal wishes and ideals. And 
 such wishes, ideals and purposes arise tinged with the 
 feeling of possession. They are objects, but objects at- 
 tached to tendencies which are rooted in a tense back- 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE 97 
 
 ground of vague feeling and attitude, which is the home of 
 the subject-self. 
 
 The conclusion which descriptive empiricism draws in 
 answer to the question whether the self is dominant in the 
 field of experience is essentially negative. Usually objects 
 are more dominant than the self. At other times, the 
 processes of reasoning and reflection intervene and widen 
 the field. These processes are often spoken of as subjec- 
 tive processes. That term is misleading. At the level 
 of Natural Realism, they are regarded as mental in con- 
 trast t-o the objects perceived. This classification thrusts 
 them nearer to the subject-self than they actually belong. 
 Very often in reasoning we live in the things which fur- 
 nish us with the problem. Even in reasoning we may be 
 essentially outward-looking. At still other times, the sub- 
 ject side of the field of experience is dominant, though 
 practically never despotically so. Thus the field of the 
 individual's experience is like a body of water moved by 
 the tide. Now this, now that is lifted into prominence 
 and then subsides. And, like the living ocean, it is in 
 constant change. 
 
 References 
 
 Alexander, Aristotelian Society Proceedings, 1910-11. 
 Bradley, Appearance and Reality, chap. 9. 
 Russell, TheJProhlems of Philosophy, chajp. 4. 
 Dunlap, Psychological Review, 1914. 
 Fletcher, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 15. 
 Moore, The Refutation of Idealism, Mind, vol. 28. 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chaps. 4 and 5. 
 Ward, Art. Psychology, Ency, Britannica. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE FIELD 
 
 Two Dimensions of the Field. — Descriptive empiricism 
 finds that the field of the individual's experience has two 
 dimensions which may be called the coexistential and the 
 temporal. In the preceding chapter we indicated a char- 
 acteristic contrast in the coexistential dimension, m>., 
 that between the subject-self and the objects which are 
 present to it. At the level of Natural Realism, this con- 
 trast is interpreted as a distinction between the concrete 
 individual who perceives and the physical world which is 
 perceived. It is obvious that both terms of this contrast 
 lend themselves to the introduction of meanings of meta- 
 physical import. We tend to think of the objects we per- 
 ceive as substantial and independent realities and to con- 
 sider the other term of the contrast, the perceiver, as also 
 a substantial and independent reality. But we now realize 
 that this is an interpretative development of a distinction 
 within the field of the individual's experience. In this in- 
 terpretative development of the subject-object contrast 
 within the field of experience into the outlook of Natural 
 Realism we can see the work and growth of those pene- 
 trative meanings which Kant called the categories. Yeiy 
 often, Natural Realism lends itself to a more reflective 
 position called Natural Dualism, the acceptance of two 
 hinds of reality, mind and the physical, which are somehoio 
 given together and are yet clearly qualitatively different. In 
 just such a hasty way is both popular and even scientific 
 
 98 
 
DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE FIELD 99 
 
 philosophy built up. But the student will now realize 
 that such reifications of parts of the field of the individ- 
 ual's experience, however natural and however great their 
 significance as demands, cannot be admitted. Descriptive 
 empiricism calls a halt and asserts that we must try to 
 understand the distinctions within experience before we 
 go on to either a theory of knowledge or a metaphysics. 
 
 But the field of experience not only has a coexistential 
 structure but it also has a temporal growth.^ It is con- 
 stantly changing as regards its contents. Just as we are 
 convinced to-day that it is impossible to understand the 
 structure of animals without some knowledge of their 
 history, so we are becoming convinced that the field of 
 experience, its structure and contents, is made clearer by a 
 genetic approach. On the whole, psychology has been of 
 the most assistance here. It is now seen that the objects 
 in the field are constructs, or growths, which can be par- 
 tially explained by logic and psychology. Of course, 
 logic and psychology cannot derive the material which is 
 woven into these objects. They cannot, for instance, 
 explain why we see red colors and taste sweet and sour 
 flavors. But they can trace the laws of growth and con- 
 struction in the complex field the adult experiences. Psy- 
 chology speaks of the laws of association by contiguity 
 and similarity, while logic stresses abstraction and general- 
 ization. We shall refer to this genetic study of the field 
 of experience again and again in explanation of the dis- 
 tinctions characteristic of the coexistential dimension. 
 
 The Coexistential Dimension Favors Realism. — We 
 have seen that the coexistential dimension is the seat of 
 
 * The pragmatists have done yeoman's service in stressing this sec- 
 ond dimension of experience. Their epistemologieal ohtuseness has been 
 due to their neglect of the first dimension. 
 
100 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the contrast between the subject-self and the part of the 
 field which consists of objects apprehended. At the level 
 of common sense, this contrast is interpreted entirely real- 
 istically. I suppose that I perceive the actual physical 
 thing itself. And no wonder, for it is the only thing I 
 can apprehend and it is shot through with realistic mean- 
 ings. Natural Realism is natural; any other attitude at 
 this level of reflection would be surprising. And Natural 
 Realism easily passes into Natural Dualism, the accept- 
 ance of two given realities of quite different nature. Car- 
 tesianism is mainly a rationalistic refinement of Natural 
 Dualism. 
 
 In the study of the outlook of common sense in an earlier 
 chapter, we stressed the growth of realistic meanings in 
 experience. It may be of interest to note that we can find 
 the basis for this structure and for these meanings in our 
 instincts themselves. Take fear for instance. Does it 
 not imply attention to something which is felt as other 
 than ourselves? Thus the instincts involve a structure 
 of the field which arises in consciousness, a tension of 
 organic reaction to the perceptual object which is the 
 stimulus to this reaction. Many writers have laid stress 
 upon the experience of resistance as the foundation of a 
 sense of otherness; but I am inclined to lay more stress 
 upon the necessary duality within experience which the 
 instincts involve. This genetic problem is, however, a 
 task for the psychologist. The philosopher must study 
 the field of experience as it is and then assist the psycholo- 
 gist to explain it. 
 
 The Temporal Dimension Opposes Natural Realism. — 
 We are aware of the result of genetic processes. They come 
 to us as things and attitudes given. It is only closer 
 study that presents us with glimpses of the processes 
 
DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE l^tEhp ; 101 
 
 which have gone to the making of our perceptual and con- 
 ceptual objects and the meanings which permeate them. 
 But the more we study logic and psychology, the more we 
 gain insight into the silent processes which weave our 
 world. This knowledge, however, works directly against 
 Natural Realism. If what we see are products of processes 
 essentially personal and connected with human organisms, 
 how can they be actual physical things? Hence, genetic 
 study reenforces the work of reflection and helps to break 
 down Natural Realism. 
 
 Things and Ideas. — In an earher chapter (Chap. 2) 
 it was pointed out that the outlook of common sense is 
 not systematic. The distinctions within experience are 
 more complex than the form of Natural Realism which we 
 have stressed is inclined to admit. I have found that 
 students who come into an introductory course in philos- 
 ophy hesitate between asserting that they perceive phys- 
 ical things and that they perceive ideas somehow con- 
 nected causally and cognitively with physical things. 
 There seems to me no doubt that this distinction is vaguely 
 present and that it can be made to stand out clearly if 
 reflection is directed upon it. If the physiological theory 
 of perception is accepted, or if the distinction between 
 the thing and its appearance is run down, the conclusion 
 follows that ideas (percepts) are apprehended and physical 
 things beheved in. "I think it is scarcely too much to say 
 that the plain man believes that he does not directly per- 
 ceive an external world, and that he, at the same time, 
 believes that he does directly perceive one. It is quite 
 possible to believe contradictory things, when one's 
 thought of them is somewhat vague, and when one does 
 not consciously bring them together." Fullerton, An 
 Introduction to Philosophy, p. 33. 
 
log TliE FSSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 This distinction is developed pretty definitely by psy- 
 chology. Consciousness comes to be a term which in- 
 cludes all the objects which are apprehended, whether 
 these be perceptual or conceptual in character, and op- 
 posed to this class of objects is the physical world as this 
 is somehow known by the physical sciences. The psycholo- 
 gist does not bother his head very much over the ques- 
 tion as to how the physicist can know a physical world 
 if he cannot perceive it. He takes it for granted that he 
 can and simply follows the logic of his own reflections. 
 We may say, then, that the distinction between consciousness 
 and the physical world is only a reflective development of the 
 plain man*s distinction between ideas and things. Both 
 are inevitable distinctions which press home to the re- 
 flective mind a definite problem. The first distinction 
 raises the question. How can we know that there are 
 things and what they are like if we perceive only ideas? The 
 second, more developed distinction is the source of a deeper 
 question. How can we know the physical world, which 
 we assume, if we are confined to objects in consciousness? 
 "It is evident that the working adjustment between 
 psychology and the physical sciences is one that has grown 
 up on the basis of the contrast-meanings of common 
 sense and been strengthened by the respective methodolo- 
 gies and standpoints of the two groups. It is not one that 
 has a systematic epistemology on which to rest." Sellars, 
 Critical Realism, pp. 48-99. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten that we do have this dis- 
 tinction within experience. It is an empirical distinction 
 whose significance must be interpreted by a wise and pa- 
 tient philosophy. 
 
 Sense and Imagination. — ^The writings of Locke are 
 a store-house of shrewd distinctions. He points out that 
 
DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE FIELD 103 
 
 an idea from actual sensation and another from memory 
 are very distinct experiences. Ideas of memory and im- 
 agination can at pleasure be laid aside. "But if I turn my 
 eyes at noon towards the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas 
 which the light or sun then produces in me. So that there 
 is a manifest difference between the ideas laid up in my 
 memory (over which, if they were there only, I should 
 have constantly the same power to dispose of them, and 
 lay them by at pleasure), and those which force them- 
 selves upon me and I cannot avoid having." Essay, Bk. 
 4, Ch. XI, sec. 5. 
 
 We are all aware of this distinction, and there can be 
 little doubt, that it plays some part in the growth of a 
 realistic attitude toward the world we perceive. "To the 
 objector who urges that the fire may be all a dream, Locke 
 never tires of begging him *to dream this answer'; that 
 there is a manifest difference between dreaming of being 
 in the fire and being actually in it, and at any rate the pain 
 of the second experience makes the difference between our 
 weal and woe, and determines us practically." 
 
 Now it must not be supposed that the reflection which 
 breaks down Natural Realism teaches that we can ignore 
 this distinction. Philosophy does not make the foolish 
 attempt to deny any feature of the individual's experience. 
 Because I call the object I see a percept, it does not follow 
 that I can have the experience of walking through it. 
 
 A Thing and the Thought of It. — The distinction be- 
 tween a thing and the thought of it is somewhat different 
 from that discussed just above. The first form of the dis- 
 tinction between a thing and the thought of it exists 
 clearly at the level of Natural Realism. For common 
 sense, there are two ways of knowing things, knowing 
 them immediately by perception and knowing them con- 
 
104 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ceptually, or representatively, when they are absent. In 
 the first ease, the things themselves are present to in- 
 spection; in the second case, they are absent and yet 
 present cognitively. This presence in absence is the pres- 
 ence of an idea, thought or concept of them. I apprehend 
 an idea which is taken as a substitute for the thing so far 
 as my cognitive purpose is concerned. The thought or 
 concept has grown up in my mind in genetic touch with 
 the thing as I perceive it. For this reason, I take it natu- 
 rally as a representative of and, therefore, a cognitive sub- 
 stitute for the thing. It is this function of replacement 
 which is signified by the preposition *of.' It is not the 
 thing but an idea of the thing. 
 
 But even at the level of Natural Realism the field of 
 experience is not quite so simple as this. When I try to 
 make such representative knowledge clearer in regard to 
 its structure, I find that I have an accepted sphere of 
 existent things some of which are qualified as not present 
 to my apprehension and, as it were, between them and 
 myself, as knower, an idea, or thought, which is qualified 
 as my thought of an absent, independent thing. The idea 
 means the thing and this meaning qualifies the idea — is, 
 in fact, an essential part of it. 
 
 It should be noted that this distinction is purely em- 
 pirical and is characteristic, at times, of the field of the 
 individual's experience. Knowledge of things in their ab- 
 sence is a genuine contrast within experience based on the 
 capacity of the mind to distinguish spheres of existence. The 
 coexistential dimension of the field of experience becomes 
 more complex than in perception. I can distinguish be- 
 tween myself as knower, the idea which contains knowl- 
 edge, and the realm of objects known. The idea is con- 
 sidered mental and yet as having the function of containing 
 
DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE FIELD 105 
 
 knowledge of the reality it means. Thus I now have 
 an idea of the Capitol at Washington and distinguish be- 
 tween it and the actual Capitol which it means. The 
 Capitol is present, not literally, but only in the sense that 
 it is referred to and meant. It is the reference of the idea 
 and not an apprehended object. It is not present in the 
 field of the individual's experience except as meant; and 
 we are all inclined to hold that such meaning is a mental 
 affair. 
 
 Reflection on these Distinctions. — ^AU these distinc- 
 tions are more or less clearly present at the level of com- 
 mon sense. We must now ask ourselves how they can be 
 adjusted to each other at a more reflective level. The dis- 
 tinction between sense and imagination obviously requires 
 no marked adjustment. The psychologist connects this 
 contrast, however, with the difference between peripher- 
 ally-aroused and centrally-aroused experiences and so 
 brings it into touch with the physiological theory of per- 
 ception. The contrast between things perceived and 
 my thought of them when they are absent also needs little 
 adjustment. Things perceived must now be called per- 
 cepts and considered mental. Both elements of the con- 
 trast are now seen to be mental, and the genetic relation 
 which enables the one to be like the other to such a degree 
 becomes comprehensible. We understand why the idea 
 can mean the thing. It is the revival of the percept in 
 another setting, and it is this setting and our reaction 
 toward it which qualifies it as an * idea of.' 
 
 At the level of Natural Realism, the thing which I mean 
 and of which my idea contains knowledge is continuous 
 with the things which I now apprehend. Thus the realm 
 of objects known to which I contrast my idea is the per- 
 ceptible world of supposedly independent physical things. 
 
106 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Thus University Hall, although I cannot at this moment 
 see it and can only have an idea of it, is assigned to the 
 same class of things as those which I perceive as I look out 
 of the window here on Prospect Street. Thus I contrast 
 the spheres of existence of the idea which means and the 
 object which is meant. The one is the physical world, the 
 other belongs to the mental realm. This contrast is em- 
 pirical and we are all aware of it. 
 
 But when this contrast meets the contrast between 
 things and ideas, as this latter develops around the prob- 
 lem raised by the breakdown of Natural Realism, serious 
 reflection is demanded. [^If we accept the distinction be- 
 tween percepts and the realities, outside of the field of ex- 
 perience, which control them or, in other words, the distinc- 
 tion between the sphere of consciousness and an unperceiv- 
 able physical world, it would seem that ideas in the cog- 
 nitive or representative sense are only ideas of percepts. 
 They are ideas of percepts of (controlled by) physical 
 things. They give us knowledge of percepts, and it must 
 be remembered that they claim to give us knowledge of 
 what we perceive. But it must also be remembered that 
 common sense takes the things perceived, which are 
 steeped in all the knowledge that can be gained about them, 
 to be independent physical things. It would seem, then, 
 that the idea of what is perceived is, as regards its content, 
 very little different from what is really at once perceived 
 and conceived. Hence, if the percept is conditioned — 
 though not mechanically — by an extra-mental realm, 
 the idea is also controlled. Can reflection advance be- 
 yond this point? If we cannot take the position that con- 
 trolled ideas are like that which indirectly controls them, 
 is there yet in this control a justification of the reference 
 to the physical world of what the human mind is forced 
 
 / 
 
DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE FIELD 107 
 
 to consider knowledge? The mind seems to be in touch 
 with the physical world and to reflect it actively in its 
 own medium. Perhaps the solution is that knowledge does 
 not imply anything of the nature of a likeness between two 
 apprehended or potentially apprehensible objectsTj In that 
 case, the flaw in representative realism does not lie in the 
 rejection of Natural Realism but in the retention of an 
 external and totally inadequate view of knowledge really 
 based on Natural Realism. For Natural Realism, knowl- 
 edge is the apprehension of the reality; for representative 
 realism it is the indirect apprehension of the reality, either 
 an apprehension through likeness as with Locke or through 
 an identity of essence as with Aristotle and his modern 
 follower, Santayana. 
 
 In the next chapter we shall pass to the standpoint of a 
 more critical realism by showing how reflection, working 
 hand in hand with logic, develops a meaning for the first 
 kind of knowledge (Chap. VII) which is able to admit 
 that the physical world is neither directly nor indirectly 
 apprehended. As a preparation for this deeper insight 
 into knowledge, we must note both the character of the 
 reference in knowledge and the nature of the content of 
 critical knowledge. 
 
 References 
 
 Fletcher, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 23. 
 Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 4. 
 Locke, Essay, bk. 4. 
 
 Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chap. 5. 
 Stout, Aristotelian Society Proceedings, 1910-11. 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 5. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THESE 
 DISTINCTIONS 
 
 What Is a Percept? — There are two ways of approach 
 to percepts and perception, viz., from the side of psychology 
 and from the side of the logic of science. These two ways 
 of approach are fairly distinct and should not be confused. 
 The first way of approach is genetic and analytic; the 
 second stresses the part played by perception in the 
 achievement of knowledge. 
 
 At the level of Natural Realism, the percept is taken to 
 be an independent thing which is perceived. But when 
 we study this object of which we are aware, we soon 
 realize that it exists only within the field of the individ- 
 ual's experience. Logic and psychology have succeeded 
 fairly well in determining the conditions of these mental 
 objects which appear to us so ready-made. They are 
 growths whose history and conditions are being more 
 clearly understood the more psychology is given a biolog- 
 ical setting. *Terception, being the apprehension or 
 awareness of an object, stands in a determinate, albeit 
 indirectly determinate, relation to behavior. If there is 
 no one inevitable response to an apple, a dog, a tree, or a 
 man, there is at least a set of alternative possible modes 
 of response within which the actual response will probably 
 fall. Our customary and appropriate ways of treating an 
 apple are characteristically different from our customary 
 and appropriate ways of treating a dog or a man. Just 
 
 108 
 
REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 109 
 
 what particular response is demanded by an object on any- 
 given occasion depends on the situation of which the object 
 is a constituent or factor. As a matter of fact, it is just 
 this characteristic relationship to behavior which consti- 
 tutes the very essence of objectivity. A certain complex 
 of nervous excitations, e. g., the * visual appearance,' 
 the * smell,' the 'feel' of the apple, have become organ- 
 ized into a percept solely through the fact that they have 
 come to call out a distinctive sort of behavior, have 
 become coordinated into a functional whole. So again, 
 a complex group of retinal excitations become organized 
 into a visual perception of an apple because it has come to 
 function as a whole in determining response." Grace A. 
 de Laguna, The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and 
 Scientific Methods, vol. XIII, no. 23. But this is not all. 
 There are no fixed limits for the content of this object. 
 All the knowledge that we acquire joins itself to the per- 
 ceptual nucleus and deepens the content of the object 
 we think of ourselves as apprehending. What it "does" 
 to other objects, its spatial relations, its properties, all 
 these elements of knowledge enter into the percept and 
 coalesce with it. But this deepening of the content of the 
 perceptual thing does not conflict with the spatial boundary 
 with which the percept begins. All of the added knowl- 
 edge attaches itself to the colored, tangible, spatial object 
 in the field and penetrates it. 
 
 So soon as we realize that the object is a mental growth, 
 we are not surprised at its capacity to absorb these more 
 conceptual elements, the knowledge about the thing which 
 we gradually gain and henceforth read into the content 
 of the perceptual object. Logic has taken up the growth 
 of the percept at this point and studied the continual in- 
 troduction of new elements. In perceptual judgment. 
 
110 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 we start from a content about which there is no doubt and 
 add, or reject, new relations and properties which suggest 
 themselves. This process of growth can go on almost 
 indefinitely. But the main point for us to note is that it 
 goes on within the schema of Natural Realism, which is 
 only a natural interpretation of the empirical objectivity 
 which percepts possess, until reflection forces a re-inter- 
 pretation. All of us tend to live and think within the 
 common distinctions which have grown up. It would be 
 strange were we not to identify perceptual objects with 
 parts of the physical world. Why.? Because, until re- 
 flection arises, they are one and the same thing for us. 
 
 The Logical Function of Perception. — When we enter 
 the realm of science, we find another setting for the term, 
 perception. A new demand has been introduced which 
 subordinates the common-sense outlook. The preferable 
 term is observation. We are not dealing with perceived 
 things. Instead, we are seeking /ad of observation^ and the 
 demand which governs the investigator is responsibility 
 to such facts. The contrast between perception, in the 
 sense of observation as furnishing the factual foundation 
 of a scientific investigation, and perception as the appre- 
 hension of a physical thing, as it is mainly for common- 
 sense realism, can be brought out in the following way: 
 At the level of Natural Realism, I say that I perceive a 
 red book. Redness is a quality of the book as a physical 
 thing. The scientific investigator asserts that he sees a 
 red color or has a red sensation when light waves are re- 
 flected from the surface of a physical thing so far from him 
 and in such a direction. It should be noted that all the 
 elements of this fact are either themselves facts or theories 
 founded upon facts. The simplest fact is, that he sees a 
 red color. But this fact is enlarged by its connection with 
 
REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 111 
 
 other facts, a source of illumination, absorption and re- 
 flection, direction and distance of the reflector. Slowly 
 and carefully these facts are discovered and tested and 
 related to one another and theories built up to explain 
 them. When we study the logic of science, then, we are 
 forced to conclude that perception is a term for the oc- 
 casion of these primary facts. And such facts are judg- 
 ments. 
 
 Scientific Knowledge an Achievement. — It is impos- 
 sible for us to enter into the history of any particular 
 science at this time. What we can do, however, is to 
 analyze the foundations of a science like physics and the 
 logical steps involved in its present form. Logic has no 
 concern with the history of a science for its own sake but 
 only so far as it helps to throw light upon the structure 
 of the science. Now when we come to analyze physics, 
 we find that its foundation consists of certain postulates 
 which have been suggested by experience and confirmed 
 by it, certain primary units of measurement with their 
 corresponding definitions, certain classes of empirical 
 facts and an established technique. Examples of such 
 postulates are the uniformity of nature, the relative con- 
 stancy of standard units, the value of the laws of thought, 
 etc. The majority of scientists also assume the existence 
 of a non-mental and independent world, but this assump- 
 tion, while natural and, I believe, justified, is not neces- 
 sary for the growth of the science. A typical unit of meas- 
 urement is the unit of mass, the gram. Other units are the 
 centimeter and the second. These three units are called 
 the fundamental units, and other units expressible in 
 terms of them are called derived units. Classes of empiri- 
 cal facts are the phenomena of motion, sound, light, heat 
 and electricity. 
 
112 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 When we come to analyze any system of physical knowl- 
 edge, we find that it consists of facts organized together 
 and interpreted in terms of theories and hypotheses. 
 These facts are not percepts, but propositions of an elementary 
 character for which observation is an occasion. Take the 
 experiments of Regnault on the velocity of sound. " Be- 
 tween the years 1862 and 1866 Regnault carried on an 
 exhaustive series of experiments for the determination of 
 the velocity of sound both in the open air and in the water 
 and gas pipes of Paris. In his researches Regnault made 
 use of an automatic recording apparatus, by means of 
 which an electric current was broken at the instant of 
 firing the gun, and the interruption of the current was 
 recorded upon a smoked paper carried upon the drum of a 
 chronograph. At the receiving station the sound wave 
 entered a wide cone, at the smaller end of which it im- 
 pinged upon a thin rubber membrane, and setting it in 
 motion broke a second electric current, and so completed 
 the record upon the cylinder of the chronograph. By this 
 means it would seem that the difficulties of personal equa- 
 tion were entirely obviated, but it was found that the 
 membrane itself required time to receive and record the 
 sound wave. The motion of the air particles cannot be 
 imparted to the membrane instantly, and so a delay is 
 caused in making the record, which is not constant but 
 increases as the sound grows more faint. Regnault made 
 experiments to determine the amount of this error, and 
 allowed for it in his computations. 
 
 " In his experiments upon the velocity of sound in tubes, 
 Regnault arrived at the following conclusions: 
 
 " (a) In cylindrical pipes the intensity of the sound wave 
 decreases with the distance, and more rapidly in small 
 tubes than in large ones. 
 
REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 113 
 
 " (b) The velocity of sound diminishes with the inten- 
 sity. Loud sounds travel faster in tubes than faint ones. 
 
 " (c) The velocity of sound in pipes increases as the 
 diameter of the pipe increases, tending toward a limit in 
 very wide tubes. 
 
 *' (d) The velocity is independent of the pressure, and 
 of the mode of production of the sounds. 
 
 *' Regnault gave as the result of his investigations, after 
 all corrections had been applied, the value for a faint 
 sound in a very wide tube, at 0° C. 
 
 Vo = 330.6 ,^" 
 The logic of such an investigation is of more interest to a 
 philosopher than it has usually been supposed to be. Is 
 it not evident that the attitude is not identical with that 
 of common sense, however much the scientist speaks of 
 things? The data which he establishes and on which he 
 bases his conclusions are obtained by observation but they 
 are not perceptual things. In Inductive Logic, the methods 
 of science and the means taken to avoid error are care- 
 fully studied, but it is seen that the data are propositions 
 or elementary judgments conditioned by observation of a 
 selective character within a setting of definitions, methods, 
 theories and postulates. That we can achieve satisfactory 
 data, agreed upon by all, is the prime condition of any sci- 
 ence. But these data must not be regarded as percepts. 
 That has been the mistake of the sensationalist in philoso- 
 phy and, I fear, of those philosophers too dominated by 
 the older British tradition of Locke, Berkeley and Hume. 
 Modern philosophy must be founded on logic as well as on 
 psychology. Or, better yet, it must be founded on de- 
 scriptive empiricism interpreted by logic and psychology. 
 It must be granted that science founds its conclusions upon 
 facts and that such facts are propositions. Observation 
 
114 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 (perception) is only the occasion of the discovery of facts. 
 In other words, scientific facts cannot be reduced to sensa- 
 tions as so many philosophers have supposed. 
 
 But scientific data are the foundation and the occasion 
 of the whole theoretical superstructure which we call 
 scientific knowledge. And just as the data are proposi- 
 tions, so are the laws and theories which organize and inter- 
 pret them. But the logical reference of these laws and 
 theories is not downward to the facts but onward to the 
 realm about which the scientist is seeking to gain knowl- 
 edge. Such, at least, is the distinction which naturally 
 arises in the mind of the scientist until it is met and chal- 
 lenged by idealism of the Berkeleian sort or by skepticism. 
 The laws and theories are supposed to refer to, and hold of 
 processes in nature outside of consciousness (the field of 
 the individual's experience). 
 
 We may say, then, that science achieves systematic 
 knowledge in terms of propositions; that these propositions 
 belong to two logical levels, fact and explanation; that 
 explanations are founded on facts and stimulated by them 
 but do not simply refer back to them; that the systematic 
 knowledge so achieved is thought of as holding for a realm 
 independent of consciousness. It is knowledge of the 
 second kind, but it is also accepted as knowledge of the 
 first kind, that is, knowledge about an independent reality. 
 
 A Re-statement of the Distinction Between Things 
 and Ideas. — In the preceding chapter, we saw that both 
 common sense and science are inclined to admit that we 
 perceive ideas and not things. While common sense 
 fluctuates between the two positions and, on the whole, 
 is prone to accept Natural Realism, science is distinctly 
 in favor of the belief that we perceive ideas conditioned by 
 an extra-mental and extra-cerebral realm. We noted that 
 
REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 115 
 
 the physiological theory of perception is accepted by both 
 the physical and the mental sciences and that the result is 
 the distinction between consciousness and the physical 
 world. But descriptive empiricism points out that this is 
 a distinction within the field of the individual's experience. 
 It should be noted that this distinction has a factual basis 
 and harmonizes with the arguments advanced by us in the 
 chapter entitled "The Breakdown of Natural Realism." 
 But this developed contrast between two spheres of exis- 
 tence is the condition of the puzzling problem of theory of 
 knowledge, How can the individual possess knowledge 
 about a realm outside of consciousness if he is confined 
 to consciousness.'^ 
 
 The False vs. the Correct Form of this Question. — 
 This question is so primary that we must be certain that 
 we have stated it correctly and have conceived the two 
 realms from the proper standpoint. As we shall see, it 
 makes all the difference in the world for our conception of 
 knowledge what setting we start from. 
 
 Theory of knowledge has usually started from a false 
 statement of the question, somewhat as follows : How can 
 we have knowledge of extra-mental things if we can ap- 
 prehend only objects (ideas) in consciousness? W^hen we 
 examine this form carefully, we note that the word thing 
 is used for the extra-mental reality. But this term suggests 
 to the mind something to he apprehended which yet cannot 
 he apprehended. In other words, the setting of the term 
 is that of Natural Realism. But for us now, this is only 
 another way of saying that the natural structure of the 
 coexistential dimension of the individual's field of experi- 
 ence leads us to think of knowledge as an apprehension of 
 objects. Hence, the breakdown of Natural Realism led 
 thinkers like Locke to substitute the copy-theory of knowl- 
 
116 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 edge. The objects we apprehend are ideas but such ob- 
 jects must be like extra-mental realities if they are to be 
 proper representatives of them and so give us knowledge 
 of them. The important point to bear in mind is that 
 knowledge is conceived as an indirect apprehension through 
 likeness. Since we cannot apprehend these extra-mental 
 realities, the best we can do is to apprehend ideas which 
 are like them, and, so far as they are like them, these 
 ideas give us knowledge of them. Hence, we called 
 Locke's position selective representative realism. Ideas 
 are like things as regards certain features, the primary 
 qualities. Is it not obvious that this whole tendency, 
 which has been so imperative in past philosophy, is based 
 on a view of knowledge which reflects the structure of the 
 field of experience. In other words. Natural Realism and the 
 copy-theory which grows from it are natural illusions. That 
 is why they die so hard. What we must try to do is to get 
 back of these illusions and explain them in the light of 
 reflection. 
 
 But if we give up the tendency to suppose that we ap- 
 prehend things and begin with the scientist's use of per- 
 ception as an occasion for the attainment of fact, we soon 
 realize that facts are judgments and not objects appre- 
 hended. Upon the basis of these facts, systems of knowl- 
 edge are achieved which are referred to an extra-mental 
 reality as containing knowledge about it. This way of 
 approach does away with the habits and outlook built up 
 around the perceptual constructs which are given in the 
 field of experience; and when it is carefully carried through 
 by logic, the tendency to think of knowledge as a direct 
 or indirect apprehension is thwarted. Why is this.f^ A 
 little reflection shows that it is because the setting of 
 common-sense realism is essentially disregarded. 
 
/ REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 117 
 
 ' The correct form of the question is, then, as follows: 
 How can we have knowledge of an extra-mental realm if the 
 propositions which contain this knowledge exist only in con- 
 sciousness? As soon as this correct form is given, it is 
 realized that there is really no problem. W^here else should 
 knowledge exist? But such propositions, while they are 
 understood and so are objects to which we attend, are not 
 like the perceptual constructs toward which we adopt a 
 realistic attitude at the level of common sense. We do not 
 think of these propositions as things. V^e may put this 
 argument in a more technical form by saying that the 
 category of thinghood is not applied to propositions. 
 
 Let us note further differences in the logical situation. 
 Perception is now a means to knowledge, whereas in the 
 false setting perception is the presence of a thing known. 
 But if perception is merely a means to knowledge, the 
 propositions which are knowledge cannot be referred to 
 percepts which are present in experience or to things like 
 them outside of experience. In other words, there is no 
 motive to a copy-theory of knowledge. Knowledge is 
 genuine knowledge and nothing else. In science, then, 
 we achieve knowledge of a realm distinct from conscious- 
 ness and this knowledge must not be thought of as an at- 
 tempt to copy this realm. Knowledge is not reducible 
 to likeness between constructs in experience and tilings 
 outside of experience. The setting of genuine knowledge 
 must be fundamentally distinguished from that which 
 grows up around Natural Realism. The ideas of which 
 Locke, Berkeley and Hume speak are mental objects 
 having the setting of Natural Realism. That is why they 
 put the question wrongly and Hume drew the proper 
 reductio ad ahsurdum of skepticism. The ideas of the Brit- 
 ish empiricists are images, not propositions. 
 
118 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Is the Distinction Between Consciousness and a 
 Realm Outside Justifiable? — Many philosophers who 
 have wished to avoid skepticism and have not seen the 
 solution just advanced have sought to escape the diflSculty 
 which Hume so frankly acknowledged by denying the ne- 
 cessity for the distinction between consciousness (the field 
 of the individual's experience) and a realm independent 
 of it. But this distinction is not founded upon the illusory 
 side of Natural Realism; instead, it is founded upon those 
 very facts which help to break it down. Since we have 
 already devoted a chapter to these facts, it is unneces- 
 sary to reexamine them here. I can see, then, no neces- 
 sity to deny this fundamental distinction between the 
 individual's consciousness and a realm outside of, yet con- 
 ditioning, it. What is necessary is the relinquishment of 
 any concept of this extra-mental realm which reflects 
 Natural Realism. Let us hold to the facts and follow their 
 lead doggedly. 
 
 Analysis of the Term Extra-Mental. — The philosopher 
 has to be on his guard against all sorts of insidious impli- 
 cations in his terms. It will be remembered that we in- 
 sisted that the British philosophers were right in their ac- 
 ceptance of mental pluralism and that Kant made a 
 vicious mistake when he constructed a logical self of a 
 universal character. We must not forget this conclusion 
 when interpreting the contrast between the knower's con- 
 sciousness and the extra-mental realm. What each indivi- 
 dual who reflects asserts is, that there is such a transsub- 
 jective realm outside of his own mind as a realm of per- 
 cepts, judgments, and feelings. But what should we mean 
 by this metaphorical term * outside '.^^ The reasons which 
 sustain the contrast should give us the necessary clue. 
 
 The facts which lead to the breakdown of Natural Real- 
 
REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 119 
 
 ism indicate that percepts are not actually physical things 
 as we, at first, suppose them to be. Now I judge that the 
 term extra-mental signifies just this, the denial that any 
 element in the field of the individual's experience is iden- 
 tical with any part of this other realm. Along with this 
 view goes a gradual development of different meanings for 
 these two realms. The fundamental concepts for the 
 physical realm are developed already, in an inadequate 
 form, by common sense and this development is continued 
 by the physical sciences. The same is true for conscious- 
 ness; only here the deepening of the concepts applicable 
 to the mental is the work of the mental sciences, especially 
 psychology. 
 
 It will be necessary to examine these contrasted groups 
 of concepts more fully when we come to the mind-body 
 problem. At present, the main point to be noted is that, 
 for theory of knowledge, extra-mental has two meanings, 
 first, not identical with any element in my consciousness, 
 second, non-mental in the sense that the concepts applica- 
 ble to consciousness are not applicable to this other realm 
 which conditions what appears in consciousness. But non- 
 mental must not be construed into anti-mental, the posi- 
 tion that this physical realm is alien to, and excludes, 
 consciousness. In a later chapter we shall treat of this 
 distinction between the non-mental and the anti-mental 
 much more fully. The setting of human knowledge will 
 become clearer with the solution of the mind-body prob- 
 lem. We shall see that the ' knower * is an organism 
 ijpmersed in, and continuous with, the physical world. 
 I^A Definition of Critical Realism. — The position at 
 which we have arrived belongs to the general class called 
 critical realism, although it is a unique species of that 
 class. It is opposed to Natural Realism, on the one hand, 
 
120 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and to idealism and skepticism, on the other. While 
 Natural Realism holds that we apprehend the physical 
 world, itself, in perception, critical realisms as a class deny 
 this. In opposition to idealism, critical realism asserts 
 that there is a physical realm independent of conscious- 
 ness, while, in contrast to skepticism, it asserts that we 
 can have genuine knowledge about such a physical, non- 
 mental realm.' A 
 
 \^ But the form of critical realism which we have been 
 developing is constructed around a view of knowledge 
 which differentiates it sharply from other forms of realism. 
 Knowledge of this non-mental, physical realm is neither 
 direct nor indirect apprehension Instead, it consists of 
 propositions built up by the human mind according to 
 logical methods and held to contain knowledge of this 
 physical realm. Locke's position is a form of critical 
 realism but it is constructed around the assumption that 
 knowledge of the physical realm is an indirect apprehen- 
 sion. The position championed in this book may be called 
 a non-apprehensional critical realism. The traditional 
 critical realism, on the other hand, has been opposed to 
 naive realism but has been built up around an impossible 
 view of scientific knowledge. * 
 
 Theory of Knowledge Needs Logic. — The charge that 
 modern philosophy has based itself too exclusively on 
 psychology to the disregard of logic is justified with refer- 
 ence to representative realism. While logic must not con- 
 flict with psychology, the standpoints of the two sciences 
 are different. Of the two, logic has the more natural out- 
 look, psychology the more artificial. If we want to know 
 what knowledge is, it will be wiser to go to modern logic. 
 We shall not, then, try to reduce facts to sensations nor 
 judgments to images. By approaching knowledge from 
 
REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 121 
 
 the side of logic v/ith its stress upon judgments and proposi- 
 tions as the ultimate units of cognition, we shall the more 
 easily escape the lure of Natural Realism and of its first 
 cousin, representative realism. It is not too much to say 
 that the failure of British empiricism to solve the problem 
 of knowledge was due to lack of recognition given to judg- 
 ment. In the following chapter, we shall proceed to study 
 our actual knowledge in the light of logic. 
 
 References 
 
 Dewey, How We Think y chap. 8. 
 Hobhouse, Theory of Knowledge ^ chap. 11. 
 Marvin, A First Book in Metaphysics, chap. 3. 
 Mill, Logic, bk. 3, chap. 7. 
 Sellars, Essentials of Logic, chaps. 7 and 17. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Knowledge Involves Judgment. — When we ask our- 
 selves what we mean by the term, knowledge, we soon find 1 
 it impKes the capacity to pass judgments. "When I 
 say of a certain person, *I know him, he is an acquaintance 
 of mine,' it means the same as : ' I can give you the name 
 of the man who is approaching yonder, I know many 
 things concerning him, know his business, his vocation, 
 and perhaps also remember having had this or that ex- 
 perience with him.' To say that I know a plant, means: 
 I am in position to define the plant botanically, to give its 
 name, and that I know the place to which scientific in- 
 vestigation has assigned it in the classification of plants." 
 Jerusalem, An Introduction to Philosophy^ p. 62. But 
 investigation has shown that even our percepts involve 
 a vast amount of interpretation and construction. The 
 psychologist informs us that what we "see" is a function 
 of sense-stimulus and past experience. Somehow the 
 mind works to the formation of that which appears in the 
 field of experience. The deeper experience is, the more 
 meaning and content is there in what is perceived. As we 
 pointed out in the preceding chapter, all of the added 
 knowledge attaches itself to the colored, tangible, spatial 
 object in the field and penetrates it. 
 
 The more the interpretative extension of the percept, 
 the greater is the possibility of error and the more are we 
 aware that we are passing a judgment. " Take the affirma- 
 
 122 
 
THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 123 
 
 tion, *That is a cab/ assuming it to be made from merely 
 hearing a sound. In this we can much more nearly sepa- 
 rate the datum or minimum of sense from our enlargement 
 or interpretation of it, and we know that our interpreta- 
 tion is liable to be wrong; that is to say, the reality into 
 which we ought to construe the sound may be some other 
 kind of vehicle, and not a cab. Now compare this with 
 the affirmation, *That (which I see) is a cab.' This judg- 
 ment of sight-perception, though its terms are more in- 
 extricably interwoven, has just the same elements in it as 
 the judgment of sound-perception, * That (which I hear) 
 is a cab.' In the sound-perception the structure is quite 
 plain. A particular complex quality in the sound suggests 
 as its objective explanation, what is perfectly distinguish- 
 able from it in thought, the movement of a cab on a par- 
 ticular kind of pavement. The quality of the sound, its 
 roughness, loudness, increase and decrease, all form points 
 of connection with the sound of a cab as we know it, and 
 with the speed, weight, etc., of such a vehicle. But it is 
 quite easy to consider the sound in itself apart from its 
 interpretation, and we sometimes feel the interpretation 
 to be more immediate, and sometimes more inferential. 
 We sometimes say, *I hear a cab,' just as we say, *I see 
 one,' but in case of sound we more often perhaps say, 
 *That sounds like — ' such and such a thing, which indicates 
 a doubt, and the beginning of conscious inference." Bos- 
 anquet, The Essentials of Logic, pp. 31-2. Thus there are 
 different levels in this mental construction of the world 
 we apprehend and recognize and gain knowledge about. 
 When we are led to stress the process of its attainment, 
 we point out the continuous interpretation which is going 
 on in our minds. When we are in a less philosophic mood, 
 we take this achieved world as something for granted. 
 
124 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 something existent apart from our minds. In other words, 
 we ordinarily hve in the attitude of Natural Realism. The 
 field of experience has a structure, and specific problems 
 of interpretation arise within and pre-suppose that struc- 
 ture. As I understand it, it is the realm of things and rela- 
 tions taken for granted and not now under fire which is 
 what Bosanquet calls "the reality into which we ought 
 to construe the sound." Does this world of things, con- 
 tinuous with the house in which I am, contain a cab just 
 outside my window on the street, or some other vehicle.'^ 
 
 Thus particular judgments have a setting which has 
 gradually grown up, and this setting is realistic. The: 
 technical way of putting this situation is somewhat as 
 follows: "Every cognition is therefore an intellectual ap- 
 prehension of a given content, which is itself distinct from; 
 the cognition. Every cognition, furthermore, is consum- 
 mated in the form of a judgment, and whoever pronounces 
 this judgment, in the firm conviction of having attained a 
 cognition, is thereby convinced at the same time that the 
 cognized object, or the cognized event really exists and is 
 really constituted just as it appears to be, independently 
 of the fact whether it is cognized or not." Jerusalem, 
 Ibid., p. 62. Another way of expressing this character- 
 istic and setting of judgment is as follows: "Every judg- 
 ment then affirms something to be real, and therefore 
 reality to be defined, in part, by that something*" Bosan- 
 quet, Ibid., p. 32. 
 
 Judgment Defined. — ^There are many definitions of 
 judgment, varying slightly in their form or their emphases. 
 Two aspects of every judgment, however, stand out very 
 clearly. There is, first, the complex content which is held 
 before the mind, and, second, the attitude of belief or 
 acceptance taken toward it. Let us examine these two 
 
THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 125 
 
 aspects of every judgment in the light of the reaHstic 
 setting in which it arises. When I say, "That was a street- 
 car," I find that I have in mind the perceivable world as 
 a background and am concerned with the interpretation 
 of a sound which I hear as somehow caused by a part of 
 that w^orld. The thing which caused that sound was a 
 street-car, and a street-car is a particular known thing in 
 this physical world I perceive. Is it not obvious that the 
 setting of such a perceptual judgment is that of Natural 
 Realism .f* I simply think of this physical world as having 
 contained a street-car, a familiar enough thing, in a cer- 
 tain causal relation to myself. Thus the content of my 
 judgment shades off into an accepted world as soon as it is 
 asserted. Judgment does not break with the distinctions 
 characteristic of consciousness as brought out by descrip- 
 tive empiricism but implies them and helps to develop 
 them. 
 
 Logic Takes both Knowledge and Reality for Granted. 
 — When we come to examine the statements of logicians, 
 we soon realize that logic takes both knowledge and reality 
 for granted. It rightly seems foolishness to the logician 
 for anyone to deny the fact of knowledge, and what can 
 knowledge be but knowledge of what is real.f^ Do not all 
 of us pass judgments about recognized realms of existence? 
 And are not all of these realms of existence recognized 
 by the mind to be real and independent of the act of judg- 
 ment.? And in a very real sense, of course, the logician 
 is right in his attitude. But we have advanced far enough 
 in theory of knowledge now to realize that the reference 
 and nature of knowledge is a problem which requires 
 reflections and investigations of a peculiar sort. 
 
 Every proposition has two distinguishable elements, 
 the logical subject and the logical predicate respectively. 
 
126 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "That is a street-car," when analyzed, becomes "The 
 sound I hear is caused by a street-car, a certain kind of 
 thing in the physical world," or, more naively, "That 
 sounding thing is a street-car." Let us take the more 
 naive form for analysis. "That sounding thing" is the 
 logical subject, while "a street-car" is the logical predi- 
 cate. It is evident that my judgment involves the ac- 
 ceptance of the sound I hear as a sign of a thing in the 
 accepted physical world which is, at this level, perceiv- 
 able; and that I then go on to identify this thing with the 
 class of things called street-cars. The setting of this judg- 
 ment is obviously that of Natural Realism. I regard 
 sounding things and street-cars as realities which I can 
 perceive. In such knowledge and in such judgments there 
 is no consciousness of an epistemological problem. Episte- 
 mological problems arise only as the result of reflection 
 upon difficulties confronting Natural Realism. The logi- 
 cian as such is not an epistemologist, and he makes a fun- 
 damental mistake when he assumes that an analysis of the 
 form of judgments will settle epistemological problems.^ 
 
 The Reference of Judgment. — We have seen that the 
 setting for judgment is usually that of Natural Realism. 
 I cognize, and pass judgment about, perceivable objects. 
 I can perceive that part of this admitted realm which is 
 spatially near me; the rest of this realm is thought of as 
 continuous with the part under my observation and the 
 same as it would be were I able to perceive it all. When, 
 therefore, I make a judgment about any thing which is 
 not under my eye, I assign it to this realm and then locate 
 it by means of a system of measurement and direction. 
 
 * It is interesting to note that such apparently diverse thinkers as 
 Dewey, the American pragmatist, and Bosanquet, the Neo-Hegelian, 
 make this mistake in common. 
 
THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 127 
 
 In this way I identify the object. "The Capitol at Wash- 
 ington,'^ "The building at the end of the street on the south 
 side,'' are simple examples of this identification of the ob- 
 ject meant by its location. After I have thus identified 
 the logical subject in this fashion, I go on to make the 
 desired statement about it in the predicate. When the 
 judgment has once been made, I cognize the object hence- 
 forth in accordance with the predicate. The Capitol is 
 in front of the Congressional Library, is surmounted by a 
 dome, etc. Such cognition is an intellectual apprehension 
 of an object. The structure of consciousness is, so far as I 
 can make out, not essentially different from what it is in 
 perception. I conceive an object in much the same way 
 that I perceive it. Yet the content differs in the two cases 
 and, in conception, I know that the object is not perceptu- 
 ally present. 
 
 But we now realize that the physical world cannot be 
 apprehended either perceptually or conceptually. We 
 must use our words very carefully now. These objects 
 which we perceive and conceive and which are organiza- 
 tions of judgments are mental. We apprehend a mental 
 system permeated by meanings such as independence 
 and permanence, and developed and sustained by the 
 energy of our own minds. At the conceptual level, no less 
 than at the perceptual level, the structure of conscious- 
 ness induces Natural Realism and Natural Realism re- 
 flects the structure of consciousness, what we have called 
 its coexistential dimension. The distinction between the 
 knower and the known is basic for the human conscious- 
 ness. In judgment at this naive level, we can distinguish 
 three elements, the more inclusive system of objects, the 
 logical subject, and the logical predicate. In the judg- 
 ment, "This book is red," I can distinguish, first of all. 
 
128 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the setting, or universe of discourse, to which I assign the 
 book. It is a physical thing and a part of the physical 
 realm. Then comes the particular logical subject, this 
 book. Finally, there is the predicate which qualifies 
 the logical subject. We realize now that all three of 
 these elements, because experienced, are mental and that 
 we have been occupying the standpoint of Natural 
 Realism. 
 
 Reference for Critical Realism. — At the reflective epis- 
 temological level at which we have arrived, three elements 
 must again be distinguished. The setting, or realm of 
 existence, now considered outside the field of experience 
 and non-apprehensible, is the physical world. This real, 
 non-mental order is not sustained by the energy of our 
 thinking and is genuinely independent of our knowledge, It 
 is an acknowledged realm, founded on a necessary distinc- 
 tion in consciousness. We may call this acknowledged 
 realm the reference of judgments at the level of critical 
 realism. The logical subject of the judgment is the second 
 element to be distinguished, while the logical predicate is 
 the third. "This book is red" becomes "This part of the 
 physical world controls in me the sensation red." The 
 realm of existence is the acknowledged physical world; 
 the logical subject is the identification of the part of this 
 realm of which the assertion is made; while the predicate 
 is what is asserted of the identified part of the acknowl- 
 edged realm. We may analyze a judgment at this level 
 as follows: The physical world (reality) at the point X 
 (located by an axis of reference or by pointing) is known 
 in terms of the predicate, or predicates, Y. The physical 
 world is the reference, or metaphysical subject, of the 
 proposition; the locating of the particular part of this 
 acknowledged realm is the subject-matter and purpose of 
 
THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 129 
 
 the logical subject and is given in terms of a socially ac- 
 cepted method of identification and demarking; while 
 the particular assertion made about the selected part of 
 the acknowledged realm is the predicate. Thus a critical 
 judgment, such as those made in science, is a proposition 
 referred to reality as being knowledge about it. The propo- 
 sitions exist only in consciousness, but they contain what 
 we are certain is knowledge about this acknowledged 
 realm; or, put in a different way, what we refer to reality 
 is what we mean by knowledge. 
 
 Is Reality Present to Thought? — Let us call this ac- 
 knowledged realm to which critical judgments are referred 
 reality. By definition, it is distinct from the conscious- 
 ness of the knower yet in the same world with this con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The problem before us now is one of analysis and defini- 
 tion. Is this realitj^ present to the consciousness which 
 claims to possess knowledge of it in the critical proposi- 
 tions aflSrmed.f' Obviously enough, the question is one of 
 definition. If we regard knowledge as the presence of the 
 reality to the mind, then reality is present to the mind 
 which has knowledge of it in accepted propositions. If, 
 on the other hand, we fear that mankind is prone to an 
 apprehensional view of knowledge which makes the realm 
 known literally an object of inspection, we will deny that 
 reality is present to thought in knowledge. What we must 
 hold firmly to is that reality is known, that we achieve 
 propositions which are referred to an acknowledged realm 
 as containing knowledge of that realm. Since knowledge is 
 a human affair, this reference of actual propositions, which 
 is the meaning of knowledge, cannot be denied. That 
 we have knowledge of reality cannot be doubted; what 
 knowledge is and in what sense it reveals reality is a sub- 
 
130 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ject for human investigation since it is entirely unique 
 and we are the sole possessors. 
 
 Is Each Individual Confined to his Consciousness? — 
 As a result of the bewilderment which followed the break- 
 down of both Natural and representative realism, it has 
 become customary for philosophers to assert that it is a 
 mistake to teach that the individual is confined to his own 
 consciousness. Hume's skepticism, it is maintained, was 
 due to this assumption. This indictment has often been 
 interpreted as meaning that the individual knows only his 
 own states of consciousness. But we must be certain that 
 there is no misunderstanding here. The expression, states 
 of consciousness, is more a psychological than a philo- 
 sophical one. In other words, Hume taught that all ob- 
 jects known are objects which are present in the conscious- 
 ness of the individual. These objects he called perceptions. 
 But Hume could not satisfy himself that these given ob- 
 jects mediated knowledge of an external realm. Why? 
 Because he was disillusioned with regard to representative 
 realism and could think of no other meaning for knowledge 
 than the similarity of ideas to reality. 
 
 Is it not evident that Hume's skepticism and the be- 
 wilderment which has overtaken philosophy is not the 
 result of his mental pluralism but of this inability to solve 
 the problem of knowledge? And this inability was due, 
 not to his lack of ability, but to the undeveloped state of 
 logic and psychology and to the absence of a faithful 
 study of the distinctions and structure characteristic of 
 human consciousness. Kant advanced farther than Hume 
 and introduced into philosophy the study of the structure 
 of experience. But Kant made several sorry blunders 
 which threw him off the track and was weak enough to 
 resort to the illogical compromise which substitutes for 
 
THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 131 
 
 mental pluralism a consciousness-in-general, an Experience 
 with a capital E. 
 
 The present study of the reference of knowledge enables 
 us to answer the puzzle contained in the statement that 
 each individual is confined to his own consciousness. The 
 answer is, obviously, yes and no. He is confined to his 
 own consciousness in the sense that no realities except 
 elements of his consciousness can be present in his con- 
 sciousness. All the parts of his field of experience are 
 mental. But he is not confined to his consciousness if this 
 assertion is intended to deny that he possesses knowledge 
 of what is outside his consciousness. Such propositions 
 as are accepted by him as containing knowledge of an 
 independent realm are, of course, in his consciousness. 
 The individual's consciousness has a structure and pos- 
 sesses distinctions which make it capable of this realistic 
 reference. 
 
 Being Distinct from Knowledge. — The acknowledged 
 realm is, by its very meaning, distinct from the knowledge 
 possessed by human minds and referred to it as a reference. 
 Reality is one thing and knowledge is another and, so far as 
 we are concerned, a purely human affair. I can gather 
 together all the knowledge about this table as a part of 
 the physical world which I can glean from physics, chem- 
 istry and botany, but this systematic knowledge is not the 
 table. Knowledge arises only when the physical world 
 controls perceptions in minds and when these minds have 
 the capacity to build up propositions. When we say that 
 being is distinct from knowledge, we mean that the reality 
 which is referred to and acknowledged is not the knowledge 
 which is referred to it, that the metaphysical subject is 
 separate from the logical subject and the logical predicate. 
 
 There is no agnosticism in this position, for the genuine- 
 
132 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ness of knowledge and its empirical presence are not im- 
 pugned. Of course, the reality known is not compresent 
 with the knowledge in the mind which has the knowl^ 'ge 
 and is not In any sense apprehensible; but only he who aoes 
 not understand the real nature of knowledge about the 
 physical world can be disappointed at this and regard it as 
 a shortcoming. Only he will speak of the present position 
 as at all agnostic who is still dominated by the illusion 
 nourished by Natural Realism. I mean that only he who 
 thinks that reality must be apprehended directly or by 
 proxy will feel disappointed in the knowledge which we 
 actually have. 
 
 We Want to Be the Reality Known. — When we come 
 to analyze our own tendencies, we soon realize that we 
 have the desire of penetrating into the things we perceive 
 and leading, temporarily at least, their own life. We want 
 to be the things in order to comprehend them more fully. 
 We regard them as centres of activity which we might 
 somehow share and comprehend. The ideal of knowledge 
 becomes for us a haunting sense of possible identity with 
 the things. Our nature strains after a sympathy with them, 
 a fellow-feeling. To know the thing adequately seems 
 to us to involve being the thing at the same time that 
 we are ourselves. Surely we argue somewhat as follows: 
 "This reality I perceive is independent of me and must 
 therefore have a life of its ow^n just as I have mine. I feel 
 pleasure and pain, joy and stress; I plan and will; I dream 
 and think. But this other thing is real also. Therefore, 
 something hke this conscious life of mine must be in it." 
 This independent life which is not ours attracts us and 
 awakens in us the desire to penetrate to it if possible. 
 But we know that such penetration could be achieved only 
 by being it, by living its life for a time at least and then 
 
THE REFERENCE OF KNOWLEDGE 133 
 
 remembering it when we became ourselves again. The 
 ideal knowledge seems to us to consist in this penetrative 
 s^vrnpathy. What shall we say of this tendency in 
 us? Is it an illusion? 
 
 I do not think that this tendency to penetrate into the 
 realities we acknowledge around us is irrational. I would 
 say that it is a desire which naturally accompanies our 
 recognition that we are not alone in the world. It is the 
 tragic and necessary implication of our own individuality 
 in a world which contains other individuals. Could we 
 be other things, individuality would have no existence 
 and there would not be other things to acknowledge and 
 to brood over. But since we cannot be other things, our 
 individuality sets limits which tantalize us. While we are 
 ourselves in a living, conscious way, we know that other 
 realities have a comparable existence which excludes ours in 
 the same way that ours excludes theirs. Such is the world. 
 
 Knowledge our only Escape from Individuality. — The 
 human consciousness is such that it contains the subject- 
 object duality. The things we perceive are given an ob- 
 jectivity in this way, and we proceed further to read into 
 them something of the nature of our own mind and will. 
 This tendency is called animism and is now known to be 
 universal among primitive peoples. Thus a dramatic 
 sense of sympathy with other realities is established by 
 reading into them unconsciously our idea of their life. 
 But reflection has finally discovered the illusory nature 
 of this sense of penetration. It is known to be a process 
 within the individual's own consciousness which mas- 
 querades as a penetration into another's. The student 
 can easily see that such animism with its sympathy, or 
 Einjuhlungy is parallel with Natural Realism. They rise 
 and fall together. 
 
134 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But granted that we cannot penetrate into the realities 
 which surround us, it still remains true that we can acquire 
 knowledge about them. This critical knowledge, which 
 critical realism admits, is in a way an escape from the 
 isolation of individuality. It is, however, an escape which 
 does not conflict with human individuality, for we are con- 
 scious organisms upon which the rest of the world plays 
 and which are able to achieve knowledge referable to this 
 world. Were not knowledge unique, we could use meta- 
 phors and speak of it as the echo of the world in our minds 
 or its interpretation in the language of consciousness. 
 But it is better to avoid metaphors and to remember that 
 we know reality, yet necessarily know it in terms of our 
 human experience. We cannot be other realities, nor can 
 we penetrate into them by intuition, but we can have 
 knowledge about them. Yet we need not deny that the 
 realities about which we gain knowledge are far more than 
 that knowledge reveals just as we, ourselves, are more than 
 the dry propositions in terms of which some mere acquaint- 
 ance would portray us. A critical knowledge comes to 
 know its own limitations. 
 
 References 
 
 Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics. 
 Bosanquet, Essentials of Logic, lecture 2. 
 Fletcher, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 17. 
 Jerusalem, Introduction to Philosophy, third division. 
 Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, bk. 2, chap. 1. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND ATTITUDES 
 
 Important Distinctions. — Thus far we have pursued the 
 poHcy of actual investigation into the concrete problems 
 of epistemology. Beginning with the standpoint of com- 
 mon sense, we have seen how reflection on the facts of ex- 
 perience forces the thinker to pass beyond it to a far more 
 critical position. Aided by the successful analysis, as well 
 as by the mistakes, of past thinkers, such as Locke, 
 Berkeley, Hume and Kant, we have gradually worked out 
 a more adequate standpoint which apparently does justice 
 to the characteristic distinctions within experience and to 
 the claim of knowledge. But, in carrying out this investi- 
 gation, we have paid comparatively little attention to 
 certain historical distinctions and contrasts which meet 
 the student on every hand when he does serious reading 
 in philosophy. Having made sure of a good foundation, 
 we can now examine and evaluate these traditional terms. 
 
 Before modern logic and psychology had reached their 
 present level of development, assumptions in regard to 
 the origin of knowledge played a large part in philosophical 
 discussion. In other words, philosophy had no assured 
 foundation on which to build. Epistemology, logic and 
 psychology were all commingled in the most tantalizing 
 way and no one of these disciplines had reached a maturity 
 sufficient to aid the others in establishing themselves. 
 Consequently, problems were raised which we now see 
 to be false because based on false assumptions. We shall 
 
 135 
 
136 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 examine these problems and then go on to show how they 
 have been outgrown. 
 
 The traditional assumptions in regard to what is called 
 the origin of knowledge fall into three groups, rationalismy 
 sensationalism and aynorism. The first two of these terms 
 indicate a sharp contrast, while the third represents an 
 attempt at a compromise between them. 
 
 Rationalism. — Rationalism may be defined as the 
 doctrine that reason, a supposedly innate faculty, is the 
 source of all true knowledge and, more especially, the sole 
 foundation and warrant of all universal and necessary 
 knowledge. 
 
 Rationalism arose in Greek philosophy as a result of the 
 discovery that perception contains illusions. Since there 
 was no adequate psychology of perception, the Greeks 
 did not realize the part played by both physical condi- 
 tions and judgment in perception and leaped hastily 
 to a sharp opposition between sense and reason. Sense 
 deals with the changing and the illusory, while rea- 
 son apprehends the permanent and the real. On 
 the whole, Plato was a rationalist, for he put into sharp 
 opposition the realm of ideas and the realm of sensory 
 appearances. The Platonic ideas are changeless entities 
 which can be apprehended only by the eye of the mind, 
 which is reason. Coming down to modern philosophy, 
 we find that practically all the thinkers of the continent 
 were rationalists, while the British philosophers were pre- 
 dominantly sensationalists, or, at least, anti-rationalists. 
 Descartes' philosophy is a very good example of rational- 
 ism. He appeals to what he calls "the natural light" for 
 the fundamental principles which he is inclined to accept. 
 After he has obtained these principles, he proceeds more 
 geometrico to deduce his conclusions. 
 
TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND ATTITUDES 137 
 
 When we come to examine rationalism historically and 
 from the vantage-point of modern logic and psychology, 
 hwe soon see that it was based on motives which accident- 
 \ally supplemented one another. There can be little doubt 
 that the dualism between the soul and the body had some- 
 thing to do with its development. Reason is the immortal 
 part which is more or less polluted by contact with the 
 body. Sense is the faculty for the things of time and of 
 this world, and reason is the faculty for things eternal and 
 the world beyond. Another motive was the apparent 
 independence of sensation which mathematics possesses. 
 Plato was an admirer of geometry and so was Descartes. 
 The clarity and deductive necessity of its conclusions 
 made it the ideal for knowledge. The influence of mathe- 
 matics was heightened by the spread of the Copernican 
 theory. This theory again brought to the front the con- 
 trast between perception and reason, and this contrast 
 was once more translated into a, fixed opposition between 
 two sources of knowledge. But these two positive motives 
 for rationalism were aided and abetted by an inadequate 
 logic which did not appreciate that reason is only an ab- 
 straction for concrete reasoning and did not understand 
 that all human concepts grow out of the level of percep- 
 tion. These early thinkers had no sense for genetic rela- 
 tions and put faculties where we would now put processes. 
 
 It is well to bear in mind that rationalism has been of 
 all shades and degrees. Some thinkers have been rational- 
 ists only in regard to this point or that, and have admitted 
 that nearly all actual human knowledge is founded upon 
 observation. But wherever there is a tendency to seek a 
 source for knowledge in a faculty logically separable from 
 the concreter type of experience, we may speak of ration- 
 alism. The old-time rationalism has almost ceased to 
 
138 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 exist, but there are tantalizing suggestions of something 
 akin to it in the writings of many contemporary philoso- 
 phers, especially of those for whom mathematics is the ideal 
 science. 
 
 Sensationalism. — We may define sensationalism as the 
 doctrine that all knowledge consists of sensations or of 
 thoughts reducible to sensations. Hume's position is a 
 typical example of sensationalism. In the second section 
 of the Enquiry^ he discusses the origin of ideas. But he 
 does not assign ideas to a faculty as the rationalist does the 
 ideas of reason. Instead, he commences with an empirical 
 description of the consciousness of each individual and 
 points out that we are able to distinguish between sensa- 
 tions (impressions) and their revivals. "Here therefore 
 we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two 
 classes or species, which are distinguished by their different 
 degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively 
 are commonly denominated Thoughts or Ideas.'* It is 
 obvious that Hume's doctrine is psychological rather than 
 epistemological. The question we must ask ourselves is 
 this. Are the propositions which contain our knowledge 
 analyzable into images which are in their turn only re- 
 vivals of sensations? If the psychologists agree that this 
 is the case, the philosopher is unlikely to say them nay. 
 However, psychology has, as a matter of fact, given up 
 sensationalism. The doctrine does not seem to do justice 
 to human experience. 
 
 Sensationalism has often been given an epistemological 
 setting comparable to that which characterizes rationalism. 
 It is then asserted that sense is a faculty of the mind, and 
 that from the material thus obtained all the more com- 
 plicated ideas and judgments are somehow developed. 
 
 What shall we say of sensationalism? The first criticism 
 
TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND ATTITUDES 139 
 
 must be directed against the use of the word faculty. 
 The senses are sense-organs which are stimulated. That 
 the stimulation of sense-organs is one of the conditions of 
 our having the sort of experience we have cannot be denied. 
 But we have good reason to believe that there are other 
 conditions. The brain is tremendously important. Be- 
 sides, a condition of experience must not be identified 
 with a source of knowledge. Knowledge cannot be traced 
 to certain specific fountains whence it wells up. It is an 
 achievement within consciousness. We may say, then, 
 that sensationalism reflects the false outlook of ration- 
 alism in its search for a mechanical entry for knowl- 
 edge. Historically, its significance was its denial of a 
 rational faculty. It combated rationalism until psy- 
 chology and logic attained adulthood. 
 
 Apriorism. — Apriorism is an attempt to reconcile 
 rationalism and sensationalism. Kant's position is typical 
 of what is technically called apriorism. It will be remem- 
 bered that Kant seeks to account for the knowledge we 
 do actually have by regarding it as a resultant of the appli- 
 cation of certain innate mental forms called space and time 
 and the categories to the material contributed by sense. 
 The mind is for Kant a locus in which certain operations 
 occur and produce human experience as it actually is. 
 In other words, Kant endeavors to explain experience as a 
 manufactured product analyzable into matter contributed 
 by the senses and formal matter contributed by the mind. 
 This formal matter is applied to the material given by 
 sense by an act of synthesis referable to a Transcendental 
 Ego. 
 
 Kant hoped to achieve in this way all that rationalism 
 had claimed. He speaks of a priori knowledge and con- 
 trasts it with a posteriori knowledge. 
 
140 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But the logic of to-day is not aware of any such distinc- 
 tion. Knowledge is valid or invalid. A proposition is 
 only general or it is universal. A principle is a funda- 
 mental postulate or it is a tested generalization. Thus 
 Kant's machinery is of no significance to logic and cannot 
 be tested by logic. Hence apriorism is an attempt to 
 reconcile rationalism and sensationalism by one who has 
 neither an adequate psychology nor an adequate logic. 
 Its value must, therefore, be regarded as mainly historical. 
 What it did accomplish was the widespread admission 
 that both rationalism and sensationalism were quite in- 
 adequate. "As a matter of fact, the whole question of the 
 sources of knowledge is not epistemological but psycholog- 
 ical, and must be approached by psychological methods. 
 The psychologist is interested to discover from what 
 processes an universal proposition has developed, what 
 part of it has been contributed by sense-perception and 
 what by thought or imagination, etc., etc. . . . Really, 
 therefore, rationalism, empiricism and criticism, although 
 tradition allows them the right of citizenship in the realm 
 of epistemology, represent psychological theories or stand- 
 points, and should be banished from the company of 
 epistemological schools." Kiilpe, Introduction to Philoso- 
 phy^ pp. 185-6. And it is well known that modern psy- 
 chology does not accept faculties and synthetic egos. 
 
 Empiricism. — Another term very widely used is em- 
 piricism. Historically, the term is associated with Locke's 
 attack upon rationalism. Locke denied that there are 
 innate ideas and asserted that all the ideas we possess 
 arise naturally within experience. " Our observation, 
 employed either about external sensible objects, or about 
 the internal operations of our minds, perceived and re- 
 flected upon by ourselves, is that which supplies our under- 
 
TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND ATTITUDES 141 
 
 standings with all the material of (reflective) thinking. 
 These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence 
 all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring." 
 Essay, book 11, chap. 1. sec. 2. Locke's position has been 
 much misunderstood. It is neither sensationalism nor 
 rationahsm. "He did not deny the truth or the self- 
 evidence of these (logical) principles, and he even thought 
 them useful as a means of avoiding sophistry in contro- 
 versy. Still less did he maintain that the mind itseK 
 though a white paper to the world of objects was itself 
 a passive instrument." Alexander, Locke, p. 5Q, 
 
 When the term empiricism is used, we must always ask 
 ourselves what is meant by it, how is experience conceived. 
 To define empiricism as a doctrine which tests every bit 
 of knowledge by an appeal to experience reveals the vague- 
 ness of the term. The tests of propositions are to be found 
 in the methods used in the various fields. To say that we 
 prove that all men are mortal by experience does not in- 
 form us as to the nature of the proof used and accepted by 
 logic. We may say, then, that the term empiricism, like 
 its contrast-term rationalism, is of little significance to- 
 day. These standpoints have been outgrown. Episte- 
 mology must be founded on an adequate logic and psy- 
 chology. 
 
 Attitudes Toward Knowledge. — Looking over the 
 history of philosophy, we find certain recurrent attitudes 
 toward knowledge. Chief of these are dogmatism, skep- 
 ticism, and criticism. We shall, first of all, point out how 
 these terms have been used and then discuss their present 
 status. 
 
 Dogmatism is a term taken over from general expe- 
 rience, especially from the field of religion, and given cur- 
 rency in philosophy by Kant. We call a man a dogmatist 
 
142 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 who makes assertions without giving the grounds for them 
 and without attempting to meet reasonable doubts. Thus 
 a man who affirms his behefs very positively and will 
 not listen to objections and contradictory facts is a dog- 
 matist. From this general application to an uncritical 
 and stubbornly affirmative frame of mind, the term has 
 been extended to the construction of philosophical sys- 
 tems without a sufficient preliminary examination of 
 the assumptions used. Uncontrolled speculation which 
 flouts, or makes little use of, evidence results in systems 
 which deserve the adjective dogmatic. Of course, philoso- 
 phers are not the only offenders. The various sciences 
 have often discovered in the course of further investigation 
 that they have been making assumptions of a false or in- 
 adequate character. We may say that all the sciences 
 grow more critical as they grow older. Dogmatism is the 
 sign of youth and of its accompanying lack of realization 
 of the complexity of problems. Philosophy has always 
 stressed its own history and has therefore become increas- 
 ingly aware of the arbitrariness and naivite of many of the 
 assumptions of past systems. But we must confess that 
 the term dogmatism is quite a relative term. Compared 
 with the systems of to-day past systems were more dog- 
 matic and less critical. The systems of Descartes, Spinoza 
 and Wolf are examples of what we would to-day consider 
 quite dogmatic constructions. 
 
 Criticism is also a term made current by Kant. He 
 pointed out the defects of both dogmatism and extreme 
 skepticism and advocated a thorough investigation of the 
 nature and conditions of knowledge as a preliminary to 
 any serious work of construction in philosophy. His 
 advance upon his predecessors was, however, relative. 
 No true philosopher has ever been a complete dogmatist. 
 
TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND ATTITUDES 143 
 
 If we take his term from another angle as an advocacy of 
 theory of knowledge as a preliminary to metaphysics, 
 we must point out that John Locke stressed the need 
 of a critical investigation into the nature of human knowl- 
 edge. From the time of Protagoras, at least, no system 
 has been without its epistemological setting. In the adop- 
 tion of the adjective for his own philosophy, Kant was pass- 
 ing himself a not altogether warranted compliment. The 
 systems of Locke and Hume are decidedly critical. The 
 logic of philosophical investigation is, so far as I can see, 
 the same as for any investigation. There is no peculiar 
 and royal road to philosophy. Historically, then, criticism 
 must stand for a growing stress upon the value of theory 
 of knowledge for general philosophy. 
 
 Both dogmatism and criticism take the existence of 
 knowledge for granted. If we take these terms in the 
 logical sense, they stand simply for degress of criticalness. 
 He who carefully investigates his assumptions is critical; 
 he who tends to take them for granted is dogmatic. This 
 difference of attitude is to be found in all the sciences and 
 is not peculiar to philosophy. Taken in its more technical 
 sense, this contrast between dogmatism and criticism has 
 stood for a recognition of the fundamental importance of 
 theory of knowledge for philosophy. 
 
 Skepticism is likewise an ambiguous term. We may 
 distinguish skepticism as the recognition of the value of an 
 ingredient of doubt in all investigation from philosophical 
 skepticism. The first meaning is essentially identical with 
 the logical sense of criticism. Philosophical skepticism, 
 on the contrary, is a technical philosophical expression. 
 While both dogmatism and criticism assume the existence 
 of knowledge, philosophical skepticism is a general doubt 
 of its possibility. 
 
144 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But philosophical skepticism has had various forms, rela- 
 tive to the positions opposed and the problems confront- 
 ing reflection. Greek skepticism was directed mainly 
 against the belief that perception gives us an intuition of 
 an independent, stable reality. In other words, it was 
 developed in opposition to naive realism. Later, it at- 
 tacked dogmatic rationalism. The skeptic is a member of 
 an opposition party. Pyrrho of Elis (circa 300 B. C), 
 Arcesilaus of Pitane, a leader of the Platonic Academy, 
 Carneades, and Sextus Empiricus are a few of the think- 
 ers who stand out in the history of Greek skepticism. The 
 main function of all of these thinkers was to attack dog- 
 matic positions and to raise questions. In modern times, 
 Hume is usually singled out as the chief exponent of skep- 
 ticism. But his skepticism was relative to dogmatic 
 rationalism. Otherwise, it reflected the bewilderment in 
 which theory of knowledge was. 
 
 Philosophical skeptics did not, however, always content 
 themselves with attacks upon unwarranted assumptions. 
 They sometimes allowed themselves to declare that man 
 cannot have knowledge. But it is obvious that such an 
 assertion involves a self-contradiction. We cannot assert 
 that we cannot make assertions (knowledge) without con- 
 tradicting ourselves. In its absolute form, skepticism 
 is self-destructive. Thus reflection shows that we have a 
 justified right to criticise particular theories, scientific 
 or philosophical, but that we cannot assert that knowledge 
 of some kind is impossible. Skepticism as a working 
 method is one thing, and absolute philosophical skep- 
 ticism is quite another. The same thinker has often 
 attempted to combine the two, but they are really 
 distinct. 
 
TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND ATTITUDES 145 
 
 References 
 
 Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, chap. 6. 
 Jerusalem, Introduction to Philosophy, third division. 
 Kiilpe, Introduction to Philosophy, sees. 24-5-6. 
 Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chaps. 7 and 8. 
 Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 15. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES 
 
 The Value of an Epistemological Summary. — Episte- 
 mological positions have little meaning for a person until 
 he has some knowledge of epistemological problems. 
 What meaning can idealism have to one who has no knowl- 
 edge of the history of philosophy and no acquaintance 
 with the problems raised by reflection? To a beginner it 
 would seem the veriest nonsense to assert that the physical 
 world is his idea. Does he not see the firm and stable 
 world about him, and does he not know from sad experience 
 how brutally real it is.^ But the student who has carefully 
 followed the steps of the preceding argument and has done 
 some genuine thinking for himself is now ready to compare 
 the main epistemological positions held by past and con- 
 temporary philosophers. 
 
 Such a summary has the value which system always has. 
 It helps to define positions by contrast, and it enables one 
 to run over the various possibilities quickly and to see 
 them in relation to one another and the problems which 
 they must satisfy. 
 
 The Nature of Epistemology. — It is so easy to mis- 
 understand the nature of epistemology that it is best to 
 be certain what, exactly, its task is. Epistemology has 
 nothing to do with the content of the particular sciences nor 
 can it dictate the proper assumptions which these sciences 
 ought to make. It is a discipline along with the other dis- 
 ciplines and presupposes the fact of knowledge. It is a 
 
 146 
 
EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES 147 
 
 reflective science which develops within an already com- 
 plex experience and seeks to answer certain definite ques- 
 tions about knowledge in the light of the knowledge al- 
 ready gained by the physical and the mental sciences. It 
 is not logically prior to the other sciences, but, like philoso- 
 phy as a whole, is a reflective examination of their results 
 in the attempt to answer specific questions about the 
 nature, development and conditions of knowledge. The more 
 we know about nature and man, the more able are we to 
 answer the questions raised by epistemology. 
 
 Idealism. — When used as a technical term in episte- 
 mology, idealism means that everything known is mental 
 and that nothing exists which is not known or experienced 
 by some mind. Epistemological idealism is of compara- 
 tively modern date, having first been clearly stated by 
 Berkeley, and can be understood only as a reaction against 
 representative realism. It seldom exists now-a-days in its 
 pure, or logical, form and is usually found as an ingredient 
 in more complex positions. The cause of this lack of episte- 
 mological clearness in many philosophical systems is the 
 unfortunate tendency of thinkers to mingle metaphysics 
 and epistemology indiscriminately. 
 
 Subjective idealism is the name given to the strict form 
 of epistemological idealism. This form involves solipsism. 
 The thinker bases his position upon the discovery that all 
 the present objects of his apprehension are only his ideas. 
 His perceptual world is composed of his percepts, and his 
 conceptual world of his concepts and judgments. Hence 
 the whole objective world which he perceives and thinks 
 is analyzable into objects which have no existence apart 
 from his consciousness. Even other selves, as objects 
 of his thought, are mental contents built up in his mind on 
 the basis of his percepts, feelings and conceptual inter- 
 
148 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 pretations. Sinee epistemology must judge existence in 
 terms of knowledge, this fact means that others do not, 
 so far as we can tell, exist outside of our own minds. Must 
 we not base our judgments of existence upon our knowl- 
 edge? We must conclude, therefore, that others do not 
 exist for us, as subjectivists, outside of our own conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 It is obvious that the principle of subjective idealism is 
 that knowledge is confined to, and terminates upon, the 
 objects present in the field of experience of the individual 
 thinker. Knowledge is the apprehension of the object 
 known. But no objects can be so apprehended except 
 those in the consciousness of the particular thinker. 
 Therefore, he can know only the contents of his own con- 
 sciousness. If we grant the principle, the conclusion fol- 
 lows. We must, therefore, honor the logical courage of 
 men Hke Schuppe, Rehmke and v. Leclair who have 
 adopted this position. 
 
 The metaphysics of solipsism is so apparent that it is 
 well to note it at this point. Strict subjective idealism 
 must assert that reality is mental and is no larger than 
 the thinker's own consciousness. This instance is valua- 
 ble as showing the dependence of metaphysics upon 
 epistemology. 
 
 But subjective idealism usually takes the less logical 
 form of mental 'pluralism. Few thinkers have the courage 
 to aflSrm solipsism and therefore content themselves with 
 the denial of a physical world outside of consciousness. 
 They do not realize that the epistemological problem is not 
 one of the content of the objects but of their existence 
 outside of knowledge. The distinction between physical 
 objects and * selves* is obviously a distinction between 
 objects within my consciousness. Hence, if all these ob- 
 
EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES 149 
 
 jects are mental, this contrast must be one between two 
 species of the mental in this generic sense. Therefore, 
 the problem for the mental pluralist is to prove that he 
 can accept the epistemological principle of subjective 
 idealism referred to above and still hold to a knowledge 
 of other independent selves. If he cannot, and still is 
 convinced that other selves exist and are known, he should 
 reconsider his principle. Most mental pluralists, however, 
 seek to prove that other selves existy rather than that they 
 are known, by resorting either to instinct or to the so-called 
 argument from analogy. But an existent which is not 
 known, nor capable of being known, is hardly an ex- 
 istent of any significance. In other words, subjective 
 idealism does not do justice to the reach our minds 
 empirically claim to have. Is it not true that we 
 are often inclined to believe that we know others al- 
 most as well as we know ourselves .^^ And we think of these 
 other individuals as quite outside of our own conscious- 
 ness. But he who would break down subjective idealism 
 must not be satisfied with pointing out its apparent in- 
 adequacy to the facts of experience; he must attack its 
 principle and show that it is dogmatic. Is knowledge 
 confined to the apprehension of objects in consciousness? 
 The subjective idealist is right when he asserts that we 
 can apprehend no other objects than these; but is he right 
 in his assumption that there is no other kind of knowledge.^ 
 Objective Idealism. — Objective idealism is a form of 
 idealism which arose after Kant. To the epistemologist 
 it is a baffling position because it neglects the whole setting 
 of epistemology. The reason for this neglect is historical. 
 Kant made the vicious mistake of postulating a universal 
 self to correspond to the world of phenomena. Phenomena 
 are mental, yet not in the consciousness of any particular 
 
150 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 individual. But Kant was still a realist of an agnostic type 
 because he kept a faith in a really extra-mental realm of 
 things-in-themselves in causal relation with mind. Now 
 the thinkers who followed Kant simply developed this 
 consciousness-in-general which Kant had postulated and 
 dropped the thing-in-itself. The result was objective 
 idealism. In my opinion, then, objective idealism was 
 founded on two things, Kant's assumption of a universal 
 consciousness and the inability to solve the problem of 
 knowledge, common to Kant and Hume. (Cf. Chap. 
 VII.) 
 
 This origin of objective idealism comes out clearly in the 
 customary definitions of it. The following is typical: 
 " If on the other hand it (idealism) simply says in general 
 terms that experience always consists of ideas, or that 
 consciousness is an universal attribute or form of the con- 
 tents of knowledge, without adding any reference to a sub- 
 ject to whom ideas and consciousness belong, it is objective 
 idealism.** Kulpe, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 194. 
 Reality is identified with experience without any indica- 
 tion of the possessor or possessors of this experience. The 
 objective idealist is convinced that "it is one world that 
 we all know, and of which we are all parts. If doubt were 
 thrown on this, not only metaphysics, but all other science, 
 would become an impossibility — even the science of psy- 
 chology. Yet, on the other hand, the experience of each 
 of us is emphatically mine. There is something in it which 
 we can never communicate to any other; and even what 
 we do communicate can be apprehended by another as it 
 is for us only in so far as he learns to put himseK in our 
 place. This leads us to note that the experience of each 
 of us, even when we consider it without special reference to 
 any one else, has a subjective and an objective aspect. 
 
EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES 151 
 
 We are aware of a world presented to us, which seems 
 somehow independent of our individual apprehension; 
 and we are aware, at the same time, that it is presented to 
 us.'* Mackenzie, Outlines of Metaphysics, pp. 17-8. Is 
 it not obvious that objective idealism represents a com- 
 promise between realism and idealism in which realism 
 gains the acknowledgment that subjective idealism is 
 inadequate while idealism is placated by the use of ex- 
 perience as a blanket-term? The epistemological problem 
 is not solved but is simply ignored. 
 
 Realism. — The defining characteristic of realism is the 
 acknowledgment of realities not dependent for their exist- 
 ence upon the minds which know them. Epistemological 
 realism is a very old doctrine, and there have been many 
 dominant forms of it in the centuries of speculation. Of 
 recent years, there has been an efflorescence of realism in 
 which new forms have been developed. It will be neces- 
 sary to classify and define the various kinds of realism 
 very carefully. This task is made more difficult by the 
 different views of knowledge entertained. The key to 
 any species of realism is the particular meaning assigned 
 to knowledge. The following is about as satisfactory a 
 classification as can be worked out: 
 
 Realisms 
 
 Apprehensional Non-apprehensional 
 
 Presentative Representative 
 
 Let us now explain these terms and offer typical positions 
 as examples. 
 
 The older types of realism fall into the two kinds of 
 apprehensional realism. Locke's epistemology is a char- 
 acteristic example of representative realism. On the 
 
152 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 other hand, Reid did his best to develop and maintain a 
 presentative form of realism. The neo-realism of a group 
 of younger American thinkers also falls into this class. 
 The position stressed in the present book is non-apprehen- 
 sional realism. 
 
 According to presentative realism, the individual 
 knower has an immediate apprehension of the independent 
 reality known. Beid and Hamilton (1788-1856) cham- 
 pioned this view of knowledge. These thinkers believed 
 in an external physical world and held that knowledge is 
 a perception of this world conditioned by the interaction 
 of percipient and object known. Hence knowledge is the 
 presence of the physical thing to the subject-self. Reid 
 asserted that philosophers had made a fundamental mis- 
 take in assuming that "all the objects of knowledge are 
 ideas." Unfortunately, Reid and Hamilton differed in 
 regard to the nature of this directly apprehended object, 
 Hamilton maintaining that it is some quality of the or- 
 ganism of the percipient and Reid that it is an extra- 
 organic thing. 
 
 It will be apparent that presentative realism is essen- 
 tially a defense of Natural Realism. 
 
 When the attitude of presentative realism is taken 
 toward objects other than those of sense-perception, we 
 have what may be called rationalistic presentative realism. 
 Thus Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore, two contempo- 
 rary English thinkers, hold that we apprehend all sorts of 
 conceptual objects and that these objects are independent 
 of the mind knowing them. A similar view is championed 
 by the new realists of America. 
 
 The American form of neo-realism is called by its ad- 
 vocates epistemological monism. It is an attempt to re- 
 state traditional presentative realism in such a way as 
 
EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES 153 
 
 to leave out the apprehending subject-self, the conscious- 
 ness or awareness of the object. It is a present ative realism 
 so modified as to leave out the apprehending mind as a 
 separate entity. While both Reid and Locke contrast 
 mind and the realities known as distinct realms, the 
 American neo-realists think of consciousness as simply a 
 term for a relation into which realities may enter without 
 suffering any change. Thus the characteristic point of 
 departure is a revolutionary re-definition of consciousness. 
 The following quotation will make this attempt clearer: 
 "A content becomes consciousness by becoming related 
 in a certain way. In what way.^ By becoming the object 
 to which an organism reacts. Thus my hat is part of my 
 consciousness, or as we ordinarily say, I perceive my hat, 
 if its color, shape, and other properties control my reac- 
 tion, for example, lead to my picking it up and placing it 
 upon my head. *Two plus two equals four* is one of my 
 thoughts, provided this relationship between the number 
 two and itself controls my conduct and leads me to put 
 two two cent stamps on a letter requiring four cents 
 postage. But the hat out of such a relationship is not con- 
 sciousness; nor is the proposition *two plus two equals 
 four.' " Marvin, A First Book in Metaphysics, p. 261. 
 
 This position can only be regarded as a remarkable 
 tour deforce. The essential objection to it is that it ignores 
 the r6le played by the sense-organs and the distinction 
 between a physical thing and its appearances. It is open to 
 all the objections we urged against Natural Realism. We 
 have identified consciousness with the whole changing 
 field of the individual's experience just as does the neo- 
 realist but we have denied that the objects there present 
 can exist independently. They are for us only mental. 
 In this we agreed with Locke, Descartes and Berkeley. 
 
154 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The position under discussion must be admired as a bold 
 attempt to save presentative realism. 
 
 We are already familiar with representative realism. 
 It will be remembered that Locke maintained that ideas 
 (mental objects) are in part like the primary qualities 
 of matter. We called this position selective representative 
 realism. The secondary qualities like color and smell 
 are regarded as purely mental. Knowledge is held to be an 
 indirect apprehension, an apprehension of a mental sub- 
 stitute, caused by the physical world, which is cognitively 
 just as good as the physical world because like it. The 
 essential objections to it have already been considered. 
 It is a copy view of knowledge. Aside from the other ob- 
 jections urged, it assumes that the mental effect is like 
 the extra-organic physical cause, a theory which has little 
 for it and much against it. The extra-organic cause is 
 only a discharging agency for very complex cerebral proc- 
 esses. The analogy with wax impressed by a stamp has 
 no applicability. 
 
 Non-apprehensional realism should need little explana- 
 tion by now. It is an epistemological dualism and holds 
 that knowledge consists of propositions built up within 
 consciousness and referred to an acknowledged realm out- 
 side of consciousness. At least, this is the case for knowl- 
 edge of the physical world. Knowledge is knowledge 
 and not a copying of reality. While the champions of 
 neo-realism have tried to re-construct presentative real- 
 ism, the present writer has tried to do the same for repre- 
 sentative realism. But with this difference. He has 
 realized that the view of knowledge which has underlain 
 realism up to the present has been moulded upon the out- 
 look of Natural Realism. Knowledge has uniformly 
 been thought of in realistic circles as a direct or indirect 
 
EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES 155 
 
 apprehension of an object. This tendency, which bears 
 witness to the continued influence of Natural Realism, 
 must be resisted. Knowledge is an affair of judgment 
 and of the reference of judgment. It is to the credit of 
 the objective idealists that they have recognized this fact. 
 We may say, then, that non-apprehensional realism is 
 representative realism reconstructed in the light of modern 
 logic and psychology. We have called it an epistemological 
 dualism because the mind which has these propositions is 
 distinct from the realities known. But epistemological dual- 
 ism must not be confused with metaphysical dualism, which 
 asserts that the universe contains two kinds of reality. 
 
 Gnostic vs. Agnostic Realism. — In a preceding chapter, 
 we discussed skepticism and showed how philosophical 
 skepticism contradicts itself. Now, in contrast to skep- 
 ticism, idealism and the forms of realism we have just 
 examined are gnostic, that is, they assert that reality can 
 be known. The age-old struggle between complex forms 
 of realism and idealism, however, led to the rise of semi- 
 skeptical positions which deny that ultimate reality is 
 known, while admitting that phenomena (mental objects, 
 reality as it appears to man) are present to the mind. 
 According to the emphasis, these positions are called posi- 
 tivism and agnosticism. When men are exhorted to con- 
 cern themselves exclusively with science and not to befool 
 themselves with questions about a transcendent reality 
 back of phenomena, the positivist is speaking. Thus the 
 positivist is a phenomenalist. When the existence of a 
 transcendent reality is acknowledged but it is sadly as- 
 serted that man can know nothing about it, that it is 
 unknowable, we have agnosticism. Auguste Comte is 
 the typical modern representative of positivism or phe- 
 nomenalism, and Herbert Spencer of agnosticism. 
 
156 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 References 
 
 Fletcher, An Introduction to Philosophy, chaps. 9, 10, 11, and 12. 
 Fullerton, An Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 13. 
 Jerusalem, Introduction to Philosophy, third division. 
 Marvin, A l^irst Book in Metaphysics, chaps. 16 and 17. 
 McGilvary, The Relation of Consciousness and Object in Sense- 
 Perception, Philos. Review, 1908. 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, Preface. 
 Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, bk. 2, chap. 1. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 TRUTH AND ERROR 
 
 Knowledge and Truth, — Having waded through the 
 main difficulties which confront epistemology, or a rea- 
 soned theory of human knowledge and its place in reality, 
 we are now in a position to take up a problem which im- 
 merses us in new difficulties of a more specific character. 
 The problem of truth logically succeeds the problem of 
 knowledge, yet is of a nature both to test the epistemologi- 
 cal conclusions arrived at and to deepen our understand- 
 ing of them. In a previous chapter, I pointed out that 
 solipsism is an acid test of a theory of knowledge. The 
 same may be said of the problem of truth. 
 
 That there is a very intimate connection between our 
 ideas of truth and knowledge comes out clearly in the fact 
 that the expression "true knowledge" is felt to be a tautol- 
 ogy. It is like speaking of a round circle. Many thinkers 
 have disregarded this connection and have rashly discussed 
 the nature of truth without a prior examination of the 
 nature of knowledge. The result has been controversies 
 more or less barren of value and rather disheartening in 
 their effect. It has seemed to the general public that 
 Pilate's question was merely being reechoed by philosophy 
 in a helpless fashion. Yet, in spite of appearances there 
 has been a genuine advance along these lines. New points 
 of view have grown up which have cast light back upon 
 theory of knowledge and have related its problems to 
 the setting furnished by biology and psychology. What 
 
 157 
 
158 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is called pragmatism has been especially active along these 
 lines. But the period of new suggestions and of new 
 angles of vision is about over and the field is ripe for a 
 systematic formulation of the meaning and criteria of 
 truth. 
 
 The Meaning of Knowledge. — We must get clearly in 
 mind the exact type of knowledge which is connected with 
 truth. As long ago as Aristotle, it was seen that truth 
 and error are relative to judgment. Sense-presentations 
 and feelings are neither true nor false, they are simply 
 experiences. But wherever, and to the extent that, there 
 are interpretations and associations, the possibility of error 
 enters. Assertions, implicit or explicit, involve a risk of 
 mistake while all non-assertive experiences are free from 
 this danger. '* In the actual felt toothache knowing and 
 being are not only inseparable — they are indistinguishable. 
 If, however, I think of my toothache as part of an inde- 
 pendent order of reality, my knowledge of it may be true 
 or false. I am then thinking of it as the effect of an exposed 
 nerve, or of an abscess or of an inflammation — as some- 
 thing, that is to say, that is conditioned independently of 
 my consciousness and that will cease to exist when the 
 conditions are altered." Carr, The Problem of Truth, p. 18. 
 It has been customary to speak of non-assertive experi- 
 ences as feeling. All of the field of experience that is merely 
 enjoyed as present, emotions, felt attitudes, wishes, ques- 
 tions, mere thoughts, simply exist and are neither true 
 nor false. Because we have experienced content here, 
 content which may be very rich and complex, we may 
 speak of it as knowledge; but it is not assertive knowledge. 
 For our present purposes, there is no need to be over- 
 subtle and study border-land cases. We can be satisfied 
 with the distinction between explicit assertions and felt 
 
TRUTH AND ERROR 159 
 
 presence. In the one class of experiences there is a dis- 
 tinct claim to knowledge; in the other merely a felt pres- 
 ence which is sufficient to itself and intent on its own 
 existence and movement. Is it not true that we are more 
 often willing and dreaming and enjoying and acting than 
 passing judgments? 
 
 The question of truth has, then, to do with that type 
 of knov/ledge which we speak of as beliefs, assertions, in- 
 terpretations, propositions, judgments. In all such ex- 
 periences there is a sense of dualism. We are more or less 
 aware that what we are judging about is independent of our 
 judgments. The content of our claimed knowledge is not 
 identical with what is referred to, or intended, in the 
 judgmental experience. Only a little reflection makes 
 us distinguish between the mental content or idea-object 
 which claims to be knowledge and that about which it is 
 knowledge. Thus I may pass the judgment that the Dec- 
 laration of Independence was not signed on the Fourth 
 of July as ordinarily supposed; but I am aware that this 
 understood assertion is not that event which I designate 
 the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The one 
 object is thought of as a present element in my mind, ex- 
 istent only there; the other object is thought of as an event 
 never present in my mind and happening in the United 
 States long before I was born. The understood assertion 
 is admitted to be a mental object and so far existent. 
 But we are not primarily concerned with its existence but 
 with the claim and reference attached to it as an integral 
 part of the total experience. All assertive knowledge, when 
 made explicit, involves this complex type of experience 
 and can so be distinguished from those other phases of 
 consciousness which are present to the same degree but 
 have no such characteristic. 
 
160 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Three Common Theories of Truth.— For some time, 
 three theories of truth have held the field of philosophical 
 favor and have fought for supremacy among themselves. 
 These theories are closely connected with epistemological 
 outlooks and their adherents have probably had this as- 
 pect of the question, important as it is, too much in mind. 
 To get an adequate notion of truth, we must combine the 
 epistemological problem with an investigation of the actual 
 tests applied to assertions in the various fields of science. 
 Of late, reflection has swung in this direction and bids 
 fair to achieve a clearer and concreter notion of what 
 truth means to human beings. 
 
 The three dominant theories of truth are the correspond- 
 ence theory, the coherence theory and the pragmatist 
 theory. The first is a realist interpretation of that dualism 
 which seems so characteristic of assertive knowledge; 
 the second is a manifestation of idealism; and the third 
 swings vaguely between idealism and realism. Let us 
 try to get these theories definitely before our minds. 
 
 The Correspondence Theory. — The original form of 
 the correspondence theory starts, as we have indicated, 
 from the dualism seemingly characteristic of the claim 
 to knowledge made in assertive experiences. These ex- 
 periences are usually spoken of as ideas or beliefs, and it is 
 said that truth is a property of certain of these ideas. It 
 means their agreement with the reality to which they refer. 
 Falsity or error, on the other hand, means their disagree- 
 ment with this selected independent reality. 
 
 But this preliminary statement is accepted by all. Cer- 
 tainly, truth involves agreement of some sort with reality. 
 The reflective problem of truth arises only when there is 
 the attempt to define the nature of this agreement. The 
 correspondence theory is just such an attempt. 
 
TRUTH AND ERROR 161 
 
 The first, and naive, form is the position that the idea 
 is a copy of reahty. If this reahty be regarded as a non- 
 mental and imperceptible reality, we have represent- 
 ative realism of the Lockian form. To this type of the 
 correspondence theory, there are two main objections 
 which have generally been regarded as conclusive. First, 
 the idea is thought of as an image which can be like an- 
 other object; second, the reality is by hypothesis unat- 
 tainable, so that it is impossible to compare idea and 
 reality to see whether they agree in this sensuous way. 
 Let us examine these objections. 
 
 We have seen that the mental object which is commonly 
 spoken of as an idea is an assertion or judgment. But an 
 assertion is not an image, it is something understood, 
 a meaning. The psychologist may try to break it down 
 into a grouping of images for his analytic purposes but 
 it is certainly not experienced as a definite sensuous ob- 
 ject which can be compared point by point with another 
 object of like kind. It seems quite clear, then, that 
 this naive theory of correspondence has been misled by 
 the actual representative relation between idea and per- 
 cept in human experience. This first criticism carries 
 us naturally to the second. Even were our ideas potenti- 
 ally comparable in this presentative fashion with reality, 
 say as a photograph is potentially comparable with the 
 individual whose photograph it is, the unfortunate fact 
 is that reality is not attainable. The absurdity of the no- 
 tion is seen when we reflect that, even were it a fact that 
 realities outside of consciousness produce copies of them- 
 selves in our minds, we could never know that this was the 
 case. By hypothesis, we can apprehend only the copies. 
 There could be no test for our faith. And there is much in 
 our experience which suggests that effects are not like 
 
162 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 causes. The force of these objections is so great that this 
 naive theory of correspondence has no standing in philos- 
 ophy. 
 
 The correspondence theory has other possibiHties but 
 these depend upon a more adequate idea of knowledge. 
 One form, which is usually called the logical theory of 
 truth, goes with a presentative realism and an atomistic 
 metaphysics. "The theory is best described as pluralistic 
 realism. It is the view that the universe consists of or is 
 composed of an aggregate of an infinite number of entities. 
 Some of these have a place in the space and time series, 
 and these exist. Some, on the other hand, are possibili- 
 ties which have not and may never have any actual exist- 
 ence. Entities that have their place in the perceptual 
 order of experience exist, or have existed, or will exist; 
 but entities that are concepts, such as goodness, beauty, 
 truth, or that are abstract symbols like numbers, geo- 
 metrical figures, pure forms do not exist, but are none the 
 less just as real as the entities that do exist. These en- 
 tities are the subject-matter of our judgments, and know- 
 ing is discovering the relations in which they stand to one 
 another. The whole significance of this view lies in the 
 doctrine that relations are external to the entities that are 
 related — they do not enter into and form part of the nature 
 of the entities." Carr, The Problem of Truth, pp. 24-5. 
 It will be apparent to the student that this position is a 
 form of presentative realism. As a matter of fact, it is 
 neo-realism. 
 
 The Coherence Theory. — ^The inability of realists to 
 achieve a satisfactory correspondence theory encouraged 
 idealists to develop a theory of truth which would fit into 
 their view of reality. A very important school of modern 
 idealists teaches that, while all actual experience is only 
 
TRUTH AND ERROR 163 
 
 a fragmentary part of a complete whole and so more or 
 less appearance, we do have a veritable criterion of reality 
 in the principle of self-consistency. The real is the co- 
 herent and harmonious. Only the whole comes up to this 
 ideal and is genuinely real. This whole is usually called 
 the Absolute, and is thought to be of the nature of human 
 experience, only not fragmentary and broken and full of 
 internal contradictions. 
 
 But, it will be said, this is a theory of reality, not of 
 truth. That is so, but a theory of truth is deduced from 
 this outlook. It is absurd to assume an external reality 
 to which ideas must correspond. Ergo, truth must be an 
 internal characteristic of ideas themselves, and this must 
 be their consistency. Truth is but another name for the 
 ideal of logical consistency. The more complete and in- 
 ternally coherent a system of propositions is, the more it 
 approaches this ideal a^nd the more truth there is in the 
 system. Truth is an ideal which is never completely real- 
 ized. Every system of ideas is at once truth and error. 
 There are two sides or directions of all thinking. 
 
 The prime objection to this theory is epistemological. 
 It stands and falls with idealism. A second objection is 
 that it ignores too much the specific claim to knowledge of, 
 and reference to, a particular part of reality characteristic 
 of particular assertions. It prefers to discuss such general 
 contrasts as appearance and reality. I cannot help feeling 
 that this disregard of the specific and refuge in the general 
 is connected with the fact that modern idealism is really 
 founded on the inability of Hume and Kant to solve the 
 problem of knowledge. An independent physical world is 
 an unknowable and therefore does not exist. Hence, we 
 are forced to acknowledge only experience. But human 
 experience is not self-sufficient enough to be all of reality. 
 
164 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The consequence is that the dualism of knowledge ap- 
 pears in the form of the contrast between the part and 
 the whole. 
 
 On the purely logical side, there are two objections to 
 the coherence theory. There is the formal objection that 
 the proof of the criterion, self-consistency, cannot be 
 founded on itself; and there is the other objection that 
 more than one system of beliefs may be internally coherent. 
 Thus, in scientific investigations, it often happens that 
 rival hypotheses compete for acceptance and that the 
 final decision between them is made, not on the basis 
 of their relative internal perfections, but on that of their 
 agreement with the facts. And this last criticism brings 
 us naturally to pragmatism which has in large measure 
 been an attack upon the point of view of absolutism and a 
 demand for specific, human tests and meanings for truth. 
 
 Pragmatism, — Pragmatism is a name for a tendency 
 in contemporary philosophy which seeks to link truth 
 with what is useful and serviceable in human experience. 
 Because it is a tendency it is hard to define. Its opponents 
 often do it injustice while its advocates do it more than 
 justice. Like all new movements it has a negative, or 
 critical, side and a positive side. In the space at our dis- 
 posal, all we can try to do is to show its general drift, 
 chief doctrines and obvious assumptions. 
 
 First, a word about its history. In 1878, Mr. Charles S. 
 Peirce wrote an article for the Popular Science Monthy in 
 which he proposed a test for ideas : " Consider what effects, 
 which might conceivably have practical bearings, we con- 
 ceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our 
 conception of these effects is the whole of our conception 
 of the object." This article attracted little attention for 
 nearly twenty years when it was at last referred to by 
 
TRUTH AND ERROR 165 
 
 William James and woven into his criticism of what he 
 considered to be a disregard of concrete human life in 
 both science and philosophy. James's gift as a writer and 
 his standing as a suggestive thinker soon made the term 
 pragmatism widely known both in America and in Europe. 
 Before long, it was the subject of hot debate in which it 
 was bitterly attacked and vigorously defended. From an 
 attitude, it became a fairly definite body of doctrine ar- 
 ranged around a theory of truth as its point of departure. 
 Its most distinguished advocate in America to-day, now 
 that James is dead, is Professor John Dewey; in England, 
 Dr. F. C. S. Schiller. On the continent, there are move- 
 ments sympathetic with it but none which are strictly 
 identical. 
 
 The critical side of pragmatism is an attack upon what 
 it variously calls absolutism and intellectualism. There 
 can be no purely formal and logically internal criterion of 
 truth. There must be a practical, empirically applicable, 
 external, largely non-logical criterion of truth. In con- 
 trast to absolutism, pragmatism stresses the value and 
 essential s elf-su fficiency of human experience. What we 
 are concerned with, first and foremost, is human life, hu- 
 man problems, human points of view, and human situa- 
 tions. Extra-human reality can take care of itself. In 
 contrast with intellectualism, it stresses tests of ajioii- 
 logical kind such as satisfactoriness, utility, workableness. 
 Such tests it considers not so much anti-logical as super- 
 logical. Logic must be so interpreted as to be seen in its 
 proper setting in relation to purpose, feeling and habit. 
 Logic has been too abstract and formal to be true to 
 human experience as it is. In so stating pragmatism, I 
 am ridding it of those extreme expressions which have 
 done it harm. 
 
166 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The drift of pragmatism is quite obviously toward a 
 biological approach to the interpretation of truth, knowl- 
 edge and consciousness. Professor Dewey and his associ- 
 ates in America, and Mach, Jerusalem and Simmel in Eu- 
 rope have developed this lead. On the other hand, those 
 who have had a mystical bias, like James, have concerned 
 themselves with the denial of clear-cut, objective, scientific 
 tests for many ideas, especially those connected with reli- 
 gion. The anti-scientific phase of pragmatism is in this 
 branch. Probably this phase is most usually associated 
 with James's famous essay. The Will to Believe, 
 
 The pragmatist is an idealist rather than a realist In so 
 far as he seems to admit that we do not know a reality 
 independent of our minds. On the whole ^ he subordinates 
 the idea of knowledge to that of truth. The workableness of 
 ideas verifies them or makes them true; it does not make 
 them cases of knowledge. Historically, we can under- 
 stand this subordination of knowledge to truth, for most 
 of the pragmatists are of the idealistic tradition. In 
 America, it was largely a revolt against objective idealism 
 of absolutistic tendencies. 
 
 But, as idealists, pragmatists had no hope of re-inter- 
 preting the correspondence theory of truth. And, as anti- 
 intellectualists, they felt the inadequacy of the coherence 
 theory. What was left to them but the sort of theory they 
 did actually develop? ''True ideas y^ writes James, ''are 
 those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. 
 False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical 
 difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, 
 is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.'* 
 James, Pragmatism^ p. 201. The criticism which I passed 
 upon this interpretation of truth in my Logic is as follows : 
 "It will be noticed that the meaning of being an actual 
 
TRUTH AND ERROR 167 
 
 case of knowledge, which is a part of the content and set- 
 ting of every assertion, is omitted. This aspect, in our 
 opinion, is fundamental. The logician who understands 
 his science does not deny the empirical character of the 
 criteria of trueness, but he does assert that the claim of an 
 idea to be knowledge is also essential." Sellars, The 
 Essentials of Logic, p. 304. 
 
 Just one more point must be touched upon. The ma- 
 jority of pragmatists teach that truth is a changing thing. 
 Ideas are made true by their utility. New conditions 
 demand new ideas and so old truths become untrue and 
 new ideas mount the rostrum in their place. Pragmatists 
 have not enough guarded against a natural misinterpreta- 
 tion. The position seems to land us in a mere changing 
 flux of ideas which are like the favorites of a court, now 
 smiled upon and now frowned upon. The more sane 
 pragmatists have pointed out that the criteria are quite 
 objective and not at all capricious. Dewey has especially 
 stressed the biological setting and has striven to be con- 
 sidered a naive realist. But I must leave many interesting 
 points untouched and pass to the theory which I wish to 
 associate with non-apprehensional realism. 
 
 Truth as a Cognitive Value. — It will be remembered 
 that we insisted on the logical priority of the idea of knowl- 
 edge to that of truth. And were knowledge always knowl- 
 edge, we would not have had the term truth at all. Much 
 that claims to be knowledge and has had its claim ac- 
 cepted turns out not to be knowledge. For instance, the 
 Ptolemaic theory of the solar system was long believed in 
 and held to be knowledge about the physical world; to- 
 day, we have completely discarded it and affirm the Coper- 
 nican view. It is this occurrence of mistakes, this actual 
 experience that knowledge is not always knowledge, that 
 
168 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 developed the reflective values or meanings which we call 
 truth and error. Truth, or trueness, is a confirmatory 
 value which we attach to assertions about which we no longer 
 have any doubt. As a confirmatory value, it presupposes 
 the experience of mistake and the rise of the attitude 
 of doubt. Its contrast term is error or falsity. Mistake 
 is an experience; it is the giving up of a belief for reasons 
 which are regarded as satisfactory. Falsity, or erroneous- 
 ness, is the negative value which we attach to an idea 
 doubt of which has been confirmed. Thus trueness and 
 erroneousness are contrasted cognitive values. How easily 
 puzzles are solved when once an adequate philosophical 
 position has been achieved! 
 
 The Criteria of Truth. — A study of scientific method 
 soon convinces the philosopher that the actual criteria 
 of truth are consistency and agreement with the facts. 
 Such is the final status of an accepted proposition. It must 
 be self -consistent and cover the facts. These facts are 
 either elementary propositions which rest upon perception 
 and about which no doubt arises or complex propositions 
 which have already been sufficiently tested. The process 
 of verification which precedes the attachment of cognitive 
 value may be spoken of as the convergence of evidence. 
 *' Verification involves responsibility to fact, freedom from 
 self-contradiction, and a flexible harmony with other 
 accepted theories which have passed through similar 
 tests. The criteria of truth are not external but internal. 
 It is absurd to look for some touchstone which can be 
 applied in a mechanical fashion to propositions claiming 
 truth." The flaw in the correspondence type of realism is 
 this appeal to an unattainable external standard. Both 
 absolutist and pragmatist build upon the recognition of 
 this flaw. 
 
TRUTH AND ERROR 169 
 
 How Non-Apprehensional Realism Avoids the Copy 
 View. — I presume that the student has already seen how 
 non-apprehensional reaHsm avoids the shipwreck which 
 has overtaken representative realism. Since truth is only 
 a confirmatory value attached to assertions admitting their 
 claim to be cases of knowledge, the criteria of truth are 
 purely empirical and experiential. Truth is not a cor- 
 respondence with an external reality at all. But, it will 
 be said, this only pushes the problem one step further 
 back to knowledge. Certainly; but we have shown that 
 knowledge is an irreducible meaning characteristic of our 
 ideas. Knowledge is not an agreement with reality or a 
 correspondence with reality; it is simply knowledge. 
 Human propositions do claim to be knowledge, to give 
 information about reality. Truth is simply the confirma- 
 tion of this claim after doubt, potential or actual, and the 
 application of tests. Assertions do not correspond to 
 facts but agree with them and cover them. And both the 
 propositions and the facts are mental. 
 
 But, if this is knowledge, what is ignorance? Quite 
 evidently, it is a relative lack of knowledge. A sense of 
 ignorance accompanies problems which are not solved 
 and fields which are not completely explored. He who 
 has no knowledge at all of a subject cannot even be aware 
 of his ignorance because the subject would not exist for 
 him. 
 
 Knowledge Is a Utility. — Those pragmatists who have 
 approached philosophy from the biological angle have 
 proclaimed that consciousness, itself, is a utility. Adopting 
 the standpoint of Darwinism, they have suggested that it 
 arose and evolved from stage to stage because of its value 
 to the organism in the struggle for existence. It performs 
 a function. Perhaps we need go no further than to main- 
 
170 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tain that consciousness has utility and leave the question of 
 origin. It sounds somewhat far-fetched to assert that a 
 need causes a thing to arise. Yet a need may lead to the 
 development of any feature which is in existence. Now it 
 is being pretty generally granted that knowledge is power. 
 It follows that the ability to acquire knowledge is of value 
 to the organism. Civilization is itself a sufficient com- 
 mentary on, and confirmation of, this conclusion. 
 
 References 
 
 Bode, An Outline of Logic, chaps. 12 and 15. 
 
 Carr, The Problem of Truth. 
 
 Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory. 
 
 James, Pragmatism; The Meaning of Truth. 
 
 Jerusalem, Introduction to Philosophy, third division. 
 
 Joachim, The Nature of Truth. 
 
 Marvin, A First Book in Metaphysics, chap. 9. 
 
 Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chaps. 12 and IS. 
 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 10. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM 
 
 Epistemology and Metaphysics. — Historically, meta- 
 physics preceded epistemology. The early Greek thinkers 
 had worked out an elementary ontology long before they 
 achieved anything which deserves the name of theory of 
 knowledge. "Owing to the fact that the senses and hu- 
 man reflection are first directed to the objective world to 
 which we must adapt ourselves in order to live, the latter 
 inquiry arose historically earlier than the problem of 
 knowledge. Man begins to reflect on himself much later 
 than upon things. It is for this reason that the problem 
 concerning the nature of being has meaning and interest 
 for those who have not yet risen above the plane of naive 
 realism in the theory of knowledge." Jerusalem, An In- 
 troduction to Philosophy f p. 135. Much of metaphysics 
 has, therefore, been founded on an implicit and uncritical 
 epistemology. This fact partly accounts for the inade- 
 quacies of much of past speculation. Another reason is, 
 of course, the lack of tested scientific knowledge at the 
 service of philosophy. It will be remembered that modern 
 philosophy seeks to round out and develop the contribu- 
 tions of the special sciences into a consistent view of the 
 world. The less the information derivable from science, 
 the more uncontrolled speculation enters. Such specula- 
 tion is just as much false science as it is false philosophy. 
 The human mind hates a vacuum and wants to have some 
 idea of the world. For these reasons, metaphysics has only 
 
 171 
 
172 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 too often been the genial reflection of able men who had 
 no adequate foundation on which to build. We must 
 not be surprised to find sharp contrasts which seem to us 
 unreal and outgrown. 
 
 Logically, epistemology precedes metaphysics though it 
 does not precede science. It makes a deal of difference in 
 our interpretation of the world whether we are idealists 
 or realists in our epistemology. In the preceding chapter, 
 we pointed out that the metaphysics of subjective idealism 
 is obviously mentalism. If I can know only what I appre- 
 hend and I apprehend only objects in my consciousness, 
 it follows that reality must be for me only my conscious- 
 ness. This example illustrates the point we have just 
 made, that a thinker's metaphysics, or theory of reality, 
 is closely connected with his theory of knowledge. It is 
 not too much to say that the philosophy of the last two 
 hundred years has been built around the recognition of this 
 fact. 
 
 But when we take the relation between these two 
 philosophical disciplines in a more genetic way, we soon 
 realize that there is an interaction between them. If the 
 metaphysics which follows from a given epistemology is 
 obviously inadequate, it often leads the persistent thinker 
 to reexamine his epistemology to see whether he can dis- 
 cover some flaw or unnecessary assumption in it. The 
 marked contemporary reaction against idealism is a sign 
 of the feeling that an idealistic metaphysics does not enable 
 reflection to cover and organize the facts of science in a 
 significant way. 
 
 Materialism and Spiritualism. — We shall now proceed 
 to examine two types of metaphysical monism which have 
 engaged the attention of the world for centuries. Every 
 one has heard of materialism, and there are few who have 
 
MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM 173 
 
 not heard of its opposite, spiritualism. We speak of these 
 positions as monistic because they teach that reality is com- 
 posed of one type of stuff, appearances to the contrary not- 
 withstanding. For materialism, this one primordial stuff 
 is matter; for spiritualism, it is mind or immaterial spirit. 
 We shall see that these two sharply opposed monisms are 
 naive and dogmatic. Their epistemological foundations 
 are inadequate. 
 
 Materialism. — Naive materialism is an ontological posi- 
 tion which teaches that consciousness is reducible to matter. 
 Matter is reality, and consciousness must be attached to it 
 in some fashion. Materialism is monistic because it main- 
 tains that reality is of one kind and that any apparent 
 dualism must be capable of reduction. There is no doubt 
 in the mind of the materialist that matter is pretty directly 
 known. He often seems to think that it is perceived and 
 open to inspection so that its very vitals are exposed to 
 view. Materialism is, then, an abbreviation for material- 
 istic monism.^ 
 
 For even a fair understanding of materialism, a glance 
 at its history is necessary. The general purpose and out- 
 look back of metaphysical materialism will be found its 
 valuable feature, something to be reckoned with even after 
 a critical epistemology has undermined the naive ontology 
 connected with it. The student will soon realize that 
 materialism has been a sign of a naturalistic view of things 
 and a protest against supernaturalism. Much of the bitter, 
 and often unfair, opposition it has met with has been due 
 to this controversial direction of its speculations. 
 
 The early Greek thinkers were monistic and essentially 
 
 ^ The following exposition stresses difficulties. The content and 
 plausibility of materialism changes with the advance of science. The 
 older views of matter have been discarded. 
 
174 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 materialistic. We must remember, however, that they 
 had no clear-cut conceptual idea of matter at first. The 
 atomism of Democritus was about the first definite ex- 
 pression of a conscious materialism. He taught that the 
 universe consists of atoms and empty space. These atoms 
 differ from one another in size, shape and position but are, 
 in other respects, homogeneous. Changes in things are due 
 to the motions of these elementary particles which collide 
 and combine in various ways. Thus far we have a philoso- 
 phy of nature similar to what would to-day be called me- 
 chanical atomism. But where is there place for mind in 
 such a world .^ Democritus meets the difficulty by assert- 
 ing that *mind,' also, is composed of atoms, the smallest, 
 roundest and most mobile that there are. What, however, 
 did he mean by mind, and what was the relation of this 
 atomic mind to the actual sensations and thoughts which 
 people hsive? To these necessary questions, his answer 
 is uncertain. It is probable that he did not distinguish 
 clearly between the corporeal and the incorporeal and 
 vaguely thought of consciousness as a part of the nature 
 of these mobile atoms. 
 
 The Englishman Thomas Hobbes was the first noted 
 modern materialist He taught that sensations and ideas 
 are the reactions of the inward parts of the body to the 
 stimuli coming from without. Thus he tends to identify 
 consciousness with motion. In the eighteenth century, 
 naive materialism reached its height in France. The 
 physician La Mettrie (L'homme machine, 1748) endows 
 matter with the capacity of acquiring motor force and sen- 
 sation. The mind has its seat in the body and is extended 
 and material. Essentially the same views find expression 
 in Holbach's Systdme de la nature (1770). His chief pur- 
 pose is to combat all forms of supernaturalism. *'Mind 
 
MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM 175 
 
 is simply body regarded under the aspect of certain func- 
 tions or powers." 
 
 Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, material- 
 ism again came to the front owing to the decay of the ro- 
 mantic idealism of Hegel, Fichte and Schelling and the 
 discovery of new facts about the dependence of the mind 
 upon the body. Unfortunately, these new advocates of 
 materialism were untrained in philosophy and psychology 
 and made the most absurd statements in a very dogmatic 
 fashion. Vogt's Kohlerglauhe und Wissenschaft (1855), 
 Moleschott's Der Kreislauf des Lebens and Biichner's 
 Kraft und Stoff are the chief works of this materialistic 
 movement. None of them are very satisfactory, but they 
 do issue a challenge to philosophy to meet the facts of the 
 mind-body relation without hedging. When Vogt as- 
 serts that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes 
 bile, it is easy to point out the difference between the two 
 cases and to set aside all talk of secretion as meaningless; 
 yet the close connection between consciousness and the 
 brain is indicated by a very large number of undeniable 
 facts. 
 
 There are three forms which naive materialism takes, 
 the attributive^ the causal and the equative. Attributive 
 materialism makes mind (consciousness) an attribute of 
 matter; the causal makes it an effect of matter; and the 
 equative makes it identical with matter. Let us look at 
 these forms very briefly. 
 
 Attributive materialism forgets that it Is merely using 
 an expression as an explanation. If matter is so con- 
 ceived as to exclude consciousness from its nature, it is 
 meaningless to attach it externally by calling it an attri- 
 bute. How are attributes related to the substance of 
 which they are attributes? Do they reveal the nature of 
 
176 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 that substance, or are they something external? Such 
 questions as these remain on the metaphysical side, while, 
 on the epistemological side, we cannot help feeling sur- 
 prised by the naive assumption that we know matter in a 
 direct and essentially intuitive way. Materialism is 
 naive and dogmatic philosophically because it has no 
 mastery of fundamental concepts and no conception of 
 theory of knowledge. It is a faith more than a philosophy. 
 
 Causal materialism is confronted by similar objections. 
 To say that consciousness is an ej^ect of matter or that 
 matter produces consciousness is less intelligible than it 
 sounds. Here, again, the materialist shows his ignorance 
 of fundamental concepts. What is a cause? Does one 
 thing produce another? Since Hume's time, philosophers 
 have been well agreed that a cause and effect relation is 
 essentially temporal and gives us no insight into any 
 creative production. If matter is alien to consciousness, 
 as the materialist usually assumes, the rise of conscious- 
 ness from it is the worst sort of mystery. It is, moreover, 
 not even a fact since no human being has seen matter 
 produce consciousness out of itself. Why? Because no 
 human being has ever perceived matter. Matter is an ab- 
 stract concept which needs analysis of a searching kind. 
 Causal materialism does not contain enough philosophical 
 analysis to deserve the name of an ontology. When all 
 is said, that must remain the chief objection to it. 
 
 Equative materialism is obviously a tour de force which 
 comes perilously near self-contradiction. If the material- 
 ist claims to have a clear concept of matter, he must ask 
 himself whether his concept of consciousness is the same 
 in its content. If he does not have a clear concept of mat- 
 ter, materialism is merely a term for a vague sort of natu- 
 ralism. The materialist cannot escape this dilemma. To 
 
MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM 177 
 
 assert that consciousness is motion or energy is nonsense. 
 It is like saying that black is hard. Yet those who have 
 taken the first horn of the dilemma have been forced to 
 make analogous assertions. 
 
 The examination of materialism has been interesting in 
 itself because every one desires to know what materialism 
 is and what objections philosophers raise against it. But 
 it has also been valuable as a clear illustration of the point 
 made in the first section of this chapter, viz., that episte- 
 mology logically precedes metaphysics. The philosophical 
 weakness of naive materialism is twofold : it has neither a 
 systematic epistemology nor a well-analyzed ontology. And 
 the reason for the second element of weakness can be 
 traced to the first. Had these scientists taken philosophy 
 seriously enough to construct a reflective theory of knowl- 
 edge, they would probably have shown more metaphysical 
 depth. What we can excuse to Democritus who lived 
 at the beginning of science and philosophy, we cannot 
 excuse to an educated man of to-day. No one claims to 
 be capable of being a physicist or a chemist without years 
 of severe training: why should they think themselves ca- 
 pable of becoming philosophers without a similar training .^^ 
 But we must temper our blame with this praise, ma- 
 terialism has always stood for a frank recognition of the 
 facts of human life. It has done this sometimes brutally 
 and crudely, yet it has done it. The materialist has nearly 
 always been courageous and intellectually honest. 
 
 Spiritualism. — Spiritualism is the antithesis of ma- 
 terialism. It may be defined as the doctrine which main- 
 tains that all existence is mental or spiritual. The spirit- 
 ualist is not always careful to define what he means by 
 spirit and mind, usually being contented with the negative 
 explanation that he means what is not material. Of recent 
 
178 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 years, however, there has been a decided drift toward a 
 more empirical conception of spirit. Spirit is conscious- 
 ness; or it is conserving and creative memory which reveals 
 itself in consciousness. The main thesis of spiritualism 
 is that the apparently material world is the symbol of 
 realities like the more mental aspects of ourselves. 
 
 Spiritualism has had various forms, differing funda- 
 mentally among each other. Hence, it is a difficult task 
 to give the gist of it and summarize the objections which 
 are usually urged against it. During the Middle Ages, the 
 prevailing ontology was dualistic for it accepted a material 
 world (created) and a hierarchy of spirits. Probably 
 Leibnitz was the first thorough-going spiritualist. Be- 
 ginning with the conception of substance as that which 
 exists 'per se, he added the further premise that only that 
 which has the power of action can exist. But, he main- 
 tained, matter is passive since extension is its essence 
 (Descartes). Therefore, reality must be immaterial and 
 unextended. The system of Leibnitz in all of its brilliancy 
 is an example of deductive ontology. The premises must 
 be granted before the conclusion follows. 
 
 But would not the modern thinker hesitate before ac- 
 cepting the further interpretations with which Leibnitz 
 loads his dynamic conception of reality? Are we so certain 
 to-day that only mind can be active? Indeed, is not the 
 inclination the other way, so that consciousness is often 
 thought of as passive and ineffective.'^ Again, would the 
 thinker trained in modem science so easily admit the Car- 
 tesian conception of matter as mere passive extension? Yet 
 Leibnitz's argument demands this as its opponent position. 
 
 One of the chief objections the modern thinker has to the 
 systems of men like Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz 
 is the lack of an epistemological foundation for their on- 
 
MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM 179 
 
 tological theories. Of course, there is an epistemology, 
 but it is impHcit and relatively uncritical. Their favorite 
 procedure was to begin with definitions and deduce con- 
 clusions from insufficiently tested contrasts. Can we not 
 expect better results in the long run from a more inductive 
 mode of reflection? Philosophy must endeavor to find out 
 what knowledge is and how it is referred and what funda- 
 mental concepts are discoverable in it. 
 
 Let us examine the system of a contemporary spiritual- 
 ist, Wilhelm Wundt. He argues, much as we have done, 
 that the contrast between the physical and the psychical 
 is one which grows up within experience. The physical 
 sciences develop the one term of the contrast and arrive 
 at the atom as the ultimate physical unit, while psychology 
 investigates the other term and reaches the assumption 
 of an ultimate qualitative unit called will. The meta- 
 physician must somehow harmonize these two units. The 
 hypothesis which, according to Wundt, does this most 
 satisfactorily is the assumption of a will-atom as the pri- 
 mary element of reality. 
 
 As Hofifding points out (Modern Philosophers^ pp. 29- 
 31), Wundt really argues much as Leibnitz did. "The 
 world must be cogitated either as material or else as spirit- 
 ual unity. We can no other. Wundt's choice is not doubt- 
 ful. The only activity immediately given is, and remains for 
 us, our will." It will be remembered that both Berkeley 
 and Leibnitz used these principles as their premises also. 
 But let us examine these premises. What is the material 
 world but the world we gain knowledge about in the phys- 
 ical sciences.'^ Is it so certain that this world, while not sim- 
 ply composed of consciousness, excludes consciousness? In 
 other words, is this harsh antithesis with which all these 
 thinkers begin, a justifiable one epistemologically? We 
 
180 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 shall examine this assumption pretty thoroughly in the 
 succeeding chapters. The second assumption, also, needs 
 overhauling. What is this "will" of which Wundt so 
 confidently speaks? When we come to his psychology, we 
 find that Wundt "does not even reckon will among the 
 elements of consciousness. He treats the phenomena of 
 will as the most composite and special forms of conscious 
 life, and numbers only sensations and feelings among the 
 psychical elements." Hoffding, p. 19. Kiilpe, at one time 
 Wundt's pupil, decides that "no one of the elementary 
 processes of our mental life can be regarded as * primary' 
 in any absolute and exclusive sense." Introduction to 
 Philosophyy p. 181. Thus it cannot be denied — and 
 I think that practically all psychologists would back me 
 up in this statement — that Wundt's metaphysical hypothe- 
 sis of a qualitative will-atom as the primary element of 
 reality has slight connection with the facts of psychology. 
 There also remains the further question, what content we 
 must give to the fundamental concept of activity. Ac- 
 tivity is a category. Can it be used by both the physical 
 and the mental sciences? Or is it confined, as Berkeley, 
 Leibnitz and Wundt assume, to the mental sciences? 
 These last questions should make the student realize 
 the intimate connection between philosophy and the 
 sciences. A philosophy which refuses to subject itself to a 
 cold and exhaustive analysis of the fundamental ideas 
 and setting of the sciences is not continuous with science. 
 
 Two Types of Spiritualism. — It is possible to distin- 
 guish two types of spiritualism which may be designated 
 realistic spiritualism and idealistic spiritualism respectively. 
 Historically, Leibnitz, Renouvier, Ward, Paulsen and 
 Wundt may be classed as realistic spiritualists, while the 
 objective idealists and mental pluralists may be classed 
 
MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM 181 
 
 as idealistic spiritualists. Unfortunately, the epistemologi- 
 cal foundation is not always clearly enough indicated nor 
 logically followed out, so that the ontology of certain 
 known thinkers can only be spoken of as spiritualistic. 
 
 It is easy to see how the objective idealist persuades 
 himself that all existence is mental or of the nature of 
 sentient experience. His ontology flows from his episte- 
 mology. Mr. F. H. Bradley is a good representative of a 
 pretty empirical type of objective idealism. His chief 
 argument in favor of spiritualism boils down to the ar- 
 gument from content: "Find any piece of existence, take 
 up anything that any one could possibly call a fact, or 
 could in any sense assert to have being, and then judge if 
 it does not consist in sentient experience." Appearance 
 and Reality, p. 145. But the non-apprehensional realist 
 admits that everything that is apprehended is mental. 
 The more formal objective idealists connect with the Kan- 
 tian and Hegelian tradition. 
 
 Modern realistic spiritualism is taking more and more 
 the form of what is called panpsychism. There is a real 
 world independent of the individual knower; but this 
 world as perceived or as conceived is only a phenomenal 
 world; the real world is of the nature of consciousness 
 which is the only kind of reality we have direct acquaint- 
 ance with. The panpsychist is a phenomenalist who 
 rejects solipsism and, by means of the argument from an- 
 alogy, convinces himself that the more inclusive reality 
 must be mental. A surprisingly large number of psycholo- 
 gists have been drawn in this direction. 
 
 We must leave it to the historian of philosophy to pre- 
 sent and analyze the many variations of spiritualism. 
 Human ingenuity and mental keenness of the highest 
 grade have been at work constructing systems of the most 
 
182 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 abstract and subtle kind. But no system is stronger than 
 its premises. 
 
 References 
 
 Biichner, Force and Matter. 
 
 FuUerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 14. 
 
 Hobbes, Works, Molesworth ed. or Selections by Calkins. 
 
 Jerusalem, Introduction to Philosophy, Fourth Division. 
 
 Kiilpe, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 3. 
 
 Lange, History of Materialism. 
 
 Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy. 
 
 Strong, Why the Mind Has a Body, chaps. 8 and 10. 
 
 Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, bk. 2, chap. 1, 
 
 Ward, Realm of Ends, chap. 1. 
 
 Windelband, Einleitung in die Philosophic, 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 DUALISM AND CRITICAL NATURALISM 
 
 Natural Dualism. — In the preceding chapter, we 
 examined two characteristic forms of monism, materialism 
 and spiritualism. These are clear-cut and unambiguous 
 positions which seek to reduce the world to one funda- 
 mental kind of reality. Materialism and spiritualism are 
 simple and emphatic ontologies which claim a pretty di- 
 rect insight into the very stuff of reality. The mate- 
 rialist proclaims that reality is matter and that there 
 can be no doubt at all about the nature of matter. The 
 spirituahst, or mentalist, is equally certain that all re- 
 ality is mental and that everyone knows what the mental 
 is. After carefully examining their respective claims, we 
 became convinced that both ontologies were too naive. 
 Neither is founded on a satisfactory epistemology and 
 neither does justice to the distinctions characteristic of 
 experience. In a very real sense, each establishes itself 
 but does not disprove its opponent. There is a measure 
 of truth in materialism, yet there is also a measure of 
 truth in mentalism. Evidently, these simplified monisms 
 are overhasty constructions which will not stand critical 
 inspection. 
 
 Reflection on the inadequacy of materialism and spirit- 
 ualism has led many thinkers of late to champion dualism 
 as at least a more valid starting-point for metaphysics. 
 It is held that both physical things and minds are revealed 
 in experience and that these two classes of phenomena are 
 
 X83 
 
184 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 obviously different from each other and equally ultimate. 
 A couple of quotations will make this rejection of material- 
 ism and spiritualism in favor of both matter and mind 
 somewhat clearer. 
 
 "The plain man finds himself in a world of physical 
 things and of minds, and it seems to him that his experi- 
 ence testifies directly to the existence of both. This 
 means that the things of which he has experience appear 
 to belong to two distinct classes." Fullerton, An Intro- 
 duction to Philosophy, p. 202. Thus Fullerton maintains 
 that physical things and mental facts are both given in 
 experience and are clearly distinguishable from each other. 
 It is absurd to try to reduce the one class to the other. 
 
 A more moderate statement of the position of the natural 
 dualist is to be found in the writings of Sidgwick. Natural 
 dualism is for him the position of common sense. *' For 
 there is this advantage in putting questions from the point 
 of view of Common Sense: that it is, in some degree, in 
 the minds of us all, even of the metaphysicians whose 
 conclusions are most opposed to it — such as the extreme 
 Sensationalist or Idealist. It is the view with which we all 
 start when we begin to philosophize. ... In saying this 
 I do not mean to affirm — as some who have maintained 
 Natural Dualism as a philosophical conclusion have af- 
 firmed — that Natural Dualism is involved in the original 
 presentation of the objects of experience to the experienc- 
 ing mind. All I affirm is that we find it in our ordinary 
 thought when we begin to reflect on it, nor can we by the 
 utmost effort of memory recall a time when we did not 
 explicitly hold it. If the behef in an external material 
 world existing as we know it independently of our knowing 
 it — so that our knowledge of it does not affect its exist- 
 ence — if this belief is the result of inference from data 
 
DUALISM AND CRITICAL NATURALISM 185 
 
 given originally as merely mental fact, this process of in- 
 ference preceded the stage of conscious reflection. I ought 
 further to explain that in speaking of Common Sense I 
 do not mean entirely unscientific Common Sense, but the 
 Common Sense of educated persons rectified by a general 
 acquaintance with the results and methods of physical 
 science." Sidgwick, Philosophy y Its Scope and Relations , 
 pp. 42-3. 
 
 When we come to examine the writings of these dualists 
 with care, we soon find that their epistemology is very 
 similar to that of Natural Realism. They are either pre- 
 sentative or representative realists or a vague mixture of 
 both. Here, again, we find that ontology is founded on 
 epistemology. The dualist's quarrel with the materialist 
 is not so much in regard to the conception of matter as 
 in regard to the standing of mind. Both assume that the 
 physical world is an object of knowledge, but the dualist 
 asserts that the mental realm is equally real and irreduci- 
 ble. In opposition to the spiritualist, he maintains that 
 the physical world is known and known to be different 
 from mind. 
 
 What Are Mind and Matter? — One of the unsatis- 
 factory features of materialism, spiritualism, and dualism 
 is the glib way in which the terms "mind" and "matter" 
 are employed. Surely the reader has already been asking 
 himself what is meant by these terms. Let us see whether 
 we can make out. 
 
 According to Sidgwick, there is a general recognition 
 that psychical changes are, as objects of experience, al- 
 together distinct from the nervous changes that accom- 
 pany them. "Since Descartes, philosophical thought has 
 found no difficulty in distinguishing the thinking, feeling, 
 willing thing that each one of us is conscious of being, 
 
186 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 from the complex aggregate of extended solid ^particles which 
 each of us calls his body.*' Ibid., pp. 52-3. Obviously, 
 matter is simply a term for the material world as this is 
 conceived in science as extended, dynamic, conserved. 
 "Our mental states exist in time, have duration; the ob- 
 jects of nature all have length, breadth, and thickness, 
 as well as duration." Marvin, An Introduction to Phi- 
 losophy, p. 209. Consciousness is the unextended, that 
 which exists only in time, that which we feel immediately. 
 Such is the contrast which the dualist has in mind. 
 
 Why Mind and Matter are Held to Be Distinct. — The 
 dualist asserts that mind and matter are clearly and ob- 
 viously distinct. Why is he so certain of this disparate- 
 ness? As our quotations have shown, he seldom gives ex- 
 plicit reasons but, instead, treats the distinctness of the 
 two realities as evident and undeniable. But a study 
 of dualistic literature soon reveals the motives at work. 
 We shall content ourselves with pointing out three of the 
 more important ones. First, the dualist starts from the 
 position we have called Natural Dualism, which is closely 
 connected with Natural Realism. An examination of the 
 development of Natural Dualism by science convinces 
 him that the distinction between the physical world and 
 the realm of knowing and feeling minds is genuine and 
 ultimate. Second, the inability of past thinkers to achieve 
 a clear and satisfactory monism of an intelligible sort 
 makes him skeptical of all attempts to overcome and tran- 
 scend the apparently given contrast between the physical 
 and the mental. Third, the categories which apply to 
 consciousness are certainly widely different in many re- 
 spects from those which apply to the physical world as 
 known by the physical sciences. Let us look at these 
 dualistic motives a little more closely. 
 
DUALISM AND CRITICAL NATURALISM 187 
 
 The dualist is, as we have suggested, a presentative or a 
 representative realist. When he is a presentative realist, 
 he believes that the material world is given as an object 
 to mind just as immediately as the mental realm itself 
 is. Physical objects can, therefore, be inspected and are 
 seen to be different from the acts of consciousness, the 
 feelings, motions and volitions which are set over against 
 them on the subjective side. The distinctness of these two 
 realms is a datum of comparison as well founded as the 
 fact that black is not white. The representative realist 
 is faced by greater epistemological difficulties because his 
 position is not so naive and gives greater play to critical 
 reflection; but he, also, is convinced that he knows the 
 physical world as well as the mental realm and therefore 
 is aware that they are different. It must be remembered 
 that the representative realist believes that he apprehends 
 the material world, even though indirectly through a 
 revelatory idea. As for the presentative realist, both 
 kinds of realities are objects open to inspection. How, 
 then, can there be any mistake? 
 
 It may be well to stress the fact that, for the form of 
 realism which we have favored, the physical world is not 
 apprehended either directly or by means of mental sub- 
 stitutes, while mental objects are. Hence non-apprehen- 
 sional realism holds that the comparison upon which the 
 other forms of realism depend for their assurance of dual- 
 ism cannot be instituted except by a mistake which takes 
 mental objects to be physical realities. So much for this 
 foundation of dualism. 
 
 The inability of past thinkers to achieve a satisfactory 
 monism must also be regarded as a motive at work re- 
 enforcing a contemporary drift toward dualism. The old 
 speculative attempts at a transcendental union of mind and 
 
188 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 matter in the bosom of an absolute substance have lost 
 their savor in the more empirical atmosphere of the pres- 
 ent, while efforts to prove that the distinction between 
 the physical and the psychical is only a contrast within 
 experience have not met with success. The most suggest- 
 ive approach along this line is that made by Ernst Mach. 
 It has, however, pretty obvious faults which have pre- 
 vented its general acceptance. The consequence of this 
 failure of monism has been an increased respect for Natural 
 Dualism. 
 
 The physical sciences have developed a set of categories, 
 or fundamental concepts, which differ markedly from 
 those developed by psychology. The physical world as 
 known by the physical sciences is spatially measurable, 
 massive and dynamic. Its changes are changes of position 
 and of the distribution and form of the energy involved. 
 Since the knowledge achieved is of this character, the 
 scientist naturally conceives the world in terms of these 
 concepts. It is a spatial, massive and energy-containing 
 world. Moreover, it is a substantial and conserved world 
 which neither increases nor decreases in quantity. 
 
 Psychology, on the other hand, has long been moving 
 in the contrary direction. The psychical is intermittent, 
 non-massive, and essentially a temporal process. Psychol- 
 ogy has its own data, and this is its view of its subject- 
 matter. 
 
 The consequence of this contrast between the funda- 
 mental concepts of the two types of science has been a 
 deepening of the dualism with which common sense starts. 
 What hope is there of a monism when every advance seems 
 to confirm Natural Dualism? The suggestion made by 
 Wilhelm Ostwald that consciousness is a form of energy 
 has been rejected by the majority of thinkers as a merely 
 
DUALISM AND CRITICAL NATURALISM 189 
 
 verbal solution at the best and, at the worst, an illogical 
 extension of the concept of energy from its physical mean- 
 ing, where it is a quantity, to consciousness which is not a 
 quantity. 
 
 The Setting of Physical Science. — Since the important 
 consciousness-body problem reflects Natural Dualism and 
 its developed form, scientific dualism, it may be well to 
 get to the foundation of these dualisms as completely as 
 possible. We have pointed out that the standpoint of 
 Natural Realism is closely connected with Natural Dual- 
 ism. I see this book and take it to be an independent 
 thing whose very nature is open to inspection. I don't 
 see what I call consciousness either in it or about it. At 
 this level, consciousness is thought of as an inner sphere 
 somehow in the background and related to my body. All 
 the material for a dualism is present in this outlook. 
 Now the physical scientist works in and from this setting. 
 His atoms are like the things perceived in this regard. 
 They are known, yet are quite external to the knowing and 
 all that is concerned with the knowing. This outlook is 
 strengthened by the fact pointed out above that his data 
 and theories fall into categories like space, mass, energy 
 and motion which differ from those into which the data 
 of psychology fall. The result is that the physical sciences 
 conceive the physical world in terms of their knowledge 
 and, encouraged by the setting of Natural Dualism, as- 
 sume that their knowledge exhausts the nature of the phys- 
 ical world. 
 
 The Setting of Psychology. — Psychology is a special 
 science like any other special science so far as its setting 
 goes. Hence, the psychologist, also, begins with the out- 
 look of Natural Realism and Natural Dualism; only he is 
 concerned with the inner sphere of experience which the 
 
190 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 physical scientist disregards. His study of this inner realm 
 leads him to develop the categories referred to above. 
 Moreover, he is confronted with the apparent connection 
 of consciousness with the body, a fact which physics and 
 chemistry can ignore. He is convinced that the stream of 
 consciousness is somehow related to the brain. Yet, be- 
 cause extension is a fundamental category of the physical 
 realm, lack of it is judged a feature of consciousness. We 
 feel certain that we cannot lay hold of another's conscious- 
 ness and pick it to pieces as we can a physical thing. Con- 
 sciousness is intangible and cannot be buffeted about like 
 a ball. It cannot be measured by superposing a yard- 
 stick upon it. It must be located somehow in the head, 
 in one of the physical things rather than among them. 
 These conclusions probably give a large share of its mean- 
 ing to the statement, made by both psychologists and 
 philosophers, that consciousness is unextended. 
 
 Is This Contrast Justified? — We have helped the 
 dualist to work out the contrast between consciousness 
 and the physical realm. It is the validity of this antithesis 
 which he upholds against the materialist who wishes to 
 belittle consciousness and the spiritualist who desires to do 
 away with the physical. But it will be remembered that 
 in a preceding chapter (Chap. IX) we had already dis- 
 covered this contrast as one which inevitably develops 
 within the individual's experience. The question which 
 now arises is that of its significance for ontology. If my 
 consciousness is distinguishable from the acknowledged 
 realm of the physical about which I can gain knowledge, 
 must it be regarded as alien to it? Does this distinction in- 
 volve a dualism of two kinds of realities? The dualist holds 
 that it does. We, on the contrary, admit that the con- 
 trast between the knower's consciousness and the physical 
 
DUALISM AND CRITICAL NATURALISM 191 
 
 develops naturally and stands out as a significant epis- 
 temological contrast but regard the quick leap to an 
 ontological dualism as unjustified. The question before 
 us is this, Can we acknowledge this contrast and yet so 
 interpret it as to avoid dualism? 
 
 Cartesian Dualism. — The logic of dualism comes out 
 very clearly in its Cartesian form. It will be remembered 
 that Descartes taught that the essence of the physical 
 world is extension, while the essence of the world of thought 
 is thinking. In other words, Descartes formulated a 
 dualism of two substances, alien to each other, whose re- 
 spective essences were revealed in extension and thinking. 
 Extension and thinking are supposed to give insight into 
 the very depths of these two substances or realities. Think- 
 ing reality is not extended, and extended reality does not 
 think. But this formulation is very a priori and dia- 
 lectical. What should we mean by essence? When we 
 say that the physical world is extended, does this mean 
 any more than that it is measurable and that its parts 
 exclude each other dynamically? And this is surely knowl- 
 edge about the physical world, but just as surely no such 
 mysterious revelation of the stuff of the corporeal world 
 as Descartes assumed. But when we examine dualism, 
 we always find that it assumes that we have such knowl- 
 edge of the physical world as to convince us that con- 
 sciousness must be excluded from it. The outlook of appre- 
 hensional realisms is never far from dualism. The dualist 
 just knows that the physical is entirely different in its 
 very stuff from consciousness so that they can no more mix 
 than oil and water can. 
 
 We do not Apprehend the Physical World. — Let us 
 recall that we came to the epistemological conclusion that 
 we cannot apprehend the physical world either directly 
 
192 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 or representatively but can obtain knowledge about it in 
 terms of propositions. Now it is easy to see that dualism 
 is founded upon the assumption that we do possess ap- 
 prehensional knowledge of the physical and so know by 
 comparison with the mental that the two are different. 
 But since we hold that consciousness is the only reality 
 whose very stuff is given and tliat we have only knowledge 
 about the physical world, this comparison is not open. 
 Dualism, in other words, is founded on a false episte- 
 mology. 
 
 But even though we do not apprehend the physical 
 world, may it not be that the knowledge about it which the 
 physical sciences have achieved contradicts consciousness? 
 Can that which is extended and dynamic and conserved 
 contain consciousness? I must confess that I see no con- 
 tradiction. Let it be remembered that we are not saying 
 that consciousness is co-extensive with the physical world 
 nor that consciousness is a revelation of the whole nature 
 of the physical world. All we are maintaining is that con- 
 sciousness can be regarded as part of the nature of the 
 physical world without any conflict with the truth of the 
 judgments which the physical sciences pass upon nature. 
 If so, there is no reason to assert a dualism with the phys- 
 ical as one term and consciousness as the other. The 
 physical and the mental sciences supplement each other. 
 
 A Monistic Interpretation of the Distinction between 
 Consciousness and the Physical World. — But this denial 
 that there is either an epistemological or a scientific reason 
 to assert that consciousness is alien to the physical w^orld 
 leaves us with the problem of interpreting the empirical 
 distinction between consciousness and the physical world 
 upon which the dualist builds so heavily because of his 
 false epistemology. Yet a little reflection shows us a 
 
DUALISM AND CRITICAL NATURALISM 193 
 
 natural interpretation. Looking back at the motives for 
 the distinction, we realize that an important one was the 
 distinction between things and ideas. We saw how re- 
 flection developed this contrast into that between an ac- 
 knowledged and known realm conditioning consciousness 
 and consciousness itself. Consciousness is experienced 
 while this controlling realm is only known. When we 
 are thinking about this acknowledged realm in terms of the 
 knowledge secured by the physical sciences, we arrive at 
 the contrast between consciousness and the physical 
 which we indicated a few pages ago and which we now 
 see involves no ontological dualism. 
 
 Critical Naturalism. — The ontological position at 
 which we have arrived as a result of the progressive criti- 
 cism of materialism, spiritualism and dualism in the light 
 of non-apprehensional realism can be called critical natural- 
 ism. Materialism is an attempt to secure naturalism which 
 fails because of the inadequacy of the theory of knowledge 
 on which it is based. It cannot do justice to the distinc- 
 tions characteristic of experience. Dualism attempts to 
 do justice to the distinctions of experience but misinter- 
 prets them as a consequence of the belief that the distinc- 
 tion between consciousness and the physical world con- 
 sists of the presentation of two kinds of reality. This 
 misinterpretation is the result of apprehensional realism. 
 Spiritualism, on the other hand, is just as one-sided as 
 materialism but seeks to justify this one-sidedness by an 
 appeal to idealism. 
 
 The truth of critical naturalism rests upon the truth 
 of the theory of knowledge which it presupposes. The 
 foundation of that has already been suflSciently given and 
 need not be repeated. But the manner in which it leads 
 to an ontology which meets all the problems with such 
 
194 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ease and simplicity must certainly be regarded as an 
 additional argument in its favor. As we suggested at the 
 opening of the preceding chapter, a satisfactory meta- 
 physics must be regarded as a verification of an epistemol- 
 ogy, just as an unsatisfactory one must be considered a 
 reason for reexamination. The crucial test of critical 
 naturalism will come in the consciousness-body problem. 
 But we must first gain a clearer idea of a few basic 
 categories. To this end, we shall now pass to a study of 
 space, time and substance. 
 
 References 
 
 Fullerton, An Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 14. 
 
 Mach, The Analysis of the Sensations. 
 
 Ostwald, Vorlesungen uher Naturphilosophie. 
 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 2. 
 
 Sidgwick, Philosophy, Its Scope and Relations, lecture 3. 
 
 Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy, chap. 3. 
 
 Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. 2. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE WORLD AS KNOWN BY THE PHYSICAL 
 SCIENCES: SPACE 
 
 About the Categories. — It has become customary for 
 philosophers to speak of fundamental features of the world 
 as known as categories. Thus we think of nature as spatial 
 and in time, of things as having position and size, of sub- 
 stances as possessing properties, of events as caused. Such 
 fundamental predicates which recur in scientific knowledge 
 are called categories. They are not things or events but 
 general characteristics of things and events as these are 
 known. We ask how large a thing is, when it happened, 
 how long a process took to occur, how it is related to other 
 things, what its structure and pro'perties are. These gen- 
 eral headings for investigation about the world under 
 which we can catalogue our knowledge and in terms of 
 which we think of reality are of obvious importance for 
 metaphysics. Much of its task, in fact, consists in the 
 attempt to analyze and understand the full import of these 
 primary terms of our knowledge about the world. They 
 furnish the framework which specific information helps 
 to fill out. It is with these basic concepts, or headings, 
 which are omnipresent in science, but seldom investigated, 
 that the philosopher is concerned. 
 
 Space a Category of the Physical Sciences. — In our 
 examination of the distinction between the physical world 
 and consciousness, we discovered that spatiality is a 
 fundamental characteristic of the physical world as known 
 
 195 
 
196 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 by the physical sciences. In fact, we saw that it is custom- 
 ary to use it as a defining attribute. The physical is spatial 
 or in space. We must conclude, then, that space is a 
 category essential to our knowledge of nature. 
 
 But we cannot let the matter rest there and take it for 
 granted that we know adequately without severe reflec- 
 tion what we mean by space. Is space a receptacle into 
 which physical things are put? Or is it an attribute some- 
 how attached to the physical world .f^ Is space, as Des- 
 cartes thought, a revelation of the essence of the physical .'^ 
 Such questions as these arise for consideration and begin 
 the demand that we analyze this category to see what it 
 implies. 
 
 Five Kinds of Space. — Strange as it may seem to the 
 reader, there are at least five distinguishable kinds of space. 
 These are : sensational space, perceptual space, conceptual 
 space, abstract mathematical space, and, finally, space 
 as a category of physical science. Those who have not 
 realized that there are these different kinds are prone to 
 raise questions which are relevant to one kind and apply 
 the answers to the other kinds. The result of this confusion 
 has been disastrous. 
 
 Sensational Space. — It is the task of the psychologist 
 to discover the various factors whose genetic synthesis 
 leads to the perceptual level at which we all live. As- 
 suredly, the abilitj^ to distinguish position, order and 
 distance is largely the function of the inter-play of elements 
 in which the experience of movement seems to be pre- 
 dominant. Much of the vital meaning of spatial relations 
 is due to the judgment of the extent and direction of the 
 movements which interpret them. But laboratory analy- 
 sis has shown that the various senses have primitive 
 spatial experiences which are qualitatively different. 
 
THE WORLD AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 197 
 
 Visual space is not the same as tactual space. Yet the 
 mind always works out a satisfactory correspondence be- 
 tween them. We can see the sharp corner that we feel 
 and so merge vision and touch. An instance of a region 
 for which no such satisfactory correspondence has been 
 established is the cavity of the mouth. "The interior of 
 one's mouth-cavity feels larger when explored by the 
 tongue than when looked at. The crater of a newly ex- 
 tracted tooth, and the movements of a loose tooth in its 
 socket feel quite monstrous." Here we are nearer an 
 undeveloped spatial experience. It is obvious that we 
 have to do with consciousness. Sensational space exists 
 only in consciousness. 
 
 Perceptual Space. — This normal space arises at a level 
 at which the synthesis of the various sources of experi- 
 ence has been pushed a long way. Visual and tactual 
 space have been brought together so intimately that 
 we pass from the one to the other without any sense of 
 break. 
 
 But the perceptual level is likewise the level of things 
 and their qualities; it is the stage of Natural Realism. As 
 we should expect, perceptual space reflects the outlook 
 of common sense and appears in the completest harmony 
 with "things." Things are extended, they have positions, 
 they are at certain distances and directions from one 
 another. The whole perceptual field arises together and 
 what we have called perceptual space is just an aspect 
 or form of it. But we must conclude that this space is 
 inseparable from the perceptual things of which it is an 
 essential ingredient. The breakdown of Natural Realism 
 has its import for perceptual space just as it has for per- 
 ceptual things. Neither can exist apart from the con- 
 sciousness of the individual percipient. 
 
198 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Conceptual Space. — The development of our space- 
 experience continues, and space becomes more and more 
 conceptual in character. Perceptual space is the synthe- 
 sis of motor, tactual and visual factors, while conceptual 
 space is the result of the tendency of various instances of 
 perceptual space to add themselves together and give the 
 representation of a continuous world spread out equally 
 in every direction. The individual perceives only a por- 
 tion of this continuous world at any one time but assumes 
 and conceives the rest. This conceived realm is the phys- 
 ical world at the level of Natural Realism. We admit 
 that we see only the part under our eyes but know that 
 there is a wider domain like the part we see. Thus we 
 must regard this conceptual space as the form of the con- 
 ceived world of Natural Realism. The physical world is 
 still regarded as something capable of being apprehended. 
 Things are spatial and in space just as they are red and 
 heavy. The vague consciousness of this larger, more in- 
 clusive realm floats in our minds while any part of it is being 
 perceived. How does this conception and belief arise? 
 "Different impressions on the same sense-organ do inter- 
 fere with each other's perception and cannot well be at- 
 tended to at once. Hence, we do not locate them in each 
 other's spaces, but arrange them in a serial order of ex- 
 teriority, each alongside of the rest, in a space larger than 
 that which any sensation brings. This larger space is, 
 however, an object of conception rather than of direct 
 intuition, and bears all the marks of being constructed 
 piecemeal by the mind." James, Principles of Psychology, 
 Vol. II, p. 185. 
 
 This conceptual space, also, is inseparable from the 
 physical world as conceived at the level of Natural Real- 
 ism. It is apprehended by the mind's eye and is the form 
 
THE WORLD AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 199 
 
 and essential feature of the accepted physical realm. 
 There is, moreover, no limit, so far as common sense and 
 science can see, to the process of extension. Astronomy 
 tells its marvels of constellations beyond constellations in 
 pathless space, and the mind grows weary in continuing 
 a process of addition to which there seems to be no neces- 
 sary end. Yet it is important to note that space is always 
 intertwined with bodies just as it is for the physical realm 
 before our eyes. Space is still the form and part of the con- 
 tent of the apprehended world. It is not a receptaculum 
 into which things are somehow put bid a distinguishable 
 aspect of the apprehended world. 
 
 Mathematical Space. — The position we shall adopt 
 and defend is that mathematical space is a construction 
 made by the human mind working upon normal concept- 
 ual space under the guidance of mathematical interests. 
 We do not infer mathematical space in some mysterious 
 way but create it out of conceptual space by abstraction 
 and idealization. We disregard any aspect of the sensible 
 world but its extension. We learn to abstract from the 
 things of which conceptual space is the form and part of 
 the content. In this way, we obtain the concept of an 
 empty space which is homogeneous in all directions. There 
 can be little doubt that this process of abstractive construc- 
 tion is aided by the fact that bodies change their relations 
 without changing their forms. This experience of rigid 
 bodies which move from place enables the mind to advance 
 to the conception of space as such. 
 
 Mathematical space is an apprehended object ancl, as 
 such, exists only for the minds which apprehend it. We 
 must conclude that it does not exist outside of conscious- 
 ness. But since this is true for the sensible and phenomenal 
 world of things which we apprehend, it must not be re- 
 
200 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 garded as at all derogating from the value of mathemat- 
 ical objects. Their mental character does not affect their 
 content or the truth of the propositions which are demon- 
 strated about them with such care. 
 
 Is Space Infinite and Infinitely Divisible? — We as- 
 serted that questions are often asked of one kind of space 
 which are meaningless when applied to other kinds. The 
 question of infinity is an instance of this. Sensational 
 space is not infinite, nor is perceptual space with its given 
 horizon. When we ask whether conceptual space is infinite, 
 we usually mean to enquire whether the physical world is 
 infinite; for concrete, conceptual space is only the form of 
 the visible world. We shall again ask the question of in- 
 finity when we come to the category, which concerns a part 
 of our knowledge about the real physical world. At 
 present, we are enquiring whether mathematical space is 
 infinite. 
 
 I see no reason why the philosopher should not agree 
 with the mathematican who asserts that mathematical 
 space is continuous and potentially infinite. When a 
 mathematician speaks of an infinite number of points be- 
 tween any two positions on a straight line, he means that 
 this portion is a continuum. In a continuum, there is no 
 next position, but always one between and so on indefi- 
 nitely. But is mathematical space infinite in extent? 
 Certainly no apprehended space is infinite. But if we can 
 think of no natural limits to space, we can conceive it 
 as extensible beyond any given limits. In fact, thought 
 is not able to place a limit to the possible relations and ar- 
 rangements of mathematical objects. 
 
 Space as a Category. — To be cognitively objective, a 
 category must be an essential element in the framework 
 of knowledge. If space is such a category, we have the 
 
THE WORLD AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 201 
 
 right to speak of the physical world as spatial. But we 
 must be very careful to avoid an apprehensional view of 
 the world. We must simply ask ourselves what is known 
 about the physical world under the heading of space. 
 
 The physical world is known as measurable and ordered 
 in a side-by-side fashion. Thus the more we know about 
 the constitution and dynamic relations of the physical 
 world, the more we know about the world as spatial. To 
 assert that nature is spatial does not mean that nature is 
 in a semi-reality called space or that mathematical space 
 is an attribute of the physical world, but simply that our 
 knowledge contains measurement in terms of units, that 
 things exclude one another and are ordered in their rela- 
 tive positions. Such knowledge is preliminary and needs 
 filling out, yet it is true as far as it goes. It is readily 
 seen, however, that, far from giving us a vision of the es- 
 sence of nature, it only furnishes the framework for the 
 investigations of the more empirical sciences like chemistry 
 and biology. 
 
 Is the Physical World Finite? — One of the puzzles of 
 metaphysics has been the question of the finiteness or in- 
 finity of the physical world. Kant made this problem one 
 basis for his conclusion that nature is purely mental and 
 has no existence apart from the knowing mind. But we 
 are realists and believe in an independent, acknowledged 
 realm about which we possess knowledge. What, then, 
 must be our own conclusion in regard to this age-old ques- 
 tion? We would put it in the following way: If the terms 
 finite and infinite are contradictory adjectives referable to 
 the physical world, no a priori reasoning can decide for 
 one adjective as against the other. Physical science, 
 alone, is potentially able to settle the question, and the 
 day has not come when this question can be empirically 
 
202 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 settled. I would, however, like to call attention to cer- 
 tain points. 
 
 The principle of the conservation of energy does not 
 by itself point in either direction. The second law of 
 thermo-dynamics sets a problem for the course of nature, 
 but does not inform us whether nature avoids it by being 
 infinite or by being able to reverse the process. The truth 
 is that these principles are more intimately bound up with 
 the category of time than with space. They are concerned 
 with processes of change in nature. 
 
 If nature be finite, this fact does not mean that it must 
 have a smooth boundary beyond which electrons could 
 not dash. The boundary must needs be dynamic and set 
 hy nature rather than to nature. If gravitation have sig- 
 nificance for the minutest parts of nature, its internal pull 
 will determine the "flaming boundaries" of the world. 
 Beyond will be the *void,' which is perfectly thinkable 
 though not a reality. I mean that the void is a proposition 
 and not a thing. It is an abbreviation for the negative 
 proposition that none of the things we regard as real are 
 present. But, it will be said, can we not ask the question. 
 What lies beyond? Certainly we can. And the void is the 
 denial that anything lies beyond. 
 
 A finite universe is therefore quite thinkable. Is the 
 same true of an infinite uni verse. f^ I must confess that my 
 feeling is that the adjectives finite and infinite apply as 
 contrasts to processes of measuring and numbering rather 
 than to that which is measured and numbered. If so, 
 the universe must have a determinate size at any one 
 time, which may yet be so great that it is practically im- 
 measurable. 
 
 Kant held that the reason is obliged to hold, at one and 
 the same time, that nature is both finite and infinite and 
 
THE WORLD AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 203 
 
 that it is therefore the victim of an unconquerable an- 
 tinomy. The majority of modern thinkers are coming to 
 deny the existence of such an antinomy. The world is 
 either finite or infinite, and the human mind has a vaHd 
 choice of one to the exclusion of the other. 
 
 Is Consciousness Extended? — Consciousness is not a 
 spatial part of the physical world. In other words, it is 
 not a physical thing measurable in terms of a super- 
 posable standard. This means that it is not an entity 
 which can exist along-side-of what we can handle and enter 
 into dynamic relations with it. In ordinary language, it 
 does not occupy space. Or, to put it more exactly, it 
 can never be the sole occupant of space. Consciousness is 
 the only part of reality we experience. The physical sci- 
 ences, on the other hand, give us knowledge about reality, 
 though this knowledge does not exhaust reality, as Descartes 
 assumed and as too many thinkers have taken for granted. 
 
 Reflection has convinced us that consciousness is in 
 the brain since it cannot be along-side-of it in any realiz- 
 able sense. But that which is really in the brain as a part 
 of its nature must be spatial. The situation is, of course, 
 unique just as the consciousness-body relation is. Con- 
 sciousness is not a thing in the brain as a pea is in its shell 
 for it is not that sort of a reality. To be substantial is to 
 be the whole of reality in any one place, and consciousness 
 is not substantial in that sense. *' Evidently, it is not in 
 the physical as one physical thing is in another, and so to 
 conceive its presence in the brain properly, we must re- 
 vise our unduly limited notion of what * being in a thing* 
 may mean." 
 
 Consciousness is experienced as a continuum; and we 
 must hold that this changing continuum, which is the 
 changing field of the individual's experience, penetrates 
 
204 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 that part of the cortex which is functionally active at any- 
 one time. Yet consciousness is the only part of the content 
 of the cortex which is given. In it we are consciously real- 
 ity and it is, moreover, the only part of reality that we con- 
 sciously are. Its setting, or that in which it is immersed, 
 can be known about only by means of propositions present 
 in itself. Hence, the statement that consciousness is 
 extended is inferential knowledge about it due to knowl- 
 edge about the substantial reality, the brain, in which it 
 arises and plays its role. Such inferential knowledge about 
 consciousness must not, however, conflict with conscious- 
 ness itself as given. But, rightly interpreted, it does not 
 do so since it only informs us where consciousness is and 
 makes no assertion about any empirical feature of con- 
 sciousness which conflicts with consciousness as it is given. 
 But the presence of consciousness in the cortex, contin- 
 uum as it is, gives us an insight into the brain which is of 
 immense importance. The brain, itself, must be a functional 
 continuum and the old, external atomism a myth. And we 
 realize now, as Descartes did not, that space is but a 
 preliminary category which needs filling out by all the 
 knowledge about the structure, organization, and modes of 
 activity of different parts of reality that we can gain. 
 
 References 
 
 Couturat, Vinfini Maihematique, pt. 2, bk. 4, chap. 4. 
 
 Fletcher, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 31. 
 
 FuUerton, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 6. 
 
 James, Principles of Psychology, vol. 2. 
 
 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Dialectic. 
 
 Mach, Space and Geometry. 
 
 Russell, Principles of Mathematics, vol. 1. 
 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 9. 
 
 Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, bk. 3, chap. 4. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 TIME 
 
 About Time. — No category has had more apparent 
 contradictions and difficulties connected with it than has 
 time. Poets have united in making it one of the chief 
 mysteries of the world. As one writer has phrased it: 
 "All things live in time and it lives in nothing; all things 
 die in time and death is not able to attain it." But may 
 it not be that it is this mystical tendency to make a thing 
 out of time that leads thought into difficulties.'^ Let us 
 examine time concretely, much as we did space, to see 
 what it really is. 
 
 Three Kinds of Time. — For our purposes it will be 
 sufficient briefly to discuss three kinds of time, perceptual 
 time, mathematical time, and time as a category. Per- 
 ceptual time is the experience which serves as the founda- 
 tion for the conceptual time of mathematics, while time 
 as a category of the physical sciences concerns the kind 
 of knowledge about nature which can be classed as tem- 
 poral. 
 
 Perceptual, or Personal, Time. — The elementary ex- 
 perience which is at the foundation of what we roughly 
 call time is the immediate sense of change. When we 
 listen to a factory whistle, we note its rise and fall, its 
 variation in intensity, its increase or decrease in shrill- 
 ness. Such apprehension of change in ourselves and our 
 surroundings is a universal and constant experience. 
 
 But the sense of change is only one of the elements 
 205 
 
206 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 which reflection can distinguish in perceptual time. Just 
 as important is the feehng of duration or lapse of time. 
 All persons have the ability to estimate the duration of a 
 process or activity to which they have been attending. 
 It is the task of the psychologist to explain the conditions 
 of this sensing and estimation of duration. The probabil- 
 ity is that it is connected with certain rhythmical aspects 
 of consciousness and with what may be called the cumu- 
 lative effect of attention. "When we are listening to a 
 sound, our experience is different at the end of one minute 
 from what it is at the end of two minutes, although the 
 sound itself may not have altered in quality." Stout, 
 Manual of Psychology, p. 386. Thus there is a qualita- 
 tive difference in consciousness from moment to moment 
 which adds a differentia to the sense of change and com- 
 plicates it. 
 
 In personal time, then, we have the sense of change and 
 the feeling of duration. This sense of the lapse of time 
 fits in with the feehng of duration as its complement. 
 But along with the sense of change, there is usually present 
 an apprehension of the order of the changes. A precedes B. 
 The visit of the postman usually occurs before dinner. 
 This relation of sequence between events is the character- 
 istic order which distinguishes time from space. In space, 
 we have objects which are in the order of co-existence and 
 the relation of a measurable externality; in time, we note 
 that one event precedes another. I went to class an hour 
 ago; I then went down to the bank; and I am now sitting 
 at my desk writing. Thus I can distinguish my actions 
 and relate them in a characteristic order. 
 
 Within personal time, we can contrast the *now' with 
 the *just past' and the *not yet.' This empirical present, 
 which is sometimes called the * specious present,' is not an 
 
TIME 207 
 
 indivisible instant of time but a span of considerable 
 length. In other words, perceptual experience knows 
 nothing of instants of a mathematical sort. We do have 
 the experience of order in change, of this event as preced- 
 ing that. Two successive notes of music may be sounding 
 in my ear at the same time and yet be experienced as suc- 
 cessive. But memory and expectation raise this contrast 
 into one between the order of complex events which can 
 only be conceived. The stability and scope of our time- 
 meanings, the past, the present and the future, depend 
 upon the supplementation of perceptual time by memory 
 and expectation with the mental objects which go with 
 them. The range of experience outstrips what can be 
 given in perception and the mind can swing from past 
 to future through an orderly series of events. But even 
 this developed time-experience has a direction, is never 
 empty and has the uniqueness of the consciousness of 
 which it is an aspect. Consciousness is not in time; it is 
 temporal. 
 
 Perceptual time, which is essentially private, shades 
 into common time. What should be noted is the gradual 
 infusion of a spatial framework due to the needs arising 
 from interpersonal intercourse. Yet we must not jump 
 to the conclusion that such intercourse is alone responsible 
 for this introduction of spatial standards. Direct esti- 
 mations of duration are soon found to be too dependent 
 upon what are called subjective factors, such as hope and 
 fear, to be trustworthy. Hence the individual finds it 
 natural to resort to orderly changes in perceived things. 
 It is, therefore, in the attempt to get beyond the purely 
 personal character of time-estimation that resort is had 
 to movements which correspond to temporal order and 
 harmonize with the sense of duration. 
 
208 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Thus time gradually got its clues and standards from 
 the perceived world. The result was a commonly ac- 
 cepted chronology. The hourly, daily and yearly move- 
 ments of the sun were adopted as events to which to refer 
 all other changes. To identify the standardized common 
 time of the clock with subjective time is to commit a pro- 
 found error. The one is an exactly measurable order; the 
 other consists in the recognition of change and a sense of 
 duration. " Shakespeare tells us that time travels *in di- 
 vers paces with divers persons*; Newton tells us that time 
 moves at a constant rate. Shakespeare's time is evidently 
 subjective time, and Newton's objective time." Stout, 
 Manual of Psychology, p. 498. But this commonly ac- 
 cepted time is only an order in movement; it is not a 
 thing by itself. As soon as we reflect concretely, we see 
 that there is no mystery about it. 
 
 Mathematical Time. — Common time very easily links 
 itself with mathematical space to become mathematical 
 time, infinitely divisible and infinite in extent. Let us 
 observe how this is done. Thomas Hobbes has expressed 
 the transference so clearly and yet so naively that I can- 
 not do better than quote his words. "As a body leaves 
 a phantasm of its magnitude in the mind, so also a moved 
 body leaves a phantasm of its motion, namely, an idea of 
 that body passing out of one space into another by con- 
 tinual succession. And this idea, or phantasm, is that 
 which I call time. And yet, when I say time is a phan- 
 tasm of motion, I do not say this is suflBcient to define 
 it by; for this word time comprehends the notion of a 
 body inasmuch as it is first here and then there. Where- 
 fore a complete definition of time is such as this, time is the 
 phantasm of before and after in motion.^' Movements are best 
 represented symbolically by a line with a direction >; 
 
TIME 209 
 
 in such a symbol there is a quaHtative as well a quan- 
 titative aspect. Spatial direction is replaced by the 
 idea of temporal order. The line then symbolizes dura- 
 tion and succession. Thus a finite portion of linear space 
 measures duration, while positions on it, apprehended to- 
 gether and yet thought of as successive, represent temporal 
 order. Mathematical time uses space as its foundation 
 and superposes upon this a different order, that of suc- 
 cession in place of co-existence. 
 
 A word of warning at this point may be wise. We saw 
 that to think of perceptual space as really mathematical 
 space disguised is to lay oneself open to all sorts of false 
 problems. Moreover, we convinced ourselves that mathe- 
 matical space and mathematical objects do not exist out- 
 side of consciousness. In the same way, to seek to reduce 
 personal time to mathematical time is to sin against ge- 
 netic facts and to forget that mathematical time is an ab- 
 stract construction. Yet when we are not critical enough, 
 we are soon ridden by mathematical time and look for 
 temporal points or moments in our actual flow of conscious- 
 ness. All time is then conceived by us as infinitely divi- 
 sible, infinite in extent, homogeneous and empty. I need 
 not emphasize again what a mistake such a belief would be. 
 
 Time as a Category of Scientific Knowledge. — We 
 can now push forward to the investigation of the objective 
 validity of time as a category in scientific knowledge. 
 To what characteristic of the physical world does it cor- 
 respond? What kind of knowledge does it cover? We 
 shall see in this case, even more clearly than in that of 
 space, that knowledge is not an intuition of reality but 
 knowledge about it. 
 
 Scientific time is a measurable quantity as well as an 
 order of succession. Some process — ^preferably a move- 
 
210 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ment — ^is taken as a standard and other processes are re- 
 ferred to this as a unit. If two processes begin and end 
 together, they are said to occupy the same time. Let us 
 take an example to make this correspondence clearer. 
 Suppose that we wish to know how long a certain chemi- 
 cal process takes to occur. We note the positions of the 
 hands of a clock at the moment the chemicals are put to- 
 gether and also when the reaction ceases. This method 
 means that we seek to measure the one process in terms of 
 the other. This correspondence which is at the basis of 
 the scientific measurement of the temporal aspect of nature 
 is for temporal knowledge what superposition of things 
 is for the spatial knowledge of nature. In both cases, we 
 obtain knowledge in terms of ratios and not in terms of 
 apprehensions of absolute dimensions. Science selects 
 some standard process like the rotation of the earth and 
 adheres to it so long as it can relate other processes to it. 
 " Thus astronomers have come to the conclusion that the 
 earth as a clock is losing at the rate of 8.3 seconds per 
 century and they have given up the earth as their time- 
 keeper and substituted for the sideral time t a certain 
 function T = (f) {{), slightly diiffering from f, as their new 
 * kinetic time. ' " Silberstein, The Theory of Relativity, ch. 1. 
 
 The universality of scientific time follows from the single- 
 ness of the standard process to which all other processes 
 are referred. When we say that the whole world is in 
 one timey we only mean that all processes are potentially 
 referable to this selected standard process. Thus the one- 
 ness of time for nature is expressive of the fact that all the 
 processes in nature can be brought into relation with a 
 unit and ratios estabhshed. 
 
 An interesting result now stares us in the face. The 
 unity of scientific time is really connected with the spatial 
 
TIME 211 
 
 unity of the world. In other words, science deals with 
 processes which are localizable with reference to each 
 other just as it concerns itseK with things which are 
 directly or indirectly superposable. The spatial and tem- 
 poral characteristics of nature as science studies them and 
 really understands them are thus most intimately inter- 
 twined. 
 
 But while scientific time is the measurement of the 
 various processes in nature by reference to a standard 
 process, it retains the idea of order which is character- 
 istic of personal time. And it is this ordier which differ- 
 entiates it from space. Yet we can conceive of the phys- 
 ical world as inert, changeless and motionless; for such a 
 world time would have no meaning. But our world is 
 different; it is a world in which changes occur and move- 
 ments repeat themselves. How fundamental these changes 
 are must be determined by investigation. 
 
 Science relates events to one another by means of a 
 chronology. It is knowledge about nature that an eclipse 
 occurred in the sixth century B. C. It is also knowledge 
 that Columbus discovered America in 1492. Such knowl- 
 edge is, obviously, a knowledge about what no longer 
 exists, but it is knowledge nevertheless, a fact that shows 
 that scientific knowledge is not an apprehension. Is not 
 knowledge about the past knowledge of what no longer 
 exists? So soon as we remember that knowledge consists 
 of propositions in the human mind, the non-existence of 
 the past offers no difficulties. 
 
 Change the Objective Basis of Scientific Time.— But 
 what is in the temporal order in nature.^ The answer is 
 clear. Real time is change or, to put it the other way 
 around, change as cognitively conceived always involves 
 an order of succession. But the identification of real time 
 
212 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with change does not settle all our diflSculties. How shall 
 we conceive change? Does change involve an order in 
 nature or only in our valid knowledge about nature? 
 Knowledge about nature is not the same as an apprehen- 
 sion of nature, and we have the right to expect a diver- 
 gence between the form of knowledge and reality. Let 
 me illustrate what I mean. The scientist furnishes us with 
 knowledge about motion by describing the path traversed 
 and the time-rate of the motion. But the moving body 
 does not carry its path with it. Only man with his memory 
 is able to connect a past position with a present position; 
 the moving body has no such coordinating memory. Thus 
 we see that knowledge about a motion is not the same 
 as the actual motion. Paradoxical as it may seem at 
 first glance, we must say, then, that in nature there is no 
 temporal order of co-existent events but that nature pro- 
 duces events in an orderly sequence and man arranges and 
 dates them. Nature changes, and man orders these chan- 
 ges as known into past, present, and future. But the 
 nature which changes is spatial. If we are not afraid of a 
 metaphor, we may say that the "present" of nature is the 
 reality of the things of which it is composed. The physical 
 world is spatial and the physical world changes. Spatial 
 order and temporal order do not exclude each other. 
 Instead of nature being in time^ time (change) is in nature. 
 
 Had the World a Beginning? — For the sake of com- 
 pleteness, let us consider a couple of characteristic prob- 
 lems usually brought up for consideration in this con- 
 nection. Had the physical universe a beginning in time? 
 If real time is change in nature, the universe could not 
 have had a beginning in time. If it had a beginning, that 
 would be because it was created. But there is no necessity 
 in the time category itseK to postulate a beginning. The 
 
TIME 213 
 
 student will realize the truth of this conclusion when he 
 remembers that he does not ask himself whether God had 
 an origin in time. Were we to conclude that the physical 
 universe had no origin, no contradiction of the concept 
 of time would be involved. Theoretically, our chronology 
 could be extended from the present into the past indef- 
 initely. 
 
 The second problem, Is the physical universe eternal? 
 can be dismissed in a few words since it is on all fours with 
 the first. The empirical data are entirely in favor of the 
 principle of conservation. But if the universe is a spatial 
 system as I have attempted to show, what holds of systems 
 within it holds of the universe entire. Hence, the more 
 data in favor of conservation science secures, the more it 
 urges on us the view that nature is eternal. 
 
 Conclusions. — In our analysis of space, we were led 
 to hold that space presents itself to us in a preliminary 
 form which requires for its filling out all the knowledge 
 science can gain of the constitution and internal mode of 
 working of the physical world. To know that the world 
 is spatial is to know comparatively little about it, true 
 as that little may be. To magnify space into a penetra- 
 tive vision into the very web and woof of nature was Des- 
 cartes' mistake. Space and time are preliminary cate- 
 gories which are connected with measurement and order, 
 and they find their development and completion in the 
 more special ones which are related to them as the features 
 of a finished picture are to the first rough sketch. While 
 space blossoms out with the increase of scientific knowl- 
 edge into the categories of dynamic internal relation and 
 organization, time passes over into the categories of change 
 and causality. As we continue our analysis of nature as 
 known to us, we realize, ever more penetratingly, that 
 
214 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 space and time, coexistence and change, are inseparable 
 categories. Reality is spatial, and this spatial reality 
 changes. 
 
 Consciousness and Time. — Everyone acknowledges 
 that the category of time applies to consciousness as natu- 
 rally as to the physical world. Consciousness is so ob- 
 viously a temporal process in which change is a striking 
 feature. Thus the difficulty of establishing a harmony be- 
 tween the categories of the physical sciences and those of 
 the mental sciences does not arise here in the acute form 
 that it did for space. Yet a couple of points need 
 attention. 
 
 In consciousness we are witnesses of a genuine change 
 in reality. Each experience that arises is new, and each 
 experience which dies out and is supplanted by another 
 lapses from existence. But in the knowledge about the 
 physical world which the sciences gain, there can be no 
 such presence at the heart of reality. The category of 
 time implies change, but this change is set over against the 
 substantial conservation of physical systems. The result 
 has been that many attempts have been made to hold 
 that change is unreal or else only the shifting of positions 
 on the part of unchangeable atoms. That is, the natural 
 tendency in the physical sciences is to stereotype change 
 and reduce it to a minimum. In contrast to this attitude 
 of the physical sciences, psychology has been forced to 
 stress the element of change and to admit its ultimacy. 
 Consciousness is not a conserved reality and is not there- 
 fore a substantial reality. Yet this contrasting applica- 
 tion of the category of time in the two systems of science 
 involves no genuine conflict. Rather does it harmonize 
 with the conclusion we reached in the preceding chapter, 
 that consciousness is in the brain in a unique way. 
 
TIME 215 
 
 References 
 
 Bergson, Time and Free Will. 
 
 Fletcher, Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 32. 
 
 Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy , chap. 7. 
 
 Lovejoy, *'The Place of the Time Problem in Contemporary 
 
 Philosophy," Journal of Philosophy, etc., 1910. 
 Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, bk. 3, chap. 4. 
 Stout, Manual of Psychology » bk. 4, chap. 6. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY 
 
 The Physical World Consists of Things. — Common 
 sense does not begin with any subtle stuff called matter 
 but with things. The physical world is a spatial complex 
 of things having determinate, though often changing, po- 
 sitions and excluding one another. Some of these things 
 are more clearly marked out than are others. Living 
 things, especially, seem to be things for nature itself; 
 they have definite outlines and act more as a whole than 
 do other things. But this contrast is, after all, only a 
 relative one from the present point of view. The main 
 fact to be emphasized is that the physical world is, at first, 
 as it appears, a variegated panorama of heterogeneous things. 
 To speak of matter at this stage is, therefore, misleading. 
 The material world of common sense is not a world com- 
 posed of matter but a world of concrete physical things. 
 It is the world as perceived. Yet I do not doubt that the 
 pervasive influence of Natural Dualism, heightened by 
 science, makes itself felt to-day. The physical world is 
 what I see out there in contrast to what I feel and will 
 in here. It is this dualistic antithesis, as much as anything 
 which we ordinarily have in mind when we speak of the 
 physical world as material. 
 
 The More Abstract Idea of Matter. — The more ab- 
 stract idea of matter was the creation of philosophy and 
 science working sometimes along the same lines, sometimes 
 along different lines. Very early the attempt was made to 
 
 216 
 
SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY 217 
 
 reduce the perceptible heterogeneity of things to homo- 
 geneity. Some of these attempts were extremely daring 
 although not well thought out. Thus Thales proclaimed 
 that all things are water. But how can this asserted homo- 
 geneity be reconciled with the given heterogeneity of 
 things? To say that these are states or forms of water 
 leaves us with the problem of the relation of forms to the 
 one stuff which is more fundamental. Are these forms 
 penetrative changes of the one stuff? Or are they more of 
 the nature of appearances? Such questions were not 
 faced at first. Then came the atomists with a more so- 
 phisticated solution of the relation of given heterogeneity 
 with actual homogeneity, a solution which still enthralls 
 the human mind. The atomists were eleatics, that is, 
 they did not believe in the reality of change. They were 
 forced to make a slight concession to perceptible fact, 
 but they made it a compromise in which nearly all of eleati- 
 cism was retained. Atoms are homogeneous and change- 
 less; it is only their spatial positions which vary. The re- 
 lations between atoms are external and do not affect the 
 nature of these particles at all. I think that the student 
 will realize that this solution has had a perennial appeal 
 and appears in a hardly veiled form in what is called the 
 mechanical theory of the universe. Even the less doctrin- 
 aire scientist thinks of electrons and atoms as less affected 
 by change than are the spatial relations into which they 
 enter. Later we shall enquire why this is; just now we 
 must accept it as an actual tendency. 
 
 Along with the view that the physical world is composed 
 of changeless particles, went the distinction between ap- 
 pearance and reality. The real material world consists 
 of homogeneous elements which are known by means of a 
 conceptual intuition. In the case of eleatic atomism, we 
 
218 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 may rightly say that the metaphysics determined the 
 epistemology rather than the reverse. And, as we have 
 pointed out so often, the inevitable result is bad meta- 
 physics and bad epistemology, however subtle and at- 
 tractive. The atomists developed their ontology and 
 drew the conclusion that, since these atoms could not be 
 perceived, they must be directly known by reason. We 
 must think of such a reason as a power of apprehending 
 realities which cannot be present to sense. We may call 
 such a position a rationalistic translation of Natural Realism. 
 Knowledge is apprehension, yet not by sense, which is 
 deceptive, but by a more penetrative power of cognition. 
 To know the real world is the function of reason. Or, to 
 put it more correctly, since we apprehend the real world, 
 there must be a rational faculty different from, and cog- 
 nitively more adequate than, sense. This situation gives 
 us a new clue to the vicious traditional contrast between 
 sense and reason. From this angle, it is not a distinction 
 founded on psychology and logic but upon a deduction 
 from a metaphysical position. 
 
 Now the atomist knew his world as consisting of un- 
 changing, homogeneous particles the relative positions 
 of which in the void alone change. But the problem of 
 accounting in some measure for the perceptual world 
 remained. Only two factors for the purposes of such an 
 explanation were at hand, the real physical world and the 
 percipient with his faculty of sense. On the side of the 
 real world, the differences which could be connected 
 with the qualitative heterogeneity of the perceptual world 
 of things were the number of elements in a complex and 
 their relative positions; on the side of the percipient the 
 important fact was the distorting nature of sense. The 
 obvious deduction was that the only change in the real 
 
SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY 219 
 
 world was a change of position of particles in a complex 
 and that such a change was correlated with a change of 
 appearance in the perceptual thing, the faculty of sense 
 remaining distortive in a sort of lawful way. We may 
 summarize the outlook in the following terms: atoms and 
 a void; external relations which are only positions, not 
 genuine relations; objective change only a change of posi- 
 tion; a distorting faculty of sense; heterogeneous percep- 
 tual things. 
 
 Accompanying the distinction between atoms and 
 things of sense was the separation of the primary from the 
 secondary qualities. This separation has often been mis- 
 understood. The primary qualities are, of course, exten- 
 sion, shape, and impenetrability; the secondary, color, 
 flavor and odor, etc. Both lists have varied somewhat 
 from time to time. For eleatic rationalism, these primary 
 qualities are only distinguishable aspects of atoms as ap- 
 prehended by reason. The atom is not something which 
 possesses them; the atom is apprehended as extended, 
 hard, figured and mobile. Such is matter for this strict 
 form of realistic rationalism. It is a homogeneous stuff 
 intuited as having these aspects. 
 
 What, then, are the secondary qualities? They are as- 
 pects of perceptual things, of things seen by sense instead 
 of by reason. Since the causal, or physiological, theory 
 of sensation is usually held, these secondary qualities are 
 often spoken of as mental effects in the percipient, a phrase 
 which raises the whole mind-body problem. But if the 
 secondary qualities are effects, what are the primary 
 qualities? Obviously, it is held that rational apprehen- 
 sion is a mystery; it is an unaccountable embrace of re- 
 ality by the mind, to use the phrase of a distinguished 
 American thinker. But perceptual things, also, have pri- 
 
220 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 mary qualities or something very like primary qualities. 
 The primary qualities seem to be somehow common to 
 sense and reason. This fact suggests that sense does not 
 altogether distort or that it is not so sharply different 
 from reason as at first supposed, suggestions which have 
 caused much controversy in rationalistic circles. 
 
 Descartes and Locke. — For Descartes, matter is sub- 
 stance and its whole essence and defining attribute is 
 extension. "Matter alone has substantial reality, space 
 being *by a distinction of reason* conceived as its attri- 
 bute." Smith, Studies in the Cartesian hilosophy, p. 66. 
 Descartes taught that matter is transparent to our minds 
 and is exhaustively known in conception. Hence, it is 
 known to be alien to mind. His position is scientific 
 realism though there is nearly always a little more ag- 
 nosticism in scientific realism than in Cartesianism. I 
 am sure that modern scientists doubt that their knowledge 
 exhausts matter. But there is an interesting difference 
 between Descartes and the atomlsts. The atomists ad- 
 mitted a void and believed in discontinuity. In other 
 words, atoms had position but no real connections. Des- 
 cartes denied a void and believed in continuity. We shall 
 have occasion to discuss this difference in the light of 
 modern science. 
 
 It will be remembered that John Locke attacked ration- 
 alism and broke down the distinction between sense and 
 reason. But he desired to reconcile his view with Newto- 
 nian mechanics. Hence he adopted a position which may 
 rightly be called representative perception. The primary 
 qualities of perceptual things are copies of the primary 
 properties of a material substance. This substance which 
 underlies and supports the primary properties is an un- 
 knowable. The agnosticism which ancient rationalism 
 
SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY «21 
 
 avoided appears in Locke in an extreme form. As we 
 pointed out a little while ago, it was this unknowable 
 matter which Berkeley destroyed by his arguments. 
 
 Empirical Things and Their Attributes. — When logical 
 distinctions lead into blind alleys, it is always best to re- 
 turn to experience and try to make a new analysis. Let 
 us see whether we can give another setting to substance. 
 
 Man perceives things as complex while yet somehow 
 one. An apple, for instance has a certain size, a certain 
 shape, a characteristic odor, a definite weight, etc. It is 
 one apple, and this one apple has various qualities which 
 can be sensed at different times according to the sense- 
 organ that is stimulated. We apprehend the object as 
 one while we note and refer to it one quality after another. 
 It is this empirical fact of oneness and complexity which 
 has given rise, through a misinterpretation, to the dis- 
 tinction between a possessing substance and the properties 
 possessed. But the actual fact is that common sense 
 thinks of the concrete thing as the subject of the proper- 
 ties. And this concrete thing is not something unknow- 
 able back of the properties. It is not something in any 
 way opposed to the qualities. It is evident that we must 
 ask ourselves what we mean by things. 
 
 Empirical things are what we perceive. They are^ there- 
 fore, all those aspects which we can distinguish. But these 
 apprehended objects are thought of as independent of our- 
 selves, permanent, having a life, as it were, of their own, 
 and the seat of powers of various sorts. At the level of 
 Natural Realism, these meanings are combined pretty suc- 
 cessfully with the objects perceived, the result being a 
 thing. Certain striking aspects of perceived objects unite 
 intimately with these meanings. Physical things are 
 spatial and massive and centres of energy. 
 
222 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The more, then, that we know about the properties of 
 things, the more we know about the things. They are 
 revealed in their qualities and properties. Common sense 
 is not agnostic though it is inclined to admit that there is 
 much more to a thing than what is actually revealed to 
 human beings. Things are substantial but they do not 
 consist of an unknowable core somehow possessing attri- 
 butes. On the contrary, I cannot help feeling that they are 
 conceived largely in terms of our own life as visible centres 
 of agency whose depths are yet hidden from us. It is 
 only as science advances toward a facile mechanicalism 
 that the mysterious depths are lost sight of and the whole 
 nature of the thing is seen as a shifting of conceptually 
 apprehended aspects. But if we reduce the thing to these 
 aspects, as does rationalistic realism, all source of agency 
 is removed as Berkeley pointed out. The physical world 
 becomes dead and inert to the intellect, and the philosophi- 
 cal consequence has always been either dualism or a re- 
 action in favor of spiritualism. I mean that science has 
 sometimes led to a surface view of nature because it has 
 persuaded itself that it has exhausted nature, whereas it 
 has only gained the sort of knowledge about nature that 
 physical science can achieve. But the identification of 
 nature with abstract conceptual systems has been the 
 failing of rationalistic realism from the beginning. 
 
 But if man is a genuine part of nature, nature must be 
 a much more complex, rich and profoundly real thing 
 than we have sometimes supposed. If man has evolved 
 from nature, his presence casts light back upon it. It 
 must be the sort of thing that could produce him. It must 
 be kin to him. It is apparent that evolutionary natural- 
 ism is far removed from Cartesian rationalism with its 
 belief that mathematics lights up nature and exhausts it. 
 
SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY 223 
 
 Knowledge-About vs. Being. — Let us now apply our 
 theory of knowledge to the age-old question of matter and 
 substance. We have decided that there is no justification 
 for Locke's unknowable substance lying back of, and pos- 
 sessing, primary qualities which are like our ideas. In 
 like manner, we have rejected the matter of apprehensional 
 rationalism. We do not apprehend reality but only gain 
 knowledge about it. Being is one thing, and knowledge is 
 quite another and a human affair. And he who confuses 
 being and knowledge and does not realize their funda- 
 mental difference is apt to be led into all sorts of unreal 
 diflficulties. But all apprehensional realisms are almost 
 sure to do this, for the content of knowledge is for them the 
 actual independent world or being. We, however, have 
 realized that knowledge is other than being, though genu- 
 ine knowledge and as revelatory of being as knowledge 
 can be. Our conclusion, then, must be that being is matter 
 and substance. It is matter, not as a passive homogeneous 
 stuff that can be apprehended by the mental eye, but as 
 reality; it is substance, not as an unknowable possessor of 
 knowable attributes, but as the metaphysical subject to 
 which all tested knowledge is referable. 
 
 We have sometimes dealt rather harshly with objective 
 idealism on the epistemological side. It gives us pleasure, 
 therefore, to point out that modern objective idealism has 
 usually insisted upon the distinction between human 
 knowledge and reality. It has never taken the mechanical 
 view of the world as seriously as rationalistic realism has. 
 It has usually refused to identify any pet conceptual 
 scheme with reality. On the other hand, it has been more 
 than inclined to refuse to take scientific knowledge seri- 
 ously as knowledge about reality. It has been anti- 
 scientific in its metaphysics. 
 
224 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Nature Is Substantial. — We have learned to use nature, 
 matter, reality and the physical world as synonymous. 
 When we assert that nature is substantial, we mean that 
 it is permanent, independent of anything else, and self- 
 existent. In other words, we think of it as reality. 
 
 We have already seen that reality is known as extended 
 and as containing change. But we realize that these two 
 categories form only the framework of the more detailed 
 knowledge which the sciences achieve. The task of the 
 philosopher is to study this detailed knowledge to discover 
 what nature is known as at the level the sciences have now 
 attained. He must call all the sciences to counsel, the 
 exact sciences, the biological sciences and the mental 
 sciences. All tell us about reality and their informations 
 should not conflict. It is his function to see how they can 
 be harmonized by means of a comprehensive view of the 
 world. Thus our position can be described as a naturalistic 
 monism based on a non-apprehensional theory of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Properties Express Knowledge About Nature. — The 
 vast majority of the properties of things are statements 
 of what a thing conditions or does under definite circum- 
 stances which are supposedly reproducible. They are 
 what Locke called 'powers.' This behavior rests on the 
 nature of the thing as well as on the total conditions and 
 is therefore an index of its nature. But we must not think 
 of this nature as something divisible into entities called 
 properties. Properties are 'propositions formulated in a 
 human way and referred to things as containing knowledge 
 about them. Science can never offer us literal aspects 
 of the physical world. The habits and prejudices founded 
 on Natural Realism and rationalistic realism with their 
 apprehensional views of knowledge have prevented phi- 
 
SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY 225 
 
 losophy from understanding the actual knowledge gained 
 by science. 
 
 Let us interpret the * secondary ' qualities of perceptual 
 things in this way. The color we see is a function of the 
 nature of the light which strikes the eye and of the cerebral 
 system. It gives us knowledge about both in their rela- 
 tion to one another. When we trace the light farther back 
 to the reflecting body, we secure knowledge about its differ- 
 ential action to light vibrations. Taste, odor and sound 
 can be treated in the same way as sources of knowledge 
 about things and about the organism. 
 
 The so-called primary qualities of perceptual objects 
 must be interpreted in exactly the same way. The size 
 of an object as perceived is a function of the physical thing, 
 its distance from the perceiving organism, and the part of 
 the organism involved. The same analysis holds of weight. 
 None of these features of the perceptual thing must be 
 naively objectified. Berkeley was right here as in so much 
 else. 
 
 Constant Properties. — It will be better for us to discard 
 the expression, primary qualities, and adopt the term 
 constant properties. There are certain classes of judgments 
 which can always be made of bodies and which, therefore, 
 give the defining concept of the physical world from the 
 point of view of the physical sciences. A body always has 
 mass although it is not always chemically active; it always 
 has volume although it is not always optically active; 
 it always has some internal structure although it may not 
 be doing work. These constant properties give us a gen- 
 eral knowledge always referable to reality. In constrast to 
 these, the other properties may be spoken of as "powers." 
 Powers are expectations based on knowledge whose con- 
 ditions are not always present. Constant properties need 
 
226 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 no conditions for their realization. Thus we obtain 
 genuine knowledge about the real size of a physical thing 
 by means of measurement. What is obtained is a ratio in 
 terms of some unit. Such a ratio is obviously not an in- 
 herent quality, not an apprehensible feature, but knowl- 
 edge-about. Let us examine mass because this is so evi- 
 dently not a perceivable aspect. 
 
 When impact experiments upon bodies were made, 
 it was found that the change of velocity of one body had a 
 constant relation to the change of velocity of a second 
 body. In his interesting little book, The Constitution of 
 Matter, Professor Ames writes as follows: "So here in the 
 case of these impact experiments, let us call the change 
 in the velocity of one body by the symbol ci, and that in 
 the velocity of the other C2, and remembering that their 
 
 Ci 
 
 ratio ^ is always the same for the same two bodies, we 
 can give arbitrarily a number mi to the first body and then 
 define the corresponding number for the second body to 
 be given by a number m2 such that 
 
 Ci 
 
 m2 = mi^2 
 
 This gives us, then, a definite number for the second body. 
 Let us see what property of the body this number measures. 
 It is evident from the definition that, if the change in the 
 motion of the second body is small, the value of m is large, 
 and vice versa; so that the size of m corresponds to the 
 opposition offered by the body to having its motion 
 changed; this property is what we think of when we speak 
 of the 'quantity of matter' in a body, and it was called 
 by Newton its *mass.'" It is evident that mass is knowl- 
 edge about matter. Could anything harmonize better 
 than this does with our theory of knowledge? 
 
SUBSTANCE AND SUBSTANTIALITY 227 
 
 Matter for Physics. — Matter for physics is matter as 
 known by physics. The other natural sciences should be 
 able to gain further knowledge about matter, but, of 
 course, their additional knowledge should not conflict 
 with this basic preliminary knowledge. Unfortunately, 
 too many thinkers have gone to the extreme of maintain- 
 ing that any further knowledge should be reducible to 
 the world as known by physics. Such an extreme is, in 
 effect, the materialistic view of the world. 
 
 In a recent book an eminent physical chemist asserts 
 that there are, for modern science, three fundamentals, 
 mass, energy and electricity. The problem is how to 
 harmonize our knowledge of nature along these three lines 
 so as to see them somehow together. Recent investi- 
 gations seem in a fair way to lead to an explanation of 
 mass in terms of electricity. Electricity would, if this 
 attempt succeeds, be the elemental stuff which, organized 
 together, makes the physical world at its various evolu- 
 tionary levels. But this stuff is not inert or passive as 
 was the conception of matter for the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. It is through and through dynamic 
 and each particle has an infinite sphere of influence. It 
 is possible to regard real space or the physical world as the 
 dynamic continuity of electricity. But what is electricity.'^ 
 We can't perceive it. We can only gain knowledge about 
 it by the way it acts. Here, again, science is coming, in its 
 own way, to a non-apprehensional realism, as against the 
 intuitive realism which dominated it for so long. Could 
 a philosophy desire a better confirmation of its epistemo- 
 logical speculations? 
 
 What Is Energy? — ^A changeless world would be a 
 world in which no work was done in and by physical 
 systems. This fact leads one to connect energy with 
 
£28 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 real time or change in nature. Energy, like mass, is a 
 quantity which gives knowledge about matter. We must 
 always remember that the energy of which science speaks 
 is properly a measurable quantity and not a stuff which is 
 intuited. If electricity is the physical name for matter, 
 then energy and mass are terms which refer to definite 
 forms of knowledge about it. Both are properties of mat- 
 ter and not matter itself. We should not follow the lead 
 of Ostwald and make energy an ontological term, a sort 
 of primary stuff which has various forms. That would be 
 a return to the vague epistemology and metaphysics of 
 Thales. 
 
 References 
 
 Ames, The Constitution of Matter. 
 
 Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding. 
 
 Marvin, A First Book in Metaphysics, chap. 15. 
 
 Ostwald, Vorlesungen uher Naturphilosophie. 
 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chaps. 2 and 9. 
 
 Soddy, Radioactivity. 
 
 Thompson, Art. "Matter" in Ency. Britannica. 
 
 Weber, History of Philosophy. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 MIND, SOUL AND CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 The Nature of Mind a Problem. — We should not be 
 surprised by now to discover that terms very freely used 
 have around them fringes of vagueness. These terms 
 indicate distinctions which are valid and necessary but 
 have not been thought through systematically. Thus we 
 have just seen that people speak of matter and the material 
 without having much more in their thoughts than the 
 conviction that they can see physical things and that these 
 occupy space and are in causal relations among one 
 another. But we have come to the conclusion that the 
 objects we perceive are really mental contents which have 
 no existence outside of the consciousness of the percipient. 
 Reflection, guided by science, disrupted Natural Realism 
 and led step by step to the view that we can know the 
 physical world only in terms of propositions. It follows 
 that we cannot apprehend the stuff of nature and that 
 even such an ideal is meaningless. It is evident that such 
 a conclusion modifies greatly the meaning of the terra 
 matter. No longer does it have the stiff externality that 
 it once had. While not ceasing to be matter, it has ceased 
 to be material in the old dualistic sense as something seen 
 to be opposed to mind. For us, matter is fuller of content 
 than ever, fuller of potentiality and depth, less abstract 
 even though not perceptual. It has often been maintained 
 that a critical realism strips nature of many qualities and 
 makes it barer than it is for naive realism. Apprehensional 
 
 229 
 
230 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 realisms do have this consequence as they become more 
 critical, but not so with non-apprehensional realism. We 
 are bringing nature nearer to our human nature even 
 though we strip it of such gauds as color and perfume. 
 We must no longer think of nature merely in terms of our 
 senses. Our senses are only instruments. 
 
 We shall see that a parallel development for the term 
 mind has slowly been taking place. At first, mind was 
 thought of as almost a perceptible reality, not so very 
 different from empirical things. It took a long time to 
 pass from this external mind, or soul, to a more adequate 
 sense of the processes of willing and feeling and thinking 
 which make up the psychical life of man. The interesting 
 historical fact is that, as man deepened his concept of 
 himself, he withdrew from nature and established a dual- 
 ism. Religion has had something to do with this but a 
 mis-interpretation of science has also been to blame. 
 With the advent of the theory of evolution, there has, 
 however, been a swing in the opposite direction. Phi- 
 losophy is now seeking to bring mind and nature together 
 in a critical way. 
 
 Primitive Notions of Mind. — Primitive man conceived 
 the mind almost materially. He thought of it as a thing 
 among other things, distinguishable from them only by 
 its subtlety. He gave it substantiality in its own right. 
 "The belief most widely current among the peoples of 
 lower culture is that each man consists, not only of the 
 body which is constantly present among his fellows, but 
 also of a shadowy vapour-like duplicate of his body; this 
 shadow-like image, the animating principle of the living 
 organism, is thought to be capable of leaving the body, of 
 transporting itself rapidly, if not instantaneously, from 
 place to place, and of manifesting in those places all or 
 
MIND, SOUL AND CONSCIOUSNESS 231 
 
 most of the powers that it exerts in the body during 
 waking life. Sleep is regarded as due to its temporary- 
 withdrawal from the body; trance, coma, and other serious 
 illness, as due to longer absence; and death is thought to 
 imply its final departure to some distant place." Mc- 
 Dougall, Body and Mindy p. 1. Here we have a full- 
 fledged dualism. The soul is just as substantial as the 
 body though different from it. 
 
 The primary idea of our primitive ancestors was that of 
 a ghost-soul or semi-material spirit which possessed, or 
 was the seat of, various powers. So far as mind was used 
 as a term for thinking and willing, it was thought of as 
 somehow connected with this ghost-soul. Of course, this 
 assignment was no genuine explanation but it passed for 
 one at this level. Early man sought to find a thing which 
 was like physical things and yet different from them in order 
 to make it the source and foundation of his own peculiar 
 powers and capacities. He felt that only things are real 
 and substantial enough to account for actions and changes. 
 It was the same motive that made scientists a few genera- 
 tions ago speak of a magnetic fluid and of heat as a caloric 
 substance. 
 
 "Two things seem chiefly to have determined the form 
 of the primitive belief as to the substance of the ghost- 
 soul, namely, the shadow and the breath. Each man's 
 shadow is an impalpable something which has a certain 
 likeness to the man, and which accompanies him when 
 actively employed, but which disappears when he lies down 
 in sleep or death. And the breath that comes and goes 
 from his nostrils seems bound up with his life, and dis- 
 appears at death. And language clearly shows the impor- 
 tant part played by the ideas of the shadow and of the 
 breath in such words as manes and shade, spirit, spiritus^ 
 
232 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 anima, animus, pneuma, and in similar words of many other 
 languages." Ibid., p. 3. 
 
 This semi-material spirit which was conceived as the 
 seat of life and of consciousness was modelled upon the 
 shadow, the breath and the experiences had in dreams. 
 We must remember that early man had no scientific ex- 
 planations of these phenomena as we have them to-day. 
 He did not know that shadow was due to the interception 
 of light, that breath is air and water- vapor, that dreams 
 are centrally-aroused experiences. He thought that the 
 dead actually spoke to him while he was asleep and that 
 his soul travelled away from the body when he dreamed of 
 going hunting or of visiting his friends. Professor Tylor, 
 a famous anthropologist, has summarized his investiga- 
 tions of primitive views of the ghost-soul in the following 
 w^ords: "It is a thin, unsubstantial human image, in its 
 nature a sort of vapour, film, or shadow; the cause of life 
 and thought in the individual it animates; independently 
 possessing the personal consciousness and volition of its 
 corporeal owner, past or present; capable of leaving the 
 body far behind, to flash swiftly from place to place; 
 mostly impalpable and invisible, yet also manifesting 
 physical power, and especially appearing to men waking or 
 asleep as a phantasm separate from the body of which it 
 bears the likeness; continuing to exist and appear to men 
 after the death of that body; able to enter into, and pos- 
 sess, and act in the bodies of other men, of animals, and 
 even things." Tylor, Primitive Culture, third edition, vol. 
 1, p. 429. It is obvious that modern spiritism is not so 
 very far removed from this primitive outlook. Do we not 
 hear of people photographing spirits? Do not spirits rap 
 upon the walls of houses and upon tables, and take up their 
 residence in the bodies of mediums.^ Much of what we 
 
MIND, SOUL AND CONSCIOUSNESS 233 
 
 call superstition to-day is the survival of this primitive 
 theory. 
 
 Mind in Ancient Philosophy. — Thus far we have used 
 the terms mind and soul almost interchangeably. Our 
 excuse must be the historical one that for a long time they 
 were so used. Even the Greek and Roman philosophers 
 hardly distinguish between the two. "Thus, Anaximenes 
 of Miletus, who lived in the sixth century before Christ, 
 says that *our sotCil, which is air, rules us.'* A little later, 
 Heracleitus, a man much admired for the depth of his 
 reflections, maintains that the soul is a fiery vapor, 
 evidently identifying it with the warm breath of the living 
 creature. In the fifth century B. C, Anaxagoras, who 
 accounts for the ordering of the elements into a system of 
 things by referring to the activity of Mind or Reason, 
 calls mind *the finest of things,* and it seems clear that he 
 did not conceive of it as very different in nature from the 
 other elements which enter into the constitution of the 
 world. 
 
 "Democritus of Abdera (between 460 and 360 B. C), 
 that great investigator of nature and brilliant writer, 
 developed a materialistic doctrine that admits the exist- 
 ence of nothing save atoms and empty space. He con- 
 ceived the soul to consist of fine, smooth, round atoms, 
 which are also atoms of fire. These atoms are distributed 
 through the whole body, but function differently in differ- 
 ent places — in the brain they give us thought, in the heart, 
 anger, and in the liver, desire. Life lasts just so long as 
 we breathe out such atoms." Fullerton, An Introduction 
 to Philosophy^ pp. 101-2. 
 
 But it was not these early thinkers only who thought of 
 the mind materially as being fire atoms or some such 
 spatial thing. The Epicureans and Stoics were just as 
 
234 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 materialistic in their thinking. "To the Epicureans life 
 is mere juxtaposition of atoms, which accident has com- 
 bined, and some other gust of accident will part; to the 
 Stoics every form of being is an expression of the cosmic 
 power, an energy correlated to all other manifestations of 
 energy, among which it takes place." Kendall, Marcus 
 Aurelius Antoninus to Himself, Introduction, p. 53. In 
 the Stoic system we have a vague dynamic materialism. 
 
 Plato's view of the soul reflects his metaphysics. He 
 was a rationalist and held that the mind apprehends 
 " ideas" which are eternal and immutable. These ideas are 
 more like concepts than like perceived things. Thus there 
 emerges in Plato a rationalistic dualism between the 
 changing things of space and the real, or intelligible, world 
 of ideas. The soul partakes of this intelligible, non-spatial 
 world opposed to matter. As a result of Plato's dualism, 
 there arose the conception of immaterial realities, and 
 these immaterial realities were often given dynamic powers 
 to operate within the material realm. But does this not 
 make them material? How can we get the soul and the 
 body together if they are entirely alien to one another.^ 
 Is not Plato only hypostatizing mental objects which exist 
 in consciousness? That is the conclusion to which we have 
 come. He is thinking the soul in terms of conceptual 
 objects instead of in terms of perceptual objects. 
 
 Aristotle saw the diflficulties confronting Plato's dualism 
 and did his best to avoid them. The consequence is that 
 he combines soul and body, form and matter, together so 
 intimately that they seem inseparable aspects of one 
 thing. Some of his peripatetic successors dropped back 
 into materialism. 
 
 Under the influence of mystical, religious motives the 
 soul gradually becomes more and more non-spatial and 
 
MIND, SOUL AND CONSCIOUSNESS 235 
 
 intangible. The words used are negative and abstract. 
 It is generally supposed that Plotinus was the first to de- 
 scribe the soul as an immaterial substance. But this 
 immaterial substance must somehow be brought into re- 
 lation with the physical body. In his effort to bring the 
 non-spatial into touch with the spatial, Plotinus resorts 
 to expressions which violate all our conceptions of spatial 
 relations. "Thus the soul is present not only in the indi- 
 vidual parts of the body, but in the whole body, and pres- 
 ent everywhere in its entirety, not divided among the 
 different parts of the body; it is entirely in the whole body, 
 and entirely in every part." When we examine this teach- 
 ing closely, we see that Plotinus is trying to get the soul 
 and the body together without materializing the soul. 
 " What he tried to do is clear, and it seems equally clear 
 that he had good reason for trying to do it. But it appears 
 to us now that what he actually did was to make of the 
 mind or soul a something very like an inconsistent bit of 
 matter, that is something in space, and yet not exactly in 
 space, a something that can be in two places at once, a 
 logical monstrosity. That his doctrine did not meet with 
 instant rejection was due to the fact, already alluded to, 
 that our experience of the mind is something rather dim 
 and elusive. It is not easy for a man to say what it is, and, 
 hence, it is not easy for a man to .say what it is not." 
 Fullerton, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 104. 
 
 Mind in Modem Philosophy. — We find the problem 
 which puzzled Plotinus still occupying the attention of 
 philosophers in the seventeenth century. Descartes de- 
 fines mind as thinking substance and contrasts it with 
 matter as extended substance, and he, also, is compelled 
 to contradict himself when he brings the two together in 
 the brain. He is more literal than Plotinus and locates the 
 
236 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 soul in the pineal gland. There it sits and controls the 
 movements of the animal spirits of the brain. But a mo- 
 ment's reflection convinces us that the soul must be in 
 space and spatial if it is to have a definite location. Need- 
 less to say, Descartes* solution secured few followers. 
 
 But the notion of a substance, that is, the thought of 
 something permanent and seK-identical which underlies 
 mental and physical qualities and possesses them in some 
 mysterious way, was criticised by John Locke and rejected 
 by both Berkeley and Hume. John Locke admitted the 
 possibility of materialism. He writes: "It is not much 
 more remote from our comprehension to conceive this 
 than to conceive that God should superadd to matter 
 another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we 
 know not in what thinking consists nor to what sort of 
 substances the first eternal thinking Being has been pleased 
 to give that power." In other words, Locke realized that 
 an underlying substance is an unknowable and saw that 
 one such unknowable substance is much the same as 
 another. I cannot forbear quoting another passage from 
 Locke which shows his vigorous common sense along with 
 his bewilderment. "Every one finds in himself, that his 
 soul can think, will, and operate on his body, in the place 
 where that is; but cannot operate on a body, or in a place 
 an hundred miles distant from it. Nobody can imagine 
 that his soul can think or move a body at Oxford, whilst 
 he is at London; and cannot but know that, being united 
 to his body, it constantly changes place all the whole 
 journey between Oxford and London, as the coach or horse 
 does that carries him." Essay, Bk. 11, Chap. XXIII, 
 sec. 20. 
 
 Consciousness Displaces Soul. — ^The student of philos- 
 ophy and psychology is always impressed by the recent. 
 
MIND, SOUL AND CONSCIOUSNESS 237 
 
 rapid displacement of the soul by consciousness. It will 
 be remembered that Hume, rejecting both an unknowable 
 material substance and an unknowable immaterial sub- 
 stance, proclaimed that we experience only our percep- 
 tions. In the nineteenth century there arose what has 
 aptly been called a psychology without a soul. Rational 
 psychology had much to say of the soul, mostly in Pla- 
 tonic terms, but empirical psychology concerned itself 
 with states of consciousness and their relation to the ner- 
 vous system. The soul-body relation of previous philos- 
 ophy was in a fair way to become a consciousness-brain 
 relation. The term soul has largely been left to theology 
 and to popular verbal thinking. William James put the 
 logic of the situation very well in his Hibbert Lectures: 
 "Yet it is not for idle or fantastical reasons that the no- 
 tion of the substantial soul, so freely used by common 
 men and the more popular philosophies, has fallen upon 
 such evil days, and has no prestige in the eyes of critical 
 thinkers. It only shares the fate of other unrepresentable 
 substances and principles. They are without exception 
 all so barren that to sincere inquirers they appear as little 
 more than names masquerading — Wo die begriffe fehlen 
 da stellt ein wort zur rechten zeit sich ein. You see no 
 deeper into the fact that a hundred sensations get com- 
 pounded or known together by thinking that a 'soul' does 
 the compounding than you see into a man's living eighty 
 years by thinking of him as an octogenarian, or into our 
 having five fingers by calling us pentadactyls. Souls 
 have worn out both themselves and their welcome, that 
 is the plain truth." A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 209-10. 
 
 We can understand now why the term mind has always 
 been so vague and indefinite. For a long time, it was used 
 as essentially synonymous with soul and spirit. It was 
 
238 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 regarded as a thing which was in many ways like the things 
 seen about us yet different from them because more subtle 
 and less perceptible. The soul could enter or leave the 
 body and was the seat and source of will and thought. 
 The evolution of the idea of the soul for a long time did not 
 consist in a criticism of this outlook but only in a de- 
 materializing of the content of the ghost-soul, making it, 
 on the one hand, more an unknowable and, on the other, 
 more closely associated with mental processes. It was, in 
 fact, not until the rise of modern philosophy with its criti- 
 cism of both Natural Realism and unknowable substances 
 that the very assumptions of the older view were chal- 
 lenged. The rise of psychology and the growth of physiol- 
 ogy completed this re-orientation. Soul drops out of 
 philosophy and is replaced by the terms mind and conscious- 
 ness. And of these two, consciousness has, until recently, 
 had the more definite meaning. 
 
 Mind and Consciousness. — ^As we shall see in the next 
 chapter, consciousness and mind were used as practically 
 synonymous terms during the reign of introspective psy- 
 chology. Yet there were many who felt a secret dissatis- 
 faction with such an identification. The mind and the 
 self seem to be something more continuous than conscious- 
 ness. Is consciousness self-sufficient enough to answer the 
 demands put upon it.f* It comes and goes, increases when 
 we awaken in the morning, decreases when we sleep at 
 night, vanishes under an anaesthetic or under a stunning 
 blow on the head. In short, is consciousness able to absorb 
 all the meaning of the term mind.^ We speak of a man's 
 personality. Do we mean his consciousness? We say that 
 an individual has certain mental and moral traits. Do 
 we identify these with his consciousness? We remark that 
 a student has a good mind and brilliant natural capacities. 
 
MIND, SOUL AND CONSCIOUSNESS 239 
 
 Do we mean to refer simply to his consciousness? We say 
 that his present ideas are determined by his past experi- 
 ence. How does this past experience exist? Modern 
 eugenics considers mental and temperamental charac- 
 teristics inheritable. In what form is this inheritance 
 transmitted? In all of these cases, we know that we are 
 dealing with something revealed in consciousness and 
 closely connected with it and yet with something which 
 indicates a larger setting than consciousness. To secure 
 an answer to these questions, we shall now turn to modern 
 biology and psychology and examine their data and con- 
 cepts in the light of our epistemology and metaphysics. 
 Mind may turn out to be a category referable to the or- 
 ganic level of nature and as objective as any other. It 
 may correspond to observable types of response and to the 
 types of control and activity implied by them. In this 
 case, mind is knowledge about organic bodies supple- 
 mentary to that gained by the other sciences but no less 
 genuine. 
 
 References 
 
 Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, pt. 4. 
 FuUerton, An Introduction to Philosophy, chap. 8. 
 James, A Pluralistic Universe, lecture 5. 
 McDougall, Body and Mind. 
 Tylor, Primitive Culture, 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The Subject-Matter of Psychology. — We naturally turn 
 to psychology for information about consciousness and 
 mind. If this science cannot define its terms and state its 
 subject-matter, the task laid upon the philosopher would 
 seem to be harder than he can accomplish. Philosophy 
 and science must cooperate if man is to secure a fairly 
 satisfactory solution of general problems. At present, we 
 want to know what the methods and results of psychology 
 are as a natural science giving knowledge about the world 
 we live in. If these are definite, we can go on to interpret 
 them in the light of the epistemology we have worked out. 
 
 Classic psychology was built up around the method of 
 introspection and had no doubt that the reality to which 
 the knowledge so achieved was referable was * conscious- 
 ness.' But of late, with the rise of comparative psychology 
 and the closer alignment of psychology with biology, this 
 assurance has been departing. "There is evidence at 
 present of a pronounced disposition to pause for a con- 
 sideration of fundamentals. What is psychology anyway, 
 — what is its subject-matter and what are its methods.? 
 The stock definition that it is concerned with * the descrip- 
 tion and explanation of states of consciousness as such,' 
 states of consciousness being something which everybody 
 knows and nobody can define, has fallen or is falling into 
 disrepute." Bode, "Psychology as a Science of Behavior," 
 Psychological Review, 1914. Objective psychology or 
 
 240 
 
REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY 241 
 
 psychology as a natural science, it is said, studies behavior, 
 and behavior is something observable. The reactions of 
 the white rat which goes through a specially prepared 
 labyrinth are data which are open to all in exactly the 
 same way that the reactions of chemicals in a test-tube 
 are. The older psychology was less concerned with be- 
 havior and more with the characteristics of mental proc- 
 esses and their conditions as determined by introspection. 
 The demand facing the modern psychologist is to do jus- 
 tice to all the investigations which can properly come under 
 his science and to work out a point of view which harmon- 
 izes them. 
 
 Orthodox Psychology. — Let us begin with a typical 
 orthodox definition of psychology. "Psychology may be 
 defined as the science of mental processes. Each of the 
 three terms included in the definition requires a brief 
 explanation. A process is any object of scientific knowl- 
 edge which is not a * thing.' A * thing* is permanent, rel- 
 atively unchanging, definitely marked off from other 
 things. A process is, by etymology, a * moving forward.* 
 It is a becoming something^ — a continuous operation, a 
 progressive change, which the scientific observer can 
 trace throughout its course. ... A mental process is a 
 process in the origination and continuance of which we 
 are ourselves necessarily concerned, — a process the nature 
 of which is determined by the constitution and functions 
 of an organism, an organized individual. ... A science 
 is a sum of knowledge classified and arranged under cer- 
 tain general rules and comprehensive laws; it is coherent 
 and unified knowledge.'* Titchener, An Outline of Psy- 
 chology, pp. 7-8. Thus there has been general agreement 
 among psychologists that the reality their science is con- 
 cerned with is the consciousness of particular individuals. 
 
242 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "Mental facts, or facts of consciousness, constitute the 
 field of psychology." Angell, Psychology, p. 1. Its facts 
 must have reference to the experiences of individuals. 
 Thus consciousness has become a term for the changing 
 field of the individual's experience, and this field is admit- 
 tedly complex and differentiated. We have learned to 
 distinguish percepts, concepts, judgments, pleasures and 
 pains, memories, imagination, volition, reasoning, degrees 
 of attention, etc. These are distinguishable, or logical, 
 parts of consciousness and are carefully studied by the 
 psychologist. It is obvious that the theory of knowledge 
 at which we have arrived confirms this view of conscious- 
 ness. For us, the individual is confined to his conscious- 
 ness and his knowledge, which he refers to a realm outside 
 of his consciousness in the case of the physical sciences, 
 exists as propositions in his consciousness. 
 
 The Purpose of the Psychologist. — If the whole of the 
 individual's experience is in some sense the subject-matter 
 of psychology, the question still arises. What is the purpose 
 of the psychologist? What does he want to know? It is 
 fairly obvious that he does not want to know what a par- 
 ticular individual knows or remembers or perceives or 
 feels. His explanations "consist chiefly in showing (1) 
 how complex psychical conditions are made up of simple 
 ones, (2) how the various psychical groups which he has 
 analyzed grow and develop, and finally (3a) how these 
 various conscious processes are connected with physio- 
 logical activities, and (3b) with objects or events in the 
 social and physical world constituting the environment." 
 Angell, Psychology, p. 3. 
 
 An examination of the topics taken up in a typical 
 treatise on psychology will make this purpose clearer. 
 First of all, perceptions are analyzed into sensations, which 
 
REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY 243 
 
 are distinguishable presentations. These sensations are 
 studied and connected with the stimulation of the sense- 
 organs. He finds that "there are but forty or fifty differ- 
 ent sorts of nerve ends from which all the varieties of our 
 conscious qualities are derived." Pillsbury, Essentials 
 of Psychology, p. 98. He then goes on to study the varying 
 intensities of these sensations and to determine as nearly 
 as he can the conditions of this variation. Again, the psy- 
 chologist discovers that selection or control is a striking 
 fact of consciousness. "A man is not absolutely under 
 the domination of habit, of external stimulation, or of the 
 habitual elements in the thinking processes, but can decide 
 for himseK, within limits, what he shall hear or see, what 
 he shall think or what he shall do." Ibid., p. 105. Real- 
 izing the significance of this fact, the psychologist proceeds 
 to investigate the internal and the external conditions of 
 consciousness. What control does intensity of stimulation 
 exert? What part is played by purpose, education, past 
 experience, heredity.^ Next, the psychologist investigates 
 the part played by retention and association in the indi- 
 vidual's mental life. How are ideas remembered, and why 
 does one idea bring another in its wake? 
 
 These are but a few of the topics discussed by psychol- 
 ogy, but they are ample to bring out the purpose of the 
 psychologist. We do have experiences of various kinds. 
 The psychologist does not impugn them nor doubt their 
 worth and significance. What he wants to know is their 
 general conditions. He wants to be able to analyze them 
 into elements and study the laws of the rise of our experi- 
 ences and the processes involved. For instance, a scientist 
 passes a judgment, say, that the sun is so many million 
 miles away from the earth. The psychologist is not con- 
 cerned with the truth or falsity of that judgment but with 
 
244 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 its conditions as a mental content in the mind of some in- 
 dividual. What processes are necessary before a judgment 
 can be passed? What do concepts develop from? Could 
 we have them without retention and association, without 
 selective purpose and analysis? How are all these condi- 
 tions related to the brain and to the environment? Such 
 questions are real though they have no direct concern for 
 astronomy. I mean that the truth of an astronomical 
 proposition is unaffected by them. A false judgment has 
 essentially the same general mental conditions as a true one. 
 A Current Paradox. — Both Titchener and James Ward 
 (Art. "Psychology" in Encyclopedia Britannica) sug- 
 gest that psychology has to do with the same experience 
 that the other sciences are concerned with. "It is the 
 same experience all through; physics and psychology deal 
 with the same stuff, the same material; the sciences are 
 separated simply — and sufficiently — by their point of 
 view." Titchener, A Text-book of Psychology, Chap. 
 1. " Paradoxical though it may be, we must then conclude 
 that psychology cannot be defined by reference to a 
 special subject-matter as such concrete sciences, for ex- 
 ample, as mineralogy and botany can be; and, since it 
 deals in some sort with the whole of experience, it is ob-* 
 viously not an abstract science in any ordinary sense of 
 that term. To be characterized at all, therefore, apart 
 from metaphysical assumptions, it must be characterized 
 by the standpoint from which this experience is viewed. 
 It is by way of expressing this that widely different schools 
 of psychology define it as subjective, all other positive 
 sciences being distinguished as objective." Ward, Ency, 
 Brit., p. 548, eleventh ed. But this contrast between 
 psychology as subjective and the other sciences as objec- 
 tive is misleading. One science must be as objective as 
 
REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY 245 
 
 another. The epistemology at which we have arrived 
 enables us to settle this problem clearly and definitely. 
 All data, laws and theories are within consciousness; but 
 the various physical sciences divide among themselves 
 those data which are referable to the physical world as 
 furnishing the foundation of our knowledge about it, while 
 psychology obtains its data by examining the various 
 phases of consciousness with a view to determining their 
 constitution, conditions and genesis. Consciousness is 
 the seat and source of all knowledge, but it is the realm 
 to which psychological knowledge is referred, while the 
 physical world which can never be apprehended is the 
 realm to which the knowledge gained by the physical 
 sciences is referred. It is this view that Ward and Titch- 
 ener are trying to express. All sciences are objective, 
 psychology as much as physics. All sciences exist only 
 in the minds of human individuals. But the realms to 
 which the physical sciences and psychology refer their 
 knowledge are different. Consciousness is not peculiar 
 and esoteric; it is the only reality we experience in contrast 
 to having knowledge about. In orthodox psychology, we 
 have knowledge about that which we experience; in the 
 other sciences, we have knowledge about that which we 
 do not apprehend. 
 
 Psychology as the Study of Behavior. — "Psychology 
 as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experi- 
 mental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is 
 the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection 
 forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific 
 value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which 
 they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of con- 
 sciousness. The behaviorist attempts to get a unitary 
 scheme of animal response. He recognizes no dividing 
 
246 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with 
 all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of 
 his total field of investigation." Watson, Behavior, p. 1. 
 That much knowledge of this sort can be gained cannot 
 be denied. It is, moreover, real knowledge about the or- 
 ganism studied and holds in lar^ measure of the species. 
 But the behaviorist studies responses, and in human beings 
 these are often long delayed. The importance of what goes 
 on inside the organism increases with these delayed re- 
 sponses. The objective psychologist is obliged to call 
 them implicit behavior. 
 
 The Value of Behaviorism. — Objective psychology 
 developed in comparative work upon animals. "Ob- 
 jective methods are essential to genetic investigation. 
 The proto-esthesia of amoeba is radically different from 
 any human experience. To interpret amoeba's activity 
 in terms of human consciousness throws no light on either 
 consciousness or behavior. On the other hand, the study 
 of amoeba's behavior throws considerable light on the be- 
 havior of higher organisms, as Jennings and Loeb have 
 shown. An examination of the gradual evolution of trop- 
 isms, reflexes, instincts, intelligent action, and rational 
 volition enables us to understand far better than before 
 the meaning of human acts and consciousness." Warren, 
 Psychological Review, 1914, p. 96. 
 
 An Inclusive Definition of Psychology. — ^The problem 
 which confronts psychology to-day is as follows: Can 
 traditional psychology and behaviorism be combined into 
 one science or do they constitute two separate sciences? 
 All knowledge is objective and gives knowledge about 
 reality. The task before us, then, is to interpret the two 
 systems of knowledge as knowledge about the organism. 
 Is it not knowledge about the organism as functioning.'^ 
 
REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY 247 
 
 Yes; but this term is too broad. Digestion is a function 
 of the organism, and so is the circulation of the blood. It 
 is rather the functioning which involves the nervous sys- 
 tem in its higher centres. We may define psychology as 
 the science of behavior and its control. But what is this 
 control? Shall we call it the brain or the mind? We 
 really have three terms to bring together, brain, mind and 
 consciousness. How can this be done? First of all, we 
 must understand our terms. If we take the brain to be the 
 reality in which the control is to be located, mind to be the 
 type of control and consciousness something which is 
 inseparable from mind and throws light upon it, we can 
 think of the control, as at once brain, mind and conscious- 
 ness. And so it must remain until the brain — mind — con- 
 sciousness problem is solved. 
 
 Psychology is not justified in proclaiming itseK the 
 science of behavior. It is simply one of the sciences of 
 behavior. " The question for general biology is whether 
 the behavior is, as a matter of observation, adapted to the 
 environing circumstances on the occasion of its first oc- 
 currence, or is brought into closer relation to these cir- 
 cumstances by acquired accommodation. The question for 
 physiology is whether the behavior is due to certain in- 
 herited connexions among the neurones of the central 
 nervous system, or is due to connexions which have been 
 established in the course of the individual life. Both 
 general biologist and physiologist may ignore the question 
 whether certain psychological relationships are also pres- 
 ent; but only because they do not fall within their special 
 ■field of study.'' Morgan, Instinct and Experience, pp. 
 88-9. 
 
 It follows that there is no conflict between biology and 
 psychology. Biology is continuous with psychology so 
 
248 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 far as behavior is concerned; and introspective psychology 
 simply supplements behaviorism without contradicting its 
 conclusions in the least. The methods of biology do not 
 exhaust all we can know about an organism. 
 
 What Is Mind? — Objective psychology gains knowl- 
 edge about that which controls the behavior of the organ- 
 ism. Let us call this control "mind." So defined, mind is 
 the relatively permanent organization of instincts, tenden- 
 cies, habits, and capacities which enable the animal to 
 act as a whole to stimuli. The behaviorist points out that 
 this internal control evolves, that an ant is incapable of 
 doing the things that a rat can, and that a human being 
 behaves in a far more plastic and * intelligent' way than 
 do the lower animals. Hence, mind is a fact which physi- 
 cal science is forced to recognize. 
 
 But orthodox psychology also gains information about 
 mind, about that which controls behavior. It teaches 
 that past experience helps to determine what we now 
 perceive and what we do. It lays stress upon the instinc- 
 tive foundation and looks upon the mind as something 
 growing and developing as the organism functions. The 
 psychologist cannot understand what is given in conscious- 
 ness at various times without assuming that permanent 
 powers and capacities exist which condition consciousness 
 and are modified by it. This evolving background is the 
 mind. But it is evident that this necessary hypothesis is 
 identical with the hypothesis which objective psychology 
 is forced to construct to explain its data. 
 
 The conclusion to which psychologists are coming is that 
 mind is more than consciousness. " Consciousness, as 
 appears from our previous account, is a name for a state, 
 an act, or a condition, in short for something temporary. 
 ... It will suffice us for the moment that we give the 
 
REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY M9 
 
 name of Mind to the permanent unity of which we con- 
 ceive any given act of consciousness to be the temporary 
 condition, act or state. . . . Conscious and unconscious 
 operations then may be legitimately grouped together, 
 and without prejudgment as to their ultimate nature the 
 sum of them may be called Mind. Mind then appears as 
 that which has consciousness in its foreground while in 
 the background it is the theatre of energies, of interactions, 
 of stresses and strains, the play of which goes to determine 
 the character of the scene by which the foreground is 
 filled." Hobhouse, Development and Purpose, pp. 20-1, 
 passim. Essentially the same view is championed by Mc- 
 Dougall. He writes: "The stream of consciousness is in 
 part determined by influences coming from outside, which 
 we call sense-impressions; but, when we take these fully 
 into account, the course of the stream of consciousness 
 remains still unexplained; that is to say, its course is not 
 wholly determined by the two factors, consciousness it- 
 self and the sense-stimuli or sense-impressions. It is 
 determined in a very important and, in fact, vastly pre- 
 dominant degree by some other real condition or condi- 
 tions, which we commonly call the structure or consti- 
 tution of the individual mind." McDougall, Body and 
 Mind, p. 165. 
 
 Consciousness and Mind. — Let us try to get our 
 concepts of consciousness and mind as distinct as possible. 
 Consciousness is a stream. It is continually changing. 
 This moment I have one set of feelings and ideas; the next 
 moment I may be thinking of something quite different. 
 It is an exaggeration to speak of consciousness as a flux, 
 but it is certainly none to call it a process. Moreover, 
 this process is intermittent. In deep sleep or a swoon, it 
 is practically non-existent. For these reasons, I have de- 
 
250 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cided to classify consciousness as a variant. It is constantly 
 changing and not directly conserved. 
 
 But consciousness is somehow indirectly conserved. 
 The student gains by his reflections and observations. 
 Knowledge is a growth, and we always know more than 
 we are aware of at any one time. A well-stored mind is 
 no metaphor. Consciousness seems to sink back into the 
 mind and leave a deposit. Each pulse of consciousness 
 may be likened to those coral insects which, dying, build 
 up the reef upon which they have lived. Memory is, of 
 course, the most overt proof of this positive modification 
 of the mind.^ 
 
 The mind which has expressed itself in the consciousness 
 of to-day is different from the mind of yesterday. This 
 functioning has changed it. Such change is a deepening 
 of its content. It is obvious that we must not have a nega- 
 tive conception of the mind as simply an abstract system 
 of naked potentialities. The mind is real and concrete 
 and complex beyond imagination. While psychology gives 
 us knowledge about it, it must not be identified with this 
 abstract knowledge. If the mind is a potentiality so far 
 as consciousness is concerned, in itseK it is a veritable 
 reality. It is the setting, source and condition of con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Because consciousness is the only reality we can experi- 
 ence or apprehend, we are prone to make a dualism be- 
 tween consciousness and its setting. Consciousness is a 
 peculiar part of the mind. It is unique just as the mind is. 
 But what we must not do is to try to apprehend both, de- 
 cide that they are different in texture, and despair of com- 
 
 * What is often called the subconscious and the unconscious is mind 
 in contrast to consciousness. Bergson's 'memory' and Freud's 'wish' 
 enter here. 
 
REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY 251 
 
 bining them into one apprehensible object. As we have 
 pointed out, consciousness is the only part of reality we 
 can apprehend. Hence our problem is to conceive con- 
 sciousness as a change in a more inclusive reality about 
 which we can gain knowledge. When we call the inclusive 
 reality within which consciousness appears intermittently, 
 mind, and speak of it as unconscious, we are only re-stating 
 this acknowledged situation. The greater part of mind is 
 the source and seat of consciousness and is therefore un- 
 conscious. But the very conception of the relationship 
 precludes dualism. 
 
 References 
 
 Angell, Psychology, chap. 1. 
 
 Bergson, Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution. 
 
 Bode, Psychological Review, 1914. 
 
 Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams. 
 
 Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution and Development and Purpose, 
 
 McDougall, Body and Mind. 
 
 Morgan, Instinct and Experience. 
 
 Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, chap. 1. 
 
 Titchener, An Outline of Psychology, chap. 1. 
 
 Ward, " Psychology," Ency. Britannica. 
 
 Warren, Psychological Review, 1914. 
 
 Watson, Behavior, chap. 1. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 
 
 The Mind-Body Problem. — The last two chapters 
 have been of the nature of a preparation for the discussion 
 of the mind-body problem. What is the nature of this 
 problem? It arises from a fact and a theory. The fact is 
 that our minds and consciousnesses are clearly very in- 
 timately connected with our bodies; the theory is that we 
 know that all physical bodies are alien to mind. In other 
 words, reflective thought has been pulled in two different 
 directions at the same time and has been unable to work 
 out a harmonious view. The physical sciences have as- 
 sumed that they alone had the physical world for their 
 object and they have naturally concluded that the physical 
 world must be conceived only in terms of the information 
 they have acquired. The consequence has been the exist- 
 ence of a dualism. Mind and consciousness are real, yet 
 immaterial. The physical world is real, yet material. The 
 mind-body problem has consisted in the attempt to relate 
 two such antithetical realities. That they are actually 
 related has always seemed undeniable — at least the denial 
 of a relation has been the counsel of despair. But how 
 to conceive the relationship has been the crucial point of 
 metaphysics. There have been many tentative solutions 
 of the problem but none that have satisfied any large 
 number of thinkers. Yet both because of its intrinsic 
 interest and significance and because of the fact that it 
 brings both theory of knowledge and metaphysics to a f o- 
 
 252 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 253 
 
 cus, a full discussion of it is desirable even in an introduc- 
 tory text. 
 
 Solutions Offered. — We can easily make a preliminary 
 classification of theories about the mind-body relation into 
 dualistic and monistic. Dualistic theories accept the dis- 
 tinction between mind and body as corresponding to 
 an existential division in \^ality itself. The mind is one 
 kind of reality and the physical world is quite another 
 kind. Monistic theories are endeavors to avoid this dual- 
 ism. The basis of their arguments is the belief that the 
 distinction is due to the human point of view which con- 
 ceptually severs what is actually a unity. There is not a 
 mind and a body but only one complex existent which the 
 knowing mind apprehends from different points of view 
 and so doubles. Naturally, monistic theories to be 
 complete must have a theory of knowledge which explains 
 this tendency to conceive one reality as twcL.different 
 kinds of reality. Adequate theories must interpret illu- 
 sions much as the Copernican view of the solar system 
 enables us to understand why we see things in a Ptolemaic 
 way. 
 
 Dualistic Theories. — Dualistic theories divide around 
 the question whether or not a causal relation exists be- 
 tween mind and body. There are three main dualistic 
 theories, although there are many varieties of these three. 
 Since our purpose is to gain a clear idea of the mind-body 
 problem, we shall not consider unessential variations. 
 
 Interactionism holds that mind and the physical world 
 interact causally. Thus interactionism accepts two reali- 
 ties of equal rank, mind and body, and declares that 
 experience indicates a causal relation between them. 
 The advocates of this position always maintain that it 
 covers the facts more naturally than any other dualistic 
 
254 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 hypothesis. In sensation, it is quite apparent that the 
 stimulation of the body affects the mind, while in volition 
 the reverse is just as obviously the case. 
 
 Parallelism is the denial of interactionism. The parallel- 
 ist refuses to regard physical and mental events as parts 
 of one order of causes and effects. So impressed is he with 
 the difference between the mental and the physical that he 
 finds it impossible to conceive of interaction between them. 
 Hence, he is led to hold that both orders are self-sufficient 
 and independent even though they accompany each other 
 so assiduously. 
 
 Epiphenomenalism may best be described as a material- 
 istic form of parallelism. As a matter of fact, it wavers 
 between parallelism and a one-sided causal view. The 
 drift of the position is the emphasis upon the importance 
 of the body as against the mind. The mind is only a shadow 
 accompanying causal changes in the brain. 
 
 Interactionism. — While the acceptance of a causal 
 relation between mind and body is the defining character- 
 istic of interactionism, we must not ignore the fact that 
 some interactionists conceive of the mind and of this re- 
 lation more crudely than do others. The mind was first 
 looked upon as a ghost-soul of a fairly material texture. 
 The interaction of mind and body was not far different, 
 then, from the interaction of two physical things. Also, 
 when the mind was thought of as composed of fire-atoms, 
 there was no theoretical difficulty. But as the mind was 
 more and more de-materialized and extruded from space, 
 difficulties multiplied. How can that which is not in space 
 influence and be influenced by that which is in space .^^ 
 Does interaction involve a meeting or coming together? 
 Descartes put the soul in the pineal gland even though 
 he considered the soul unextended. But no modern 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY ^55 
 
 thinker has the temerity to contradict himself in such a 
 fashion. 
 
 Let us examine a contemporary exposition of interac- 
 tionism which is subtle enough to avoid all the grosser 
 errors of early expositions of this view. Dr. McDougall, 
 an eminent psychologist, writes as follows: "In a similar 
 way we may describe a soul as a sum of enduring capacities 
 for thoughts, feelings, and efforts of determinate kinds. 
 Since the word substance retains the flavour of so many 
 controversial doctrines, we shall do well to avoid it as the 
 name for any such sum of enduring capacities, and to use 
 instead the word thing or being. We may then describe 
 a soul as a being that possesses, or is, the sum of definite 
 capacities for psychical activity and psycho-physical 
 interaction, of which the most fundamental are (1) the 
 capacity of producing, in response to certain physical 
 stimuli (the sensory processes of the brain), the whole 
 range of sensation qualities in their whole range of in- 
 tensities; (2) the capacity of responding to certain sensa- 
 tion-complexes with the production of meanings, as, for 
 example, spatial meanings; (3) the capacity of responding 
 to these sensations and these meanings with feeling and 
 conation or effort, under the spur of which further mean- 
 ings may be brought to consciousness in accordance with 
 the laws of reproduction of similars and of reasoning; (4) 
 the capacity of reacting upon the brain-processes to modify 
 their course in a way which we cannot clearly define, but 
 which we may provisionally conceive as a process of guid- 
 ance by which streams of nervous energy may be concen- 
 trated in a way that antagonizes the tendency ^ of all physi- 
 cal energy to dissipation and degradation." Body and 
 
 ^ I am skeptical of this principle if taken as more than one tendency 
 among others. 
 
^^56 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Mind, p. 365. What are the chief objections to such a 
 type of interactionism? 
 
 The objection which science has usually expressed is 
 that interactionism involves a denial of the continuity 
 of the physical world. The brain-event acts upon the 
 soul and so energy disappears from the physical system 
 into the spiritual world. But such a breach of continuity 
 cannot be conceived by the physical scientist; it would 
 be for him as much of a miracle as the introduction of new 
 energy into the physical system from outside. The quan- 
 titative form of the principle of causality as used by the 
 physical sciences is the equivalence of cause and effect, 
 that is, of the amount of energy, kinetic and potential, in 
 a physical system at different times. Interactionism thus 
 conflicts with the fundamental postulate of science that 
 nature is a self-sufficient and inclusive system. We must, 
 however, frankly admit that this objection, although a 
 strong one which puts the burden of proof upon inter- 
 actionism, is not final. 
 
 Another objection calls attention to the mystery in- 
 volved in the presence of the soul with the body if their 
 relation is so external. Whence comes the soul.^ Why is 
 it influenced only by brain-states and not by other physical 
 changes? Do souls evolve step by step with the brain in 
 the animal series? Facing these questions, interactionists 
 feel themselves compelled to construct a speculative meta- 
 physics in which the soul controls evolution. Bergson's 
 speculations in Creative Evolution are veiy interesting in 
 this connection. 
 
 A third objection is that this conception plays fast and 
 loose with the category of causality. Causality involves 
 a system of co-existent things which are in an internal proc- 
 ess of change. Such a system is spatial. But how can 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 257 
 
 the soul form one system with the body if it is distinct from 
 the body? I fear that interactionism drops back to the 
 popular view of causation as the stark production of some- 
 thing in a patient by an agent. But we must remember 
 that action involves reaction. Moreover, is external 
 causation able to account for the selective control of be- 
 havior.^ Consciousness does not know the brain as the 
 pianist knows the key-board. 
 
 The fourth objection to interactionism is epistemologi- 
 cal. Does it not assume that we know enough about the 
 brain to know that it cannot be the soul? Yet the soul is 
 described as only a sum of enduring capacities for thoughts, 
 feelings, and efforts of determinate kinds! We must also 
 note that it is the dead-level, mechanical view of the brain 
 that leads the modern psychologist to flirt with interac- 
 tionism. McDougall admits this in so many words: "And 
 it is just because we have found that mental and vital 
 processes cannot be completely described and explained 
 in terms of mechanism that we are compelled to believe 
 in the co-operation of some non-mechanical, teleological 
 factor, and to adopt the hypothesis of the soul.'* Ibid., 
 p. 364. 
 
 While we cannot be said to have disproved interaction- 
 ism, we have shown that there are decided objections to it. 
 Our hope must be that a more satisfactory hypothesis 
 can be offered. 
 
 Parallelism. — Parallelism is the denial of a causal 
 relation between mind and body. But it accompanies 
 this denial with the acceptance of dualism. 
 
 Metaphysical parallelism corresponds to the interac- 
 tionism which we have just examined in being an ultimate 
 theory instead of a statement of empirical conclusions. 
 As such, it goes back to the Cartesian school. It appears 
 
258 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in its purest form in Occasionalism. The Occasionalists 
 held that mind and matter are so alien to each other that 
 it is impossible to think of them as causally interactive. 
 The correspondence between their changes must therefore 
 be accounted for by the mediatory activity of Deity for 
 whom changes in the one are signs of changes to be pro- 
 duced in the other. Now, modern science so far as it 
 leans toward parallelism is influenced by those arguments 
 against interactionism which have to do with the conser- 
 vation of energy and the causal self-sufficiency of nature. 
 It is negative rather than positive, and is satisfied with 
 excluding mind. The simplest form of such negative, 
 dualistic parallelism is to be found in the position that 
 consciousness is the constant concomitant of the activity 
 of the brain, that for every psychosis there is a correspond- 
 ing neurosis. For dualistic parallelism, such concomitance 
 is ultimate and inexplicable. 
 
 There are two main objections to dualistic parallelism. 
 The first is that this constant concomitance is a mystery 
 that passes understanding. If there be no existential 
 relation between them, why should the one be accompanied 
 by the other .^ The mystery' becomes still greater when we 
 realize that there is a harmony between ideas in the mind 
 and the behavior of the organism. The idea of moving 
 my arm precedes the movement of that organ and not that 
 of my head. The second objection to parallelism concerns 
 the point in which interactionism is strongest. Can we 
 understand human behavior in terms of purely mechanical 
 causality? Do not meanings and plans so pervade conduct 
 that it is inexplicable without them? 
 
 Empirical parallelism is simply another term for the 
 empirical law of psycho-neural correlation. Investigation 
 seems to show that every pulse of consciousness is ac- 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 259 
 
 companied by a brain-event. While metaphysical parallel- 
 ism is dominated by spatial imagery, empirical parallelism 
 is purely temporal in character. It would probably be 
 best to drop the diagrammatic term parallelism and to 
 speak of temporal correlation. While certain psychologists 
 — Wundt, McDougall, and Bergson, for example— have 
 denied the completeness of this correlation, they have done 
 so in consequence of theories rather than in consequence 
 of definite facts, and their position is not generally sec- 
 onded by psychologists. We shall, therefore, take psycho- 
 neural correlation as part of our knowledge about the 
 organism. 
 
 Epiphenomenalism.— Parallelism readily lapses into 
 epiphenomenalism. Since, for the physical scientist, the 
 body is the more seK-sufficient system, it overshadows 
 the intermittent stream of consciousness that is correlated 
 with it. The inevitable tendency is to think of conscious- 
 ness as a by-product of brain changes. The epiphenome- 
 nalist usually satisfies himself, however, with the declara- 
 tion that the body is an automaton and that its behavior 
 is uncontrolled by what goes on in consciousness. The 
 chief article of his creed is that the physical world is a 
 closed causal system. 
 
 In its desire for naturalism, physical science has almost 
 made naturalism impossible. Mechanical rationalism has 
 gradually induced materialism and epiphenomenalism, 
 which is only a shame-faced materialism. While earlier 
 naturalistic thinkers were willing to accept two sub- 
 stantial realities, mind and matter, later thinkers tended 
 more and more to monism. There can be little doubt that 
 the theory of evolution with its naturalistic way of handling 
 man has aided this monistic development. But physical 
 science in its drift toward monism found itself shipwrecked 
 
mo THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 on the reef of materialism. It was unable to re-interpret 
 the physical world in such a way as to find a place for mind 
 in it. The original dualism could not be overcome in any 
 real way. Naive materialism is unable to do justice to 
 the fact of consciousness, for it is nonsense to say that the 
 motion of atoms is consciousness. Epiphenomenalism is 
 the attempt to occupy a compromise between parallelism 
 and materialism; and, as in all such verbal compromises, 
 it is either parallelism or materialism according to the 
 outlook of the interpreter. 
 
 Epiphenomenalism is usually spoken of as involving 
 a one-sided causal relation between consciousness and the 
 body. The brain controls consciousness, but consciousness 
 does not control the brain. It would be better to stress 
 the materialistic aspect of the doctrine and to describe it 
 as involving the production of consciousness by a brain 
 which is by hypothesis alien to mind. The truth is that 
 both materialism and epiphenomenalism are offshoots 
 from Natural Realism; that is they begin with a * natural 
 dualism' and seek to obtain a monism by reducing the 
 other term to the physical. Instead of re-interpreting 
 both terms of this natural dualism' in the light of a more 
 adequate epistemology, they adopt the uncritical method 
 of accepting their terms and then seeking to reduce one to 
 the other. The preferred term is, of course, the brain. 
 
 To one who accepts a dead-level, merely quantitative 
 view of nature, the difference between the brain and other 
 physical things is only one of complexity. Hence, unless 
 some reason can be given why consciousness should be 
 correlated with complexity, the correlation is simply a 
 brute fact. But the intellect can see no necessary connec- 
 tion between complexity and consciousness any more 
 than between motion and consciousness. It is evident 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 261 
 
 that we must go deeper into both epistemology and meta- 
 physics before we can solve the mind-body problem. 
 
 Monistic Theories. — All monistic theories deny that 
 there is a causal relation between mind and body because 
 they do not regard these as two existentially distinct 
 things. 
 
 We shall discuss three types of monistic solution of the 
 relation between mind and body. All three are bound up 
 with epistemology and metaphysics and will therefore 
 furnish the material for a review. We shall call the first 
 theory psychical monism, the second the double-aspect 
 theory, the third, the unity theory. 
 
 Psychical Monism. — Psychical monism is a deduction 
 from spiritualism, which, it will be remembered, is itself 
 a deduction from idealism. If all reality is spiritual or 
 mental, the reality of the body must conform to this one 
 universal kind of reality. The spiritualist asserts that 
 what the dualist calls the body and regards as distinct 
 from mind is only a perceptual or conceptual symbol of 
 a part of a spiritual universe. Changes in the physical 
 world as perceived events are only changes in the con- 
 sciousness of some mind, and changes in the physical world 
 as conceived by the scientist are likewise only changes in 
 the knowing mind. But these perceived and conceived 
 changes are signs of real events in the one universe which is 
 immaterial in its texture and stuff. 
 
 This metaphysical solution of the mind-body problem 
 turns around the reduction of the dualism characteristic 
 of both popular and scientific thought. But, so far as the 
 body of a person is more than his mind although not differ- 
 ent from it, a somewhat similar problem remains. Some 
 spiritualists maintain that the brain is practically a mech- 
 anism played upon by the mind. Such thinkers would 
 
262 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 appear to teach that there are grades of spiritual tension 
 in reality and that the physical world represents a lower 
 level of spiritual activity. In this way, they avoid the 
 traditional dualism of substance and substitute a qualita- 
 tive duality between spirit and matter. Bergson, for ex- 
 ample, holds that matter is the degradation of spirit and 
 takes the form of space, while pure spirit is activity and 
 exists in time. Such antitheses are striking, but have not 
 yet been carried out successfully. Practically, Bergson's 
 position approaches interactionism. The brain is the in- 
 strument of the mind. 
 
 Panpsychism offers a simpler form of psychical monism. 
 The brain is the symbol of consciousness. If personal 
 consciousness is not enough, the panpsychist simply postu- 
 lates more consciousness. The essential premise is episte- 
 mological. As a phenomenalist, he teaches that con- 
 sciousness is the very stuff of reality. There are many 
 questions, however, upon which panpsychists are not 
 settled. Is consciousness atomic in its structure? Are 
 there evolutionary levels of consciousness? But so far 
 as the usual form of the mind-body problem is concerned, 
 panpsychists are agreed that their position shows that it 
 is a false problem. Mind and body do not interact causally 
 or run parallel because body is only the symbol of mind 
 and not itself a reality. But the frohlems suggested by 
 science are not furthered by panpsychism. 
 
 The Double-Aspect Theory. — There have been many 
 formulations of the double-aspect view. One of the clear- 
 est of the older statements is that of Hoffding. "If it is 
 contrary to the doctrine of the persistence of physical 
 energy to suppose a transition from the one province to 
 the other, and if, nevertheless, the two provinces exist 
 in our experience as distinct, then the two sets of phe- 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 263 
 
 nomena must be unfolded simultaneously, each according 
 to its laws, so that for every phenomenon in the world of 
 consciousness there is a corresponding phenomenon in 
 the world of matter, and conversely (so far as there is 
 reason to suppose that conscious life is correlated with 
 material phenomena). The parallels already drawn point 
 directly to such a relation; it would be an amazing acci- 
 dent, if, while the characteristic marks repeated themselves 
 in this way, there were not at the foundation an inner 
 connection. Both the parallelism and the proportionality 
 between the activity of consciousness and cerebral activity 
 point to an identity at bottom. The difference which remains 
 in spite of the points of agreement compels us to suppose 
 that one and the same principle has found its expression in a 
 double form. We have no right to take mind and body for 
 two beings or substances in reciprocal interaction. We 
 are, on the contrary, impelled to conceive the material 
 interaction between the elements composing the brain and 
 nervous system as an outer form of the inner ideal unity 
 of consciousness. What we in our inner experience become 
 conscious of as thought, feeling, and resolution, is thus 
 represented in the material world by certain material 
 processes of the brain, which as such are subject to the law 
 of the persistence of energy, although this law cannot be 
 applied to the relation between cerebral and conscious 
 processes. It is as though the same thing were said in 
 two languages." Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 
 64-5. Let us examine this formulation. 
 
 The weak point of the double-aspect theory is its unde- 
 fined use of the terms outer and inner. These words de- 
 note spatial differences ordinarily but they are given a 
 metaphorical significance in this excerpt. Is there an inner 
 aspect for reality itseK? Or is this distinction purely 
 
264 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 relative to two methods of knowledge? Again, what is 
 meant by a principle expressing itself in a double form? 
 These questions have never been clearly answered by the 
 advocates of the double-aspect theory. 
 
 Recently a psychologist has attempted to offer an em- 
 pirical analogy for the double-aspect view. The outer 
 aspect, the brain, is to the inner aspect, consciousness, as 
 surface is to mass. "In the surface-mass relation one as- 
 pect of the change is perceived by the eye, the other aspect 
 by the muscle sense. Similarly, in the neuroconscious 
 relation one aspect is objective — it is perceived from with- 
 out; the other aspect is subjective — it is the conscious 
 experience of the living organism itself. . . . Changes of 
 surface and changes of mass do not influence one another, 
 neither are they independent. Just so the monodualist 
 (the holder of the double-aspect theory) regards the ac- 
 tivity of consciousness and the activity of the nervous 
 system as neither causally related nor parallel. They 
 constitute one single process, observable in two ways." 
 H. C. Warren, Psychological Review y 1914. 
 
 The aim of the monodualist, as Professor Warren rather 
 quaintly describes his position, is commendable. But 
 what does he understand by the phrase, " observable in 
 two ways"? It savors of naive realism so far as the ner- 
 vous system is concerned. But we have seen good reason 
 to hold that we can gain knowledge about the nervous 
 system but can perceive only our percepts which are in 
 consciousness. Following up this criticism, we are led to 
 pass to the unity theory. This theory does justice to the 
 aims of the double-aspect theory while founding itself 
 upon a more adequate theory of knowledge. 
 
 The Unity Theory. — The unity theory holds that 
 consciousness is a part of the nature of the brain when it 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 2Q5 
 
 is functioning. In other words, the traditional dualism 
 is a product of a mistaken outlook. The problem is not 
 to get two things together but to account for the doubling 
 in the human mind of the one seamless reality. 
 
 The first alteration which must be made in the double- 
 aspect theory is the substitution of the term knowledge 
 for observe or perceive. The physical sciences give 
 knowledge about the world and this knowledge involves a 
 conceptual framework which we have called the categories. 
 We may speak of these as the categories of the physical 
 sciences. Knowledge is within consciousness, but that 
 about which the physical sciences give knowledge is not 
 within consciousness. It is reality to which this knowledge 
 is referred by thought. Consciousness, on the other hand, 
 is something experienced; it is the changing field of the 
 individual's experience. Such consciousness is real, but 
 is it the whole of reality? Obviously not, for the knowledge 
 gained in the physical sciences does not fit it. Must we 
 not conclude, therefore, that the same reality about 
 which we gain knowledge in the physical sciences contains 
 consciousness? We are now able to give a non-metaphori- 
 cal interpretation of what the advocates of the double- 
 aspect theory have really meant by the outer aspect. It 
 is reality as known by means of the physical sciences, while 
 the inner aspect is consciousness as admittedly real. Un- 
 fortunately, an adequate theory of knowledge is necessary 
 before one can really state and solve such problems as 
 these. 
 
 What Is the Mind? — We must hold, therefore, that 
 mind is a term for that which controls responses. But 
 that which controls responses expresses itseK in and so is 
 revealed, to that extent, by consciousness. Putting the 
 results of introspective and objective psychology together 
 
^66 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 as both giving knowledge about mind, we are driven to the 
 conclusion that mind is not a thing apart from the organ- 
 ism but only a selective term for those inherited capacities 
 of the organism which are developed and filled out by its 
 functional activities. Thus knowledge about mind is 
 knowledge about the organism and should not conflict 
 with the knowledge contributed by the other sciences. 
 The organism is a much more wonderful thing than we 
 have sometimes supposed. It is almost unthinkably 
 complex, highly organized, self -regulating and plastic. 
 
 But the knowledge about the organism which we sum 
 up under the term mind must not be identified with the 
 reality to which it is referred. When we speak of mental 
 habits, capacities, past experience, training, etc., we must 
 not forget that reality is not a capacity merely nor some- 
 thing past but an actual existent. If we follow the guid- 
 ance of modern knowledge, we must conclude that the 
 brain is the existent to which this knowledge must be 
 referred. But if so, the brain must be thought of in the 
 light of all available knowledge about it. The knowledge 
 contributed by psychology must no more be ignored than 
 that contributed by the physical sciences. By so combin- 
 ing all of our knowledge, we can gain some idea of the 
 richness of content of the brain. But we are now far from 
 identifying the brain with any perceptually or conceptu- 
 ally apprehended object. It is within the brain, so under- 
 stood, that we, as conscious creatures, live and have our 
 being, our senses being instruments of communication 
 with the world outside. 
 
 References 
 
 Bergson, Matter and Memory. 
 
 Fullerton, An Introduction to Philosophyy chap. 9. 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 267 
 
 Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology. 
 McDougall, Body and Mind, chaps. 12 and 26. 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 9. 
 Strong, Why the Mind Has a Body. 
 Warren, Psychological Review, 1914. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 
 
 The Presence of Sharp Contrasts. — Both science and 
 philosophy have been replete with sharp contrasts such as 
 Hving matter and lifeless matter, the material and the 
 immaterial, mechanism and purpose. These harsh antith- 
 eses have puzzled reflective thought, for they have been 
 the sign of discontinuities and threatened dualisms. If 
 living matter is so different from lifeless matter, how do 
 they both happen to be in one universe? And if life is 
 something entirely new appearing only at a certain stage 
 in the history of the earth, whence did it come? Again, 
 if the material world is distinct from the immaterial, why 
 do they accompany one another so assiduously in the 
 psycho-physical organism? At one time, such problems 
 did not greatly trouble the human mind for the assump- 
 tions in which it worked were dualistic. The student will 
 remember that Descartes accepted the traditional division 
 of reality into two substances without hesitation. But 
 both science and philosophy have been working toward 
 a monistic, naturalistic outlook. Nature is somehow one 
 and is the mother of all things. The result has been an 
 increasing dislike for discontinuities and dualisms and a 
 growing desire to overcome the traditional antitheses by 
 more adequate and plastic analyses. In the last chapter, 
 we have been the witnesses of a recent attempt to explain 
 away the contrast between mind and body as due to 
 a mistaken interpretation of the difference between the 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 269 
 
 knowledge gained by the physical sciences and the ac- 
 tual consciousness of the individual. Let us now follow 
 up this approach with a discussion of the age-old contrast 
 between mechanism and purpose. 
 
 The Mechanical View of the World. — ^The reflective 
 distinction between the mechanical view of the world and 
 the teleological, or purposive, view arose among the Greeks 
 and has continued ever since as a clash between two 
 outlooks. But during the intervening years both terms 
 of this contrast have changed and taken a new setting and 
 new implications. What we must try to do is to get as 
 clear ideas as possible of mechanism and purpose and to 
 see whether it is not feasible to harmonize them in the light 
 of an evolutionary interpretation of the world. 
 
 It is often illuminating to approach the more complex 
 problems of the present historically. Let us, therefore, 
 discover what the mechanical theory of nature meant for 
 its first advocates. 
 
 The atomists were mechanists, that is, they held that 
 all changes are only re-configurations of the primary ele- 
 ments which compose the world. In short, all changes are 
 motions. Such motions were judged to be explicable in 
 terms of the motions just preceding. The logical conclu- 
 sion drawn was that the laws of motion were the laws of 
 all causal change. 
 
 The atomists were materialists. But materialism was 
 boldly challenged by Plato and his school. Matter for 
 Plato is the unreal. Only ideas, which are non-spatial 
 and eternal, are real; and these ideas are creative energies 
 which mould the sensible world. Thus in contrast to De- 
 mocritus, Plato is a teleologist. The world is controlled 
 by intelligent plans and purposes. Ideas are of the nature 
 of final causes which operate upon the world and give it 
 
270 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 significance and order. The realm of ideas is rational and 
 purposive, while the domain of matter is governed by blind 
 necessity. 
 
 When we examine this contrast, we realize that neces- 
 sity is identified with the efficient causality characteristic 
 of atomistic realism of the Democritean type. It is blind 
 necessity because there is no foresight of what is to occur. 
 What occurs must occur, and there is no anticipation of 
 consequences. The future is uncontrolled by anything 
 analogous, in the least, to reasoning. I think that we must 
 admit that this description does hold for the strict mechan- 
 ical view of the world. But I also think that we must 
 qualify the usual identification of efficient causality with 
 the sort of change characteristic of mechanism. There 
 may be other types of efficient causality. 
 
 It behooves us, therefore, to gain a clear idea of the 
 mechanical ideal. In mechanics, science seeks to analyze 
 a system of particles in motion and trace its transition into 
 the state which follows. The laws of transition are the 
 laws of motion as these have been determined by the study 
 of such systems. It is urged by mathematicians "that, 
 ultimately, the whole history of a system of material par- 
 ticles is describable in terms of their masses and spatial 
 relations . . . and that in order to predict the future or 
 reconstruct the past of any material system, all we need 
 to know is the geometrical configuration of its particles in 
 any two moments of time." T. Percy Nunn, "Animism 
 and the Doctrine of Energy," Proceedings Aristotelian 
 Society, 1911-12. 
 
 As we shall point out in a succeeding section, this mathe- 
 matical outlook is an abstract scheme of a conceptual 
 nature. It is doubtful whether it actually corresponds to 
 any physical process. It seems to recognize matter as 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 271 
 
 only a quantity of inertia whereas the physicist, even, 
 asserts properties other than inertia of his world. But 
 the atomism of Democritus — and we may say of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — corresponded 
 pretty closely to the mathematical constructions of par- 
 ticles in changing positions. These passive atoms are 
 helpless units which change their position much as a ball 
 seems to do when it is struck. In such a world, there is 
 neither chance nor purpose. But modern physics has 
 begun to realize the fact that this scheme is external and 
 descriptive and leaves the processes unexplained. Are the 
 data of mathematics, particles and positions, equal to 
 physical reality? 
 
 It is interesting to note that, while some philosophers 
 are satisfied to interpret the physical world in terms of 
 this outlook, others are very skeptical. And the same 
 difference of opinion prevails among scientists themselves. 
 There can be little doubt that its fascination is more 
 due to its ideal simplicity than to its empirical verifica- 
 tion. 
 
 The Teleological View of the World.— The teleological 
 view of the world laid stress upon motive and design. 
 In its popular form, it expressed the belief that things 
 were created for a purpose and that their structure re- 
 vealed design. And such design imphed a designer whose 
 creations they were. We may call this outlook external 
 teleology. It was the common faith that animals and 
 plants were made for man's sustenance and that the human 
 organism could not be accounted for in all its marvelous 
 intricacy apart from the agency of some supreme intelli- 
 gence. That such a self -perpetuating complex of interact- 
 ing organs could have come about without design seemed 
 to the majority to be unbelievable. The body, it was 
 
9m THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 said, could not be the work of chance, meaning by chance 
 without a controlling purpose. 
 
 The essential motives of this popular view found tech- 
 nical philosophical expression in the philosophy of Aris- 
 totle. Following Plato, Aristotle taught that forms or 
 ideas controlled the material world. These forms exerted 
 their influence, not as efficient causes interacting with other 
 things, but as final causes or guiding ideals. The material 
 world is so constituted that it yearns after the perfection 
 which the ideal realm portrays. During the Middle Ages, 
 this Aristotelian view held sway, and it was not until 
 the rise of modern astronomy, mathematics and physics 
 that the idea of efficient causality gained the upper- 
 hand. 
 
 The weakness of the Aristotelian theory was its inability 
 to be tested by observation and experiment. Final causes 
 are by hypothesis intangible. To explain a bodily process 
 by final causes was soon seen to be a merely verbal affair. 
 Harvey's explanation of the circulation of the blood made 
 a tremendous impression because of its concreteness and 
 verifiability. The bolder spirits soon whispered that final 
 causes were purely imaginary causes. Descartes was one 
 of the first to declare that bodies are mechanisms, that is, 
 machines. Of course, physiology was not advanced far 
 enough to make this declaration more than a principle of 
 investigation. 
 
 It remained for Darwin to give the death-blow to the 
 hypothesis of design, whether external and creative or 
 internal and guiding. Cannot all these admirable adapta- 
 tions be explained as the result of their survival value? 
 "Darwin's greatest claim to fame lies in his discovery of 
 a new scientific canon. Before his time the only alterna- 
 tives for explaining progress were 'design' and * chance.' 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 273 
 
 He pointed out an intermediate alternative in 'natural 
 selection.* It is to be regretted that biologists have re- 
 cently shown a tendency to minimize its importance. 
 For while Darwin's description of the process may re- 
 quire revision, the canon itself underlies the whole struc- 
 ture of modern evolution. Without it we are thrown back 
 on a magic of chance or a mystery of entelechy. Up to 
 the present, at least, no biologist has discovered a sub- 
 stitute for 'natural selection.*" Warren, Journal of 
 Philosophy y Psychology and Scientific Methods , 1916. 
 As McDougall points out, the Neo-Darwinian school hold 
 that "the last ground for the recognition of any teleologi- 
 cal factor in the biological realm has been washed away 
 for ever by the Darwinian principles." 
 
 The Present Situation. — As in so many other things, 
 the present in science is one of critical reflection. Detailed 
 research in the various special sciences has corrected the 
 tendency to over-simplify nature. At the same time, more 
 effort is being made to analyze concepts and to state their 
 limitations. At no time have philosophy and science been 
 more critical of assumptions. The result has been both 
 a greater variety of opinion and a lessening of dogmatism. 
 Two tendencies are marked enough to merit discussion 
 in this connection. They are the revival of vitalism and 
 the criticism of mathematical rationalism. 
 
 The Criticism of Mathematical Rationalism. — For- 
 Descartes, the physical world was, by definition, identical 
 with space. Hence, it was logical to assume that mathe- 
 matics could exhaust its nature. Such an outlook deserves 
 the descriptive term mathematical rationalism. But even 
 mathematicians have begun to point out that mechanics 
 deals in large measure with ideal constructions. If we once 
 grant that nature corresponds to these constructions, we 
 
274 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 must admit that all changes are mechanical. But what 
 right have we to assert such a correspondence? The 
 actual laws of nature in physics, chemistry and biology 
 must be discovered largely by induction. "And therefore 
 the test of the validity of an ideal construction is whether 
 it can be applied in such a way as to enable us to interpret 
 observable phenomena. Now observable phenomena have 
 a way of being so terribly complex that in a thousand 
 cases we do not know whether the necessary conclusions 
 within a mechanical scheme, as such, are applicable to the 
 observable routine of phenomena. We often know little 
 or nothing about the particles or their positions. We 
 cannot get any mechanical snap-shots." Morgan, Instinct 
 and Experience, p. 254. The only conclusion we can draw 
 from a study of the various autonomous physical sciences 
 is that mathematical rationalism is very far from proved. 
 It is really a seductive metaphysical theory. 
 
 A wiser form of the mathematical interpretation of 
 the world is not identical with the sole validity of the 
 laws of mechanics as a special science. It points out, 
 instead, that science seeks to discover quantities wherever 
 it can and to work out relations between these quantities. 
 But from the fact that such quantities are always obtain- 
 able, even in psychology, it does not follow that the method 
 of change in the system investigated is mechanical. Since 
 we have concluded that the real world is spatial, temporal 
 and massive, we are not surprised to find quantity in all 
 the sciences that deal with it. And wherever there is 
 quantity, mathematics is applicable. In other words, 
 ivhatever the mode of change in a physical system, science 
 would be able to find quantities. Hence, the discovery of 
 quantities does not prove that the mode of change corresponds 
 to the laws of mechanics. 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 275 
 
 The Ambiguity of the Mechanical View.— There can 
 be little doubt that the phrase, the mechanical view, is 
 ambiguous. For some thinkers, it means an orderly view 
 and not much more. Still others have dropped the phrase 
 and speak of a mechanistic view. Many thinkers, again, 
 have given up both of these phrases and champion a 
 physico-chemical view. Judging from the context, they 
 are opposing the introduction into nature of mysterious, 
 non-physical forces or entelechies which are, by definition, 
 not subject to scientific tests. This struggle for monism 
 and continuity as against dualism and discontinuity has 
 of recent years come to a head in biology in the contro- 
 versy between vitalist and mechanist. Unfortunately, 
 there has been a discouraging lack of definition on the part 
 of mechanists and vitalists alike. It is often impossible to 
 tell just exactly what is meant by mechanism and vitalism. 
 Are these two terms to be taken as reciprocally exclusive and 
 as jointly exhaustive of the possible types of theory about 
 organic processes? (Cf. Lovejoy, Science, 1911, p. 76.) A 
 deeper study has begun to show that the physico-chemical 
 standpoint is not necessarily the same as the kinematical. 
 
 The physical world at the inorganic level, even, shows 
 creative synthesis and logical discontinuity. Let me explain 
 these terms. By creative synthesis is meant the posses- 
 sion by a whole of qualities not possessed by the parts, that 
 is, these qualities cannot be derived additively from those 
 of the parts. It is interesting to note that Radl, a German 
 biologist, defines his brand of vitalism as "the idea that 
 new methods of action arise when new combinations occur, 
 taken in connection with the view that new combinations 
 are found in living things." The notion of logical dis- 
 continuity is the logical statement of this empirical gen- 
 eralization. It asserts the undeducibility of chemical laws 
 
276 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 from physical laws and of biological laws from chemical 
 laws. Each science is autonomous and not simply an 
 imperfect form of a more abstract and fundamental sci- 
 ence. It must be borne in mind, however, that such logi- 
 cal discontinuity does not involve dualism or pluralism 
 in nature but something of the nature of evolutionary 
 change or levels of development. If we accept such crea- 
 tive synthesis in nature, mechanism versus vitalism is not 
 a correct dichotomous division. 
 
 The Revival of Vitalism. — One of the noteworthy 
 features of recent biological literature has been the revival 
 of vitalism. In the large, we may define vitalism from two 
 angles. As a positive doctrine in its radical form, it is an 
 appeal to an agency of a non-physical kind for the explana- 
 tion of living processes. In its more critical and less posi- 
 tive form, it is a protest against a too facile and vague 
 mechanical view such, for instance, as that represented 
 by Jacques Loeb. 
 
 Investigation has shown the tremendous complexity of 
 animal forms. When Descartes spoke of animals as ma- 
 chines, he seems to have meant his expression in a pretty 
 literal way. But few biologists to-day would feel that the 
 analogy between human-made machines and organisms 
 is an adequate one. The differences are greater than the 
 likenesses, and it is to that extent a false and misleading 
 analogy. Several writers, among them Dr. Hans Driesch, 
 have undertaken to demonstrate the inadequacy of this 
 comparison. Identifying the anti-vitalistic view with the 
 belief that the organism is a very complex machine, they 
 hope to prove vitalism in this way. But, as we have tried 
 to indicate, they must first satisfy the thinker that the 
 machine-view, which is a form of mechanicalism of the 
 extreme sort, is the only alternative. 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 277 
 
 When we come to the more positive side of the new vital- 
 ism of a duaHstic tendency, we find ourselves in meta- 
 physics. Dr. Driesch appeals to a non-physical agent, 
 that is, to something alien to the physical world. It is not 
 in space but acts into space. It is not in the material or- 
 ganism but only 'manifests' itself in this material. But 
 the student will recall that we have more than suggested 
 that even consciousness is in the organism. It would seem, 
 then, that Dr. Driesch's vitalism has, for its counterpart, 
 an inadequate view of the physical world. His dualism 
 would seem to us an expression of a false theory of knowl- 
 edge and of a consequently false metaphysics. No one 
 who reads Dr. Driesch's exhaustive work. Philosophy 
 and Science of the Organism, can fail to note the Kantian 
 element in its argument. 
 
 The demand with which vitalism on both its positive 
 and its critical side confronts us, then, is whether a more 
 adequate philosophy of nature can be developed, a philos- 
 ophy which takes evolution seriously. 
 
 Are There Levels of Causality? — We suggested a 
 while ago that the mistake characteristic of the ancient 
 contrast between efficient and final causation was the 
 assumption that there can be only one type of efficient 
 causality, viz. — the mechanical. But if we admit creative 
 synthesis, it seems to follow that we must also admit 
 something of the nature of organization in nature. And if 
 we analyze the category of organization, it is seen to imply 
 what may be called the presence of internal relations in 
 nature. The particles of which mechanics speaks have 
 only positions and do not have genuine relations. They 
 are not bound together dynamically and from within. 
 Such terms as attraction and repulsion and chemical 
 affinity and the saturation of valency can have no meaning 
 
278 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 for mechanics. But reflection upon the data of physics 
 and chemistry convinces one that these terms are inti- 
 mately associated with the existence and possibihty of 
 creative synthesis and organization. 
 
 But surely we must admit that an organized system 
 which is bound together by internal relations into some- 
 thing of the nature of a unity has a tendency to react as a 
 whole to the stimuli acting upon it from outside. Hence 
 we must infer the possibility of differential reaction in 
 nature as a function of organization. Such differential 
 reaction does not conflict with the idea of efficient causality 
 but simply involves the admission that there are, as it 
 were, levels of efficient causality. 
 
 Now many recent experiments in biology, including those 
 of Driesch, seem to teach that the organism is just such a 
 highly organized system which reacts in a differential way 
 to stimuli. Even the egg has a capacity of regulating its 
 development after disturbing factors are introduced, which 
 is comparable to the ability of a man to reach the same 
 goal in different ways. 
 
 But the solution of the mind-body problem which we 
 have advanced enables us to affirm the reality of the high 
 level of efficient causality which we find in human behavior. 
 The control which such behavior implies is essentially 
 non-mechanical and can be understood only as the expres- 
 sion of internal relations and system. If, as we have 
 taught, the science of behavior gives genuine knowledge 
 about nature, it indicates in no uncertain way the exist- 
 ence of creative synthesis and the rise of levels of causality. 
 Here we have true^ or critical, anthropomorphism. 
 
 Efficient Causality and Purpose. — The only purposes 
 we are directly acquainted with are our own. Can we show 
 that they are effective in the control of human behavior 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 279 
 
 and so harmonizable with efficient causality? We are 
 trying to get on the inside of this high level of causality 
 and, at the same time demonstrate that there is no conflict 
 with our knowledge about nature. 
 
 We may define a purpose as a plan about the future 
 which is assented to. A developed plan always contains 
 a series of subordinate plans which are called the means. 
 When the means are successfully realized, the anticipated 
 result is experienced as a present fact. The plan concerns 
 the future, and is an attempt to make this future of a cer- 
 tain kind. We must always remember that the plan is a 
 present fact and that the future it has in mind is something 
 thought of as conditioned by the present. It differs from 
 a mere prediction because it is a factor which seeks to 
 bring about that which it hopefully anticipates. When 
 the later experience accords with the purpose, the latter 
 is said to be fulfilled. 
 
 From the standpoint of psychology, the plan is an in- 
 ternal stimulus which controls the behavior of the organ- 
 ism in such a way that this correspondence between fore- 
 thought and later experience ensues. We soon learn that 
 this correspondence necessitates the adoption of the right 
 means, which adoption depends upon past experience and 
 reasoning. Thus capacity of a high synthetic grade is 
 called into action. 
 
 Now so far as introspection goes, the series of ideas re- 
 lated as end and means precede the overt behavior of the 
 organism. What further occurs in the organism is hidden 
 from view and can only be inferred in terms of knowledge 
 about the organism. But in the preceding chapter we have 
 argued that consciousness is in the brain as a part of its 
 nature when functioning. The existential relations of the 
 idea in the brain, as a physical reality which has reached 
 
280 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the mental level, are internal and so intimate that the 
 uniqueness of the idea is a sign of the uniqueness of the 
 brain-event of which it is an expression and part. The 
 dominance of this brain-event leads to the sequential in- 
 nervation of the muscles and so to the overt behavior 
 which corresponds to the idea. 
 
 The fact to note is that the future does not control the 
 present at all as teleology has sometimes taught. It is 
 the present plan, as expressive of the individual and em- 
 bedded in him, that controls the ordered behavior of the 
 organism. Moreover, there is no dualism here as extreme 
 vitalism supposes. It is simply a case of complex eflBcient 
 causality. Behavior is controlled by the brain, but it is 
 not the brain as known in terms of the physical sciences 
 only. The primary question comes to be this. How is 
 the brain able to control behavior in this anticipatory 
 way.'* How is this peculiar type of efficient causality 
 possible? Objective and introspective psychology have 
 given two answers which are now seen to be quite harmon- 
 izable. The behaviorist asserts that the brain is a plastic 
 organ capable of forming associations and making internal 
 adjustments, in fact, of doing what corresponds to memory, 
 association, reasoning and willing. It is the organ of in- 
 telligence. The introspectionist asserts that ideas are 
 slowly connected with particular motor impulses. The 
 unity theory holds that the brain remembers, reasons, and 
 wills because the brain is the mind, that is, the mind is 
 a term for the conditions and capacities which express 
 themselves in consciousness and the behavior of the 
 organism, and these conditions and capacities must be re- 
 garded as resident in the brain. 
 
 Is the Brain as Mind a Mechanical System? — Philos- 
 ophers have been accustomed to regard mind as non- 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 281 
 
 mechanical. How can we connect reasoning with me- 
 chanical causation? The mind includes capacities of a 
 profoundly cumulative and synthetic character. Organi- 
 zation and interpretation of the part by the whole seem 
 to be essential features of its constitution and operation. 
 It may be replied that such non-mechanical behavior is 
 appearance rather than reality and that analysis can re- 
 duce it to a complex of purely atomic elements combined 
 in such a way as to appear non-mechanical. But such a 
 reply is pure dogmatism. No such reduction has been 
 carried through nor is it apparent that it would be possi- 
 ble. The mind is selective and planf ul, and it is impossible 
 to deduce selection from discrete atomism. 
 
 Both psychology and physiology are pointing to the 
 conclusion that the brain has a tremendously complex 
 organization partly hereditary and partly developed dur- 
 ing the lifetime of the individual. The brain, like the 
 mind, forms apperceptive systems which function as 
 wholes. There is every reason to believe in a complete 
 parallelism of method between mind and brain. The one 
 is just as much and just as little a mechanism as the other. 
 
 And if consciousness is a part of the nature of the brain 
 and is literally in it as an extensive variant, certain sug- 
 gestions come at once to our minds. The continuity of 
 consciousness, the unity and togetherness of the individ- 
 ual's changing field of experience, must reveal the dynamic 
 continuity of the active brain. The systematic char- 
 acter of our concepts and purposes must be an index of 
 the system-forming and system-sustaining capacity of 
 the brain. And if the brain possesses this truly organic 
 character in which the part plays into the whole and the 
 whole controls the part, it is not a machine. It does not 
 need its dice to be loaded, for it has a seK-sustaining unity 
 
282 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 whose action is intelligent and regulative. Each stimulus 
 obtains a total reaction. Thus, the location of conscious- 
 ness in the brain throws a flood of light upon the brain 
 and thence upon nature. It proves inductively and, as 
 it were, from within reality, itseK, that reality is capable of 
 forming internal relations and continuities. 
 
 How Shall We Conceive of the Efficacy of Conscious- 
 ness? — Physical science does not include consciousness as 
 such among its objects and therefore can never include it 
 among its factors. Consciousness is here a means to knowl- 
 edge and not the reference of knowledge. It would be 
 absurd for physical science to expect to deduce conscious- 
 ness from its data or its theories. It follows that the 
 physical scientist cannot introduce consciousness as a 
 causal factor into his conception of the mode of change 
 in nature. He must use objective categories which fit his 
 material, that is, categories such as space and position 
 and organization which form the natural framework of 
 the knowledge about nature which he achieves. This 
 situation holds true of the biologist as well, and in a large 
 measure of the psychologist. But psychology, as we have 
 already pointed out, is in the peculiar position of living in 
 a complex field in which different kinds of knowledge 
 converge, and of trying to see them together. It is for 
 this reason that the psychologist has the mind-body prob- 
 lem on his hands, and, while he may ignore it by a device 
 like that of parallelism, is always haunted by it. 
 
 When we realize that the cortex becomes conscious when 
 it functions, we can draw certain definite conclusions. 
 First of all, consciousness should not be spoken of as a 
 form of energy, for energy is a term which concerns our 
 measurable knowledge about reality, and consciousness 
 is not a measurable quantity in this sense. Hence, as we 
 
PURPOSE AND MECHANISM 283 
 
 have said before, consciousness cannot enter as a factor 
 in physical science. And in this fact lies the truth of paral- 
 lelism. If consciousness is within reality, its efficacy can- 
 not conflict with the principle of the conservation of en- 
 ergy which holds for all of reality. In the second place, 
 the fact that reality becomes conscious must have some- 
 thing to do with the mode of change in the cortex. Can 
 such a complex system as the cortex win a satisfactory 
 internal adjustment when it is blind.'* Is not consciousness 
 the system of cues necessary for the operation of mental 
 capacities? Such is the position to which I am forced by 
 my own thinking and to which I can find no objection in 
 either empirical science or epistemology. Consciousness 
 does not act upon parts of the brain externally or mechan- 
 ically for it is not a physical thing; it is the reality of the 
 cortex illuminating and guiding itself. 
 
 References 
 
 Bergson, Creative Evolution. 
 
 Driesch, Science and Philosophy of the Organism. 
 
 Jennings, '* Doctrines Held as Vitalism," American Naturalist, 
 1913; " Heredity and Personality," Science, 1911. 
 
 Loeb, " The Mechanistic Conception of Life," Popular Science 
 Monthly, 1912. 
 
 Lovejoy, " The Meaning of Vitalism," Science, 1911; " The Im- 
 port of Vitalism," Science, 1911. 
 
 Marvin, A First Book in Metaphysics, chap. 21. 
 
 Morgan, Instinct and Experience, chap. 8. 
 
 Schafer, Inaugural Address, Nature, 1912. 
 
 Sellars, Critical Realism, chap. 9. 
 
 Spaiilding," Driesch's Theory of Vitalism," Philosophical Review, 
 1906. 
 
 Ward, James, Purpose and Mechanism, Aristotelian Society, 
 1911-12. 
 
 Warren, Psychological Review, 1914. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE PLACE OF VALUES 
 
 Knowledge and Valuation. — The special sciences gain 
 knowledge about the world, and it is the task of philosophy 
 to cooperate with them in a reflective and comprehensive 
 way in order to systematize and harmonize this knowledge. 
 As we have seen, the preliminary problem which philoso- 
 phy has to undertake is to determine the nature and 
 conditions of knowledge. In a strict sense, epistemology 
 is a science for it involves the tracing out and solution of 
 specific problems. But this discipline is philosophical 
 because it examines the assumptions of organized experi- 
 ence and builds upon its results in a reflective way. The 
 method and point of view is so different from that which 
 characterizes the various positive sciences that little ob- 
 jection is felt to this classification. It is so obviously a 
 science at second remove, a science which does not add to 
 the content of the special sciences. Upon the foundation of 
 epistemology, metaphysics develops as an attempt to gain 
 a comprehensive view of reality as known. How intimately 
 this reflective discipline works with the sciences has been 
 shown in the preceding chapters. It is not too much to 
 assert that we have gained at least an outline view of 
 reality. 
 
 But thus far we have considered philosophy only as a 
 reflective movement working with the results of the various 
 positive sciences. That is, we have been almost entirely 
 interested in the universe as revealed by the natural 
 sciences including psychology. Now, however, we must 
 
 284 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 285 
 
 give our attention to another group of sciences which cen- 
 ter around man and have the peculiarity that they treat 
 of valuations which man puts upon himself, his acts and 
 his surroundings. Man values as well as knows. He 
 reacts to things in an emotional and affective way, saying 
 that they are good or bad, beautiful or ugly, evil or benef- 
 icent. This characteristic raises questions of wide import 
 which cannot be taken up in a satisfactory way by a nar- 
 row discipline. The consequence is that philosophy is 
 obliged to continue itseK and bring this new sphere into 
 harmony with epistemology and metaphysics. Are the 
 values we give to things actually in them, or are they 
 meaningless apart from the constitution and purposes of 
 human beings? Is the world beautiful and good in itself, 
 or only in the eyes of conscious creatures who react toward 
 it emotionally because their weal and woe is bound up 
 with it? 
 
 Naive Realism and Values. — In order to get a clear 
 view of the problem, it will be best once more to begin 
 with the standpoint of naive, or natural, realism. How 
 do we ordinarily experience values? To what do we refer 
 them? A little reflection is enough to convince one that 
 perceptual objects are considered beautiful or ugly in their 
 own right much as they are seen to be colored and felt to 
 be heavy. This picture by Rembrandt, whose reproduc- 
 tion hangs on the wall in front of me, is so charming in 
 conception and execution that I instinctively call it beau- 
 tiful. I do not say that it has a certain emotional effect 
 upon me but, instead, pass a judgment upon the thing 
 itself. And so with the various objects and groups of ob- 
 jects which come under my eye. The beauty of the world 
 whispers to us from out there. The delicate charm of a 
 spring morning in the woods when the buds are just burst- 
 
286 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ing on the trees and the sap is flowing through the branches 
 and the birds are singing and the clouds are like soft wool 
 is a vital aspect of the whole landscape and atmosphere. 
 Nature is beautiful. We know that at the time as inti- 
 mately and with the same certainty that we know that the 
 grass is green and that the birds are singing. ^Esthetic 
 judgments apply as objectively as any of the other judg- 
 ments we make about the perceivable world. 
 
 But doubt awakens even sooner for these tertiary quali- 
 ties of things than for the secondary qualities like color 
 and odor. When we are in the aesthetic mood and atti- 
 tude, we are sympathetic contemplators of perceptual 
 objects. But, alas! how often this mood vanishes and 
 leaves us staring coldly at things which only a moment 
 before had charmed us out of personal desires and humors ! 
 We know that they will again appear beautiful to us, but 
 just now a shadow has come over them and some subtle 
 quality has been withdrawn. It does not take us long to 
 realize that the fault is with ourselves. We do not react 
 in the same way. Nature has not changed but we our- 
 selves have altered. And reflection soon recalls and analy- 
 ses other cases of similar alteration. We remember that 
 certain things appealed to us as pretty when they were 
 fresh but that we grew tired of them, and then they were no 
 longer the same. The color and form, in fact all that 
 depends upon the eye, remained the same; yet they had 
 lost that subtle something we call beauty. But it is not 
 only physical things which possess and lose this quality. 
 The artist who deals with words must likewise reckon with 
 the baffling uncertainty of its presence. High emotion 
 gives beauty to a creation which later will appear worth- 
 less and trivial. What greater and yet what more common 
 disappointment is there for the writer than "to find the 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 287 
 
 next day, in place of the golden bough miraculously 
 blooming during a flowing hour, a dry thorn, a frost-bitten 
 flower!" We know, again, what wonders love can work. 
 To the lover, the beloved is radiant with a beauty no one 
 else can see and to whose existence he himself was blind 
 before the great event which opened his eyes. In this 
 fashion, reflection presses upon us the fact that beauty is 
 intermittent and that w^e ourselves in some way control 
 its appearance. 
 
 A Realism still more Primitive.— The Natural Realism 
 from which we have taken our point of departure in dis- 
 cussing problems of epistemology is really that of what 
 Sidgwick calls 'enHghtened common sense.' The physical 
 world of the civilized man of to-day is far different from 
 that which his primitive ancestors experienced. Our 
 world is a civilized world with no barbarian depths. It 
 is well-ordered and obedient to the laws which our scien- 
 tists have discovered for it. Its energies are potentially 
 measurable and its levers and springs not too deeply hid- 
 den to be visible to the keen eye of the thinker. Man 
 has been busy making nature in terms of his scientific 
 concepts, and his creation is so familiar in its general out- 
 lines that we all tend to picture the world in terms of space 
 and mass and movement. Massive and gigantic as the 
 physical world is in its stellar immensities, for which our 
 familiar earth is but as a grain of dust, it is yet all of one 
 kind. Spectrum analysis has found the chemical elements 
 in burning suns thousands of light-years distant, and me- 
 chanical analysis has proven that the Newtonian principles 
 of gravitation rule these blind masses and have induced a 
 rhythm in their movements. It is a rationalized world, a 
 world transparent to the human mind and, as it were, 
 impersonal and emotionless. 
 
288 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 We may say, then, that the perceptual world of the edu- 
 cated man of to-day is interpreted in the light of this con- 
 struction of the science of the last four centuries. Proba- 
 bly he sees a landscape similar to that which the man of 
 the old stone age saw, but its background and interior are 
 different. It is to this difference beyond the colored sur- 
 face of things to which attention must be drawn. We 
 have described the outlook of enlightened common sense; 
 we must now try to catch a glimpse of primitive common 
 sense. 
 
 Primitive common sense finds its clearest expression for 
 us to-day. in the assumptions and imaginings of young 
 children. All things are alive for them and not greatly 
 different except in bulk and appearance from themselves. 
 The young boy of four years who is greatly fascinated by 
 the aeroplane which flies gracefully above him wants to 
 know where it sleeps at night. Again, he may ask such 
 questions as the following: Do the stones want us to walk 
 on them.? Do the flowers like to be picked .^^ Now this 
 natural interpretation of his surroundings in terms of his 
 own life was not stopped and brought to a halt in primitive 
 man by contact with a wiser and older race, and so they 
 had a longer childhood in which all the richness of a fuller 
 imagination and a wider experience than the child's 
 could expand within this child's view of the world. The 
 consequence is what is called animism and mythology. 
 These bloomed without artifice because reflection had 
 not made them artificial. The poet of to-day knows that 
 trees do not whisper together at sunset: they whisper only 
 for him, not actually. But for men untouched by the stern 
 rationalism of science and philosophy they whisper and 
 dream and sleep. 
 
 "Now the fact that crude experience is innocent of mod- 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 289 
 
 ern philosophy has this important consequence: that for 
 crude experience all data whatever lie originally side by 
 side in the same field; extension is passionate, desire moves 
 bodies, thought broods in space and is constituted by a 
 visible metamorphosis of its subject-matter. Animism or 
 mythology is therefore no artifice. Passions naturally 
 reside in the body they agitate — our own body, if that be 
 the felt seat of some pang, the stars, if the pang can find 
 no nearer resting-place. Only a long and still unfinished 
 education has taught men to separate emotions from 
 things and ideas from their objects. This education was 
 needed because crude experience is a chaos, and the 
 qualities it jumbles together do not march together in 
 time. Reflection must accordingly separate them, if 
 knowledge (that is, ideas with eventual application and 
 practical transcendence) is to exist at all. In other words, 
 action must be adjusted to certain elements of experience 
 and not to others, and those chiefly regarded must have a 
 certain interpretation put upon them by trained apper- 
 ception. The rest must be treated as moonshine and taken 
 no account of except perhaps in idle and poetic re very. 
 In this way crude experience grows reasonable and appear- 
 ance becomes knowledge of reality." Santayana, The Life 
 of Reason^ vol. 1, pp. 141-2. Man does not consciously 
 read his emotions and feelings into nature, that is, into 
 that which he perceives. They are experienced in per- 
 ceptual objects and color them from the start. His con- 
 scious task is, rather, their abstraction and withdrawal 
 into the seK. Natural Realism still remains, but the world 
 of perceived things, regarded as independent of the per- 
 cipient, has suft'ered a diminution in content. Desire and 
 emotion are sucked out of it and assigned to the observer. 
 It is the contrast between the original Natural Realism 
 
290 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of man and the enlightened, or more critical, Natural 
 Realism of to-day which should be clearly apprehended. 
 
 The Standpoint of Non-Apprehensional Realism. — 
 Having studied the development from primitive realism 
 to that of enlightened common sense, it will be best to 
 bring out very clearly the further development involved 
 in the realism we have tried to justify in this book. I 
 offer the following diagram as an aid: 
 
 The Field of the Individual's Experience 
 
 First Level 
 
 (Primitive Natural Realism) 
 
 Inner Sphere Outer Sphere 
 
 sense of self 
 attitudes toward other things 
 
 a. theoretical 
 
 b. practical 
 
 At this level, the content of these apprehended things is 
 full of tertiary qualities like pleasure and pain, joy, 
 strength, effort, malice, goodness, beauty, ugliness. 
 
 Second Level 
 
 (Enlightened Natural Realism) 
 
 Inner Sphere Outer Sphere 
 
 sense of self physical things 
 
 attitudes toward other minds 
 
 a. theoretical 
 
 b. practical 
 mental contents 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 291 
 
 At this level, the inner sphere has become more complex 
 with the definite assignment of much of the outer sphere 
 to the inner. Ideas, percepts, concepts, feelings, etc., are 
 now definitely thought of as mental. The outer sphere 
 has been purified of elements which are considered mental. 
 But the division is largely a compromise. For instance, 
 apprehended objects toward which the theoretical attitude 
 is taken are sometimes called percepts and sometimes 
 physical things. 
 
 Third Level 
 
 (Scientific Realism) 
 
 The Individual's Mind or The Rest of Reality 
 Consciousness 
 sense of self 
 attitudes toward perceptual objects 
 
 a. theoretical 
 
 b. practical 
 
 conceptual intuition of physical things 
 
 analogical knowledge of other minds 
 
 This level is represented by the rationalism of Democritus 
 and Descartes and also by the representative realism of 
 John Locke. The individual's mind is contrasted with an 
 independent physical realm and a plurality of other 
 minds. Knowledge is either a peculiar rational intuition 
 or a representation by means of concepts. The problem 
 of knowledge is in the ascendant. The physical realm 
 is thin in its content and reduced to what are called the 
 primary qualities. The knowledge acquired by the physi- 
 cal, especially the mathematical sciences, is supposed to 
 exhaust this realm. 
 
292 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Fourth Level 
 
 (Idealism) 
 
 The IndividuaFs Mind or The Rest of Reality 
 Consciousness 
 sense of self 
 
 attitudes toward perceptual 
 and conceptual objects 
 
 a. theoretical 
 
 b. practical 
 
 all sorts of mental contents 
 
 analogical knowledge of other minds 
 
 At this reflective level, knowledge of a non-mental realm 
 is relinquished, and science is considered a construction 
 within consciousness guided by the architectonic and or- 
 ganizing capacities of the human mind. Other minds are 
 known only by analogy. This reflective level is to-day best 
 represented by panpsychism. It must not be forgotten 
 that this level is so artificial that it is reached by different 
 thinkers in different degrees. We have had occasion to 
 criticise objective idealism because of its appeal to a uni- 
 versal seK. This level is unstable. 
 
 Fifth Level 
 
 (Non-Apprehensional Realism) 
 
 The Individual's The Rest of Reality 
 
 Consciousness 
 The field of the individual's 
 
 experience with its distinctions. 
 This includes apprehended objects (ideas) 
 a. having no reference 
 
 outside of his experience. 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 293 
 
 b. given a reference out- 
 side of experience as 
 knowledge about Nature 
 
 a. the individuaFs 
 
 mind 
 
 b. the minds of other 
 
 individuals 
 
 c. bodies 
 
 At this reflective level, whatever is apprehended is seen 
 to be mental. Yet it is realized that knowledge of a non- 
 apprehensional sort can be gained of what is outside of the 
 individual's consciousness. The solution of the mind- 
 consciousness-body problem enables us to combine a, b, 
 and c as nature or reality. 
 
 The Place of Values for These Levels. — We have seen 
 that for primitive Natural Realism values are distributed 
 naively throughout nature. "Thus the sun is not only 
 bright and warm in the same way as he is round, but by 
 the same right he is also happy, arrogant, ever-young, and 
 all-seeing; for a suggestion of these tertiary qualities runs 
 through us when we look at him, just as immediately as 
 do his warmth and light. The fact that these imaginative 
 suggestions are not constant does not impede the instant 
 perception that they are actual, and for crude experience 
 whatever a thing possesses in appearance it possesses in- 
 deed, no matter how soon that quality may be lost again." 
 Santayana, Reason in Common SensCy p. 143. But at the 
 next reflective level, the majority of these tertiary qualities 
 have been withdrawn for the inorganic world; the only 
 one left being, perhaps, charm or beauty. Physical things 
 are not beneficent or malignant, for consciousness and 
 desire are necessary for these characteristics. Hence vital 
 
^94 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 exuberance and ethical qualities are assigned only to 
 living things. 
 
 At the second level, ethical characteristics are removed 
 even from animate things below the level of man. It is 
 seen that a knowledge of good and evil of some sort is 
 essential to ethical distinctions like right and wrong. 
 Also, the conception of a highest good as an end for which 
 to strive is known to have conditions unrealizable apart 
 from reason. The obvious conclusion is drawn that 
 ethical values can have no meaning for any part of nature 
 below the human level. But, as we have already pointed 
 out, aesthetic values are more perceptual and less reflective 
 in character. The aesthetic attitude is one of contempla- 
 tion and so favors the retention of the attitude of Natural 
 Realism. Things are beautiful, charming, interesting, 
 delightful. Yet it is not long before reflection points out 
 that human feelings, emotions, sentiments and associative 
 processes giving meaning to perceived objects are funda- 
 mental. The result is a psychology of aesthetics which 
 concludes that beauty is a value given by the resonance 
 which a stimulus awakens in consciousness. The inference 
 is that beauty is not a quality which can exist in nature 
 apart from the human mind. 
 
 At the third level, it is seen that percepts are mental 
 objects. This fact enables us to account for the intimacy 
 of aesthetic qualities and judgments with perceptual ob- 
 jects. Both are mental, and we no longer wonder at the 
 perceptual objectivity of aesthetic qualities. The scene 
 from Stirling Castle is beautiful because all that I see is 
 an effect in me of stimuli coming from outside as these are 
 interpreted by my mind. Color is as mental as beauty, 
 and so are form and outline as these are perceived. All 
 we can say is that the aesthetic attribute of the perception 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 295 
 
 is traceable to mental factors more allied to the lower than 
 to the higher senses. These mental factors are more vari- 
 able, and it is for this reason that the color of an object 
 and its form will not change for me while its aesthetic effect 
 fluctuates disappointingly. 
 
 This conclusion is carried over into the next two levels 
 of epistemological reflection v/ithout any essential change. 
 Beauty is man's reaction to his environment. Glad he 
 must and should be that his mind has developed this pleas- 
 ant resonance to his surroundings; but reflection warns 
 him against projecting it into nature in a literal way, just 
 as it finally teaches him that the real world is not colored 
 and heavy and odorous. Critical knowledge does not try 
 to picture nature. 
 
 The Science of Axiology. — Philosophers are compelled 
 to use technical terms in order to bring distinctions clearly 
 before their minds. Of late, the recognition that judg- 
 ments of value are fairly distinct from ordinary cognitive 
 judgments has led to the growth of a new philosophical 
 discipline called axiology or the theory of values. The 
 normative sciences, or those which concern themselves 
 less with fact than with standards and preferences and 
 values, come under this general philosophy of worth. 
 Thus, the latest German works on philosophy are almost 
 certain to divide the field into Wissen and Wert. Under 
 Wissen come the physical, biological and purely descrip- 
 tive human sciences, while under Wert come ethics, aesthet- 
 ics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of religion. 
 
 Judgments of value involve preferences on the part of 
 the subject. And these preferences rest upon mental proc- 
 esses which are dominated by sentiment and desire rather 
 than by conceptual analysis and synthesis. "Even the 
 slightest skepticism shows that such value-predicates are 
 
^96 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 not assigned to things as their attributes or as relations 
 involving only themselves, but that they first grow to 
 things through their relation to a valuing consciousness." 
 Windelband, Einleitung in die Philosophiey p. 244. The 
 inference is that, apart from sentiment founded on feeling 
 and will, worths do not exist. The recognition of this 
 principle has led to a stress upon the study of the psychol- 
 ogy of values. Thus axiology as a philosophical discipline 
 is bound up with the investigation of feeling, desire, 
 emotion and sentiment and with the methods by which 
 orders of preferences arise along different lines like the 
 sesthetic, the ethical, the economic and the religious. 
 Not only are the different orders very complex in them- 
 selves but they often conflict among one another, as the 
 ethical with the economic, and the sesthetic with the 
 ethical. Much remains to be done along these lines, even 
 though progress has been more rapid in the last few dec- 
 ades than for any time in the past. 
 
 The Objectivity of Values. — But we are concerned in 
 the main, not with specific problems, however interesting, 
 but with epistemology and metaphysics. Consequently, 
 our chief interest in axiology is where it touches the ob- 
 jectivity of values. Are values objective or subjective? 
 And what must we mean by these terms? 
 
 Values are relative to the individual because they are 
 his judgments and so are based upon his character, con- 
 stitution and training. This foundation has led to varia- 
 tions in the value placed upon things and acts so marked 
 that "There's no disputing about tastes" has become a 
 proverb. But, in spite of this admitted variation, there is 
 undoubtedly much agreement. The exception strikes us 
 just because it is an exception. We can at least say that 
 people fall into groups with similar tastes and values. 
 
THE PLACE OF VALUES 297 
 
 But while judgments of value are, like all other genuine 
 judgments, individual, we must never forget that individ- 
 uals are conditioned by the influence of the other members 
 of the group. My judgment is actually mine, but I may 
 make it because I have had a certain sort of education and 
 have been given certain suggestions by various members 
 of society through conversation or literature. I know that 
 others think about such matters in this way or that, and 
 my judgment cannot help being influenced by this knowl- 
 edge. Furthermore, my whole outlook necessarily reflects 
 the experience of the race, for this seeps into me by every 
 avenue of the senses as well as through the language with 
 its distinctions. Yet my outlook is mine even though it is 
 socially conditioned to such an extent that I am a mere 
 echo of the group's history and present habits. After all, 
 the group has no consciousness of its own; it has no brain 
 and no mind. It is simply a name for individuals of a cer- 
 tain nature and training in causal interaction. It is a great, 
 though easily made, mistake to talk about a social will or 
 mind as something existent apart from the individuals in 
 these actual complex relations with one another. My 
 judgments are socially conditioned in this empirical sense 
 and, to the extent that I believe that others will agree 
 with me, socially qualified. I assign them automatically 
 to others unless I have good reason to know that I am a 
 dissident. 
 
 It follows that judgments of value are as objective, logic- 
 ally, as any other judgments. This object is beautiful just 
 as it is red. But this type of objectivity does not signify 
 that the physical world is in itseK beautiful any more than 
 that it is red. That is, the objectivity of judgment does not 
 involve the truth of Natural Realism. The actual meaning 
 of objectivity when applied to values can best be brought 
 
298 THE ESSENTIALS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 out by seeking for a contrast term. To say that a value 
 is merely subjective may mean that it is whimsical and 
 temporary and accidental and arbitrary. The appeal, 
 then, is to something more natural and whole-hearted, 
 something that arises out of and expresses a wider and 
 deeper experience. The objective is the expression of a 
 more satisfactory synthesis of experience. Again, the 
 subjective is the personal as the eccentric and bizarre. 
 The term is applied even to the sincere judgment of another 
 when it is felt that this judgment is out of the ordinary. 
 In this sense, the subjective is the heretical. But the valu- 
 ation adopted by the various members of the dominant 
 group is not objective in any way which conflicts with the 
 breakdown of Natural Realism. Values are not self- 
 subsistent, nor are they in the world otherwise than as 
 experience in the minds of particular individuals. They 
 would have no meaning apart from a valuing conscious- 
 ness. And just because they are expressions of human 
 sentiments and desires, primarily, they are not a suitable 
 foundation for knowledge about the physical world by 
 itself. The place of values is in human life. 
 
 References 
 
 Ehrenfels, System der Werttheorie. 
 
 Hbffding, The Problems of Philosophy. 
 
 De Laguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics, pt. 3. 
 
 Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, chap. 6. 
 
 Stuart, Studies in Logical Theory, chap. 10. 
 
 Windelband, Einleitung in die Philosophie, 2nd pt. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelard, 9. 
 ^Esthetics, 14. 
 Agnostic realism, 155. 
 Albertus Magnus, 9. 
 Animism, 230. 
 Appearance, 32f . 
 Apriorism, 139f. 
 Aquinas, 9. 
 
 Aristotle, 7, 9, 234, 272. 
 Atomism, 218, 269. 
 Axiology, science of, 295. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 10. 
 
 Being, and knowledge, 131, 223. 
 
 Behaviorism, 245f. 
 
 Berkeley, 21; and Locke, 57; and 
 Natural Realism, 56f.; his ani- 
 mus, 58; his construction, 60; 
 his disproof of representative 
 realism, 58f.; his general posi- 
 tion, 55; gaps in his system, 63. 
 
 Brain, theory of, 280f . 
 
 Categories, 72, 195; Kant's doc- 
 trine of, 79f . 
 
 Causality, levels of, 277f.; and 
 purpose, 278f. 
 
 Common sense, 17f. 
 
 Consciousness, is a flux, 67f.; and 
 knowledge, 115f.; and a trans- 
 subjective realm, 118f.; as ex- 
 tended, 203; displaces soul, 
 236f.; efficacy of, 282. 
 
 Correspondent variation, lack of, 
 
 34f. 
 Creative synthesis, 275. 
 Critical naturalism, 193f. 
 Critical realism, definition of, 
 
 119f.; reference for, 128. 
 Criticism, 142. 
 
 Darwin, 3, 272. 
 
 Democritus, 8, 174. 
 
 Descartes, 10, method of, 46f,; 
 
 view of matter, 220. 
 Descriptive empiricism, 86f. 
 Discontinuity, 275. 
 Dogmatism, 14 If. 
 Driesch, 276. 
 Dualism, motives for, 186f. 
 
 Empiricism, 140. 
 
 Energy, 227f.; conservation of, 
 213, 256. 
 
 Epiphenomenalism, 259f. 
 
 Epistemology, nature of, 11, 146f.; 
 and metaphysics, 171. 
 
 Ethics, 13, 296. 
 
 Experience, individual's field of, 
 86f.; and the self, 95f.; distinc- 
 tions within, 98f.; dimensions 
 of, 98-101. 
 
 Galileo, 3. 
 
 Gnostic realism, 155. 
 
 299 
 
300 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Heraclitus, 8. 
 
 Historical approach, value of, 42. 
 
 Hobbes, 174. ,^2. , 
 
 Hoffding, 179, 262. 
 
 Hume, 22; his position, 66f.; his 
 attack upon mental substance, 
 67; his rejection of Berkeley's 
 spiritualism, 69. 
 
 Idealism, definition of, 55; objec- 
 ^ I tive idealism, 149; subjective, 
 147; see spiritualism for meta- 
 physical idealism. 
 Ideas, 101, 106. 
 Interactionism, 254f. 
 Internal relations, 278. 
 
 Judgment, defined, 124; two as- 
 pects of, 124; reference of, 126; 
 and knowledge, 122f. 
 
 Materialism, 173f. 
 
 Matter, 216, 227; naive views of, 
 174. 
 
 Mechanism, 269; ambiguity of, 
 275. 
 
 Mentalism, 55. 
 
 Mental pluralism, 88; and solip- 
 sism, 89. 
 
 Metaphysics, definition of, 11; 
 Cartesian, 46; and epistemology, 
 171f. 
 
 Middle Ages, 9, 10. 
 
 Mind, nature of, 229, 248, 265; 
 primitive notions of, 230; in 
 ancient philosophy, 233; in 
 modern philosophy, 235f.; and 
 consciousness, 238, 249; and 
 body, 252f. 
 
 Monism, past failure of, 187f. 
 
 Morgan Lloyd, 247, 274. 
 
 Kant, 7; and Hume's skepticism, 
 74; stresses conceptual knowl- 
 edge, 75f.; his appeal to con- 
 sciousness-in-general, 90f.; and 
 apriorism, 139. 
 
 Knowledge, two meanings of, 76; 
 and likeness, 107; an achieve- 
 ment, 111; involves judgment, 
 122f.; and individuality, 133; 
 and assertion, 158; and truth, 
 157; as a utility, 169. 
 
 Leibnitz, 7, 178. 
 
 Locke, his position, 48f.; his view 
 
 of knowledge, 50; his view of 
 
 matter, 220. 
 Logic, 12; and knowledge, 125. 
 Lotze, 23. 
 
 Natural Dualism, 183. 
 
 Natural Realism, 18f.; recognition 
 of, 21f.; and science, 23f.; not a 
 system, 25f.; difficulties con- 
 fronting, 27f.; attack upon, 30; 
 and memory, 36. 
 
 Neo-realism, 152. 
 
 Non-apprehensional realism, 154; 
 and truth, 169; distinguished 
 from representative realism, 154. 
 
 Panpsychism, 181, 262. 
 
 Parallelism, 257, 283. 
 
 Perceived objects, 31; and in- 
 dividuals, 35f.; involve con- 
 struction, 38. 
 
 Percept, definition of, 108. 
 
 Perception, physiological theory 
 
INDEX 
 
 301 
 
 of, S9; logical function of, llOf.; 
 a means to knowledge, 117. 
 Phenomena, 78. 
 
 Philosophy, preliminary defini- 
 tion of, 1; and the special 
 sciences, 4; older and newer 
 conceptions of, 7f.; and Natural 
 Realism, 23. 
 
 Philosopher, attitude of, 2; com- 
 petency of, 5; method of, 6; and 
 scientist, 3f. 
 
 Philosophical disciplines, general, 
 llf.; special, 12f. 
 
 Physical reality, 128, 201, 227. 
 
 Physical thing, 32. 
 
 Plato, 1, 7, 9. 234. 
 
 Political philosophy, 13. 
 wf'^'^^'^iPragmatism, 164f. 
 ^ , Properties, 224. 
 
 Propositions, and knowledge, 117; 
 and fact, 112. 
 
 Psychologist, purpose of, 242f . 
 
 Psychology, subject-matter of, 
 240; orthodox type of, 241; and 
 behavior, 245f.; inclusive defini- 
 tion of, 246; paradox of, 244. 
 
 Quantity, and mathematics, 274; 
 and mass, 226; and energy, 228. 
 
 218; mathe- 
 
 Natural Realism, 43f.; rational- 
 istic type of, 44 ; raises new prob- 
 lems, 47f.; doubts confronting, 
 52f. 
 
 Sciences, social and mental, 9; 
 growth of, 9. 
 
 Sensationalism, 138f. 
 
 Sense, and imagination, 102. 
 
 Skepticism, 65f.; 143. 
 
 Solipsism, 130, 148. % '] 
 
 Soul, 237. 
 
 Space, 195; mathematical, 199, as 
 a category, 200, and conscious- 
 ness, 203f. 
 
 Spiritualism, 177f.; two types of, 
 180. 
 
 Substance, Cartesian idea of, 220; 
 as a category, 224. 
 
 Teleology, 271. 
 
 Theory of knowledge, see epis- 
 temology. 
 
 Thing, and thought of it, 103f.; 
 and attributes, 221. 
 
 Time, kinds of, 205; as a category, 
 209f.; as change, 211; and con- 
 sciousness, 214. 
 
 Truth, theories of, 160f,; as a cog- 
 nitive value, 167; criteria of, 
 168. 
 
 kinds 
 
 Rationalism, 136, 
 
 matical, 273. 
 Realism, definition of, 151 
 
 of, 151; primitive, 287. 
 Reality, and thought, 129; see 
 
 being and physical reality. 
 Representative realism, follows 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Valuation, and knowledge, 284. 
 Values, place of, 293; objectivity 
 
 of, 296. 
 Vitalism, revival of, 276. 
 
 Warren, 264, 273. 
 Wundt, 179. 
 
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