The recognition of the reign of law, which was so strongly insisted

on by Lucretius, is now turned against the materialist. The one thing

that atoms in themselves could not produce would be laws; and as law

is, from the subjective point of view, intelligibility, we may say that

the atoms are not capable of evolving an intelligible world. But the

intelligibility of the world is above all things that which science

demonstrates in the observation of laws, and it is thus a means by which

the nature of the world as intelligible is unfolded before us. But while

it explains what the intelligible is, in reference to its content, it

does not explain how the intelligibility itself came to be there; and

that is where we require to supplement our science with Faith and Reason.

Having thus established the a priori need for a God, we turn to the

question of the ways by which we get our knowledge of God. The first

is Faith[114] and the second Reason; but the difference between these

is not very great: in both the reaction of our minds is the convincing

point. As to faith, it is the belief which arises in our minds when we

hear a description of God: we find that the idea has an inner response

which compels us to believe. The effect is much the same in the case of

reason: there is formed within us an ‘anticipatio’ as a sort of residual

impression produced by experience. This is in a sense a priori. It

is not derived from the senses, but exhibited on the occasion of the

sense-impressions calling it forth. Technically we have to distinguish

between an ‘anticipatio’ got directly by comprehension, and those which

are got indirectly by comparison. The latter are formed on the basis of

sense-impressions, but are rational, requiring an activity that goes

beyond the senses, and constructs what is never given to the senses. It

is by this latter faculty that we attain the idea of God, which is thus a

concept. If we ask whether this is innate, the answer is that the faculty

is innate, but its exercise is dependent on the occasion furnished by the

senses.

As to the relation of God to man, we are told that Epicurus erred in

denying a special providence watching over man. At the same time man is

a free agent, his freedom being the gift of God that he may work out

his own salvation.[115] Religion, as is natural, produces in Gassendi a

cheerful optimism: the good man does indeed suffer evils, and the sinners

seem to flourish unduly; but the good man himself acknowledges that his

sufferings are profitable, and all things work together for good, which

is at least a tribute to the goodness of the good man; but if he was

less good perhaps his opinion might have been less in accord with our

philosopher’s creed.

With regard to this theology, some have said that it is no part of

Gassendi’s real philosophy. This I think is wrong. Apart from the

question of religious training and fear of the Church, the principles

of Gassendi’s philosophy require that the idea of causality should carry

us beyond the physical world of things. If it be necessary to go beyond

at all there seems no particular objection to the acceptance of theism,

for pantheism is out of the question. It is as a metaphysical requirement

that Gassendi introduces God, not as an appendix to his philosophy, but

right in the middle, at the heart of the subject, when he is dealing

with causation. The idea is for his times considerably refined: it would

probably have been hailed at a later time as deism, and unconsciously

goes very near to that as it is, for the world manages its own affairs

(VI. 155), and even man is only watched from afar with paternal interest

and led on to his self-fulfilment indirectly; but in spirit there is

certainly no suggestion of such a conclusion, and God is theoretically

rector mundi in the fullest sense of the term. The question which

usually proves so great a stumbling block, that of personality, is not

raised by Gassendi. He seems to have found no difficulty in the idea of

human personality, and consequently none in that of God; though he is

careful to point out that anthropomorphism is not essential, he does not

reconcile that with the converse assertion he frequently makes, that man

is created in the likeness of God.

NOTE ON DECLINATION

Gassendi discusses this point of declination very fully. When I say (page

221) there is no trace of it I mean that Gassendi does not build his

own theory on it in any way. As this ‘declination’ has been the subject

of much dispute, it will be worth while comparing Gassendi’s view of it

with later opinions. The most important of these later opinions is that

of Guyau in _La Morale d’Epicure_ (2nd edition, Paris, 1881). The whole

position taken up by Guyau is criticised by Masson (_The Atomic Theory

of Lucretius_), and I shall first state that position and the criticisms

made by Masson:

‘M. Guyau’s explanation of the subject is in several respects a novel

one, and especially so in regard to one point, viz. his account of

Epicurus’ teaching as to Chance and the very important part which M.

Guyau supposes it to play in the Epicurean philosophy. According to him

Epicurus believed that the element of chance which we see at work in

the world every day is the manifestation and outcome of a principle of

“Spontaneity” existing in Nature. This “Spontaneity” is the consequence

of the power of Declination possessed by the Atoms. Thus Epicurus

believed both Free-will in man and the element of Chance in the world

around him to be the result of the same power of Atomic Declination in

its twofold working. Epicurus, says M. Guyau, after having combated the

religious idea of Providence or Divine caprice, found himself confronted

with the scientific idea of necessity. Thus his main philosophic aim

was to escape from the notion of gods interfering with nature on the

one hand and to steer clear of the doctrine of fate on the other. It is

well known that Epicurus solved the difficulty in a way satisfactory to

himself, by assigning to the atoms the power of declination. But for this

power the world could never have come into existence, for otherwise the

atoms could never have come into contact and produced the earth or the

life upon it. It is the same power of spontaneous movement in the atoms

of the soul which alone originates and renders possible the Free-will of

man.... It is commonly thought,’ M. Guyau continues, ‘that Contingency,

placed by Epicurus at the origin of things, existed, according to him, at

the origin alone, and then disappeared in order again to leave room for

necessity. The world once made, the machine once constructed, why should

it not go on by itself without any need of invoking any other force than

Necessity?’ (_Masson_, pp. 210-214).

Further quotation shows that M. Guyau thinks, in opposition to this

common view, that Spontaneity is always and everywhere active. The

objection that all production would then be of the nature of a miracle is

rebutted by saying that the idea of miracles implies an agent outside the

natural order; but here the agency is in the things whose sum is nature:

moreover the effect produced by this spontaneity would be very slight.

(Masson rightly points out that this is wrong: ‘the spontaneous movement

of a mass of matter, however slight, might still be able to give the

initial impulse required to let loose a mighty force.’)

The result of M. Guyau’s position is then that ‘the Free-will which man

possesses will exist everywhere in inferior degrees, but always ready to

awake and act.... The atoms which form our bodies must possess a power

of Free-will analogous to our own, more or less extensive, more or less

conscious, but real.’ The objections Masson makes to this, apart from

sundry obvious misinterpretations of Lucretius,[116] are that it destroys

the concept of Law in the universe which is so prominent a feature in

both Epicurus and Lucretius, and assumes, what could not be proved from

Epicurus, that masses of matter would have the same freedom that the

atoms have.

The root of M. Guyau’s view is his opinion that ‘in Epicureanism there

are no inconsistencies, but only a few false deductions.’ This cannot

be allowed if it means that Epicurus consciously recognised both the

fundamental difference of mind from matter and the necessity for a final

re-unification. The great error which it appears to me that M. Guyau has

committed is that he does not recognise the difference of the ancient

and modern methods: he looks at the question himself from the standpoint

of consciousness as most important, and so inverts the position of

Epicurus. To this he was doubtless led by the famous passage[117] of

Lucretius. If we now quote the remarks of Gassendi, we shall see how the

matter presented itself to one who was less biased by modern points of

view, and probably far nearer the truth.

‘Videtur itaque Epicurus ex eo saltem laudandus quod vel auctore ipso

Plutarcho, nullum non movit lapidem ut libertatem arbitrii intemeratam

tueretur: tametsi adversus Democritum non habuerit aliud paratius

effugium quam declinationem illam atomorum, dictam Plutarcho ...

_rem adeo exilem, ac tam vilis pretii_. Ecquonam porro modo potuit

hocce qualecunque commentum Libertati accomodare? Forte, quatenus cum

attenderet esse in animalibus et in hominibus praesertim, triplex genus

motus, nempe Naturalem Violentum et Voluntarium seu Liberum, existimavit

primariam causam petendam esse ex atomis, a quibus omnis motus

principium. Quare et velle potuit radicem motus naturalis esse ipsum

motum Primarium atomis ingenitum, eum scilicet qui dicitur gravitatis

et ponderis et quo Atomus dicitur ad lineam sive perpendiculum ferri.

Violenti vero motum Reflexionis seu illum qui est ex occursione, seu

plaga ictuque alterius. Denique Voluntarii ipsum motum declinationis

cui nulla regio determinata, nullum tempus praefixum est.... Verumtamen

videtur fuisse excepturus Democritus nullatenus posse Epicurum

commentatione hac adjuvari. Quoniam, cum hic declinationis motus tam

sit naturalis atomisve congeneus, quam qui ad perpendiculum est (quippe

quem non extrinsecus, sed a seipsis habeant) ideo tam fient omnia Fato,

tametsi ille concedatur, quam si admissus non fuerit: cum pari semper

necessitate ea quae eveniunt sint eventura pro varietate motuum, ictuum,

repulsuum, clinaminum, etc., aeterna quadam serie et quasi catena sese

consequentium: ac speciatim quidem quod ad cognitionem appetitionemque

attinet, ad quam referri libertas debet. Etenim ut mens, sive animus

eam libertatem explicet, qua appetit, v.c. Pomum, debet primo imago

seu species visibilis pomi ex ipso procedere, trajectaque per oculos

percellere mentem, ut illud cognoscat. Pomum autem, ut speciem in oculum

transmitteret, debuit tali loco reponi ab eo, qui ex arbore ipsum

collegisset, collectumve aliunde habuisset. Arbor vero praeter Solis

radios, humoremque et terram, unde adolesceret, etiam granum habuit,

unde nasceretur. Id granum fuit ex pomo alio, hocque ex alia arbore,

huic non alio loco nec alio tempore sata: atque ita retrogrediendo ad

usque mundi initium, quo et terra et terrena semina ortum habuere ex

concursionibus complexionibusque atomorum, quae ut iis locis iisque modis

convenirent, debuerunt exinde non aliunde accedere: et ut accederent,

debuerunt aut ex inani aut ex alio sive uno sive multiplici Mundo ita

advenire ut per illud sive in illo ac isto non alio modo fuerint: atque

ita porro per totam antecedentem aeternitatem. Deinde, si animus quoque

coaluit ex atomis, debuere necessario tales atomi contineri in parentum

seminibus, debuere eo confluere ex certis cibis, aere, sole. Debuere hi

cibi, non alii assumi: debuere ipsorum caeterae causae ex his illisque

non aliis esse atque ita rursus ab aeterno tempore quod idem pari modo

eveniet, quamcunque ex causis quasi lateralibus, et concomitantibus quae

in immensum pene excrescunt, quovis modo assumpseris adeo ut cuicunque

illarum ex tota serie te addixeris, deprehensus si retexendo, ipsam ea

concatenatione teneri cum aliis ut ex tota serie ad tale usque momentum

producta, necessum fuerit consequi huiusmodi appetitionem. Scilicet ex

aeterno usque causae causis sic cohaeserunt ut postremae istae denique

concurrerint, quibus positis mens non potuit non cognoscere et appetere

pomum. Quodque de causis dicitur, idem semper est intelligendum de

atomis, ex quibus conflantur et ex quarum motibus variis motiones

derivant, propter quas sunt causae. Praetereo autem, quod Cicero videatur

eodem respexisse.... Adhaec autem, ut aliquid ex ipsa Epicuri mente

probabiliter respondeatur: assumendum est eam esse animorum contexturam

ex atomis, ut quae in ea sunt declinantes, eam rigiditatem quae ex aliis

est, flectant, naturamque flexibilem in omnem partem faciant: in quo

sit radix libertatis. Quare et animum allectum cuiuspiam rei imagine,

abripi quidem versus illam: sed non ita tamen quin, si aliunde imago

alia occurrerit, allici ea rursus et abripi posset: adeo, ut a priore

deflectens, constituatur quasi in bivio et ad utramque partem indifferens

sit: quod sane est liberum esse. Quod animus autem, cum sit ita flexilis

ac indifferens, sese ad unam potius partem quam ad aliam determinet, id

oriri ex impressione unius imaginis vehementiore, quam alterius: sicque

electionem sequi ad apprehensionem eius rei quam imago sive bonum sive

meliorem exhibuerit. Denique animum, ubi quippiam elegit, aut voluit,

esse quasi principem machinam, ex cuius motione, intercedentibusque

spiritibus, qui per totum corpus discurrunt, facultates omnes, ac membra

exsequendo destinata, excitentur eoque feratur quo tendit ipse animus.

Facere huc possunt, quae canit Lucretius,

‘Declinamus item motus, nec tempore certo,

nec regione loci certa, sed ubi ipsa tulit mens.

Nam dubio procul his rebus sua quoique voluntas

principium dat: et heinc motus per membra vagantur.

‘Quo loco declinare est flectere ac dirigere motus: illudque nec tempore

certo, etc., notat cum ipsam animi indifferentiam seu libertatem,

quatenus animus ex se non ad ista potius quam ad illa fertur: tum

varietatem rerum occasionum, imaginum, quae neque semper, neque eaedem

neque eodem modo in eum incidunt ipsumque alliciunt.’

This is by no means an easy passage to comprehend, but if the mind of

the reader can be cleared of all presuppositions, he will see that the

following points are established:

(1) Epicurus is opposed to Democritus.

(2) His answer to Democritus is based on the idea of

Declination.

(3) His position would not be overthrown by any objection urged

by the supporter of Democritus to the effect that Declination

is an original force, and therefore only one more form of

determination.

(4) His own doctrine proves that the mind is capable of _any_

motion, and therefore up to the time it moves is wholly

undetermined: it moves entirely in accordance with the laws of

force, and is therefore free.

This last is the point at which it seems to me that our guides have

led us astray. M. Guyau’s spontaneity surely means that the Will can

and does act in wholly indeterminate ways, _i.e._ in ways which have

no relation at all to the other co-existent forces. Masson argues that

this is a breach of law, and therefore would not have been tolerated

throughout Nature (M. Guyau having thought it universal), but is none the

less valid of the mind: the ‘fatis avolsa potestas’ of Lucretius seems

to have made him think Lucretius exempted the Will from determination,

though surely Lucretius must have seen that one lawless element makes

the whole lawless. Masson’s assumption seems to be that Law holds in

Nature only: hence Guyau’s spontaneity in nature must be a fiction. But

the animus which we labour to make free is also in Nature; and therefore

its spontaneity is a fiction. Although Masson speaks of ‘the volition

of the dead atoms,’ I think he has not really succeeded in putting

himself entirely on the material side and looking at things in the way

Lucretius did. If we can once begin to discuss freedom without reference

to consciousness as the agent, if, that is, we can comprehend a freedom

revealed to consciousness but not dependent on consciousness, we shall be

on the right road.

Lucretius exactly formulates the position in the phrase ‘fatisque avolsa

potestas.’ The apparent meaning of that is ‘a power plucked from the

grip of Fate,’ _i.e._ saved from the inexorable laws. But that is just

what it does _not_ mean: on the contrary, it means ‘saved from the Fates

in order to be subject to law.’ The Fates denote here the power which

overrules physical laws, which is therefore, from the point of view of

Physics, an incommensurable quantity. Plato gives us this idea of Fate in

the _Republic_, Bk. X., for there we see that the will of the individual

is destined at one fell stroke to follow out the chosen course of a whole

life-time. Now, express this in terms of Force. Two forces act on the

body _A_: as a result it moves in direction _x_.

[Illustration:

_M_ _x_

↑ ↗

| /

| /

_f_ | /

| /

| /

↓/

--------------> _N_

_A_ _f′_

]

This is according to law: neither _f_ nor _f′_ produces the direction _x_

by itself—but both together produce a result which, given the factors

involved, is always calculable. Now if _A_ moved in the direction _M_ or

_N_, or any direction other than _x_, the reason for that movement could

only be found in some determinant other than the given forces, _i.e._ in

Fate. Fate, then, is the contrary of regular law-abiding action. Hence

Gassendi says, ‘Explodenda Democriti sententia est ... illa Epicuri

defendi quidem potest quatenus Fatum et Naturam naturaleisve causas res

esse synonymas ducit.’ It was then by making Fate the same as Nature that

Epicurus defended freedom! This seems paradoxical, but the difference

lies just in this, that Democritus said Nature is Fate, and in any case

we are bound hand and foot: Epicurus said Fate is nothing unless it is

law, and the law is my nature, not something ‘extrinsecus,’ overruling

me. So long, says Epicurus, as natural forces alone control action, I

am free, for I am a real agent, and when I say, _I_ do this, there is no

illusion: I take my place among the forces of the world and am content.

But if this is the opinion of Epicurus, what more do we want? Why does

not Gassendi accept it? The answer is, that after all for _us_, as we

now look at it, with God and the hereafter to keep in mind, this theory

is useless. In it the future counts for nothing: the forces all act a

tergo: the what-I-am-now alone counts: the future being, that which is

not, cannot have any place in a theory that aims to be purely physical.

As soon as Providence is assumed and its implications examined, as they

had been in the literature of Christian philosophy, we get the idea of

end, and the possibility of the consciousness of ends. Then the doctrine

of Epicurus must be relegated to the sphere of the animals, from which it

had been taken: the sphere that is of those beings that move and think,

but do not move because of the thought.

Such is Gassendi’s view and my conception of its meaning. I add one or

two remarks by way of elucidation for which Gassendi is not responsible.

It might easily be said that Epicurus admitted the influence of _future_

happiness as determining present choice, and therefore must have gone

beyond the sphere of physical action. To this there are two answers: (1)

The thought of the future is a present thought, and therefore belongs,

as active factor, to the forces which are now and here. This I think

Epicurus would not have used. (2) The real answer lies in the point that

it is Freedom of the Will we are discussing, not freedom of choice.

Locke has put this point very well. ‘This then is evident, that in all

proposals of present action, a man is not at liberty to will or not to

will, because he cannot forbear willing: liberty consisting in a power to

act, or to forbear acting, and in that only. For a man that sits still

is said yet to be at liberty, because he can walk if he wills it. But

if a man sitting still has not a power to remove himself, he is not at

liberty: so likewise a man falling down a precipice, though in motion,

is not at liberty, because he cannot stop that motion if he would’

(_Essay_, Bk. ii. ch. xxi. § 24). This latter clause exactly expresses

the idea which Gassendi attributes to Epicurus. It is not a question

of being free to choose, but of being able to do what one does choose.

Freedom of choice belongs to Ratio: would any Greek talk of freedom of

Reason? Certainly not an Epicurean: for him it is enough that the action

begins from the man, the ἀρχὴ τῆς πράξεως, the voluntas principium dat of

Lucretius.

At the close of Gassendi’s exposition quoted above, we see that he says

‘the more vehement image or impression determines action, _i.e._ we

always follow the better course.’ The words vehementior and melior come

so close together that it seems impossible to suppose that Gassendi

was not conscious of the transition. On the contrary, I think it is

an intentional juxtaposition expressing his opinion that for Epicurus

and Lucretius the better must always be the stronger: in which he was

probably right. For his own theory this is a difficulty, and perhaps

explains why he transfers the liberty from voluntas to Ratio, a

procedure which is on the whole retrograde, and theological rather than

philosophical. After the Pelagian controversy and the subtleties of posse

non peccare and non posse peccare, the moral quality of volitions was a

more important question than the efficiency of the will as a factor in a

world of motions.

PART IV. GENERAL REVIEW

CHAPTER I

GASSENDI

I.

We have now passed in review all the main features of Gassendi’s thought:

what are we to say of it as a whole?

Here and there in the literature of philosophy one finds references to

Gassendi. As a rule they are patently second hand, and often accompanied

by the remark that Gassendi has been unduly neglected, without however

any clear indications of what is to be expected from the study of his

works.[118] We are now in a position to consider the value of Gassendi’s

writings and show the reasons why he was neglected and also why he

deserves a better fate.

The first phase of modern philosophy as it is described by historians

was marked by the revival of ancient systems and a tendency to revert to

pre-Aristotelian doctrines, especially atomism. No one however attempted

to reconstruct atomism as a system: the atomistic principles only

affected certain phases of the teaching of contemporary philosophers:

until at last Gassendi published his work. Unfortunately, it came too

late to catch the general ear: already the keynote of modern thought had

been struck and a new point of view adopted by speculative thinkers.[119]

The direct objectivity of Gassendi could no longer find a responsive

audience when every mind was busily developing the new notions of a

subjective philosophy. Gassendi was ranked among the ancients, true

descendant of Democritus and Epicurus: the world wanted no more of the

ancients: we, they said, are the ancients, and in the history of thought

the last is ripest and best. Not only was Gassendi thus hampered by his

relations and discounted by being a disciple of Epicurus, he was also

regarded as materialistic, not in the sense in which we might use the

term now, but in opposition to the idealism which was daily gaining

ground. Descartes had at least succeeded in dividing mind from matter,

and so far laid the foundation of the subjective movement in philosophy;

and for those who cherished this position Gassendi’s view of the universe

could have no attractions. The all-absorbing question now was how to heal

the wound that thought had inflicted on itself, how to bridge the gulf

that these convulsions had made in the once solid world of Being. Given a

dualism of this kind the central problem must be that of re-unification,

and so, as a matter of history, it was, from Descartes down to Kant. On

the very edge of this era stands Gassendi, as it were the last of the old

school: after him comes the long period of restless searching, with its

slow growth, through many abstractions to a new concreteness and fresh

satisfaction in the discovery that after all _the_ world is _my_ world.

Across this sea of strife we look back to-day, and are surprised to see

how near to us that last beacon seems: the longer way takes much time,

and in the end we are further on, but not so far as we could wish, seeing

how many toilsome years have elapsed. We have still with us the old

problems, many of them not yet entirely obscured by the multiplicity of

solutions: we have still the old antagonisms, and philosophers strive in

vain to repudiate the titles with which the critics successfully label

them. I am far enough from suggesting that man has not progressed in

the sphere of thought just as undoubtedly as he has progressed in the

sciences and in adaptation to his world; but as one reads the pages of

Gassendi there grows the feeling that this was the ‘synthetic philosophy’

of its age: that Gassendi aimed to do what Herbert Spencer has aimed to

do: that the difference of their material is a significant comment on

what has been done; and their similarity an equally significant comment

on what has not been achieved: while between Gassendi and his opponent

lay just the kind of gulf that lies now between the Spencerian and the

non-Spencerian.[120]

II.

In the list given by Ueberweg of those who revived ancient doctrines we

find ‘Epicureanism by Gassendi.’ Further on we find a note on Gassendi

which runs thus: ‘Gassendi sought to defend Epicureanism against

unjustified attacks, and to show that it contained the best doctrine of

physics, and at the same time to combine it with Christian theology.

Gassendi’s atomism is less a doctrine of dead nature than is that of

Epicurus.... From its relation to the investigation of nature in modern

times, Gassendi’s revival of Epicureanism is of far greater historical

importance than the renewal of any other system: not unjustly does F. A.

Lange consider Gassendi as the one who may properly be styled the renewer

in modern times of systematic materialism.’ These are cautious words, and

obviously more of Lange than Gassendi: we may take them as our text, and

see how far they are true.

The passage quoted gives us two descriptions of Gassendi: his philosophy

is (1) Epicureanism modified and (2) systematic materialism. The former

definition does not help us much unless we know more accurately how far

the Epicureanism was modified, and in any case Epicureanism was never a

term of very exact significance. We can leave this and take up the second

title, materialist, a label generally affixed to the name of Gassendi

and usually justified by a reference to Lange, who seems to have been

more anxious to find a materialist in Gassendi than to find out whether

Gassendi was a materialist.

To define this term materialist we shall have to work backwards.

It means in common use a philosophy which starts from the object as

something distinct from and opposed to the subject. ‘No object without

subject’ is, according to Schopenhauer, the principle which for ever

makes materialism impossible: from which it seems to follow that object

without subject is the peculiar theme of the materialist. Certainly the

materialist does not start from ‘notion’ or ego, and so far forth he is

the antithesis of the idealist. But materialism implies far more than

this: it implies a view of the universe as altogether objective, as all

object and no subject, as a self-organising, self-subsisting whole, known

only as it is reflected in a consciousness which is a byproduct of its

activities. Whether we take materialist in the widest or the narrowest

sense in which it can be used, one point is essential: mind must be a

function of matter, and this alone justifies us in denying that Gassendi

is properly a materialist. At the same time he is certainly not an

idealist. But the necessity of dividing all philosophers into one or

other of these classes is what we are prepared to dispute; and, finally,

we may discover a more suitable title than materialist while clearing our

minds on this point.

To begin with the historical aspect, Gassendi as related to the ancients

might more suitably be called a physical than a materialist philosopher.

After Kant, idealism takes as its motto, ‘no object without subject.’

Before that era of criticism there was idealism of another kind that

retained many objects that were only partially, if at all, dependent

on a subject. The Cartesian doctrine is rightly called idealism in

so far as it laid stress on the mind as the centre of our universe of

knowledge; but that world of knowledge lay in an ocean of Being that

stretched beyond its limits, unknown and as yet unnamed. This idealism,

the idealism that tells us our world is known only through the mediation

of ideas, and so keeps asunder that world and the cosmos of ideas, is far

different from critical or transcendental idealism, and its opposite is

not materialism in the modern sense at all. How could it be, seeing that

the idealism in question kept its matter a solid ‘adverse occupant of

space’ and carried the reality of this matter up to the very threshold of

thought, even there trying to retain its being for thought as the thought

itself, and convert its grossness into thought by refining it to its

subtlest forms?

History has done justice to Descartes, but hardly to Gassendi. Even as

contemporaries they were mainly regarded as rival physicists, the one

for atoms and the other for vortices: yet one cannot help thinking that

if Gassendi had possessed the clearness and directness of Descartes’ or

Hobbes’ style he might have commanded as much recognition as either. If

we take Descartes as the typical figure of this period, and call his

doctrine material idealism,[121] we shall have a point which may enable

us to determine the bearings of Gassendi. The feature of that idealism

is that it makes extra-mental reality uncertain, or, to put it more

vigorously, draws the line of real and unreal at the boundary of one’s

own skin. This Gassendi does _not_ do, so that title does not include him.

It appeared promising for a moment, since the ground of that distinction

of inner and outer existents lies in the doctrine of representative

ideas. This doctrine we have also in Gassendi in the form of symbolic

brain movements, so that a similar result might have been expected: as it

is not forthcoming we cannot say more, but go back and start again.

If we look once more we see another common point. In a sense Descartes

and Gassendi both start from experience; both are in a way empirical.

But Descartes begins with a prejudice for rationalism: the ‘cogito ergo

sum’ may not have been the actual starting point of his system, but its

final emergence has been declared in the verdict of history to guarantee

rationalism as the tone of the system. As compared with this, Gassendi

works with a pure experience.

Once more we digress to wrestle with our terminology. What is experience

as a basis of philosophy? In the language of the philosophy of to-day

it is to be taken as the most comprehensive of all terms, the name

for reality as it lives and moves, not merely in us, or in thought,

but in itself. From it, as derivatives, spring subject and object

and all other antitheses, and the work of philosophy is the analysis

of this experience. This brings us back to idealism as Schopenhauer

defined it. This is the result of the Kantian standpoint and his

analysis of the object. Before Kant the _object_ was the same as the

_thing_, a given and not a product; and thought based on experience

was called empirical, now become an opprobrious epithet. Empiricism

then is the science of experience in this cruder form. But as a rule

‘empirical’ as a philosophical label means subjective in the sense

that Locke’s psychological method is empirical. Philosophy rapidly took

this psychological trend: it was the human understanding to which all

attention was directed, and with that the question arose, ‘how can I know

what I know?’ drawing the curiosity of man after it with irresistible

attraction.

Compared with these later enquirers (Berkeley and Hume) the position of

Locke, and still more of Descartes, appears crude and uncritical. Yet

there is an element of strength and comprehensiveness about them that

is reassuring. This is due to their fresh simplicity in believing that

what is actual must be possible, that what our experience gives us must

be accepted even if it cannot be explained. Experience is then taken

in the broadest possible way, and its truth accepted. Descartes, for

example, finds his theory divides mind from matter: yet in experience

they are one, and so they are again united: the critic pounces on the

‘inconsistency,’ but Descartes does better in bending theory to fact, as

he knew it, than in distorting fact to save the theory. Modern philosophy

has too much of the element that damned scholasticism when it casts the

theory first and fits in the facts after. The shibboleth of theory plays

in modern thought the part that authority played in scholasticism. We lay

down for ourselves laws of what we _must_ have, and in the seclusion of

the study we get it: outside the reality breaks loose, and we envy Hume,

who found the problems that seemed to mock his efforts vanish when he

stepped out into the sunshine.

Descartes stood for sincerity as well as he could. Gassendi too, barring

graceful concessions to the dogmas he neglects, strikes us as sincere.

For both, Experience was the last great fact, the first great synthesis

that no theoretical analysis could destroy. For Gassendi experience is

life, the life of thought and will and feeling, and the subject matter of

philosophy. Hence his philosophy is grounded in experience; but it is an

analysis of the experienced, not of experience itself: it is a mapping

out, so far as may be an organisation, of the known, the felt and the

willed: not a criticism of knowing or feeling or willing itself. As yet

criticism is far off, looming in the horizon of the future: the darkness

of the night is passing away, and in the day of freedom just beginning

men rejoice in sorting out, arranging and setting in order the realities

with which they feel themselves in living contact now that they no longer

need to see the world through the veil of traditions.

Gassendi’s basis is this experience, to him at least not known as crude,

and we may call him empirical, hoping that the term is sufficiently

explained. Empiricism includes empirical idealism and empirical realism.

The former ‘makes ideas into things,’ and gets rid of the world in the

sense that Berkeley did.[122] With this Gassendi has nothing to do:

he must therefore be classed as an empirical realist. But neither is

this quite satisfactory. It is true we have the atoms, but atomism has

more forms than one. It may be (1) pure physical atomism, such as we

associate with the name of Democritus; or (2) pure idealistic atomism,

such as Leibnitz attempted; or finally, (3) a mixed form combining the

atomistic theory of the world with a non-materialistic view of the

mind. This is the construction of things Gassendi gives us, and in this

lies the great difficulty of properly understanding him. The difficulty

can of course be overcome by saying that Gassendi was half-hearted or

allowed his theory to be ruined by his orthodoxy. But is there any proof

of this? None, I think, except that his construction does not work out

as some have thought it ought to; does not present the unity we demand

in modern works. But it is the prerogative of systems which start

from consciousness to attain unity to a degree we never find in other

systems; and the lack of unity is perhaps not so serious as appears at

first, for if _matter_ does not carry us to the end we may find that our

_principles_ do, and we at least remain faithful to our basis, experience.

The name atomism naturally allies itself with materialism. We are

accustomed to atomic theories which belong to physical science, and

therefore remain within the realm of matter. But if we reflect on atomism

as a philosophical principle we see that it is essentially a method

or principle, not a given matter, and therefore may be applied as a

principle to any given. I do not say that it can rightly be applied;

but only that it does not of itself necessitate matter being the only

constituent principle. Just as evolution is a way of looking at things

and does not tell us what that which evolves must be in other respects,

so atomism merely lays down the law that a complex total must be composed

of indivisible parts: whether the parts are material or spiritual is

of no concern to atomism as such. This is clear if we think of Locke’s

atomic psychology, of W. K. Clifford’s atomism, or of Leibnitz; and we

need not fear the accusation of reversing history, for Giordano Bruno had

grasped before Gassendi the significance for idealism of an atomistic

doctrine, and rightly seen that the speculative aspect of atomism is

simply the question of real minima.[123] The principle upon which atomism

works is that the ultimate is an individuum, and this is not in any way

touched by having a spiritual as well as a material order: whether there

are to be more orders than one is a question that must be decided on its

own merits, and Gassendi’s reason for having a soul that is not material

is that he finds in his own life grounds for belief in an immaterial

entity, in other words he takes it up from experience. For the present we

are content to point out that there is this spiritual reality, and that

it forms an integral part of the whole doctrine. We must therefore be

careful to take our title ‘empirical realism’ strictly to mean that our

ground is experience, and our world is real in the anti-idealistic sense

that it is not made by mind.

III.

Having defined the scope of this philosophy a few remarks may be added

on its main features: as our account of Gassendi is itself nothing but

a summary, there is no need to add summary to summary, and nothing will

be said here beyond what is necessary to indicate the view I take of the

philosophy as a whole.

Gassendi’s philosophy is an analysis of our universe, attained by

examining experience, and presented synthetically, or we might say

syntactically (in a syntagma). As synthetic the presentation has a

definite principle upon which it is worked out. This principle is the

idea of ascending degrees of complexity. The unit is the atom: things are

complexes of atoms: and each degree of complexity has its own peculiar

attributes. We thus get a scale of Being as follows:

(_a_) The atomic scale.

(1) Primary complexes of atoms (kinds of earth).

(2) Secondary complexes of atoms (metals, etc.).

(3) Primary organic complexes: plants.

(4) Secondary organic complexes: animals.

This does not by any means exhaust the content of reality: we have as

well as (_a_) the atomic scale also,

(_b_) Time and Space.

(_c_) The Soul.

(_d_) God.

About Time and Space Gassendi has little to tell us: they were just the

elements that could not be satisfactorily treated on the basis which he

had chosen. But the difficulties which might have made it impossible for

him to proceed were in a way solved by the method itself. If the world

of nature is resolvable into units that are ultimate, impenetrable and

irreducible, is there any objection to the universe also being regarded

as a sum of irreducibles? Gassendi often speaks of the universe as a

whole, and obviously thought of it as in some way one: the way that unity

is to be conceived is an interesting question.

Must the whole be one? In some form or other philosophy has always

answered yes. But there are three distinct phases to this answer. The

last is that which is made possible by the subjective character of modern

idealism, in which the unity is derived from the formative factor in

knowledge. The first was the naïve unity which appears possible to a

mind that can ask without qualification for a single material principle.

These extremes have one point in common: they both regard the unity as

necessarily belonging to the constitutive principle: they want to weave

the universe of one stuff and relegate all differences to the pattern.

The reason for this is the inequality of their categories: categories as

such should all be equal, but in fact they are not: substance in the one

case and spirit in the other have swallowed up all the other aspects of

reality, and ceasing to be aspects have become the stuff itself. Now,

when the crudeness of the primary standpoint has become clear, the

natural tendency is to move towards the second; and this movement being

as yet bound up with the progress of physical science, we find that the

first phase of a doctrine that gives its rights to mind is the emphasis

laid on law. To think of the law and the matter in such a way as to

separate them is half-way toward making them collateral realities, and

for a time produces satisfaction in minds that are dimly aware that all

matter and no mind makes a dull world. At this point, and while we are as

it were on tip-toe for the next development, the addition of a corollary

to the original suggestion makes it into a useful basis for thought of

one type, and then it is defended against progress as itself an ultimate

standpoint. This phenomenon we observe in the history of philosophy more

than once, namely the tendency for critical minds to fortify what was

originally nothing but a halting ground, and sturdily refusing to go

further, proclaim it the goal. The reason is not far to seek. Some minds

require to know what they can have, others require to have what they

desire: the latter are always too eager for the delicate poise of a mean

position: they must fall one way or the other; but their more critical

fellows fall neither way, and reserve their energies for rescuing their

comrades and restoring once again the mean position. Not indeed quite the

same, for the ardent souls ‘fall to rise, are baffled to fight better’;

and the rescuer himself never quite gets back to the old footing, but to

one sufficiently like it to be recognisable. The mean position has always

got one characteristic, it has no constitutive unity. Monism demands a

constitutive unity: whatever the stuff is, it must be one throughout.

As to the righteousness of this demand I have nothing to say. I content

myself with trying to make clear what the man in the mean position has to

say for himself, for Gassendi is a type of that class.

The constitutive unity, we can imagine him saying, is an ideal, and no

better than other ideals: if it will not work it must be given up. The

fact that it appears to be the best ideal cannot help it if we find that

it is useless in practice. Further, it may not be the best ideal if we

think again, for that the world should be One Being is no great advantage

to us, seeing that our interest does not lie in its being but in its

doing. What we want then is only a world that is not One Being but one in

its being, one in its doing, in all its dealings with me, single and not

double. Its being is its being related to me, and all I want is that the

entities should be capable of some sort of order, should be thinkable by

me as system.[124]

It is at this point that the ardent soul runs ahead of the man in the

mean position. He hears his cue in the word ‘thinkable,’ and at once

declares that the thinkable is Thought, and therefore the objective

is ‘ultimately’ Thought, and possibly even its objectivity is due to

our having cast it from us, ‘ejected’ it in that carelessness of youth

which can be retrieved only by again taking it back into ourselves. But

this was exactly what was not meant: we did not want this assimilation

of natures: on the contrary, we find it far easier to think of the

reciprocal action of things different in nature. We do not say that

the iron must really be a magnet or that the soul must be a body, but

only that they must have the required affinities. And what are those

affinities? Why, the affinities they have as a matter of fact got! Is

this philosophy? The ardent soul thinks not. Yet what is the difference?

The one wants to make the related factors one in nature, the other makes

them different; but both want a relation, and ultimately care nothing so

long as there is a relation and the possibility of relations.

We may by now seem to have rather wandered from Gassendi, but the object

of these more abstract remarks is to suggest the outline of a position

which is none too easy to grasp, and is indeed not so explicit in

Gassendi as the above comparisons might suggest. But a few data briefly

recalled will bring us back to our bearings. In Gassendi there are three

substances—corporeal, non-corporeal, and mixed. There are more than three

irreducibles, namely God, Time, Space, the atom, and the Soul.

This is therefore pluralism. Numerical plurality is not the point: else

we should have to say there were as many universes as there were atoms.

It is in qualitative plurality that we find the real irreducibleness of

the factors in our universe. But if quality is the ground of plurality,

where are we to stop? Everything that is different from anything else is

qualitatively different, and in respect of the quality is irreducible.

The universe is therefore a collection of irreducibles: it falls to

pieces in our hands: where is its unity? Just here, in the fact that,

before we meddled with it, it succeeded well enough: that if you give up

meddling with it now it will go on just as it did before:[125] its unity

is the bald and simple fact that it holds together, and the philosopher’s

business is simply to formulate the ways in which that unity is in fact

achieved.

The crudity of this is apparent, but we are not concerned at present with

the question is this a good kind of philosophy, but rather is this a good

specimen of the kind. To gain further light on this we shall examine

three other points in detail, namely (_a_) the place of motion in the

system, (_b_) the use of categories, and (_c_) the relation of quantity

to quality.

(_a_) Any view of the universe that starts with matter and mind as

separate, relies largely on motion to enable it to deal with the inert

mass. But the inertia of the matter is itself only a consequence of the

attempt to keep a bare entity as the type of all things external: it

is, in other words, a multiplication of entities which only leads us

into difficulties by driving us to separate in existence the things to

which we have given distinction. If we revert to experience we find

no such thing as motion in rerum natura, only moving things. We are

thus compelled to unite in the unity of common life that which thought

divided. For a philosophy like that of Gassendi motion is fundamental and

at the same time fraught with temptations. There is always the tendency

to use motion as a means of transition from one aspect of reality to

another. Taken abstractly, motion is a common denominator: it is one and

the same in all things, being nothing but change of place of atoms. But

in order to get this common denominator we must pursue the abstraction of

matter to such a degree as to make the motion a pure motion, a motion of

nothing, and finally nothing at all. If this reduction to non-entity is

recognised, motion remains distinct from the moving, and we get another

factor which by its ill-defined nature is able to work miracles for us.

Activity is then thrust forward as the essential quality of spirit: the

quality is thought of as a thing, activity, and material activity being

also a kind of activity, it seems clear that activity is the link between

mind and matter, and if we can refine the material activity sufficiently

we shall have got across the everlasting gulf. If we condemn this as mere

abstraction in the interests of either mind or matter, the ‘tu quoque’

is ready: for if the activity is neither the matter nor the mind, it is

yet no worse than matter which does not mentalise or mind that will not

materialise.

This pitfall Gassendi avoids by making motion, in the primary sense of

inner motion, one with matter. The formula is materia actuosa, not matter

et actio; and this is possible because he refuses to reduce the ultimate

to a mere imaginary entity.

There are three critical points of transition, namely from inorganic to

organic, from non-sentient to sentient, from unthinking to thinking.

Extremists say these are the same; but not so Gassendi, whose scale is

Inorganic, }

Organic, } non sentient, }

sentient, } non-intellectual,

intellectual.

Gassendi realises that there is some difficulty in this. He lays emphasis

on the distinctness of animus, but when he comes to it, the distinctness

is dissolved away. Is it any greater jump from non-intellectual to

intellectual than it was from insensile to sensile? Whatever we do with

our scale, it must fall to pieces if we try to look for _real_ bonds:

mind is not joined to body by any gluten or hooks:[126] it is a question

of the other aspect, the quality, the what-it-is in its actual being.

Through the material sphere we get our transitions mediated objectively

by the idea of movement and co-ordination. In the sphere of sensation

we have the non-sensile affinities (magnet and iron) leading up to the

sensile affinities, which again have endless degrees as we rise from

lowest (oyster, _e.g._) to highest. Complexity is the medium by which we

graduate this scale and ‘most complex’ is the formula for what we call

highest. But the fact of being graduated does not mar the reality of the

degrees: they remain realities which we graduate but do not fuse. For

Gassendi the real difficulty of dealing with mind comes in the fact

that it implies a kind of movement which is not in line with the others,

a movement which returns upon itself as no motion does in the physical

sphere; but that is not regarded as a reason for rejecting it, but as a

necessity compelling us to recognise that there is more than one kind of

motion in the universe, and a kind of reality which is not subject to

appulse: there is just the same reason why there _should_ be a reality

so superior to sense as is the mind, as there is for the eagle with its

superiority over the oyster. In both cases the ‘should be’ is the point

we cannot deal with: we have them as facts. The reality of the graduated

as actual things, in opposition to the graduation, we shall discuss in

section (_c_).

(_b_) Gassendi’s exposition of his philosophy is often made more

difficult for the reader by the fact that many of the discussions are

dialectical disputes about categories. The categories in question are

simply recognised headings, and when disputing with some scholastic

author or current theory, Gassendi employs the categories as rules of

formal disputation.

The prime category is that of substance. Under this fall all corporeal

entities without dispute; but trouble arises when a reality is given

which is not corporeal, and yet cannot be simply denied. The case then

stands exactly as it did with Leucippus. The reality being not-not-ens

must be ens, and therefore substance. But this seems to leave us with

no protection against hypostatising any concept into a substance. To a

certain extent this is guarded against by the use which Gassendi makes

of the idea of function. This idea enables us to retain as realities

much that cannot be accurately defined in regard to its being: for

we substitute for the being of the thing its doing. In spite of the

objective existence which Gassendi gives to things, he adopts the

somewhat idealistic method of defining them, and even formulating them

from the point of view of their relation to us. Believing that things

are what they seem, in all normal cases, we can consistently define the

ultimate reality from the experience of it, the manifestation of reality

being its own definition. Thus space and time are real, because in

experience things and events have spatial and temporal order. The atom,

the void, and the soul are real on the same principles. Taking substance

in this sense, it equals reality, and reality is for Gassendi a category.

Quantity and quality are also categories, of which more later. The other

category is that of relation. This is identical with place in the system,

and as such it is the final determination of the existent. When we have

shown _that_ a thing is, _what_ it is, and _where_ it is, we have done

all that man can toward the production of an ordered system of things.

It is a noticeable fact that Gassendi makes no use of potentiality as a

category, though it was commonly so used: he criticises the particular

applications of the idea, but does not state his reasons for rejecting

it. It may be surmised, but it is only a surmise, that he considered it

a confusion between the categories of relation and substance. In any

case it certainly amounted to that, for it made what was only a relation

between the parts of a process into an actual property, and left it

uncertain whether a thing was what it was or was what it was going to

be. Gassendi was quite scholastic enough to argue that the statement,

‘the acorn is the oak,’ involved a false use of the verb ‘to be,’ whether

you added ‘potentially’ or not: he was also philosopher enough to see

that it either meant nothing or it implied the unreality of all process,

or what he would call the unreality of degrees of being. This was in

direct opposition to his own ideas about quantity and quality and their

relations.

(_c_) As a rule the category of relation _was_ made substantive: that

is to say, the being in an order is made to be a reality for the thing

as well as for the ordering mind; and the _whole_ order is therefore

significant for the individual at any individual stage. Hence _A_ is said

to be potentially _B_. This means that _A_ to _B_ is a process which we

view as a series of states; but so is lowest to highest in any case:

relation is a category for all, and only per accidens a special category

for some. The relating as such being the same for all, why should it be

more easy to say that the acorn is potentially an oak, than to say mud is

potentially a man? Yet it is easier (for Gassendi and his contemporaries

at least), because there are real, and, as it were, closed circles.

Within the species we can understand growth, because it is nutrition

and assimilation of the like. Hence, in the closed circle relation is

expressible as potentiality. But the definition of the circles comes from

experience. Potentiality is therefore not a universal solvent. This seems

arbitrary, because the expansion of the given circles is not limited: why

should we stop short at any but the most universal terms, say matter,

and make everything potentially everything else? It seems, indeed,

that we ought not to stop anywhere short of the mutually exclusive

realities, mind and matter. But Gassendi is opposed to the whole frame

of mind implied in this, and so far from working up to this irrational

stop at the difference of mind from matter, he works down from it to a

totally different conclusion. He does not admit that the step from matter

to mind is unique: he does not admit that the difference between two

substances is really greater than the difference between radical forms of

one substance: in any composite there is an unanalysable addition, the

form, the being-what-it-is which is revealed only synthetically in the

function, the being of the whole as whole. Now mind, he says, is nothing

apart from matter: hence mind plus matter is a functional unit. Where is

the marvel? _This_ complex produces _this_ result, and why should there

not be this complex, and with it this result? If you say it is unique, so

is every other qualitative phenomenon qua qualitative.

This is, I think, the crucial point of Gassendi’s thought, and he cannot

be understood unless it is grasped. It is exemplified in his whole

treatment of the universe of things. It is, moreover, an idea capable of

much expansion, but the expansion is what it did not get at the hands of

Gassendi. He is doubtless right in keeping quantity and quality apart,

right in realising the limits of mechanism, and yet not suppressing

the quantitative aspect. It is this grasp of qualitative distinctions

that saves him from materialism, it saves him from trying to compromise

between mind and matter. But after all quantity and quality are only

categories, both alike objective, ways in which the world of objects can

be thought of, formulae for its analysis. There we find the weak point,

right at the heart of the whole scheme: so long as the object remains

unanalysed and mind and matter are equally objective, so long as the

categories are applied to a world of crude objects such that mind and

matter are both _equally_ objective, we reach the limit; and our opinion

on the value of this point decides our estimate of Gassendi. Criticism,

aided by the development of philosophy can find flaws only too easily, so

much so that it is not worth while to suggest any: yet there are still

many who will doubtless find that they can read Gassendi with sympathy

and, with all his faults, recognise that he combined, with a vast

knowledge of facts, a truly philosophical attempt to reach the truth that

is in them.

The philosophical writings of Gassendi perpetually recall to our minds

the works of Leibnitz and Lotze both in regard to matter and form. We

have already shown that Gassendi is not to be passed over lightly as a

mere materialist, a supporter of what Lotze calls ‘evil materialism’: we

now require to see how our author is related to the later Realists and

how far he may be regarded as anticipating their work.

Before entering into the details of this subject a word or two must be

said with regard to its dangers. A moment’s reflection will show that

Leibnitz and Lotze can hardly fail to differ one from the other in their

whole outlook with that difference which Kant brought into philosophical

work of every kind. If we speak of Realism as though it were a line of

thought maintaining itself through an unbroken succession of writers and

uninfluenced by other lines of thought, it will soon be apparent that the

terms we use are almost the only permanent elements; the letter abides

but the spirit changes, and the line of progress which thought follows

under one name is often the slow fulfilment of a circle that places it

at last adverse to its own starting point. Whole passages in Leibnitz

breathe the sentiments of Gassendi: the _Mikrokosmus_ is planned with

the same comprehensiveness and in the same spirit as the _Physics_ of

the _Syntagma_: the reader leaves them both with a strong sense of their

likeness to Gassendi. In following out the relations and the differences

of these writers I shall work with a view chiefly to elucidate Gassendi

and limit my remarks to that scope, diverging into some general remarks

on the character of the periods under consideration only so far as that

purpose requires.

CHAPTER II

LATER VIEWS

(_a_) LEIBNITZ

To minds of a certain type works such as those of Gassendi are

irritating. They continually arouse the question ‘Is this philosophy?’

and cause a vague unrest which it is difficult to assign to any one

feature or characteristic. It is in fact due to the way in which Gassendi

and men of his class stop short of the goal for which they seem bound,

stop short of the unity which is demanded by our aesthetic nature. Their

reason for so doing is a conscientious recognition that they have not

succeeded in making their universe truly a One. No unity of the type

required was possible until the objective sphere of experience was united

to the subjective by such recognition of unity as Kant was able to reach.

The influence of Kant will be considered when we come to Lotze: the

point is introduced here because we have in Leibnitz, as compared with

Gassendi, a most significant point of difference, the logical element.

Gassendi follows the tradition of his school. His logic is a book of

canons. We feel that when it is closed its power is at an end. In

Leibnitz, on the contrary, the logical principles are the essence of

a logical aspect of all things, and analysis and synthesis as applied

to things are so intimately related to the forms of judgment that it

would seem as though we might say of the world of Leibnitz that it is a

translation of logic into ontology.

There is still some doubt apparent in the literature of philosophy as

to whether Leibnitz is to be called an idealist or a realist. This is

due probably to the way in which the suppressed logic of Leibnitz gives

his realism an idealistic character. What Leibnitz actually does is to

talk of a world of real objects whose whole existence depends upon their

being given, as though that fact of being given were not in itself as

important a characteristic of things as any other. Leibnitz is therefore

clear on the point that there are realities and on the individual worth

of each separate reality; but in so far as he inadequately recognises the

point of contact between self and not-self, he naturally fails to give

sufficient consideration to its significance. The origin of this error

on the part of Leibnitz is to be found in the fact that he comes to his

world of objects with a conceptual attitude—a desire to analyse, and

consequently a tendency to say what a thing is without asking _how_ it is.

At this point the reader will perhaps pause, recalling the words of

Lotze: ‘_What_ things are is thus not incomprehensible to us, for that

which is in them they exhibit in their outer manifestation; _how_ they

can exist and can manifest themselves anyhow is the universal enigma.’

It would seem then that we ask too much in demanding from Leibnitz more

information as to _how_ the thing becomes. But it is not because Leibnitz

gives us no answer that we complain; it is because his answer is given

from a prejudicial standpoint. Spinoza had dissipated the individual: his

assertion ‘omnis determinatio est negatio’ left the logical activities of

the mind with no focus and deprived conception of its material. Leibnitz,

as compared with Spinoza, seems to restore to us our real world. It may

not be very hard, or very solid, or very matter of fact—it may indeed be

‘idealistic’ in a sense—but it is at any rate pluralistic and active.

Where then is the ground for complaint?

In his treatment of the doctrine of induction Leibnitz shows that he

wholly underrated the philosophic value of the moment of perception. The

consequence of this is that he is capable of treating as a subjective

construction what he has never shown to be subjective in its nature: he

invades the whole region of the not-self with an army of notions whose

success depends entirely on accurate information as to the character of

the opposing realities. In spite of the appearance of remaining within

the legitimate sphere of analysis, and evolving in the closed cell of

the monad a mental panorama of reflected Being, Leibnitz really does no

such thing; he goes forth into the world of syntheses, and absorbs the

advantages of experience without acknowledgment or appreciation.

If it is ever possible to keep two parallel lines of Reality and unite

them in a pre-established harmony, it must at least be done with the

clear recognition that all the predicates of reality are only predicates

of experiences, that the experiences may be real, but the reality may,

none the less, remain aloof, a thing-in-itself. This would only be

possible after an analytic of experience: it is _not_ possible if the

basis of the position is no more than analytic forms of judgment, because

the judgment and the mental machinery employed in it all presuppose a

given.

To justify Leibnitz in treating the world of physics as he did we require

from him some analysis of the given. We assert that he did not furnish

this, that in place of analysing the given he treated it as knowable

deductively, as an existence to which we can dictate what it must be.

He thus gets beyond Gassendi very rapidly, but not very securely. The

preponderance given to logic promises us a more penetrative insight into

experience as a subjective construction based upon real activities:

we hope for just that element which was lacking in Gassendi, a deeper

comprehension of the extent to which the understanding makes nature; but

in this we are disappointed, for the logical standpoint gives us nothing

but categories that we vainly and uncritically re-apply to a world of

objects already manufactured and passed without question.

Further attention must be given to this point, because it is the centre

of our discussion of the relations between Gassendi and Leibnitz. This

can be shown if we return to those categories of experience which are

implicit in Gassendi’s work.

The category of substance (_v._ p. 264) is used by Gassendi as a form for

the classification of what are commonly called ‘things’; it includes

also those objects to which experience testifies that they are ‘outer.’

Gassendi goes so far as to ignore anything that falls beyond the focus

of experience: that which the thing does is the actuality of it, and

therefore the same as that which the thing is. But it does not follow

that my limitations are limitations of the given: the more a writer

insists that the being of a thing is the same as its doing, the more

strictly is he compelled to admit that the existence of all things is

a matter of relations, and in a relation only those capacities can be

developed for which _both_ the terms are qualified.

In this connexion it is necessary to remember that the post-Kantian

philosopher usually works on a method the inverse of that which the

pre-Kantian naturally took. _Now_ it would be natural to regard the

whole _X_ as the given from which _A_ and _B_ might be analytically

eliminated. _Then_ it was more natural to start with _A_ and _B_ and

regard _X_ as the resultant of their relations. The consequence is that

the philosopher is compelled to work with terms never completely defined.

Spinoza provides for this incomplete exhaustion of the relatum in the

case of God: the infinite with infinite possibilities stands over against

the other term of the relation as something transcendent and overlapping.

If we have in place of a monism a pluralism of reals, every real entity

must have these same characteristics so long as it is presupposed as

a possibility of relations and not merely regarded as the explicit

recognition of what out of the relation is nothing.

Atomism is, on the face of it, a theory of real ultimates capable of

relation and composition. As objects they have no right to such qualities

as are regarded as peculiarly subjective. It will therefore not be

possible to assert that the atoms as such have any power of appreciating

the relations in which they stand: their ‘elective affinities’ must be

inner states, but not perceptions. Gassendi often speaks as though the

analogy between attraction in the magnet and the animal was a ground

for speculation: he does not use it as a proof that perception has

rudimentary forms below the level of animal life. In converting the atom

into the monad Leibnitz commits himself to a position he cannot defend,

for he asserts that powers or qualities found in aggregates are also

found in simple bodies, and thereby destroys at a blow the value of

organisation as the ground of functions.

The notion of ‘organism’ is used by Leibnitz in a purely occasionalistic

manner. He is obviously prepared to recognise degrees of organisation as

connected in some manner with degrees of functioning power, and graduates

his scale of real things in the form of a scale of substances in which

new and higher powers are correlated with complexity of structure. But

the fact of being organised was never given by Leibnitz due importance

and rank among the perceptual facts which make up the world of physics.

The reason for this is to be found in the work of Leibnitz as a whole.

Criticism of Leibnitz seems at present to be in vogue. A glance at

contemporary literature will show us science and philosophy are both in

arms against him. It will be sufficient if we note here a few salient

points.

We have already noted that the atomism of Leibnitz differs from that

of Gassendi in so far as the former suffuses his whole doctrine with a

logical tone and colours it with rationalism. The result is that facts

are ignored in the interests of forms of thought. Hence (1) the law

of continuity combined with the notion of substance enables Leibnitz

to pass from perceived perceptions out to unperceived perceptions,

without recognising that thought can thus overrun its material in _any_

direction and must curb its tendencies within the limits of the given.

(2) The monad is an atom qualified by irrelevant adjectives. The logical

process which begins in stripping off predicates from a subject leaves

the subject bare: it does not follow that there can be in nature a

substance stripped of qualities. The monad which we are thus wrongly led

to think of as simple, appears on reflection to require to be complex.

We are always tempted to think that our ultimate element must be capable

of entering into all relations, and therefore be itself simple and

indeterminate. On the contrary, the possibility of relations is, from the

point of view of the thing, not a negative but a positive quality, and

that which can enter into all relations, like a man capable of occupying

any post, must be ‘highly qualified.’ The intensive quality of the monad

may have appeared to Leibnitz to anticipate this difficulty. It is

however difficult to conceive how inner or outer qualities are of use to

beings whose actuality is not affected though all relations are destroyed.

The last word on Leibnitz must be a recognition of his genius with a

confession of his failure. If he could have reduced his thought to a

system it would have been chastened to its advantage. As it is, different

lines of thought perpetually open up, and no one of them is fully worked

out. For this reason we find flaws and chasms in the structure: matter

is one thing physically (prima materia) and another thing psychically:

continuity of kind as in the derivation of consciousness from petites

perceptions is linked with discontinuity of being in the real world:

subjective idealism is perpetually breached by that going-beyond-itself

which is the one thing their rationalistic author has denied the monads.

But if the whole fails to exhibit cohesion it has never lacked

inspiration and the power to inspire. This I attribute to one quality

which it exhibits,—the grasp of unity as required for the being and

the understanding of a world. This unity Leibnitz does not attain: his

pluralism produces want of unity both in the world as an objective

existent and in our thoughts as a reconstruction of it; but he never

loses sight of it as a guiding principle, and is only prevented from

working it out by the notions of substance and of concepts by which he

was incessantly hampered.

As the thought of a unity is the thought of a whole which implicitly

contains many parts capable of being themselves brought into prominence,

so the thought of the world as a unity has an implicit content whose

nature is irrelevant so far as the unity is concerned. There has for so

long been a rooted tendency to confine unity to material unity that it

may not be out of place to elaborate this point.

The unity of the individual is not affected by the diverse nature of its

parts. The possibility of self-unification may be grounded in one or more

characteristics. It may be asserted that I could not be a unity unless

I had a nervous organism so developed as to have one supreme centre. To

this the reply is that the genesis of a unitary being may thus lie in

a condition which must first be fulfilled, but the unity, when there

is unity, includes its plurality without reference to anything but the

possibility of co-operation. A human organism is a unity whose parts are

different: not only is a heart not a liver, but one corpuscle is not

another: yet the reality of the unity cannot be denied. The fact is that

when we speak of a unity we must hold it over against a plurality, and

all we require of the parts of a unity is that they should not be capable

of collapsing one into another: they must retain what we require of them,

namely the power to fill out the whole to which we refer the unity.

Thus ultimate identity of nature, if it meant identity of being, would

ruin both concepts, of unity and of plurality: if it does not mean

identity of being it means nothing, for two ‘identical’ natures must

always differ by one simple quality, that of not being each other.

Many of these points Leibnitz adumbrates. He seems, however, never to

have grasped the relation of conceptual unification to the unity of the

perceptually given world. In a word, the idea of unity ran away with

him in the form of continuity or persistence of identical natures: a

reference to experience as perceptual knowledge of the world around us

would have shown that unity is not translatable through substance into

being (giving an ultimate One in kind), but only through co-operation

into cohesion. It is useless to assert that unity of nature is

presupposed in unity of action: that heart and liver are not different

but only distinct, being really qualified to belong to the unity by

virtue of unity of nature. This is pure inversion: it is from the effects

that we must judge the nature: kinds are only subdivisions of the unity

which is not material but formal, which embraces all kinds in the unity

of co-operation constituting the organism of nature.

(_b_) LOTZE

The philosophy of Leibnitz appears both disjointed and distorted. Lotze

gives us a far more systematic view of things, and the advance he makes

is considerable.

Among the advantages which he enjoyed over his predecessors, that of

inheriting the results of Kant’s labours must necessarily be ranked high.

With Kant the opposing tendencies of rationalism and sensationalism were

to some extent reconciled: the perceptual order regained the importance

rationalism had striven to take from it, and the conceptual order lost

none of its significance as organisation of our inner conscious life.

Kant gave to his followers two main points: primarily, the necessity for

a point of contact between the knower and that which was destined to be

known: secondarily, the necessity of recognising that the origin of the

object is to be looked for in a relation. This second point implies that

henceforth the term ‘object’ must be taken in a new sense: it can no

longer denote that which is given for consciousness, but only that which

is given in consciousness as being outer.

This view of the object is however not satisfactory if we confuse the

idea of a reality capable of relations with the idea of qualities as

potential or germinal relations. So far as concerns the distinction of

substantia phenomenon from its ground, Kant seems to have allowed this

confusion to arise. He clearly thinks of our conscious life as a vessel

filled from the greater vessel of the Universe: our limitations are the

reason why there is a surplus of being over and above the known. The

distinction of Being (Beënt) from Existent does not save the situation:

for Being cannot be thought of as relationless being, and is therefore

either merely undiscovered existence or pure nothing.

It would not be necessary to labour this point if it were not that our

thought naturally inclines to regard development as an unfolding of a

unitary existence. Whether the thinker regards development as ultimately

timeless, or believes that all development is in a real time, he rarely

if ever gets to the idea that continuity of development is not the

same as unity of being. It is however not less a ‘rational’ dogma to

assert that the seed is the plant than to assert that all development is

timeless, more geometrico. The crux in either case is the regress to the

Whole. But in the case of the plant our statement does not really concern

the whole plant but the whole life-history of the plant, and obviously

omits for its own purposes the continuous natural synthesis involved in

the real development expressed in the perceptual order. But if we cannot

fix the plant as a Whole, on account of its _length_, so to speak, in

respect of time, we feel we can fix the Universe as a Whole because it

is always itself. To properly combat this view requires more digression

than is here justifiable. I merely state that there is primarily the

notorious difficulty of saying the Universe is at all (of course if it

is a _Universe_ we beg the question of its unity by naming it thus),

and secondly, that our right to omit the element of real time is very

dubious. If we do not omit it, we come to the other view, that all things

are a co-existent unity which maintains itself by perpetual re-adjustment

of its parts, and moves on from state to state through time. It would be

easy at this point to say progresses rather than moves, but there is no

need to beg the question as to whether the movement is for better or for

worse.

Kant’s analysis of the object, then, we regard as faulty in so far as

it implies that ‘we only know phenomena.’ We consider that the phrase

appearance of the real should be abolished, and our world should be

called not an appearance of reality but the real as it appears. None the

less the work of Kant leaves its abiding effect in the impossibility of

going back to naïve realism; and not acknowledging that the percipient

mind is a real factor in the process of appearing, is in fact the

complementary element which allows the real to express itself in the

terms of knowledge.

Lotze’s philosophy interests us in many ways: the form and matter of the

_Mikrokosmus_ in particular challenge comparison with the _Syntagma_ of

Gassendi. We now desire to see especially how the details are handled in

the light of the progress made between the days of Gassendi and Lotze.

For in a sense Lotze returns to the standpoint of Gassendi: he eliminates

in many ways the rationalistic elements which Leibnitz had introduced,

and his line of thought can in the main be regarded as continuing that

of Gassendi. Leibnitz had tried to ‘unite Democritus and Spinoza’:

subsequent workers had to eliminate the Spinozistic element, and thus

free from its encumbrances the Democritian line of development.

The atoms of Democritus were meant to be physical points. The elaboration

of the idea of ‘points’ into a theory of physical, metaphysical, and

mathematical points was retrograde. The mathematical points are not

points in any relevant sense, and the metaphysical points are physical

points interpreted through the concept of mathematical points. The idea

that they must be indivisible for thought is irrelevant, because they are

perceptual entities. We may think of any unit as twice its own half, but

it does not follow that the perceptual datum can be given as a plurality:

if, on the contrary, it is never so given we are right in declaring it to

be indivisible, _i.e._ a real unit.

Granted that the atom is a real unit, the question arises, How are

we to interpret this reality? Our reality as a whole will naturally

be regarded as the sum of its parts, allowing that it is not a mere

aggregation but rather an organic totality. Consequently we shall expect

the characteristics predicated of the totality to be predicated of the

parts. Now Lotze’s idea of the totality is coloured with the notion that

our aesthetic demands are a reality, and the necessity of regarding the

Universe as a whole is not to be divided from the necessity of regarding

it as a whole of a certain kind. He therefore finally concludes that the

atom is unextended, because this hypothesis alone enables us to regard

it as animated throughout.[127] This however, besides being highly

conjectural, seems also unnecessary. We have already been told that atoms

do not require to be homogeneous, but may enter into composition equally

well if they are heterogeneous.[128] From this it has been correctly

deduced that unity does not imply identity in the elements: unity is

the form in which we interpret the cohesion of heterogeneous elements

through elective affinity in any single apparent whole. It is therefore

clearly possible that different natures may so combine that the resultant

has a nature which belongs to none of its parts. The emergence of this

new functional value is dependent on the recognition of something more

than mechanical relations. The something more which is thus required is

provided by substituting chemical for mechanical laws.

The influence of chemistry upon constructive thought is extremely

important for this one reason, that it forces into recognition the

fact that, regarded as we must regard it from the point of view of its

_doing_, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Man is thus no

more to be regarded as a machine. Lotze rightly recognises that vitality

is grounded in a synthesis of co-operating elements: it is not a separate

entity to be imported into a mechanical organism at birth and exported

at death. It is out of this aspect of functional activity as dependent

on organisation that Lotze gets the right to some of his most pregnant

assertions, such _e.g._ as the assertion that the soul _is_ where it

_acts_. He formulates it most definitely when he opposes the idea that

Life is something permanent, ‘a higher force’ controlling the changes

of the body. On the contrary, he says, life and death are not opposed

realities: ‘for why should we not from this phenomenon (_i.e._ of

corruption) rather draw the other conclusion, that the activity of life

can last only so long as the chemical composition of the body yields the

necessary conditions and that the corruption of death is nothing else

than a disturbance of that composition which has now become visible, but

by which perhaps long since, though less obviously, the conditions of

life have been affected?’[129]

The phraseology of this passage clearly indicates that we are to regard

the ‘composition’ as the ‘condition of life.’ On another page[130] Lotze

states this more definitely. He speaks of life as maintaining itself

through ‘motive shocks,’ which are ‘yielded by the processes of constant

forming and reforming’: it is like burning coal, developed ‘not through

what it was or through what it is to be, but through the motion of the

transition itself.’ There is therefore no longer any room for a ‘vital

force’: ‘in the living body every chemical change that takes place sets

to work forces not before in existence and brings others to a pause; thus

at each moment there is laid for subsequent development a new foundation,

such as gives occasion sometimes for a continuance of prior states,

sometimes for an evolution into new ones, sometimes by a combination of

both, for expansion into a far fuller manifestation of character and

activity.’[131]

These passages show clearly the view taken of life. We may now enquire

into its degrees and their relation. In the inorganic sphere we have

no development and no power of self-maintenance.[132] Plant and animal

life are of one kind in this respect: they exhibit reactions which

may be described as expressions of their natural conation toward

self-preservation. But animal life is distinguished by sentiency and

human life by the presence of mental powers. We might then expect a scale

of the form _a_, _a_ + _b_, _a_ + _b_ + _c_; but what we are actually

given is a scale of the form _a_, _x_(= _a_ + _b_), _y_(= _x_ + _c_).

This form of the scale implies that each stage is more than the lower

stage plus a quantitative addition: it is emphatically a _new_ stage.

Lotze denies that we can construct the scale upward: we cannot start

from the lower form and deduce the higher form from a consideration of

the possible combination of elements. On the contrary, mental life forms

a new datum: our culture ‘shows the interval between the two spheres of

existence [animal and human] to be so vast that apparently the addition

of a wholly new germ of development is absolutely necessary to explain

the superiority of human culture.’[133] Mind is thus set over against

soul, but ‘we cannot return to the naïveté of conception that sees in

psychic life and mind two different and separate entities.’[133] We

must not think of body, soul, and mind as three entities of independent

value: our only reason for distinguishing one from the other in the

highest unity, that of man, is the fact that they are given separately

in the universe, that animals have sentience without mind, and plants

have living bodies without either.[134] A real connexion for these must

therefore be found, ‘for, in whatever reason may consist, it is clear

that the soul cannot receive the gift of a new faculty, unless it be

so grounded in its constitution that it either must of necessity be

evolved from it, or else might be evolved should favourable conditions

supervene.’[135]

The ‘new faculty’ is not a new entity. A psychic substance Lotze

rejects: such a phrase implies the reification of what is only given as

a group of unique reactions, a living content that ‘by its own specific

nature directly acquires the capacity to act and be acted on,’ and so

masquerades as a substance for ‘the unwary thinker.’ But the idea of a

group of reactions has its dangers also. We may be led to ignore the

agent itself, whereas ‘we cannot make _mind_ equivalent to the infinitive

_to think_, but feel that it must be _that which thinks_; the essence

of things cannot be either existence or activity; it must be that which

exists and that which acts.’[136]

This doctrine of mind shows clearly the three phases of Lotze’s

philosophic thinking, namely the occasionalistic, the idealistic, and the

realistic. It will be necessary to make a few remarks on these separately.

(1) Crude occasionalism is self-condemned by its abstractness. Over

against a world in itself purely material stands the purely psychical:

their unity of action is a parallelism of simultaneous action: the

ground of the coincidences is in a third nature. This line of thought

may be regarded as wholly antiquated, and its many faults require

no resurrection. Among others, it overlooked the fact that a given

simultaneity of action is normally a proof of reciprocity unless we

have some a priori reasons for assuming reciprocity impossible. In that

case we modify our view in the direction of a pre-established harmony.

This gives us a certain degree of concreteness in so far as we reduce

our sphere of enquiry to the actually given agents: ultimate questions

however bring us to a third factor, the creative activity in whose Will

we ground all unity of action. But here still the whole necessity of

an explanation lies in the presuppositions with which we approach our

subject; and this presupposition is, in these cases, the belief that

substances are in themselves opposed to relations.

The occasionalism which Lotze offers us is still further modified by

continuing the process which makes the view concrete. To do this it is

necessary to merge the abstractions into a more and more comprehensive

unity. The differences in the given must first of all be modified so that

we no longer oppose one kind of being to another: then the unifying

agency must be vested in the totality thus formed, so that we are able to

account for all relatedness or reciprocity of action as possible when the

totality admits of it, and impossible when it does not so admit of it.

I consider that Lotze makes a great advance on the position of Leibnitz

in many respects, but principally in those directions in which his

scientific training made him a more judicious and comprehensive thinker.

The effect of scientific training is obvious in—(1) those elements of

thought which are due to biological and chemical studies; (2) in the

truly scientific unwillingness to blur distinctions, and call the higher

the same as the lower, or the lower itself ‘potentially’ a higher form;

and (3) in the concept of unity, as somehow requiring to be expressed

in terms of action and not substance. But while progress is manifest

in these points, the results cannot be of permanent value unless the

principles which are used bring us safely to the end.

(2) In occasionalism proper all action, looked at by itself, is

disjointed. In the doctrine of Leibnitz it is so connected as to form

chains of parallel activities. The series of actions start from points

that have a fixed amount of separation, and they maintain this separation

throughout. But we refuse to accept this parallelism as ultimate: we do

not want to think of one rail as merely accompanying another, but of two

rails as so accompanying each other that they form what we rightly call

_one_ railway line. The unity we require is not approximation, rather the

maintenance of the distance is essential to it. If our lines converge

when produced ‘ever so far,’ they cannot serve our purpose: they destroy

their own reality by destroying their significance. And as our rails

cease to be a railway line if they converge, so our self and our not-self

can only come to insignificance and unreality if they lose their distance

and merge.

This metaphor, though quite a legitimate adaptation of Leibnitz’s idea

of the two clocks, is not perhaps very clear. It is intended to make

thinkable the notion of a unity which holds together a plurality in such

a way as does not contradict the plurality, but rather insists on the

plurality as the one thing essential to the unity. This I take to be the

proper meaning of unity if taken concretely or in direct relation to a

content which it makes no attempt to annihilate.

It seems to me that in his advance from Occasionalism Lotze reached

an idealism which was not compatible with the fundamental idea of the

occasionalistic phase of thought. That fundamental idea is that activity

of one kind cannot become activity of another kind: lines of activity

do not cross: material activity is never mental activity. To this

fundamental idea Occasionalism was itself faithless more than once when

it tried to run the lines back to that ‘ever so far,’ in which they might

be thought to have met. To carry material actuality back to abstract

points and mental activity back to the point at which it is at least so

abstract as to have lost its conscious characteristics, is to yield up

our clear convictions to the illusions of an indefinite perspective. So

crude an error cannot rashly be attributed to Lotze: whatever his errors

are they cannot but be refined, subtle, and significant. Yet that his

occasionalism is modified by strong idealism cannot be denied, and it may

be that the idealism completes without improving the occasionalism.

As there is a danger that the following remarks may be due to

a misunderstanding of Lotze, I shall not attempt to pad out my

interpretation of his thought with selected quotations: if the general

impression is wrong the selection of definite phrases out of a book is

only the addition of insult to injury. I state my own view and leave it

to the reader to consult Lotze.

The vice of every system of philosophy is always some degree of

abstraction. From the multitude of abstract points of view we trust we

are slowly arriving at a concrete view which shall do justice to reality

as we live it. Usually the abstract view is patently an intrusion of

the influences of study: thought naturally occupies a predominant place

in a system which its author has had to think out: less frequently it

is an intrusion of temperament, or a mere reaction from the tyranny

of the abstract thinker to a full-blooded view of things. In Spinoza

we recognise the retiring thinker: in Leibnitz we see the effect of

mathematical and logical thought mixed with the busy life of the

man of affairs, and the influence of relations in which caution and

impenetrability are of first importance. In Lotze we have equally the

effects of scientific training, relieved however of any barrier to

frankness, and united with a strong ethical and aesthetical tendency.