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ESSAYS TOWARDS
A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
_Rosalind:_ I pray you, what is't o'clock?
_Orlando:_ You should ask me, what time o' day;
there's no clock in the forest.
_As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2._
ESSAYS TOWARDS A
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
BY
ALEXANDER PHILIP
F.R.S.E
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1915
+he gar achromatos te kai aschematistos kai anaphes ousia ontos ousa
psyches kybernete monoi theatei no, peri hen to tes alethous epistemes
genos, touton echei ton topon.+--PHAEDRUS.
PREFACE
Two years ago, in the preface to another essay, the present writer
ventured to affirm that "Civilisation moves rather towards a chaos than
towards a cosmos." But he could not foretell that the _descensus Averni_
would be so alarmingly rapid.
When we find Science, which has done so much and promised so much for
the happiness of mankind, devoting so large a proportion of its
resources to the destruction of human life, we are prone to ask
despairingly--Is this the end? If not; how are we to discover and assure
for stricken Humanity the vision and the possession of a Better Land?
Not certainly by the ostentatious building of peace-palaces nor even by
the actual accomplishment of successful war. Only by the discovery of
true first principles of Thought and Action can Humanity be redeemed.
Undeterred by the confused tumult of to-day we must still seek a true
understanding of what knowledge is--what are its powers and what also
are its limitations. Nor may we forget that other principle of
life--with which it is so quaintly contrasted in Lord Bacon's
translation of the Pauline aphorism--_Knowledge bloweth up, Charity
buildeth up._
_January 1915._
CONTENTS
PAGE
I
TIME AND PERIODICITY 11
II
THE ORIGIN OF PHYSICAL CONCEPTS 17
III
THE TWO TYPICAL THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 36
IV
THE DOCTRINE OF ENERGY 81
ESSAYS TOWARDS A
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
I
TIME AND PERIODICITY
We can measure Time in one way only--by counting repeated motions. Apart
from the operation of the physical Law of Periodicity we should have no
natural measures of Time. If that statement be true it follows that
apart from the operation of this law we could not attain to any
knowledge of Time.[11:1] Perhaps this latter proposition may not at
first be readily granted. Few, probably, would hesitate to admit that in
a condition in which our experience was a complete blank we should be
unable to acquire any knowledge of Time; but it may not be quite so
evident that in a condition in which experience consisted of a
multifarious _but never repeated_ succession of impressions the
Knowledge of Time would be equally awanting.[12:1] Yet so it is. The
operation of the Law of Periodicity is necessary to the measurement of
Time. It is by means, and only by means, of periodic pulsative movements
that we ever do or can measure Time. Now, apart from some sort of
measurement Time would be unknowable. A time which was neither long nor
short would be meaningless. The idea of unquantified Time cannot be
conceived or apprehended. Time to be known must be measured.
Periodicity, therefore, is essential to our Knowledge of Time. But
Nature amply supplies us with this necessary instrument. The Law of
Periodicity prevails widely throughout Nature. It absolutely dominates
Life.
The centre of animal vitality is to be found in the beating heart and
breathing lungs. Pulsation qualifies not merely the nutrient life but
the musculo-motor activity as well. Eating, Walking,--all our most
elementary movements are pulsatory. We wake and sleep, we grow weary and
rest. We are born and we die, we are young and grow old. All animal life
is determined by this Law.
Periodicity--generally at a longer interval of pulsation--equally
affects the vegetal forms of life. The plant is sown, grows, flowers,
and fades.
Periodicity is to us less obvious in the inanimate world of molecular
changes; yet it is in operation even there. But it is more especially in
the natural motions of those so-called material masses which constitute
our physical environment that Periodicity most eminently prevails.
Indeed it was by astronomers that the operation of this Law was first
definitely recognised and recorded. Periodicity is the scientific name
for the Harmony of the Spheres.
The two periodic motions which most essentially affect and concern us
human beings are necessarily the two periodic motions of the globe which
we inhabit--its rotation upon its axis which gives us the alternation of
Day and Night, and its revolution round the Sun which gives us the year
with its Seasons. To the former of these, animal life seems most
directly related; to the latter, the life of the vegetal orders. It is
evident that the forms of animal life on the globe are necessarily
determined by the periodic law of the Earth's diurnal rotation. This
accounts for the alternations of waking and sleeping, working and
resting, and so forth. In like manner the more inert vitality of the
vegetable kingdom is determined by the periodic law of the Earth's
annual revolution. When fanciful speculators seek to imagine what kind
of living beings might be encountered on the other planets of our
system, they usually make calculations as to the force of gravity on the
surface of these planets and conjure up from such data the possible size
of the inhabitants, their relative strength and agility of movement,
etc. So far so good. But the first question we should ask, before
proceeding to our speculative synthesis, should rather be the length of
the planet's diurnal rotation and annual revolution periods. Certain
planets, such as Mars and Venus, have rotation periods not very
different from those of our own Earth.[14:1] Other things being equal,
therefore, a certain similarity of animal life must be supposed possible
on these planets. On the other hand, the marked difference in their
revolution period would lead us to expect a very wide divergence between
their lower forms of life, if any such there be, and our own terrestrial
vegetation. The shorter the annual period the more would the vegetal
approximate to the animal, and _vice versa_. It would, however, be
foolish to waste more time over a speculation so remote.
But these two facts remain unshaken:--(1) That our measurements and
whole science of Time depend absolutely on the operation throughout
Nature of the Law of Periodicity, and (2) that the periodicities which
affect and determine animal and vegetal life upon our Earth are the
periodic movements of rotation and revolution of that Earth itself.
Now it is to the curvilinear motions of the heavenly bodies that we must
ascribe our subjection to the periodic law. If these heavenly bodies
moved for ever in straight lines, as they would do if unacted on by
natural forces, the periodic rhythm of Nature would disappear.
It is to the fact that all Nature is under the constraint due to the
constant silent operation of physical Force that we owe, therefore, the
law which determines the most essential features of vitality. The
pulsations in which life consists and by which it is sustained are
attributable to the constraint and limitation which we recognise as the
effect of the operation of Natural Force. It is to this same cause that
we ascribe the resistance of cohering masses in virtue of which
sensation arises and by which our experience is punctuated. It is by
means of these obstructions to free activity that our experience is
denoted, and by reference to these that it is cognised. Indeed, Activity
itself as we know it depends upon and presupposes the existence of
these cohering masses.
Thus the operation of Natural Force and the constraint and limitation
which are thereby imposed upon our activity appear at once to determine
the conditions of life and to furnish the fundamental implements of
Knowledge.
We cannot overleap the barriers by which Life is constrained. These,
whilst, on the one hand they seem to _create the environment_ which
sustains Life, on the other hand seem to impose upon it the limitations
under which it inevitably fails and dies. We cannot even in imagination
conceive, either as reality or as fancy, the illimitable puissance of a
Life perfectly free and unrestrained. Yet the assurance that Perfect
Love could overcome the bonds of Materiality and Death encourages in
mankind the Hope of an existence beyond the impenetrable veil of
physical limitation. And this at any rate may be admitted, namely, that
that dynamic condition in which materiality arises is also the
condition-precedent of Tridimensionality, of Force, of Time, and of
Mutation. But we cannot thus account for the _elan vital_ itself.
FOOTNOTES:
[11:1] Plato in the dialogue _Timaeus_ tells us that Time was born with
the Heavens, and that Sun, Moon, and Planets were created in order that
Time might be.
[12:1] This might be contrasted with the statement of M. Bergson who
tells us (_Evolution creatrice_, p. 11): "Plus nous approfondirons la
nature du temps plus nous comprendrons que duree signifie invention,
creation de formes, elaboration continue de l'absolument nouveau."
[14:1] Recently, we believe, astronomers have favoured the view that the
day of Venus is equal in length to her year.
II
THE ORIGIN OF PHYSICAL CONCEPTS
"_Penser c'est sentir_," said Condillac. "It is evident," said Bishop
Berkeley, "to one who takes a survey of the _objects_ of Human Knowledge
that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses or else such
as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the
Mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination either
combining, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived
in the foresaid ways." J. S. Mill tells us, "The points, lines, circles,
and squares which one has in his mind are, I apprehend, simply copies of
points, lines, circles, and squares which he has known in his
experience," and again, "The character of necessity ascribed to the
truths of Mathematics and even, with some reservations to be hereafter
made, the peculiar certainty attributed to them is an illusion." "In the
case of the definitions of Geometry there exist no real things exactly
conformable to the definitions." Again Taine, "_Les images sont les
exactes reproductions de la sensation._" Again Diderot, "_Pour imaginer
il faut colorer un fond et detacher de ce fait des points en leur
supposant une couleur differente de celle du fond. Restituez a ces
points la meme couleur qu'au fond,--a l'instant ils se confondent avec
lui et la figure disparait_," etc. Again, Dr. Ernest Mach, Vienna,
remarks, "We are aware of but one species of elements of Consciousness:
sensations." "In our perceptions of Space we are dependent on
sensations." Dr. Mach repeatedly refers to "space-sensations," and
indeed affirms that all sensation is spatial in character.[18:1]
According to the view of Knowledge of which we have extracted examples
above, the ideas of the mind are originally furnished to it by
sensation, from which therefore are derived, not necessarily all our
Thoughts, but all the materials of Discourse, all that constitutes the
essence of Knowledge.
Our purpose at the moment is to show that this view is altogether false,
and our counter proposition is, that it is from our Activity that we
derive our fundamental conceptions of the external world; that
sensations only mark the interruptions in the dynamic Activity in which
we as potent beings partake, and that they serve therefore to denote and
distinguish our Experience, but do not constitute its essence.
We do not propose now to devote any time to the work of showing that
sensations from their very nature could never become the instruments of
Knowledge. We propose rather to turn to the principal ideas of the
external world which are the common equipment of the Mind in order to
ascertain whether in point of fact they are derived from Sensation.
Of course to some extent the answer depends on what we mean by
Sensation. If by that term we intend our whole Experience of the
external, then of course it necessarily follows--or, at least, we
admit--that our Knowledge of the external must be thence derived. But
such a use of the term is loose, misleading, and infrequent. The only
safe course is to confine the term Sensation to the immediate data of
the five senses--touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, with probably
the addition of muscular and other internal feelings. It is in this
sense that the word is usually employed, and has been employed by the
Sensationalist School themselves.
Now we might perhaps begin by taking the idea of Time as a concept
constantly employed in Discourse, but of which it would be absurd to
suggest that it is supplied to us by Sensation. It might, however, be
urged in reply that the idea of Time is not derived from the external
world at all, but is furnished to us directly by the operations of the
Mind, and that therefore its intellectual origin need not involve any
exception to the general rule that the materials of our Knowledge of the
world are furnished by Sensation alone. Without, therefore, entering
upon any discussion of the interesting question as to what is the real
nature of Time, we shall pass to the idea of Space.
Mach, the writer whom we have already quoted, in his essay on _Space and
Geometry_ speaks constantly and freely of sensations of Space, and as
there can be no denial of the fact that Space is a constituent of the
external world, it would seem to follow that those who hold Sensation to
be the only source of our Knowledge must be obliged to affirm the
possibility of sensations of Space. Mach indeed claims to distinguish
physiological Space, geometrical Space, visual Space, tactual Space as
all different and yet apparently harmoniously blended in our Experience.
He is, however, sadly wanting in clearness of statement. He never tells
us when and where exactly we do have a sensation of Space. In truth he
never gets behind the postulate of an all-enveloping tridimensional
world; so that he throughout assumes Space as a datum, and his inquiry
is an effort to rediscover Space where he has already placed it.
Let us, however, consider for a moment what can be meant by a sensation
of Space. Does it not look very like a contradiction in terms? Pure
Space, if it means anything, means absolute material emptiness and
vacuity. How, then, by any possibility can it give rise to a sensation?
What sensory organ can it be conceived as affecting? How and in what way
can it be felt?
The truth is the idea of Space is essentially negative. It represents
absence of physical obstruction of every kind. No doubt, we may describe
it positively as a possibility of free movement, and such a description
is at once true and important. Yet even _it_ involves a negative. The
term "free" is in reality, though not in form, a negative term and means
"unconstrained." And the reason why such a term is necessarily negative
is to be found in the fact that a state of dynamic constraint is the
essential condition under which we enter upon our organic existence.
Freedom is a negation of the Actual. Absolute freedom is a condition
only theoretically possible, and is essentially the negation of the
state of restraint in which our life is maintained.
But the definition last quoted is nevertheless valuable because it
clearly shows what really is the origin of the idea of Space. It proves
that the idea of Space is a representation of one condition of our
Activity. It is because the primary work of Thought is to represent the
forms of our dynamic Activity that we find the idea of Space so
necessary and fundamental.
But it will perhaps be argued that our ordinary sensations carry with
them a spatial meaning and implication, and that indirectly, therefore,
our sensations _do_ supply us with the idea of Space. It will readily be
agreed that if this is so of any sensations it is pre-eminently true of
the sensations of vision and touch. Indeed, it will perhaps not be
disputed that the ordinary vident man derives from the sensations of
vision his most common spatial conceptions. We propose, therefore, to
inquire very briefly how the character of spatial extension becomes
associated with the data of Vision.
The objects of Vision appear to be displayed before us in immense
multitude, each distinct from its adjacent neighbour, yet all
inter-related as parts of one single whole--the presentation thus
constituting what is called Extensity.
This is the most commonly employed meaning of the term spatial. Yet it
is evidently in its origin rather temporal than spatial. In ordinary
movement we encounter by touch various obstacles, but only a very few of
these impress us at any one moment of time. On the contrary, they
succeed one after the other. To the blind, therefore, as Platner long
ago remarked: Time serves instead of Space. In Vision, on the other
hand, a large number, which it would take a very long time to encounter
in touch, are presented _simultaneously_. In this there is an immense
practical advantage, the result being that we come habitually to direct
our every action by reference to the data of Sight. Now it is because
these data--so simultaneously presented--are employed by us as the
guides of action that their presentation acquires the character which we
denominate Extensity. The simultaneous occurrence of a large number of
Sounds does not seem to us to present such a character. But let us
suppose that all the objects which constitute obstacles to our Activity
emitted Sounds by which they were recognised; it is not doubtful that
these would then come to be employed by us as the guides of our Activity
and would acquire in our minds the character of Extensity. They would
arrange themselves in a cotemporaneous, extensive, or spatial relation
to one another just as the objects of Vision do at present.
It is only, therefore, when we come to employ the simultaneous
presentation of Vision as the instrument of our Activity and the guide
of Action that it acquires the character commonly called extensive.
_Successive_ visual sensations convey no extensive suggestion.
It is important to realise the nature of this peculiar feature in the
data of Vision. The sounds which we hear, the odours which we smell, are
the immediate result of certain undulations affecting the appropriate
organ of sensation. We refer these to the object in which the
undulations originate. In like manner a light which we see is referred
to its objective luminous source. But light also and in addition is
reflected from, and thus reveals the presence of the whole body of our
resistant environment. Hence is derived the coloured presentation of
Vision to which the character of extensity attaches. Nothing similar
takes place in the case of the other distantial sensations. If sonorous
undulations excited vibration in every resistant object of the
environment they would undoubtedly come to arrange themselves in an
order resembling the extensity suggested by Vision, though the slower
rate of transmission of sound would detract from the practical
simultaneity in the effect which, as we have seen, largely accounts for
the perception of visual extensity. The universal diffusion of sunlight
is also a determining factor.
* * * * *
The matter becomes still clearer when we contrast the experience of
vident men with what we have been able to learn of the experiences of
the blind. Nowhere have we found this aspect of the question discussed
with the same clearness and ability as by M. Pierre Villey in his
recently published essay, _Le Monde des Aveugles_--Part III.
The blind man, as he remarks, requires representations in order to
command his movements. We must then penetrate the mind of the blind and
ascertain what are his representations. Are they, he asks, muscular
images combined by temporal relations, or are they images of a spatial
order? He replies without hesitation: Both, but, above all, spatial
images. It is clear, he says, that the modalities of the action of the
blind are explained by spatial representations. These must be derived
from touch. What, then, can be the spatial representations which arise
from touch? The blind, he says, are often asked, How do you figure to
yourself such and such an object, a chair, a table, a triangle? M.
Villey quotes Diderot as affirming that the blind cannot imagine.
According to Diderot, images require colour, and colour being totally
wanting to the blind the nature of their imagination was to him
inconceivable. The common opinion, says M. Villey, is entirely with
Diderot. It does not believe that the blind can have images of the
objects around him. The photographic apparatus is awanting and the
photograph cannot therefore be there.
Diderot was a sensationalist. For this school, as Villey remarks,
_l'image est le decalque de la sensation_, and he refers not merely to
Condillac the friend of Diderot but to his continuator Taine whose
dictum we have already quoted.
Diderot attempts to solve the problem by maintaining that tactual
sensations occupy an extended space which the blind in thought can add
to or contract, and in this way equip himself with spatial conceptions.
There would, on this view, as M. Villey remarks, be a complete
heterogeneity between the imagination of the blind and that of the
vident. M. Villey denies this altogether. He affirms that the image of
an object which the blind acquires by touch readily divests itself of
the characters of tactual sensation and differs profoundly from these.
He takes the example of a chair. The vident apprehends its various
features simultaneously and at once; the blind, by successive tactual
palpations. But he maintains that the evidence of the blind is unanimous
on this point, that once formed in the mind the idea of the chair
presents itself to him immediately as a whole,--the order in which its
features were ascertained is not preserved, and does not require to be
repeated. Indeed, the idea divests itself of the great bulk of the
tactual details by which it was apprehended, whilst the muscular
sensations which accompanied the act of palpation never seek to be
joined with the idea. This divestiture of sensation proceeds to such an
extent that there is nothing left beyond what M. Villey calls the pure
form. The belief in the reality of the object he refers to its
resistance. The origin of each of these is exertional. The features upon
which the mind dwells, if it dwells upon them at all, are _les qualites
qui sont constamment utiles pour la pratique_--in a word, the dynamic
significance of the thing.
We may remark that much the same is true of the ideas of the vident. In
ordinary Discourse we freely employ our ideas of external objects
without ever attempting a detailed reproduction of the visual image.
Such a reproduction would be both impracticable and unnecessary, and
would involve such a sacrifice of time as to render Discourse altogether
impossible. All that the Mind of the vident ordinarily grasps and
utilises in his discursive employment of the idea of any physical thing
is what we have ventured to call its dynamic significance. And the very
careful analysis which M. Villey has made of the mental conceptions of
the blind clearly shows that in their case he has reached exactly the
same conclusion.
Our fundamental conceptions of the external world are therefore derived
from and are built up out of the data of our exertional Activity
combined with the interruptions which that Activity perpetually
encounters, and in which sensations arise. It would indeed be a useful
work of psychological analysis if the conditions of exertional action
were carefully and systematically investigated--much more useful than
most of the trifling experiments to which psychological laboratories are
usually devoted.
The principal elements of such a scheme would be--
(1) The force of gravity. This force constantly operating constrains
the organism to be in constant contact with the earth on which we live.
But, further, it gives us the definite idea of _Direction_. It is from
the action of gravity that we derive our distinction between Up and Down
from which as a starting-point we build up our conception of
tridimensional Space. And in this respect it must be remembered that as
the areas of spheres are proportional to the squares of their radii it
necessarily follows that gravity if it acts uniformly in tridimensional
Space _must_ vary in intensity in proportion to the square of the
distance of the point of application from the centre of origin. Gravity
and tridimensionality are in short necessarily connected.
(2) The same law which determines the force of gravity seems to
determine also the force of cohesion, and therefore the form of material
bodies. These, therefore, are necessarily subject also to
tridimensionality, and in the force which generates solid form we find a
second source of our elementary spatial ideas.
Such form is the expression of an obstacle to action which determines
all our movements, and in which we discover those forms of the
limitations of activity which we call spatial characters.
(3) Organic Dualism is a third determinant of activity, and thus also a
source of spatial ideas.
The structural dualism of the human body, its right and left, its front
and back, etc., furnish our activity with a set of constant forms to
which its action must conform, and which necessarily also partake of,
and help us to conceive of tridimensional form. It is interesting to
note that this dualism characterises the organs specially adapted to
serve exertional action rather than those which serve our vegetal or
nutrient life.
The way in which our spatial conceptions are ever extended and built up
out of the data of action is also well illustrated in the case of the
blind, and to this also M. Villey devotes an interesting chapter under
the title _La conquete des representations spatiales_.
This is effected in their case by the high development of what we must
call active touch. Just as we distinguish between hearing and listening,
between seeing and looking, so must we distinguish between touching and
_palpation_.
Mere passive touch gives a certain amount of information, but
comparatively little. It is necessary to _explore_; that is what is done
in active touch--palpation--of different degrees.
The sensitiveness of the skin varies at different places from the tongue
downwards. Palpation by the fingers marks a further stage. The blind
also, we are told, largely employ the feet in walking as a source of
locative data.
To the concepts reached by such palpation with the hand, M. Villey gives
the name of Manual Space. In this connection he thinks it necessary to
distinguish between synthetic touch and analytic touch--the former
resulting from the simultaneous application of different parts of the
hand on the surface of a body, the latter that which we owe to the
movements of our fingers when having only one point of contact with the
object the fingers follow its contour. Various examples of the delicacy
of the information thus obtainable are given. Following two straight
lines with the thumb and index respectively, a blind man can acquire by
practice a sensibility so complete as to enable him to detect the
slightest divergence from parallelism.
The analysis passes on from the data of Space manual to those of Space
brachial; then to the information derived from walking and other
movements of the lower limbs, and then to the co-ordination of the
information derived from the sensations of hearing, which is necessarily
very important to the blind.
The conclusion of the whole matter is that our principal spatial ideas
are common alike to the blind and the vident. Both can be taught and are
taught the same geometry. Both understand one another in the
description of spatial conditions. The common element cannot possibly be
supplied either by the data of visual sensation which the blind do not
possess, or by the data of passive tactual sensation which the vident
hardly ever employ. _Une etendue commune se retrouverait a la fois dans
les donnees de la vue et dans celles du toucher._ The common element is
furnished by the common laws and forms of our exertional Activity by
means of which and in terms of which we all construct our conceptions of
the dynamic world of our environment.
* * * * *
It is from our dynamic Activity also that we derive our conception of
Force. Force, though it is studied scientifically in the measurement of
the great natural forces which operate constantly, is originally known
to us in the stress or pressure to which muscular exertion in contact
with a material body gives rise. Such a force if it could be correctly
measured, would record the rate at which Energy was undergoing
transmutation, and it is from such experience of pressure that our idea
of Force is originally derived.
The mass of bodies is usually measured by their weight, _i.e._ by
gravity. Its absolute measurement must be in terms of momentum. The true
estimate of the Energy of a body moving under the impulse of a constant
Force is stated in the formula 1/2MV{2}. To ascertain M, therefore, we
must have given F and V, and these are both conceptions the original
idea of which is derived from our exertional activity.
Quantity of Matter originally means the same as amount of resistance to
initiation of motion, at first estimated by the varying amount of
personal muscular energy required to effect the motion in question,
thereafter objectively and scientifically by comparison with some
independent standard whereby a more exact estimation can be attained
than was possible by a mere reference to the varying inferences of the
individual who might exert the force.
Space, Mass, Force are all therefore ideas which are furnished to us out
of our experience as potent actors, and the recognition of this great
truth provides us with the means of clearly apprehending and co-relating
our conceptions of the external world, the framework of our Knowledge.
The true distinction between a _percept_ and a _concept_ is just that a
percept is a concept associated with the dynamic system discovered in
and by our exertional activity.
In like manner we find here the true solution of the many questions
which have been raised as to the distinction between general and
abstract, singular and concrete terms.
Language expresses action: the roots of language are expressions of the
elementary acts which make up experience. They are therefore general.
Each applies to every act of the class in question. They are also
concrete. That is so because they refer to exertional activities.
Abstract terms are terms abstracted from this dynamic reference. Thus
_white_ is concrete because colour is a property of the dynamic world.
But when this property is considered apart from its dynamic support it
is called _whiteness_, and becomes abstract. In the case of purely
mental qualities the term is regarded as abstract simply because the
quality is in every reference extra dynamic. Thus _candour_, _justice_
are called abstract terms; they are properties of the Mind. But a
property of the dynamic system, _e.g._ Gravitation, does not strike us
as abstract--the sole distinction being the dynamic reference which the
latter term implies.
It will even be seen that there is sometimes a shading off of abstract
quality. Thus _Justice_ as an attribute of the Mind strikes us as a
purely abstract term. But as the word takes up a dynamic reference so
does its abstraction diminish. Thus in the expression "Administration of
Justice" the abstractive suggestion is less pronounced; till in the
person of Justice Shallow it vanishes in the very concrete.
Behind and beneath all these considerations we should never lose sight
of the great main facts--that thought is an activity; that its function
therefore is to represent or reproduce our pure exertional activity;
that such representation is _at the basis_ of all our concepts of
externality; that sensation, _per se_ is mere interruption of activity;
that _per se_ it possesses no spatial or extensive or external
suggestiveness; that sensations nevertheless serve to denote or give
feature and particularity to our experience of activity; that all
perception of the external is at bottom therefore a mental
representation of exertional activity and its forms, denoted,
punctuated, identified by sensation, which latter by itself, we repeat,
carries no suggestion of externality. This view revolutionises the whole
psychology of Perception, and therefore, though it at once gives to that
science a much-needed unity, clarity, and simplicity, it will naturally
be accepted with reluctance by the laborious authors of the cumbrous
theories still generally current.
FOOTNOTES:
[18:1] His reason is that we _ab origine_ localise sensations with
reference to our organism. This, of course, means by reference to the
system of potent energy in which our organism essentially consists.
III
THE TWO TYPICAL THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
The evolution of living organisms is in general a gradual and continuous
process. But it is nevertheless true that it presents well-marked stages
and can best be described by reference to these. Frequently, moreover,
the meaning and true nature of the movement at one stage is only
revealed after a subsequent stage has been reached.
The development of a brain or cerebrum marks one important advance. The
presence of this organ renders possible to the animal in varying degree
what are called representations of objects, and the faculty of making
such representations appears to be a condition precedent to the
development of deliberation, volition, and purposive action as opposed
to reflex or instinctive activity. The latter is specially
characteristic of other orders of organic existence such as the
Articulata--being remarkably exemplified in the activities of the social
insects such as the bee.
The advent of man with his faculty of Discourse may be regarded as
marking another distinct stage in the evolutionary movement--a stage,
moreover, the operations of which throw light upon the whole nature of
cerebral representations. The faculty of rational Discourse, as Max
Mueller pointed out, is denominated in Greek by the word +logos+,
applicable at once to the mental activity and to its appropriate
expression in speech. Discourse is an instrument by means of which man
has been enabled to construct his whole system of representations of the
world in which he lives, the system of what is commonly called his
Knowledge. Human Knowledge just is the body of man's representations of
his Experience in the world of which he forms a part. It is not
necessary to insist here on the gradual but remarkable growth and
extension which Human Knowledge has undergone during the last two
thousand years. Concurrently with its extension man's ability to control
the forces of Nature has been enlarged and increased. At the same time,
however, that extension has rendered possible false developments and
aberrations to which the more limited representations of the brute are
less liable.
With the faculty of rational Discourse constantly striving to extend the
bounds of Knowledge, man came in time to attempt to give an account not
only of the immediate objects which surround him, but of the whole choir
of Heaven and furniture of Earth. In this advance the Greeks took a
leading part.
When we first make acquaintance through historical records with the
intellectual activity of the Greek mind, we find it engaged in the
construction of various such schemes for an explanation of the
world--usually called cosmogonies.
It was at this stage of intellectual progress that what we might call an
interruption occurred in the normal process of evolution. Great
intellectual activity had for some time prevailed in the Greek
communities; several men of conspicuous genius--notably Heracleitus and
Parmenides--had carried speculation as to the origin and nature of the
world to a height hitherto undreamt of. These achievements and the
consciousness of continual progress had engendered in Athens
particularly what might be called an epidemic of intellectual pride.
On this scene Socrates appeared, plain, blunt, critical. His teaching
was in effect an appeal to men to reflect: to turn their attention away
from the world which they were supposed to be explaining to the
contemplation of their own Minds by which the explanation was
furnished. +gnothi seauton+ was his motto. All explanations of the
Universe or of Experience were, as he showed, vain unless the Cognitive
Faculty by which they were constructed were operating truly. In
particular, the process of Rational Discourse implied the use of
concrete general terms, which were recognised to be the essential
instruments of Cognition. Socrates therefore devoted his attention
specially to a critical examination of these general terms and also of
the abstract terms which were the familiar instruments of Discourse.
The Greeks of that day were endowed with a singular clearness of
intellectual vision. They readily recognised that Knowledge was an
intellectual process; they appreciated the activity of Thought or
Rational Discourse as essential to its formation. They quite understood
that Knowledge is not of the nature of a photograph--a resemblant
pictorial reproduction of the data furnished by sensation. Only very
casually and occasionally do we ever attempt to supply ourselves with a
resemblant reproduction of our sensations. Obviously such a reproduction
would only be of value memorially and could tell us nothing new.
These early Greeks realised this, and they appear to have realised also
pretty clearly that it would be impossible by means of such pictorial
impressions to establish any community of Knowledge. It is of the
essence of Knowledge that it is something which can be communicated to,
and which is the common possession of, several individuals. That can
never be true of sensation. We can never tell whether our sensations are
the same as those of other people--never at any rate by means of
sensations themselves; never unless and until such sensations have been
inter-related by some other instrument. A mere photographic reproduction
of sensation is thus quite useless as a means of Knowledge.
In some way or other general terms supply the common bond. The
recognition of this fact was one of the great results of the Socratic
discussion. This explains the immense importance which Socrates
naturally attached to the criticism of general and abstract terms.
* * * * *
The work of Socrates in this direction was immediately taken up and
carried much further by Plato. Plato maintained that these general and
abstract terms were in truth the names of ideas (+eide+) with which the
mind is naturally furnished, and further that these ideas corresponded
to and typified the eternal forms of things--the essential constituents
of the real world. Knowledge was possible because there were such
eternal forms or ideal elements--the archetypes--of which the +eide+
were the counterparts and representations.
Knowledge, Plato held, was concerned solely with these eternal forms,
not with sensation at all. The sensible world was in a state of constant
flux and could not be the object of true science. Its apprehension was
effected by a faculty or capacity (_Republic_, v. 478-79) midway between
Knowledge and nescience to which he applied the term +doxa+, frequently
translated _opinion_, but which in this connection would be much more
accurately rendered, _sensible impression_, or even perception. At any
rate, the term _opinion_ is a very unhappy one, and does not convey the
true meaning at all, for no voluntary intellective act on the part of
the subject was implied by the term. Now intelligence in constructing a
scheme of Knowledge is active. The ideas are the instruments of this
activity.
Plato's doctrine of ideas was probably designed or conceived by him as
affording an explanation also of the community of Knowledge. He
emphasised the fluent instability of the sensible impression, and as we
have already pointed out, sensation in itself labours also under this
drawback that it contains and affords no common nexus whereby the
conceptions or perceptions of one man can be compared or related with
those of another.
Indeed, if Experience were composed solely of sensations, each
individual would be an isolated solipsistic unit--incapable of rational
Discourse or communication with his fellow-men. To cure this defect,
Plato offered the ideas--universal forms common to the intelligence of
every rational being. Not only would they render possible a common
Knowledge of Reality--the existence of such ideas would necessarily also
give permanence, fixity, law, and order to our intellectual activity.
Our Knowledge would not be a mere random succession of impressions, but
a definitely determined organic unity.
In all this argument it must be remembered Plato never said or suggested
that the intellect of man--thus equipped with ideal forms--was thereby
enabled to become, or did become, the creator of the world by and in
which each one believes himself to be surrounded and included. He always
distinguished between Idea and Reality, between Thought and Thing. The
ideas were types of the forms immanent in things themselves. It has been
said by some scholars that he generally distinguished between the two by
the employment of distinct terms, applying +eidos+ to the mental
conception and +idea+ to the substantial form. This verbal distinction
was accepted by many scholars of the epoch of Liddell and Scott and
Davies and Vaughan. A reference to this distinction in the present
writer's essay on _The Dynamic Foundation of Knowledge_ provoked at the
instance of one critic the allegation that it is not borne out by a
critical study of the Platonic texts. That is a matter of little moment
and one upon which the writer cannot claim to pronounce. The important
point is that in one way or another Plato undoubtedly distinguished
between and indeed contrasted the idea and the substantial form. No
trace of the solipsism which results from their being confounded and
which has ultimately brought to destruction the imposing edifice of
Hegelian Thought is to be found in his writings.
* * * * *
The Platonic doctrine of ideas speedily found an energetic critic in
Aristotle. In Aristotle's view, it was quite unnecessary and
unwarrantable to postulate the existence in the Mind of ideal forms or
counterparts of the substantial forms of Reality. This, according to
him, was a wholly unnecessary reduplication. He was content to believe
that the mind found and recognised the essential forms of things when
they were presented to it in perceptive Experience. _Universalia in re_
were conceived by him as sufficiently explaining the genesis of
cognition without the postulation of any such _universalia extra rem_.
* * * * *
To the Platonic doctrine he offered the further objection that the
eternal forms of things which that doctrine affirmed and which it
declared to be represented in their ideal types were necessarily
impotential. There was no generative power in the pure activity of
Thought. If, therefore, the essentials of Reality were ideal, it
followed that they also were impotent, and incapable of causative
efficacy. The sensible world, however, was a fluent and perpetually
generated stream, which required some potent cause to uphold it.
The eternal Reality which sustained the world was for him an Energy
constantly generating the actual, and no conception which failed to
provide for this process of causative generation of the things of Sense
could in his view adequately account for the phenomena of Nature nor
consequently could constitute the system of science.
In this argument Aristotle undoubtedly expressed a profound truth, but
it may perhaps be admitted that he rather failed to appreciate fully
the difficulty which the Platonic doctrine was designed to meet--that,
namely, of providing some sort of common nexus or unifying principle by
which the validity of Knowledge could be maintained. For he had no
certain means of showing that the potent energy of Nature was unitary
and homogeneous.
He is frequently described as a sensationalist, but such a view is
certainly incorrect. This, however, may be admitted--that he sought the
essentials of Reality not in the Mind but in the Object. It may be
fairly claimed that to this extent he occupied common ground with the
sensationalists, in that he was an adherent of the _tabula rasa_ view of
the Mind, expressed in the maxim:--
_Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit in sensu._
* * * * *
Plato and Aristotle may be taken as typical of the two principal
intellectual tendencies which have characterised all subsequent
speculation--the Platonist, he who finds in the constitution of the Mind
the eternal principles or at least the types of the eternal principles
of Reality; the Aristotelian, he for whom these seem to reside in the
object and, in the act of Cognition, are merely impressed upon,
transferred to, presented to, or otherwise introduced into or
apprehended by the Mind.
The Aristotelian view of Nature as an energetic process failed to
impress itself upon his successors. Greek Philosophy soon after
Aristotle's death decayed or was deprived of its early vigour, and the
doctrine which survived the wreck was essentially derived, however
imperfectly, from the Platonic theory.
Throughout the first fifteen hundred years of the Christian era this
doctrine undoubtedly dominated the course of speculation--a speculation
of which much is now forgotten and almost as much was certainly barren
and unfruitful, but of which we would entertain a very mistaken notion
if we were to imagine that it was not often pursued with great subtlety
and acumen.
One natural result of the fact that such a principle dominated human
thought was the prevalence of a belief that the explanation of Nature
and natural processes could be derived from the cognitive faculty
itself. Our cognition of our immediate surroundings was doubtless
continuously corrected by immediate practical tests. But the science of
a more extended view of Nature was vitiated by this false principle and
in consequence for many centuries our whole Knowledge of Nature remained
unprogressive and unfruitful.
_Causa aequat effectum_, Nature abhors a vacuum, are examples of the
maxims derived or supposed to be derived from the necessities of our
Reason, and by the aid of which it was vainly hoped to attain a
knowledge of Nature and natural laws.
The principle was in itself unsound.
The necessary laws of our rational faculty could discover to us only the
essentials of that faculty itself.
The maxims by which it was sought to constitute _a priori_ a scheme of
natural laws could not justly claim descent from the necessities of
Thought. Had the Schoolmen formed a true conception of the nature of
Knowledge they would never have imagined that any necessity of Thought
obliged them to believe that a 10 lb. weight would fall to the ground
more rapidly than a 1 lb. weight. Equally true is it that their
scientific principles had not been derived from any study of the action
of natural law. They were unacknowledged intellectual orphans.