Part 49

With respect to the status of persons, he denies the existence of the well-known order of development by which promiscuity, matriarchy, and patriarchy are said to succeed each other. The tribe could only have arisen, he tells us, from the federation of families, and the strong family, the one capable of development, could only have been patriarchal. It is wrong, he adds, to regard uterine filiation, that is, the custom of considering a child the son of its mother and not the son of its father, as a vestige of a pre-existent matriarchy. “In a patriarchal society, polygamy—which is the very reverse of matriarchy—ought in the very necessity of things to give predominance to the custom referred to, so that children born of the same mother could be distinguished from one another.” This, indeed, was the idea of the Greek tragedians. The maxim, which occurs so often in Euripides, that it is not good that a man should have several wives, is always disclosed as the anxiety of assuring the legitimacy of children; Æschylus charges Minerva to defend the “cause of her father”; it is one of the aspects of the reaction against the customs of Asia. The primitive family, says M. Tarde, in summing up, was quite different in its original forms; it was here monogamic, there polygamic, and in other places polyandrous, at one time exogamic and at another endogamic, and so forth. “Marriage, therefore, did not spring from a single typical form, nor does it, in its various forms, make towards such.”

His criticisms are of equal strength with regard to the status of things and the presumed priority of collective property. Contrary to the views of M. de Laveleye, he is of opinion that the community of the village could only have arisen on an enlarged model of the community of the family, “just as the vestal fire of the city could only have been lighted in imitation of the fire of the domestic hearth”: The certain effect of the first must in its origin have been to encroach upon, not to produce, the second. Excessively preoccupied in finding in the present the vestiges of a state of things that is past, the evolutionists involve themselves, regardless of consequences, in many naïve and wonderful theories, which M. Tarde, in his keen and pointed style, has not hesitated to expose. There is much point and a profusion of the _granum salis_ in these instructive pages.

With respect to obligations, he makes a distinction, as in criminal law, between internal and external relations. Also, after having asserted with Sir Henry Sumner Maine, the non-fusion of the law of nature and the law of nations, he remarks that here also there exists two sources whose waters have not subsequently flowed together: the _jus naturæ_ is conceived to be the generalisation of a type of relations abstracted from the internal relations of the members of the primitive social group; the _jus gentium_ to be the outcome of relations between men that belong to different groups.

Is, then, this disordered succession of the social data mere chance? The reader will bethink himself of a number of facts which go to disprove this conclusion, and it is a difficulty moreover which M. Tarde has also felt. He replies by making a distinction of “two kinds of laws, the laws of causation and the supposed laws of evolution.” The first, which in his theory are analogous to the laws of celestial mechanics, whose formulæ remain constant no matter what the history of the solar systems distributed throughout the heavens may be, are the psychological laws; the second are merely arbitrary formulæ, which, when we come to define them accurately, do not admit of adaptation even to the majority of cases. The psychological laws of which M. Tarde here speaks are reducible to _imitation_[82]—consequently to _invention_—and to _logic_. I certainly do not propose to question the importance of these factors. In a short tract published several years ago I pointed out myself that the influences of contact are more efficient than the influences of race or even of climate, and this implicitly involves the idea of imitation. Yet the character of the psychological factor does not, it seems to me, exclude a tendency towards a certain arrangement of the data of society, despite their possible and actual diversity. “With respect to the facts of society,” I wrote, “we point out their changes but do not succeed in disclosing the laws of their evolution; the most we have done is to note amid the totality certain features which appear to predominate.” To extricate these features is a task not unworthy of the historian. M. Tarde himself admits that results of this character have already been reached, and he especially points to “the splendid and commendable movement in advance, which though not generally noticed[83] has, nevertheless, accompanied all juridical evolutions”—namely, the constant enlargement of the relations of law as the result of a growing sympathy and sociability.

To sum up, the point of view which M. Tarde has taken does not exclude a class of researches different from his. Nothing can be better than to formulate the laws of the psychological agent, and M. Tarde, original mind that he is, has done this with a superiority and penetration to which I yield my unqualified admiration. At bottom, does not the view of Auguste Comte, despite his contempt for psychology, involve the preliminary study of the biological individual and the social agent? Psychological laws and physical laws undoubtedly meet in the same group of “laws of causation”; still, it should not be forgotten that in the social order of things man is the creator of the facts and that his creations react upon him in the proportion in which they are realised. At any rate, a tangible relation exists between the creations of the agent and the variations of the results, and it is not forbidden to inquire if there does not also exist a certain order in these creations, the effect of which would be to produce a recognisable serial succession in the results, a medial line about which the events of our life oscillate. A difficult investigation—and one in which M. Tarde has shown himself to be too speedily satisfied, and in which we should strenuously guard against hasty generalisations. It is unpleasant, we admit, to turn topsy-turvy a house in which we have long lived in comfort; but our contentment returns in an increased measure when we have replaced our things in their proper places, and swept out the dusty corners.

* * * * *

M. M. AGUILÉRA has just published a work entitled, _L’idée du Droit en Allemagne_. His book is a history of the different schools of law which have arisen in Germany and lays especial emphasis on the fact that no nation has advanced as far as this in seeking in philosophical ideas the motives and the justification of its acts, and he sets about showing how the existence of Germany’s special conception of law may be explained. Germany, he writes in his conclusion, everywhere starts from the idea of force. Its peculiar characteristic is to bow before victorious force. And to this must be added, if we wish to comprehend its aggressive character, the sentiment of vanity, which has led it to proclaim “that incredible formula: the ideal of Germany is the ideal of humanity.”

M. GEORGE LYON gives us a learned historical study, _La philosophie de Hobbes_. He points out how everything is interrelated in the work of this philosopher—his conception of the state to his theories of ethics, his ethical doctrines to his psychological theories, and the latter to general principles concerning nature, thought, and their laws. But he also presents with much force the objections to Hobbism. He condemns its final consequence, which is submission to force. He points out finally the inevitable ambiguity which permeates this system in consequence of the struggle “between individual inspiration, which is purely ontological, and the action of an intellectual environment which is eminently empirical. Hobbes was the metaphysician of empiricism as Bacon was its poet.” I dismiss for the present all discussion of these subjects; an occasion will present itself later of dealing with them.

In _Les races et les langues_ M. ANDRÉ LEFÈVRE sums up the state of the science of language. The distinguishing characteristic of his work is the non-separation of language from the organism which has produced it, and the simultaneous presentation of languages with the ethnical groups which speak them. M. Lefèvre accepts, let us note at once, the well-known stages of the linguistic school—monosyllabism, agglutination, inflection, and analysis, which M. Tarde, if he should unexpectedly become a philologist would stigmatise as gratuitous. Of the races, of the places of origin, and of the migrations of the ancient peoples he tells a great many stories which are somewhat of the fairy-tale order, but this reservation does not affect in the least the value of his special linguistic researches.

In conclusion I shall mention _Le problème de la mort, ses solutions imaginaires et la science positive_, by M. L. BOURDEAU, and _Platon, sa philosophie, précédé d’un aperçu de sa vie et de ses écrits_, by M. CH. BÉNARD, a new volume in the series of historical studies by this venerable professor.[84]

LUCIEN ARRÉAT.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] See his work _Les lois de l’imitation_ (Alcan, Paris).

[83] I have called attention to this in a less definite manner in several passages of my book _La morale dans le drame, l’épopée et le roman_, in which I shall have to incorporate the corrections which the splendid studies of M. Tarde have suggested. For the citation given a few lines above I ask permission to refer the reader to my _Journal d’un philosophe_ (Alcan, Paris).

[84] All the works mentioned are published by F. Alcan.

BOOK REVIEWS.

EINLEITUNG IN DIE PHILOSOPHIE. By _Prof. Friedrich Paulsen_. Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz. 1892.

Friedrich Paulsen, professor at the University of Berlin, writes this “Introduction” not so much for connoisseurs as for students, whom it may serve as a guide. He discusses in general outlines the various fundamental problems of philosophy, at the same time indicating his own position, which, in more than one respect, is very similar to the philosophy presented in the columns of _The Monist_.

His own view, which, as he trusts, is the general tendency of modern philosophical thought, he calls “idealistic monism.” It is opposed, on the one hand, to supernatural dualism, and on the other hand to atomistic materialism; the former being the traditional doctrine of the schoolmen and of ecclesiasticism, separating body and soul, nature and God, etc., each into two distinct realities, which are accidentally combined, the latter being an attempt, having its beginning in the eighteenth century, to explain all natural phenomena in a purely mechanical way. Paulsen adds: “The whole history of modern philosophy can be said to be a continuous attempt to overcome this opposition.... The principle of natural science is the _Natur-Gesetzmässigkeit_ of all events.... Modern materialism derives from this a kind of metaphysics, represents all reality as a system of blindly operating physical forces.... Philosophy undertakes to dispel the opposition of these two doctrines; its proposition is—and we may say that this is the main-spring of the entire evolution of modern philosophy—_to reconcile the religious world-conception with that of natural science_. There are many who regard this aspiration as a sort of squaring of the circle, and we grant that some similitude between the two may exist, for here as well as there we can attain only to approximations, here as well as there we can never solve the problem finally and forever. At any rate, we must recognise the fact that the whole philosophical thought of the last three centuries has been directed towards this goal.”

Professor Paulsen classes the various philosophies of the present time as follows: (1) The phenomenalistic-positivistic philosophy which denies any absolute cognition of reality, least of all in physics; the world of objects is a world of phenomena. (2) The idealistic monistic philosophy. To define the nature of reality as it is in itself, we must rely upon the data of our inner experience. The intellectual-historical world is to us the most comprehensible dénouement of reality—in fact, the only comprehensible one. The ultimate idea to which we are led in tracing out facts, is this: Reality, which presents itself to our senses in the objective world as a unitary system of motions, is the appearance of a spiritual all-being, which must be conceived as the evolution of some unitary idea. In this respect idealistic monism agrees upon the whole with speculative philosophy, or rather with all idealism since Plato.

The philosophy of the present time is, further on, characterised (3) as passing from intellectualism to voluntaryism; namely, it allows the will to have its legitimate influence in the construction of a world-view. It is (4) evolutionistic-theological, which latter tendency meets half way the above-mentioned idealistic monism. Both are beginning to permeate ethics, sociology, jurisprudence, and politics. The old formalistic methods are dropped and teleological considerations prevail. Purpose is recognised to rule in life. Lastly (5) the philosophy of to-day is historical. The older philosophy is mathematical-naturalistic or abstract-rationalistic. Speculative philosophy precedes the construction of an intellectual-historical world; it then attempts also to construct nature historically, at least in a logico-genetic schematism. Natural science has already pursued this course in its cosmical and biological theories of evolution. It is apparent how these tendencies follow the old tradition of harmonising the physical and the intellectual-historical worlds into one unitary conception of the whole.

The book is divided into two parts, with an introduction and conclusion. The introduction defines the relation of philosophy to mythology and to the sciences. Philosophy cannot be separated from the sciences. Says Paulsen: “Figuratively speaking, reality is a great riddle proposed to man; all the various sciences determine some parts of it, and the attempt to solve the _whole_, to find the key to the _mysterium magnum_ of being, is called philosophy.”

The first book treats, in two chapters, of the problems of metaphysics, viz.: the ontological problem and the cosmo-theological problem. In the former chapter materialism, panpsychism, and the nature of the soul are discussed, while the second chapter is devoted to atomism and teleological theism, implying such subjects as the theory of evolution, causality, pantheism. The second part reviews, in the first chapter, the problems of the theory of cognition, viz.: the idealistic arguments, the realistic views, and our knowledge of the outer world. The second chapter presents an exposé of the problems regarding the origin of cognition as viewed by rationalism and empiricism, paying special attention to Kant’s formalistic realism. The conclusion is a brief treatment of some ethical problems.

It is impossible to discuss all the details of the 444 pages of Paulsen’s book, but a few specimen quotations from the chapter “Pantheism and World-soul” may be welcome to our readers. Our author asks: Considering all the tendencies of yearning and willing that appear in the innumerable forms of reality, is there a unity of inner life corresponding to the unity of the physical world in its universal interaction? The affirmation of this question constitutes the idealistic pantheism.

Idealistic pantheism is to Professor Paulsen the simplest and most obvious construction of the world possible. To other world-views, the existence of the soul is a problem; it has even been called an “absolute problem.” “I believe,” he adds, with great truth, “that there can be no stronger argument against any world-view than that it regards the existence of soul as something absolutely mysterious.” There is a power of conviction in idealistic pantheism verified by the astonishing agreement of the testimonies of many various thinkers in the Orient as well as in the Occident, in antiquity no less than in modern times. (P. 243.)

Says Professor Paulsen: “The dayfly may imagine when the sun sinks that all is at an end; light vanishes forever and the whole world is swallowed up in darkness and death. But man who sees so many suns sink and rise should have learned that in the infinite there are many possibilities which he cannot see at present [p. 241]. The conception of a world-soul, of a spiritual all-being, of a _mundus intelligibilis_ appears to our physicists and physiologists in the same light as the conception of anthropomorphic deities—as a childish dream. They have no need of this hypothesis [pp. 243-244]. Du Bois-Reymond declares that a naturalist before admitting the assumption of a world-soul should demand, ‘that we ought to find somewhere in the world neuroglia embedded in warm arterial blood under the proper pressure and provided with appropriate sense-organs, ganglions, and fibres, corresponding to the intellectual capacities of such a soul.’ An animal,” says Paulsen, “needs as a matter of course legs to stand upon and to move with, a stomach, teeth, eyes, and a central nervous system, but the All is not in need of this; it needs no legs to stand upon and to move with, no stomach for alimentary purposes, no eyes, no ears, for there is nothing to be seen or heard outside of it, and so it can also dispense with a nervous system and a brain.”

Quoting two passages, one from Fechner, the other from Nägeli, to the effect that the system of fixed stars might be regarded as a group of molecules in an infinitely larger whole which we should have to conceive of as a unitary organism, Paulsen says: “Indeed, there is no objection to regarding a planet as a ganglion of the world-brain. Is it too large? No. Why should not the world-brain have bigger cells than an animal brain. Or is its composition inappropriate? Why? We find in it the same materials, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, phosphorus, and so forth, and also innumerable interactions similar for all we know to those that take place in a ganglion. Who knows how striking would be the resemblance of their structures, if we could but see a ganglion under a sufficiently powerful magnifying glass.”

These ideas are mere possibilities and are presented as such, but we cannot attribute to them any philosophical, scientific, or religious importance. Our idea of “a world-soul” or, better, of God, is different and we avoid purposely anything that can be constructed upon the basis of a vague hypothesis.

We ourselves reject pantheism, the view which identifies God and the All for reasons which we need not repeat here. We call our view of God entheism, and in forming our idea of God we purposely avoid such fantastical assumptions as considering the possibility of solar systems being molecules in the organism of a huge world-animal. Granted the truth of this view, the mere possibility of which we cannot deny, this extraordinary creature or world-animal would not be God, its will would not be our moral authority; it would not be the eternal, the immutable, the ground of all being, the ultimate rule of action, and the omnipotent universal law of existence: it would merely be a creature like ourselves, only immeasurably bigger, evolving like other animals and subject to the same or analogous or perhaps similar wants, disappointments, sufferings, and joys as ourselves. What a miserable God such a world-being would be; we know nothing of him and he knows nothing of us. His will and aspirations would have even less influence upon our aspirations, than, for instance, the hopes of a man upon the molecular groupings in his tissues, we being only the parasites upon the crust of an atom of his tissues. We have presented our view of the subject in Vol. III, No. 2, pp. 249-257, of _The Monist_, in the third part of the article “Panpsychism and Panbiotism,” with reference to a similar hypothesis incidentally touched upon as a possibility of monistic theism by Professor Romanes.

We simply state the difference between our position and that of Professor Paulsen concerning the nature of a world-soul without intending to make more of it than he does himself; for, if we are not mistaken, it is with him a mere suggestion.

We conclude our review with a passage which shows Professor Paulsen’s attitude toward Christianity, which more than anything else proves the general agreement of his work with ours. He says:

“The Christian faith is not a philosophical system, not a theological dogma and still less the residue of an old superstition, but the immediate and living certainty of the heart concerning the nature of the good and its importance in real life. This faith can be to-day the same as it was in Luther’s, or St. Augustine’s, or the apostles’ time who saw Jesus with their own eyes bodily. If Christianity, did indeed consist of a number of doctrines and opinions, it would certainly be true, as some claim, that it has been dead a long time, for doctrines and opinions are not long-lived. If Christianity really did consist of the belief in the creation of the world five thousand years ago out of nothing, the rib story of Eve, the story of Eden and the fall, etc., etc., ... then indeed it would be impossible for a thinking man of to-day to be a Christian. But all that is not the faith of Christianity, it is not the religion of Jesus. And if all the leaders of all the confessions declare that this is the Christian faith and that he who does not believe all these things can have no part in Christ, their proposition must be rejected as untrue. No one can be saved by believing these things; while the request of the church to believe in certain opinions set forth by men has expelled many an honest man.... In the life and death of Jesus I have learned to understand the meaning of life and I call God and the revelation of God that which makes my life possible and explains to me the significance of my life.... Is such a faith compatible with the above-mentioned monistic world-conception? My answer is, By all means.”

This is Professor Paulsen’s solution of the problem of a reconciliation of science and religion—and we add that it is ours too.

P. C.

FIRST STEPS IN PHILOSOPHY. By _William Mackintire Salter_. Chicago: C. H. Kerr & Co. 1892. Price, $1.00. Pages, 155.

This little book is divided into two parts: (1) Physical, (2) Ethical. In the first, Mr. Salter discusses the conception of matter; in the second, that of duty. Mr. Salter’s philosophical position is epitomised in a sentence which he quotes from Herbert Spencer. This sentence states, that, “what we are conscious of as properties of matter, even down to its weight and resistance, are but subjective affections produced by objective agencies which are unknown and unknowable.” Mr. Salter’s philosophical position, accordingly, is, first, Idealism, and, second, Agnosticism.

In ethics, Mr. Salter’s view embraces Utilitarianism, or Hedonism, and Intuitionism, both of which, he says, are incomplete in themselves, and must be supplemented by other elements. Utilitarianism makes happiness the ultimate end; Intuitionism, virtue; and Mr. Salter adds, such an end must embrace the “realisation of _all_ our capacities.” Mr. Salter’s ethical position has been before discussed in our journals.