facts or merely reflect the views of those times in the form of legends,
cannot be decided. However, the question of the historical truth of these
stories has no bearing whatever. The fact that they are to be found in
genuine Brahmanic writings, in books which are considered in India as
the basis of the Brahman caste, speaks a plain language. It shows, that
the thought of claiming the monistic doctrine of the Brahma-Atman as
the inheritance of their caste, did not occur to the authors of the old
Upanishads, or that they dared not claim it; it may be that they did not
yet realise the great importance of the same. Of course in the following
ages this science became the exclusive property of the Brahmans and was
cultivated and developed by them during twenty centuries—but this does
not do away with the fact that it originated among the warrior caste. The
men of this caste recognised at once the hollowness of the sacrificial
system and its absurd symbolical character; and to them is due the credit
of having disclosed a new world of thought and of having accomplished a
revolution in the intellectual life of Ancient India. When we learn that
the Brahmans continued the sacrificial system, even after having adopted
the new creed, and by representing religious ceremonials as the first
step to knowledge, thus combined two wholly heterogeneous elements; we
may justly conclude that things have taken the same course in Ancient
India as in other countries. Progressive ideas are first opposed by the
priesthood, their born enemy, until they have become so powerful that
they cannot be opposed any longer, whereupon the priest adopts them and
tries to harmonise them with his superstitions.
But the ideas mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, the substance of
what is commonly called “Hindu wisdom,” are not all that the warriors
have done for the religion and philosophy of the people. The noble
Gautama of Kapilavastu, the best known of all Hindus, who established
Buddhism about 500 years before Christ, was also a Kshattriya, and
according to the more recent tradition, which alone was formerly known,
the son of a king; but according to the earlier sources, disclosed
by Oldenberg, he was the son of a landed proprietor. Buddha, “the
Enlightened,” under which name he is known all over the world, most
strenuously opposed the sacrificial system and the superstitions of the
Brahmans. The ceremonies and the science of the priesthood seemed to him
a perfect fraud, and the caste system an absurd institution; he taught
that the final beatitude is within the reach of the lowest man, as well
as of the Brahman and the king; that every one, without distinction of
birth, can attain to “salvation” by contempt of the world, self-denial,
and devotion to the welfare of his fellow beings.
Oldenberg’s excellent book on Buddha, the newest standard work on this
subject, makes it unnecessary for me to dwell at length on the doctrine
of the greatest of all Hindus; only in regard to one important point,
which has a direct bearing on the subject under consideration, do I
differ from his opinion. According to the oldest sources, Buddha’s
method of teaching is, to a great extent, beyond the understanding of
the bulk of the people; not a popular, but an abstract philosophical
one. For intrinsic reasons, I believe that the old sources do not give
a correct report of this matter, and we must not forget that centuries
separate them from Buddha. Oldenberg himself raises the point, whether
the dry and tedious ecclesiastical style, in which Buddha’s thoughts are
clothed by those sources, truly reflects the spoken word. He says on
page 181: “Whoever reads the words which the sacred books attribute to
Buddha will doubt that the form in which Buddha taught his precepts is
to be identified with that abstract and sometimes abstruse metaphysical
language. A youthful, invigorating spirit, pervading alike teacher and
disciples, is the true picture of those times, admitting of no unnatural
or artificial features.”
In spite of this, he comes to the conclusion that “the solemn and stern
way of speaking, peculiar to Buddha, has been better expressed by
tradition than by what we would feel tempted to substitute.” I am not of
this opinion. In India a great success could not have been obtained but
by overpowering eloquence and a popular method, intelligible to all, and
proceeding by parables and metaphors.
If Buddha had only appealed to the intellect of his nearest surroundings,
consisting merely of aristocratic elements, if he had not found his way
to the heart of the people, his monastery would very likely have shared
the destiny of the other religious congregations of his age, which have
all disappeared, except one. As the doctrines of these monasteries or
their founders do not substantially differ from each other, and as it
cannot be ascribed to mere chance that Buddha’s doctrine has developed
into a universal religion, having the greatest number of adherents,
there remains but one hypothesis to account for this fact, and that
is the superiority of Buddha’s way of teaching. The erroneousness of
the generally prevailing opinion that Buddha was in his time the only
founder of a new religion, and that he suddenly revolutionised the social
organisation of the Indian people, has been clearly established by recent
investigations. In fact, he was a “primus inter pares,” one of those
numerous ascetics who were striving for and preaching “liberation” from
the eternal transmigration.
Besides Buddha’s, only one congregation has survived: the Jaina, having
numerous members in the western part of India. The principles of the
Jaina are very similar to those of Buddha; so much so that until recently
it was considered merely as a sect of Buddhism, while it is really a
religion of its own, founded by a contemporary or a predecessor of
Buddha, named Vardhamâna Jnâtaputra—in the language of the people,
Vaddhamâna Nâtaputta—in the same part of the country where Buddha rose.
The only difference between the two religions is this: Vardhamâna lays
great stress on castigation; while the more progressive Buddha declares
it useless—nay, pernicious. The important point in regard to the object
of our essay is this: that the founder of Jaina, which occupies a high
place in the history of Hindu culture, was also a member of the Warrior
Caste.
We shall now have to consider another production of the Indian mind,
the very name of which is unknown to most of our readers, although it
offers the most interesting religious problems. I refer to the doctrine
of the Bhâgavatas or Pâncharâtras. These names, of which the former
is the earlier and original one, designate a religious sect in North
India, whose existence in the fourth century B. C. is authentically
proved, but which can be placed with great probability in the time
before Buddha. They professed a common-sense monotheism, independent of
the traditions of the old Brahmans, and venerated God under different
names: Bhagavant, “The Sublime,” whence their name is derived; Nârâyana,
“Son of Man;” Purashottamma, “The Supreme Being”; but generally under
the name Krishna Vâsudeva, “Son of Vâsudeva”. The character of their
worship produced feelings identical with the Christian love and devotion
to God. The Hindu word for this feeling is Chakti, and for him who was
penetrated by the same, Chakta. As the word Chakti cannot be found or has
not been found in the Hindu literature earlier than the era of Christ,
several scholars are inclined to attribute the Chakti to the influence
of Christianity, especially Professor Weber, who deserves the highest
praise for his researches concerning Krishna worship. Weber has proved
in several of his books, especially in a highly interesting treatise
on Krishna’s birth, that numerous Christian notions have entered into
the later Krishna legends (the similarity of the names, Krishna and
Christ, accounts for it): for instance, the birth of Christ among the
shepherds, the story about the stable, and others of the same kind. In
spite of this, I cannot embrace the opinion that the Chakti has been
brought from a foreign country, because its first appearance belongs
to a period in which Christian influences cannot be found. As I cannot
go into details without discussing very difficult points, requiring a
great deal of erudition, I will only say that whoever is familiar with
the old Hindu civilisation will easily understand that the Chakti is of
genuine Hindu origin. Monotheistic notions can be traced to the oldest
periods of Hindu antiquity, and the Hindu mind has always been animated
by a high aspiration towards God; so that it should not surprise us that
this feature of the Hindu character has produced a religion popular and
independent of philosophical speculation, consisting in love and devotion
to God. The founder of this religion was Krishna Vâsudeva, afterwards
raised to divine dignity, or rather identified with the deity; from his
name and from the legends attached to his name, he was a member of the
Warrior Caste. As early as the epoch of the Mahâbhârata, the great Indian
epic poem, the Brahmans appropriated to themselves the name and work of
Krishna, and transformed the venerated hero into the God Vishnu; thus
increasing their strength by adopting a doctrine not of Brahmanic origin.
We have thus found that the profound philosophical monism of the
Upanishads, the highly moral religions of Buddha and Jaina, and last,
not least, the creed of the Bhâgavatas, based on pure devotion to God,
did not originate among the Brahmans.
However favorably we may judge of the achievements of the Brahmans in all
branches of science, and I am far from vilifying their merits, still it
is certain that the greatest intellectual performances of India, nay, all
such in India that have been beneficial to mankind, were accomplished by
men of the Warrior Caste.
RICHARD GARBE.
THE IDEA OF NECESSITY, ITS BASIS AND ITS SCOPE.
The idea of necessity, although a fundamental concept in philosophy
and science, has not as yet been so clearly defined that all thinkers
would agree as to its meaning and significance. Necessity is frequently
identified with compulsion, and thus it is supposed to be incompatible
with freedom of will. It is also identified with fate, as if it were a
destiny that existed above the will of man and the powers of nature,
similar to the Moira of the ancients. It is said to exclude chance in
every possible conception of the term and to cause the evolution of the
world to proceed by a predetermined arrangement, like the mechanism of a
clock.
We cannot endorse Mr. Charles S. Peirce’s objection to the doctrine
of necessity, but we side with him when he denounces the mechanical
philosophy for considering minds as “part of the physical world in such a
sense that the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens.” Mr.
Peirce is right when he rebukes the mechanical philosopher for “entering
consciousness under the head of sundries as a forgotten trifle.” In some
sense minds are parts of the physical, i. e. the natural, world, but they
are not parts of that province of nature which constitutes the special
domain of physics and mechanics. Ideas are not motions and cannot be
explained by mechanical laws.
Having criticised in a former article of ours Mr. Peirce’s position, and
having rejected the indeterminism proposed by him, we shall discuss in
the following pages the basis and scope of the idea of necessity.
The idea of necessity is based upon the conception of sameness, and we
find that the existence of samenesses is a feature of the world in which
we live. The existence of samenesses is a fact of experience, and upon
the presence of this fact depends the possibility of the origin, the
being, and the development of the thinking mind itself.
Necessity, as we understand it, must be carefully distinguished from
the idea of fate. Although we accept without reserve the doctrine of
determinism, we do not mean to deny the important part that chance plays
in the world—not absolute chance, which according to Mr. Peirce is exempt
from law, but that same chance of which the throw of a die is a typical
instance. And bearing in mind that necessity is not a power outside
of nature and above the will of man, but that it resides in them as
the quality of sameness, we abandon the view that identifies necessity
with compulsion; recognising thus, that freedom of the will is not
incompatible with our view of necessitarianism.
I. THE BASIS OF NECESSITY.
The standpoint from which we shall treat this subject is that of monistic
positivism,—the method which accepts no doctrine, theory, or law unless
it be a formulation of facts. Facts are the bottom-rock to which we can
and must dig down. At the same time, wherever facts appear contradictory
to one another, we should not be satisfied, but continue to investigate
until they are systematised so as to form a unitary entirety.
Before we begin our inquiry into the existence or non-existence of
necessity, it is advisable to define the meaning of the term.
The Latin word _necesse_ is most probably a compound of the negative _ne_
and the supine _cessum_ from _cedere_ to yield, to move. “Necessary,”
according to this etymology, would mean that which does not yield but
abides. Thus it is the inevitable; it is that which is or will be.
It is in this sense that the word is still used, or at least ought to be
used, and in this sense we shall also use it.
Every word naturally acquires by a more or less appropriate application
a series of meanings. So “necessary” means also that which is needful,
that which is essential, that which is indispensable and requisite; it
also means that which is done under compulsion. It is understood that
we exclude all the other meanings of necessary except the original one,
which is its properly philosophical meaning.
The idea of necessity is closely allied to the idea of sameness. In order
to understand the former we must be clear concerning the meaning of the
latter.
THE IDEA OF SAMENESS.
There exist a number of synonyms often used indiscriminately; they are:
identity, sameness, equality, congruity, similarity, and likeness. By
“identity” we generally understand a sameness in every respect, absolute
sameness; by “equality”, a sameness that can be expressed in figures.
Equality is always a measurable sameness, and refers to quantity, mass,
size, length, height, age, etc. Likeness and similitude are samenesses
of form or of proportion, albeit not of size. It is often used as a
partial sameness of impressions, not so much as they are in themselves,
but as they appear to the mind. Congruity is a synonym of sameness in the
province of geometry, denoting the coincidence of figures when laid upon
one another.[10]
The logical principle of identity, so-called, it appears to me, ought
to be named the principle of sameness, for it has not reference to the
absolute sameness of a thing with itself.[11] The statement _A_ = _A_
does not mean that this particular thing _A_ is itself and that therefore
the one _A_ is one and the same thing. It is a general statement and
means that all _A_, in so far as they are _A_, are the same. The
statement _A_ = _A_, as I take it, presupposes the existence of a
number of _A’s_; otherwise it would have no sense, and it would not only
be empty, (as we know from Kant that all formal statements are,) but
meaningless and useless. It would be of no avail either in logic or in
science.
In consideration of the fact that the idea of sameness is a fundamental
concept in our scientific, logical, and philosophical reasoning, it is
astonishing that no satisfactory definition of it is to be found. To
define “same” as “one in substance; not other, ... of one nature or
general character, of one kind, degree, or amount,” as is done in the
“Century Dictionary,” is no improvement upon “Webster,” who defines it
as “not different or other; identical. Of like kind, species, sort,
dimensions or the like; not different in character or in the quality
or qualities compared; ... like.” However, dictionaries are not
encyclopædias; and they have perhaps a right to define same as identical,
and identical as same.
Mr. James Ward, in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” (XVI, 81, in his
excellent article on “Psychology,”) incidentally complains about
the ambiguity of the word “same”; he proposes a distinction between
“material identity” and “individual identity,” but this does not solve
the difficulty. Flemming’s “Vocabulary of Philosophy” (4th ed. edited by
Calderwood) contains several articles on “identical” and on “identity”
without discussing in any one of them the meaning of “same” or of
“identical.”
What then is the meaning of same?
Let us first consider the etymology of the word. The root of “same”
is found in almost all Indo-European languages; it is preserved in
the first syllable of the Latin “similis” and “simul,” in the second
syllable of the German “Zu_samm_en”; in the Greek “ἅμα” and “ὅμοιος,”
and the Sanskrit “sama,” all of which denote a togetherness. Thus the
etymological meaning seems to signify what is classed in one category.
Accordingly, the present meaning as defined by the dictionaries, as
being that which is “of one nature or not different in character,” has
not changed; at any rate if there is any change, it is slight. Yet it is
desirable to bring out and set in a clear light the purport of the word
and its essence.
What, then, is the economic service and function of the idea of
“sameness” in the household of thought?
“Sameness” is that feature in two things or states of things, in two
processes or modes of action, which brings it to pass that the one may
be replaced by the other without altering for a certain purpose the
state of things or affecting the result of the entire process. Popularly
expressed, sameness is the capability of one thing’s being substituted
for another.
There is no need of discussing or proving the truism, that, properly
speaking, there is no absolute sameness, no identity in the strict sense
of the term. This was the meaning of Heraclitus’s idea of the perpetual
flux of things, expressed in his πάντα ῥεῖ. There are no two moments in
time, no two points in space, no two atoms of matter actually identical,
and we cannot enter into the identical river twice.
Cratylus tried to outdo Heraclitus, by saying that we cannot even enter
once into the identical river, for while entering, not only the river
changes but also we ourselves; and Cratylus is perfectly right.
We have purposely substituted in Heraclitus’s proposition “identical” for
“same,” because this change is needed to bring out the truth of the idea.
Heraclitus and Cratylus cease to be right if we use the word same as
above defined. We enter indeed the same river twice. The river of to-day
is, for a certain purpose, quite the same as the river of yesterday, in
so far namely as the river of to-day and the river of yesterday serve a
certain and the same purpose: for other purposes this same river will
perhaps not be the same. The geographer and historian speak of the Rhine
as that stream of water which since time immemorial has flowed down from
the St. Gotthardt to the North Sea. Accordingly, if we stand on the bank
of the Rhine, it is quite correct to say that this is the same river
that was crossed by Cæsar. Let the purpose of our thoughts be changed,
and we shall no longer be permitted to speak of sameness. Suppose we had
seen the Rhine for the first time in its beautiful emerald coloring, and
had come again after a rainy day to admire its beauty, should we not be
justified in exclaiming: This is not the same river!
Sameness, accordingly, depends upon a special purpose. If in a chemical
combination a metal is wanted, it may be all the same whether we use
iron, zinc, lead, or gold. That is to say, it is all the same for
bringing about a special result; yet it is not all the same in other
respects. The weight and certain other qualities of the metals are
different, and also the cost.
SAMENESS AND MIND.
Sameness depending upon a special purpose, the question arises, Is there
any objective sameness in the world, or is sameness a mere subjective
addition to things? Is sameness something “real” or is it purely mental?
This is the old quarrel between the Nominalists and Realists among
the Schoolmen. It lies at the bottom of the problem of universals
and particulars, and we should say, it is only a special form of the
question, “Are relations objective qualities of existence or are they
products of the mind?” which was discussed in a former number (_The
Monist_, II, 2, pp. 240-42). The idea of sameness represents the most
important relation that exists; and if any relation is real, the relation
of sameness must be real also.
If sameness depends upon a special purpose, it appears that there can be
no sameness without that purpose; and the purpose being purely mental,
the sameness also would seem to be purely mental. But this is not so.
Sameness is an idea, and it is no exception to other ideas. All ideas
are mental symbols formed for a special purpose; but, being symbols of
something, ideas are representative of some reality, or of some feature
of a reality, or of some relation between two or several things. Every
idea stands for something; and this quality of the significance of ideas
is called their meaning or their import.
The question now is, How does the idea of sameness originate in the world
where, as we stated above, there is no absolute sameness, no identity?
Our answer is that sameness, not identity, is a general feature of this
world of reality, which impresses itself upon every mind from the very
beginning of the mind’s origin.
We can go farther in our statement and make it more emphatic: Mind
originates and grows only on the ground of the fact that sameness is a
feature of the world, and is recognised as such by feeling substance.
Two points or two congruent geometrical figures being in different places
are not identical. But they are of such a nature that, so far as regards
the purposes of geometry, one serves the purposes in question just as
well as the other, or one can be replaced by the other; and this quality
is called their sameness.
Now as a matter of fact there are no two concrete things in the world in
which there cannot be found some sameness. Both somehow affect sentiency;
we say they consist of matter. Both can be measured in size, breadth,
and height: we say, they are extended. Both are at any given moment in a
certain relation to other things: we say, they are in space. Both have a
definite form and consist of one or several special structures (i. e.,
so to say, inside-forms). All things can in some way or other be classed
together under one heading. These samenesses of things go along with
differences, and the degree of sameness in the different things varies
greatly. Whether there is any sameness and difference at all in the
world, cannot be decided _a priori_, but is a problem which can be solved
only on the ground of, first, an _a posteriori_ statement of the facts,
second, a systematical arrangement of the facts. If this is accomplished
we can venture into a methodical investigation as to the nature of the
samenesses as well as the differences that obtain in the universe, and
having arranged them in a system, we can apply _a priori_ this system to
facts with which we are not as yet acquainted.
The many samenesses which are experienced are not purely mental
additions; they are not mere subjective imputations transferred upon
objective existence. They are real; i. e. there are in the objective
things actual features which allow of certain substitutions. A ray of
light awakens in some feeling substance the traces left by former rays of
light; and this reawakening is called memory. The perception of sameness
is the beginning of mind, and it involves the perception of difference as
a natural consequence.