REPORT ON AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF MUSICAL EXPRESSIVENESS. By
_Benjamin Ives Gilman_.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University.)
MIND. New Series. No. 3. July, 1892.
CONTENTS:
LOTZE’S ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THOUGHT AND THINGS. (I.) By _A.
Eastwood_.
THE FESTAL ORIGIN OF HUMAN SPEECH. By _J. Donovan_.
THE LOGICAL CALCULUS. (III.) By _W. E. Johnson_.
THE FIELD OF ÆESTHETICS PSYCHOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. (I.) By _H.
R. Marshall_.
DISCUSSIONS: The Influence of Muscular States on Consciousness.
By _Edmund B. Delabarre_; Dr. Münsterberg and his Critics. By
_E. B. Titchener_. The Definition of Desire. By _Henry Rutgers
Marshall_. Feeling, Belief, and Judgment. By _J. Mark Baldwin_.
CRITICAL NOTICES. (London: Williams & Norgate.)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. July, 1892. Vol. II. No. 4.
CONTENTS:
NATURAL SELECTION IN MORALS. By _S. Alexander_.
WHAT SHOULD BE THE ATTITUDE OF THE PULPIT TO THE LABOR PROBLEM?
By _W. L. Sheldon_.
ETHICS OF THE JEWISH QUESTION. By _Charles Zeublin_.
MACHIAVELLI’S PRINCE. By _W. R. Thayer_.
ON THE FOUNDING OF A NEW RELIGION. By _B. Carneri_.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE IDEA OF OBLIGATION. By _Frank Chapman Sharp_.
REVIEWS.
Prof. S. Alexander, in his lecture delivered before the Ethical Societies
of Cambridge and London, here reproduced, points out that the growth
and change of moral and social ideals are the result of a process of
mental conflict. Professor Sheldon thinks only a partial solution of the
labor problem is possible until the second coming of men somewhat of
the type of St. Francis of Assisi, “who will sacrifice their personal
opportunities, abandon their station in the world, and go down to
apply their gifts and acquirements to the cause of the lower stratum
of society.” The religious as well as economic opposition to Judaism,
according to Mr. Charles Zeublin, is caused by the exclusiveness of
the Jew, and his ultimate welfare and that of his neighbors requires a
humanitarian treatment within and without Judaism. Mr. William R. Thayer
shows that Machiavelli merely described things as they were in his time,
and deduced the laws which actually controlled the public deeds of
rulers; and that it is now “the duty of all men to sweep away the old
falsehood that rulers and governments are absolved from paying heed to
those ethical principles to which every individual is bound.” According
to Mr. B. Carneri, the living at peace with oneself and one’s fellow-men
is possible only without religion, “because there is no morality without
contentment, and it is the highest degree of discontent to strive for
something beyond this world.” Mr. Frank Chapman Sharp concludes that when
the element of _the good_ is taken out of the conception of obligation,
this degenerates into mere submission to an arbitrary imperative; the
foundation for the distinction between right and wrong must be sought in
something that appeals to us as good, and its ultimate criterion can be
given only by our chosen ideal. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of
Ethics_, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)
Ω.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. July, 1892. Vol. I. No. 4.
INHIBITION AND FREEDOM OF THE WILL. By _Dr. James H. Hyslop_.
A CLASSIFICATION OF CASES OF ASSOCIATION. By _Mary W. Calkins_.
THE ORIGIN OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. By _Dr. Herbert Nichols_.
ON PRIMITIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. By _Hiram M. Stanley_.
REVIEWS OF BOOKS.
SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.
The confusion incident to the old controversy about freedom is due, says
Dr. James H. Hyslop, to a failure to distinguish between the _proof_
of freedom and the _conditions_ of it, that is, “the circumstances
that are necessary to it, or the characteristics that constitute it.”
Freedom consists in “self-initiative and independence of external
causes, whether there be any choice between alternatives or not,” and
inhibition and deliberation bring about both of these circumstances.
Miss Mary W. Calkins rejects the ordinary division into association by
contiguity and association by similarity, and gives detailed summaries
of the fundamental characteristics of consciousness on which association
depends and of the characteristics of association proper; the ultimate
fact of association, whether it be psychical or physical or both, we do
not understand. Dr. Herbert Nichols, in the first part of his article on
the “Origin of Pleasure and Pain,” considers the phenomena of pleasure
and pain associated with the action of the senses, and concludes that
there is no “tangible evidence indicating that pleasures and pains
are inseparable attributes of other senses or polar complements of
each other,” and that separate sensations of pain and of pleasure are
probable. Mr. Hiram M. Stanley regards pure pain as primitive mind,
and pleasure as the polar opposite to it, although they are neither
absolutely essential one to the other, pleasure being traced to “an
intermediary feeling between pain as produced by excess, and pain from
lack as differentiated form.” Consciousness is fundamentally pain and
pleasure as serving the organism in the struggle for existence. (Boston,
New York, Chicago: Ginn & Company.)
Ω.
THE NEW WORLD.
CONTENTS: Vol. I. No. 2.
THE SOCIAL PLAINT. By _E. Benjamin Andrews_.
RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION. By _Minot J. Savage_.
THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE STORY OF SODOM. By _T. K. Cheyne_.
THE FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM. By _Maurice Bloomfield_.
IMAGINATION IN RELIGION. By _Francis Tiffany_.
THE NEXT STEP IN CHRISTIANITY. By _S. D. McConnell_.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. By _Josiah Royce_.
HOW I CAME INTO CHRISTIANITY. By _Nobuta Kishimoto_.
NEW FORMS OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. By _Mrs. Humphry Ward_.
CONTENTS: Vol. I. No. 3.
THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. By _Otto Pfleiderer_.
ECCLESIASTICAL IMPEDIMENTA. By _J. Macbride Sterrett_.
NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. By _Orello Cone_.
THOMAS PAINE. By _John W. Chadwick_.
SOCIAL BETTERMENT. By _Nicholas P. Gilman_.
THE RÔLE OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN MODERN RELIGIOUS
EDUCATION. By _Jean Réville_.
A POET OF HIS CENTURY. By _E. Cavazza_.
DIVINE LOVE AND INTELLIGENCE. By _James C. Parsons_.
BOOK REVIEWS.
SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Company.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.
CONTENTS: June, 1892. No. 198.
EXISTENCE ET DÉVELOPPEMENT DE LA VOLONTÉ. I. Existence de la
Volonté. By _A. Fouillée_.
SUR QUELQUES IDÉES DU BARON D’HOLBACH. By _A. Lalande_.
ESSAI SUR LA PHILOSOPHIE DE PROUDHON. By _G. Sorel_.
TRAVAUX DU LABORATOIRE DE PSYCHOLOGIE PHYSIOLOGIQUE.
CONTENTS: July, 1892. No. 199.
L’INCONNAISSABLE DANS LA PHILOSOPHIE MODERNE. By _G.
Fonsegrive_.
LA MUSIQUE D’APRÈS HERBERT SPENCER. By _J. Combarieu_.
ESSAI SUR LA PHILOSOPHIE DE PROUDHON (concluded). By _G. Sorel_.
CONTENTS: August, 1892. No. 200.
ÉTUDE CRITIQUE SUR LE MYSTICISME MODERNE. By _Rosenbach_.
LE DÉVELOPPEMENT DE LA VOLONTÉ. By _A. Fouillée_.
LA BEAUTÉ ORGANIQUE: ÉTUDE D’ANALYSE ESTHÉTIQUE. By _A.
Naville_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
According to M. Fouillée, the principle which tends to dominate
psychology and physiology is the ubiquity of will and of feeling, and
consequently of consciousness. Psychology will end by recognising the
continuity and the transformation of modes of psychical energy, as
physics recognises the continuity and the transformation of modes of
physical energy, and philosophy will see in physical energy the external
expression of will.
M. Fonsegrive maintains that the rejection of metaphysics as science,
which marks the modern theory of the unknowable, is the consequence of
Kant’s _a priori_ theory as to the origin of our knowledge. The laws of
the mind have no real existence prior to experience, and universal and
necessary notions can be discovered only by mental analysis. In this
manner the existence, and even the essence, of metaphysical beings may
be known, but only of such as experience puts in communication with
ourselves. Thus we know God as the necessary first cause, although our
notion of God is one of negation, of experimental notions.
After showing that Spencer’s theory of music had numerous antecedents,
and that its conclusions are unacceptable on various grounds, M.
Combarieu affirms that the secret of the musical art is the identity of
the musical idea with the imitation or expression of the real world. All
music contains a double verity; it is the meeting place of the senses
and of the rational world confounded in a unity which is the work of
art, as man is the combination of a soul and a body confounded in the
real unity of life. Spencer is an excessive simplifier, and does not
see the complexity of certain questions, which he seeks to resolve by
undervaluing them. But he has thrown light on one of the aspects of the
musical problem.
In this final essay on the philosophy of Proudhon, M. Sorel considers the
theory of justice by the light of the notion of free will. He differs
somewhat from Proudhon, and affirms that “the just man is the upright
man such as our ideal conception of antiquity represents him to us,
but transformed by our consciousness as refined by the influence of
Christianity.” In dealing with the real organisation of societies it is
necessary to distinguish between matters of justice and those of right,
which includes that of force, of which war is an application. After
showing the connection of the economic _contradictions_ of Proudhon with
the state of war, and the value of education for the realisation of
equilibrium in the state. M. Sorel affirms that education ought to be
based on manual labor, for the explanation of which science should be
taught; and that instruction should endure throughout life, so that men
can elevate themselves and that an equilibrium may be obtained between
knowledge and industrial needs. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)
Ω.
APPENDIX.
PLATES BELONGING TO THE ARTICLE “THE NERVOUS GANGLIA OF INSECTS.”
KEY TO THE PLATES.
col. ven.—ventral column.
lob. dors.—dorsal lobe.
lob. ven.—ventral lobe.
lob. v. inf.—inferior or lower ventral lobule.
lob. cr.—crural lobule.
con. dors. sup—superior (or upper) dorsal connective filaments.
con. dors. moy.—medial dorsal connective filaments.
con. dors. inf.—inferior (or lower) dorsal connective filaments.
con. v.—ventral connective filaments.
n. cr.—crural nerve.
n. al.—alary nerve.
lob. al.—alary lobule.
rac. sup—upper (or superior) root.
rac. moy.—medial root.
rac. inf.—lower (or inferior) root.
fa. as.—ascending fasciculus.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
_Rhizotrogus solstitialis._ First thoracic ganglion. (Horizontal
sections.)]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
_Rhizotrogus solstitialis._ First thoracic ganglion. (Horizontal
sections.)]
[Illustration: PLATE III.
_Rhizotrogus solstitialis._ First thoracic ganglion. (Longitudinal
sections.)]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
_Rhizotrogus solstitialis._ First thoracic ganglion. (Transversal
sections.)]
VOL. III. JANUARY, 1893. NO. 2.
THE MONIST.
THE DOCTRINE OF AUTA.
In the “Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society” (Vol. VI,
Part IX, p. 475, 1890), Dr. Johnstone Stoney, F. R. S., published an
interesting and carefully-reasoned paper “On the Relation between Natural
Science and Ontology.” The same author had previously (1885), in a Friday
evening discourse at the Royal Institution of London, discussed the
problem, “How Thought Presents Itself Among the Phenomena of Nature.”
Dr. Stoney’s communications have not (I venture to think) received the
consideration to which they are entitled alike on the score of their
logical consistency, if his premisses and assumptions be granted, and by
reason of the author’s scientific eminence as a physicist. I therefore
propose, first, to endeavor to set forth his monistic _Doctrine of
Auta_; and secondly, to offer some criticisms thereon. Unfortunately Dr.
Stoney’s pages bristle with new technical terms, which, though no doubt
they have been serviceable to him in the attainment of precision of
thought, make his paper hard reading. Some of these I shall introduce;
others which seem less essential to the argument I shall omit. It would
be scarcely fair on the reader’s teeth or on the author’s store to
transfer all these hard nuts from Dublin to Chicago.
No philosophical discussion of a problem involving perception can be
regarded as complete without the introduction of an orange. Dr. Stoney,
indeed, substitutes a fire; but this, though it shows philosophical
independence, cannot for a moment be sanctioned by any good Berkeleyan.
An orange then, as such, is a phenomenal object formed, in a way we need
not now consider, by the synthesis of perceptions. These perceptions,
themselves synthetic, Dr. Stoney calls “tekmeria,” since they are signs
within my mind that events are happening in a part of the universe
that is distinct from my mind. The phenomenal object is supposed by
men untrained in inquiries relating to the mind to have a non-egoistic
existence—that is, an existence independent of the percipient mind. But
this supposition is found on careful scrutiny to be an error. It is a
product of mental synthesis, and is therefore termed by Dr. Stoney a
“syntheton.” It is also termed a “protheton” in contradistinction to an
“antitheton,” which we shall come to shortly.
Now if the phenomenal orange is a “syntheton”—that is, a product of
perceptual synthesis—it clearly cannot be regarded as the _cause_ of the
perceptions, through and by means of which it is constructed in mental
synthesis. Here popular thought and ordinary language are apt to mislead
us. For ordinary language is throughout built upon the popular belief
that the objects of the phenomenal world are non-egoistic or independent
_existences_, and, moreover, that they are the cause of the perceptions
which come into existence when we exercise our senses. This is, however,
“to put the car before the horse.” It is to imagine that a structure
built up out of the effects of a thing can be the cause of those effects.
The phenomenal orange is built up of perceptions instead of being the
cause of them. Their cause is therefore to be sought elsewhere than in
the phenomenal world of objects. The orange, _qua_ orange, is therefore
a “syntheton,” and cannot as such be the cause of the perceptions or
“tekmeria,” which go to its synthesis.
Let us now look at these perceptions or “tekmeria” from another point of
view. They are states of consciousness: they are _thoughts_, if we use
this word in its widest extension to embrace everything of which I or my
fellow-men or the lower animals are conscious. But my own thoughts are,
so long as they last, things that exist. They may be representative of
something outside me, but they _are_ also _real existences_. While they
last they constitute a part of the universe of existing things. They are,
in Dr. Stoney’s terminology, _auta_ (τά ὄντα αὐτά), the very things
themselves. An _auto_ (we shall throughout _italicise_ all that belongs
to this autic order of existence) is a _thing which really exists_, and
in no wise depends on the way we, human minds, may happen to regard it.
Our impressions or beliefs about it may be correct or may be erroneous;
but the term _auto_ means the _thing itself_.
Perceptions, then, inasmuch as they are thoughts, are _auta_. They
belong, moreover, to that class of real existences which, since they are
woven into the tissue of _minds_ (my mind and the minds of my fellow-men
and of the lower animals) are termed _egoistic auta_. They do not remain,
however, persistent and unchanged; for perceptions come and go and are
modified as they pass like waves over the surface of consciousness. What
causes this coming and going, and these changes in the _egoistic auta_ we
call perceptions? Not, as we have already seen, the world of phenomenal
objects! What then, but other _auta_, which, since they produce effects
upon men’s minds through their senses, may be termed _sense-compelling
auta_? The phenomenal orange is thus a “syntheton” produced through a
synthesis of the effects wrought upon my _mind_ by an autic existence,
called by Mr. Stoney the _onto-orange_. The phenomenal orange is, as we
have seen, a “protheton”; the _onto-orange_ is its _antitheton_ in the
universe of real existences.
We are now beginning to open up Dr. Johnstone Stoney’s conception of the
relation of the autic _universe_ to phenomenal Nature. Nature is the
totality of phenomenal objects; but corresponding with each phenomenal
object or “protheton” there is an _onto-object_ or _antitheton_; and the
totality of _antitheta_ constitute the _universe_. _Minds_, mine and
those of other beings, constitute the egoistic part of the universe; the
rest of the universe is constituted by _sense-compelling auta_.
We may liken the _sense-compelling universe_ to a great machine in
motion, and the _tekmeria_ or perceptions which it produces within our
minds to shadows cast by it. The laws of the movements of the machine
are the real laws of the universe—laws of nature are but the laws of
the changes which the shadows in consequence undergo. It is these
shadow laws alone which natural science can reach: the real laws of
the _universe_ of which these are shadows are beyond its grasp. In
Nature the reflective eye of science sees not only phenomenal objects,
but the relations which they bear to each other. But such relations are
themselves phenomenal; they are protheta of which the _onto-relations_ of
the real _universe_ are the _antitheta_. Every space-relation, therefore,
in Nature—for instance, that my foot is at present three yards from the
fender—has a real autic relation in the sense-compelling _universe_,
which is its _antitheton_; an _onto-relation_ between the _onto-foot_
and _onto-fender_, meaning by these terms the _auta_ which send men the
tekmeria which, when synthesised, furnish these two phenomenal objects.
The space-relations of Nature are but the shadows cast by the _autic
relations_ within the _minds_ of men, and perhaps some other animals.
But among these shadows there can be no efficient causation. When a
change takes place in the sense-compelling _universe_, the mighty
machine will cast one shadow before the change and another after. The
second shadow will accordingly succeed the first in orderly sequence,
but the relation between the shadows is not the relation of cause and
effect. Accordingly, in the laws of Nature which have been discovered
by scientific investigation, we find abundant instances of unfailingly
concomitant events and of uniformities of sequence, but not one single
instance of cause and effect. There is nothing competent to cause one
body to exclude another from the space it occupies. A statement of
the fact is one of the laws of Nature. If a stone be allowed to drop
in the vicinity of the earth, its downward speed is accelerated by a
perfectly definite law. This law is one of the Uniformities of Nature
which scientific inquiry has brought to light. But within the domain of
Physics there is no cause of acceleration. The facts as to what occurs in
Nature can be observed; the circumstances under which they occur can be
investigated; similar cases can be compared; and the laws to which the
simultaneous or successive events conform may be brought to light. But
here our knowledge ends. Physical science has said its utmost.
Now all this is changed when we turn to the only field of observation
accessible to us in which we are dealing directly with _auta_. The
_thoughts_ of which _I_ consist, the thoughts which are my _mind_, are
_auta_; a very small group of _auta_, no doubt, in the mighty _Universe_,
but still an actual sample, though a very special and one-sided sample
of what _auta_ really are. Now in the operations that go on in my mind I
do find instances, some few instances, of causes producing effects. The
familiar case of a geometrical demonstration producing in a man’s mind
a belief in the truth of the conclusion is a case in point. Here the
understanding of the proof is the efficient cause of the belief in the
conclusion which accompanies that understanding. A wish to accomplish
something, and a knowledge of how to go about it, both of which are
_thoughts_ in the _mind_, are a part of the efficient cause of subsequent
events, unless counteracted by other causes. A few other examples can be
obtained from the same small field of observation; and this is all that
man, in his isolated position, has any right to expect; for the bulk of
his thoughts are due, at least in large part, to autic causes which lie
outside his mind, and it is there also that those of his thoughts that
are known to be causes, usually exhibit their effects. When perceptions
arise in my mind, the effect indeed is within my mind, but the cause is
beyond it; and when I move my muscles the cause is within my mind, but it
is outside the mind that it operates. The instances are indeed few where
the causes and the effects are both within my tiny group of _auta_, and
it is only in these cases that I can have the process of causes producing
effects under my inspection.
But since cases can be cited, however few, they suffice to establish the
fact that the relation of cause and effect, in its full sense, does exist
in some instances in the autic _universe_; whereas it has nowhere any
place within the domain of physical science. The relation of cause and
effect among other _auta_ cannot from the nature of the case be proved.
But from its occurrence in that small part of the _universe_ which
we do know, we may fairly assume its occurrence in all parts of that
_universe_. Such an assumption is at any rate justifiable by scientific
method.
We must now pass to another point. The scientific analysis of Nature
by the physicist has led to an hypothesis which may be regarded as the
utmost simplification of which the shadows cast within the human mind by
the sense-compelling autic _universe_ are susceptible. This Dr. Stoney
calls the Diacrinomenal Hypothesis; according to which Nature is made
up of objects each of which consists of almost inconceivably minute and
swift motions. The phenomenal orange is a group of molecular motions; and
if I bowl it across the table the visible molar motion is a secondary
motion of that group of primary molecular motions which constitutes the
phenomenal object as such. And not only is the phenomenal object a group
of minute and swift motions, but all the steps between that object and
our brain, all that takes place in the air or æther, in our organs of
sense and nerves, can also be represented in terms of motion. And finally
a change consisting of motions takes place in the brain itself, whereupon
we become conscious of thought. That change which would be appreciated
as motions by a bystander who could search into our brains while we are
thinking, we should experience to be _thought_. Thus we find that in
certain cases the _autic existence_ that corresponds with motion, namely
in the motions of our own brain molecules, is _thought_. And the most
probable hypothesis as to the true relation of phenomenal Nature and the
autic _universe_ is that what we have found to be true in some cases is
always true, and that in every case it is _thought_ (or rather a change
in the causal relation in which thought stands to thought) which is the
_antitheton_ of motion; so that the totality of all actual existences,
the _universe_, is in fact identical with the totality of existing
_thought_. Of course all this _thought_, with the exception of that tiny
group that is my _mind_, is as much outside my consciousness as are the
thoughts of my fellow-men and of the lower animals.