MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY[295].
I. _Science is the Idealization of Facts._
1. I have spoken, a few chapters back, of the Reaction against the
doctrines of the Sensational School in England and France. In Germany
also there was a Reaction against these doctrines;--but there, this
movement took a direction different from its direction in other
countries. Omitting many other names, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel
may be regarded as the writers who mark, in a prominent manner, this
Germanic line of speculation. The problem of philosophy, in the way in
which they conceived it, may best be explained by reference to that
Fundamental Antithesis of which I had occasion to speak in the _History
of Scientific Ideas_[296]. And in order to characterize the steps taken
by these modern German philosophers, I must return to what I have said
concerning the Fundamental Antithesis.
This Antithesis, as I have there remarked, is stated in various
ways:--as the Antithesis of Thoughts and Things; of Ideas and
Sensations; of Theory and Facts; of Necessary Truth and Experience; of
the Subjective and Objective elements of our knowledge; and in other
phrases. I have further remarked that the elements thus spoken of,
though opposed, are inseparable. We cannot have the one without the
other. We cannot have thoughts without thinking of Things: we cannot
have things before us without thinking of them.
Further, it has been shown, I conceive, that our knowledge derives
from the former of these two elements, namely our Ideas, its form
and character of knowledge; our ideas being the necessary _Forms_ of
knowledge, while the _Matter_ of our knowledge in each case is supplied
by the appropriate perception or outward experience.
Thus our Ideas of Space and Time are the necessary Forms of our
geometrical and arithmetical knowledge; and no sensations or experience
are needed as the matter of such knowledge, except in so far as
sensation and experience are needed to evoke our Ideas in any degree.
And hence these sciences are sometimes called _Formal_ sciences. All
other Sciences involve, along with the experience and observation
appropriate to each, a development of the ideal conditions of knowledge
existing in our minds; and I have given the history, both of this
development of ideas and of the matter derived from experience, in two
former works, the _History of Scientific Ideas_, and the _History of
the Inductive Sciences_. I have there traced this history through the
whole body of the physical sciences.
But though Ideas and Perceptions are thus separate elements in our
philosophy, they cannot in fact be distinguished and separated, but are
different aspects of the same thing. And the only way in which we can
approach to truth is by gradually and successively, in one instance
after another, advancing from the perception to the idea; from the fact
to the theory.
2. I would now further observe, that in this progression from fact
to theory, we advance (when the theory is complete and completely
possessed by the mind) from the apprehension of truths as _actual_ to
the apprehension of them as _necessary_; and thus Facts which were
originally observed merely as Facts become the consequences of theory,
and are thus brought within the domain of Ideas. That which was a part
of the objective world becomes also a part of the subjective world; a
necessary part of the thoughts of the theorist. And in this way the
progress of true theory is the _Idealization of Facts_.
Thus the Progress of Science consists in a perpetual reduction of Facts
to Ideas. Portions are perpetually transferred from one side to another
of the Fundamental Antithesis: namely, from the Objective to the
Subjective side. The Centre or Fulcrum of the Antithesis is shifted by
every movement which is made in the advance of science, and is shifted
so that the ideal side gains something from the real side.
3. I will proceed to illustrate this Proposition a little further.
Necessary Truths belong to the Subjective, Observed Facts to the
Objective side of our knowledge. Now in the progress of that exact
speculative knowledge which we call Science, Facts which were at a
previous period merely Observed Facts, come to be known as Necessary
Truths; and the attempts at new advances in science generally introduce
the representation of known truths of fact, as included in higher and
wider truths, and therefore, so far, necessary.
We may exemplify this progress in the history of the science of
Mechanics. Thus the property of the lever, the inverse proportion of
the weights and arms, was known as a fact before the time of Aristotle,
and known as no more; for he gives many fantastical and inapplicable
reasons for the fact. But in the writings of Archimedes we find this
fact brought within the domain of necessary truth. It was there
transferred from the empirical to the ideal side of the Fundamental
Antithesis; and thus a progressive step was made in science. In like
manner, it was at first taken by Galileo as a mere fact of experience,
that in a falling body, the velocity increases in proportion to the
time; but his followers have seen in this the necessary effect of the
uniform force of gravity. In like manner, Kepler's empirical Laws were
shown by Newton to be necessary results of a central force attracting
inversely as the square of the distance. And if it be still, even at
present, doubtful whether this is the _necessary_ law of a central
force, as some philosophers have maintained that it is, we cannot doubt
that if now or hereafter, those philosophers could establish their
doctrine as certain, they would make an important step in science, in
addition to those already made.
And thus, such steps in science are made, whenever empirical facts
are discerned to be necessary laws; or, if I may be allowed to use a
briefer expression, whenever _facts are idealized_.
4. In order to show how widely this statement is applicable, I will
exemplify it in some of the other sciences.
In Chemistry, not to speak of earlier steps in the science, which
might be presented as instances of the same general process, we may
remark that the analyses of various compounds into their elements,
according to the quantity of the elements, form a vast multitude of
facts, which were previously empirical only, but which are reduced
to a law, and therefore to a certain kind of ideal necessity, by the
discovery of their being compounded according to definite and multiple
proportions. And again, this very law of definite proportions, which
may at first be taken as a law given by experience only, it has been
attempted to make into a necessary truth, by asserting that bodies
must necessarily consist of atoms, and atoms must necessarily combine
in definite small numbers. And however doubtful this Atomic Theory may
at present be, it will not be questioned that any chemical philosopher
who could establish it, or any other Theory which would produce an
equivalent change in the aspect of the science, would make a great
scientific advance. And thus, in this Science also, the Progress of
Science consists in the transfer of facts from the empirical to the
necessary side of the antithesis; or, as it was before expressed, in
the idealization of facts.
5. We may illustrate the same process in the Natural History
Sciences. The discovery of the principle of Morphology in plants
was the reduction of a vast mass of Facts to an _Idea_; as Schiller
said to Göthe when he explained the discovery; although the latter,
cherishing a horror of the term _Idea_, which perhaps is quite as
common in England as in Germany, was extremely vexed at being told
that he possessed such furniture in his mind. The applications of this
Principle to special cases, for instance, to Euphorbia by Brown, to
Reseda by Lindley, have been attempts to idealize the facts of these
special cases.
6. We may apply the same view to steps in Science which are still
under discussion;--the question being, whether an advance has really
been made in science or not. For instance, in Astronomy, the Nebular
Hypothesis has been propounded, as an explanation of many of the
observed phenomena of the Universe. If this Hypothesis could be
conceived ever to be established as a true Theory, this must be done
by its taking into itself, as necessary parts of the whole Idea, many
Facts which have already been observed; such as the various form of
nebulæ;--many Facts which it must require a long course of years to
observe, such as the changes of nebulæ from one form to another;--and
many facts which, so far as we can at present judge, are utterly
at variance with the Idea, such as the motions of satellites, the
relations of the material elements of planets, the existence of
vegetable and animal life upon their surfaces. But if all these Facts,
when fully studied, should appear to be included in the general Idea
of Nebular Condensation according to the Laws of Nature, the Facts
so idealized would undoubtedly constitute a very remarkable advance
in science. But then, we are to recollect that we are not to suppose
that the Facts will agree with the Idea, merely because the Idea,
considered by itself, and without carefully attending to the Facts,
is a large and striking Idea. And we are also to recollect that the
Facts may be compared with another Idea, no less large and striking;
and that if we take into our account, (as, in forming an Idea of the
Course of the Universe, we must do,) not only vegetable and animal,
but also _human_ life, this other Idea appears likely to take into it
a far larger portion of the known Facts, than the Idea of the Nebular
Hypothesis. The other Idea which I speak of is the Idea of Man as the
principal Object in the Creation; to whose sustenance and development
the other parts of the Universe are subservient as means to an end; and
although, in our attempts to include all known Facts in this Idea, we
again meet with many difficulties, and find many trains of Facts which
have no apparent congruity with the Idea; yet we may say that, taking
into account the Facts of man's intellectual and moral condition, and
his history, as well as the mere Facts of the material world, the
difficulties and apparent incongruities are far less when we attempt
to idealize the Facts by reference to this Idea, of Man as the End of
Creation, than according to the other Idea, of the World as the result
of Nebular Condensation, without any conceivable End or Purpose. I am
now, of course, merely comparing these two views of the Universe, as
supposed steps in science, according to the general notion which I
have just been endeavouring to explain, that a step in science is some
Idealization of Facts.
7. Perhaps it will be objected, that what I have said of the
Idealization of Facts, as the manner in which the progress of science
goes on, amounts to no more than the usual expressions, that the
progress of science consists in reducing Facts to Theories. And to this
I reply, that the advantage at which I aim, by the expression which
I have used, is this, to remind the reader, that Fact and Theory, in
every subject, are not marked by separate and prominent features of
difference, but only by their present opposition, which is a transient
relation. They are related to each other no otherwise than as the poles
of the fundamental antithesis: the point which separates those poles
shifts with every advance of science; and then, what was Theory becomes
Fact. As I have already said elsewhere, a true Theory is a Fact; a Fact
is a familiar Theory. If we bear this in mind, we express the view
on which I am now insisting when we say that the progress of science
consists in reducing Facts to Theories. But I think that speaking of
_Ideas_ as opposed to Facts, we express more pointedly the original
Antithesis, and the subsequent identification of the Facts with the
Idea. The expression appears to be simple and apt, when we say, for
instance, that the Facts of Geography are identified with the Idea
of globular Earth; the Facts of Planetary Astronomy with the Idea of
the Heliocentric system; and ultimately, with the Idea of Universal
Gravitation.
8. We may further remark, that though by successive steps in science,
successive Facts are reduced to Ideas, this process can never be
complete. However the point may shift which separates the two poles,
the two poles will always remain. However, far the ideal element may
extend, there will always be something beyond it. However far the
phenomena may be idealized, there will always remain some which are
not idealized, and which are mere phenomena. This also is implied
by making our expressions refer to the fundamental antithesis: for
because the antithesis _is_ fundamental, its two elements will always
be present; the objective as well as the subjective. And thus, in the
contemplation of the universe, however much we understand, there must
always be something which we do not understand; however far we may
trace necessary truths, there must always be things which are to our
apprehension arbitrary: however far we may extend the sphere of our
internal world, in which we feel power and see light, it must always
be surrounded by our external world, in which we see no light, and
only feel resistance. Our subjective being is inclosed in an objective
shell, which, though it seems to yield to our efforts, continues entire
and impenetrable beyond our reach, and even enlarges in its extent
while it appears to give up to us a portion of its substance.
II. _Successive German Philosophies._
9. The doctrine of the Fundamental Antithesis of two elements of which
the union is involved in all knowledge, and of which the separation
is the task of all philosophy, affords us a special and distinct mode
of criticizing the philosophies which have succeeded each other in the
world; and we may apply it to the German Philosophies of which we have
spoken.
The doctrine of the Fundamental Antithesis is briefly this:
_That in every act of knowledge (1) there are two opposite elements
which we may call Ideas and Perceptions; but of which the opposition
appears in various other antitheses; as Thoughts and Things, Theories
and Facts, Necessary Truths and Experiential Truths; and the like: (2)
that our knowledge derives from the former of these elements, namely
our Ideas, its form and character as knowledge, our Ideas of space
and time being the necessary forms, for instance, of our geometrical
and arithmetical knowledge; (3) and in like manner, all our other
knowledge involving a development of the ideal conditions of knowledge
existing in our minds: (4) but that though ideas and perceptions are
thus separate elements in our philosophy, they cannot, in fact, be
distinguished and separated, but are different aspects of the same
thing; (5) that the only way in which we can approach to truth is by
gradually and successively, in one instance after another, advancing
from the perception to the idea; from the fact to the theory; from
the apprehension of truths as actual to the apprehension of them as
necessary. (6) This successive and various progress from fact to theory
constitutes the history of science; (7) and this progress, though
always leading us nearer to that central unity of which both the idea
and the fact are emanations, can never lead us to that point, nor to
any measurable proximity to it, or definite comprehension of its place
and nature._
10. Now the doctrine being thus stated, successive sentences of the
statement contain successive steps of German philosophy, as it has
appeared in the series of celebrated authors whom I have named.
Ideas, and Perceptions or Sensations, being regarded as the two
elements of our knowledge, Locke, or at least the successors of
Locke, had rejected the former element, Ideas, and professed to
resolve all our knowledge into Sensation. After this philosophy had
prevailed for a time, Kant exposed, to the entire conviction of the
great body of German speculators, the untenable nature of this account
of our knowledge. He taught (one of the first sentences of the above
statement) that (2) _Our knowledge derives from our Ideas its form
and character as knowledge; our Ideas of space and time being, for
instance, the necessary forms of our geometrical and arithmetical
knowledge_. Fichte carried still further this view of our knowledge,
as derived from our Ideas, or from its nature as knowledge; and held
that (3) _all our knowledge is a development of the ideal conditions of
knowledge existing in our minds_ (one of our next following sentences).
But when the ideal element of our knowledge was thus exclusively
dwelt upon, it was soon seen that this ideal system no more gave a
complete explanation of the real nature of knowledge, than the old
sensational doctrine had done. Both elements, Ideas and Sensations,
must be taken into account. And this was attempted by Schelling, who,
in his earlier works, taught (as we have also stated above) that (4)
_Ideas and Facts are different aspects of the same thing_:--this thing,
the central basis of truth in which both elements are involved and
identified, being, in Schelling's language, the _Absolute_, while each
of the separate elements is subjected to _conditions_ arising from
their union. But this Absolute, being a point inaccessible to us, and
inconceivable by us, as _our_ philosophy teaches (as above), cannot
to any purpose be made the basis of our philosophy: and accordingly
this _Philosophy of the Absolute_ has not been more permanent than
its predecessors. Yet the philosophy of Hegel, which still has a wide
and powerful sway in Germany, is, in the main, a development of the
same principle as that of Schelling;--the identity of the idea and the
fact; and Hegel's _Identity-System_, is rather a more methodical and
technical exposition of Schelling's Philosophy of the Absolute than
a new system. But Hegel traces the manifestation of the identity of
the idea and fact in the _progress_ of human knowledge; and thus in
some measure approaches to our doctrine (above stated), that (5) _the
way in which we approach to truth is by gradually and successively, in
one instance after another_, that is, _historically, advancing from
the perception to the idea, from the fact to the theory_: while at the
same time Hegel has not carried out this view in any comprehensive or
complete manner, so as to show that (6) _this process constitutes the
history of science_: and as with Schelling, his system shows an entire
want of the conviction (above expressed as part of our doctrine),
(7) that _we can never, in our speculations reach or approach to the
central unity of which both idea and fact are emanations_.
11. This view of the relation of the Sensational School, of the Schools
of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and of the fundamental defects
of all, may be further illustrated. It will, of course, be understood
that our illustration is given only as a slight and imperfect sketch of
these philosophies; but their relation may perhaps become more apparent
by the very brevity with which it is stated; and the object of the
present chapter is not the detailed criticism of systems, but this very
relation of systems to each other.
The actual and the ideal, the external and the internal elements
of knowledge, were called by the Germans the _objective_ and the
_subjective_ elements respectively. The forms of knowledge and
especially space and time, were pronounced by Kant to be essentially
_subjective_; and this view of the nature of knowledge, more fully
unfolded and extended to all knowledge, became the _subjective
ideality_ of Fichte. But the subjective and the objective are, as
we have said, in their ultimate and supreme form, one; and hence
we are told of the _subjective-objective_, a phrase which has also
been employed by Mr. Coleridge. Fichte had spoken of the subjective
element as the _Me_, (das Ich); and of the objective element as the
_Not-me_, (das Nicht-Ich); and has deduced the _Not-me_ from the _Me_.
Schelling, on the contrary, laboured with great subtlety to deduce
the _Me_ from the _Absolute_ which includes both. And this Absolute,
or Subjective-objective, is spoken of by Schelling as unfolding itself
into endless other antitheses. It was held that from the assumption of
such a principle might be deduced and explained the oppositions which,
in the contemplation of nature, present themselves at every step, as
leading points of general philosophy:--for example, the opposition
of matter as _passive_ and _active_, as _dead_ and _organized_,
as _unconscious_ or _conscious_; the opposition of _individual_
and _species_, of _will_ and _moral rule_. And this antithetical
development was carried further by Hegel, who taught that the Absolute
Idea developes itself so as to assume qualities, limitations, and
seeming oppositions, and then completes the cycle of its development by
returning into unity.
12. That there is, in the history of Science, much which easily lends
itself to such a formula, the views which I have endeavoured to
expound, show and exemplify in detail. But yet the attempts to carry
this view into detail by conjecture--by a sort of divination--with
little or no attention to the historical progress and actual
condition of knowledge, (and such are those which have been made by
the philosophers whom I have mentioned,) have led to arbitrary and
baseless views of almost every branch of knowledge. Such oppositions
and differences as are found to exist in nature, are assumed as the
representatives of the elements of necessary antitheses, in a manner
in which scientific truth and inductive reasoning are altogether
slighted. Thus, this peculiar and necessary antithetical character is
assumed to be displayed in attraction and repulsion, in centripetal and
centrifugal forces, in a supposed positive and negative electricity,
in a supposed positive and negative magnetism; in still more doubtful
positive and negative elements of light and heat; in the different
elements of the atmosphere, which are, quite groundlessly, assumed to
have a peculiar antithetical character: in animal and vegetable life:
in the two sexes; in gravity and light. These and many others, are
given by Schelling, as instances of the radical opposition of forces
and elements which necessarily pervades all nature. I conceive that the
heterogeneous and erroneous principles involved in these views of the
material world show us how unsafe and misleading is the philosophical
assumption on which they rest. And the Triads of Hegel, consisting of
Thesis, Antithesis, and Union, are still more at variance with all
sound science. Thus we are told that matter and motion are determined
as _inertia_, _impulsion_, _fall_; that Absolute Mechanics determines
itself as _centripetal force_, _centrifugal force_, _universal
gravitation_. Light, it is taught, is a secondary determination of
matter. Light is the most intimate element of nature, and might be
called _the Me_ of nature: it is limited by what we may call negative
light, which is darkness.
13. In these rash and blind attempts to construct physical science
_à priori_, we may see how imperfect the Hegelian doctrines are as
a complete philosophy. In the views of moral and political subjects
the results of such a scheme are naturally less obviously absurd, and
may often be for a moment striking and attractive, as is usually the
case with attempts to reduce history to a formula. Thus we are told
that _the State_ appears under the following determinations:--first
as one, substantial, self-included: next, varied, individual, active,
disengaging itself from the substantial and motionless unity: next,
as two principles, altogether distinct, and placed front to front in
a marked and active opposition: then, arising out of the ruins of the
preceding, the idea appears afresh, one, identical, harmonious. And the
East, Greece, Rome, Germany, are declared to be the historical forms
of these successive determinations. Whatever amount of real historical
colour there may be for this representation, it will hardly, I think,
be accepted as evidence of a profound political philosophy; but on such
parts of the subject I shall not here dwell.
14. I may observe that in the series of philosophical systems now
described, the two elements of the Fundamental Antithesis are
alternately dwelt upon in an exaggerated degree, and then confounded.
The Sensational School could see in human knowledge nothing but
facts: Kant and Fichte fixed their attention almost entirely upon
ideas: Schelling and Hegel assume the identity of the two, (a point
we never can reach,) as the origin of their philosophy. The external
world in Locke's school was all in all. In the speculations of
Kant this external world became a dim and unknown region. Things
were acknowledged to be _something_ in themselves, but _what_, the
philosopher could not tell. Besides the _phænomenon_ which we see, Kant
acknowledged a _noumenon_ which we think of; but this assumption, for
such it is, exercises no influence upon his philosophy.
15. We may for the sake of illustration imagine to ourselves each
system of philosophy as a Drama in which _Things_ are the _Dramatis
Personæ_ and the _Idea_ which governs the system is the _Plot_ of the
drama. In Kant's Drama, Things in themselves are merely a kind of 'Mute
Personages,' κωφὰ πρόσωπα, which stand on the stage to be pointed at
and talked about, but which do not tell us anything, or enter into the
action of the piece. Fichte carries this further, and if we go on with
the same illustration, we may say that he makes the whole drama into
a kind of Monologue; in which the author tells the story, and merely
names the persons who appear. If we would still carry on the image,
we may say that Schelling, going upon the principle that the whole of
the drama is merely a progress to the Denouement, which denouement
contains the result of all the preceding scenes and events, starts
with the last scene of the piece; and bringing all the characters on
the stage in their final attitudes, would elicit the story from this.
While the true mode of proceeding is, to follow the drama Scene by
Scene, learning as much as we can of the Action and the Characters,
but knowing that we shall not be allowed to see the Denouement, and
that to do so is probably not the lot of our species on earth. So far
as any philosopher has thus followed the historical progress of the
grand spectacle offered to the eyes of speculative man, in which the
Phenomena of Nature are the Scenes, and the Theory of them the Plot, he
has taken the course by which knowledge really has made its advances.
But those who have partially done this, have often, like Hegel, assumed
that they had divined the whole course and end of the story, and have
thus criticised the scenes and the characters in a spirit quite at
variance with that by which any real insight into the import of the
representation can be obtained.
If it be asked which position we can assign, in this dramatic
illustration, to those who hold that all our knowledge is derived from
facts only, and who reject the supposition of ideas; we may say that
they look on with a belief that the drama has _no_ plot, and that these
scenes are improvised without connexion or purpose.
16. I will only offer one more illustration of the relative position
of these successive philosophies. Kant compares the change which he
introduced into philosophy to the change which Copernicus introduced
into astronomical theory. When Copernicus found that nothing could be
made of the phenomena of the heavens so long as everything was made
to turn round the spectator, he tried whether the matter might not be
better explained if he made the spectator turn, and left the stars
at rest. So Kant conceives that our experience is regulated by our
own faculties, as the phenomena of the heavens are regulated by our
own motions. But accepting and carrying out this illustration, we may
say that Kant, in explaining the phenomena of the heavens by means
of the motions of the earth, has almost forgotten that the planets
have their own proper motions, and has given us a system which hardly
explains anything besides broadest appearances, such as the annual and
daily motions of the sun; and that Fichte appears as if he wished to
deduce all the motions of the planets, as well as of the sun, from the
conditions of the spectator;--while Schelling goes to the origin of
the system, like Descartes, and is not content to show how the bodies
move, without also proving that from some assumed original condition,
all the movements and relations of the system must necessarily be what
they are. It may be that a theory which explains how the planets,
with their orbits and accompaniments, have come into being, may offer
itself to bold speculators, like those who have framed and produced
the nebular hypothesis. But I need not remind my readers either how
precarious such a hypothesis is; or, that if it be capable of being
considered probable, its proofs must gradually dawn upon us, step by
step, age after age: and that a system of doctrine which assumes such
a scheme as a certain and fundamental truth, and deduces the whole of
astronomy from it, must needs be arbitrary, and liable to the gravest
error at every step. Such a precarious and premature philosophy, at
best, is that of Schelling and Hegel; especially as applied to those
sciences in which, by the past progress of all sure knowledge, we are
taught what the real cause and progress of knowledge is: while at the
same time we may allow that all these forms of philosophy, since they
do recognize the condition and motion of the spectator, as a necessary
element in the explanation of the phenomena, are a large advance upon
the Ptolemaic scheme--the view of those who appeal to phenomena alone
as the source of our knowledge, and say that the sun, the moon, and
the planets move as we see them move, and that all further theory is
imaginary and fantastical.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 295: The substance of this and the next chapter was printed
as a communication to the Cambridge Phil. Soc. in 1840.]
[Footnote 296: Or in the earlier editions, in the _Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences_.]