as we have any positive knowledge) for us men alone, the laws of
morality are real, intensely real; but their reality begins with man and
ends with man. To this contention the reply is that as regards their
reality the laws of morality are on exactly the same footing as the laws
of science. Take the theory of evolution for instance: from scientific
observations of what is going on now it infers what has been and what
will be, it reconstructs the past and forecasts the future; it frames
pictures of the globe as it was before man was evolved; it forms
conceptions of the earth as it will be long after man is extinct. These
conceptions and pictures, however, exist only in the mind of man, for
the future does not yet exist and the past has ceased to be. That is to
say, evolution is an inference, or rather a mass of inferences, which
like all inferences exist in the mind, could not have existed before the
mind, and cannot exist when the mind has ceased to be. Science, being
the work of the mind (for we cannot say that it requires no
intelligence), is just man's notion of what has been, is, and will be,
in the same way that morality is man's conception of what ought to be.
If we say that what ought to be will cease and become meaningless when
man is extinct, then we must say the same of what has been, is, and will
be. If the good, the noble, the right, are merely human ideas of what
ought to be, matter and motion are merely human conceptions of what is.
If the reality of the former is only to be found in the human mind, so
is the reality of the latter. If the reality of the one is to cease with
human existence, so must the reality of the other. On the other hand, if
either is to exist when mankind is no more, it is only in some mind that
it can exist. It is only for a person that anything can be right or
good. It is only a person that can see the past summed up or the future
contained in the present. If it is legitimate and logical to infer that
what is will continue to be after man's disappearance from the earth, so
it is to draw the same inference with regard to what ought to be. If
science is true really, and does not merely appear so to man, it must be
true for some mind other than human: by an intelligence alone can truth
be apprehended, or the right approved. But if truth is limited to the
human mind, and ceases with it, then evolution must cease to be true
when men cease to exist. Nay, in that case it cannot claim to be true at
all, or rather does not claim to be true, but only seeming. On the other
hand, if the law of gravity, for instance, was true before man's
appearance, its truth must have dwelt in some mind. If it was not true
then, we have no better reason for believing it to be true now. In fine,
truth and right, what is and what ought to be, must either be dismissed
as mere human imaginings, or be accepted as everlasting facts of an
Eternal Moral Consciousness.
Shall we, then, say that the description which science gives of the
constitution and working of the universe is indeed consistent and
coherent enough with itself, and is a logical deduction from its
premises, but to assert that it expresses or even corresponds to any
reality beyond itself is a statement which we have no right to make? To
take up this position is simply to maintain that science is consistent
and logical, but that we have no reason or right to believe that it is
true. If our accounts are based on imaginary figures, they may be kept
as strictly as you please, but they will never show us our true
position. Indeed, if our premises are incorrect to start with, the more
logical our inferences are, the more certain our conclusions are to be
wrong.
Shall we, then, say that the account which science gives of the cosmic
process is not only consistent and logical, but expresses or corresponds
to a reality? Then in that case the cosmic process, so far as it is
truly expressed by science, is a logical process. But it is only a mind
which can be logical or can go through a logical process. Once more,
therefore, the facts of science as much as the facts of morality imply
that the real is an Intelligence. In fine, the truth of science and the
truth of morality are bound up together and have the same basis. If the
one is valid for facts beyond the range of human observation, so is the
other. If the one implies a consciousness other than human, equally so
does the other.
It may be said that to regard the ruling principle of the cosmos as a
moral agent is to commit the anthropomorphic fallacy. What, then, shall
we say of science, which is engaged in demonstrating that the cosmic
process is always logical? That science simply describes the facts as
they are, and that if they are logical, it is not her fault? Then the
presence of an intelligence other than human is revealed to science in
the facts; and it is false to say that science merely imports her own
intelligence into them. In the same way, the presence of a moral
personality other than our own is revealed to us in the facts of
conscience, and not imported into them by us. The presence of the
Comforter is one of the facts apprehended by the religious
consciousness; it is not merely the religious man's way of interpreting
some other fact. From this conclusion the only way of escape is to say
that anthropomorphism is a fallacy, and that it is a fallacy to which
the human mind, by its very constitution, is always and inevitably
subject. This argument gets rid at one blow of all indications of any
intelligence or morality other than human. But how? Simply by begging
the question, by tacitly taking it for granted that there is no other
personality than human personality. In that case it is obvious, indeed,
that man's perpetual discovery of personal power in the forces of
nature, of more than human wisdom in nature's laws, and of more than
human goodness in the human heart, is and must be fallacious. But only
on the assumption that there is no wisdom in the world but man's, no
love in all the universe but his, can we say that man reads into the
facts a wisdom and a love which are not there. Are we, then, prepared to
say that, in giving us a logical account of the cosmic process, science
has--naturally and necessarily indeed, but none the less
completely--been mistaken? If the scientific account corresponds to the
facts, then the facts behave logically. If it is the anthropomorphic
fallacy to imagine that things can behave logically, then science's
description of the facts must be fallacious.
Perhaps it will be sought to save science by saying that science is
anthropomorphic, but not fallacious. This, however, gives away the whole
case: it is an admission that, in interpreting the cosmic process as a
logical process, science is simply recognising, and rightly recognising,
the logical character of the facts--the anthropomorphic interpretation
happens to be right. But we must note that it is not right because it is
anthropomorphic, but anthropomorphic because it faithfully describes the
facts. Science aims at describing and formulating facts as they are: if
the laws of science are rational, it is because she found reason already
in the facts, and not because she put it there. She does not make the
laws of nature, neither does she dictate the behaviour of facts, nor is
their behaviour merely her way of interpreting facts. Man discovers in
nature wisdom, which is an attribute of personality, not because he
cannot help being anthropomorphic in his views, but because nature is a
manifestation of the power and wisdom of a personality other and greater
than man's. So far, then, is this discovery from creating a presumption
that man makes nature after his own image, that it constitutes a proof
that man is made in the image of that personal will and wisdom which is
expressed in nature as well as manifested in man. In discovering
personality we discover what is fundamentally real in nature, and for
us what is fundamentally real is also our highest ideal.
We have already remarked that paradoxical though it sounds to say that
the ideal is real, the seeming paradox does express a fact--the fact at
once of our consciousness of the difference between what is and what
ought to be, and of our conviction that what ought to be is no mere
illusion. Truth and goodness, wisdom and love, are all at the same time
ideal and real. The truth to which it is the ideal of science to
approximate is no mere chimera. So far as it is truth, it is not merely
man's way of looking at the facts or an interpretation which he puts
upon them: it is a statement of the facts, as accurate and precise as
science can make it. The ideal, being an ideal, will never be fully
attained; but that the truth is there to be found out is proved every
time science reaches a new truth, that is to say, a truth which before
its discovery was indeed not apprehended by man, but certainly was not
therefore either untrue or non-existent. The truth was in the facts; for
what man knows of nature he has learnt from nature, and what he finds
there is not the projection of human wisdom but the revelation of a more
than human wisdom. Man's knowledge is real in proportion as it
approaches the ideal. The ideal is not man's surmise, or vague
conception, or anticipation of what he may hereafter come to know, for
such surmises are always proved to be more or less erroneous. Neither
is it man's conviction that the truth exists, if only he could find it
out. It is actual truth and knowledge which now exist, and, being truth
and knowledge, must exist in some mind, and certainly do not exist in
man's mind. Science, so far as it has approached the ideal, has done so
not by being anthropomorphic, but by ceasing to be anthropomorphic--that
is to say, by casting aside presumptions of what according to man's
notions ought to be or _a priori_ must be, and substituting for such
preconceptions a patient, reverent study of the facts as they are.
To regard the knowledge thus gained as being at once purely human and
the only reality is to say that the evolution of the universe exists
only in the speculation of human thinkers, and consequently that the
world as it was before man existed was created by the speculation of
minds which were not in existence then and which were only subsequently
evolved. How can man have been evolved out of his own speculations? How
can his speculations have existed before he did? Man owes his origin to
the same Power whose wisdom is revealed in nature to science, and
manifested to all in all around us. Of the existence of a Power, not
ourselves, we have evidence in everything that affects us. It is a fact
of consciousness, but it is a fact which from its very nature does not
exist solely in our consciousness. Therein it resembles ideal wisdom or
goodness, which exists in us, so far as our wisdom or goodness is real,
but is far from being exhausted by its partial presence in us.
The ideal in morality, again, is not the mere desire to do good or to be
good, just as the ideal in knowledge is not the mere desire to know the
truth. And if goodness is the object of moral desire, as truth is the
object of intellectual desire, in neither case is the object of desire
purely imaginary, a mere idea or conception of something which might be,
but as a matter of fact is not. We do not desire imaginary pleasures or
imaginary goodness, we want the reality; and to tell us that that
reality exists only in idea, only in our own imagination, is a
misleading half-truth. True, we must have some idea of it, or else we
could not desire it. But neither could we desire it if it were presented
to us as purely imaginary. In other words, the object of moral desire is
apprehended, at the moment of apprehension, as both actual and possible,
as existing simultaneously for us and beyond us. The case is the same
with ideal truth: we could not desire it, unless we had some conception
of it, unless it were to some degree or in some way present to our
consciousness; yet, at the same time, the knowledge which we desire to
have but do not yet possess is certainly, so far as we do not possess
it, beyond our consciousness. It is because we have not got it that we
want it. And the object of desire, what we want, is not imaginary
truth, but real truth; just as in our better moments we want to do not
what we imagine to be right, but what is really right. The Real,
therefore--real truth, real goodness--is apprehended, at the moment of
apprehension, and desired, at the moment of desire, as existing both for
us and beyond us.
The proviso, "at the moment of apprehension, at the moment of desire,"
is important, because it strikes at the root of all forms of subjective
idealism. They all assume that the only thing directly apprehended is
what exists for us; that consequently the supposed existence of any real
thing or person beyond us is a mere inference, and an inference the
truth of which we have no means of checking, because it is a statement
about things of which we have no direct apprehension or knowledge. On
this assumption, therefore, the only things man directly apprehends are
his own states of consciousness, his own sensations, etc. Are we to call
them real or not? If they are not real, his whole life is a dream, his
speculations fancies, and his desires illusions. If they are the only
reality of which he can be certain, then the only truth is that which
man knows, the only good is that which man does, the only world is that
which man thinks, the only God is that which man makes, the magnified,
non-natural shadow of man projected on to the mists of the Unknowable.
It is important, therefore, to insist that the Real--the reality of
existence, of knowledge, of goodness--is not an inference, but a matter
of direct apprehension. It is certain that goodness or knowledge to be
an object of desire must be presented to us in idea; but it is equally
certain that the mere idea is not what we desire. The object of desire
is directly apprehended as in our consciousness and beyond it. The
natural world around us is also directly apprehended as at once in our
consciousness and beyond it: it is presented to our minds, but it is
presented as real.
It is important also to note that the real does not forfeit its reality
to our apprehension when and because it takes up its abode in us:
goodness does not cease to be good because we do it, nor truth cease to
be truth because we know it. It does not follow that because the ideal
cannot be fully realised, it cannot be realised at all. On the contrary,
the conviction that it cannot be completely attained is itself the
guarantee that it can be attained partially. Yet it has been assumed
that if a thing is apprehended by us it cannot be real, that real
knowledge begins just where our knowledge ends, that the further we push
our knowledge forward the further real knowledge recedes from our view.
On this assumption is built the theory of the Unknowable, the theory
that whatever is known to man is a state of man's consciousness; that
states of consciousness are subjective, are merely the appearances of
things, not the things themselves; that the real things, the things
themselves, are unknowable; their appearances alone can be known to man;
therefore the real is for ever unknowable. "The reality existing behind
all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown."[4] Consequently,
inferences about the Real are valueless and futile. By way of
compensation, however, our knowledge of the unreal is, on this theory,
varied and extensive: it includes, for instance, the theory of evolution
and the whole of science.
But the assumption which leads to this strange conclusion is opposed to
the facts. The fact, as we have contended, is that the real in
consciousness is continuous with the real beyond consciousness, and is
apprehended, at the moment of apprehension, as being thus continuous,
and is not reached by any process of inference. The real is not a matter
of inference, but of apprehension. Its existence cannot be deduced from
anything else; it is that from which all conclusions must be deduced. I
cannot prove that a thing is real any more than I can prove that I have
toothache. There is no need.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_, ch. iv. § 22, p. 69.
V.
THE REAL
We began, at the beginning of this book, by accepting Evolution as a
fact, as all ordinarily educated persons in the present state of
scientific knowledge are practically bound to do. Accepting it as a
fact, we proceeded to inquire what, if anything, it had to tell us about
the moral government of the world; and we found that very different
interpretations were put upon the theory of Evolution by different
authorities. According to one interpretation the process of Evolution
was a continual progress from good to better: good could only give way
to higher good. According to another interpretation goodness was a
transient, evanescent phase in the process of evolution, of no permanent
value: the ethical process was doomed to be defeated by its enemy, the
cosmic process. According to a third interpretation the notion of good
was a pure illusion, necessary indeed, inasmuch as without it there
would be no survival for man in the struggle for existence, but none the
less an illusion.
Much as these interpretations differ from one another as to the moral
significance of the process of evolution, or indeed as to whether
evolution has any moral significance at all, they are agreed upon one
point. They are agreed that it is impossible to draw any inference from
the facts of evolution as to the moral government of the universe. To
affirm its moral government would be to claim knowledge of the
Unknowable, which is an obvious absurdity. It would be to attribute
power, consciousness, wisdom, and goodness to the Real; and the Real is
and must ever be unknown.
This identification of the Real with the Unknowable leads us into the
following ridiculous _impasse_: the vast majority of men look, and must
always look, for guidance and information to science and theology; and
theology is knowledge of the unknowable; science, knowledge of the
unreal. Those who are content with this blind alley may remain in it. We
propose to try to find our way out of it.
If we analyse our perception of any material object, that is to say, of
any object which we perceive by means of the senses, we shall find that
our perception of the object consists of the sensations which we have of
it. To perceive an orange is to see that it is yellow, to feel that it
is round, to smell it, taste it, and so on. These various sensations
together constitute our perception of the orange. Now, the subjective
idealist says that the perception _is_ the orange, and that the orange
is the perception. To the beginner in philosophy that sounds absurd: he
knows that his perception is not the orange, and that the orange is
something more than his perception of it. But when he is asked, "What
more? If the orange is not the perception, what is it?" he does not
generally produce any satisfactory reply; and then he is told that his
notion, that there is anything in the orange except his own perception
or sensations, is obviously not a fact of sensation or a thing directly
observed, but merely a belief or inference of his. On the other hand, he
generally puts a very natural question to his instructor: "If the orange
is merely my perception, what becomes of the orange when I do not
perceive it? Granted that it exists whenever I look at it, what becomes
of it in the intervals when I am not looking at it? Does it exist then,
or does it not?"
To this Bishop Berkeley replies that it does; that it exists then in
exactly the same way as it does now, that is to say, it exists in idea
(_i.e._ perception or sensation); but as it does not exist in my
perception, when I am not looking at it, it must exist in the perception
of some other mind, to which all things at all times are present.
With the fact which forms Berkeley's conclusion I have no quarrel. What
I should like to show is that it does not follow from these premises.
Berkeley's argument is: All men believe, and rightly believe, that the
things they see are permanent. The things they see are ideas
(perceptions, sensations) of a mind. Therefore the permanent world is
the idea of a permanent mind.[5]
But "the things they see" is an ambiguous expression. If by "the things
that I see" is meant "my sensations of sight," then they are not
permanent, for they only last as long as I look at the object, and
consequently any argument based on their supposed permanence falls to
the ground. On the other hand, if "the things that I see" are permanent,
then they are not merely my sensations of sight--in which case
subjective idealism is wrong, and my perception of a thing is not the
whole account of the thing and does not exhaust its reality. The things
which I perceive are not my sensations: they are things of which I have
sensations. In fine, they are apprehended, at the moment of
apprehension, as being both within and without consciousness.
To the question whether a thing exists when I am not looking at it, John
Stuart Mill replies, in effect, that as often as I look at it I shall
see it; that if I were looking I should see it. This is true enough; but
it is no answer to the question. When further pressed, Mill further
replies that, if things do not exist when we do not look, we should
nevertheless necessarily be deluded by the association of ideas into
imagining that they do exist when not looked at. Here, again, it is
perfectly true that, if things are not real, it is a delusion to imagine
they are. But that is no answer to the question. It is, in fact, a
question which the subjective idealist cannot answer. To say "No! Things
out of consciousness are non-existent," is to say that effects of which
the causes are unobserved are effects produced by non-existent causes.
To say "Yes" is to admit that things can exist out of consciousness as
well as in, which is what subjective idealism is there to deny.
We submit, then, that the analysis of experience which subjective
idealism makes is not an exhaustive analysis; and that, when the man of
common sense says that in looking at anything he is aware both of his
sensations of sight and of something more, he is stating the actual
facts as they are given in experience to all of us.
We apprehend a thing as being both our sensations and something more.
When the idealist says that the latter half of this apprehension is a
misapprehension, he rejects an observed fact of experience, not because
he does not find it in his experience, but because it seems to him
impossible that it should be there. He argues that to say we can be
conscious of what is not in our consciousness is to say that we can be
conscious of something of which we are unconscious--a patent nonsense.
He might admit, for the sake of argument, that possibly a thing could
exist both in consciousness and out, and even that we might know that it
so existed. But he cannot admit that a man is conscious of what he is
not conscious of.
He is not required to admit it. He is required to admit that our
perceptions are not the only things of which we are conscious; or, to
put it in other words, that our states of consciousness are not the only
things of which we are conscious. And he is required to admit it simply
and solely on the ground that it is a fact of common observation and
everyday experience. Thus, for instance, we perform actions, and
(usually) we are conscious of performing them. But the action is
something more and other than our consciousness of it. Or is someone
going to maintain that doing and knowing are the same thing? Is anyone
prepared to push the illusion-argument so far as to say that the idea
that we do things is a mere delusion? If it is not a delusion, if it is,
on the contrary, a fact, then our actions are not states of
consciousness, but things of which we are conscious. We apprehend them,
in the very act of apprehension, as realities distinct from the
consciousness which we have of them. And we have the very same guarantee
for their reality as we have for the reality of our perception or
sensations of them, viz. the fact that we are conscious of them.
In the same way, when we push a solid object or feel the impact of a
moving body, we are as conscious of that body as of our muscular
sensations: our sensations make up our perception of the object, but are
not the object. They constitute the state of consciousness, but that
state is not the only thing we are conscious of. The object is
apprehended as being in consciousness and not as merely being our
consciousness of it.
Mr. Herbert Spencer, at least, is quite clear that our states of
consciousness are not the only things of which we are conscious; he
holds even that we are vaguely conscious of that which transcends our
consciousness. Thus, our personality is not a state of consciousness,
yet we are conscious of it, and "its existence is to each a fact above
all others the most certain."[6] And, as for the real, "our firm belief
in objective reality, a belief which metaphysical criticism cannot
shake," is not merely "a positive though vague consciousness of that
which transcends consciousness," but "has the highest validity of
any"[7] of our beliefs.