THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES. An Inaugural Lecture.
By _Andrew Seth_, M. A. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons.
1891.
As stated by the author, this lecture deals, not with the circle of
the philosophical sciences, but only with the subjects traditionally
associated with a Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Scotland.
These subjects belong to the three-fold classification of logical,
psychological, and metaphysical, or philosophical in the strict sense.
They therefore embrace the study of the conditions to which valid
reasoning must conform, the investigation, introspectively and otherwise,
of the phenomena of consciousness, and the study of the two-fold question
of knowing and being, which as epistemology and metaphysics are included
under the designation of Philosophy. These three lines of learning are
cognate, and the first two are in a measure introductory to the third, or
at least, says Professor Seth, if we go beneath the surface they lead us
into the very heart of philosophical difficulties. The lecturer refers in
his sketch of the present outlook in these three departments of science
to the marvellous activity displayed in the department of psychology. All
the influences at work may be said to meet and come to fruition in Mr.
Ward’s “masterly treatise” in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” and “the rich
and stimulating volumes” of Professor James, of Harvard. Experimental
psychology is now widely spread in Germany and has been enthusiastically
taken up in America, “where every well-equipped college aims at the
establishment of a psychological or psycho-physical laboratory.”
Professor Seth thinks, however, that the experimental psychologists
magnify their office overmuch. The field of experiment is necessarily
limited to the facts of sensation, the phenomena of movement, and the
time occupied by the simpler mental processes. The results are often
so contradictory as to leave everything in doubt, and where definite
results are obtainable, their value is often not apparent. Moreover,
many of the results are of a purely physiological nature, and are only
by courtesy included in psychological science. We would remark on this,
that without the experiments the results would not have been obtained
and that their value will become apparent when the methods of experiment
are perfected. After referring to the critical function of philosophy as
a doctrine of knowledge, Professor Seth states that as constructive it
should lay special stress on a _teleological_ view of the universe. By
this is meant, that philosophical teleology should concentrate itself
upon the proof that there is an end of evolution, “that there is an
organic unity or purpose binding the whole process into one and making
it intelligible—in one word, that there _is_ evolution and not merely
aimless change,” such as is supposed in a purely mechanical view of the
universe. As to the nature of the end, although the lecturer accepts
Hegel’s view that all things are relative to man as rational, he cannot
accept “the abstraction of the race in place of the living children of
men.”
Ω.
DER MENSCHLICHE WELTBEGRIFF. By Dr. _Richard Avenarius_, Ord. Professor
der Philosophie an der Universität Zürich. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland. 1891.
This monograph is as it were a self-confession. The author endeavors
to attain clearness in his own philosophical standpoint. He looked
back upon the path he has traveled and feels that “the solution of
the problem-attained is fundamentally a personal self-liberation”
(Preface, ix). This book is most commendable reading to all idealists
and agnostics. It is an interesting and instructive little work,
tracing with a keen psychological criticism the vagaries of certain
philosophical conceptions, through which not alone the author but the
thinkers of mankind in general have strayed. The philosopher begins
with what Avenarius calls the “natural world-conception.” But this
natural world-conception leads to contradictions and the evil spirit of
speculation leads us in a circle through the barren fields of idealism.
Avenarius asks: “Is the world really of such a nature that it appears
unitary and consistent only to the superficial thinker, while it
leads every one astray who attempts to grasp it more precisely in its
entirety—the more so the more consistently the thinker proceeds?” (p.
xiii.)
The author proposes the question: “In what consists the inevitableness
of the contradiction to which every general world-conception seems to
have led? Or, if the world really be unitary what is the evil spirit that
leads those astray who hunger and thirst after a true cognition of the
world?”
The author has entirely abandoned the idealistic standpoint, an
inclination to which he showed in his first publication, “Philosophie
als Denken der Welt gemäss dem Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses.”
He says: “Doubt of the correctness of my way heretofore pursued was
induced through the barrenness of theoretical idealism in the field
of psychology; and yet cognition and experience should belong to this
science as psychological ideas.”
The author in explaining the development of thought as it takes place in
man proceeds in a personal way, so much so that every idealist ought to
be satisfied. There are whole pages which teem with _ME_’s and _I_’s.
The method of notation is what might be called American. Europeans often
complain about our abbreviations, the Y. M. C. A., the S. A. S., the C.
B. & Q. Ry., etc., which are great puzzles to the uninitiated new-comer.
In a similar way Avenarius introduces such algebraic signs as _R_ and
_E_, which means reality and the sensations which our fellow-men are
supposed to have. _M_ is Man, _T_ is fellow-man. _T₁_ is the bodily
appearance of _T_, it is _R_; while _T₂_ is the _E_ of _T_, i. e. his
soul or spirit. _C_ is the nervous central organ, etc. Thus Avenarius
says (p. 18):
“I can in a relative consideration assume _R_ to be the condition of
changes in the _E_ values, supposed to exist in _M_, only if _M_ and in
_M_ the system _C_ are parts of my supposition,” and in a note (p. 117)
he adds:
“The skeleton in Goethe’s poem, ‘The Dead’s Dance,’ scents without an
organ of smell, sees without eyes, thinks without a brain; it also
moves without muscles. To consider such acts as true is now universally
declared to be superstition. The time will come when the assumption of
psychical phenomena without the coördination of the system _C_ will
universally be considered in the same way.”
The first three chapters remind us very much of W. K. Clifford’s article
“On the Nature of Things in Themselves.” But the article is nowhere
mentioned and it is most probable that it is unknown to the author. If
Avenarius had known Clifford’s view, he might have presented his ideas
with more economy of space. But if he did not know Clifford’s article,
the coincidences of procedure and to a great extent also of the result
attained are the more remarkable. What Avenarius calls the _E_ values are
termed by Clifford “ejects,” and the formation of ejects is called by
Avenarius “introjection.”
On page 52 we read the following sentence on the three phases of the
cognition of the data of experience:
“The first phase alone, that of ingenuous empiricism, cognises, i.
e. explains the totality of these facts without the assistance of
a non-sensible ... the second that of ingenuous realism conceives
the non-sensible as supersensible, and the third, that of ingenuous
criticism, as the pre-sensible. The epithet ingenuous has reference to
the foundation, not to the doctrinary system built upon it. That which
makes the said realism and criticism ingenuous is a survival of the
ingenuous empiricism.”
The theory which conceives the external cause of an experience as an
object, effecting _in_ the subject sensations, passes successively
through the following views. The object is said to be (1) not within
the range of experience, (2) not within the range of cognition, (3)
not-existing. Thus it reaches _via_ agnosticism its climax in idealism
and “pure experience becomes a something that is never truly experienced,
it becomes the totality of mere or pure sensations” (p. 62).
The third part of the pamphlet is devoted to “the restitution of the
natural world-idea.” Here the author comes, at least in some expressions,
very close to the solution editorially upheld in _The Monist_. Avenarius
says: “The task is ... to _describe_ the what of my experience so as to
make a practical application of it in my dealings with my fellow-men” (p.
79).
Professor Avenarius sums up his conclusions in the term “empirio-critical
principal-coördination” which he defines as the inseparability of
the ego-experience from the surrounding experience. “The ego and the
surrounding belong in the same sense to every experience. It is a
co-ordination peculiar to all experience” (p. 83). If we understand
Avenarius correctly he means to say, to express it in our terms, that
there is no object but there is a subjective aspect of it, no subject but
it appears objectively. Thus there is no subjectivity in itself and there
is no objectivity in itself. This is exactly our position, which we call
Monism.
The “introjection” was according to Avenarius the evil spirit that led
speculation astray. To get rid of this evil spirit the proposition is
made to discard “introjection” and replace it by the empirio-critical
principal-coördination. But closely considered the latter is only
an improved modification of the former, and this plan would better
be characterised as discarding the error implied in that kind of
introjection theory which assumes that sensations alone are given. The
data of experience are not mere feelings, not mere subjectivity, as
is maintained by the idealist; nor are they mere objectivity, as is
maintained by the ingenuous realist; the data of experience are states
of subject-objectness, they are feelings of a certain kind possessing
objective significance, and the ideas subject as well as object are
abstractions made in a late stage of mental development from this one
inseparable whole of subject-objectness (see _The Monist_ I, No. 1, pp.
78-79).
Avenarius says in a note (p. 132), “The question should not be ‘Why do we
believe in the reality of an external world?’ but ‘Why did we not believe
that the external world is real?’” We should say that neither question
is admissible. We should first ask: What do we mean by real? Reality is
the sum total of our experiences, including the meaning of sensations
and ideas, and finds its special application in their reliability. The
question, Is the candle I see real? means, Does it react in special ways?
Every name of a special object signifies a certain group of actions or
reactions observable by the subject. This is what we _call_ real and the
idealist would have to deny the existence of his own experience to deny
the reality of objects in this sense.
Avenarius’s books are not easy reading to the English and American
student, for his style is sometimes heavy and his constructions are
involved. So are his thoughts. But his thoughts show the earnest thinker;
the evolution of his views goes in the right direction and his works
deserve the attention of his co-workers in the philosophical field.
κρς.
DIE BEDEUTUNG DER THEOLOGISCHEN VORSTELLUNGEN FÜR DIE ETHIK. By Dr.
_Wilhelm Paszkowski_. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. 1891.
Religion originates everywhere, according to the author, in the
self-consciousness of man who feels himself an acting and willing being
limited by and dependent upon greater and higher powers. The religious
relation consists in the regulation of his actions as well as his will
with reference to the ordinances of these powers. Dr. Paszkowski lets
all the best known religions pass in review before our eyes, tracing
in all of them the connection between the properly religious elements
and morality and singling out those religious factors which are most
effective in determining man’s will in a moral way. In the second part
of the little volume he endeavors to show in how far the ecclesiastical
organisation of religion in dogma and cult have strengthened and in how
far they have weakened this result.
Concerning the most important dogma, which is the belief in immortality,
Paszkowski declares that it had its undoubted effects favorable and
unfavorable upon the social and moral life of mankind. It has prevented
some crimes while it has enhanced others. The question is, he says,
whether an individual immortality such as the religions usually picture
it, is tenable or not. Modern science and anthropology seem to have
proved it an illusion. Yet, as Paulsen says, the belief in immortality is
not a mere imagination. Every reality and so also man’s life is eternal.
It is nonsensical to think of death as a finality. That which has been
alive is a necessary, an eternal and inexpugnable part of reality and can
never again be blotted out. Through death the continuance of a man’s life
is cut off, but the contents of his life can never again be annihilated.
The real is in its very nature eternal. Paszkowski adds to Paulsen’s
remarks that man should find the norm of moral action in his relation to
his fellow-men and posterity, so that morality need not depend upon any
religious views. He will also have to act morally after he has resigned
the belief in the reality of the beautiful immortality-dream as it is
presented by enthusiastic religiosity.
It appears to us that if the usual conception of immortality is
scientifically untenable it devolves upon the moral teacher to present an
immortality conception that is tenable. The true immortality conception
will never enhance crimes, it will always have a favorable effect upon
the morality of mankind. Furthermore man’s relation to mankind and also
to the universe is of a religious nature. The social order to which
man has to conform is one part of those powers a recognition of which
constitute religion. If these powers are conceived to be outside the
world we have a supernatural deity, if they are the highest, best,
and greatest of, and in the world itself, we have an immanent deity
and ethics still remains intimately connected with and dependent upon
religion.
This it appears must be after all the author’s meaning, for he says in
prominent print, p. 89: “So long as there are men religion will not
cease, for it is one of the constitutional elements of human nature.” “In
the same measure as religion becomes spiritual, the moral conceptions
also will be purified, the mere ceremonial and the cult-element will lose
their importance in religion” (p. 92). “To divide the ethical factor from
the religious, as a matter of principle, will be seen to be impossible.
We can only conciliate the one with the other, both having originated out
of the same source of emotions” (p. 90).
κρς.
DAS WAHRNEHMUNGSPROBLEM VOM STANDPUNKTE DES PHYSIKERS, DES PHYSIOLOGEN
UND DES PHILOSOPHEN. Beiträge zur Erkenntnisstheorie und empirischen
PSYCHOLOGIE. By Dr. _Hermann Schwarz_. Leipsic: Duncker & Humbolt 1892.
Dr. Hermann Schwarz treats the most fundamental problem of
philosophy—viz. that of perception. He says in the preface: “There is
a triple state of facts to which obvious yet strange as it appears to
thought, the attention of the naturalist and the philosopher is drawn:
the physical, the physiological, the psychical.” The physical is the
empire of mechanical motion that can be observed with great accuracy to
take place everywhere. The physiological is the fact that when certain
impressions produce mechanical effects upon the nerves, the result
consists in certain sense-data; nervous action is accompanied with
sensation. The psychical state of things exhibits the fact that whether
or not we want it to be so, colors, sounds, odors, tastes, and touches
are always referred to external things, never to the own internal states
of the mind. Every one of these facts is strange in itself, for every
one represents the contrary of what might be expected _a priori_. Who
would expect that the machine-like world of jostling atoms and the
glorious world of colors and sounds should have anything in common? And
the sense-organs appear to the physiologist as mere physical apparatuses
modifying the ether-vibrations somehow. We do not see on the one hand how
consciousness can acquire information concerning the external world and
on the other hand, how motions can develop something so heterogeneous
as is consciousness. If we were confronted with one set of facts only,
everything would be plain, but this triple set of facts produces a
problem, it makes an explanation necessary and to this explanation Dr.
Schwarz has devoted a careful investigation of some four hundred and odd
pages.
Schwarz distinguishes two elements in what he calls “ingenuous realism,”
(1) its methodology and (2) its metaphysics. The methodology of physical
science consists in arranging the sense-data, while the metaphysics
assume that the objectivity of the sense-data is correctly represented
as “things, qualities, and effects.” Natural science arrived at a
scepsis of the usual metaphysics of naïve realism by a correction of the
ingenuous-realistic method, and Kant by critically investigating the
background or frame of its theory of cognition. The question is, What is
altered by physical science in the conception of ingenuous realism, what
by physiology, what by philosophy and why?
In the consciousness of an ingenuous realist the data of touch receive a
preference over those of the other senses, which is due to their greater
stability. The color of an object disappears, the sounds cease, while the
objects remain comparatively the same things to the sense of touch. Thus
they are considered as the real objects having certain qualities which
produce the phenomena of the other senses. This view is called by Schwarz
the first methodological dogma of ingenuous realism. The second dogma is
the conception that sense-data are considered as relatively permanent. So
colors are conceived to exist objectively in the dark, an error which has
been sufficiently explained by Helmholtz in his “Physiological Optics,”
§ 26. The third dogma completes the second; it is the view that the
relative permanence or disappearance of the qualities of objects depends
upon causes. Fire is said to be the cause which makes a wire red-hot. The
ingenuous realist knows no reciprocal causation, no action and reaction,
no _Wechselwirkung_. He assumes in addition to the objects certain
force-beings which are regarded as the causes of all change. The sun is
said to produce light.
Schwarz explains very well how this view of ingenuous realism naturally
arises and also how in the progress of thought it naturally corrects
itself. Suppose there were thinking beings with whom smell took the
place of touch and sight, would not their world-conception be based upon
the data of the sense of smell as is ours upon the data of mechanical
motions? If the females of a certain butterfly (_Frostspanner_) are
caught in the country and placed at a great distance in some house of
the city, the males will be seen on the next morning in great numbers
fluttering before the window of the room in which the females are kept.
What a perfection of the sense of smell while the senses of touch and
sight are very poorly developed! The dog owes his intelligence mainly
to the development of the sense of smell. Would not beings whose
intelligence is mainly due to the sense of hearing rather attempt to hear
the world than to grasp or comprehend it,—to _behorchen_ rather than to
_begreifen_?
Ingenuous realism is not consistent, and its methodology leads to
alterations of its metaphysics. We shall have to attribute either to
all the sense-data objective reality or to none of them. The data of
touch cannot be treated as exceptions and thus we have the alternative
either to return from our scepsis to realism, not to the ingenuous but
to a critically modified view of it, or to adopt the extremest form of
idealism, be it that of Berkeley or the subjectivism of Fichte.
The author (not unlike Professor Avenarius in his book “Der menschliche
Weltbegriff”) takes the former view. He says in the concluding chapter
(_Die Mängel der Ding-an-sich-Hypothese_): “This view, viz. that of
ingenuous realism, will in the end of our inquiry be seen to be not only
the most natural, and practically considered the most useful metaphysical
theory, but also that conception which is freest from all theoretical
obscurities” (p. 381).
We believe that the book which contains much valuable material, would
have been more useful than it actually is, if a chapter had been added
containing a summary of the whole inquiry and delineating in great
outlines the critically modified form of realism whose most appropriate
name we should say is monism—not materialism or mechanicalism which
allows all facts to be swallowed up by the conception that the world
consists only of matter in motion, but that monism which is a unitary
view of the whole, mindful of the fact that the sense-data as well as our
concepts are one-sided aspects only of the one and all. If we bear this
truth in mind we shall avoid from the beginning the three dogmas (alias
errors) of ingenuous materialism.
κρς.
DIE ENTWICKELUNG DES CAUSALPROBLEMS IN DER PHILOSOPHIE SEIT KANT. Studien
zur Orientirung über die Aufgaben der Metaphysik und Erkenntnisslehre.
(Part II.) By Dr. _Edmund Koenig_. Leipsic: Otto Wigand.
The present work forms the conclusion of a volume published by Dr. Koenig
in 1888, entitled _Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems von Cartesius
bis Kant_. This same subject is here pursued in the history of modern
philosophy since Kant.
The problem of causality, according to Dr. Koenig, has two aspects, an
epistemological and a metaphysical. The pre-Kantian efforts dealt chiefly
with the latter, the post-Kantian more principally with the former. The
latter, the metaphysical question, is, How do things in the world of
reality produce effects in one another? The former, or that which relates
to the theory of knowledge, is, (1) What is the logical foundation of
the idea of causality, what do we imply when we set up two objects
as cause and effect, and (2) By what right and to what extent are we
justified in imputing to the axiom of causality an objective validity?
With respect to the latter, the epistemological, point of view, Hume and
Kant believed they had established indisputably that experience as given
does not furnish sufficient grounds either for the idea or the axiom of
causality. On the other hand, others, like Maine de Biran, Schopenhauer,
and Trendelenburg, hold, that causality is given us in experience, that
we apprehend the causal relation subsisting between things, together with
the things. Herbart maintains that the idea of the causal relation has
been reached by the logical elaboration of experience in conformity with
the general laws of logical thought. Mill and Spencer see in this idea an
element that goes beyond experience, but justify it only psychologically,
not logically. According to Lotze, Riehl, Wundt, v. Hartmann, Volkelt,
the idea is either wholly or partly of intellectual origin. Finally,
Comte and a few modern scientists look upon the idea of causality as
logically valueless and scientifically superfluous.
This is, in brief, the opinions of the greatest thinkers whom Koenig
treats of, respecting the logical composition of the idea of causality.
But another question, that namely as to the character of the relation
in which in the causal judgment the notions of the concrete causes
and their effects exist, is one closely allied with this. Some hold,
(Trendelenburg, Goering, Herbart, Hamilton, Spencer,) that the relation
is one of identity; others that it is synthetical. This aspect is also
developed in connection with the last-named thinkers.
With respect to the axiom of causality, we find diametrically opposed to
each other the doctrines of empiricism and apriorism; but a number of
intermediate opinions have also established themselves. Of the first,
Schopenhauer, Lotze, and Volkelt are representatives, but only the theory
of the first-named is developed at length. The empiricism of Mill and
Goering meets with exhaustive treatment, as does the opposed view of
Laas, Riehl, and Wundt and the conciliatory view of Spencer.
With respect to the metaphysical aspect of the question, above-mentioned,
we find the modes of conception of phenomenalism and realism opposed.
The latter only is, in the nature of its doctrine, required to explain
ontologically the coming about of the causal relation in reality; the
former does not recognise Being in itself, and hence there can be no
causal connection of such. Schopenhauer’s attempt (the view of the
forces of nature as the emanation of a Universal Will), and the splendid
ontological theories of Herbart and Lotze are regarded by Dr. Koenig
as being no more a solution of the problem than were the efforts of
their famous predecessors Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibnitz. These
dogmatic realists, as Koenig calls them, proceed from the assumption of
the knowableness of the absolute; opposed to them, in this regard, are
Spencer, Von Hartmann, and Volkelt, the critical realists, the first of
whom gives an ontology that is a vague and metaphysical rendering of the
principle of the conservation of energy, the two last of whom impute a
transcendental ontological significance to the idea of causality.
The connection, Dr. Koenig concludes, is thus apparent and definite
between the metaphysical and epistemological divisions of the question.
The ontologist, unless he proceed dogmatically, must prove, that
the notion of causality in the form in which critical analysis has
established it as a valid and indispensable empirical idea, calls
inevitably for the notion of an absolute reality and of a state of things
in that reality corresponding to the forms of the connection given.
Therefore, the logical analysis of the idea of causality is in any
philosophy, pre-eminently determinative of its whole position and bearing.
On the whole, then, in the treatment of the problem forming the subject
of this work, four comparatively independent views are found opposed
to one another and considered in this opposition; viz., Sensualism and
Intellectualism, Positivism and Rationalism, Empiricism and Apriorism,
Realism and Phenomenalism. The author views the result of his researches
to be, the proof of the untenability of Sensualism, Rationalism,
Empiricism, and Realism, so far as this, by an historico-critical
analysis, is possible.
This is but a brief sketch of the treatment pursued by the author.
The author’s own view has been barely hinted at. He is a Kantian. He
calls himself a “transcendental idealist.” Dr. Koenig’s developments,
appreciative, acute and pointed as they are, are too detailed and
exhaustive to be separately taken into discussion here; but we may
illustrate his point of view by a summary of a few remarks of his on the
ontological problem as solved by physics. They are as follows.
The _natural_ modes of thought cling irresistibly to the notion of
a constant substratum; this being so, how does process, how does
change spring from an invariability of existence? Physical science
answers, by _force_; which exists as a constant potentiality of the
substratum, is now active, now latent. Dr. Koenig maintains that in
this physical science accomplishes nothing towards the solution of the
present problem; it does not by its notion of force make intelligible
the _acting_ of bodies on each other, for when it comes to define the
mode of action of force it involves itself in hopeless difficulties.
What is the consequence then, of this dilemma of science, where it can
neither render plain the “nature” of the material substratum, nor the
nature of “force,” which is, so to speak, the source of the activity of
the substratum? It is either agnosticism, which places limits to our
knowledge, and which Dr. Koenig rejects as unbecoming true thought, or
it is that theory which regards the phenomena alone as real and views
the concepts of theoretical physics as the mere shifts and helps of
thought whereby we bring the phenomena into connection with one another.
This latter view also Dr. Koenig cannot accept. His express contention
is, that we can interpret, _ontologically_, the phenomena of reality
by the notions of substance, force, etc.; he holds that the position
of transcendental idealism is the correct theory here, the position
namely that matter and force conceived as transcendent, independent
entities cannot be _thought away_, because substantiality and causality
are _forms_ of transcendental apperception, which alone can make
nature an object of cognition; matter and force must, for purposes of
empiric observation, of necessity possess the same reality as phenomena
themselves.
In connection with this subject Dr. Koenig contests Mach’s doctrine, that
natural laws are simple economical descriptions of phenomena; he contends
that “law” is the foundation of natural science, and particularly so the
law of causality.
This, however, does not say much. For the formal laws _in themselves_
are empty. The law, the axiom of causality may, _a priori_, be without
exception; but this circumstance, the _conviction_ we may call it,
offers us no hold on nature. When we investigate nature we have to
perceive _definite facts_; about which we formulate particular laws or
statements. The law of causality, however, does not help us to _discern_
the determinative facts or features of any phenomenon. It simply says
that _if_ we have hit upon the determinative facts and formulated a law
describing them, that law holds good throughout all nature. But what is
to tell us _what_ the characteristic and determinative features of a
given event are and when we have lighted on them? The law of causality?
Surely not. The law of causality cannot tell us that for falling bodies
_v_ = _gt_, i. e. that _t_ is decisive. It simply says that when once
this fact has been _discerned_ it holds universally good. But it would
have asserted the same thing with regard to Galileo’s first (false)
assumption, namely that _v_ = _Cs_. If, then, the law of causality cannot
tell us what those features are between which the causal connection is
assumed to exist, what is to tell us? Our observation simply, which
must be tested by experience. But our observation has no limits placed
to it except this, that it shall select some fact that _represents_ the
phenomenon and best and most easily enables _us_ to represent it. And
there is nothing that requires that there should be only _one_ feature
or _one_ aspect of an event by which it is representable; there may
be several, as the development of science proves. Accordingly, what
selection we make may depend on arbitrary and historical circumstances.
And this, as we take it, is Prof. Mach’s contention. If it is true, Dr.
Koenig’s criticism of Mach’s view does not hold in its whole extent.
Dr. Koenig’s treatment of the separate representative thinkers is
exhaustive and in an eminent degree scientific. His work is distinguished
by accuracy and pointedness of characterisation, and by special
knowledge of great range. It is a valuable contribution which he has
given us, to the study of the theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and he
has been true to his promise, as we judge, critically to discuss and not
summarily to dispose of the opinions of others.
μκρκ.
EINE NEUE DARSTELLUNG DER LEIBNIZISCHEN MONADENLEHRE AUF GRUND DER
QUELLEN. By _Eduard Dillmann_. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland, 1891.
The author is an admirer of Leibnitz’s monadology which he considers
as “the most beautiful, most perfect fruit of philosophic thought and
the most glorious system to be found in the history of philosophy.”
This enthusiasm however is not shown in panegyrics but in a careful
investigation of the great master’s work and we should scarcely know
the attitude of the author toward the philosopher whose thoughts he
discusses, if he did not give vent to his feelings in a few sentences of
the concluding chapter. The rest of the book consists of purely critical
and historical studies by a sober and cool-headed scholar. Leibnitz’s
system as it is represented in our histories of philosophy and as it is
currently conceived lacks a unitary and leading idea, so that many of
its most fundamental propositions appear to be at variance. Mr. Dillmann
maintains that Leibnitz’s philosophy as it really is does not lack this
unity; he has made an extensive and most diligent study of Leibnitz’s
works and proves with great plausibility through the assistance of many
pertinent quotations the justice of his cause.
Leibnitz’s monadology is according to Dillmann essentially a conciliatory
system. It attempts to reconcile the world-conceptions of his time. The
mechanical explanation of nature as it was proposed in modern times and
according to which all processes should be conceived as motions of bodies
is harmonised with the formalistic views of classical antiquity and of
the schoolmen which seeks for the causes of all phenomena in substantial
forms. In aiming at such a combination, he had to show that all single
phenomena of bodies and also their qualities had some ground and that
the principle of the body itself consisted in a substantial form. This
led him to conceive of bodies and of all things not as phenomena of an
external world but as representations in the mind, and thus an entirely
new standpoint was gained (p. 511). Representations are the inner states
of Monads (p. 318). Monads are substances because representations are
units; for representations are the many expressed in a unity (p. 319).
Every monad is a concentration of the universe (p. 313). It is as if God
had multiplied the universe as often as there are souls (p. 314). Every
substance is a little world in itself, expressing the great world of the
universe. The substance imitates in its little world what God does in the
universe (p. 313).
Leibnitz’s God-idea has suffered most from a misconception of the
fundamental idea of his system. Dillmann declares that the traditional
view, especially Fischer’s, is in conflict with the philosopher’s own
words. While Fischer says that Leibnitz’s God has created the substances
and arbitrarily endowed them with their natures, Dillmann maintains on
the ground of ample quotations that Leibnitz considers the forms of all
possible existences as given: not even God can alter them. God however
can and did compare all possible worlds, and then created that which his
wisdom found to be the best world. “God,” says Leibnitz, “does not select
a general Adam, but such a one,” i. e. an individual Adam, “whose perfect
representation is found among all the possible beings which exist in
the ideas of God. The nature of every creature is determined by eternal
truths which are in the understanding of God independent of his will.”
“God’s decree consists alone in the decision arrived at after having
compared all possible worlds and having admitted into existence that one
which is the best of all.”
κρς.
LEITFADEN DER PHYSIOLOGISCHEN PSYCHOLOGIE IN 14 VORLESUNGEN. By Dr.
_Th. Ziehen_, Docent in Jena. Mit 21 Abbildungen im Text. Jena: Gustav
Fischer. 1891.
The merits of these 14 lectures on physiological psychology are
thoroughness, lucidity, and conciseness; the whole book is a pamphlet
of 174 pp. only. The method of presentation is in all its detail work
positive, stating the facts as they have been found to be by experience
and as they are corroborated by experiment. Upon the whole it is a good
résumé of the present state of knowledge. A translation would be very
desirable and it is to be hoped that some of our psychologists will
undertake the work.
The contents are briefly as follows: I. Contents and scope of psychology.
II. Sensation, association, action. III. Stimulus, sensation. IV.
Taste, smell, touch. V. Hearing. VI. Vision. VII. Affective aspect of
sensation (pleasure and pain). VIII. Sensation, memory, concept. IX.
Association of ideas. X. Judgment and syllogism. XI. Attention, voluntary
thought, the ego (Ziehen says: “psychologically considered the simple
ego is a theoretical fiction,” p. 139). XII. Diseased thinking, sleep,
hypnosis. XIII. Action, expressive motions, language. XIV. Will, general
conclusions.
Although Dr. Ziehen’s pamphlet is upon the whole an excellent treatise,
we cannot agree with the author in several questions which are of great
importance in their consequences.
Dr. Ziehen acknowledges that the specifically nervous processes, a
sensible stimulus and a reaction, which latter is a motory effect,
cannot be explained from physical laws alone (p. 4). Yet at the same
time he denies that the fact that the reflexes are adapted to a purpose
(_Zweckmässigkeit_) proves the presence of a psychical parallelism.
“Pflüger,” he says, “was wrong in attributing for this reason to the
spinal cord a spinal-cord-soul.” The _Zweckmässigkeit_ of reflexes (i.
e. their being adapted to a purpose) has originated not otherwise than
the _Zweckmässigkeit_ of the color of the bird’s plumage, i. e. through
natural selection and inheritance. This argument might be admissible,
if we had not to account for the gradual origin of consciousness also.
There was a time when our personal consciousness did not exist, and there
was also a time when no conscious being lived upon the earth. Unless we
assume that consciousness suddenly appeared, creating out of its own
subjectivity alone the objective world which appears to us as what we
call matter in motion, we shall have to adopt some monistic view of the
subject. To consider the psychical states as known and the objectivity of
existence as utterly unknown is no monism.
Dr. Ziehen is opposed to the idea of psychical parallelism which he
conceives to be dualism, but he proposes a spiritual monism in its stead,
the difficulties of which he does not explain. It is to be regretted
that Dr. Ziehen has not understood the main idea of the parallelism
doctrine. He says in a foot-note (p. 6): “In the most extreme way, but
with quite insufficient reasons Lewes has maintained the omnipresence
of consciousness.” This is a misstatement of Lewes’s view, which by the
bye is held by the reviewer also, although he confesses that the term
parallelism is inappropriate and leads to misunderstandings. The theory
of parallelism, (at least as the reviewer holds it) is not dualistic
but monistic. It implies that the subjectivity and objectivity of
existence are two different abstractions of one and the same reality.
Its parallelism is a parallelism of these two sets of abstraction, while
the reality from which they have been derived is one throughout. There
exist no subjects that are not objects to other subjects, and every
object admits of a subjective aspect. There is a something supposed to
be present throughout nature which under certain conditions appears as
consciousness. This certain something is called by Clifford elements
of feeling, by Lloyd Morgan metakinesis, it has been characterised in
the editorials of _The Monist_ as the subjectivity of existence, and
the presence of this something in the spinal cord was called by Pflüger
_Rückenmarksseele_.
It appears to me that if we could explain the well adapted reaction of
nervous substance without assuming a psychical element in it, we could
explain the whole process of evolution and the historical development of
mankind, without the assumption of consciousness. Yet it is obvious that
even the explanation of the color of the bird’s plumage by the theory
of natural selection and heredity presupposes the presence of psychical
elements somewhere. Either the bird and his mates show a color sense, or
his enemies do, whose persecution he escapes, or the animals upon whom he
preys do. Man’s entire existence, physical and psychical, including his
feelings of pleasure and pain, can be explained by the theory of natural
selection and heredity; yet this is no proof that psychical elements do
not exist in him.
It has become customary at present to define “psychical” as that only
which appears in states of consciousness, and to exclude subconscious and
unconscious states. Dr. Ziehen says: “Everything given in consciousness
and that alone is conscious” (p. 3). Yet he introduces after all the
expression “psychically latent,” “latent memory pictures,” and similar
expressions. Dr. Ziehen says, “We cannot even have a conception of that
which an unconscious idea can be”; yet what is a latent memory-picture
but an unconscious idea?
There are two kinds of unconscious ideas: (1) Latent ideas. Every man’s
brain is full of latent ideas, i. e. of memory-pictures which are at
present unconscious but can become conscious at once if their activity
is roused by an appropriate stimulus. (2) Ideas unrelated to the
centre of consciousness. Those active ideas which, although at present
in a state of activity, are unrelated to the centre of consciousness
that constitutes the ego of the man, remain unconscious. Unconscious
cerebration (which takes place in dreams, in diseased brains and also in
certain phases of healthy brains being, as it were, a by-play of their
conscious activity) need not be destitute of feeling. Any pain may be
lessened when our attention is called away from it. The nervous disorder
remains the same, the feeling substance of the nervous structures in
which the pain was perceived also remains the same, its activity and
throbbing pulsations do not cease. Yet if we succeed in separating its
immediate relation to the centre of consciousness it sinks down into
subconsciousness. There is no reason for assuming that the feeling, no
longer perceived, is wiped out entirely.
While Dr. Ziehen’s pamphlet is a presentation of the results of positive
science, we were astonished to find in the first chapter the following
statement: “Later on we shall have to investigate whether there are for
all psychical phenomena such material parallel processes in the central
nervous system, and our answer will be decidedly in the negative.”
And again we find in the schedule of psychology a distinction between
(_a_) psychical processes _not_ contingent upon cerebral functions
(transcendental psychology), and (_b_) psychical processes contingent
upon cerebral functions (physiological psychology). These statements
are the more perplexing as the author joins the opposition made by
Münsterberg against Professor Wundt’s idea of apperception, which is
rejected as metaphysical, mystical, and even animistic. While we cannot
in all points agree with Professor Wundt’s theory of apperception,
which received a critical examination by Professor Delabarre (see _The
Monist_ II, No. 2, p. 297), we can most positively say that Dr. Ziehen
in so far as he classes Wundt’s view among the dualistic theories,
misunderstands Wundt’s position. Wundt’s physico-psychical parallelism
cannot be identified with the metaphysical fiction of a subject, be
this subject called ego or soul.[66] Wundt says in a late publication
of his: “Psychology of to-day, since Kant has shown the way, seeks the
nature of the soul again, as did Aristotle of yore, in the facts of the
spiritual life themselves and not in an unknowable ‘thing in itself’....”
_Deutsche Rundschau_ of 1891, p. 203. Wundt’s “apperception” is no
metaphysical being, but simply means the focus of perception, the centre
of consciousness. Wundt is certainly not infallible and we are inclined
to believe that in some details he is mistaken. He is nevertheless one
of the very greatest leaders among the investigators of the soul and his
monism as well as his antimetaphysical tendencies cannot be doubted.
Ziehen reaches his monism by considering objective existence, as
it appears to us and which we call matter, as “something utterly
unknowable.” He says, “The psychical series alone is given.... Thus the
psycho-physical dualism or parallelism is apparent only. Considering
that the psychical series alone is given, we shall understand, that we
had repeatedly to face in our investigations such factors in which the
material foundations are missing. I here remind you of the projection
of our sensations into space and time, for which we could not find a
psycho-physical explanation.”
We hope that Dr. Ziehen will soon find occasion to explain his
philosophical views. Such an explanation may throw light on his
psychological theory. We do not as yet see how he can solve without
inconsistency the many difficulties in which his philosophical standpoint
will involve his psychology.
κρς.
PSYCHOLOGIE DER SUGGESTION. By _Dr. Hans Schmidkunz_. Stuttgart,
1892,—pp. 425. Large 8vo.
The rapidly increasing devotion to the study of Hypnotism has yielded
many valuable results, both practical and theoretical. Its application
to the cure of disease—psychotherapeutics—has been most extensively
introduced and bids fair to become the representative in scientific form
of the germ of truth buried amongst the vast rubbish-heap of suspicious
practices and pseudo-scientific “isms.” New light has been thrown on the
questions of responsibility and the legal aspects of slightly abnormal
states. Education and ethics, it has been more than hinted, are to find
practical aids in hypnotism; while in the light of modern scientifically
recognised phenomena, many of the events influential in the development
of religions find a rationalistic interpretation. But the science which
more than all others, the study of hypnotism is destined to enrich, is
that of Experimental Psychology; and it is this phase of the subject to
which Dr. Schmidkunz has devoted his volume.
The central core of the whole subject is the fact of suggestion,—a fact
so comprehensive that it is almost easier to say what it is not than what
it is. If we make allowance for that portion of our conduct that is based
upon individual acquisitions and proceeds by logically reasoned steps,
all the rest is more or less the result of suggestions, of one kind or
another. To appreciate the psychology of this process it is necessary
to appreciate its varieties and universality. We receive suggestions
from things and deeds; the sight of food makes us hungry; the sight of
our neighbor consulting his watch induces a strong desire to know what
time it is. Words are powerful implements of suggestion; we accept those
doctrines that we hear about us and are influenced much more frequently
than we are convinced. The personal factor in suggestion is important;
to some we feel attracted and accept as leaders, while others excite
repulsion and antagonism. The indirectness of the process of suggestion
is to be noted; in most cases we are quite unconscious of the influences
exerted upon us and by which our conduct is guided, and this ignorance of
the motives of our acts, Spinoza tells us, is the cause of the illusion
of free will. Sympathy, imitation, the contagion of masses, the action
of the mind upon the body, the formation of public sentiment,—all
exemplify the process of suggestion and add their testimony to its power
and domain.
We must recognise, too, that our suggestibility is a variable phenomenon;
at some moments we are self-assertive and determined, at others passive
and readily following another’s lead. Sometimes we take the reins in
our own hands, and again allow the vehicle to find its way as it will.
Every night we pass into a condition in which conscious control is
abandoned and logic gives way to suggestion. A trifling illness, a dose
of medicine may increase our suggestibility, and place us in a position
allied to that of the hypnotic subject. All this prepares the way for
recognising as the distinctive characteristic of the hypnotic condition,
an exaggerated suggestibility. Not alone is there a ready yielding to
every suggestion of the operator, but functions normally not under
volitional control may be appealed to and utilised by the slighter and
subtler processes of hypnotic suggestion. The variable threshold between
the voluntary and the involuntary is shifted to a surprising extent. That
complex interrelation of centres with which the sense of personality is
intimately connected yields to the same influences and makes possible an
experimental study of this vexed problem.
This, then, is the Psychology of Suggestion, the contribution that
Hypnotism makes to Psychology. It lays stress upon the great rôle
this process plays in every day mental life and thus asks us to see
in hypnotism a condition closely allied to the normal, and simply
illustrating in an unusually striking way, one great factor in our mental
composition. It rearranges the hierarchy of mental faculties and finds
a more important place for suggestion than has been before accorded
to it. From a somewhat obscure and sporadic phenomenon occasionally
entering into mental states, it is raised to the dignity of one of the
most frequent, most important, most fertile generalisations of scientific
psychology. Whether one fully agrees with this position or not, it is
certainly a service to have it so comprehensively, even if at times
prolixly stated, and to be assured that the study of Psychology is
deriving as much benefit from the researches in hypnotism as are the more
practical sciences.