Part 42

This is the strictly empirical view. And it may be possibly defended with the contention that all problems, to be duly examined, must, in the first place, be viewed from that standpoint. But it must be plainly manifest to any unprejudiced thinker that, even granted a total cosmical problem made up of separate problems of an individual nature, the same method of solving the sum cannot be employed which is used in solving its constituents. In the above instance, considering matter in its totality, and consciousness in its totality, what is left to view them indifferently from “outside,” or “inside”? Plainly nothing. Still more transparent an example is the following:

“The consciousness of a habit involves a general idea. In each action of that habit certain atoms get thrown out of their orbit, and replaced by others. Upon all the different occasions it is different atoms that are thrown off, but they are analogous from a physical point of view, and there is an inward sense of their being analogous. Every time one of the associated feelings recurs, there is a more or less vague sense that there are others, that it has a general character, and of about what this general character is.” (P. 20.)

This is part of the answer to the query: How do general ideas appear in the molecular theory of protoplasm? Now, without discussing the value of this _rationale_, as affecting Mr. Peirce’s own theories, it is not difficult to see what its acceptance would “lead to.” Certain atoms of a molecule get thrown out and are replaced by _others_. This happens repeatedly. On different occasions _different atoms_ come and go. Yet they are “analogous,” and there is “an inward sense” of this. Upon whose shoulders is the burden of proving the analogy placed, or of experiencing it even? With whom or what is there “an inward sense”? Perhaps it is better not to answer otherwise than to say that if this faculty be not present in the ever changing molecule to begin with, it cannot be logically reached by any process of multiplying it.

THE MONISTIC SOLUTION.

Monism, as a unitary system of the universe, does not necessarily commend itself to acceptance simply _as_ monism. To say, this is dualism, _therefore_ it cannot be a correct _rationale_ of the universe, since the only true one must be monistic, is to start with an unphilosophical prepossession. The true solution may be two-fold, or it may be manifold. But it is not too much to say, perhaps, on the other hand, that, even as causes may not be multiplied without necessity, even so phenomena must not logically be divided into independent groupings without sufficient reason given. Preference should be accorded to a monistic, rather than to a dualistic, system, not on the ground alone of the simplicity of the former, but on the ground that a theory which has one explanation for one set of phenomena and another explanation for a second set, must first demonstrate that a unitary conception of the universe is, at least, improbable, otherwise it will always be hinted that the dualism in question has not gone deep enough to find a synthetic bond wherewith to unite the apparently diverse. Mr. Peirce, throughout his article on Synechism, constantly touches, despite his latent dualism, the margin of a truth so great as to merit the title of transcendent. As often he misses it. And his concluding words are, in this connection, almost wistful: “The facts that stand before our face and eyes and stare us in the face, are far from being, in all cases, the ones most easily discerned. That has been remarked from time immemorial.” (P. 559.) But though thus “remarked,” the maxim has, as immemorially, been neglected in practice. To none can this remark be more fitly applied than to the excogitator of Synechism, himself seeing that, having arrived at the point of asserting that “there must be _something like_ the feelings in the excitants themselves,” he does not see that the excitant and the feeling are one and the same; and that there is no second or third term in the cosmical equation.

Does this seem “extravagant”? If so, the reply must be _not_ that it is the only escape from an otherwise inexplicable difficulty, but that there is really no difficulty at all. What Mr. Peirce’s own Synechism “_leads to_” is that the past, the present, and the to-come, alike of matter and idea, are not reconciled by “time and its flow,” or even by the logic of infinitesimals, subtle though that may be, but that the contents of each and all, with all their apparently infinite variety, resolve into a consistent unity.

THE “MISSING LINK.”

Pushed to a logical conclusion, the excitants and the feelings owe their apparent variety to their assigned position in a series, the correspondence or relation between them being _only another link in the self-same chain_. Vulgar realism never fathoms this explanation. It always harps upon the one string that idealism, and more especially idealistic monism, fails to account for variety or difference; forgetting, or rather never seeing, that difference or variety which is its essence, is only one more added perception on the same plane with ordinary perceptions; so that given _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_,—sundry perceptions,—their essential variety may be stated as _e_. Or this may be stated numerically; variety, as a whole, being nothing more than the sum of differences, which is always something other than the terms differentiated, but always on the same level with them—the difference between any continuous number, above unity, and another number being a third number, which is different from either. Variety in numbers cannot be expressed otherwise than numerically. So, in the last recess, the variety of colors is only colorable, of tones audible, and so on. The “vibrations of inconceivable complexity” which, according to Mr. Peirce, “excite sight and hearing,” can be approximately stated numerically, so that the difference between red and, say, yellow, is a number corresponding to another color, which may be orange or not; it being part of the present scientific theory of light that any specific number of ethereal undulations happening between the colors of the ocular spectrum, corresponds to a possible color, although the retinal expanse may be insensible to these particular rates of tremor. To Mr. Peirce it may appear “extravagant,” but the difference between any two colors and tones is another color, another tone; just as the difference between any two numbers is a third number. This is the logical outcome of his own Synechism; _this_, in part, is what it “leads to.”

TIME AND ITS “FLOW” RATIONALISED.

Excitants and feelings being unified, and the element of variety, hitherto supposed to be the exclusive copyright of vulgar realism, shown to be nothing but another term added to the series, or, numerically, a concurrent series—so that should _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_ ... be a series, the variety of the series may be expressed as _e_, or the individual differences as _f_, _g_, _h_ ...—it only needs an examination of what Mr. Peirce terms “time and its flow,” to render his system a completely monistic one, and this although true monism is much more than the negation of determinism, synechistically expressed.

In Mr. Peirce’s article under examination, “The Law of Mind,” the notation of infinitesimals, which forms the keystone of Synechism, is only introduced after a lament over the incapacity, or unworkableness rather, of finite time, when the duration of consciousness is involved. If _finite_ time is to come in as a factor—“an idea once past [in the sense of an event in an individual consciousness] is gone forever, and any supposed recurrence of it is another idea” (p. 534). And the problem which Mr. Peirce sets himself to solve is how in effect to bring _back_ this past idea—not vicariously—but in all its pristine freshness, into the now-time. This is sought to be accomplished by the explanation that the past idea is “not wholly past, it is only going, less past than any assignable past date”—and so on through the intricacies of Mr. Peirce’s infinitesimal theory, into which we need not enter at present. But the statement of the, supposed, difficulty which finite time presents in this connection,—the past idea really past and gone, and the recurrence of it another idea,—if put in a slightly different form, hints a solution, in continuity with the foregoing pages, without the aid of the infinitesimal at all. _That an idea is once past and gone_, any occurrence, or recurrence, of this idea, _is another idea_.[73]

But, in the meantime, let us see what Mr. Peirce has to say regarding “time and its flow”:

“One of the most marked features about the law of mind is, that it makes time to have a definite direction of flow from past to future. The relation of past to future is, in reference to the law of mind, different from the relation of future to past. This makes one of the great contrasts between the law of mind and the law of physical force, where there is no more distinction between the two opposite directions in time than between moving northward, and moving southward” (p. 546).

This for once is not very clear. It is difficult to see how “the law of physical force” can be spoken of as “in time,” to the exclusion of mind; not easy, also, to understand the distinction further insisted upon. But the intention is evident, viz., to perpetuate, if not to originate, a cosmical duality. Time, it would seem, marches indifferently in at least two directions, though it is not very clear how this is accomplished. And then the old fiction follows, that “Time, as the universal form of change, cannot exist unless there is something to undergo change, etc.” (p. 547.)

The same notation suits in this case as in the foregoing. Time is only another term in the series. If _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_ be a series, _e_ is the variety, _f_ the whole time involved, and _g_ the individual intervals. Of course all this is not a simple series, it is an infinitely complicated one; the above arrangement is only intended to show that difference, variety, time, etc., are no mysterious entities pervading events, acting as their “form” or carrying them in their “flow,” but simply percepts, or concepts, on a level with others.

This is not patent on the surface, it may be. Time has the appearance of a current in which events float. But this is an illusion dispelled by examination. Events cannot be submerged in time. Time cannot be the vehicle of events. It is impossible to conceive time as existing simultaneously with an event. It always follows it. What to Mr. Peirce appears as a “flow,” arises from the foregoing. Take events, percepts, or concepts, as a hypothetical series, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_ ... and their times as _a´_, _b´_, _c´_, _d´_ ... the first series contains the event _per se_, or as happening; the “time when” is contained in the second series, practically inseparable from the first, but the time when necessarily follows—consequently if the first be _a_, the second must be, at least _a_. But no concept or percept is abstract, except the concept time itself, which, being unconnected, _seems_ anywhere, and, like its fellow-abstract space, is spread out, to us, tri-dimensionally, as past, present, and to come. And, as in space the position is simply spectral,[74] a question of perspective or adjustment, so, in time, the timal series is adjusted to the substantive idea. But this two-fold spectral succession breeds by comparative intensity (which is another complex series) the sense of a flow, where there is none, but only the idea of a flowing, which is another matter. Thus, the so-called “veil of the future” is no more a veil than it is a brickbat. It is simply the indeterminateness of an unconnected adjective—as if one should say, white—and the query arises, _What_ is it that is white? When the noun is supplied you have something definite. Just so, when the future lapses into the present.

Thus there is never anything without, at least, these three additions: first, variety or difference; second, time; third, relation, spatial or otherwise. These are all terms in a series, or set of concurrent series. Nothing can be, practically, isolated, for everything runs in a series. But this is a much broader theory of continuity than that which Synechism affords.[75] All apparent perplexities vanish. The difficulty no longer exists that to perceive a series we must hold it, as it were, in solution. Since other than series nothing is. Hence the cosmos is an illimitable series or complex of series. But inasmuch as the timal element (as also the spatial) occurs through the series having time-term and space-term resident within it, all difficulty in apprehending it as a series vanishes. The impracticability, if any, would be in viewing any term as isolated.

THE RESULT _RE_ TYCHISM.

What a flood of light does such a system shed indirectly upon Tychism, since the controversy between the latter and determinism mainly hinges upon the “must be,” the imperative, as it were, of the series! It has been very ably pointed out by Dr. Carus in his article _re_ Mr. Peirce’s “Onslaught on the Doctrine of Necessity” (_The Monist_, Vol. II, No. 4, pp. 573-4.) that the formula adopted by Mr. Peirce in his Tychism, “chance is first, law is second, the tendency of habits is third,” involves its author in the admission of a law in a system professing to be, in its inception at all events, chanceful and _lawless_. Mr. Peirce’s “Synechism” professes to be the law of mind. Parenthetically, however, it may be remarked, that the distinction as to law, and lawlessness or “chance,” narrows itself to the plane of one term more or less in a series, or _even to less than that subordinate place_. For, although, for convenience sake, and for facility of contrast, we have followed Mr. Peirce’s figure of a series, to show more clearly also to what his theory leads, it is nevertheless plain, that time and its accompanying relations being placed on their proper level, that of integral percepts and concepts, the figure of a series is simply a matter of convenience of arrangement. Certainly as the “time when” is necessarily annexed to every percept and concept the timal element may be said to follow, not to precede, its fellow-term. Really, however, they may be said to be simultaneous, since the timal refinements of finite, infinite, past, present, and future are each of them contained in a percept of its own.

EXTERNALITY A SERIAL TERM.

But if the timal element be independent as a separate percept, the spatial as another, and so on, it follows that, although the terms of the series may, as it were, _run_, though we cannot conceive them separated, or as, in practice, otherwise than as continuous in their flow, still, theoretically, a series or complex of series it _is_, and a series may be interrupted at any term. Thus externality itself being a spatial relation, is but _one term more_, non-essential in theory, to the term preceding. So that when the Neo-Kantians speak of the “constitution of the objective” it ought to be added that it is not only the content of the objective which is thus constituted by consciousness, but that externality, all that goes to make up what is termed “out-sidedness,” is constituted by consciousness also.

THE NOW-TIME.

“_The present is half past, and half to come_,” (p. 546) like the color of a curved boundary line on a particolored surface; i. e. “betwixt and between” the two. It is here that the theory of Synechism shows its chief defect. Up to this stage we have been dealing with ideas, feelings, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_ ... successively passing through a point of consciousness _e_. And the infinitesimal notation suits the required process fairly well. It is complicated enough, but it is ingenious, and at least plausible. Nothing up to this stage would lead us to suppose that any additional element was to be imported into the _rationale_ which Mr. Peirce presents. As we have seen, finite time would not serve his purpose. By however minute a _finite_ interval have _a_, _b_, _c_ or _d_ passed the point _e_, all chance of their recovery is hopeless. Well, we have recourse to infinitesimals, and find (to put it popularly, and not in Mr. Peirce’s technical terms) that _a_ past the point of consciousness by an infinitesimal interval heralds _b_. So that _e_ is simultaneously confronted with the disappearing form of the first and the appearing form of the second, and the same with _b_, and _c_, in turn, and so on. Thus the present, in the sense of ideas successively passing through consciousness, is half _a_ and half _b_, then half _b_ and half _c_, this infinitesimal gradation ultimately ensuring the presence of the whole series in the last “moment.”

But this will not avail with the concept time itself as distinguished from timed succession. That these two are separate with Mr. Peirce it is impossible to doubt. He says, e. g., “Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of continuity than its own,” (p. 547) and speaks of “time and its flow,” and of “time as the universal form of change.” And it is confusing, to say the least, when we are shifted without warning from what is practically the perceptual to the conceptual region. Granted the ideas, the feelings, or what not, “gliding almost imperceptibly” (as did the late Mr. Bardell to another sphere) past the central point of consciousness, yet not wholly past, only going, less past than any assignable past date, granted this, the assertion is not consequently warranted that time itself, the _present_, as time, not as involving the succession of ideas, is “half past and half to come.” The ideas, the feelings, of which Mr. Peirce writes, successively pass through the stage of being thus half past and half to come, but that is by no means the same thing as saying that the present is half past, half to come, as Synechism avers. With our theory, as presented in the foregoing pages there is indeed no such difficulty, but Mr. Peirce, on the other hand, has elected to stand by infinitesimally measuring time, as applied to ideas etc., as separate from conceptual time, and must take the consequences of his decision. He says _the present, not the present idea_.

Now, in the concept time as a whole, in its entire range, a definite point may be selected—to the exclusion of other points—a point having position but not extension, as _the present_. Is it, then,—the present,—half past, half to come, as a timed idea is? Certainly not. There is nothing of the flow of a series in it. Further, this selection of the “now,” as a point, does not interfere with its permanence. “Nowness” may persist. And the moment it partook, even infinitesimally, of the character of the past or of the future, it would cease to be the present. In the case of a series of ideas in time the difficulty is to get them all in present solution, as it were, without detriment to their evident continuity, but the definition of the present as a point in time presents no such difficulty. The conditions are quite distinct. Yet regarding this time point—the present—Mr. Peirce assures us that it is “half past, half to come,” which is just that of which it is the precise negation, if words are to have any meaning.

Again, Mr. Peirce’s _rationale_ shows, upon the face of it, that there is (1) finitely divisible time and, (2) time divided infinitesimally, for what finite time could not do, in that it had limitations, the infinitesimal notation readily accomplishes. In its ulterior consequences, this is somewhat unfortunate for Synechism, inasmuch as the consciousness of ideas in continuity being confined to the infinitesimal theory, where, it may be asked, is the place, in consciousness, for the succession of finite intervals? Consciousness must be practically doubled, so to speak, if it is to hold both of these together. This is what comes of making one’s world-scheme hang upon a mathematical subtlety—the subtlety in question partaking as a rule, more or less of the nature of an escape from the difficulties of the vulgar notation, the vulgar notation remains to be reckoned with, and both have to be credited to consciousness. As an instance of this take the following from Mr. Peirce’s late article,[76] “Man’s Glassy Essence”—p. 15:

“In order that a sub-molecule of food may be thoroughly and firmly assimilated into a broken molecule of protoplasm, it is necessary not only that it should have precisely the right chemical composition, but also that it should be at precisely the right spot _at the right time_ and should be moving in precisely the right direction with precisely the right velocity. If all these conditions are not fulfilled, ... it will be in special danger of being thrown out again” (The italics are not in the original).

Now here is a “time when” which can be exactly specified in accordance with the conditions. Certain results follow unless it is kept to. This is what Mr. Peirce would doubtless consider as a timed physical event, part and parcel of the regularity of matter, and yet an event which, in its own time and way, goes to account for both feeling and habit-taking—capable, therefore, of being stated in terms of finite time, as happening at a given instant, and neither before nor after it. But when this same molecule is, by virtue of keeping its appointment punctually, safely installed in feeling protoplasm, the succession of ideas, or feelings, of which, as subject, it is capable, obeys another rule—a given _instant_ obtains no longer; it is the _moment_ which is everything[77]—a moment half its predecessor, half its successor. Even granted the function of the infinitesimal, this looks very much like a reduction to absurdity. For, if the above mentioned timed coalescence of the sub-molecule with the broken molecule were _also_ a matter of subjective feeling, passed as process through a consciousness, the conclusion follows that the juncture of the molecules happens at two different times! There is no escape from this. Given the _instant_ in the one case, the _moment_ in the other, these two cannot possibly be the same point in time. The moment partakes, however insensibly, of the preceding and succeeding stages, the instant does not. Hence they are not the same but different times.

OTHERNESS.

The foregoing has a distinct bearing upon the question of “other selves” of which Mr. Peirce writes as follows:

“The recognition by one person of another’s personality takes place by means to some extent identical with the means by which he is conscious of his own personality. The idea of the second personality, which is as much as to say that second personality itself, enters within the field of direct consciousness of the first person, and is as immediately perceived as his ego, though less strongly. At the same time, the opposition between the two persons is perceived, so that the externality of the second is recognised.” (“The Law of Mind,” p. 558.)