DEVELOPMENT OF 'SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND THE NEW'--FERRIER AS A
CORRESPONDENT
It is probably in the main a wise rule for defeated candidates to keep
silence about the cause of their defeat. But every rule has its
exception, and there are times in which we honour a man none the less
because--contrary to the dictates of worldly wisdom--he gives voice to
the sense of injustice that is rankling in his mind. Ferrier had been
disappointed in 1852 in not obtaining the Chair of Moral Philosophy for
which he was a candidate; but then he had not published the work which
has made his name famous, and his claims were therefore not what
afterwards they became. But when in 1856, after the _Institutes_ had
been two years before the public, and just after the book had reached a
second edition, another defeat followed on the first, Ferrier ascribed
the result to the opposition to, and misrepresentation of, his system,
and claimed with some degree of justice that it was not his merits that
were taken into account, but the supposed orthodoxy, or want of
orthodoxy, of his views. For this reason he issued a 'Statement' in
pamphlet form, entitled _Scottish Philosophy, the Old and the New_,
dealing with the matter at length.
In Ferrier's view, a serious crisis had been arrived at in the history
of the University of Edinburgh, and one which might lead to yet further
evil were not something done to place matters on a better footing. Had
the Town Council, the electing body, been affected simply by personal
or sectarian feelings, it would not so much have mattered; but when
Ferrier was forced to the conclusion that what they did must end in the
curtailment of all liberty in regard to philosophical opinion, so far
as the University was concerned, he felt the time had come to speak.
For a quarter of a century he had devoted the best part of his life and
energies to the study of philosophy, and he held he had a duty to
discharge to it as one of the public instructors of the land. What
cause, he asked, had a body like the Council to say originality was to
be proscribed and independence utterly forbidden? Through their
liberalism tests had been practically abolished: was another test, far
more exacting than the last, to be substituted in their place? A
candidate for a philosopher's chair need not be a believer in Christ or
a member of the Established Church; but he must, it would appear,
believe in Dr. Reid and the Hamiltonian system of philosophy.
The 'common-sense' school, against which Ferrier's attacks were mainly
directed, too often found its satisfaction in commonplace statements of
obvious facts, and we cannot wonder that Ferrier should ask why
Scottish students should be required to pay for 'bottled air' while the
whole atmosphere is 'floating with liquid balm that could be had for
nothing?'--a question, indeed, which cannot fail to strike whoever
tries to wade through certain tedious dissertations of the time, all
expressing truths which seem incontrovertible in their nature, but all
of which are also inexpressibly uninteresting. Philosophy to Ferrier is
not the elementary science that it would appear from these discourses:
loose ways of thinking which we ordinarily adopt must, he considers, be
rectified and not confirmed. And yet he disclaims the accusation that
he has conjured with 'the portentous name of Hegel,' or derived his
system from German soil. Hegel, he constantly confesses, is frequently
to him inexplicable, and his system is Scottish to the core.
A warm debt of gratitude to Hamilton, Ferrier, it is true, acknowledges
even while he differs from his views--a debt to one whose 'soul could
travel on eagles' wings,' and from whom he had learned so much--whom,
indeed, he had loved so warmly. Hamilton had not agreed with Ferrier;
he had thought him wrong, and told him so, and Ferrier was the last to
resent this action, or think the less of him for not recanting at his
word the conclusions of a lifetime's labour. Provocation, the younger
man acknowledges, he had often given him, and 'never was such rough
provocation retaliated with such gentle spleen.'
But what most roused Ferrier's ire was, not the criticisms of men like
Hamilton, but such as were contained in a pamphlet published by the
Rev. Mr. Cairns of Berwick, afterwards Principal Cairns of the United
Presbyterian College--a pamphlet which he believed had biassed the
judgment of the electors in making their decision. We now know that
indirectly they had requested Mr. Cairns's advice, and he, considering
that orthodoxy was being seriously threatened by German rationalistic
views, had formulated his indictment against Ferrier in the strongest
possible terms. He believed that in Ferrier's writings there was an
attempt to substitute formal demonstration of real existence for
'belief,' thereby making faith of no effect; also that he denied the
separate existence of the material world and the mind, and that (and
probably this is the most serious count in the charge) the
substantiality of the mind was subverted, and consequently belief in
personal identity rendered impossible. He further said that by Ferrier
absolute existence is reduced to a mere relation, and finally, that his
conception of a Deity is inadequate, and metaphysics and natural
theology are divorced.
We cannot, of course, deal in detail with Ferrier's energetic
repudiation of the accusation brought so specifically against him. The
heat with which he wrote seems scarcely justified now that we look back
on it from the standpoint of more than forty years ahead. But we do not
realise how much such accusations meant at the time at which they were
made--how they affected not a man's personal advancement only, but also
the opinion in which he was held by those for whose opinion he cared
the most. The greater toleration of the present day may mean
corresponding lack of zeal or interest, but surely it also means a
recognition of the fact that men may choose their own methods in the
search for truth without thereby endangering the object held in view.
Mr. Cairns's attack--without intention, for he was an honourable man
and able scholar--was unjust. Ferrier does not claim to _prove_
existence--he accepts it, and only reasons as to what it is; as to the
material world, he acknowledges not a mere material world, but one
along with which intelligence is and must be known; the separate
existence of mind he likewise denies only in so far as to assert that
mind without thought is nonsense. The substantiality of the mind he
maintains as the one great permanent existence amid all fluctuations
and contingencies, and without personal identity, he tells us, there
can be no continued consciousness amid the changes of the unfluctuating
existence called the 'I'--though in this regard one feels that
something is left to say in criticism, from the orthodox point of view.
Absolute existence is indeed reduced into relations, but into relations
together constituting the truth, if contradictory in themselves; that
is, a concrete, as distinguished from an abstract truth. As to the
final accusation of the insufficiency of Ferrier's view of the Deity,
it is true he states that the Deity is not independent of His creative
powers, revelation and manifestation; but surely this is a worthier
conception than the old one of the Unknown God, which tells us to
worship we know not what.
The pity is that in this publication, and another on very similar
lines,[9] Ferrier allowed himself to turn from philosophical to
personal criticism, and to say what he must afterwards have regretted.
In the second edition of his first pamphlet these references were
modified, and in any case they must be ascribed to the quick temper
with which he was naturally endowed, and which led him to express his
feelings more strongly than he should, rather than to deliberate
judgment. No one was more sensible than he of the danger to which he
was subject of allowing himself to be carried off his feet in the heat
of argument. This is very clearly shown by a letter to a friend quoted
in the _Remains_: 'One thing I would recommend, not to be too sharp in
your criticism of others. No one has committed this fault oftener, or
is more disposed to commit it than myself; but I am certain that it is
not pleasing to the reader, and after an interval it is displeasing to
oneself. In the heat and hurry of writing a lecture I often hit a
brother philosopher as I think cleverly enough, but on coming to it
coolly next year I very seldom repeat the passage.' An admission and
acknowledgment which does a proud man like Ferrier credit.
[9] _A Letter to the Lord Advocate on the Necessity of a
Change in the Patronage of the University of Edinburgh._
One cannot help speculating on the effect of the mass of criticism and
counter-criticism (for there were others who took up the cudgels on
either side, once the controversy was fairly started) upon the
unfortunate Town Councillors of Edinburgh, to whom they were directed:
one would imagine them to wish their powers curtailed if they were to
involve their mastering several conflicting theories of existence, and
forming a just judgment regarding their respective merits. The exercise
of patronage is always a difficult and thankless task, but surely in no
case could it have been more difficult than in this, and we can hardly
wonder now that the electors simply took the advice of those they
deemed most worthy to bestow it; certainly the candidate finally
selected was one who did everything in the occupation of his chair to
disarm the criticism then brought to bear upon the appointment. In
cooler moments probably none would have been readier to admit this than
was Ferrier; but when he wrote he was smarting under the sense of
having failed to receive a fair consideration of his claims, and he
undoubtedly spoke more strongly than the case required.
After this controversy was over, Ferrier's interest in polemical
philosophy in great degree waned; and in the quiet of the old
University town of St. Andrews--the town which provides so rich a fund
of historic interest combined with the academic calm of University
life--Ferrier passed the remainder of his days working at his favourite
subjects. Sometimes these were varied by incursions into literature, in
which his interest grew ever keener; and economics, which was one of
the subjects he was bound to teach. His life was uneventful; it was
varied little by expeditions into the outer world, much as these would
have been appreciated by his friends. His whole interest was centred in
his work and in the University in which he taught, and whose well-being
was so dear to him. Of his letters, few, unfortunately, have been
preserved; and this is the more unfortunate that he had the gift, now
comparatively so rare, of expressing himself with ease, and in bright,
well-chosen language. Of his correspondents one only seems to have
preserved the letters written to him, Mr. George Makgill of Kemback, a
neighbouring laird in Fife and advocate in Edinburgh, whose similarity
in tastes drew him towards the St. Andrews Philosophy Professor.
Of these letters there are some of sufficient interest to bear
quotation. One of the first is written in October 1851 from St.
Andrews, and plunges into the deepest topics without much preface.
Ferrier says:--
'What is the Beginning of Philosophy? Philosophy must have had the same
Beginning that all other things have, otherwise there would be
something peculiar or anomalous or sectarian in its origin, which would
destroy its claims to genuineness and catholicity. What, then, is the
Beginning of all things and consequently the Beginning of Philosophy?
'Answer--WANT.
'Want is the Beginning of Philosophy because it is the Beginning of all
things. Is the Beginning of Philosophy a bodily want? No. Why not?
Because nothing that may be given to the Body has any effect in
appeasing the want. The Beginning of Philosophy, then, must be an
intellectual want--a Hunger of the Soul.
'But all wants have their objects in which they seek and find their
gratification. What then is the object of the hunger of the soul?
'Answer--KNOWLEDGE.
'Philosophy is a Hunger of the Soul after Knowledge. What is
Knowledge?--reduced through various intermediate stages to question,
what is the common and essential quality in all knowledge--the quality
which makes knowledge knowledge? Answer approached by raising question:
What is the essential quality in all food--the quality which makes food
food? This is obviously its physically nutritive quality. Whatever has
the nutritive property is food; whatever has it not is not food,
however like excellent beef and mutton it may be. So in regard to
knowledge, its common and essential quality--the quality in virtue of
which knowledge is knowledge--is its nutritive quality. Whatever
nourishes and satisfies the mind is knowledge, as whatever nourishes
and satisfies the body is food. The intellectually _nutritive property_
in knowledge is the common and essential property in knowledge. What is
the nutritive quality in knowledge? Answer (without beating about the
bush)--TRUTH.
'What is TRUTH? Answer--Truth is whatever is supported by Evidence.
'What is EVIDENCE? Evidence is whatever is supported by Experience.
What is EXPERIENCE? Here we stop; we can only divide Experience into
its kinds, which are two, _Experience of Fact_ and _Experience of Pure
Reason_. Observe the manoeuvre in the last line by which you knaves of
the anti-metaphysical school are outwitted. You _oppose Pure Reason_ to
_Experience,_ and philosophers generally assent to the distinction.
This at once gives your school the advantage, for the world will always
cleave to experience in preference to anything else, leaving us
metaphysicians, who are supposed to abandon experience, hanging as it
were in baskets in the clouds. But _I_ do not abandon experience as the
ultimate foundation of _all_ knowledge; only I maintain that there are
_two_ kinds of experience, both of which are equally experience, the
experience of Fact and the experience of Pure Reason. You are thus
deprived of your advantage. I am as much a man of experience as you
are.'
Evidently it had been a question with Ferrier whether he should use the
expression Experience, so well known to us now, or substitute for it
Consciousness, which, as a matter of fact, he afterwards did: 'Why is
it so grievous and fatal an error to confound Experience and
Consciousness? Is not a man's experience the whole developed contents
of his consciousness? I cannot see how this can be denied. And
therefore, before you wrote, I was _swithering_ (and am so still)
whether I should not make consciousness the basis of the whole
superstructure--the raw material of the article which in its finished
state is knowledge. After all, the dispute, I suspect, is mainly
verbal.'
There are many evidences in these letters that Ferrier was not
neglecting German Philosophy, for taking Experience as his basis he
shows how it may be divided into _Wesen_ (_-an sich_), _Seyn_ (_für
sich_), and the _Begriff_ (_anundfürsich_) on the lines of German
metaphysics. As to the 'Common-Sense' Philosophy, he expresses himself
in no measured terms: 'I am glad we agree in opinion as to the merits
of the Common-Sense Philosophy. Considered in its details and
accessories, it certainly contains many good things; but, viewed as a
whole and _in essentialibus_, it is about the greatest humbug that ever
was palmed off upon an unwary world. As an instance among many which
might be adduced, of the ambiguity of the word, and of the vacillation
of the members of this school, it may be remarked that while Reid made
the essence of common-sense to consist in this, that its judgments are
not conclusions obtained by ratiocination (_Works_, Sir W. Hamilton's
edition, p. 425), Stewart, on the contrary, holds that these judgments
are "the result of a train of reasoning so rapid as to escape notice"
(_Elements_, vol. ii. p. 103). Sir W.'s _one hundred and six witnesses_
are a most conglomerate set, and a little cross-examination would try
their mettle severely.'
The most important part of Ferrier's system was his working out of the
'Theory of Ignorance,' in which, indeed, he might congratulate himself
in having in great measure broken open new ground. He says of it:
'Hurrah, [Greek: eurêka], I have discovered the _Law of Ignorance_--and
if I had a hecatomb of kain hens at my command I would sacrifice them
_instanter_ to the propitious patron of metaphysics. Look you here. The
Law of Knowledge is this, that, in order to know any _one_ thing we
must always know two things; _hoc cum alio_--object plus subject--thing
+ me. This is the unit of knowledge. Analogously, only inversely, in
order to be ignorant of any _one_ thing we must be ignorant of _two_
things--_hujus cum alio_--object plus subject--thing + me. This is the
unit of ignorance.' Apparently, in spite of full explanation of his
newly-discovered view, Ferrier's correspondent had failed to take it
in, and consequently he gently rails at him for 'sticking at the
axiom,' and wishes him to help him to a name for what he calls the
'Agnoiology' for want of something better. He goes on: 'I take it that
I have caught you in my net, and that wallop about as you will I shall
land you at last. I have now little fear that I shall succeed in
convincing you, or at anyrate less hardened sinners, that the knowledge
of object-subject is a self-contradiction, and that therefore
object-subject, or matter _per se_, is not a thing of which we can with
any sense or propriety be said to be ignorant. Be this as it may, you
must at anyrate recognise in this doctrine a very great novelty in
philosophy. The more incogitable a thing becomes, the more ignorant of
it do _we_ become--that is the natural supposition. Is it not then a
bold and original stroke to show that when a thing passes into absolute
incogitability we cease that instant to be ignorant of it? I believe
that doctrine to be right and true, but I am certain that, obvious as
it is, it has been nowhere anticipated or even hinted at in the bygone
career of speculation. I claim this as _my discovery_. In the doctrine
of Ignorance I believe that I have absolutely no precursor. What think
you?'
Mr. Makgill had accused Ferrier of anthropomorphism in his system, and
he replies as follows:--'You cannot charge me with anthropomorphism
without being guilty of it yourself. Don't you see that "the Beyond"
all human thought and knowledge is itself _a category_ of human
thought? There is much _naïveté_ in the procedure of you cautious
gentry who would keep scrupulously _within_ the length of your tether:
as if the conception of a _without_ that tether was not a mode of
thinking. Will you tell me why you and Kant and others don't make
_existence_ a category of human thought? This has always puzzled me.
'Surely the man who made extension and time mere forms of human
knowledge need have made no bones of existence. Meanwhile, as the post
is just starting, I beg you to consider this, that the anthropomorphist
and the anti-anthropomorphists are both of necessity anthropomorphists,
and for my part I maintain that the anti-man is the bigger
anthropomorphist of the two.' This criticism of the 'Beyond' and its
unknowableness, while yet it was acknowledged, is as much to the point
in the present day as it was in those, and its statement brings
forcibly before our minds the truth of Goethe's well-known saying:
'_Der Mensch begreift niemals wie anthropomorphisch er ist_.'
The doctrine of Ignorance, so essential to Ferrier's system, he found
it hard to make clear to others:--'I am astonished at your not seeing
the use, indeed the absolute necessity, of a _true_ doctrine of
ignorance. This blindness of yours shows me what I may expect from the
public; and how careful I must be, if I would go down at all, to render
myself perfectly clear and explicit. Don't you see that a correct
doctrine of ignorance is necessary for two reasons--_first_, on account
of the _false_ doctrine of ignorance universally prevalent, one which
has hitherto rendered, and must ever render, anything like a scientific
ontology impossible; and, _secondly_, because this correct theory of
ignorance follows inevitably from my doctrine of knowledge? This, which
I consider a very strong recommendation, an indispensable condition of
the theory of ignorance, is the very ground on which you object to it.
Surely you would not have me establish a doctrine of ignorance which
was not consistent with my doctrine of knowledge. Surely I am entitled
to deduce all that is logically deducible from my principles. Your
meaning I presume is that my doctrine of ignorance flows so manifestly
from my doctrine of knowledge that it is unnecessary to develop and
parade it. There I differ from you. It flows _inevitably_, but I cannot
think that it flows obviously. Else why was it never hit upon until
now?... Don't tell me, then, that _my_ conclusions that matter _per
se_, _Ding an sich_, is what it is impossible for us to be ignorant of,
just _because_ it is absolutely unknowable (and for no other reason).
Don't tell me that this conclusion is so obvious as not to require to
be put down in black and white, when we find Kant and _every_ other
philosopher drawing, but most erroneously, the directly opposite
conclusion from the same premises. Matter _per se_, _Ding an sich_, was
of all things that of which we were most ignorant!! and the ruin of
metaphysics was the consequence of their infatuated blindness. Your
objection, then, to my doctrine of ignorance, viz., that it is fixed in
the very fixing of the doctrine of knowledge, and therefore does not
require explication or elucidation, I cannot regard as a good
objection. It is true that the one of these fixes the other; but it
requires some amount of explanation and demonstration to make this
palpable to the understandings even of the most acute, and I am not
sure that even you (yes, put on your best pair of spectacles, you will
need them) yet see how impossible it is for us to be ignorant of matter
_per se_, or of anything which is absolutely unknowable.'
This matter of the _Ding an sich_ Ferrier felt to be the crucial point
in his system: 'You talk glibly of "existence _per se_," as maids of
fifteen do of puppy dogs. This shows that, like a carpet knight, you
have never smelt the real smoke of metaphysical battle, but at most
have taken part in the sham fights and listened to the shotless popguns
of the martinet of Königsberg. You will find existence _per se_ a
tougher customer than you imagine.'
As to the _Institutes_, then on the verge of publication, the author
says: 'I am inclined to follow your advice, so far, in regard to the
title of the work, and to call it the "Theory of Knowing and Being,"
leaving out ignorance. But why an _introduction_ to metaphysics? If
this be an _introduction_ to metaphysics, pray, Mr. Pundit, what and
where are metaphysics themselves? No, sir, it shall be called a
_text-book_ of metaphysics, meaning thereby, that it is a complete body
(and soul) of metaphysics. You are an uncommonly _modest_ fellow in so
far as the protestations of your _friends_ are concerned!'
This correspondence appears to have continued regularly for some years,
and to have dealt almost entirely with metaphysical and economic
subjects--the subjects which were constantly in Ferrier's mind, as he
taught them in the University and tried to work them out in his study.
Doubtless it was of the greatest use to him to be able to write about
them as he would, had opportunity served, have spoken; and this
opportunity was afforded by his friendship with his correspondent,
whose interest in philosophy was keen, and whose critical faculties
were exceptionally acute, although he never accomplished any original
work on philosophical lines.
Of other letters few have been preserved. Absence from home did not
make a reason for writing, for Ferrier's journeyings were but few. In
1859, however, he made an expedition to England to see his
newly-married daughter, Lady Grant, start for India with her husband,
Sir Alexander Grant, after his appointment to the Chancellorship of the
University of Bombay. From Southampton he made his way to the scene of
his schooldays at Greenwich, from which place he writes to one of the
sons of Dr. Bruce of Ruthwell, with whom he spent a happy childhood:
'One of our fêtes was a sumptuous fish dinner at Greenwich. I call it
sumptuous, but in truth the fish was utter trash, the best of them not
comparable to Loch Fyne herring. Whitebait is the greatest humbug of
the age, though it may be heresy to say so in your neighbourhood.' This
journey was concluded by a visit to Oxford and to the Lake country,
with both of which Ferrier's associations were so many and so
agreeable.
The following is a letter, dated 21st March 1862, to Professor
Lushington, his friend and biographer:--'I have been very remiss in not
acknowledging your photograph, which came safe, and is much admired by
all who have seen it. I must get a book for its reception and that of
some other worthies, otherwise my children will appropriate it for
their collections, with which the house is swarming.... The _ego_ is an
infinite and active capacity of _never being anything in particular_. I
will uphold that definition against the world. Did you never feel how
much you revolted from being fixed and determined? Depend upon it, that
is the true nature of a spirit--never to be any determinate existence.
This is our real immutability--for death can get hold only of that
which has a determinate being. _We_ stand loose from all
determinations. That is our chance of escaping his clutches."
This expresses Ferrier's views and hopes for an after life: he looked
forward to an immortality in which the particular and determinate
should disappear and only the absolute element remain--in which death
should mean only the rising from the individual into a true and
universal life. It is a matter to which he frequently refers, and
always in terms of a very similar nature. We shall see how, when the
end was coming near, his views remained the same, and he was able to
face the inevitable without a qualm or shadow of complaint.