WILL IN COGNITION
The new psychology of James was bound to produce a new theory of
knowledge, and though it did not actually explore this problem, it
contained several valuable suggestions upon the subject. For instance,
in a brief passage discussing 'The Relations of Belief and Will,' James
pointed out that belief is essentially an attitude of the will towards
an idea, adding that in order to acquire a belief 'we need only in cold
blood act as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if
it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a
connection with our life that it will become real' (ii., p. 321). This
passage is an outline of the doctrine of 'The Will to Believe,' which he
was afterwards to develop so forcibly.
Again, in his last chapter, James criticized the doctrine of Spencer
that all the principles of thought, all its general truths and axioms,
were derived from impressions of the external world. He argued, on the
other hand, that such ways of looking at phenomena must originate in the
mind, and be prior to the experience which confirms them. Without
digging further into the character of this mental contribution to
knowledge, James contented himself with the suggestion that the use of
these axiomatic principles might be construed in Darwinian style as a
'variation' surviving by its fitness, thus introducing into his account
of mental process the important idea that thinking might be tested by
its vital value.
What if knowledge be neither a dull submission to dictation from without
nor an unexplained necessity of thought? What if it be a bold adventure,
an experimental sally of a Will to live, to know and to control reality?
What if its principles were frankly _risky_, and their truth had to be
_desired_ before it was tested and assured? In a word, what if first
principles were to begin with _postulates?_ Thus the way is paved from
the new psychology to a new theory of knowledge. A third alternative to
the banal dilemma of 'empiricism' or 'apriorism' suggests itself.
The old _empiricist_ view, as typified by Mill, was that the mind had
been impressed with all its principles, such as the truths of
arithmetic, the axioms of geometry, and the law of causation, by an
uncontradicted course of experience, until it generalized facts into
'laws,' and was enabled to predict a similar future with certainty. But
this theory had really been exploded in advance by Hume. Facts do not
_appear_ as causally connected, nor, if they did, would this guarantee
that they will continue to do so in the future. The continuum of
experience, we may add, is not _given_ as a series of arithmetical units
or geometrical equalities, unless we deliberately measure it out in
accordance with mathematical principles. Empiricism thus gives no real
account of the scientific rational order of the world.
But does it follow from the failure of empiricism that apriorism is
true? This has always been assumed, and held to dispense rationalist
philosophers from giving any direct and positive proof that these
principles are _a priori_ truths. But manifestly their procedure is
logically far from cogent. If a third explanation can be thought of, it
will _not_ follow that apriorism is true. All that follows is that
_something_ has to be assumed before experience proves it. What that
something is, and whence it comes, remains an open question. Moreover,
apriorism has _not_ escaped from the empirical doubt about the future.
Even granted that facts now conform to the necessities of our thoughts,
why should they so comport themselves for ever?
Let us, therefore, try a compromise, which ignores neither that which we
bring to experience (like empiricism), nor that which we gain from
experience (like apriorism). This compromise is effected by the doctrine
of postulation. For though a postulate proceeds from us, and is meant to
guide thought in anticipating facts, it yet allows the facts to test and
mould it; so that its working modifies, expands, or restricts its
demands, and fits it to meet the exigencies of experience, and permits,
also, a certain reinterpretation of the previous 'facts' in order to
conform them to the postulate.
A postulate thus fully meets the demands of apriorism. It is 'universal'
in claim, because it is convenient and economical to make a rule carry
as far as it will go; and it is 'necessary,' because all fresh facts are
on principle subjected to it, in the hope that they will support and
illustrate it. Yet a postulate can never be accused of being a mere
sophistication, or a bar to the progress of knowledge, because it is
always willing to submit to verification in the course of fresh
experience, and can always be reconstructed or abandoned, should it
cease to edify. A long and successful course of service raises a
postulate to the dignity of an 'axiom'--_i.e._, a principle which it is
incredible anyone should think worth disputing--whereas repeated failure
in application degrades it to the position of a prejudice--_i.e._, an _a
priori_ opinion which is always belied by its consequences.
A 'postulate' thus differs essentially from the '_a priori_ truth' by
its dependence upon the will, by its being the product of a free choice.
We have always to select the assumptions upon which we mean to act in
our commerce with reality. We select the rules upon which we go, and we
select the 'facts' by which we claim to support our rules, stripping
them of all the 'irrelevant' details involved by their position in the
flux of happenings. Thus we emphasize that side of things which fits in
with our expectations, until the facts are 'faked' sufficiently to
figure as 'cases' of our 'law.' Postulation and the verifying of
postulates is thus a process of reciprocal discrimination and selection.
The postulate once formulated, we seek in the flux for confirmations of
it, and thus construct a system of 'facts' which are relative to it;
that is how the postulate reacts upon experience. If, on the other hand,
this process of selection is unfruitful, and the confirmations of our
rule turn out infinitesimal, we alter the rule; and thus the 'facts' in
the case reject the postulate.
This continuous process of selection and rejection of 'principles' and
'facts' has, as we have said, a thoroughly _biological_ tinge. The
fitness of a postulate to survive is being continually tested. It
springs in the first place from a human hope that events may be
systematized in a certain way, and it endures so long as it enables men
to deal with them in that way. If it fails, the formation of fresh
ideals and fresh hypotheses is demanded; but that which causes one
postulate to prevail over another is always the satisfaction which, if
successful, it promises to some need or desire. Thus 'thought' is
everywhere inspired by 'will.' It is an _instrument_, the most potent
man has found, whereby he brings about a harmony with his environment.
This harmony is always something of a compromise. We postulate
conformity between Nature and one of our ideals. We usually desire more
than we can get, but insist on all that Nature can concede.
Causation serves as a good example. Experience as it first comes to us
is a mere flood of happenings, with no distinction between causal and
casual sequences. Clearly our whole ability to control our life, or even
to continue it, demands that we should _predict_ what happens, and guide
our actions accordingly. We therefore postulate a right to _dissect_
the flux, to fit together selected series without reference to the
rest. Thus, a systematic network of natural 'laws' is slowly knit
together, and chaos visibly transforms itself into scientific order. The
postulation of 'causes' is verified by its success. Moreover, it is to
be noted that to this postulate there is no alternative. A belief that
all events are casual would be scientifically worthless. So is a
doctrine (still popular among philosophers) that the only true 'cause'
is the total universe at one moment, the only true 'effect,' the whole
of reality at the next. For that is merely to reinstate the given chaos
science tried to analyse, and to forbid us to make selections from it.
It would make prediction wholly vain, and entangle truth in a totality
of things which is unique at every instant, and never can recur.
The principles of mathematics are as clearly postulates. In Euclidean
geometry we assume definitions of 'points,' 'lines,' 'surfaces,' etc.,
which are never found in nature, but form the most convenient
abstractions for measuring things. Both 'space' and 'time,' as defined
for mathematical purposes, are ideal constructions drawn from empirical
'space' (extension) and 'time' (succession) feelings, and purged of the
subjective variations of these experiences. Nevertheless, geometry
forms the handiest system for applying to experience and calculating
shapes and motions. But, ideally, other systems might be used. The
'metageometries' have constructed other ideal 'spaces' out of postulates
differing from Euclid's, though when applied to real space their greater
complexity destroys their value. The postulatory character of the
arithmetical unit is quite as clear; for, in application, we always have
to _agree_ as to what is to count as 'one'; if we agree to count apples,
and count the two halves of an apple as each equalling one, we are said
to be 'wrong,' though, if we were dividing the apple among two
applicants, it would be quite right to treat each half as 'one' share.
Again, though one penny added to another makes two, one drop of water
added to another makes one, or a dozen, according as it is dropped.
Common sense, therefore, admits that we may reckon variously, and that
arithmetic does not _apply_ to _all_ things.
Again, it is impossible to concede any meaning even to the central 'law
of thought' itself--the Law of Identity ('A is A')--except as a
postulate. Outside of Formal Logic and lunatic asylums no one wishes to
assert that 'A is A.' All significant assertion takes the form 'A is B.'
But A and B are _different_, and, indeed, no two 'A's' are ever _quite_
the same. Hence, when we assert either the 'identity' of 'A' in two
contexts, or that of 'A' and 'B,' in 'A is B,' we are clearly _ignoring
differences which really exist--i.e._, we postulate that in spite of
these differences A and B will for our purposes behave as if they were
one ('identical'). And we should realize that this postulate is of our
making, and involves a risk. It may be that experience refuses to
confirm it, and convicts us instead of a 'mistaken identity.' In short,
_every identity we reason from is made by our postulating an irrelevance
of differences_.
There is thus, perhaps, no fundamental procedure of thought in which we
cannot trace some deliberately adopted attitude. We distinguish between
'ourselves' and the 'external' world, perhaps because we have more
control over our thoughts and limbs, and less, or none, over sticks and
stones and mountains; fundamental as it is, it is a distinction _within_
experience, and is not given ready-made, but elaborated in the course of
our dealings with it. Similarly, in accordance with its varying degrees
of vividness, continuity, and value, experience itself gets sorted into
'realities,' 'dreams,' and 'hallucinations.' In short, when the
processes of discriminating between 'dreams' and 'reality' are
considered, all these distinctions will ultimately be found to be
judgments of value.
Nor is it only in the realm of scientific knowing that postulation
reveals itself as a practicable and successful method of anticipating
experience and consolidating fact. The same method has always been
employed by man in reaching out towards the final syntheses which (in
imagination) complete his vision of reality. The 'truths' of all
religions originate in postulates. 'Gods' and 'devils,' 'heavens' and
'hells,' are essentially demands for a moral order in experience which
transcend the given. The value of the actual world is supplemented and
enhanced by being conceived as projected and continued into a greater,
and our postulates are verified by the salutary influence they exercise
on our earthly life. Both postulation and verification, then, are
applicable to the problems of religion as of science. This is the
meaning of the Will to Believe. When James first defined and defended
it, it provoked abundant protest, on the ground that it allowed everyone
to believe whatever he pleased and to call it 'true.' The critics had
simply failed to see that verification by experience is just as integral
a part of voluntaristic procedure as experimental postulation, and that
James himself had from the first asserted this. Indeed, that he had
first given a theological illustration of the function of volition in
knowing was merely an accident. But that the will to believe was capable
of being generalized into a voluntarist theory of all knowledge was soon
shown in Dr. Schiller's _Axioms as Postulates_.