lxx. The book of Joshuah is a necessary continuation and complement of
the Pentateuch.
But here we must stop quoting in detail. Much as we should desire to reproduce Cornill’s own words relating to other Biblical books, want of space precludes even the attempt. Suffice it to say that as in his treatment of the Pentateuch, so every question bearing on Biblical criticism is handled with the skill of the master. At whatever turn we ask information of this book we receive it most abundantly. This is indeed a students book. It stimulates while it instructs. It leads while it describes the road passed over. In the discussion of the critical problems on the Psalms, the prophets Isaiah and Zechariah, on the final collection of the canon, the translation of the Bible and the relation of the different recensions to each other, the historical books as distinct from Chronicles, and Esra, and so forth, every point is treated with a lucidity of style and a fulness of material which is the rare gift of a man who is saturated with his science and loves it for its own sake. This book is destined to rank among the classics. Its earnest study and repeated consultation can therefore be recommended to all who wish to inform themselves about the method and the achievements of the critical schools. The kindred book by Driver, recently published will not make a translation into English of Cornill’s manual less desirable. We take leave from the author with a feeling of great gratitude for the pleasure and the profit we derived from his contribution to the literature of Biblical scholarship. The book is well printed and singularly free from typographical errors.
DR. E. G. HIRSCH.
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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
J. J.
HYPNOTISME, SUGGESTION, PSYCHOTHEROPIE. Études Nouvelles par le _Dr. Bernheim_, Professeur à la Faculté de médécine de Nancy. Paris: 1891. Octave Doin, pp. 518.
The literature of the new science of Hypnotism continues to increase with unabated pace; most of the contributions consist of studies of a few cases or a brief exposition of a single point, in most cases of points relative to the application of hypnotism to disease. The present volume, however, is of special importance not alone because of the authority that Dr. Bernheim’s name brings with it,—but because of the comprehensiveness and the skill and interest of the exposition. It is supplementary to Dr. Bernheim’s former volume, “Suggestive Psychotherapeutics,” (1886-87, English translation, 1889) and reflects the progress that has resulted from continued and systematic observation. The therapeutic interest in it naturally finds most complete representation and about half the volume is devoted to the description of cases cured or benefited by suggestive treatment. Although nervous complaints predominate in these well arranged and well described cases, yet the method is shown applicable to all the ills that flesh is heir to. While this portion of the volume will be of greatest interest to the medical world, the psychologist will find most food for reflection in the first and more theoretical half of the book. He will find there an interesting historical sketch illustrating how processes similar to those now studied as hypnotism have been in use from ancient times; how all the various healers, and the various processes and agencies used by them, involve different modes of application of the one principle of suggestion. “It is the human imagination that works miracles.”
Suggestion is defined as the act by which an idea is introduced in the brain and accepted by it, and thus many of the means by which one person influences another under every day, normal circumstances would be included in the term. Hypnotism is simply one of the most important and efficient methods of producing a state of increased suggestibility. In every day life we have abundant evidence of the tendency of ideas to be realised in actions; with every change in thought and emotion there is associated some motor expression, too subtle perhaps for analysis and description, but still present and significant. Under excitement and nervous strain these motor accompaniments of thought are increased and serve as the basis of the muscle reader’s skill. Again the possibility of disbelief and of recognising the illusory character of a sensation involve the control of higher directing powers; the accumulated experience of the past passes sentence upon the new candidate. If we imagine a condition in which this form of control is abolished, we should have a subject accepting as real almost any idea or sensation that is suggested to him, and expressing freely and unreservedly his acceptance of the same. And this it is that hypnotism does. It builds upon the natural credulity which it is the difficult task of reason to shape and control, and brings into prominence the automatic, subconscious phases of mental action. It does not endow subjects with new faculties or deprive them of their individuality, but shows in a strangely perverted perspective the various faculties and processes that go to build the endlessly complex elements of a personality. This “suggestion” view of hypnotism is the contribution of the Nancy School, and is fast becoming the recognised view of science; one will nowhere find a clearer and more convincing exposition of it than in Dr. Bernheim’s pages.
It is clearly impossible to summarise the various details that make up the body of the volume; but all the important topics are discussed and result in conclusions unusually free as well from vagueness as from narrowness. The processes inducing the state, the proportion of susceptible individuals, the various kinds and stages of hypnotism, its relation to sleep and other normal states, the rôle of memory in hypnotism, the interesting post-hypnotic, negative and retroactive hallucinations, its relation to hysteria, its possible use in crime,—these are some of the chief topics treated. The volume is a valuable contribution to the literature of the subject, reflects its most recent acquisitions, and would well merit a presentation in an English translation.
J. J.
HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. In two volumes; Senses and Intellect, and, Feeling and Will. By _James Mark Baldwin_, M. A., Ph. D., Professor in the University of Toronto. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1891.
These are two books diligently worked out, the former of 343, the latter of 397 pp. They cover almost the entire field of psychology excluding however the treatment of such abnormal states as are Mental Pathology and Hypnotism. The author is a disciple of Dr. McCosh, and is strongly influenced by Wundt, of Leipzig, and Rabier, of Paris; yet he has developed an independent view of the nature of the soul which perhaps comes nearest to that of Prof. William James, of Harvard. The two books are actually two parts of one work, the one complementing the other. The former however is not, as the name suggests, an exposition of the nature of the senses in their relation to or as the basis of the intellect; it is an inquisition into consciousness, sensation, perception, association, imagination, rational thought, and kindred subjects. The latter, after an introduction of 50 pp., characterising the mechanism of the nervous system, treats of feeling as sensation, as pleasure and pain, as interest and belief, as emotion, and passes over to the subject of a motor consciousness, or will, ending in a chapter on volition.
Professor Baldwin states that “after we enter consciousness we find a principle of apperception to which there is no analogy in physiological integration,” adding in a foot-note: “Since the section of the ‘Unity of Composition’ theory was written, Professor James has published an acute criticism in substantial agreement with it, and the passage quoted makes reference to the sixth chapter of Professor James’s Psychology in which he rejects the so-called ‘mind-stuff,’ theory, declaring a self-compounding of mental facts to be inadmissible and proposes at last what he calls ‘soul-theory.’” Professor James in this chapter commits the mistake indicated in the editorial of the last number of _The Monist_ (p. 248) that he considers things as things in themselves and then looks for a relation producing principle. He says:
“In the parallelogram of forces, the ‘forces’ themselves do not combine into the diagonal resultant; a _body_ is needed on which they may impinge, to exhibit their resultant effect.”
“Take a sentence of a dozen words, and take twelve men and tell to each one word. Then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch, and let each think of his word as intently as he will; nowhere will there be a consciousness of the whole sentence.”
Thus Professor W. James is in need of what he calls a “medium.” He says:
“_All the ‘combinations’ which we actually know are EFFECTS, wrought by the units said to be ‘combined,’ UPON SOME ENTITY OTHER THAN THEMSELVES._ Without this feature of a medium or vehicle, the notion of combination has no sense.”
We observe that feelings which originate through the impressions of the outer world upon some sentient organism, enter into relations to each other, as naturally as things are in relations, or under certain circumstances will enter more closely into relations with each other. The “soul” accordingly is postulated by Professor James as a medium to combine the effects of the manifold brain processes in order to “escape the absurdity of supposing feelings which exist separately and then ‘fuse together’ by themselves. The separateness is in the brain-world, on this theory, and the unity in the soul world, and the only trouble that remains to haunt us is the metaphysical one of understanding how one sort of world or existent thing can affect or influence another at all.” This is dualism and we suppose that Professor James is conscious of it.
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UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR PHYSIOLOGISCHEN MORPHOLOGIE DER THIERE. II. ORGANBILDUNG UND WACHSTHUM. By Dr. _Jacques Loeb_. Mit 2 Tafeln in Lithographie und 9 Figuren im Text. Würzburg: Georg Hertz. 1892.
Dr. Jacques Loeb formerly of Zürich and lately returned from the Zoological station at Naples has been appointed Professor at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. Former publications of his were reviewed in _The Monist_ I, No. 2, p. 300. The present pamphlet is a continuance of his investigations in physiological morphology. Some of his experiments are made with _Antennularia antennina_ (a hydroid polyp) and the author describes how without mutilation, simply by giving the creature a fixed position he succeeded in making it develop certain organs in certain places, thus proving gravitation to be an important factor in determining the growth of certain limbs. Dr. Loeb adds a few articles on the dependence of the longitudinal growth and also of the regeneration of Tubularia upon the concentration of the salt-water. His experiments with _Ciona intestinalis_ (a solitary ascidia) prove that (1) a section in the side of the oral orifice as well as of the anus will cause the formation of ocelli on the margin of the section, (2) after an extirpation of the central nervous system the reflexes continue although with a higher threshold of the stimulus, and (3) the ciona is capable of developing the central nervous system again.
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DAS DASEIN ALS LUST, LEID, UND LIEBE. Die altindische Weltanschauung in neuzeitlicher Darstellung. Ein Beitrag zum Darwinismus. Mit 2 Tondrucken, 24 Zeichnungen und 10 Tabellen. By Dr. _Hübbe-Schleiden_. Braunschweig: C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1891.
The author of this book is Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, editor of _The Sphinx_, a monthly magazine published in Germany which professes to “lay down historically and experimentally the supersensible World-Conception upon a monistic basis.” Love of Mysticism is the main feature of _The Sphinx_ as well as Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book. _The Sphinx_ contains reports of cases of telepathy and is quite serious in investigating the spook of a haunted house. The present book contains the author’s confession of faith. The symbols by which he depicts his world-conception reveal a cabalistic taste, and we believe that the illustrations will be rather repugnant to the man of science, as they give the impression of fantasticism. The main idea of the book is to modernise the old Hindoo view that “Kama” desire or _Lust_ is the ground of all being, as is said in the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad (IV, 4, 5): “Man consists entirely of desire (_Kama_); as is his desire, so is his will (_Kratu_); as is his will, so is his life (_Karma_, i. e., activity); as is his life, so is his fate.”
Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden rejects the Hindoo view of a migration of soul in so far as it suggests the idea of something personal; he prefers to speak of a transformation of soul. This, he says, has been and it may be called “metaphysical Darwinism”, and we must confess that the nucleus of the idea touches the most vital point of all the problems of life. We cannot explain ethics and the ethical instinct of man without taking into consideration that man lives and aspires for something that will outlast his individual existence. The author says: “Why do you strive for something higher, for perfection, for completion or whatever your aim may be called? Why all that, if you imagine that your individuality has only this one life upon earth and you can realise only a very small part of what you strive for? Why all your trouble, if the main thing is in vain?” We agree with the author that our moral instinct, our ideals and aspirations which are most powerful realities in life point to a life beyond the grave, they indicate that death is no finality and evolution teaches us that our souls actually continue to exist. Our souls in their individual features are parts only of the whole evolution of our race and these very individual features of our souls can be and will be preserved in the future generations.
Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book is characteristic of a strange tendency of our time to combine the results of modern science with the old notions of occultism. There is in it a psychological and ethical truth overgrown with a fanciful imagination.
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MAX MÜLLER AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. A Criticism. By _William Dwight Whitney_, Professor in Yale University. New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1892.
The Professors W. D. Whitney and F. Max Müller are not on good terms. They do not only disagree on several fundamental and many minor points, concerning the science of language, but their warfare, as is well known, is at the same time of a personal nature. The present little volume is a criticism of the new edition of Max Müller’s “Science of Language.” The great Yale philologist recognising that this work of his antagonistic Oxford colleague “is still the principal and most authoritative text-book of that study,” and noting that “its author has gained no new light from the criticisms that have been made upon his work,” feels called upon to warn the reader that “it may not be trusted where it is untrustworthy and so do harm to the science which it was intended to help.” The title of the book, according to Professor Whitney, ought to be “Facts and Fancies in Regard to Language and Other Related Subjects.”
Schleicher says: “Languages are natural organisms which, without being determinable by the will of man, grew and developed themselves in accordance with fixed laws.... Its method is on the whole and in general the same with that of the other natural sciences.” Professor Whitney censures Max Müller for calling the first part of Schleicher’s proposition “sheer mythology,” and then adopting the inference made therefrom considering the science of language as a physical science. Now it is true that the expression “organism” must not be taken literally; languages are not animals or plants, but they have some quality that is comparable to animals and plants. Their life and the development of their life is in many respects analogous to the life of organisms. Professor Whitney regards language as “a body of conventional signs for ideas” and protests against Prof. Max Müller’s usage of the word “conventional” as if it implied “a convention of people gathered to discuss and decide on the words and forms by which conceptions should be represented.” In contradistinction to Max Müller who holds that philology is a physical science, Professor Whitney regards it as an historical science. “Physical science,” says Max Müller, “deals with the works of God, historical science with the works of man.” Thus optics is a physical science, painting an historical science. Whitney declares that individuals initiate changes and the community either accepts and uses them, making them language by its use or rejects and annuls them by refusing to use them. In one word Max Müller says language is φύσει, a product of nature, and Whitney says it is θέσει, an institution of man. We believe that Professor Whitney stands almost alone in his conception of language.
Another no less important point is Professor Whitney’s objection to Prof. Max Müller’s proposition of the Identity of Language and Thought. Here Professor Whitney will find many supporters for his case; but we must add that Prof. Max Müller does not exactly mean what he says. He means by identity inseparableness. It is not so much Max Müller’s position that should be attacked as his misleading terminology. Concerning the origin of language Professor Whitney finds an instructive parallel in the beginnings of writing which were mutually intelligible signs, or in the written language of mathematics. “So we do no longer see,” he says, “the two and three strokes in our figures 2 and 3, although they are really there disguised from view.” This is a good simile, and undoubtedly _cum grano salis_ true. But it is rather strange that Professor Whitney should find Noiré’s theory of the origin of language “utterly fantastic.”
These are fundamental differences. There are some more, less important points such as the etymology of king being the Sanskrit _janaka_. Max Müller proposes a very improbable reason for the change of meaning in the Lat. _fagus_, O. Germ. _boka_ (beech), Greek _phegos_, Lat. _quercus_, and Germ. _foraha_ (fir). Professor Whitney might have mentioned that a more probable reason for this change has been proposed of late by those who seek the home of the Aryans in Europe. A migrating people would naturally have called in their old home the beech, in their new the oak “a tree with edible fruit.” The same method is applicable to explain the change of meaning in _forah-a-quercus_ which means in northern countries a fir and in Italy an oak.
Professor Whitney sums up his case as follows (p. 77): he finds “language study ... declared on transparently false grounds, to be a physical science, and language an existence which man had no part in making and changing; dialectic growth misunderstood, families of language regarded as exceptional, and a ‘Turanian’ barathrum arranged to catch all little-known varieties of speech; antecedent unity of dialect taught in one case and denied in another; a word held to be killed by the least mispronunciation; _conventional_ explained to mean ‘voted by a convention’; thought and its expression viewed as inseparable, and even identical; the origin of language seemingly ascribed to an instinctive ding-dong of the tongue—and so on; to complete the list would be almost to give a table of principal contents of the two volumes—and a style of discussion used throughout which indicated that the author was playing with his subject rather than investigating it seriously.... The book is not science, but literature. Taken as literature, it is of high rank, as the admiration of the public sufficiently testifies; its author has a special gift for interesting statement and illustration, for lending a charm to the subjects he discusses; and he carries captive the judgments of his hearers and of many of his readers. He is a born _littérateur_.”
Professor Whitney concludes: “Now as heretofore, I rest my defense on not the just intent alone, but the real substantial justice of my criticisms; if they are unfounded, I deserve reprehension for making them; if they are right, then there is nothing, either in the degree of importance of the subjects to which they relate, or in the personality against whom they are directed, to call for their condemnation.”
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SEIFENBLASEN. Moderne Märchen. By _Kurd Lasswitz_. Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss. 1890.
“Märchen,” in the province of science, we are inclined to believe are a prize problem for our modern poets. Who will solve it? Kurd Lasswitz has made an attempt and considering the great difficulty of the problem, we are not inclined to criticise him. The author, who has worked in scientific fields and has proved his ability as a close student, exhibits in these “soap-bubbles” a fertile imagination and poetic invention. Most of his sketches fall short of the ideal märchen of science as we conceive it, but their reading is suggestive and deserves the attention of those whose disposition favors the creation of a middle ground between science and poetry.
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FOOTNOTES:
[66] Ziehen declares (p. 129) that the problem of physiological psychology consists in reducing the different forms of thinking up to the most complex argumentation to simple associations of ideas and its laws. Wundt says, that there are many psychical idea-combinations which cannot be explained simply by association of ideas. So, Ziehen continues (p. 130), Wundt assumes above idea associations a special faculty of the soul called apperception, which serves now as attention, now as will, but is in either case a metaphysical faculty of the soul, the active subject which independent of mechanical causality is said to be the cause of these phenomena.—I do not think that anyone who knows Wundt will accept this as a fair representation of his views.
PERIODICALS.
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.
CONTENTS: December, 1891. No. 192
UN PROBLÈME D’ACOUSTIQUE PSYCHOLOGIQUE. By _L. Dauriac_.
LES ORIGINES DE NOTRE STRUCTURE INTELLECTUELLE ET CÉRÉBRALE. II. L’ÉVOLUTIONNISME. By _A. Fouillée_.
LÉONARD DE VINCI ARTISTE ET SAVANT. By _G. Séailles_.
SUR LES DESSINS D’ENFANTS. By _J. Passy_.
SUR UN CAS D’INHIBITION PSYCHIQUE. By _A. Binet_.
CONTENTS: January, 1892. No. 193.
LE PROBLÈME DE LA VIE. By _Dunan_.
LA MALADIE DU PESSIMISME. By _B. Pérez_.
PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS DE CUBA: F. VARELA, J. DE LA LUZ. By _J.-M. Guardia_.
VARIÉTÉS: LE PROBLÈME D’ACHILLE. By _J. Mouret_.
CONTENTS: February, 1892. No. 194.
LES MOUVEMENTS DE MANÈGE CHEZ LES INSECTES. By _A. Binet_.
LE PROBLÈME DE LA VIE (2nd article). By _Dunan_.
PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS DE CUBA (concluded). _J.-M. Guardia_.
REVUE GÉNÉRALE: JUSTICE ET SOCIALISME, D’APRÈS LES PUBLICATIONS RÉCENTES. By _Belot_.
One of the problems of the unique and great work of Carl Stumpf’s “Tonpsychologie” is the subject of L. Dauriac’s essay. The question is when several sounds enter the ear at the same time, the plurality of which is not directly known, do you have your information through an inner sense? Does every unit of the irritation correspond to a distinct unit of sensation? Is there in consciousness a simultaneousness of sensations similarly as outside of consciousness there is a simultaneousness of vibrations? M. Dauriac maintains that Stumpf’s question can be answered only on the ground of metaphysical postulates, and if preconceived solutions are to be excluded, it must be considered as insoluble.
Alfred Fouillée, in his second article on the origin of our intellectual and cerebral structure, which treats on evolutionism, comes to the conclusion that the hypothesis which in the most simple way explains the agreement of thoughts and objects is the doctrine of a radical unity generally called Monism.
J. Passy notes certain characteristic and psychologically interesting features of the drawings of children.
M. A. Binet presents two physiognomical pictures of the same face, one representing disgust or scorn, the other a good-humored and happy smile. The upper parts of both faces are exactly alike and yet the eyes of the former look disdainful while the very same eyes of the latter are full of jest and merriment. This is the fact. M. Binet psychologically interprets the fact as a phenomenon of automatic inhibition. The fact is interesting, but its interpretation seems doubtful.
Charles Dunan discusses the metaphysical aspect of the problem of life.
B. Pérez’s article is a contribution to pathological psychology with special reference to M. Magalhâes’s work on the subject. Pessimism, M. Pérez says, is a disease only if exaggerated, yet he believes that medico-psychological studies which consider the relation between the physical system and morality are very helpful even if carried too far.
M. J.-M. Guardia’s article will have a special interest for Americans. Three men arose in Spain of late, Valentin Almirall, M. L. Mallada, and J.-M. Escudor, who spoke bold and hard words of truth to their country. Cuba is the hen that lays golden eggs for Spain, but the Cubans are treated with great contempt in Spain; and yet the Spaniards are by no means their intellectual superiors, for while Spain is poor in philosophy, Cuba is the only country of Latin America where philosophy has taken root. M. Guardia sketches in the first article the history and philosophy of Don Félix Varélay y Moralès who is the harbinger of the other Spanish-Cuban philosopher, José de la Luz. The second article in the February number treats of the latter (1800-1862) whom Guardia calls the master.
George Mouret with reference to Frontera’s book on Zeno’s argument against motion makes a few remarks concerning the Eleatic sophism about Achilles and the tortoise.
An injury of a thalamus opticus produces in horses and other animals the effect of their making rotatory movements when intending to walk straight on. Forel proved that a similar effect is produced in ants by a lesion of one of their lobes. M. Binet publishes in the present essay his experiments on certain water-beetles, exhibiting diagrams of their normal and abnormal walk. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)
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ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vols. II and III.
CONTENTS: November, 1891. No. 6.
UEBER BRÜCKES THEORIE DES KÖRPERLICHEN SEHENS. By Dr. _C. du Bois-Reymond_.
MEIN SCHLUSSWORT GEGEN WUNDT. By _C. Stumpf_.
ERWIDERUNG. By _O. Flügel_.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
CONTENTS: December, 1891. No. 1.
VERSUCH, DAS PSYCHOPHYSISCHE GESETZ AUF DIE FARBENUNTERSCHIEDE TRICHROMATISCHER AUGEN ANZUWENDEN. By _H. v. Helmholtz_.
UNTERSUCHUNGEN ÜBER BINOKULARES SEHEN MIT ANWENDUNG DES HERINGSCHEN FALLVERSUCHS. By Dr. _Richard Greeff_.
BEMERKUNGEN ZU DEM AUFSATZE VON DR. SOMMER “ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER SPRACHE.” By Prof. _A. Pick_.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
Dr. C. du Bois-Reymond believes that corporeal vision is either produced by one eye running in succession over several places or two eyes viewing two aspects of the object. Mach’s theory of the influence of shade upon the production of the third dimension in vision which affords quite a new and a better explanation of the phenomenon is not mentioned. Stumpf closes his controversy with Wundt with a few remarks in answer to Wundt’s reply (in _Philos. Studien_ VII, pp. 298-327); and Flügel objects to Professor Rehmke’s proposition made in a criticism of Flügel’s book “Die Seelenfrage,” that Herbart’s psychology, being atomism, is at bottom materialism.
Dr. Richard Greeff describes Hering’s apparatus for investigating the cause of binocular vision. Wheatstone believes that the perspective of the two retina pictures produces the effect of corporeality while Brücke declares that it is mainly due to muscle-sensations. Hering sides with Wheatstone, and the experiments as described by Greeff prove that the third dimension is unfailingly perceived whenever the ocular axes diverge, while in other cases the same result is not attained.
Dr. Sommer had presented in a former article the facts of an interesting case of aphasia, (see _The Monist_, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 629) where the patient, his name is Voit, could remember and pronounce words only when writing them. Prof. A. Pick objects to Dr. Sommer’s regarding the case as contrary to our present experience and following two French authorities Ballet and Bernard, adduces cases of Aphasia by right-sided hemiphlegia where patients could read only when they were able to write or represent to themselves the writing motions of their hand. Thus one patient of Charcot could only read print, and not written words “because,” as he said, “it was easier for him to reproduce in his mind the written letter.” This reminds one of the case a deaf-mute who said: “I feel whenever I think of the motions of my fingers although they are perfectly at rest. I see internally an image of my moving fingers.” Professor Pick concludes that the case Voit is a good argument against Max Müller’s proposition of the identity of language and thought. Max Müller however includes in his conception of word any symbol of an idea. The finger motion of a deaf-mute is a word, and the writing motion of Voit is also a word, according to Professor Max Müller’s theory.
Prof. H. v. Helmholtz publishes the tables of his experiments in applying the psycho-physical law upon color differences of trichromatic eyes, and presents the three fundamental colors diagrammatically in an equilateral triangle in the centre of which lies white. A curve winding round this centre shows the relation of the rainbow spectrum in the system of three fundamental colors. The results do not as yet agree with the investigations of A. König and C. Diterici who make similar inquiries with bichromatic eyes. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)
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VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 1.
CONTENTS:
BEITRÄGE ZUR LOGIK. (Erster Artikel.) By _A. Riehl_.
DIE DIMENSIONEN DER WAHRSCHEINLICHKEIT UND DIE EVIDENZ DER UNGEWISSHEIT. By _Ad. Nitsche_.
UEBER DIE FORTSCHREITENDE ENTWICKLUNG DES MENSCHENGESCHLECHTS. II. By _F. Rosenberger_.
ERNST PLATNER’S WISSENSCHAFTLICHE STELLUNG ZU KANT IN ERKENNTNISSTHEORIE UND MORALPHILOSOPHIE. I. By _B. Seligkowitz_.
UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. X. By _A. Marty_.
Prof. A. Riehl begins in this number a series of articles on logic. The first two chapters are (1) concepts and definitions. Riehl distinguishes between a definition and a predicating sentence (_Aussage_), for instance, “Space has three dimensions,” is a mere definition, but “Space is the form of our intuition,” is an _Aussage_. (2) Conceptual sentences and judgments. The former are merely representative and cannot as the latter be said to combine or separate ideas.
Ad. Nitsche criticises Johannes v. Kries’s idea that the calculus of probabilities is admissible only if the chances are equivalent. Equivalent Chances (_gleiche Spielräume_), he objects, are apparently impossible, yet he admits that upon the degree of a knowledge of the conditions will depend the reliability of the probability.
The Object of B. Seligkowitz’s article is to rescue from oblivion a philosopher who especially as a critic of Kant deserves to be better known than he is, Ernst Platner (1744-1818.)
The tenth and concluding article of A. Marty on the origin of language reviews Paul Regnaud’s work _Origine et philosophie du langage_. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)
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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. December, 1891. Vol. IV. No. 2.
CONTENTS:
A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY AMONG THE GREEKS. By _Charles A. Strong_.
STUDIES FROM THE LABORATORY OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. By Prof. _Joseph Jastrow_, Ph. D.
THE SIZE OF SEVERAL CRANIAL NERVES IN MAN AS INDICATED BY THE AREAS OF THEIR CROSS-SECTIONS. By _Henry H. Donaldson_, Ph. D.
VISUALISATION AS A CHIEF SOURCE OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HOBBES, LOCKE, BERKELEY, AND HUME. By _Alexander Fraser_, B. A.
ANATOMICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE BRAIN AND SEVERAL SENSE-ORGANS OF THE BLIND DEAF-MUTE, LAURA DEWEY BRIDGMAN. II. By _Henry H. Donaldson_, Ph. D.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. I. Nervous System. By Prof. _H. H. Donaldson_.
A LABORATORY COURSE IN PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. II. By _E. C. Sanford_.
PSYCHIATRY. PSYCHOSES FOLLOWING ACUTE SURGICAL AND MENTAL AFFECTIONS AND IN MULTIPLE NEURITIS. By _William Noyes_, M. D.
The post mortem examination of Laura Bridgman shows a brain in which the olfactory bulbs and nerves, the optic nerves, the auditory nerves, and possibly the glossopharyngeal, had all been more or less destroyed at their peripheral ends. This destruction caused a degeneration—most marked in the optic nerves—which extended towards the centres and involved them indirectly.... This case represents a maximum loss in these defective senses with a minimum amount of central disturbance, thus offering the very best sort of opportunity for education by way of the surviving senses.... Mental association was for Laura Bridgman limited to various phases of the dermal sensations and the minor and imperfect senses of taste and smell.... The motor centre there had lost some, but not all its associative connections. (Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. January, 1892. Vol. II. NO. 2.
CONTENTS:
THE ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE PAPAL ENCYCLICAL. By _Brother Azarias_.
THE THREE RELIGIONS. By _J. S. Mackenzie_, M. A.
THE ETHICS OF HEGEL. By _Rev. J. Macbride Sterrett_.
A PALM OF PEACE FROM GERMAN SOIL. By _Fanny Hertz_.
AUTHORITY IN THE SPHERE OF CONDUCT AND INTELLECT. By _Prof. H. Nettleship_, Oxford.
DISCUSSIONS AND REVIEWS.
Brother Azarias paraphrases and praises the ethics of the Papal Encyclical. J. S. Mackenzie starts from Kant’s famous remarks that two things fill our minds with reverence, the starry, heavens above and the moral law within. The worship of these two separately and the worship of them in combination are set forth as the three great religions of the world. Fanny Hertz pleads for the abolishment of war. She quotes largely from Bertha Suttner’s novel, “Die Waffen nieder,” and from Friederich’s letters. Authority, according to Professor Nettleship, is “the power which in the sphere of conduct, in the long run determines our practice and in the sphere of intellect in the long run determines our assent.” There are roughly speaking four kinds of authority: (1) the authority of law, (2) the authority of religious bodies, (3) the authority of society or public opinion and (4) the authority of great men. Where is the seat of authority? “For each individual,” Professor Nettleship maintains, “the absolute guide can, in the long run be no other than his own conscience.” The origin of conscience and the criterion whether the voice of conscience be true or not are not explained. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)
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MIND. New Series. No. 1. January, 1892.
CONTENTS:
PREFATORY REMARKS. _The Editor._
THE LOGICAL CALCULUS. (1) General Principles. By _W. E. Johnson_.
THE IDEA OF VALUE. By _S. Alexander_.
THE CHANGES OF METHOD IN HEGEL’S DIALECTIC. (1) By _J. Ellis McTaggart_.
THE LAW OF PSYCHOGENESIS. By _Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan_.
DISCUSSIONS: The Feeling-Tone of Desire and Aversion. By _Prof. H. Sidgwick_. Sur la Distinction entre les Lois ou Axiomes et les Notions. By _George Mouret_.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
W. E. Johnson says: “As a material machine is an instrument for economising the exertion of force, so a symbolic calculus is an instrument for economising the exertion of intelligence. And, employing the same analogy, the more perfect the calculus, the smaller would be the amount of intelligence applied as compared with the results produced.” He continues:
“But as the exertion of _some_ force is necessary for working the machine, so the exertion of _some_ intelligence is necessary for working the calculus.”
Here we feel inclined to stop our author. That which makes of a certain amount of metal, brass, and wood a machine, is the form in which they are composed, and this form is instrumental in using a certain amount of energy for doing a certain kind of work. Intelligence is not analogous to force but to the form of force. Not intelligence is necessary to run the instrument of intelligence, but some power, some force, some energy, and this power needed for running the instrument of intelligence, as it exists in man, is generally called will. So we are at variance with Mr. W. S. Johnson from the outset. Mr. Johnson from his standpoint considers it “important to examine the kind and degree of intelligence that are demanded in the employment of any symbolic calculus. It will appear that the _logical_ calculus stands in a unique relation to intelligence; for it aims at exhibiting, in a non-intelligent form, those same intelligent principles that are actually required for working it.”
We abstain here from discussing the details of this highly suggestive article which contains much that is of interest to logicians. The author claims especially with regard to his interpretation of the universal and particular that his results exactly correspond with the interpretation given by Dr. Venn and Mr. Peirce, and worked out by Dr. Keynes.
The Germans distinguish between _Urtheil_ and _Beurtheilung_, the first being judgment in general, the latter a judgment that declares something to possess value from the view of truth, beauty or goodness. In this sense Mr. S. Alexander deals with the idea of value. He states two main principles. (1) That value is “the efficiency of a conscious agent to promote the efficiency of society” and this, the author says, was maintained indirectly in opposition to the view that value was determined by pleasure. (2) That value is itself no something separable from other mental facts by a wide gulf, but was itself a fact of a purely natural order. “Sollen” is one kind of “Sein.”
Mr. J. Ellis McTaggart in discussing the changes of method in Hegel’s Dialectic arrives at a conclusion which according to the author must be admitted to be quite un-Hegelian. Hegel apparently regarded the procession of the categories with its advance through oppositions and reconciliations as presenting absolute truth. From this the author dissents, “for,” he says: “the true process of thought is one in which each category springs out of the one before it, and not by contradicting it, but as the expression of its deepest nature, while it, in its turn, is seen to have its deepest reality in again passing on to the one after it. There is no contradiction no opposition, and consequently no reconciliation. There is only development, the rendering explicit what was implicit, the growth of the seed to the plant. In the actual course of the dialectic this is never attained. It is an ideal which is never quite realised, and from the nature of the case never can be quite realised. In the dialectic there is always opposition, and therefore always reconciliation. We do not go straight onward, but more or less from side to side. It seems inevitable, therefore, to conclude that the dialectic does not completely and perfectly express the nature of thought.”
Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan starting from the proposition that “the business of consciousness is the control of action” shows that “we identify ourselves rather with the action of our control centres than with our lower animal instincts. Through experience we learn, and habits being formed by individual repetition become innate.” Professor Morgan reviews use-inheritance natural selection, sexual selection, the law of beauty, and conduct and verification with regard to psychogenesis. “Our nature,” he says, “is intellectual, æsthetic, moral, and sensitive”:
“The false is rejected as incongruous to our nature as intellectual; the ugly is avoided as incongruous to our nature as æsthetic; the wrong is shunned as incongruous to our nature as moral; so is the painful, so far as possible, avoided as incongruous to our nature as sensitive.... The guidance of pleasure and pain is of great importance—so great that some are found to argue that in moral matters we are influenced solely by considerations of happiness.... Only by extending the meaning of the words pleasure and pain so as to be coextensive with what I have here termed congruous and incongruous can it be said that our actions and our thoughts are determined by pleasure and pain.” (London: Williams & Norgate.)
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I, No. 1. January, 1892.
CONTENTS of No. 1.
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND IDEALISM. By Prof. _John Watson_.
PSYCHOLOGY AS SO-CALLED “NATURAL SCIENCE.” By Prof. _George T. Ladd_.
ON SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE CHINESE MUSICAL SYSTEM. By _Benj. Ives Gilman_.
REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.
CONTENTS of No. 2:
PSYCHOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND METAPHYSICS. By Prof. _Andrew Seth_.
A PLEA FOR PSYCHOLOGY AS A “NATURAL SCIENCE.” By Prof. _William James_.
ON SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE CHINESE MUSICAL SYSTEM. II. By _Benj. Ives Gilman_.
DISCUSSIONS: Dr. Münsterberg’s Theory of Mind and Body and its Consequences. By _Charles A. Strong_.
REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.
This is a new magazine which will be an additional proof that the philosophical interest in America is by no means so poor as the inhabitants of the old world generally suppose it to be. The character of the journal, it is to be expected, will be in harmony with the publications of its scholarly editor, Prof. J. G. Schurmann, whose position is clearly set forth in a little volume of his “Belief in God,” in which he conceives God in three ways (1) as the cause or ground of the world (2) as the realising purpose of the world, and (3) as the father of spirits.
Professor Watson reviews in an elaborate article Edward Caird’s work “The Critical Philosophy of Emanuel Kant.” “The philosophy of Kant,” says Watson, “was accepted at first by submissive disciples, but it had afterwards to submit to a severe process of criticism which culminated in the Absolute Idealism of Hegel. The synthesis of Kant, as based upon an untenable opposition of the phenomenal and the real, was weighed and found wanting.... We must be grateful to any one who helps us, not merely to see Kant, but to see beyond him. This is the task which Professor Caird, in his exhaustive work on the Critical Philosophy, has set himself to perform,” and adds Watson, “he has done it in a way that leaves nothing to be desired.”
Professor Ladd criticises Professor James’s Psychology as so-called natural science.
“What we wish to have in the name of cerebral psychology, is a description, in terms of a comprehensible theory of molecular physics; and, also, a statement of the formulæ which define the relations between the molecular changes and the ‘corresponding’ orders of mental phenomena. But this is precisely what Professor James avoids doing, even to the extent which so-called ‘nerve-physiology’ makes possible. And, nothing worthy of the name ‘science’ _is_ possible for any one in this branch of cerebral psycho-physics.”
Professor James replies to the criticism in the second number of _The Philosophical Review_. He says:
“Psychology is to-day hardly more than what physics was before Galileo, what chemistry was before Lavoisier. It is a mass of phenomenal description, gossip, and myth, including, however, real material enough to justify one in the hope that its study may become worthy of the name of natural science at no very distant day. I wished, by treating Psychology _like_ a natural science, to help her to become one.”
Professor Ladd is a transcendentalist and Professor James has great expectations of the work inaugurated by the Society for Psychical Research.
Theoretically they stand much nearer than practically, as well indicated by Professor James’s remark:
“In Professor Ladd’s own book on ‘Physiological Psychology,’ that ‘real being, proceeding to unfold powers that are _sui generis_, according to laws of its own,’ for whose recognition he contends, plays no organic part in the work, and has proved a mere stumbling block to his biological reviewers.”
He adds in a foot-note:
“I mean that such a being is quite barren of particular consequences. Its character is only known by its reactions on the signals which the nervous system gives, and these must be gathered by observation after the fact. If only it were subject to successive reincarnations, as the theosophists say it is, so that we might guess what sort of a body it would unite with next, or what sort of persons it had helped to constitute previously, those would be great points gained. But even those gains are denied us; and the real being is, for practical purposes, an entire superfluity, which a _practical_ psychology can perfectly well do without.”
Andrew Seth, the well-known coryphæus of philosophy and psychology at Edinburgh, presses the importance of distinguishing the different standpoints of psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics. Locke, Berkeley, Hume and other English as well as Continental thinkers “speak sometimes from one point of view, sometimes from the other without being aware that the two points of view are different.”
“Psychology, assuming the existence of a subject or medium of consciousness, seeks to explain, mainly by the help of association or processes practically similar, how out of the come-and-go of conscious states, there are evolved such subjective facts as perceptions, the belief in an independent real world, and the idea of the Ego or subject himself.... Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate nature of the reality which reveals itself alike in the consciousness which knows and the world which is known.... The epistemological thing-in-itself to be identified with the metaphysical essence.... The problem of knowledge and the Real, is the question which Epistemology has to face.” (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co.)
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VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[67] Vol. III. No. 11. January, 1892.
CONTENTS:
POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. Part V. Sociology. By _B. Tchitcherin_.
COUNT GIACOMO LEOPARDI AND HIS PESSIMISM. Part IV. Continued from No. 10 of this review. (Conclusion.) By _V. Stein_.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF NATURE. (Conclusion.) By _M. Menzhir_.
J. V. KIRYEBSKII AND THE ORIGIN OF MUSCOVITE SLAVOPHILISM. Public lecture delivered November 20, 1891, for the benefit of the rural districts suffering from the bad harvests. By _Paul Vinogradoff_.
FOUILLÉ AND THE METAPHYSICS OF THE FUTURE. Part III. General estimate of Fouillé’s views. Continued from No. 10 of this review. (Conclusion) By _Aleksei Vnedenskii_.
TELEPATHY. To be concluded in the next number. By _M. Petrovo-Solovo_. [This is a review of the publications of and the work done by the Society for Psychical Research in England.]
SPECIAL PART: (1) Wundt’s System of Philosophy. By _K. Ventzel_. (2) Hegel’s Ontology. By _N. P. Hilyaroff-Platonoff_. New Researches on Plato. By _A. Kozloff_.
CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. Review of Russian and Foreign Periodicals. Book Reviews. Bibliographical Index of recent Philosophical works. Answer to an anonymous letter received by N. Strachoff on the subject of his article: “Opinions concerning L. N. Tolstoï.” By _N. Strachoff_. Transactions of the Moscow Psychological Society. (Moscow, 1892.)
FOOTNOTES:
[67] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._
VOL. II. JULY, 1892. NO. 4.
THE MONIST.
OUR MONISM.
THE PRINCIPLES OF A CONSISTENT, UNITARY WORLD-VIEW.
The question, What are the essential features of Monism? was brought home to me when I read in the last number of _The Monist_ the critical remarks made with reference to the new edition of my “Anthropogeny.” I shall here endeavor briefly to draw up the outlines of my conception of the world in a manner which will indicate the most characteristic features of my views. Thus both the agreements with and the divergences from the position editorially upheld in _The Monist_ will plainly appear.
As is the case with the majority of philosophical differences, so also in the present instance I find that the divergences which exhibit themselves in our respective unitary conceptions of the world are in part only apparent and in part occasioned by the divergent significances of our fundamental ideas. But this will, perhaps, be made clearer by the following methodically arranged eight theses.
I. MONISM.
Like all general concepts of fundamental scope, that of monism also is liable to different definitions and divergent modifications,—the natural result of individual differences of subjective conception. In the determinate sense in which monism is at present employed by the majority of philosophers and physical inquirers, the sense which I believe I was the first to establish in 1866 in my “General Morphology” (Vol. I, p. 105), it denotes a unitary or _natural_ conception of the world, in opposition to a _supernatural_ or mystical one, that is, in opposition to _dualism_. For us, accordingly, there exists (in the sense of Goethe) _no_ opposition whatsoever between nature and mind, between World and God. Mental existences, “spirits,” outside nature, or in opposition to nature, do not exist. What are commonly termed the “mental sciences,”—for example, philology, history, and philosophy,—are in reality simply a part of _physical philosophy_, of _Natur-philosophie_. The latter discipline embraces, in our opinion, the entire body of human knowledge; it is based upon _empiricism_, on the experiences, the observations, and the experiments of physical inquiry; but it does not become _philosophy_ until it has brought together and united its empiric products, abstracted general laws from its isolated experiential facts, and _synthetised_ the isolated results which _analysis_ has empirically ascertained.
II. MECHANICALISM.
Since an early date, this important fundamental concept has frequently been used in three different and divergent senses, namely:
_A._ In its widest sense, as synonymous with _monism_; wherein mechanical causes (_causæ efficientes_), in the sense of Kant, are assumed as the sole effective causes and are placed in opposition to the teleological causes (_causæ finales_) in the sense of dualism. “Mechanical conception of the world” is in this sense synonymous with “monistic conception of the world.”
_B._ In its more restricted sense, as a universal _motion_-principle of physics, so that, for example, the postulated ether-vibrations of optics, of electricity, and so forth, as well as the grosser material oscillations of acoustics, heat, and so forth, are designated as mechanical processes subject to definite laws. “Mechanical natural philosophy,” in this sense, is identical with _physics_.
_C._ In its narrowest sense, as that _branch_ of physics which deals with the grosser and visible processes of _motion_; as gravitation, locomotion, and the phoronomy of organisms. Mechanics, in this the most restricted sense, is viewed as opposed to optics, acoustics, etc., as the usages of the schools indicate.
Since, now, the phrases “mechanical laws” and “mechanical explanation,” at the present day even, are frequently understood in these three distinct senses, no end of misunderstandings arise. Such misunderstandings may be best avoided, perhaps, by retaining the notion of mechanics in its narrowest (_C_) sense, and by substituting _physics_ for the next narrower sense (_B_) and _monism_ for its most extended sense (_A_).
III. PSYCHISM.
In exactly the same way as the idea of mechanicalism, so also that of psychism is employed in a three-fold divergent sense. As in the former case _motion_, so here _feeling_ is conceived, now as a universal world-principle, now simply as a vital activity of all organisms, now simply as the particular mental activity of man.
_A._ In its widest sense: _Panpsychism_. All matter is ensouled, because all natural bodies known to us possess determinate chemical properties, that is to say react uniformly and by law when subjected to the determinate chemical (i. e. molecular-mechanical) influences of other bodies: _chemical affinity_. Simplest example: sulphur and quicksilver rubbed together form cinnabar, a new body of entirely different properties. This is possible only on the supposition that the molecules (or atoms) of the two elements if brought within the proper distance, mutually _feel_ each other, by attraction move towards each other; on the decomposition of a simple chemical compound the contrary takes place: repulsion. (Empedocles’s doctrine of the “love and hatred of atoms.”)
_B._ In its more restricted sense: _Biopsychism_. The _organisms_ alone are regarded as “ensouled,” because here the chemical processes are more complicated and more striking (producing motions in cyclically repeated succession) than in the case of the so-called “dead matter” of the inorganic bodies. In particular does organic “irritability” appear here as a higher form of the physical reaction called “_Auslösung_” [the setting free, disengagement], and “soul-activity” (reflexes) again as a higher form of irritability. However, all the phenomena of organic life ultimately admit of being reduced to “mechanical” (or “physico-chemical”) processes that differ from the processes of the inorganic world only in point of degree or quantitatively, not qualitatively. (“General Morphology,” I, Chap. V; VII, pp. 109-238. “Natural Creation,” VIII, First Edition, Lecture XV.)
_C._ In its narrowest sense: _Zoopsychism_. Irritability, or universal organic soul-activity, such as is the attribute of all organisms, (identical with “life,”) reaches a higher stage through abstraction, through the formation of _ideas_. _Feeling_ and _will_ become more distinctly separated. This real soul-life, which is the attribute only of the higher animals, passes through a long succession of different stages of development, the most perfect of which is the soul of man. The so-called “freedom of the will” is apparent only, as each single volitional action is determined by a chain of precedent actions which ultimately rest either upon _heredity_ (propagation) or upon _adaptation_ (nutrition). As these last are (“mechanically”) reducible to molecular motions, the same also holds true of the former.
IV. THEISM.
The idea of god that alone appears to be logically compatible with monism, is pantheism (or “cosmotheism”) in the sense of Goethe and Spinoza. God according to this view is identical with the sum-total of the force of the universe, which is inseparable from the sum-total of the matter of the universe. In opposition to this view stands _anthropotheism_. This is the outcome of dualism, which places God as a personal being in opposition to the “world” created by him, and consequently is always forced in its reasonings to resort to anthropomorphic expedients.
V. MATERIALISM.
The most important differences of form in which this much misunderstood and variously interpreted movement of philosophy has presented itself, may be classed as follows:
_A._ In its most extended sense: as synonymous with _monism_ (or with mechanicalism). All the phenomena of the world are founded upon material processes, upon _motions_ (mechanicalism) or upon _feelings_ (psychism), both of which, as fundamental qualities, are inseparable from matter. Immaterial forces or immaterial “spirits” (minds) are unknown to us. As Goethe once said, “Mind can never exist and act without matter, matter never without mind.”
_B._ In its more restricted sense: originally matter alone exists and creates _secondarily_ force (or “mind”). The fallacy of this view lies in its regarding the two things “matter and force” as disjoint and separate. According to our view the two are inseparably connected,—united in each atom from the very first.
VI. SPIRITUALISM.
This phase also of the world-conception has been the subject of the same misunderstandings and perverted conceptions as its apparent opposite, materialism.
_A._ In its most extended sense, spiritualism is susceptible of identification with _psychism_—consequently also with monism. For _feeling_ (pleasure and pain) is just as much a thoroughly universal and fundamental property of matter (of each atom!) as is _motion_ (attraction and repulsion). Every single “spirit” is inseparably united with some “matter.”
_B._ In its more restricted sense: originally force alone exists and creates _secondarily_ matter. This view, which is very old and very widely spread (“creation of the world”), is just as false and as one-sided as its contrary (5 _B_).
VII. IMMORTALISM.
The “belief in immortality” is scientifically (_critically_) tenable only as a _general_ proposition, and is in this case identical with the most universal law of physics, the _conservation of energy_ (coincidently, of course, the conservation of matter). On the other hand, the widely disseminated _dogmatic_ belief in a _personal_ immortality, a belief supported by the mass of the ecclesiastical religions, and of utmost importance as the consciously or unconsciously assumed _base_-axiom of a great number of philosophical systems, is, _scientifically_, absolutely untenable. The “human soul” (i. e. the sum-total of the individual life-activity: feeling, motion,—will,—and idea) is simply a transient developmentary phenomenon—a very highly developed “vertebrate-soul.”
VIII. COSMISM.
The determinate, and, as I believe, logical, form of the conception of the world, the principles of which I have advocated for thirty years, and whose most important aspects have been briefly outlined in the preceding paragraphs, may also be designated _cosmism_, to the extent that it proceeds from the fundamental idea that _cosmogeny_ or the “world-process,” as world-_development_, is, within certain limits, (within the limits namely of a reduction to the basic notions: matter and its two inseparable fundamental qualities motion and feeling,) a _knowable_ natural process. Cosmism is opposed, thus, to _agnosticism_.
* * * * *
One highly important principle of my monism seems to me to be, that I regard _all_ matter as _ensouled_, that is to say as endowed with _feeling_ (pleasure and pain) and with _motion_, or, better, with the power of motion. As elementary (atomistic) attraction and repulsion these powers are asserted in every simplest chemical process, and on them is based also every other phenomenon, consequently also the highest-developed soul-activity of man. For the comprehension of this _graduated_ psychical development of matter perhaps my three stages will be useful: III _A._ (Panpsychism), III _B._ (Biopsychism), III _C._ (Zoopsychism). So too consciousness, as the highest psychical action and the one most difficult to be explained, is in my views imply a higher stage of brain-activity, based upon the association, the abstraction, and centralisation of groups of ideas. Perhaps I have expressed myself poorly in these expositions, as I am little accustomed to dealing with philosophical axioms abstractly, and am too exclusively engaged in the concrete activity of my own special department. I cherish the hope, however, of being able within two or three years to devote more of my time to purely philosophical labors; when my work with the Challenger material, which has now absorbed twelve years of unremitting toil, is ended, my special zoological activity will have been completed; and I shall then find the opportunity of contributing more frequently to your highly valued magazines _The Monist_ and _The Open Court_.
ERNST HAECKEL.
THE MAGIC SQUARE.
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Among the philosophies of modern times there is no other which emphasises so much the importance of form and formal thought as the monism of _The Monist_. An expression thereof is found in the following passages:
“The order that prevails among the facts of reality is due to the laws of form. Upon the order of the world depends its cognisability.
“... The laws of form are no less eternal than are matter and energy and ‘Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law!’
“The laws of form and their origin have been a puzzle to all philosophers. ‘Ay, there’s the rub!’ The difficulties of Hume’s problem of causation, of Kant’s _a priori_, of Plato’s ideas, of Mill’s method of deduction, etc., etc., all arise from a one-sided view of form and the laws of form and formal thought.”
Considering the great results which engineering and other applied sciences accomplish through the assistance of mathematics, we must confess that the forms of thought are wonderful indeed, and it is not at all astonishing that the primitive thinkers of mankind when the importance of the laws of formal thought in some way or another first dawned on their minds, attributed magic powers to numbers and geometrical figures.
We shall devote the following pages to a brief review of magic squares, the consideration of which has made many a man believe in mysticism. And yet there is no mysticism about them unless we either consider everything mystical, even that twice two is four, or join the sceptic in his exclamation that we can truly not know whether twice two might not be five in other spheres of the universe.
The author of the short article on “Magic Squares” in the English Cyclopædia (Vol. III, p. 415), presumably Prof. DeMorgan, says:
“Though the question of magic squares be in itself of no use, yet it belongs to a class of problems which call into action a beneficial species of investigation. Without laying down any rules for their construction, we shall content ourselves with destroying their magic quality, and showing that the non-existence of such squares would be much more surprising than their existence.”
This is the point. There obtains a symphonic harmony in mathematics which is the more startling the more obvious and self-evident it appears to him who understands the laws that produce this symphonic harmony.
* * * * *
On the wood-cut named “Melancholia”[68] of the famous Nuremberg painter, Albrecht Dürer, is found among a number of other emblems, which the reader will notice in our reproduction of the cut, the subjoined square. This arrangement of the sixteen natural numbers from 1 to 16 possesses the remarkable property that the same sum 34 will always be obtained whether we add together the four figures of any of the horizontal rows or the four of any vertical row or the four which lie in either of the two diagonals. Such an arrangement of numbers is termed a magic square, and the square which we have reproduced above is _the first magic square which is met with in the Christian Occident_.
Like chess and many of the problems founded on the figure of the chess-board, the problem of constructing a magic square also probably traces its origin to Indian soil. From there the problem found its way among the Arabs, and by them it was brought to the Roman Orient. Finally, since Albrecht Dürer’s time, the scholars of Western Europe also have occupied themselves with methods for the construction of squares of this character.
The oldest and the simplest magic square consists of the quadratic arrangement of the nine numbers from 1 to 9 in such a manner that the sum of each horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row, always remains the same, namely 15. This square is the adjoined.
Here, we will find, 15 always comes out whether we add 2 and 7 and 6, or 9 and 5 and 1, or 4 and 3 and 8, or 2 and 9 and 4, or 7 and 5 and 3, or 6 and 1 and 8, or 2 and 5 and 8, or 6 and 5 and 4.
The question naturally presents itself, whether this condition of the constant equality of the added sum also remains fulfilled when the numbers are assigned different places. It may be easily shown however that 5 necessarily must occupy the middle place, and that the even numbers must stand in the corners. This being so, there are but 7 additional arrangements possible, which differ from the arrangement above given and from one another only in the respect that the rows at the top, at the left, at the bottom, and at the right, exchange places with one another and that in addition a mirror be imagined present with each arrangement. So too from Dürer’s square of 4 times 4 places, by transpositions, a whole set of new correct squares may be formed. A magic square of the 4 times 4 numbers from 1 to 16 is formed in the simplest manner as follows. We inscribe the numbers from 1 to 16 in their natural order in the squares, thus:
We then leave the numbers in the four corner-squares, viz. 1, 4, 13, 16, as well also as the numbers in the four middle-squares, viz. 6, 7, 10, 11, in their original places; and in the place of the remaining eight numbers, we write the complements of the same with respect to 17: thus 15 instead of 2, 14 instead of 3, 12 instead of 5, 9 instead of 8, 8 instead of 9, 5 instead of 12, 3 instead of 14, and 2 instead of 15. We obtain thus the magic square
from which the same sum 34 always results. It is an interesting property of this square that any four numbers which form a rectangle or square about the centre also always give the same sum 34; for example, 1, 4, 13, 16, or 6, 7, 10, 11, or 15, 14, 3, 2, or 12, 9, 5, 8, or 15, 8, 2, 9, or 14, 12, 3, 5. We may easily convince ourselves that this square is obtainable from the square of Dürer by interchanging with one another the two middle vertical rows.
II.
EARLY METHODS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ODD-NUMBERED SQUARES.
Since early times rules have also been known for the construction of magic squares of more than 3 times 3, or 4 times 4 spaces. In the first place, it is easy to calculate the sum which in the case of any given number of cells must result from the addition of each row. We take the determinate number of cells in each side of the square which we have to fill, multiply that number by itself, add 1, again multiply the number thus obtained by the number of the cells in each side, and, finally, divide the product by 2. Thus, with 4 times 4 cells or squares, we get: 4 times 4 are 16, 16 and 1 are 17, and one half of 17 times 4 is 34. Similarly, with 5 times 5 squares, we get: 5 times 5 are 25, and 1 makes 26, and the half of 26 times 5 is 65. Analogously, for 6 times 6 squares the summation 111 is obtained, for 7 times 7 squares 175, for 8 times 8 squares 260, for 9 times 9 squares 369, for 10 times 10 squares 505, and so on. The Hindu rule for the construction of magic squares whose roots are odd, may be enunciated as follows: To start with, write 1 in the centre of the topmost row, then write 2 in the lowest space of the vertical column next adjacent to the right, and then so inscribe the remaining numbers in their natural order in the squares diagonally upwards towards the right, that on reaching the right-hand margin the inscription shall be continued from the left-hand margin in the row just above, and on reaching the upper margin shall be continued from the lower margin in the column next adjacent to the right, noting that whenever we are arrested in our progress by a square already occupied we are to fill out the square next beneath the one we have last filled. In this manner, for example, the last preceding square of 7 times 7 cells is formed, in which the reader is requested to follow the numbers in their natural sequence (Fig. 5).
For the next further advancements of the theory of magic squares and of the methods for their construction we are indebted to the Byzantian Greek, Moschopulus, who lived in the fourteenth century; also, after Albrecht Dürer who lived about the year 1500, to the celebrated arithmetician Adam Riese, and to the mathematician Michael Stifel, which two last lived about 1550. In the seventeenth century Bachet de Méziriac, and Athanasius Kircher employed themselves on magic squares. About 1700, finally, the French mathematicians De la Hire and Sauveur made considerable contributions to the theory. In recent times mathematicians have concerned themselves much less about magic squares, as they have indeed about mathematical recreations generally. But quite recently the Brunswick mathematician Scheffler has put forth his own and other’s studies on this subject in an elegant form.
The best known of the various methods of constructing magic squares of an odd number of cells is the following. First write the numbers in diagonal succession as in the preceding diagram (Fig. 6). After 25 cells of the square of 49 cells which we have to fill out, have thus been occupied, transfer the six figures found outside each side of the square, without changing their configuration, into the empty cells of the side directly opposite. By this method, which we owe to Bachet de Méziriac, we obtain the following magic square of the numbers from 1 to 49:
III.
MODERN MODES OF CONSTRUCTION OF ODD-NUMBERED SQUARES.
The reader will justly ask whether there do not exist other correct magic squares which are constructed after a different method from that just given, and whether there do not exist modes of construction which will lead to all the imaginable and possible magic squares of a definite number of cells. A general mode of construction of this character was first given for odd-numbered squares by De la Hire, and recently perfected by Professor Scheffler.
To acquaint ourselves with this general method, let us select as our example a square of 5. First we form two auxiliary squares. In the first we write the numbers from 1 to 5 five times; and in the second, five times, the following multiples of five, viz.: 0, 5, 10, 15, 20. It is clear now that by adding each of the numbers of the series from 1 to 5 with each of the numbers 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, we shall get all the 25 numerals from 1 to 25. All that additionally remains to be done therefore, is, so to inscribe the numbers that by the addition of the two numbers in any two corresponding cells each combination shall come out once and only once; and further that in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row in each auxiliary square each number shall once appear. Then the required sum of 65 must necessarily result in every case, because the numbers from 1 to 5 added together make 15, and the numbers 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 make 50.
We effect the required method of inscription by imagining the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (or 0, 5, 10, 15, 20) arranged in cyclical succession, that is 1 immediately following upon 5, and, starting from any number whatsoever, by skipping each time either none or one or two or three etc. figures. Cycles are thus obtained of the first, the second, the third etc. orders; for example 3 4 5 1 2 is a cycle of the first order, 2 4 1 3 5 is a cycle of the second order, 1 5 4 3 2 is a cycle of the fourth order, etc. The only thing then to be looked out for in the two auxiliary squares is, that the same “cycle” order be horizontally preserved in all the rows, that the same also happens for the vertical rows, but that the cycle order in the horizontal and vertical rows is different. Finally we have only additionally to take care that to the same numbers of the one auxiliary square not like numbers but _different_ numbers correspond in the other auxiliary square, that is lie in similarly situated cells. The following auxiliary squares are, for example, thus possible:
and
Adding in pairs the numbers which occupy similarly situated cells, we obtain the following correct magic square:
It will be seen that we are able thus to construct a very large number of magic squares of 5 times 5 spaces by varying in every possible manner the numbers in the two auxiliary squares. Furthermore, the squares thus formed possess the additional peculiarity, that every 5 numbers which fill out two rows that are parallel to a diagonal and lie on different sides of the diagonal also give the constant sum of 65. For example: 3 and 7, 11, 20, 24; or 10, 14 and 18, 22, 1. Altogether then the sum 65 is produced out of 20 rows or pairs of rows. On this peculiarity is dependent the fact that if we imagine an unlimited number of such squares placed by the side of, above, or beneath an initial one, we shall be able to obtain as many quadratic cells as we choose, so arranged that the square composed of any 25 of these cells will form a correct magic square, as the following figure will show:
Every square of every 25 of these numbers, as for example the two dark-bordered ones, possesses the property that the addition of the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal rows gives each the same sum, 65.
As an example of a higher number of cells we will append here a magic square of 11 times 11 spaces formed by the general method of De la Hire from the two auxiliary squares of Figs. 12 and 13. From these two auxiliary squares we obtain by the addition of the two numbers of every two similarly situated cells, the magic square, exhibited in Diagram 14, in which each row gives the same sum 671.
IV.
EVEN-NUMBERED SQUARES.
Of magic squares having an even number of places we have hitherto had to deal only with the square of 4. To construct squares of this description having a higher even number of places, different and more complicated methods must be employed than for squares of odd numbers of places. However, in this case also, as in dealing with the square of 4, we start with the natural sequence of the numbers and must then find the complements of the numbers with respect to some other certain number (as 17 in the square of 4) and also effect certain exchanges of the numbers with one another. To form, for example, a magic square of 6 times 6 places, we inscribe in the 12 diagonal cells the numbers that in the natural sequence of inscription fall into these places, then in the remaining cells the complements of the numbers that belong therein with respect to 37, and finally effect the following six exchanges, viz. of the numbers 33 and 3, 25 and 7, 20 and 14, 18 and 13, 10 and 9, and 5 and 2. In this way the following magic square is obtained.
This square may also be constructed by the method of De la Hire, from two auxiliary squares with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 respectively. In this case, however, the vertical rows of the one square and the horizontal rows of the other must each so contain two same numbers thrice repeated that the summation shall always remain 21 and 90 respectively. In this manner we get the magic square last given above from the two following auxiliary squares:
and
It is to be noted in connection with this example that here also as in the case of odd-numbered squares, it is possible so to inscribe six times the numbers from 1 to 6 that each number shall appear once and only once in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row; for example, in the following manner:
But if we attempt so to insert, in a like manner, the other set of numbers 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 in a second auxiliary square, that each number of the first auxiliary square shall stand once and once only in a corresponding cell with each number of the second square, all the attempts we may make to fulfil coincidently the last named condition will result in failure. It is therefore necessary to select auxiliary squares like the two given above. It is noteworthy, that the fulfilment of the second condition is impossible only in the case of the square of 6, but that in the case of the square of 4 or of the square of 8, for example, two auxiliary squares, such as the method of De la Hire requires, are possible. Thus, taking the square of 4 we get
and
The reader may form for himself the magic square which these give.
The existence of these two auxiliary squares furnishes a key to the solution of a pretty problem at cards. If we replace, namely, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Ace, the King, the Queen, and the Knave, and the numbers 0, 4, 8, 12 by the four suits, clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds, we shall at once perceive that it is possible, and must be so necessarily, quadratically to arrange in such a manner the four Aces, the four Kings, the Four Queens, and the four Knaves, that in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row, each one of the four suits and each one of the four denominations shall appear once and once only. The auxiliary squares above given furnish the appended solution of this problem:
To fix the solution of the problem in the memory, observe that, starting from the several corners, each suit and each denomination must be placed in the spots of the move of a Knight. If we fix the positions of the four cards of any one row, there will be only two possibilities left of so placing the other cards that the required condition of having each suit and each denomination once and only once in each row shall be fulfilled.
Of magic squares of an even number of places we have up to this point examined only the squares of 4 and of 6. For the sake of completeness we append here one of 8 and one of 10 places. The mode of construction of these squares is similar to the method above discussed for the lower even numbers.
The magic squares of even numbers thus constructed are not the only possible ones. On the contrary, there are very many others possible, which obey different laws of formation. It has been calculated, for example, that with the square of 4 it is possible to construct 880, and with the square of 6, _several million_, different magic squares. The number of odd-numbered magic squares constructible by the method of De la Hire is also very great. With the square of 7, the possible constructions amount to 363,916,800. With the squares of higher numbers the multitude of the possibilities increases in the same enormous ratio.
V.
MAGIC SQUARES WHOSE SUMMATION GIVES THE NUMBER OF A YEAR.
The magic squares which we have so far considered contain only the natural numbers from 1 upwards. It is possible, however, easily to deduce from a correct magic square other squares in which a different law controls the sequence of the numbers to be inscribed. Of the squares obtained in this manner, we shall devote our attention here only to such in which, although formed by the inscription of successive numbers, the sum obtained from the addition of the rows is a determinate number which we have fixed upon beforehand, as _the number of a year_. In such a case we have simply to add to the numbers of the original square a determinate number so to be calculated, that the required sum shall each time appear. If this sum is divisible by 3, magic squares will always be obtainable with 3 times 3 spaces which shall give this sum. In such a case we divide the sum required by 3 and subtract 5 from the result in order to obtain the number which we have to add to each number of the original square. If the sum desired is even but not divisible by 4, we must then subtract from it 34 and take one fourth of the result, to obtain the number which in this case is to be added in each place. If, for example, we wish to obtain the number of the year 1890 as the resulting sum of each row, we shall have to add to each of the numbers of an ordinary magic square of 4 times 4 spaces the number 464; in other words, instead of the numbers from 1 to 16 we have to insert in the squares the numbers from 465 to 480. As the number of the present year 1892 is divisible by 11, it must be possible to deduce from the magic square constructed by us at the conclusion of Section III a second magic square in which each row of 11 cells will give the number of the year 1892. To do this, we subtract from 1892 the sum of the original square, namely 671, and divide the remainder by 11, whereby we get 111 and thus perceive that the numbers from 112 to 232 are to be inscribed in the cells of the square required. We get in this way the preceding square, from which _one and the same sum, namely 1892, can be obtained 44 times_, first from each of the 11 horizontal rows, secondly from each of the 11 vertical rows, thirdly from each of the two diagonal rows, and fourthly twenty additional times from each and every pair of any two rows that lie parallel to a diagonal, have together 11 cells, and lie on different sides of the diagonal, as for example, 196, 122, 158, 205, 131, 167, 214, 140, 187, 223, 149.
VI.
CONCENTRIC MAGIC SQUARES.
The acuteness of the mathematicians has also discovered magic squares which possess the peculiar property that if one row after another be taken away from each side, the smaller inner squares remaining will still be magical squares, that is to say, all their rows when added will give the same sum. It will be sufficient to give two examples here of such squares, (the laws for their construction being somewhat more complicated,) of which the first has 7 times 7 and the second 8 times 8 places. The numbers within each of the dark-bordered frames form with respect to the centre smaller squares which in their own turn are magical.
In the first of these two squares the internal square of 3 times 3 places contains the numbers from 21 to 29 in such a manner that each row gives when added the sum of 75. This square lies within a larger one of 5 times 5 spaces, which contains the numbers from 13 to 37 in such a manner that each row gives the sum of 125. Finally, this last square forms part of a square of 7 times 7 places which contains the numbers from 1 to 49 so that each row gives the sum of 175.
In the second square the inner central square of 4 times 4 places contains the numbers from 25 to 40 in such a manner that each row gives the sum of 130. This square is the middle of a square of 6 times 6 places which so contains the numbers from 15 to 50 that each row gives the sum 165. Finally, this last square is again the middle of an ordinary magic square composed of the numbers from 1 to 64.
VII.
MAGICAL SQUARES WITH MAGICAL PARTS.
If we divide a square of 8 times 8 places by means of the two middle lines parallel to its sides into 4 parts containing each 4 times 4 spaces, we may propound the problem of so inserting the numbers from 1 to 64 in these spaces that not only the whole shall form a magic square, but also that each of the 4 parts individually shall be magical, that is to say, give the same sum for each row. This problem also has been successfully solved, as the following diagram will show.
The 4 numbers in each row of any one of the sub-squares here, gives 130; so that the sum of each one of the rows of the large square will be 260.
Finally, in further illustration of this idea, we will submit to the consideration of our readers a very remarkable square of the numbers from 1 to 81. This square, which will be found on the following page (Fig. 28), is divided by parallel lines into 9 parts, of which each contains 9 consecutive numbers that severally make up a magic square by themselves.
Wonderful as the properties of this square may appear, the law by which the author constructed it is equally simple. We have simply to regard the 9 parts as the 9 cells of a magic square of the numbers from I to IX and then to inscribe by the magic prescript in the square designated as I the numbers from 1 to 9, in the square designated as II the numbers from 10 to 18, and so on. In this way the square above given is obtained from the following base-square:
VIII.
MAGIC SQUARES THAT INVOLVE THE MOVE OF THE CHESS-KNIGHT.
What one of our readers does not know the problems contained in the recreation columns of our magazines, the requirements of which are to compose into a verse 8 times 8 quadratically arranged syllables, of which every two successive syllables stand on spots so situated with respect to each other that a chess-knight can move from the one to the other? If we replace in such an arrangement the 64 successive syllables by the 64 numbers from 1 to 64, we shall obtain a knight-problem made up of numbers. Methods also exist indeed for the construction of such dispositions of numbers, which then form the foundation of the construction of the problems in the newspapers. But the majority of knight-problems of this class are the outcome of experiment rather than the product of methodical creation. If however it is a severe test of patience to form a knight-problem by experiment, it stands to reason that it is a still severer trial to effect at the same time the additional result that the 64 numbers which form the knight-problem shall also form a magic square.
This trial of endurance was undertaken several decades ago, by a pensioned Moravian officer named Wenzelides, who was spending the last days of his life in the country. After a series of trials which lasted years he finally succeeded in so inscribing in the 64 squares of the chess-board the numbers from 1 to 64 that successive numbers, as well also as the numbers 64 and 1, were always removed from one another in distance and direction by the move of a knight, and that in addition thereto the summation of the horizontal and the vertical rows always gave the same sum 260. Ultimately he discovered several squares of this description, which were published in the _Berlin Chess Journal_. One of these is here appended:
The move of the knight and the equality of the summation of the horizontal and vertical rows, therefore, are the facts to be noted here. The diagonal rows do _not_ give the sum 260. Perhaps some one among our readers who possesses the time and patience will be tempted to outdo Wenzelides, and to devise a numeral knight-problem of this kind which will give 260 not only in the horizontal and vertical but also in the two diagonal rows.
IX.
MAGICAL POLYGONS.
So far we have only considered such extensions of the idea underlying the construction of the magic square in which the figure of the square was retained. We may however contrive extensions of the idea in which instead of a square, a rectangle, a triangle, or a pentagon, and the like, appear. Without entering into the consideration of the methods for the construction of such figures, we will give here of magical polygons simply a few examples, all supplied by Professor Scheffler:
1) The numbers from 1 to 32 admit of being written in a rectangle of 4 × 8 in such a manner that the long horizontal rows give the sum of 132 and the short vertical rows the sum of 66; thus:
2) The numbers from 1 to 27 admit of being so arranged in three regular triangles about a point which forms a common centre, that each side of the outermost triangle will present 6 numbers of the total summation 96 and each side of the middle triangle 4 numbers whose sum is 61; as the following figure shows:
3) The numbers from 1 to 80 admit of being formed about a point as common centre into 4 pentagons, such that each side of the first pentagon from within contains two numbers, each side of the second pentagon four numbers, each of the third six numbers, and each side of the fourth, outermost pentagon eight numbers. The sum of the numbers of each side of the second pentagon is 122, the sum of those of each side of the third pentagon is 248, and that of those of each side of the fourth pentagon 254. Furthermore, the sum of any four corner numbers lying in the same straight line with the centre, is also the same; namely, 92.
4) The numbers from 1 to 73 admit of being arranged about a centre, in which the number 37 is written, into three hexagons which contain respectively 3, 5, and 7 numbers in each side and possess the following pretty properties. Each hexagon always gives the same sum, not only when the summation is made along its six sides, but also when it is made along the six diameters that join its corners and along the six that are constructed at right angles to its sides; this sum, for the first hexagon from within, is 111, for the second 185, and for the third 259.
X.
MAGIC CUBES.
Several inquirers, particularly Kochansky (1686), Sauveur (1710), Hugel (1859), and Scheffler (1882), have extended the principle of the magic squares of the plane to three-dimensioned space. Imagine a cube divided by planes parallel to its sides and equidistant from one another, into cubical compartments. The problem is then, so to insert in these compartments the successive natural numbers that every row from the right to the left, every row from the front to the back, every row from the top to the bottom, every diagonal of a square, and every principal diagonal passing through the centre of the cube shall contain numbers whose sum is always the same. For 3 times 3 times 3 compartments, a magic cube of this description is not constructible. For 4 times, 4 times 4 compartments a cube is constructible such that any row parallel to an edge of the cube and every principal diagonal give the sum of 130. To obtain a magic cube of 64 compartments, imagine the numbers which belong in the compartments written on the upper surface of the same and the numbers then taken off in layers of 16 from the top downwards. We obtain thus 4 squares of 16 cells each, which together make up the magic cube; as the following diagrams will show:
The same sum 130 here comes out not less than 52 times; viz. in the first place from the 16 rows from left to right, secondly from the 16 rows from the front to the back, thirdly from the 16 rows counting from the top to the bottom, and lastly from the 4 rows which join each two opposite corners of the cube, namely from the rows: 1, 43, 22, 64; 49, 27, 38, 16; 13, 39, 26, 52; 61, 23, 42, 4.
For a cube with 5 compartments in each edge the arrangement of the figures can so be made that all the 75 rows parallel to any and every edge, all the 30 rows lying in any diagonal of a square, and all the 4 rows forming any principal diagonal shall have one and the same summation, 315.
Just as the magic squares of an odd number of cells could be formed with the aid of _two_ auxiliary squares, so also odd-numbered magic cubes can be constructed with the help of _three_ auxiliary cubes.
In this manner the preceding magic cube of 5 times 5 times 5 compartments is formed, in which, it may be additionally noticed, the middle number between 1 and 125, namely 63, is placed in the central compartment; by which arrangement the attainment of the sum of 315 is assured in the four principal diagonals and the 30 sub-diagonals. The condition attained in the magic squares, that the diagonal-pairs parallel to the sub-diagonals also shall give the sum 315 is not attainable in this case but is so in the case of higher numbers of compartments.
CONCLUSION.
Musing on such problems as are the magic squares is fascinating to thinkers of a mathematical turn of mind. We take delight in discovering a harmony that abides as an intrinsic quality in the forms of our thought. The problems of the magic squares are playful puzzles, invented as it seems for mere pastime and sport. But there is a deeper problem underlying all these little riddles, and this deeper problem is of a sweeping significance. It is the philosophical problem of the world-order.
The formal sciences are creations of the mind. We build the sciences of mathematics, geometry, and algebra with our conception of pure forms which are abstract ideas. And the same order that prevails in these mental constructions permeates the universe, so that an old philosopher, overwhelmed with the grandeur of law, imagined he heard its rhythm in a cosmic harmony of the spheres.
H. SCHUBERT.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] The term melancholy meant in Dürer’s time, as it did also in Shakespeare’s and Milton’s, “thought or thoughtfulness.” Says Milton in _Il Penseroso_:
“Hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, Hail divinest melancholy Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue.”—I, 12.
Thought that does not lead to action produces a gloomy state of mind. Thoughtfulness which cannot find a way out of itself is that melancholy which engenders weakness,—a truth which is illustrated in Hamlet. Shakespeare still uses the words thought and melancholy as synonyms, saying:
“The native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
Dürer’s melancholy does not represent the gloominess of thought, but the power of invention. Soberness and even a certain sadness are considered only as an element of this melancholy, but on the whole the genius of thought appears bright, self-possessed, and strong.
Dürer represents the Science of Mechanical Invention as a winged female figure musing over some problem. Scattered on the floor around her lie some of the simple tools used in the sixteenth century. A ladder leans against the house, that assists in climbing otherwise inaccessible heights. A scale, an hour-glass, a bell, and the magic square are hanging on the wall behind her.
At a distance a bat-like creature, being the gloom of melancholy, hovers in the air like a dark cloud, but the sun rises above the horizon, and at the happy middle between these two extremes stands the rainbow of serene hope and cheerful confidence.
MR. SPENCER ON THE ETHICS OF KANT.
Mr. Herbert Spencer published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for July 1888 and in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for August of the same year an article on “The Ethics of Kant” in which he so strangely misrepresents Kant’s position that Kant to any uninitiated reader must appear not only as superficial and shallow, but even as palpably nonsensical.
Mr. Spencer’s article on “The Ethics of Kant” is a severe criticism mainly of the nonsensical idea, erroneously imputed to Kant, of a will that has no end. At the same time Mr. Spencer reproaches Kant with assuming the simplicity of conscience and believing in a non-evolutionary origin of the minds of living beings.
In reply to Mr. Spencer an editorial article appeared in _The Open Court_ under the caption “Herbert Spencer on the Ethics of Kant” (Nos. 51 and 52), which was supplemented by another article entitled “Kant on Evolution” (No. 158), the latter being elicited by a renewed attack of Mr. Spencer upon Kant’s views (which appeared in _Mind_, No. LIX, p. 313).
Mr. Spencer has republished his article “The Ethics of Kant” together with many other older articles in a work of three volumes entitled “Essays Scientific, Political, and Speculative,” 1891, in which he repeats the following sentence:
“Thus the basis of the argument by which Kant attempts to justify his assumption that there exists a good will apart from a good end, disappears utterly; and leaves his dogma in all its naked unthinkableness.”
To this sentence he adds the following foot-note as a reply to my criticisms:
“I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant less than justice and more than justice—less, in assuming that his evolutionary view was limited to the genesis of our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that he had not contradicted himself. My knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. In 1844 a translation of his ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (then I think lately published) fell into my hands, and I read the first few pages enunciating his doctrine of Time and Space: my peremptory rejection of which caused me to lay the book down. Twice since then the same thing has happened; for, being an impatient reader, when I disagree with the cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further. One other thing I knew. By indirect references I was made aware that Kant had propounded the idea that celestial bodies have been formed by the aggregation of diffused matter. Beyond this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; and my supposition that his evolutionary conception had stopped short with the genesis of sun, stars, and planets, was due to the fact that his doctrine of Time and Space, as forms of thought anteceding experience, implied a supernatural origin inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis. Dr. Paul Carus, who, shortly after the publication of this article in the _Fortnightly Review_ for July, 1888, undertook to defend the Kantian ethics in the American journal which he edits, _The Open Court_, has now (Sept. 4, 1890), in another defensive article, translated sundry passages from Kant’s ‘Critique of Judgment,’ his ‘Presumable Origin of Humanity,’ and his work ‘Upon the different Races of Mankind,’ showing that Kant was, if not fully, yet partially, an evolutionist in his speculations about living beings. There is, perhaps, some reason for doubting the correctness of Dr. Carus’s rendering of these passages into English. When, as in the first of the articles just named, he failed to distinguish between consciousness and conscientiousness, and when, as in this last article, he blames the English for mistranslating Kant, since they have said ‘Kant maintained that Space and Time are intuitions,’ which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere described him as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition, one may be excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has read into some of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear. Still, the general drift of the passages quoted makes it tolerably clear that Kant must have believed in the operation of natural causes as largely, though not entirely, instrumental in producing organic forms: extending this belief (which he says ‘can be named a daring venture of reason’) in some measure to the origin of Man himself. He does not, however extend the theory of natural genesis to the exclusion of the theory of supernatural genesis. When he speaks of an organic habit ‘which in the wisdom of nature appears to be thus arranged in order that the species shall be preserved’; and when, further, he says ‘we see, moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby, after the development of the same, he is destined for social intercourse,’ he implies divine intervention. And this shows that I was justified in ascribing to him the belief that Space and Time, as forms of thought, are supernatural endowments. Had he conceived of organic evolution in a consistent manner, he would necessarily have regarded Space and Time as subjective forms generated by converse with objective realities.
“Beyond showing that Kant had a partial, if not a complete, belief in organic evolution (though with no idea of its causes), the passages translated by Dr. Carus show that he entertained an implied belief which it here specially concerns me to notice as bearing on his theory of ‘a good will.’ He quotes approvingly Dr. Moscati’s lecture showing ‘that the upright walk of man is constrained and unnatural,’ and showing the imperfect visceral arrangements and consequent diseases which result: not only adopting, but further illustrating, Dr. Moscati’s argument. If here, then, there is a distinct admission, or rather assertion, that various human organs are imperfectly adjusted to their functions, what becomes of the postulate above quoted ‘that no organ for any purpose will be found in it but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose’? And what becomes of the argument which sets out with this postulate? Clearly, I am indebted to Dr. Carus for enabling me to prove that Kant’s defence of his theory of ‘a good will’ is, by his own showing, baseless.”
Mr. Spencer’s reply to my criticisms is surprising in more than one respect.
First, without even mentioning the objections I make he discredits my arguments by throwing doubt upon the correctness of the translations of the quoted passages.
Secondly, he alleges, with a view of justifying his doubt, that in the first of my articles I “failed to distinguish between consciousness and conscientiousness.”[69]
Thirdly, Mr. Spencer declares that I had “read into some of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear.”
Fourthly, Mr. Spencer bases this opinion upon a double mistake: he blames me for not distinguishing between the Kantian phrases that “Space and Time are intuitions” and that they are “forms of intuition.”
Fifthly, acknowledging after all that Kant had at least “a partial belief in organic evolution,” Mr. Spencer accuses him of inconsistency.
Sixthly, several statements concerning Kant’s views are made not because Kant held them but because Mr. Spencer assumes for trivial reasons that he is “justified in ascribing them to him.”
Seventhly, these statements so vigorously set forth are accompanied by Mr. Spencer’s remarkably frank confession of unfamiliarity with the subject under discussion.
It may be added that Mr. Spencer calls my criticisms “defensive articles.” He says that “I undertook to defend the Kantian ethics”; while, in fact, my articles are aggressive. Kant needs no defense for being misunderstood, and it would not be my business to defend him, for I am not a Kantian in the sense that I adopt any of the main doctrines of Kant. On the contrary I dissent from him on almost all fundamental questions. In ethics I object to Kant’s views in so far as they can be considered as pure formalism.[70] I am a Kantian only in the sense that I respect Kant as one of the most eminent philosophers, that I revere him as that teacher of mine whose influence upon me was greatest, and I consider the study of Kant’s works as an indispensable requisite for understanding the problems of the philosophy of our time. Far from defending Kant’s position, I only undertook to inform Mr. Spencer of what Kant had really maintained, so that instead of denouncing absurdities which Kant had never thought of, he might criticise the real Kant.
* * * * *
I shall now take up the details of Mr. Spencer’s reply:
I.
I am sorry to see that Mr. Spencer, instead of frankly acknowledging his errors, has taken refuge in discrediting the translations, which might very easily have been examined either by himself or by friends of his; especially as the German original of the most important passages, wherever any doubt might arise, and also of those expressions on the misconception of which Mr. Spencer bases his unfavorable opinion of Kant, were added in foot-notes.
II.
But Mr. Spencer adduces, as if it were a fact, an instance of my grave mistakes. He says that I failed to distinguish between “consciousness” and “conscientiousness.” Mr. Spencer makes much of a small matter, which, if it were as he assumes, would have to be considered as a misprint.
Mr. Spencer’s statement is so positive that it must make on any reader the impression of being indubitably true. However, in the whole first article of mine, and indeed in both articles, “conscientiousness” is nowhere mentioned and it would be wrong to replace the word “consciousness” in any of the passages in which it occurs by “conscientiousness.”
I should be glad if Mr. Spencer would kindly point out to me the passage which he had in mind when making his statement, for since there is not even so much as an occasion for confounding consciousness and conscientiousness, I stand here before a psychological problem. Mr. Spencer’s statement is a perfect riddle to me. Either I have a negative hallucination, as psychologists call it, so that I do not see what is really there, or Mr. Spencer must have had a positive hallucination. That which Mr. Spencer has read into my article, was never written and it is not there. The alleged fact to which he refers, does not exist.
This kind of erroneous reference into which Mr. Spencer has inadvertently fallen is a very grievous mistake. It appears more serious than a simple slip of the pen, when we consider that Mr. Spencer uses the statement for the purpose of incrimination. He justifies upon this exceedingly slender basis his doubt concerning the correctness of the translations of the quoted passages, and Mr. Spencer’s doubt concerning the correctness of these translations is his main argument for rejecting my criticisms _in toto_.
It is not impossible, indeed it is probable, that Mr. Spencer meant “conscience” instead of “conscientiousness.” There is one passage in which a superficial reader might have expected “conscience” in place of “consciousness.” However that does not occur in any of the translations, but in a paragraph where I speak on my own account. This passage appears in the appended reprint on page 23, line 14. Whatever anybody might have expected in that passage, I certainly intended to say “consciousness,” and only a hasty reader, only he who might merely read the first line of the paragraph, would consider the word “consciousness” a mistake.
To avoid any equivocation, however, even to hasty readers, and to guard against a misconstruction such as Mr. Spencer possibly has given to the sentence, I propose to alter the passage by adding a few words as follows:
“It is quite true that _not only conscience, but_ every state of consciousness is a feeling,” etc.
The italicised words are inserted, simply to show that here I mean “consciousness,” and _not_ “conscience.” For the rest, they do not alter in the least the sense of the sentence. In this passage as throughout the whole article the terms “consciousness,” and “conscience” have been used properly.
* * * * *
Observing that Mr. Spencer appears to have committed the same mistake for which he erroneously blames me, I do not mean to say that he “failed to distinguish between” conscientiousness and conscience. I should rather regard it as trifling on my part if I drew this inference from what is either a slip of the pen or an oversight in proof-reading. But it strikes me that that knavish rogue among the fairies whom Shakespeare calls Puck and scientists define as chance or coincidence played in a fit of anger and perhaps from a sentiment of pardonable irony a humorous trick upon Mr. Spencer. The moral of it is that when an author censures his fellow authors with undue severity for things that might be mere misprints, he should keep a close eye on his own printer’s devil.
III.
Mr. Spencer discredits my knowledge of Kant. He says of me:
“One may be excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has read into some of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear.”
I did not give Mr. Spencer any occasion for making this personal reflection. I do not boast of any extraordinary familiarity with Kant’s writings. There are innumerable German and also English and American scholars and philosophers who know Kant almost by heart. But the question at issue is not what I conceive Kant’s ideas to be, but what Kant has really said, and I was very careful in letting Kant speak for himself.
My criticism of Mr. Spencer’s conception of Kant consisted almost exclusively in collating and contrasting Mr. Spencer’s views of Kant with quotations from Kant’s works. How can I read anything into some of Kant’s expressions, if I present translations of the expressions themselves, adding thereto in foot-notes the original whenever doubts could arise? And the general drift of the quotations alone suffices to overthrow Mr. Spencer’s conception of Kant.
The truth is that Mr. Spencer committed the mistake himself, for which he censures me unjustly. “Mr. Spencer has read into some of Kant’s expressions meanings which they do not rightly bear.”
IV.
But Mr. Spencer adduces a fact, which, if it were as Mr. Spencer represents it, would show an inability on my part of making important distinctions. He says of me:
“He blames the English for mistranslating Kant, since they have said ‘Kant maintained that Space and Time are intuitions,’ which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere described him as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition.”
This is a double mistake: (1) Kant and his translators did not make the distinction of which Mr. Spencer speaks, and (2) the quotation Mr. Spencer makes from my article is represented to mean something different from what it actually means in the context.
Before I speak for myself as to what I actually said, let us state the facts concerning Kant’s usage of the terms “intuitions” and “forms of intuition.”
Kant defines in § 1 of his “Critique of Pure Reason” what he understands by “Transcendental Æsthetic.” He distinguishes between “empirical intuition” (_empirische Anschauung_) and “pure intuition” (_reine Anschauung_). He says:
“That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation, is called an empirical intuition.”
Representations contain besides that which belongs to sensation some other elements. Kant says:
“That which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its _form_.”
And later on he continues:
“This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition.”
These are Kant’s phrases in J. M. D. Meiklejohn’s well known translation. The term “pure intuition” is repeated again and again, and we find frequently added by way of explanation the phrases “as a mere form of sensibility,” “the mere form of phenomena,” “forms of sensuous intuition,” and also (as Mr. Spencer emphasises as the only correct way) “forms of intuition.”
Kant says:
1) “_Diese reine Form der Sinnlichkeit wird auch selber reine Anschauung heissen._ § 1.
2) “_Zweitens worden wir von dieser (der empirischen Anschauung) noch alles abtrennen, damit nichts als reine Anschauung und die blosse Form der Erscheinungen übrig bleibe._ § 1.
3) “_Raum ... muss ursprünglich Anschauung sein._ § 3.
4) “_Der Raum ist nichts anderes als nur die Form aller Erscheinungen äusserer Sinne._ § 3.
5) “_Der Raum aber betrifft nur die reine Form der Anschauung._ (This passage appears in the first edition only, the paragraph containing it is omitted in the second edition.) § 3.
6) “_Die Zeit ist ... eine reine Form der sinnlichen Anschauung...._ § 4.
7) “_Es muss ihr[71] unmittelbare Anschauung zum Grunde liegen._ § 4.
8) “_Die Zeit ist nichts anderes als die Form des inneren Sinnes._ § 6.
9) “_... dass die Vorstellung der Zeit selbst Anschauung sei._ § 6.
10) “_Wir haben nun ... reine Anschauung a priori, Raum und Zeit._ § 10. _Beschluss der transcendentalen Æsthetik._”
These quotations do not pretend to be exhaustive, nor is that necessary for the present purpose.
Kant, as we learn from these quotations, makes no distinction between _reine Anschauung_ and _Form der Anschauung_. He uses most frequently the term _reine Anschauung_ and designates in several places Space and Time simply as _Anschauung_. (See the quotations 3, 7, and 9.) So far as I can gather from a renewed perusal, the expression proposed by Mr. Spencer, “form of intuition,” _Form der Anschauung_, occurs only once and that too in a passage omitted in the second edition.
It is almost redundant to add that the English translators and interpreters of Kant follow the original pretty closely. Accordingly it is actually incorrect “that they have everywhere(!) described Kant as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition.” In addition to the quotations from Meiklejohn, I call Mr. Spencer’s attention to William Flemming’s “Vocabulary of Philosophy” (4th ed., edited by Henry Calderwood) which reads _sub voce_ “Intuition,” p. 228 with reference to Kant’s view:
“Space and time are _intuitions_ of sense.”
To say “Time and Space are forms of intuition” is quite correct according to Kantian terminology. No objection can be made to Mr. Spencer on that ground. But to say “Time and Space are intuitions” is also quite correct, and Mr. Spencer is wrong in censuring the expression.
Why does Mr. Spencer rebuke me so severely on a point which is of no consequence? He appears confident that I have betrayed an unpardonable misconception of Kant’s philosophy. But having pointed out by quotations from Kant that this is not so, I shall now proceed to explain why the quotation which Mr. Spencer makes from my article, although the eight words in quotation marks are literally quoted, is a misquotation. It is torn out of its context. I did not blame the English translators of Kant at all, but I blamed his interpreters, among whom the English interpreters (not all English interpreters, but certainly some of them) are the worst, for “mutilating Kant’s best thoughts, so that this hero of progress appears as a stronghold of antiquated views”; and as an instance I called attention to the misconception of Kant’s term _Anschauung_, saying:
“How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his position with reference to time and space is mistaken! ‘Time and Space are our _Anschauung_,’ Kant says. But his English translators declare ‘Kant maintained that space and time are intuitions.’ What a difference it makes if intuition is interpreted in the sense applied to it by the English intuitionalist school instead of its being taken in the original meaning of the word _Anschauung_.”
The word “intuition” implies something mysterious; the word _Anschauung_ denotes that which is immediately perceived, simply, as it were, by looking at it. So especially the sense-perceptions of the things before us are _Anschauungen_.
Mr. Spencer, believing that he had caught me in making unawares a blunder, tears the passage out of its context, ignores its purport, makes a point of an antithesis which had nothing in the world to do with the topic under discussion, only to throw on me the opprobrium of incompetence. Even if Mr. Spencer’s antithesis of “intuition” and “forms of intuition” were of any consequence (as, unfortunately for Mr. Spencer, it is not), it would count for nothing against me because I did not speak of “forms” in the passage referred to, I simply alluded to one misinterpretation of the term _Anschauung_, which is quite common among English Kantians. It was not required by the purpose I had in view, to enter into any details as to what kind of _Anschauung_ I meant, and an allusion to “form” or to any other subject would have served only to confound the idea which I intended to set forth in the paragraph from which Mr. Spencer quotes.
Misquotation of this kind, into which Mr. Spencer was inveigled by a hasty reading, should be avoided with utmost care, for it involves an insinuation. It leads away from the main point under discussion to side issues, and it misrepresents the author from whom the quotation is made. It insinuates a meaning which the passage does not bear and which was not even thought of in the context out of which it is torn.
Mr. Spencer quotes the passage as if I had preferred the term “intuition” to the term “form of intuition,” or at least, as if I had no idea that Kant conceives Time and Space as “forms.” Yet Mr. Spencer in trying to make out a point against me betrays his own lack of information. Kant insisted most emphatically on calling the forms of our sensibility (i. e. space and time) “_Anschauungen_.”
But Mr. Spencer’s case is worse still. While he insists upon the statement that according to the translators of Kant space and time are “forms of intuition,” which is at least correct, he uses twice in the very same paragraph the expression that according to Kant “space and time are forms of thought,” which is incorrect. The forms of thought according to Kantian terminology are not space and time but the domain of the transcendental logic. Anyone who confounds the two terms “forms of intuition” and “forms of thought” proves himself unable to form a correct opinion on Kant’s philosophy. That is just characteristic of Kant that he regards time and space not as thought, nor as forms of thought, but as _Anschauungen_ and in contradistinction to sense-intuitions (i. e. sensations) he calls them _reine Anschauungen_ or _Formen der Anschauung_.
V.
Mr. Spencer commenting upon his criticism of Kant’s idea of a Good Will, says:
“I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant less than justice and more than justice—less, in assuming that his evolutionary view was limited to the genesis of our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that he had not contradicted himself.
“Clearly, I am indebted to Dr. Carus for enabling me to prove that Kant’s defence of his theory of ‘a good will’ is, by his own showing, baseless.”
Kant’s idea of a good will has nothing to do with evolution, and we can abstain here from discussing whether or not Kant was an evolutionist. Whether evolution is true or not, what difference does it make to the proposition, that a good will is the only thing which can be called good without further qualification (_ohne Einschränkung_)? Pleasure is good, but it is not absolutely good, there are cases in which pleasure is a very bad thing. We must qualify our statement and limit it to special cases. A good will, however, says Kant, is in itself good under all circumstances.
Did Mr. Spencer prove the baselessness of Kant’s proposition by proving evolution? Is it inconsistent to believe in evolution and at the same time to regard a good will as absolutely good, as good without reserve or limitation? I think not!
VI.
Mr. Spencer in admitting that “the general drift of the passages quoted makes it tolerably clear that Kant must have believed in the operation of natural causes ... in producing organic forms,” adds:
“He does not, however, extend the theory of natural genesis to the exclusion of the theory of supernatural genesis.”
How does Mr. Spencer prove his statement? Does he quote a passage from Kant which expresses his belief in supernaturalism? No, Mr. Spencer does not quote Kant, and it would be difficult to find a passage to suit that purpose. Mr. Spencer adduces a few unmeaning phrases gleaned at random and torn out of their context, and from these phrases he concludes that Kant believed in the supernatural. Kant spoke somewhere of “the wisdom of nature” who has things so arranged that the species might be preserved. If the wisdom of nature in preserving the species is to be taken literally, the phrase might prove that Kant believed nature to be a wise old woman. Kant spoke further of “the germ of reason placed in man whereby he is destined to social intercourse.” Does the usage of the word “destined” really “imply divine intervention,” as Mr. Spencer says? Mr. Spencer adds:
“And this [viz. Kant’s usage of these phrases] shows that I was justified in ascribing to him the belief that Space and Time, as forms of thought [sic!], are supernatural endowments.”
What might we not prove by this kind of loose argumentation!
Kant did not introduce any supernatural explanations; on the contrary, he proposed to exclude “supernatural genesis.” He says e. g. in a passage of the “Critique of Judgment” quoted on page 41 of the appendix:
“If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised beings, nature is thereby wholly discarded ... therefore it cannot be supposed that this system is accepted by anyone who has had to do with philosophy.”
And furthermore Kant rejects the partial admission of the supernatural, saying:
“As though it were not the same to make the required forms arise in a supernatural manner at the beginning of the world as during its progress.”
Mr. Spencer charges Kant with inconsistency. We do not intend to say that Kant was in all the phases of his development consistent with himself. But we do say that the charge of Mr. Spencer against Kant consists in this: the real Kant has said things which are incompatible with Mr. Spencer’s view of Kant.
This settles the sixth point.
VII.
Mr. Spencer’s reply to my criticism is a very strange piece of controversy and I have actually been at a loss, how to account for it.
The situation can be explained only by assuming that Mr. Spencer, being an impatient reader, when finding out that he disagreed with my propositions, could go no further and wrote his reply to me without having read my articles. This is very hard on a critic who, carefully avoiding everything that might look like fault-finding, is painstakingly careful in giving to the author criticised every means of investigating the truth himself and helps him in a friendly way to correct his errors.
There is only one consolation for me, which is, that I am in good company. The great thinker of Koenigsberg is very severely censured in almost all of Mr. Spencer’s writings for ideas which he never held. And now Mr. Spencer confesses openly and with ingenuous sincerity, that his knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. But why he condemns a man of whom he knows so little Mr. Spencer does not tell us.
Mr. Spencer says:
“My knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. In 1844 a translation of his “Critique of Pure Reason” (then I think lately published) fell into my hands, and I read the first few pages enunciating his doctrine of Time and Space: my peremptory rejection of which caused me to lay the book down.
“Twice since then the same thing has happened; for, being an impatient reader, when I disagree with the cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further.
“One other thing I knew. By indirect references I was made aware that Kant had propounded the idea that celestial bodies have been formed by the aggregation of diffused matter. Beyond this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; and my supposition that his evolutionary conception had stopped short with the genesis of sun, stars, and planets was due to the fact that his doctrine of Time and Space, as forms of thought [sic] anteceding experience, implied a supernatural origin inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis.”
Kant has been a leader in thought for the last century. It is very important to criticise his ideas wherever they are wrong, but his errors cannot be conquered by _ex cathedra_ denunciations.
Darwin’s habits in investigating and weighing the pro and con of a question were very different from Mr. Spencer’s, and Darwin’s success is in no small degree due to the sternness with which he adhered to certain rules of reading and studying. We find in his “Autobiography” certain reminiscences labeled “important” from which the following is most instructive:
“I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or a thought, came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favorable ones.”
Experience teaches that we can learn most from those authors with whom we do not agree. The ethics of reading and studying demand other habits than laying a book down when we disagree with its cardinal propositions. Such habits prevent progress and create prejudices.
* * * * *
Mr. Spencer has not answered my criticism at all. Mr. Spencer did not even take into consideration the passages quoted from Kant. He republished all the false statements of Kant’s views, so inconsiderately made, together with all the perverse opinions based upon them. The assurance with which Mr. Spencer makes statements which have no foundation whatever is really perplexing even to a man who is well informed on the subject, and it will go far to convince the unwary reader. What, however, shall become of the general tenor of philosophical criticism and controversy if a man of Mr. Spencer’s reputation is so indifferent about being informed concerning the exact views of his adversary, if he is so careless in presenting them, if he makes positively erroneous statements on confessedly mere “supposition,” and finally, if in consequence thereof he is flagrantly unjust in censuring errors which arise only from his own too prolific imagination?
We feel confident that Mr. Spencer will explain his side of the question satisfactorily. His mistakes being undeniable, we do not believe that he will seek to deny them. Yet we trust that Mr. Spencer as soon as he finds himself at fault, will not even make an attempt at palliation, that he will not blink the frank acknowledgment of his misstatements and also of having treated Kant with injustice. A man who has devoted his life to the search for truth will not suffer any blot to remain on his escutcheon.
EDITOR.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] This article “Herbert Spencer on the Ethics of Kant” was electrotyped at the time it appeared in _The Open Court_. It is appended to this number of _The Monist_ as documentary evidence of the fact, that there is not even so much as an occasion in the article for confounding “consciousness” and “conscientiousness.”
[70] See _Fundamental Problems_, pp. 197-206; and _The Ethical Problem_, p. 32, seq., especially p. 33, lines 18-20.
[71] Second edition reads “_ihnen_” in place of “_ihr_,” viz. _der Zeit_. The word “_ihnen_” refers to _Theilvorstellungen der Zeit_.
WHAT DOES ANSCHAUUNG MEAN?
Mr. Spencer’s erroneous statement that Kant conceives space and time as forms of thought instead of forms of intuition induces me to make a few explanatory remarks concerning the term _Anschauung_.
Kant means that space and time are immediately given in experience and not inferences drawn from the data of experience; they are not thoughts, but objects of direct perception.
Sense-impressions are data, they are prior to ideas, the latter being constructions made out of sense-impressions. Sense-impressions are facts, but ideas are of an inferential nature; they are (to use Lloyd Morgan’s excellent term) constructs. Now Kant claims that space and time are in the same predicament: they also are immediately given, they also are _Anschauungen_. Kant did not trouble himself much to prove that they are forms; he seems to have taken that for granted. But he was very careful to show that they are not ideas, not thoughts, not abstractions, not generalisations, but that they are as direct data as are sense-impressions and he calls the knowledge which man has by directly facing the object of knowledge “_Anschauung_.”
The conclusion which Kant draws from this may be characterised as follows:
Sensations are not things but appearances; they are subjective, not objective, they are not the objects themselves but what our sensibility makes of objects. Space and time being _Anschauungen_, Kant argues that they are of the same kind as the sense-data of knowledge, that they are inherent in our nature. Thus Kant maintains: “Sensations are the products of our sensibility, and space and time are the forms of our sensibility.”
The word _Anschauung_ has been a _crux interpretum_ since translations have been made from Kant, and it is quite true that no adequate word to express it, exists in English. I enjoyed of late a discussion on the subject with Mr. Francis C. Russell who called my attention to several notes in _The Journal of Speculative Philosophy_. The following is from the pen of Dr. W. T. Harris (Vol. II, p. 191):
“Through a singular chance, the present number of the journal contains two notes from two contributors on the proper translation of the German word _Anschauung_. Mr. Kroeger holds that the word _Anschauung_, as used by Fichte and also by Kant, denotes an act of the Ego which the English word _Intuition_ does not at all express, but for which the English word ‘contemplation’ is an exact equivalent. Mr. Peirce suggests that no person whose native tongue is English will translate _Anschauung_ by another word than _Intuition_. Whether there is a failure to understand English on the one hand or German on the other, the Editor does not care to inquire. It is certain that while intuition has been adopted generally as an equivalent for the word under consideration both by English and French translators, yet it was a wide departure from the ordinary English use of the term. Besides this, we have no English verb _intuite_ (at least in the Dictionaries), and the reader will find that the verb used by Meiklejohn (in the translation of Kant’s _Kritik_) for it, is _contemplate_, and the same rendering is given by Smith in his excellent translation of Fichte’s Popular Works (London, 1849).”
Mr. Charles S. Peirce says:
“No person whose native tongue is English will need to be informed that contemplation is essentially (1) protracted (2) voluntary, and (3) an action, and that it is never used for that which is set forth to the mind in this act. A foreigner can convince himself of this by the proper study of English writers. Thus, Locke (Essay concerning Human Understanding,