SYNOPTIKER. APOSTELGESCHICHTE. Bearbeitet von Professor _H. J. Holzmann_.
Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Freiburg, i. B.: Akademische
Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. C. B. Mohr. 1892.
This book is the first volume of the “Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament”
edited by the Professors H. Holtzmann, R. A. Lipsius, P. W. Schmiedel,
and H. v. Soden.
No better man could have been selected for the first part of this great
work than Prof. H. J. Holtzmann, who is not only a theologian of most
comprehensive scholarship but also has devoted his energies to this
special subject. He has lectured regularly for a number of years at
the university of Strassburg six or eight times weekly on the synoptic
gospels and three times weekly on the Acts. The principle of his
method has been laid down in a former work of his, viz. “Lehrbuch der
historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament.” The present book
contains an enormously voluminous material condensed into a comparatively
small space of 448 pp. large octavo. The author being a theologian his
attitude toward his subject is naturally reverent, paying an unreserved
homage to the greatness of Jesus. Yet at the same time his investigations
are strictly scientific and in accordance with the rules of criticism
as employed in any historical investigation. It is no exaggeration to
consider Professor Holtzmann’s work as representative in the highest
degree; it embraces the most complete knowledge at present attainable and
that too in a most concise form as a practical handbook with parallel
tables and indexes of reference for students of the New Testament.
The author first formulates “the synoptic problem,” which has been solved
after innumerable vain attempts by the so-called “Marcus-Hypothesis,”
which is at present considered as satisfactory, because it alone fulfils
every condition and explains all the difficulties. Holtzmann regards
the figure of Christ as historical. The impression of his powerful
personality was a living presence in the first congregation at Jerusalem.
But all the interest centred in his words. The words of their Lord were
faithfully preserved by oral tradition. Sentences so short and yet so
pregnant with meaning as “Blessed are the peacemakers,” or “Ye are the
salt of the earth,” “But let your communication be, Yea, yea: Nay,
nay, etc.,” are so impressive that whoever has heard them once, will
never forget them. The interest in the word was soon complemented by
an interest in facts and events which was much later followed by an
interest in dogma. The first differences among the Christians originated
through the mission among the heathens. The gentile Christian became
indifferent concerning the Jewish traditions and clung with all his
religious enthusiasm to the Christ as his saviour. Christianity became
a cosmic religion while the Jewish Christians still looked upon Christ
as the Messiah of the people of Israel. The Jewish view of Christianity
is represented by Matthew, the gentile view by Luke. Mark however does
not show any development of dogma. According to Papias, the Apostle
St. Peter had whenever it became necessary for an explanation of the
words of Christ, occasionally told certain events of the life of Jesus;
which were afterwards written down by Mark. We find in Mark, Matthew,
and Luke the same building stones, but how differently arranged! Mark
shows evidence of relating real facts of history, he begins with John
the Baptist, tells us how Jesus became baptised, how he preached the
kingdom of God; according to Mark, Jesus does not declare himself as the
Messiah from the beginning. His activity grows by degrees, his disciples
increase, he heals the sick, and it is from the mouth of these that
he was first proclaimed as the Messiah. He becomes a power among the
people and makes himself offensive to the authorities who consider him
as dangerous and attempt to take his life. Jesus forbids those whom he
heals to proclaim that he is the Messiah. He sends out his disciples not
to preach him as the Messiah, but to proclaim the kingdom. At last in
Peter the idea dawns that prompts him to declare: “Thou art the Christ.”
Yielding before the persecution of his enemies, Jesus travels North and
East and here he accustoms himself to the idea of a suffering son of man.
His self-confidence increases and he travels courageously to Jerusalem
where, as he could foresee, he would meet his fate. The drama of his
life culminates in his word “ἐγώ εἰμι” (1462) in which he reveals his
self-consciousness as being the Messiah. Being triumphantly hailed in
Jerusalem by people of Galilee and such as believed in him he hastened
his doom. It is not likely that Jesus could have publicly been held to
be the Messiah for any length of time, for the Roman police was wont
to suppress such movements without discrimination. They did not stop
to investigate the case as to the character or motive of the movement
whether or not it was purely religious or political. They never tolerated
any “son of David” or “king of Israel” who held any influence over large
masses of the people.
While Mark still preserves the development of Jesus’s messianic
consciousness, Luke as well as Matthew have entirely obliterated it.
According to Mark, Jesus proclaims the kingdom; Matthew and Luke make
him preach his person. They make Jesus proclaim himself as the Messiah
from the very beginning and his command not to speak it out openly given
to those whom he healed and also to his disciples has no sense here.
Matthew has a liking for cabalistic numbers, there are three times
seven generations the names of which are not without doing violence to
historical facts adjusted to the pattern, there are three temptations,
seven parables, etc. Throughout we notice reflection, purposive selection
of the material, and artificial adjustment to a plan. The book has a
tendency to show that Jesus was the King of Israel predicted by the
prophets and in the psalms. Luke on the other hand has also a dogmatic
programme. It is the gospel of gentile Christianity as founded by Paul.
The critical school finds adversaries among theologians as well as
unchristian thinkers, both of whom are apt to speak of fraud when
religious books are written with certain dogmatic tendencies. Professor
Holtzmann objects to such a view of the development of Christianity. He
says that a religion which did not rouse sufficient enthusiasm to develop
a religious poetry would be very poor and lifeless. Even the apocrypha of
the New Testament are evidence of the vigor of the new religion, although
we must be aware of the fact that the Church showed good judgment when
adopting its canon to accept those which were full of moral meaning and
to reject those which were mere myth without any deeper significance.
We have given this abstract of one part of Holtzmann’s work with
the omission of all the learned by-work for those not familiar with
theological investigation. Similar results are obtained by an inquiry
into the origin of the Acts. The apostles were the first and living
representatives of the Christ. Out of the interest in the apostles’ words
grew an interest in their actions and lives, and there are a great many
writings of this subject preserved. One only has been received into the
canon.
It is impossible to follow Professor Holtzmann into the details of his
work, but we can warmly recommend it as the best compendium existing, not
only for the student of theology but for everybody who is interested in
the results of the scientific criticism of the synoptic gospels and the
Acts.[51]
κρς.
SCHRIFTEN DER GESELLSCHAFT FUER PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG. Heft 2. Ueber
Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie. By _Hugo Münsterberg_. Leipsic:
Ambr. Abel. 1891.
In this monograph Professor Münsterberg prepares the way for greater and
more important work. His aim is to define the province of psychology and
to investigate the methods which have to be employed. Psychology is not
philosophy; accordingly the consideration whether there is a reality of
an outside world does not belong here. The psychologist is not bound
to wait till this and other metaphysical questions are decided with
certainty; the reality of the outside world has simply to be assumed
together with its cognisability.
What means ‘to explain’? “To explain means simply to render clear that
which is not clear or to reduce the unknown to the known, the complex
to the simple (p. 104).... It is an indispensable presupposition of
any natural science to consider nature as being capable of explanation
(_erklärbar_), and this presupposition means that natural processes
can be perfectly separated into most simple mechanical processes.
This presumption can be realised to-day only on the basis of the
atom-conception. It is accordingly not an experience, but a postulate
of natural science to derive the whole material world-process from the
mechanism of atoms. A description becomes an explanation in the measure
in which it approaches this aim” (p. 105). The question is, whether in
psychology, description can be supplanted by explanation, whether laws
can be stated instead of mere rules.
Professor Münsterberg takes that ground in psychology which as it appears
to us is the only tenable ground, viz. that feelings are not motions
and cannot be explained as converted physical processes. Professor
Münsterberg says: “A sensation, a feeling, a will can never fill even
the very smallest space. What is extended in space can never itself be
a state of consciousness. To the psychologist this distinction is now
a matter of course, so much so that it is difficult to call to one’s
mind how much trouble it cost to acquire this insight. The object
of psychology accordingly can never be an object in space, it can
never be a process of motion, accordingly, even brain-irritation can
under no circumstances ever become the object of psychology” (p. 97).
Psychology has to investigate the psychical phenomena of the individual
consciousness (p. 102), it has to separate it into its elements, i.
e. those ingredients which are no longer divisible; which being done,
psychology searches for the rules for the combinations of these psychical
elements and shows us the different complex contents which are formed in
this way by the elements up to that totality of single combinations which
is given us as the contents of our spiritual personality (p. 103).
“The question is, (1) Are there psychological processes in us, the
development of which presents itself with immediate certainty as
necessary, and (2) can we reduce all the individual and with them all the
spiritual phenomena to such spiritual processes recognised as necessary?
The first question can be affirmed, although only in a limited sense,
and the second question must be unequivocally denied, thus making an
immediate explanation of psychical phenomena impossible” (p. 107).
The first question is to be affirmed in a limited sense, because “if
certain premises are thought, the conclusion, it appears to us as a
necessity, can be thought thus and not otherwise” (p. 108). But this
is “a logical and not a psychological necessity.” To actually think
the conclusion depends upon the will to think it. The will actually
existing, the logical necessity becomes a psychological, for “the
connection between the willing and the willed (_zwischen Willen und
Gewolltem_) always appears to us as necessary.... Where there is inner
will there is an inner necessity.” Now, in order to make explanations in
the physical world, we supplement that which has been actually observed
with not-observed connections. But we cannot, according to Münsterberg,
in an analogous way supplement in the world of psychical phenomena the
conscious states with any other kind of states which are not conscious,
thus referring our spiritual life and acts of will to unconscious
processes, for “the very nature of psychical states is consciousness,
i. e. a state of being conscious. _Ihr Sein ist das bewusst-sein...._
A state of consciousness, says Münsterberg, which is not conscious,
is comparable not to a body which is not perceived, but to one which
does not exist. Accordingly unconscious psychical phenomena do not
exist. All psychical phenomena are directly given and the reduction of
their combinations in a certain way through hypothetical psychological
supplements is once for all excluded” (p. 110).
We agree in all the main positions with Professor Münsterberg, but in the
last mentioned point we disagree. Professor Münsterberg limits psychical
states or feelings to states of consciousness without considering that
there are subconscious and even unconscious feelings. By consciousness
we understand those feelings alone which are concentrated so as to be
connected with the ego, i. e. the present centre of consciousness. We
assume that even the spinal ganglions of the brainless frog are feeling
if the skin is irritated, but this feeling can never become conscious,
it can no more be telegraphed to the central station so as to become
co-ordinated with other feelings which are registered in the brain. The
objection may be raised, We do not know whether the ganglion is feeling;
and I should answer, I call feeling anything that is of the same nature
as the elements of which consciousness consists, and we have all reasons
to assume that there is such an elementary psychical accompaniment of
the ganglionic irritations, and that consciousness rises from many such
elements through their co-ordinate combination in the brain. Isolated
feelings are never conscious, and consciousness is a co-operative system
of feeling. This distinction between consciousness and feeling is a mere
matter of terminology. If we find another terminology more practical
we are willing to surrender ours. Yet such a distinction between
consciousness and feeling seems to be necessary for a proper description
of the psychical facts. The assumption of subconscious states and even
of unconscious feelings is a great help in explaining the phenomena of
consciousness. But unless we are grossly mistaken, our disagreement is
merely apparent, for Professor Münsterberg, rejecting the idea of a
psychological explanation, believes in the parallelism of psychical and
physical phenomena. “The physical acts” (he says on p. 125) “reducible
to mechanical axioms can be explained through causation, the psychical
acts follow one another without inner necessity. If we connect both, we
are enabled to transfer the necessity-connection of the physical upon
the psychical and offer thus an explanation where otherwise description
only was possible.” But in doing this, have we not supplemented those
psychical elements which appear as conscious states by other psychical
elements which have not entered into that combination which makes them
actually conscious? It is an hypothetical addition for the sake of
explanation, a _Hilfsconstruction_ just as much as the supposition of the
existence of atoms or electric currents or other physical phenomena which
are not directly observed, but indirectly in their effects only.
Supplements are necessary for explanation wherever the immediate facts
do not contain all the elements of a certain process. If an observable
phenomenon has not its conditions in observable facts we hypothetically
assume unobservable facts as its causes. But we may incidentally
remark that description and explanation are not different in kind, but
in degree. Explanation is an exhaustive description set forth in its
greatest possible simplicity. An exhaustive description enumerates all
the determinative factors of a process and it drops everything that
is of no account, so that information is imparted with the greatest
economy as well as completeness. An exhaustive description is a reliable
guide to preascertain the outcome of a process, and reveals in this
way the identity in the change, the continuity of the process and the
conservation of matter and energy in their transformations, or, in
other words, it reveals the necessity of the result. There is perhaps
no natural science in which the processes can be exhaustively described
without hypothetical supplements and so the science of psychology forms
no exception to the general rule.
The aim of psychology in its wider sense will be “to separate all the
contents of consciousness into their elements, to state their laws of
combination, and to seek in an empirical way for the diverse elementary
psychical contents, their correspondent physiological irritations,
in order to explain in this way mediately from the coexistence and
succession of physiological irritations the purely psychological laws of
combinations which as such are unexplainable” (p. 127).
Our objection to this view resembles much some of the objections which
Professor Münsterberg himself makes when speaking of the availability of
the mathematical method so-called. He says: “Measuring and counting of
psychological phenomena have been made repeatedly, directly as well as
indirectly, and it has been proved that mathematics can be applied to
psychology.... Nevertheless it would be a misuse of the word if we named
these numerical descriptions an ‘application of the mathematical method.’
If an historian of literature counts the poems and dramas of authors,
if he also calculates how long it took them to write their literary
products, who would call his work a mathematical history of literature?
Even astronomy would be no mathematical science if we counted only the
stars in the sky.” If the aim of psychological explanation were as
Professor Münsterberg here asserts to be reached through the explanation
of physiological states only, we should say, that the physiological
method were alone admissible in psychology, a principle to which our
author rightly objects. Psychical states sometimes demand a physiological
explanation, and we cannot understand psychology without having a
certain amount of physiological knowledge. Nevertheless, the explanation
of psychical states and the necessity of certain connections must be
understood mainly from the psychical elements themselves. Psychical
elements, i. e. feelings, as has been explained on other occasions,
have acquired and constantly do acquire meaning. This meaning which
appears in sensation-symbols and thought-symbols and which is different
in the different forms of feeling (correspondent to different forms of
nervous action), creates a new domain,—the domain of spirit,—and thus
psychical states are changed into spiritual facts. Suppose for instance
that a merchant receives his mail; he opens a letter containing some
important news which sets at once all his nerves into irritation, makes
him neglectful of all other things in order to attend with great haste
to one special affair. How can we explain this instance, or any other
spiritual act through a consideration of physiological conditions. Is
it not the meaning alone which special sense-impressions convey that
produces the extraordinary effects? The physiologist would as little be
able to detect this meaning through an analysis of the sense-impressions,
as an electrician would be to understand the import of a telegram when
measuring the strength of the electric current in the telegraph wires.
The combinations of the purely psychical states may after all not be
quite unexplainable, while their physiological concomitants are in many
cases insufficient to account for spiritual interconnections.
In discussing the methods of psychology Professor Münsterberg rejects the
speculative and the mathematical methods; he claims a great importance
(and we agree with him) for self-observation. But self-observation is
no easy task; it requires a high degree of training. “He who does not
understand botany cannot make observations of plant-life. The same things
which call into play certain associations in the botanist are also seen
by the layman, but they remain unobserved. Self-observation is in a
similar way ... not without its presuppositions; it is dependent upon a
rich store of ready associations” (p. 164).
Psychological investigations under natural conditions are classified
by Münsterberg according to their objects, as those of the normal man,
the child, the savage, the insane, the animal, etc. In experimental
psychology, psychopetal, psychofugal, and psychocentral processes are
distinguished. For psycho-physiological investigations we have besides,
(1) the immediate experiment in the laboratory, (2) the method of
anatomy, (3) of comparative anatomy, (4) and of physiology. Professor
Münsterberg concludes with an appeal to institute special professorships
of psychology, which is at present a mere branch of philosophy. It
takes all the energy of one man to keep abreast with the progress of
psychological investigation. “No medical man, no lawyer, no theologian,
or educator should enter into practical life without having passed an
examination in psychology ... the growing generation of children, the
sick, the criminal, and the comfort-seeking souls of mankind have to
suffer if teachers, physicians, judges, and preachers are ignoramuses
in the matter of human soul-life.... But here also the gods have placed
sweat before virtue.”
κρς.
LA PHILOSOPHIE DU SIÈCLE. By _E. de Roberty_. Paris: Félix Alcan.
The author of the present work, which forms a volume of the Library of
Contemporary Philosophy, is one of those disciples of the founder of
French positivism who, while following in his footsteps to a certain
point, do not hesitate to diverge from the beaten track when they think
their leader has gone astray in his philosophic quest. M. de Roberty
speaks of Comte with reverence as his first guide and his best master,
and he finds in the very contradictions of the Master the germ of his own
conception of the general trend of philosophic development.
The fundamental thesis of the present work is that the three
contemporaneous philosophic systems, those of Criticism, Positivism,
and Evolutionism, are merely varieties of a single species, as strictly
parallel manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general
hypotheses. The basic identity of the thought of this century is shown
by the ever increasing convergence of the great leading ideas, as
exhibited in the prevailing theories of knowledge, by the preponderance
of relativism, and of agnosticism. It reveals itself, especially in the
similar conceptions formed by the most varied systems, not only of the
essential characters of philosophy, its method, and the ends it ought to
pursue, but also of the scientific laws which govern its evolution. We
cannot follow the author through his discussion of all these points and
we must therefore restrict ourselves to the most salient features of his
argument.
Modern philosophy is represented by three principal schools: Criticism
which originated with Kant, Positivism founded by Comte, and Evolutionism
introduced by Spencer. These three systems had a common ancestry,
that of sensualism. The critical philosophy is the legitimate heir of
sensuous idealism, and the positive philosophy the immediate descendant
of sensuous materialism. The evolution philosophy is itself rooted in
sensualism, but it is really a conciliator of the two great philosophies
which preceded it, Criticism and Positivism. This conclusion, which
appears to us just, is supported by various considerations to which
reference here is not necessary. M. de Roberty bears testimony to
the influence of the philosophy of Kant over the development of the
evolutionist conception, which could be applied to society only by
giving an apparent universality to the mechanical hypothesis. This was
accomplished by Spencer, as it had been done to some extent by Comte.
The popularity of the evolution philosophy is explained by the author
as due to its admixture of agnosticism with a monism which captivates
the masses “by the audacious assertion that it has raised all veils and
resolved all enigmas.” Kant, Comte, and Spencer have equally seized this
characteristic trait of the genius of our century. They each treat, says
M. de Roberty, of the most transcendent problems of metaphysics, and
place them carefully under the cover of the experimental method. Let us
add that they are each different expressions of that genius, which marks
the progress of the mental evolution of mankind.
The second part of M. de Roberty’s work deals in the first place with the
conceptions of philosophy, its nature and its end, framed by the three
great modern systems. The confusion generally made between philosophy
and science is first pointed out, the evil of which arises from the fact
that allowance is not made for the progress of scientific knowledge. The
author is strongly inclined to favor the idea of the general equivalence
of science and philosophy, in the sense that every effect is identified
with its cause. But as the effect is always modified with its cause,
neither the content not the general conception of philosophy can remain
unchangeable. Philosophy becomes thus the co-ordination of the sciences
in view of their general and abstract finality—by which is meant simply
the last term of an evolution—a conception of the world.
In what do the conceptions of philosophy held by the criticist, the
positivist, and the evolutionist, differ from that formulated by M. de
Roberty? He affirms that they all entertain certain errors of method
derived chiefly from ancient metaphysics. The prototype is found in Kant,
who says that philosophy is a system of universal acquirements formed
of abstract notions, and that it has for its aim the passage of our
understanding from sensible to suprasensible knowledge. The latter is the
_a priori_, the permanent and verifiable hypothesis, for each of them.
It is the transcendental element which all modern philosophy has derived
from the past, and which forms the bond of alliance between faith and
knowledge. Of the three postulates of Spencer, the universal hypothesis
is in the first, an Unknowable Force. The other two belong to psychology,
proving that the English evolutionist, like Comte, confounds science with
philosophy, which to him, as to his predecessors, is a simple theory of
knowledge.
Philosophy is a method which conducts to a conception of the world. But,
says M. de Roberty, modern philosophies fail in that they deal with
hypotheses. Now, although hypothesis is the soul of the special sciences,
for philosophy it must always be a purely mental recreation. To render
valid the universal hypothesis constructed by philosophers, it would be
necessary that the sum of the final truths of science should include the
sum of the phenomena which constitute nature.
We cannot follow the author through his ingenious criticisms of Spencer’s
great synthetic formula, to which he devotes the twelfth chapter of the
present work, and which he characterises as the perfect type of the
universal unverifiable hypothesis. Nor can we do more than give a passing
glance at his views of the psychology of the three modern systems of
philosophy. He affirms that the metaphysical transformation by criticism
of psychology into philosophy left hardly anything to the special
science. To positivism is due the conception of psychology as forming an
integral part of biology, which has led to the important psycho-physical
experiments of the present day. But the biological analysis of the
individual should be followed by social analysis, the study of mental
manifestations in society, in connection with which should be created a
special concrete science to embrace the higher psychology, as pointed out
by the author in his work “La Sociologie.” Science, art, and industry are
a projection into the external world of the thinking, feeling, acting
subject, and psychology ought also to be thus projected by fusion with
biology, or with biology and sociology, which it is necessary to study if
we would discover psychic laws.
In the chapter on the Supremacy of Science, the author affirms that
the philosophy which will result from the progress of psychology and
sociology will present a striking contrast with all known metaphysical
forms, but it will always remain a world-conception, and it will have
to submit to the law of correlation which explains the character and
destinies of its predecessor. Agnosticism, which invites men to bend
before the _Deus ignotus_ of all religions, marks the fatal termination
of ancient anthropomorphism, influenced by a progressive knowledge,
and thus appears as the final integration of all theology. It also
represents, however, the condition of incognisance to which the opposite
state will succeed when the cycle of abstract sciences is completed and
a really scientific psychology formed. Then hypotheses as to universal
causes will receive their psychological solution, and it will remain for
philosophy only to confront and co-ordinate them with the general results
of other sciences. Having arrived at this point M. de Roberty formulates
the conclusion that Philosophy and Science are terms which connote two
principle _species_ in the vast _genus_ designated by the single term
_knowledge_. The most marked trait of future philosophy will be the
distinction of these two species, as their confusion was the most general
character of the philosophy of the past. Philosophy and science will
then be perfectly identified, but the identity will be general and not
specific. Thus philosophy will not be positive in the sense of Comte, it
will never _completely_ identify itself with science.
In his last chapter, entitled “The Intellectual Series,” M. de Roberty
continues his criticism of the views of Comte as to the law of the
evolution of philosophy. He shows that, so far from this being the most
general law of intellectual evolution, and therefore the supreme law of
all social phenomena, philosophy is only one of three intermediate terms,
the others being art and industry, by the aid of which the evolution
of scientific ideas acts on the ensemble of the social evolution. The
intellectual evolution is the direct consequence of the social fact, but
the social evolution is subject to the laws of intellectual evolution,
which embrace four great classes of conceptions, answering to the four
well recognised groups of facts known as science, philosophy, art, and
industry. We have here the same series of special evolutions as those
supposed by Comte, with the important change, however, marked by the
inversion of the first two members of the series. In this relation, the
author affirms that Comte’s law of the three states is false so far
as concerns the evolution of the sciences, and is of very secondary
importance as regards the evolution of philosophy and the two succeeding
evolutions.
The author concludes his work with a criticism intended to show that the
principal defects of Comte’s system arise from the confusion previously
insisted on in relation to the first terms of the intellectual series,
science and philosophy. That confusion is exhibited in the statement
that among the ancients philosophy was developed before science and art.
M. de Roberty, moreover, declares Comte’s theory that the industrial
development is the point of departure of modern civilisation, leads to
a complete subversion of the logical and historical. Instead of the
useful or the proper being, as that theory would require, the foundation
of the good and this, in its turn, the germ of the true, the true is
the foundation of the beautiful, and of the good and the useful. But
the true is more complex than supposed by Comte. It possesses at least
two aspects, science and philosophy, which may be really distinguished,
although the line which separates them is yet undetermined.
We have given a summary of M. de Roberty’s general argument, instead of
referring to particular propositions which may be open to criticism,
because his work appears to us a very valuable contribution towards the
elucidation of the important question as to the position of philosophy
in relation to science. We shall look with much interest for the
appearance of the author’s two further works which he announces as
supplementary to the present one. That on Agnosticism is already in the
press. The subject of the other work is Monism, which M. de Roberty
characterises as “the chimerical pursuit which has essayed, through the
ages, to fix the so-called unity of things, the extra or supralogical
identity of phenomena.” This hypothetical monism of philosophy is dealt
with incidentally in the present work. The “supralogical identity of
phenomena” is a different kind of monism from that of _The Monist_.
Ω.
UEBER BEWEGUNGSEMPFINDUNGEN. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung
der Doctorwürde vorgelegt der hohen philosophischen Facultät der
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität zu Freiburg i. B. By _Edmund Burke Delabarre_
of Massachusetts. Freiburg in Baden: Hch. Epstein, 1891.
Dr. Edmund Burke Delabarre introduces himself to the world of science
with an excellent monograph on motion-sensations, based upon careful
observations which were made in Professor Münsterberg’s psychological
laboratory at Freiburg i. B. The subject of the dissertation is of
great importance and there is much confusion prevalent at present
even among the most prominent authorities. It appears to us that Dr.
Delabarre has adopted the right view and he certainly defends it with
great ability. Professor Wundt rejects in his Physiological Psychology
all the theory of the so-called “muscle-sense” and admits that there
is some truth in the three explanations devised as an explanation of
our consciousness of performed motions, which thus would be a complex
of (1) pressure-sensations, (2) specific muscle-sensations, and (3)
innervation-sensations. This third kind of sensations is of a very
hypothetical nature. The term signifies that, when muscles are innervated
we are supposed to have a direct sensation of the innervation in the
central nerve-organs; and this view is objected to by Münsterberg, who
says that “a brain irritation which is not accompanied with centripetal
effects or central after-effects of former muscular activity has its
physiological consequences but excites no conscious states.” Thus,
according to Dr. Delabarre, without the motion of the sense-organs,
i. e. muscular activity, there is no consciousness; all consciousness
derives its data from the periphery. Dr. Delabarre goes over the whole
field of the literature of the subject and weighs all pros and cons. He
finds that all cases are intelligible without the supposition of central
innervation-sensations. He admits that the term muscle-sense is vague,
but he believes that the term having been generally introduced may be
retained. He defines it as that complex of sensations which results from
muscular activity.
The second part of the dissertation contains the reports of the
experiments, describing the instruments used and the methods employed.
We are informed that Dr. Delabarre has been appointed to the chair of
psychology in Brown University.
κρς.
LE NIHILISME SCIENTIFIQUE. I. Dialogue entre le Doctor Oudèn et
L’Etudiant Ti son Neveu. Rapporté par _P. Van Bemmelen_. Leide: E. J.
Brill, 1891.
Dr. Oudèn’s nephew thus summarises the scientific, or rather
“philosophic” views of his uncle: “There is no God, but there is the
world. In this world there are neither souls, nor mind, nor life; there
is only matter and its elementary forces. Nevertheless these forces do
not exist; there is only movement, the sole function of matter, which is
inert. In its turn, matter has no reality; it is composed of geometrical
points which are susceptible of movement. But as there is neither time
nor space, there is no movement.” Nothingness is thus reached, but
beyond is illusion, the _maja_ of the Hindoos, which explains all our
conceptions of nature including that of our own being. This scientific
_maja_ is not the semblance of a real world, but that of a world which
does not exist, so that illusion and nothingness are the same thing. From
which it follows that there is no illusion and no mind to be deceived!
Mr. Van Bemmelen’s opuscule is an ingenious _jeu d’esprit_, evidently
intended to exhibit a certain phase of speculation as a _reductio ad
absurdum_.
Ω.
DIRITTO SOCIALE TENTATIVO IN BOZZA. Dell’Avv. _Pietro Pellegrini_. Borga
a Mozzano. 1891.
There is no denying the activity of the statesmen and scholars of modern
Italy in the cause of radical, social reconstruction and, as remarked by
a recent traveller in Italy, in the “building up again a Commonwealth,
founded on high principles of right and equality.” “Diritto Sociale,” in
Italian jurisprudence, of course, relates to municipal and positive law,
in its social-economical and social-political aspects. But, in a country
with the municipal and political traditions of Italy, this “Diritto
Sociale,” even in modern times, exhibits a tendency to crystallise into a
kind of concrete, social religion. The Avvocato Signor Pietro Pellegrini,
the learned author of this book, appears to feel deeply concerning the
present condition of this branch of jurisprudence in Italy.
In his preface the author says, that during the present century legal
science has not made any very substantial progress; that the revolution
of the last century, while asserting the famous rights of man, forgot
the rights of juridic persons, of corporations, and law became an
_individualista_—or, individualiser. On the strength of his juridic
personality man thereupon engaged in a struggle for his rights on
the vast social field, but he found himself alone—an individual and
nothing more. As such, he could not form a juridic, social organism,
but he merely sought to adapt himself to an actual, external juridic
organisation, differing but slightly from old-time despotism. On this
basis the State still continues to create municipal and positive laws,
more or less adapts them to the facts of reality, arbitrarily creating
juridic persons and administrative bodies, such as the _mandamenti_,
_circondarii_, _provincie_ of the modern Italian kingdom—all of which are
only hybrid administrative _entia_, that do not in the least satisfy a
number of local public needs; and therefore, there is no harmony between
individual men and the juridic persons, between the public administrative
entia and the State, and there is bloody war among the States themselves.
The ultimate cause of all this conflict is to be ascribed to the
individualism of the law, in not recognising organic, juridic relations;
and this, moreover, necessarily called forth the reaction of an
exaggerated socialism.... Person has a much wider significance than
individual; person cannot be isolated, individual, because, juridically,
person implies an exchange of relations with others; hence, juridic
persons ought to enjoy a greater legal authority than they actually
enjoy in our modern jurisprudence. The _plasma sociale_, or the original
social mould, is developed by degrees into a vital, practically real,
organism, endowed with a physical body, that needs the material means
of nutrition, in order to live, to preserve, and develop itself. These,
however, do not exist; because nature furnishes only sufficient means to
preserve man in a purely savage, animal condition. But, at least, there
exist the sources, or fountain-heads, from which it is possible to derive
the desired nutritive materials; on condition of molding or transforming
those fountain-heads, and of assuming their efficacious, practical
direction. In the individualised or individual system there takes place a
struggle among the individuals for the possession of that nourishment, in
which case, however, the sources themselves are appropriated rather than
the nutritive materials they contain. Such is the exclusive nature of
the social means of nutrition, present and future, through which a large
number of individuals will be at the mercy of a few, while the notorious
“rights of man,” remain powerless....
The rights emanating from the organic concept of personality, together
with the physico-economical laws of the fountain-heads of social
nourishment, spontaneously furnish the equitable distribution of
the nutritive materials to each organic member, so that there is no
monopolising of those natural fountain-heads, but a normal nutrition of
all the organs, according to their needs, and their actual capacity as
juridically displayed....
Those fountain-heads, besides being limited, are scattered through
space, because it is impossible to unite or concentrate them on any
particular point of the globe. Hence this _plasma sociale_ or social
mold is distributed through space according to imperative laws, that
result from the combined capacities of the respective juridic, that is,
social persons, with the capacities of the respective sources of social
nourishment—of different municipal organisations, of cities, townships,
and villages. All these are pre-eminently juridic and social persons,
each one possessing its peculiar functions, that cannot be exercised
by other persons. The present work contains a lengthy but valuable
introduction in four chapters, discussing the general concept of law; and
thereupon the book is divided into three parts, in which are explained
the principles and development of positive law in its respectively
civil-social, social-economical, and social-political aspects. This work,
throughout, presents a number of equally important and novel points of
view, through which the author’s concept of an organic municipal and
social law everywhere becomes the surest means of creating unity and
harmony, not only within the general department of law, but also within
the sphere of practical legislation.
γνλν.
AN OUTLINE OF LOCKE’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. By _Mattoon Monroe Curtis_, M.
A. Leipsic: Gustav Fock, 1890.
This excellent study was presented to the University of Leipsic as the
Inaugural Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and
it is well deserving of publication, if for no other reason than the
need of such a work. There appears to have been hitherto no complete
account of Locke’s System of Ethics, which does not even find a place in
Mackintosh’s “Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy.” The author has not
been able to discover any trace of the treatise on Ethics which Locke
proposed to write, but his published works “abound in ethical observation
and severally took their rise from ethical considerations,” so that there
is no deficiency of materials from which to ascertain his ideas on that
subject.
Mr. Curtis very justly remarks that it is important to ascertain an
author’s views before criticising them, a truism which is not always
acted on, as indeed was the case with Locke’s own critics. He does not,
however, profess to criticise but, as the title of his work shows,
to give an outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy. In his Preface he
states that his author adopted the Stoic division of Philosophy into
Physics, Ethics, and Logic. The object of Ethics, is described by Locke,
in his noted “Essay,” as the seeking out of those rules and measures
of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practice
them. The end of this, is not bare speculation, and the knowledge of
truth; but _right_, and a conduct suitable to it. In the application
of its principles Locke may be said to have gone further than any of
his predecessors and of most of his successors. As pointed out by Mr.
Curtis, he maintains that the institutions of government, religion, and
education are, in essence, ethical and that all are parts of a system
which must be based upon, and be in harmony with, the fundamental
physiological and psychological principles of human nature. This follows
from Locke’s principle that the Individual, and not the Family, is the
real social unit. Man is a rational, social, religious, and political
being, and, therefore, “in the individual is contained, potentially, all
institutionalism.”
It must be noticed, however, that to Locke the moral dynamic in human
society is the concept of God. He regards this idea “as a natural,
formal, necessary and transcendental principle at the root of human
nature and institutions, and consistently declares that the denial of it
dissolves all,” as it alone gives a sufficient explanation and sanction
to the principles of morality. This brings us to the very foundation of
ethics. All depends, however, on our conception of God. Locke maintained
that duty “cannot be understood without a law, nor a law be known or
supposed without a law giver, or without reward or punishment.” His
conception of God, therefore, was that of a law-giver, and he believed
that the existence of God could be demonstrated not only by teleological
argument, but also by psychological proof drawn from the being and nature
of man. Locke was so thoroughly convinced of the dependence of morality
on the existence of God, that, notwithstanding his general liberality of
thought, he excluded atheists from toleration. He writes: “Promises and
Covenants, and Oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no
hold upon an Atheist.”
It would be a mistake to suppose that, because Locke believed morality
to be founded in our conception of God, he considered the moral law
referable simply to the divine will, and therefore to be arbitrary and
changeable. So far from this, he regarded the moral law as eternal
and immutable, and affirmed that its cardinal principles could be
discovered and laid hold of by the light of nature. As says Pfleiderer,
when speaking of Locke and Wolff, “Locke also considers a supernatural
revelation to be possible, and to have actually taken place in
Christianity, but he insists as strongly as Wolff does, and even more
logically, that this revelation must not in any way contradict the
natural revelation given us by God in our reason.” Locke expressly
declares, that the reason _is_ natural revelation, while revelation is
natural reason enlarged. The latter he regarded as necessary because,
although reason is sufficient for the virtuous, penalties must be relied
upon for influencing the multitude; and in revelation the doctrine of
immortality with future rewards and punishments is made known. Whether
this revelation is true or false, the fear of future punishment has
undoubtedly had a restraining influence over the vicious. But reason
would not be sufficient for the virtuous without an inclination natural
or acquired, to virtue. It is a question of disposition, and this will
be virtuous or vicious, according to the conditions under which the
individual has come into being and been “educated,” in the fullest sense
of this term. Reason forms part of these conditions which, so far as they
are not purely objective, are dependent on or referable to human nature;
as, indeed, must be the supposed revelation of enlarged natural reason.
In relation to the ethical life, Locke declares that happiness is the
only idea which reason takes up out of the sphere of pleasure and pain,
and yet that if we aim directly at happiness, we shall miss it. What then
has to be done is to seek out “the rules and measures of human actions
which lead to happiness.” This is the office of ethics, the end of which
is virtue, and thus happiness and virtue are one. With Locke moral
actions are only those that depend “upon the choice of an understanding
and free agent.” The agent here intended is, as pointed out by Mr.
Curtis, the man, and not the will. Locke says that the proper question
in connection with freedom, is not “whether the will be free, but whether
the man be free.” The will is determined by the mind, and liberty is
“a power to act, or not to act, according as the mind directs.” In his
“Thoughts concerning Education” Locke affirms that “the result of our
judgment, upon examination, is what ultimately determines the man, who
could not be free, if his will were determined by anything but his own
desire, guided by his own judgment.” The position of Locke is, says the
author, that of Plato and Kant: Reason is given as the governor of the
will, by its sway to constitute it good. Thence we may rightly conclude,
that those who are not governed by reason have not true freedom.
We have not space to consider the views entertained by Locke on
Institutional Ethics, beyond referring to his doctrine that property
rights are given only by labor, and not by occupation, and that labor
is the source of all values. The latter doctrine cannot now be accepted
as sound, whatever may be said as to the former, but Locke deservedly
holds a high place as a political economist. He seems indeed to have
been a kind of universal genius. Mr. Curtis refers to the remark made of
him “that no philosopher since Aristotle has made and recorded so many
valuable observations, or given so great a stimulus to human thought.”
Any fresh light that can be thrown on the opinions entertained by so
profound a thinker, especially on the important question of ethics, is of
value and hence we welcome the present work as an acceptable addition to
philosophic literature.
Ω.
* * * * *
N. B.—Owing to lack of space, reviews of a number of new works have
been crowded out of the present number of _The Monist_; among which the
following will appear in No. 3: _Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems
in der Philosophie seit Kant_, by Dr. Edmund Koenig; _Spinoza’s
Erkenntnisslehre in ihrer Beziehung sur modernen Naturwissenschaft
und Philosophie_, by Dr. Martin Berendt and Dr. Julius Friedländer;
_Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie_, by Dr. Th. Ziehen; _Handbook
of Psychology_, by J. M. Baldwin; _An Essay on Reasoning_, by Edward T.
Dixon; _Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe_, by Hübbe-Schleiden; _Die
Bedeutung der theologischen Vorstellungen für die Ethik_, by Wilhelm
Paszkowski; and _Einleitung in das Alte Testament_, by Prof. C. H.
Cornill.