Chapter 2

But the value of the intuitions is relative to the soul which has them; they cannot be conveyed to any one else, or demonstrated; they can never become Truths valid to all minds. And these last are the truths we want if we would make some orderly progress towards a given issue. And so we resort after all, to science, to see if it can solve the intellectual riddle of our being. What can it do for us? If we would really know ourselves, we want a depth of self-analysis; not a pitiful search for motives, not the superficial probings of a moralist, not the boundless, limitless, self-absorbed speculations on the nature of self of the philosopher, not the sympathetic noting of each emotion that crosses the horizon of the soul--the introspection of the Poet; these will never teach us the reason why we think and feel on certain lines, and not on others--these will never explain to us what the mind is, that is in us--what that strange thing is, which we have tried so vainly to understand. And without this knowledge how worthless is the work of the moralist; of what practical use is it for him to endeavour to alter a man's character, when he does not even know the ingredients that constitute character, still less the cause why character is good or bad. Mr. Robert Buchanan said in one of his essays: "I can advance no scientific knowledge for seeing a great genius in Robert Browning, or a fine painstaking talent in George Eliot, for thinking George Meredith almost alone in his power of expressing personal passion, and Walt Whitman supreme in his power of conveying moral stimulation. I can take a skeleton to pieces scientifically, but not a living soul. I am helpless before Mr. Swinburne, or any authentic poet, but quite at my ease before Macaulay or Professor Aytoun." Mr. Buchanan could presumably take the last two to pieces and analyse them as if they were skeletons; but before Swinburne, "the living soul," he is helpless. Now we want a scientific reason for all this; we want to analyse, not the skeleton, that has been done often enough, but "the living soul." We want to know the ingredients of character that constituted Mr. Buchanan's preferences. What composition gave him his special temper and character? Why did his mind tend towards Robert Browning, and away from George Eliot? Why in short did his mind work in the way it did? The more original the mind, the more its investigation would repay us. But it must be self-investigation; what we want are facts of mind, mental data and in order to get them, we must investigate the living mind All the usual explanations of Temperament, Nature, Heredity, Education are the same difficulties, expressed in different words. Heredity is a circumstance, which has to be reckoned with, but we have to investigate, not circumstances, but results. Here is a living complex mind, no matter how I inherit it, here it is; now then, how does it work, what can I do with it? And then comes the further inevitable question--What is it? What is this thing, this me, which tends to feel and act in a certain direction--to admire spontaneously, this, and to despise with as perfect ease, that. What we need for scientific investigation into the ME is "to utilise minds so as to form a living laboratory" _Mind_ vivisection without torture, cruelty or the knife. What we want to know definitely from science is: How does this thing which I call my mind work? Science regards mind as the sum of sensations, which are the necessary results of antecedent causes. It endeavours to know how and in what way these sensations can be trained and perfected. Nearly twenty years ago, a writer in the Psychological Journal "Mind"[1] Mr. J. Jacobs, attempted to form a Society for the purpose of experimental psychology. Thinkers and scientific men have carried out this work, but the general public has not been greatly interested or interested for any length of time. No such society exists among the English public. The greater number of enthusiastic students is to be found in Italy and America. But Germany has furnished great individual workers, such as Fechner, Helmholtz, and Wundt. Collective investigation was necessary to separate individual peculiarities from general laws. Science of course aims at changing the study of individual minds/into "a valid science of mind." Mr. J. Jacobs wished a Society to be organised for the purpose of measuring mind, measuring our senses, and for testing our mental powers as accurately as weight and height are tested now, and also for experimenting on will practice. He believed it possible to train the will on one thing until we got it perfectly under control, and in so doing we should modify character immensely. If this proved possible, we ought to persevere until conduct becomes an art, education a principle, and mind is known as a science is known. Mr. Jacobs wanted systematic enquiries to be made into powers of attention, such as "Can we listen and read at the same time, and reproduce what we have read and heard." And into the faculties of observation and memory, with after images, and the capacity for following trains of reasoning, &c., &c., "When we read a novel, do we actually have pictures of the scenes before our minds?" Mr. Jacobs wished for enquiries into every kind of intelligence ordinary and extraordinary; out of all ingredients of character, out of early impressions, out of classified emotions to build up an answer to the question: "Is there a science of mind?" Since he wrote, much has been done in experiment by the scientific. Children's minds are constantly being investigated, and the results given to the public. Mr. Galton has to some extent popularised this sort of investigation. But it is still generally unpopular. Novelists, and artists, leisured people, women, everyone could be of use, if they would investigate themselves, or offer their minds for investigation. But after all that the scientific French, German, American, Italian, and English workers have done, we are as yet only on the threshold of mind knowledge--of what we might know--if we had ardour enough to push self-analysis in to the remotest corner of the brain, noting down, comparing, tabulating the most involuntary and ethereal sublimities that appear to flit through the mind, the most subtle emotion that hardly finds expression in language. We must push on and on till we arrive at the knowledge of a mind science. Our scientific enquirers want, as we all do, more ardour, they are dulled by a cold, uninterested public. Psychologists now seem to despair of obtaining any large results from the science. Mr. E.W. Scripture in "The New Psychology" says, in 1897, "It cannot dissect the mind with a scalpel, it cannot hope to find a startling principle of mental life." If psychological experiment could be presented somewhat apart from its technicalities, and if minds could play freely round its discoveries, how much more interesting it would be felt to be by the general public! The great experimental worker, Mr. J. Mck Cattell has given[2] some clear idea of the results he obtained by analysing and measuring sensations. The physical processes, which accompany sensations of sound and light for instance, unlike as they must be to sensations, being facts of matter in motion, yet share with them this characteristic, that sensations also have each an _order in time_, the mental processes can be measured, equally with the physical. Of course measuring sensations is only measuring "the outside of the mind"--but it produces among others one very suggestive result: "that as time is relative, if all things moved much more slowly or quickly than at present, we should not feel any change at all. But if our objective measures of time moved twice as fast, whilst physiological movements and mental processes went on at the same rate as now, the days of our years would be seven score, instead of three score years and ten, yet we should not be any the older, or live any the longer. If on the other hand the rate of our physiological and mental motions was doubled and we lived exactly as many years as before, we should feel as if we lived twice as long and were twice as old as now." This is a suggestion for Mr. Well's "Anticipations" Is evolution leading us in this direction or the other? Is it retarding or "quickening the molecular arrangements of the nervous system?" Are we becoming "more delicately balanced so that physical changes proceed more quickly as thoughts become more comprehensive, feelings more intense, and will, stronger." Does the time it needs to think, feel, and will become less? And we may add are the physical and mental processes of the intelligent brain, quicker, or slower than the unintelligent? For if it is the sensitive quick witted organisation, which is destined to live twice as long as it does now, how will it bear the burden of such added years? Leaving aside inquiries into Time, and Space Sense--(and what enormous faculty our minds must have that can supply these)--let us go on to Mr. J. McKeen Cattell's analysis of memory--which is perhaps the most interesting of all to the student of mind--the analysis of memory, attention and association of ideas. Just as the eye can only see (attend to) a certain number of vibrations, for if the requisite amount is added to, the result is blankness, darkness, so the mind can only attend to a certain amount of complexity--add to the complexity and attention ceases, but, a certain degree of complexity is necessary to produce any conscious attention at all. In experiments with a Metronome and the ticking of a watch, it is found the attention at certain intervals gets weaker--from 2 to 3 seconds. The impression produced by the ticking of the watch is less distinct, it seems to disappear and then is heard again. "This is not from fatigue in the sense organ," but apparently represents "a natural rhythm in consciousness or attention," which interferes with the accuracy of attention. What a suggestive fact this is! Have we not all at times, felt an inexplicable difficulty in listening and attending to certain speakers, which may perhaps be explained by a difference between the rhythm of our own consciousness, and that of the voice of the speaker. In Association of Ideas the time that it takes for one idea to suggest another has been determined, but of course, it must be the average time, for people differ enormously in the speed in which ideas occur to them. It is impossible to allude here to more points, but in the same interesting article Mr. Mck Cattell considers it proved that "experimental methods can be applied to the study of mind, and that the positive results are significant," and he hopes, "one day, we shall have as accurate and complete a knowledge of mind as we have of the physical world." Beyond this knowledge of mind as a machine, the Psychologist goeth not. He ends, and what do we know more as to what mind is? Philosophy properly so-called, begins here or ought to begin. In science we experiment widely and constantly with mind and arrive at some knowledge of its workings and capacities; we learn occupation with the mind itself as a subject for observation, and we practise a self-analysis, which adds to the sum of general knowledge. Through this study we know more about our senses and their faculties, more of our own tendencies and idiosyncrasies, and in what direction they tend. We are on the way to solve some such problems as: "the influences of early impressions, the ingredients of character, the varying susceptibility to mental anguish, the conquest of the will," and many another. These are beginnings--there is much more to attain to, if we would know mind even scientifically, for we have only attacked its breast works, but we are on the right road, as we believe, towards this most interesting of all sciences--Mind Science. From Philosophy we do not as yet know definitely that mind _is_, or what it is, or why it is. The psychologist accepts the word mind, but it is not accepted as a _philosophical_ term; it is called Consciousness, Being, Ego, and anything else but mind. Notwithstanding, we all feel what we mean by the word. Though the senses divide the non-ego, the world outside us, into five separate parcels, things seen, things heard, things smelt, things touched, things tasted, there is a faculty of unifying, a sensation of unity in us, which makes us conscious of all these separate sensations as forming a whole in any object which comes into our consciousness. Kant has given this unifying faculty, or sensation, a long name, which does not make it any clearer. What is this inner power, which unifies sensations and how does it come? In some way the mind supplies it to its mental states or consciousness. And _within_ us this unifying faculty, which we call Mind, is felt through the infinite number of modifications of sensations or mental states, for we are aware that what we call a mind exists in us. It is this consciousness of unity in complexity, which makes memory and identity possible. The exploded idea of mental substance and its attributes, held by the School men, was probably suggested to them by the consciousness of this mental unity. In our mentality there is something which makes each one say "My mind," not "My minds." Now it is this unity of sensations, which is lost, and the mind with it, if the ego is divided as Professor W. James divides it into many egos such as--the inner self--the complex self--the social self--the intellectual self--and so on. For how does that help us? It is the same unknown quantity in different circumstances. The self that ponders in thought, knows itself as the same that talks in society. The strange power of being able to analyse ourselves at all is one of the strangest things about us. What a world of difference lies between the unconscious self of the animal and this conscious self of man! Professor James' brilliantly written chapter of investigation into the self leaves us amused rather than enlightened. Against all arguments to the contrary, we should refuse to give up the word mind, whether it is considered vague or defective in any or every way. Mind in all its complexity, is what we have to investigate scientifically. Mind in all its complexity is what the philosopher has to explain, not mind, analysed into simple acts of consciousness. The hypnotist talks of double, treble and quadruple personalities with totally different characteristics "under suggestion," but it helps us little for we have not yet defined mind on its sane and normal sides. Considering the acuteness and the sanity of the French mind, it is somewhat strange that the French psychologists should devote themselves chiefly to the study of the insane and hysterical. Philosophy, though it gives us soaring thoughts, grand speculations, and metaphysical schemes, from Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, to Herbert Spencer, and Mr. Mallock, cannot give us any knowledge in which they mutually agree. Mr. Mallock sums up philosophy as a necessity to the mind. We _must_ believe in some theory of mind, some religion, some philosophy, else life is dreary and unlivable. This appears to be the result of his book "The Veil of the Temple," and this is simply the doctrine of utility. But no philosopher, can tell us why mind works on certain lines and not on others, because they cannot tell us definitely that they _know_ what mind is. Mind is a function of _Matter: Matter_ is a function of thought: Mind is Noumenon the unseen and unknown, as contrasted with Phenomena the seen and known; the universe, the creation of the mind; the mind, the product of the universe. All these ideas and many others so widely differing can none of them receive a demonstrable proof;--these contrary statements show how far we are from possessing any real knowledge of what mind is. After all that has been written, elaborated and imagined, do we actually _know_ more than Omar Khayam knew?

"There was the door to which I found no key; There was the veil through which I could not see; Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was--and then no more of Thee and Me."

Philosophy is still powerless to tell us what mind is; the self, the ego always vanishes as we seem to be nearing it, it always eludes our deepest probings--we only demonstrate our failure in regard to our knowledge of it. All this is true, but should we therefore despair? If we are born with the record on the brain of the inexorable desire to _know_, the very failure should stimulate us to further, and greater, and more fruitful questionings.

II.

CONTRASTS.

CARLYLE, GEORGE ELIOT, MAZZINI, BROWNING,

All contrasts drawn between writers, and thinkers should have for aim the setting forth of some striking and fundamental difference in thought, and it would be hard to find anywhere a greater and a more vivid contrast than that between Carlyle and George Eliot. For George Eliot's philosophy was centred in the well-being of the Race.

Carlyle's was summed up in the worth of the Individual.

George Eliot teaches in prose and still more in poetry that Personality, with its hopes, loves, faiths, aspirations, must all be relinquished, and its agonies and pains endured, should Humanity gain by the sacrifice and the endurance.

She considers the Individual as part of collective humanity, and that he does not live for himself, he has no continuance of personal life, he has no permanence, except as a living influence on the Race. This is the Positivist creed, the Racial Creed.

Beyond the influence that it exerts, spiritual personality is doomed. It is not humanity in God but humanity in itself which is to exist from age to age, solely in the memory of succeeding generations.

"Oh may I join the Choir Invisible Of those immortal dead, who live again In minds made better by their presence."

Permanence and continuance and immortality are in the race alone. George Eliot's strong accentuation of the race is the Gospel of annihilation to the individual. Yet the most personal and imaginative of poets has treated this lofty altruism in his strange, sad, beautiful poem of "The Pilgrims," with a fervour greater even than that of George Eliot.

Here are two stanzas:

"And ye shall die before your thrones be won. Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun Shall move and shine without us and we lie Dead; but if she too move on earth and live, But if the old world with the old irons rent, Laugh and give thanks, shall we not be content? Nay we shall rather live, we shall not die, Life being so little and Death so good to give."

"Pass on then and pass by us, and let us be. For what life think ye after life to see? And if the world fare better will ye know? And if men triumph, who shall seek you and say?"

"Enough of light is this for one life's span. That all men born are mortal, but not Man: And we men bring death lives by night to sow, That man may reap and eat and live by day." --SWINBURNE.

Turning from the moral grandeur of self-abnegation that fills the philosophy of humanity, we feel the contrast of strong human personality, which animates us with an inspiring sensation as we listen to the prophet of individualism.

Few can have read Carlyle's writings in their youth, without having experienced an indescribable and irresistible stimulation, to accomplish some real work, to make some strenuous endeavour "before the night cometh." Carlyle's contempt for sloth, stings; his bitter words are a tonic, they scourge, encourage, and at times plead with poetic fervour. "Think of living. Thy life wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of earth is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. _It is thy own; it is all thou hast to front Eternity with._ Work then like a star unhasting and unresting."

The man's soul, naked through sloth, or clothed through works, has to meet its doom, and to bear it as it best can. For Carlyle ignored the collective view of mankind, the single soul had to prostrate itself before the Supreme Power. This Supreme Power was almost as vague (to him) as George Eliot's Permanent Influence is to us. For Carlyle did not believe "that the Soul could enter into any relations with God, and in the sight of God it was nothing." There is nothing singular in this. The religious, but independent-minded Joubert thought "it was not hard to know God, provided one did not force oneself to define Him," and deprecated "bringing into the domain of reason, that which belongs to our innermost feeling."

This very well represented Carlyle's view, but it occupies but a small place in his writings. All his books, his letters, pamphlets, histories, essays show his profound living belief in the worth of individual men, as the salt of the earth, and the young are always greatly influenced by strong personalities. But the mature mind that struggles after catholicity of taste, and wide admiration, receives some rude shocks from Carlyle's treatment of humanity, as Dr. Garnett has well shown in his excellent biography of Carlyle; indeed it has led with some to the parting of the ways. For the hopes and inspirations of poet, reformer, teacher, became in great part to him as "the idle chatter of apes" and "the talk of Fools."

Mazzini's world-wide sympathies, his life of many deaths for his country, were unintelligible to Carlyle, who also described, as "a sawdust kind of talk," John Stuart Mill's expression of belief and interest in reforming and raising the whole social mass of toiling millions.

Bracing and stimulating, as is Carlyle's strong, stern doctrine of independence, of work, and of adherence to Truth for its own sake, we feel the loss his character sustained, through the contempt that grew upon him for the greater part of humanity. The Nemesis of contempt was shown in his inability at last to see even in individuals, the greatest things. Physical force came to be admired by him for itself. From hero-worship, he passed "to strong rulers, and saviours of society."

The worth of the individual, withered and changed, and Carlyle's hopes rested finally on strength alone, just as George Eliot's thoughts centred on the influence human beings exercised on each other, and there is extraordinary beauty in this idea. How striking is her conception of the good we all receive from even the simplest lives, if they have been true lives. "The growing good of the world is partly dependent upon unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs." But some who read her books feel an underlying tone of sadness--a melancholy whisper as of a finality, an inevitable end to all future development, even of the greatest personalities. Many other writers have believed that men live in the world's memory only by what they have done in the world, but George Eliot is definite that this memory is all, that personality has no other chance of surviving. Her hopes rested on being:

"The sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense, So shall I join the Choir Invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world."

Both George Eliot and Carlyle over accentuated one the race, the other the individual.

Mazzini's place in thought was exactly between the two.

He believed in God _and_ Collective Humanity. Humanity in God. He said: "We cannot relate ourselves to the Divine, but through collective humanity. Mr. Carlyle comprehends only the individual; the true sense of the unity of the race escapes him. He sympathises with men, but it is with the separate life of each man, and not their collective life."[3]

Collective labour, according to an educational plan, designed by Providence, was, Mazzini believed, the only possible development of Humanity.