PSYCHOLOGY
I. THOMAS BROWN
The politicians and economists, of whom I have spoken, took first
principles for granted. The intellectual temperament, which made
certain methods congenial to them, would no doubt have led them to an
analogous position in philosophy. Bentham had touched upon
philosophical points in a summary way, and James Mill, as we shall
see, gave a more explicit statement. But such men as Ricardo and
Malthus had no systematic philosophy, though a certain philosophy was
congenial to their methods. Desire to reach a solid groundwork of
fact, hearty aversion to mere word-juggling, and to effeminate
sentimentalism, respect for science and indifference to, if not
contempt for, poetry, resolution to approve no laws or institutions
which could not be supported on plain grounds of utility, and to
accept no theory which could not be firmly based on verifiable
experience, imply moral and intellectual tendencies, in which we may
perhaps say that the Utilitarians represent some of the strongest and
most valuable qualities of the national character. Taking these
qualities for granted, let us consider how the ultimate problems
presented themselves to the school thus distinguished.
I have already observed that the Scottish philosophy, taught by Reid
and Dugald Stewart, represented the only approach to a living
philosophical system in these islands at the beginning of the century.
It held this position for a long period. Mill, who had heard Dugald
Stewart's lectures, knew nothing of German thought. He was well read
in French philosophers, and in harmony with one leading sect. The
so-called _ideologues_,[464] who regarded Condillac as representing
the true line of intellectual progress, were in France the analogues
of the English Utilitarians. Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis were their
most conspicuous leaders in this generation. The philosophy of Reid
and Stewart crossed the channel, and supplied the first assailants of
the _ideologues_ with their controversial weapons. Thus, until the
German influence came to modify the whole controversy, the vital issue
seemed to lie between the doctrine of Reid or 'intuitionism' on the
one hand, and the purely 'experiential' school on the other, whether,
as in France, it followed Condillac, or, as in England, looked back
chiefly to Hartley. Both sections traced their intellectual ancestry
to Locke and Hobbes, with some reference to Bacon, and, by the French
writers, to Descartes. Stewart, again, as I have said, was the
accepted Whig philosopher. It is true that the Whig sat habitually in
the seat of Gallio. Jeffrey, whether he fully realised the fact or
not, was at bottom a sceptic in philosophy as in politics. John Allen,
the prophet of Holland House, was a thorough sceptic, and says[465]
that Horner, one of Stewart's personal admirers, was really a
follower of Hume. The Whigs were inclined to Shaftesbury's doctrine
that sensible men had all one religion, and that sensible men never
said what it was. Those who had a more definite and avowable creed
were content to follow Stewart's amiable philosophising. Brougham
professed, let us hope, sincerely, to be an orthodox theist, and
explained the argument from design in a commentary upon Paley. Sydney
Smith expounded Reid and Stewart in lectures which showed at least
that he was still a wit when talking 'philosophy' at the Royal
Institution; and, though he hated 'enthusiasm' in dissenters,
evangelicals, and tractarians, and kept religion strictly in its
place--a place well outside of practical politics--managed to preach a
wholesome, commonplace morality in terms of Christian theology. The
difference between the Whig and the Radical temper showed itself in
philosophical as in political questions. The Radical prided himself on
being logical and thoroughgoing, while the Whig loved compromise, and
thought that logic was very apt to be a nuisance. The systematic
reticence which the Utilitarians held to be necessary prevented this
contrast from showing itself distinctly on the surface. The
Utilitarians, however, though they avoided such outspoken scepticism
as would startle the public, indicated quite sufficiently to the
initiated their essential position. It implied what they fully
recognised in private conversation--a complete abandonment of
theology. They left the obvious inferences to be drawn by others. In
philosophy they could speak out in a well-founded confidence that few
people were able to draw inferences. I will begin by considering the
doctrine against which they protested; for the antagonism reveals, I
think, the key to their position.
When Stewart was obliged by infirmity to retire from the active
discharge of his duties, he was succeeded by Thomas Brown (1778-1820).
Brown had shown early precocity, and at the age of fifteen had
attracted Stewart's notice by some remarks on a psychological point.
He published at twenty a criticism of Darwin's _Zoonomia_, and he
became one of the _Edinburgh Review_ circle. When the _Review_ was
started he contributed an article upon Kant. In those happy days it
was so far from necessary to prepare oneself for such a task by
studying a library of commentators that the young reviewer could
frankly admit his whole knowledge to be derived from Villers'
_Philosophie de Kant_ (1801).[466] Soon afterwards he took an
important share in a once famous controversy. John Leslie, just
elected to the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, was accused of having
written favourably of Hume's theory of causation. Whigs and Tories
took this up as a party question,[467] and Brown undertook to explain
in a pamphlet what Hume's theory was, and to show that it did not lead
to atheism. Leslie's friends triumphed, though it does not appear how
far Brown's arguments contributed to their success. The pamphlet was
rewritten and enlarged, and a third edition of 1818 gives a full
exposition of his theory. Brown had meanwhile become Stewart's leading
disciple, and in 1810 was elected to be his colleague. Brown held the
position, doing all the active duties, until his premature death in
1820. Brown, according to his biographer, wrote his lectures
immediately before delivery, and completed them during his first two
years of office. His theories, as well as his words, were often,
according to the same authority, extemporised. Brown found that he
could not improve what he had written under 'very powerful
excitement.' Moreover, he had an unlucky belief that he was a poet.
From 1814 till 1819 he brought out yearly what he supposed to be a
poem. These productions, the _Paradise of Coquets_ and the rest, are
in the old-fashioned taste, and have long passed into oblivion.
The lectures, published posthumously, became a text-book for students,
and reached a nineteenth edition in 1851. Their faults, considered as
philosophical treatises, are palpable. They have the wordiness of
hasty composition, and the discursive rhetoric intended to catch the
attention of an indolent audience. Brown does not see that he is
insulting his hearers when he apologises for introducing logic into
lectures upon metaphysics, and indemnifies them by quotations from
Akenside and the _Essay on Man_. Brown, however, showed great
acuteness and originality. He made deviations, and took pains to mark
his deviations, from Reid, though he spoke more guardedly of his own
friend, Stewart. Stewart, who had strongly supported Brown's election,
was shocked when, on the publication of the lectures, he came to
discover that his colleague had been preaching heresy, and wrote with
obvious annoyance of Brown's hastiness and dangerous concessions to
the enemy.[468] Brown, however, impressed his contemporaries by his
ability. Sydney Smith is probably reporting the current judgment of
his own circle when he says[469] that in metaphysics Stewart was a
'humbug' compared with Brown. I certainly think that Stewart, whom I
should be sorry to call a humbug, shows less vigour and subtlety.
Brown, at any rate, impressed both the Mills, and his relation to them
is significant.
Brown's essay upon Causation indicates this relation. In this, indeed,
there is little, if any, divergence from Stewart, though he attacks
Reid with considerable asperity. He urges that Reid, while really
agreeing with Hume, affected to answer him under cover of merely
verbal distinctions.[470] The main point is simple. Hume had asserted
that all events seem to be 'entirely loose and separate,' or, in other
words, 'conjoined but never connected.' Yet he points out that, in
fact, when we have found two events to be 'conjoined,' we call one
cause and the other effect, and assume a 'necessary connection'
between them. He then asks, What is the origin of this belief, and
what, therefore, is the logical warrant for its validity? Brown
entirely accepts Hume's statement of the facts. The real meaning of
our statements is evaded by appealing to the conception of 'power.'
When the loadstone (in his favourite illustration) attracts the iron,
we say it has a 'power' of attracting iron. But to speak thus of a
power is simply to describe the same facts in other words. We assert
this, and nothing more than this, that when the loadstone comes near
the iron, each moves towards the other. 'Power' is a word which only
covers a statement of 'invariable antecedence.' Brown traces the
various confusions which have obscured the true nature of this belief.
He insists especially that we can no more discover power in mental
than in physical sequences. The will had been supposed to be the type
of causal power; but volition, according to Brown, reveals simply
another succession of desires and bodily actions. The hypothesis of
'power' has been really the source of 'illusion.' The tendency to
personify leads us to convert metaphor into fact, to invent a subject
of this imaginary 'power,' and thus to create a mythology of beings to
carry on the processes of nature. In other words, Brown here follows
Hume or even anticipates Comte. As J. S. Mill remarks,[471] this
erroneous identification of 'power' with 'will' gives the
'psychological rationale of Comte's great historical generalisation';
and, so far, Brown, as a follower of Hume, is clearly on the way to
positivism.
The world, then, is a vast aggregate of 'loose' phenomena. A
contemplation of things reveals no reason for one order rather than
another. You may look at your loadstone as long as you please, but you
will find no reason for its attracting iron. You may indeed
interpolate a number of minute intervening sequences, and the process
often suggests a vague something more than sequence; but this is a
mere illusion.[472] Could we, in fact, see all the minute changes in
bodies we should actually perceive that cause means nothing but 'the
immediate invariable antecedence of an event.'[473] Brown especially
argues against the attempts of d'Alembert and Euler to deduce the
first laws of motion from the principle of 'sufficient reason.'[474]
That, as he argues in detail, is merely begging the question, by
introducing the principle of causation under an alias.
What, then, is the principle? We believe, he says,[475] that 'every
event must have a cause,' and that circumstances exactly 'similar must
have results exactly similar.' This belief, though applicable to all
events, does not give us the 'slightest aid' to determining,
independently of experience, any particular event. We observe that B
follows A, but, for all we can say, it might as well follow any other
letter of the alphabet. Yet we are entitled to say in general that it
does uniformly follow some particular letter. The metaphor which
describes cause and effect as a 'bond' tying A and B together is
perfectly appropriate if taken to express the bare fact of
sequence;[476] but we fall into error if we fancy there is really any
bond whatever beside the events themselves.
The belief, then, in causation has precisely the same import according
to Hume and Brown; and both agree that it is not produced by
'reasoning.' The proposition 'B has once succeeded A,' or 'has
succeeded A a thousand times,' is entirely different from the
proposition 'B will for ever succeed A.'[477] No process of logical
inference can extract one from the other. Shall we, then, give up a
belief in causation? The belief in any case exists as a fact. Hume
explains it by custom or association. Brown argues, and I think with
much force, that Hume's explanation is insufficient. Association may
explain (if it does more than restate) the fact that one 'idea' calls
up another idea, but such association may and often does occur without
suggesting any belief. The belief, too, precedes the association. We
begin by believing too much, not too little, and assume a necessary
connection of many phenomena which we afterwards find to be
independent. The true answer is therefore different. There are three
sources of belief, 'perception,' 'reasoning,' and 'intuition.'[478]
Now, we cannot 'perceive' anything but a present coincidence; neither
can we establish a connection by any process of 'reasoning,' and
therefore the belief must be an 'intuition.' This, accordingly, is
Brown's conclusion. 'There are principles,' he says, 'independent of
reasoning, in the mind which save it from the occasional follies of
all our ratiocinations';[479] or rather, as he explains, which
underlie all reasoning. The difference, then, between Hume and Brown
(and, as Brown argues, between Hume and Reid's real doctrine) is not
as to the import, but as to the origin, of the belief. It is an
'intuition' simply because it cannot be further analysed. It does not
allow us to pass a single step beyond experience; it merely authorises
us to interpret experience. We can discover any actual law of
connection between phenomena only by observing that they occur in
succession. We cannot get beyond or behind the facts--and therefore
intuitionism in this sense is not opposed to empiricism, but a warrant
for empirical conclusions. An 'intuition,' briefly, is an unanalysable
belief. Brown asserts that a certain element of thought has not been
explained, and assumes it to be therefore inexplicable or ultimate.
Brown's account of causation had a great influence upon both the
Mills, and especially affected the teaching of the younger Mill.
Another point is important. Reid, as I have said, had specially prided
himself upon his supposed overthrow of Berkeley's idealism. He was
considered to have shown, in spite of sceptics, that the common belief
in an external world was reasonable. Brown in his lectures ridiculed
Reid's claim. This 'mighty achievement,' the 'supposed overthrow of a
great system,' was 'nothing more than the proof that certain phrases
are metaphorical, which were intended by their authors to be
understood _only_ as metaphors.'[480] The theory was dead before Reid
slew it, though the phrases were still used as a mere 'relic,' or
survival of an obsolete doctrine.[481] The impossibility of
constructing extension out of our sensations is the _experimentum
crucis_ upon which Reid was ready to stake his case. If the attempt at
such a construction could succeed, he would 'lay his hand upon his
mouth' and give up the argument.[482] Brown takes up the challenge
thus thrown out. He holds that our knowledge of an external world is
derived from a source which Reid overlooked. He modifies the Scottish
psychology by introducing the muscular senses. His theory is that the
infant which has learned to move discovers that on some occasions its
movements are modified by a sense of 'impeded effort.'[483] The sudden
interruption to a well-known series excites in its mind the notion of
'a cause which is not in itself.' This is the source of our belief in
an external world. That belief is essentially the belief in some cause
which we know to be other than our own mental constitution or the
series of 'internal' phenomena, and of which we can know nothing else.
It is enough to indicate a theory which has been elaborated by later
psychologists, and plays a great part (for example) in the theories of
Mill, Bain, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. It shows the real tendency of
Brown's speculations. In the first place, it must be noticed that the
theory itself had been already emphatically stated by Destutt de
Tracy. Hamilton accuses Brown of plagiarism.[484] Whether his
accusation be justifiable or not, it is certainly true that Brown had
in some way reached the same principles which had been already set
forth by a leading 'ideologist.' Brown, that is, though the official
exponent of the Scottish philosophy, was in this philosophical tenet
at one with the school which they regarded as materialistic or
sceptical. The path by which he reaches his conclusions is also
characteristic.
Brown has reversed the interpretation of Reid's _experimentum crucis_.
I will give up my case, says Reid, if you can make the external world
out of sensations. That, replies Brown, is precisely what we can do.
How from sensations do we get what Berkeley called 'outness'? We get
it, says Brown, from the sense of resistance or 'impeded effort.' That
reveals to us the fact that there is something independent of
ourselves, and the belief in such a something is precisely what we
mean, and all that we mean, by the belief in an external world.
Consistently with this, Brown rejects Reid's distinction between the
primary and secondary qualities. The distinction corresponds no doubt
to some real differences, but there is no difference of the kind
suggested by Reid. 'All [the qualities] are relative and equally
relative--our perception of extension and resistance as much as our
perception of fragrance and bitterness.'[485] We ascribe the
sensations to 'external objects,' but the objects are only known by
the 'medium' of our sensations. In other words, the whole world may be
regarded as a set of sensations, whether of sight, smell, touch, or
resistance to muscular movement, accompanied by the belief that they
are caused by something not ourselves, and of which something we can
only say that it is not ourselves.
Once more, the analysis of the process by which the belief is
generated is significant. From resistance, or the sensation produced
when something 'resists our attempts to grasp it,' we get the
'outness.' Then perception is 'nothing more than the association of
this complex notion with our other sensations--the notion of something
extended and resisting, suggested by these sensations, when the
suggestions themselves have previously arisen, and suggested in the
same manner and on the same principle as any other associate feeling
suggests any other associate feeling.'[486] The odour or colour of a
rose recalls the sensation of touching and of resistance to our grasp.
Thus we regard the whole group of sensations as due to the external
cause which produces the sensation of resistance. Brown seems to
hesitate a little as to whether he shall appeal to an 'intuition' or
to 'association,' but 'as I rather think,' he says, the belief is
founded 'on associations as powerful as intuition.'[487]
Whatever, then, may be the origin of the belief--'intuition' or
'association'--it is clear that it can give us no knowledge except
such as is derived from sensations. Moreover, Brown is thus led, as in
the doctrine of causation, to accept a really sceptical position. He
declares that he is in this respect at one with both Reid and Hume.
They both accept two propositions: first, that we cannot 'by mere
reasoning' prove the existence of an external world; secondly, that it
is 'absolutely impossible for us not to believe' in its existence.
Hume, he says, pronounces the first proposition in a 'loud tone
of voice' and 'whispers' the second. Reid, conversely, passes
over the first rapidly and 'dwells on the second with a tone of
confidence.'[488] Brown accepts both statements. He has already said
that there is no argument against Berkeley's denial of matter any more
than against the 'infinite divisibility of matter.' But he adds, it is
'physically impossible' for us to admit the conclusion, at least
without 'an instant dissent from a momentary logical admission.'[489]
This, indeed, is but a version of Hume's familiar statement that
Berkeley's arguments admit of no reply and produce no conviction.
Another essential doctrine of the Mills, the 'association' theory, is
treated differently by Brown. Brown, as we have seen, both in his
theory of causation and in his theory of our belief in an external
world, speaks of principles in the mind which somehow override
'ratiocination.' In the first case, he speaks of 'intuition,' but in
the other, as I have said, he seems to prefer association. The
difference is remarkable because the belief in an external world is
upon his showing simply a case of causation. It means essentially the
reference of our sensations as to an external cause. Now, in the
argument upon causation, he has insisted upon the insufficiency of
association to generate the belief; and he would have found it
difficult to meet his own arguments if applied to the belief in an
external world. Yet it does not seem to occur to him that there is any
difficulty in explaining this belief in an external world as a case
of what Mill called 'indissoluble association.' Brown, as Mill
thought, was not sufficiently aware of the power of this principle,
and the difference between them is marked by this divergence. Brown
had a great deal to say about association, though he chose generally
to substitute the word 'suggestion,' previously familiar to Reid and
Berkeley.[490] He considers it, however, mainly in another relation.
He proposes to trace the order in which 'trains' of ideas succeed each
other in our minds. He does not dwell upon the influence of
association in producing belief. His question is not primarily as to
the logic, but as to the actual succession of our thoughts. He
explains that he uses the word 'suggestion' in order to avoid the
hypothesis that the sequence of two ideas necessarily implies a
previous state of mind in which they were brought together; and
endeavours to explain various cases (as, for example, association by
'contrast' as well as by 'likeness' or 'continuity') by a more
'subtile' analysis.[491] He then works out an elaborate theory of
'simple' and 'relative' suggestion. Simple 'suggestion'[492]
corresponds mainly to ordinary association, as when a friend's name or
his book calls up the thought of the man himself. 'Relative
suggestion' arises when two or more objects are perceived and suggest
various relations of likeness and so forth.[493] This provides a
scheme for working out the whole doctrine of the sequences of ideas so
far as the sequences depend upon the mind itself and not upon external
causes. It thus leads to problems of abstraction and generalisation
and to his whole theory of what he calls the 'intellectual states.' He
again closely coincides with the French ideologists. He starts by
examining Locke and Condillac. He of course professes to hold that
Condillac's version of Locke is illegitimate, and ridicules the famous
formula _penser c'est sentir_. He is, however, equally unwilling to
admit Reid's 'variety of powers.'[494] In fact, his criticism of
Condillac shows more affinity than contrast. Condillac erred, he says,
in holding that thoughts are 'transformed sensations.' This was a
false simplification into which he considers Condillac to have been
led partly by the ambiguity of the word _sentir_.[495] Condillac
applied to the mind the theory, true in 'the chemistry of the material
chemists,' that the 'compounds are the elements themselves.'[496] He
errs when he infers from the analogy that a feeling which arises out
of others can be resolved into them. 'Love and hate' and other
emotions are fundamentally different from the sensations by which they
are occasioned, not mere 'transformations' of those sensations. We, on
the other hand (that is to say, Reid and Stewart), have erred by
excessive amplification. Instead of identifying different things, we
have admitted a superfluous number of 'ultimate principles.'
The result is that besides the original sensations, we have to
consider a number of feelings, which, while essentially different, are
'suggested' or caused by them. These are parts of the whole
intellectual construction, and, though not transformed sensations, are
still 'feelings' arising in consequence of the sensations. They are
parts of the 'trains' or sequences of 'ideas.' It is accordingly
characteristic of Brown that he habitually describes an intellectual
process as a 'feeling.' The statement of a mathematical proportion,
for example, is a case of 'relative suggestion.' When we consider
two numbers together we have a '_feeling_ of the relation of
proportion.'[497] The 'profoundest reasonings' are 'nothing more than
a continued analysis of our thought,' by which we resolve the 'complex
_feelings_ of our minds' into the simpler conceptions out of which
they were constructed.[498] In other words, Brown, it would seem,
really accepts the _penser c'est sentir_, only that he regards the
_sentir_ as including separate classes of feeling, which cannot be
regarded as simple 'transformations' of sensation. They are 'states of
the mind' caused by, that is, invariably following upon, the simpler
states, and, of course, combining in an endless variety of different
forms. Reasoning is nothing more than a series of relative
'suggestions of which the separate subjects are felt by us to be
mutually related.'[499] Hence, too, arises his theory of
generalisation. He is, he says, not a 'nominalist' but a
'conceptualist,' and here, for once, agrees with Reid as against
Stewart.[500] The 'general term,' according to him, expresses the
'feeling or general notion of resemblance,' which arises upon a
contemplation of two objects. 'In Nature,' as he observes
elsewhere,[501] 'there are no classes,' but the observation of a
number of particular cases and a certain feeling to which we give a
name. Here, again, Brown's view coincides with that of his French
contemporaries.
We may then say briefly that Brown carries out in his own fashion the
conception of psychology which makes it an inductive science parallel
to the physical sciences, and to be pursued by the same methods. We
have to do with 'feelings' instead of atoms, and with mental instead
of 'material' chemistry. Our sole method is still an analysis such as
guides us in unravelling complex physical phenomena. We have, indeed,
to admit certain first truths--the belief in our own identity is one
of them--which are necessary to our very existence, although the
assertion of such principles was carried to an extravagant and
ridiculous length 'by Reid and some of his friends.' When, however, we
come to ask what these principles are, it must be admitted that they
are very innocent. They are not dangerous things, like 'innate ideas,'
capable of leading us to a transcendental world, but simply assertions
that we are warranted in trusting our sensations and applying a
thoroughly inductive and empirical method. They are the cement which
joins the feelings, and which, as Mill thought, could be supplanted by
'indissoluble associations.' The indefinite power thus attributed to
association became, as we shall see, Mill's most characteristic
doctrine. Meanwhile, I will only mention one inference which
illustrates Brown's philosophical tendencies. Stewart had spoken
doubtfully of the ontological argument for theology. Brown throws it
over altogether. He does not even change it into an 'intuition.' He
has always, he says, regarded it as 'absolutely void of force' unless
it tacitly assumes the 'physical argument.' Nay, it is one proof of
the force of this physical argument that it has saved us from doubts
which would be rather strengthened than weakened by the 'metaphysical
arguments.'[502] The 'physical argument' means the argument from
design, which thus becomes the sole support of theology.
Hamilton naturally regards Brown as a mere sceptic in disguise. His
theory of perception destroys his theory of personal identity. He has
refused to accept our intuitive belief in one case, and cannot appeal
to it in the other. He leaves no room for 'liberty of will,' and
advances 'no argument in support of this condition of our moral
being.'[503] Indeed, as Stewart complained, Brown, by identifying
'will' and 'desire,' has got rid of the will altogether. It is only
natural that a man who is making a scientific study of the laws of
human nature should find no room for an assertion that within a
certain sphere there are no laws. A physiologist might as well admit
that some vital processes are uncaused.
Brown thus illustrates the gravitation of the 'common-sense'
philosophy to pure empiricism. He was the last in the genuine line of
Scottish common-sense philosophers. When after what may be called the
unphilosophical interregnum which followed Brown's death, Hamilton
became professor, the Scottish tradition was blended with the very
different theories derived from Kant. Upon Brown's version, the
Scottish philosophy had virtually declared itself bankrupt. The
substance of his teaching was that of the very school which his
predecessors had attempted to confute, carefully as the fact might be
hidden by dexterous rhetoric and manipulation of technical terms. He
agrees with Hume's premises, and adopts the method of Condillac. This
was perceived by his most remarkable hearer. Carlyle went to Edinburgh
at the end of 1809. Brown, 'an eloquent, acute little gentleman, full
of enthusiasm about simple suggestions, relative, etc.,' was 'utterly
unprofitable' to him, disspiriting 'as the autumn winds among withered
leaves.'[504] In _Signs of the Times_ (1829) Carlyle gave his view of
the Scottish philosophy generally. They had, he says, started from the
'mechanical' premises suggested by Hume. 'They let loose instinct as
an indiscriminatory bandog to guard them against (his) conclusions':
'they tugged lustily at the logical chain by which Hume was so coldly
towing them and the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism and
Fatalism. But the chain somehow snapped between them, and the issue
has been that nobody now cares about either--any more than about
Hartley's, Darwin's, or Priestley's contemporaneous doings in
England.'[505] The judgment goes to the root of the matter. The method
of Reid inevitably led to this result. Consider the philosophy as
based upon, if not identical with, an inductive science of psychology,
and the end is clear. You may study and analyse the phenomena as
carefully as you please; and may, as the Scottish professors did,
produce, if not a scientific psychology, yet a mass of acute
prolegomena to a science. But the analysis can only reveal the actual
combinations, chemical or mechanical, of thought. The ultimate
principles which the teachers profess to discover are simply
provisional; products not yet analysed, but not therefore incapable of
analysis. It was very desirable to point them out: an insistence upon
the insufficiency of Hume's or Condillac's theories was a most
valuable service; but it was valuable precisely because every
indication of such an unresolved element was a challenge to the next
comer to resolve it by closer analysis. And thus, in fact, the
intuitions, which had played so great a part with Reid, come in
Brown's hands to be so clearly limited to the materials given by
sensation or experience that any show of 'philosophy,' meaning an
independent theory of the universe, was an illusory combination of
fine phrases.[506]
II. JAMES MILL'S 'ANALYSIS'
James Mill's _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_ is on the
one hand an exposition of the principles implied in Bentham's
writings, and, on the other hand, a statement of the position from
which the younger Mill started. J. S. Mill discussed the book with his
father during its composition, and in 1869 he published a new edition,
with elaborate notes by himself, George Grote, Professor Bain, and
Andrew Findlater.[507] The commentary is of great importance in
defining the relation between the two successors to the throne of
Bentham.
Mill's _Analysis_, though not widely read, made a deep impression upon
Mill's own disciples. It is terse, trenchant, and uncompromising. It
reminds us in point of style of the French writers, with whom he
sympathised, rather than of the English predecessors, to whom much of
the substance was owing. The discursive rhetoric of Brown or Stewart
is replaced by good, hard, sinewy logic. The writer is plainly in
earnest. If over confident, he has no petty vanity, and at least
believes every word that he says. Certain limitations are at once
obvious. Mill, as a publicist, a historian, and a busy official, had
not had much time to spare for purely philosophic reading. He was not
a professor in want of a system, but an energetic man of business,
wishing to strike at the root of the superstitions to which his
political opponents appealed for support. He had heard of Kant, and
seen what 'the poor man would be at.' Later German systems, had he
heard of them, would have been summarily rejected by him as so much
transcendental moonshine. The problem of philosophy was, he held, a
very simple one, if attacked in a straightforward, scientific method.
Mill, like his Scottish rivals, applies 'Baconian' principles. The
inductive method, which had already been so fruitful in the physical
sciences, will be equally effective in philosophy, and ever since
Locke, philosophy had meant psychology. The 'philosophy of the mind'
and the philosophy of the body may be treated as co-ordinate and
investigated by similar methods. In the physical sciences we come
ultimately to the laws of movement of their constituent atoms. In the
moral sciences we come in the same way to the study of 'ideas.' The
questions, How do ideas originate? and how are they combined so as to
form the actual state of consciousness? are therefore the general
problems to be solved. Hume had definitely proposed the problem.
Hartley had worked out the theory of association of ideas which Hume
had already compared[508] to the universal principle of gravitation in
the physical world; and had endeavoured to show how this might be
connected with physiological principles. Hartley's followers had been
content to dwell upon the power of association. Abraham Tucker,
Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, and Belsham represented this tendency, and
were the normal antagonists of Reid and Stewart. In France the
'ideologists' mainly followed Condillac, and apparently knew nothing
of Hartley. Mill, as his son testifies, had been profoundly influenced
by Hartley's treatise--the 'really master-production,' as he esteemed
it, 'in the philosophy of mind.'[509] Hartley's work, as the younger
Mill thought, and the elder apparently agreed, was very superior to
the 'merely verbal generalisation of Condillac.' James Mill, however,
admired Condillac and his successors. In his article upon education,
Mill traces the association theory to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, the
last of whom, he says, was succeeded by the two 'more sober-minded'
philosophers, Condillac and Hartley; while he especially praises
Erasmus Darwin, Helvetius, and Cabanis. Mill, therefore, may be
regarded as an independent ally of the ideologists whose influence
upon Brown has been already noticed. Mill had not read Brown's
_Lectures_ when he began his _Analysis_, and after reading them
thought Brown 'but poorly read in the doctrine of association.'[510]
He had, however, read the essay upon causation, which he rather oddly
describes as 'one of the most valuable contributions to science for
which we are indebted to the last generation.'[511] He accepted
Brown's view _minus_ the 'intuition.'
The pith of Mill's book is thus determined. His aim is to give a
complete analysis of mental phenomena, and therefore to resolve those
phenomena into their primitive constituent atoms. Here we have at once
a tacit assumption which governs his method. Philosophy, speaking
roughly, is by some people supposed to start from truths, and thus to
be in some way an evolution of logic. According to Mill it must start
from facts, and therefore from something not given by logic. To state
clearly, indeed, the relation between truth and fact may suggest very
intricate problems. Mill, at any rate, must find a basis in fact, and
for him the ultimate facts must be feelings. The reality at least of a
feeling is undeniable. The _Penser c'est sentir_, or the doctrine that
all 'ideas' are transformed sensations is his starting-point. The word
'feeling,' according to him, includes every 'phenomenon of the mind.'
'Think,' he says elsewhere,[512] does not include all our experience,
but 'there is nothing to which we could not extend the term "I feel."'
He proceeds to infer that our experience is either a knowledge of the
feelings separately, or 'a knowledge of the order in which they follow
each other; and this is all.' We may add that the knowledge is the
feeling. Reid, Kant, and the Germans have indeed tried to show that
there are feelings not derived from the sensations, but this, as
Hartley and Condillac have shown, is a mistake. This is his first
principle in a nutshell, and must give a clue to the various
applications.
The next step is familiar. Hume had distinguished impressions and
ideas. 'Ideas' are copies of previous 'impressions.' It is for
psychology to say what are the laws by which they are related to their
originals. The ultimate origin cannot be explained by psychology
alone. Impressions are caused by the outward world acting in some way
upon the mind; and the psychologist can only classify the various
modes in which they present themselves. Mill therefore begins by the
usual account of the five senses, through which comes all knowledge of
the external world. He adds to Reid's list muscular sensations, and
those derived from the internal organs, to which last Cabanis in
particular had called attention. So far he is following the steps of
his predecessors. He is, he says, simply asserting an 'indisputable'
fact.[513] We have sensations and we have ideas, which are 'copies of
sensations.' We may then consider how far these facts will enable us
to explain the whole series of mental phenomena. 'Ideation,' which he
suggests as a new word--the process by which a continuous series of
thoughts goes on in our minds--is the general phenomenon to be
considered. Without, as yet, pronouncing that sensations and copies of
sensations will turn out to form the whole contents of our
consciousness, he tries to show for what part of those contents they
will account.
Here we come to the doctrine which for him and his school gave the
key to all psychological problems. It was James Mill's real merit,
according to his son, that he carried the principle of association of
ideas further than it had been carried by Hartley or other
predecessors.[514] The importance of the doctrine, indeed, is implied
in the very statement of the problem. If it be true, or so far as it
is true, that our consciousness reveals to us simply a series of
'sensations' and 'ideas,' the question must be how they are combined.
'Thought succeeds thought, idea follows idea incessantly,'[515] says
Mill; and this phrase assumes 'thoughts' and 'ideas' to be separable
atoms. How, then, do they come to coalesce into an apparently
continuous stream? The mind is a stream of 'ideas.' If the stream is
composed of drops, we must, of course, consider the drops as composing
the stream. The question is, What laws can we assign which will
determine the process of composition? The phrase 'association'
admittedly expresses some general and very familiar truths.
Innumerable connections may be established when there is no assignable
ground of connection in the ideas themselves other than the fact of a
previous contact. One idea not only calls up the other, but in some
way generates a belief in an independent connection. We hear thunder,
for example, and think of lightning. The two ideas are entirely
distinct and separate, for they are due to different senses. Yet we
not only think of lightning when we hear thunder, but we have no doubt
that there is a causal connection. We believe in this connection,
again, though no further explanation can be given of the fact.
Thunder and lightning have occurred together, and we infer that they
will, and even must, occur together. When we examine our whole
structure of belief, we find such 'arbitrary' associations pervade it
in every direction. Language itself is learned simply by association.
There is no connection whatever between the sound of the word 'man'
and the 'ideas' which the word excites, beyond the fact that the sound
has been previously heard when the ideas were excited. Here, then, is
a phenomenon to be explained or generalised. We have in countless
cases a certain connection established for which no further reason can
be assigned than the fact of its previous occurrence. On such a
ground, we believe that fire burns, that bread is wholesome, that
stones fall; and but for such beliefs could know nothing of the
outside world. 'Contingent' truth, therefore, or truth derived from
mere contact, pervades, if it does not constitute, the whole fabric of
our whole knowledge. To prove that all our knowledge is derived from
experience is, according to Mill, to prove that in some sense or other
association of ideas lies at the base of all intellectual processes.
When Locke introduced a chapter upon 'Association of Ideas' into the
fourth edition of his essay, he treated it as the exceptional case.
Some ideas had a connection traceable by reason; others were only
connected by 'chance and custom.' Association does not explain
reasoning, only the deviations from reasoning. But with Hume and
Hartley the relation is inverted. The principle, instead of being an
exceptional case, is simply the universal rule from which logical
connection may be deduced as a special case.
The facts upon which Mill relied, and the account of them which he
gave, require notice and embodiment in any sound psychology. In some
shape or other they form the starting-point of all later systems.
Mill's vigorous application of his principle, worked out with
imperfect appreciation and with many oversights, had therefrom, at
least, the merit of preparing the ground for a more scientific method.
In any case, however, his conclusions, so far as sound, must be placed
in a different framework of theory. It becomes necessary to dwell
chiefly upon the curious defects of his theory, if taken as he wished
it to be taken, for an ultimate scientific statement. The fact that
there is a synthesis and an analysis is expressed by 'association.'
But what more can we say? What are the 'laws' of association? Unless
some rule can be given, we shall get nothing that can be called a
theory. One idea is not suggested by the other through any logical
process. They are still 'conjoined' but not 'connected.' The
connection, therefore, must be given by something different from the
ideas themselves. Now the order of the original 'sensations' depends
upon the 'objects of nature,' and is therefore left to 'physical
philosophy.'[516] They occur, however, either in 'synchronous' or in
'successive' order. Then 'ideas' spring up in the order of
'sensations,' and this is the 'general law of association of
ideas.'[517] The synchronous sensations produce synchronous ideas and
the successive sensations successive ideas. Finally, the strength of
the association between the ideas depends upon 'the vividness of the
associated feelings, and the frequency of the association.'[518] Hume
had said that association depended upon three principles, 'contiguity
in time and place,' 'causation,' and 'resemblance.' Contiguity in time
corresponds to the successive, and contiguity in place to the
synchronous, order. Causation, as Brown had finally proved,[519] means
simply antecedence and consequence. 'Resemblance' remains and is, as
Mill afterwards says,[520] a most important principle; but in an
unlucky moment he is half inclined to reduce even 'resemblance' to
'contiguity.'[521] Resemblance is, he even suggests, merely 'a case of
frequency,' because we generally see like things together. When we see
one tree or sheep, we generally see several trees or sheep. J. S. Mill
mildly remarks upon this quaint suggestion as the 'least successful
simplification' in the book. He argues the point gravely. Sheep, it is
clear, are not seen to be like because they often compose a flock, but
are considered to be a flock because they are seen to be like. To do
James Mill justice, he drops the argument as soon as he has struck it
out. It is only worth notice as showing his aim. 'Likeness' seems to
imply a relation dependent on the ideas themselves; not purely
external and arbitrary. If we could get rid of likeness, all
association would ultimately be 'contiguity.' 'The fundamental law of
association,' as he says elsewhere,[522] 'is that when two things have
been frequently found together, we never perceive or think of the one
without thinking of the other.' The two ideas are associated as two
balls are associated when they are in the same box. So far as they are
themselves concerned, they might be separated without any alteration
in their own properties. What, then, corresponds to the 'box'?
Association depends upon relations of time and space. Things are
associated by occurring in succession or together; the red colour of a
rose is in the same place with the shape of the leaf; the scent is
perceived at the same time with the colour. The thunder follows the
lightning. What, then, he might ask, are 'time' and 'space'? Are they
'ideas' or 'sensations' or qualities of the objects? or, in any case,
as supplying the ultimate principle of association, do they not
require investigation? Before coming to that problem, however, we have
to settle other knotty points. We must clear away illusions which seem
to introduce something more than association. Elements of thought not
at first sight expressible simply in terms of sensations and ideas
must be analysed to show that they are only disguises for different
combinations of the facts. Reasoning, according to most logicians,
supposes, first, concepts, and therefore some process of
classification of the objects of thought; and, secondly, some process
of combining these concepts to bring out hitherto unknown truths.
What, then, is the meaning of the general or abstract symbols employed
in the process? Mill's provision of raw materials consists so far of
sensations and ideas, which are worked up so as to form 'clusters'
(the word is taken from Hartley) and 'trains.' This corresponds to
synchronous and successive associations. How does the logical
terminology express these 'clusters' and 'trains'? Mill answers by a
theory of 'naming.' Language fulfils two purposes; it is required in
order to make our ideas known to others; and in order to fix our own
ideas. Ideas are fluctuating, transitory, and 'come into the mind
unbidden.' We must catch and make a note of these shifting crowds of
impalpable entities. We therefore put marks upon the simple
sensations or upon the 'clusters.' We ticket them as a tradesman
tickets bundles of goods in his warehouse, and can refer to them for
our own purposes or those of others. As the number of objects to be
marked is enormous, as there are countless ideas and clusters and
clusters of clusters of endless variety to be arranged in various
ways, one main object of naming is economy. A single word has to be
used to mark a great number of individuals. This will account for such
general names as are represented by noun-substantives: man, horse,
dog, and so forth. Mill then proceeds, with the help of Horne Tooke,
to explain the other grammatical forms. An adjective is another kind
of noun marking a cross division. Verbs, again, are adjectives marking
other sets of facts, and enabling us to get rid of the necessity of
using a new mark for every individual or conceivable combination into
clusters. J. S. Mill remarks that this omits the special function of
verbs--their 'employment in predication.'[523] James Mill, however,
has his own view of 'predication.' 'Man' is a mark of John, Peter,
Thomas, and the rest. When I say 'John is a man,' I mean that 'man is
another mark to that idea of which John is a mark.'[524] I am then
able to make a statement which will apply to all the individuals, and
save the trouble of repeating the assertion about each. 'Predication,'
therefore, is simply a substitution of one name for another. So, for
example, arithmetic is simply naming. What I call two and two, I also
call four. The series of thoughts in this case is merely 'a series of
names applicable to the same thing and meaning the same thing.'[525]
This doctrine, as J. S. Mill remarks, is derived from Hobbes, whom
Leibniz in consequence called _plus quam nominalis_.[526] My belief
that two and two make four explains why I give the same name to
certain numbers; but the giving the name does not explain the belief.
Meanwhile, if a class name be simply the mark which is put upon a
bundle of things, we have got rid of a puzzle. Mill triumphs over the
unfortunate realists who held that a class meant a mysterious entity,
existing somewhere apart from all the individuals in which it is
embodied. There is really nothing mysterious; a name is first the mark
of an individual, the individual corresponding to a 'cluster' or a set
of 'simple ideas, concreted into a complex idea.'[527] Then the name
and the complex idea are associated reciprocally; each 'calls up' the
other. The complex idea is 'associated' with other resembling ideas.
The name becomes a talisman calling up the ideas of an indefinite
number of resembling individuals, and the name applied to one
in the first instance becomes a mark which calls up all, or, as
he says, is the 'name of the whole combination.' Classification,
therefore, 'is merely a process of naming, and is all resolvable into
association.'[528] The peculiarity of this theory, as his commentators
again remark, is that it expressly omits any reference to abstraction.
The class simply means the aggregate of resembling individuals without
any selection of the common attributes which are, in J. S. Mill's
phrase, 'connoted' by the class-name. Abstraction, as James Mill
explains, is a subsidiary process, corresponding to the 'formation of
_sub-species_.'[529]
Mill has now shown how the various forms of language correspond to
ideas, formed into clusters of various orders by the principle of
association. The next step will naturally be to show how these
clusters are connected in the process of reasoning. Here the
difficulty about predication recurs. J. S. Mill[530] remarks that his
father's theory of predication consistently omits 'the element
Belief.' When I say, 'John is a man,' I make an affirmation or assert
a belief. I do not simply mean to call up in the mind of my hearer a
certain 'cluster' or two coincident clusters of ideas, but to convey
knowledge of truths. The omission of reference to belief is certainly
no trifle. Mill has classified the various ideas and combinations of
ideas which are used in judgment, but the process of judgment itself
seems to have slipped out of account. He may have given us, or be able
to give us, a reasoned catalogue of the contents of our minds, but has
not explained how the mind itself acts. It is a mere passive recipient
of ideas, or rather itself a cluster of ideas cohering in various
ways, without energy of its own. One idea, as he tells us, calls up
another 'by its own associating power.'[531] Ideas are things which
somehow stick together and revive each other, without reference to the
mind in which they exist or which they compose. This explains his
frequent insistence upon one assertion. As we approach the question of
judgment he finds it essential. 'Having a sensation and having a
feeling,' he says, 'are not two things.' To 'feel an idea and be
conscious of that feeling are not two things; the feeling and the
consciousness are but two names for the same thing.'[532] So, again,
'to have a sensation and to believe that we have it, are not
distinguishable things.'[533] Locke's reflection thus becomes nothing
but simple consciousness, and having a feeling is the same as
attending to it.[534] The point is essential. It amounts to saying
that we can speak of a thought as though it were simply a thing.
Thus belief not only depends upon, but actually _is_ association. 'It
is not easy,' he says, 'to treat of memory, belief, and judgment
separately.'[535] As J. S. Mill naturally asks, 'How is it possible to
treat of belief without including in it memory and judgment?' Memory
is a case of belief, and judgment an 'act of belief.'[536] To James
Mill, however, it appears that as these different functions all
involve association, they may be resolved into varying applications of
that universal power. Memory involves 'an idea of my present self' and
an 'idea of my past self,' and to remember is to 'run over the
intervening states of consciousness called up by association.'[537]
Belief involves association at every step. The belief in external
objects is, as 'all men admit' ... 'wholly resolvable into
association.'[538] 'That a cause means and can mean nothing to the
human mind but constant antecedence' (and therefore 'inseparable
association,' as he thinks) 'is no longer a point in dispute.'[539]
Association, it is true, may produce wrong as well as right beliefs;
right beliefs when 'in conformity with the connections of
things,'[540] and wrong beliefs when not in conformity. In both cases
the belief is produced by 'custom,' though, happily, the right custom
is by far the commonest. The 'strength of the association follows the
frequency.' The crow flies east as well as west; but the stone always
falls downwards.[541] Hence I form an 'inseparable association'
corresponding to a belief in gravitation, but have no particular
belief about the direction of a crow's flight.
This gives the doctrine of 'indissoluble association'--the pivot of
the whole scheme--the doctrine, says J. S. Mill, which, 'if it can be
proved, is the greatest of all the triumphs of the Association
Philosophy.'[542] The younger Mill always insisted upon the vast
importance of the principle; but he here admits a difficulty. In a
long note[543] upon James Mill's chapter on 'Belief,' conspicuous for
his usual candour, he confesses the inadequacy of his father's view.
The comment indicates the point of divergence and yet shows curiously
the ground common to both. James Mill's theory states facts in some
sense undeniable. Our 'ideas' cohere and combine to form a tissue: an
imagery or series of pictures which form the content and are somehow
the ground of our beliefs. The process of formation clearly involves
'association.' The scent of the rose is associated with the colour:
both with the visible form and so forth. But is this process the same
thing as believing, or have we to explain the belief by some mental
activity different from, however closely connected with, the
imagination, or in his phrase the 'ideation'? Here J. S. Mill finds a
difficulty. The statement, 'I believe that thunder will follow
lightning,' is something more than the statement, 'the sight suggests
or calls up the sound.' The mental picture considered by itself may be
described as a fact, without considering what belief, or whether any
belief, is implied. J. S. Mill therefore makes a distinction intended
to clear up his father's confusion. There is a difference, he says,
between remembering 'a real fact' and remembering a 'thought.'[544] He
illustrates this by the difference between the idea of Lafayette and
the idea of Falstaff. Lafayette was real, and had been seen by the
rememberer. Falstaff is a figment who, having never existed, can never
have been seen. Yet the idea of Falstaff may be quite as vivid as the
idea of Lafayette. What, then, is the difference between the two
states of mind? One, says J. S. Mill, is a belief about 'real facts';
the other about 'thoughts.' This, he observes, corresponds to James
Mill's distinction between a 'sensation' and an 'idea,'[545] a
difference which he had admitted to be 'primordial.' Then, says J. S.
Mill, we may as well admit that there is an 'element' in the
remembrance of a real fact not implied in the remembrance of a thought
and not dependent on any difference in the 'ideas' themselves. It,
too, may be taken as 'primordial,' or incapable of further analysis.
This doctrine becomes important in some of Mill's logical
speculations,[546] and is connected with his whole theory of belief in
an external world. It has an uncomfortable likeness to Reid's
'common-sense' view, and even to the hated 'intuitionism'; and Mill
deserves the more credit for his candour.
Meanwhile it seems clear that the criticism implies an important
confusion. The line of distinction is drawn in the wrong place. So
far as the simple 'imagination' is concerned, there may be no question
of belief or disbelief. The picture of Falstaff or of Lafayette, a
horse or a centaur, arises equally, and is put together, let us
suppose, by simple association. But as soon as I think about either I
believe or disbelieve, and equally whether I judge the object to be a
thought or to be a 'real fact,' whether I say that I could have seen
Lafayette, or that I could not have seen Falstaff. It is not a
question between reality or unreality, but between two classes of
reality. A dream is a real dream, just as a man is a real man. The
question is simply where or how it exists, not whether it exists. The
picture is, in one case, put together by my mind; in the other, due to
a stimulus from without; but it exists in both cases; and belief is
equally present whether I put it in one class of reality or the other:
as we form a judgment equally when we pronounce a man to be lying, and
when we pronounce him to be speaking the truth. J. S. Mill seems to
suppose that association can explain the imagination of a centaur or a
Falstaff, but cannot explain the belief in a horse or Lafayette. The
imagination or 'ideation,' he should have said, accounts in both cases
for the mere contents of the thought; but in neither case can it by
itself explain the judgment as to 'reality.' That is to say, James
Mill may have described accurately a part of the process by which the
mental picture is constructed, but has omitted to explain the action
of the mind itself. Belief, we may agree, is a 'primordial' or
ultimate faculty; but we must not interpret it as belief in a 'real
fact' as distinguished from belief in 'a thought': that is a secondary
and incidental distinction.
This confusion, as I have said, apparently prevents J. S. Mill from
seeing how deeply his very frank admissions cut into the very
structure of his father's system. He has, as I have said, remarked
upon the singular absence of any reference to 'belief,' 'abstraction,'
and so forth; but he scarcely observes how much is implied by the
omission. His criticism should have gone further. James Mill has not
only omitted a faculty which enables us to distinguish between
'thoughts' and 'things,' images of fancy and pictures of reality, but
also the faculty which is equally present whenever we properly think
instead of simply seeing images passively; and equally whether we
refer an image to fact or fancy. His 'analysis of the mind' seems to
get rid of the mind itself.
The omission becomes important at the next step. 'Under the modest
title of an explanation of the meaning of several names,' says his
son, James Mill discusses 'some of the deepest and most intricate
questions in all metaphysics.' A treatise on chemistry might almost as
well be 'described as an explanation of the names, air, water, potass,
sulphuric acid, and so forth.'[547] Why does the chapter come in this
place and in this peculiar form? Probably because James Mill was
partly conscious of the inadequacy of his previous chapters. The
problems which he has been considering could not be adequately treated
by regarding ideas as 'things' bound together by association. What,
after all, is a proposition? What is meant by 'true' or 'false,' as
distinguished from real and unreal? If an association actually _is_ a
truth, what is the difference between right and wrong associations?
Both are facts, and the very words 'right' and 'wrong,' that is, true
and false, apply not to facts but to propositions.[548] The judgment
is tested in some way by correspondence to the 'order of Nature,' or
of our sensations and ideas. What precisely is meant by this order? So
far as we have gone, it seems as if ideas might be combined in any
order whatever, and the most various beliefs generated in different
minds. Perhaps, however, the principle of association itself may
reveal something as to the possible modes of coalescence. Mill makes
contiguity an ultimate ground of association; and contiguity implies
that things have certain relations expressible in terms of space and
time and so forth. These primitive relations now come up for
consideration, and should enable us to say more precisely what kind of
order is possible. In fact, Mill now endeavours to analyse the
meanings of such words as relation in general, time, space, number,
likeness, personal identity and others. The effect of his analysis is
that the principles, whatever they may be, which might be supposed to
underlie association appear to be products of association. He begins
by asking what is the meaning of 'relative terms.' Their peculiarity
is that they 'always exist in pairs,' such as 'father and son,' 'high
and low,' 'right and left.' 'If it is asked, Why do we give names in
pairs? the general answer immediately suggests itself; it is because
the things named present themselves in pairs, that is, are joined by
association.'[549] J. S. Mill thinks that no part of the _Analysis_
is more valuable than the 'simple explanation' which follows. There is
no 'mystical bond called a relation' between two things, but 'a very
simple peculiarity in the concrete fact' marked by the names. In
'ordinary names of objects, the fact connoted by a name ... concerns
one object only'; in the case of relative names, 'the fact connoted
concerns two objects, and cannot be understood without thinking of
them both.' A 'fact concerning an object' is a curiously awkward
expression; but one point is clear. If the two objects concerned are
the same, whether considered apart or together, the 'relation' must be
something more than the facts, and therefore requires to be specified.
If they are, in fact, one thing, or parts of a continuous process, we
must ask how they come to be distinguished, and what ground there is
for speaking of association. James Mill, by considering the problem as
a mere question of 'names,' seems to intimate that the relation is a
mere figment. In fact, as J. S. Mill perceives, the 'explanations'
become nugatory. They simply repeat the thing to be explained. He
begins with 'resemblance.' To feel two things to be alike is, he says,
the same thing as to have the two feelings. He means to say,
apparently, that when there are two 'ideas' there is not also a third
idea of 'likeness.' That would be what Bentham called a 'fictitious
entity.' But this cannot 'explain' the likeness of the ideas. 'Their
being alike,' as his son interprets, 'is nothing but their being felt
to be alike--which does not help us.'[550] So 'antecedence and
consequence' are 'explained' by saying that one of two feelings calls
up the other; or, as the son again remarks, antecedence is explained
by antecedence, and succession by succession. Antecedence and
consequence, like likeness and unlikeness, must therefore, according
to J. S. Mill, be 'postulated as universal conditions of Nature,
inherent in all our feelings whether of external or internal
consciousness.'[551] In other words, apparently, time is an ultimate
form of thought. Time and space, generally, as James Mill thinks, are
the 'abstract names' respectively of successive and simultaneous
order, which become 'indissolubly associated with the idea of every
object.'[552] Space, of course, is said to be a product of touch and
muscular sensations, and the problem as to how these varying
sensations and these alone give rise to apparently necessary and
invariable beliefs is not taken into consideration. Mill is here
dealing with the questions which Kant attempted to answer by showing
how the mind imposes its forms upon sense-given materials, forms them
into concepts, and combines the concepts into judgments and reasoning.
Mill evades the mysterious and transcendental at the cost of omitting
reason altogether. He represents the result of accepting one horn of a
dilemma, which presses upon philosophies of loftier pretensions. Those
who accept the other horn speak of a 'fact' as though it were a truth,
and argue as though the world could be spun out of pure logic, or a
tissue be made of relations without any things to be related. Mill,
with scarcely a glance at such doctrines, tries systematically to
speak of a truth as if it were a fact. The world for him is made up of
ideas sticking together; and nothing else exists. The relation is the
fact; belief is the association; consciousness and reflection,
considered apart, are nothing but the sensations, ideas, clusters,
and trains. The attempt to base all truth upon experience, to bring
philosophy into harmony with science was, as I hold, perfectly right.
Only, upon these assumptions it could not be carried out. Mill had the
merit which is implied even by an unsuccessful attempt to hold by
fact. He raises a number of interesting questions; and I think that it
is more remarkable that so many of his observations have still an
interest for psychologists than that so much is obviously wrong. Mill,
it may be said, took an essay upon association for a treatise upon
psychology in general. He was writing what might be one important
chapter in such a treatise, and supposes that he has written the
whole, and can deduce 'philosophy' from it, if, indeed, any philosophy
can be said to remain. Meanwhile, I may observe, that by pushing his
principles to extremes, even his 'association' doctrine is endangered.
His _Analysis_ seems to destroy even the elements which are needed to
give the simplest laws of association. It is rather difficult to say
what is meant by the 'contiguity,' 'sequence,' and 'resemblance,'
which are the only conditions specified, and which he seems to explain
not as the conditions but as the product of association. J. S. Mill
perceived that something was wanting which he afterwards tried to
supply. I will just indicate one or two points, which may show what
problems the father bequeathed to the son. James Mill, at one place,
discusses the odd problem 'how it happens that all trains of thought
are not the same.'[553] The more obvious question is, on his
hypothesis, how it happens that any two people have the same beliefs,
since the beliefs are made of the most varying materials. If, again,
two ideas when associated remain distinct, we have Hume's difficulty.
Whatever is distinguishable, he argued, is separable. If two ideas
simply lie side by side, as is apparently implied by 'contiguity,' so
that each can be taken apart without change, why should we suppose
that they will never exist apart, or, indeed, that they should ever
again come together? The contiguity does not depend upon them, but
upon some inscrutable collocation, of which we can only say that it
exists now. This is the problem which greatly occupied J. S. Mill.