The idealistic reaction against science

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r THE

IDEALISTIC REACTION
AGAINST SCIENCE

BY

PROFESSOR ALIOTTA

ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF PADUA

TRANSLATED BY

AGNES McCASKILL

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1914

COPYRIGHT

TO

MY DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUE

PROFESSOR A. E. TAYLOR

IN TOKEN
OF GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM

PEEFACE
^

THIS work must be regarded as a new edition rather than
as a mere translation of my book, La Reazione idealistica
contro la scienza, published in Italy in 1912, .Jince I
have subjected the whole of it to a process of revision
with a view to improving it and adapting it to
the British public. In the concluding chapter I have
gathered together the constructive portions formerly
scattered through the whole book, so as to give greater
prominence to my personal point of view, which is a
form of spiritualistic realism, and to make that view
clearer. The outlines of a spiritualistic conception of
the world sketched therein have already formed the
subject-matter of three addresses given by me in the
Philosophical Library of Palermo, founded by Dr.
Giuseppe Amato Pojero, a true apostle of philosophy, the
study of which he strives to further by both precept and
practice. The line of thought adopted by me — that of
the school of Francesco de Sarlo and his review, La Cul-
tura filosofica, defends the rights of the scientific method
and of natural reality against the facile denials of the
neo- Hegelians. Idealism, which came into vogue in
Italy after the decline of positivism, now appears to be
on the wane, and the abuse of the dialectic method has
resulted in such a confusion of ideas in mental sciences
that Croce himself recently lifted his voice in protest
against these exaggerations. It is now time to return

vii 6

viii IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

to realism, and in England, America, and Germany
there are already indications of such a return, which
this work of mine would fain hasten in Italy, where, if
absolute idealism has attained a large measure of success,
other vigorous and original currents of thought, which
have disputed the victory with it, are by no means
lacking.

This productive trend of thought, which merits
attention in other countries as well as in Italy, is not
touched upon in the present volume, because it was not
included in the general plan of my work, which does
not aspire to be a complete history of contemporary
philosophy, but merely a study of one aspect of it, i.e.
of the phenomenon of irrationalism in its relations to
criticism of science. Irrationalism, moreover, in spite
of the efforts of a few romantic minds, has not taken
root in Italy. I shall deal at length with modern Italian
philosophy in a separate book, which will also be
published in England should the present volume meet
with the favourable reception from English readers for
which I venture to hope.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

The reaction from intellectualism in contemporary philosophy — In-
tellectualism and anti-intellectualism in the history of philosophy — '
Causes of the reaction from Intellectualism . . . xv-xxii

PART I

THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM IN THE
NEW THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

SECTION I

THE BEGINNING OF THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM

.CHAPTER I

AGNOSTIC POSITIVISM

Agnosticism as the consequence of the traditional mathematical method
— The Ignorabimua of Du Bois-Reymond — Criticism of Spencer's
agnosticism — First germs of the reaction from intellectualism in -
Spencer — The evolutionary method also leads to reaction . .3-12

CHAPTER II

NEO-CRITICISM, VOLUNTARISM, AND THE PRIMACY OF PRACTICAL
REASON

The return to the critical method — Lange — Criticism of the physiological
interpretation of the a priori and of the poetical intuition of the
Absolute — The empirical prejudice in Helmholtz — Liebmann and
Schultze — Criticism of the neo-Kantian school — Riehl's monism —
Criticism of Riehl's philosophy — Elimination of the thing in itself
and transition to phenomenalistic monism — Wundt's critical ideal-
ism— Wundt's uncertain position — The return to Schopenhauer's
voluntarism — Von Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious —

ix

x IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PAOI

Fouillee's idle-force — The endeavour to reconcile pragmatism and
intellect ualism — Ultimate consequences of voluntarism as seen in
Paulsen — Criticism of voluntarism and the theory of faith —
Nietzsche's individualistic voluntarism — The philosophy of freedom :
Ravaisson, Secretan — Lotze and the primacy of practical reason —
Psychological development of the theory of the primacy of practical
reason in the phenomenalism of Renouvier — Criticism of Renouvier's
phenomenalism . . . . . . . . 13-52

CHAPTER III

EMPIRIC-CRITICISM

Old and new positivism — Factors determining the transition from one
form to another and their influence upon the thought of Mach — Hypo-
statisation of the sensorial elements—Science as mental economy —
Criticism of the traditional mechanical theory — Unconscious meta-
physic and contradictions in Mach's phenomenalism — Petzoldt's
law of univocal determination — Principle of the minimum effort, as
set forth by Avenarius — Biological explanation of scientific and
philosophic knowledge — Introjection — Criticism of the philosophy
of pure experience — Hodgson's metaphysic of experience — Klein-
peter's subjectivism ....... 53-91

CHAPTER IV

ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM

The two attempts at escape from the agnostic position — The eternity of
thought, as affirmed by Green in opposition to empiricism — Criticism
of Green's pan-logism — lieductio ad absurdum of pan-logism in
Bradley's philosophy — Criticism of Bradley's dialectic — Mystical
degeneration of English neo-Hegelianism : M'Taggart . .92-111

SECTION H
THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM

CHAPTER I
THB DOCTRINE OF CONTINGENCY AND INTUTTIONISM

The aesthetic and moral conception of the universe : Secretan,
Ravaisson — fimile Boutroux and the contingency of natural laws
— Criticism of the theory of contingency — Milhaud and the limits
of logical certainty — Bergson's doctrine of intuition — Fundamental
error of Bergson's system — The two new rules of invention pro-
pounded by Wilbois — The will of spiritual activity in scientific
construction according to Le Roy — The physical world as an
instrument of moral life — Ethical action as a means of penetrating
reality — Criticism of intuitionism — Theoretical value of science —
Criticism of Duhem's arguments against the objective value of
science . 115-161

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER II

ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM

PAOK

Pragmatism as evolutionary transformation of English empiricism — The
pragmatism of Peirce — Utilitarianism and pragmatism — Reasons
for the prevalence of pragmatism : James's will to believe —
Differences between la philosophie nouvelle and pragmatism —
The humanism of Schiller — Dewey's instrumental logic — Prag-
matical elimination of the duality of subject and object — Plasticity
of experience according to James — Ideas as instruments of action —
Criticism of pragmatism .... . 162-195

»

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES AND THE HISTORIC METHOD

The philosophy of values and the primacy of practical reason — Philo-
sophy as the science of universal values : Windelband — Reduction of
Being to the Ought — Natural and historical sciences — Criticism of *
the philosophy of values — Historical knowledge in Miinsterberg's
philosophy of values — Attempt to deduce all values systematically
— The historic world of subjective wills and the mechanical world
of objects — Criticism of Miinsterberg's philosophy — Miinsterberg's
super-jEJgro and Royce's absolute consciousness — Reduction of the
external meaning to the internal meaning of the idea — Error — The
world of science and the world of valuation — Criticism of Royce's
philosophy — Ward on the realm of nature and the realm of ends 196-273

PAKT II

THE NEW THEORIES OF MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS
CHAPTER I

NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

Traditional geometry and the new theories of Gauss, Lobatchewsky, and
Bolyai — The empiricism of Riemann and Helmholtz and the dispute
with the Neo-Kantians — Intuition and concept in geometry —
Tannery on the contingency of geometrical truths — The general
geometry of Calinon and Lechalas — Criticism of these theories : the
a priori properties of space — Vain attempt at an a priori deduction
of three-dimensional space : Cohen, Natorp — Impossibility of an
experimental proof of Euclidean geometry : Stallo, Poincare,
Couturat — Euclidean geometry more rationally complete than the
rest 277-305

xii IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

CHAPTER II

THE NEW LOGICAL ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS

PAOB

Fusion of logic with mathematics towards the middle of the nineteenth
century — Peano's logistic and its application to arithmetic and the
geometrical calculus — Fieri — Whitehead's universal algebra — Russell
on the identity of logic and mathematics — Ordinal and cardinal,
finite and infinite numbers — The continuum — Geometry as a hypo-
thetico-deductive system — The analytic character of mathematical
truths according to Couturat — Intuition in mathematics — Irre-
ducibility of mathematics to logistic — Criticism of the hypothetico-
deductive systems — A priori synthesis in mathematics — Russell on
the philosophical consequences of mathematical logic — The new
realism — Meinong's theory of objects — Criticism of Russell's
theory . 306-345

CHAPTER III

•

ENERGETICS

Traditional mechanism — Carnot's principle — Evolutionary genesis of
chemical elements — Physical chemistry — Energetics in Rankine and
Spencer — Ostwald's phenomenalistic programme — Criticism of the
traditional mechanical theory — Energy as a universal substance —
Reduction of matter to energy — Energetics and vital psychic
phenomena — Criticism of energetics : Ostwald the phenomenalist,
and Ostwald the metaphysician — Mechanics as the necessary basis of
energetics ........ 346-373

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW QUALITATIVE PHYSICS

Vain endeavours to reduce all physical qualities to figure and movement
alone — Duhem's new mechanics — The economic and objective value
of scientific theories — Criticism of Duhem's theory . . 374-389

CHAPTER V
THE THEORY OF MODELS

The two types of ideation amongst physicists : the abstract and
the concrete— The nominalist ic prejudice of the theory of models :
Hertz — Value of concrete representations in physical theory — The
model not an indispensable means of discovery — Fertility of the
concept ........ 390-404

CONTENTS xiii

CONCLUSION

OUTLINES OF A SPIRITUALISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE WOKLD

PAGE

Intuitionism, pragmatism, and intellectualism as partial views — The
reality of concrete thought — Concrete thought as the necessary
organ of philosophical enquiry — The substantiality of the Ego — The
sophisms of the idealist — Proof of realism — The truth of self-con-
sciousness— The knowableness of nature — Mind the truth of nature
— Natural monads — The sense in which the contents of sensation are
real — Concept of nature — The vicious circle of empiricism — Irreduci-
bility of thought to practical activity — Inadequacy of nominalism —
Theoretical value of the scientific concept — History, science, philo-
sophy— Impossibility of a dialectical deduction of the categories —
Ideal genesis of the scientific categories — Cause, substance, quantity,
time, space — Primitive and derivative categories — Ideal genesis and
value of the mechanical interpretation of physical phenomena —
Spiritual meaning of science — Epistemological proof of the existence
of God — Faith in the value of science is faith in God — Denial of
the conflict between pure reason and practical reason — Legitimacy
of other types of science, differing from mechanics — The categories
of liberty and finality — The accusation of anthropomorphism —
Eternity of creation ...... 405-479

INDEX 481-483

INTRODUCTION

1. The Reaction from InteUectualism in Contemporary
Philosophy. — One of the essential characteristics of
contemporary thought is undoubtedly the reaction
from intellectualism ID all its forms. The mind of
man, which could not rest content with a simple trans-
ference of results attained by the methods of the natural
sciences to the realm of philosophy, and was reluctant
to stay its steps on the threshold of the dim temple of
the Unknowable, sought within itself other and deeper
activities which should throw open the portals of mystery.
Art, moral lif e, and religious belief were called upon to fill
the void left by scientific knowledge ; and the reaction
went so far as to extend to the human intellect as a
whole a distrust which should have been confined
to scientific naturalism and its claim to be able to
comprehend the infinite riches of mind and nature
within a few mechanical formulas. The ruined shrines
of the Goddess of Reason, who for so long had tyrannised
over the mind, were invaded by the rebel forces of
f eeling, will, imagination, and every obscure and primitive
instinct: thus it came about that Schopenhauer achieved
a posthumous triumph over his hated rival Hegel, whose
hearers he had in his lifetime vainly endeavoured to
entice away, even though he fixed his own lectures for
the same hour. Once the blind power of impulse was
exalted and the sure guidance of the intellect abandoned,
the door was opened to every kind of arbitrary specula-
tion ; hence the confusion, Byzantinism, and dabbling
in philosophy which during the last twenty years have

XV

xvi IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

obscured thought and masqueraded under the fine-
sounding name of idealism. 0 unhappy Idealism, how
many intellectual follies have been committed in thy
name ! Theosophy, the speculations of the Kabala,
occultism, magic, spiritualism, all the mystic ravings
of the Neo-Platonists and Neo-Pythagoreans, the most
antiquated of theories, debris of every kind, heaped
haphazard on the foundation of the speculations of the
ages — all these have returned to favour in defiance of
the dictates of logic and common sense. Balance and
the sense of direction have to a certain extent been
lost, the light of intelligence quenched, and man gropes
in the gloom of wild inspirations, direct intuitions, and
mysterious miracles in the search for some new truth
which shall satisfy the inmost needs of the human
mind.

2. Intettectualism and Anti - Intellectualism in ike
History of Philosophy. — The reaction from pure intel-
lectualism, which reached its zenith towards the end
of the last century, is nothing new in the history of
philosophy, but a phenomenon which recurs whenever
thought indulges in exaggerated rationali sm. In Greece
the splendid affirmation of the concept against the sub-
jectivism of the Sophists and the intellectualism which
had carried all before it from Socrates to Aristotle was
followed by the sceptical dissolution which ended in
the ravings of the mystics of Alexandria ; while the
glow of Christian sentiment came to fill the void left
by a cold intellectualism in minds confused by the
contradictory formulas of the various systems and
the quibbles of destructive dialectic. All through
the Middle Ages we see this antithesis of mystic faith
and love, which breaks out from time to time with fresh
force in protest against the excesses of rationalism :
the paradoxical " Credo quia absurdum " of Tertullian
stands in opposition to the bold assertions of the
gnostics; the "Amo ut intelligam" of S. Bernard and the
Victorines marks the reaction of feeling from the in-
temperate dialectic of Abelard's " Intelligo ut credam " ;

INTRODUCTION xvii

S. Thomas vainly strives to reconcile these conflicting
principles in a higher synthesis, defining clearly the
limits of faith and reason. The antithesis of feeling"
lives on, although in a more moderate form, in the
" lumen superius," the " excessus mentalis et mysticus "
of S. Bonaventura who counsels his followers to appeal
for penetration into the highest truth : to " gratiam, non
doctrinam " ; " desiderium, non intellectum " ; " cali-
ginem, non claritatem " ; indeed, another antithesis
is added in the voluntarism of Henry of Ghent
and John Duns Scotus, which places " Voluntas
imperans intellectui est causa superior respectu actus
eius " in opposition to the " Simpliciter tamen intel-
lectus est nobilior quam voluntas " of S. Thomas.
The exaggerated subtleties of the scholastics and the
interminable controversies between the followers of
S. Thomas and those of Scotus lead by way of Ockham's
scepticism to a re-awakening of the spirit of mysticism
in Eckhart and Gerson. The epic struggle still con-
tinues in modern philosophy ; the first triumphs of
mathematical natural science encouraged the boldness of
Cartesianrationalism, against which the tormenting doubt </
of the mystic Pascal struggles in vain. Intellectualism,
not content with its theoretical domain, would fain in
the teaching of Spinoza invade that of moral life as
well, vainly deceiving itself into the belief that it
can interpret the action of the passions more geometrico,
and reaches its extreme in the claim of Wollaston
to be able to express the supreme laws of duty as
logical relations, a claim calling forth the just re-
action of the sentimentalists from Shaftesbury to Smith.
The mind of man is once more irresistibly drawn in the
opposite direction by the piercing analyses of Berkeley
and Hume and the critical genius of Kant, which is
at one and the same time the apotheosis of the physico-
mathematical method in the order of phenomena and
the irrevocable condemnation thereof as an organ of
speculation. We see the antithesis once more in the
traditional form of feeling regarded as the direct revela-

xviii IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

tion of God in the mystical writings of Jacobi, and in
the form of the primacy of practical reason in the work

Sof Kant and Fichte, while in the revolt of the romanti-
cists, the Schlegels, Tieck, Novalis, and Schelling, it
takes on the new aspect of poetic intuition which
, ranks the concreteness of aesthetic vision higher
i than abstract mathematicism, the individual than
the universal, the changeful life of history than the
inflexible formulas of mechanical science. In Hegel
reason strives to break away from the motionless
formulas of the old logic and to comprehend within
the triad of a higher dialectic that concrete develop-
ment which eluded the schemes of mathematical intel-
lectualism, but for all its gigantic efiorts it fails to
dominate the manifold complexity of experience, or
to absorb into the idea the productive wealth of intuition
and the vivid glow of feeling ; and, while speculative
Pan-logism is celebrating the funeral rites of the
dead and gone divinities of the romanticists — art and
religion, superseded now by thought — we behold the
gods arising once more from the tombs to which Hegel
and his teaching had consigned them — rising full of
the ardour of youth in the mysticism of the later
philosophy of Schelling, in the feeling and religious
faith with which Schleiermacher and Hamilton sought
to supplement our poor intellectual science of the
finite and conditioned, in the belligerent will of
Schopenhauer who strives to express his deep sense of
rhythm in music, beyond the realm of precise concepts.
The over-depreciation of scientific intellectualism and
of mechanical and abstract mathematicism, which is
characteristic of all idealistic speculation, and its
claim to take the place of science and to substitute
for it a fantastic system of natural philosophy are
followed by a fresh glorification of the physical mathe-
matical method, which in its turn, in the exaggerated
reaction which set in, laid claim to the place of philo-
sophy, thus invading the realm of the mind. Thus,
passing over the criticism of Kant, we return to the

INTRODUCTION xix

naturalism of the eighteenth century with its crass
ignorance of the epistemological problem. Scientific
intellectualism, however, after vainly striving to express
the highest manifestations of life and consciousness
by the aid of its formulas, is forced to stop short at
the limits already denned by the genius of Kant. The
" Ignorabimus " of Du Bois-Reymond, the Unknowable
of the philosopher of First Principles, are the most
explicit confession of the inability of that method to
solve the problems of most vital interest to the mind
of man.

3. Causes of the Reaction from Intellectualism. —
Could thought rest easy in this complacent agnosticism ?
Could it silence the ever - questioning voice within ?
There were two ways of escaping this intolerable situa-
tion : either to turn to the other functions of the^mind
jojJ^e'g5m^ion~oTthe problem which had baffled the in-
teSeCT7or~to elimmate_the_i)roblem altogether, by proving
jt-4iO be due_tp^Jaulty^ per^ectiy^and to a false_con-
cieption of science andjoi-the value ci_scieiitinc_theories.
Both 'ways ~have been tried ; on the one hand, by a
return to the moralism of Fichte and the aestheticism
of the romanticists, into which the rebellious genius
of Nietzsche had breathed new life, the will, as the
creative source of all values and of unfettered aesthetic^
intuition, is exalted above the intelligence ; while, on
the other, the bases of the mechanical conception and
of its chief instruments — geometrical intuition and
mathematical calculation — are subjected to a searching
examination. This analysis, to which men of science
themselves were impelled by the discovery of the new
principles of energy, and by meta-geometrical con-
ceptions, resulted in stress being laid upon the active <*
work of the mind in the construction of scientific laws
and theories, and has therefore contributed to the
triumph of that line of philosophic thought which
holds that the fullest revelation of reality is to be found
in the aesthetic point of view, and in the practical
functions of consciousness. In this way speculative

xx IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

criticism, determined by imperious demands of the mind
which positivism failed to satisfy, came into contact
with the new criticism which the new theories called
into being in the realm of science itself, thus shaking
dogmatic belief in the old geometry and in traditional
mechanical science. This valid co-operation of physi-
cists and mathematicians distinguishes the struggle
against intellectualism of the closing years of the
nineteenth century from the analogous movement
of the beginning of the present century ; it is also
more intense and more extensive, especially as regards
its critical aspect. The scientific method which Kant
and the idealists had declared to be inadequate in
the domain of the absolute had successfully resisted
all attacks, entrenching itself within the citadel of the
phenomenon which Kant himself had fortified so
strongly with his vigorous criticism, but towards the
end of the century the reaction spread to this sphere
also, and science was not only divested of its speculative
office, but its theoretical value was denied as well.

The prevalence of Darwinism and of the theory of
evolution in general contributed not a little to this
radical change in the concept of science. From this
standpoint consciousness too appeared to be a complex
of functions, whose meaning could not differ from that
of the other organic functions : it was but an additional
weapon in the struggle for existence, a means of adapta-
tion. The theoretical function could not be regarded
as an exception to this utilitarian value — a value, that
is to say, of an essentially practical order — of psychic
life as a whole, and the forms of thought, like the other
types of the biological world, could not therefore be
considered as being immutable and eternal, but rather
as being subject to a continuous process of formation
by means of successive adaptations to new conditions
of life.1 Science is no longer the standard by which
every form of knowledge is gauged, as was the case in
the days of the old positivism ; it is no longer the eternal
mould into which human consciousness must be forced

INTRODUCTION xxi

if it would attain to certainty ; it too is an organism
capable of that development, renewal, and change of
structure which enable it better to fulfil its biological
function. That very theory of evolution which had
at first sight appeared to prove the mechanical method
afresh, and to give it a new weapon wherewith to subdue
the rebel world of life, helped rather to depreciate its
value and to shake its foundations. Regarded in the
light of evolution, was the world what the mechanical
theory had held it to be, an eternal persistence of un-
changeable substances, an eternal repetition of necessary
movements subject to unchangeable laws ; or was it
rather a perennial becoming, an incessant renewal of
forms which cannot be foreseen, and which cannot
therefore be subject to the rigid necessity of determinism?
i Is not variability, that is to say, the possibility of the
; new, presupposed in all evolution ? Can the new be
confined within the limits of any mathematical formula ?
How can mechanics, the science of eternal types, mirror
the transient life of the real ? It is not to the motionless
ideas of reason that we must turn if»we would sound
the depths of being and grasp it in the productive
moment of its generation, but rather to the free creations
of imagination and energy. Not sub specie aeternitatis,
but sub specie generations is the motto of modern
logic.2

The researches of psycho - physiology and more
especially the analyses of perception, which proved
the subjective character of those sensory elements
which the mechanical theory had raised to the rank of
ultimate reality, contributed largely to the change in
the conception of science and of knowledge in general.
Are not resistance, space, and time presentations no
less dependent on the special physiological structure
than sounds, colours, tastes, and smells ? What right
have we to regard the one class as objective and primary,
the other as subjective and secondary ? Helmholtz
considers that the only distinction which can fairly
be drawn between these elements is of a practical kind,

xxii IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

in as much as some of them are of more assistance to
us than others as guides to reality, awakening in us, as
they do, expectations which are habitually verified.

In the first glow of enthusiasm to which these re-
searches gave birth, the possibility of discovering the
psychological origin of these presentations and of
resolving them into their elements seemed to be a clear
proof of the empirical nature of geometrical truths and
therefore, also, of mechanics ; thus from this point of
view also doubt was cast upon the apodeictic value of
science more geometrico demonstrate,.

The reaction irom intellectualism, which is, in my
opinion, the predominant characteristic of contemporary
philosophy, will act as our guide in the study of the
prevailing tone of present-day thought touching the
theory of knowledge. By the general term " intel-
lectualism," taken in the widest sense of the word, we
shall understand those epistemological systems which
assign an autonomous value to the cognitive function,3
and we shall therefore regard as forms of reaction all
those currents of thought which make the value of
science and of knowledge in general depend upon the
ends of other functions of the mind and rank will and
imagination above intellect.

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

1 Sergi, I! Origine dei fenomeni psichici e la loro significazione biologica
(Milan, 1885), p. 72.

2 Dewey, " Does Reality possess Practical Character ? " Essays Philo-
sophical and Psychological in Honour of W. James (London, 1908).

* Intellectualism in the strict sense of the word is the reduction of all
the functions of the mind to intellectual processes. The pragmatists and
intuitionists, however, in their polemic against the intellectualists, apply
the term also to those who, though not going so far, yet look upon the
intelligence as a theoretic function of intrinsic value, and do not consider
it as identical with or subordinate to practical activity. It would be
waste of time to enter upon a discussion of the justifiability of using the
word in this sense ; the essential thing is that we should clearly understand
what concepts we attach to the word.

PAET I

THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM IN THE
NEW THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

SECTION I

THE BEGINNING OF THE REACTION FROM
INTELLECTUALISM

CHAPTER I

AGNOSTIC POSITIVISM

1. Agnosticism as the Consequence of the Traditional
Mathematical Method. — Agnosticism was the logical
outcome of a prejudice which had become more and
more deeply rooted in thought from the time of the
Renaissance on : a prejudice which affirms that there
is no other form of knowledge save that of which we
have the perfect model in mathematical physics. The
rich results yielded by the quantitative method of
studying natural phenomena which modern science
had opposed to the fruitless multiplication of hypo-
thetical qualities led to over -estimation of this type
of knowledge : everything which could not be com-
prised in this scheme, everything which from its very
nature could not be comprehended within the narrow
limits of a precise formula, was for ever banned from
the /domain of knowledge. Even Kant could not
wholly shake off this prejudice ; for although the
intuition of genius taught him to discern beyond the
realm of mathematics and physics that of Aesthetics
and. .jnoxal -values, he yet considered them as being
beyond the pale of true knowledge, and as belonging
to the domain of feeling, contemplation, and faith.
Positivism with its apotheosis of the scientific
method, with its claim to give a comprehensive explana-
tion not merely of natural reality, but also of ethics
and aesthetics, by constructing the whole sphere of
philosophy on scientific principles, carried this prejudice

IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

FT. I

to its extreme consequences, declaring those problems
for which, from its one-sided, restricted point of view,
it could find no adequate solution to be insoluble,
and was thus led by faulty perspective to attribute
to the nature of human knowledge that inadequacy
which was due rather to its own method and system.

P 2. The Ignorabimus of Du Bois-Reymond. — Du Bois-
Reymond x lays down the dogma that the one and only
true exact science is mechanics ; all points of view
based on teleological, aesthetic, and qualitative principles
are but anthropomorphic conceptions, from which
we must free ourselves that we may consider nothing
in the world but the quantitative aspects of the move-

ynent of material masses. What, then, is the essence
and source of matter, force, motion, and of their dis-
tribution ? A mystery which baffles human know-
ledge ! How does the qualitative complexity of sensa-
tion and consciousness issue from this world of purely
homogeneous magnitudes ? Yet another mystery !
How about the source of life, the finality of organisms,
the highest functions of the mind and free will ? These
too are inscrutable enigmas, otherwise we might well
ask ourselves : Are these bounds really the Pillars of
Hercules of human knowledge ? Do they not rather
mark the limits of your partial and fragmentary con-
ception ? Du Bois-Reymond, taking as his starting-
point the old prejudice that knowledge is but the power
of formulating mechanically, unhesitatingly choeses
the first alternative, and cries, " Ignorabimus ! " But
the mind of man with its higher ideals refused to
submit to this " Ignorabimus," and, since science had
declared herself unable to satisfy its loftiest moral
aspirations and attributed her failure to the congenital
defects of our reason, what more natural than that
it should seek to meet the requirements of life in some
other way ? Scientific intellectualism with its sceptical
conclusions prepared the soil for the various forms of
reaction; indeed it went farther, and sowed the seed,
leaving, as did Spencer, the revelation of the Absolute

SEC. I

AGNOSTIC POSITIVISM

to religious belief, and to a vague indefinite consciousness
incapable of being expressed in precise concepts.

3. Criticism of Spencer's Agnosticism. — The philo-
sopher of First Principles goes even farther than
Du Bois - Reymond, striving as he does to prove
that the ultimate essence of things eludes not only
scientific knowledge, but^ also speculative reason, and
tEat because human knowledge can of necessity be
but relative. Agnostic positivism, using as its weapons
the transcendentalism of Kant, which Hamilton 2 and
Mansel 3 had pressed into the service of faith, is forced
back on its negative side, on the ancient forms of
traditional mysticism, which, though latent, had never
really perished, and was ever ready to rise again to do
battle with the theological rationalism of the extreme
school. In the theory of the Unknowable we see the
reappearance of the mystical tendency, finding expres-
sion not in the moderate formula " Credo ut intelligam,"
but rather in the blind aberration involved in " Credo
quia absurdum," since the absurd unknowable is in its
ultimate analysis but the confession of the powerless-
ness of that rationalism which is supposed to reconcile
the conflicting claims of science and theology. But, we
may ask, must thought inevitably lead to such an absurd
conclusion ? If we examine the Unknowable closely, we
shall find that it is simply something which we think or at
least vaguely feel to be actual, but which we affirm that
we cannot know. We must here make sure that we clearly
understand in exactly what sensewe use the word "know,"
since it is just the arbitrary limitation of its meaning
which has given rise to certain alleged antinomies.

Spencer admits no other knowledge than that which
subjects fact to law, classifying it, resolving it into its
abstract relations, determining in what respects it
resembles other facts or differs from them ; but side
by side with this form of mediate knowledge which
seeks the intelligible element in the phenomenon brought
to its notice, there exists that immediate knowledge
which consists in the direct life of conscious reality

6 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

as manifested in its individual physiognomy. Any
form of consciousness, however embryonic and rudi-
mentary, is already a knowing of the content which is
manifested in it. The pain which I feel at a given
moment is an actual fact, known by me to be such,
though I may not be able to subject it to law, classify it
in a system of concepts, or explain it scientifically ; real
too is the world of colour, sound, and form in its un-
ending variety. The error of abstract rationalism,
in its scientific and speculative forms alike, lies in its
claim to be able to reduce reality in its entirety to a
system of relations, since there exists an individual
aspect of things which cannot be expressed in its con-
creteness by means of abstract relations. It is for
this reason that we find ourselves confronted by in-
soluble antinomies when we attempt to realise this
pure system of relations, that we vainly endeavour
to find a fixed point in the process of reasoning which
leads us from one relation to another, a goal which
cannot be in its turn a relation unless we are prepared
to continue the process indefinitely. Thought, whose
function is the establishment of relations, cannot reach
this absolute goal, but our consciousness is not forced
to seek it beyond the indefinite series of relations,
since it is found within itself as an original possession
in immediately experienced facts. Knowledge founded
on pure logic is thus doomed to grope in the empty
darkness of its own contradictions, unless it will take
refuge in the luminous atmosphere of concrete conscious-
ness. If_by " knowing " we understand simply the
reduction~oi phenomena to law and their dissolution
into abstract elements, then the unknowable will be
found, not beyond the bounds of experience, but in
the facts themselves in as much as they possess a concrete
physiognomy which cannot be translated into abstract
relations, and even our own individuality, as presented
to us by experience, will be unknown to us ! If, on the
other hand, we understand by the term " knowledge "
not merely logical reflection, but also the immediate

SEC. i AGNOSTIC POSITIVISM 7

life of the real, nothing is unknowable, since everything
which we regard as real becomes a content of our
consciousness the very moment we recognise its reality.
Try as it may, thought cannot call its own objective
value in question, and, while endeavouring to prove its
own relativity, posits as the absolute term of reference
something made of like substance with itself ! This
is proved by Spencer's Unknowable, which in the
doctrine of transfigured realism is conceived of as the
cause of phenomena, as being at once single and the
manifold, in its variations which correspond to empirical
changes ; as a substance possessed of persistent modes
connected by an indissoluble relation with their
conditioned effects — space, time, motion, and force.
And yet it is alleged that we know nothing about it !
Moreover, we are supposed to have found an absolute
model of reality face to face with which thought must
perforce own its impotence, as if this model were not
just as much a thought ! Logical activity will brook
no limits, since in the very act of denning these limits
it comprehends and transcends them in its universal
concepts. A reality^ absolutely eluding thought is an
epistemological absurdity ; how can we affirm that it
\ exists without thinking of it in some way ?

4. First Germs of the Reaction from Intellectualism
in Spencer. — If Kant, Hamilton, and Mansel pronounce
the Absolute to be unknowable, it is because they
wrongly restrict the circle of knowledge to abstract
intelligibility ; yet at bottom they too grant the possi-
bility of a revelation of this reality in the mind of man.
Hamilton writes :

By virtue of a wonderful revelation we are thus, in the con-
sciousness of our inability to conceive anything but the relative
and the finite, inspired to believe in the existence of something
unconditioned beyond the sphere of comprehensible reality.

And Spencer explicitly recognises that the so-called
Unknowable does not absolutely elude consciousness,
but is rather presented thereto in a form differing
from precise and determined thought :

8 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE IT. i

Besides that definite consciousness of which logic formulates
the laws, there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be
formulated. Besides complete thoughts, besides the thoughts
which, though incomplete, admit of completion, there are thoughts
which it is impossible to complete and yet which are still real
in the sense that they are normal affections of the intellect. . . .
The error fallen into by philosophers intent on demonstrating
the limits and conditions of consciousness consists in assuming
that consciousness contains nothing but limits, conditions, to
the entire neglect of that which is limited and conditioned. It
is forgotten that there is something which alike forms the raw
material of definite thought and remains after the definiteness
which thinking gave to it has been destroyed.4

Does not this sound like the voice of Bergson ?

. . . Autour de la pensee conceptuelle subsiste une frange
indistincte qui en rappelle l'origine.5

The indefinite consciousness of which Spencer speaks
becomes the fundamental organ of philosophy in
" infoifovft gsfom. If it be this indefinite

consciousness surrounding logical thought which presents
I to us the absolute, the culminating point of every reality,
according to the opponents of intellectualism, has it
not a cognitive value far beyond the limited, phenomenal
consciousness of the intellect ? But Spencer is still
too much under the influence of the old mathematical
prejudice to draw these bold conclusions from his own
premisses ; he therefore persists in designating as un-
knowable that aspect of reality which cannot be classified
and ordered by the scientific method ; he makes a
tremendous effort to apply a single mathematical formula
to the perennial evolution of mind and nature, to subject
the concrete reality of becoming to a law of persistency,
to a system of intelligible relations which is outside
the limits of time. It is an endeavour which is doomed
to failure, and will cause the final crash of the structure
of scientific intellectualism, a structure whose founda-
tions are already undermined by its own confession
of impotence, by proving its inadequacy in the realm
of phenomena as well.

SEC. I

AGNOSTIC POSITIVISM

5. The Evolutionary Method also leads to Reaction. —
The law of preservation from which Spencer is deceived
into deducing the necessity of the evolutionary process
only applies to the quantitative relations of the forces
at work in the system ; hence it can give us no
information as to the direction the changes will take.
The qualitative transformation of forces, on the other
hand, is subject to the law of degradation,6 according to
which the imperceptible differences, and more especially
the inequalities existing in the redistribution of energy
in respect to masses, constantly tend to diminish, so
that the natural course taken by physical phenomena
makes for the greater homogeneity of the system, though
this is diametrically opposed to Spencer's assertion.
As far as the principle of conservation is concerned,
it is a matter of indifference whether we pass from the
homogeneous form of heat to differing forms of 'energy,
or whether the process be reversed, since in either case
it remains unchanged in its totality.

As Lalande 7 has well said, this permanency would
be equally true even if the progress of the world were
suddenly to be reversed, supposing, that is to say,
trees were to grow smaller instead of taller, till they
returned to the germs from which they had developed,
and mankind were to grow towards youth instead of
age, reaching the embryonic stage at the end of life
instead of at the beginning. Nor is this hypothesis
purely fantastical ! There are many biological instances
of retrogression or involution of organs,8 yet the law of
the persistence of force is in no way affected thereby.
For that matter, does not Spencer himself deduce from
the law of conservation the necessary dissolution of
the system when its cycle has been accomplished ?
How marvellous is this law, from which we may deduce
on the one hand, when it suits us so to do, the necessity
of passing to the heterogeneous, and on the other with
equal facility the no less necessary return to primitive
homogeneity !

The evolutionary process cannot be deduced from a

10 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. r

system of mathematical laws. To the physicist, who
would seek in the development of natural phenomena
the permanent and universal relations of co-existence
and succession, the world is ever the same in its totality
and unchangeable in its inexorable mechanical laws.
From this point of view the individual aspects of things
must be considered as illusions of the senses ; we are
under the impression that we see an inexhaustible
multiplicity of forms where objectively there merely
exists a continual repetition of one and the same form,
the same mechanism, a uniform play of forces whose
action can be calculated and foreseen to a nicety by
mathematical means. Since, then, the evolutionary
process disappears when we exclude the possibility of
the genesis of new forms, of the production of new
characteristics, are we not perhaps justified in concluding
that the mechanical theory of the universe, interpreted
strictly, must also regard the evolutionary transforma-
" tion of species as an illusory appearance ? Meghanism
and evolution are two concepts which cannot be derived
from one another, since they correspond to two different
aspects of nature : one is quantitative permanence and
absolute determinism of mathematical law ; the other
qualitative transformation and fruitful genesis of
individual forms, which no set of abstract formulas
comprehends in the fulness of its living reality. The
evolutionary conception of things could never be made
to fit the Procrustean bed of the traditional mathematical
method ; it was inevitable that it should (if I may so
say) insinuate the poison of dissolution into the veins
l_of intellectualism. The living spirit of history, which
Tiad animated the idealistic speculation of the beginning
of the century, finding its way with Darwinism into
the domain of positive research, whilst thus endeavour-
ing to find itself a place in the schemes of science,
breaks down their mechanical rigidity, and exposes
the tremendous gaps left by empty formulas in the
sphere of experience. The scientific method is thus
proved to be inadequate not only in the field of specula-

SEC. i AGNOSTIC POSITIVISM 11

tion, but also in that of phenomena itself. The theory
of evolution, whilst thus calling attention to the new
forms and new concrete aspects assumed by reality
in the process of development, to the irreversible
direction of development in time, and to the hierarchical
order of the beings which rise little by little to higher
forms of life, reveals a world beyond and above abstract
mechanism and indifferent to every temporal and
hierarchical order — the world of valuation and history,
of which Kant caught a glimpse in his Kritik der
Urteilskraft, and which achieves its triumph over intel-
lectualism in the philosophy of Windelband, Rickert,
Miinsterberg, and Royce. It is, however, specially in
another direction that Spencerian evolution prepares the
ground for reaction, i.e. in its psychology which main-
tains that the explanation of all conscious life is to be
found in the requirements of biological adaptation.
The cognitive function thus becomes but a means for
the preservation of the species, consciousness a weapon
of defence against natural forces, valuable only for its
utility in foreseeing facts, an instrument for the main-
tenance of organic equilibrium against the influence
of perturbing actions in an ever-wider sphere, which
is subject, like every other organ, to transformations

corresponding to the altered conditions of the environ-

ment.9 Science is not then based on an eternal, uni-
versal model, as was asserted by traditional rationalism ;
scientific theories are born into the world just as are
organic species, and like them they perish when they can
no longer resist the shock of new experiences. Science,
too, has its history, and if we would know the meaning
of that history we must seek it, not in the tendency of
speculation to grasp the absolute truth of the rational
order which is immanent in things, but rather in the_j
needs of life and action. This biological conception of
knowledge will pass through the writings of Avenarius
and Mach into almost every form of reaction from intel-
lectualism, and will act more especially as the motive
power of pragmatism. Spencer's system with its theory

12 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

of the Unknowable appealing to a belief, a feeling
beyond conception, with its doctrine of the evolutionary
intuition of the universe, discrediting, as it does, the
traditional mathematical attitude, and putting science
at the service of biological adaptation, is not only
>regnant with the crisis of scientific intellectualism,
ut enfolds the first germs of that reaction whose develop-
ent we shall follow as it strives in various ways to
Escape from the difficult position in which agnosticism
has placed it.

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1 Reden, two volumes (Leipzig, 1886-87), containing the two famous
addresses: " Uber die Grenzen des Naturkennens " (1873) and "Die
sieben Weltratsel " (1880).

2 Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University
Reform (London, 1853) ; Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (Edinburgh,
1859-60).

3 The Limits of Religious TJiought (London, 1858).

4 First Principles (chap. iv. section 26).

5 L'Evolution creatrice (Paris, 1907), p. 210.
' Cp. on this point Chapter III. Part II.

7 La Dissolution opposie a FEvolution (Paris, 1899), p. 47.

8 Demoor, Massart et Vandervelde : U Evolution regressive en BMogie
et en Sociologie (Paris, 1897).

8 Principles of Psychology, voL i. pt. iii. chap. xi. p. 383 ff. (Third
Edition.)

CHAPTER II

NED-CRITICISM, VOLUNTARISM, AND THE PRIMACY
OF PRACTICAL REASON

1 . The Return to the Critical Method. — The first indication
of the awakening of the mind from the extremely negative
attitude of the materialists may be seen in the return
to the teaching of Kant ; the activity of the subject in
the elaboration of science, which had been for long
ignored, and had been thrust into the background
by the triumphs so easily achieved by the mechanical
method, asserts its rights once more and inaugurates
the fruitful work of salutary criticism. Scientific
intellectualism, having experienced for itself in the
failure of its bold attempts to exhaust the totality of
things the limitations already defined by Kant, finds
itself in the self -same position, face to face with the self-
same problems which, baffled the thought of the philo-
sophy of Konigsberg. It is natural that the solution of
these difficulties should be looked upon as the necessary
starting-point of the new criticism of value and the
limits of human science ; but at the same time the
need is seen of modifying it to a certain extent in order

•\to bring it into harmony with the results of the theory
of evolution and of psycho-physiological research, and

- it is therefore incumbent upon us to define more clearly
the meaning of the a priori element, and to assign
limits thereto.

2. Lange. — Albrecht Lange recognises, as does
materialism, the necessity of finding a mechanical ex-
is

14 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

planation for physical phenomena and for the physio-
logical processes of the brain, seeing that we are
organically so constituted as to be unable to intuit and
conceive the world of phenomena in any other way.
There is, however, something which eludes all and every
explanation, and this something is the origin of our
physiological constitution ; thought, no matter what
efforts it may make, will always be brought up short
by the limiting concept of the thing in itself , a difficulty
which it utterly fails to surmount. It cannot even
ascertain whether it actually corresponds to anything
real or is not rather an illusion born of our special
organisation. May not the dualism of phenomenon and
noumenon be due to faulty perspective ?

This doubt cannot be dispelled by the intellect ;
poetic imagination alone can guide us beyond the limits
of experience. One thing only is certain : that man
feels the need of supplementing reality by an ideal world
of his own creation, and this creative work brings into
play the loftiest and noblest functions of his intelligence.1
Speculation must not claim to be rational and demon-
strative J ^he more theoretical it is, the more it would
compete with science in certainty, the less important
will be its part in life ; if, on the other hand, it is content
to bring the world of actualities into relationship with
the world of values, and rises in its conception of phe-
nomena to a moral action, mastering matter by means
of form without doing violence to facts, it will raise a
temple built up of its ideas meet for the worship of the
eternal and divine.2 Peace will never be attained, the
conflict between science and the highest human aspira-
tions will never cease, until the transient character
of all that is fictitious in art, religion, and philosophy
be recognised.3

3. Criticism of the Physiological Interpretation of the
a priori and of the Poetic Intuition of the Absolute. — To i
Lange belongs the credit of having asserted loudly the I
rights of mind as opposed to vulgar materialism ; I
but by thus relegating to the domain of poetry the

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 15

solution of those problems which are of greatest interest
to the human consciousness, he opens the door to every
kind of fantastic and arbitrary speculation, under-
mining at the same time the most stable foundations
of moral life. His physiological interpretation of the
a priori of Kant deprives science of all essential and
universal value, narrowing it down to a sceptical sub-
jectivity, and merely sets the problem without solving
it. Our physiological constitution is undoubtedly a
part of the world of experience, and therefore the a priori
conditions of its possibility demand investigation.
Lange is not aware that he is moving in a vicious circle :
the basis of mechanical explanation is to be found
in our organic structure, but this structure in its turn
demands a mechanical explanation. It is impossible
to conceive of the physiological organism without making
use of those intuitive forms and categories which are
supposed to be deduced therefrom, and it therefore
presumes the laws of thought and the activity of the
knowing subject. With Lange begins that confusion Jy
between epistemological, psychological, and physio-)
logical problems which serves later as the basis of
empirio-criticism and pragmatism. Thus, then, the doubt
as to the reality of the thing in itself to which it gives
expression is but the first step to phenomenalism which
calls upon psychology and physiology to explain the
illusion of the two opposing terms. On the other hand,
if intelligence be unable to discover the sources of our
organisation which are also the sources of thought,
and if feeling and poetic insight succeed where
intelligence failed, is not creative intuition anterior
and superior to the intellect ? How else, Bergson
would ask, can we reach the inmost heart of things ?
We have seen that the philosophical system of Lange
is vitiated by his incurable habit of begging the question ;
it is nevertheless of great historic value in as much as ,
it strives to overcome sordid materialism, but un-
fortunately he fails to free himself wholly from its toils,
and to place intellectual knowledge on a sure foundation.

16 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

4. The Empirical Prejudice in Helmholtz. — The same
empirical prejudice recurs in Helmholtz,4 who admits
causality as the one and only a priori form, but treats
it as a species of instinct or impulsive tendency, a purely
subjective affair of whose necessity and universality
there can in consequence be no guarantee. It is evident
that this view of the a priori more nearly approaches
the mental attitude of the English empiricists than the
category of Kant as a condition essential to the in-
telligibility of the real ; it is a law of our nature from
which there is no escape, and which for that very reason
must ever be to us an obscure and mysterious power
for which we can in no wise account. How can a
principle which is blind and incomprehensible in itself
help us to interpret experience ? Above all, what value
has the science to which this need gives birth unless it
be that of a contingent and subjective construction ?
The results of the researches of Helmholtz, which seemed
to him to contradict Kant's 5 theories on certain points,
inclined him to adopt the views of Stuart Mill, and even
those expressed earlier by Hume and Berkeley. Intuition
a priori, the universal necessity of mathematical truths,
is excluded by the fact that perception of space is not
inborn but acquired in the course of a slow process of
experience, and more especially by the fact that it is
possible to conceive of a space other than that of which
Euclid treats in his geometry.6 We will leave to the
second part of this book the discussion of the value of
the new geometrical speculations and the alleged proof
that the empiricists have deduced therefrom in support
of their teaching ; for the present we will content our-
selves with pointing out that Helmholtz clearly fails to
distinguish between the epistemological and the psycho-
physiological a prioriy with the result that his analyses
of perception prepare the way for the phenomenalism
of Mach and Avenarius.

5. Liebmann and SchuUze. — The philosophers of
the neo-Kantian school were not, however, all thus
led astray. Liebmann draws a sharp distinction between

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 17

the norms of thought, considered as categorical pre-
scriptions which act as our guides in the search for truth,
and the natural laws of psychology, in accordance with
which objects are presented to the mind, thoughts
change and pass away, and the empirical content of the
consciousness is transformed : the a priori must not be
regarded as an innate idea, but rather as the basis of
sensible experience and of the world of speculation.7
Schultze,8 another adherent of the neo-Kantian school,
observes that the psycho-genetic theory does not in
the least advance the critical problem, i.e. the analysis
of the conditions essential to knowledge at the present
stage of our thought. Both Liebmann 9 and Schultze,10
however, agree with Lange in the doubt he expresses
of the existence of the thing in itself, leaning, as they
do, towards phenomenalistic idealism, and viewing the
noumenon as a mere product of feeling, a poetical
creation of the mind.

6. Criticism of the Neo-Kantian School. — The theories
of the neo-Kantians, whilst thus striving to overcome
the difficulties arising from the conception of the thing
in itself, and from its relations to phenomena, do but
increase those difficulties. We cannot possibly under-
stand how that which is absolutely outside consciousness
can stand in any sort of relation to feeling and im-
agination, the most intimate and subjective functions
of the mind of man. The thing in itself, problematic
as it may be, is ever present, like some mysterious
deity, behind sensible appearances, and our absolute
ignorance of its function forbids us to take for granted
that the stream of phenomena of which it is the source
will always be content to flow in the channel of forms
and intellectual categories. Our mental organism may
subject phenomena to law, but the Absolute is com-
pletely beyond its jurisdiction, and might at any moment
reveal an aspect of itself antagonistic to our nature, and
by so doing imperil the universal character of science.
Are the sensations imparted to us by the unknowable
object purely plastic and amorphous ? If so, it is

c

18 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

difficult to understand why one form of classification
should be more applicable than another, and we end
at the same time in reducing knowledge to nothing more
than a creation of the subject totally devoid of any objec-
tive meaning. Or must we admit data to be possessed
of characteristics and a physiognomy of their own which
act as a stimulus to the activity of thought in certain
directions ? If this be granted, we cannot explain how
these stimuli which have their source in the impenetrable
heart of things can, by some happy accident, be moulded
without any difficulty by the human intellect. This
uncertain equivocal position of neo-Kantian philosophy
left a painful sense of doubt in the mind which no flight
of imagination, even though inspired by genius, and
no feehng, however lofty and poetical, could entirely
dispel.

7. Riehl's Monism. — Biehl, while retaining the
unknowable residuum of the thing in itself, has
endeavoured to invest science with objective validity
by substituting a monistic conception for the sub-
jectivism of the neo-Kantists. The harmony between
the activity of thought and the processes of the real,
which could not be explained by Kantism pure and
simple unless the sensible objects were to be regarded
as a creation of the mind, thus returning to the theories
of romantic idealism, is, according to Kiehl, accounted
for by the identity of the unknowable source, in which
the streams of thought and objective reality both take
their rise, and from which they pursue their course along
parallel lines. The unifying activity of the human mind,
the one and only true a priori, is not purely formal, but
has its objective correlative in the unity of nature, the
ruling idea of scientific research. The intuitive forms
and the categories are not a priori, but are constructed
by the synthetic activity of thought, which is ever
striving to reduce the changeful world of individual
perceptions to a reality possessed of social value ; they
express necessary conditions, because experience in its
manifold forms acquires characteristics of universal

SEC. i THE VOLUNTAKISTS 19

and objective knowledge. Kant considers intuitive
forms to be a priori, because he confuses mathematical
space and time, which are concepts, with sensible space
and time ; whereas they contain a material element
irreducible to pure formal and mathematical relations.11
This must not be taken to mean that either geometry
or mechanics, taking, as they do, sensible data as the
basis of their concepts, are of purely empirical and
contingent value. The activity of thought elaborates
the impressions of the senses in accordance with its
own laws, and thus transforms and completes them
till they correspond to its need of unity and univers-
ality ; and this logical reconstruction is neither arbitrary
nor violent, but answers to their nature, whose source,
as we have already pointed out, is identical with that
of thought.

8. Criticism of Riehl's Philosophy. — There can be no
question that Riehl's conception more nearly succeeds in
placing science on a firm basis than does neo-Kantism ;
but it has the serious drawback of being founded, just
as is the transfigured realism of Spencer, upon a meta-
physical doctrine against which human thought rebels,
i.e. on the hypothesis of that unknowable entity which
nothing but a miracle could bring within the range of
thought. Eiehl not only admits its reality, but credits
it with being the common cause of the two series,
that is to say, with standing in certain functional
relations thereto, thus implicitly assuming it not to be
beyond the forms of our thought. How indeed could it
be so without losing the character of reality ? Can we
conceive of anything real which cannot be translated
more or less definitely into terms of thought ? Eiehl
rightly insists upon the necessity of admitting the
existence of a cause producing our sensations, but
differing from them, since between the stimulus and the
fact of consciousness there is a series of processes which
physiology has described to us in all its stages ; 12 but
the fact that we conceive this cause proves it to be already
known to a certain extent. Monism based upon the

20 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. I

unknowable is a castle in the air : how can we affirm
that to be one of which we can know nothing ? If it
be really unknowable, we cannot possibly apply the
category of number to it. This obscure basis can only
afford an explanation of the harmony of the two worlds
if we assume it to be possessed of a certain rationality ;
otherwise it might be revealed now in one way, now in
another, the latter contradicting the former, and the
thought-series might consequently develop along lines
directly opposed to objective processes. Riehl may
apparently succeed in proving the value of scientific
concepts, but this is simply because he unconsciously
transforms his unknowable into an essentially logical
activity, to which he transfers the synthetic unity
proper to our consciousness, and which he regards as a
kind of potential thought.

9. Elimination of the Thing in Itself and Transition
to Phenomenalistic Monism. — In its final stage of develop-
ment critical philosophy, in order to shake off the fetters
of absurd agnosticism, has striven to eliminate the thing
in itself, and has turned towards that form of monism
prevalent in contemporary philosophy. The older form
of monism always took as its starting-point the duality
of subject and object, of internal and external experience,
and of the psychic and physical world, assuming it as
an undeniable fact, and then trying to reconcile the
opposition of the two regarded as originary empirical data,
by resorting to metaphysical speculation; it imagines,
that is to say, the existence over and above these two
orders of phenomena of a substance sustaining them both,
an entity which might be material or spiritual as best
suited the exigencies of the individual case, or which
might even, should it seem undesirable to define it too
sharply, be regarded as a tertium quid, neither matter
not spirit, unknowable in its essence and hence admirably
adapted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds,
or act the part of a buffer state situated between two
Belligerent powers. The new monism, on the contrary,
maintains the unity of the two orders of phenomena

SBO.I THE VOLUNTARISTS 21

to be a primitive and original datum, the opposition 1
and irreducibility of the two terms to be due to faulty ]
perspective, and to be the outcome of an unconscious
metaphysic ; it further maintains that as soon as this
illusory superstructure is removed, and a return made
to the pure sources of immediate experience, which are .
still unsullied by philosophical reflection, we shall be
able to grasp the undivided unity of the real without
going beyond the limits of the phenomenal. The unity
of the two worlds, the physical and the psychical, is a
presentation, not a structure raised by thought ; it
is the starting-point, not the goal, of philosophical
speculation. There are various degrees of this new
form of monism — which may be designated empirical as
distinguished from the older metaphysical monism—
which spread rapidly during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, and is prevalent at the present
day. We shall see that in its most advanced form it
has the adherence of the critics of the empirical school,
of the French mtuitionists, and the pragmatists, all of
whom agree in denying to original experience the dis- .
tinction between subject and object, which they regard
as a product of posterior reflection, determined by^
motives of a practical order. A more moderate form
of empirical monism is that supported by the philosophers
of immanence, who are at one with the radical empiricists
in maintaining that subject and object are but two
abstract aspects of the phenomenon, or of the content
of concrete consciousness, but who assert on the other
hand that it is impossible to conceive of conscious
reality without making such a distinction, and that the
two terms, subject and object, although neither can
exist independently of the other, are nevertheless real,
in so far as they are distinct though not separate aspects
of experience.13 In short, whilst empirical monism in
its earlier form asserts duality to be illusory or at most
of purely practical value, the later form views it as the
fundamental characteristic of consciousness, and hence
also of reality, which without the two terms would be

22 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

inconceivable : when the attempt is made to do away
with this distinction, the cognitive relation disappears,
and with it every form of real life. This last form of
monism is undoubtedly of greater value than the older
type, which merely moves in a vicious circle while
claiming to deduce from a vague neutral experience
the opposition of the two terms, which is already pre-
sumed by the mere fact that the philosopher thinks this
empirical content, that is to say, that he places it before
his own Ego as something extra-subjective. It is child's
play for the philosopher to argue the duality of subject
and object from non-differentiated experience, when, try
as he may to eliminate all subjectivity, and however
sure he may be that he has succeeded in so doing, his
Ego is still acting as subject, even though he himself
may be quite unaware of the fact, and may be under the
impression that he is constructing it, whereas it has
always been the unseen watcher of his psycho-genetical
researches. The critical idealism of Wundt approaches
very closely to this first form ; the neo-criticism of
Renouvier more nearly to the second.

10. WundCs Critical Idealism. — According to Wundt,14
our presentations are originally identical with the
object : they are at the same time thinker and thought.
No object exists independently of representative activity;
we may admit that objects exist which are not present
to us at this moment, and which are possibly not
present to any consciousness, but we must attribute to
these objects the property of being presentable. If
thought and being, the presentation and the thing,
be postulated as two distinct realities, the cognitive
relation becomes inexplicable, since it is incompre-
hensible how one can be related to the other. The
subject is not anterior to the object — both come into
being as the result of a simultaneous process of abstrac-
tion from the indivisible object of the primitive presenta-
tion the moment thought begins to reflect on the
different aspects of the object in question. The distinc-
tion between the two orders of facts should be preserved

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 23

when it is a question of formulating the data of our
experience with the aid of concepts, but we must bear
in mind that its value is merely that of a distinction
between two stages found in every act of cognition.
Subject and object are two logical determinations of|\
one and the same real fact, not two different facts. The
starting-point of the cognitive process is neither pure
thought nor subjective presentation, but a presentation
in which the character of objectivity is immanent.
The fact that in common thought, and still more in
the scientific elaboration of reality, certain elements
break away from the objective presentation and adhere
to the subjective nucleus, should not lead us to con-
found by means of real separation that which is
merely a distinction necessary to enable science to reach
its goal, and we must above all beware of regarding
the concrete presentation as an illusory appearance
by substituting for it an abstract conceptual fiction,
which, even though it may enable us to order experience
in a higher synthesis, can never take its place as true
reality.15 Why is it that thought does not stop short
at the immediate presentation, the fact as experienced
in the indivisible complex of its three aspects — active,
affective, representative — instead of rising gradually
to generic conceptions until it attains the most abstract
concepts of science and the ultimate notions of meta-
physic ? The latent contradictions contained in
primitive experience act as a stimulus to the thought of
man ; reason, which is, according to Wundt, the only
a priori, strives to purge the presentations of the senses
in such a way as to fulfil its own most intimate require-
ments and conform to its supreme laws. We may
distinguish three stages in this process of refinement,
stages corresponding not to three different forms of
cognition, but rather to three gradations of one and the
same process of refinement of experience : common or
perceptive knowledge, intellectual or scientific know-
ledge, rational or philosophic knowledge. Thought
works spontaneously and unconsciously in the construe-

24 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

tion of the practical world, which therefore appears to us
to be presented from without, but which is in reality
our own work, and bears the stamp of our reason on
the complex of its relations. This explains why the every-
day world is adapted to the successive logical elabora-
tions of science. In the first stage of knowledge we
construct things with their temporal and spatial relations.
Time and space are not a priori forms, as Kant con-
sidered them to be, but elements forming part of the
complex of concrete perception, which are only re-
garded separately to suit the requirements of logic and
epistemology. Abstract division is, however, possible
in so far as the form permits of variation independently
of the matter, and vice versa ; hence the sensorial content
may be heterogeneous, whilst the spatial properties
remain constant and uniform.16 Thought, in order that
it may the more readily eliminate the contradictions
inherent in the practical world, separates certain elements
from the perceptions, and attributes them to the subject ;
but, after what has already been said, it is clear that
this distinction can only be of a heuretic nature, and that
it does not correspond to anything real.17 Thus it
follows that the world, though it may when reduced
to purely mathematical terms, as science conceives of
it, answer more nearly to the requirements of reason,
in as much as it eliminates a large number of contradic-
tions along with the qualitative content of common
reality, is nevertheless not possessed of a higher degree of
objectivity than is the primitive and still unpurified
presentation.

The hypothetical concepts to which science has
recourse in its efforts to classify the complex of experi-
ence coherently are valueless in the field of real know-
ledge, although useful in so far as they enable us to
comprehend a large number of objects in a single act
of thought, and to transfer the same logical considera-
tions from one object to another belonging to the same
class. Our cognitive activity has the individual, not the
general, as its goal ; hence the concepts of real cognitive

MO. i THE VOLUNTABISTS 25

value are not general but individual, generic presenta-
tions, that is to say, of particular objects. Thus, then,
the supreme ideas which satisfy the demand of reason,
that the totality of experience which has never been
presented in its completeness should be comprised in
a coherent whole, cannot be assumed as principles of
real knowledge ; nevertheless we cannot agree with
Kant that the effort to complete the series must confront
us with insoluble antinomies or force us to posit a tran-
scendent and unknowable reality beyond the realm of
phenomena. The aim of ideas is not to comprehend
the thing in itself, but merely to embrace all experi-
ence in a harmonious system which shall satisfy the
exigencies of reason and sentiment alike.

11. Wundt's Undecided Position. — While the older
speculative idealism took the subject as its starting-
point, deducing the object therefrom by means of
dialectic, Wundt reverses the process, starting from
the objective presentation and endeavouring to recon-
struct the knowing subject by essentially psychological
means. In this method lies the fundamental error of
his theory. From the psychological point of view it
is impossible to deny that self-consciousness is not a
primitive fact, but rather something which is slowly
acquired by means of an evolutionary process of which
the phases can be described, so that the presentation of
the object may be existent from the beginning without its
being aware thereof. We must not, however, confound
the empirical Ego, the historic Ego, with the epistemo-
logical subject which defies every attempt at analysis
or deduction, since such analysis and deduction neces-
sarily presuppose its existence. There is a subjective
side to every thought, even though we may not be aware
of it, and it is this common form which brings within
the bounds of possibility the convergence and continuity
of individual thoughts, which would otherwise remain
extraneous to one another. Neither will it avail to look
to memory for an explanation of the synthesis of person-
ality, since memory in its turn presupposes the identity

26 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE rr.i

of the Ego from the epistemological point of view. How
could we recognise our thoughts of the past if the Ego
of yesterday had nothing in common with the Ego of
to-day ? If the a priori of reason be once admitted, does
not that of the epistemological subject necessarily follow ?
We cannot conceive of reason apart from the identity of
the Ego. Ego = Ego is the logical presupposition of every
/ other affirmation of identity whatsoever : the coherency
I of human personality is the concrete basis of the co-
I herency of thought. If, on the other hand, as Wundt
teaches, every thought bear the stamp of objectivity,
reason in every stage of its activity, whether conscious
or unconscious, must always be ranked as an objective
reality. The concepts of science and the ultimate ideas
of philosophy must be constituent parts of the real no
less than are presentations. Is the distinction between
subject and object, then, illusory or not ? Is being
immanent in every thought or not ? Only if we look
upon reality as something distinct from thought can
we fairly speak of purely formal activity, subjective in
the Kantian sense of the word, or of an intellectual
or rational elaboration with nothing objective about
it ; but this, applied to the theory enunciated by
Wundt, would be meaningless. In short, either the
exigencies of reason are legitimate, in which case they
are so not only with regard to the construction of
individual concepts, but also with regard to the ulterior
processes of thought whose aim it is to eliminate the
contradictions latent in earlier stages, and to substitute
more coherent systems for the lower forms of reality ;
or else this claim of reason to do away with all con-
tradictions in the concrete world of experience is un-
founded, in which case we must strive to undo this
work of falsification as far as possible, in order to return
to pure experience and primitive intuition.

Once we start in this direction we must follow it
to the end, i.e. empiric-criticism and Bergson's doctrine
of intuition. Wundt, however, is reluctant to go so
far, and he retains the concept of a presentation

SBC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 27

which does not bear the imprint of thought, and stops
short at the generic image, which for some reason or
other is privileged to keep the characteristic of object-
ivity. We have hardly advanced a step higher, and
resolutely banished the concrete presentation, when
the ensuing concept ceases to correspond to anything
real and becomes but a convenient symbol of a class
of objects. Now this uncertain position is not tenable :
if the scientific concept does not correspond to something
objective, it can, according to Mach, be nothing more
than a useful tool ; in that case what becomes of the
a priori of reason ? Logical exigency too becomes but
a means of saving mental energy, which would otherwise
be incapable of mastering the countless successions of
individual presentations. It is impossible to conceive
of an a priori reason which is not also a constituent
part of reality. If, as Wundt affirms, the scientific world
eliminates the latent contradictions of the world of ideas,
it cannot for that reason be looked upon as less real
and less objective ; unless indeed we are prepared to
admjt the absurd paradox that the contradictory is
more real than that which is devoid of contradictions.
Thought and reality are not exhausted by presenta-
tion ; it is not true that we can postulate nothing as
real which cannot be presented ; all that can fairly be
asserted is that nothing exists which cannot be thought
or which, in other words, is inconceivable. Wundt' s
conclusion would be justifiable from the point of view
of nominalism, which denies the existence of the concept
apart from the individual image, but he draws a dis-
tinction between the concept and the sign which
represents and defines it; that is to say, he admits
its reality in consciousness ; and since, according to
him, the being of the object is immanent in thought,
the logical conclusion would be that the concept of
the universe too is of objective value. Does cognitive
activity endeavour to ehminate contradictions because
it aims at the individual, or rather because amid the
various and transient aspects of things it would fain

28 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

grasp the oneness of universal law ? There is nothing
contradictory about the individual, as presented to us
by immediate intuition ; the contradictory element is
introduced when we attempt to turn a fugitive experi-
ence, which is real only at that concrete moment, and
will never occur twice in the same way, into a persistent
thing, existing independently of ourselves, or, in other
words, when we demand a revelation of the universal
from immediate presentation. The image must then
of necessity seem inadequate, and thought is con-
scious of the need of transcending it, and constructs
scientific and philosophic reality with the help of its
concepts. If the aim of knowledge were to grasp the
concrete individual there would be no contradiction ;
the contradiction arises the moment we seek in sensible
appearances the characteristics of universality which are
proper to thought. Wundt's philosophy, which regards
the individual as the end of knowledge, whilst implicitly
denying its starting-point, the a priori of the reason,
must perforce, when carried to its ultimate conclusion,
lead to empirio-criticism.

12. The Return to the Voluntarism of Schopenhauer. —
Wundt shows himself even more plainly as the opponent
of intellectualism in psychology and metaphysics than
in the theory of knowledge, regarding, as he does, will
as the principle, not merely of psychic life, but also of
all cosmic development.18 This return to Schopenhauer,
which achieved its first startling success as early as 1869
in Hartmann's philosophy of the Unconscious, is closely
connected with the spread of the theory of evolution
and of energetic conceptions. The tendency of every
organism to self-preservation — the motive power of the
struggle for existence — does, as a matter of fact, approxi-
mate closely to Schopenhauer's will to live ; hence the
derivation of intelligence from instinctive life which
Darwinism asserted itself able to prove woke an answer-
ing chord in his philosophy. On the other hand, the
active principle of energy, which had already taken the
place of the inert atom in Spencer's First Principles, bore

SEC. i THE VOLUNTAEISTS 29

a strong resemblance to the blind unconscious impulse
which Schopenhauer regards as the essence of physical
reality. Hence it was natural that voluntarism should
seem the metaphysical view best suited to explain the
processes of evolution and supply that which was lack-
ing in the mechanical theory. The spontaneous and
productive activity of will to which consciousness
points as the creator of new concrete forms might
perhaps have given us the clue to this historical develop-
ment, which eluded the abstract formulas of scientific
intellectualism. As a matter of fact, von Hartmann,19
Wundt, and Fouillee M all call upon the will to perform
this task in their systems, of which a new philosophy
of evolution forms an essential part.21

13. Von Hartmann' s Philosophy of the Unconscious.—
Metaphysical voluntarism, which was thus the outcome
of the necessity of unifying scientific intellectualism,
and which was called into being by this very doctrine
of evolution as its complement, loses that absolute
irrationality characterising it in Schopenhauer's philo-
sophy, when it strives to absorb the results of science
and to justify its existence therewith. It has ceased)
to be an unseeing impulse giving birth to the cosmic)
process, and has become a will, in which reason andJ
idea are present, even though it may be unconscious^
or but dimly conscious that this is the case. As
we have already seen, Wundt regards will as being
at the same time rational thought ; Fouillee views
the " idee-force " as the synthesis of the two principles.
Von Hartmann looks upon the unconscious as being
both will and idea.22 We are still far from the ex-
aggerations of empirio-criticism and pragmatism, against
which von Hartmann ** and Fouillee M protest ; but
although these philosophers do not go so far as to
agree with Paulsen's assertion that science by reason
of its poor practical results must be looked upon as
being a thing of the past, and that the future lies
open to faith, they adopt a critical attitude towards
scientific truth which is very far removed from the

30 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

j dogmatic faith of the old mechanical theory. Hartmann
|~Tmaintains that physical science will never lead us to

I certainty, but only to hypotheses of varying degrees

f of probability. Every scientific concept presupposes
an abstraction made from a determinate point of view,
a selection of characteristics according to a criterion
which is always hypothetical and becomes less and less
probable as the distance between concrete experience
and ourselves increases, and we approach the ultimate
concepts of physical science (energy, potential, entropy,
(mass, matter, force, etc.). The hypothetical character

""^becomes still more obvious in induction, which goes
beyond facts as directly perceived, and strives to
determine the objective causes to which they are due.
It is but an hypothesis that there is such a thing as
real nature, and that our laws are valid in the realm
of that real nature — an hypothesis, moreover, which
cannot be proved, since we can never go beyond the
subjective sphere of our own consciousness, and yet,
whatever phenomenalists may say, we must leave it
behind if we would construct a system of physical
science ; he who never goes beyond the domain of
sensations and their relations is a psychologist, but he
will never succeed in expressing the objective world
in scientific terms. I^othing but the realistic pre-
sumption that cause, time, and intelligible space of
three dimensions have a transcendent validity can
enable us to speak with truth of natural laws
differing from those of psychology, or of objective
movements in conformity with the ideal laws which
our thought conceives ; but this presumption is an
hypothesis and must ever remain so.25 The progress of
physical science may enable us to arrive at an accurate,
quantitative determination of the coefficients of prob-
ability of each individual law, but it can never trans-
form that probability into certainty.26

Thus the whole of von Hartmann's system depends
upon an hypothesis, since the very unconsciousness
which is supposed to be the cause common to the cognitive

SEC. i THE VOLIJNTARISTS 31

process and the real world is in its turn but probable
knowledge similar in nature to all causes transcending
the order of phenomena. The efforts of philosophy in
this direction are no more successful than those of
science ; von Hartmann holds, just as does Wundt, that
the ultimate principle to which philosophy leads us is,
in its absolute transcendence, of purely hypothetical
value. Human reason, whatever efforts it may make,
must always leave some thing exterior to itself : that
element which is beyond logic, and whose dark mysterious
depths can never be sounded by thought. Philosophy,
Wundt tells us,27 may prove the necessity of faith in. a
universal Will, but can never transform that faith into
knowledge ; hence the assertion of the reality of this
supreme principle belongs to the subjective sphere of
feeling, which has its rights just as much as has that of
reason. Von Hartmann bases philosophy upon a power
of divination, partaking of the nature of genius, which
identifies us with that unconscious spiritual activity
lying at the root of existence more nearly than discursive
intelligence could succeed in doing. Every system takes
its rise in mystic intuition; hence it is only capable of
proof to its originator and to those who by a process of
mystical creation can rediscover its essential elements
within themselves.28 This intellectual process, however,
which von Hartmann takes from Schelling, must either
be conscious in some way or other, in which case the
term absolute unconsciousness is out of place, or else
utterly transcends our conscious life, in which case it
is difficult to see how its existence can be stated as
a fact. Von Hartmann in reality falls into the very
error which lies at the root of Spencer's agnostic
evolution ; he ascribes the character of actual reality
to something which has no essential connection with
consciousness, which existed and could have continued
to exist in its absolute unconsciousness even had the
idea never happened to be born of the will, and to
produce therein by its sudden appearance a feeling
of stupefaction, a reaction which is the beginning of

32 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

conscious life.29 Agnosticism is the fatal result of this
view of the relation between being and consciousness ; it
is true that von Hartmann contrives to avoid this sceptical
conclusion, but he does so because his Unconscious is
only nominally such ; in reality his description of it
involves a much higher form of consciousness than
our own, one capable of grasping in a single act of
intuition that which discursive intelligence views as
developing in the indefinite and inexhaustible series of
time.

14. Fouillee's Idee-force. — Fouillee must be credited
with having resolutely put aside the absurdity of the
epiphenomenal consciousness which is suddenly super-
imposed upon physical energy or upon the idea emanat-
I ing from the will in some unknown miraculous way. Un-
\ like those men of science who would fain reduce psychic
life to an automatic mechanism, a complex of reflex
'actions, Fouillee passes from psychology to cosmology,
and endeavours thus to prove that physical evolution
itself is inexplicable if the factor of consciousness be
not taken into account.30 The starting-point of every
, process of development is not brute movement, but
* rather psychical appetitive or reflex process which is
at once an obscure presentation, a feeling of a more
or less vague nature and an activity.31

Mechanical evolution is not a primitive law, but the

/ form and outer sign of the appetitive process which is

the true inner essence in ourselves, and in all probability

in everything else. Darwinism does not ask us to

regard biological and psychological phenomena as a

complication of mechanical laws, but would rather have

us understand from the struggle for existence that

mechanism itself is a form of this struggle for life,

which, rightly understood, resolves itself in its turn

into a struggle for the minimum of suffering and the

maximum of well-being, or, in other words, into a struggle

/• of wills.32 The world is not a complex of inert atoms,

) but a vast social organism of wills united by the bond

) of mutual sympathy. Philosophy in its ultimate

SBC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 33

analysis looks upon the idea of the universal association of
consciousnesses as the basis of that which was formerly
termed nature,33 and thus replaces scientific abstractions
by the full complete synthesis of living reality. Science,
which looks upon the relations of things independently
of the subject which wills and thinks and of existence
in its totality, affords us but an abstract vision, which
cannot take in the fulness of reality, the unity of things
with the mind which is conscious of them and with the
entire universe. Philosophy cannot therefore stop short
at the objective synthesis courted by positivism, but must
integrate and complete it by re-establishing that intimate
relation with the conscious subject which is ignored
by scientific research.34 As the eye of the philosopher
learns to range over wider horizons he will see less of
the unbending certainty which science attains by limiting
its objective ; the outlines of ideas will become less
sharply defined, until they fade away altogether in that
mysterious distance which is the domain of faith,
probability, and feeling.35 Faith and feeling must not,
however, rise in revolt against intellectual knowledge,
which, limited as it may be, is yet our surest possession,
whereas the indefinite character of feeling renders it
most liable to fall into error. The heart may have
reasons which carry weight, but it is to reason that we
must look for recognition of their truth. Love and will
may in practice supply that which is lacking in knowledge,
but they cannot turn uncertainty into certainty, except
by means of an illusion which cannot be taken as a rule
of life. The most important of the duties of man is
to search for the greatest possible number of assured
truths ; and there can be no true certainty apart from
intellectual certainty. The efficacy of faith is an
incontrovertible fact, but its efficacy is no proof of its
truth ; the creed of the Mohammedan is false, although
it has led him to victory.36

Fouillee thus raises the standard of rebellion against S
the excesses of pragmatism and the doctrine of con- )
tingency, and resolutely asserts that morality without /

D

34 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

reason cannot exist, and that if liberty could only be
had at the price of intelligence, it would be better to
retain reason even at the cost of liberty than to enjoy
freedom without reason, and in defiance of reason itself.37
Yet, although Fouillee's psychological determinism38 is
the very antipodes of the doctrine of contingency, there
can be no doubt that he too has helped to initiate and
spread the reaction from intellectualism by means of
his evolutionary theory of knowledge, which, while
striving to correct and modify the Spencerian doctrine
of evolution, is in agreement with its fundamental
principle — the biological significance of the intellectual
function. He may not fall into the error of deriving
consciousness from a physical process, but he persistently
looks for the origin of the supreme categories of the
intelligence in the need for the preservation of the
species, in that will to live which is the motive power
of the struggle for existence.

The proposition he endeavours to prove in the
Psychologic des Idees-Forccs is to all intents and purposes
identical with that which becomes later the dominant
note of pragmatism ; knowledge is but a means which
we have artificially turned into an end by severing it
from the sensitive, emotional, and motor process, the
living circle of which it naturally forms part.39 Neither
physical nor logical evolutionism can account for that
thought which is deeply rooted in the will, understood,
not in the intellectual sense of an ultimate or exemplary
cause acting in view of an end which it has before it, of
an ideal good ideally conceived, but rather as a tendency
to preserve unimpaired the immediate feeling of pleasure
which affords satisfaction to the organism.40

15. The Endeavour to reconcile Pragmatism and
InteUectualism. — If these premises be granted, may not
the conclusions drawn from them by empirio-criticism
and pragmatism be regarded as justifiable ? If the
theoretical function be really of no intrinsic value by
itself ; if it be but a tool forged by the will to live in order
to ensure the preservation of the organism, then science

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 35

and philosophy, which are the offspring of that function,
have no end of their own, but owe any importance they
may poselites to their relation to practical activity. That
belief or theory which enables us to gain the victory
in the struggle for existence must be true ; that which
fails to attain that end, false : such is the one and only
criterion of this new instrumental logic. Fouillee,*/
however, shrinks from going to such extremes, though
such a conclusion is the logical outcome of his biological
theory of knowledge, and takes up a dubious position,
a half-way house between intellectualism and prag-
matism. By conceiving the idea as possessed of force,41
he deems it possible to reconcile the theory of the
intellectualists, which looks on truth as a harmony,
with that of voluntarism, which regards it as an action
or active belief, since truth is simultaneously and in-
divisibly a harmony of actions and ideas, derived from
an intelligent will or an active_intelhgence. Even
though the main claim of knowledge to importance
may be the work it acaornplishes as an instrument of
life in the course of evolution, this does not constitute
its only value ; ideas are undoubtedly of value as forces,
but they are also valuable as ideas.42 They are not
merely a residuum of abstraction, but are a manifesta-
tion of higher reality, because the process of elabora-
tion to which thought subjects data enables us to
penetrate more deeply into the heart of nature. Only
by a dogmatic abuse of the transcendent unknowable
does it become possible to affirm that thought trans-
forms reality, as if thought were not the same reality
at a more advanced stage of development, a higher level
of consciousness and action. Reality does not shrink,
but rather attains to its full stature in the full con-
sciousness of thought and in the moral will.43

Now I quite agree with Fouillee in this vindication
of the objective value of thought, and readily subscribe
to his criticism of the relativity of knowledge, and of
the subjectivism of Kant, whose weak points he
exposes more clearly than Wundt, recognising, as he

36 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE rr. i

does, the character of objectivity, not in sensible know-
ledge of phenomena alone, but also in every stage of
scientific and philosophic elaboration ; u but I fail to
\ see how this declaration of the value of the understanding
( can be reconciled with the biological view which would
( trace its origin to the elementary needs of life. If, as
j Fouillee himself says, it is to the loftiest forms of the
mind that we must look for the deepest and fullest
revelation of reality, if the participation of this reality
in the life of things be in proportion to the higher
intellectual, moral, and above all, social determinations
it contains ; if we approximate more closely to the
universal will when we think than when we feel,45 then
neither psychic reflex, obscure appetition, nor the im-
pulsive will to live which aims at immediate satisfaction
can afford us an explanation of that intelligent volition
which is capable of setting universal ends before itself ;

!we must rather look to the moral will infused with intel-
ligence for the explanation we desire of the rudimentary
forms of volition, " How," we would ask in Fouillee's
own words, " can the meanest existence be the most
faithful transcript of the world ? " 46 Whilst Fouillee,
the idealistic philosopher, proclaims that man mirrors
the universe more faithfully than does the animal,
Fouillee, the biologist and psychologist, who is still
under the influence of the preconceptions of positivism,
looks for the cause of the birth of intelligence in the blind
instinct of the animal, and in the vague feeling of the
protozoa and its tendency to preserve agreeable stimuli.
Thus the way is cut off which leads to that synthesis
of volition and idea, whose living expression is found
in personality conscious of its ends, not in the rudi-
mentary forms of primitive impulse. The idee- force
reconciles in itself the opposing systems of voluntarism
and intellectualism, if we understand by it active thought}
or intelligent will ; if, on the other hand, we identify it
with obscure appetition and the instinctive tendency to
preserve life, it degenerates into the absolute irrationalism
taught by Schopenhauer. Fouillee halts between the

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 37

two meanings, but leans more toward the latter, which,
alleging as it does that thought is a product of vital
adjustment, certainly cannot be said to recognise its
intrinsic value.

16. Ultimate Consequences of Voluntarism as seen in
Paulsen. — Fouillee's undecided position is not tenable :
if we are to look to the will to live for the origin and
meaning of the intelligence, we must resolutely put
on one side the thesis of the intellectualists according
to which the idea is possessed of autonomous value,
and we must accept, as do Paulsen and Nietzsche, the
extreme conclusions of the voluntarism which regards
reason merely as an organ of volition. Paulsen
affirms 47 that the whole structure of the mind is a
contingent product of the evolution of species : time,
space, and the categories have come into being in
the course of development, just as the eye, the ear,
and the brain have done ; hence they represent the
variable and secondary part of consciousness, whilst
will, which is present in all manifestations of life alike,
and may by analogy be assumed to be at the basis of
material activity, is the true first and constant principle
of both mind and universe. Will, not reason, defines
the end of life : intelligence plays but a subordinate
part — that of finding the means best suited to the accom-
plishment of that end ; and, since the true task of
philosophic research is to determine the meaning of
existence, which is manifested only in the relations
existing between things and our will, and in that
obscure feeling which forms the basis of all our valua-
tions, we must not look to intellectual knowledge with its
indifference to every value to bring us into contact with
the underlying life of things, but rather to moral and
religious belief .« The certainty that the world is not an
utterly meaningless game of unseeing forces, that the
supreme good to which our will is directed is also the
end and aim of the cosmic process is not bestowed upon
us by science, which is but an apparatus for the registra-
tion of the real in the sphere of phenomena, but owes

38 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT- i

its origin to our keen sense of duty, and to the religious
faith which we place without asking for theoretical
proof in a perfect Being, the creator of all values.49

17. Criticism of Voluntarism and the Theory of Faith.
— Paulsen thus returns to the antiquated mysticism of
tradition ; he exaggerates the agnostic subjectivism
which is the weak point of Kant's system, and finds
fault with Kant for precisely that which is of the greatest
value in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, namely the
distinction he draws between the epistemological method
and psycho-genetic research, the piece de resistance of the
English empiricists. It is indeed strange that Paulsen,
who insists so strongly on the inadequacy of the scientific
method for the determination of values, should yet call
upon the scientific theory of evolution to assist him in
his denial of the value of intelligence ! As a matter of
fact, whatever he may say to the contrary, he is still
fettered by the science he would fain reject : is not the
analogy which forms the basis of his system, the process
of induction from subjective volition to cosmic will
manifested in phenomena, an intellectual process ? Is not
the identification of the end of the universe with good—
our loftiest aspiration — a thought rather than a feeling ?
Are we to form no idea or conception of the end of
activity ? Paulsen, whilst deluding himself into the
belief that he derives the cognitive function from will,
really assumes its existence the moment he states
that it aims at the preservation of the individual and
the species, even though it may do so unconsciously ;
because it is at bottom the idea of this end which enables
the philosopher to deduce the cognitive organ as a
means of its realisation ; logically then, if not psycho-
logically, this concept is present in the most elementary
forms of life. Moreover, in order to explain the biological
process of evolution we are continually forced to refer
to the conditions present in the environment, to take
for granted, that is to say, an external reality having a
specified structure to which the organism must adapt itself
if it would live ; and the concept of this external reality

SEC. i THE VOLUNTAKISTS 39

has already called into action the forms of space and
time and all the categories which are supposed to be
born in some miraculous way of the will to five, whereas
the mind of the philosopher has already taken them
for granted the very instant he begins his so-called
genetic explanation of the intelligence.

Moreover, the very will to live, which is the starting-
point of the whole process of deduction, is (if by it we
understand a universal activity) not a feeling, but
a concept ; it is not pure volition directly experienced,
but will reflected by thought, which has thus become the
idea of a cosmic will embracing all things. The more
capable volition is of becoming a principle of philosophic
explanation, the more will it become, so to speak,
infused with intellect : philosophy cannot be built up
on nothing but feeling. Faith, which would fain take
the place of knowledge as the basis of the system,
though undoubtedly comprising an active and feeling
element, also implies an intellectual aspect, no matter
in what form it may present itself. The presentation or
concept of a thing is essential to belief therein.

Paulsen, like all the apostles of the will, turns to
psychological analysis for proofs of the primacy of
will ; but although the voluntaristic tendency was
welcomed so warmly by psychology (it will suffice to
quote the names of Hoffding, Stout, Ward, and Jodl,
in addition to the philosophers already mentioned),
it does not appear to me that the results of obser-
vation of consciousness afford sufficient proof of
such a theory. The strong point of voluntarism was
that it combated Herbart's mechanical theory of
presentations, by laying stress upon the active and
spontaneous element in psychic life ; but it went to the
other extreme when it treated the will as the principle
of all psychological explanation. It is true that if
we examine into consciousness we shall find that
there is no such thing as an intellectual manifestation
in which will does not take part, and that theoretical
investigation is impossible without an act of volition

40 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

^having a definite aim in view, but we must also recognise
that there is no stage of practical activity of which
sensation (vague and confused as it may be), presentation,
and thought do not form constituent parts. Intellect
and will always manifest themselves to us as two
aspects of a single process, these two aspects being only
separable by a process of abstraction. Nor, on the
other hand, can the evolutionary genesis of con-
sciousness be adduced in support of the primacy of
the will ; whatever Paulsen may say to the contrary,
practical activity is no less variable than theoretic
function, and true will is due to a process of
development just as much as intelligence ; the gulf
between the impulsive tendency of the protozoa and
the moral will is no less wide than that between
elementary sensibility and the most abstract thought.
It is nothing but an abuse of terms to apply the word
mil to such widely differing phenomena, an abuse
which has given birth to the illusion of the constancy
of volition in contradistinction to the variability of
cognitive function in the course of evolution ; in reality
the two aspects develop on parallel lines, and each is
implied by the other.

18. Nietzsche's Individualistic Voluntarism. — The reac-
tion from intellectualism reaches its zenith in the works
of Friedrich Nietzsche,50 in which are foreshadowed the
aestheticism of Bergson and the pragmatism of Schiller
and James, while voluntarism is divested of its universal
and determinist character, the last vestige of traditional
intellectualism, and assumes the picturesque attitude of
the rebel against all and every necessary law, and of the
champion of individual genius — the creator of new values
—against the universal norms which would reduce every-
thing to the same level. vNietzsche regards knowledge
merely as a manifestation by the will towards power which
constructs the concept of permanent being and causal
necessity, creates space, homogeneous time, and all the
scientific categories, classifying events with their help
in such a way as to render it possible to foresee them,

SEC. i THE VOLUNTAKISTS 41

and doing so in order that it may assert itself in a given
sphere of reality, and establish its supremacy over the
perennial flux of phenomena, and the chaotic alternation
of variable and fugitive sensations. The significance
of truth does not lie in correspondence with an objective
order, but rather in the needs and vital tendencies
which it satisfies by ensuring the triumph of the indi-
vidual and the species — an assertion as ingenious as
it is paradoxical, into which we shall enter more fully
in the more systematic form given to it by empirio-
criticists, pragmatists, and the upholders of the doctrine
of contingency.

<j «/ ,

19. The Philosophy of Freedom : Ravaisson, Secretan.
—In addition to the causes already enumerated, there
are certain other exigencies of an ethical order which
helped to bring about the triumph of voluntarism,
regarded in its negative aspect as the adversary of
scientific knowledge ; of these the most important is
the necessity of ensuring the freedom of the will which
the universal determinism of science threatened to
destroy. Kant in his doctrine of the primacy of
practical reason had pointed out clearly the way of
escape from this difficult position, and it was along
these lines, already boldly pursued by Fichte, that a
number of philosophic systems were developed, even
before the yoke of materialism had been shaken off,
which regarded free moral action as the principle of the
whole cosmic process, and necessity merely as a more
or less illusory presentation of the spontaneity lying at
the root of ah1 being. According to Ravaisson,51 the
apparent fatality of nature is the result of a habit formed
by the repetition of a free action ; hence it is in the
spontaneous act that we shall find the true essence
of the world : things are not the outcome of brute
mechanism, but of the development of a voluntary
tendency to perfection and beauty. In like manner
Secretan 52 maintains that necessity owes its origin
to free divine creation, that it is not determined by
logical reasons, but is the spontaneous outpouring of

42 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

love and grace. Knowledge is not the absolute end,
but rather a means to the edification of the world whose
supreme reason is to be found in the moral order ; the
will is at the root of everything ; consciousness is a means
by which the will takes possession of itself ; the per-
fecting of the will is the end of science.53 " I believe,"
says Secretan, " in the primacy of practical reason and
cast my vote freely for liberty."

20. Lotze and the Primacy of Practical Reason —
Hermann Lotze is the most illustrious representative of
this form of ethical or teleological idealism M which
arose in opposition to the invading forces of materialism.
Lotze, though a deliberate and strenuous advocate of
the advantages of the mechanical view in the field of em-
pirical science, was not carried away by the current of
his day, and thus did not over-rate its importance in the
realm of speculation. He was too sensible of ethical and
religious needs M to rest content with a system of philo-
sophy which robbed the world of all significance, and
regarded the soul of man as the product of some un-
seeing mechanism ; hence, he is unwilling to stop short
at that which he and Kant alike view as the inevitable
conclusion of the theoretic spirit, and turns to the moral
life and the world of values in his search for the basis
of metaphysics,56 and to the good, and the ethical norm
for the true content of the world, and the substance of
all process.57

Only by looking at that which ought to be can we
understand that which is, since nothing takes place in
nature independently of the end and meaning of the whole
to which each part owes its existence, and its efficacy.58
And in the light of the whole and the absolute, we see
that the actions of beings which from the finite point
of view of science would seem to be determined by
mechanical laws, are in reality spontaneous acts ; and
necessary laws, passively obeyed, are transformed
into ideal norms, voluntarily recognised.59 Value is
then the gauge of all reality ; each thing exists, and will
endure only in proportion to its value ; that only will

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 43

last for ever which has a part to play in the harmony
of the whole.60 The cognitive function too is sub-
ordinated to the end of practical activity, and truth
is of value merely as a necessary presupposition of the
actualisation of the good.61 The doctrine of the primacy
of practical reason, which, together with the idea of
value, is the pivot on which the whole of Lotze's system
turns, becomes later on the ruling principle of the
philosophies of Windelband, Miinsterberg, Royce, and
Eickert, and we shall therefore have occasion to discuss
it fully in its epistemological and metaphysical develop-
ments, when we analyse that form of reaction from
intellectualism which constitutes the new philosophy
of values. We shall also see a new current of thought
spring from the philosophy of liberty, a current
which, flowing down from the precipitous peaks
of speculation into the field of criticism, and bringing
the spontaneity of the transcendent sphere of the
absolute into the immanent order of phenomena,
will burst asunder that iron mechanism which Lotze,
like Kant, recognised as confining liberty within the
noumenal principle, which is both eternal and beyond
time. The neo-criticism of Renouvier marks a vital
stage in this transition, which is of immense importance
in the beginning of the reaction from intellectualism,
because it leads to the denial of the value of intelligence
even in the sphere of phenomena, within which it had
hitherto been considered unassailable, since its in-
capacity was limited to the domain of metaphysical
speculation.

21. Psychological Development of the Theory of the
Primacy of Practical Reason in the Phenomenalism of
Renouvier. — Liberty, confined to the absolute, is non-
existent as far as we are concerned ; that which is of
moment to us as an essential condition of moral responsi-
bility is not the liberty of God, but that of man ; that
is to say, the efficacy of free will in the domain of pheno-
menal consciousness. If our empirical character be a link
in the necessary chain of phenomena, how can the human

44 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

being in his concreteness act freely without breaking the
bonds of this natural necessity ? We have to choose
between the law of necessity which lays an iron grasp
upon us, stifling our most living aspirations, and the
free spontaneity of feeling which knows no limits to the
sphere of action of the mind ; and of these alternatives,
duty commands us to choose the second.62 The will must
-not be subordinated to the intellect ; on the contrary,
the will must conquer the intellectual function. Accord-
ing to Renouvier,63 all knowledge is belief, and every
I belief implies a voluntary decision. Thinking involves
affirming and judging, every judgment is a voluntary
act : thus liberty lies at the very root of intelligence.
The problem of certainty is not a logical, but a psycho-
logical and moral problem, whose solution depends on
that of the problem of liberty. Every assertion which
goes beyond the immediately present state of conscious-
ness presupposes, in addition to the reasons for belief,
an act of will, a parti pris to affirm.

Thought is not something necessary and impersonal
— we only believe in proportion as we ardently long and
will so to do : reason is practical in all its degrees, in
all its forms and in all its functions. The distinction
between phenomenon and noumenon must disappear
together with that between pure and practical reason :
there is but one world, the world of phenomena, the
world which we picture to ourselves, the world of space
and time, and it is just this world which we must con-
template in the light shed upon it by the idea of moral
order. The postulates of practical reason do not carry
us beyond the bounds of experience, they rather extend
it in accordance with our moral requirements. The
categories exist by the same right as do phenomena,
and are given with them : they are neither more nor
less than universal phenomena, which cannot be deduced
a priori from a single principle, but which must be
extracted from experience. The special characteristic
of the categories lies in the fact that, while they are
manifested in a particular form in phenomenal data,

s*c. i THE VOLUNTAEISTS 45

they are still presented as something superior to experi-
ence, able to act as its guide, and to subject it to laws ;
so that we expect to see them verified constantly. It
is thus that we must understand the a priori, not as a
subjective form applicable to the data of the outer
world. Subject and object are but two aspects of
the phenomenon, that which presents and that which is
presented. If I apply the term " mine " to presenta-
tions, I do so because they are bound up with feel-
ings, acts of volition, and certain material and organic
phenomena in such a way as to form a distinct whole,
subject to laws of its own; in like manner, when I speak
of an object or thing, I understand thereby merely the
presentations.

The idea of substance is inadmissible, because it
leads to the actual infinite which Renouvier looks
upon as a contradictory concept. By the very law
of its formation a number must have a successor ;
we cannot conceive of an actual number without any
successor, than which therefore no greater number
exists.64 Let us take the infinite series of numbers as
data ; let us find the square of each number in the series,
we shall then obtain another series which must on the
one hand contain the same number of terms as the first
series, but which must on the other hand (since it is
made up of squares only) contain a smaller number,
since the first contains in addition to these all the other
numbers ; now it is absurd that a number should be at
the same time greater and smaller than another.65 The
law of finite number delivers us from the metaphysic
of materialism,66 and enables us to resolve the anti-
nomies by rejecting the antithesis, which violates the
law of contraction, and by forming the concept of finite
and interrupted series of phenomena. Renouvier regards
the principle of discontinuity or discreteness of phenomena
as the supreme law of the real,67 a law directly opposed
to the principle of continuity advocated by Leibnitz.
We are thus led to look upon the elements of bodies as
being separate from one another, to regard contact

46 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

as an appearance, forces as acting between distant
points, and acting in time as discontinuous and in-
termittent, of an essentially periodic and ejaculatory
character. All movements, although they appear con-
tinuous, are composed of a series of initiatory acts and
beginnings, interconnected by laws, i.e. mathematical
functions which give expression to their reciprocal
relations. *The idea of cause is thus transformed and
purged from the gross images of contact, impulse, and
the transference of force from one object to another ;
the old fetish of causality, and all its attendant images
are brought with the help of our reflective knowledge into
harmony with phenomena and with our experience of
their determinate and invariable concatenation in certain
cases by means of certain preceding data. We are
enabled to restore to phenomena, under the form of
laws, those elements of stability and regularity of which
the ehmination of the idea of substance apparently
deprived them. There is as a matter of fact no pheno-
menon which does not present itself in a complex of
relations : everything is relative ; nor can it be asserted
that every relation implies terms, that is to say, some-
thing which is not relative, since terms are only in-
telligible in their relations ; nor need we say that the
relative presupposes the absolute, and is a proof thereof,
since the absolute itself is but the correlative of the
relative.68 Even the identity of consciousness or
the permanency of personality does not depend
upon a spiritual substance, its one condition is the
identity and relative permanency resulting from the
harmonious diversity and variations of a group of pheno-
mena subject to one law. Consciousness is but an
extremely complex function (in the mathematical, not
the physiological sense of the word), which implies a
large number of laws and subordinate functions (intelli-
gence, sensibility, will). If it be true that everything is,
as far as we are concerned, presentation, relation,
phenomenon, that that which presents and that
which is presented are alike essential constituents of any

SEC. i THE VOLUNTAKISTS 47

and every object of knowledge, and that pure being in
itself has no sense, then the concrete unity of the abstract
categories will be found in the phenomenon of conscious-
ness. Without consciousness there can be no intelligible
presentation ; by which I do not mean without my con-
sciousness, but without the other functions of the kind
which I perceive in the outer world, and, since the world
resolves itself into a combination of presentations,
reality in its ultimate analysis is but a complex of
consciousnesses.69

22. Criticism of Renouvier' s Phenomenalism. — Re-
nouvier's theory of phenomena differs from empiricism
in as much as it admits law to be a universal phenomenon
comprehending and dominating other phenomena ; but, -•'
since it introduces discontinuity into the network of/
things, it puts the existence of stable relations of any
kind whatsoever beyond the power of conception. If
every phenomenon be a fresh beginning, how can it be
dependent on preceding phenomena ? If, on the other
hand, it be dependent on and conditioned by these
preceding phenomena, where is its freedom and
spontaneity ? If time be discontinuous, if the series
of phenomenal, presenting, or presented facts be also
discontinuous, then each moment, as a fresh beginning
of being, neither can nor should know anything of the
moments which have preceded it, but must be regarded
as isolated, and as forming a world in itself. If there
be any relation between the then and the now, this
relation cannot, according to Renouvier, be regarded
as other than a phenomenon ; we have then to choose
between two possibilities : either the relation has con-
tinuous duration, and thus affords an explanation of the
concrete transition from one term to another, and of their
reciprocal interpenetration — which is of course a contra- '
diction of Renouvier' s thesis — or it is discontinuous, in
which case it must be the outcome of successive elements
between which relations exist. Are these relations also
discontinuous ? If so, we stand committed to that
indefinite process which Renouvier sought to avoid.

48 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

There is no way of escape short of admitting the con-
tinuity of time together with its necessary basis, the
continuity of the subject : the discrete terms may be
related, but only on condition that there be a subject
which, while passing from one to the other, preserves
its persistent and continuous identity. The ideas
of relativity and discontinuity forming the basis of
Renouvier's system exclude each other, since they cannot
be united without contradiction. If indefinite retro-
gression in the order of causes be inconceivable, the
transition from nothingness to being and the relation
between them are still more so. What would be the value
or purpose of the persistence of law and order in such a
world of fresh beginnings ? Where and how could a law
persist ? As a general phenomenon it is non-existent
in experience, which brings only individual phenomena
to our notice ; if it be an abstraction, a product of
thought, it presupposes a subject which lives continuously
in such a way as to be capable of referring one to the
other, and of comparing individual instances of the past
and present. If consciousness also be merely a general
phenomenon, where must we look for the condition
essential to the construction of these general relations ?
A reality made up of nothing but phenomena, and of
discontinuous phenomena as well, is merely a series of
individual facts, and in such a world we cannot fairly
speak of either laws or universal functions, and the
categories become but an incoherent collection of
phenomena and individual relations.

Renouvier turns for proof of the discontinuity of
the real to the alleged contradictions implied in the
concept of the infinite, which are supposed to be derived
from the impossibility of thinking of a series as ended
which is denned as being inexhaustible. The main
argument he adduces is and ever has been the
stock one of those who would deny the infinite,
and may be briefly stated as follows : In order to
conceive of an infinite series in its actuality, we must
make the synthesis of an infinite number of parts ; this

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 49

is, however, an impossibility, since to do so would demand
infinite time ; hence the synthesis will never be com-
pleted.70 Now it is not difficult to see that this argu-
ment derives its probative value from the presumption
that it is impossible to think of a series or class of objects
without passing those objects successively in review, •
and that the concept results from the synthesis of this
enumeration : premises which, if true, would render
it impossible to think even of finite numbers. Let us, •
for example, take a number a thousand times greater
than the number of seconds in the average life of man ;
it is self-evident that, even if we were sufficiently perse-
vering to count all our lives, we could never reach that
number : are we, then, to conclude that it is unthink-
able ? Certainly not : thought does not proceed per
enumerationem simplicem ; the concept is not a series
of moving pictures of individuals or individual objects
belonging to the same class, but determines simul-
taneously the whole series with the characteristics
defining it. In other words, the presentation of the
extension of a concept is not necessary for the forma-
tion of that concept, that of its comprehension will
suffice : a finite number of indications will enable us to
determine an infinite class of individuals. Every concept,
every universal law is in itself the positing of an infinite ;
the denial of the infinite is equivalent to the denial of ^
the universality of thought. The apparent contradiction
arises from the alleged exhaustion of this infinity or
f universality by means of an empirical succession of pre-
sented terms, whereas the concept of the infinite, like
every thought of universal and necessary law, in as much
as it comprehends all time, is external to temporal
succession. The absurdity comes in when this same
thought is transferred in unvarnished nominalism to the
empirical series of moments, since it is then obvious
that, as it cannot issue therefrom, it can only realise
the concept thereof by passing through the series in
its successive order. We conceive of the infinite in the
very act of formulating the law which determines it in

E

50 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

its essential characteristics ; thus it is not something
at which we arrive by enumerating all the terms which
succeed each other in time. Those who deny the
infinite say : " Let the will strive as it may, it can never
reach an ultimate term." We do not, however, define
the infinite as the last term of a series ; we do not
assign it a place in the sequence of finite numbers ; on
the contrary, we maintain that it is external to that
empirical series which develops in time. The neo-criticists
have the best of it, because they look upon it from the
first-mentioned point of view, that is to say, they regard
it as the end of a series, and assert that it must be pos-
sessed of the same properties as are finite numbers and
that the axiom, " the whole is greater than the part,'
must hold good of it. This axiom, which, translated into
mathematical language, would be more clearly expressed
as follows, " The sum of two magnitudes is greater than
either of them," holds good of absolute lineal magnitude,
but there are other kinds of magnitude, such as vectors,
to which it does not apply. In like manner, if it be
true of positive numbers, it is not so of negative ones,
nor is it valid for complex numbers, the difference
between which cannot be defined.71 What wonder,
then, that it should not be applicable to infinite cardinal
numbers ?

The law of number is at bottom but a dialectic
weapon which Renouvier places at the service of the
will to believe ; nor does he hesitate to distort reality
to such a degree as to render it inconceivable, in order
to facilitate the introduction of the voluntary act into
the series of phenomena.

We can already trace in his phenomenalism the germs
of the doctrine of contingency, since it regards the caprice
of the will and the ardour of passion as the basis of
all judgment and belief, subordinates the demands of
the intellect to the exigencies of sentiment and moral
aspirations, and denies the necessity of thought which
it derives from a voluntary affirmation of the mind.
On the other hand, the elimination of the idea of sub-

SEC. i THE VOLUNTARISTS 51

stance, the reduction of the bond of causality and
law to a purely functional relation, and the dissolution
of reality, including the world of consciousness, into a
conglomeration of phenomena and phenomenal relations
are the very concepts which serve later on as the basis
of empiric-criticism.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1 Histoirc du matirialisme (Paris, 1877), vol. ii. p. 171.

2 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 579.

3 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 596.

4 Handbuch der physiologischen Optik, p. 455 (1877).

6 Die Tatsachen in der Wahrnehmung (Berlin, 1879), p. 42.

' Ober die Tatsachen, die der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen (Gottingen,
1865).

7 Zur Analyse der Wirklichkeit (Strassburg, 1880), pp. 224 and 251.

8 Philosophic der Naturwissenschaft (Leipzig, 1881-82), vol. ii. p. 36.
* Kant und die Epigonen (Stuttgart, 1865), p. 27.

10 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 248.

11 Der philosophische Kriticismus (Leipzig, 1876-87), vol. ii. p. 64.

12 Zur Einfiihrung in die Philosophic der Gegenwart (2nd ed., Leipzig,
1904), p. 59 ff.

18 Schuppe, ErJccnntnisthcoretische Logik (Bonn, 1878), p. 68; Grun-
driss der Erkenntnistheorie und Logik (Berlin, 1894), p. 7 ff.

14 System der Philosophic (Leipzig, 1889), p. 91 ff.

15 Op. cit. p. 107.

18 Op. cit. p. 116 ff.

17 Op. cit. p. 141.

18 System der Philosophic, p. 387 ff., p. 415 ff., p. 442 ff.

19 Philosophic de Vinconscient (Paris, 1877), voL ii. p. 237 ff. Le Dar-
winisme (8th ed., Paris, 1905). The first German edition, published
under the title Wahrheit und Irrthum im Darwinismus, came out in 1875.

20 IS Evolution des idees-forces (Paris, 1890).

81 Nietzsche's Wille zur Macht is an interpretation, though a para-
doxical and romantic one, of Darwinism and the principle of selection,
which, just as it has raised man above the level of the ape, prepares the
way for the advent of the super-man, the raison d'etre of the existence
of the earth.

22 Philosophic de Vinconscient (Paris, 1890).

28 Die Weltanschauung der modernen Physik (Leipzig, 1902), p. 221 ff.

24 Le Mouvement idealiste et la reaction contre la science positive
{Paris, 1896), 2nd ed. p. 63 ff.

" Hartmann, op. cit. pp. 211-219 ; Das Grundproblem der Erkenntnis-
theorie (Leipzig, 1889), pp. 104-126 ; Kritische Grundlegung der trascen-
dentalen Bealismus (Leipzig, 1885), 3rd ed. pp. 81-90, 107-116 ; Kategorien-
lehre (Leipzig, 1896), pp. 127-142.

26 Die Weltanschauung, p. 222.

27 System, p. 444.

28 Philosophic de Finconscient, vol. i. p. 400 ff.

29 Ibid. voL ii. p. 43.

30 L'fivolution des idees-forces, p. 247.

62 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

81 Op. cit. pp. 77-78.

81 Op. cit. Introduction, pp. 53-54.

83 Le Mouvement idealiste, Introduction, p. 48. This theory is more
fully developed in the other book, Le Mouvement positiviste et la con'
ception sociologique du monde.

84 Op. cit. Introduction, pp. 37-42.
88 Op. cit. Introduction, p. 56.

8* Op. cit. Introduction, pp. 61-62.

87 Op. cit. p. 227.

88 La Liberte et le determinisme (Paris, 1872).

89 Psychologie des idles-forces (Paris, 1893), vol. i. p. 274.

40 Le Mouvement idealiste, pp. 94 and 146.

41 Op. cit. Introduction, p. 66.
48 Op. cit. p. 237.

43 Op. cit. p. 214 ff.

44 Op. cit. pp. 211-220.

45 Op. cit. Introduction, p. 67.
« Ibid.

47 Einleitung in die Philosophie (17th ed., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1907),
p. 432 ff., p. 129 ff.

48 Op. cit. p. 8 ff., p. 131 ff., p. 459 ff.

49 Op. cit. p. 451.

50 Werke, vol. xv. (Leipzig, 1900), p. 265 ff.

61 De Fhabitude (Paris, 1838), reprinted in the Revue de metaphysique,
1894; La Philosophie en France au 19* siecle (Paris, 1868); " Morale et
metaphysique" in the Revue de metaphysique et de morale (1893);
"Testament philosophique," ibid., 1900.

52 La Philosophie de la liberte (2nd ed., Paris, 1866), p. 354 ff.r
p. 438 ff., p. 437 ff. " Je suis ce que je veux," is in Secretan's eyes
the motto of the absolute (op. cit. p. 365).

63 Op. cit. p. 389 ff.

54 This term is applied by Lotze himself to his system: "In diesen
teleologischen Idealismus hat unsere Betrachtung sich aufgelost, ..."
Metaphysik (Leipzig, 1841), p. 329.

85 " I am old-fashioned enough," he says, " to be sensible of religious
needs," Metaphysique (Paris, 1883), p. 477.

*• " Der Anfang der Metaphysik ist nicht in ihr selbst, sondern in der
Ethik," Metaphysik (Leipzig, 1841), p. 329.
57 Op. cit. vol. i. p. 427.

88 Mikrokosmus, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1869), vol. i. p. 442.

89 Op. cit. voL i. pp. 323, 326.
M Op. cit. vol. i. p. 439.'

61 Metaphysik, p. 328.

62 Renouvier, Les Dilemmes de la metaphysique pure (Paris, 1901),
p. 247 ff .

M Essais de critique generale : Deuxieme Essai, Traite de psychologic
rationnelle (2nd ed., 1875), vol. ii. p. 135 ff.

44 Annie philosophique, 1868, p. 37.

•8 Troisieme Essai, Les Principes de la nature (2nd ed., 1892,) vol. i.
p. 55.

•• Premier Essai, vol. i. p. 66 ; Critique philosophique, 1876, voL ii. p. 69.

•7 Troisieme Essai, pp. 20-30, 70-80.

M Premier Essai, vol. i. p. 110.

•9 Premier Essai, vol. iii. p. 207.

70 Evellin, La Raison pure et les antinomies (Paris, 1907), p. 2.

71 Couturat, De Finfini mathematique (Paris, 1896), p. 452.

CHAPTER III

EMPIRIC-CRITICISM

1. Old and New Positivism. — We must distinguish two
periods in the history of positivism : of these the first
is marked by a dogmatic belief in physical science, which
is set up as the model of every form of knowledge ; the
second, dating from about 1870, goes still farther, and
subjects science itself to searching criticism in order to
eliminate any traces of metaphysics which might be
sheltering themselves beneath the cloak of experimental
theories ; it no longer looks upon science as an unchange-
able model, but studies the process of formation through
which it passes, and turns to the human organism in its
search for the psycho-physiological basis of this evolu-
tionary genesis. This latter period approximates less
closely in its methods to the older system of positivism
than it does to the empiricism of David Hume and Stuart
Mill, of which it is the logical conclusion, and which it
completes by the addition of the biological concept of
consciousness and the latest researches of physiological
psychology. While positivism in its earner forms'
endeavoured to eliminate metaphysics by proving all
reality to be capable of scientific explanation, taking
refuge in agnosticism when this synthetic effort failed
rather than acknowledge itself beaten by speculation,
the new positive philosophy resorted to a purer and more
ingenuous form of experience than self-styled scientific
experience, and set itself the task of proving the enigmas
of the universe to be non-existent. Metaphysical

53

54 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. r

problems are the result of faulty perspective ; if we will
but change our point of view, divest our minds of all
a priori schemes, and look at things as they are immedi-
ately brought to our notice instead of through the
tangled web of mechanical formulas, the illusion will
vanish and problems cease to exist.

2. Factors determining the Transition from One Form
to the Other, and their Influence upon the Thought of
Mach. — This change in the concept of science was to a
great extent brought about by those general factors
with which we have already dealt in the introductory
chapter. When, between 1860 and 1870, Ernst Mach
first began to give specimens of his scientific labours,
three great events had taken place which could not fail
to be of permanent influence on the mind of the young
thinker. It was but a short time since the publication
of Darwin's Origin of Species, a work which Mach
described as " initiating new life in every branch of
science by means of a revolution in method no less
fruitful than that which owed its first great impulse to
Galileo." Helmholtz was giving to the world the
results of his researches into the analysis of optical
and auditory perceptions, which, with the works of
Fechner and Hering, threw open a hitherto unexplored
world to experimental research. A more comprehensive
theory, the outcome of the new principles of energetics,
was being put forth by Carnot, Mayer, Joule, Clausius,
and Kelvin — a theory far loftier than the mechanical
conception of nature, which in its ultimate analysis in-
evitably ended in the Ignordbimus of De Bois-Reymond ;
whilst in the work of Eankine1 we have the first pro-
clamation of the reform in physical methods. If we
would form a right estimate of the importance of Mach's
work, we must bear these three factors in mind. From
Darwin he derived the historical evolutionary method,
together with the biological valuation of science ; from
the analyses of Helmholtz and Hering those sensorial
elements which he regarded as the ultimate basis of
reality, and as neutral ground on which the conflicting

SEC. i EMPIRIO-CRITICISM 55

claims of nature and mind might be reconciled ; whilst
the failure of the mechanical theory impelled him to
search for the reasons of that failure and to purge science
from the last traces of metaphysics still lurking in it.
Mach's first writings treat of the psycho-physiology of
the senses, that is to say, of that class of research
work which had been so splendidly inaugurated by
Helmholtz, Fechner, and Hering, and the fact that he
had done experimental work of this kind during the
ten years from 1860 to 1870 was certainly not with-
out influence on his philosophic thought ; indeed, his
enthusiasm for the analysis of the perceptions and for
the resultant sensorial elements induced him to place
too much reliance upon them : sensation, to which
he had devoted so many years of patient research, is
ever present in his consciousness like an idee fixe, and
this thought obsessed him till it gradually developed
into a sort of monomania. He sees sensorial elements
everywhere ! What is perception ? a group of sensa-
tions ! the presentation ? another sensation ! the
concept ? a combination of sensations ! human reason ?
a special sense ! the Ego ? a collection of sensations !
the will ? a series of sensations ! Mach has fallen victim
to the very malady which his keen eye had noted in
physicists, who are so accustomed to making use in the
course of their daily work of the concepts of mass, atom,
and force, that they end by overrating these means for
the classification of phenomena, and confound the means
with the end of research, positively raising them to
the rank of reality. Thus the mental habit formed by
Mach during these first ten years of experimental work
in the domain of the sense organs led him to over-
estimate those sensorial elements which were but the
product of artificial analysis, but which he regards as
facts immediately given in direct experience, and there-
fore real apart from that complex known as the mind
of man.

3. Hypostatisation of the Sensorial Elements. — Accord-
ing to Mach,2 reality is a combination of sensations stand-

56 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

ing in definite relation to one another. It is erroneous
to consider them as symbols of things ; on the contrary,
, , the thing is a mental symbol of a complex of sensations
1 1 of merely relative stability. The true elements of the
| 'i world are colours, sounds, pressures, spaces, and dura-
tions, not things (objects or bodies). The exigencies of
practical life force us to seek something persistent,
some unchanging nucleus, amid the unceasing variations
of these elements, and this gives rise to the common
distinction between the thing and its quality, whence
is derived the metaphysical concept of substance in
which the accidents are inherent. As a general rule,
the nucleus of the object is considered to be the com-
bination of tactile and spatial qualities which appear to
be more stable than colours, sounds, or odours. When
the ulterior development proves such a distinction
between primary and secondary qualities to be arbitrary,
since these qualities are at bottom all sensorial elements
and are all more or less variable, the need of finding
something persistent leads to the absurd thought of a
thing in itself from which sensations emanate. But
if we divest the object of all its sensible qualities, what
is left of reality ? This absurdity is eliminated when
we reflect that the idea of permanent substance is an
illusory construction of thought, resulting from the
practical necessity of finding stable points of orienta-
tion amid the continual renewal of the facts of
experience ; and that things are artificial schemes,
stereotyped forms which we have substituted for the
manifold variety of sensations in order that we may
make use of them more easily and more readily, and
that they are on that account of purely economic value.
The idea of a substantial Ego originates in an illusion of
the same kind. We regard the complex of memories,
tendencies, and filings which is apparently bound up
with that particular group of sensations composing our
bodies as a persistent quid, but in reality it too is
subject to transformations which are so gradual as to
escape our notice. This complex does not indeed change

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 57

suddenly or as a whole, but new elements are added
to the relatively stable mass of memories by a continuous
process of development which has an illusory appearance
of permanence. The Ego, then, like the objects of the
outer world, is a structure serving a purely practical
purpose : this complex of elements closely connected
with the body and its conservation is of the utmost
importance to the will with its shrinking from pain and
desire for pleasure ; but to the intellect considered
apart from economic advantages the line drawn between
the Ego and the world seems an arbitrary one. There is
no reason why only those elements should enter into the
content of the Ego which are of more direct interest to
our organism — pleasure and pain, for example — and the
sensations of seeing and hearing be excluded. There
are no sharply denned boundaries beyond which the Ego
may not pass ; on the contrary, it may expand until it
comprehends and embraces the whole world. The
alleged contrast between the mind of man and external
reality is non-existent ; the Ego and material bodies are
alike the result of different combinations of the same
elements. If the fundamental identity of psychic and
physical facts be admitted, it will naturally follow that
there is no real difference between psycho -physio-
logical and physical research : it is the aim of both
to establish functional relations between the elements ;
only whereas physical science studies the sensations
considered apart from the complex which we call the
human organism, physiological psychology determines
the ties of dependence uniting these same elements
to the group of sensations composing our body and to
the complex of facts (memories, feelings, acts of volition)
forming the essence of our personality. There is nothing
in either the inner or the outer world which is not the
outcome of combinations of these elements. Percep-
tions, presentations, concepts, will, sentiments, in a
word the whole of conscious life, are but different
combinations of a limited number of elements. Wherein
lies the difference between presentation and sensation ?

58 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

Is it not in the fact that we have placed them in different
domains, that is to say, in relation to different elements ?
The difference between the illusory image and the per-
ception of the real is one of a practical order only : the
most fantastic dream is just as much a fact as any other,
and if dream images were more coherent, more normal,
and more stable, they would be of even greater practical
importance to us. The question whether the world be
real or merely a dream is one of no scientific import-
ance. If presentation be identical with sensation, it
is no difficult matter to reduce perception to a group
of sensorial elements with their associative links ; Mach
therefore eliminated the word " perception " from his
vocabulary, substituting for it the term " sensation."
Our concepts owe their origin to sensations and the
connections existing between them : 3 the sensorial
elements are latent in the concepts, just as are chemical
elements in bodies. The apparent distance between
the sensorial, concrete, and individual presentation and
the concept is illusory, there is a continuous process of
transition from one to the other. The whole value of
the concept really lies in the fact that it sums up in a
simple and orderly manner a long series of experiences,
and can suggest these experiences at the right moment ;
it is " potentially intuitive " (potentiell Anschauliches).
The concept of sodium, for instance, results from the
combination of its properties, which are in their turn
nothing but as many sensorial experiences, either actu-
ally passed through or merely presented.

4. Science as Mental Economy. — The definition of
the concept, or, when this is obvious, its name, acts as
a stimulus to an activity which is exactly determined,
critical, comparative, or constructive. This may be a
series of physical, chemical, anatomical, or mathematical
operations, either actually completed or merely pre-
sented, and whose sensible result is usually part of the
extension of the concept. The concept is to the scientist
what notes are to the pianist, a scheme suggesting
corresponding actions. If this be the nature of concepts,

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 59

then the knowledge of the outer world gained by their
help can be only of practical value : science, the out-
come of the needs of life, like every other manifesta-
tion of organic life, must be subject to the universal
law of evolution ; it is not a fixed system of immutable
truth, as was maintained by the supporters of the
mechanical method, but changes in accordance with the
varying requirements of adjustment. The ideas which
age-long experience had rendered habitual jostle one
another as if struggling for their very existence every
time it is a question of grasping a new idea, and form the
starting-point of the necessary change. The hypothetical
method of accounting for new phenomena is entirely
based on this procedure ; for instance, when, in order
to explain to ourselves the movements of the heavenly
bodies, we represent them as phenomena of gravity,
we do but adapt the schemes of past experience (with
which we are familiar) to a new fact. It is by means of
this process of adjustment of thought to facts, and of
the reciprocal adjustment of ideas to one another, that
scientific life develops ; the former process constitutes
observation, the latter originates theories.4 The origin
of science clearly proves to us that its work is purely
biological, that is to say, its task is to serve as a guide
to man in the intricate maze of natural facts. The
starting-point of its formative process will be found in
the mechanical arts. The birth of science was due to
the need of making it possible to communicate the
experience gained in the practice of the arts and of
extending it beyond the limits of place and the necessity
of the moment.5 We must distinguish three periods
in the evolution of science : the first experimental, the
second deductive, the third formal. The first is in direct
contact with reality. The second inaugurates the sub-
stitution of mental images for facts, thus obviating the
necessity of having recourse to observation on each
occasion : scientific work then becomes essentially
subjective, a structure raised by the mind for the mind
in which imagination plays an important part. The

60 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE «. i

traditional mechanical theory belongs to this second
stage of science. When we come to the third period
all idea of objectivity seems to be entirely eliminated :
the attempt is made to arrange scientific results in a
synthetic framework, with no other end in view than
that of convenience and utility ; when science has
reached this stage, it no longer imagines itself able to
sound the depths of reality, but strives to avoid mental
toil and to economise the efforts of thought.6 The
aim of all the works of Mach is to hasten the advance of
science from the second to the third period, from the
mechanical to the purely formal stage.

5. Criticism of the Traditional Mechanical Theory.—
Mach regards the view that mechanical science is the
basis of all other branches of physics as a prejudice
arising out of the fact that the fundamental discoveries
of mechanics were the first to be made in point of time ;
but, although this may afford a psychological explanation
of the genesis of the mechanical doctrine, it is no justifica-
tion thereof.7 We must first of all observe that there
is no such thing as a purely mechanical phenomenon :
such phenomena are the result of a process of abstraction
which may be either instinctive or intentional and serves
to facilitate their study ; but every phenomenon must,
strictly speaking, belong to all the branches of physical
science. The general laws of mechanics are on the same
level as the other general laws of physics ; therefore
they can enjoy no special privileges, and we have no
right to say that some are more fundamental than others.
That which is of longer historical standing does not
necessarily always serve to explain later discoveries ;
as facts become known and classified, other and wider
intuitions will replace it in the process of scientific
adjustment. It may be urged that by reducing the
concepts and laws of other branches of physical science
to those of mechanics, we are enabled to express all
physical knowledge in a simpler, more systematic, and
more convenient form ; as a matter of fact, however,
the mechanical hypothesis effects no saving of either

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 61

time or trouble. In the majority of cases it is ill adapted
to the phenomena it is supposed to explain; hence it
involves fresh corrections, which in their turn give rise
to additional complications, obscurity, and labour.8
In our present state of ignorance as to the true con-
stitution of bodies and their ultimate elements, the
mechanical method can only afford us approximate
presentments ; it therefore follows that there will be a
difference between the logical deductions of the system
and the data of experience ; thus in many cases it is
impossible to give even an approximate presentation
of real phenomena, such as the irreversibility of the
transformation of heat in work, according to the principle
laid down by Carnot. We are then forced to introduce
invisible movements which experience has not revealed
to us and never will reveal, and which complicate the
theory to such a degree as to divest it of simplicity
and economy alike. Even if it be conceded that the
mechanical theory can furnish a working hypothesis
in one branch of physical science, we do but duplicate
the relations of these phenomena by adding a second
system of symbolic relations, thus augmenting our
mental labours. The mechanical theory undoubtedly
served its purpose in the period which gave it birth,
in as much as it emancipated human thought from
theological prejudices; in reality, however, it did but
substitute a mechanical system of mythology for the
animism of the ancient religions, and this mechanical
mythology is just as much a fantastic exaggeration of
partial knowledge as is the conception it supplants,
since neither the world nor even a part of it, but merely
one of its aspects, is comprehended in mechanical
formulas.9 Space, time, and movement can lay claim
to no greater confidence than colour, sounds, and
smells, seeing that they too are sensations ; mechanical
concepts are allowable in the order of mechanical facts,
which they present to our notice both simply and
economically ; but their application elsewhere is
arbitrary, and inevitably leads to the Ignorabimus.

62 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

Du Bois-Reymond failed to see that his riddles arise
from confounding certain means of classifying a series
of phenomena with the object itself, and from treating
those means as if they were absolute reality, and that
the problems which he regards as insoluble cease to exist
when we substitute the concrete world of our sensations
£pr these abstract entities. If we would remain true
to the method which led the greatest scientists to their
greatest discoveries, we must confine our physical science
to the exact expression of facts without trying to set up
more or less fantastic and arbitrary hypotheses beyond
the limits of perception and experience. Newton's
maxim, " Hypotheses non fingo," should be that of every
experimentalist, whose aim it should be to discover the
connections between the movements of masses, the
variations of temperature, the variations in the value
of the functions of the electric potential, and of chemical
variations, without thinking anything into these elements
which is not the direct result of observation. For
instance, in the case of the theory of electricity every
hypothesis of a fluid or ethereal medium becomes
worthless when we reflect that all electrical facts
are given when we know the value of the potential
and the electrical constants.10 If we thus eliminate
arbitrary hypotheses, physical science is reduced to
its merely formal aspect, to a quantitative and conceptual
expression of facts, and all useless presentations will
disappear, together with the spurious problems con-
nected therewith. Modern formal physical science has
not lost that characteristic of unity which was perhaps
the one and only advantage of the atomic theory ; it
attains the same ends without having recourse to useless
complications and arbitrary hypotheses, by establishing
permanent quantitative relations between the various
electric, calorific, and mechanical processes ; it takes
note of the correspondence between the concepts of the
various branches of physical science (between mass and
thermic capacity, the amount of heat and the potential
of an electric charge, the velocity of movements, tern-

SBC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 63

perature, and the function of the potential) without
allowing an exaggerated love of simplicity to betray
it into underestimating their fundamental difference,
and thus becomes a kind of comparative physics.11
Though it may still formulate a law of balance between
vis viva, amount of heat, the potential of an electric
charge, etc., on the one hand, and a determined amount
of work on the other, it does not understand thereby
that mechanical work is the basis of these processes,
but merely that a constant quantitative relation exists
between mechanical, electric, calorific, and similar
processes. Its aim is to establish functional relations
between the elements of experience ; every other aim,
like that commonly attributed to it of investigating the
causes of phenomena, is a remnant of the old animistic
conception. When we speak of cause and effect, we
isolate in an arbitrary manner those circumstances
which have most bearing on our practical end, but in
nature cause and effect are non-existent. Die Natur
ist nur einmal da.12 Nature never repeats herself;
repetitions of the same occurrences, in which A and B
are always connected, exist only in our abstract imitation
of phenomena. The science of the future must eliminate
the concepts of cause and effect, which savour of
fetishism, and are lacking in clearness of form, and must
substitute for them the more exact notion of mathe-
matical function. Even temporal succession may in its
ultimate analysis be reduced to a system of relations of
dependence, and the word " time " in physical science is
used merely in order to save ourselves the labour of a
complex series of relations. Physical time is an abstract
idea, and should be distinguished from the sensation
of time : 13 the one is real, as are all the sensorial elements
on the same level ; the other formal, like all concepts,
and of purely economic value. When we say that the
acceleration of a falling body increases at the rate of
9-81 m. per second, it is equivalent to saying that the
velocity of the body towards the centre of the earth is
9-81 m. greater when the earth has completed

64 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

of its rotation. But, it may be objected, how are we
to explain phenomena if the idea of cause be elimin-
ated ? Mach's answer is that the so - called causal
explanation is, in ultimate analysis, but the descrip-
tion of a fact or real relation ; there is no essential
difference between the naturalist's system of classifica-
tion and the physicist's explanatory theory ; the only
advantage of the latter lies in its greater simplicity and
economy, an advantage which it owes to the very nature
of physical phenomena and to their quantitative char-
acter, which renders it possible to comprehend various
and complex categories of phenomena in a small number
of differential formulae.14 There is no difference in the
degree of evidence on which the various sciences rest,
or in the demonstrative efficiency of their methods ;
their researches are one and all directed towards the
same object, are conducted in the same way, and
have the same end : the facts of experience are the
only source of their principles and the true reality
which they seek to reproduce in thought ; their common
aim is to effect the greatest possible economy in the
operations of the intellect, and this aim is the only
justification of their existence. They do not, however,
all attain the same measure of success ; hence the differ-
ence in their economic value. Mathematics realises
this ideal of the maximum economy of thought more
nearly than any of the others ; physics approaches
it by reason of its simple functional formulae : herein
lies their value, not in the greater degree of object-
ivity to which they attain, as the mystics of science
would fain assert. Scientific knowledge gains economic-
ally, but loses objectively as its schemes become more
generic and more abstract. Here we have the weak
point of science, which is forced to impoverish concrete
reality, to look at it from a one-sided point of view, and
to reduce it to a mere frame-work of abstract formulae
in order to fulfil practical requirements. Our intelli-
gence endeavours in this way to make up for the
natural limitations of memory ; if memory were able

SEC. i EMPIRIO-CKITICISM 65

to keep a faithful record of facts and their individual
relations so as to bring them forward at the right
moment, science would be useless, since we should
have something else as a guide of our actions ; but
memory being unfortunately very limited, its deficiencies
must be supplemented by a scheme of concepts, which
can replace a complex series of individual images of
facts. Since we cannot, for instance, recall case by case
the spaces of descent corresponding to each individual
time, we substitute the much more convenient formula
s = %gt2 for the long table of figures ; in the same way,
since we cannot bear in mind the individual cases of
refraction of light for different angles of incidence
and media of refraction, we express this long series

of numbers in the brief formula l^r=(*- Finally, the
human intellect does but imperfectly supplement the
memory of facts ; scientific knowledge derived there-
from, though a biological necessity, is really but a matter
of practical order, whose value must be gauged by
economic standards.

6. Unconscious Metaphysic and Contradictions in
Mack's Phenomenalism. — Mach's work falls into two
divisions ; negative criticism and positive construction :
the former, which is a profound confutation of theM
traditional mechanical theory, is undoubtedly of the I '
utmost value, and inaugurates that salutary movement
of critical revision of science whose development assumed
such large proportions later, more especially in France,
thanks to the work of Poincare, Milhaud, and Duhem.
It is in great measure due to the influence of Mach that
scientific men no longer take up that dogmatic attitude
towards their theories which characterised positivism
in its earlier form. When, however, he endeavours to
build up a new intuition of the world on the ruins of the
mechanical theory, and substitutes the element of
sensation_for the material atom, he does but replace^
mechanical by7 sensonal mythology. The atom was
the hypostasis of an abstraction ; what else is the

66 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

^sensorial °element ? It is not presented immediately
to intuition, but is the result of scientific analysis.
Reality, which we experience directly, is the concrete
world of complex perception, which in its turn does
not exist in isolation but is presented to us in the
organic context of our conscious personality. Physio-
logical psychology resolves this real organism into
abstract elements in order to find something constant
in the series of individual intuitions, or, as Mach would
put it, in order to arrange them economically in a
system of relations ; we must not, however, confound
the result of reflective analysis, arrived at by a process of
scientific abstraction, with reality perceived by intuition.
The world, as conceived of by Mach, is not the world
of immediate intuition, but the world seen through the
analyses of Helmholtz and Hering, seen, that is to say,
through a schematic and artificial theory of his own,
which would fain reduce the whole complex world of
consciousness to a mosaic o^ sensations. I will not
stop to discuss this theory, in which the desire for
economy and simplicity is carried too far ; I would
merely observe that, even if the possibility of such a
reduction be granted, elements and relations, when
called upon to make up psychic life, would not be facts
of immediate experience, but conceptual schemes,
products of mental reflection of the same nature as
those used in physical science. Hence the words,
" Physician, heal thyself," might well be addressed to
Mach. In like manner his own criticism of the con-
stancy of causal relations might well be turned against
his conception of the object of science. If it be true
that die Natur ist nur einmal da, if it be true that
nature never repeats herself, then not only are the
persistent ties between cause and effect non-existent,
but there can be no stable connection between facts.
Mach, on the contrary, affirms that functional relations
between elements are not only persistent, but abso-
lutely real.15 Does he himself not in this statement
hypostatise a concept ? To sum up, are mathe-

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 67

matical relations, as expressed in formulas, intellectual
schemes of an economic nature, or do they exist
objectively in reality ? If nature never repeats her-
self, how can we speak of bleibende Gesetze, or of
bestdndige Beziehungen ? Bergson, following Mach's
premisses to their logical conclusion, might well say that
the constancy of laws and the persistency of relations
are just as much artificial schemes originating in the
need for action and of orientation in reality as is the
persistency of things and of the Ego ; but nothing in
nature is ever repeated, each fact is a new revelation.
The economic theory of science, when carried to its
logical consequences, leads to the intuitive method of
the new philosophy ; Mach has stopped half-way, and
his position is therefore both equivocal and contra-
dictory. On the one hand he asserts that the concept
does not correspond to anything real by reason of its
schematic nature : on the other he affirms the reality
of functional relations which are nothing more or less
than systems of concepts : the constancy of relations
is not something known by intuition, but rather the
product of mental reflection. The reality of concepts
is the conclusion to which Mach's reasoning should
logically lead him ; if the concept too be a union of
sensorial elements, it is just as real as are all relations
between elements.

7. Petzoldt's Law of Univocal Determination. — More-
over, functional dependence cannot escape those very
criticisms which are applied by empiric-criticism to the
concept of cause. Petzoldt, following out Mach's train
of thought, maintains that the concept of cause is not
applicable, since the conditions determining a pheno-
menon are infinite, and a selection of one of these
conditions as its true cause is an arbitrary proceeding ;
further, it is possible to insert an infinite number of
intermediate terms, having a determinate effect, between
one phenomenon and the next ; hence an infinite number
of causes might be adduced.16 He therefore proposes
to substitute the law of univocal determination (das

68 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.

Gesetz der EindeutigJceit) for the causal relation ; the
advantage of this law lies in the fact that it holds gooc
in cases of reciprocal action as well ; it may be briefly
enunciated as follows : " For every phenomenon,
elements may be found upon which the phenomenon
depends uni vocally ; no other result could be unique,
since it would admit the possibility of at least one
(_other with equal rights to existence." For instance,
a ball moving on a horizontal plane under the influence
of an impulse which propels it forward in a direction
parallel to the horizontal plane will pursue a straight
line, since, if it deviated in an oblique direction, there
would be another oblique line on the opposite side oi
the original line and inclined at the same angle to it
and might equally well be pursued ; hence the course
of the ball would not be univocally determined as it
would be in pursuing the original direction, which is
unique in space.17 This principle is not deduced from
individual experiences, but is the necessary presump-
tion of our every action and our every thought. If
nature were indeterminate we should be in the position
of a soldier exposed to the fire of the enemy without any
means of defence. Indetermination in nature would be
chaos ; in thought, madness.18 The law of univocal
determination is independent of individual experiences,
and therefore resembles an a priori ; but Petzoldt, in his
fear of going beyond the bounds of experience, hastens
to warn us that this is but a comparison, since this law in
ultimate analysis is but a general fact which we must
be content to recognise without attempting to explain.1'
But whatever Petzoldt may say, this principle will, if
it be enunciated as a universal law, transcend the fact
of experience, which never justifies us in affirming any-
thing beyond the limits of past observation : the philo-
sophy of pure experience must, if it would remain
coherent, stop short at the fact immediately experienced
in the passing moment, since everything else is an
addition made by thought, an interpretation of data
in accordance with its requirements. When you state

sio. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 69

that relations of mathematical dependence exist between
elements, that nature is a cosmos determined in all its
parts, you unknowingly invest experience with the
organisation proper to your own thought ; you assume
that nature ever remains coherent in itself, and that its
elements are linked together just as are your mental
concepts, that is to say, you implicitly assert that reality
is not a complex of pure data, but an organic thought
governed by our own human logic.

Now if we once grant the necessity of going beyond
data and of assimilating them to the intelligence, if we
would not be condemned to experience them only in
their non-communicable immediacy, is it not an arbi-
trary proceeding to restrict the application of thought to
certain special relationships, and to use the convenient
pretext of anthropomorphism as a reason for placing
under a ban other categories no less necessary to the
intelligible explanation of data ? The relations of
functional dependence do not suffice to formulate all the
aspects of things. The functional formula cannot compre-
hend any kind of activity or any successive development
of events in a determinate direction. The terms of mathe-
matical functions can as a matter of fact be inverted ;
if the variations of x be dependent on the variations of

y, it may equally correctly be said that y varies whenj;

ever that x does so ; whereas the essential characteristi<TT
of physical processes and of real phenomena in general
is irreversibility, which finds adequate expression in the
order of non-invertible succession of cause and effect._j
Further, if functional relations can in some way record
the relations between abstract phenomena which are
subject to quantitative relations, they are not applicable
to the concrete causality of individual facts. The tie
uniting an individual fact (which must not be con-
founded with the abstract physical phenomenon) to the
complex of its antecedents cannot be translated into a
functional formula : is this fact then indeterminate ?
I do not think that Petzoldt would be prepared to make
such an admission, thus denying the law of univocal

70 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

determination. On the other hand the apphcation of
this law in no way eliminates those difficulties which
Petzoldt attributes to the use of the concept of cause
(which are not, however, as serious as he supposes) when
he raises afresh the objections urged by Aenesidemus. It
is undoubtedly possible to insert intermediate terms
between the antecedent phenomenon A and the subse-
quent phenomenon B, but, even when this has been
accomplished by the scientist, does it not remain equally
true that A is a necessary condition of the existence of
B ? Its action may not be a direct one, but this in no
way detracts from its efficacy. We are not justified in
declaring the concept of cause to be obscure and in-
applicable simply because a large number of active factors
co-operate more or less directly in the production of a
phenomenon. Undoubtedly every effect results from
the action of countless circumstances, and if we would
really determine it in its totality, we should need to
take them all into consideration; but it should be
observed that these factors are not all on the same
level, or of the same importance, so that we are justified
from the scientific as well as from the practical point
of view in selecting those which act most directly and
most effectively, and in neglecting those whose action
is unimportant or remote. Thus, in Petzoldt's example
of a building being ruined by a snow-storm, the main
and direct cause is the excessive weight of snow on the
roof, and it is superfluous to go back to the circumstances
to which the formation of the snow and its fall in that
special place are due, such as the lowering of the tempera-
ture, the variations of atmospheric pressure, the property
possessed by water of freezing at zero, etc. This
complexity of circumstances which makes it difficult
to determine individual events is much simplified by
scientific research, which only takes into account certain
elements of the fact, which it isolates from the others.
This enables us to determine phenomena with precision,
by leaving out of consideration all those aspects which
are not of interest to us from the point of view from

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 71

which we are looking at them, and which may be traced
to the action of other factors. If we thus isolate certain
aspects of the complex fact by means of a process of
abstraction, we are enabled to resolve the combination
of antecedents into elementary factors each one of
which determines one of the consequent factors whose
synthesis gives birth to the fact. Here we have the
secret of the experiment leading to the exact determina-
tion of phenomena, nor need we alter our conception
of the causal relation in order to attain thereto ; more
especially since the tie of functional dependence would
in no way do away with the difficulties which we en-
counter in the determination of the fact in its c'on-
creteness. Petzoldt, in order to score an easy victory
in his criticism of the causal relation, has recourse to
sophistry, and confounds the abstract phenomenon as
studied by physical science with the fact in its historic
reality, failing to see that the same difficulties arise in
the case of functional dependence, which involves the
choice of one or more of the countless elements on which
the phenomenon depends, just as much as does the
causal relation. In no case, moreover, is it possible
to determine the fact without transcending the limits
of experience, thus introducing into the datum
certain functions proper to thought, and attributing to
facts that logical and mathematical structure proper
to human intelligence. Does not Mach declare
functional relations to be real and objective ? Every
attempt to divest reality of the forms of classification
introduced into it by thought is of necessity doomed to
failure ; human intelligence cannot get outside itself,
it works unconsciously in the consciousness of the
philosopher, even when it imagines that it has suc-
ceeded in eliminating itself. Of this we have clear proof
in the case of Richard Avenarius, who came under the
same influence as Mach, and arrived at much the same
conception of the value of science, although working
independently of him.20

8. The Principle of Minimum Effort, as set forth

72 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

by Avenarius. — The work of Richard Avenarius, the
founder of the philosophy of pure experience, aims
at re-establishing pure experience by eliminating every
arbitrary addition made by thought, and at afford-
ing a psychological and physiological explanation
of the origin of the metaphysical illusion. Avenarius
holds that the whole development of philosophy and
knowledge in general may be reduced to the principle
of the minimum expenditure of force.21 Whatever
our conception of the mind in relation to the organism
may be, we must allow that its part in the preservation
of life is of the utmost importance, and it is just this
biological utility which gives rise to the principle of the
minimum expenditure of force, in order that sufficient
may remain for other no less necessary functions.22
If the mind were endowed with inexhaustible force,
it would not matter whether a greater or smaller amount
of that energy were expended ; but, since this force is
limited, it is obvious that the mind must strive to
economise it. The eminently biological interpretation
which Avenarius attaches to his principle is proof
positive of the influence exercised on his thought by
the theories of Darwin : in reality, he, like Mach, does
but apply the general law of adaptation to the develop-
ment of knowledge. We see the working of this principle
of the minimum expenditure of force in the realm of
theoretic function, which Avenarius includes as a
whole under the Herbartian term " apperception."
To what, if not to the necessity of economising force,
is due the logical demand for the elimination of con-
tradictions ? When the contradictory element ceases
to exist, we have the advantage of being able to reduce
two representative masses to one only ; whilst in the
contrary case, since apperception is constantly com-
pelled to put on one side the representative group
which acted as appercipient, in order that it may be
free to produce another, there is a useless expenditure
of force, which appears to consciousness as a sense
of discomfort. Every method of classification is in

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 73

itself a great saving of labour, in as much as it organ-
ises the representative masses in such a way as to
facilitate orientation and the finding of a common
solution of problems which would otherwise have to
be resolved one by one. The results of habit, which
are of the greatest importance in the development
of knowledge, are also a special instance of the same
principle. Habitual reactions are the easiest, hence
the tendency to judge the new by the old. The con-
cept merely represents a saving of energy, since it
enables us to comprehend a large number of objects^
with a minimum effort of consciousness. This principle /
is put into practice in all the sciences, and more especially
in the explanatory sciences, and enables us to condense
individual laws and concepts into general laws and j
concepts, thus effecting an economy of force.23 PhilcP"
sophy, which aims at giving us a universal concept of
the world, is the goal to which we are led by the need
of economising the force which the consciousness has at
its disposal.

We advance gradually, rejecting as we go all use-
less items added to experience by the subject, and
endeavour thus to purge it of all superfluous elements.
These additions are of three kinds : the mythological,
which invest real data with the form of our whole
being ; the anthropopathic, which attribute our feel-
ings to objects ; the intellectual or formal, which add to
experience certain forms proper to the human intellect
(cause, substance, etc.).24 In our own day scientific
evolution has freed the concept almost entirely from
mythological and anthropopathic additions, but the
a priori element of rational concepts has not yet been
eliminated and still persists in the realm of experimental
science. The aim of the criticism of pure experience
is to purge experience from this last residuum, which, as
opposed to the principle of the minimum expenditure
of force, places more in data than is required, with the
result that its thought involves waste of energy ; this
aim is the antithesis of Kant's criticism of pure reason,

74 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

which asserts that phenomena cannot be explained
without these categories.25 Natural sciences indeed
regard material atoms which are set in motion by forces
and act upon the other atoms of the system with an
intrinsic necessity, as the result of experience ; but as a
matter of fact these material atoms cannot be considered
as data of pure experience. No observation of things
in motion, however complete, will enable us to perceive
force, and in the only case in which such perception is
possible, i.e. in the sensation of our own muscular effort,
force is not presented to us as moving ; the transition
from the effort which we feel to the muscular movement
eludes us ; they are two heterogeneous facts, between
which no bond of action has been revealed to us by
experience. Not only force, but necessity also must
be excluded, since necessity can be but the constraint
or violent action of force ; experimental data tell us
nothing about such violence : we are aware that one
fact precedes another, but not that one exercises con-
straint upon the other. Cause, conceived of as force
acting of necessity, must be excluded from pure experi-
ence as an anthropopathic conception ; both it and the
concept of force can only be retained if they are reduced to
mere empirical relations of sequences, having a definite
degree of probability of verification in the future as well.26
The same may be said of the concept of substance :
experience only gives us groups of sensations, some of
which are variable, some relatively stable ; but, since the
qualities may change without the thing being destroyed,
we come to regard the thing as being to a certain extent
independent of its properties, hence the illusory belief
that a certain substratum will be left, even if the thing
be stripped of its qualities. We can only retain the idea
of substance if we look upon it as an auxiliary of thought,
which is incapable of grasping the idea of change except
in relation to something stable ; but we must beware
of passing from this subjective function of the idea of
substance to its objective reality.27

9. Biological Explanation of Scientific and Philosophic

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 75

Knowledge. — The whole complex process of development
of psychic life, and more especially of knowledge in its
various stages (common, scientific, philosophical), may
be reduced to a sequence of three parts, a sequence
having a physical parallel in constant vital rhythm :
disturbance of the normal organic equilibrium ; inter-
mediate processes for the re-establishment thereof ;
re-establishment of this equilibrium, and of the conditions
favourable to its preservation : these are the three
essential stages of every vital series.28 There is no
process of knowledge which will not fit into this scheme :
it is the psychological and physiological basis of the
whole history of both science and philosophy, and
affords full proof of the biological value of knowledge.
Avenarius, like Mach, recognises the influence exercised
in this direction by the prevalent Darwinism, and by
psycho-physiological research, and, having once admitted
the principle, carries it out to its extreme consequences,
instead of stopping short, as does Wundt, at the loftier
functions of mind. There is nothing either in the
realm of theoretical activity or in that of practical and
artistic activity to which the dynamics of the nervous
system do not correspond physiologically, and of
which they fail to afford an explanation. Psycho-
physical parallelism holds good of all psychic processes
without exception. These processes develop in accord-
ance with the common type of the vital series, which
consists, as we have already observed, of three successive
phases. In the initial stage we find psychic values
which, in contradistinction to that which up to now
has been designated real, true, secure, certain, known,
habitual and self-evident, are rather unexpected, unusual,
extraordinary, new, marvellous, problematic, and even
untenable, but which are not, however, mere nothing,
since they could not in that case be of any interest
to us. This unpleasant stage of dissatisfaction stimu-
lates our quest for everything which it lacks : exist-
ence, security, certainty, knowledge, truth, evidence,
order, law, clearness and determination. In the second

76 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

stage we pass from dissatisfaction and desire to the quest
itself, and there is a tendency to close the series with
the final term which is presented afresh as the same, the
true, the existing, the rule, the secure, the certain, the
known and the self-evident.29

This scheme applies to psychic activity in every
form, the most rudimentary and the most complex
alike : to the processes of consciousness of the child
and the savage, and equally to those of the greatest
genius in the world of thought, art, or action. The
functions of civilised man, endowed with all the theoretic
aids of art and science, are but a quantitative intensifica-
tion of the methods and experience of primitive man.
Expressed in terms of physiology, this involves the
existence of a fundamental nervous process capable of
extraordinary intensification and development, which
consequently forms the basis of the most complicated
processes of the nervous system. Let us take a very
simple example : If you pinch a frog's leg, the animal
will draw it back. The whole process falls into three
divisions : the disturbance of the normal physiological
conditions essential to organic life ; a series of move-
ments having the purpose of effecting an escape from
the injurious stimulus ; the restoration of normal
conditions.30 The mechanism of the higher and more
complex functions of the nervous system is in no way
different : we merely have a number of reciprocally
connected series instead of a single vital series, as in
the case of the simple reflex actions ; the difference is
one of degree, not of kind. The process of loss and
regain of equilibrium forms in its entirety a complete
oscillation whose special character determines the
psychic process depending thereon. The facts of know-
ledge, even in its higher logical forms, rest upon the
same foundation : that which we term constant, secure,
or known corresponds in ultimate analysis to habitual
oscillations of frequent recurrence. The non-existent,
uncertain, and unknown are those things which do not
correspond to such oscillations. We regard as true*

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 77

that to which our thought is adapted : the new, in so
far as it is in direct contrast to pre-existing mental
systems, gives us at first the impression of being false and
impossible, but we gradually grow used to it, adapting
ourselves to it until we end by looking upon it as true ;
the theory of evolution, for instance, had to battle
against existing mental habits before it in its turn
became habitual. Every epoch has a relatively stable
system of cognition, its logischer Bestand, to quote
Petzoldt's expression,31 a system corresponding to the
equilibrium of the vital oscillations at that stage of
development ; the whole course of human evolution tends
towards the attainment of an absolutely constant system
together with perfect adaptation of the organism to its
environment.32 Progress is not indefinite : the various
series are subjected to a process of steady reduction
to those component parts which are essential to a rapid,
simple, and unalterable conclusion, whilst the final term
approximates ever more closely to an absolute constant.33
Concepts which were originally extremely unstable and
indeterminate become more and more determinate and
limited ; the new and unknown will be more and more
rapidly reduced to the known, until a concept is attained
which can be applied to every possible form of experience
by eliminating and leaving out of account all variable
elements. This ideal can only be attained when
experience has been purged from every arbitrary
adjunct of thought, and a return has been made to the
natural concept of the world. Before the birth of
philosophical speculation, the world might have been
described by me (or any other human being) as follows :
" I, with all my feelings, am placed in an environment
made up of many constant parts, related to each other
in various ways. In this environment other human
beings with their manifold expressions have their place
as well, and that which they say is usually to a certain
extent related to and dependent on the environment.
Other men speak and act as I do myself ; they answer
my questions, as I do theirs ; they modify certain parts of

78 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. j

the environment or endeavour to keep them unchanged,
indicating their actions by means of certain words justi
as I do myself ; I am thus led to suppose that other
men are beings like myself, and that I am a being like
them."

10. Introjection. — This is the natural concept of the
world which lasts until its transformation is broughtj
about by the theories of philosophical psychology.34 Is
a change thereof really necessary ? Even a superficial
analysis will suffice to show that this concept is made
up of two parts, whose values differ from a logical point}
of view : experience and hypothesis. The hypothesis
lies in the meaning attached by me to the actions of
other men, and more especially to linguistic expression,]
taking for granted, as I do, that this expression has
reference to facts of consciousness, acts of volition,
sentiments and thoughts, as in my own case. It might i
be possible to eliminate this hypothetical part, and to
regard human beings as highly complicated pieces of
mechanism, but we must bear in mind that if we deny
the consciousness of other human beings we leave the
realm of experience, since in the only case in which we
know the movements of a human being in all their
relations (i.e. in the case of our own actions) we have
experienced these sentiments, thoughts, and volitions,
whereas experience has never shown us that these
actions are derived from a purely mechanical source.
Hence the hypothesis that other men are beings like
myself, which Avenarius terms the fundamental empirio-
critical hypothesis of the psychological equivalence of
man, is admissible.35 If we let R stand for the whole of our
own direct experience of the environment, and E for the
expression of the experiences of other human beings, we
may then say that the values R and E do not differ as to
their nature, but are homogeneous contents of experience,
and are mutually comparable. The values of experience
are commonly divided into thoughts and facts ; but there
is no absolute difference even in the nature of these two
categories, since thoughts and facts may be compared

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 79

with one another : thus a portrait may be compared
with the image of the absent person. The absolute
division between the inner and outer world is due to
faulty perspective, an illusory effect which Avenarius
terms " introjection." 36 A person tells me that he
sees the same tree as I do ; hence I am led to think an
image of the tree into the consciousness of that person,
and to draw a distinction between the tree as a fact
of my experience and his perception thereof. Since
it is possible for me to put myself in his place, I end by
introducing into myself also an image which I distinguish
from the tree. Here the error is due to changing the
point of view : the thing is a presentation not for me
but for the other person, to whom by means of intro-
jection I attribute the perception of the thing in question ;
for me it is a presentation of fact, something which I
find there (Vorgefundenes).

The error becomes more serious when the sensation, as
distinct from the thing, is localised in the brain, whence it
is supposed to be projected outwards in the act of percep-
tion. The brain is not the habitation, seat, instrument,
producer, or organ of thought : experience merely tells
me that I possess a thought and a brain in the sense that
both belong to the group of facts which we call the Ego ;
it merely authorises me to establish a tie of logical
dependence between them, but not to locate one within
the other.37 On the other hand, I find the complex of
elements (thoughts, sentiments, volitions) which make
up the so-called Ego in precisely the same way as
I find the complex of elements which I call tree ; they
are both homogeneous contents, and both are found
already in existence (vorgefunden). If, however, we
like to make use of the word " datum," the Ego may be
considered as coming under that designation in the same
sense as the tree ; as data, or, to put it better, as things
found already existing (vorgefunden), the various com-
plexes are all on the same level.38 As long as I
confine myself to describing the content of experience,
as found, the Ego and the environment differ only in the

80 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. I

relations of the elements, not in their general form or
in the fact that one is immediate and the other mediate,
one subject and the other object. As I am in my
experience, so is the tree in my experience : if I say, I
experience the tree, I understand thereby merely that
an experience results from the more ample complex of ele-
ments called Ego, and from the other less ample complex
called tree. The Ego is distinguished from the environ-
ment merely by the greater wealth and complexity of its
elements. This co-ordination proper to every experience,
in which the complex Ego forms the relatively constant
member, and part of the environment, whether it be a
tree or another human being, the other and relatively
variable member, is termed by Avenarius " principal
empiric-critical co-ordination." 39 The human individual,
as the relatively constant member of this co-ordination,
may be designated as the central member (Central-
glied), and the part of the environment as the opposing
member (Gegenglied). In accordance with the principle
of psychological equality other individuals may act as
central members of empiric-critical co-ordination, since
by their Ego we do not understand a subject of experience,
but something found (vorgefunden), a datum amongst
others of the same kind. Fundamental empiric-critical
co-ordination, which is taking the place of illusory
introjection, does not change the natural concept of
the world, but gives prominence to a general relation
included therein.40 The variations of the natural
concept of the world are useless, and must be eliminated
as superfluous in accordance with the principle of
economy. The philosophical concept of the world must
approximate ever more closely to a purely empirical
content, which substitutes for the riddles of the universe
an idea of the world containing nothing which is not of
the nature of something found, of an experimental datum.
In conclusion, if we would attain to pure experience,
we must not only eliminate all concrete forms and the
products of introjection, that is to say, every kind of
metaphysic and anthropomorphism, but also intro-

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 81

jection itself as an unconscious function of the subject.
There will then remain that concept of the world whose
content is the totality of all that is found, whether
belonging to the group which acts as central member
or to the complex of an opposing member. We thus
return to the natural concept of the world.41

11. Criticism of the Philosophy of Pure Experience. —
But, we would ask, is a form of philosophic knowledge
possible in which thought does not add anything to
data ? If we divest reality of all the forms of classifica-
tion which are introduced into it more or less consciously
by the subject, what is left of it ? A chaos of data
devoid of any relation of stable dependencies. Philo-
sophical knowledge, or, in other words, intelligence, which
must not be confounded with the fact as experienced,
begins the moment a wider meaning is assigned thereto,
as we ascend to the law, the order of which it forms part,
and the concept which comprehends it. To stop short at
the given is to deprive science of the conditions essential
to its life. A concept of the world, no matter how
embryonic, no matter how natural it may be, always
goes beyond the fact of experience ; the philosophy of
pure experience itself, in so far as it strives to construct
a universal concept of the world, cannot avoid adding
to data something which they do not contain. Do
we not go beyond the limits of the given when we
assume the expressive signs made by other human
beings to be the revelation of psychic life like our own ?
Do we not go beyond it when we, like Avenarius,
endeavour to describe the manifold life of experience,
and to comprise it in general schemes ? The centres
oi co-ordination, the elements, the complexes are generic
formulas answering, though but imperfectly, to the need
of finding in things a certain unity, certain constant
characteristics ; but unity is constructed by thought
and is not a datum. When we say that the
various contents of experience are homogeneous, no1
heterogeneous, we unconsciously go beyond the data.
Facts are neither immediately heterogeneous noi

G

82 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

immediately homogeneous, they are as they are found, each
one of them has its own individual character. If, then,
we admit that it is impossible to avoid adding something
to experience which is not derived therefrom, there arises
the critical necessity of selecting that one of the various
adjuncts which will render the data easiest of com-
prehension. To eliminate them all would amount to
dooming ourselves to understand nothing. We should
dismiss not merely metaphysical problems, but also prob-
lems of every kind whatsoever. The coherent conclusion
of such a system of philosophy would be to condemn
every concept and every form of intelligence, and would
involve the identification of knowledge with the imme-
diate intuition of reality. Avenarius, however, whatever
he may say on the subject, is not prepared to give up
tracing relations of logical dependence between different
data, or arranging them in categories, or completing
experience with the help of intellectual forms which go
beyond it. For the most part his essays in this direction
are not specially successful. His schemes of classification
savour too strongly of the artificial, and betray an attempt
to reduce by force the countless processes of psychic
life to a single type, so as to make it possible to connect
them with the simple mechanism which he regards as
the basis of cerebral life. The same disturbance of
equilibrium is called upon to act as the physio-
logical term corresponding to unlike psychic facts, and
the reason why in any given case it should produce
one process rather than another is not apparent. At
best Avenarius affords us an explanation of the action
of habit and practice on the various functions of con-
sciousness ; but he does not give us in the case of each
psychic value a fact capable of determining that value in
the central nervous system. The habitual, the custom-
ary, the repetition of the same oscillations are at one
time psychologically described as pleasing, at another as
beautiful, at another as true, at yet another as good ;
why is this ? Let us grant that all positive values of
the mind correspond to habitual repetitions, and negative

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 83

values to deviations from habit ; what is the psycho-
logical basis of their diversity ? A different form of
oscillation ! This leaves us where we were before, with
the additional drawback of having two facts to explain
instead of one. We have not succeeded by this method
in determining the psychic fact, but have left it as
undetermined as before. So much then for rejecting
the help of physiology ! The attitude of Avenarius as
regards the problem of reality in relation to the subject is
extremely vague and undecided ; he is under the impres-
sion that he has definitely disposed of the idealistic phase
by assigning equal importance to the Ego and the world
as contents of experience, but by regarding, as he does,
the Ego as the central member of the co-ordination, he as
a matter of fact still makes the reality of the opposing
member, i.e. the outer world, depend upon its existence.
Avenarius was reluctant to take the final step of the
hypostatisation of sensations, by severing them, as did
Mach and his own disciple Petzoldt, from the complex of
the Ego, and investing them with entirely independent
reality. If the outer world can be reduced to a complex
of sensorial data, if these data exist only in connection
with the central member termed the Ego, it follows that
the objective world is not possessed of reality except in
so far as it is connected with the Ego. Thus we come
back to idealism, and we, moreover, implicitly admit
that the functions of the Ego and the environment in
empiric-critical co-ordination are not identical. Is the
relation between the Ego and the outer world the same,f,
as the extrinsic relation between two parts of the!',
environment, or is it a relation sui generis ? Avenarius!
tries to get round the difficulty by having recourse to
the metaphors of the centre of co-ordination, and the
opposing member ; but these metaphors, which are
supposed to describe this special relation, misrepresent
its nature, by leading us to think of the relation which
may exist between any two complexes of the outer
world, as, for instance, between the sun and one of its
planets, and has nothing to do with the cognitive

84 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

relation. A complex may act as the centre of co-
ordination of other complexes without being in the
least aware of their existence. The Ego is not a content
/.of experience which simply stands in relation to other
//contents : its special characteristic is that it knows that
//which stands in relation to itself, and is conscious of
/ its own relations, whereas the opposing member knows
[ nothing of the Ego.

The cognitive relation will not result merely from
placing two contents of experience in a relation of
propinquity ; the difference between the Ego and the
environment is not just one of complexity and fulness ;
it is the difference between a subject capable of self-
knowledge without reference to others and an object
which is a content of experience merely in relation to
the Ego. One is a value of existence in itself, the other
becomes so only in relation to the cognitive subject.
The unity and continuity of consciousness cannot be
derived from a simple extrinsic connection of facts which
would remain extraneous to one another were it not
for the existence of a subject capable of synthesising
the various items of the series in a single act. The
succession and co- existence of empirical elements is
one thing, and consciousness of the relations of
succession and co - existence another. Mach and
Avenarius, whilst imagining that they take facts and
their ties of dependence as the starting-point from which
to deduce the concrete unity of the subject, fail to see
that they postulate it the moment they admit the
consciousness of relations. The mechanism of the
nervous system, to which Avenarius turns for an explana-
tion of the recognition of diversity or identity, thus
reducing it to the transition from a familiar cerebral
oscillation to one which is less habitual or vice versa,
presupposes the existence of these logical relations :
how, if this were not so, could we speak of the functional
dependence of psychic processes upon the vital series
of higher order in the nervous system ? How could
we state either that the same oscillations have recurred

SBC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 85

or that new ones have been originated ? The mechanism
of the brain and its relations to psychic life and to the
environment do not form a complex of things found
(Vorgefundenes), but rather systems of relations already
bearing the imprint of thought. Thought does not//
then result from experience except in so far as wey
ourselves have placed it in experience. That which'
Avenarius shows us is not pure experience in the strict
sense of the word, 'but experience already formulated
into certain mental systems. The purely found which
is external to every form of thought and every relation
to the cognitive subject is an abstract fiction which
may be found helpful in symbolising the starting-point*
of psychic formations, but corresponds to nothing real.!
Moreover, pure data, being the product of analysis and j
abstraction, presuppose the work of reflex thought,
which discriminates between the world of naive,
primitive experience and those elements unconsciously
added thereto by the activity of the subject. Hence
empiric-criticism is doomed to move in a vicious circle,
from which it can only hope to escape by recognising
the a priori function of the subject. The truly real is
the conscious personality in the concreteness of itsj
content, not scattered facts, isolated from the unity of
the subject.

12. Hodgson's Metaphysic of Experience. — In
Hodgson's Metaphysic of Experience*2 which has many
points of contact with German empirio - criticism,
we have the same attempt to argue the antithesis of
subject and object from a primitive, undifferentiated
experience. Hodgson, like Avenarius, would fain
purge experience by analysis from the hypotheses, the
" assumptions," which have been added to it in the
course of psychic evolution, such, for instance, as the
ideas of cause, action, mental substance, etc. These
mental superstructures, which transcend immediate
perceptive experience, do not correspond to any objective
reality, but merely represent forms of combination of real
facts, points of orientation amid the chaos of immediate

86 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

data of sensibility. Eliminate these adjuncts, and we
have the continuous flux of the concrete current of con-
sciousness, the process of immediate experience of which
every psychic fact is an item separable from the rest
only by means of a process of abstraction. Each of
these items contains within itself by virtue of the con-
tinuity of conscious life all preceding phases ; hence
each perception mirrors the past. This retrospective
reflection (from which Hodgson derives the term
" philosophy of reflection " which he applies to his
system) gives rise to the distinction between subject
and object, since the psychic contents of the past form
the object of the present perception which acts as
subject. If these premisses be granted, what should
be the logical conclusion of the system ? If the mental
categories be hypotheses of purely practical value,
reflecting nothing real, if the concept be but an economy
of thought, then true, genuine reality is the immediate
life of the transient moment of consciousness. Hodgson
ought then to end in something resembling Bergson's
intuition, but he too, like Avenarius, finishes by con-
tradicting himself, and, while denying the objective
value of the categories, yet makes use of them in order
to form a conception of the material organism, the
nervous system, as a real active substance, a condition
necessary to the existence of psychic life. According
to Hodgson, consciousness, though in its nature a primi-
tive and irreducible fact, is yet dependent for its existence
/ on material conditions. This position is equivocal and
untenable, since, if consciousness be qualitatively an
ultimate fact, it is obvious that the existence of this
irreducible quality cannot be derived from matter.
Objects are, when all is said and done, constructions of
the subjective perceptions, fragments of consciousness,
objectified mental functions; hence Hodgson ought really
only to speak of psychic facts conditioning other facts of
consciousness, and from his point of view nothing justifies
him in positing anything differing from phenomena !of
consciousness, still less in making the existence of psychic

SEC. i EMPIRIO-CKITICISM 87

life dependent thereupon. That which I experience
immediately is the flux of consciousness in its continuity,
and this real continuity is the primal and indubitable
fact which, amidst changeable perceptions, constitutes
the reality of my concrete Ego. If my psychic life be
not the outcome of a mere aggregate of elements ranged
side by side in an extrinsic relation, as Mach and
Avenarius would have us believe, if it be rather the
compenetration of these elements in a living unity, as
Hodgson rightly maintains, is it not this living unity,
a concrete and active substance, of which we have
immediate experience, while the material substance
with all the mechanism of atoms is but a hypothetical
structure ?

13. Kleinpeter's Subjectivism. — Kleinpeter saw this
plainly, and his teaching on this point is a notable
advance on that of Mach and Avenarius.43 The Ego is
not a sum of psychic facts, and even though it is possible
to distinguish different distinct parts in consciousness,
these parts have nothing to do with the parts of a
physical body. Sensations are never presented as such
apart from everything else, but always as my sensations,
and the bond between these elements in consciousness
differs from the connection which may exist between
them outside the Ego. The primitive datum is not
the element taken by itself, but the totality of con-
sciousness, which we must regard as an ultimate and
irreducible fact. We may speak of other beings in as
much as we refer them to our own Ego, the living model
of all reality ; where could we find anything we know
better ? The elements of knowledge in all its forms
cannot but be of psychic origin, hence they can never
leave the sphere of individual life. All knowledge is
originally only of value to the individual who has built
it up, and the thought-product of one individual is of
importance to another only when certain presuppositions
can be verified. It is mere matter of chance that this
can usually be done. Strictly speaking, I cannot even
state with certainty that other individuals exist ; I

88 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

ought therefore to confine myself to that which I am
experiencing at this moment ; hence knowledge would
only be of value during the passing moment which gives
it birth.44 The equivalence of all thinking subjects is
but an hypothesis : that which is valid in the eyes of one
person may not be so in the eyes of another who does
not start from the same premisses; nothing can be proved
to him who will make no concessions. " Subjective
opinion, not objective certainty, is the one and only
end to which science can attain." 45 A scientific work
is only of value when the reader concedes certain
postulates to the author. The function of science is
the saving of mental labour ; she says to the reader :
" You must recognise the truth of certain principles,
from which, once they are granted, we derive a long
series of other theorems ; in the case of the former
your immediate experience is required, for the
latter you can save yourself this mental labour."
Our knowledge is relative and provisional, since its
existence depends upon the verification of two funda-
mental presuppositions, i.e. the psychological equival-
ence of men and the uniformity of nature. Who can
guarantee that they will always be verified ? ** Human
thought is not endowed with the spirit of prophecy ;
it must confine itself to the description of that which
is and that which may be expected, but it cannot lay
down laws for the future.47 The natural series of facts
eludes the activity of our mind, which, when confronted
with it, can but act as looker on, and strive to reproduce
it as skilfully as possible in thought by means of systems
whose validity is entirely dependent upon the probable
success of their forecasts. If the work of science be
successful, it is a lucky chance ; from our point of view
this is the utmost which can be said.48 This candid
confession, with which Kleinpeter concludes his critical
analyses of the value and basis of the sciences, affords a
proof of the dire results of the empirical method when it
is carried to its logical consequences. A caprice of the
will in the beginning of human thought ; a series of

SEC. i EMPIRIC-CRITICISM 89

happy acci^ntsjv\^b^have_rend(eredjt possible to apply
it to the~world of experience ; behold m very trutlr
a system of philosophy before which all riddles will
flee away ! Empirio-criticism alleges that it has ex-
plained everything by reducing the intellectual function
to a combination of expedients destined to economise
mental labour, but it is unable to know or say how or
why these expedients succeed. It is indeed strange
that facts do not revolt against our economic demands,
that they submit to being classified in concepts and
logical systems and to being foreseen, that they behave,
in fact, for all the world as if they too had a leaning
to economy and a turn for mathematics ! Empirio-
criticism must of necessity, if followed to its ultimate
consequences and freed from its implicit contradictions,
lead to the doctrines of contingency, intuitionism, and
pragmatism, since it reduces the theoretic function to the
practical attitude of consciousness, and looks to the fact of
immediate experience for the truest revelation of reality.
If the fact in its original immediacy be the true real,
how can we grasp it without divesting ourselves of every "^
intellectual form ? The concept of pure experience, the
functional relation, the stable dependence of elements
are remnants of the old intellectualism : we must go
farther, and deny all and every permanent relation,
law, and form of conceptual reflection, if we would attain
to that deeper experience which abstract formulae have
falsified and impoverished. Mathematical functions
too are of merely practical value ; the law of univocal
determination is but an economic expedient for the
mastery of the inexhaustible wealth of experience.
Nature never repeats herself : her every moment is a
new creation which no intellectual effort can ever grasp,
and which can only be experienced by means of intuition.
Creation, unfettered action — these alone, Bergson will
tell us, can sound the depths of fugitive being.

90 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE n.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

I " Outlines of the Science of Energetics," Proceedings of the Philo-
sophical Society of Glasgow, 1848-55, voL iii. p. 382.

* Die Analyse der Empfindungen (5th ed., Jena, 1906), chap. i.

8 "Aus den Empfindungen und durch deren Zusammenhang entspringen
unsere Begriffe," Erkenntnis und Irrtum, 1st ed. p. 142.

4 Erkenntnis und Irrtum (1st ed., Leipzig, 1905), p. 162.

5 Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung (4th ed., Leipzig, 1901), p. 78, etc.

6 Op. cit. p. 80 ff.

7 Die Prinzipien der Warmelehre (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1900), p. 437 ff.
The same thesis is maintained by Andrade, lievue de mil. et de morale,
March 1899, p. 178.

8 Die Mechanik, etc., p. 529 ff.

• Op. cit. p. 543.

10 Op. cit. p. 531 ff.

II Op. cit. p. 531 ff.

11 Op. cit. p. 513.

18 Mach only looks upon the shortest times as sensorial data ; periods
of longer duration are constructed by a process of reflection.

14 Die Okonomische Natur der physikalischen Forschung (Vienna, 1882),
reprinted in the Popular wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen.

16 " Diese Gleichungen oder Beziehungen sind also das eigentlich
Bestandige " (Die Prinzipien der Warmelehre, 2nd ed. p. 424). " Jede
physikahsche Bestandigkeit kommt schliesslich immer darauf hinaus,
dass eine oder mehrere Gleichungen erfullt sind, also auf ein bleibendes
Gesetz im Wechsel der Vorgange " (ibid. p. 342).

16 Einfuhrung in die Philosophic der reinen Erfahrung (Leipzig, 1900),
pp. 27 ff., and 55. Lalande too makes an analogous criticism of the
principle of causality, which he regards as a vague and incomplete idea,
a rough approximation, for which the principle of continuity and mathe-
matical identity should be substituted ("Remarques sur le principe de
causalite," Revue philosophique, 1890, vol. ii. p. 225).

17 Op. cit. p. 37.

18 Op. cit. p. 40 ff.

19 Op. cit. p. 44.

20 Avenarius learnt the strict method of physiological research in
Lud wig's school at Leipzig, and was initiated by Drobisch into Herbartian
philosophy, whence he derived the notion of the inertia of apperceptive
masses being due to the need of conservation of the mind, which, when inter-
preted physiologically, harmonised with the new conceptions of Darwinism.

n Philosophic als Denken der Welt gemdss dem Prinzip des kleinsten
Kraftmasses (2nd ed., Berlin, 1903), p. 3 ff.
« Op. cit. p. 12 ff.
18 Op. cit. p. 24.
M Op. cit. p. 38.
24 Op. cit. p. 46 ff.

26 Op. cit. pp. 52-54.

27 Op. cit. pp. 56-62.

28 Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (Leipzig, 1888-91), vol. ii. p. 238 ff.
M Op. cit. voL ii. pp. 218-222.

80 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 204 ff.

81 Einfuhrung in die Philosophic der reinen Erfahrung (Leipzig, 1900),
voL i. p. 198. Petzoldt has modified the theory of Avenarius on the

SEC. i EMPIRIO-CKITICISM 91

subject of logical, ethic, and aesthetic values. Avenarius looked upon these
values as derived from the function of language, by which the psychic facts of
one individual assume a different character of a secondary or epi-character-
istic order when communicated to another person: thus, for instance,
immediately experienced pleasure and pain become aesthetic pleasure and
pain when communicated to us by others ; knowledge, communicated
through the medium of language, becomes science, true, if the com-
munication be made by a reliable person, false in the contrary circumstances.
Petzoldt, on the other hand, regards these values also as primary and
fundamental.

82 Petzoldt lays special stress on this tendency to stability as a motor
force of evolution (1904, voL ii. p. 72 ff.). The principle of the minimum
effort of economy is in its essence a tendency to stability (ibid. p. 94).

33 Avenarius, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 302.

34 Der menschliche Weltbegriff (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1905), p. 6.

35 Op. cit. p. 8.

34 Op. cit. p. 26 ff.

37 Op. cit. p. 76 ff.

38 Op. cit. p. 82.

39 Op. cit. p. 84.

40 Op. cit. p. 93 ff.

41 Op. cit. p. 110 ff.

42 The Metaphysic of Experience (London, 1898).

43 Die Erkenntnis der Naturforschung der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1905),
pp. 24-30.

44 Op. cit. p. 43 ff.
48 Op. cit. p. 9.

46 Op. cit. p. 141.

47 Op. cit. p. 124.

48 Op. cit. p. 141.

CHAPTER IV

ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM

1. Two Attempts at Escape from the Agnostic Position. —
Thinkers have tried to escape from the agnostic position
in two different ways : one, whose course we have followed
through neo - criticism and empiric - criticism, aims at
the critical elimination of the problem by the reduction
of all reality to phenomena only, and the dismissal of
that Absolute which appeared to baffle knowledge, a
proceeding reminding us of a child who imagines that by
shutting his eyes to something of which he is afraid he
can destroy it ; the other is the return to that speculative
method which positivism had vainly endeavoured to
replace by science. Some of these speculative attempts,
which were inspired by post-Kantian idealism, have
been already treated in their relation to neo-criticism ;
this applies more especially to those which are closely
connected with the teaching of Fichte, Schelling, and
Schopenhauer, and which are more or less deeply tinged
with romanticism and irrationahsm ; we must now
sketch the outlines of that movement of thought which
arose in England in opposition to traditional empiricism
and its ultimate tendency, agnostic positivism, claiming
to be able to supply that which was lacking in scientific
intellectualism, and reaching in the works of Hegel a
higher form of rationalism.

2. The Eternity of Thought, as Affirmed by Green in
Opposition to Empiricism. — The philosophy of Thomas
Hill Green l appears to be a reaction from the empiricist

92

SEC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 93

and psycho-genetic method which had for centuries been
the predominant feature of English philosophy,2
righteous vindication of the eternity of consciousness
and thought against those who would fain regard it as
a contingent phenomenon, having its origin in time,
and doomed to vanish in time. It must be said in
his favour that he is not carried away by the facile
enthusiasm for the new theory of evolution^ and that
he clearly saw the petitio principi\ concealed in every
alleged biological explanation of consciousness.3

The world of nature and experience, in so far as it is a

series of inter-connected facts, presupposes the conscious

and intelligent principle which is supposed to be derived

therefrom ; 4 an experience without a subject is an

epistemological absurdity, just as would be an eternal

system of relations (such as the physicist's conception

of the world) without an Eternal Thought to impart

reality to that system. The consciousness of change

cannot be in its turn a process of change, since it must

.be present at all stages of that process ; experience

I of a series developing in time_presupposes a conscious^--

"principle external to time j^anJtience not of naffiaToHginT

We cannot conceive of any reality external to this/?,
Eternal Thought which comprehends within itself the°
whole system of objective relations : the dualism of
Kant, according to which the form of phenomena, i.e.
their relations, is derived from the intellect, while matter,
i.e. sensations, takes its rise in some mysterious source^
beyond all thought, is therefore inadmissible.5 Kant's"
error lies in assuming as a possibility the existence of
a formless sensation, not qualified by thought ; whereas
every form of experience implies at least the distinction
between the actual fact and the preceding moment,
and hence an intellectual reference. If everything be^
eliminated which can be expressed in terms of relation^,
no reality will remain. If we divest our knowledge of a
thing of every relation, that is to say of every thought,
not even simple consciousness is left, since consciousness
cannot exist where change and difference cannot be

94 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.

noted, and where there is no relation of sequence and
intensity between the sensation experienced at the
moment and those preceding it.6 In the most elementary
act of perception we establish a relation between terms
which can only be given in and by virtue of relations, and
that which enters into this conscious relation is not
sensation as such, but the fact that the sensation is feU?
If, for instance, I recognise the action and presence of
the fire in my vicinity, that which forms an integrant
part of my knowledge is not the impression of heat, but
merely the idea that I feel warm. This is proved
by the fact that if I go farther away in order to make
sure that the heat is produced by the fire, the impression
of heat diminishes in intensity, whereas the perception of
the scorching fire does not become more precise or undergo
any change. Further, a too intense sensation does not
act as an aid to knowledge, but rather as an impediment
in its path, and, whilst the impression is perpetually sub-
jected to a process of transformation, the fact conceived
of its existence remains always the same. For instance,
the sensation of red conveyed by a lady's sunshade may
vary in intensity, but there is no change in my knowledge
of the fact that the sunshade is red in this determinate
way. Knowledge in its ultimate analysis consists of
relations, and experience, when all is said and done, is
but a manifold of thought relations. If it be impossible
to derive thought from sensation, as the empiricists do,
the inverse procedure is equally unjustifiable, because,
just as there is no such tiling as pure sensation, there
is no such thing as pure tEought : these~twb phrases
merely stand for abstractions to which there exists no
corresponding reality either in the facts of the world or
in the consciousness to which these facts stand in
relation.8 Sensation and thought do not exist inde-
pendently of each other, but are two inseparable aspects
of the same living experience.9 By this we do not
mean that all sentient animals must also be capable of
thought : the relations from which the reality of their
sensorial life is derived do not exist for their con-

SBC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 95

sciousness, but for the Absolute Thought, in which
the component relations of phenomena exist to all
eternity, even when empirical consciousness is not
aware of their presence. So long as we feel without
thinking, the world of phenomena is non-existent for
its, yet we possess a certain form of existence, since,
even if the relative sensations be not real facts for our
consciousness, they yet exist in the consciousness of the
Absolute.10 The action of the mind does not consist
in abstracting certain attributes from things as presented
to us by experience, thus mutilating experience and
rendering it barren; it is rather thought itself which
constitutes the attributes and makes them into objects
by colligating them with one another. Knowledge does
not pass from the concrete to the abstract, from rich
and full perception to poor and empty conception ; on the
contrary, it passes from the universal to the individual
The categories do not stand at the end, but at the
beginning ; they are not ultimate truth, but rather that
which we apprehend in even the simplest perception ;
they are the most universal and primitive of relations, by
means of which we create objects in order of progression,
determining them by means of relations which grow
more and more numerous and exact, until we attain
individual concrete ideas possessed of a greater wealth
of synthetical relations. Knowledge goes through two
phases, the one spontaneous, the other reflective : in the
former we pass from the universal to the individual, and
interpret things according to the laws governing our
mental activity without being aware that we are doing
so ; in the reflex phase we retrace our steps from the
concrete to the abstract, defining clearly the relations
existing between individual objects ; these relations
are, of course, not derived from experience as such, but
rather from that which we ourselves have unwittingly
introduced ioto it in the first stage of knowledge.
Empiricists leave this second phase out of their reckoning,
and ignore the activity of the mental principle in the
spontaneous construction of the world.

96 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. I

The difference between conception and perception,
the imaginary and the real, the general abstract idea
and the individual concrete presentation, amounts to
this : that in the case of perception we have, in
addition to the conceived relations which constitute the
idea of the object, the thought that this idea is or
has been felt ; whereas in pure conception relations are
considered independently of the impressions which
they determine, i.e. of the fact that these impression
are or are not present. In the case of the single concrete
idea, there is but one actual or possible impression,
determined by a network of relations which are extremely
numerous, and which have been noted more or less
vaguely from the first ; whilst simpler and more genera]
relations may be equally well verified by a large number
of relations without determining any one of them. A
perfectly adequate conception of the conditions of a
phenomenon would therefore in no way differ from its
reality, since it would of necessity include amongst those
conditions the relation that the phenomenon can be
and is felt.

If objects exist only by virtue of their relations,
relations in their turn are possessed of no consistency
apart from the harmonious system of all relations,
towards which of its very nature thought must tend.
The consciousness of a unique system of relations at
once universal and coherent is the criterion of truth
and reality to which we unconsciously look even in our
most elementary acts of judgment : a relation is real
and true when it is in logical agreement with the whole
manifold of known and knowable relations, and is false
when it contradicts them.u Macbeth, when he imagines
that he sees a dagger before him, is deceived because he
has established false relations between his own actual
sensations and other sensations, relations, that is to
say, which are out of harmony with the whole system
of relations constituting the universe. All our researches
into the objective nature of appearances have one and
the same aim — the discovery of an unchangeable order

SEC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 97

of relations, a complete system having nothing external
to itself. The unity of the system, i.e. the unity of
nature, is presupposed in all knowledge, and is the basis
and gauge of its certainty. In mathematics this
certainty is undoubtedly more stable, and rests upon
a surer foundation, but we are not therefore justified in
placing the exact, a priori, necessary science in opposi-
tion to the a posteriori and contingent natural sciences.
In reality, mathematics, like other sciences, is the
result of experience, in the sense that it consists in
the analysis of the unconscious products of primordial
mental creation, and that it rediscovers in things
the relations unconsciously infused into them by
thought. Its one and only claim to superiority lies
in the fact that it is based on the simple and
general conditions governing the existence of natural
objects, that is to say, on quantitative and spatial
conditions, of which it is possible to conceive apart from
all others. The natural sciences, on the other hand, are
not contingent, as is thought by those who place them
in opposition to mathematics, since induction is not
based on experience, analogy, or custom derived from
many repetitions, which could never be sufficient
authority for laying down a universal law. We do not
pass from the known to the unknown, since such a
transition would be unintelligible, nor from like to like,
since we should have no authority for such a transition,
but from identical to identical. In order to assert that
that which has been recognised as true in one case holds
good of a whole class, we must know that all the cases
in question, whether they have come under observation
or not, are identical as regards a certain aspect, that is
to say, as regards that relation at all events to which
the present induction refers.

The conditions of a natural phenomenon are extremely
numerous and are never repeated, hence it follows that
at times some of them may escape us ; a geometrical
problem, on the other hand, depends only upon condi-
tions with which we are thoroughly acquainted, therefore

H

98 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

in the one case we attain unconditioned, in the other con-
ditioned, truths. Our knowledge of nature is constantly
being extended by connecting facts which are increasingly
coherent in their nature, and co-ordinating relations
which tend to become more and more complex, and
the proof and criterion of the truth of the simpler
relations are to be found in the system which harmonises
them in itself. The falsity of a theory can only be
demonstrated by proving it to be inexplicable ; that is to
say, by showing that it cannot be connected with other
groups of relations. The uniformity and unity of
nature become more and more evident the more
closely we enquire into it, but, on the other hand,
we cannot investigate it without believing it to be
already uniform and one, and without implicitly
admitting that nature constitutes in itself a unique
system of relations which condition each other ad
infinitum, presuppose and imply one another ab aetemo,
of which individual objects are but the ultimate con-
sequences and combinations, that is to say, without
presupposing that nature has a significance present
in its totality to Absolute Thought.12 Our conscious-
ness, being subject to the limitations of time, cannot
fully grasp this significance or identify itself entirely
with the Divine Mind, but all human knowledge pre-
supposes this significance, of which our knowledge is
the gradual revelation in time. In the interpretation
of the great book of nature, in which the Thought of
God is revealed to the soul of man, the same thing
occurs which each one of us may observe when reading
a sentence or phrase ; single words succeed one another
by means of a process developing in time, but the thought
that the whole sentence or phrase must have a meaning ia
present with us from the moment we begin to read, and<
when we have reached the end, this meaning is present
to our consciousness as a simultaneous whole, not as a
series of successive elements.13 Thus, although the
psycho-physiological organism may develop empirically
in time, our thought in the act of grasping universa

SEC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 99

relations places itself outside time, and shares in the
Absolute Thought. That which we term our mental
history is not the development of this eternal aspect
of consciousness by which we are made one with
God, and which is not subject to development in time,
but is rather a history of the process by which the
animal organism becomes the vehicle of this develop-
ment. The empirical consciousness in its incessant
evolution and its interruptions and disturbances should
not make us forget its eternal element, that Absolute
Thought, which is consciousness of time, but which is
not itself in time ; which is consciousness of becoming,
but escapes all change.14

3. Criticism of Green's Pan-logism. — Green's philo-
sophy with regard to scientific research differs widely
from the empty dialectic of Hegel, which alleged
that all the determinations of nature could be con-,
structed out of nothing by means of artificial negations.
English Neo-Hegelianism lays no claim to the place of
science ; its aim is rather to integrate the fragmentary
results attained by science, and to find amid the isolated
laws and supreme categories of the real the ultimate
tie of necessity binding them together in thought. In
this direction Green's epistemology makes a notable step
in advance on the logic of Hegel, but he does not succeed
in shaking off the prejudice of pan-logism, and persists in
the assertion that living concrete reality can be recon-
structed by means of a system of abstract relations.
There is something in the psychic jacjb jts immediately^
experienced which no effort of (dialectic' can ever identify]'
with a system of conceptual relations ; sensations, *f
feelings, passions, impulses, volitions as they are given
in the concreteness of the human personality, are
possessed of an individual aspect which cannot be fore-
seen, and which, as we shall see, plays into the hands
of the opponents of intellectualism. Green asserts that
there is no difference between conceiving and feeling,
that it will suffice to add to the idea of horse, for instance,
the relation of being felt, for the concept of horse to be

100 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

transformed into the perception thereof ; it is, however,
one thing to think of feeling and another actually to
feel.

Green, however, passes with the greatest ease from
the concept of the sensation to the sensation itself,
without perceiving that between the two there is an
impassable gulf fixed. We may think that all the con-
ditions necessary to the verification of a sensation have
been fulfilled, but this will not make us feel. If it
were so, the blind could restore their own sight by
studying a treatise on optics ! Nor can the sophistical
argument be adduced that one of the essential con-
ditions is lacking, namely, the normal structure of the
eye, since, according to Green, the complete concept
of this structure should suffice to transform the idea
into a real fact. The intuitionists cannot succeed in
accounting for the constant and universal in reality ;
Green goes to the opposite extreme, and places himself
in a position which prevents his understanding that
which is individual, concrete, and changeable in the
history of the world. From his point of view, indeed,
••there is no such thing as time, there exists merely the
concept of time, which is something external to time ;
there is no such thing as change, but only the idea of
change, which is external to it ; there is no such thing as
an individual, but only the concept of one which by its
very nature must of necessity be universal. If reality
then be a network of eternal relations, present in their
totality to the Absolute Consciousness ; if even a human
person be but a fragmentary group of those relations,
does it not become impossible to explain the evolutionary
motion of things, their incessant transformation, and
everything which is most spontaneous, living, and fruitful
in the concrete development of our inner hfe ? In the
eternal immobility of the idea, time with its efficacious
rhythm, and the world as a whole, become, to quotej
Bradley, merely an illusory appearance. But is not
the birth of this illusion too an inexplicable mystery,
if human consciousness be a web of unchangeable

aw. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 101

relations ? How did it issue from the eternity of thought
in order to project itself into time ? Moreover, if the
Absolute live in it, must not its every idea perforce
be true ? In Green's philosophy there is no room for
error and illusion, which can only be understood if we
admit a certain degree of independence and spontaneity
in the individual subject as against Absolute Conscious-
ness. We can form no conception of objective reality as
a system of relations, complete, fixed, and unchangeable
from all eternity, since every new form which makes
its appearance, every individual in his concrete physiog-
nomy, becomes the centre in cosmic evolution of a fresh
network of countless relations which tend to become
more widely extended, more interwoven, and more com-
plicated in successive moments. The reduction of the
Absolute to the eternal contemplation of ideas eternally
present to its consciousness amounts to the same
thing as turning it into a caput mortuum, like the
impassive deities of Epicurus in their blissful ease. We
^cannot conceive of a consciousness which is not lifeT
..development, perennial creation, and fruitful activity,
jDLor of a thought which cannot be enriched by new
relations, whilst preserving the coherency and identity
of its fundamental laws ; nor of any form of spirituality
without qualitative development, or which is not
manifested in original actions which cannot be foreseen.]
Pan-logism aims at the absorption of everything into
ji system of eternal relations, and must therefore
inevitably end in denying the reality of that which
is most vital and most concrete in the world of con-}
sciousness. If its premisses be granted, Bradley's philo-
Isbphy is-the necessary conclusion.

4. The Iteductio ad Absurdum of Pan-Logism in
Bradley's Philosophy. — Bradley15 maintains that the
world, as given to us by experience and as con-
structed by science in its concepts, is but an illusory
appearance of a deeper reality of which philosophy
should strive to sound the depths by speculative methods,
after having exposed the contradictions latent in the

102 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

world of appearances. The concepts of which physical
science makes use lend themselves perfectly to the
determination of limited phenomena, but lead to con-
tradictions when we attempt to use them to express
the true essence of reality ; they are relative concepts,
characterising things in relation to and in comparison
with other things, but they can tell us nothing of the
terms of those relations ; they are working ideas, which
are of no theoretical importance, but have only the
value of useful fictions, practical compromises.16 Bradley
starts from the principle of contradiction,17 which he
regards as the supreme criterion of every reality, and,
acting on the strength of this, the one and only article of
his logical code, considers himself entitled to administer
summary justice to all scientific concepts and intellectual
categories — substance, quality, relation, space, time,
movement, change, causality, force, activity — which
from his point of view imply contradictions and hence
cannot correspond to anything real. Let us, for example,
consider the relation between the thing and its prop-
erties : its substance is not identical with any one of
them ; what is it then ? Merely a link connecting its
qualities ; but what do we mean by the assertion that
one quality is related to another ? Neither of them
is identical with the other or with the relation to the
other ; thus the number of contradictions is augmented
rather than diminished. Quality does not exist apart
from relations, but relation in its turn is not conceiv-
able except as existing between qualitative terms :
on the one hand, it would appear that quality is the
result of relations, since qualitative difference cannot
exist apart from a process of distinction ; on the other,
it would appear that relations in their ultimate analysis
are forms of quality. Nor is it of any avail to draw
a distinction between two elements in a quality, one
pre- existent to the relation, and rendering that
relation possible ; the other resulting from the relation
itself ; since we should have to explain the ' mutual
relation of these two elements, both belonging to one

SKO. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 103

and the same thing ; we are, that is to say, confronted
with the problem of a new relation no less inexplicable
than the first, and so on ad infinitum. The relation
cannot be identified with the things related, and, taken
by itself, is nothing.18 . No less contradictory are
space,19 time,20 movement,21 activity,22 causality,23 etc.,
because when these concepts are resolved into various
combinations of qualities and relations, the difficulties
set forth above will arise afresh. The fundamental con-
cepts of the special sciences are then mere appearances
due to faulty perspective, which must be eliminated
by rising to a higher experience embracing all possible
appearances transfigured to a greater or less degree
in an integral harmonious system; these illusions,
however, are possessed of a certain degree of reality ;
there is no such thing as a truth which is entirely true,
just as there is no such thing as an error which is entirely
false ; we can only speak of a greater or lesser degree
of truth ; error is partial truth, it is false only because it
is one-sided and incomplete. All appearances are real in
some way or other, and to some extent, and the right
modifications and transformations (supplementation and
arrangement, addition, qualification) may bring them too
into the system of the Absolute.24 In like manner
every finite truth, like every fact, must be to a certain
extent unreal and false, and the unlimited nature of
the unknown renders it impossible to determine with
certainty in the last analysis the proportion of error
contained therein. If our knowledge were a system,
we could determine the position of each thing in the
whole, and gauge accurately the proportion of truth and
error contained therein, but the nature of our knowledge
renders such a system out of the question.25 Thought
originates in the separation of the what, the ideal
meaning, the predicate, from the that, immediately
felt existence, the subject ; error, falseness, lies in
uniting a what and a that which do not corre-
spond to each other. In the harmony of the whole,
each what will find its proper that, and every illusion

104 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

will consequently vanish ; the ideal will coincide
with the existent, the intelligible with the thing given.
This is impossible to our finite consciousness, which
develops in time and has its being in the world of
appearances derived from the separation of idea
from fact; notwithstanding this, we can approximate
in some fashion, and with varying degrees of success,
to the total harmonic system by striving to eliminate
the contradictory element in phenomena, and to render
our thought more coherent and more complete.26 The
ideal at which knowledge aims is the re-union of idea
and fact — an ideal which it can never fully realise ; thus
its efforts in this direction imply a latent contradiction,
since, on the one hand, knowledge is only possible in
virtue of the distinction between the what and the
that, the predicate and its subject, which are elements
indispensable to the judicial function ; whilst on the
other, its development and perfecting should lead to the
elimination of this distinction. There can be no clear
and full understanding of truth with this distinction
between data and their ideal significance ; the moment
this difference vanishes, truth ceases to exist and
knowledge gives place to the true and real life of the
Absolute.27 Truth and knowledge are then but illusory
appearances, like everything else which implies the
separation of idea from fact, and they tend to transcend
the bounds of intellect, and to become fused in a form
of intuition and universal life of which we can hardly form
an abstract idea, an immediate concrete experience, in
which all the elements — sensation, emotion, thought,
and will — are fused into one comprehensive feeling.28
Finite beings cannot enter into the fulness of the life
of the Absolute, or have specific experience of its con-
stitution, but human consciousness can form a certain
idea of it by retracing its steps to that primitive
and diffused feeling to which the distinction between
subject and object, and the differentiation of elements
was as yet unknown. This intuition, which must
embrace and harmonise the various phenomenal aspects

SEC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 105

of consciousness, will, intellect, imagination, which,
considered separately and postulated as absolutes, give
rise to contradictions, although it possesses the immediacy
of feeling, is nevertheless not subject to the limitations
of every kind of distinction and relation as feeling is,
but transcends all distinctions and relations, and there-
fore contains them in a higher unity within itself.29
It is a form of psychic or spiritual experience (sentient
experience) ^ because there can be no reality external
to the mind, and the truth of a thing is in proportion
to its spirituality ; 31 but the modes of conscious experi-
ence are too one-sided for any one of them to give us
the immediate intuition thereof, hence we must rest
content with forming an abstract conception of it by,
so to speak, " passing to the limit " of the various
appearances.

5. Criticism of Bradley' s Dialectic. — Pan - logism
thus ends in an act of apostasy, and its dialectic leads
to its own annihilation in a form of mystical intuitionism,
whose static and contemplative character distinguishes
it from that of Bergson.32 It is the conception of the one
unchangeable and eternal being of the ancient Eleatic
philosophers, as opposed to the perennial flux of Hera-
clitus, and the inevitable end of those who give them-
selves over to the hollow dialectic of reason divorced from
its vital content and articulated in rigorously identical
formulas. What then is left of reality ? A principle
devoid of life and motion, something which has not even
the logical coherence of our thought, since this thought
is only valuable and important in so far as it opposes
itself to the fluctuations of experience and assures the
stability of concepts amid the manifold changes of images.
Removed from this environment, its function ceases to
be possible, and thought itself is arrested and vanishes
into nothingness. The law of identity, if it is to be of
any efficacy and value, must be applicable to a multi-
plicity in which the movement of thought is developed ;
if it be divested of such a content, it ceases to be
conceivable. The Absolute, as a mere identity of

106 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

permanence, is something the reality of whose existence
is beyond our power of thought. Moreover, even if
we admit that it is possible to think of it as a limited
concept, it will still be incomprehensible how such
perfect identity can give birth to the illusion of
multiplicity, or an inviolable law of permanence to the
phantasmagoria of a world in process of evolution.

It is useless to say that change is illusory, since
we still have to explain how the illusion arises, because,
even if it be nothing else, it is a psychical fact which we
experience directly, and whose existence is consequently
undeniable. Our thought refuses to admit that if the
law of things is a perfect identity the manifold content
of consciousness with its unceasing transformations
can be derived therefrom without the imperturbable
inflexibility of being undergoing any change. Either it
is unrelated to phenomenal occurrences and abstract,
lifeless unity remains immovable to all eternity in its
ataraxy, in which case it is a caput mortuum with which
the world of phenomena can readily dispense ; or it
must be the adequate reason of the constant renewal
of consciousness and experience, in which case it cannot
preserve its fixity of quietism. But, Bradley would
urge, even the change of finite consciousness in
time is illusory in so far as it assumes the separation
of fact from idea, the that from the what. What
authority have we, then, for forming such an opinion
of it ? The principle of contradiction is only of value
as the law governing the judgment, and implies the
distinction between two concepts standing in a definite
relation to each other, that is to say, they must be
such that one excludes the other ; now, according to
Bradley, judgment and the distinction between con-
ceptual terms are appearances relative to our finite
point of view ; Jience^ eyen^ the_prmciple of^gntradiction
cjinjbejmt^ji law ofjippearances, an illusory law ; JIQW
.can it7then,1t)e set ujTasa^ criterion of absolute reality ?
Who can guarantee that this law is applicable to absolute
reality, and is not rather an error of perspective like

SBC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 107

the rest ? May not Hegel be right in assigning to
contradiction a place in the very heart of the idea, and
in looking upon it as the germ from which its develop-
ment springs ? When we assert with Bradley that"?
finite thought is an appearance, we can no longer con- J
sistently regard the principle of contradiction as an/
absolute criterion any more than any other logical axiom.]
If logical principles be set up as judges of reality,
we grant by implication the value of finite thought,
judgment, and human reason. On the other hand, if
the unconditioned value of the axioms be granted, it
is not a necessary inference, as Bradley, following in the
footsteps of Herbart and the ancient Eleatics, would
have us believe, that movement and change are illusory,
because they contradict the laws governing our thoughts.
Multiplicity and transformation, as we receive them
directly from intuition, are not contradictory in them-
selves, the contradiction exists only between our one-
sided concepts. We may resolve movement as pre-
sented to us by intuition into abstract elements, but
in that case we must bear in mind that each one of these
elements is but a partial view, a limit which we our-
selves have laid down in order to facilitate analysis
and research, and which does not correspond to any
real division. Thus, on the one hand, if we isolate
certain persistent and uniform elements from the process
of change which we apprehend by means of immediate
intuition, we may state that body remains unchanged ;
if," on the other hand, we look at it from another
point of view, and introduce only varying elements
into the idea, regarded in abstraction from the complex
of intuitive data, we should be led to a diametrically
opposite conclusion. Who, however, can fail to see
that the opposition in such a case is the artificial creation
of our partial view ? Change is in no way contradictory
to the principles of human intellect ; it is true that the
birth of the new amid the unceasing flux of experience
eludes the grasp of our abstract concepts, which are
constrained to sacrifice the wealth of mind and nature

108 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

on the altar of their universality and identity, but even
if concrete becoming cannot be adequately transcribed
into terms of abstract thought, it does not follow
that it is illogical. The contradiction vanishes when
we substitute intuited reality in its fulness for incomplete
abstract terms. In like manner will vanish the other
alleged contradictions seen by Bradley in the exercise
of thought ; if thought appear to be overwhelmed by a
flood of absurdities, it is because its supreme categories
have been divested of all intuitive content, and are
then supposed to fulfil their functions in the resulting
void. The activity of judgment may be explained
by establishing relations between terms which are not
wholly the creation of thought, as is asserted by Green,
but always have their source in intuitive data ; there
must necessarily be a limit to the resolution of terms
into relations, since there is always something left which
cannot be translated into relations. Thus, to use
Bradley's illustration,33 there is nothing contradictory
in the relation between the two properties of whiteness
and sweetness in sugar, since the two terms do not exist
merely by virtue of the relation which we set up between
them, but exist also in as much as they are immediately
felt. Their relation is rendered sufficiently consistent
by the unity of the subject, even though it be impossible
to identify it with either of the two terms. The absurdity
arises only when the relation is separated from the
subject, and considered as an entity in itself, a thing.
In like manner the necessary basis of the relations of
succession implied in the concepts of cause, action,
force, energy, etc., will be found in the continuity of the
epistemological subject, hence it is not surprising that
they should give rise to contradictions if we isolate them
from that subject. Nothing but the continuous presence
of the subject can bridge over the gulf between one term
and another, and enable the intellect to grasp the relation
between an antecedent which has ceased to exist and
a certain consequence which has not yet come into
existence. Duration, extension, action, and change

SEC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 109

only become contradictory when looked upon apart
from the living continuity of consciousness, and, even
though we cannot succeed in re -constructing them
analytically in their concreteness by means of pure
acts of thought without being confronted by in-
surmountable difficulties, it does not follow that either
they or thought are empty appearances, but only that
logical relations do not exhaust the whole of reality in
every concrete moment of consciousness, and that there
exists an individual physiognomy of the world which
cannot be reduced to mere systems of relations.

6. Mystical Degeneration of English Neo-Hegelianism :
McTaggart. — English Neo-Hegelianism, after striving
in vain in the teaching of Green to dispose of the agnostic
position of intellectualism by absorbing into an eternal
system of relations those irreducible elements which are
ignored by scientific knowledge, degenerates with Bradley
into a form of scepticism and intuitionism. The mystical
degeneration of Hegelianism is still more marked in
McTaggart, who no longer regards dialectic as the very
life of the Absolute, as did Hegel, but considers it to be
merely a subjective means for the re-construction of
the eternally perfect system of individual minds, whose
harmonious synthesis gives birth to the Absolute, by
disposing of the abstract appearances of the reality
which develops in time.

This ultimate synthesis of reality cannot be attained
by discursive thought, which is unable to reconcile
perfect and imperfect, temporal and eternal, the Ego and
the non-Ego, experienced immediacy and mediate or
rational knowledge, but can be reached only in the
state of love in which other beings lose their exteriority
and appear to us in the very form of our Ego.™
English Neo-Hegelianism thus ranks sentiment above
reason, and aims at the pole of convergence of
contemporary philosophy, the denial of the cognitive
value of intelligence, and the search for some more
direct means of penetration into reality. Thus the
many and various currents of thought which spring

110 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

from the irresistible longing to burst the bonds of
agnosticism which stifle the most living aspirations
of the soul, mingle their waters in the wild, rushing
torrent of the reaction from intellectualism.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

I Green published nothing in his life-time but articles in reviews and
an Introduction to the works of Hume (1874-75). After his death his
Prolegomena to Ethics was edited by A. C. Bradley and published in 1883,
and his complete works were collected and published in three volumes by
Nettleship (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1885).

* Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, edited by T. H. Green and
T. H. Grose (new edition, London, 1878). The " Introduction " prefixed
by Green to voL i. is a criticism of the philosophy of Locke (pp. 5-132),
Berkeley (pp. 133-151), and Hume (p. 161 to end).

* " Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. G. H. Lewes : Their Application of
the Doctrine of Evolution to Thought," Contemporary Review, 1877-78,
voL xxx. pp. 25-53, 745-69 ; voL xxxii. pp. 751-772.

' " . . . Experience in the sense of a consciousness of events as a
related series . . . cannot be explained by any natural history, properly
so called. It is not the product of a series of events " (Prolegomena to
Ethics, Oxford, 1899, 4th ed., p. 25. See also his introduction to Hume,
p. 164 ff.).

8 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 45.

* Op. cit. p. 54 ff.

7 Op. cit. p. 75 ff.

8 " We admit that mere thought can no more produce the facts of
feeling than mere feeling can generate thought " (op. cit. p. 60).

* Op. cit. p. 58.

10 Op. cit. p. 57.
" Op. cit. p. 18 ff.

11 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 34, p. 62 ff.
" Op. cit. p. 85 ff.

" Op. cit. p. 80 ff.

16 Principles of Logic (London, 1883) ; Appearance and Reality (London,
1893).

w Appearance and Reality, p. 284.

17 " Ultimate reality is such that it does not contradict itself : here is
absolute criterion " (op. cit. p. 136 ff.).

18 Op. cit. p. 20 ff.

19 Op. cit. p. 35 ff.
10 Op. cit. p. 39 ff.

II Op. cit. p. 44 ff.
" Op. cit. p. 62 ff.
M Op. cit. p. 54 ff.

14 " Error is truth, it is partial truth that is false only because partial
and left incomplete "(op. cit. p. 192). " Error is truth when it is supple-
mented " (op. cit. p. 195).

" Op. cit. p. 54.

* Op. cit. p. 364 ff. According to Bradley, the appearance which

SEC. i ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM 111

most nearly approximates to reality and is possessed of the greatest
proportion of truth is the one which demands the least addition and
rearrangement for its conversion into the Absolute.
17 Op. cit. pp. 163 ff., 361, 545 ff.

28 Op. cit. p. 227. " For our Absolute was not a mere intellectual
system. It was an experience overriding every species of one-sidedness,
and it was a living intuition, an immediate individuality.

29 Op. cit. p. 242.
8» Op. cit. p. 144.

31 Op. cit. p. 551.

32 F. C. S. Schiller in an article entitled : " Mysticism versus Intel-
lectualism," published in Mind (January 1913, p. 87), protests against my
interpretation of Bradley' s philosophy. He is under the impression that
I intended to say that Bradley wilfully and deliberately reduced English
Neo-Hegelianism ad dbsurdum ; it is, however, obvious that I merely
assert that Bradley's dialectic unconsciously reduces pan-logism ad
absurdum, and on this point Schiller and I are really agreed.

33 Appearance and Reality, p. 20.

34 Studies in Hegelian Cosmology (Cambridge, 1901), pp. 270-292;
Studies in Hegelian Dialectic (Cambridge, 1896), pp. 214-276.

SECTION II

THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM

CHAPTER I

THE DOCTRINE OF CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM

1. The Aesthetic and Moral Conception of the Universe :
Secretan, Ravaisson. — Modern French philosophy results ^
from the confluence of two great currents of thought : ;
the philosophy of liberty, of which Kant's doctrine
of the primacy of pure reason is the source, which
vindicates the rights of will and feeling against the
claims of the intellect ; and the work of critical revision
of science, of which Mach was the pioneer. ItTderives
its moral and aesthetic conception of the universe from
the philosophy of liberty as developed by Secretan and
Ravaisson, and its arguments against the necessity of
law from the new criticism of science, thus striving to
eliminate the antitheses existing between the intelligence
and free will. It holds, as does Secretan, that the
essence of the world is an act of unfettered expansion,
an act of love and infinite benevolence ; hence^ the_real
tool of philosophy is, as Ravaisson clearly saw, artistic x
inspiration and feeling for religion, not definition and
scientific analyses ; 1 it is intuition which enables us to
grasp the active substance of the Ego, and affords
the irresistible evidence of feeling, evidence above all
argument and all calculation. This sense of indefinite
effusion, to which French philosophers of the new school
look for the revelation of the Absolute, is neither Kant's
Good Will nor yet the free affirmation of the Ego,
governed by the imperious law of duty inherent in
its very nature, as conceived of by Fichte, but rather

115

116 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

that feeling of untrammelled expansion and abandon-
ment proper to creation and aesthetic contemplation.!
" Beauty," as Ravaisson had already said,2 " and morej
especially beauty in its most divine and perfect form,
contains the secret of the world." The cosmic process
is not a mechanism of necessary and eternal movements,
circumscribed within the inflexible limits of a system oi
mathematical formulae, as intellect, guided by science^
had imagined it to be ; it is rather the perennial creatiori
of a marvellous work of art, which from the rude out-l
lines of the inorganic world has gradually evolved intc
the higher forms of spiritual life. T^_sj^ni|Lc.ajQce. oj
cosmic evolution lies not in that to which natural beings
have already attained, but in their higher aspiration*
and in the ideal towards which they more or less con
sciously tend. True reality is not the necessity o
phenomena, as Kant imagined in his Kritik der reinet
Vernunfi, but the world as seen in the light shed upoi
* it by the idea of beauty and liberty, as he beheld it ii
his Kritik der Urteilskraft.

2. fimile Boutroux and the Contingency of Natypei
Laws. — This concept of the moral and aesthetic finalit;
of the universe is the dominant feature of the systen
of philosophy set forth by Boutroux, in which the tw<
currents of which we have already spoken meet fo
the first time. According to Boutroux, the suprem
principles of things are moral and aesthetic laws regulat
ing the spontaneous activity of beings in their ascen
to God. Natural laws are in themselves in no wa;
absolute or eternal, they are merely the expression of :
transitory phase which may be superseded or left behind
they are but habits formed by the creature whict
instead of going forward, rests content with form
already realised and tends to persist in those forms,
in which it recognises the imprint of the ideal.3 Wlie
the Good and the Beautiful are completely triumphant
these artificially acquired fixed images of an essentiall
living and flexible model will vanish, and necessary la'
will give place to the spontaneous effort of the will t.

SEC. H CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 117

attain perfection and the free hierarchy of minds. The
inner heart of things is manifested in the concrete work
of imagination and in the spontaneity of will, not in
the empty, stereotyped forms of the intellect. When
we try to confine them within the bonds of abstract
formulae of permanency, that which is most real in
them — qualitative multiplicity in the inexhaustible
wealth of its creations — eludes our grasp. Science then
increases rather than diminishes the distance between
ourselves and the inmost nature of reality. How and
why, then, have the constructions of science ^ma j™tn
beingJ. Boutroux maintains that all the labour of science
is but an attempt to adjust things to the law of identity
of thought, and to make them carry out our will more
readily.4 "* We see the beginning of this work of adjust-
ment in the realm of logic itself ; concept, judgment,
syllogism all contain something more than mere logical
principles, i.e. the multiple as contained in the one, the
relation between the explicit and the implicit, so that,
while they are not exactly a priori, neither are they
a posteriori : the mind of man contains within itself
the laws of pure logic ; but, since the matter presented
to its notice does not appear to it to be strictly in con-
formity with these principles, it endeavours to adapt
logic to things, and devises a complex of proceedings
and symbols designed to make reality easier of appre-
hension.5 The laws of pure logic are necessary, and
there can be no doubt as to their objective validity ;
but their weakness lies in the very thing which con-
stitutes their strength, since they fail to determine the'
nature of the things to which they apply. The art of
syllogism in its turn, being a product of the mind, affords
in itself no guarantee of objective validity, but the fact
that our reasoning attains its end is a proof that
there must be some relation between human intelligence
and the nature of things in general. There must be
something at the heart of things which, though it may
not be intelligence such as that with which man is
endowed, is yet possessed of some analogous property

118 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

or quality, a tendency towards intelligibility ; hence
reasoning represents a method of interrogation and
interpretation which we may rightly apply to nature.
Things tend to order, classification, and the relation of
genus, species, and law ; but, just as we ourselves are
possessed not only of intelligence, but also of a complex
of active faculties, so we may attribute a principle of
activity and spontaneity to nature.6 The intelligence
is the rule of this activity, but it is impossible to say
to what extent it is realised therein ; knowledge of the*
special laws in question can alone afford us any idea
of the degree to which logical necessity is active in
nature.

As we advance by slow degrees from the abstract
sciences to the more concrete, from the indeterminate to
the complete determination of facts, we leave necessity
and logical evidence farther and farther behind. Mathe-
matical laws, which most nearly approach this evidence,
cannot, however, be deduced from pure logical relations,
as was thought by Leibnitz. Logic presupposes a given
whole, a concept which we propose to analyse, and admits
into it elements placed in juxtaposition without deter-
mining the connecting link between them ; the work of
mathematics is on the contrary essentially synthetic :
it posits those relations which logic presupposes, creates
a connecting link between the parts, generates the
composite whole instead of assuming it as a datum.
It thus introduces new elements beyond the grasp of
thought, inasmuch as it constructs these relations of
composition, differentiates the identical by means of
intuition, and uses in its generalisations the argument
from recurrence, that is to say, from complete induction,
Even though mathematical laws be not immediately
derived from the nature of the mind, and are not there-
fore a priori, we are not justified in affirming that they
are a posteriori forms of knowledge, since they refer to
limits which are not the result of experience,, but
represent purely ideal terms towards which tends a.
.quantity which is supposed to increase or decrease

SKO.H CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 119

indefinitely. Matneioatics must be regarded as_jm
intelligent, voluntaryadjustmejQt oi. thought to things,
a^orrn which enables us to eEmma/Be qualitative
diversTlyTirmould into which^ reality must be poured
in order that it may become intelligible, but we must
beware of making it objective, if we would not risk
falling into the absurdity of infinite actual number :
the rock on which every system of mathematical realism
has foundered. Idealism in its turn imagines that it
can save the reality of mathematical laws by regarding
them as the indispensable basis of the world of presenta-
tions which the mind projects out of itself; whereas
these laws fail on the one hand to attain perfect in-
telligibility, and on the other, are not the only ones
possible. We give them the preference merely because
they afford a simpler and more convenient explanation
of external phenomena than any others.7 It is a fact
that our mathematical system is applicable to reality, but
we cannot say a priori to what extent it is so. Man is
not an anomaly of nature, hence that which satisfies
his intelligence cannot fail to be related to other things ;
we may therefore conjecture a correspondence between
the laws of mathematics and those of nature, but
experience alone can show us how far this analogy
extends. The laws of reality which most closely re-
semble mathematical relations are the laws of mechanics,
but these laws introduce a new element — force — which
cannot be reduced to purely mathematical relations, since
it contains the concept of physical causality. Many
agree with Kant in his assertion that the notion of causal
law is derived from our mental constitution, and is
therefore a priori and necessary in order to bring
phenomena within the scope of thought, and to unify
them in consciousness. Now there can be no doubt
of the need of unity, but it cannot be maintained that
this need is greater than any other and is tEe motive
power of our whole intellectual life ; .nor, on the other
hand, can the categories be regarded as means suited
to that end, since they leave things external and

120 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE IT. i

extraneous to one another, joining them together in
a purely artificial way like the stones in a building,
whereas, if we would conceive of things, we must
necessarily apprehend their relations and natural
affinities, and see into what groups they fall, and how
they are unified.8

Mechanical laws are not, however, the result of experi-

" ence : we cannot observe the uniform and rectilinear
movements of a body which is subjected to no extraneous
influence, or the persistency in repose of a body to which
no impulse has been given. We do not find continuity^
precision, isolated relation, and the constancy of law in
experience, they are one and all constructions of thought*
Mechanical laws are, howgy£r, no arbitrary fiction, but
represent the character we must ascribe to things if
things are to be expressed by help of IJe symbols at our
command, the matter which physical science must place
at the service of mathematics in order to effect its union
therewith. Moreover, facts prove that certain natural
phenomena lend themselves to this need, so that the
notion of mechanical law makes itself feltln all scientific
research, at all events in the form of a guiding principle.9
But we cannot think of mechanical laws as such being
realised in the nature of things : the concepts from which
they result cease to be intelligible when they are turned

' into objective entities. On the other hand, we cannot
accept the idealistic conception of them as projections
of the mind, since they bear witness to the existence of
something differing from the mi^d, even though it
cannot be absolutely severed from it. Things are
possessed of certain characteristics wnich suggest the
invention of mechanical laws and show a certain
analogy with that which takes pjace in conscious life,
more particularly in our habitual actions, which,
although originally produced by the activity of thought,
become detached therefrom and go on independently.
Words follow one another without being determined
by thought ; our states of consciousness persist and act
on one another with a certain inertia and mechanical

SEC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 121

force analogous to that of things. We isolate the world
of atoms and mechanical forces by means of a process
of artificial abstraction, and look upon it as sufficient
to itself ; in reality, not only is it impossible to conceive
of atoms and mechanical causality apart from a mind
which thinks them, but also to isolate mechanical move-
ment from the physical and organic phenomena existing
in nature. Can we tell whether mechanical laws are the
cause or the effect of other laws ? 10 The mathematical
element in mechanical laws cannot be applied strictly
to reality, and the nature and cause of the experimental
element they contain remain unknown. Physical
phenomena cannot all be reduced to abstract mechanics
in which all movement is reversible, whilst in concrete
mechanics friction stands in the way of reversibility, as
for instance in the case of the oscillations of a pendulum
which should theoretically go on for ever, but which
in experimental reality is retarded and finally actually
arrested by the resistance of the air. Thus the
principle of degradation of energy is in direct contra-
diction to the laws of reversible movement. AU
physicallawsjaid downjby us are but the jesult ofji
process of abstraction, hence they cannot be alreSection
of facts in their concrete complexity ; we isolate certain
elements in order to facilitate study, but can there be
such a thing as a phase of nature which is sufficient
to itself and is not susceptible to the influence of ]
the other phases ? Do all the qualities and forms of
existence which we have eliminated in order to include
phenomena in the system of our equations remain
inactive, beyond measurable forms of magnitude, like
the impassive gods of Epicurus above this world of ours ?
What guarantee have we that physical laws are not
the result of evolution, just like the species of the
animal world, and that their stability may not therefore
be contingent and transitory ? u The complication
and degree of contingency are still greater in the case
of chemistry, since that science admits elementary
bodies differing as to quality. The services rendered

122 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

to chemistry by the atomic theory are of undoubted
value since that theory affords a ready means of
notation, but it can lay no claim to being a metaphysical
revelation of the nature of things. The atom is certainly

/ useful as a unit of classification, but we must beware
of confounding metaphor and entity.12 The only
reason impelling us to believe in universal mechanism
is, as Descartes rightly points out, the confidence we
place in the truth of clear ideas and in their relation
to reality.13 The attempt to express everything proper
to living organisms, to the processes of consciousness and
the forms of social life, in terms of mathematics and
mechanics is of necessity doomed to failure, since the
qualitative element which mechanics treat as negligible
is the dominant element in these phenomena, where
spontaneity triumphs over automatism^ Thus realit;
in its entirety cannot be reduced to mathematics
elements, still less to the necessity of logical principles
as we descend from the lofty heights of pure reaso
to living, concrete reality, it will steadily becom
more and more impossible to comprehend existence i
its multifarious aspects within the limits of our intel
lectual schemes. The necessity of law is rigorous!
valid only for logical principles; beyond these boun

7 liberty and contingency reign supreme over the pro
cesses of nature, and our efforts to assimilate thing
to our thought and to introduce logical necessity in
them can never meet with a full meed of success
Science, the outcome of these endeavours, is therefor
never of objective value, and, while failing on the on<
hand to satisfy our demand for evidence and logica
universality, stands condemned on the other to leav

• external to itself that which is most real in things
their qualitative aspect, their incessant transformatio
the act of perennial creation which is their very essenc
just as it is the basis of the mind of man.

3. Criticism of the Theory of Contingency. — Th
philosophy of Boutroux is a legitimate reaction from th<
excesses of the mathematical spirit, which endeavourec

SEO.H CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 123

to reduce reality to a bare skeleton of empty formulas and
looked upon everything as illusory which could not be
thus classified. The world of sound, colour, and form
in its varying moods is just as much an aspect of reality
as are the constant and universal relations revealed to us
by thought. Every moment of the life of the universe
is a fresh revelation, hence the absurdity of the theory of
Laplace that the whole future history of the world could
be foreseen did we but know all the mechanical condi-
tions at a given moment. Science does not and cannot
foresee facts in their historic reality, but merely certain
general characteristics of phenomena. If nothing new
were ever to happen in nature, no evolutionary move-
ment would be possible, since such a movement pre-
supposes the birth of new forms, which, because new,
cannot be foreseen. But although the f aotjn^its_concrete
individuality cannot be forced to submiFto the rule of
which"fesu!ts" f rum the abstfacHon of tEe

variable element and the individual aspect of things, it
does jaoiLJolLQw that it cannot be comprehendedjlLtlie
formula of lawjLS_Jar_as certain of its characteristics

__

concerned which are subject to constant repetition. Itis_
true that every fact contains a new element, but it always
contains as well something which recurs, properties which
persist in spite of ^variations in specific conditions, and
can therefore be foreseen. Boutroux himself is forced
to acknowledge that science assumes, is indeed con-
strained to assume, the existence in things of a certain
tendency to intelligibility, although he tries to prove
this tendency to be but an inveterate habit impelling
Nature to repeat herself. The moment, however, habit
presupposes repetition it ceases to be able to afford an
explanation thereof : an action cannot become habitual
and mechanical unless it has been repeated several times.
It is nonsense to speak of habits in a world of ever new
and original creations. The identity of the ideal after
which every being strives affords no explanation of the
repetition of the same actions unless a certain structural
homogeneity and persistency in these actions be taken

124 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

for granted. If there were nothing constant in these
beings, if their life differed completely from moment to
moment, whilst yet aiming at the same ideal and striving
to reproduce their previous work out of mere caprice,
as Boutroux's bold imagination led him to suppose,
the same actions could never be repeated, since neither
their interior tendencies nor the means of actualising
them would be the same as before. Habit demands
the repetition of the same acts, and this repetition
involves in its turn a certain persistency of previous
conditions. Nor is this all ; ^it further presupposes
tVmjrrinp.iplft nf p.n/naaljty, sipp.ft^ahnnlfl tTip.sp- condltlOBS.

remain_unchange4_aiid yet-oiot^give rise to the__same
acfTonsT^abits coukLjiot be formed. Boutroux, in
order td^noTsomT explanation of the success achieved
by science, should in the last analysis admit the
existence in reality of persistent and universal char-
acteristics corresponding to the laws laid down by
thought. Far from so doing, he arbitrarily reduces
evidence and necessity to mere logical principles in their
empty, abstract forms, and considers himself entitled
to deny the characteristic of universal necessity to the
formations of thought, since they contain elements
which cannot be deduced from these pure principles.

4. Milhaud and the Limits of Logical Certainty. —
Milhaud, following out Boutroux's line of thought,14
asserts that the mind must renounce all certainty in
the domain of reality, because the recognition of this
certainty would involve the reality of an ideal condition
which may be approximated : but can never be attained,
namely, the exclusion of all "matter imposed upon the
mind in the construction of the elements concerning
which it reasons. The more nearly this ideal condition
is fulfilled, thus justifying the use of the principle of
contradiction, the more subjective, that is to say
relative to ourselves and not to things, will be the
knowledge resulting therefrom. In the sphere of
mathematics, for instance, the more we gain in cer-
tainty by forming concepts of ideal elements, divested

SBC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 125

of every sensible quality, purely mental structures,
the more we lose in objectivity. TTip. snhjp.p±i.vf> nlmr
acter of logir.fl.1 .certainty is nhvirma in thfi^ formation
of concepts which synthetise cejrt^yn_jpraperties — of
things but can never exhaust the entire content of
reality; hence there will ever remain something which
is not comprised in our concepts, and which may be
revealed to us by future experience. If then our con-
cepts be always of necessity incomplete, the principle
of contradiction which holds good of them can never
be a criterion of reality, since it is not impossible that
the incompatibility of the thing with a given character-
istic may be due to the incompleteness of our concept,
as for instance in the case of black and white swans.15
The principle of contradiction cannot be a criterion of
objective reality even in the case of 2 + 2 = 4, since it is
not absolutely impossible to conceive of a world in which
the union of 2 and 2 may result in the creation of another
unit. Milhaud goes even farther than Mill, and asserts
that this criterion does not apply even in the case of
A and not- A, because, since the attribute A and the
attribute not- A are sensations or syntheses of sensations
which present themselves to us in the record of known
phenomena, we cannot decide a priori that their union
is an impossibility ; experience may yet have surprises
in store for us. Here it is obvious that Milhaud fails
to distinguish between contradictory and contrary ;
the negation of A is not a positive quality to be found in
experience, it merely expresses the thought that a certain
characteristic is not compatible with a certain concept ;
but Milhaud insists that if we define not-A by means
of its property of being absent when A is present, the
principle of contradiction resolves itself into a mere
tautology. This is not the case : we do not define
not-A as the property excluding A, but as the absence
of A from a concept, and the principle of contradiction
teaches us that if A be conceived of as incompatible
with a given concept, it cannot be thought of at the
same time as being amongst the characteristics thereof.

126 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

Milhaud is wrong when he agrees with Boutroux's
assertion that thought cannot go beyond the affirmation
of barren identities, devoid of any content whatsoever,
without losing its universality and certainty. ^Thought,
in its real activity_is_sy^.thetic,^ and gives birth-icLjiew
concepts Imd relationsT^wEichT^while they are suggested
to it by experience, yet acquire a universal and necessary
character in the course of the process of elabora-
tion to which it subjects them. The principle of
identity severed from all concrete activity of thought,
from every concept, and from every judgment, as
presented to us by Boutroux, is a mere flatus wcis,
which is, and must be, devoid of all significance.
Between what terms can identity be established if not
between concepts ? What is the affirmation of identity
if it be not an act of judgment ? It is true that multi-
plicity cannot be deduced from identity ; but can
identity exist apart from multiplicity ? Every moment
of thought without exception is a search for the one
in the manifold, for the identical in the diverse.
The advance and development of thought are possible
just because thought, whilst amplifying its content in
the constructive work of the individual sciences, is con-
tinually affirmiftg its identity, coherence, and universality.
Fftigin lies, the significance^of^Kaat^ a_priori synthesis
which enables thoughtjto_£scape from the grave dilemma
in~^w^cir'Hum£~£a-d placed it, the choice between
barren certainty ancf uncertain,,, fruitfulness, which
appears in another form in the philosophy of Milhaud
and Boutroux. The limitation of the certainty of
thought to A = A amounts to the same thing as denying
that certainty altogether ; even the simplest argument
contains a diversity of terms, though Boutroux would
regard this as removing it from logical necessity. Would
it not be more accurate from your point of view to say that
logical certainty is a pure fiction which is non-existent
just because no such thing as perfect identity exists ?
This is the logical conclusion to which your philosophy
should lead you, rather than to the limitation of certainty

SEC. ii CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 127

to A = A, which, apart from the multiplicity of the con-
cept and the judgment, is an absurdity, or rather a
combination of meaningless signs. Boutroux appears
to prove his case because he compares scientific laws
with a non-existent model of certainty, i.e. that type
of absolute identity which amounts to the denial of
thought. He does not venture to deny the value of
logical necessity, but he strives to isolate it as far as
possible from the world of experience, lest even a
suspicion of it should find its way into that world in
defiance of the doctrine of contingency. But how is
it possible for a world of^ unceasing creation "suddenly:
to give birth foa th^ghtwhich proclaims itself identical
and demands the" identicaTJ Is this tendency to
intelligence whicTT Boutroux^ sees in things original, or
is it rather a product of habit ? Can the logical tendency
and effort made by thought to assimilate the manifold
content of experience to the principle of identity be
regarded as legitimate, or is it too rather a habit formed
by the mind, a kind of inertia, a cessation of creative
activity which doubles on its own track instead of going
forward ? Boutroux does not venture to go as far as this
absolute denial of the value of logical thought, and is
forced to make a certain concession to intellectualism
in the shape of this tendency to intelligibility, which
has its mysterious source in the indeterminate flux of
the real.

5. Bergson9 s Doctrine of Intuition.— The reaction
from intellectualism reaches its zenith in the teaching
of Bergson. This reaction would undoubtedly be
salutary did it confine itself to affirming the value of
the individual and of concrete reality, and if it tended
to accentuate once more the fulness of the conscious
individual and of the world of which he is the reflection,
as opposed to those philosophical systems which im-
poverish the content of mind by reducing it to a
handful of abstract formulae devoid of life and move-
ment. Bergson, on the contrary, opposes exaggeration
to exaggeration, impoverishment to impoverishment.

FT. I

,

Intellectualism reduced nature and the mind to an inert
skeleton, doomed by the working of an inflexible law
to reproduce itself in the vacant-solitude of time ;
Bergson's fantastic mysticism reduces the universe to a
I perennial streajn oliorms flowing in no definite direction,
' a shoreless, river whose source and mouth are alike
unknown, deriving the strength for its perpetual renewal
from some mysterious, blind, and unintelligent im-
pulse of nature, akin to the obscure will of Schopen-
hauer. The new method of knowledge advocated by
Bejrgson consists in drifting with this_stream, divesting
ourselves as far as possible of all intellectiiaL thought,
retracting. our false conception of distinct things clearly
determined in space and ordered in necessary series
in time, retiring from the world which is but the
deceptive work of our own needs into the intimacy
of our minds in order to identify ourselves with
creative activity. The Deity of Plotinus was a
lifeless, abstract unity, and mind by identifying
itself therewith lost all mobility ; Bergson's Deity is
continually in process of formation and is perpetually
being renewed in the productiveness of unexhausted
creation,16 and our mind, by being reabsorbed into the
swift current of Divine life, becomes once more possessed
of this evolutionary power of movement, from which
the fixed, stereotyped forms of pure intellect generally
divert it by turning it towards the material things which
owe their existence to the necessity of action. .JELow,
and why do they divert it ? Why does consciousness
turn suddenly to the past and solidify its fluidity into
distinct objects instead of pursuing its course towards,
the new and the future ? Here we have an enigma which
the metaphysic of Bergson would fain conceal beneath
the decent veil of poetry, but which the expert, penetrat-
ing eye of the philosopher sees in all its nakedness.
Can it be for the sake of action ? But need and practical
necessity are only significant, and can only arise in a
world of things and persons distinct from the active)
subject ; or, in other words, in the empirical world of

3. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 129

atter as already constituted with its various divisions.
iitside the material order, there is no meaning in the
jed of action, or, at all events, the meaning is a different
ie, and the backward return of mind and the formation
the practical world unnecessary. Is not the perennial
eation of consciousness the loftiest affirmation of its
eedom of action ? Why should it not rest content,
hy should it seek an outlet in the current of its time
stead of remaining within the magic circle of its con-
nual self -renewal ? The presupposition in the Absolute
: a practical need, the source of intelligence and matter
ike, amounts to moving in a vicious circle, since
:actical need in its turn cannot exist apart from
tellect and matter.

Bergson maintains that the intellectual function

not original, but owes its being to the practical

incjion, since it is in reality neither more nor less

tan a more a^urajteadaptgition of cons.ciousness_bo

ie conctitions of life.^ For this reason intelligence,

hich~~caine into being merely in order to ensure that

IT body should fit perfectly into its environment,

oves at its ease amid, solid and inert objects, the

Icrum of our action and" the tools of our industry,

it is unable to grasp the true nature of life or the true

^nificance of the evolutionary movement.17 No one

the categories of thought, such as unity, multiplicity,

echanical causality, intelligent finality, is exactly

jplicable to the phenomena of life-; our intellectual

rmulas cease to be adequate when we pass from inert

>jects to Hvjn^jorganiams. Shall we then proclaim

e essence of life to be unknowable ? Shall we not

ther acknowledge that our difficulties and contradic-

ms arise from the desire to apply to it the habitual

rms of our thought which are only suited to matter ?

ie intelligence can grasp something of theTbsolute

long as it confines itself to the physical objects upon

lich it is modelled ; it becomes powerless the moment

attempts to cross these limits, and to invade the realm

life. We must not, however, be led to conclude that

K

130 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE n.

life transcends the limits of our cognitive faculties, sine*
conceptual logical thought is not'Tine only form o:
knowledge ; around it is a misty cloud of the same
substance as the luminous nucleus we call intelligence-]
intuition, which gives us a direct grasp of the real ii
that process of perennial creation which is its ver
life. Intelligence sees nothing in things beyond thj
aspect of repetition ; the irreducible and irreversib]
element in the successive movements of cosmic evolutio
eludes it. Mechanical explanations hold good of th
systems which our thought has artificially severed fro
the continuous flux of the universe ; but it cannot
admitted a priori that the universe in its totality togetb
with the systems which naturally are "formed in i
image are capable of a mechanical explanation, sin*
in that case time* would be useless and devoid of
reality. The "essence of the mechanical explanation
to look upon the" past and the future as calculable
terms of the present, and to argue from this that eve:
thing is given ; according to this hypothesis, p
present, and future would all be visible at a glance
a superhuman intelligence capable of making
necessary~caTculation, and the apparent duration
things, together with its creative process, would be me:
the expression of the weakness of a mind which
not know everything at once. » Thus a confusion a
between time — ever fresh multiplicity — and mathematj
space, constructed so as to be able to act upon thi
the living world of quality gives place to the abst
schematism of pure quantity. If we would grasp re
in its creative essence, we must divest conscious
of the whole of the artificial superstructure whic
have raised in order to adapt it to the exigenci
practical life, place ourselves once more in pure dura
and live in the depths of the Ego. Time as understjj
by physical science is not true, real duration, the pr
of incessant creation, but rather a homogeneous scb
conceived by analogy to mathematical space, w
by solidifying the flowing life of the mind into ho:

ssc. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 131

geneous moments external to one another, turns it into
a necessary mechanism of recurring states. Beneath
homogeneous duration, the extensive symbol of true
duration, psychological analysis reveals to us a duration
whose heterogeneous moments are perpetually penetrat-
ing one another ; beneath the numerical multiplicity
of conscious states it shows us a qualitative multiplicity ;
and beneath the superficial and symbolic Ego, an Ego in
which succession implies fusion and organisation.18 Since
the symbolic Ego is better suited to the requirements of
social life, we generally lose sight of the deeper Ego, and
tend to solidify our impressions so as to express them in
language. Mere rude speech, with its clear-cut outlines,
giving, as it does, definite form to the stable, common,
and therefore impersonal element in the impressions
of mankind, is incapable of recording the delicate
fugitive impressions of our individual consciousness.
If, however, we remove these schemes and eliminate
from the Ego everything which we have introduced into
it in order to render it easier of communication and
better suited to practical requirements, every moment
of its life will be revealed in its concrete physiognomy,
which cannot be foreseen ; the bonds of necessity will
be burst asunder, and the mind stand forth as a free
creation of qualities which are ever new. Science, the
outcome of the necessity of action, is fated to leave
exterior to itself true reality with its unceasing changes
and creative spontaneity ; it can only act on time and
movement if it first eliminates the qualitative element,
which is its very essence. Reality in its fulness eludes
the methods of science ; if we would grasp it, we must
leave intelligence behind and retrace our steps to the
springs which the need of action drove the mind to
forsake. This undertaking, which Bergson regards as
the task of the theory of knowledge^^gresents many
difficulties, and is b^eyondr^th'e powerofjDure intellect.
^Alnere careful analysis o^the categories of tHought will^
not suffice, they must be^geherateoT As regafds~space,
we must make an effort swJTgemris'iQ trace the retro-

132 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.

gression and degradation of the mind into spatiality.1*
If we place ourselves at the apex of our consciousness,
and gradually descend thence, we feel that our Ego
extends into inert recollections external to one another,
instead of tending towards an indivisible and acting
will. We thus grasp the principle of this movement of
descent towards spatiality, which is contJnued~mthe
matter ol perception ancT is completed by the physicist,
who shows a thorough understanding of his task when
he impels matter towards the ideal space of geometry.
The philosopher, on the other hand, misconceives the goal
which he should strive to attain, when he follows in
the footsteps of the physicist in the vain hope of being
able to advance still farther in the same direction, since
he ought rather to climb the hill which the physicis
is descending in order to bring matter back to its sourc
and form a cosmology which is, if I may so express it,
inverted psychology. From this new standpoint every
thing which the physicist and geometrician regard as
positive becomes an interruption or inversion of true
positivity, which must be defined in terms of psychology.28
The reluctance shown by philosophers to consider things
from such a point of view is to be attributed to the fac
that the logical work of the intelligence is in their ey
a positive effort of the mind, but, if by spirituality
are to understand an advance towards ever new creations
towards conclusions which cannot be deduced from th
premisses and which are not determined thereby, i
must be acknowledged that a representation which
hedged in by relations of necessary determination
through premisses whose conclusion has been inheres
in them from the beginning, is moving in the opposi
direction to spirituality. The special laws of the physic
world are derived from this tendency, which is really
negative one. No one of them, looked at separatel
is possessed of objective reality ; it is but the wor
of a man of science who has looked at things fro
one particular point of view, isolating certain variabl
elements, and measuring them by certain conventional

SEC. ii CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 133

units. There is, however, a certain approximately
mathematical order" immanent in matter, an objective"
order to which our science approximates as it advances,
because, if matter be the relaxation of the inextensive
into the extensive, and hence of liberty into necessity,
it must tread in the footsteps of geometry, since, though
it does not originally coincide with pure homogeneous
space, it is derived from the same movement ; and if it
never fully attain that goal, if mathematical laws be not
wholly applicable to it, it is merely because it cannot
entirely shake off duration, and thus transform itself into
pure space.21 It is impossible to lay too much stress
upon the artificial character of the mathematical form
of a physical law, and hence also of our scientific know-
ledge of things. Our units of measurement are conven-
tional and, so to speak, extraneous to the intentions of
nature : how can it be supposed that nature has gauged
the related modalities of heat by the dilations of a mass
of mercury, or by the varying pressure of a mass of air
maintained at the same volume ? The act of measuring
is a purely human one, implying the real or ideal
superposition of two objects a certain number of times.
Nature has made no provision for such a process, she
neither measures nor counts ; yet physical science adopts
this plan successfully, how are we to account for this ?
Its success would be inexplicable were the movement
which constitutes materiality not identical with the
movement which, when extended by us to its limit, i.e.
to homogeneous space, teaches us to count, measure,
and follow the variations of certain terms, some of which
are functions of the rest. The intelligence effects this
extension simply by means of a process of self -extension,
because, since intellectuality and materiality are of the
same nature and are originated in the same way, it
naturally tends towards space and mathematics. If
mathematical order were something positive, if laws
like those of our codes were immanent in matter, the
success achieved by science would partake of the
miraculous. What chance would there be of our finding

134 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT.,

nature's unit of measurement, and isolating just those
variables chosen by her in order to determine their
reciprocal variations ? On the other hand, the success
attained by mathematical science would be no less in-
comprehensible if matter were not possessed of every-
thing requisite for its inclusion in our schemes. There
remains, then, but one plausible hypothesis — that there
is nothing positive in mathematical order, but that it
is the form to which the interruption of the evolutionary
movement automatically tends, and that materiality is
an interruption of the same kind. It then becomes
comprehensible that, while science is contingent, relative
to the variables it has chosen and to the order in which
its problems have been set, it can yet achieve success.
It might have been totally different as a whole and yet
have been successful, simply because no definite system
of mathematical laws is based upon nature, and mathe-
matics in general merely represents the direction towards
which matter tends.22

6. The Fundamental Error of Bergson's System. —
In Bergson's view that the intellectual function is
derivative lies the fundamental error of his system ;
this view gives rise to the attempt — as vain as it is
ingenious — to deduce intelligence^Jrpm the practical
attitude of consciousness, which is in its turn confounded
wTffrth~e imaginative~or creative function. Bergson's
intuition is as a matter of fact neither more nor less than
the aesthetic attitude of the human mind, in which we
find that experience of unfettered creative spontaneity
and unbounded expansion which his poetic imagination
regards as the very essence of universal reality, so that
he might join with Schelling in acclaiming art as the
fullest revelation of the Absolute, and with Froschammer2*
in looking upon imagination as the heart of the cosmic
process.24 But if the essence of the life of things is to
be sought in creation and in artistic contemplation,
it is difficult to understand how intellect and the practical
world of matter can have sprung from such a source,!
or why the duality of subject and object and the other

SEC. ii CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 135

factors determining the real came into being. The
contemplative mind should indeed remain for ever in
the magic realm of dreams and flow on to all eternity
in a poetic phantasmagoria, growing ever richer in new
creations as it takes its course. What freak of fancy
induces it to turn back instead of pursuing the even
tenor of its way ? Why does it try to dam the stream
of its day, double on its own track, and endeavour to
return to the past, thus letting matter limit its freedom
instead of rejoicing in its liberty ? Bergson deceives him- \
self into thinking that in practical need, the mysterious
offspring of universal consciousness, we have the ex-
planation of all difficulties. Is the practical function of
mind primitive or derivative ? If it be primitive, it
assumes a distinction of terms as co-existent, since
action, as Bergson himself maintains, can find no hold
in the unceasing flux of time ; matter, that is to say,
in Bergson's sense of the word, would in such a case
have no beginning, but would be primitive, like the
practical function. If practical activity, on the other
hand, be of later origin, Bergson should make clear to
us how and why the intuitive life of the real and its
creative power suddenly give place to the empirical world
of action and intelligence. With all his metaphors
Bergson fails to convince us that continuous, creative
activity can give birth to practical, discontinuous
activity, and this activity in its turn to the objective
world with all its determinations. The pure act of will
is psychological in its nature, and is of itself powerless to
leave the sphere 'of intimate consciousness; even if it be
granted that it demands a discontinuity of terms, these
terms will never appear external to the consciousness,
but will always keep the character of inner experience.
The mere fact that discontinuity makes its way into the
psychic world cannot give rise to the apprehension of
something which is, or at all events appears to be,
exterior thereto. Consciousness might be able to dis-
tinguish a series of states in its continuous flow, and
to find in them a foothold for its actions without, for

136 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

that reason, coming out of itself. Do we not experience
this when we voluntarily modify our train of thought ?
It is true that freedom of action implies the distinction
between subject and object, between the agent and his
act, but the two terms can both exist as part of con-
sciousness. The mind is not compelled, if it would
affirm its liberty, to come out of itself and create the
illusion of a world completely extraneous to itself, and
jvhich it must endure as an extraneous necessity.
According to Bergson, the arrest of the vital flux, the
turning back of creative activity, will suffice to produce
the intellectual process ; it is the inversion of the
evolutionary movement which has given birth both
to the intellectuality of mind and the materiality of
things ; the intellect is negative in value in comparison
to intuition, it is the mind abjuring itself, turning in a
moment of weariness to gaze at what it has already
accomplished instead of creating new forms, ceasing
its march forwards and relaxing into the materiality
of space. It would be out of place here to enter into
the question whether the work of the intellect does
not demand as great (or even greater) intensity
of effort as artistic creation : Bergson himself, if he
could but divest himself of systematic preconceptions
and put the question to his own consciousness, would be
forced to admit that it is an error to look upon intel-
lectual work as a relaxation. Another, looking at the
matter from another point of view, might rather assert
that the logical process involves an excessive mental
strain, and that aesthetic contemplation is productive of
a sense of calm and repose, almost as if the mind were
drifting at the mercy of its own current. These are
but subjective impressions on which I will not insist
lest I should seem to attach too much importance to
Bergson's metaphors. His view of intelligence is
too limited and fragmentary, and he altogether fails
to see its poetical side. The creative activity of the
mind is revealed in concepts no less clearly than in
intuition ; the abstract logical schemes and the deduc-

SEC. II

CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM

tions of an already systematised science are one thing,
logical scientific work in its concrete process of discovery
quite another. The demonstration of a new relation
between phenomena which before appeared to be
heterogeneous, the harmonisation of laws already known
to us in a new theory with the help of a new principle,
the formulation of the equation of a new curve, this is
a function of intellect, and a creative function as
well ; and if progress towards the new and the genesis
of new products be, as Bergson states, the sign of a
positive movement of the mind, then intelligence, no
less than intuition, stands revealed as a positive process,
and the world as conceived by it is no less real than that
continuous flux of images which Bergson regards as the
essence of the universe.

7. The Two New Rules of Invention propounded by
Wilbois. — The intuitionists do not really deny the
creative activity in the realm of science, but endeavour
to reduce it to the aesthetic function. Wilbois,25 in
opposition to the methods of Stuart Mill, which postulate
determinism, propounds two rules of invention : the
aesthetic sense and the sense of progress. The rules of
scientific invention should constitute as a whole a kind
of aesthetic of the laboratory : no strictly scientific rule
can enable us to discover truth, which lies concealed
amid the complexity of our qualitative perceptions,
and aesthetic instruments alone can reveal it to us ;
the search for beauty is then a condition of science.
Aesthetic is a chapter of logic.26 The history of a
scientific work bears a strong resemblance to the history
of a work of art ; discovery is a creation, a poem.27
The truth, however, which is based on beauty can be of
a provisional order only ; the aesthetic sense must
therefore be united to the sense of progress, which will
spur us on to the criticism and continual renovation
of facts and theories. It is, of course, true that there is
nothing less bound by rule than the creation of a principle,
since genius is always something which cannot be fore-
seen ; there is, however, a certain effort which is

138 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

characteristic of all great inventors ; they have only
reached the goal of discovery by means of a process of
self -renewal, preceded by a long dark night. Facts
will only reveal themselves to him who seeks them
with the temperament of the artist, and whose whole
mind strives after the future of science.28

8. The Arbitrary Character of Spiritual Activity in
Scientific Construction, as viewed by Le Roy. — This pre-
valently aesthetic character of intuitionism leads it to
exaggerate and exalt the element of personal activity in
scientific construction : not only theory, not only law,
but fact itself is a free creation of the man of science.
Positivism in its older form went into ecstasies over the
fact, which it failed to distinguish from pure data ;
the new positivism, as the new French philosophy has
been termed by one of its most ardent disciples, Le Roy,2*
sees in the fact of common sense an unconscious pro-
duct of spiritual activity directed towards practical
action. The very name of fact, says Le Roy,30 should put
us on our guard against the common belief : that which
has been made cannot be an immediate datum. There
are no such things as isolated facts, but all is diffused
in all ; nothing of any kind can be defined except by
means of the ties binding it to the universe as a whole.
All isolation, all fragmentation, is relative to the selected
point of view. The relativity of facts is still more
obvious in science, in as much as it is not satisfied with
any facts whatsoever, but seeks for facts of significance
for the law or theory which is to be proved. Of course,
everything is not created by men of science; facts contain
a mysterious residuum of objectivity, but science,
employed as it is in that fragmentation necessary from
its point of view, does not take into account this primitive
material which philosophic criticism alone can reveal to
^ us in intuition. / It is not what is objective but what
is artificial in facts which is of interest to science.31
The character of personal creation and of artificial
schematism becomes more marked in the scientific law
and theory. The law, whose office it is to fix that which

SEC. ii CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 139

is constant in the variations of phenomena, is but a
general formula, a schematic model, a type of classifica-
tion summing up under a single heading an inexhaustible
multitude of individual events. The only characters of
facts persisting in the law are those which are of greatest
interest to us, and whose relative permanency gives us a
handle for our action. Thus the laws of Galileo are a
brief condensation of all that is worth recording amongst
the infinite details of all the real or possible falls of
bodies. Laws are then but aids to memory, principles of
arrangement, which, by simplifying and impoverishing
concrete reality, cause us to lose immediate contact with
nature. They appear to us less like elements of things
than constructions of our minds, products and symbols
of our disposition to vary perpetually the angles from
which we contemplate the constancy of the world, and
much more like true and proper definitions established by
an arbitrary decree. The law of fall defines the closed
system, the law of definite proportions does the same in
the case of the chemical combination as distinct from
the mechanical mixture.32 From such a point of view
laws cannot be verified, because they are the instruments
with which we effect in the continuity of primitive data
that splitting up into fractions which is indispensable to
the action of our thought, and because they themselves
constitute the method and criterion of which we must
make use in order to test them accurately. For instance,
in order to verify the law of the reflection of light we
should require a plane mirror, and in order to make such
a mirror we must make use of this same law. Further,
the very project of seeking for laws in the world involves
the postulate of universal determinism, which is neither
an evident a priori principle nor yet capable of. a posteriori
proof, but is a mere decree of our mind which never fails,
because each time it is endangered science rushes to
the rescue by inventing a new concept and setting up
a new convention. Law is then purely arbitrary, in as
much as it demands the definition of a unit of measure.
The smallest appliance of the laboratory, the minimum

140 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

of experimental technique, presupposes — as Duhem and
Milhaud in particular have pointed out — in its apparent
simplicity a large number of definitions, postulates,
conventions, and decrees of the mind. The contingency
of laws is further dependent upon the method by which
they are obtained : physical science seeks for constant
quantities and finds them, because it desires to do so,
by doing ingenious violence to nature ; but these
constant quantities do not reflect anything objective,
and express in reality but the weakness of our senses,
, the approximations we have accepted, the requirements
/ of our practical needs and of our discursive reason.
j£ut, it may be asked at this stage, how does itjcome
about_jLhalL^a phenojoenoa— j&— always produeecLJn
de!}ejrm'nate--circumstances ? Is not this a proof of
the reality of constants ? It is hardly surprising,
\~replies Le Roy, that the law should be verified the
' moment we decide to exempt from its rule all those
cases in which it is not verified ; when experience fails
we calmly declare that the requisite conditions have
not all been fulfilled, or that some as yet unknown
cause (which is thus defined) is at work, and has deter-
mined a modification of the phenomenon.33 As regards
theory, all agree in recognising its conventional and
hypothetical character, which in no way distinguishes
it from law, as is erroneously believed, when the
variability of theory is placed in opposition to the
stability of law. The chief office of theory is not
to forestall the known, but to furnish us with a
general scheme of representation, capable of adaptation
to a category of laws.34 Theory absolutely eludes
control ; it cannot be proved a priori, since it is based
upon contingent definitions, nor a posteriori, since in
its case an experimentum crucis is out of the question :
experimental contradiction proves the existence of an
error in the system of laws applying to the case in
point, but does not tell us exactly where this error is
to be found, and it is possible for us to modify some law
in such a way as to leave the theory intact.35 Theory

SEC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 141

is not the outcome of experience, but is a system of
symbols wholly created by the mind, a conventional
language which can be changed as often as we choose
to do so ; hence the possibility of different theories o£
the same order of facts. The man of science is at liberty
to choose the one for which he has a personal preference,
or which is best suited to the end he has in view, con-
ceiving of phenomena by means of differential equations
and integrating symbols, having recourse to geometrical
and mechanical schemes, or making use of the images of
the flow and circulation of energy. Each of these modes
of expressions is legitimate from its own point of view ;
and our choice of one in preference to another is due to
the fact that the one selected is better suited to the
type of our mentality, corresponds more nearly to our
habits, and proves more convenient to us. There is no
such thing as a universal limiting theory, which should
serve as a unit of measurement by which to judge the
degree of truth of the others ; there merely exists theories
to which we give the preference. Even in the realm of
geometry, as has been proved by Poincare,36 there do
not exist evident principles possessed of universal and
objective value in preference to all others, there are
merely conventions established by the mind which
have become more or less habitual, and whose con-
venience is the only point capable of discussion.
Rational science, the ultimate aim of all scientific work,
f Js-ajjeyjce oQhe mind for the conQfuesiijQJLthe-werid,
constructing with the aid jp^^ur_jc^sj^rc^s_^lorie_a.
scEeme of the urnverstTjwhich enables discursive
thought to^reproduce~at wjll_thejwhole development
of n^Lturej^thout^^having recourse_to_ex]p^rience. The
ideaFof science is the attainment of knowledge which
is wholly ours, which is entirely our creation, subject
to us and contained within us. Its mission is not
to attain to some external necessity or other concealed
ready-made in the real, but rather to manufacture
the truth for which it seeks, the perfect instrument
of action, the system of perfectly tractable discursive

142 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

symbols.37 Scientific truth is like moral good ; it is
not received from without, it makes and creates itself ;
i* is a system of fictions, of merely social value, which
[^succeed in the practical world. How is it that they
are successful ? Here we have a difficult problem
which Boutroux and Bergson vainly strove to solve,
and with which Le Roy too finds himself face to face.
It will not suffice to show that this success is obtained
by eliminating everything which cannot be made to fit
into our schemes ; or that science is not relative to true
knowledge, and that its successes belong to the order
of discourse and industry : all these observations, says
Le Roy,38 are legitimate, but leave something still
unexplained. In order to establish any determinism
whatsoever, the data must lend themselves thereto :
nature must contain certain elements, must be possessed
of certain characteristics which bring our science within
the bounds of possibility. Were incoherency the basis
of things, the decrees of our legislative action would
be continually overturned by the unexpected ; whereas
we see that our elaboration works well. Is not this a
sign that it is true, that it has at all events a partial
grasp of reality, that something in the universe corre-
sponds thereto ? Knowledge is power and foresight,
but inversely, power and foresight are knowledge.
Hence Le Roy is forced to admit that laws are in some
way possessed of objective value, because they enable
us to grasp a real and constant order of phenomena,
at least with the approximation of common life.* Matter
contains something which thrusts itself upon us, opposes
our undertakings, and limits our liberty : how are we
to conceive of it ? If everything be eliminated from
matter which is due to the work of the mind, nought
but potentiality will be left : nature is only actualised,
developed, and made explicit by the work of minds
which by means of discrimination introduced number and
space into primitive continuity ; which contract by
means of memory a plurality of moments' into differ-
entiated syntheses which become sensible qualities, and

SEC.H CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 143

chisel out and solidify by means of action the objects
and facts of common sense. As criticism undoes their
work, matter becomes less clear and more involved,
bodies dissolve, qualities are confused, images vanish
away, till nothing is left but a kind of latent tension
towards development and actuality.39 We thus reach
pure matter, which can only be conceived of as the
virtuality of an order common to all minds, as the
capability of laws. Matter at times rather resists the
decrees of the reason and the will ; hence it seems to
us to be endowed with true activity, a tendency, a
desire, a straining after determinism. It is no ready-
made web, no tissue into whose unyielding meshes our
action cannot hope to penetrate ; it merely shows that
it is impossible for the mind to vary the rhythm of its
duration beyond a certain limit, it is a combination of
stationary waves in our psychic life, or rather of waves
which advance less rapidly. Thej^aL .activity mam\
fested in matter induces me to believe instinctively in
its ob]ec^ve_existence7~ln order "to

in those regions where common sense jsees butjbrute
matter :„ consciousness more or less clear, at a lower
or~Egher degree of tension, endowed with a greater
or lesser degree of reality and liberty. Matter is
illusory in the sense that it is our work, it is like a
decree by virtue of which every free action develops
reactions ; but, on the other hand, it is real in the sense
that we are pre- determined to construct it. We feel
its weight in two ways : as an institution which is the
outcome of human art (actual matter), and as a decree
which aims at pre-forming our action (pure matter).40
If it be not the work of the individual mind, it is that
of mind in general ; the fact that each of us finds
at the dawn of life matter which has already been
elaborated must not lead us to conclude that this holds
good of the totality of monads. A group of hereditary
habits, re-inforced by education, a relatively stationary
wave in the flux of my becoming, a knot in my duration

144 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

which I have neither strength nor time to unloose :
this is a material reality. The world is born and advances
by means of the inventions of liberty ; it is preserved
and assured by the inertia of habits.41 Pure matter
has a certain existence, it is not a meaningless word ; but
it only becomes a thing through consciousness : in itself
it is merely an obscure desire of images and attitudes,
an instinct, an appetency, a will to live, a kind of tension
towards a final cause which develops it and puts it in
motion ; it exists de iure rather than de facto.

9. The Physical World as an Instrument of Moral
Life. — If we thus conceive of the world as an appeal to
the mind, a limit placed on its action, we still have to
explain the origin of this obscure tendency and its
office like that of a decree ; hence we must refer to
a Being transcending necessity which subjects mind to
matter. Thus we have once more in modern philosophy
the old cosmological proof of the existence of God.4*
Why does matter exist ? To what end have we this
invention, which must be regarded as an unfortunate
one from a certain point of view, limiting the liberty
of the mind ? According to Le Roy, the answer is
simple enough : the ballast of matter is necessary in
order to enable the mind to descend from the plane of
dreams to the plane of effective action. Matter is a
fatal result, and at the same time an unavoidable means,
of discursive life without which the formation of society
would not take place, the individual would not enter
into possession of himself, and the world would not
exist : such is its nature and its mission. The new
philosophy admits a hierarchy in which moral and
religious action occupies the highest place, and brings—
as means — both practical and discursive action into
subjection unto itself. Matter, the creation of mind,
is, according to Wilbois,43 the stadium in which
morality is prepared. In the act of discovery the
intuition of the beautiful, the dominion of time, the
duties of abstinence, humility, and abnegation to which
we have striven to submit and which leave their seal

SEC. ii CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 145

and imprint in the most profound of facts, the appeal
to the future to which we feel ourselves to be more
subject than we are to the past, the creative power
which we feel stirring within us, which raises us above
matter, and introduces us into a new world, all these
afford us unique moments of experience which we shall
only find again in the fullest hours of our moral and religi-
ous action. Scientific life is then the first step towards
loftier spontaneity ; invention is fulfilled in virtue.
Matter has a final cause which only permits it to become
solidified into determinism in a certain direction, and this
final cause must be sought in the activity of the scientist :
the formula of inertia is the final cause of the fact of the
fall of heavy bodies, the Newtonian formula of the fact
of universal attraction : matter tends towards law.
Axioms and categories, forms of intellect and sensibility,
all become, all are evolved.44 The mind of man is plastic,
and can change its most intimate desires, provided it
takes the requisite time to do so. Intelligence and
the categories are then no mere inflexible, fixed forms,
as Kant would have us believe ; one a priori, however,
remains : the primordial needs and natural tendencies of
action, because primordial action to which we turn for an
explanation of the genesis of matter and reason, must not
be incoherent ; it must be regulated in order that it may
carry out lasting and coherent work. • The true a priori
is of a religious and moral order. We organise matter
and create practical life and social relations, because
the moral law rules and directs us : everything is in
the last analysis based upon the mystery of duty.
The task of philosophy is to illuminate it and subject
it to a scrutiny which will cause it to reveal its specific
originality and inspire our intuition of it with fresh life.45
Science, by reason of the very attitude it assumes, and
the artifices of which it makes use, increases the distance
between itself and living concrete reality, which thus
becomes for it a noumenon which it cannot penetrate.
Philosophic intuition alone can bring us once more into
immediate contact with reality. The work of the new

146 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

philosophy is to throw off the bonds of number and space ;
to break through the lifeless forms of a crude language; to
rise above discursive thought in order to define it and
pass judgment upon it ; to rediscover the living springs
of logical mechanism in the mobile depths of spiritual life.46
This direct appeal to the inner soul of things, the method
peculiar to philosophic intuition, will be found also in
art, which enables us to penetrate the symbolic meaning
and dim soul of appearances, and shows us the dynamic
penetration of the living being beneath the rigidity of
the outline ; but it will be found to a greater degree
in the subtle and illogical art, so full of dreams and
mystery, of the modern symbolists than in musical and
•penetrating art.47 Art is, as it were, the preface to
philosophy ; but its fictions, though they may reveal
the mysterious basis of being, do not penetrate it, as
philosophy does, just because they are fictions. The
real in its intimate and autonomous value is in no case
discursive ; it can only be experienced, loved, or accom-
plished according as it is termed truth, beauty, or good.
10. Ethical Action as a Means of penetrating Reality :
Blondel. — Blondel,48 another opponent of intellectualism,
states that according to that which we have experienced,
loved, and done, we shall know and possess in another
way, we shall touch, penetrate, and enjoy things
differently. In love and sacrifice will be found the
fullest revelation of being : without love there can be
no understanding. Charity is the organ of perfect
knowledge, because it puts into us -that which is in others,!
whereas selfishness isolates us and makes us impene-j
trable. The willing acceptance of suffering, voluntary!
submission to the natural necessity which we find'
within us, and which imposes limits upon us from!
without through the extrinsic action of things, these
alone will enable us to attain to the full possession ot
ourselves and of the universe. In this supreme act of
abnegation, which is an act of faith, in this ultimate
option of the will in favour of true Being, which is not
to be found in the ephemeral enjoyment of the passing

SEC. ii CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 147

moment, but in the life of the Eternal, the true and
intimate experience of Absolute Reality will be
reached.

11. Criticism of Intuitionism. — The intuitionists
endeavour with all their might to prove that there is
nothing objective in facts, laws, and scientific theories ;
that the whole of science is an arbitrary and artificial
construction, which is entirely created by the mind for
the needs of action, and that its success is due to the
fact that the matter to which it applies is also an un-
conscious creation of the mind of the race under the
pressure of these same needs. But this merely shifts
the problem ; Le Roy perceived this and accordingly
modified Bergson's theory to a certain extent, a theory
which, as we have already pointed out, failed to explain
how free creative activity could suddenly give birth
to a practical need. He recognises — and in this he is
at one with Boutroux — that we must admit the existence,
at all events in pure matter, — matter, that is to say,
which has not been elaborated by the mind, — of a
tendency towards intelligence owing its existence to a
moral imperative. Moreover, Le Roy considers intuition
to be not only feeling and volition, but more especially
reason ; 49 it is the mind experienced in the wealth of
all its aspects. I consider that this view virtually
transcends Bergson's fantastic intuitionism : the mind
is no longer an indefinite creative power, but an activity
regulated by an end, which is not the product of our
action nor yet of the action of the race, but a command
emanating from a transcendent Being. How is it
possible to conceive of a universal end without pre-
supposing the mind which tends thereto to be possessed
of a certain vision of that end, that is to say, of a certain
intelligence ? If this end exists in us, does it not deter-
mine our actions, and guide them in certain directions ?
What becomes of intuitionism if action be governed
by motive ? Further, if there be a certain coherence
in the actions which result in the construction of matter,
the mind which performs those actions must also partake

148 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

of the character of coherency proper to logical thought.
How can we then say that thought falsifies reality ?
The moral law, as a universal command, calls for a mind
capable of thinking the universal. If, amid the manifold
and transient appearances of things, we seek the nature
common to them all, if, even adopting Le Roy's point
of view, we affirm monads to be spiritual essences having
common tendencies and aspirations, we go beyond the
moment of intuition, to grasp in our own and in countless
other consciousnesses the universal characteristics of
spirituality, which cannot be intuited, but only conceived.
There can be no philosophy without concepts : even
your metaphysic is not the immediate life and intuitive
communication of ever new impressions, but conceals
beneath its metaphors a system of concepts every whit as
abstract as those of intellectualism ; the organon of your
philosophy is not intuition, which, however far-reaching
it may be, cannot give more than the passing moment ,
but the concept of intuition, the thought that that immedi-
ately experienced activity is not peculiar to your mind
alone, but is common to all consciousnesses ; the thought
that your inmost actions, like the actions of all mankind,
tend towards a universal end. The concept is not just an
expedient for rendering social life possible, but is the one
and only way in which the universal can be manifested
to consciousness ; even that which the new philosophy
terms intuition is at bottom but a vague, dim, indis-
tinct concept, which is unconscious of itself. Further,
scientific activity as a whole, in as much as its aim is to
emphasise that which is universal amid the various
and changing aspects of phenomena, is not directed
towards action only, but tends to show us a charac
of reality. In short, either you believe that the vario
spiritual actions have something in common which
ever being repeated, in which case you must recogni
the value of intelligence, which alone is capable o
grasping this universal element ; or you hold that eac
action is entirely new, in which case you are not justifi
in affirming that all the appearances of nature a

SEC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 149

spiritual actions, that all tend equally to the same end,
have their source in the same supreme principle, in one
and the same moral command. There undoubtedly exist
in man forces other than intelligence, and of these
philosophy must take account, but it can only do
so by means of concepts. Feeling and instinct, as
Poiricare rightly observes,50 may act as its guide, but
cannot render it of no avail ; they can direct the glance,
but not take the place of the eye. Intelligence is a
tool with which we cannot dispense, if we would philo-
sophise and not compose music or poetry ; even if we
conclude with the primacy of action, it is intellect
which arrives at this conclusion. Philosophy which
does not make use of the intelligence is a contradiction
in terms : in order to set up a system of philosophy, any
system of philosophy whatsoever, even the new philo-
sophy itself, we must leave behind us concrete duration,
and the intuitively experienced moment, and look at
the world sub specie aeternitatis. We must not confound
the cognitive function with the aesthetic function.
Both contain creation and activity ; but the product
of intelligence is always something of universal value,
whereas the product of imagination gains in value in
proportion as it is original, and gives utterance to the
individual personality even in its transient impressions.
Art may break the bonds of natural necessity and create
for itself a world which is ever new ; but this freedom
of creation is denied to science and philosophy alike.
The concept, too, is a production of mind, but it is not
of value as a creation or as a flash of fruitful genius,
as is asserted by Wilbois, who strangely confounds the
beautiful and the true, but only in as far as it corre-
sponds to something objective which is independent of
the creative consciousness. Moreover, we cannot set up
this correspondence by artificial means : there are always
elements beyond the control of our will, which are thrust
upon us, not only in actual matter, which Le Koy regards
as a construction of the race which has in the course
of time become an instinctive mechanism, but also in

150 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

pure matter, divested of everything introduced into it
by the act of perception.

12. Theoretical Value of Science. — The scientific man
I does not createscjejitificJa£t_at-»dll, But aHowsTumself
to- be guiHeoT^ythe suggestions of brute fact. The
examples adduced by Le Roy are no proof to the con-
trary. When the astronomer states that the eclipse
took place at nine o'clock, he does not create the
hour, but deduces it from a brute fact, from what his
watch tells him : undoubtedly he might say that it was
eleven, but, by doing so, he would set up another con-
vention. The only truth contained in Le Roy's _thesis
is that the scientific jp_ajj_j>ja.ya an active p^rt jp thp.
selectionof Jl^ lasts which are-^yorthv of notice : an
isolatecTTact is of no interest to him ; he" selects one, if
it can aid him to predict others ; but facts are facts,
and their conformity to previsions is not dependent
upon our free activity.51 In like manner the choice of
the unit of measurement is certainly arbitrary, but this
[ is no proof of the arbitrariness of natural law. Abbe
L~Mariotte estimated the volume of gases in cubic inches,
and the column of mercury by which their pressure is
measured in feet ; has the law, which was true according
to the old units of measurement, ceased to be so since the
adoption of the new units ? The only thing which is
dependent on the choice of the unit is the number which
measures a given magnitude, not the magnitude itself :
the principle of homogeneity allows the physicist to
pass from one system of fundamental units to another
by means of a simple calculation, without being obliged
to take fresh measurements. The formulas of physical
laws do not change when the unit is altered, because
the relations between magnitude which they express
are independent of the units selected.52 To this Le
Roy rejoins that Mariotte's law undoubtedly still holds
good when the metre instead of the yard is taken as
the unit of length ; but that this is due to the fact that
the two units stand in a constant relation, so that the
transition from the one to the other is really but a change

SBC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 151

of script ; this, however, would no longer hold good if
the distance from the sun to the earth were adopted as
the unit ; in that case time would intervene, and the
formula of the law would be modified, yet it would
not cease to be of use in the ordering of phenomena.
Moreover, may not the constancy of the unit of measure-
ment be a fiction ? The choice of a unit is equivalent to
the choice of a point of view from which to contemplate
the world ; and this point of view depends upon the
conditions of our physical activity, our habits of speech,
and the feebleness of our senses. In conclusion, the
devices used to define these units, and the fact that every
measurement is made by means of a more or less compli-
cated experiment, force us to state that the most insigni-
ficant quantitative law is dependent upon an immense
number of conventions and decrees which make it solidary
with science as a whole.53 But, we may ask, is then the
postulate that the unit of measurement, and hence the
magnitude, is possessed of constant value absolutely
arbitrary ? It is true that experience never affords us
absolute constancy, but we see that the more nearly the
causes of error are eliminated, the more nearly, that is to
say, we succeed in isolating the phenomenon, thus realis-
ing the ideal conditions of our thought, the more closely
does it approximate thereto. We see then that experi-
ence yields to our exigencies, and that it may be resolved
into abstract elements and translated into our formulas ;
may we not fairly argue from this that there must be
some constants in nature, even if they are not the
same as ours ? We cannot of course assert that our
concepts, our divisions, our points of view, the structure,
that is to say, of our science in its minutest details
corresponds to the structure of things ; our knowledge
is always a reconstruction which may be accomplished
in various ways, by means of various systems of concepts
and various relations, and hence with the help of different
formulas ; but this variety is no proof that science is
arbitrary and unable to afford us anything real ; it is
rather a proof of the contrary, since it shows us that the

152 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

possibility of translating that group of phenomena into
mathematical language is not a contingent fact, relative
to a point of view, but is in the very nature of things,
and is independent of our special way of looking at them.
Le Roy himself M ends by recognising that, if the choice
of the unit of measurement be arbitrary, there is some-
thing which is independent of our will, i.e. the fact that
nature is measurable. We can decompose phenomena
into abstract elements in various ways, and take certain
functional relations into consideration rather than
others, but it does not depend upon us whether the law
be verified or not: once we have chosen a point of
view, we are no longer free to make facts say what we
please : nature sets us a limit, pits her decrees against
ours, and puts us in danger of failure if we do not respect
them. Le Roy says that our laws are but definitions
in disguise, and succeed merely because we choose, and
because we eliminate the cases which do not accord
with them. When I state that phosphorus melts at a
temperature of 44° C., I am under the impression that I
am enunciating a law ; in reality, however, I am merely
defining phosphorus ; were another body to be discovered
which, while possessed of all the properties of phosphorus,
did not melt at 44°, another name would be given to
it, and the law would still be true. Thus, again, when
I say that heavy bodies, falling freely, traverse spaces
proportional to the squares of the times, I do but define
free descent ; whenever the condition is not fulfilled I
shall say that the descent is not free, so that the law can
never be contradicted. Now it is obvious that, were it
possible to reduce the law to this, it would be of no use
either as a means of knowledge or as a principle of
action. When I say that phosphorus melts at 44°, I
mean thereby that every body possessed of all the
properties of phosphorus except the point of fusion
will melt at 44° ; taken in this sense, the proposition
is a law which may be of service to me, since, if I find
a body possessed of these properties, I can predict
that it will melt at 44°. It is possible that another

SEC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 153

body like phosphorus may be discovered which will not
melt at 44°, but in that case the other properties will
not be absolutely identical, and, should they seem to
be so, it will be due to our imperfect means of observa-
tion.55 Thus it would avail me nothing to have given
the name of free descents to those descents which take
place in conformity with the laws of Galileo, if I did not
know under what conditions the descent can be termed
free or approximately so ; the law establishes precisely
that if these conditions be fulfilled, the descent will take
place in accordance with the formula of Galileo. The free
descent is not defined by the law, but is determined by
other criteria, absence of any obstacle, perfect void,
etc. If this were not the case, the law would be reduced
to a meaningless tautology. Poincare has endeavoured
to correct and moderate the paradoxical conclusions
reached by Le Roy by exaggerating the importance
of the conventional element in scientific construction.
When a law has been sufficiently confirmed by experience^!
we are at liberty to adopt two attitudes towards it :
we may either leave it amongst the other laws which are
subject to constant revision, or we may set it up as a
principle, by adopting a convention of such a nature
that the law must of necessity always remain true. In
order to do so, we intercalate between the two brute
facts A and B — the former terms of the primitive law
— an abstract concept of a more or less fictitious order,
resolving that law into a principle which is a definition,
and thus removed from all experimental control, and
a part which can still be verified. Thus the law,
" the stars follow the law of Newton," may be resolved
into these two others : gravitation follows the law of
Newton ; gravitation is the only force which can act
upon the stars ; of these the former is a definition which
is beyond the control of experience, the latter, on the
contrary, must be verified. The latter only can be termed
true or false ; whereas the principle, which has now been
crystallised, is neither true nor false, but merely con-
venient.56 If it be possessed of a degree of truth and

154 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PI. i

certainty which is lacking in the experimental truths from
which it has been extracted, this is due to the fact that
it may be reduced in the last analysis to a mere con-
vention, which we are entitled to set up, since we are
assured that no experience will contradict it. That
which is gained in certainty is lost in objectivity.
Principles are disguised conventions and definitions ;
but their adoption is not a purely arbitrary proceeding,
it is not a whim of ours, because certain experiences
have shown us that these conventions are useful.57 On
the other hand, the term conventional cannot be applied
to the whole of science : there is always a portion of
the law which cannot be transformed into principle.
Although, then, the conditions may vary, something
constant will always be left, the relation between the
two brute facts. The part of facts which is the creation
of the man of science is only the convenient language in
[ which he enunciates them.58

13. Criticism of the Arguments of Duhem against the
Objective Value of Science. — Duhem M has adduced new
arguments in favour of the thesis of Le Roy, and against
the criticisms of Poincare. Physical observation is not
merely the observation of a phenomenon, but is also
the theoretical interpretation of this phenomenon,
which replaces the concrete data of observation by an
abstract and symbolic presentment. Thus, for instance,
Regnault has not left us the description of the concrete
facts of his experiments on the compressibility of gases,
but only a transcription of them into abstract terms,
temperature, pressure, volume, etc. ; and each of these
notions presupposes a theory which must be known
in order that the explanation of the experiment may be
intelligible. Between phenomena, as actually observed
in the course of an experiment, and the result of
this experiment as formulated by the physicist, an
extremely complicated intellectual elaboration is inter-
polated, which substitutes an abstract and symbolic
judgment for a description of concrete facts. The
use of the instruments found in the laboratory woul"

SBO.II CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 155

be impossible, unless the concrete objects composing
these instruments were replaced by an abstract and
symbolic representation, giving a hold to mathematical
reasoning, and if this combination of abstractions were
not subjected to deductions and calculations, in which
adhesion to the theory is already implied. Before
accepting the result of the experiment made by the
physicist, we must then see the theory on which it is
based. The contradiction which so frequently exists
between experimental data does not he in the facts but
in the theories upon which the interpretation of them has
been based.60 The result of an experiment in physics is
not as certain as a fact observed in a non-scientific way,
by the mere sight or touch of a man of healthy mind
and body, because it is always subordinated to the
confidence inspired by a whole mass of theories. A
law of common sense, being a general judgment, may
be true or false ; not so the laws which physical science,
at its highest stage of development, enunciates in the
form of mathematical propositions. These laws are
indeed always symbolic, and a symbol is, strictly
speaking, neither true nor false ; it can only be said
that it has been more or less well chosen to represent
a certain reality, that it expresses this reality in a more
or less accurate, and more or less detailed form. Let
us consider a series of analogous facts : to the physicist
the discovery of the law governing these facts means the
discovery of a formula containing the symbolic repre-
sentation of each of them ; and, since the symbols are
indeterminate, the formula uniting them will be so also.
An infinite number of different formulas can be made
to correspond to one and the same group of facts, seeing
that there is an infinite number of values which may
be chosen as the approximate results of experimental
measurements. These formulas are algebraically incom-
patible, but they are all equally acceptable to physics,
since they determine the phenomenon more nearly
than observation can do. The choice of one rather
than another of these formulas is made not because

156 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.

the one selected is truer than the others, but because
it is simpler.61 A physical law is provisional, because
it represents the facts to which it applies by means of
an approximation which physicists at present consider
to be adequate, but which will one day cease to satisfy
them ; it is relative in the sense that this approximation
may suffice for the use which one physicist desires to
make of it, but not for another. The same physicist
at two different periods of his life may accept or reject
a law ; this would not be possible could the law be
either true or false, since in that case a contradiction
would be involved.62 A physical law is provisional also
because it is symbolic, and cases will always be found in
which the symbols which enter into it no longer represent
reality in a satisfactory manner. The struggle between
reality and laws will continue indefinitely : sooner or
later reality will confront every law formulated by
the physicist with some rude contradictory fact ; but
physical science will never weary of correcting, modifying,
and complicating the law, that it may give place to
one which is more comprehensive, containing the rule
applying to the exception revealed by experience.

Duhem is right in asserting, in contradiction to

Poincare, that the transition from brute fact to

scientific fact, and hence to law, is not a mere change

of language, but is fact pervaded by theoretical

elements ; except that from these premisses it is not

allowable to conclude that law is purely conventional,

approximate, and symbolic, and cannot be termed

either true or false. We must clearly understand what

meaning we attach to the idea of scientific truth. We

'have already seen, when discussing empiric-criticism,

I that to reduce the true to the useful, convenient, and

I economical is simply to beg the question, because a

"law or theory would be of no service in foreseeing, did

it contain nothing objective, or did it fail to reflect

some real relation. The true criterion of which science

makes use is the harmony and logical coherency of the

system on the one hand, and agreement with the facts

SBC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 157

and relations of experience on the other. The experience
of things, however largely spiritual activity may
contribute to it, is not entirely the creation of the
subject, but contains elements derived from extraneous
factors, which to a certain extent guide and regulate
the development of the scientific construction : the
fact that sensations succeed one another and co-exist
in this or that way does not depend upon our will^J
and is not a convention of our making. Even £Ee
most rabid contingentists have been forced to stop short
at this insuperable barrier. The two criteria of which
we have spoken are not of course a measure of absolute
and eternal truth, which will ever remain a pure limit-
ing concept, a regulating idea of the cognitive function ;
they will, however, enable us to estimate our knowledge,
and to determine the degree of truth contained therein,
according to the greater or less degree to which it
realises that ideal. The system which is absolutely
coherent from the logical point of view, and which
affords perfect satisfaction to the intelligence, will never
be fully realised, hence the ceaseless efforts made by
philosophy and science ; this does not, however, amount
to saying that all systems are of equal value, or that
they are all on the same level : though no one of them
be absolute and eternal truth, a hierarchy may be estab-
lished among them, in which those which are most
harmonious and comprehensive will rank highest. Thus
we shall never arrive at the construction of a theory
able to resist all the attacks of future experience, we
shall never succeed in exhausting the realm of the
unknown, but comparison with the mass of known
facts will teach us to decide which is the most adequate
formula, and which most nearly approaches the truth.
Duhem says that law is not true, but approximate ;
what meaning, however, are we to attach to the word
approximation, and how are we to decide its degree if
we do not admit the existence of a law which is true in
the absolute sense, a law which we are ever striving to
approach more nearly by correcting and completing our

158 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE p

formulas ? The results of our measurements are not pos-
sessed of absolute constancy, hence various values may be
obtained which are mutually exclusive from the mathe-
matical point of view, but which are equivalent from the
physical point of view, because our appliances are not
sensible of those differences ; are we then, asks Duhem,
to say that they are all true ? 63 Is not this a logica
absurdity ? Assuredly, if we take the word true in the
absolute sense, because in that case the real value of that
magnitude can be but one ; but in the relative sense the
other values may be more or less true, in proportion as
they approach more or less closely to this real value; and,
though we do not at present succeed in drawing such a
distinction, the future of science will enable us to do so
by perfecting our appliances. We shall then be forced
to correct our formulas ; this does not, however, imply
that these formulas were absolutely indifferent to truth
and falsehood. The physicist does not accept two
ifferent formulas as equivalent because he is indifferent
( to the search after truth ; he is well aware that one ol
them must be more nearly true than the other, but
science does not for the time being afford him the means
of selection. If truth be thus understood in the relative
sense, Duhem's criticism confirms rather than weakens
the truth- value of scientific law : the law is true just
in so far as it is approximate ; the more approximate
it is, the truer will it be. If we put aside this unit of
measurement, if we deny that law is of any value as a
revealer of one aspect of the real, will not the affirma-
tion that, as science advances, formulas will become
more precise and laws more approximate become utterly
meaningless ? Our thought is not Absolute Thought ;
but neither is it a system of fictions devoid of all objective
value. Our knowledge, fragmentary as it is, yet reveals
one aspect of reality to us ; it can lay no claim to embrace
all the relations of things, but it strives to comprehend
as many as possible by varying its points of view ; it
contains something false, but it strives ever more
earnestly to eliminate it, by extending the range of its

sac.n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 159

observations. It is certainly an arbitrary act, a pure
convention to isolate a phenomenon, and to take into
consideration merely one of its aspects apart from the
rest ; but the scientific man, when he does this, is well
aware that the aim of this separation is only to facilitate
study, and, when he wishes to think of the phenomenon
in its true reality, he takes into account the other
elements which he has neglected. Something will
always escape him, his system is of necessity incomplete,
but the laws which he formulates, though they may not
be exactly the relations of things, and all the relations,
approximate ever more nearly thereto, as they become
increasingly true. Thus, then, if there is no absolutely
certain experimental law, there are principles which
have stood the test of facts better than others, and have
shown us how to render the world of experience intel-
ligible, so that we may regard them as being relatively
more certain than others ; therefore, should an experi-
ment not verify a prevision of ours, we are justified in
suspecting this failure to be due to the less solid portion
of our construction. If, when we have modified one
of these less certain laws, we see that the experiment
is successful, we may be relatively sure that the defect
originated there. Finally, if Duhem's arguments prove
that the value of absolute reality cannot be ascribed
to physical law, they fail entirely to show it to be in- 1
capable of a greater or lesser degree of truth.

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1 Revue de metaphysique et de morale (1893), vol. i. pp. 20-22.

2 La Philosophie en France dans le 19e siecle, p. 322.

3 De la contingence des lois de la nature (Paris, 1899), 2nd ed. p. 170.
The reduction of physical laws to habits had already been accomplished
by Ravaisson (De F habitude, p. 39).

4 De Fidee de loi naturelle dans la science et la philosophie contem-
poraines (Paris, 1901), 2nd ed. p. 143.

8 Op. cit. pp. 15-16.
' Op. cit. p. 20.

7 Op. cit. p. 26.

8 Op. cit. p. 35.

160 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w.

• Op. cit. p. 38.
" Op. cit. p. 49.
u Op. cit. p. 60.
12 Op. cit. p. 68.
» Op. cit. p. 81.

14 Essai sur les conditions et les limites de la certitude logique (Paris,
1894), p. 233.

" Op. cit. p. 19.

16 U Evolution creatrice (Paris, 1907), p. 270.

17 Op. cit. p. 216 ff.

18 Bergson, Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience (Paris
1889), p. 96 ff.

19 Plotinus also regards extension, if not as an inversion of the origina
Being, as a weakening of its essence, one of the last stages of degradation
(Enneads, iv. iii. 9-10 ; and m. vi 17-18).

10 Op. cit. p. 227 ff.
n Op. cit. p. 237.
" Op. cit. p. 239.

23 Die Phantasie als Orundprinzip der Weltprozess (Munich, 1898).

24 Baldwin, too, in his Thought and Things, voL i. preface, p. x. sq.
looks to aesthetic experience, which alone is capable of transcending th
dualism of subject and object, individual and universal, etc., created b
logical and practical activity, for the fullest and most direct revelatio
of reality : " It is, on the contrary, in a form of contemplation, aestheti
in character, that the immediacy of experience constantly seeks to re
establish itself. In the highest form which comes to itself as genuine an
profound aesthetic experience, we find a synthesis of motives, a mode i
which the strands of the earlier and diverging dualisms are merged an
fused. In this experience . . . consciousness has its completest an
most direct and final apprehension of what reality is and means."

25 " L' Esprit positif," Revue de metaphysique et de morale (Septembe
1901), p. 597 ff.

24 Op. cit. p. 598.
17 Op. cit. p. 608.

28 Op. cit. p. 643.

29 " Un Positivisme nouveau," Revue de metaphysique et de mora
(March 1901), p. 140 ff.

80 " Science et philosophic," Revue de metaphysique et de mora
(September 1899), p. 515 ff.

81 Le Boy, " Science et Philosophic," Revue de metaphysique et
morale (September, 1899), p. 518.

82 Un Positivisme nouveau, p. 144.
88 Op. cit. p. 524.

84 Op. cit. p. 527 ff.

88 Cp. on this point the analyses of Duhem, La Theorie physique (Paris,
1906), p. 308, and of Milhaud, Le Rationnel, p. 66.

84 We will enter on a more detailed discussion of these new theories
in the realm of mathematics and physics in the second part of this work

87 Le Roy, op. cit. p. 559 ff .

88 " Sur quelques objections adressees a la nouvelle philosophic,
Revue de metaphysique et de morale (July 1901), p. 409 ff.

•» Op. cit. p. 413.

40 Op. cit. p. 415.

41 Op. cit. p. 417.
« Op. cit. p. 425.

SEC. n CONTINGENCY AND INTUITIONISM 161

«3 U Esprit positif, p. 638.

44 Le Roy, op. cit. p. 428.

45 " Science et philosophic," Revue de metaphysique et' de morale
(January 1900), p. 66.

48 " Science et philosophic," Revue de metaphysique et de morale
(November 1899), p. 719.

47 Op. cit. p. 731.

48 " L'lllusion idealiste, " Revue de metaphysique et de morale (November
1898), p. 742 ; V Action (Paris, 1893), pp. 443 ft., 468, 479.

49 Op. cit. pp. 314-317.

60 La Valeur de la science (Paris, 1906), p. 217.

51 Poincare, op. cit. p. 233.

52 Couturat, " Contre le nominalisme de M. Le Roy," Revue, de meta-
physique et de morale (January 1900), p. 88. Cp. also Brunschwigg, " La
Philosophic nouvelle et 1'intellectualisme," ibid. (July 1901), p. 468.

58 " Reponse a M. Couturat," Revue de metaphysique et de morale
(March 1900), p. 225 ff.
54 Op. cit. p. 226.

65 Poincare, La Valeur de la science, p. 236.
M Poincare, op. cit. p. 238 ff.
67 Science, et Hypothese (Paris, 1905), p. 163.
58 La Valeur de la science, p. 231.
69 La Theorie physique, p. 235 ff.

80 Op. cit. p. 261.

81 Op. cit. p. 279.
8i Op. cit. p. 283.

63 Duhem, op. cit. p. 246.

M

CHAPTER II

ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM

1. Pragmatism as Evolutionary Transformation
English Empiricism. — Anglo - American pragmatism
though at first sight it may appear to be a revolutionar]
philosophy, is in reality but an evolutionary transf orma
tion of the old English empiricism. James himsel
shows this clearly in the dedication of his last volume
Pragmatism, to the memory of Stuart Mill, and also in the
sub-title of that work, A New Name for Some Old Way
of Thinking.1 Into what facts can an idea be resolved ?
What is its value in terms of special experiences ? This
is the problem which James considers that the English
school has always more or less consciously striven to
solve. Locke, in fact, treats the question of persona
identity in this way, reducing its meaning to the series
of our detailed recollections, the only part thereof which
can be verified in a concrete manner, and eliminating
the idea of spiritual substance as useless and unimportant,
By means of the same procedure Berkeley finds in
sensations, connected and ordered in different ways,
the practical value of the idea of matter, and David
Hume recognises in the concept of cause merely the|
habitual tendency to expect like phenomena in like
circumstances.2

2. The Pragmatism of Peirce. — Charles Sanders
Peirce,8 who was the first to make use of the word
pragmatism, really did nothing but set forth explicitly
that principle which had been the instinctive guide oi

162

SEC. ii ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 163

these philosophers. According to Peirce, the activity
of thought tends to attain rest in a belief, because it is
only then that we can have a stable and sure guide to
our actions upon objects. Beliefs are rules of action,
and the function of thought has no other end than the
production of active habits. All ideas which fail to
determine any difference in the practical results of
thought form no true and proper part of its meaning.
In order to develop such a content, we need therefore
merely specify exactly what line of conduct it is suited
to produce : there is no possible distinction in the
meaning of our ideas which does not give rise to a
difference of a practical order. Hence, if we would
attain to complete lucidity of thought relative to an
object, we must merely consider what sensations, either
immediate or remote, are to be expected from it, and
what reactions we should prepare in case the object
should prove to be true. The positive significance of
ideas lies in these practical consequences, all other more
or less subtle distinctions are valueless.

3. Utilitarianism and Pragmatism. Anglo-American
pragmatism did not, however, stop short at Peirce's
position,4 but went still farther. It does not merely
say : " The value of ideas lies in the practical con-
sequences," but speaks of good results, and ends by
simply identifying the true with the useful and opportune.
The utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, which was at
first confined to the sphere of moral life, boldly entered
upon a desperate undertaking, rather than confess
itself vanquished in the age-long struggle against the
loftiest human ideals. The cognitive and aesthetic
functions alike, with their disinterested ends, contrasted
too forcibly with the thesis of utilitarianism, proving,
as they did, the mind to be capable of recognising values
external to and above social and individual pleasure :
were not the search for truth and the creation of beauty
the strongest contradiction of utilitarianism ? It was
natural that empiricism should muster its forces for
the assault on this impregnable citadel of human

PT. I

disinterestedness. Bacon had already insisted on the
practical end of science, stating that, ipissimae res
sunt veritas et utilitas, but he had also added : Atque
opera ipsa pluris jacienda sunt quatenus sunt veritalis
pignora, quam propter vitae commoda : 5 and had placed
the contemplatio rerum above the inventio fructus.
We rejoice in the light because with its help we can
work, read, and see one another, but the very sight of
the light is of greater value than all its manifold advan-
tages. Locke, in his De arte medica, had stated still
more forcibly : " Those who apply themselves seriously
to finding and combining abstractions take great pains
for a thing of little account, and would do well, although
they be men, to play with the puppets of their child-
hood . . . there is no knowledge worthy of the name
but that which leads to some new and useful invention,
which teaches us to do something better, more quickly,
and more easily than formerly. Every other specula-
tion, however singular and ingenious it may be, what-
ever its appearance of depth, is but vain and idle
philosophy, an occupation for those who have nothing
to do." " Our business in this world is not to know
everything, but to know that which concerns the conduct
of our life." David Hume says : " Indulge your passion
for science, says she (nature), but let your science be
human and such as may have a direct reference to action
and society. ... Be a philosopher, but, amidst all
your philosophy, be still a man." 6 Empiricism, how-
ever, although containing germs which, when developed
and carried to their ultimate consequences, might
easily degenerate into pragmatism, was far from deny-
ing the value of disinterested research. " Were the
generality of mankind contented," says Hume, "to
prefer the easy philosophy to the abstract and profound,
without throwing any blame or contempt on the latter,
it might not be improper, perhaps, to comply with this
general opinion and allow every man to enjoy, without
opposition, his proper taste and sentiment. But as
matter is often carried farther, even to the absolute

SEC. n ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 165

rejecting of all profound reasonings, or what is commonly
called metaphysics, we shall now proceed to consider
what can reasonably be pleaded on their behalf." 7
Treating of the problem of human liberty, he makes
an observation which might well have been written
by William James : " There is no method of reason-
ing more common and yet more blamable than, in
philosophical debate, to endeavour the refutation of
any hypothesis by a pretence of its dangerous con-
sequences to religion and morality. When an opinion
leads into absurdities it is certainly false, but it is not
certain that an opinion is false because it is of dangerous
consequences." 8

Notwithstanding these reserves, it was, however,
but a step from utilitarian empiricism to pragmatism.
One of the factors which contributed most effectually
to this transformation was undoubtedly the evolutionary
theory applied to the development of human conscious-
ness. Had not Spencer said that thought with its
logical structure is but a means of adaptation, an
organ originating, like all other organs, in vital necessi-
ties ? Is not the advantage of the species the biological
meaning of psychic life ? Empirio-criticism, transfer-
ring the old English empiricism to Germany, had already
applied this principle to the evolution of science and
philosophy : 9 what wonder, then, that in the native lands
of Spencer, Darwin, and Romanes10 a logical and epistemo-
logical theory was built up on this postulate, which had
never been called in question ? Why should pragmatism
indeed waste time in discussing the theoretic value of
that principle when it was so convenient to accept it ?
What matter if the intellect were not convinced by it ?
It is opportune, and that is enough : " Human arbitrari-
ness," pronounces James, "has done away with the
divine necessity of scientific logic." u

4. Reasons for the Prevalence of Pragmatism:
James's Will to Believe. — Pragmatism would not, how-
ever, have taken hold and spread so rapidly had it not
found favourable soil in minds weary of the abstract

166 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. I

formulas of scientific naturalism and dissatisfied with
the dreary prospects which it held out to souls yearning
for faith and hope. The will to believe came at just
the right moment to fill the void left in the mind by
Spencer's Unknowable, that fatal outcome of the
scientific method which had been exalted to the rank
of a philosophic method. The door was open to the
inspirations of feeling; since intellect, backed up by
mathematical science, had done such poor service, and
had been constrained to own itself beaten, why not try
to find a substitute for it ? Is not the human mind
endowed with other and greater energies capable of
surmounting these obstacles and breaking down those
barriers with which agnosticism strove to hamper its
free activity ? The raisons de cceur of the mystic
Pascal, the moral and religious arguments which David
Hume would fain banish from philosophic disputes,
take their part in the fray. We have once again in the
contemporary social consciousness that tragic situation
which led to Kant's Primacy of the Practical Reason,
which is called upon to decide the struggle between
intellectual exigencies and the imperious needs of duty.
James's essay on the Will to Believe 12 is at bottom but
a revised and corrected edition ad usum Delphini of the
doctrine of the primacy of the practical reason, which
had already been taken up again and elucidated with
greater acumen and philosophical depth by Lotze and
Renouvier, yet James is not ashamed to say : ' The
mind of Kant is the strangest and most intricate possible
of museums of antiquities ! " 1S

In this first essay James does not as yet declare
himself plainly to be an opponent of intellectualism,
but suggests his method to us as a means of deciding \u
those questions only which intellectualism leaves open. 1 1
Our passional nature not only may but should decide M
in all cases of true option between two opposite alterna-
tives in which a choice based on intellectual grounds is i
impossible, since to say under such circumstances : I j
" I will not make any decision, but will leave the matter

SEC. n ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 167

open," is in itself a passional decision just as much as
a decision in the negative or affirmative would be, and
is equally exposed to the risk of missing the truth.14
Even James himself puts us on our guard against carrying
anti-intellectualism too far : in the concrete the liberty to
believe should only be applied to those practical options
which the intellect is unable to decide ; and these
passional decisions must be avoided as much as possible,
whenever facts allow of our doing so. Whenever the
choice between missing and gaining a truth is not
absolutely indispensable to life, we may relinquish
the probability of gaining a truth, or in any case avoid
the risk of believing in something which is not true, by
not deciding until we are in possession of objective
evidence. In science more especially we must never
be in too great a hurry to choose hypotheses ; doubt
is preferable to falling into error.15

So far, James has not left the "museum of antiquities"
of the primacy of the practical reason : will and feel-
ing are called upon merely to supply that which is
lacking in the intellect which may and should await
conviction when it is a question of beliefs which are not
vital. James, although he takes up the standpoint of
" radical empiricism," 16 still recognises the autonomous
existence of truth and the ability of the human mind
to attain to it by means of successive approximations,
but, while absolutists not only believe themselves to
be capable of truth, but affirm that they are already
in possession thereof, and can see no salvation apart
from their dogmatic philosophy, the empiricist is never
sure that he has attained it.17

5. Differences between " la Philosophic nouvelle "
Pragmatism. — Anglo-American pragmatism soon
t beyond this stage of prudent relativism, and,
intoxicated by its easy success, did not hesitate to declare
war on intellectualism in the realm of science as well.
This result was brought about to no small degree by the
criticisms of Mach, Ostwald, Pearson, Milhaud, Poincare,
and Duhem, and more especially by those of Bergson

168 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

and Le Roy, who had laid special stress on the economic
value of scientific theories and on the active, personal,
and arbitrary element in the determination of facts
and laws. The Philosophic Nouvette, to which indeter-
ministic idealism in France gave birth, yet bears to
a certain extent the stamp of its metaphysical origin ;
whereas pragmatism, which is derived by natural
evolution from empiricism, strives as far as possible
to remain true to the programme drawn up by Peirce.
This imparts a physiognomy of its own to Anglo-American
pragmatism, which distinguishes it clearly from the new
French philosophy. The action spoken of by Bergson,
Le Roy, and Blondel is not practical external action,
empirical fertility in the realm of facts, but profound,
interior, experienced action, the concentration of the
mind on itself in order that it may intuitively grasp its
creative activity.18 The truth of the idea, according
to pragmatists, lies in its consequences, in its empiric
content ; according to intuitionists, on the other hand,
its true reality fies in that spiritual action which
precedes it. The former descend from ideas to facts,
and hence tend to realism; the latter rise from dis-
cursive thought to the creating mind, and therefore
reach idealism.

6. The Humanism of Schiller. — The logical and
epistemological development of pragmatism is mainly
due to Schiller and Dewey : James has merely spread
their doctrines and applied that method more especially
to religious problems.19 He is, however, after Peirce, the
first inspirer of the new current of thought, and must
be therefore regarded as the spiritual leader of the school,20
which gathers together in the unity of the method
tendencies and applications of different kinds.21 It is
indeed to him, as the most human of philosophers, that
Schiller dedicates his chief work, which proclaims itself,
with a touch of the solemnity of a Novum Organum, to be
a reform of customary logic.22 This has been up to now
a pseudo-science of that non-existent and impossible
process commonly called pure thought, in whose name

SBC. n ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 169

we have undertaken to banish from our mind the most
minute trace of interest, desire, and emotion, as we should
the most pernicious source of error. The new logic, on
the contrary, considers that it is an emotional postulate,
which takes the first place in the acquisition of our
knowledge because there is no such thing as an argument
which is not derived from an internal passion of the mind,
and which is not based upon a more or less sentimental
belief, and upon a subjective need.23 The old saying
of Protagoras, " Man is the measure of all things,"
is, when interpreted aright, the greatest discovery of
philosophy : it does not lead to scepticism, but impels
science to enquire how man can measure, and what
expedients will enable him to bring his measures into
agreement with those of his fellows. Humanism regards
human consciousness as the centre of the universe, and
makes use of its guidance alone in the world of experience,
rejecting every a priori principle in whose name the
possibility is claimed of reducing that which is the
concrete type of every reality to an illusory appear-
ance of some fantastic Absolute.24 Knowledge is not
impassive contemplation of the Absolute, but a form of
practical activity which belongs to the sphere of moral
responsibility. Pure reason is a mere fiction : an
intellect which is of no value to the ends of life is a
monstrosity, a pathological aberration, a failure in
adaptation which must sooner or later be eliminated
by natural selection.25 The idea of value is more
primitive than that of fact; without valuation there
is no knowledge. The ultimate problem of philosophy
may be summed up in these questions : What is reality ?
To what end, for what useful purpose is it real ? The
reply will naturally vary according to the end. The
direction of our effort, which is determined by the desire
and the will to know, enters as a necessary factor into
the revelation of reality. Reality, considered as un-
knowable, is nothing ; as something unknown it is only
potentially real. The nature of things is not deter-
minate but determinable. like that of our fellows ; the

170 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE *

nature of the answers given is determined by our
questions. The notion of a fact in itself is an
anachronism, just as is the idea of a thing in itself
It is quite untrue that we count for nothing in the
construction of the world ; on the contrary, our action
is essential and indispensable, since without us fac
would not be what is made. Within what limits anc
in what direction the world is plastic and can b
moulded by our action we do not yet know for certain
but we know enough to transfigure the aspect of existence
in relation to ourselves. The disparity between out
power and exterior forces, great as it may be, is ye
not incommensurable, and nature has never yet refuse<
to reply when she has been questioned in the pragmatica
method.26 We make choice of the conditions unde:
which reality is to be manifested to us, and may, if wi
have chosen badly, provoke by our action a hostili
reply, and therewith our destruction, hence the choice
is at our own risk. Pragmatism thus imparts fresl
vigour to the sense of responsibility by leaving in
the world much that is indeterminate.

Every cognition, however theoretic it may be, is o
practical value, and is therefore potentially a mora
act. Even the so-called eternal principles of mathe-
matics are human constructions, postulates, that is to
say, demands which we make of our experience becaus(
it is necessary to us that it shall become a cosmos
adapted to life ; they appear to be obvious and axio
matic because' they are so firmly rooted in our menta
habits that it occurs to no one to call them into dispute.
At bottom, theoretic principles, like practical ones
derive the whole of their meaning and value from theii
utility to us. That alone is necessarily true which ii
necessary to our needs. The true is the useful, th(
useless is t&e false. The definition of the true as agree-
ment with" the object is not tenable, because we shoulc
need to have independent knowledge of the thought
on the one hand and the reality on the other, which if
absurd. The other method of conceiving of truth as

SKC. H ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 171

systematic coherency is no better, first of all because
not every system is true, and we should therefore need
another criterion to distinguish the true from the false
systems, and secondly, because the bodies of truth which
we acquire in our science are all partial and incomplete
systems which are not in harmony with the rest, hence
it follows that no actual system is true. It may be urged v
that actual systems are approximations to an ideal
system, which is absolute coherency, but what right
: have we to suppose that there is one system only and
not several different ones ? Reality may be constructed
in different ways by varying our efforts, and the exigency
i of the system is but the need of some harmony producing
i emotional satisfaction, and not of a purely logical and
formal coherency.28 Pure thought is, as we have already
stated, non-existent : logic cannot be divorced from
psychology. A truth which is actually present is in
the first place a process of consciousness, and, as such,
i subject to a large number of psychological influences,
i such as desire, interest, attention, will, etc. The same
thing may be said of coherency, which is primarily a
i psychic fact and cannot therefore be attained by means
! of argument, but is immediately felt. The movement
of thought is initiated, sustained, and guided by interest :
knowledge is a form of valuation which does not differ
essentially from the rest. There is nothing to guarantee
the agreement of the valuations of one man with those
of his fellow -men, or with his own made at another
time; but the necessities of social life demand the
systematic coherence of all truths. Single interests
are subordinated to the principal ends of life, therefore
certain of them disappear according to the law of natural
selection : of the subjective valuations of truth those
only survive which are of social utility, and which
answer best to the common aspirations of man.29 Our
preference for certain conceptions is due to a mere
criterion of convenience : the Copernican hypothesis
gained the preference over the Ptolemaic only because
it required a smaller number of auxiliary hypotheses,

PT. :

and because the calculations it involved were simpler.
Thus, too, the geometry of Euclid still practically reigns
supreme over other systems, because its application
to the world of our experience is easier and more con-
venient ; metageometricians have had to confine
themselves to imagining other worlds subject to laws
other than those of Euclid's geometry. Certainty in
the sense of intrinsic coherency, of harmony with
the definitions and postulates from which we start, has
nothing to do with the question of the objective validity
of principles, which depends upon the possibility of
systematising our experience by means thereof. Applied
geometry is not certain, but useful.30 Geometrical
judgments are universally valid, solely because it is
greatly to our interest to keep them so.31 In like
manner, if in the realm of physical sciences we admit
the existence of universal and eternal laws, and also
that the individuality of things in their special spatial
and temporal determinations is negligible, we do not
so act because we are convinced of the theoretic
validity of that supposition, but rather because we are
constrained thereto by its practical convenience; we
must, that is to say, make previsions concerning the
future existence of things in order to regulate our
conduct. The postulate of the persistency of laws does
not reveal to us any necessity of nature, but is merely
a methodological expedient, answering to the need of
finding formulas which will enable us to calculate events
without awaiting their verification.32 The things of
common sense, the atoms of the physicist, the Absolute
of the philosopher are but schemes for ordering
the manifold qualities of phenomena corresponding to
certain practical requirements, but these abstractions,
in as much as they are instruments which can produce
effects upon experience, become possessed in our thought
of the value of reality.33 Immediate experience does
not satisfy our needs, and for this reason we construct
realities answering our practical requirements better;
this must not, however, lead us into the error of regarding

ssc. n ANGLO-AMEEICAN PRAGMATISM 173

as illusory that sensible world which must always remain
a necessary point from which we start and to which
we refer. We can make different constructions accord-
ing to the ends we have in view, and these constructions
are frequently of a contradictory nature : even in the
one realm of physical phenomena we have the theories
of atoms, electrons, and vortex-rings ; and explanatory
schemes become more numerous when we pass from
one science to another ; so much so that we might well
ask : Is the real world that postulated by physical
science, or that of geometry, psychology, or ethics ?
The philosopher feels the need of eliminating the discords
between these worlds/ of attaining to an ultimate reality
of a more satisfying nature, capable of embracing within
itself and harmonising the schemes of the different
sciences, and thus putting an end to our uncertainties ;
but this ultimate reality must preserve its connecting
links with the world of appearances which it was called
upon to explain. Immediate experience is to a certain
extent more real, that is to say more directly real, than
those schematic constructions which have been erected
upon its foundations : if we destroy this foundation,
the whole edifice will collapse.34 Phenomenal appear-
ances must be preserved : the world is really coloured,
sonorous, hard, painful, spatial, and temporal. The units
of measurement of the reality introduced will in ultimate
analysis be found in these appearances, and the assump-
tion thereof will be vain if they in no way serve to fill
the gaps therein and to transform them actively. That
which must decide whether an introduced reality be
merely a fiction of the imagination or exist effectively is
its efficacy, the power imparted to us by its aid. The
scientific theory of the transmission of light through
the air is preferable to the poetical idea of the fluttering
of the wings of hypothetical cherubim, since we may
discover how to act upon the air but could never have
any means of control over the movements of these
invisible cherubs.35 The more capable reality shows
itself of rendering life harmonious, the truer it is ; that

174 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

FT. I

knowledge which fails to satisfy and which imparts no
power to us is false. The ultimate goal of cognitive
activity is not an infinite and complete system of
relations, within the limits of which there is room for
endless discussion, but the vision or immediate per-
ception of a reality which has absorbed into itself all
truths without destroying or denying them, the luminous
and transparent contemplation of that perfect harmony
which embraces all things and reveals the whole meaning
of the cosmic process in the full expression of its
supreme goodness and its divine beauty.36 The ideal
of life is not the arrest of motion, but the perfection
of motion in the equilibrium of an activity which is
self-sustaining : the 'Evepyeia aKivija-iaf of Aristotle.37
True being is not immutable substance, but perennial
activity ; it is not something transcending experience,
but that which brings it to perfection. There is no
reason to confine this perfection to divinity, as does
Aristotle. We can easily conceive of a cosmos of beings
whose activity has overcome change and attained to
perfect equilibrium. The realisation of themselves, and
of the potentiality possessed by each one in its own
nature, should take the form, not of a revolting, cruel,
and pathological restlessness, not of an unending effort,
but rather of an activity which, overcoming change
and time, is preserved in a harmonious equilibrium.38
The harmony of the cosmos is not capable of logical
proof, but we must assume it as a postulate which
satisfies a profound longing of ours ; in the last analysis
there is no stronger evidence of the intelligibility of
the world which is taken for granted by physical science
than there is of ethical and religious beliefs, such as the
belief in a moral order and in the immortality of the soul. I '
There is only one method of valuation, i.e. the measure
of efficacy in life ; there is only one foundation, which is
always a postulate of an emotional nature.39

7. Dewey's Instrumental Logic. — John Dewey lays
special stress upon this analogy between scientific and
moral jurlgTnp.nt^ whip.h may be said to constitute the

SEC. IT ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 175

essence of pragmatism.40 It is usual to draw a distinction
between moral judgments, whose aim is the solution
of special cases, and which are dependent upon the
personality of the judge, and scientific judgments, which
give expression to universal and objective relations, inde-
i pendent of individual tendencies. Now, according to
Dewey, this is erroneous : it is true that the man of science
seeks for general laws, but he, too, in reality sets himself
i the task of solving special cases ; the laws are but the
: means, not the end, so much so that, if the law proves
! inadequate to solve the special problem in question,
i it is changed, whereas the specific case always remains
i unaltered: science and morals alike aim at the individual.
' On the other hand, even in scientific judgments, the
personality of the judge affects the preliminary classifica-
tion of possibilities or predicates, the choice of the
individual cases to be studied, and the method of verifying
the hypotheses, whether by means of experiment or of
demonstration. The character modifies, guides, and
suggests the judgment. If the use of the resources of
science, of experimental technique, of systems of
classification, etc., which guides the act of judging and
therefore determines the content of the judgment, be
dependent upon the interest and inclination of the
judge, we are forced to recognise that the two forms
of judgment are perfectly analogous.41 There is, how-
ever, a certain difference : whilst the intrusion of the
personal element is of no consequence in scientific
judgments, in moral judgments, on the contrary, this
factor qualitatively colours the meaning of the situa-
tion ; hence, seeing that this element practically amounts
to nothing in scientific judgments, it is logically useless
to take it into account, whereas it is impossible to ignore
it in moral judgments, which are of themselves true
and proper acts whose efficacy is felt in the practical
conduct of life. In short, whereas in scientific judgments
the character, that is to say the complex, of natural
tendencies, technique, habits of thought, etc., is a
uniform and impartial condition, in the moral sphere

176 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

its action is explicit, causing us to prefer one specia
judgment to another, and it becomes hence the pre-
dominant factor.42 This does not, however, entitle
us to regard scientific judgments as differing in nature
from others, or to abstract thought arbitrarily from
the individual psychological content. Dewey expresses
surprise that, in spite of the progress made by the
evolutionary method in natural science, certain systems
of logic (it would have been more accurate had he sak
all sensible ones) persist in drawing a sharp distinction
between the problem of origins and that of nature,
between genesis and analysis, between the history anc
the validity of thought.43 The whole meaning of the
evolutionary method, which has brought forth so much
fruit when applied to biology and sociology, is that each
distinct organ, each structure, each formation group
of cells and elements must be regarded as a means o
adjustment to special situations of the environment :
its meaning, character, and value are known only when
it is considered as an instrument demanded by a specific
situation. Psychology, as the natural history of the
various attitudes and various structures through which
thought passes in the course of its development, anc
as the knowledge of the conditions from which it issues
and the ways in which it acts by the stimulation 01
inhibition of other states of consciousness, is indis-
pensable to logical valuation. Thought is but a form
of adaptation to its generative conditions, and its
validity must therefore be judged in relation to its
efficacy in the solution of these problems. Instruments
logic, according to Dewey, knows nothing of the object
in itself of a thought in itself, but recognises a series
of values varying with the variation of the functions,
and which can therefore be determined only by reference
to them.44 Thought is not something pure and absolute,
existing for itself, whose office is to reflect and represent
a world of independent realities, but a function which
has been formed, like the rest, in the course of experience,
and which originated in determinate needs. Its every

SEC. ii ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 177

I stage is of value in so far as it corresponds to the exigency
of certain conditions ; the later stage in which other

I values arise does not entitle us to pronounce the pre-

; ceding moment to be false. The stimulus to the function
of thought must be sought in a situation in which the
elements conflict, in a state of reciprocal tension, which
would lead to the dissociation of experience were the
re-organising work of reflective thought not to inter-

, vene and re-establish the equilibrium of the system,

1 causing distinctions to arise in the heart of the primitive
non-differentiated totality.45 In this work of restoration
and re-integration (re-definition, re-relation),46 lies the
whole meaning of the logical function, whose antecedent

'is therefore always to be found in a conflict between
the various parts of the world of physical, social, or
intellectual experience. This situation, which con-
stitutes the starting-point, with its tensional elements

i remains something objective, but is, in as much as it
sets thought a problem, suggestive of the subjective
phases of another system, that is, which at present
appears to us to be the more or less uncertain solution
of the conflict. In short, the situation, from being a
single principle, inevitably tends to become polarised
and to dichotomise itself : there is something which
is not affected by the contest of incompatibles,
there is something which remains assured and beyond
question ; on the other hand, there are elements which
become doubtful and precarious. This gives rise to the
general division of the sphere into facts (the given, the
presented) and ideas (the conceived, the thought). That
which remains indubitable is the fact of the conflict
or tension with that specific colouring, that individual
physiognomy which cannot be replaced, but which is
immediately felt ; the new relations and new positions
assumed by the elements in the re-integrated system
are, on the other hand, of a problematic nature. The
memory of the past gives us other experiences, other
contents which teach us to interpret present facts ; these
contents are distinct from the facts themselves, as pure

N

178 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT.

possibilities, ideas, thoughts, ways of conceiving ; bu
this division is merely relative : in other words, th
given and the thought are but divisions of labour
co-operative instruments of an economic commerc
whose object is the preservation of the integrity o
experience.47 The concept is not a formal stamp o
seal of the ready-made order, applying to a content
but is a continuous transformation of data in a certain
direction. The proof of the validity of an idea is it
functional or instrumental efficacy in effecting th
transition from an experience which is relatively
conflict to another which is relatively integrated. Th
difference between ideas and facts does not he in theii
content, but in their function : the idea is simply tha
part of total experience which is regarded as tentativ
and corresponds to the predicate of the judgment
whilst the situation which has called it forth form*
its subject.48 The idea is not universal in itself, bu
is a particular content which acquires universality
through its re-organising function ; it is not of vahu
in as much as it is a copy or sign of other contents, bu
in so far as it is an instrument of action, an econonr
in the process of thought.49 In other words, the idea
being chosen because it fulfils a certain office in th<
evolution of unified experience, can only be proved b
verifying whether it succeeds in the task which it hai
set itself. The conception of thought as a purely forma
activity, which is exercised upon an independent matter
is meaningless ; moreover, the success of such an actioi
would be a miracle of a most remarkable order. Wen
the instrument and the material originally extraneou
to one another and to the result, their reciprocal adapts
tion to the attainment of a valid result would be simplj
miraculous ; it is however easy to explain when w]
reflect that both of them have been chosen and elaborated
with special view to that end, that is to say, to th
preservation of harmonious experience. The adaptatio
of thought is not pre-arranged all at once from the firs
but is accomplished little by little, case by case, accorc

SEC. II

ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 179

ing to the exigency of the particular situations. The

problem of the validity of thought in general, as distinct

from the value of this or that special process, is only

raised when thought is arbitrarily considered apart from

its historical position and its material context. The

logical function, on the contrary, is an active and fruitful

part of the evolution of experience : each cognitive act

makes a difference to and in things, and the more it

reveals to us the perennial becoming of the word, and

teaches us to see the universe not sub specie aeterni-

tatis, but sub specie generationis, the more adequate

it is to its object. This does not, of course, imply that .

thought creates reality, as is alleged by idealism, since

'its function is merely to reorganise and reconstruct an

empirical situation which already exists.50 But this

sxistence, on the other hand, must not be conceived of

is something transcending that conscious experience,

vyhich is non-differentiated matter, and gives birth by

i simultaneous process to subject and object.51 When

ictivity develops without being interrupted or arrested,

ind no conflict arises between the motor responses

idapted to the various parts or aspects of the situation

as, for instance, in aesthetic activity), the distinction

3etween subjective and objective is not apparent to the

consciousness of the agent ; but this opposition is formed

>nly when an impulse to reaction in a certain direction

: neets with an obstacle to its complete manifestation.52

8. Pragmatical Elimination of the Duality of Subject
ind Object. — With regard to the problem of the reality
)f the external world, it will be seen that pragmatism
• s in agreement with empirio-criticism, in as much as
t does not admit the primitive duality of subject and
>bject, but claims to be able to rise to an undifferentiated
•xperience which is their common source. James
naintains 53 that sensible reality and our sensation
hereof are absolutely identical with each other : our
ensations are not miniature internal duplicates of
hings, but things themselves in so far as they present
o us. The content of the physical world does not

180 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.

differ from that of the psychic world ; even when w
dream of a mountain of gold, which undoubtedly doe
not exist apart from our dream, it appears to us in our
dream like an object possessed of physical existence
In the same way the content of our memories is not an
internal subjective fact, projected outwards by our
selves, but is the distant object itself. The act
thinking this content is not a duplication thereof, bu
is the association into one group of other mental facts
such as the emotions which it has excited, with th
effort of attention and the ideas which have recalle
it. The phenomenon, placed in these relations, appear
to us to be thought ; if, on the other hand, we conside
it in relation to the other facts of a physical order, it wil
appear objective. Consciousness is not an entity, ai
activity which is added to its content, but is reducibl
to the complex of these " pure experiences," which ca:
be mutually related in various ways and belong ix
various groups at one and the same time, so that tha
which in a certain context of contiguous facts is classing
as a physical phenomenon may figure in another grouj
as a fact of consciousness, just as a particle of ink ma
belong simultaneously to two straight lines, one vertica
the other horizontal, provided it be situated at thei
point of intersection.54 Subject and object, though
and thing, are but practical distinctions, of great im
portance certainly, but of functional order only, no
ontological, as classical dualism represents them to b<
since they are in the last analysis made of the sam
stuff, which cannot be denned but must be experience]
immediately, namely, the stuff of experience in general
9. Plasticity of Experience according to James. — Th'
starting-point of reality is the flux of our sensation
which are thrust upon us, coming to us without od
knowing whence : their nature, their order, and the}
quantity elude our action. They are neither true ncj
false, they merely are ; the distinction between tnj
and false only applies to what we say of them, to th
name we give them, to our theories touching their natui

8Bc.n ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 181

and their relations.55 The second element of reality
consists in the relations between our sensations or
between their images in our consciousness. Some of
these relations are variable and accidental, as, for
example, those of time and place ; others are fixed and
essential, because they are based upon the internal
! nature of their terms. Both these kinds of relations
'are immediately perceived, and are " facts," but the
latter kind is of greater importance to the theory
;of knowledge, because it embraces the "eternal"
relations, which are apprehended each time their
sensible terms enter into relation, and which must be
i eternally recognised by logical and mathematical
thought. The third element of reality is formed by
preceding truths, which are taken into account in all new
research : this second factor, which is of less resistent !
^quality than the others, always ends by giving way to
•us, but even the two first are not entirely impervious
to our action. It is true that the sensations " are " :
their flux is independent of us, but we make our choice
among them, according to what best serves our interests,
'recording some of them, omitting others, and arranging
them in the order most convenient to us. What we
say of reality depends upon the point of view from
which we regard it : the Englishman looks upon the
battle of Waterloo as a victory, the Frenchman as a
defeat ; to the optimist the universe is a good thing, to
the pessimist it is the worst possible evil. That which
>is proper to things is their indeterminate being —
the that, — but their determinate nature, the what,
depends upon the which, that is to say, upon our way
of regarding it. We are given the block of marble,
but we have to carve the statue out of it.56 The same
thing may be said of the " eternal " parts of reality :
we disturb and arrange at will our perceptions of intrinsic
relations, we classify them in one series rather than in
another, consider one more fundamental than another,
until our beliefs with regard to them constitute those
systems of truths which we term logical and geometrical,

182 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

whose form and order are obviously the work of
man. The two first elements of reality, sensations and
relations, are mute elements, and tell us absolutely
nothing about themselves : we must speak for them.
It is impossible to conceive of reality independently of
human thought, unless it be regarded as something
in course of arising in the realm of experience, an
evanescent and indeterminate flux, plastic matter, to
which we must give the finishing touches. The world
is not, as rationalists would have us believe, the
infinite folio edition, the edition de luxe complete to
all eternity, which individual consciousnesses fail to
decipher in its entirety, and which they reproduce
in so many small, finite editions, full of misprints,
and more or less mutilated and distorted ; it is rather
an edition which is not yet perfect, and is in process
of gradual completion, more especially through the
activity of thinking beings.57 These beings tend to
mould reality in various ways, according to the special
ends they have in view, and the flux of sensations
passively assumes those forms. The number 27, for
instance, can be regarded as the cube of 3, the product
of 3 x 9, as 26 + 1, as 100-73, and in infinite other ways,
all of them equally correct ; thus a chessboard may be
regarded as made up of black squares on a white ground,
or of white squares on a black ground. Reality can be
printed in our human editions, which are all equally
true, provided they answer the purpose for which they
were elaborated. The historian and the moralist regard
the individual as a person ; the anatomist as an aggre-
gate of tissues ; the histologist as a complex of cells ;
the chemist as an aggregate of molecules. It is for us
to condense into things at will the liquid flux of sensible
reality, thus creating not only the subjects, but also thei
predicates of our judgments, which merely express thei
relations in which things stand to human interests and!
feelings.58 In the cognitive function, as in practical
life, we are the creators of truth and law.

10. Ideas as Instruments of Action. — Ideas are not

SEC. n ANGLO-AMEKICAN PEAGMATISM 183

true in themselves, but rather in as much as they put
us into a satisfactory relation with other portions of our
experience, they are abbreviating schemes, which save us
the trouble of following the interminable series of special
phenomena.59 Each scientific theory solves a problem
of maxima and minima : it is instrumentally true if
it demands the minimum of intellectual effort, and if it
adapts previous systems to new facts with the minimum
amount of : alteration. The view expressed by Ramsay,
which seeks the origin of radiations in the internal
potential energy of the atom, is generally accepted as
true, because it extends the old concept of energy with
the least possible alteration in the nature thereof. We
declare those ideas to be true which serve to connect the
stable mass of previous knowledge with the new contents
of experience, thus fulfilling a mediatory function
(marriage-function, go-between).60 There is no absolute
criterion of truth : each theory is merely possessed of
an instrumental value of adaptation to certain special
conditions.61 The idea does not exist, but is made,
and becomes true with the facts : its truth is the process
of its verification (veri-ficatiori) ; its validity is the
process of its convalidation (valid-ation). If we follow
up the mental image of a thing, we are led actually
to see the thing : we thus have the complete verifi-
cation of it. These guides of thought, simply and
completely verified, are undoubtedly the originals and
prototypes of the process of truth ; the other mediate
and abstract forms of knowledge are conceivable as
primary verifications, inhibited, multiplied, or sub-
stituted for one another.62 The larger number of the
notions of our life are not directly verified, the possibility
of verifying them is in practice enough for us, so long
as we find nothing contradictory of them, and we
generally give credence to our ideas if they harmonise
with past experience, even if it be that of other persons.
The reality of the past is guaranteed by its possible
agreement with the present, with actual facts, which are
the final term of reference, because every true process

184 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE IT.I

must in the last analysis lead to sensorial experiences
which can be directly verified. In practice the work
of verification is much facilitated by the fact that in
nature things do not exist singly, but are arranged into
species ; hence, when we have verified part of the class,
we feel ourselves entitled to extend our judgment to
the rest. In addition to these truths which are only
indirectly or potentially verified, there exist ideal
relations (for instance, 2 + 2 = 4; the effect begins when
the cause begins to act) which we recognise as being
eternal and immediately true, and which therefore
seem to be exempt from the common law of verification ;
but even in this sphere of pure mental relations truth
is in reality gauged by the convenient direction it is
able to give to our activity in the world of experience.
We refer one abstract idea to another, and arrange
them in the great system of logical and mathematical
truths, into which sensible facts will eventually fit ;
and it is just this possibility of application, this char-
acteristic with which the logical structure is endowed
of being prepared for every kind of imaginable object
of experience, which gives our eternal truths their
guarantee of reality.63 Truth is but a collective name
serving to indicate certain processes of verification, just
as health and strength are names for certain vital
processes. The true is merely the convenient in the
sphere of our thought, just as the right is merely the
opportune in the sphere of our action; and, just as
there is no such thing as absolute convenience, so
there is no such thing as absolute truth : Ptolemaic
astronomy, Euclidean space, the logic of Aristotle,
are examples of systems which were convenient for
some centuries, and from certain points of view only,
and have since been changed by science.64 Finally,
truth is a form of good, not, as is usually supposed, a
category distinct from the good and co-ordinate with
it.65

11. Criticism of Pragmatism. — All the efforts made
by Anglo-American pragmatism to reduce the cognitive

SEC. ii ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 185

function to the practical function and knowledge to
action cannot fail to appear vain to the unprejudiced
man who analyses the distinctive characters of the
two functions. Undoubtedly the human mind is an
activity in its every moment ; even in knowledge it is
not a passive receptacle of impressions which it receives
from without, but is the reconstruction of reality in
accordance with its intimate laws. This must not,
however, lead us into the mistake of confusing the
various forms of spiritual activity, and neglecting the
specific differences which impart to each of them a
physiognomy proper to itself, and an independent
value in the life of consciousness. Cognitive doing is ^
not practical doing, just as it is not artistic doing : the
attitude assumed by us differs widely in the three cases.
In the theoretic function it is a fact that we are conscious
of reflecting upon something which exists independently
of our subjective activity, which puts itself in opposition
in various ways to our will, which is, in short, possessed
of a nature of its own. The belief that reality has /
nothing determinate about it, that it is plastic matter
which will yield to our every whim, may be useful in
so far as it increases the sense of our personal responsi-
bility (a statement which is, however, open to dispute),
but is contradictory to human experience, which prag-
matists themselves acknowledge to be the fundamental
criterion.66 The object is not an amorphous flux of
sensations which can be segmentated and ordered as we
please, but is the centre of a system of reactions which,
as Schiller himself admits, may sometimes play us false
and despatch us into the other world. Our action is
not always successful, but at times meets with obstacles
in the outer world, which proves that this world is not
of an absolutely malleable nature, and that, though we
can modify it in part, we cannot do so in every direction.
Facts do not tell us that which we would have them say,
they are not that which we have made them, as is alleged
by pragmatists, who confer the rank of philosophic
arguments on verbal quibbles. Beyond the sphere of

186 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

our individual life there are other active beings, some
like ourselves, others apparently more or less hetero-
geneous ; and the facts of creation are not merely a
creation of our own, but also the result of the co-operation
of extraneous activities, even of a non-human order.
Even if in some respect they reflect our action, answer
to certain exigencies of ours, and bear the stamp of
human labour, in others, infinitely numerous, they
elude our will and refuse to yield full satisfaction to
our desires. In short, our action is one of the factors
of reality, but not the only one ; and if by analogy
thereto we are to conceive of countless others whose
combination gives birth to the life of the universe,
what possibility is there of establishing dominion over
them if they contain nothing determinate ? A com-
plete lack of determination in events would deprive
our will of all dominion whatsoever, because our
caprice would be confronted by its undying foe, the
caprice of things, and nothing but a miraculous coin-
cidence could enable our action to divine the right
course amid the arbitrary succession of facts. The
success of human previsions, upon which pragmatists
lay so much stress, presupposes in phenomena a certain
constancy of relations which we are unable to modify,
and can merely imitate in our mental constructions,
and which is, on the other hand, the necessary postulate
of life. Does not the development of organic functions,
the formation of useful habits and of stable adapta-
tions, demand a certain persistency in the conditions
of the environment ? Was it vital need which forced
the world into certain repetitions of its processes ?
What meaning has the struggle for existence in a world
where there is nothing to fight, where the plastic matter
of experience may be traversed in every direction without
offering the least resistance to the WiUe zur Mackt,
and the assertion of our supremacy ? Where nothing
determinate exists, the words useful, opportune, con-
venient, so misused by pragmatists in their pseudo-
explanations of the genesis of thought, become devoid

SBC. ii ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 187

of all value, since no idea, no means of adjustment,
would be more likely to succeed than another, and
that which chanced to hit upon the right course once
would inevitably be doomed to fail in future experience ;
or, even if the arbitrary hypothesis of absolute plasticity
be granted, they would all be of equal value and all
equally successful, and every criterion of selection,
every possibility of distinguishing between the useful
and the useless, the true and the false, would be abolished.
There can be no meaning in any category where deter-
minate character does not exist. If thought with its
durable and coherent structure were not the reflection
of some order or system of stable relations inherent in
the nature of things, it would not only be meaningless
in itself, as pragmatists are never tired of telling us,
but it would be worthless as an organ of life. The]
evolutionary theory, like all scientific conceptions, in|
its explanatory principles presupposes an organic struc- [
ture of the real and situations in the environment to,
which life must adapt itself and which are therefore
not created thereby.67 Pragmatism, which accepts;
blindfold and dogmatically the biological origin and
meaning of mental life, ends by contradicting its own
postulate, when it denies the presupposition of all
natural selection, that is to say, the objective physical
order. Pragmatists are indeed very enigmatical on
this point : they affirm and do not affirm, in order
not to clash too violently with common sense. Dewey
admits before logical thought a more or less organic
situation, which is not, however, the absolute absence
of determination ; Schiller recognises in the external
world resistent factors capable of establishing a limit
to action, although he proposes not to take it into
account, and to act so long as no obstacle intervenes
(as if the most elementary action did not presuppose
a more or less explicit knowledge of these factors !) :
James, on the one hand, states that sensations are
thrust upon us, and come from some unknown source,
and that we have no control over their nature, order,

188 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

v and quantity** on the contrary, he adds that our beliefs
1 must obediently take into account not merely accidental
'relations, but also those which are essential and eternal,
which are based upon the internal nature of terms, and
which are not created by us, but perceived as facts ;
yet a few pages farther on he affirms that the order of
sensations, and, in general, of every determination of
them, depends upon us.69 Is then the order of sensa-
tions independent of our action, or is it created by us ?
Do their intrinsic and eternal relations, which are
immediately revealed to us, form something " grounded
on the inner natures of their terms " or not ? It is then
not true that the task of moulding reality is entirely
in our hands : it contains relations which we recognise,
not because it suits us so to do, not in so far as they are
useful, but because we are forced to do so by the nature
of things and of our thought. The world allows us to
modify it up to a certain point, provided that we in our
turn submit " obediently " to it, recognising its universal
and eternal relations. Things have a nature^ of their
own, their mode of action is governed by certain rules
which are not of our making, but must be sought and
recognised by our subjective activity, if we would in
any way establish dominion over them. Natura non nisi
parendo vincitur, wrote Bacon, the great ancestor of
modern empiricists. We hold a ringer to the fire, and
we feel it scorch us : this common experience impels
us to formulate the law, " fire burns," which serves
to govern our future actions ; but does this constant
relation between the perception of the ringer in contact
with the fire and the pain of the burn exist only in so
far as it may aid us to avoid the burn in future ? Did we
create it ? Is our law true because it is useful to us, or
is it not rather useful to us because it is true, i.e. because
it records in terms of thought a relation between
objective facts ? Pragmatists have a holy horror of
the theory which regards knowledge as a copy or image
of things and relations independent of the act of knowing,
but must not the idea in some way reproduce in itself

S

SEC. ii ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 189

something objective, if it would be an efficacious instru-
ment of action ? 70 It is true that the term copy or image
is not a very appropriate definition of the cognitive
function, which is not in the least like a photograph or
picture of the world : this does not, however, do away
with the fact that the value of thought must be
sought in its ability to reconstruct an ideal world,
which, while satisfying its requirements, contains in
itself the largest possible number of objective relations.
In this reconstruction, in which thought may be almost
said to remake consciously that which has been made
by nature, creative activity is undoubtedly manifested,
but the ideal product which results therefrom is not of
value to us as an action of the mind, that is to say,
as expressing its aptitude to transfigure and direct
the content of consciousness, but derives its entire
significance from reference to another real process, to
which it must correspond in an adequate manner.71
At this point pragmatists may observe : Is not the
psychic content, which cognitive activity modifies in
order to attain its ends, part of the general world of
experience, that is to say, of reality ? If we transform
our consciousness, do we not at the same time actively
modify real things ? The sophism here is obvious :
even if we are prepared to accept the epistemological
absurdity of contents of consciousness, colours, forms,
sounds, etc., existing outside that individual and sub-
jective context in which experience presents them to
us ; even if we are prepared to adopt the stand-point
of James, the relations between the experiences constitut-
ing the psychic world still remain distinct from the
lations between the experiences of the physical world.72
ur cognitive activity can modify relations of the former
kind, but cannot, and must not, change the exterior
relations of facts : herein lies the difference between
the theoretical and practical attitudes. I perceive
an increase of temperature, and see the mercury rise
in the tube of the thermometer : I can in thought
transfigure this relation and imagine, for instance, the

190 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

same increase of temperature without the rise of the
mercury or with a lowering thereof, but my activity,
though it may in this way modify the psychic relation
between the two facts, can exercise no influence over the
external physical relation, which will always remain the
same. I may devise as many theories as I like, but
only on condition that I recognise that determinate
sequence of phenomena which is not created by me,
but forced upon me. My ideas are of cognitive value
only if I restrict the sphere of my activity to the interior
reconstruction of these relations without attempting
to alter their objective nature, if my action confines
itself to the domain of consciousness, and recognises
the independent reality of things as an insuperable
barrier. Practical activity, on the contrary, bursts these
bounds and invades the sphere of objects, modifying
not only ideas and their relations, but things in their
physical reality. Human individuality is a disturbing
factor which must be eliminated from the theoretic
point of view in order to affirm that which exists in-
dependently of subjective action ; in the moral act,
on the contrary^ the personality of the individual is an
essential factor. In spite of his thesis, Dewey- has been
forced to recognise this, and whereas he had started
with the intention of demonstrating the perfect analogy
between theoretic and moral judgments, he ended by
owning that the human element, which he calls " char-
acter," is of no efficacy in knowledge.73 Of course, even
in the cognitive function it is impossible to prescind
from the subject, but this subject is not the psychic
changing subject, with its individual needs and feelings,
but rather the epistemological subject of a thought
which is of universal structure. Knowledge presupposes
the need of knowing, logical harmony affords a satis-
faction sui generis, herein we can up to a certain point
fall in with Schiller's views, provided that this need and
satisfaction be not taken in a sophistical sense in their
individual varieties, and the deduction made therefrom
that there is no other logic but that which Ribot terms

SEC. ii ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 191

the logic of the feelings.74 Thought does not exist
apart from a psychological structure, which imparts
concreteness thereto, but this does not imply that its
intimate laws do not remain unchanged amid the
variations of the concrete content of consciousness in
which its forms are actualised : one and the same mathe-
matical demonstration, for instance, may be translated
psychologically into auditory, visual, or motor images,
according to the type of imagination of the subject,
but the meaning and value of the deduction do not for
that reason vary in the three cases. When logicians
speak of " pure thought," they do not in the least mean
to return to the Platonic conception of a world of ideas
severed from psychological reality and from all concrete
content ; tEey merely wish to affirm that it is possible
to study thought apart from this or that special content,
not from all content whatsoever, which would be an
absurd hypothesis. The norms of truth are not dependent
upon the variable and contingent structure of the human
subject, although therein alone can they make their
efficacy felt and enjoy the light of knowledge. In like
manner the fact that the knowledge of things is realised
through the action of concrete individuals, and in con-
nection with certain vital needs, does not imply that
their reality is created by these subjective actions and
exists in that determinate form merely because they
have constructed the needs of the organism for their
own use and consumption. Things have a nature of
their own, and act according to laws which are not
forced by thought upon a flux of indeterminate sensa-
tions, as is believed by James, who thus unwittingly
recrosses the threshold of Kant's " museum of anti-
quities," but are revealed to us in the relations of
experience. Sensible data are not absolutely amorphous,
they are not adapted to assume any form and every
form, but are possessed of characters and needs of their
own, which we are bound to respect. Sensations are
not indifferent and mute, they do not say all we would
have them say, but speak to us in the language of all

192 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

other beings, whether human or non- human, which
exist external to our individuality. It is the business
of thought to interpret these countless voices of things,
and to understand their profound meaning. The publi-
cation of the universe, to quote another figure of speech
used by James, is not yet completed, and awaits its
perfecting from the activity of man ; but how could
we collaborate in this great work if we did not first
strive to decipher the numberless signs which the past
has imprinted on its ancient pages ? How could we
understand that eternal language if things were entirely
extraneous to the nature of. the intelligence ? The
logical organism is not an artificial arbitrary mould
into which we force a plastic and indifferent matter
which submits to all our requirements, but is rather
the very structure of reality, whose ideal meaning is
revealed in human thought.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1 Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking : Popular
Lectures on Philosophy (William James, London, 1908). The dedication
of this work, which is in itself sufficiently significant, runs as follows :
" To the memory of John Stuart Mill, from whom I first learned the
pragmatic openness of mind and whom my fancy likes to picture as our
leader, were he alive to-day."
1 Op. cit. p. 20.

8 In his article, " How to make our Ideas clear," in the Popular
Science Monthly (January 1878), voL xii. p. 286, translated in the Revue
phihsophique (January 1879), voL vii.

4 Peirce, in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy, severs his responsibility
from that of James, stating that he is unablp to follow him in all the
conclusions he draws from his principle.

Novum Organum, Aph. 24.

Hume, Essays and Treatises, voL iii., An Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding (London, 1770), p. 8.

Op. cit. p. 9.

Op. cit. pp. 136-137.

This application has been made not only by Mach and Avenarius,
but also by G. Simmel, who regards utility as the essential factor in the
survival of our mental elements and the only creator of reality. " t)ber
eine Beziehung der Selectionslehre zur Erkenntnistheorie," Arch. f.
system. Philosophic (1895), pp. 39 and 41.

10 It would be superfluous for me to quote the well-known works of
these authors. Of special importance is Baldwin's work, Thought and

ssc. n ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 193

Things, vol. i. ; Functional Logic or Genetic Theory of Knowledge (London,
1906), which, however, somewhat modifies the " extravagant first hypo-
theses of the pragmatic revolutionaries " (Preface, p. viii).

u Op. cit. p. 57.

11 The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New
York, 1897). Balfour, in his work Foundations of Belief, had already
given prominence to the action of non-intellectual factors in the foundation
of faith.

13 " The Pragmatic Method," Journal of Philosophy, i. p. 686.

14 The Will to Believe, p. 11.

" Op. cit. pp. 19-20 and p. 30 ff.
11 Op. cit., Preface, p. vii.

17 Op. cit. p. 12. The term " Pragmatism " was taken up again by
James in a speech made by him at the University of California, from
which time its fortune was assured.

18 Le Pvoy distinguished three kinds of action, practical, discursive,
profound, and regards the last named as the criterion of philosophy. The
mind must be severed from practical life, and from the illusions of speech
produced thereby, if it would withdraw into its deeper life (Revue de
metaphysique et de morale (May 1901), p. 325).

19 Human Immortality : Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine (Boston,
1908). The, Varieties of Religious Experience : a Study in Human Nature
(New York, 1902).

20 The first work of James in which the pragmatic method appears is
the article " Sentiment of Rationality," Mind (1879), No. 15. Has work
The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, also shows a method of
analysis of preception which is essentially pragmatistic.

21 Dewey, in " What does Pragmatism mean by Practical ? " Journal
of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Method, voL v. pp. 86-99, distin-
guishes three applications of the term pragmatism, according to whether
it refers to objects, ideas, or beliefs. When applied to objects it means the
future replies asked of us by an object ; applied to ideas, it indicates the
changes effected by them, as attitudes, in things ; applied to truth or
belief, it implies the question of value, of importance. Lovejoy distin-
guishes no less than thirteen kinds of pragmatism (" The Thirteen Prag-
matisms," ibid. vol. v. pp. 5-12, 29-39). On this point see Armstrong,
" The Evolution of Pragmatism," ibid. voL v. p. 645 ff.

M Studies in Humanism (London, 1902). As early as 1892 he had
unknowingly followed the pragmatic method in his article, " Reality and
Idealism," Philosophical Review (September). Other works by Schiller
are " Riddles of the Sphinx " (London, 1894) and " Axioms as Postulates,"
published in a collection of essays by various authors entitled Personal
Idealism (London, 1902).

23 Humanism, p. 10 ff.

*• The shaft is, of course, aimed at Bradley's Appearance and Reality.
Pragmatists in England and America have adopted a warlike attitude
towards the neo-Hegelians.

M Op. cit. p. 8 ff.

24 Op. cit. pp. 12-14.

27 Op. cit. p. 33.

28 Personal Idealism, p. 123.

29 Humanism, p. 59.

30 Op. cit. p. 89 ff. Here the influence of Poincare is plain.

31 Op. cit. p. 92.
82 Op. cit. p. 104.

O

194 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

88 Op. cit. p. 120.

84 Op. cit. p. 195. Here, as is obvious, Schiller is defending the reality
of appearances against Bradley.
" Op. cit. p. 200.
84 Op. cit. p. 203.

87 Op. cit. p. 218. Schiller feels the influence of Ostwald's energetic
conception.

88 Op. cit. p. 227.

89 Op. cit. p. 263.

40 Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality (Chicago,
1903). Pragmatists regard Dewey as a disciple of their school of thought.
Dewey, in his criticism of the work of James in the Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology, and Scientific Method, for February 1908, has made reserves
on this count ; he admits, however, that his point of view is eminently
pragmatistic.

41 Op. cit. p. 14.

42 Op. cit. pp. 16-20.

43 Studies in Logical Theory, by James Dewey, with the co-operation
of members and friends of the department of philosophy (Chicago, 1903),
p. 14. James judges this work to be fundamental for the pragmatistic
theory (Pragmatism, p. 8).

44 Op. cit. p. 18.

46 Op. cit. p. 39.

4* " The restoration of a deliberately integrated experience from the
inherent conflict into which it has fallen " (op. cit. p. 47).

47 Op. cit. p. 52.

48 Helen Bradfort Thomson, " Bosanquet's Theory of Judgement," in
Studies in Logical Theory, p. 111.

49 Op. cit. p. 114. Cf. also in the same volume, Simon Eraser," Typical
Stages in the Development of Judgement," p. 128 ff. ; Myron Lucius
Ashley, " The Nature of Hypotheses," p. 153 ff. ; William Clark Gore,
" Image and Idea in Logic," p. 193 ; Dewey' s article, " Some Stages of
Logical Thought," Philosophical Review (September 1900), and that by
Rogers in the same review (1898), entitled " Epistemology and Experience."

80 " Does Reality possess Practical Character ? " in Essays Ph\U>~
sophical and Psychological in Honour of W. James (London, 1908), p. 80.

M " The Psychological Standpoint," Mind (1886), p. 4 ff. ; " Know-
ledge as Idealisation," Mind (1886), p. 86 ; " The Reflex Arc Concept,"
Psychological Review, voL iii. p. 368 ff.

** Henry Waldgrave Stuart, " Valuation as a Logical Process," from
Studies in Logical Theory, p. 225.

M " La Notion de conscience," Records of the Fifth International
Congress of Psychology (Rome, 1905), p. 148 ff.

64 Op. cit. p. 152.

** Pragmatism, p. 244.

M Op. cit. p. 247.

67 Op. cit. p. 259. The same conception will be found in Schiller:
" The world is essentially 0X1?, it is what we make it. It is fruitless to
define it by what it originally was or by what it is apart from us ; it is
what is made of it. Hence . . . the world is plastic" (Personal
Idealism, p. 60).

" Pragmatism, pp. 251-255.

** Op. cit. p. 58. James, like all pragmatists, accepts Mach's economic
theory of science.

•° Op. cit. p. 64.

SEC. n ANGLO-AMERICAN PRAGMATISM 195

" Op. cit. pp. 170-194.

61 Strong has laid special stress upon this process of substitution,
defining knowledge as a series of experiences which are substituted for
one another in a way satisfactory to the direction of conduct. Cf. the
essay " Substitution " in Essays Philosophical and Psychological in Honour

W. James.

M Op. cit. pp. 208-210.

M Op. cit. pp. 216-223.

** Op. cit. p. 15: " Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually

iposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it."

66 Cf. on the pragmatistic notion of ti\i) the polemic between Kallen
Gifford in the Journal of Philosophy, voL v. (1908), Nos. 4 and 11.

67 Baldwin, in opposition to pragmatism, insists upon the necessity of
ognising the independent reality of the environment. He remarks

that even reflex thought is never wholly autonomous : reality, the fact
in itself, must be postulated as that to which thought is adjusted in its
progressive movement. To deny this would be equivalent to abjuring the
pragmatistic method, since it would then be necessary to return to the
idealistic position, according to which thought is a teleological system
which is sufficient unto itself and develops of itself (" The Limits of
Pragmatism," Psychological Review (January 1904), p. 30).

M " Over their nature, order and quantity we have as good as no
control " (Pragmatism, p. 244).

" " By our order we read it in this direction or in that . . . ve shuffle
our perceptions of intrinsic relation and arrange them just as freely. We
read them in one serial order or another " (op. cit. p. 247).

70 Strong, " Pragmatism and its Definition of Truth," Journal of
Philosophy, voL v. (1908), p. 256.

71 Peirce in his article, which pragmatists regard as the programme of
their line of thought, laid down as the fundamental postulate of the scientific
method the existence of a reality, " whose characteristics are absolutely
independent of the ideas we may have of them " (Revue philosophique, vi.
p. 566).

72 James himself, moreover, says that his conception of truth " is
realistic and conformable to that dualism which in matter of theory of
knowledge constitutes the conception of common sense " (" The Pragmatical
Account of Truth and its Mis-Understanders," Philosophical Review,
voL xvii., 1908). Cp. also "The Meaning of the Word Truth, remarks
at the Meeting of the American Philosophical Association " (Cornell
University, December 1907).

73 Albert Schinz, " Professor Dewey's Pragmatism," Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Method, voL v. (1908), p. 617.
Cp. also the later work of Schinz, Anti-Pragmatism (Paris, Alcan, 1909),
p. 72. Schinz examines pragmatism in relation to the social and religious
conditions of the American environment.

74 The human nature of which Schiller speaks cannot, according to
Dewey (Psychological Bulletin (September 15, 1904), p. 336), be taken to
be a purely subjective being. Each thing possesses an existence- value only
in so far as the intelligence, understood in the wide sense of the word,
concedes this value to it.

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES AND THE
HISTORIC METHOD

1. The Philosophy of Values and the Primacy of
Practical Reason. — Of all the forms of reaction from
intellectualism, the philosophy of values is the one
which is most directly related to Kant's doctrine of the
primacy of practical reason, inspired, as it is, by the
Kritik der Urteilskraft. It, too, like pragmatism,
reduces the true to the good ; but, whereas pragmatism
looks at the moral law from the point of view of empiri-
cism, and sets up the useful, the convenient, and the
opportune as the only criterion of truth, the philosophy
of values, true to the concept of the categorical impera-
tive, sees in the law of duty a universal norm, and the
affirmation of an objective value in every judgment.

The doctrine of the primacy of practical reason
arose in the thought of Kant from the need of reconciling
theoretical exigencies and practical interests, and of
eliminating the conflict between pure reason, which
forbids us to leave the realm of phenomena, and practical
reason, which impels us with irresistible force towards
the ultimate ideas of metaphysic. According to Kant,
it is indeed only by suborolinating theoretic thought to
practical reason that we can reach that loftier harmony
which would be impossible of attainment were the two
functions placed on the same level, or were practical
interests illegitimately subordinated to speculative
exigencies, which, like all forms of interest, are in
the last analysis also included in the sphere of practical

196

3.n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 197

:e. Kant failed to see that the conflict was the result
f his arbitrary mutilation of knowledge, which banished
om the realm of true science to that of aesthetic con-
mplation all those forms of judgment and all those
tegories of which the physical-mathematical sciences
o not make use. He regards these sciences, with
aditional rationalism, as the true type of all know-
ledge ; everything which cannot be comprised in their
schemes is therefore not considered to be true knowledge ;
is it not natural that we should find ourselves face to
face with insoluble antinomies, when trying to exhaust
all reality with inadequate categories, and applying
the conceptual schemes created by thought in order
to render the physical world intelligible, to totally
different phenomena ? Side by side with the natural
sciences and above them, have we not the historic and
human sciences, the sciences of spiritual values ? Have
we any right to deny them the name of sciences or
systems of knowledge, because their methods are not
those of the natural sciences, because they do not arrive
t mathematical formulas ? Is it metaphysical to make
of the idea of end in the human world, in the world
>f facts which are produced by conscious wills ? The
iccessity of integrating Criticism with a wider and more
mplete concept of knowledge, comprehending not
.erely the judgments of the natural sciences, but also
;he other no less scientific forms of judgment, gave
birth to the philosophy of Eickert, which, whilst de-
veloping certain fundamental ideas which had already
been unfolded by Windelband, endeavours to find an
epistemological basis for the doctrine of the primacy of
practical reason, placing himself in opposition on the one.
hand to the metaphysical development of this doctrine
attempted by Fichte, Lotze, and Renouvier, and taken
up again later on by Royce and Miinsterberg, and on
the other to the psychological interpretation, which,
having been first touched upon by Renouvier, was
destined to become so widespread with the advent of
pragmatism. Rickert indeed does not attempt to do

198 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

away with the antinomy of pure reason and practical
reason by synthesising them in a metaphysical principle,
conceived as an absolute will or as a supreme Personality,
the conscious creator of all values ; neither does he
justify, like Dewey and Schiller, the identification of
theoretic and practical judgments by a psychological
analysis which comprehends them in their empirical and
contingent reality, and gives prominence to their common
passional and utilitarian character; he rather proceeds
by an essentially epistemological method, and seeks the
ultimate presuppositions of every judgment of truth
in the universal norms of the Ought.1

2. Philosophy as the Science of Universal Values:
Windelband. — In this procedure, which starts from the
existence of universal affirmations in order to reach the
conditions which make them possible, and may be
considered a new application of the Kantian method,
Bickert develops the programme clearly outlined by
Windelband in his Prdludien. Windelband regards
critical philosophy 2 as the science of necessary and
universal values (Die kritische Wissenschaft von den
allgemeingiltigen Werten) : universal values are its
object, criticism its method. It examines whether
there be a science possessing a universal and necessary
truth-value ; whether there be an art, that is to say
an intuition and a sentiment, possessing necessary and
universal beauty- value ; whether there be a morality,
that is to say a volition and an action, possessing
universal and necessary goodness-value. A distinction
must be drawn between the judgments (Urteile) in
which the convenience of two representative contents
is expressed, and the other kind of judgments (Beurtei-
lungen), which express the relation between the judging
consciousness and the represented object. There is a
fundamental difference between the two judgments,
" this thing is white " and " this thing is good," in
spite of the identity of grammatical form. In the
purely theoretic judgment we problematically establish
a connection between two presentations without giving

3. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 199

ly opinion as to their value ; in the Beurteilungen,
)n the other hand, we ascribe or deny universal validity
to that relation. This latter class of judgment, which
presupposes a determinate end as a unit of measure-
ment, and is of significance only to him who recog-
nises that end, and is presented to us with the two
fundamental alternatives of pleasing and displeasing,
approving and disapproving, accepting and refusing,
constitutes the special object of philosophy, whose
business is not, like the special sciences, to determine
the natural necessity of facts, their Miissen, but their
Ought, the Sollen, that which all must recognise to be
equally valid, even if it does not exist in practice or is
not actually a fact.3 These valuations must be dis-
tinguished from individual feelings of pleasure and
L, since they are not simple attractions or repulsions
)f a Hedonistic order, determined by physiological

mditions, but rather judgments subject to universal
iorms.4 Some thinkers attribute a merely relative

lue to these judgments, affirming them to be a product
)f the variable conditions of society ; but no one has
jver been found to have a serious belief in relativism ;
is a fable convenue. He who is not content with

re mere affirmation of relativism, but strives to put

to the test, will deny it, recognising universal norms
)f thought.5 Normative law differs widely from natural
ind causal law, which may correspond to the norms,
but is often far removed from them. This does not,
lowever, lessen the value of the normative laws which

stablish that which ought to be, even if it be never

"ly effected. The laws of thought, set up by logical
consciousness, are not identical with the laws of repre-
sentative association, but neither are they something
entirely different from them and opposed to the
mechanism of presentations. True associative relations
are determined in consciousness by the same natural
laws which determine false associations, and are dis-
tinguished from these false associations merely by their
conformity to ideal norms. Truth is the one white ball

200 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

amongst many black ones.6 The psychic mechanism
leads indifferently to beauty and ugliness, truth and
falsehood, good and evil, and is hence incapable of decid-
ing their value. The acceptance of the norm is forced
upon the empirical consciousness by immediate evidence
of which no causal explanation can be given : genetic
psychology can merely tell us how and to what extent
that norm is actualised ; it can resolve the question of
fact, but is incompetent to decide the question of right.7
The presupposition of the critical method is the belief
in universally valid ends, and in the capacity of human
consciousness to recognise those ends. The historic
importance of Fichte lies in the stress laid by him upon
this teleological character of the critical method ; but
he was wrong in endeavouring to deduce from the
determination of the end the means of its realisation as
well. Even if the norms be not based upon experience
and do not derive their value therefrom, it is nevertheless
only by means thereof that they can become possessed
of clear consciousness. The one end of the whole
activity of thought is the realisation of its norms : that
which is commonly termed an object, the copying of
which is the task of science, is reduced, when properly
analysed, merely to a rule of connections between repre-
sentations. We do not need to know whether this rule
correspond to an absolute and independent reality ; it
will suffice to observe that some of our representative
associations are adjudged to be true, others false, in
accordance with a norm which is valid for them all. The
concept of truth cannot mean the agreement of presenta-
tions and things, which are two mutually incommensur-
able terms, but merely the reciprocal harmony of the
presentations : of secondary and primary, abstract and
concrete, hypothetical and sensorial, theory and facts.8
Immediate certainty lies in two points which are dia-
metrically opposed : the sensations and the general
principles or axioms, according to which the relations of
the sensations must be apprehended. All the proposi-
tions established and proved by the individual sciences

3. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 201

intermediate products between axioms and sensa-
ions.9 In order that knowledge may exist, we must
presuppose the possibility of ordering the sensations
according to these principles — we must, that is, start
from the postulate that the relations of our sensations
can be logically ordered. These two factors of know-
ledge are both indispensable : there is no such thing as
exclusively deductive or exclusively inductive know-
ledge. The value of axioms is determined by a universal
end for each thought, and must be unconditionally
recognised, if we would attain that end. It is a hopeless
undertaking to base upon empiric theory and genetic
research those axioms which are the necessary presup-
position thereof.10 The universal end alone imparts
meaning and value to our knowledge; only when thought
is regarded as a moral duty can this end be attained.
During the activity of thought moral force restrains
extraneous impressions, personal interests, and the
temptations of the imagination.11 There is no such
thing as knowledge of the world sub specie aeternitatis ;
but though our knowledge be limited to that which
is transformed in time, the sentiment of that which is
universally valid sheds the light of eternity abroad in
our minds. Not in science (Wissen), but in moral
consciousness (Gewissen), does the mind of man par-
take of the eternal. Eternity will not be known, but
experienced.12

3. Reduction of Being to the Ought : Rickert.— Rickert,13
following in the footsteps of Windelband, has endeavoured
to prove that the transcendent object is reducible to the
Ought, the Sollen. The opposition between subject and
object may be understood in three ways : firstly, as the
opposition of the animated body, the psychic-physical
subject, to the environment ; secondly, as the opposition
of the world of consciousness with its whole content to
that which is external to itself ; of the immanent to the
transcendent ; thirdly, as the opposition of the conscient
subject to the content of consciousness.14 Correspond-
ingly, the word object assumes three different meanings :

202 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

firstly, the spatial world which is external to the body ;
secondly, the transcendent object ; thirdly, the object
immanent to consciousness. The reality of the immanent
object cannot be called in question ; the only reality
admitting of doubt is that of the transcendent object,
which is not immediately certain, as is thought by Riehl,
but is merely an induction of our own. Is this induction
legitimate ? This is the problem which Rickert would
fain solve. When the whole content of consciousness
is ascribed to the object (that is to say, in the third
method of understanding the opposition of the two
terms), nothing is left of the subject but mere conscious
being : consciousness without a name, of a generic,
impersonal kind, which can never become the object,
the Bewusstsein uberhaupt, which must not be con-
founded with the psychological individual subject.
Everything which is individual in the subject is an
immanent object to consciousness, hence it follows that
the mind in its individuality cannot be regarded
as transcendent. Generic consciousness is neither an
immanent reality nor a transcendent reality, but
merely a concept ; it only means that which is common
to immanent objects, that is to say, to all contents of
consciousness, that which cannot be more nearly
described ; it is really another name for the only being
which is immediately known to us, the general concept,
the form or species of this being, that is to say, of the
immanent object, in contradistinction to that form of
being proper to the transcendent object. Each im-
mediately presented being is a being in consciousness,
an indubitable fact, incapable of further analysis.15
The meaning of knowledge is certainly based upon the
conviction that an order independent of the subject
may and should be discovered ; but we may yet ask,
Must this order be an order of transcendent things, a
transcendent reality ? If knowledge consists in the
presentment, it must be compared with a reality of
which it is the sign or copy ; but this point of view is
untenable, because presentments, like things, belong

THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES • 203

the content of consciousness, that is to say, to the
object ; hence in presentments there is no cognitive
relation between a subject and an object, but only the
mutual relation of two objects. Now in order to
recognise this agreement, a subject is required ; and
this knowledge cannot be in its turn a presentment,
since in that case we should have to recognise a fresh
agreement, and the process would go on ad infwitum.™
True knowledge consists in the judgment, which is not
a mere relation of presentments, but always contains
an affirmation or negation of reality.17 Knowledge is
an affirmation or a negation by reason of its logical
essence, and belongs to the active phenomena of con-
sciousness. Affirmation and negation are but forms of
attraction or repulsion, determined by pleasure or pain.
This practical nature of all knowledge distinguishes
it sharply from pure presentment : judgment is always
an acceptance or a refusal, an approval or a disapproval,
that is to say, in ultimate analysis the recognition of a
value.18 Cognitive value differs, however, from other
values : whereas Hedonistic valuation is valid only for
the individual at the determinate point of time and
space in which he experiences pleasure or pain ; in the
logical judgment something is affirmed which is of value
to us independently of that moment and of those
determinate circumstances.19 In our judgments we
do not feel ourselves at liberty to deny or affirm in an
arbitrary manner, but feel ourselves bound by a senti-
ment of proof, we submit to an extra-individual power
which constrains us to make that affirmation or negation.
If I hear a sound and wish to pronounce judgment upon
it, I am unconditionally forced to judge that I hear the
sound. This necessity (Urteilsnotwendigkeit), which is
not proper to mathematical judgments only, but is
common to all judgments in which something is affirmed,
even to judgments which refer to reality of experience,
must not be confounded with causal necessity, since it
is only the logical reason of our affirmation.20 It is not
a Miissen, but a Sollen, an imperative, whose necessity

204 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE rr.i

in judgment we allow, and which is accepted by our will.
The object of our knowledge is not being (Sein), but the
Ought (Solleri), deriving its adhesion from a judgment,
and constituting the universal order which we feel our-
selves constrained to recognise.21 Bickert agrees with
empiric-criticism in its desire to confine the problem of
science to the classification of the contents of conscious-
ness ; but this order is not regarded by him merely as
a convenient classification, but as an order conforming
to a universal norm, and independent of the subject in
the sense that it must be valid, even were no one to
recognise it.22 Its unconditioned value cannot be denied
with self-contradiction, because every contrary judgment
would imply the transcendence of that Ought. Truth
does not depend upon individual tastes, as relativists
would have us believe : he who affirms that there is no
value of absolute truth implicitly contradicts himself
when he asserts this fact as a certainty. All human
judgments may be mistaken : there is only one which
can never be false — the judgment that there exists a
value of absolute truth. It is impossible to doubt the
transcendent Ought as an object of knowledge, no matter
from what point of view it be posited, because it is the
necessary condition of all affirmations, even of those of
a sceptical order.23 That alone exists which is judged
to do so. Hence not being, but the Ought is the logically
original concept.24 Bickert terms his system tran-
scendental idealism : idealism, in as much as it recognises
no other immediately presented being than the present-
ment ; transcendental, in as much as it admits a tran-
scendent object beyond the content of consciousness, a
Sotten, an ideal, to which the conscient subject tends.
Even experience, that which is perceived, data, the fact,
are such only in so far as they are recognised, and hence
presuppose from the gnoseological point of view
judgment and a norm. Every judgment is based on
experience as far as its content is concerned ; its form
is, however, related to the Sollen, which cannot be em-
pirically presented ; in this way the opposition between

SEC. ij THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 205

empiricism and rationalism is overcome.26 In perception
the thing is presented as a complex of qualities, of
contents of consciousness, but these properties do not
exhaust the thing : it contains a network of necessary
relations, answering to a transcendent norm ; its
independence does not consist in being independent of
the subject, but in the necessity of the judgments with
which we posit these relations. The thing in its object-
ivity is then reduced to a transcendent norm or rule
of the connections between the presentations, which
demands recognition.27 Even the necessary relations
of causality derive all their objective value from the
recognition of that ideal norm.28 There can be no
opposition between the theoretical and the practical man,
between knowledge and volition ; even knowledge i&
based upon a categorical imperative, and logical evidence
is but one case of moral certainty.29 The antinomy of
the Sollen and the Mussen is overcome when we reflect
that even the form of natural necessity must be founded
on the Sollen, if it is to have objective significance.30
In many systems of philosophy the intellectual values
were ranked above all others, and moral, religious, and
aesthetic life so debased or intellectualised that it lost
all meaning of its own. Contemporary voluntarism,
whilst striving to overcome the antinomy between the
theoretical and the practical man, goes to the other
extreme, depriving knowledge of all foundation and
opening the door to arbitrariness. Science naturally
sees danger in this intrusion of individual volition and
sentiment, and is therefore impelled to combat the new
doctrines ; on the other hand, sentiment and volition
cannot rest content with the conclusions arrived at by
science. Thus the theory of the will, instead of eliminat-
ing strife, does but add fuel to the flame.31 Only
epistemological subjectivism, which places valuation at
the base of science, enables us to do away with the
antinomy between the intellect and the other functions
of the mind. The recognition of truth also is a categori-
cal imperative which is unconditionally forced upon us.

206 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. I

Every act of cognition hence presupposes an autonomous
will capable of conforming to an ideal norm. From
such a point of view theoretical and practical activity
do not conflict with one another, but we perceive them
to be two different manifestations of the same conscious-
ness of duty, in which logical values find their super-
logical basis.32 The consciousness of duty, as practical
will, is conceptually antecedent to logical will, that is
to say, the will to truth : the tendency to truth pre-
supposes the tendency to do one's own duty, because
the cognitive judgment is a special form of practical
activity. From this is derived the absolute value of
the conscious will to duty, as an unconditioned necessity
even for the theoretical man, because the recognition
of one particular value presupposes the recognition
of value in general. In a reality which is indifferent
to duty, in a world which is not adapted to the
realisation of truth-values, all judgment would become
meaningless. The value of knowledge depends upon
the conviction that ethics, not logic, reigns supreme
that the world is guided in such a way as to bring the
realisation of the ends of knowledge within the bounds
of possibility ; it is dependent, that is to say, upon faith
in the moral objective order (objective WeUmacht des
Guten).™

4. Natural and Historical Sciences. — If human con-
sciousness be thus placed in the centre of the universe,
the cosmic process will no longer seem the random
product of an obscure necessity, a decoction of mixed
atoms,34 but rather the progressive historic actualisation
of the ideal. History, in as much as it enables us to
watch the realisation of universal values in the world
of concrete consciousness, thus becomes the fundamental
organ of philosophy. Historical science alone, interpreted
in its widest sense, can fill the gaps left by the formation
of scientific concepts, it alone can substitute reality in
the fulness of its individual aspects for the empty
abstractions of science.35 Scientific knowledge cannot
consist in the imitation or representation of single objects

3. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 207

their individuality, because, however large the number
known objects may be, an infinite number of others
remains still unknown ; moreover, each object can be re-
solved into a complex of relations and elements, which
become gradually more numerous as our knowledge
becomes greater.36 Science would not be possible were
there no means of overcoming multiplicity in either form,
external and internal, extensive and intensive alike.
This purpose is served by the concept, which in its
extension overcomes extensive multiplicity, in its con-
tent intensive multiplicity. The more perfect science
becomes, the more completely will the intuitive element
be eliminated, and together therewith the individual
character of things, that is to say, that physiognomy of
theirs which is never repeated twice in the same way.37
We can live and experience reality directly, but the
instant we attempt to explain it by means of science,
that which makes it truly real will elude our grasp ;
the more nearly our concepts approach perfection, the
farther we shall go from concrete reality. If a certain
residuum of empirical reality still remain in science, it is
an element which science has been unable to comprehend,
to translate into judgments, or to overcome thoroughly.
Neither the atom nor the simple sensation can be
regarded as an object of knowledge, but merely as means
thereto : it would be absurd to posit as the end of
science the discovery of a reality which cannot be
experienced.38 Moreover, it is not the business of
science to copy reality ; on the contrary, as Rickert
paradoxically affirms, the less reality its concepts
contain, the more nearly do they approach perfection.39
If, however, we must be on our guard against the
hypostatisation of scientific concepts, we must be equally
careful not to go to the opposite extreme, by depriving
science of all objective value. The place of being,
which concepts are totally unable to represent, must
be taken by the value which they ought to have ;
scientific concepts are not true in so far as they copy
real things, but in so far as they are valid for reality.40

208 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

Science then leaves external to itself facts in their
individual concreteness, which are of no interest from its
point of view ; but the individual, though it may not be
of scientific importance as such, is of great value to us
from the aesthetic and moral point of view. The appre-
hension of reality, in that aspect thereof which never
recurs twice in the same way, is the task of historical
knowledge, understood in its widest sense, that is to
say, as applying not only to human facts, but to all
events in their individual physiognomy.41 If historical
facts be by their very definition such as never recur
twice, not only will it be difficult to find historical laws,
as is commonly supposed, but the very concept of
historical law will be a contradiction in terms. It is
commonly asserted that historical personalities are in-
explicable by reason of the complexity of their factors ;
but this applies to all things in their individual aspect,
to a piece of sulphur, the leaf of a tree, etc., which are
therefore just as inexplicable as Goethe or Kant.42
This distinction between the natural 43 and the historical
sciences is of methodological value only, since in reality
the two forms of knowledge are blended with each other.
On the one hand, historical elements will always be found
in the sciences, because the sciences, with the exception
of mathematics and rational mechanics, have not been
able to free themselves entirely from the empirical
element; on the other hand, history does not always refer
to that which is truly individual, but frequently treats
of phenomena which, whilst of a generic character, are
relatively singular. The naturalistic method may be
used in that which is relatively historical, but that which
is absolutely historical, as, for instance, a human person-
ality with its individual characteristics, eludes the grasp
of the scientific concept, unless the individual be con-
sidered as the type or example of a species.

Though the concept of law may not be applicable
to historical facts in the absolute sense, it does not
follow that these facts are not determined by causes. A
distinction must be drawn between the principle of

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 209

causality, which demands of a cause for every fact,
and the causal law, according to which, given the
same causes, the same effects must be verified.44 The
connection existing between an individual cause and
an effect which is also individual, as, for instance,
between the earthquake of November 1, 1775, and the
destruction of Lisbon, may be termed an historical causal
connection ; that which is common to a group of these
individual connections constitutes the causal law, which
embraces that which recurs in concrete historical succes-
sions. The opposition between nature and history is
not an opposition between necessity and liberty, because
if law is excluded from historical knowledge, cause is not.
Still less can it be said that accidental facts are the object
of history ; if by accidental we understand everything
which cannot be comprised in a general concept or a
scientific law, the whole of concrete reality is a complex
of accidents subject to no law whatsoever : it is a chance
that Saturn has a ring and that the earth has none,
that Frederick the Great, won a battle at Leuthen. If,
on the other hand, we understand by chance, as opposed
to causal necessity, that which has no cause, nothing
in the world is contingent, and everything is necessary,
Saturn's ring and the victory of Frederick the Great
alike.45 Historical causality differs, however, from
scientific causality : in science it may be stated that the
same cause will produce the same effect ; in history
such a statement is impossible, since there are not two
equal causes and effects. Further, the principle of the
equivalence of cause and effect cannot be applied to
historical causality, because the historical event is always
something heterogeneous to its cause.46 History may
seek the influences of the environment and of past
conditions upon the individual, but only in so far as the
environment and the historical moment are considered
in their individuality ; if we pass from these individual
complexes to generic concepts of the mind of the people,
the spirit of the age, etc., we forsake the historic point
of view and adopt the attitude of naturalistic treatment.47

210 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

The individual elements of history can be combined into
a higher unity only by referring to a universal value. It
is useless to try to impart significance to life and to
history by taking up the standpoint of science, which
regards all individuals, as examples of generic concepts,
as being of the same importance and meaning, and which
therefore recognises no difference in value.48 If we would
distinguish the essential from the non-essential in the
world of experience, in a way which is universally valid,
we must have a criterion of selection, an ideal norm
which will enable us to eliminate everything which is
not of importance to the attainment of that universal
end, and to arrange the most important moments of
historical development in a hierarchical scale of values,
independent of subjective caprice.49 Historical thought,
like moral volition, is bound up with the irrationality
of the world, that is to say, with that element individual
which cannot be deduced from a system of concepts.
All rationalistic systems, in as much as they presuppose
that each moment of development is predetermined in
an eternal idea beyond time, nullify the meaning of
historical individuality. Where everything is logically
necessary, as in Hegel's absolute idealism, no distinction
of values is possible, because all moments are placed on
the same level . M Empirical reality is absolutely irrational
to us.51

If the concrete individual be true reality, and the con-
cept, instead of leading nearer to it, rather increases the
distance between us and it, what is the use of science ?
The ideal of knowledge is a subject capable of embracing
the whole of past, present, and future reality in a single
intuition ; but man, strive as he may to increase his
knowledge, by prolonging the series of existential judg-
ments, can never attain that ideal, absolute knowledge
of all individuals. He therefore requires a substitute,
and science is the most complete compensation imagin-
able. It thus becomes of absolute value to man, and
necessary from the human point of view which has but
a limited horizon. He who desires an end must also

j.n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 211

lesire the means thereto, hence the presupposition that
idgments valid for all instances may be deduced from
limited number of facts must be accepted as a necessary
and universal principle.52 Only by reference to an
absolute value which ought to be, is it possible to
explain the universal validity which we attribute to law ;
empiricists in their genetic researches are doomed to
move in an eternal vicious circle, presupposing the
universality of those principles which they imagine
themselves to be deriving from experience. When it
is stated that repeated succession necessarily produces
in each case indissoluble association of ideas, is not the
causal law presupposed ? 53

Science, however, necessary as it is from the human
point of view, cannot take the place of history, because
the scientific concept, which is but a means of mastering
the infinite multiplicity of things, cannot give us any-
thing real. Historical knowledge approaches more nearly
to the ideal than does scientific knowledge ; but it too
is at bottom relative to the limitation of the empirical /
subject in time. The total intuition of the universe is
denied to the finite intellect, therefore human knowledge
can only attain its end discursively by means of a series
of successive acts, which, seeing that they tend towards
an unconditioned and transcendent end, and are the
progressive actualisation thereof, in their totality con-
stitute an historical development. The process of realisa-
tion of human knowledge cannot be known scientifically,
but only historically,54 this proves the necessity and
value of historical knowledge from the point of view of
the empiric subject.55

5. Criticism of the Philosophy of Values. — The philo-
sophy of values makes, like pragmatism, the mistake of
trying to reduce the theoretical to the practical function,
positing as the object of knowledge not that which is,
but that which ought to be. If, in fact, from the meta-
physical point of view there is no doubt that we must
have recourse to our moral experience in order to under-
stand fully both the meaning of things and their profound

212 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

unity ; that no philosophy can afford us a satisfactory
intuition of the world without reference to an end ; that
the mind of man with its universal values would be
simply an inexplicable monstrosity in a mechanical
world wholly extraneous to its ideals ; we must, on the
other hand, recognise that the Ought, even if it be not
derivable from being, yet finds its presupposition and
its necessary subsistence therein. An end, a norm, a
value which is not such to any consciousness is incon-
ceivable, and consciousness is not merely valid, it is_.
Bickert considers the priority of the Sollen over the
Sein to be proved by the fact that every form of being
whatsoever, whether psychic or physical, real or ideal,
sensible or super-sensible, given or inferred, presupposes
a meaning and an objective value in the judgment
affirming such being.56 But could the judgment be
valid, did it not exist in some way ? The validity of
the judgment implies in its turn the reality thereof, and
of the thought which judges. Rickert's argument is
based upon the false postulate that nothing exists unless
it be judged to do so', whereas we have an experienced
assurance of the concrete existence of our thought, an
assurance preceding any explicit recognition thereof.
I feel that I exist, even before I judge myself to be in
existence, and my reality does not depend upon the
value of the judgment which recognises it ; on the
contrary, the judgment is valid because it is based
upon that primitive and indestructible fact which is
the immediate consciousness of the being of my thought.
A Wert an sick absolutely transcending consciousness
is not an intelligible concept, and finds itself confronted
by the same difficulties as the old idea of the Ding an
sick. How can the value which is in itself apart from
conscious being be made one therewith in the cognitive
act ? How can the transcendent become immanent ?
Who will show us how to overcome this dualism of being
and meaning, reality and value ? To this Rickert 67
replies that dualism is created by the intelligence, which,
in its desire to explain facts, separates conceptually that

THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 213

hich is one in origin : we have immediate experience
the unity of meaning and being, in as much as we in
knowing identify ourselves with truth : it might be
said to be that which is best known, did not knowledge
already imply a division ; it is inexplicable, not because
it is above all knowledge, but because it is previous to
every conceptual distinction. This inexplicable, which
Rickert's penetrating mind finds at the basis of his
conception of knowledge, is not, in my opinion, a
necessary product of intelligence, but results from his
arbitrary concept of objective value, which he defines
as being external to every form of being whatsoever,
and hence also to consciousness. If value be non-
existent,58 if it absolutely transcend consciousness, no
dialectic effort will enable me to pass from the one term
to the other ; but this concept of value in itself without
any reference to a consciousness is not thinkable ; still
less is it possible to think of a value which does not
exist either actually or ideally. Our thought refuses
to conceive of something absolutely non-existent, because
every judgment posits being either implicitly or expli-
citly. The affirmation of being is immanent in every
act of judgment, even in acts referring to values ; I am
not constrained to say " the value is" by a mere im-
perfection of language, the very nature of thought forces
me to do so. I cannot think that something is valid,
and is of intrinsic worth, without implicitly thinking
that it is in some form or other. A value which is non-
existent is a meaningless phrase, because nothingness,
the absolute negation of being, is the negation of thought.
What wonder if, when absolute value is defined in this
unintelligible manner, it should be impossible to conceive
of the transition from non-existence to existence ? It is
not necessary absolutely to break through the relation
between value and the object and consciousness in order
to place knowledge and valuation upon a universal and
objective foundation ; it will suffice for them to be
independent of the individual subject, while still in
relation to a Universal Consciousness. The significance

214 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

of the act of judgment goes beyond the empirical sphere
of my consciousness and individual existence, and is

• therefore relatively transcendent, but it does not transcend
the sphere of consciousness and existence in the absolute
sense. Things certainly contain a network of laws and
relations which would exist even had man never been
born, and had never known them ; but this order
cannot be thought of as real except in relation to an

"Absolute Thought capable of comprehending universal
reality in the concreteness of its infinite Consciousness.
The Bewusstsein uberhaupt, which is an abstraction of
that which is common to human consciousness, does not
of course exist apart from them, and cannot therefore
act as the subject of real relations, still less of the uni-
versal norms which existed previous to the origin of man.
The consciousness which we must postulate in order to
find a foundation for the objective order and the
eternity of values must not then be an abstract concept,
' a pure logical fiction, but a living Personality with a
concrete content.

The identification of knowledge with practical
activity, which is the fulcrum of Bickert's theory, does
not in the least correspond to that which is revealed
to us by our inner experience : the attitude assumed
by us in the two cases is very different. In the cognitive
function we certainly feel at liberty to affirm or deny
the existence of a fact or of a real relation, but we are

, at the same time conscious that that fact and relation
exist, even if we do not recognise them ; in the practical
attitude, on the other hand, the reality of that which is
willed seems to us independent of our subjective action :
the end will continue to be of value, it is true, even if I
do not actualise it, but its realisation, its transition from
the ideal order to the sphere of objective existence, is
dependent upon my free will. The relation of the reality
to the Ego differs, then, considerably in the two functions:
our mind is practical only in so far as it modifies, or at
all events proposes to modify, that which exists, and
feels itself to be the active cause of such modifications ;

SBC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 215

it is theoretical if it recognises objects and relations
whose existence does not depend at all upon its volition.
I do not hereby intend to maintain that consciousness
in the cognitive process reflects things passively, but
merely that the mind is not active in the theoretical
function in the same sense as it is in the practical
attitude. That which I perform and am at liberty to
perform in knowledge is the act of judgment : this act,
not the existence of the object affirmed, depends upon
my will. There is no judgment without the will to
judge ; but does it therefore follow that to judge and
to will are the same thing ? When I affirm the reality
of a fact, I certainly feel the need of affirming it ; it 'is
not, however, this exigency which constitutes the object
of my judgment : that which I judge is the existence
of the thing, not the norm which governs my judgment.
Rickert maintains that the affirmation of reality pre-
supposes the value of the existential judgment ; but, I
would reply, the presupposition is one thing, the object
another : there must be no confusion between the two.
In the affirmation of existence the validity of my judg-
ment is implied, not the value of the object affirmed ;
the existential judgment is valid just because it recognises
a fact of which my consciousness gives me immediate
assurance : that is to say, that my individuality does
not exhaust the sphere of being, that external to myself
there exist other individuals and other real phenomena.
That which Rickert terms the immanent object, and
which he too recognises to be beyond question, will
suffice to impart value to the existential judgment ; it is
enough that the things and relation affirmed by me be
independent of my inolividual life, it is not at all necessary
to have recourse to an object absolutely transcending
consciousness. My judgment, " This sheet of paper
upon which I am writing exists," is valid in the sense
that the sheet continues to exist even when I no longer
perceive it, that is to say, in the sense that its being does
not depend upon me. The same may be said of the
relations between the sensorial contents, whose existence

216 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

we affirm, and which we strive to reconstruct in that
which is objective about them, that is which is real
independently of this or that individual. It is the
existence of these relations, which are immanent in
the phenomenal order, which constitutes the object of
the scientific judgment, which is valid, no less than is the
historical judgment, not because it refers to a transcend-
ent norm, but in as much as it affirms a system of real
relations. In order to comprise in the scientific concept
that which recurs in natural processes, this repetition
must exist in some way. Had each individual moment
of the cosmic process nothing in common with the
preceding moments, were the causal historic connections
absolutely different from one another, how could they
be abridged into a law ? Are constant relations
artificially created by us, or do they not rather exist
in things ? Kickert does not even set himself the
problem, and rests content with the dogmatic affirma-
tion that science presents us with nothing real without
affording us an explanation of its success.

The absolute distinction between natural and histori-
cal sciences, a distinction derived in Rickert's opinion,
not from the diversity of their matter which is always
the varied and complex content of experience, but from
the method followed in its elaboration and from the
difference in the proposed end, results in the creation of

- an artificial dualism in the heart of the cognitive function
itself, which aims, on the one hand, at a law, and, on
the other, at an individual ; whose end in science is the
concept, while in history it uses the concept merely as a

i means. Theoretical activity, on the contrary, has, and
can have, but a single end : the comprehension of reality
in the fulness of all its aspects, the vision of the fact in
the light of the total system of its relations. Its starting-
point is the fact experienced in its individual physiog-
nomy, its goal neither is nor can be other than a concept in
which the intuitive moment loses nothing of its concrete
reality, but gains all those determinations which escape
immediate consciousness. Even if we accept Rickert's

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 217

definition of historical knowledge, its final goal will yet
in the last analysis be a system of concepts : when you
affirm that a certain fact is, that it succeeds or precedes
another event, that it is co-existent with others, that
the cause thereof will be found in a certain anterior
situation ; when you determine its ideal value as com-
pared with that which you regard as the meaning of
the world, the individual, as such, considered in its non-
recurring aspect, has ceased to be the end of your know-
ledge, which is rather the individual sub specie aeternitatis,
not merely intuited, but above all thought. The his-
torian, like the scientific man, is not satisfied with merely
experiencing the fact, but would fain understand it,
and, in order to do so, he must rise to the concept.

6. Historical Knowledge in Miinsterberg^ s Philosophy
of Values. — If the end of history be the same as that of
science, may not the matter which is the object of its
elaboration be different ? This thesis, the very anti-
podes of that propounded by Rickert, has been recently
set forth by Miinsterberg,59 who proposed to give us
a complete system of the philosophy of values, carrying
it back from epistemological criticism to Fichte's meta-
physical idealism, a transformation necessary in the eyes
of any philosopher who was not prepared to stop short
at the untenable position of the pure norm, the absolute
Ought, the transcendent Sollen, the absurd concept of a
value in itself, divorced from every form of existence
and consciousness. Miinsterberg is at one with Rickert
in the battle against relativism and the subjectivism
advocated by the new sophists, who, though they must
be credited with forcing us to turn from the artificial
construction of abstract scientific knowledge to the
immediate world of consciousness, yet fall into error
when they profess to stop short at this individual im-
mediacy. We owe the vindication of historical reality
and practical activity against the mechanical ideal and
positivism to the empiric -criticists, intuitionists, and
pragmatists ; 60 but if, when we have reached this point,
we would not be forced to retreat, if concrete life, not

218 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

a sterile conceptual scheme, is to be our starting-point,
we must go beyond the passing moment by means of
affirmations of universal and eternal value, in order to
form an intuition of the world.61 But this value — and
on this point Munsterberg differs from Rickert — while
independent of single individuals, must not be conceived
of as external to all spiritual life whatsoever, but in an
absolute will, an original action (Urtat), in the Supei-Ego
( Uber-Ich) which is perennial and incessant effort ; not
useless and painful, as Schopenhauer deemed it to be,
but full of inexhaustible joy in every pulsation of life,
which renews and intensifies the eternal will and raises
it to a higher power.62 The principle of the world is
no inert matter, no motionless God, but living activity
in perpetual flux, which is at once the preservation and
augmentation of itself (Steigerung des Wollens).63 This
ultimate basis of all values is not comprehended either
by thought or moral consciousness or aesthetic sentiment,
which will never enable us to go beyond the finite Ego,
but by the philosophical conviction that there is a value
transcending human experience, in which all empirical
values find their higher unity. We may express such a
conviction in concepts and judgments, but by so doing
we merely make use of an auxiliary means, which does
not transform it into scientific knowledge ; it more
nearly approaches religious belief than conceptual
thought.64 We cannot do without this conviction,
which is in reality an action of our own, because it is
in this way alone that our will can be fulfilled : in
willing the unity of all values, that is to say of our will
with itself, is concluded the universal action in which
every exigency is satisfied, every question answered,
every tendency completed. Fidelity to oneself to all
eternity (Sich selber treu sein in Eivigkeit) is the action
ensuring the salvation of all the values of the world.65

Munsterberg thus regards value as identical with
that which is willed by the pure or super-individual
will ; from the concept of this ultra-personal will which
urges us on beyond the subjective world, and is ever

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 219

affirming itself, he endeavours to derive all values by a
process of deduction which is a vicious circle from
Rickert's point of view,66 since the existence of absolute
will presupposes the validity of the judgment affirming
it. Miinsterberg rejects this priority of the Sollen,
which would imply that value is independent of the will,
whereas he considers that to have value and to be willed
form a perfect equation. If this equation be assumed, it
follows of necessity that the will cannot choose the false,
ugly, or immoral ; it is for this reason that Munsterberg
declines to accept Rickert's view of value as an Ought,
a norm to which we submit of our own free will, whilst
having it within our power to will the contrary. The
concept of the Sollen, far from elucidating the idea of
value, introduces into it a character which is not proper
to it, that is to say, freedom of choice between ought
and non-ought, without which we cannot speak of
Sollen.67 When we desire to judge, we only desire to
choose the truth, and there is no question of deciding
between two alternatives. Of course error may arise,
but only because we think it to be truth, not because
we choose the false as such. Even in moral action,
although value and the Ought may appear to coincide,
the Sollen is devoid of meaning, because there is no such
thing as a will contrary to the good. Does the highwayman
steal because he prefers the action of robbing ? Certainly
not : at bottom he prefers that which is right, and if he
is induced to commit a theft, the force impelling him to
do so is the seduction of pleasure, not the will to evil.
Were he to prefer the criminal act, and look upon it as
something good, he would be a moral lunatic, not an
immoral man. Immorality consists not in willing that
which should not be preferred, but in acting contrary
to that which is and which alone can be willed : the
good.68 The values, in the last analysis, whether they
be theoretical, aesthetic, ethic, or religious, are all alike
based upon the satisfaction (Befriedigung) of the pure
will, which must not be confounded with individual
hedonistic feeling, since the end of the ultra -personal

220 IDEALISTIC EEACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT.I

will is not pleasure, but its own indefinite and inex-
haustible development, the progressive intensification
and the preservation of itself.69

There is one act of will which has nothing to do with
our pleasure or pain : the will that there shall be a
world, that the content of our life shall be of value not
merely to us as life, but shall be independently affirmed
in itself. This original action, which imparts eternal
meaning to our existence, and without which life would
be an empty dream, a chaos, a cipher, is neither a truth,
nor a beauty, nor a duty, nor a sacred good, but is the
fundamental conviction from which all these values are
derived. Such a conviction is an absolutely free act
which cannot be enforced by any proof ; it is impossible
to adduce any argument to the man who refuses to
ascribe value of reality to his experience, and hence
to that combination of facts which questions him, since
argument and discussion are impossible unless the
objective validity of the world be presupposed. Only
the man who is prepared to take this first step can
receive the proof that in this step all other values
are comprised.70 Miinsterberg presents us with a
systematic deduction of them, starting from the single
principle of the will that an objective world shall exist
and thus imparting fresh life to the epic exploits of
speculative idealism.71

7. The Attempt to deduce all Values systematically. —
If all values originate in the fact that we separate
experience from our individual personality and consider
it as existing by itself, the existence -value must be
found on the threshold of valuation. Against this it
might be urged that the affirmation of the real is not a
valuation ; that a judgment is valid, not that which
is affirmed therewith ; this, however, results in the
dogmatic establishment of a dualism between the object
which is recognised and the act of recognition, whereas
they are both merely indivisible aspects of the same
volition, whose end and content is in the end itself.
Each experience in its concreteness is an active process,

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 221

not something passively endured, as the physicist
believes, looking at it, as he does, from an abstract
point of view. Things are to me originally ends and
means, objects of my will and my attention which
attract me or repel me ; hence there is no such thing
as an experience which is not a valuation at the same
time.72 The proof of reality is generally sought in the
confirmation of the experienced fact by means of other
experiences, either of ourselves or our fellow-men, but
the repetition of the same fact in one individual and
the agreement with the experiences of various persons
might both be a pure accident, a mere coincidence
of illusions ; hence it is not an adequate foundation
for the existence -values, whose ultimate basis is the
will that a world shall exist for itself independently
of our subjective individuality, the exigency that the
content which is present to me at this moment shall not
be an object to me alone, but to every other conscious-
ness under the same conditions. Experience, however,
though it does not suffice to give us the reality values,
yet serves as a limit and guide to that exigency of
volition which is their true foundation, weakening or
re -enforcing it according as it is opposed to the
facts or in harmony therewith. He who would make
his dreams and imaginings into the contents of every
other subject would meet with such resistance from
his fellow-men as to deprive him of all power.73 If the
objective existence of things be derived from the will
that the facts experienced by us shall also be experiences
possible to other individuals, it is obvious that the
consciousness of the reality of our fellow - men must
precede the affirmation of things. The general belief is
rather that we first perceive the bodies of other men, and
then from the resemblance of their external aspect argue
to their psychic life by a process of induction. Miinster-
berg maintains that nothing can be more false than
such a conception, which is the outcome of the habit
of considering reality naturalistically and abstractly.
We grasp the action of our volition and of the will of

222 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

others in an intuitive and immediate manner which
precedes the knowledge of things ; we feel ourselves
and others directly, not as objects, but as tendencies
of attraction or repulsion.74 But why do we not
attribute to the flower which wills to be gathered, the
fruit which wills to be tasted, the line which draws us
to follow it, the rhythm which urges us to dance, the
same objectivity which we ascribe to our fellow-men
and the higher animals ? Do they not all alike make us
feel their exigencies directly ? Undoubtedly the flower,
the fruit, the line, and the rhythm all will something,
but their volition is exhausted in the exigency experi-
enced by us, whereas animals and other human beings
are continually assuming fresh attitudes with regard to
objects. The criterion of subjective existence is the
rediscovery of the same experience of will as identical
with itself under new forms.75 This intimate relation of
volition to itself constitutes what is commonly termed
the soul.76

Our individual volitions are not merely limited by
exterior things and by other subjects, but they also
recognise the existence above themselves of acts of will
independent of any subjective caprice and possessing
reality-value to us in as much as they always recur in
the same way. These acts of ultra -personal will are
the absolute valuations (die absolute Bewertungen) as
opposed to which the volitions determined by necessity
and subjective tendencies appear to us to be accidental
and unreal, as do the products of the imagination in
comparison to objective nature : only if we will with the
consciousness that we shall always will thus, shall we have
an absolute valuation. Even the existence of values,
like that of subjects and objects, is based upon the pure
satisfaction of the will, which rediscovers the original
experience unchanged in new experiences.77

The values of existence, which we have thus deduced
from a single principle, constitute the world of primitive
experience in its triple aspect : external, internal, and
social, as it is immediately presented. To each of these

wo. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 223

three kinds of values there corresponds a value of culture,
which is discovered by reflection when the will becomes
conscious of its ends. We then go beyond the bounds
of immediate experience by means of connections which
are established between facts belonging to the same order
of reality ; there thus arise the various forms of know-
ledge, whose objective validity we must prove by keeping
the starting-point of our deduction ever in mind, i.e.
the will which tends to preserve its own identity amid
various experiences. Everything which satisfies this
super-individual will, each identity which is discovered
between the different moments of existence, is of in-
dependent and absolute value, and is not a mere act of
subjective thought.

8. The Historic World of Subjective Witts and the
Mechanical World of Objects. — Seeing that every con-
nection is based upon identity, it is obvious that things
can only be linked with things, subjects with subjects,
valuations with valuations : the first species of connec-
tion gives birth to the science of nature, which is the
consideration of objects with regard to that in them
which remains identical ; the second to history, which
connects single subjective wills, thinking them in their
identity ; the third to reason, the system of pure
valuations conceived in the unity of their absolute
principle.78 Science and history have then the same end,
and only differ as to the matter which they elaborate ;
one of them seeks the identity of things, the other that
of wills, which, as we have already seen, cannot be
reduced to objective contents, but are comprehended
in their immediacy by a peculiar form of experience.
The general law is not the true end of scientific know-
ledge, which tends rather to connect phenomena recipro-
cally in such a way that the identical permanence of
one affords an explanation of the other ; it matters
little that the two phenomena thus united are produced
but once, and do not recur : the formulator of a law
merely exacts that it shall be possible to verify it afresh
in a single case. The generic concept is not a con-

224 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE «. i

stituent of science, but is, like language, merely an
auxiliary and extrinsic means, a practical organ render-
ing the same service to the scientist as the hand does to
the painter.79- The ideal of science is not a system of
laws, but a system of things, such that its preserva-
tion throughout time carries with it all variations
perceptible in the outer world. Were it possible to
think the whole natural series of phenomena, pursued
ad infinitum in both directions, as a series of atoms re-
maining identical in their movements and accelerations,
there would be no need to have recourse to generic laws,
but, since it is impossible for each individual to follow
the whole series in both directions to the two extremes,
in order to solve the problem definitely as nearly as
possible, laws are constructed summing up in themselves
the results of the preparatory work of our predecessors
in such a way as to avoid the necessity of beginning
I again at the beginning each time.80 The atom of
IfTechanics is not a mere fiction, but is true and existent,
because, when experience is reduced to mathematical
properties only and divested of all qualitative content,
the end of the ultra-personal will is realised, and that
pure satisfaction is attained which Miinsterberg regards
as the basis of existence- value. The physicist is there-
fore within his rights as long as he confines himself
to affirming the reality of the world conceived of by
him ; he falls into error when he makes nature a system
sufficient unto himself apart from that eternal act of will
which can alone impart existential significance to it.81

Individual and subjective wills, which are eliminated
by naturalistic treatment in order to construct an
independent world, constitute the matter proper to
historical knowledge, which studies man not as a psycho-
physical being, devoid of value, not as a thing amongst
other things, but as a subject which wills and values
freely. This world of free wills escapes the law of
causality, because they are external to time in their
immediate life : just as it would be meaningless to ask
whether the will of Napoleon measured two or three

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 225

inches, whether it was white, red, or green, so it is non-
sense to attribute duration to it : his wars lasted for
years, the movements of his body a few seconds only, but
the attitudes of his will are not for that reason limited
by time, which is merely a property of objects. The will
is wholly comprehended if we understand its ends : he
who asks the cause of an act of will puts naturalistic
interest in the place of historical interest. In the immedi-
ate communication of two subjects, as, for example, of
two friends who are discussing politics, one will penetrates
the other and understands its meaning without setting
it up to itself as an objective content, without enquiring
whether it precede or follow his own, or be co-existent
therewith, still less what antecedents have determined
it. It would at first sight seem a hopeless task to seek
in different individual wills that identity which is
necessary to the attainment of a system of historic
knowledge ; but, when I agree with the friend who is
judging in his affirmations or negations, when I share
his hopes and antipathies, do I not will his will ? (mit-
erlebtes, mitgewolltes Wollen).82 The comprehension of
a subject in its historical existence involves the discovery
of the will of other subjects in the will of the individual,
and this is attained by resolving that personality into his
single political, judicial, economic, scientific, artistic,
religious, and ethic volitions, each one of which receives
identically within itself the will of another individual
or group of individuals. Thus we shall say that he is a
Darwinist, a Wagnerian, a Marxist, etc., if in his partial
volitions we find the same theoretic affirmations as in
Darwin, the same aesthetic and musical preferences as
in Wagner, the same social and political tendencies as
in Marx. In historical elaboration it must not be
forgotten that every new creation is also partially an
imitation: in history, as in the world of nature, nothing
absolutely new takes place. He who desires something
new desires something old, only he desires it in a
different way. The artistic, ethical, religious, political,
or scientific genius does but gather within himself the

Q

226 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

incitations to will which he feels from a thousand
sides ; the only thing in him which is really new is the
original synthesis, and we shall therefore have succeeded
in understanding him historically if, when analysing
his will, we find therein the wills of those who have
exercised influence upon him.83 Things are not entirely
excluded from the historical world; but they are included
there in their original reality, as means and ends of the
will, not as parts of nature : the flood or earthquake
which sweeps away a civilisation is of interest to the
historian only in so far as it is 'dreaded by individual
minds ; the historical importance of the boat which
carried Caesar lies in the fact that it satisfied his desire
to obtain news of the fleet.84

The normative sciences (logic, ethics, aesthetics,
religious dogma) differ from history because the object
of their search is the identity not of the subjective values,
but of the ultra-personal valuations, which do not depend
upon the free choice of individuals. As historical subjects,
we may place ourselves at variance with our valuations ;
as moral subjects, on the other hand, we will and must
will in that determinate way only. Here, too, the
fundamental problem is the same : given a value, we
must find in the current of life a new super-individual
will, which shall, in spite of its diversity, prove identical
with the first. Just as chemistry can derive the com-
pound from the elements and the elements from the
compound whilst preserving the same things (atoms),
so logic in the induction of the single affirmations from
the ultra-personal will passes to the general valuation,
and vice versa in the deductive process derives the single
elementary valuations from the complex affirmation,
always finding the same fundamental identity in these
transitions. The same may be said of all the other
values, whether aesthetic, ethical, or religious, in which
the ultra-personal attitude always remains identical,
while yet being realised and taking concrete form in
new situations of life, in new exigencies, which set the
will fresh problems.85

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 227

9. Criticism of Miinsterberg's Philosophy. — No great
amount of acumen is necessary to perceive the artificial
element in this systematic deduction of all values, and
more especially of the cognitive function, from the
ultra-personal will. The will of which we have all had
experience is always the will of an individual Ego, of a
concrete historical subject ; volition, even if it be exercised
with the consciousness that it will always will in that
way, does not therefore cease to be the action of a
determinate person. The first artifice will then be
found in the starting-point of the deduction, that is to
say, in the concept of an extra-subjective will, from
which the subject is then supposed to be derived. If
the existence of the Super -Ego be a free conviction
of individuals, their reality is the presupposition of the
whole deduction. It is not the pure will which imparts
existence-value to the Ego, but rather the Ego which gives
a basis to that as to every other will. We have immediate
assurance of our subjective life, an assurance which
cannot be shaken by sceptical doubt, whereas the
existence of an impersonal will is not something which
all of us are prepared to acknowledge. In order that
the reasoning of Miinsterberg may mean anything, we
must postulate that pure will is of greater value than
individual and momentary desires ; that the will which
is always coherent with itself is of greater value
than changing and contradictory volitions ; this pre-
supposes a criterion of valuation, a consciousness of
value which cannot be derived from that pure will
itself without committing a vicious circle. Or shall we \
say that these contingent and individual values do noti|
exist ? Miinsterberg actually has recourse to this arti-
fice, and, seeing that the volitions of the historic subject,
which frequently take a direction contrary to the good,
the beautiful, and the true, cannot be reconciled with
his theory which identifies value with being willed,
he arbitrarily banishes these actions from the sphere
of will. The thief who commits a robbery really wills
the good ; does he who denies that he is guilty of a

228 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

crime, while well aware that he has committed it, still
prefer the truth, in spite of the fact that he states the
false ? Here we have the paradox to which we are
forced to resort in order to save the equation : to have
value = to be willed, cost what it may to do so, an equation
contradicting our intimate experience, which bears
witness that it is possible to be conscious of the good,
the true, and the beautiful, whilst at times not willing
them intensely enough to give them the preference over
Hedonistic and individual ends. The robber who
commits a theft of his own free will knows which would
be the right course, but pure volition is too feeble in
him and is conquered by the direct will to enjoy. If
he had really willed the good, and the good only, he
would not have stolen ; in appropriating the property
of another, he has preferred his own pleasure. For
him to be termed immoral, it suffices that he is
conscious of the good ; it is not necessary, as Miinster-
berg maintains, that he shall will only the good. On
the contrary, were this the case, we could not accuse
him of being immoral, since he would then be an irre-
sponsible being. He who steals without intending to
do so, like the kleptomaniac, is ill, not guilty. It is one
I thing to be conscious of the value of an object, it is
another to will that object : they are two widely
different moments which do not always coincide in our
minds. He who tells a lie in order to avoid being sent
to prison still recognises the value of truth, but
at the moment he prefers the falsehood which is of
personal use to him. The reality of the crime he has
committed remains mercilessly with him, even though
he may repent and no longer desire it, but may rather
strive to put it out of his mind. The past is no longer
willed, but this does not bring about its destruction ;
we continue to attribute value to the men and the events
of the past, even though it may be meaningless to say
that we still will them. This is a proof that that specific
reaction of our whole consciousness, which enables us to
feel the value of things, is not an act of will, still less so

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 229

is the affirmation of existence, which, as we have already
seen when discussing Eickert's theory, has nothing to
do with the apprehending of a value. My subjective
existence is not something dependent upon my will ; on
the contrary, my being appears to me the condition of
my will, not merely of fugitive and incoherent volitions,
but of that pure will, which, while acting sub specie
aeternitatis, never ceases to be my will. To live in spite
of oneself, to feel oneself exist even when one's own
individual life is of no value to one, even when the will
to exist has been shattered in oneself, is not this the
cruel despair of the pessimist ?

Objective reality and the assertion of it are even
more obviously independent of the act of will. Miinster-
berg is correct in maintaining against the empiricists
that the evidence of objective being cannot come
to us from without ; but he is mistaken in attribut-
ing this recognition to the satisfaction of the pure will,
so that the reality of the world would be in ultimate
analysis a conviction which the individual is at liberty
to accept or not, and which no proof can force upon him.
It is not will which impels us to transcend the fugitive
moment and the sphere of individual life, but rather
thought, which, in its laws and its function is presented
to us as possessed of the characters of necessity and uni-
versality, and affords us the immediate and indestructible
certainty that there must be countless other experiences
beyond the limited sphere of our own experiences. If
identity within certain limits be a sign of objective
existence, this is not the case in order that the will may
be satisfied, but because it is a law of reason, whence
we are of necessity led to think of nature in its independent
being with that same coherency which is proper to our
thought — a coherency which must not be, however,
understood as abstract identity, but as concrete unity
of the various moments in time, which does not exclude
the qualitative multiplicity of real becoming. Mimster-
berg, on the contrary, by placing objectivity in the
absolute permanency of the identical, turns nature into

230 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

a rigid and abstract system of immutable things, and

thus establishes another arbitrary equation : nature =

world of mathematical physics, as if independent existence

were reducible only to stereotyped objects and not to

evolutionary processes as well ; as if it were not possible

to conceive of individual aspects and heterogeneous

qualities in things external to our subjective life. The

new in the objective world is no less existent than the

identical ; on the contrary, it is a necessary condition of

phenomenal happening, which quantitative formulas

cannot entirely explain. Is change real only in relation

to our subjective will ? Is the world transformed only

in our immediate experience thereof ? Certainly not ;

science itself recognises, side by side with the laws of

permanency, the irrevocability of natural processes in

time. The mechanical world is not the whole of nature,

but merely the skeleton thereof — a skeleton which must

be clothed with muscles, nerves, and blood if we are

to be able to think of it as a system of real things and

events. The equation set up by Miinsterberg between

objective reality and identity of permanency is then of

no greater value than the others we have already

discussed : in order to affirm the independent existence

of a given concrete situation, I am not in the least

bound to recognise that it is identical with another. If

we thus restore to objective reality that incessant

motion of development of which Miinsterberg arbitrarily

robs it, petrifying it into immovable things, it will at once

be revealed to us in its historical life, and the artificial

dualism of the two forms of knowledge will be eliminated.

Miinsterberg, while on the one hand robbing nature

of all its activity, on the other hand divests history of

its every content, reducing it to the mere abstract

moment of subjective activity external to time. Is it

however possible to think of a concrete will aiming at

and realising an end without positing any temporal

relation therein ? If there be an experience of which

time is a constituent element, it is undoubtedly the

experience of our will ; the relation between present

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 231

and future is essential to the tendency towards an end
which ceases to be conceivable when duration, the
distinction between that which is present to us and that
which appears to us as the future goal of our efforts,
abolished. It is useless for Miinsterberg to tell us
that this distinction of successive moments is illusory,
and that in eternal action the will is identified with the
willed, since we know no will but our own, and must
start from our own experience in order to form a concept
of the absolute will. Further, according to Miinster-
jrg's theory, does not history treat just of subjective
volitions ? We must then determine the characters of
these volitions, not those of absolute valuations, by
lerivation from personal experience. A will in which
there is no transition from a state of dissatisfaction to
me of greater completeness, from an initial moment to a
final moment, is an absurdity not merely psychologically,
but also logically. Were that which we seek to coincide
with our present condition, there would be no such thing
as tendency ; desire ceases the moment it is gratified.
In short, we can speak of will only on condition that the
term of the action do not exist in its completeness at
the point from which we start ; if we annihilate this
interval, volition will disappear as a fact of concrete
experience, and cease to be thinkable even as a concept,
since contradiction would then be implied. That which
is fully achieved, that which is actual in its absoluteness,
cannot be in course of being done, since to do means to
realise, and nothing can be realised but something which
is not as yet real. Even if it be admitted that the end
of the will is another will, this second will is never
perfectly identical with the first ; if this were not so,
there would be no meaning in the action : the intensifica-
tion of the will, the raising thereof to a higher power,
assumes the existence in the goal to be attained, which
imparts meaning to the volition, of something which is
lacking in the initial moment. Now, how are we to
interpret this actualisation of ever loftier stages in the
cosmic process of the will, and the distinction of absolute

232 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

volition in the single subjective tendencies, unless we
understand them to be a series of successive terms, each
of which contains more than its predecessor ? If you
attempt to suppress this succession, it is meaningless
to speak of will, which is process developing in a
determinate direction. What will become of the pro-
gressive actualisation, of which Minister berg speaks,
the incessant becoming of the world, in which each
volition tends towards a more complete will, which is
in its turn the starting-point of another act of will, if
we place it outside time ? That which affords satis-
faction to our will is not another will, but a perception,
a presentation, a concept — a state of our consciousness,
not a new activity. We do not desire another desire,
we do not make efforts in order to arrive at other efforts,
we do not act in order to continue to do so. Certainly
there is no such thing as a will without content ; certainly
the end and the activity directed thereto are fused in
consciousness into a concrete synthesis ; it does not,
however, follow that the content and the action of will-
ing are absolutely identical ; even if we do not succeed
in separating them, we must yet distinguish between
them, since our experience, the only source from which
we can draw, if we would know what will is, always
presents them to us as distinct. The statement that
consciousness can be wholly reduced to action, that the
subjective life is will and nothing but will, merely because
every psychic phenomenon contains a moment of activity,
is equivalent to reducing the whole of physical reality
to the single property of extension, merely because there
is no such thing as a body which does not occupy a
space. By a similar train of reasoning the intellectualist
in his turn might reply that, since will devoid of repre-
sentative or conceptual content does not exist, vague
and confused as that content may be, will is reducible
to presentation or concept ! This is a theory from
which Miinsterberg shrinks in holy horror, but which
is at bottom the outcome of a sophism of the same
nature as that which serves to prove his voluntarism.

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 233

Moreover, in the concept of history Miinsterberg in
the last analysis, speak as he may of ends and wills,
has not succeeded in shaking off the prejudices of
traditional intellectualism, and of abstract mathe-
maticism. Of what avail is it to substitute the will
for atoms if it be then treated as if it were the out-
come of a combination of will-particles, each one of
which must be acknowledged to be identical with
any other ? Of what avail is it to vindicate living ex-
perience against the schemes of the mechanical theory,
if the concrete personality is then to be resolved into
a series of atomic wills in the endeavour to discover
identity between these elements and the elementary
volitions of other subjects ? A system of abstract
equations, even though its terms consist of volition-
atoms instead of extended particles, a system of identities
external to time is the very negation of history ; since
in such a system there is no meaning in speaking of that
development in a determinate direction which is the
essential characteristic of the historical and teleological
process. In relations of identity it is a matter of
indifference in what order the terms are placed, and
these terms can always be inverted ; hence it is im-
possible to decide which of two elementary volitions
which are acknowledged to be identical is the original,
and which of them is a mere imitation of the other :
if, for instance, certain tendencies be found in the
subject Miinsterberg which are identical with those
found in the subject Fichte, it may equally well be said
that Fichte's will lives again in Miinsterberg or vice
versa. If we prescind from time and confine ourselves
to positing identity between wills, the irreversible order
of development will vanish, and we have not even a
criterion by which to establish that hierarchy of wills,
that progressive intensification of them, which Miinster-
berg maintains to be the essence of absolute will. Two
identical volitions are absolutely on the same level, and
one cannot be regarded as the end of the other in such
a way as to make it allowable to place it a degree higher

234 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. i

in the scale of values. The system of identities then
does not help us to understand history, but rather
destroys it. That which constitutes the life of historic
reality, and which we have to reconstruct and com-
prehend, is the rise of new ends and new volitions in
concrete consciousnesses : even when you succeed in
resolving an individual personality into certain volitions
which have been previously willed by others (we may say
so, but Miinsterberg could not affirm it even from his
extra- temporal point of view), you have not understood
the individual at all, because that original imprint which
imparts to his will a new physiognomy, that cannot be
reduced to preceding wills, has escaped your notice.
Your formulas contain everything except the conscious-
ness of that subject ; everything save his history, which
does not consist, as you maintain, in finding a will
identical to itself, but in the knowledge of reality in its
development, and hence also in those unique aspects
which can never be identified with others. In order
to affirm the independent existence of a subjective will,
it is not at all necessary to acknowledge it to be identical
with our own will or with that of another subject ;
indeed the contrary is the case, since we distinguish
the different subjects from ourselves and from one
another only in so far as they appear to us possessed
of characteristics irreducible to one another. Were we to
find the same volitions in them all, were we to experience
these wills as we immediately experience our own, were
it possible to identify them with our own, all exteriority
and independence of the single subjects would disappear.
That which makes one person a being independent of
others is not the universal identity which makes them
the same, but the singularity which makes it impossible
to reduce them to one another. I recognise the alter
external to my ego, not because he wills that which I
will, but because his will, strive as I may, refuses to be
identified with my own will. Even if we agree, relatively
speaking, if our hearts beat in unison, it is impossible
for me to include his will within my consciousness,

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 235

since it always remains extraneous to my individuality.
Miinsterberg in his theory does not account for the
wide difference between the intimate unity in which
my volitions are bound together and the identity which
may exist in the ends willed by me and another indi-
vidual. If subjective existence consisted in finding a will
identical, the relation between my volition of yesterday
and my volition of to-day, both being directed to the
same end, should seem to me the same as the agreement
between my will and that of another person. But what
a profound difference there is between the two forms
of unity! My volition of this present moment may
agree completely with the will of another individual
and be absolutely contrary to that which I willed
yesterday, yet my two volitions, however contradictory
they may be, are far more intimately connected than
is my will with that of another. Even in the case of
a capricious and hysterical subject, whose mind is con-
stantly changing, the consciousness of his own identity
is never absent, because this personal identity is not
derived from the unity of the end, to which the single
volitions may converge, but from the common origin
from which they irradiate ; it is an indefinable imprint
due to their origin, not to their meaning. Two wills may
be identical as to their end, but this is not enough to
make them a subjective unity ; and, conversely, the
individual does not lose the identity of his conscious-
ness, even though he may change the content of his
desires every minute ; neither do we cease to recognise
that he is one subject, even though we may not succeed
in finding a constant meaning in his volitions. The
coherency of the will is the criterion of judgment of
the moral character, not the sign of subjective existence.
We always feel ourselves to be the same persons, even
though we may not be able to order the volitional acts
of our whole lives in such a way as to enable us to see
them as the progressive actualisation of the same plan
and of an identical end. Inner experience, in which
we experience ourselves immediately, must undoubtedly

236 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

be distinguished from knowledge of the exterior world :
things affirmed in their independent reality are not
directly apprehended as is our subjective life. Miinster-
berg would include in the sphere of immediate experience
the knowledge we possess of other subjects, which are
hence supposed to be experienced in the same way as
we experience our own Ego : a theory which, were it
true, would annihilate the unique distinctive character of
my own will as opposed to that of others ; because, if I
regard my consciousness as a subjective world rigidly
opposed to the consciousness of other individuals, I do
so by virtue of that character of immediacy which is
found in no other apprehension of reality. If the will
of others were revealed to me in the same way, I should
be unable to distinguish it from my own will ; this is,
however, not the case : when I have closed my eyes,
stopped my ears, and placed myself at such a distance
from others that I cannot be touched, I continue to
experience my own will, but know nothing of the will
of others. I can only receive intelligence of the con-
sciousness of others by means of the sound of words,
the sight of their features and gestures, and by tactile
and muscular sensations : that is to say, mediately, not
immediately. Only when these contents are interpreted
as signs of an external reality do we believe in the
existence of another subject ; an existence which is not
admitted if these contents be regarded as mere subjective
images. When I am convinced that the voice of
a person which I thought I had heard is a hallucina-
tion of my own, the existence of that subject will
also become an illusion to my mind. The existence,
independent of my will, of the friend who is talking
politics with me is a dream of mine if I do not actually
see and hear him : the existence of other subjects will
vanish along with the objective reality of their contents.
The logical presupposition of the latter then will be found
in the former, not vice versa, as Mtinsterberg would
affirm. That which exists independently of me, no
matter whether it be a thing or a consciousness, is never

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 237

apprehended with that immediacy with which I experi-
ence my subjective facts, but is always reconstructed
by thought by means of a more or less conscious process.
It will not originate psychologically in a true and exact
deduction from outward resemblances, but it undoubtedly
implies the more or less clear concept of a quid beyond
the sphere of my subjective consciousness. I do not
apprehend the will of my friend any more directly than
I do his face and his words ; it exists for me, not because
I will in agreement or disagreement with him (which is
not always the case, since it is possible for me to remain
indifferent to his political views), but because I think
it and reconstruct it conceptually in its meaning from
that which he says to me. Even if I will the same thing,
I do not on that account experience his will directly,
I only experience my own will immediately ; that there
is in existence the similar will of another individual,
having the same end in view, is a more or less explicit
addition of thought. We then posit the will in another
subject, not because we experience it directly, but on
the contrary in as much as we think of it as extraneous
to our consciousness, and not identifiable with that
which is directly grasped thereby without the help of
the senses. Miinsterberg's treatment of the subject
and object of volition, of that which is desired and
the person who desires, gives rise to constant ambiguity.
If it be then admitted that history should treat of
subjects only (an arbitrary limitation), its matter will
not on that account be presented to us in a form of
experience differing from that of objects. History
cannot be made up of that which is immediately experi-
enced, because this does not go beyond our own Ego. The
wills of other subjects, the ends they have had in view,
the plans of action which they have realised, are thought
and reconstructed by me in their independent reality,
just in the same way as I think and reconstruct all the
other actions of nature. The will of another is appre-
hended in a more direct way than physical force, and
exists historically, because its being is not dependent

238 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

upon my will, since it is real apart from the immediate
moment of my consciousness. Spiritual activity is
manifested as energy working in the objective world,
which is not motionless permanency of inert atoms, as
Miinsterberg conceives it to be, but concrete historic
development. External to history is the world of
mathematical and mechanical abstractions, not objective
reality in its entirety. The world which our thought
recognises to be independent of individual subjects, even
if it be severed from the wills of single persons, does not
for that reason become a dead, meaningless thing, but
preserves all its value as an activity directed towards
an end. Nature in its complete organisation and in its
evolutionary process is only intelligible as the actualisa-
tion of an end in time. Hence not even teleological
consideration can constitute a characteristic sufficient
to exclude historicity from the objective world in
order to confine it to individual wills only. Neither
can it be urged in opposition that a difference will always
remain, since in the case of nature the end is universal
and objective, whereas in history it is personal and
subjective, because, as Miinsterberg himself maintains,
historical reality does not lie in the single will, but in
the connections of wills and in their identity. The
momentary desire, if it remain an experienced intuition,
has no historical existence ; in order that it may acquire
such existence it must be put into relation with other
volitions in such a way as to give prominence to their
universal meaning. The will of Caesar becomes history
only when conceived with regard to that which is real
about it, not exclusively for me, not for this or that
individual who re-experiences it in himself, but for all
possible subjects. The historian, no less than the man
of science, must eliminate that which is contingent in
the way in which a personality appears to different
individuals in order to determine it in its true existence.
History is altogether impossible unless we sever, so to
speak, the individual action from our subjective life
in order to transfer it into the objective process of reality.

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 239

In this transition things, too, which Miinsterberg con-
siders to be matter for history merely as means and ends
of a given subject, are of necessity included in the scheme
of nature, understood, of course, in its concreteness, not
in the schematicism of mechanical science. In what
other way can we conceive the independent existence
of the processes serving as means to the realisation of
certain individual ends, but through the forms and
categories necessary to the construction of the objective
world ? If we return to pure primitive intuition, to
immediate experience in which the contents exist merely
as an integral part of the subjective will, we cannot
speak of Caesar as a real individual, distinct from us
who compile history, still less of the boat and the night
voyage, which do not exist for us, confined as we are
to the experienced immediacy of our consciousness.
In order to understand Caesar's wish and the satisfaction
thereof by means of a boat, in order to think all this as
an historical reality, we must conceive of the voyage and
the boat as they were present to Caesar's mind ; who
is prepared to maintain in all seriousness that, when
Caesar was on the point of embarking, the movement
which was to take him away and the boat only seemed
to him to be real because they satisfied his desires ?
Caesar might have imagined in his consciousness a more
convenient way of going to search for the fleet, but the
mere mental presentation would not have satisfied his
will ; the boat did so just because he recognised it as
an objective thing, independent of his will. Moreover,
from Miinsterberg's point of view there would be no
difference between Caesar dreaming of embarking and
Caesar embarking in reality. How, indeed, are we to
distinguish between the two contents, both of which
satisfied his subjective desire, unless we place in opposi-
tion the real voyage and boat and the imaginary voyage
and boat, unless we think, on the one hand, of a world
of things existing independent of the single subject, and,
on the other, of a world only possessing the value of
reality within that subject ? The historian also, when

240 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT.

placing objects in relation to individual wills and con-
sidering them as means to the actualisation of their
ends, always conceives them as real in the externa
world, nor is it possible for him to do otherwise. Restore
all its concreteness to nature, all its objective content to
history, and the gulf fixed by your artificial formulas
between the two aspects of existence will disappear
The consideration of values and ends does not preclude
the scientific explanation of real processes, but rather
completes and comprehends it by raising it to a higher
synthesis.

10. Miinsterberg's Super-Ego and Royce's Absolute
Consciousness. — The concept of the Super-£^o which
supports all the values and imparts a universal basis
thereto undoubtedly represents an advance as compared
with Rickert's Ought, suspended in the void of its absolute
transcendence ; but the conscious activity of the ultra-
personal will, as conceived of by Miinsterberg, external
to all duration, the eternal action without any subject
is not a principle which is intelligible in itself, still less
one which can account for the becoming of the world
and our individual life in time. To Josiah Royce 8*
must be ascribed the credit of having placed the philo-
sophy of values upon a more solid speculative basis, by
grafting it on to the vigorous stem of English neo-
Hegelianism. Rickert's Sollen is brought down by
him from its transcendent sphere in order to be trans-
ferred into the ideal order immanent in Green's Absolute
Consciousness ; this Consciousness in its turn gains
from Rickert's individual reality and his concept of
history that mobile life which enables it to escape from
the universal system of eternal relations, the pan-logism
of Hegel, which is powerless to resolve into itself the
concrete development of beings in time. The idea
becomes the meaning of a will, and is vivified by the
warmth of personal experience. Thus in Royce's system
the different streams of reaction from intellectualism,
whose course from their common source we have
endeavoured to follow, as they wind along, now far apart,

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 241

now close together, meet and merge in a harmonious
whole : voluntarism and neo-Hegelianism, contingentism, -f-
and the historical method, the philosophy of values and
pragmatism. Royce, like the pragmatists, believes
that our ideas do not consist of pure images, but that
they always imply consciousness of the way we propose
to act with respect thereto ; they are instruments
serving special ends, and must therefore be judged in
relation to these ends.87 The idea of a sword implies,
for example, the memory of the appropriate act, and
the way of using it ; the idea of friends differs from that
of enemies by reason of the different attitude which we
intend to assume towards them. Popular psychology
regards understanding as a passive reception of the truth,
and defines will as a productive force, thus artificially
severing the two functions, which it afterwards vainly
strives to unite ; but this separation is false, since
experience shows us that there is no knowledge without
the will to know, that in our intellectual processes we
are generally guided by those same interests which are
commonly regarded as stimulating the will ; on the other
hand, our conscious volition implies the immediate
knowledge of itself. The intellect and the will are then
but two aspects of one and the same process ; when I
know, I act, hence my theoretical life is also practical.88
We do not observe any external fact without observing
at the same time more or less clearly our attitude with
regard thereto, our estimate of its value, our response
to its presence, and our intentions with respect to our
future relations to that fact.89 Each thought is a will
process ; each conscious action an idea visible and
tangible in its immediacy.90 But though Royce agrees
with the pragmatists in defining reality in terms of
action as that which is capable of satisfying an interest,
a desire, or a volition,91 he differs from them in according
a higher place to the end and absolute fulness of the
Divine Will, which can never find adequate expression
in finite consciousnesses, than to the ends and relative
satisfaction of human wills. Incomplete and contingent

242 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

truths are thus subordinated to an eternal and absolute
truth-value, which is not dependent upon any indi-
vidual, but is based upon the Universal Consciousness.
This affirmation of an objective will, which imparts a
common form to, and imposes a categoric exigency on
single individual wills in spite of their irreducible variety,
connects Royce's philosophy very closely with the
teaching of Windelband, Rickert, and Munsterberg.92
Royce too regards our recognition of facts as voluntary
submission to an Ought (corresponding to Rickert's
Solleri), and the Ought is not a force constraining from
without, but something which, while in opposition to
the momentary impulse, is willed by us as the most
complete expression of our rational nature. That which
determines us to recognise one system of special facts
as real rather than another is the Ought of recognising
those facts which at a certain moment enable us to
actualise our will better than we could do were we not
to recognise them.93 We are not constrained thereto
by violence from without, but from within, by the very
nature of our will which strives after a more complete
expression than the present one : the theoretical Ouglri
of our judgments about facts, like the practical Ought
. of Ethics, is in the last analysis definable only in terms
of what Kant called the Autonomy of the Will.94 A
fact is generally conceived as something external to our
power, as necessary, resistant, extraneous to the will ;
this, however, depends upon the essence of our will which
seeks its satisfaction in an end, a form of life, which is in
its fulness external to the actual moment, and is never
completely attained ; hence that sense of limitation
and incompleteness which makes the real seem to us to
be beyond the realm of our action. If facts seem to us
to be extraneous, it is because they imply aspects which
must at present appear to us infinitely remote from
our fragmentary consciousness ; because the end which
(• imparts the meaning of reality to them is not my human
1 end in its transitory aspect, nor that which I can actualise
1 in one moment of my life, but that which ought to be,

BBO. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 243

and which I feel in my will as an absolute exigency, the
ultimate goal of my complete satisfaction,' even though
it may be unattainable in the empirical process of our
voluntary actions, which develop in time. It is due to
this inexhaustibility that it appears external to our
empirical consciousness ; but it is really within us as the
end of our will, as the perfect expression of that meaning
to which we never succeed in giving complete expression ;
it does not absolutely transcend consciousness, but is
immanent in every stage of its development, and finds
eternal satisfaction in the Divine Will, which embraces
and completes the whole infinite series of moments of
time and space accordingly. Koyce thus puts aside the \
absurd concept of the absolute transcendence of value,
which, as we have already seen, is the bane of Kickert's
system, and rightly maintains, as Green does, that no
absolute object is thinkable except in relation to an'
Absolute Consciousness. In order to impart meaning
to our cognitive and practical life we must transcend
the empirical human world ; but the reality which is
the goal after which we strive must also be conceived
of as a form of conscious experience.95 i

11. Reduction of the External to the Internal Meaning
of tlie Idea. — If the truth -value of the idea be de-
pendent upon the end which it more or less partially
actualises, upon that which Royce % terms the internal
meaning, immanent in consciousness (purpose embodied
in the idea), not transcendent like Rickert's Sinn, we
must reject the common conception which considers
truth as consisting in a correspondence between the idea
and an exterior object, that is to say, in its external
meaning. Against this conception, the thesis of realism,
Royce aims the shafts of his vigorous dialectic, in order
to prove its innate absurdity, and thus to clear the
way for the reduction of the external to the internal
meaning of the idea. Realism views the object as
that which is absolutely independent of thought,
which would exist even were it unknown, and does not
therefore stand in any necessary relation to conscious-

244 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

ness : the cognitive relation is purely accidental, so
that even if it be eliminated, the reality of the object
will endure.97 Realism as a philosophic conception is
presented either in the pluralistic form, or in that of
monism, but in both cases it gives rise to insuperable
difficulties. In the pluralistic form the relations between
different individuals, whether they be conceived as
material atoms or as spiritual monads, remain inexplic-
able ; hence the efforts made by philosophers to account
, for their reciprocal actions by means of secondary
! hypotheses, frequently of a paradoxical order, such as
' pre-established harmony, the accidental aspect and the
f like. In reality the manifold beings remain extraneous
!' to one another, and it is not possible to establish any
I link between them, or to affirm any character common
to them all without implicitly denying the hypothesis
by admitting a universal embracing them all. In order
to concerve^aTrelatiorr between two individuals of the
realistic world in time and space, we must, if we would
adhere to the hypothesis, think of this connecting link
as a third being, independent of the first two, which
therefore cannot serve to connect them.98 The realist
is thus forced to take refuge in monism, admitting a
single, internally complex being, whose various aspects
or moments are so connected that nothing can change
or disappear without giving rise to change in the whole.
Even this refuge, however, will fail realism, since from
its own point of view it is bound to admit two independent
beings — the idea and the object; and, if reality be
defined as independence, one must be completely
extraneous to the other, and cannot stand in any relation
thereto, or have any characteristic in common therewith.
How can we then maintain that it corresponds with the
object, or that it represents it in any way ? " The
realistic theory itself has nothing to do with the world
which is completely independent thereof ! It thus
contradicts itself when, after placing the real object
absolutely outside thought, it exacts that the idea shall
resemble it and correspond to it. Such an agreement

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 245

cannot, moreover, be set up as an absolute criterion
of truth ; the resemblance borne by the idea to the
object does not suffice to make it true, if this object be
not the one purposed by the idea, and, conversely, if
the idea carry out adequately the plan it had pro-
posed, it will be true even if it have but a vague and
schematic resemblance to the external object. Agree-^
ment as such does not constitute truth, but agreement
which is willed (intended agreement) for certain special
ends : thus in some cases a concrete representative
image may be preferable to an abstract symbol ; in
others, when we have a different purpose before us, a
complex of algebraical symbols may be preferable as
a representation of objects to the pictures thereof.
Do you desire to reproduce a musical phrase ? Your
song will be out of tune if it fail to bear a concrete
resemblance to the series of sounds heard on other
occasions. Do you rather propose to study acoustics ?
It is then no longer a question of seeking a concrete
resemblance, but rather of finding a correspondence
between certain abstract relations, which are mathe-
matically formulated in your ideas, and the greater or
lesser agreeableness of certain combinations of notes.100
Just as it is impossible to say in general whether a
razor is better than a hammer, without reference to the
use we propose to make of them, so these instruments
of a higher order — our ideas — must be judged with \
regard to their specific end and conscious purpose.
The idea decides its own meaning, chooses its~object '
and the special form of agreement or resemblance which
it desires to have therewith ; it assigns itself a task
and submits to its plan of its own free will.101 The
external meaning of the idea upon which realism lays
so much stress is therefore in ultimate analysis sub-
ordinated to the internal meaning, which alone decides
its truth.

At the very antipodes of realism we find another
conception of being, which Royce regards as equally
impossible of acceptance, although he considers it

246 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

superior from the epistemological point of view : the
conception of mysticism. Whereas the realist considers
the external meaning only, the mystic knows the internal
meaning alone and condemns all finite ideas, because
they fail to attain that absolute satisfaction, that perfect
calm in which the will finds its ultimate and adequate
expression, the goal of its desires and researches.
Realism considers being as mdependentpjjmowledge ;
mysticism, on the contrary, defines^it as~lmmediate
experience (immediate feeling) ; the former says, Seek
the truth outside thyself in the outer world ; the
latter, Seek the truth within thyself, withdrawing
thyself from external and contingent facts, which never
satisfy thy inmost will, into the calm solitude of thy
own mind.102 The superiority of mysticism to realism lies
in its critical attitude, since it does not dogmatically
require that we shall accept its definition of being, but
appeals to our experience to determine that which we
truly call real, and finds it in full possession and com-
plete satisfaction. It is a thoughtful doctrine, which
knows itself and consciously faces its paradoxes with-
out ignoring its own contradictions, as does realism.103
But if the mystic be right in affirming that there can
be no reality wholly independent of our knowledge,
that in ourselves alone is to be found the criterion by
which to distinguish between the true and the false,
the real and the unreal, the eternal and the transient
contents, he is wrong in entirely repudiating the world
of facts and finite ideas, since the state of Nirvana,
which he proposes to attain, taken by itself, is nothing,
and derives its whole value from the contrast between it
and that incomplete reality which is termed illusion.
Now, if being cannot be attributed to the first member
of such a relation of contrast, the second will disappear
also. Annihilation is something only so long as I seek
it, it is a positive ideal only in as much as I strive to
attain it ; pure immediacy has a content only because
it satisfies the imperfect will ; hence it derives its whole
meaning from contrast and other relation with finite

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 247

facts. If our conscious ideas be nothing, the Absolute^
is also nothing. „•

Yet another inadequate solution of the problem of
reality is critical rationalism, whose spiritual ancestor
is Kant, and which, as opposed to the independent
individual of realism, identifies being with the universal
vahditv of the idea, with the law, the type, tne common
form 01 all possible experience.104 Physical and mathe-
matical sciences offer us countless examples of these
universally valid truths, which always transcend the
sphere of our actual experience, and can therefore
never be completely verified. In the physical and
mathematical sciences alike consciousness is confronted
by a fact or empirical process, ideally constructed in the
case of mathematics,105 and presented by experience in
that of physical science, but the marvellous thing in
both cases is that the observation or the experiment
guarantees a universal affirmation with regard to an
infinity of objects which neither are nor can be present
in their totality to any human being. How are these
two aspects to be reconciled : on the one hand, the em-
pirical contingent fact in its transitoriness ; on the other,
the affirmation of a universal validity ? What is a
valid experience in the moment in which it is not
presented to me, but in which I merely suppose it
possible ? What is a valid truth when no one verifies
its validity ? Can completeness of being be attributed
to the pure universals which have not as yet been
verified ? Validity is an ambiguous term : when it is
applied to the ideas which we are actually verifying, it
means that they are expressed in concrete in experience ;
when applied to the whole realm of valid truth in general,
to the world of nature which is not now under our
observation, or to mathematical truths which are not
present to us, it means that this realm is in some way
possessed of a character which we cannot verify and
which is never entirely actual in our human experience.106
In concrete experience the validity of ideas is presented
to us by an individual fact ; in the realm of possible being

248 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

the same validity appears as a universal, abstract,
formal law. Now is it possible to admit two species
of beings, both of which are known to be valid, but of
which one is individual, the other universal ; one
empirical, the other purely ideal ; one present, the other
merely possible ; one possessed of concrete life, the
other a pure form ? Must not the same life of concrete
experience throb in all beings ? Our will, which is also
knowledge, finds adequate expression — its full and
perfect determination — in the individual alone. A
truth which remains purely valid fails to satisfy it,
because it does not enable it to leave the domain of the
indeterminate ; the judgment which formulates the
universal law excludes certain possibilities, but tells us
nothing about the positive content of concrete reality :
eliminating little by little the various possibilities, we
might go on indefinitely without ever reaching the end
of the series, that unique experience, which is com-
pletely determined, and leaves no other possible alterna-
tive external to itself.107 This defect of pure abstract
reasoning in universal terms is supposed to be remedied
by the appeal to experience ; but experience cannot
in a finite time confirm the law in its universality. The
detailed judgment thus arrived at, though possessed of
a positive content, does not authorise us to exclude all
other possibilities ; when you define an individual
by certain abstract characteristics, you cannot be sure
that one individual alone corresponds thereto in reality,
neither can human experience give you absolute proof
thereof, since it is incapable of exhausting the whole
sphere of existence. The presupposition that there is
no other person identical with a member of your family
is one which you may justify from the metaphysical
point of view, but which it is vain to ask experience to
confirm.108 To us the individual, the complete deter-
mination may be the object of love and hope, will and
desire, faith and action, but never of present discovery ;
it can never be defined either in terms of generic con-
cepts or as a datum of finite experience, but only as

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 249

a limit towards which are directed our active researches
and our conscious will which strives after complete satis-
faction in a form of experience at once fully determined,
unique, and exclusive.109

Criticism of the three principal existing solutions
of the problem of reality thus leads us on to the fourth
conception of being, which Royce regards as alone
capable of synthesising the others in itself, eliminating
their inherent contradictions and reducing them to a
harmonious whole. According to this fourth conception v
the real is the complete embodiment in individual form (
and in final fulfilment of the internal meaning of finite]
ideas. uo The object, the other, is the full actualisatioh
of our end and of our will which is at present imperfectly
incorporated in our ideas — the completion of that
which we now possess only in part in our finite vision ;
it always appears to us to be out of reach of our ideas
and finite experiences just because they never succeed
in realising it in its exhaustive and individual concrete-
ness.111 It is true in a certain sense, as is asserted by
realism, that the object exercises authority over the
finite idea, since the idea can only seek that which it
consciously intends to seek, that which demands the
determination of its will for singularity and that final
expression for which nothing can be substituted, and
must therefore be in subjection to its own plan ; but
this authority exercised by the object over the idea must
not be transformed into an absurd independence. Thus/
Royce and the mystic alike consider that in that final
stage the world and the Ego are absolutely identical,!
but the nescio, nescio of the mediaeval mystic merely
serves to express the present inability of the transient
idea to actualise the end in full, not the essential
nature of true being ; the satisfaction of the will,
fragmentary though it be, will be found in earth, not
in heaven. Critical rationalism gives us the universal
essence of the object, and the characteristics which it
possesses in common with our present idea, and the
experiences of the moment in which we define it, but

250 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

it leaves undetermined precisely the being of the object
as other, as different from the finite idea. The fourth
.concept of being embraces everything which is true in
the three former views and corrects the false elements
contained in them : being exercises authority over
finite ideas, as is asserted by realism ; it is valid, in
conformity with the demands of critical rationalism ;
it is identical with the true internal meaning, as is
affirmed by mysticism, but its reality is not external to
the idea, as in the realistic conception ; and, as opposed
to the assertions of the mystic, its imperfections, its
incompleteness, its struggles, and its strivings in time
are also real, as an integral and constituent part of
the Absolute, which is not a mere law of abstract
validity, as is affirmed by the rationalistic theory, but
rather a will embodied in a concrete life, a life giving
full expression to that meaning which each passing
moment of human consciousness actualises only partially
and which is the object of its ideal aspirations.112

A sceptic might say, " I admit the existence of
nothing beyond human experience, there is no experience
which is more complete and more perfect " ; but in
making this assertion, he would admit that the present
content of his consciousness is perfectly adequate to
his idea of being, that is to say, that this experience is
not of a transient nature, but is an experience at once
absolute, individual, and definitive.113 Moreover, even
the sceptic must admit the existence between different
subjects of relations whose reality can only be conceived
in a Consciousness which is able to embrace in one
inclusive act all single consecutive processes together
with their relations. If everything which is real
exists merely as a known fact, the actualisation of a
conscious end, there can be no reality in the distinction
between different known beings and their reciprocal
actions except in so far as they satisfy a conscious
will. This Supreme Knower of the universe, who is not
an empty unit external to time, but includes all temporal
processes in their infinite variety, and all the manifold

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 251

meaning of our minds in the inexhaustible riches of his
content, must be conscious of himself, since, were his
own being and his spiritual unity to escape him, he
could (according to Royce) be real only to some other
consciousness to which his internal meaning was present ;
but this cognitive relation, like all relations, could in its
turn only exist as a fact present to the Absolute Conscious-
ness, which, since it must be aware of its relation to the
other consciousness, must know each one of the terms,
and hence also itself.114 Everything then which develops
and lives in time exists in God ; it is neither absorbed
nor destroyed, but is rather preserved in its individual
physiognomy ; finite consciousness, just as it exists in
ourselves, with its strivings and defeats, its mistakes,
its temporality and limitations, is all present from the
absolute point of view ; but it is seen together with the
solution of its problems, the attainment of its ends, the
overcoming of its defeats, the correction of its mistakes,
the final completion of temporal processes, the perfecting
of that which is faulty in us.U5 The Absolute knows
everything we know, and as we know it ; our experience
is not transmuted or reduced in some ineffable way in
order that it may become one with the Divine Life, but
persists in that Life wearing the same concrete aspect
which it does in us. Even our pain exists in God, since /
the full triumph of eternity can only be attained through
the sorrows of time ; in struggle with pain, conflict
with suffering, victory through striving, will be found the
loftiest fulfilment of the life of the mind. Were God
ignorant of pain, He could not know the sublimity of
victory ; just as there is no courage without conquered
fear, so in the life of suffering there is no conscious
heroism without present tribulation.116 Thus Royce, as/
opposed to Bradley, resolutely affirms the reality of finite (
experience and of its becoming, replacing the purely
logical and static concept of reality, as a harmonious
system by a dynamic interpretation of it in terms of
conscious will. The reality of time is from such a stand-
point a condition necessary to moral life, and to the

252 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

actualisation of the Absolute Will, which would be incon-
ceivable without development.117 Within the duration
of His present God embraces the infinite series of
successive moments, which forms an individual whole
in its single and definitive meaning. It is this unity of
plan that, determining as it does the position of each
moment in the irreversible process of time, which has
the form of a well-ordered series, defines it, and thus
renders it thinkable as a present totality. The error
fallen into by critics of the actual infinite lies in the belief
that the place of each term in the series must be found
by means of empirical counting, whereas in reality the
definition of the series predetermines at one stroke the
successive order of its elements. When we say that)
the series is present in its completeness, we do no
mean that there is a last term which can be reachec
by passing its members in review one after another in
a land of roll-call, but that these elements are seen
together in a total experience, all at once, with the
place pertaining to each in the system, just as the
definition determines them in their individuality, their
unique and irreplaceable meaning.118

12. Error. — If our every presentation and our every
thought exist in the Absolute Consciousness, if truth b
dependent upon the idea itself which selects its object
task, and meaning, does not the existence of error
become inexplicable ? If all be real in God, how can
we affirm the existence of anything false ? If it be th
idea which says, " I will mean this or that," how is it
possible for facts to give it the he ? If the object be
that which the idea freely wills it to be, how can it place
itself in opposition thereto, and be out of harmony
therewith, thus giving rise to that which is commonly
called error ? This question is the rock on which al
pantheistic systems are doomed to split, and Koyce's
philosophy shares the fate of the rest. He does not
attempt to avoid it by means of dialectical devices
but faces it boldly. Green's panlogism, which absorbs
and dissolves the individual into the system of eterna

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 253

relations which are present to the Absolute Conscious-
ness, affords no explanation whatsoever of the possibility
of error, which it regards as no less real than that which
we commonly call truth, though existing in a different
order of relations. He certainly distinguishes between
variable and arbitrary relations and the eternal, un-
changeable system of relations, which acts as our ob-
jective criterion, and which we place in opposition to our
subjective life,119 but this individual variability together
with everything changeable and contingent in the history
of the world finds no adequate justification in his system.
Bradley's doctrine of degrees of truth goes more deeply
into the problem than does Green, though he too is
very far from affording a solution of it. Bradley
regards everything in the realm of human thought as
appearance ; hence there is error in everything, but
every error contains a certain amount of truth, just as
every truth contains a certain amount of error ; it is
therefore possible to distinguish various degrees, accord-
ing as the appearance must be subjected to a greater
supplementation or rearrangement in order that it may
be transformed into absolute experience. Bradley does
not, however, afford us any explanation of the existence
of error, which, partial as it may be, is always a deviation
from the absolute system ; he does not explain why the
severance of the what from the that, the beginning of
so much evil, takes place, and he leaves us in an uncertain
sceptical position. If human experience be illusory, why
and how does this great illusion exist ? Are appearances
necessary for the constitution of the reality of the
Absolute which, as you yourselves admit, is nothing
apart from them, or are they not ? Bradley replies
that they are not all necessary to the same degree ; but
if we divest appearances of that which is true in them,
that is to say, of that part which is necessary in order
to give a concrete content to Universal Consciousness,
for whom and in what way does the residue exist ? It
is not necessary to the life of the Absolute, which could
be manifested in its perfection without them ; it does

254 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

not exist in the experience of the Absolute, which would
in that case become contradictory ; why and where then
does it originate ? Does anything exist external to the
Absolute Consciousness or not ? If there be no subject
distinct therefrom, where did and does the separation
take place between the what and the that, the idea and
the fact ? Bradley stops short at this problem, and
proclaims the inadequacy of the human intellect, thus
turning us away on the threshold of mystery with our
difficulties unsolved. Royce, on the contrary, does
not refuse us an explanation of that transitory and
imperfect element which marks the distinction between
human and divine experience, and, whilst accepting
the theory of degrees of truth, does not take up Bradley's
purely negative position,120 but endeavours to make
clear to us the reason for the existence of these different
degrees, and determines the vague concept of supplemen-
tation by means of a more exact idea of the relations
between finite thought and the infinite Consciousness,
explaining to us the nature of that greater completeness
which our soul finds in God. That which Green and
Bradley treat as an inexplicable accident is to Royce
a, necessary moment hTWe life of the Absolute, whose
will can only attain to perfect satisfaction through
incompleteness. The will, that is to say, the idea bounded
by time, never attains this fulness of individual life ;
it is never able to express its definitive meaning ; in the
process of actualising the will we can therefore dis-
tinguish various stages (corresponding to the different
degrees of truth), each one of which is more or less
distant from the end and embodies the internal meaning
of the idea in a more or less adequate manner. The end
is not always clearly present to consciousness ; we pass
from a vague, indeterminate state of restlessness to
a definite state of will and resolution ; before arriving
at it we ask ourselves, " What do I desire ? What
is my real end ? " and the answer to such a question
may make large demands upon our time, and may be
erroneous as regards intelligence of our end.121 The

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 255

unique, unambiguous expression capable of fully de-
termining our will may, when our will has not yet
reached its goal, differ from that which at the present
moment seems to us to be the meaning of the idea.
Here we have the explanation of the possibility of error,
which lies in the inadequacy of the present stage of the
volitional process to express its true end. The object
which may conflict with my partial and fragmentary will,
that is to say, with my will not as yet fully realised,
and may to a certain extent contradict it, is not an
external thing, an obstacle to my conscious activity,
but rather my will itself in its phase of complete
actualisation, my final intention, my total meaning
determinately and definitely expressed.122 In the last
analysis that which decides whether an idea be true
or false is the object which it has predetermined
and the plan which it has proposed to carry out. The
idea chooses, so to speak, the game it will play, but,
coherently with itself, it cannot change it arbitrarily
or alter the rules, thus failing to fulfil its task : thus,
for instance, if it proposes to find its complete
determination in a group of sensorial experiences (as
occurs in the verification of physical theories), these
experiences exercise authority over it and demand its
full submission ; but this is in reality not the exercise
of extrinsic force, since it is the idea itself which has
freely determined to find the agreement with facts. It
is possible that it may fail, but to what else can this
failure be ascribed than the end proposed by it, that is
to say, to the object and form of correspondence which
it has chosen as its term of reference ? 123 If it then be
contradicted, it is so of its own free will, just as the
lover who is rejected by his lady owes this repulse
to his desire to possess her, a repulse which he would
not have had to endure had he not chosen just this
particular woman as the object of his adoration.124
There can be no doubt that facts can resist our momentary
desire, but at bottom it is the will that recognises these
limits, which are objective in the sense that they differ

256 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.

as more complete expressions from that which is now
present to us. Even in appearing extraneous to me,
nature embodies my will, since I recognise that my
conscious activity is limited and controlled only in so
far as it can attain the desired completion through these
limitations and this control.125

13. The World of Science and the World of Valuation.
—Belief in the reality of the external world is not forced
upon us from without and is not justified by the resist-
ance met with by muscular effort, as some philosophers
have thought, but is guaranteed from motives of a
social order, and makes itself felt by us as the
requirement of a duty. The physical world is that
part of human experience which is common to all
men, which enables them to understand one another,
and thus acts as the basis of their co-operation ; failure
to recognise it would therefore be equivalent to cutting
oneself off from civilised society.126 The existence of our
kind is then the presupposition of the reality of nature,
not vice versa, as is usually affirmed when our belief in
the inner life of other men is explained by an induction
by analogy based upon likeness of features and objective
physical manifestations. We are social beings primarily
by reason of hereditary instincts ; we instinctively love,
fear, and watch our fellow-men, who are therefore real
to us as immediate objects of desire or repulsion, in so
far as they supply us with that which we lack, complete
our fragmentary meanings, answer our questions, and
render our experience and consciousness of our ends
more perfect.127 In this direct penetration of minds
and their internal meanings which causes us to feel
ourselves part of a single Ego is found the world of
valuation, the most profound of truths in its concrete
history ; the external mechanical aspect, the world
of scientific description, is but an inadequate symbol,
necessary to the empirical communication of finite
individuals in time and space, a common scheme
formed by eliminating the variable subjective element,
in order that all men may be able to establish an

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 257

understanding amongst themselves in their practical
relations.128

To civilised man the difference between the mind
and material objects is so great not by virtue of any
experience conferring upon him the right to assert it
positively, but by virtue of the fact that our relations
to the physical world are possessed of a social meaning
which tends to contrast more and more strongly with
our practical relations to living man. Owing to this
contrast more and more prominence is given to that
aspect of nature which enables us to have dominion
over it, and to which the success of practical life is due,
the unbending, uniform, mechanical aspect, whereas
the increase in the common heritage of civilisation
raises the importance of our fellow-men in our eyes.129
This sharp distinction, which is a mere artifice whose
existence is justified by reasons of a , practical order,
must not, however, lead us into the mistake of making
a dualistic separation between the two forms of reality.
If we compare with the life of consciousness, not the
abstractions with which mechanical science presents the
physical world to our notice, but rather physical pro-
cesses in their concrete complexity, the apparent contrast
will vanish and that which is common to both nature and
the mind will take the prominent place which is its due.130
Both are, as a matter of fact, subject to an irreversible
becoming, though the process of transformation in
nature is considerably slower ; in both we see the
tendency to form habits, which are not, however,
absolutely fixed, but form rhythms of temporary
duration which are finally dissolved by the perturbing
action of irrevocable change. The slowness of natural
processes prevents our consciousness adapting itself
to the rhythm of that psychic life which lies at their
base ; hence the erroneous opinion which classes them
as unconscious phenomena. In reality they, too, form
part of a finite consciousness, embracing millions and
millions of years in the duration of its present. There
is nothing against our conceiving other consciousnesses

s

258 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

whose relation to time differs from ours, which have a
different time-span.1*1 Single animals and objects can-
not each be possessed of consciousness, but they form
part of a conscious process which embraces them in its
vast present ; just in the same way as human individuals
with their inner life are included in other finite experi-
ences, of which the phenomena of racial memory and
instincts are indications. The birth and death of a
man are not the beginning and end of a conscious
life, but a mere change in this consciousness with a
longer time-span.™2 Royce then does not agree with
Berkeley in regarding matter as something illusory, he
rather considers it to be real in the same sense as our
fellow-men are real : it is a finite consciousness which
is identified with the life of the Absolute in the same
degree as our individual mind is identified therewith.188
Each consciousness can, whilst preserving the unity of
its plan, form part of a vaster plan of conscious experi-
ence, and is not enclosed within itself, and external
to all other consciousnesses, as are the monads of
Leibnitz. The relations of communication of finite
individuals are an indication of their unity in the
Absolute, which embraces them all as moments in a con-
scious process having an ultimate and single meaning.134
That which characterises and distinguishes different
individuals is not the plurality of substances which are
inconceivable in their realism, but the unique nature
of the plan which each one of them actualises in his
consciousness and the originality of the end which he
embodies. I place myself in opposition to others,
because my life is possessed of a unique meaning
which even in the Absolute remains distinct from the
ends of other persons.135 In this originality, this
unique imprint preserved by our will in the Divine
Consciousness in which each one of us gives perfect
expression to his meaning, lies the essence of human
liberty. My will, though a moment of the Absolute
Personality, is, in as much as it is possessed of a unique
physiognomy, determined by nothing but itself : that

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 259

which I will is still willed by me even in God.136 My
experience is not absorbed, transmuted or reduced in
some ineffable way, but exists in the Eternal Mind just
as it does in myself with all its imperfections and all its:
errors.137 Eternity does not annihilate the succession
of time, but embraces it all within itself in its infinite)
present, just as we distinguish the various moments or
a rhythmical measure with its successive notes, while
yet grasping it as a whole in our consciousness.138

14. Criticism of Royce's Philosophy. — In Koyce's
philosophy the reaction from intellectualism reaches its 4,
speculative acme in a system grandly architectural in
its monumental lines. Eoyce does not attempt to
evade the great problems which have baffled the mind
of man throughout the ages, but rather faces them with
a vigour of thought born of genius. Liberty, im-
mortality, the existence of evil and error all find their
metaphysical justification in his system, a justification
which, though it may fail to satisfy us wholly, is yet the
most momentous attempt ever made to solve these
problems by means of pantheistic intuition of an ethical
and religious order. As we have already seen, Royce
-considers that the existence of error is due to the fact
that the true meaning of the idea, as an act of will, is
never fully actualised : before the complete satisfaction
of the will is attained, a series of stages must be passed
through in which the end is not present in its full deter-
mination. The transition from dissatisfaction to satis-
faction is the very essence of the volitional life, and
hence also of knowledge, which Royce regards as
identical therewith. Truth is that which I will, that
which I propose to do, my plan of action ; and, should ,
I ejr, I do so, not because there is something external!
to myself~which sets itself in opposition to my idea, but ]
because, though the meaning of my thought depends 1
upon myself and myself alone, I have no clear conscious-
ness thereof at the initial and intermediary stages of
the volitional process. From the first I have no
determinate knowledge of my true end ; in that case,

260 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

however, we would ask Royce how it is possible to state
that this end is dependent on myself alone, that I have
selected it, if it is not that which was present to my
consciousness. If the result attained by the process
of my research differ from that of which I am conscious
at a certain moment (and it is just this difference to which
the possibility of error is due), am I justified in affirm-
ing that this ultimate result was the one which I had
proposed, and that the contradiction which facts so
frequently present to my ideal hypotheses is dependent
upon my will ? To take an example : a scientific man
might conceive the notion that the motion of falling bodies
is uniform, but he is unable to actualise this idea, or to
impart to it the intensity and concrete determination
of experience ; does this failure depend upon himself ?
How can he seriously maintain that this contradiction
is due to the internal meaning of the idea, if the experi
enced fact of the constant increase in velocity were no
the end of his researches ? He had neither foreseen
nor chosen it : his will was directed towards a total!
different end, and he was fully conscious of this interna
meaning. That which contradicts it was not willed by
him; hence it cannot be regarded as the interna
meaning of the will of that individual Ego. Neither can
it be said that the end proposed by the student was thi
constant acceleration of motion, although he was no
aware of it, since it is not allowable to consider
that as being willed which was not present to the con
sciousness of the individual, and which is therefore
times the very opposite of the desired end. If the idea
[be not aware of its true meaning, how can it be main-
Itained that this is the free choice of the idea ? Is
it possible to will without knowing what one wills ?
In reality, the assumption by our idea of individua
concrete form never appears to us to be dependent
upon the idea itself, even when the idea is confirmed by
experience : the transition from the abstract hypotheses
to the determinate form of perception is not due merely
to the will to actualise that idea. In the cognitive

f

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 261

function we are conscious that this transition is not
due to our will alone, and that it depends upon
something external to our will, so much so that it is
sometimes, as in the case of error, a hindrance to the
realisation of our idea. Metaphysics may even conceive
the other, which is external to my will, to be the actualisa- .
tion of a Higher Will, but this Will is not my individual
will. Koyce's argument is entirely based upon the
confusion of these two wills, which he postulates as
being identical, thus making the volitionary process
in man into a stage of a wider process. Such an in-
clusion of consciousness in one another, of the mind of
man in the mind of the species, and of this mind of the
species in the consciousness of matter, and of them all
in the Absolute Will is, however, inconceivable. It is an
undeniable fact of experience that each finite Ego presents
an impenetrable front to other individuals, and that,
strive as it may, it can never apprehend the phenomena
of consciousness in others with that immediacy with
which it apprehends the processes of its own conscious-
ness. To this impossibility of fusion, not to singularity
of plan, is due the fact that each mind places itself
in opposition to the rest, refusing to regard as its own
those feelings, thoughts, and acts of will of which it
can have no immediate experience within itself, and
can only reconstruct indirectly, and by analogy. In
our criticism of Miinsterberg's system we have already
observed that the unity of the Ego cannot be reduced
to the unity of the end : the consciousness of oneself
is one thing, moral character another. The unification
of the various stages in the life of an individual in such
a way that he always feels himself to be the same is so
little the work of a plan developed by that life that there
exist individuals whose plans are both incoherent and
unstable, but who, nevertheless, do not lose conscious-
ness of their own personal identity. From the ethical
point of view it is absolutely impossible to co-ordinate
their actions in such a way as to make them appear the
expression of a single design, yet we continue to look

262 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.I

upon them as persons who are conscious of themselves :
and vice versa, different individuals may at times work
towards the same end without on that account feeling
themselves to be a single Ego. It is no argument to say
that each of them works towards it in an original way,
since, even in the case of a single individual, the various
moments of life, though directed towards one and the
same end, each give expression thereto in a different way
at each period of time, so that each individual would
need to be split up into as many persons as there are
moments in his life. If the personality be determined by
the original method of expressing a meaning, then each
single act of will, seeing that it cannot be reduced to the
• rest, would constitute a mind. In short, from Eoyce's
standpoint it is impossible to distinguish between the
processes of consciousness of a single individual and those
of different individuals ; at bottom the ultimate meaning
is the same in them all while the expression of it is
singular in each. Experience, on the contrary, shows
us that the psychic facts of one consciousness are related
in a peculiar way, differing entirely from the extrinsic
relation which may connect the phenomena of different
consciousnesses. Metaphysical speculation should ex-
plain and not destroy the indubitable data of our ex-
perience. If we hold these data firmly, what would
take place in the Absolute Personality were it obliged
to live our conscious life in itself just as we ourselves
live it ? Each of us, even in the Divine Consciousness,
would feel himself to be impenetrable to the rest, hence
the various simultaneous and successive moments of that
supreme spiritual life would continue to be extraneous
to one another, and God would feel Himself to be a
different person from one moment to the next. He
might indeed regard our single lives as different expres-
sions of one and the same meaning, but this would not
cause Him to feel Himself to be the same in each one of
us ; He would be in the same position, as far as His self-
consciousness is concerned, as a victim of hysteria in
whom duplication of personality has taken place. If,

SEO. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 263

on the other hand, we admit that the various self-con-
sciousnesses of single individuals lose this characteristic
of incommunicabihty in the Absolute Mind, we con-
tradict Koyce's thesis from another side, since in that
case it ceases to be true that our experience remains
unchanged in God. Moreover, on this last hypothesis
we should cease to feel ourselves to be distinct persons.
In short, the inclusion of human consciousness in the
divine consciousness only becomes possible if one or
the other lose the characteristic of personality — self-
consciousness. If we would preserve this characteristic
in both of them, we must give up the absolute imman-
ence of the will of man in the Will of God. Every
personality in its self -consciousness is in its very nature
transcendent with regard to other persons. Seeing then
that my Ego must be distinguished from other Ego's,
and from the Absolute Ego, that which in the act of
cognition appears to me beyond the bounds of my
will may certainly be regarded as the expression of
a will, but this will, far from being identifiable with
my own will, is a transcendent object as far as I
am concerned. That which is experienced by other
individuals in the intimacy of their consciousness is a
real life transcending the sphere of my will : who would
venture seriously to assert that other minds exist only
in so far as they express the internal meaning of an idea
of mine, and embody a plan of my devising ? Reduce
all reality to conscious wills, and it will be no less true
that each consciousness is a transcendent object with
regard to every other consciousness. Is the existence
of other Ego's dependent upon me ? Assuredly not !
Then if I think this existence, may it not be an external
meaning with respect to my idea ? Are my friends, and
those who are dearest to me, real only in so far as they
satisfy my desire ? Or do they rather exist in them-
selves in the intimacy of their consciousness, an intimacy
which I cannot directly penetrate ? Does this existence
of theirs in themselves differ from my thought which
takes it as its object or not ? The idealist, finding

264 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

himself in such a strait, takes refuge in the Universal
Mind, a subterfuge which avails him nothing, since,
even if the immanence in God of my thought and
of the other consciousness thought by me be granted,
my thought will still remain something distinct from
the person whom I think. For instance, I conceive
the reality of the individual named Royce, and even
supposing my concept, and the consciousness of Royce
to form part of one and the same spiritual life, my idea
with its internal meaning on the one hand and the
subject Royce on the other will nevertheless remain
two distinct things which cannot be fused into one
unless the consciousness of the great American philo-
sopher be annihilated.

But if being be thus placed outside the idea, will
not an insuperable dualism be the result ? No ; because
we say that the two terms must be kept distinct, but
do not assert that one is entirely independent of
the other, so that reality would remain unchanged,
even if thought be eliminated. Consciousness is not
indifferent to being ; the bond between reality and
thought is not a mere accident which might actually be
dispensed with, but an essential relation. Nature and
the human mind are moments of one and the same
evolutionary process, a process which is the actualisation
of an ideal plan, and their organic unity affords sufficient
justification of the cognitive relation. Such a teleo-
logical unity undoubtedly implies an Absolute Conscious-
ness which thinks it, but does not require that the two
terms and their relation shall exist only in that Eternal
Thought. The physical world and the human mind are
objects of the Divine Mind, but do not exist merely as
His ideas. This distinction between finite beings in
their spontaneous activity, and the Absolute Ego, whilst
it is the only way of accounting for the possibility of
error, does not isolate them in such a way as to render
their relations inconceivable, and, more especially, pre-
serves in every stage of their immanent development
that ideal meaning which is the profound reason of their

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 265

existence. Each centre of spontaneous life bears within
itself the stamp of the common origin, and the close tie
uniting it to others in the solidarity of the eternal plan
which is carried into effect throughout the infinite
vicissitudes of history. Nature, as a necessary moment
of this process which embodies an ideal plan in its
objectivity, though the result of a combination of
actions which are independent of our Ego, is nevertheless
not extraneous to those ends which constitute the
deepest essence of our mind. Thus when we invest
it with the forms of consciousness and interpret it in
terms of our thought, we do not falsify it, but rather
express its true meaning.

15. Ward on the Realm of Nature and the Realm of
Ends. — Nothing but a spiritualistic view of the world
can, without encountering the difficulty of absolute
idealism, afford an intelligible explanation of the unity
of nature and thought, and the universal teleology of
the ought to be, which the philosophy of values regards
as controlling the evolutionary movement of experience.
If the universe be not a brute mechanism, but the
realm of ends and of history, the outcome of the inter-
weaving of spontaneous individual activities whose
goal is the actualisation of the ethical order, only a
iheistic conception will enable us to comprehend it. The
logical completion of the philosophy of values can only
be found in a form of spiritualism, and to James Ward
belongs the credit of having frankly recognised this fact.
Ward, who in his Gifford Lectures waged a glorious
warfare against agnostic naturalism, sees, like Koyce,
Miinsterberg, and Rickert, in the historical and concrete
aspect of the world its true reality as opposed to the '
abstract, mechanical fictions of science. The cognitive
attitude which endeavours to describe the world as it
exists independently of our subjective activity, presents
us merely with an abstract fragment of reality, because it
neglects its ties with the subject, whereas in the practical
attitude, in which things are conceived as objects of
attraction and repulsion, as means and ends of our

266 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

spontaneous activity, we have the fulness of reality
without any abstraction whatsoever, and the whole _of
experience in its double aspect, both subjective and
objective.139 Whereas the cognitive attitude entirely
fails to take into account the subjective factor of
experience, which is therefore subjected to a process of
mutilation, the attitude of valuation will not allow us

I to neglect the object, since our life really consists in
an exchange of actions therewith. Science, as has been
proved by the criticisms of Mach, Boltzmann, Kirchhoff,
and Pearson, gives us but a symbolic description of
phenomena, and symbols are abstract by their very
nature ; physical science with its mechanical schemes, no
less than arithmetic and geometry, "is incompetent to
furnish a concrete presentment of a real and living world.
Its essentially formal character has become increasingly
evident with every improvement in its methods." 14° We
are now very far removed from the time in which our
psychic experiences were thought to be a vain appearance
of the movements of material masses, which were re-
garded as absolute reality : the terms are now inverted.
:' What we see and fee], the facts of perception, become
the real phenomena. Instead of the states of conscious-
ness supervening upon certain motions of mass-points
or some peculiar complex of ethereal vortices, these
motions, etc., prove to be but ideal conceptions super-
imposed upon phenomena by the mind, that seeks to con-
nect them in respect of their quantitative relations." ltt
History, not science, can show us reality in its concrete-
ness ; this reality is not an eternal repetition of necessary
motions, but rather " the intercourse, the co-operation "
of individual subjects which tend freely and sponta-
neously to their preservation and their perfecting.142
All beings are animate, though in different degrees :
in proportion to the growth of our knowledge will be

* the disappearance of the artificial barrier between the
psychic and the physical, mind and nature, the world
of liberty which gives rise to actions which cannot be
foreseen and the world of necessity which admits of

sEc.n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 267

mathematical calculation. He who contemplates the
world in its historical aspect regards the constant
uniformity of physical laws merely as the result of an
average in which variations in opposite senses have
been eliminated by summation. May not the same
thing take place in the case of free human actions,
which are sometimes disguised by the apparent uni-
formity of statistic averages ? 143 The contingency which
Ward recognises in the world is not " that of chance,
but that of freedom," which consists in conformity to -
what ought to be. Absolute conformity — the complete
actualisation of the realm of ends — is an ideal for us ; but
little by little in the course of evolution we shall see the
harmony of free co-operation, together with the elimina-
tion of conflicts, being realised more and more nearly.144
This order and harmony lead us perforce to the theistic
hypothesis, which alone can make us understand how
it is possible for the many to co-ordinate their actions
in systematic unity. Ward rejects not only the dualism
of matter and mind, but also that of subject and object :
there is but one living experience : that which we
call objective reality is merely experience itself in that
part thereof which is common to all subjects. The

i separation of subject and object is due to the exchange
of action amongst different subjects by means of that
process which Avenarius termed " introjection." 145 In
like manner there exists no absolute distinction between
sensibility and reason, since sense, no less than under-
standing, gives us something objectively real, and the
universal world of reason is at bottom but the individual
world itself in so far as it is brought into harmony with
the contents of experience of other conscious beings living
in society. Ward therefore looks upon knowledge not
as a passive reflection of an external reality by means of -
a special faculty called intellect, but rather as an active

(, expansion of experience into a larger sphere of life by
means of that tendency to preserve and perfect which
lies at the root of all being. Theoretical activity is in ~
ultimate analysis but a form of practical life : there is

268 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. i

no cognition the impulse to which will not be found in
determinate needs, and the whole scientific construction
is at bottom but a means for the extension of the sphere
of our power. Ward regards conation, not cognition, as
" the central feature of experience." 146 Thus he conceives
everything as subordinate to human ends, and as bearing
the imprint of the activity of our mind and our subjective
selection, and ultimate reality too as formed in the
likeness of our intimate experience. Is this anthropo-
morphism ? Ward replies with truth that " in a sense
we are always anthropomorphic," since we can never
divest ourselves of our consciousness ; hence not only
spiritualistic intuition but the very mechanical inter-
pretation of the universe, which in the last analysis
derives its concepts from our human experience, is of
an anthropomorphic nature.147

Whilst we fully agree with Ward in his spiritualistic
conclusions, we are not equally ready to accept the
concept of the value of science and of the theoretical
function in general in its relations to practical life which
he derives from empiric-criticism, and which we have
already discussed at length. On the other hand, we
fail to see how his idealistic theory of knowledge, which
would annihilate the dualism of subject and object, of
internal and external experience, can be reconciled with
pluralism. If other beings do not exist merely in so
far as I think them, but exist also in themselves in their
spiritual intimacy, my experience of them from without
is of a different order from the experience which each
one of them enjoys of itself from within. When I think
another individual, his being as present to himself and
the idea of him formed by me constitute an irreducible
duality. The existence of anything outside thought
may be denied, but in that case we must also deny
the truth of pluralism which regards each individual as
existing outside the consciousness of other individuals.
The plurality of subjects and their existence even
outside the Divine Mind, which must be granted in
the theistic hypothesis, leads perforce to realism.148

SEC. n THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 269

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

I In the Preface to the second edition of his book, Der Gegenstand der
Erkenntnis (Tubingen und Leipzig, 1904, p. vi.), Rickert insists upon the
epistemological character of his method : " . . . Meine Schrift will nur
Erkenntnistheorie und nicht Psychologie oder Metaphysik geben, d.h.
sie will das entwickeln, was auch fur den Psychologen und den Meta-
physiker Voraussetzung ist und daher nicht gut Object psychologischer
oder metaphysischer Untersuchungen sein kann."

2 Prdludien (Freiburg, 1884), p. 28 ff.

3 Op. cit. p. 36 ff.

4 Here the contrast with the teaching of pragmatism is obvious.

5 Op. cit. p. 43.

6 Op. cit. pp. 221-224.

7 Op. cit. p. 227.

8 Op. cit. p. 130.

9 Op. cit. p. 251 ff.

10 Op. cit. pp. 256-261.

II Op. cit. p. 210.

12 Op. cit. p. 320 ff.

13 Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis. Einfuhrung in die Transzendental-
philosophie (Tubingen und Leipzig, 1904, second edition, p. vi. The first
edition was published in 1892).

14 Op. cit. p. 12 ff.

15 Rickert here shows the influence of Schuppe's philosophy of imman-
ence : Erkenntnistheoretische Logik (Bern, 1878) ; Grundriss der Erkenntnis-
theorie und Logik (Berlin, 1898). Schuppe regards subject and object as
two aspects of the only reality, — consciousness, external to which nothing
exists. The Ego is not a substance, but merely consciousness of oneself.
The different consciousnesses possess one part which differs from other
consciousness and which constitutes their individuality, and one which is
common to them all (" gattungsmassiges Ich "), which constitutes objective
reality. To the latter belong abstract concepts, which are presented to
us as elements of perception (Grundriss, p. 31 ff., p. 90 ff.).

16 Rickert, op. cit. pp. 78-84 .

17 Op. cit. p. 97.

18 " Erkennen ist anerkennen oder verwerfen. . . . In jeder Erkenntnis
wird ein Wert anerkannt " (op. cit. pp. 108-110).

19 Op. cit. p. 112. Note also here the difference between the philosophy
of values and pragmatism.

20 Op. cit. pp. 111-114.

21 Op. cit. pp. 115-123.

22 Op. cit. p. 124 ff.

23 Op. cit. p. 141.

24 Op. cit. p. 157.

25 Op. cit. p. 165.
28 Op. cit. p. 185.

27 Op. cit. p. 199.

28 Op. cit. p. 197 ff.

29 Op. cit. p. 234.
80 Op. cit. p. 240.

31 Die Grenzen der Naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung (Tubingen
und Leipzig, 1896-1903, p. 695 ff.).

270 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. i

« Op. cit. p. 697 ff.

» Op. cit. pp. 737-739.

84 Windelband, Prdludien, p. 75.

34 Rickert, op. cit. p. 24.

84 Op. cit. p. 34 ff.

87 Op. «/. pp. 230-237.

88 0p. ci/. p. 244.

39 Op. cti. p. 246.

40 Op. cit. p. 247.

41 Op. ci<. p. 256.

42 Op. c&. pp. 258-260.

43 It should be noted that by nature Rickert does not mean merely the
physical world, but in general that which recurs in the psychic world as
welL Windelband had already replaced the old distinction between
natural and moral sciences by that between the sciences of events ("Ereignis-
wissenschaften ") and sciences of laws ("Gesetzeswissenschaften"), applying
the term idiographisch to the method of the former, and nomothetisch to
that of the latter (Geschichte und Naturwissenschajt, Strassburger Rek-
toratsrede, 1894). Xenopol too, in his Les Principes fondamentaux de
Fhistoire (Paris, 1899), makes a similar division, distinguishing the fails
de repetition from the/atte de succession. The first suggestion of a division
of the kind occurs in Humboldt's Cosmos, but Cournot was the first to
determine it clearly and to extend it to all the sciences (Consideration sur
la marche des idees et des evenements dans les temps modernes, Paris, 1872,
Preface, p. 4). Hermann Paul, who was not acquainted with Cournot's
work, draws a distinction in his Principien der Sprachgeschichte (Halle, 1880)
between the Gesetzwissenschaft and the Geschichtewissenschaften.

44 Op. cit. pp. 412-414.

45 Op. cit. p. 416 ff.
44 Op. cit. p. 422.

47 Op. cit. p. 428.

48 Op. cit. p. 622.

4» Op. cit. pp. 641-649.

M Op. cit. pp. 650-653.

61 " Die empirische Wirklichkeit fur uns absolut irrazional ist "
{op. cit. p. 511).

« Op. cit. p. 680.

68 Op. cit. p. 685.

64 Op. cit. p. 687.

68 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 98.

*• " Zwei Wege der Erkenntnistheorie " (from Kantetudien, vol. xiv.
Xo. 2), published separately in Halle, 1909, p. 37.

57 Op. cit. p. 57 ff.

M " Unter Sollen verstehen wir gerade das, was nicht ist oder nicht
existiert " (op. cit. p. 16).

M Philosophic der Werte, Grundzuge einer Weltanschauung (Leipsig,
1908). Mtinsterberg had already sketched the first outlines of this
conception in his earlier works : Psycliology and Life, 1899 ; Grundzuge.
der Psychologie, voL i. 1900 ; Science and Idealism, 1906.

•° " Die Geschichte tritt wieder in ihr Recht. Der wollende Mensch
wird zum Ausgangspunkt und der psychophysische Mechanismus ver-
schwindet endlich aus der Metaphysik. Dem Positivismus folgt der
Voluntarismus " (Philosophie der Werte, p. 36).

41 Op. cit. pp. 29-38.

41 Op. cit. p. 39 ff., pp. 449-481.

SEC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 271

63 " Das eine also wissen wir : am Anfang war die Tat " (p. 456) ; " Die
Welt ist lebendige Tat " (p. 476).

64 Op. cit. pp. 438-481. " Diese Bewertung der Ganzheit ist also eiii
Wert sonderer Art, ein metaphysischer Uberzeugungswert, der vom
logischen Zusammenhangswert grundsatzlich zu trennen ist und der
aufs engste mit dem religiosen Glaubenswert zusammengehort " (op. cit.
p. 444).

86 Op. cit. p. 481.

68 " Deshalb lassen sich auch die theoretischen Werte nicht aus einem
iiberindividuellen Willen ableiten. Der Wille ist als etwas Feindes dem
Sinn gegeniiber immer Sekundar " (Zwei Wege, der Erkenntnistheorie,
p. 50).

67 Miinsterberg, op. cit. p. 53 ff.

68 Op. cit. p. 57 ff.

69 Op. cit. p. 60 ff., p. 461 ff.

70 Op. cit. p. 74 ff.

71 We shall, of course, confine our explanation to the theoretical values,
and omit the others which are not comprised in our subject.

72 Op. cit. pp. 85-89.

73 Op. cit. pp. 94-97.

74 " Der Wille trifft unmittelbar den Willen " (op. cit. p. 106).

75 Op. cit. p. 110 ff.

78 Op. cit. pp. 112-114.

77 Op. cit. pp. 115-117.

78 Op. cit. pp. 120-122.

79 Op. cit. p. 131.

80 Op. cit. pp. 134-139.

81 Op. cit. p. 130.

82 Op. cit. pp. 150-165.

83 Op. cit. pp. 167-169.

84 Op. cit. p. 170.

85 Op. cit. pp. 174-181.

86 Our exposition of Royce's thought is based upon his chief work,
The World and the Individual (New York, 1901).

87 "... your intelligent ideas of things never consist of mere images
of the things, but always involve a consciousness of how you propose to
act towards the things of which you have ideas " (The World and the
Individual, vol. i. p. 22). " Ideas are like tools. They are there for an
end " (ibid. p. 308). Royce quotes Stout's Analytic Psychology (vol. ii.
pp. 114, 124), in which ideas are regarded as " plans of action."

88 " When I know, I am acting. My theoretical life is also practical "
(op. cit. p. 27).

89 Op. cit. p. 434 ff.

90 Op. cit. p. 153.

91 " The conscious expression of an interest, of a desire, of a volition "
(op. cit. p. 41). Royce himself, in a communication made by him to
the third International Congress of Philosophy, " The Problem of Truth
in the Light of recent Research," has termed his system " absolute
pragmatism."

92 As early as 1881, in an article published in the Journal of Speculative
Philosophy, entitled " Kanfs Relation to Modern Philosophical Progress,"
Royce insisted upon the active character and ethical meaning of the
recognition of facts, to which Rickert and Miinsterberg, acting inde-
pendently of Royce, called attention later. Thus, before reading the
works of Rickert and Miinsterberg, he arrived at the distinction between

272 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. I

the world of valuation and the world of description, which he compares
for the first time in his book, Spirit of Modern Philosophy (Boston, 1892).
He acknowledges, however, the influence exercised by the works of these
writers upon the final form assumed by his system (op. cit. vol. ii. Preface,
p. 6ff.). These coincidences are not, however, purely accidental, but are
due to a common source : Windelband, with whom Royce was un-
doubtedly acquainted, and more remotely to Lotze.

98 Op. cit. voL ii. pp. 32-41.

94 " And the theoretical Ought of our judgments about facts, like the
practical Ought of ethics, is after all only definable in terms of what Kant
called the Autonomy of the Will " (op. cit. voL ii. p. 32).

»5 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 24.

86 Op. cit. voL i. p. 24 ff.

97 Op. cit. voL i. p. 62 ff.

98 Op. cit. voL i. p. 128.

99 Op. cit. vol. i. p. 134 ff.

100 Op. cit. voL i. pp. 306-308.

101 Op. cit. voL i. pp. 318-319.

102 Op. cit. voL i. pp. 176-179.

103 Op. cit. voL i. p. 185 ff.

104 Op. cit. vol. i. p. 204 ff.

105 Royce, who is a diligent student of mathematical logic, and believes
that metaphysic can profit largely by modern researches (" The metaphysic
of the future will take fresh account of mathematical research," op. cit.
voL i. p. 527), applies it freely in his system. As regards mathematical
procedure he follows the theory set forth by Peirce, according to which
abstract reasoning consists in a process of experiment upon an artificial
object constructed by the mathematician and observed by him in his own
consciousness, just in the same way as one observes an external object,
».e. in that which Mach has termed " Gedankenexperiment " (op. cit.
voL i. p. 225).

1M Op. cit. voL i. p. 260 ff.

107 Op. cit. voL L p. 280 ff.

108 Op. cit. voL i. p. 293 ff.
1W Op. cit. voL L p. 297 ff.

uo « What is, or what is real, is as such the complete embodiment in
individual form and in final fulfilment of the internal meaning of finite
ideas " (op. cit. voL i. p. 339).

111 Op. cit. voL i. p. 346.

118 Op. cit. voL i. pp. 353-366.

118 Op. cit. voL i. p. 373.

"« Op. cit. voL i. p. 391-400.

us Op. cit. voL ii. p. 302.

"• Op. cit. voL ii. pp. 408-410.

U7 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 122 ff., p. 344.

"« Op. cit. voL i. pp. 581-584.

119 Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, pp. 28-30.
1M Royce, op. cit. voL i. p. 419.

181 Op. cit. voL i. p. 327.

»* Op. cit. voL L p. 389.

113 Op. cit. voL i. pp. 334 and 389.

1M Op. cit. voL ii. p. 31.

m Op. cit. voL ii. p. 41 ff.

118 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 186.

127 Op. cit. voL ii. pp. 170-174.

SBC. ii THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES 273

1!8 The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, Part ii. p. 398. Royce refers to
Kirchhoff and Mach for this conception of science.
129 The World and the Individual, voL ii. p. 181 ff.
180 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 217 ff.

131 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 228 ff.

132 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 233.

133 Op. cit. vol. i. p. 236.

134 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 238.

135 Op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 276-286.

136 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 330.

137 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 408.

138 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 142.

139 Ward, The Realm of Ends, or Pluralism and Theism (Cambridge,
1911), p. 430 ff.

140 Naturalism and Agnosticism (London, 1899), voL i. p. 82 sq.,
p. 151 ff., p. 179 ff.

141 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 103.

142 The Realm of Ends, p. 20 ff., p. 431 ff.

143 Ibid. p. 5.

144 Op. cit. p. 434.

145 Naturalism and Agnosticism, voL ii. p. 182 ff.

146 Op. cit. voL ii. p. 134 and p. 232 ff.

147 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 257.

148 There are already signs in contemporary philosophy of a return to
epistemological realism ; it will suffice to quote Kiilpe's book, Die Realisie-
rung (Leipzig, 1913), and the works of Meinong and Russell to which we
shall refer later on. Of importance is the work entitled The New Realism ;
Co-operative Studies in Philosophy, by Edwin B. Holt, Walter T. Marvin,
William Pepperell Montague, Ralph Barton Perry, Walter B. Pitkin, and
Edward Gleason Spaulding (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1912).

PAKT II

CHAPTER I

NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY x

1. Traditional Geometry and the New Theories of Gauss,
Lobatchewsky, and Bolyai. — Until the beginning of the
nineteenth century Euclid's geometry had seemed to
be the perfect, unchangeable model of all scientific
certainty : Cartesian rationalism, inspired by Kepler's
words, Ubi natura, ibi geometria, had placed it at
the foundation of all knowledge of things idealised in
pure extension, and had finally in the teaching of
Spinoza claimed to establish an Ethica, more geometrico
demonstrata. The keen analyses of Berkeley and the
bold criticism of Hume were alike powerless to shake
this ancient faith, because in Kant's Transcendental
Aesthetic the ideality of the pure intuition of space
achieved a triumph over nominalism and empirical
scepticism. Only at the beginning of last century did
the construction of a different geometry begin to seem
possible ; and about fifty years later these new specu-
lations formed the subject of lively discussions and
polemics in the world of philosophy by reason of the
consequences which were supposed to be deducible from
them against the a-priority of space.

The failure of the many attempts to deduce the axiom
of parallels directly from the other axioms 2 induced
Gauss,3 Lobatchewsky,4 and Bolyai 5 to make use of a
bolder method, a kind of reductio ad absurdum.* If the
axiom of parallels could be logically derived from the
others, by denying it while retaining the rest, one should
arrive at contradictory results ; but the three mathe-

277

278 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

maticians, while denying it, reached a geometry which
was logically consequent, and drew the conclusion
therefrom that this axiom was logically independent of
the rest and essential only to the Euclidean system.
Lobatchewsky substitutes the following proposition
for Euclid's axiom : " In relation to a straight line,
all the other straight lines in the same plane may be
divided into two classes : those which intersect the
given line, and those which do not intersect it : a line
which forms the limit between these two classes is
termed parallel to the given line ; for each point external
to the line there exist two parallels, which are symmetri-
cal in relation to the perpendicular drawn from that
point." From these premisses, and by means of the
Euclidean synthetical method, he deduces a series of
propositions, of which the following is the most im-
portant : :' The sum of the internal angles of a triangle
is either always less than, or always equal to, two right
angles : in the latter case the whole system becomes
Euclidean."

2. The Empiricism of Riemann and Helmholtz, and
the Dispute with the Neo-Kantians. — The new geometrical
speculations failed at first to excite philosophic interest,
but after Riemann and Helmholtz had turned to them
for proof of Stuart Mill's empiricism, the dispute began
between the meta- geometricians on the one hand and
the neo-Kantians on the other. Riemann 7 subordinates
the concept of space to the more general concept of
magnitudes having manifold extension (der allgemeine
Begriff mehrfach ausgedehnter Grossen) : in order to
determine how many kinds of space are logically possible,
we must first find out in how many ways magnitude can
have manifold extension. When the number of spatial
varieties which are conceptually possible has thus been
fixed, it is the work of experience to determine which
of them is represented by our space, that is to say, by
the space in which the world with which we are acquainted
is situated. After having determined the general con-
cept of space as a continuous manifold of points, each

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 279

of which is dependent upon algebraic values, and having
posited as its fundamental property constant curvature 8
which is a necessary condition of the free mobility of
figures, Riemann reduces the number of dimensions to
three, and proves that in this species of space three
varieties are possible, according as the value of the
constant of curvature is positive, negative, or null, i.e.
spherical, pseudo-spherical, and flat or homaloidal space.9
The last named corresponds to Euclidean space ; the
second to that of Lobatchewsky ; the first is a new
variety introduced by Riemann. In spherical three-
dimensional space no line passes through a point external
to a straight line which does not meet this latter ; two
points do not always, as in Euclidean geometry, deter-
mine one straight fine only, and the sum of the angles
of a triangle is greater than two right angles. This
geometry is termed spherical, because for the case of two
dimensions it is identical with the geometry of the
surface of the sphere, in which the arc of maximum
circumference plays the part of a straight line.

Helmholtz10 arrives at the same conclusions, but
follows a different procedure in the transition from
the manifold of n dimensions to Euclidean space, de-
ducing from certain hypotheses on the movement of
bodies the analytic function of the space-constant, which
Riemann takes as his starting-point. Of w-dimensional
manifolds he takes into consideration those contain-
ing non-deformable and mobile systems ; he further
imagines the movement of a perfectly free solid and
restricts the concept of the spatial manifold by the
condition that if n + 1 points of a system be fixed, it
must return to the initial position. Of the spaces thus
defined he then determines Euclidean space, assuming
the number of the dimensions to be equal to three, and
admitting the dimensions of a point to be capable of
indefinite increase.

Riemann and Helmholtz agree in thinking that the
possibility of conceiving other systems of geometry
proves the empirical origin of axioms. Riemann thinks

280 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

it possible that these axioms are not valid in the case
of the infinitely small which does not admit of observa-
tion ; as a matter of fact the empirical concepts upon
which spatial measures are based — i.e. the concepts of
the rigid body and the luminous ray — do lose their
validity in the infinitely small ; it is therefore perfectly
conceivable that the relations of spatial magnitude
cease to correspond therein to the presuppositions
of geometry ; hence we must grant this hypothesis,
which enables us to give a simpler explanation of
phenomena. Helmholtz also endeavoured to prove that
all the axioms are empiric, basing his conclusions on
meta-geometry as well as upon the results of psycho-
physiological research. To the objections of Land,
Krause, Becker, and others who defended Kant's position,
affirming that even if it be possible to conceive of other
spaces, there can be no intuition but that of Euclidean
space, Helmholtz replied u that the representation of
non-Euclidean spaces is difficult because we are not
accustomed to it, but not actually impossible, and
that Kant's arguments, even were they formally valid,
would not prove the a-priority of Euclidean space in
particular, but merely that of space in general, which
embraces both Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces.
The a-priority, in short, does not imply a preference for
certain spatial relations over others, but is independent
of the relations affirmed in the axioms of geometry which
constitute the matter of the idea of space and can there-
fore only be justified by experience. In order to prove
the possibility of rendering non-Euclidean space in-
tuitive, Helmholtz makes use of the work of Beltrami,12
who had endeavoured to impart an intelligible Euclidean
sense to Lobatchewsky's plane geometry, showing all
the propositions established by this mathematician in
plane geometry to be valid in ordinary Euclidean space
on the surfaces of constant negative curvature, which
Beltrami terms pseudo-spherical. The dispute between
Helmholtz and the pure neo-Kantians turned more
especially on the possibility or impossibility of repre-

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 281

senting such a surface intuitively. Helmholtz, in order
to prove his thesis, defines imaginability as the ability
to form a complete representation of the sensible im-
pressions which the object makes upon us according
to the known laws of our organs of sense ; 13 and
endeavours to enumerate, in conformity to this defini-
tion, the series of sensible impressions which the pheno-
mena of pseudo-spherical space makes upon us.14 An
observer, having sight and a criterion of judgment like
our own, would, on first entering the pseudo-sphere,
continue to see luminous rays or lines of vision as straight
lines, just as in plane space, and as they are in reality
in the spherical representation of pseudo-spherical space.
The visual image of the objects of the pseudo-sphere will
then make the same impression upon him as if he were
in the centre of Beltrami's representative sphere. More
remote objects will appear to surround him at a finite
distance (about a hundred feet, for instance), but if he
approaches them, he will see them expand before him—
and that more in depth than superficies — and contract
behind his back, and will realise the error of judgment
committed by his eyes. If he have seen two straight
lines which appear to him to run parallel for a distance
of 100 feet, at which point the world comes to an
end for him, he will recognise, as he approaches more
closely, that this dilation causes objects to become
more and more remote the farther he advances ; behind
him, on the contrary, their distances, which in the
former position appeared to intersect one another at
one identical point only, will appear in the new position
behind him with the same intersection at 100 feet, and,
approach as he may, he will never reach the point of
intersection.

Land15 objects that Helmholtz's description is
couched in conceptual terms, and is therefore no proof
of the possibility of intuiting the new space ; moreover,
as Stallo truly remarks,16 it is not enough to ask our-
selves what would be the nature of the impressions
produced upon us by the objects of that fantastic world;

282 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

we must also ask whether they can be imagined together
in the spatial order and the required form, in conformity
to the known laws of the representative faculty. The
perception, as conceived of by Beltrami, of points, lines,
and surfaces of pseudo- spherical space in the interior
of an ordinary spherical surface, whose points correspond
to the infinitely remote points of pseudo-spherical space,
does not enable us actually to represent that space, since
it is one thing to intuit the projection and another to
imagine the projected figure, which will only be present
to our intuition if we have already known it in some
other way. The projection of a solid on a plane does
not in itself enable us to form a mental image of that
three-dimensional figure ; if we succeed in imagining
it, we do so because we already possess intuitive know-
ledge of the solid in question. In like manner, a figure
of plane space wi]l never — let Klein 17 say what he will —
enable us to imagine a figure of pseudo-spherical space
projected upon it. The vocabulary18 which brings the
elements of the pseudo - sphere into correspondence
with those of Euclid is of an artificial nature : nothing
but a convention can assimilate Beltrami's geodesies to
the straight lines of the plane ; and his calculi take us
very far from intuition into the realm of pure analysis,
in which symbols and equations still keep the names
of lines, surfaces, figures situated on the superficies,
lengths of lines, displacements of figures, merely by
virtue of their literal resemblance to the cases which
directly recall these intuitive forms.19 The geometrician
may be driven to reduce the entities of his geometry
to certain analytical properties which can be expressed
in algebraic language, assuming as their definition
the fact of correspondence to certain equations ; but
he thus renounces the intuitive form of the figures, whose
equations merely express certain abstract relations ;
if these relations be transformed, he neither can nor may
assert that his formulas still correspond to intuitive
representations.

3. Intuition and Concept in Geometry. — The dispute

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 283

between the empiricists and the neo-Kantians as to
the possibility of representing non - Euclidean space
intuitively took its rise in the prejudice that mathe-
matical space and figures can be the object of
immediate intuition. It is obvious that there thus
arises a confusion between the spatial forms of bodies,
as perceived and represented in their concreteness, and
the ideal types conceived by the mathematician. No
geometrical space or figure, be it Euclidean or non-
Euclidean, is representable in the strict sense of the
word. The triangle on which the mathematician reasons
is not the triangle which is drawn on the paper or
mentally imagined, but the triangular entity which he
has defined, that is to say, the concept, not the intui-
tion of the triangle. The same may be said of space
in general : perfect continuity, unlimited divisibility,
absolute homogeneity, the number of dimensions, the
degree of curvature, etc., are conceptual determinations
which may be formed on the occasion of an experience
or the image of one, but were not given therein as such.
When Helmholtz affirms that congruence, that is to say,
the possibility of displacing a geometrical figure without
deformation, is drawn from experience of mechanical
rigidity, he fails to perceive that he is moving in a
vicious circle, since, in order to prove that a body has
not changed in form, we must have recourse to measure-
ment, which presupposes the homogeneity of space.
But, if experience fail to give us the figures of mathe-
matical space, may not these figures be revealed to pure
intuition ? Investigation, however accurate it may
be, of the mental functions does not afford proof of the
existence of any such mysterious faculty. The repre-
sentation is subject to the same limitations and the same
inaccuracies as the sensorial perception ; thought alone
with its concepts can complete and perfect it in such
a way as to make it the starting-point of rigorous de-
ductions. Intuition, as such, can merely give us some-
thing individual and contingent : the represented circle
always remains this or that particular circle, and our

284 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

observations, or, if you will, our mental experiments, on
it will be valueless for all other cases, unless there be
behind the intuition the thought that all which we
deduce is derived, not from the properties of the single
figure which is present to us, but from the characteristics
which it possesses in common with others of the same
kind. Now a figure considered in the abstract as the
type of a class is no longer an intuition, but a concept.
The existence of geometry is in itself the inconfutable
proof of the falsity of nominalism and empiricism.
It is not true, as Stuart Mill asserts, that figures existing
in the thought of the mathematician are mere copies
of those given to us in experience, and are hence
imperfect : unless the ideal type of the figure were
present to our mind, how could we judge of the in-
accuracy of the sensorial data ? " It is true that this
type cannot be represented ; this does not, however,
imply that it cannot be thought : the mistake made by
Stuart Mill, and earlier by Berkeley and Hume, lies in
the identification of thought and representation.

4. Tannery on the Contingency of Geometrical Truths.
— If, then, we cannot speak of pure a priori intuition,
because the exactness of mathematical concepts passes
the bounds of imagination, is there nothing of an a
priori nature about space and mathematics ? Is the
possibility of constructing different systems of geometry
an argument against this a-priority ? Must we not
rather modify the conception of the a priori, and define
its limits more exactly ? Tannery has chosen the
former alternative, affirming that geometry contains
nothing necessary : Riemann's analyses and later
studies have proved that the mathematical concept of
space is formed by associating different notions, which
are absolutely distinct from one another (magnitude,
continuity, dimension, triplicity, measure, identity of the
unit of measurement in different dimensions, distance,
analytical law relative to the distance of two points,
etc.), and that there is nothing subjectively necessary
in the association of these notions. Tannery considers

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 285

that there is no doubt that the laws of our thought are
at work in the construction of these concepts, but they
do not help to determine in a necessary way their
associative links, which may be inverted, ordered and
connected in every possible way, without going beyond
the bounds of logic. Every proposition on space is then
subjectively contingent, and in no way different in this
respect from the other propositions which formulate
the laws of external phenomena.21

5. The General Geometry of Calinon and Lechalas.—
Others, while recognising the impossibility of defending
Kant's position, hold that though the geometry of
Euclidean space may not be a priori, the a-priority of a
more general geometry should be granted.22 This thesis,
which was, as we have seen, propounded by Helmholtz,
who had confined the characteristic of a-priority to this
more general geometry, only leaving to experience the
task of selecting the series of axioms which are valid for
our space, has been taken up again and developed by
Calinon,23 who has elaborated the essential definitions
capable of serving as the basis of a geometry of three-
dimensional spaces, of which Euclidean geometry would
be but a particular instance. Taking these definitions
as a starting-point, we thus create by a series of
logically deduced theorems a general geometry depend-
ing upon a parameter whose value must be fixed by
experience, not by thought. This geometry is a purely
rational construction, devoid of postulates, based upon
a priori definitions and wholly created by thought :
experience only intervenes later to act as a practical
guide in the choice of the parameter best suited to
transcribe the phenomena of our experience. Whereas
Helmholtz over-depreciates the formal task of the mind,
reducing it to a vague notion devoid of any particular
space - relation, and thus departing very far from
Kantian idealism, Calinon, while divesting Euclidean
geometry of its a priori character, leaves the mind not
only the power of forming the concept of a space without
content, but also that of creating a complete geometry

286 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

capable of indefinite development. At first sight it
would appear that in this construction the fundamental
elements of our geometry are derived from rational
notions posited from the first with a series of necessary
restrictions ; in reality, however, they are not deduced
but are the outcome of the habitual elements of our
intuition. Calinon presents three-dimensional spaces as
a generalisation of the surfaces of ordinary geometry, and
derives all his definitions without exception by general-
isation or simply by analogy from the properties of the
plane, the straight line, and the surface. The concrete
materials which have guided thought in the construction
of definitions are always present. " There are sur-
faces," says Calinon, " such as the plane and the sphere,
in which the figures can be moved without changing
their form ; we will call these surfaces identical with
themselves ; in like manner we will give the name of
spaces identical with themselves to those spaces in
which figures can be displaced without deformation,
as in Euclidean space." Calinon endeavours to prove
that general geometry, as defined by him, is well
defined and presents the maximum of generalisation
possible to the mind of man without leaving the realm
of intuition : he does not admit geometries having more
than three dimensions, because they take us entirely
away from intuition, and can be reduced to the mere
analytical aspect of formulas to which no geometrical
meaning can be attached : since we have no idea of a
figure having more than three dimensions, there is not
only correspondence, but absolute identity, between
this figure and the equation representing it. This
statement does not, however, hold good of the various
three-dimensional spaces of general geometry, because
these spaces are either but little removed from Euclidean
space, or, if the difference from it be considerable, they
can always be resolved into infinitely small elements,
differing very little from Euclidean elements, so that,
though we may not conceive a space of this kind as a
whole, we can readily conceive each of its elements.*4

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 287

Milhaud s rightly remarks that this intermediate position
cannot be accepted ; we can only assume two attitudes
with regard to intuition : we must either accept it
in all its exigencies, or dispense with it altogether.
Calinon, like Helmholtz, aims at the ideal creation of
an intuition differing from our own, made up of elements
taken from Euclidean space ; but this artificial con-
struction has nothing to do with true intuition, and
cannot endow analytical formulas with geometrical
meaning. We may make a figure of Euclidean space
correspond to a certain formula, but such a proceeding
is a mere arbitrary convention, which might be equally
well applied to a space having more than three dimen-
sions, in contradiction of Calinon's assertion. Renouvier
and Broglie have also drawn attention to the fact that
even general geometry cannot dispense with a number
of postulates in its primary propositions, and Lechalas,26
in order to defend Calinon's thesis against this objection,
has proved a series of theorems on identical surfaces
and their geodesies without enunciating any postulates ;
but he constantly has recourse to intuitive data, intro-
ducing, for instance, in the course of the deduction the
notions of superficies, line, point, figure, displacement,
etc., without saying what they are, and arguing thereon
as if they had a logical meaning and the methods of
association were legitimate. Who can fail to see that
a whole series of postulates is thus taken for granted ?
Lechalas, on the contrary, asserts that general geometry
can be based solely on the axioms of magnitude, which
he regards as purely analytical, and that all its theorems
can be deduced from them with the principle of contra-
diction as the only criterion. 27 These theorems would thus
possess an apodictic value, although the space of our
real world is contingent like every other phenomenon.
General geometry, being devoid of postulates, has the
universal and necessary value of analysis, of which
it is an application ; whereas Euclidean geometry,
which is merely a branch of it, is based upon postu-
lates of an essentially synthetic nature, designed to

288 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

define and specify the particular space to which they
apply.

6. Criticism of these Theories : the a priori Properties
of Space. — The fundamental error of the rationalistic
construction of Calinon and Lechalas is the same as
that lying at the root of Riemann's philosophy of space,
i.e. the alleged possibility of deriving the determinations
peculiar to space from pure relations of magnitude.28
Were the a priori element reducible only to the analytical
combination which can be deduced from the general
axioms ' of magnitude, we should merely have an
algebra, never a general geometry of universal and
necessary a priori validity. Calinon and Lechalas
apparently succeed in constructing their geometry by
purely rational methods, because they derive from
experience and spatial intuition the constituent elements
of space, namely, those properties which distinguish it
from other magnitudes and which make geometry a
branch of science distinct from a pure algebraic calculus.
If this content be eliminated from space, nothing is left
of it, and it is an arbitrary proceeding to give the name
of geometry to the science which results therefrom.
The diversity of positions, which constitutes the quali-
tative content of space, and is irreducible to mere rela-
tions, is that which is empirical in it ; but if this hetero-
geneity of spatial elements be a posteriori, space, as
conceived by the mathematician, is a priori in the sense
that it is a means of making experience intelligible.
Homogeneity, continuity, and infinity are a priori
characteristics of geometrical space, in as much as they
represent that which thought has infused of its own
into the manifold of positions, filling up the gaps left
by experience, and leading it on to its ideal perfection in
order to satisfy its demand for rationality. Everything
in space which is intelligible is a pure construction of
thought. Dimensions are not given, but are a product
of the analysis made by thought of indistinct spatial
experience in order to translate that experience into
intelligible quantitative relations. The number of

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 289

dimensions consequently is also a priori. It is not true
that it is only possible to determine that number by
having recourse to experience ; it is not, moreover, easy
to understand how our hypothesis could be verified
by experience when once a dimension ceases to be a
datum, and is taken to be a complex of ideal relations
constructed by thought. If by the a priori we are
to understand the condition indispensable to the intel-
ligibility of experience, it is obvious that we must
attribute to geometrical space such a number of dimen-
sions as is necessary and sufficient for the transcription
of our spatial experience into intelligible terms. Now
no one will deny that three dimensions answer perfectly
to this requirement : one or two would not be enough to
exhaust the whole content of our empirical space ; four
or more would be superfluous, since there are no spatial
data which are not comprised within three-dimensional
geometry. If we posit four spatial co-ordinates instead
of three, the position of a point will be no better defined ;
four-dimensional space is not more extensive than that
having but three, so as to comprise it within itself as the
superficies does the line, but coincides with it, however
widely the analytical description may differ. Three
dimensions exhaust the whole of empirical space, nothing
is left to be determined by another dimension ; a fourth
dimension may then be excluded a priori, since it does
not render more intelligible any aspect of our experience,
the only experience of which we can speak, unless we
propose to write a scientific romance. We might apply
an old aphorism and say : " Dimensiones non sunt multi-
plicandae praeter necessitate™,."

7. Vain Attempt at an a priori Deduction of Three-
dimensional Space : Cohen, Natorp. — We do not mean
hereby that the three dimensions of space can be deduced
a priori from a pure rational exigency : if thought has
constructed mathematical space, and has done so in
that determinate form, it is due to the fact that experience
demanded this construction in order that it might be
transcribed in intelligible terms. If we do not take the

u

290 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

special characteristics of the empirical data into account,
we shall not see why reason has been forced to construct
the category of space with just that number of dimen-
sions. The attempt made by Natorp,29 following in the
footsteps of Cohen,30 to deduce space with all the other
determinations of nature from the pure activity of
thought is undoubtedly a failure. In ultimate analysis
Natorp's proof does but show that without space and just
this form of space we could never attain to the complete
univocal determination of the object of thought. But
is space necessary to the thought of a completely deter-
mined and individualised existence ? Do we not con-
ceive the unique reality of our consciousness, and of
the consciousness of others in its concrete determina-
tion without being obliged to make use of spatial co-
ordinates ? The characteristic of reversibility, which
differentiates spatial from temporal series, is so far from
necessary to the requirement of complete individualisa-
tion that certain philosophers (Royce amongst others)
who, regarding as the end of knowledge complete in-
dividuality exclusive of every other alternative (much as
does Natorp), consider its principal characteristic to be
the irreversible process of time, i.e. a series developing in
a single order in a determinate sense. The possibility of
inverting this order, the abstract homogeneity of space,
which allows us to make the two opposite directions
issuing from one and the same point coincide by rotat-
ing one of them in the plane round this point, would,
according to these philosophers, remove us farther from
univocal determination. Is not reality sufficiently
individualised as a irreversible series of moments ?
Why add to the single direction of time the infinite
multiplicity of directions contained in the concept of
space ? Do we thus gain in determination ? I do not
think so. Try as you may, you will never succeed in
deriving from the demand for an ultimate determination,
which leaves nothing undetermined, the necessity of an
infinite number of directions issuing from a point, and
of their connection in a continuous and homogeneous

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 291

system, which is the fulcrum of your proof of the
three-dimensional nature of space. What Natorp
regards as necessitating a new dimension is the logical
exigency of the continuity of the transition from one
direction to the opposite : thus the second dimension
of the plane is necessary in order to allow of the con-
tinuous transition from one direction issuing from a point
to the opposite direction ; a third dimension is necessary
in order to conceive the continuous rotation of the semi-
plane on one of its axes in such a way as to come to
coincide with the opposite semiplane. We do not require
more, because with three dimensions only the rotation
of the plane can be inverted and the transition made
continuously from one direction to the opposite. Hence
Euclidean space is necessary and sufficient for the
production of a homogeneous and continuous system
of spatial determinations, such as is required by the
concept of existence.31 In this proof of his Natorp
postulates two propositions : first, that one direction
only developing in an irreversible order, as, for example,
the series of instants of time, would suffice for the uni-
vocal determination of reality ; second, that opposite
directions are necessary, and the order of the elements
of the series must always be reversible, because, were it
not so, there would be a sudden saltus from one direction
to the opposite one, whereas thought by the law of
continuity exacts a gradual transition from one to the
other, that is to say, a series of intermediate directions.32
Now with regard to the first proposition, we note that
from a logical point of view an existence completely
determined in an irreversible series is very far from
inconceivable ; if our thought constructs an opposite
direction, and other intermediate ones of all senses,
it does so because the series of tactile, visual, and kin-
aesthetic sensations cannot be ordered in one sense only,
and the data of sensible experience could not be exhausted,
much less understood, with the temporal direction alone.
Three-dimensional space remains unexplained, unless the
exigencies peculiar to its data, together with their special

292 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

characteristics, be taken into account as well as the
exigencies of thought. As to the second proposition,
it may be observed that if the continuous transition from
one order of elements to the opposite order were really
necessary to thought, this exigency should be satisfied
not only in the case of the opposite senses of the plane
with reference to any one of its straight lines, but
also in that of the opposite orders of three-dimensional
space with reference to any place dividing it into two
parts. In the case of space also it should be possible
to conceive a continuous transition between the two
opposed senses, a rotation leading by degrees to the in-
version of the order of the elements with reference to the
plane. Now it is well known that in three-dimensional
space rotation of such a nature as to lead to the coincidence
of symmetrical solid figures is not always possible.
Must we conceive a fourth dimension, as has been argued
by some philosophers ? Natorp stops short at three ;
but in that case can opposite orders exist for thought
without a continuous transition from one to the other ?
If this be so, why not stop short at the plane, or even
at the straight line ? The truth is that it is not the part
of pure thought to exact three dimensions and three only
for real existence, but that the epistemological justifica-
tion of such a determinate number of dimensions must
be sought in the fact that it is necessary and sufficient
to exhaust and make intelligible the series of sensorial
data with their characteristics which are immediately
experienced by us.

8. Impossibility of an Experimental Proof of Eudidean
Geometry : Stallo, Poincare, Couturat. — The limitation
of the number of dimensions to three thus appears to us
justifiable a priori as the only adequate solution of the
problem which spatial experience has set to thought.
Can the same be said of the postulate of parallels
Most metageometricians are agreed in affirming that)
experience alone can decide between the Euclidean and
non-Euclidean systems, a thesis which has been subjected
to special criticism by Stallo, Poincare, and Couturat.

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 293

Supposing, says Stallo,33 an astronomer turns his
telescope on to a star in order to determine its parallax,
and that he finds this parallax to be of appreci-
ably higher value than that of less distant stars ;
supposing, in other terms, the angle of intersection
between the straight lines of his sight to differ from that
required by the laws and facts known to astronomy and
optics : to what conclusion will he come ? We may
safely say that no one would attempt to explain this
anomaly of the parallax by a pseudo - sphericity of
space ; he would rather try to find the physical cause
producing it, like Bradley, who, having discovered
during the first half of the eighteenth century that the
apparent displacement of the star 7 of the constella-
tion of the Dragon, due to the revolution of the
earth, differed in direction and amount from that
resulting from calculation, was led after many hypotheses
to explain this anomaly by the aberration of light.
Couturat M draws attention to the fact that in astro-
nomical triangles the three vertices are not accessible,
so that it is impossible to measure the three angles
directly, and, if one of them be calculated by means of the
others, the proposition is postulated which ought to be
proved. How are we to make sure, then, that the sides
of the triangle are straight lines ? By means of the
definition of the straight line, in virtue of which not
more than one such line can pass through two given
points ; this is, however, an axiom which permits of
exceptions in Riemann's spherical space, and still more
in Klein's elliptic space, and which Russell regards as
being of empirical value only. Those who maintain that
Euclidean geometry can be verified by means of measure-
ment implicitly assume that our space has a constant
curvature, and that our measuring instruments therefore
remain invariable in their displacement. Now Poincare 35
has proved that hypothetical beings living in a non-
isogeneous space would of necessity be led to conceive of
it as isogeneous, because their measuring instruments
would vary proportionately to the bodies to be measured

294 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

and to their own bodies, and the relation of measure
would therefore remain constant. Lechalas tried to
evade this objection S6 by considering rays issuing from
the same centre and falling upon a rectilinear base at
different angles : these rays, which will meet in a point
in isogeneous space, will not do so in a non-isogeneous
space, and this would afford an empirical criterion by
which to verify the isogeneity of space. Couturat, how-
ever, does not regard this reply as decisive,37 because
Lechalas attributes the form of Euclidean straight lines
to the second series of rays, forgetting that in Poincare's
non-isogeneous space the index of refraction is inversely
proportionate at every point to the absolute temperature,
i.e. to the linear dilatation at that point. The luminous
rays will not then be rectilinear and can therefore con-
verge until they meet in spite of the deformation
of the base, since they in their turn would undergo a
deformation. The isogeneity of space cannot be verified,
because all measurement presupposes it, by postulat-
ing the constancy of the unit. The experimental
verification of the Euclidean axioms thus revolves in a
vicious circle. Moreover, as was already pointed out
by Calinon,38 we know only the tangents of the lumin-
ous rays emitted by the stars at the point where they
strike our eye ; it is therefore possible that the rays
are not rectilinear, but that they are subject to two
conditions : each of them must be determined by two
points ; all of those emanating from the same star
must, no matter what their form may be, meet at
a point, which is the real position of the star, as if
they were rectilinear. Any geometry can be applied
to the real world through the medium of a suitable
hypothesis as to the path of luminous rays. Klein89
gives utterance to a similar thought, regarding, as he
does, all forms of space as equally compatible with our
experience : by far the larger part of the universe
is indeed only known to us by means of sight or per-
spective, that is to say, through its projective properties;
hence it can be constructed indifferently in any one

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 295

of the metrical geometries which are protectively equi-
valent.

Poincare40 has subjected the alleged experimental
proof of Euclidean geometry to further criticism.
Experiences merely teach us the relations of bodies to
each other ; neither of them either does or can tell us any-
thing about the relations of bodies to space or about the
mutual relations of the different parts of space. Russell
affirms that dynamics would cease to be possible without
Euclidean geometry ; now it is obvious that if we
forsake Euclid's geometry for that of Lobatchewsky
we should be forced to modify the enunciations of all
the laws of dynamics, which could not exist without a
language to express them, and which are modified along
with this language, but this does not, however, imply that
the verification of one of these laws proves the truth
of this or that special expression. The human mind
frames with the help of its own resources alone a system
of signs or symbols suited to represent the system of
relations which we term experience ; and, since signs
are of their very nature conventional, it can construct
an infinite number of equivalent systems, which can be
translated into one another, just like different languages.
Euclidean geometry is but one of countless others which
we might equally well have chosen, and we give it the
preference, not because it gives a more faithful reflection
of objective reality and is imposed on us by experience,
but because we regard it as a more convenient language
than the rest.41 Geometrical axioms are neither
synthetic a priori judgments nor experimental facts,
but conventions. The choice we make among all
possible conventions is guided by experimental facts,
but it is free and is limited by nothing but the necessity
of avoiding all contradiction. Thus the postulates can
be rigorously true, though the experimental laws which
have determined their adoption are of a merely approxi-
mative nature. In other words, the axioms of geometry
are but disguised definitions ; hence there is no sense
in asking whether Euclidean geometry be true or false.

296 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

Such a question amounts to the same thing as asking
whether the metric system be true and the older
measures false : one geometry cannot be possessed of
a greater degree of truth than another ; it can merely
be more convenient, because it is simpler.42 Euclidean
and non-Euclidean geometry rest upon a common basis,
i.e. a continuum of three dimensions, which is the same
for all, and differs only as to the figures delineated
therein, and as to the method of measuring them
adopted.43 Either of the two spaces may then issue
from this amorphous continuum, just as either a straight
line or a circle may be drawn upon a blank sheet of paper
at will. We are acquainted in space with rectilinear
triangles in which the sum of the angles is equal to two
right angles, but we also know curvilinear triangles in
which the sum of the angles is less than two right
angles ; if we call the sides of the first straight lines, we
are adopting Euclidean geometry ; if we apply that name
to those of the second, our geometry is non-Euclidean.
Neither experience, nor intuition, which may equally
well represent the Euclidean and the non-Euclidean
triangle, can decide the question ; the Euclidean straight
line is merely preferable to the rest, because it differs
but little from certain natural objects from which the
non-Euclidean straight line differs very considerably.
In like manner we confine the number of dimensions
to three for reasons of a practical order, which have
worked for centuries in the psychological genesis of
space in such a way as to constitute a mental habit.
We do not know from experience that space has only
three dimensions, it is merely more convenient to
attribute three to it, because our sensations are thus
more simply ordered. The number of dimensions is not
then an a priori necessity, but is suggested by practical
reasons : usually we place the muscular sensations
imparted to us by movements of accommodation and
convergence in the same series, because the members
thereof correspond exactly to one another, so that they
can be regarded as depending upon a single variable ;

en. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 297

but were we to distinguish between the sensations of
convergence and those of adjustment, we should have a
four-dimensional space ; if in touch we were to dis-
tinguish between the various series of sensations to which
movements of different kinds give rise, we should con-
struct a space having as many dimensions as there are
muscles.44 It is not beyond the bounds of possibility
to conceive of physical phenomena in a space having
more than three dimensions : Hertz's system of mechanics
gives us an example. Hertz, in order to eliminate the
idea of force, supposed visible material points to be
subject to certain invisible bonds connecting them with
other invisible points, and that which we term force to be
the effect of these ties. Suppose a system to be formed
of n material points either visible or invisible : we shall
then have 3n co-ordinates in three-dimensional space ;
Hertz, however, thinks it would be more convenient to
regard them as the co-ordinates of a single point in a
space having 3n dimensions. The ties of which we have
already spoken will force this point to remain on a
superficies (having any number of dimensions smaller
than 3w), and in order to pass from one point to another
on this surface it will always take the shortest way.
The whole of mechanical science can thus be simply
and elegantly summed up with the help of this single
principle. Be the value of this hypothesis what it may,
the fact that Hertz was able to conceive it as more
convenient than the habitual hypothesis proves that
three-dimensional space is not irresistibly imposed upon
mechanics.45

Russell,46 in reply to the criticisms of Couturat and
Poincare, has insisted upon the possibility of an experi-
mental proof of Euclidean geometry. It is commonly
stated that the inaccuracy of the measurement of
astronomical angles leaves the question undecided ; it
is not, however, essential to our purpose that the line
with which we experiment should be absolutely straight
or that the bodies should be absolutely rigid ; it will
suffice to know the limit within which the lines deviate

298 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

from the straight and the bodies from absolute rigidity,
the bounds within which the spatial constant must neces-
sarily be found. Even if a formal demonstration be not
possible, our proof will suffice from an empirical point of
view. We are unable to determine accurately that our
space is Euclidean, just as we are unable to give a rigor-
ous proof of the law of gravitation ; on the other hand,
however, no theoretical limit can be assigned to the degree
of approximation of which such a proof is susceptible.
In short, the Euclidean axioms are susceptible of
empirical proof in the same sense as other scientific laws,
that is to say, it can be shown that they constitute the
simplest hypothesis for the explanation of facts, although
it is possible to imagine other facts of which a slightly
non-Euclidean space would afford a simpler explanation.
The empirical nature of these axioms does not, however,
imply that they may any moment become false or that
the fourth dimension may be discovered in some other
country or planet : be the nature of space what it may,
we cannot admit that it is capable of varying with time.
It is in the last analysis permissible to doubt whether
space be three-dimensional, but only in so far as we
throw doubt upon truths of fact and the data of the
senses. Finally, the Euclidean axioms are not pro-
positions relative to our sensibility, imposed by a priori
intuition, but are as certain as any truth of fact can be.
9. Euclidean Geometry more Rationally Complete
than the Rest. — Russell's thesis 47 does not appear to me
wholly acceptable because it fails to explain how human
thought came to ascribe a greater degree of evidence to
the axioms of Euclid than to the laws derived from
experience. Is this a mere illusion ? Or is it based
upon a characteristic peculiar to the science of space?
In my opinion the latter alternative should be chosen,
and we must therefore determine wherein lies the dis-
tinctive character of geometrical truths. We have
already seen that pure intuition cannot act as the basis
of the Euclidean axioms, because no such faculty exists
1 among the functions of consciousness. Strive as we

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 299

may to extend and correct our representation, we
remain very far from the perfection and ideal limits of
the mathematician : it is not possible to imagine an
infinite straight line or two parallel lines in their geo-
metrical precision. If we are unable to prove the axioms
by means of perception, still less can we do so by means
of imagination which is subject to the same limits of the
threshold and the same errors as perception; because,
whereas in external measurements exact instruments
afford us the means of reducing the errors of sensorial
data, and of transcending limits, and thus approximat-
ing to the ideal set up by mathematics, the psycho -
physiological structure of the organism sets insuperable
bounds to our imagination of geometrical forms and
dimensions. Thought alone with its concepts is capable
not only of transcending the limits of subjective
representation, but of being more accurate than any
measurement made with objective instruments. The
character of necessity and universality pertaining to
geometrical concepts is derived from the ideal nature of
those concepts. But, we might here observe, does not
non-Euclidean geometry contradict Euclidean ? Is it
not then absurd to pretend that they are both equally
necessary and universal ? The contradiction is, in my
opinion, only apparent, and arises from an abuse of
terminology. Euclid's triangle is not the same figure
as that of Lobatchewsky or Biemann, hence it is not
surprising that that which can be proved of the one
should not be applicable to the other. If you call that
a straight line which has hitherto been called a curve,
it is only natural that you should arrive at different
conclusions ; just as the anatomy of the dog would
cease to be the same if by this name you understand
another animal such as the horse. If by a straight line
we understand that defined by Euclid and by a triangle
the rectilinear triangle, the sum of the internal angles
is equal to two right angles ; this does not, however,
prevent the sum of the angles of a triangle whose
sides are not straight, but correspond to what Euclid

300 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. n

calls a curve, being greater or less than two right
angles.

Euclidean geometry does not exclude these curvi-
linear triangles, but affirms with justice that they are
not the only ones in existence, and that it is possible
to conceive of others the sum of whose angles is equal
to two right angles. Such an assumption is not only
allowable but necessary, unless we would cause an
arbitrary interruption of the continuity of the process
of thought. Euchd's rectilinear triangle may be regarded
as the limit of the series of the triangles of the so-called
spherical spaces and of the series of triangles of the
pseudo-sphere, in which the degree of curvature of the
sides gradually decreases. There is no sense in asking
whether this limit reatty exists, that is to say, whether it
exists in empirical space : the essential thing is that it
shall exist ideally, and that it shall be impossible to avoid
conceiving it, if we would not interrupt the continuous
transition from a positive to a negative degree of
curvature. Little by little, as the degree of curvature
decreases, the sum of the angles will approach more and
more closely to two right angles and will be identical
therewith in the passage to the limit. Though the
various systems of geometry may reach different con-
clusions, they do not contradict one another, because
their axioms and theorems refer to different figures.
The concept of three-dimensional space in its infinite
homogeneity remains unchanged in them all, the only
things which undergo change are the figures drawn
in space and depending upon the value of the spatial
constant. The difference between the three geometries
may be stated as follows : whereas Euclidean geometry
does not exclude the existence of triangles other than
the rectilinear triangle, but merely distinguishes them
and calls them by another name, the two other geometries
banish true rectilinear triangles and take nothing but
curvilinear triangles into consideration. They are not
false, but defective in so far as they are partial, they
fail, that is to say, to exhaust all the figures and rela-

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 301

tions of figures which can be conceived in ideal space.48
Euclidean geometry hence appears to us to be the most
complete, in as much as it can transcribe the figures of
the other geometries into terms of its own figures by
means of a mere change of language ; whereas the other
two, excluding as they do from the first by means of an
artificial hypothesis the possibility of certain figures,
give us but a fragment of three-dimensional geometrical
space. Thus if we are asked : Which of the three
geometries is true ? we have no hesitation in replying
that all three are true, in as much as they refer to
different figures ; at the same time, from the episte-
mological point of view, we feel justified in stating that
Euclidean geometry more nearly fulfils the demand for
the complete intelligibility of space than the others do,
since it alone is capable of exhausting the whole of its
ideal existence.

Though figures and geometrical space exist only
ideally in thought, they are not mere fictions or convenient
signs upon which no judgment of truth or falsehood can
be passed, as Poincare asserts. Even with reference to
applied geometry it is certain that if no figure fulfils
perfectly the conditions laid down by mathematicians,
an indefinite approximation to this ideal type is possible,
and we observe that the more nearly these conditions
are verified, the more perfectly do we encounter the pro-
perties which are of necessity connected therewith in
our thought.49 We should not find our geometry more
convenient than any other were the space of experience
not more naturally transcribed into certain conceptual
terms than into others : experience is not absolutely
indifferent, it is not capable of assuming any spatial
order whatsoever, it rather suggests to thought the
direction in which the process of idealisation should be
accomplished ; it shows us, for instance, that the more
nearly the degree of curvature of the sides of the triangle
approximates to zero, the more closely will the sum of
the angles approximate to two right angles, so that,
continuing conceptually the process which in experience

302 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE

PT. n

and intuition can be pursued only up to a certain
point, we conclude by passing to the limit that in the
rectilinear triangle the sum of the internal angles is equal
to two right angles. This conclusion of ours is legitimate,
because the empirical data are arranged in regular series,
which point out to us the road we ought to take, and
thought, once started on this road, arrives at the ideal
limit by a law inherent in its very nature. The concept
which results therefrom with all its properties is not a
fiction depending upon our caprice, but rather the one
and only and necessary conclusion at which it is possible
to arrive, given those empirical or intuitive data, and
given the nature of our thought ; in this way alone is
it possible to make the data of experience intelligible,
by a transformation of empirical into ideal space. The
possibility of arriving within certain limits at various
systems of geometry is due to the fact that one and the
same order of concepts can be translated into different
languages, which rob science of none of its universal
value, unless we would by an absurd nominalism
identify the concept with the symbol expressing it. Is
not the possibility of translating one system of signs
into another, and non- Euclidean geometries into
Euclidean terms and vice versa, as Poincare himself
maintains, a proof that equivalent symbols express one
and the same concept ? A dictionary is only possible
when the different terms correspond to the same idea
which is thought universally by all men, though they
give expression to it in different ways. In like manner
the system of analytical signs and their relations is
capable of infinite variations, because it depends upon
certain conventions ; this does not, however, change the
concept of geometrical space, which is universally recog-
nised, because it is the only one which meets the demand
for perfect intelligibility.

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1 A complete bibliography of the works on these new geometrical
speculations has been published by Halstead (" Bibliography of Hyperspace

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 303

and non-Euclidean Geometry," American Journal of Mathematics, vol. i.
p. 261 ff. ; voL ii. p. 65 ff.). For the history of non-Euclidean geometry
see Klein, Vorlesungen uber nicht - euclidischen Geometrie (Gottingen,
1893) ; Russell, An Essay on the Foundations of Oeometry (Cambridge and
London, 1897).

8 For the history of these attempts, of which that of Legendre in 1833
was the last, see Stackel and Engel, Die Theorie der Parallellinien von
Euclid bis auf Gauss (Leipzig, Teubner, 1895).

* " Disquisitiones generates circa seriem infinitam," Comm. recent.
Soc. GStt. 2 (1811-13); "Theoria residuorum biquadraticorum," ibid. 7
(1828-32).

4 Lobatschewsky first published his results in Russian in the Proceedings
of the University of Kazan (1829-30), but they remained unknown until
he translated them into French : " Geometrie imaginaire," Journal de
Crelle (1837), voL xvii.

s His results first appeared as an appendix to a work of his father's :
Appendix, scientiam spatii absolute veram exhibens, a veritate aut falsitate
axiomatis XI. Euclidei (a priori haud unquam decidenda) independenteni ;
adiecta ad casum falsitatis quadratura circuli geometrica (translated into
French by Hougl in 1868, repubUshed by Hermann, Paris, 1896).

6 The method had been suggested almost a century previously by the
Italian Saccheri, whose work, Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus (Mediolani,
1733), remained unknown till Beltrami discovered it.

7 " Uber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grande liegen."
This dissertation, which was read by Riemann before the faculty of philo-
sophy of the University of Gottingen, was published after the death of
the author in 1866 (Abhand. d. Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschafl zu Got-
tingen, voL xiii. p. 133 ff.).

8 Note that the curvature of an w-dimensional manifold is a purely
analytical expression having a merely symbolic affinity with ordinary
curvature. Russell, in order to avoid misunderstanding, makes use of the
term " space-constant."

9 Klein calls these three species of space elliptic, parabolic, and hyper-
bolic ("Uber die sogenannte nicht - euclidischen Geometrie," Mathe-
matische Annalen, vol. iv. p. 577). Klein's elliptical space is not, however,
absolutely identical with spherical space, since while in the latter the
geodesic lines may have two points in common, they cannot have more
than one point of intersection in elliptic space.

10 " Uber die Thatsachen, die der Geometrie zu Grande liegen," Nach-
richten der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft zu Gottingen (3 giugno,
1865).

11 Cp. his polemic with Land in Mind, vols. ii. and iii.

11 " Teoria fondamentale degli spazi di curvatura costante," Annali
di mathematica, voL ii. (1868-69); " Saggio d' interpretazione della
geometria non-euclidea," Giornale di matematica, voL vi. (1868).

13 Vortrdge und Reden, voL ii. p. 237.

14 " Los Axiomes geometriques," Revue scientifique (June 1877).
16 Mind, voL ii. p. 45.

18 La Matiere et la physique moderne, p. 191 ff.

" Op. cit. p. 573.

18 Klein, Poincare, and Lie have constructed analytical developments
which contain the series of theorems of the three systems of geometry
corresponding to the three different hypotheses. A special vocabulary
has been formed allowing of the translation of the enunciations of non-
Euclidean geometry into Euclidean terms.

304 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

19 Milhaud, Essai sur les conditions et les limites de la certitude logique,
p. 167.

80 Pasch (Neuere Geometric, Leipzig, 1882) endeavoured to construct
a geometry by strictly empirical methods, maintaining the object of this
science to be not types of ideal figures, but things themselves in their
material form ! Thus he regards a point as a corpuscle which cannot be
further divided into parts within the limits of our observation ! Even
Pasch, however, is forced to abandon the empirical method when, for instance,
he assumes the penetrability of solids, which is not a matter of experience,
and the motion of them without deformation, as he does in the definition
of the congruence of two figures. Of a more moderate order is the empiri-
cism of Freycinet, De ^experience en geometrie (Paris, 1903), who, while
maintaining that geometrical axioms are experimental truths, resulting
from observation of the outer world, yet introduces a process of purification
and idealisation.

21 Revue philosophique, voL iii. p. 574.

" It should be remembered in this connection that Kant himself
conceived the idea of a general geometry : " Eine Wissenschaft von alien
diesen moglichen Raumsarten ware unfehlbar die hochste Geometrie,
die ein endlicher Verstand unternehmen konnte," Gedanken von der
wahren Schdtzung der kbendigen Krafte (1747), p. 10.

28 " Les Espaces geometriques," Revue philosophique (1889, 1891), 2 ;
" Sur Pindetermination geometrique de Punivers," ibid. (1893), 2.

u " Les Espaces geometriques," Revue philosophique, voL xxxii.
p. 375.

25 Op. cit. p. 192.

26 Introduction a la geometrie generate (Paris, 1904) ; Etude sur FEspace
et le temps, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1909), p. 68 ff.

27 Veronese must be credited with having recognised that in order to
speak of a geometry with more dimensions it will not suffice to prove that
it is possible to find an analytic expression for it, but that it is also
necessary to show that we are dealing with real true geometrical beings.
He therefore endeavours to construct spaces having more than three
dimensions with the help of the ordinary intuitive elements. Given space
of three dimensions and a point outside it, he constructs, e.g., space of four
dimensions, and the others analogously by the synthetic method. This,
of course, presupposes the conceivability of a point external to our space,
which is decidedly problematic, since, whatever efforts we make, the point
thought of will always remain in three-dimensional space.

28 The same error will be found in Erdmann (Axiome der Geometrie,
1877), who, like Riemann, claims to deduce space from the concept of
magnitude. In order to define space as magnitude he starts from its two
most obvious properties, continuity and the three dimensions ; but, since
these two properties are also, according to Erdmann, common to the
manifolds of sounds and colours, to distinguish space from these manifolds
it is necessary to add that in space, though not in sounds and colours, the
dimensions are homogeneous and permutable. In the more general case
the manifold is n times determined (»-bestimmt) ; in space it is n times
extended (n-ausgedehnt).

29 System der Philosophic, pt. i., "Logik der neuen Erkenntnis"
(Berlin, 1902), p. 162 ff.

80 Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaflen (Leipzig, 1910),
p. 303 ff.

81 Op. cit. p. 306 ff.

82 Op. cit. p. 326.

CH. i NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY 305

» Op. cit. pp. 179-181.

84 Revue de metaphysique et de morale (May 1898), p. 371 S.

38 Revue generate des sciences pures et appliques (January 30, 1892).

38 fitudes sur Fespace et le temps, 2nd ed. pp. 181-197.

37 Revue de metaphysique et de morale, voL iv. (1896), p. 648.

38 " L'Indetermination geometrique de 1'univers," Revue philosophique
(1893), vol. xxxvi. pp. 595-607.

39 Zur ersten Verteilung des Lobatchewsky Preises, p. 20.

40 " Des Fondaments de la geometric a propos du livre de M. Russell,"
Revue de met. et de mor., p. 251 ff. ; " Reponse a M. Russell," ibid. p. 79
(January 1900).

41 Science et hypothese, p. 65 ff.

42 Ibid. p. 90 ff.

43 La Valeur de la science, p. 61.

44 Science et hypothese, p. 72 ff. ; La Valeur de la science, p. 103 ff.
48 La Valeur de la science, p. 126 ff.

46 " Les Axiomes propres a Euclide sont-ils empiriques ? " Revue de
met. et de mor. (November 1898), p. 760 ; " Sur les axiomes de la geo-
metrie, ibid. (November 1899), p. 685 ff.

47 Note that Russell is here speaking of applied geometry ; in the next
chapter we shall see what view he takes of pure geometry.

48 The non-Euclidean systems of geometry exclude, for instance, the
possibility of similar figures. Delbceuf regards this as the main argument
against non-Euclidean geometry, since the impossibility of enlarging the
figure without changing the form thereof appears to him to contradict the
perfect homogeneity of space (" L'ancienne et les nouvelles geometries,"
Revue philosophique, voL xxxvii. p. 380 ff. ; cp. also Megamicros, ou les
effete sensibles d?une reduction proportionnelle des dimensions de Vunivers
(Paris, Alcan, 1893).

49 Poincare's objection that it is impossible to separate in the experi-
ment that which is due to physical actions from that which depends upon
the special structure of space is valueless, since we can cause the spatial
conditions to vary while keeping the physical conditions unchanged, and
vice versa, thus effecting a relative separation between the effects of the
one and those of the other.

C;ITAPT;ER n

THE NEW LOGICAL ELABORATION OF
PURE MATHEMATICS

1 . Fusion of Logic with Mathematics towards the Middle
of the Nineteenth Century. — Until the middle of the
nineteenth century mathematics and logic had remained
apart in spite of the attempts made by Jungius and
Leibnitz to bring them together,1 but during the second
half of the century mathematicians were seized by
logical scruples unknown to their predecessors, and
began to analyse all the methods of proof, to verify
the concatenation of their theorems, to investigate the
hypotheses and postulates which crept surreptitiously
into their arguments, and to give prominence to the
axioms or principles which were the starting-point of
their deductions, and upon which their theories depended.
The infinitesimal calculus, which had till then preserved
something paradoxical and mysterious in its principles,
found its strict basis in the theory of limits ; the theory
of functions, over which notions of intuitive origin had
long held sway, was refined and deepened ; geometry
and mechanics, freed as far as possible from intuition,
became hypothetical deductive systems, based upon a
certain number of axioms and postulates, from which
everything else is logically deduced. Mathematicians,
in laying bare the foundations upon which their science
rested, were thus led to form two new theories which
were destined to serve as the basis of all others : the
theory of assemblages and that of groups, that is to
say, the science of multiplicity and that of order.

306

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 307

Moreover, the science of number and magnitude began
to be regarded merely as a small division of a more far-
reaching science based upon notions about which there
was nothing quantitative, a view opposed to that of the
school of Weierstrass, which claimed to reduce the
content of analysis and of pure mathematics as a whole
to the single idea of number, in its endeavour to
" arithmeticise mathematics," as Klein expresses it.2
Logic, on the other hand, strove to extend its domain,
which had previously been limited to the relations of I
inclusion of concepts, and to discover new forms of
deduction. Formal logic, borrowing the method and
symbolism of algebra,3 established itself under the two-
fold form of the calculus of classes and the calculus of
propositions, finding surprising analogies between these
two branches, and enlarged its borders till it became
a general logic of all relations 4 ; since, moreover, the
simplest and most elementary relations are to be found in
mathematical theories, it was only natural that it should
apply itself to analysing and verifying the concatena-
tion of the propositions, and to proving mathematical
axioms by reducing them to purely logical principles.
Thus the gulf between logic and mathematics was
bridged over : the calculus of classes presented itself
as the most elementary part of the theory of assem-
blages, and the logic of relations as the indispensable
basis of the theory of groups and the theory of functions.
This fusion of logic and mathematics, which began
during the past century in the bary-centric calculus of
Mobius (1827), the calculus of equipollences of Bellavitis
(1832),inGrassmann's theory of extension and Hamilton's
method of quaternions, became an accomplished fact in
the works of Peano, Fieri, Whitehead, and Russell.

2. Peano' s Logistic and its Application to Arithmetic
and the Geometrical Calculus. — Peano was not content
merely to apply logical symbolism to arithmetic, which
he formulated into a strict deductive system,5 but also
developed a geometrical calculus, in which he makes
use of the notation contained in Grassmann's Aits-

308 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

dehnungslehre, a work which had hitherto remained
almost unknown owing to the elevation and abstruseness
of its concepts.6 The geometrical calculus in general
consists of a system of operations carried out upon
geometrical entities, analogous to those of algebra on
numbers, and enables us to express the results of geo-
metrical constructions in formulas, to represent geo-
metrical propositions by means of equations, and to
substitute a transformation of equations for an argument.
This calculus, while presenting certain analogies with
analytical geometry, differs from it in that, whereas
in analytical geometry calculations are made on the
numbers which determine the geometrical entities, in
this new science the calculations are made on the
entities themselves. Fieri,7 in a series of interesting
articles, has contributed largely to the new logical
elaboration of geometry, whose goal is the establishment
of an accurate distinction between primitive and
indefinable geometrical entities and those derived from
them by definition, between the properties which must
be postulated and propositions drawn therefrom by
means of a pure deductive calculus.8

3. Geometry as a Hypothetico - Deductive System :
Fieri. — Fieri considers that geometry in all its branches
should be increasingly affirmed and consolidated as the
study of a certain order of logical relations, shaking off
little by little the somewhat feeble bonds between it and
intuition, and assuming in consequence the form of an
ideal science of a purely deductive and abstract order.
From this point of view we are led to acknowledge with
Pasch that if geometry is really to be a deductive science,
its arguments must not depend upon the intuitive
meaning of geometrical concepts, but must be based
on those relations only which are imposed on those
concepts by postulates and definitions. The primitive
entities of any deductive system whatsoever (the
geometrical point, for instance) must lend themselves
to arbitrary interpretations within certain limits
assigned by the primitive propositions, so that each

OH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 309

mathematician is at liberty to attach what meaning he
pleases to the words and signs representing those entities,
provided that this meaning be compatible with the
general properties laid down by the postulates and
definitions. Geometry thus becomes a hypothetical
science whose object is not the space of experience, but
merely an assemblage of abstract entities, created by
our mind, upon which an act of our will imposes
certain arbitrary properties expressed in the postulates.
Nominalism thus achieves a victory over the old realistic
conception of geometry.9

4. Whitehead's Universal Algebra. — Whitehead 10 • in
his universal algebra, which admits of very extensive
application, has realised the idea of a " universal
characteristic " conceived by Leibnitz. This universal
algebra embraces not merely geometry and kinematics,
but also mechanics and mathematical physics, because
it lends itself to the representation of matter with its
various qualities, and hence of all physical phenomena.
The power and fruitfulness of the new algorithm are
due to the fact that it shakes off the yoke of arithmetic,
and freely defines new combinations having but a formal
and partial analogy with arithmetical operations, instead
of confining itself, as did analytical geometry, to dis-
covering everywhere the properties of the addition and
multiplication of numbers, and admits different rules of
calculation suited to every application, instead of confin-
ing itself, as did classical algebra, to treating its symbols
according to the laws of numerical calculation. This
algorithm offers immense advantages in geometry,
because, instead of introducing three parallel and
simultaneous equations relative to the three axes, which
repeat the same geometrical fact, relation, or construction,
it expresses in a single formula the one fact, no longer
dismembered into its three projections, but with its
nature and physiognomy undef ormed and without the
intervention of extraneous quantitative concepts, thus
delivering us from the arbitrary element contained in
every system of co-ordinates. While in analytical

310 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

geometry the letters always represent numbers and
indirectly the magnitudes measured by these numbers,
in the calculus of extension the letters are a direct
representation of geometrical elements (points, lines,
planes), which not only have nothing in common with
numbers, but are not magnitudes either (at least not
primarily), and the formulas are a direct transcription
of geometrical constructions. This allows of the applica-
tion of the new algebra to the geometry of position and
enables it to give us a faithful translation of projective
constructions without having recourse to the notions
of number and measure. The algebraic symbols, which
represent the positions, have a co-efficient expressing
the intensity of that point ; and this intensive magnitude,
from which geometry makes abstraction by assuming it
to be always equal to 1, is of great use to mechanics and
physics, since it makes it possible to treat by means of
universal algebra those physical qualities of matter
which are susceptible of various degrees of intensity.
Thus mathematics is no longer the science of number
and magnitude, but becomes the science of all the types of
formal and deductive reasoning. That a certain assem-
blage of objects of thought should verify the principles
of such an algebra will be the sufficient condition that
it should also of necessity verify perforce all the pro-
positions derived from them : in short, the starting-point
alone is hypothetical, but once it has been verified,
everything else follows of deductive necessity.11

5. Russell on the Identity of Logic and Mathematics.—
This work of the logical systematisation of mathematics
was completed in Russell's book,12 the aim of which is
to prove the fundamental identity of logic and mathe-
matics, by showing all mathematical propositions to be
based upon eight indefinable notions and twenty un-
demonstrable principles, which are also the primitive
notions and principles of logic itself. Pure mathe-
matics thus assumes an exclusively logical character, and
its necessity becomes hypothetical, depends, that is
to say, upon certain conditions ; the theorem is true if

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 311

such and such an hypothesis be true. Russell 13 defines
pure mathematics as the totality of propositions having
the form, p implies q, in which p and q are propositions
containing the same variables, and containing none
but logical constants ; that is to say, it is a class
of formal implications which are independent of |
any and every content, hence the paradox : " Mathe-
matics is a science in which we never know what we
are speaking of, or whether what we say is true." 14
In applied mathematics, which endows these formal
implications with a material content, the theses of the
theorems become true only in the degree and measure
in which their hypotheses are verified by these data.
Geometry in so far as it refers to space and to the real
world is the arithmetic of concrete numbers ; that is to
say, all its applications to the numeration of objects
and the measuring of real magnitudes belong to applied
mathematics.

In order to reconstruct pure mathematics Russell
makes use of Peano's logistic ; he begins by determining
the laws of the calculus of propositions, of classes, and
of relations, which constitute a logical basis able to
support the whole edifice.15 If we take these elements
as our starting-point, we can define all the other notions
and prove all the other propositions of pure mathematics.
In this particular, Russell 16 modifies the theory of
Peano's school,17 which admits a special group of
indefinables for every branch of mathematics ; of the
three forms of definition considered by Peano, nominal
definition, definition by postulates, and definition by
abstraction, he recognises the first only. An object x
is nominally defined by an equivalence having the form
x = a, in which a is an expression formed with the elements
already known. It is merely the bestowal of a new
name, an abbreviation, which is not theoretically
necessary, however convenient and practically indis-
pensable to the progress of science it may be. Every
defined sign or word may therefore be suppressed
provided that its value be substituted for it ; should

312 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

such a substitution not be successful, the definition is
not complete.18 Such an explicit definition is not always
possible ; in such a case, if we would define a complex
of notions, we must have recourse to an assemblage of
relations verified by it ; but this group of postulates
only defines those entities to a certain degree, and may
leave their value undetermined, like a system of equa-
tions with several unknowns. The definition by ab-
straction is also imperfect : this definition consists in
stating in which cases a mathematical or logical function
is equal to itself for different values of the variable.
These forms of definition can be but provisional and must
be transformed into nominal definitions in a strictly de-
ductive system ; it should, however, be borne in mind
that even in this more perfect stage a definition is merely
a convention of language and must not therefore be
regarded either as a principle or as a source of truth ;
strictly speaking, it is neither true nor false, because
the only thing responsible for the consequences is the
existential judgment which must accompany and justify
it by a theorem or postulate affirming the compatibility
of the concepts constituting the meaning of the new
symbol, that is to say, the existence of at least one
individual verifying all these properties.19

6. Ordinal and Cardinal, Finite and Infinite Number.
— Arithmetic is the first branch of pure mathematics
to be presented to logical elaboration. Weierstrass
considers that the whole of analysis can be constructed
with the idea of number alone, but Russell, while
recognising the utility of the work performed under his
influence, since to it is due the exclusion of intuition
from the domain of mathematics, regards the reduction
of the primitive ideas of mathematics to the concept
of number alone as arbitrary. In the theory of groups
and substitutions,20 the essential idea is that of order,
hence this idea too must be admitted to be primitive side
by side with that of number. Certain mathematicians
have maintained that of the two forms of numbers, ordinal
and cardinal, the first named alone is irreducible and

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 313

a priori ; this view, however, is not accepted by Russell
and Couturat,21 who affirm the idea of order to be less
primitive and simple than that of number. Number '
may be defined in a purely logical way, by use of
the notion of class alone. Two classes have the same
cardinal number when a univocal and reciprocal corre-
spondence can be established between their elements,
that is to say, a one-to-one relation, or, to put it briefly,
when they are equivalent. Each number defined in this
way is regarded as the name of a class : the class of the
apostles, for instance, is one of the classes whose number
is twelve or, in more common parlance, is a dozen. In
short the cardinal number of a class u would be the
assemblage of the classes equivalent to u. Thus each of
the cardinal numbers is defined independently of the
others, and no order is assigned to them : in ultimate
analysis mathematical equality is reducible to logical
equality, that is to say, to the identity of a concept.
Thus even arithmetical operations can be defined without
the intervention of the idea of order ; arithmetical
addition, for instance, is defined by means of logical
addition : the arithmetical sum of two cardinal numbers
a and 6 (corresponding to two classes a and 6) is the
cardinal number of the logical sum of the classes a
and b, conditionally on these classes being disjuncted,
that is to say, on their having no element in common.
By means of the logic of relations Whitehead has given
a general proof of the associative law for addition and
multiplication, and of the distributive law of multi-
plication in relation to addition ; he has defined the
powers of a cardinal number, the combinations and
permutations of any number of objects whatsoever, and
has proved the principal theorems relating to these
notions, as, for instance, the generalisation of the
binomial formula. Thus Russell and Whitehead, taking
purely logical principles as their starting-point, have
succeeded in giving formal proof of all the propositions
of the theory of assemblages discovered by Cantor,
and thus in confirming the logical validity of this

314 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

theory by divesting it, as they do, of any appeal to
intuition.

The cardinal definition of number, given above,
is preferable to that of Dedekind,22 who begins by
defining numbers as simple ordinals, which are supposed
to become possessed of their cardinal meaning when
they are applied to the enumeration of concrete classes ;
because, whereas the cardinal definition extends to all
numbers, finite and infinite alike, the ordinal definition
is applicable only to a part of them, i.e. to those which
are obtainable, starting from 0 by repeated additions of
1, and for which the principle complete of induction is
valid. This principle is not a synthetic a priori principle,
as was maintained by Poincare,23 but merely a property
characterising finite numbers and forming part of their
definition. It is not valid of the transfinite classes defined
by Cantor,24 as those assemblages which are equivalent to a
proper part of themselves. The class of all whole numbers
(which Cantor indicated by the number a>) is equivalent
to that of all even numbers which forms a part of it,
because each term of the one can be made to correspond
with a term of the other, and vice versa.25 If in com-
paring the classes we also take the order of elements
into account, we shall arrive at the concept of ordinal
number. The two well-ordered series M and N belong
to the same type, or are like one another if they can be
made to correspond univocally and reciprocally in such
a way that, m and m' being two elements of the one,
and n and n' the corresponding elements of the other,
the relation of position of m and m' is the same as
that of n and n'. An ordinal number is then nothing
but the abstract concept of a type of order common to
like classes, and is thus defined without having recourse
to intuition, because the idea of order is in its turn
definable by the pure logic of relations. The linear order
of an open series, for instance, is reducible in the last
analysis to a transitive, asymmetrical relation ; that
is to say, to a relation between the terms x, y, z of the
class, such that if it exist between x, y and y, z, it also

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 315

exists between x and z, but cannot be inverted ; that
is to say, the two relations xRy and yRx exclude one
another reciprocally.

7. The Continuum. — The continuum may be defined
by means of pure relations of order without having
recourse to spatial intuition. The ordinal definition
of the continuum, which was formulated for the first
time by Enriques 26 and Cantor,27 has been simplified
by Whitehead as follows : " A series is continuous,
(1) when it has a first and last term, and when all its
segments (upper and lower alike) have a limit ; (2) when
it contains a denumerable, compact series, such that a
term of this latter series will be found between any two
terms of the former series." a The idea of magnitude
does not enter into this definition, but only that of
order, because the concepts of segment and limit can
be defined by means of pure ordinal relations. A
segment of a series E is an assemblage S containing
some, but not all, of the terms of E, not containing a last
term, and containing all the terms of E which precede
some term of S. A term x is the limit of a series S, if all
the terms of S be anterior to x, and if every term which is
posterior to all the terms of S be posterior to x. Cantor ^
has shown that all continua are equivalent, whatever
be the number of their dimensions ; that is to say, it is
possible to establish a one-to-one correspondence between
them, so that nothing distinguishes them, from the point
of view of the number of their elements. There are as
many points in a rectilinear (or curvilinear) segment,
as in a square or cube ; this paradoxical truth has been
illustrated by Peano, who has invented a curve which
fills a square, that is to say, which passes through all
the points of the square. Couturat ^ regards this a
manifest proof of the incompetence of intuition in
matters of geometry. Continua of a different number
of dimensions are not equivalent and indiscernible
except from the point of view of the cardinal number
of their elements ; but they are distinguished from
one another by their ordinal properties. A segment, a

316 IDEALISTIC KEACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

square, a cube, do not differ from one another as classes
of points, but only as regards the order and arrange-
ment of these points, that is to say, in ultimate analysis
as regards the relations set up between them, since
every order consists in a system of relations. That
which constitutes the continua having several dimen-
sions, no less than the linear continuum, is not an
assemblage of points, but an assemblage of asym-
metrical relations ; space is not a simple manifold, but
an ordered manifold. A one-dimensional assemblage is
a simple series whose terms are absolute individuals,
i.e. not relations ; a two-dimensional assemblage is a
double series whose terms are themselves simple series,
i.e. a relation of relations ; a three-dimensional assem-
blage is a triple series whose elements are double series,
i.e. a relation whose terms are relations of relations,
and so on.31

8. Geometry as a Hypothetico- Deductive System. —
Fieri 32 constructs the whole of protective geometry
with nothing but the two notions of point and of the
connecting fine between two points, defining straight
lines as relations of a certain type, and points as the prob-
lematic terms of these relations. In such a hypothetico-
deductive system, there ceases to be any such thing
as a primitive, undemonstrable proposition, because all
the postulates form part of the definition of projec-
tive space and constitute its hypothetical properties.
No one of them is categorically affirmed ; it is merely
stated that if a space be possessed of certain properties
enunciated in its definition, it will also be possessed of
the others which are enunciated in the theorems. Thus
projective geometry is reduced to the form of a vast
implication, and is therefore included in pure mathe-
matics, which knows no other principles than those of
logic ; the same may also be said of descriptive geometry.

Metrical geometry is historically anterior to the
geometry of position ; it is, however, logically posterior
thereto, since it of necessity implies relations of position
(for the most part unnoticed or neglected) upon which

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 317

relations of magnitude are superposed ; it is not the most
elementary, but the most complex part of geometry.
The most elementary truth, " two points determine1
a straight line," which is commonly regarded as the
definition of the straight line, implies a large number of
postulates. Neither Euclid nor his imitators can give
us any demonstration which is logically exact, and does
not imply an appeal to intuition. Couturat pronounces
the rigid accuracy of Euclidean geometry to be but a
legend w ; for proof of this statement it will suffice to
take into consideration the numerous errors which
Russell w has pointed out in the first twenty-six pro-
positions of Euclid. It is only in our day that mathe-
maticians have begun to take into account all the
postulates implied in the elements of geometry, and,
subsequently to the enunciation of these postulates, the
whole of geometry has been reconstructed in a purely
analytical manner, taking as the starting-point certain
primitive notions, which Peano ** considers to be
reducible to the point and distance. Others on the
contrary assume the primitiveness of the notion of
congruence, which is the presupposition of the possibility
of super-position, because two figures are not congruent
when they can coincide, but, vice versa, in order to
coincide, they must first be congruent ; and Pasch
postulates congruence between figures of any descrip-
tion ; Hilbert, between segments and angles ; Veronese,
between segments only.36 Pieri,37 on the other hand,
regards motion and the point as primitive concepts ;
but this is at bottom merely a mere intuitive way
of representing the relation of congruence, since in
geometry we do not take into consideration the con-
tinuous series of intermediate positions of the moving
point, but only the initial and final positions. Metrical
geometry, like that of position, is reducible to a purely
logical form, if the postulates be transformed into a
definition of metrical space : we give the name metrical
space (Euclidean or non-Euclidean) to an assemblage
endowed with the properties enunciated in the postu-

318 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

lates.38 Metrical geometry, or rather, each of the metrical
geometries, then assumes the form of a vast implica-
tion : if a certain assemblage of entities verify the funda-
mental properties enunciated in the postulates, it will
verify all the theorems of the corresponding geometry.
Thus geometry, or to express it more accurately,
the geometries, are no longer based upon primitive, un-
demonstrable propositions, and are no longer possessed
of axioms of their own differing from the general axioms
of logic. This transformation is legitimate, since so long
as we are constructing pure geometry, we speculate on
ideal spaces whose real existence we do not affirm ;
therefore we can, and indeed should, divest postulates
of their categorical character, in order to reduce them
to mere hypotheses problematically posited ; it is
necessary because, in order to reason on a space, we must
define that space, and we can only define it by enunciat-
ing its characteristic properties, from which all the
others are logically derived.39 The definition of a space
is the totality of the conditions which are necessary
and sufficient for the determination of all its properties.
Now a postulate must either belong to this totality
of conditions, in which case it ceases to be a postulate,
and becomes an integral part of the definition, or it
does not belong to it, in which case it is a theorem,
which can and therefore must be proved. There is no
room in a logically constructed geometry for postulates
of any description ; in short, as has been pointed out
by Poincare, postulates are but disguised definitions, or
rather, parts of a definition : Euclid's famous postulate,
for instance, is a mere complement of the definition of
the straight line, and of Euclidean space. Geometry
thus ceases to be an autonomous science having its
special principles, and based upon synthetic a priori
judgments, and becomes a series of formal deduc-
tions, dependent upon a definition from which logical
consequences are derived ad infinitum. Geometry no
longer has primitive notions of its own, just as it has
ceased to possess primitive propositions ; in fact the

CH. n ELABORATION OF PUKE MATHEMATICS 319

primitive notions in all the systems upon which we have
touched may be reduced to two : a class-concept,
which is termed point, and a notion of relation
(order, congruence, motion), which sometimes appears
in the guise of a class-concept (straight line, segment,
vector), when the analysis is not followed out to its
conclusion. Now the notion of point does not enter into
the logical structure of geometry : points have ceased to
be anything but the elements of certain assemblages, or
rather the terms of certain relations : they are objects
of which we know one thing only, viz.: that if certain
fundamental relations subsist between them (i.e. the
relations which are enunciated in the axioms) all the
theorems logically derived therefrom will be verified.40
Thus pure geometry, like a system of implications, affirms
nothing with regard to points : strictly speaking, it
neither knows them nor has need of them. On the other
hand, the relations constituting the second primordial
datum of the various systems are no longer indefinable,
because the logic of relations permits of their definition
by means of their formal properties. Mathematics
disregards the intrinsic nature of objects in order to take
into consideration nothing but their relations, so that
if two assemblages of objects, of a totally different
nature, verify the same relations, they will be submitted
to the same theory ; a proceeding of which mathe-
matical physics affords us many examples. But, if
mathematics be an abstract science, it is not such because
it disregards the properties of the objects of experience,
as is believed by empiricists, but because it has ceased
to be a science of objects at all, and has become a pure,
formal science, dealing only with the form of object
and their relations. This explains why mathematical
truths are of a priori universality and necessity : their
objectivity is due to the fact that, while they refer to no
object in particular, they are applicable to all possible
objects, like the laws of logic, whose characteristics
they possess, and of which they are the necessary con-
sequence. Geometry is distinguished from logic and

320 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

the other branches of mathematics, because it studies
multi-dimensional series, i.e. ordered multi-dimensional
assemblages, whereas arithmetic studies a series having
but one dimension, the natural series of numbers.41
Pure, wholly a priori geometry is an implication of
the form, if A be true, B is true : applied geometry,
which is an empirical science, says : A is true, there-
fore B is true, affirming the existence of A and B
in actual objective space, whereas pure geometry con-
fines itself to affirming their logical, ideal connection.
Intuition, which is absolutely excluded from pure
geometry, prevails in applied geometry, because it is indis-
pensable to give a direction and a support to the primitive
notions, and for the verification of the primitive pro-
positions (postulates) from which all the rest are derived.
Whereas pure geometry, for instance, ignores points,
and must ignore them, applied geometry has to determine
in real and objective space those elements to which it
will give the name of points, and their various rela-
tions, straight lines, plane, etc., because it is only
when this condition is fulfilled that geometrical pro-
positions acquire a real sense and become capable of
verification.

9. The Analytic Character of Mathematical Truths
according to Cowturat. — Russell regards pure mathe-
matics as being identical with logic from the standpoint
of form, in as much as it proceeds by logical principles
from logical definitions, and is distinguished there-
from merely by the special content of the relations it
studies ; hence its character of necessity, which renders
it possible to say with Benjamin Peirce : Mathematics
is the science which draws necessary conclusions.*2
Mathematics thus assumes an analytical character as
opposed to the Kantian thesis which would turn it into
a system of synthetic a priori judgments. That which
distinguishes the analytical and synthetical attributes of
a concept is the purely logical fact that they do or do
not form part of the definition of that concept : every-
thing which is contained in the definition of a concept

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 321

or is logically deduced therefrom is of an analytical
character ; everything which is added thereto for
reasons of extra - logical necessity is of a synthetic
nature.43 It is a mere matter of words whether a
definition be termed analytical or synthetical ; in reality
all mathematical definitions are purely nominal, that
is to say, they consist in the determination of the mean-
ing of a new term, supposed to be unknown, as a function
of old terms whose sense is already known ; it is a con-
vention as to the use of a simple sign which is substituted
for a combination of signs ; it can therefore in no way
influence the analytical or synthetical character of the
propositions deduced from, or rather deduced by means
of, it.44 The concept of the sum of 7 and 5
does not, according to Kant, contain anything more
than the union of these two numbers, which does not
at all imply the thought of the single number : analyse
the concept of this sum as much as you will, you will fail
to find the number 12, hence you must transcend this
concept and have recourse to intuition, by counting on
your ringers for instance. Now Couturat K regards this
as a gratuitous affirmation ; the sum of 7 and 5,
for the very reason that it implies the union of the
two numbers, or, to put it more accurately, that of
their units in a single number, contains this very
number, in as much as it determines it univocally ;
there is not merely equality but absolute identity
between 7 + 5 and 12, as can be proved by recourse
to the definition of numbers, according to which each
is equal to its predecessor plus 1, and to the equation
a + (b + !) = (« + 6) + 1, which is derived from the
definition of sum. Kant's error is explained by his
conception of logic, a conception both too restricted
and too simple. We may, he says, turn and turn our
concepts as much as we please without ever succeeding
in rinding the sum by merely resolving our concepts into
their component parts. Couturat, however, observes 46
that Kant starts from the false presupposition that all
concepts are composed of partial concepts, so that it

322 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

will suffice to resolve them into their component parts
in order to discover all their properties. Concepts
of number cannot be defined per genus proximum et
differentiam specificam, or be resolved into logical
factors ; this, however, merely proves the inadequacy of
classical logic, and does not give us the right to conclude
that arithmetical addition is beyond the grasp of true
logic, since it can and must be defined by means of the
logical sum of the classes a and 6 : the sum of 7 and 5
is the number of the collection formed by uniting the
two collections represented by 7 and 5. Intuition may
even be necessary as a psychological help ; this does not,
however, alter the fact that the concept of 7 + 5 must
by its very definition contain that of 12, or rather is
identical with it. The synthetic character of judg-
ments does not depend either upon the nature of the
concepts or upon their origin and mode of formation ;
it is possible to form analytic judgments upon empirical
concepts which are the product of an intuitive synthesis.47
Not even geometrical judgments are synthetic ; that is
to say, the judgment that the straight line is the shortest
distance between two points is not an axiom, but a
theorem which can be proved by means of the definition
of inequality and of the sum of segments and angles.
Kant regards the fact that in the course of mathematical
demonstrations we are frequently forced to have recourse
to auxiliary constructions as affording proof of the syn-
thetic character of geometrical truths. These auxiliary
constructions are, however, either merely aids to the
imagination, corresponding to elements which have
already been analytically determined, or useless, since
they are not indispensable in the demonstration.48
Neither is the existence of symmetrical figures an
argument in favour of the synthetic character of
geometry, since this merely proves the impossibility of
reducing space to its metrical properties only. It is
not true that two symmetrical figures are absolutely
equal ; they are so merely as regards the relations of
magnitude, but differ as to the relations of order which

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 323

may be defined by means of the logic of relations : in
the end two inverse orders correspond to inverse
relations, and the conversion of relations is a logical
operation.49

10. Intuition in Mathematics. — The new logical
elaboration of pure mathematics may be regarded as
a return to the rationalism of Leibnitz as opposed to
the intuitionism of Kant. Mathematicians do not all,
however, agree in placing an absolute ban upon intuition.
Felix Klein,50 after distinguishing three classes of
mathematicians — the logical, the formalist, and the
intuitive — vindicates the rights of intuition in the con-
struction of mathematics, and emphasises its usefulness
and even necessity in every sphere thereof, even in
the realm of abstract number, thus rehabilitating
geometrical intuition, which had been over-depreciated
and neglected by the excessive rigour and exclusive
purism of mathematicians of the formal and logical
schools. He shows, for instance, that a very simple
geometrical representation serves to interpret the
equivalence of binary quadratic forms in the theory of
numbers, and to illustrate Kummer's conception of ideal
numbers in algebra. It is not possible to base mathe-
matics solely upon logical axioms, and intuition must do
its share.51 Poincare, too,52 maintains the legitimacy

< of intuition, affirming that the two different types of
mathematicians, the intuitive (with whom he ranks
Klein, Bertrand, Riemann, and Lie) and the logical (such

! as Meray, L'Hermite, Weierstrass, and Kowalevski),
are equally necessary to the advance of science since
analysis and synthesis alike have their allotted task
to fulfil. Analysis gives us single parts but not a
general view ; logic and intuition are then both necessary,
the former affords us strict certainty and is the instru-
ment of proof, the latter is the organ of discovery.
There are discoverers in the ranks of the analysts ; they
are, however, but few in number : sensible intuition is
the more usual tool of discovery.53 To the accusation
of barrenness brought against logistic by Poincare and

324 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

other critics, Couturat has with justice replied that
logistic does not claim to be an instrument of discovery.54
Only a crass ignoratio elenchi can place the psychological
fact of discovery in opposition to logistic, since it is
not its business to inspire or explain discovery, but
merely to control and verify it. Would you reproach
the science of metre or harmony with failing to create
poetical or musical genius ? Poincare's analysis of the
two opposite types of mathematicians is undoubtedly
extremely interesting from the psychological point of view
all the more since a similar difference exists amongsl
men of science in the realm of physics with regard to
their concrete procedure of discovery and their mode oj
thought, and of setting forth their theories — a difference
which has given rise, as we shall see later, to two opposite
schools. We must, however, beware of confusing the
psychological question with the epistemological problem,
and must draw a distinction between that which is
dependent upon the individual structure of the thinker
and upon his type of imagination, and that which is
essential to all thought whatsoever, given the nature
of his branch of knowledge.

The criterion by which to gauge the necessity of
intuition cannot be derived from psychological observa-
tion ; in order to be entitled to affirm that a science
cannot dispense therewith, we must prove that it is
impossible for the pure activity of logical thought to
establish its principles, and to draw all the con-
clusions from those principles. Now as long as we
confine ourselves to the realm of abstract relations, as
studied by the new mathematical logic, and to that of
pure quantity, the object of arithmetic and of algebraic
analysis, there is no need to appeal to intuition in order
to define the supreme concepts upon which these sciences
are based, and to deduce all the theorems from them.
The fact that it is possible, within certain limits, for
mathematical calculus and logical theory to become
fused and to pervade one another, affords proof of the
profound affinity between the two orders of knowledge

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 325

which are the outcome of the reflections of thought upon
its own function, and hence exclude all consideration
of intuitive matter. Number is a product of the analytic -t-
and synthetic activity exercised by thought upon itself,
associating its single acts in complex units and resolving
the units which had previously been undivided into
elementary acts. The human mind finds it within
itself like a law of its nature, an intrinsic necessity,
of which it cannot divest itself without denying its
own very nature. The existence of cardinal num-
ber is not something hypothetical, as the logistics
would affirm, but rather an axiomatic truth which
thought discovers by reflection upon its own acts, and
recognises immediately as the necessary presupposi- •
tion of its function. There is no concept without the
possibility of distinguishing a whole in its parts, and of )
recombining them into a synthetic unity : the ability
to grasp the one in the many, and the many in the
one is the very essence of human thought, which is
therefore by its own activity implicitly led to presuppose
the existence of number. Dura lex, sed lex. We may
seek to escape from this law by living with Bergson
in the fantastic world of creative and indivisible ;
intuition, but if we thus deny number, we deny dis- ?
cursive thought at the same time, and with it the
whole science of logic. We are as certain of the J
existence of number as we are of that of our own logical
thought, since thinking is potential numeration.

11. Irreducibility of Mathematics to Logistic. — If
such be the nature of cardinal number, it will at once
be obvious that all attempts to define it with the help
of pure logical constants must of necessity move in a
vicious circle. We cannot therefore be surprised that
Poincare 55 and various other critics have discovered
in the alleged definitions a more or less explicit use
of numerical concepts and terms or of a word in the
plural, which naturally presupposes that which is to
be defined. Thus Couturat defines zero as the number
of the elements of the null class, i.e. of the class con-

326 IDEALISTIC KEACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

taining no element, or again as the number of
objects fulfilling a condition which is never fulfilled,
and 1 as the number of the elements of a class of which
any two elements are identical. Couturat56 replies
that the logistical definition of 1 does not in the least
imply that of 2, but means, properly speaking, that " 1 is
the class of the classes u, not being null, such that if a; be
a u, and y be a u, x is identical with y, whatever x and y
may be "; hence, in the place of x and y we may put an
indeterminate plurality of terms, provided that they all
be identical. But, it may be urged, does not plurality,
however indeterminate it may be, presuppose the idea
of number ? When you define the cardinal number of a
class u as the totality of the classes which are equivalent
to u, and add that two classes have the same cardinal
number when a univocal and reciprocal correspondence
can be established between their elements, that is
to say, when these elements can be made to correspond
term for term, or to put it more briefly, when the two
classes are similar, you appeal to the logical calculus,
which is in its turn impregnated with numerical concepts.
Even if we put aside explicit numeral terms (as, for
instance, in the definition of the logical product or sum
of two or more propositions) which could be disguised
by saying x,y instead of 2, x,y,z instead of 3, and so on,
it is an undoubted fact that the simplest logical pro-
position cannot be formulated without establishing a
relation, that is to say, without implicitly positing a
multiplicity synthetised into unity : the logical con-
stants, by whose means number is supposed to be defined,
already contain number within themselves as their
necessary presupposition. How is it possible to conceive
the relation of a term to a class of which it is a member,
without at the same time positing the concept of
multiplicity of terms upon any one of which we fix our
thoughts ? What meaning can be attached to the word
class, if you do not presuppose the concept of a plurality,
which may be as indeterminate as you will, but which
is still a plurality of logical individuals ? Does not the

CH. n ELABORATION OF PUKE MATHEMATICS 327

notion of any and every term too, imply the thought of
a multiplicity of terms, composing one and the same
class, belonging, that is to say, to one and the same
conceptual synthesis ? While we recognise with
Kussell 57 that the class may be defined intensionally, that
is to say, by means of the comprehension of the concept
determining it, without having recourse to the actual
enumeration of its terms, that is to say, to its extension, %
it is certain, on the other hand, that in the logical calculus
we are continually forced to leave the pure consideration
of the intension in order to refer to the entities belonging
to these classes.58 Thus when we define the logical pro-
duct of the classes a and b as the assemblage of the values
of the variable x, which are at the same time a and b, we do
not by the expression assemblage of the values of x mean
the intension of the concept x, but rather the extension
thereof. Is not this assemblage of values a numerical
plurality ? Thus when we define the equality of
numbers by means of the similarity of classes, and say
that one term and one term only of the one must corre-
spond to one term of the other, we are already taking
for granted the thought of the class as a collection of
terms, that is to say, we regard it as being composed of
a certain number of terms.

The attempt to give a logical definition of the idea of
linear order will also end in a like petitio principii.
Russell and Couturat define linear order as an asym-
metrical relation, and this is in its turn defined as a rela-
tion which can never be inverted ; that is to say, that
the two relations xRy (i.e. the relation between x and y),
and yRx (i.e. the relation between y and x) are mutually
exclusive. Is it, however, possible to define the inverse
of a relation without presupposing the concept of order ?
The intuitive assistance afforded by the succession of
terms in the schemes xRy and yRx enables you to avoid
the use of the word " order " in the definition of inverse
relations, and deceives you into thinking that you have
succeeded in avoiding a vicious circle, but, were you
asked to give an abstract definition of the inverse of a

328 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

relation without making use of the signs x and y, you
could only say that a relation is converted when the
order of the two terms is changed. The existence of
non-invertible series is not a mere hypothesis, or an
arbitrary convention, but rather an axiomatic truth
which we derive from reflection upon our acts of thought,
together with the primitive and indefinable general
concept of order. Analysis of the logical function,
which brings to our notice cases in which our thought
is capable of passing from the truth or falsity of one
proposition to that of another, without, however, being
able to make the inverse deduction, affords us immediate
and apodictic certainty of the existence of non-invertible

• relations, and hence of series of acts of thought develop-
ing in a determinate order. We cannot, moreover, con-
ceive of this series as limited without at the same time
placing a limit to the function of logical thought, which
by its very character of universality transcends all
limitations. From this point of view the proposition
that each number has a successor ceases to appear an
arbitrary convention, a mere hypothesis set up by us
in the definition of number, as logisticians would have
us believe, and becomes a law which our mind recognises
in the series of its denumerable acts, refusing to conceive
of a last term to its function beyond which no
further act of thought is possible. It would be absurd
to conceive such a term, since to do so would be tanta-

• mount to contradicting that value of universality which
thought apprehends immediately in the affirmation of
its principles.

In geometry the impossibility of defining all mathe-
matical concepts with the help of logical constants only
becomes still more apparent. If we consider the
hypothetico - deductive systems attentively, we shall
at once see that their definitions refer to conceptual
entities, having nothing geometrical about them, and
if they recall spatial figures and relations to a certain
extent, they do so because the terms commonly used to
indicate certain intuitive properties are introduced into

CH. ii ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 329

the definitions. Thus when we say : " An assemblage
of one dimension is a series whose terms are absolute in-
dividuals, that is to say, are not relations ; an assemblage
having two dimensions is an assemblage whose terms are
themselves relations, that is to say, a relation of relations;
an assemblage having three dimensions is a relation whose
terms are relations of relations," and so on ; our definition
does not determine anything spatial, and if we think
of the straight line, the plane, and ordinary space, we
do so because the word dimension suggests intuitive
extension to our minds. Thus when in projective
geometry we enunciate the postulates relative to the
point and say that points form a class, that there exists
at least one point, and that if a be a point, there exists
a point differing from a, the word point is an appeal to -|—
intuition and imparts a geometrical meaning to these
postulates which otherwise would have none, seeing that
they can refer to any individuals composing a class. In
like manner, when we say that, given the two points a
and b, there is an entity which we call the straight line ab,
which is a class of which every individual is a point, etc.,
if the words straight line and point, which recall geo-
metrical entities to our minds, be removed, these
formulations would apply to any class of individuals
verifying all those properties. Neither do we determine
anything really spatial in the postulates of metrical
geometry when we say that the point and motion are
generic and class concepts, that every assemblage of
points is termed a figure, that two figures are identical
when they are composed of the same points, etc. ; since,
if the words points, figure, etc., be eliminated, proposi-
tions will remain which are valid in the case of certain
assemblages. In short, hypothetico-deductive systems
do not succeed in individualising geometrical entities
in their definitions, but treat of generic relations of
assemblages and classes, which only apply to the specific
case by a mental restriction, due to the terms of common
geometry and to the spatial intuition which is associated
with them. In ultimate analysis, when we formulate

330 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

these systems, we either fail to create a geometry, and
merely create a logic of classes, assemblages, and rela-
tions, since that which we enunciate does not refer to the
point, the straight line, the figure, etc., bu.t to any entity
which is a term of those relations, and to any assemblage
of like entities ; or, if we succeed in individualising these
concepts, and in determining them specifically, so as
to impart a geometrical sense to them, our success is
due to the fact that we recall intuition by the use of
corresponding terms, and derive therefrom the properties
expressed by the definitions and postulates. The new
systems bear the same relation to the science of space
as a genus to its species : it is true that they differ
from the old analysis, since they treat of relations which
cannot be reduced to mere relations of magnitude, but
they possess in common with it the characteristic of
being reducible to a pure logical calculus, which, though
it may be applicable to geometry, is not for that reason
geometry, just in the same way as general logic is not
the science of space, although the properties of con-
cepts, and the deductive laws formulated thereby, are
necessarily valid of geometrical figures also.

12. Criticism of the Hypothetico- Deductive Systems. —
The new logical elaborations claim to divest mathe-
matical truths of their categorical character, and to
transform them into hypothetical judgments, but this
interpretation of the value of mathematical knowledge
is thoroughly vitiated by the empiristic preconception
that geometrical and arithmetical principles and de-

• ductions require to be legitimatised by experience. If
this prejudice, which contrasts forcibly with the ideal
character of mathematical constructions, be put aside,
there ceases to be any sense in speaking of hypotheses.
Geometrical and arithmetical concepts exist of necessity

* in our thought, and are of universal value, in as much
' as experience would not be intelligible without them ;

they are not mere arbitrary fictions, which may or may
not be verified by empirical facts, but are conditions
indispensable to the intelligibility of the facts. A non-

CH. n ELABORATION OF PUEE MATHEMATICS 331

denumerable reality, or a reality which, while denumer-
able, did not conform to the laws which our mind recog-
nises as necessary in the various forms of calculus, would
be an absurdity baffling the intelligence. To say : If
experience verify our definition of number, it will verify
all the theorems which follow therefrom, has as little
sense as to say : If experience verify logical axioms,
our arguments are applicable to it ! The same thing
holds good of geometrical concepts, which, whilst they
are not a product of the simple reflection of thought upon
itself, since they derive their content from intuition,
yet, in as much as they represent the only adequate
means of translating the empirical data of space into
intelligible terms, appear to us to be equally universal
and necessary. Even in the case of geometrical truths
there is no sense in the hypothesis : "If an entity exist
which verifies these relations," since that entity does and
must exist ideally, and this is enough, since geometry
neither does nor should take empirical existence into
consideration. When logisticians define or claim to
define a geometrical entity by means of a certain number
of properties, they of course assume that a concept
corresponds to that complex of symbols, that is to say,
that that entity is thought in some way or other. When
it is stated that all mathematical definitions are nominal,
says Couturat,59 it is not meant that mathematical
concepts are reducible to names, in accordance with the
thesis of nominalism, but that they can all be logically
and explicitly defined in terms of certain primitive
notions, and may therefore be regarded as names given
to certain combinations of those notions. Thus even
this new sign must correspond to the concept resulting
from the synthesis of the primitive notions. More-
over, continues Couturat,60 in order to reason later on
this concept and invoke its properties, it must be
possible to affirm that individuals of the class exist,
that is to say, that the conditions defining it are not
logically incompatible ; each definition must therefore
be accompanied by a theorem or a postulate, affirming

332 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

the existence of the object defined. Then, we ask, what
becomes of the hypothetical character of mathematics
the moment that its concepts have and must have an
ideal existence ? When such an existence, which is
essential to ulterior deductions, has been proved or
recognised in some other way, we shall have the right
to affirm categorically : " An entity exists in our thought
which is endowed with those properties."

The demand that the object denned shall be thought
and recognised as existing cannot be satisfied in the
realm of geometry without having recourse to intuition
which has been idealised and purified by thought. How
indeed are we to prove by means of logistic alone that the
notions and relations with which we define a geometrical
entity are mutually compatible ? 61 Only two ways
are open to us : we must either prove that none of the
possible consequences of those premisses contradict one
another ; a never-ending process of verification, which
could therefore never afford us perfect certainty ; or
we must show by an example that there exists a class
of individuals verifying all those properties. " If," says
Fieri,62 "A, B,C, be propositions belonging to a deductive
system F, their compatibility may be said to be proved
if in some domain A an interpretation can be found of
the primitive ideas of F manifesting all the properties
enunciated by the propositions A, B, C, provided that
such a domain do not embrace any one of those proposi-
tions amongst its premisses, and that the consistency of
its principles be already established or granted a priori.''
In other words, the justification of one system is sought
from another system, and of course we must, unless we
would continue the process ad infinitum, stop at one
of those systems which posits the ideal compatibility
of its primitive propositions by means of an axiom
or a postulate. Fieri is forced to acknowledge that,
" it will never be possible to afford deductive proof of
the truth and consistency of the whole system of logical
premisses." 63 For geometry the proof of the ideal
existence of an entity verifying all these properties

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 333

lies in the concept of the figure in which we find the
verification of all these properties and relations. We
may amuse ourselves by forming countless combinations
of logical constants and relations ; but these com-
binations are not all possessed of geometrical meaning,
that is to say, they do not all determine an object
existing in ideal space. Logicians choose from all
possible combinations those which are endowed with
geometrical sense, but in this selection they are in the
end guided by the old intuitive notions. Moreover, the
ideal existence of these entities, which in formal com-
binations64 remains a mere hypothesis which cannot
be translated into our intuitive notions of space, becomes
an axiomatic truth when these notions are present, •
because the certain verification of all the postulates
afforded us directly by thought in the concept of the
figure transforms the hypothetical judgment into a
categorical one.

13. A priori Synthesis in Mathematics. — Though
the truths of mathematics are necessary and a priori,
this does not imply that they are purely analytical, as
Couturat maintains : it is erroneous to believe, as David
Hume did, that thought is synthetical only in empiric -
knowledge, when it derives its materials from experience, \
and that a priori deduction never affords us anything
new. Even in abstract calculation mathematical thought
is_ essentially inventive and constructive, and every
analysis presupposes the synthesis completed in the act of
definition. In so far as you can derive the rules of arith-
metical operations from the rules of the logical calculus,
your thought has already formed in the eight indefinable
notions and twenty undemonstrable principles the con-
ceptual synthesis necessary for all the following analyses.
Modern logic differs from the older form in that it conO
denses and absorbs within itself in a more generic form \
principles and definitions which were previously scattered •
throughout the different branches of mathematics ; so
that, whereas in the old constructions the foundations
were laid little by little as the need for them became

334 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE w. n

apparent in order that the process of deduction might
be continued, and the single synthetic acts were carried
out case by case, in the new logical edifice the whole basis
is constructed from the very first and the particular
syntheses are condensed into one wider synthesis.
This form of systematisation of pure mathematics may
also be preferable to the older one, in as much as it
saves useless repetitions of analogous synthetic acts
in the individual sciences, and in their different depart-
ments, and gives prominence to the logical unity
of mathematical knowledge ; it does not, however,
eliminate the synthesis which is merely shifted, con-
centrated, and disguised in the definitions and initial
principles. Moreover, the work of constructive activity
is not wholly excluded even in successive deductions ;
this activity manifests itself in the combination of the
elements originally defined into new products, which
are not merely a juxtaposition of entities and principles,
admitted from the first, but organic syntheses of them.
Each new notion is denned by a complex of properties,
and, although these properties may have been known
already through the definitions, the thought of the
whole is always something new; even if it be merely
thought of as possible, at all events we must have a
concept of it. Neither can it be said to be but a new
name, since in the hypothetical judgment it is implicitly
admitted that an objective entity can exist which
verifies all the properties at one and the same time ;
this entity is certainly not the word, but that which
is symbolised by the word, that is to say, that which is
thought by its means. The Kantian doctrine which
would derive the synthetic character of mathematics from
its intuitive nature does not hold good of the calculus,
to which intuition is not essential, but the activity of
thought in its a priori deductions is none the less
fruitful in new products, which, constructed as they
are in accordance with its intimate laws, bear the
imprint of universality and necessity.

14. Russell on the Philosophical Consequences of

OH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 335

Mathematical Logic. — Russell has considered himself
entitled to draw certain important philosophical con-
clusions from his logico-mathematical theories.65 The
theory which resolves the continuum into an infinite
number of distinct elements without any contradiction
has robbed of their value the idealistic doctrines of space
and time which were based upon the alleged antimonies
of the actual infinite. Realism is thus restored to its
place of honour. Mathematics further teaches us that
there are certain fundamental and irreducible con-
cepts (the logical constants), and certain primitive
undemonstrable propositions, which enable us to con-
struct a system of truths, recognised by us, in their
deductive relations, without the need of an appeal
to experience. Every general proposition transcends
the bounds of sensible knowledge, which is limited
to the particular case, and never authorises us to
formulate a principle having universal extension.
Induction is at bottom but a deduction based upon a
certain premiss, i.e. upon the principle of induction,
which cannot be derived from experience without
a vicious circle, and must therefore be recognised as an
a priori truth. Empiricism is then false, but no less
false is the idealism which believes that the salvation
of the universality of a priori truths lies in reducing
those truths to subjective forms of the mind. If general
truths were merely the expression of psychological facts
we could not be sure of their constancy or legitimately
make use of them in order to deduce one fact from
another, because they would not connect facts, but
only our ideas about facts. Mathematical logic then
forces us to admit a species of realism in the Platonic
and scholastic sense, to conceive, that is to say, a world
of universals having a reality of its own external to space,
time, and the mind of man. This world must subsist,
though it may not exist in the same sense as that in'
which particular facts exist. We have direct knowledge
by acquaintance of universals, just as we have of sensible
data ; of material objects on the other hand, existing in

336 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

time and space, independently of our subjective percep-
tions, we can only have indirect knowledge by description,
by making use of a combination of universal ideas and
sensible experience. Such knowledge is, however, always
far from perfect, whereas our immediate intuition of the
eternal relations constituting in their ideal combinations
the system of mathematical logic, is extremely perfect.

15. The New Realism. — Closely connected with this
Platonising tendency of the Cambridge school, of which
the chief representatives are Bertrand, Russell, and
George Moore, is the new realism, which has recently
been the subject of so much discussion in England and
America.66 This new realism is based upon the mathe-
matical theory of the externality of relations set forth
by Russell, according to which terms are in no way
altered by the relation established between them, so
that one and the same entity may be a constituent of
many different complexes. Knowledge itself is an
external relation : the object, when known, remains
the same object which existed outside the relation
with the subject. It therefore follows that everything
which we perceive or imagine exists objectively also just
as it is presented to our consciousness. The new realism
differs from the older realism in that it does not admit
that the things external to thought are different from
the contents present to our consciousness, that is to say,
in its " epistemological monism" which identifies the
real object with that which is immediately present to us
in the act of perception. On this point the new realism
disagrees with Russell, who maintains that " if there are
to be public neutral objects, which can in some sense
be known to many different persons, these objects are
not identical with the private and particular sense-
data which appear to various people."

In my opinion the fundamental error of the new
realism will be found in its starting-point, that is to
say, in the theory of the externality of relations applied
to the cognitive relation. Relations are external only
in abstract mathematics, in which the terms can be

en. ii ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 337

ranged side by side, and united by a sign which sym-
bolises their relation, without in any way modifying
them. The number 8, for instance, will always remain
the same number in all the relations in which it can be
placed to other numbers : 8 x 4, 8 + 3, 8 - 5, 8 > 2, etc.
But if we leave the world of abstractions for the realm
of concrete reality, it is a matter of common experience
that things are subjected to physical changes by the"]
action of other things standing in certain determinate
relations to them. It has been rightly observed thaV
the new realism fails to afford an adequate explana-
tion of the production of illusions and hallucinations, ^
all of which should correspond to objects existing
outside consciousness just in the same way as they are
imagined. The new realism cannot turn to the physio-
logical action of the organism for an explanation of
illusion, since by doing so it would deny its doctrine of f
the externality of relations : if the object appears in
different ways according to the different organisms
with which it enters into relations, it is obvious that
these relations are not external. The illusory appearance
is a real fact, but it is so only in that particular context
of psycho -physiological relations; and every other
content of sensation is real in the same sense ; but to
admit that this content remains identical even when
Hhe relations are changed is to contradict our most
! certain experiences.

16. Meinong's Theory of Objects. — Russell's mathe-
matical realism has manypoints of contactwith Meinong's
theory of objects.67 As opposed to empirical sciences
! (Wirklichkeitswissenschaften) which deal with existing
reality (the Daseiri), the theory of objects is the science
of the Sosein, the rational essence, which can be
elaborated a priori independently of any considera-
tion of existence (WirMichJceitsfreie oder Daseinsfreie
Wissenschaft). We have an example thereof in
mathematics, whose object is not the real, but the
ideal, that which subsists (besteht), although it may
not exist as do the phenomena studied by the empirical

z

338 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

sciences. In addition to the facts immediately ex-
perienced, such as colours, sounds, desires, etc., we
must admit objects of a higher order, such as like-
nesses, equalities, diversities, complexes, etc., upon
which we pronounce a priori judgments. AccorcLing
to Meinong, the theory of objects embraces not only
the study of these relations, but also that of a series of
objects which of their very nature are not comprised
within the field of any of the sciences hitherto known,
and which Meinong terms homeless objects (heimadose
Gegenstande). Sensorial contents, for instance, cannot
be the object of the psycho -physiology of the senses,
which does not treat of these contents in themselves
and in their relations, but only of the way in which
they are subjectively apprehended in relation to the
organism ; nor yet that of physics whose task it is to
study the objective stimuli of sensations, for instance,
vibrations of the air or of ether, not sounds and
colours. Another, as yet unexplored field of research,
is that of impossible objects, as, for instance, the round
square, non-extended matter, etc. Russell M has re-
marked that these objects would divest the principle
of contradiction of its universal validity, but to this
Meinong & has replied that this principle is valid of
objects which are possible and real, not of those which
are impossible, and that the round square, non-extended
matter, etc., are not reducible to mere flatus vocis, mere
complexes of letters, since these complexes exist psycho-
logically, which is not the case with impossible objects.
The delicate subtleties of Meinong's arguments can-
not, however, invest this alleged theory of impossible
ob j ects with meaning. How can you rationally elaborate
that which is contradictory, or apply the laws of
thought to that which is constructed in antagonism to
those laws ? With regard to sensorial contents which
Meinong considers should be studied by the new theory,
his assertion that research into them is not within the
province either of physics or psychology does not appear
to me to be accurate. When Meinong states that the

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 339

object of physics is not colours and sounds, but rather the
vibrations of ether and air, it is clear that he is confusing
the object of science with the explanatory theory ;
you might equally well say that chemistry does not study
metals, salts, acids, etc., but the relations of atoms. If
sensorial contents be thus eliminated from the theory of
objects, nothing will remain but relations and complexes,
which Meinong regards as having no existence, hence
the name science of the non-existing, which distinguishes
the theory of objects from the empirical sciences. Now
it seems to me that an artificial division is thus made
between the two forms of knowledge which renders their
interpenetration in the concrete fife of science impos-
sible of explanation. Were a priori deduction merely
the instrument of knowledge of the non-existent, it
would be an abuse to make use of it in the science of the
existent. How, too, could this illegitimate transition
jattain success ? How could mathematical deduction,
the organ of knowledge unfettered by existence, enable
us to make previsions concerning existence ?

17. Criticism of Russell's Theory. — Russell's theory
partly escapes these criticisms, because it regards the
.deal world as subsisting, if not existing ; it, too, however,
has made the grave mistake of setting up an insuperable
barrier between sensible cognition and rational know-
.edge. This new form, of realism raises once more the
-self-same difficulties which perplexed the mind of
Plato, and which were already emphasised by Aristotle.
The doctrine of the exteriority of relations accentuates
the want of agreement between the two worlds, and
rjurns the process of knowledge into an incomprehensible
nystery. On the one side, in fact, we have eternal
relations ; on the other, things in time and space ; and in
addition to and external to them both, human conscious-
less. Each relation is external to every other, each
:hing external to all others, each consciousness external
ind impenetrable to the rest. We may now ask, How
ind by what miraculous means is that union of the ideal
ind the real brought about which is necessary to the

340 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.U

cognitive act ? The subject, reduced to a mere mirror
which is to reflect external relations on the one hand
and the facts of experience on the other, while itself
remaining unaltered, will certainly not be equal to such
a task of mediation, because even with regard to it and
in it the universal idea and immediate experience will
remain outside each other. It is useless to turn to
an exterior relation between the idea and immediate
experience, first, because in the world of objective things
constructed by science the concept and the fact do
not remain external to each other, but pervade one
another in a synthesis which transfigures both of them ;
and further, because the external relation between the
idea and the phenomenon would not resolve the problem,
but would merely add another eternal relation to the
others which the mind must receive from without. Of
this new relation, in turn, the question might once more
be asked, " How is its union with the sensible world
possible ? "

We are confronted by still more serious difficul-
ties in the conception of the relation of the subject to
these real entities. How can the revelation of them
to consciousness be possible ? Does not consciousness
undergo a certain modification in the act of intuiting
ideas through this very act ? Or are we to grant, in
order to save the theory of the externality of relations,
that the subject thinking the principle of inclusion, for
instance, is the same subject as that to whose conscious-
ness it was not present before ? Does not sensible
experience modify the subject to a certain extent ?
Do subject and object remain external to each other in
that experience also ? Or is that experience a purely
subjective, individual fact, not due to the action of
external reality ? In that case by what right do you
make use of it, as well as of the idea, in order to gain
indirect knowledge of real things ? How do eternal
relations make their way into the consciousness ? How
is a relation set up between thought and that which
is thought ? If this relation, too, be an external one,

CH. ii ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 341

we return to our starting-point, since we must explain
how such a relation, which you affirm to be real, can
become the object of your mind, that is to say, how it
can enter into relation therewith. In the incoherent
dust-storm of facts and external relations we shall vainly
seek that synthetic principle which shall account for
the possibility of knowledge, and that organic unity of
thought and reality which alone can render knowledge
intelligible.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1 Leibnitz was conscious of the need for the extension of mathematics,
and conceived a geometrical calculus which could be directly applied to
figures without the mediation of numbers and express situs directly, as
algebra does magnitude* (Lettre a Huygens, September 8, 1679). " Datur
. . . analysis geometriae sublimior per proprios characteres, qua multa
pulchrius breviusque quam per algebram praestantur" (De scientia uni-
versali sen calculo philosophico, 1684). Cp. Couturat, " L'Algebre uni-
verselle de Whitehead," Revue de met. et de mor., May 1910 ; Les Principes
de mathematiques (Paris, 1905), pp. 1-2.

2 " Sur 1'arithmetisation des mathematiques," Nouvelles Annales de
mathematiques, March 1807.

3 The first suggestion of this " scriptura universalis " will be found in
Leibnitz, " Logicae inventionis semina," Math. Schriften, voL v. Logistic
assumed a specially scientific form through the works of De Morgano,
Formal Logic (London, 1847) ; Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of
Thought (London, 1854) ; Schroeder, Der Operationskreis der Logikkalkuls
(Leipzig, 1872) ; Algebra der Logik (Leipzig, 1890-95) ; and Peano,
Formulaire de mathematique (Turin, Bocca, 1894-1906).

* This extension is mainly due to Russell, " Sur la logique des relations
avec des applications a la theorie des series," Sevista di matematica del
Piano, vol. vii. (Turin, 1902), pp. 115-147.

5 Arithmetices principia, nova metodo exposita (Turin, 1889).

6 Calcolo geometrico secondo I' Ausdehnungslehre di H. Grassmann,
preceduto dalle operazioni della logica deduttiva (Turin, 1888), Preface, pp. 5-6.

The following are examples of these geometrical notations : If the
volume ABCD indicate a tetrahedron, the formula ABCD=O means
that the points ABCD are situated in the same plane ; if A be a point
and a be a plane, Aa=O (i.e. tetrahedron Aa is nothing) indicates that the
point A is situated in the plane a ; if a, b be two lines, ab = 0 means that
the lines a, b are situated in the same plane, i.e. either that they meet or
are parallel (op. cit. p. 33).

7 Peano, / Principii di geometria hgicamente esposti (Torino, 1889), p. 3.

8 " I Principii della geometria di posizione composti in sistema logico
deduttivo," Memorie della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, serie xi.
voL xlviii., 1898 ; " Nuovo Metodo di svolgere deduttivamente la geo-
metria proiettiva," Rendiconti del R. Istituto Lombardo, voL xxxi., 1898 ;
" Della geometria elementare come sistema ipotetico deduttivo. Mono-

342 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.H

grafia del punto e del moto," Memorie della R. Accademia delle Scienze di
Torino, serie ii. voL xlix., 1900.

' Fieri, " Snr la geometrie envisagee comme un systeme purement
logique," Bibliotheque. du Congres International de Philosophic (Paris, 1901),
voL iii. pp. 268-377.

" A Treatise on Universal Algebra (Cambridge, 1898).

u Couturat, Article quoted in Rev. de met. et de mor., May 1900, p.
259 ff.

11 The Principles of Mathematics, voL i. (Cambridge, University Press,
1901).

u " Pure mathematics is the class of all propositions of the form ' p
implies q,' where p and q are propositions containing one or more variables,
the same in the two propositions, and neither p nor q contains any constants
except logical constants." The logical constants according to Russell
are : implication, the relation of a term to a class of which it is a member,
the notion of such that, the concepts of relations, of prepositional function
and of class, the notion of denoting and of any or every term (op. cit.
p. 3 e p. 106).

14 Russell, " Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics " (Inter-
national Monthly, voL iv. No. 1, p. 84).

w Russell, Principles of Mathematics, pp. 13-32. We cannot here set
forth the whole development of these calculi : we merely give a few
examples in order that the reader may be able to form a general idea
of them. In the calculus of propositions the logical product of two pro-
positions means that both propositions are true at one time, and the
commutative law applies thereto (if, for example, p be true together
with q, q is true together with p), as do also the associative law (if p be
true together with the simultaneous affirmation of q and r, the simultaneous
affirmation of p and q is true together with r) ; the principle of simplifica-
tion (the simultaneous affirmation of p and q implies the affirmation of p) ;
and the principle of composition (if p imply q and p imply r, p implies the
simultaneous affirmation of q and r). The logical sum of two proposi-
tions is defined as the proposition which is implied in each of them and
implies every proposition implied in each of them. In the calculus
of the propositions is enunciated amongst others the principle of the
hypothetical syllogism ; if p imply q and q imply r, p implies r. In the
calculus of classes a prepositional function is defined as a logical
function which becomes a proposition for every value attributed to the
variable or variables : the totality of values verifying the prepositional
function constitutes a class. An axiom of the calculus of classes
is that if two prepositional functions be equivalent, the correspond-
ing classes are equal The logical product of the classes a and b is the
totality of the values of the variable x, which are at the same time a
and b ; the logical sum of the classes a and b is the totality of
the variables x, which are either a or 6. The calculus of relations deals
with the relations of equivalence, implication, etc., in general One
of the axioms of this calculus is that every relation can be inverted, that is
to say, that if the relation R exist between any two terms x and y, a relation
also exists between y and x, which is termed the inverse of R. Another
axiom is that every relation has its negative which is also a relation. It
can be proved that the inverse of the negative is identical with the negative
of the inverse. If there exist a relation R between the individuals x and y,
and a relation S between y and z, there will exist between x and z another
relation which is termed the relative product : the relative product of
two relations is also a relation : the relation of uncle, for instance, is the

en. ii ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 343

relative product of the relations of brother and father. Relative multiplica-
tion in general is not commutative ; for instance, my brother's father is
not my uncle.

18 Op. cit. p. 112.

17 " Les Definitions mathematiques," Bibliotheque du Congres, vol. iii.
p. 279 ; Burali-Forti, " Sur les differentes methodes logiques pour la
definition du nombre reel," ibid. p. 289 ; Padoa, " Essai d'une theorie
algebrique des nombres entiers, precede d'une introduction logique a
une theorie deductive quelconque," ibid. p. 309 ; Burali-Forti, Logica
matematica (Milan, 1894), pp. 120-130.

18 Peano, op. cit. p. 288.

19 Couturat, Principes des mathematiques, p. 39 ff.

20 The theory of substitutions was originated by Galois. The name sub-
stitution is applied to the transition from one arrangement of objects, that is
to say, from one permutation to another. An assemblage of substitutions
of n objects form a group if the result obtained by effecting successively
two substitutions of this assemblage can be obtained with a single sub-
stitution of the assemblage ; in other terms, if the product of two substitu-
tions be equivalent to a single substitution of the assemblage. In particular,
all the possible substitutions of n objects form a group. The notion of
group is very general and can be applied not only to substitutions, but also
to all arithmetical operations and to analytical transformations of all kinds.
Thus the labours of Sophus Lie have made the theory of groups of trans-
formations into a method of marvellous extension and fruitfulness.

21 Russell, op. cit. pp. 111-120 ; Couturat, " Sur une definition logique
du nombre," Revue, de met. et de mor., January 1900, p. 21 ff. ; " Sur les
rapports du nombre et de la grandeur," ibid., July LM'M, p. 422 ff. ;
Russell, " On the Relations of Number and Quantity," Mind, N.S.,
vol. vi. No. 23.

22 Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen ? (Brunswick, 1887).

23 Science et hypothese, p. 20 ff.

24 " Qrundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre " (Leipzig,
1883), Math. Ann. voL xxi.

26 See what has already been said in Chapter II. Part I. on this apparent
paradox a propos of Renouvier's criticism of the infinite.

28 "Sui fondamenti della geometria proiettiva," postulate vii.,
JRendiconti del R. Istituto Lombardo, serie ii. vol. xxix., 1897.

27 " Beitrage zur Begriindung der transfiniten Mengenlehre," Math.
Annalen, vol. xlvi., 1895, and vol. xlix., 1897.

28 Russell, op. cit. p. 299 ; Couturat, op. cit. p. 95 ; " Sur la definition
du continu," Rev. de met. et de mor. vol. viii. pp. 157-168.

29 Math. Annalen, vol. xxxvi. pp. 157-160.

30 Op. cit. p. 132.

31 It is superfluous to remark that the relations in question are non-
symmetrical and transitive, like those characterising linear order. Russell,
op. cit. p. 374 ff. ; Couturat, op. cit. p. 134.

32 In the two articles already quoted : "I Principii della geometria di
posizione, etc.," and " Nuovo modo di svolgere deduttivamente la geo-
metria proiettiva." In the latter, Pieri constructs projective geometry
with primitive entities (projective point and homography) and postulates
differing from those of the first article. These two hypothetical and parallel
developments are an extremely interesting example of equivalent systems,
i.e. such as permit of the primitive entities of the one being defined by those
of the other, and the primitive propositions of the one being deduced from
the postulates of the other. This proves the choice of indefinable entities

344 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

and of primitive propositions, which are not capable of proof, to be
arbitrary (Rendiconti del R. Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, aerie ii.
vol. xxxi. p. 797).

** Op. tit. p. 82.

84 Op. cit. pp. 404-407.

** " La Geometria basata sull' idea di punto e di distanza," Atti
della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 1902.

«• Enriques, Questioni riguardanti la geometria elementare (Bologna,
1900), Article 3, '' Della congruenza e del movimento."

17 In the Article already quoted, " Delia geometria elementare come
sistema ipotetico deduttivo."

38 The following are some of the postulates laid down by Fieri (M emorie
della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, serie ii. vol. xlix. p. 179 ff.)
as the basis of metrical geometry: — (1) The point and motion are
generic and class concepts. (2) At least one point exists. (3) If p be a
point, there exists a point differing from p. Every assemblage of
points shall be termed a figure. Two figures are identical (or coincide)
when they are composed of the same points. Two points are identical
(or coincide) when every figure containing one of them contains the other
also. (4) Every motion is a bi-uniform correspondence of two figures ;
this means that identical points correspond to identical points, and different
points to different points, etc.

*• Couturat, op. cit. p. 204.

40 Op. cit. pp. 205-207.

41 Russell, op. cit. p. 372.

** American Journal of Mathematics, vol. iv., 1881, p. 97 ff.

48 Couturat, op. cit. pp. 242-246 ; cp. also Frege, Grundgesetze der
Arithmetik begriffschafilich abgeleitet (Jena, 1893-1903), in two volumes.
In this work the whole of arithmetic is constructed analytically.

44 Couturat, op. cit. p. 250.

48 Op. cit. p. 253.

«• Op. cit. p. 257.

47 Op. cit. p. 267.

48 Op. cit. pp. 279-285.

49 Op. cit. p. 293.

80 Conferences sur les mathematiques (Paris, 1895), Lecture VIII.

81 Op. cit. p. 45.

M La Valeur de la Science, p. 11 ff.

83 Both Borel in " La Logique et 1'intuition en mathematique," Revue
de met. et de mar.. May 1907, and Lucas de Peslouan in Les Systemes
logiques et la logistique (Paris, 1909), p. 13 ff., p. 220, also place the
necessity of intuition for the discovery of mathematical truths in opposi-
tion to logistic.

84 " Pour la logistique," Rev. de met. et de mor., March 1906, p. 214 ff.
u " Les Mathematiques et la logique," Revue de met. et de mor., November

1905, pp. 215-835 ; January 1906, pp. 17-36 ; May 1906, pp. 294-317.
"A propos de la logistique," ibid., 1906, pp. 866-868. See also the
criticisms of Winter, Borel (ibid., May 1907), and Reymond, Logique et
mathematiques (Paris, 1908), p. 133 sq. These criticisms have been replied
to by Russell : " Sur la relation des mathematiques et de la logistique,"
Revue de met. et de mor., November 1905, pp. 906-917 ; " Les Paradoxes
de la logique," ibid., September 1906, pp. 627-650 ; Couturat, " Pour la
logistique," ibid., March 1906, p. 208 sq. ; Pieri, " Sur la Compatibility
des axiomes de 1'arithmetique," ibid., March 1906, p. 196 ff.

*• " Pour la logistique," Revue de met. et de mor., March 1906.

CH. n ELABORATION OF PURE MATHEMATICS 345

67 Op. cit. p. 69.

68 Couturat (op. cit. p. 51) writes as follows : " It is certainly not for-
bidden to think of concepts and their relations through their intensions,
but they only enter into our formulas by their extension, and their relations
in extension are those which form the basis of the logical calculus."

69 Op. cit. p. 36.

60 Op. cit. p. 39.

61 Poincar6 lays special emphasis upon this point in his polemic against
the logisticians (Article already quoted).

62 See Article quoted above.

63 Fieri in his more recent utterance (Uno Sguardo al nuovo indirizzo
logico-mathematico dette scienze deduttive (Catania, 1907), p. 51 ff., observes
that Russell's logical constants, though sufficient for the construction of
numerical and geometrical entities, are insufficient to assure us of their
existence. He considers that the following existential judgment should be
included among our logical premisses : " There exists at least one infinite
class of entities," to deduce the existence of the whole numbers from them.
From this it would then be possible to derive the existence of any other
mathematical entity we choose.

64 Besides, Russell too recognises the necessity of having recourse to
intuition, " Les Paradoxes de la logique," Revue de met. et de mor., September
1906, p. 630 S.

85 " L' Importance philosophique de la logistique," Revue de met. et de
mor., 1911, p. 283 ff. ; The Problems of Philosophy (London, 1912);
" The Basis of Realism," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods, vol. viii. p. 158 ff.

66 " The Programme and first Platform of six Realists," Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Method, voL vii. p. 393 ff. ; The
New Realism ; Co • operative Studies in Philosophy, by Edwin B. Holt,
Walter T. Marvin, William Pepperell Montague, Ralph Barton Perry,
Walter B. Pitkin, and Edward Gleason Spaulding (New York, 1912).
Dewey, "The Short Cut to Realism examined," Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology, and Scientific Method, voL vii. p. 553 ff. ; Spaulding,
" Realism, a Reply to Professor Dewey," ibid. voL viii. p. 63 ff. ; Dewey
" Rejoinder to Dr. Spaulding," ibid. voL viii. p. 77 ff. ; Drake, " The
Inadequacy of Natural Realism," ibid. vol. viii. p. 365 ff. ; • Dewey, " Brief
Studies in. Realism," ibid. vol. viii. p. 393 ff. ; p. 546 ff.,; Calkins, " The
Idealist to the Realist," ibid. vol. viii. p. 449 ff. ; Love joy, " Reflections
of a Temporalist on the New Realism," ibid. vol. viii. p. 58 ff. ; " On some
Novelties of the New Realism and Subjectivism," ibid. vol. x. p. 43 ff. ;
Cohen, " The New Realism," ibid. vol. x. p. 197 ff. ; Perry, " Some
disputed Points in neo-Realism," ibid. vol. x. p. 449 ; Pratt, " Professor
Perry's Proofs of Realism," ibid. vol. ix. p. 573 ff.

67 " tiber die Stellung der Gegenstandstheorie im System der Wissen-
schaften," Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und philosophische Kritik, October
1906, p. 48 ff. ; January 1907, p. 105 ff. ; April 1907, p. 1 ff. ; Unter-
suchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologic (Leipzig, 1904), which
in addition to the first article by Meinong, entitled " Uber Gegenstands-
theorie," contains papers by his followers, Ameseder, Mally, Frankel,
Benussi, Liel, and Saxinger.

68 Mind, vol. xiv., 1905, p. 533.

69 " Uber die Stellung der Gegenstandstheorie," Article 1, p. 63 ff.

CHAPTER III

ENERGETICS

1. Traditional Mechanism. — From the Renaissance until
the middle of the nineteenth century scientific thought
was dominated by the concept that the key to all natural
phenomena was to be sought in mechanics. In the re-
action from the Scholasticism which saw in every new
phenomenon the working of some new occult quality,
and had no hesitation in multiplying the number of these
qualities ad absurdum, the science of the Renaissance
was inspired by the ruling idea that the true essence
of physical reality is to be found in quantitative
relations. If, as Kepler affirms, mundus participat
quantitate, what but mechanics, which Leonardo da
Vinci terms " the paradise of the mathematical sciences,"
can serve as the foundation upon which all experimental
science is to be mathematically built up ? The master
mind of Galileo regarded the book of nature as written
in mathematical characters, and the geometrical pro-
perties of bodies, figure, magnitude, rest, and motion
as the first and real accidents, which exist objectively,
whereas other qualities only exist in relation to the organ
of sense.1 In like manner Descartes, reducing matter
to extension only and making all variations of bodies
dependent upon motion, absorbs physics into mechanics
and mechanics into geometry.2

In spite of the criticisms of Berkeley and Hume, the
division between primary and secondary qualities, taken
up by Hobbes and Locke, is accepted as a dogma by all

346

CH.HJ ENERGETICS 347

those scientists the tendency of whose researches enables
them to say with Descartes : Terram totumque hunc
mundum instar machinae descripsi, and the dream of a
universal system of mechanics is realised in Huygen's
undulatory theory of light,3 Bernouilli's kinetic theory
of gases, and Mayer's mechanical theory of heat. Just,
however, when the great work seemed to be accomplished
with the inclusion in the same system of the mechanical
laws of the great revolutions of the planets and the
imperceptible motions of atoms, and the hope had
dawned that it might be possible to comprise even the
phenomena of life within these universal formulas,
the first doubts as to the value of mechanical explana-
tions began to arise.

In the first part of this book we have studied the
general causes of a philosophical order which brought
about the critical revision of science and a new episte-
mological valuation of it towards the end of the nine-
teenth century ; we shall therefore now confine our-
selves to pointing out the scientific reasons which led
physicists to reconstruct their theories upon new bases.4

The supreme principles of energy, undoubtedly the
greatest triumph of the last century in the realm of theo-
retical physics, did much to undermine faith in traditional
mechanism. The principle of conservation of energy
appeared at first sight to confirm the mechanical theory :
Helmholtz, Clausius, and Kelvin, indeed, took Mayer's
discovery of the equivalence of heat and work to be a
proof of the possibility of reducing all forms of energy
to kinetic energy ; an interpretation which was not
legitimate. Mayer's experiments merely proved that
it was possible to transform one form of energy into
another, that a determinate quantity of one such form
always corresponded to a determinate quantity of
another ; it did not, however, afford any authority for
regarding one form of energy, i.e. the kinetic, as the
basis of all other forms. We should be equally entitled
to conclude that heat, light, motion, and chemical affinity
are but different manifestations of the same electrical

348 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

energy. As Ostwald correctly observes, the equivalence
of afl forms of energy, far from authorising us to reduce
one of these forms to another, places them all on the
same level. In any case the principle of conservation,
if it could not be adduced in support of the mechanical
theory, since it rather impelled thought to transcend
that theory and to comprehend it as a special instance
in a wider theory, based upon the general laws of ener-
getic transformations, did not, on the other hand, con-
stitute a decisive argument against it.

2. Carnofs Principle. — The heaviest blow to the
mechanical theory was dealt by the other principle—
that of Carnot. Mechanics, as ordinarily understood,
is the study of reversible phenomena : if to the
parameter representing time, which has acquired in-
creasing values in the course of the development of
the phenomenon, we assign decreasing values which
cause its inversion, the whole system must once more go
through just the same stages as it has already traversed.
Now Carnot 5 and Clausius 6 have shown (the latter even
more plainly than the former) that this is not verified
in the transition from thermal to kinetic energy : if a
determinate quantity of work be expended in order
to raise the temperature of a body, we cannot return
exactly to the initial stage of the process by inverting
the cycle : however perfect the machine may be, we shall
never obtain from the lowering of the thermal level the
same amount of work as we have employed : there will
always be a portion of the thermal energy which is not
transformed into work, which is, as it is commonly
expressed, lowered or degraded. This irrevocability,
which is a general characteristic of the physical world,
and this evolution of nature in a determinate direction
do not admit of explanation by the mechanical theory.
Were physical phenomena exclusively due to the motions
of atoms, whose mutual attraction depended upon
nothing but distance, they should be reversible : when
all the initial velocities are reversed, the atoms subjected
to the action of the same forces should pursue their

CH.IH ENERGETICS 349

trajectories in the contrary sense, just in the same
way as the earth would describe in a retrograde sense
the same elliptic orbit which it describes in a direct
sense, were the initial conditions of its motion in-
verted. The attempts which have been made to
reconcile Carnot's principle with traditional mechanics
have failed to give satisfactory results : it has almost
always been necessary in the course of the deduction
to introduce some new hypothesis, independent of the
fundamental principles of mechanics, and equivalent
in reality to one of the postulates upon which the
ordinary enunciation of the second law of thermo-
dynamics is based.7 Helmholtz has endeavoured to
include Carnot's principle in the principle of least
action ; this does not, however, eliminate the diffi-
culties involved in the mechanical interpretation of
the irreversibility of phenomena. Gibbs,8 Boltzmann,9
and Planck have advanced extremely interesting ideas
on this point : they consider that the principle indi-
cates that a given system tends to the configuration
offering the maximum probability : thus two different
gaseous masses, placed in two separate receptacles,
will, when communication is opened between the two
receptacles, become diffused into one another, and
it is extremely improbable that in the course of the
reciprocal shocks the two kinds of molecule will assume
a distribution of velocity bringing them back to the
initial state by a spontaneous phenomenon. Carnot's
principle would then merely express a law of probability :
an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances would
be required in order to render phenomena reversible.
The return to the primitive state demands a very great
interval of time, but is not absolutely impossible. This
attempt at reconciliation is undoubtedly sufficiently
ingenious : at bottom it does, however, but oppose the
possibility of a fact to a phenomenon proved by experi-
ence, though this procedure does not answer to the rules
of scientific method. Physical theories must formu-
late the laws of observed phenomena, not of those which

350 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT. n

are more or less probable. It is better to seek another
theory which affords a more satisfactory explanation
of the phenomena which have been hitherto observed
than to speculate upon mere possibilities, in the hope
of saving the mechanical hypothesis at all costs.

3. Evolutionary Genesis of Chemical Elements. — In
the realm of chemistry also the new discoveries have
led science to abandon the old concept of the in-
destructible atom and to substitute an energetic con-
ception for the old atomic theory. As early as 1815
Prout, starting from the hypothesis that the atomic
weights of all simple bodies were exact multiples of the
weight of hydrogen, had maintained the unity of com-
position of the elements, regarding them as formed by
successive condensations of hydrogen. The periodic
law, first suggested by Newlands in 1864, and elaborated
by Mendelejeff in 1869, according to which the chemical
and physical properties of elements are periodic functions
of their atomic weights, confirmed the hypothesis of the
unity of composition of the elements ; so that, when
William Crookes, in a discourse on " The Genesis of Ele-
ments," 10 given at the Royal Institution on February 18,
1887, and in his presidental address to the Chemical
Society in the following year on " Elements and Meta-
Elements," u proving the falsity of the belief that
chemical elements have existed ab aeterno as we now
observe them, and cannot be subjected to change or
decomposition, maintained that these elements are
neither simple, nor primordial, nor created all at once,
but that they are the result of evolution, he did in reality
but formulate an idea which had, if I may so put it,
already been for long in the air of science. Crookes,
however, must be credited with having placed the
evolutionary hypothesis in chemistry upon an experi-
mental basis by analysing the spectra of certain metals
belonging to the series of rare earths, such as yttrium,
samarium, thorium, etc. If one of these metals, yttrium,
for example, be subjected to a long and tedious process
of fractionisation, and the parts thus obtained become

CH.III ENERGETICS 351

phosphorescent by the action of the induction-spark in
tubes with the rarefaction of a millionth part of an atmo-
sphere, different spectra will be obtained, revealing the
existence of specifically distinct substances. The con-
clusions thus reached by Crookes have been corroborated
by Lockyer's long and painstaking spectral analyses,12
which prove the erroneousness of the theory that
each chemical element has but one spectrum. The
application of a higher degree of temperature than had
previously been employed led Lockyer to admit the
existence of component parts of a still more subtle nature
in substances which had been regarded as simple. The
same element will present different spectra if it be
exposed to different degrees of temperature : certain
lines in the spectra of iron, calcium, and magnesium are
not visible at a low temperature, but become more intense
when the temperature is raised — a proof that the atoms
composing these substances are not immutable and in-
divisible, but are subject to change and dissociation.13

The recent discoveries of cathode rays, X-rays, and
radio-active bodies such as uranium and radium, and
the proof that radio-activity does not belong to certain
bodies only, but constitutes a general property of matter,
have corroborated from another point of view the
hypothesis of the evolutionary formation of elements
and of their dissociation ; since such radiations,
according at all events to Le Bon's theory,14 which is
based upon numerous experiments, are but the product
of the dematerialisation of atoms, which thus restore
by means of a slow process of dissipation the energy
stored up in them during the period of cosmic formation.
Energy and matter are at bottom but two forms of one
and the same thing ; one is a stable, the other an un-
stable form of intra-atomic energy ; when the atoms
are dissociated, that is to say when matter is de-
materialised, the stable form of energy, which is termed
matter, is merely transformed into the unstable form
known as electricity, light, heat, etc.15

4. Physical Chemistry. — The researches of physical

352 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

chemistry, and more especially of its most flourishing
branch electro-chemistry, which were inspired and
promoted mainly by Wilhelm Ostwald,16 have done much
to direct thought towards an energetic conception of
material transformations. If Dalton's atomic theory
be rejected as a useless and arbitrary hypothesis,17
chemistry enlarges its borders and looks to a dynamic
theory for a more comprehensive basis ; chemical
combination is regarded as a special instance of
physical mixture, and a physical definition thereof is
accordingly sought. It is mainly due to the labours of
Van 't Hoff that the profound and accurate theory of
diluted solutions, which institutes a comparison between
solutions and gases from the thermo-dynamic point of
view, came into being independently of any mechanical
hypothesis ; thus the fundamental laws of chemical
transformations, i.e. the laws of equilibrium and of
velocity of reaction, are independent of any mechanical
presupposition whatsoever. The law of mass -action,
by which bodies are chemically efficacious in ratio
of their concentration, can be grasped perfectly well
without the help of hypotheses, so much so that
Berthollet, an opponent of Dalton's conception, was
the first to enunciate it, and the application of it to
single chemical processes was made by Guldberg, Waage,
and Wilhelmy without having recourse to the attrac-
tive forces of atoms. Gibbs' law of phases 18 and Van 't
Hoff's principle of mobile equilibrium are infallible
guides, enabling us to foresee and calculate many
chemical reactions, when the qualitative difference of
bodies is disregarded ; and the principles of thermo-
dynamics thus render it possible to dispense with the old
atomic theory, which, however efficacious it may be
as a representation of a certain class of experimental
facts, cannot afford a general view of all the phenomena.
5. Energetics in Rankine and Spencer. — Energetics,
which has found its staunchest advocate in Wilhelm
Ostwald, would fain replace this narrow one-sided
scheme by wider concepts and principles, which are not

cH.m ENERGETICS 353

borrowed from one special branch of physics, regarded
arbitrarily as the basis of all the others, but com-
prehend in one vast synthesis the characteristics
common to the different classes of phenomena. Such
a concept is nothing new either in the realm of
science or in that of philosophy 19 : if we are not pre-
pared to return to the dynamism of Leibnitz, which,
as opposed to the mechanical theory of Descartes and
Gassendi, regarded motion and extension as phenomenal
manifestations of force, which last it denned as, ce qu'il
y a dans I'etat present, qui porte avec soi un changement
pour I'avenir,20 we must at all events refer to two of
his immediate predecessors, Rankine and Spencer.
Some time before Ostwald, Rankine in an article pub-
lished in 1846,21 after distinguishing the abstractive
method, which confines itself to the data of experience
and does not theorise about that which lies beyond those
data, but contents itself with gathering together the
characteristics common to the various orders of pheno-
mena in order that it may rise by induction to general
and abstract concepts and laws, from the hypothetical
•method, which rather has recourse to conceptions of a
conjectural order with regard to that intimate constitu-
tion of objects which is not revealed to us by the senses,
advises us to reject the latter method, which is the one
adopted by traditional mechanicism, in order to raise
the new eclince of energetics with the aid of the former.^
If we would purge physics of the arbitrary hypotheses"?
of masses, movements, and imperceptible forces, and
reduce it to the abstractive form, we must find the
properties which are common to the various groups of
physical phenomena, forming classes of a more and
more extensive order, until we reach the most general
concepts and principles. Energy is precisely the most
general property of physical facts, in as much as the
power of producing an effect and of being a potentiality
of changes is a characteristic common to them all ;
hence its laws must constitute the fundamental principles
of the new physical theory, from which the special laws

2A

354 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE PT.H

governing the different groups of phenomena are derived
f by a process of deduction. Spencer, too, as is well
known, looking at the matter from the philosophical
and more particularly the psychological point of view, in
his First Principles, after a not very successful analysis
of the presentations of space, time, matter, and motion,
arrives at " force," which he regards as the ultimate and
irreducible element in the experience of the outer world.
6. Ostwald's Phenomencdistic Programme. — Ostwald
goes still farther than Spencer : the concept of energy
not only shows us how to systematise the experience
of the external world, but enables us to penetrate the
innermost recesses of human consciousness, and sheds
its light on the loftiest spheres of the mind, the noblest
manifestations of art and morality. He affirms that
matter only exists in thought ; the real, that which truly
acts upon us, is energy.22 We must get wholly rid of
figurative hypotheses and analogies with mechanics, and
construct a science devoid of hypotheses — eine hypo-
thesenfreie Wissenschaft.*3 Is such an undertaking
possible ? Some men of science would absolutely deny
such a possibility, maintaining that every mathematical
formulation of phenomena is based upon some hypo-
thesis: thus in mechanics we speak of perfectly rigid
bodies and of absolutely frictionless fluids, etc., which
do not exist in nature and are therefore only admitted
by hypothesis. This argument, however, fails to dis-
_tinguish between two different things. There can be no j
doubt that the relations expressed by natural laws are
never perfectly realised in experience, because they refer
to abstractions, that is to say to real phenomena, minus
certain aspects thereof which we voluntarily leave out
of consideration. This holds good of all the magnitudes
which we disregard and look upon as null, not because
they are so in reality, but because they are too small
for us to measure. We frequently disregard even
measurable quantities, because we have not yet found
out how to calculate them. Ostwald terms this general
procedure which is dependent upon the nature of our

OH. m ENERGETICS 355

mind the method of abstraction (Abstractionsverfahren), in
order to distinguish it from all other scientific methods,
and more particularly from hypotheses properly so
called.24 In hypotheses the procedure is reversed :
we do not for convenience' sake disregard certain parts
of phenomena, but add to them characteristics which
are not given to us by experience, and which can never
admit of scientific proof, by forming images or models
drawn for the most part from the realm of mechanics,
which represent certain aspects of phenomena in an
intuitive and communicable form. The images are of
course chosen in such a way as to represent the properties
of the phenomena by means of corresponding properties
of the images. Can an image be found capable of afford-
ing a complete presentation of all the characteristics
of phenomena ? Ostwald considers this to be an
impossibility, because when using images in the repre-
sentation of phenomena it is impossible to avoid
adding to them certain essential parts which are found
in the model, but not seen in the phenomenon ; now
between these extraneous parts and the corresponding
characteristics of the phenomenon a contradiction
will inevitably arise sooner or later, which will make
the given model useless. Is it not possible, however,
to make such a choice of images that this contradiction
will not arise ? No, because, did the image and the
object coincide in all their parts, they would be the same
thing. A phenomenon can only be perfectly represented
by means of itself : every representation thereof by means
of other phenomena of a more or less analogous order
must of necessity contain extraneous elements. But, it
may be objected by the advocates of hypotheses, all
the mathematical formulas, by means of which we
express, for example, the relation between velocity and
time of descent, between tension and current, are
also merely images of reality and not reality itself, so
that science from start to finish is constructed with the
help of these images. Ostwald replies to this that we
must draw a distinction between formulas and images :

356 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE FT. n

formulas possess no part which is peculiar to them, but
merely those elements which we put into them and derive
from experience. Every letter is a symbol, standing
for a phenomenal multiplicity having the character of a
magnitude, and has no further meaning ; the relations
set up by formulas between such symbols, corresponding
to objective magnitudes, can all be verified by means
of experience. In models or images, on the contrary,
properties are added which are not revealed to us by
phenomena, and cannot therefore ever be verified. We
must for this reason dismiss these arbitrary hypotheses :
science must set itself the problem of representing pheno-
mena in such a way that those elements only shall be
comprised in the representation which can be observed in
experience and those characteristics which are not capable
of verification put aside. This method excludes all
intuitive models or physical images and leaves as means
of representation nothing but numbers and algebraical
signs which stand in their stead. We must, however,,
bear in mind that hypotheses are frequently concealed
in formulas. How are we to recognise them ? If every
magnitude comprised in the formulas be measurable
in itself, we are really dealing with a relation between
phenomena, a true natural law : if, on the other hand,
the formulas contain magnitudes which are^not measur-
able in experience, we may rest assured that we shall
find ourselves confronted by hypotheses in mathematical
form. Let us take, for instance, the formula of the
kinetic theory of gases, pv = %mnc2. If we apply this
criterion, we see at once that measurable magnitudes
are symbolised in the first side of the equation, namely
pressure and volume, whereas the second side, on the
contrary, in which m represents the mass of a molecule,
n the number of molecules, and c their velocity, includes
/ non-measurable magnitudes.

7. Criticism of the Traditional Mechanical Theory.—
The traditional mechanical theory, in as much as it is
wholly based upon the use of hypothetical images, fails
to answer to the requirements of scientific method :

CH. ra ENERGETICS 357

its theories do not give a true reflection of the relations
of phenomena ; it rather makes arbitrary additions
thereto, in the mistaken belief that it is thus enabled
to penetrate more deeply into the nature of things. In
thermal phenomena, for instance, no mechanical property
comes under immediate observation, and, if it be admitted
that these phenomena consist in movements, we go
beyond facts and construct an imaginary world of
invisible particles, describing in space trajectories which
are equally invisible. Experience can, of course, neveT
prove the falsity of similar theories, because our imagina-
tion, being at liberty to form any image it likes of these
movements, can always modify them in such a way as to
bring them into agreement with facts. But if this
hypothesis cannot be shown to be false by experi-
mental proof, it must be rejected from the methodo-
logical point of view, since it does not simply tran-
scribe that which is given by experience, but contains
elements which can never be verified. The upholders
of the mechanical theory maintain that their pro-
cedure is legitimate, because it endeavours to reduce
the unknown to the known, as is done in every
explanation ; but this amounts to the postulate that
mechanical phenomena are better known than other
phenomena. This is by no means true at the present
stage of science, since the very same functional relations
between magnitudes to which our knowledge of the
laws of motion and masses is in the end reducible
have been established between the magnitudes of the
other groups of thermal, electrical, and chemical pheno-
mena, without the help of the mechanical hypothesis.
Undoubtedly there was a time in which mechanical
phenomena were better known than others ; it is, how-
ever, owing to a mere historical accident that the motions
of masses were the first to attract the attention of
students of science.25 Had researches into heat been
made first, there would have been a tendency to write
books entitled : Motion considered as a Form cf Heat,
instead of those bearing titles such as that of Tyndall's

358 IDEALISTIC REACTION AGAINST SCIENCE pr.n

work : Heat considered as a Form of Motion. Hypo-
theses are the perishable part of science, there is, how-
ever, something which lives on as a lasting acquisition ;
namely, the laws which express the relations between
the magnitudes of experience. Naturgesetze sind
dauernd, Hypothesen sind vergdnglich.26 The laws of
stoicheiometry will endure when the atomic theory exists
only in the pages of dusty forgotten books on our
library shelves, and Ohm's laws will hold good for ever,
no matter what representation of the essence of electric
energy may be prevalent in the future. But if Ostwald
denies the usefulness of hypotheses even as heuretic
means, and affirms that we have nothing to do but keep
our eyes open in order to make new discoveries, and that
working hypotheses are indispensable only to those who
are not capable of advancing without them, just as
crutches are to those who cannot walk without their aid,
he intends this assertion to apply merely to conjectures
as to what lies beyond phenomena, not to anticipations
of experience, which he terms prototheses in order to
distinguish them from hypotheses properly so called,