Part 50

If we study Mr. Salter’s philosophical views, we shall find that his theory is a reproduction of Berkeley’s analysis of the data of knowledge, embellished by the results of modern physiological psychology. Yet Mr. Salter’s theory, although it everywhere shows the traces of a close study of Berkeley’s views, presents the strange historical anomaly of undoing Berkeley’s work. Berkeley’s undoubted aim was to place knowledge on a basis of fact and refute, in a philosophical manner, the agnosticism, metaphysicism, and transcendentalism prevalent in his day. But Mr. Salter adds to Berkeley’s results the very things that Berkeley sought to overthrow, and thus renders the latter’s analysis (and consequently his own) in need of an equivalent analysis.

Take, for instance, the above-quoted sentence from Herbert Spencer, to which Mr. Salter assents. “Objective agencies,” “unknown and unknowable”! Is this consistent? All knowledge is a knowledge of sensations, a knowledge _of_ and _in_ the mind, says the idealist, and we cannot, by any process of ratiocination, arrive at things “outside” the mind. Yet he himself, it seems, arrives at a knowledge of “objective agencies” outside the mind (pp. 65, 69), and, what is more wonderful, at agencies that are “unknown” and “unknowable.” Surely, this is not abiding by an analysis of the facts of sensation (Berkeley). It is as unrational a procedure to infer metaphysical objective agencies, as it is to infer a metaphysical substratum “matter,” which last is the error of the realist.

Again, take the notion of cause. Here, also, the same unwarrantable abandonment of the facts of sensation, i. e. of _all that is_, is evident.

At the end of an analysis, in which he shows that “all the choir of Heaven and the furniture of the earth,” and “all which it inhabit,” retreat and vanish in mind, Mr. Salter asks: “But is there absolutely nothing real and objective left? So far as sensible phenomena are concerned, we must answer, No, absolutely nothing is left; the whole sensible (material) world is but an effect upon ourselves. But,” he adds, “it would be a hasty inference,” on these grounds, “to say that nothing whatever is left.” And when asked “what is left,” he answers, “all that causes sensation.” We can never know scientifically what these causes are, but “we have an inextinguishable faith” _that_ they are, “there being no particular thing we are more sure of than that for every event (and every sensible phenomenon is an event, viz., in ourselves) there is some kind of explanation or cause.” To sum up: The theory of “sensible or physical idealism”[85] implies a “supersensible or metaphysical realism.” In the theory of sensible idealism things only exist as sensations; “only exist, that is, _save in their supersensible or transcendental causes_”—which, says the author, we must always add.

What is a cause? Cause is an abstraction. An abstraction from what? from a real, physical world, or from a metaphysical, transcendental world? Plainly, from our real world, from Mr. Salter’s world of “sensible reality.” By what philosophical warrant, then, is this concept applied to a world from which it has not been derived and to which it surely cannot apply! It is wrong to speak of a cause of the All. The All has no cause, just as it has no weight.

All these difficulties arise from the notion that there are two kinds of knowledge and two kinds of existences. Idealism, to be consistent, must be absolute; Mr. Salter’s idealism is not absolute. This is exactly the criticism that the reading of his book at once forces on one. All knowledge is knowledge of sensations, i. e. of reality; things not accessible to sensation are not real, they do not exist; consequently, all entities transcendental, metaphysical, and supersensible do not exist. This is the conclusion to which any philosophy, idealism, realism, or what not _must_ lead.

Nowadays, few people dispute the fundamental thesis of idealism (of course, expressed in different terms from those of Mr. Spencer’s sentence). In a sense, it is established. Its only drawback is, that its “establishment” accomplishes nothing. It leaves the problem of philosophy where it found it.[86] Reality is still reality. The same difficulties and perplexities exist. The universe still mocks us. And foremost among the riddles that the world opposes to man, stands that eternal query: “What is mind?” Mr. Salter’s views of this question will show us what contributions his theory is likely to make to philosophy.

Mr. Salter defines mind as “that which experiences sensations and thoughts, or, more simply, that which feels and thinks.” It is not feeling, not thinking, but _that which_ feels and thinks. It is thus an agent, a subject. It is difficult to understand how this notion of mind is come at, without self-contradiction. In their origin, all notions of mind-subjects, mind-essences, mind-agencies, and so forth, are materialistic. They must be volatilised and stripped of their substantial attributes, if they are to take a place in an idealistic philosophy, and then, as they “cannot be ranged along with the sensible phenomena of which the mind takes cognisance,” there is but one realm left to exist in, which is the transcendentalistic.

All this comes from carrying the abstraction by which “mind” is reached, to mathematically infinite limits. In this abstraction the world retreats and fades away into nothingness. And what is left? Not a single idea or fact by which we can fix our abstraction. Mind is all, and mind is nothing. It is not matter, not time, not space—not even a mathematical point, which we expect it to become in its infinitely contracting perspective. It has no attributes, no qualities; it is nothing and nowhere. This conception of mind, Mr. Salter says, is only mysterious as we _make_ it so, by careless and inaccurate thinking. And Mr. Salter is right. It would require much careless thinking to make such a conception mysterious. A thing or notion that cannot be defined, placed, or brought into connection with any other thing or notion in the world, is not _mysterious_, but simply does not exist. In that respect, it is as plain as day.

The same confusion exists in the discussion which disposes of the query, “_Where_ is mind?” The idealist, in Mr. Salter’s sense, does not admit that the mind is in, or in anywise spatially connected with, the brain. The question, _where_ is mind? he says, has no meaning, any more than the question, what is the color of a pleasure? This is true. Mind is an abstraction. In this sense it has no spatial existence. But the phenomena from which this abstraction has produced itself, _are_ linked with phenomena which have spatial existence, and in this sense the mental processes are not mysterious nothings and nowheres. When I lose that group of sensations called my leg, I know that, generally, I have lost the feeling of my leg. So, also, when a certain part of that group of sensations called my brain is destroyed, I know that I shall then have lost my power of memory or of speech or of motion. I may also experiment with other groups of sensations called dogs and cats, which I know have mental powers. In the light of these facts it is not correct, either in philosophy or common sense, to say that mental processes are absolutely independent of locality. I know that my thoughts are not connected with the group of sensations I call the moon, and I know they are not connected with that group of sensations that I call Mr. Smith. I am always aware of them as connected with that group of sensations which I call “myself.”

Mr. Salter, in fact, half recognises this. He says, “The mind _is_ dependent on the body in the sense that our general power of sensation and thought is connected with those sensations we call our body.” Yet, “why this should be so is mysterious.” Indeed! One is inclined to ask Mr. Salter here, what species of explanation or knowledge he wishes of this phenomenon. Is explanation, or knowledge, something more than the recognition and seeing of a plain connection between the groups of sensations that constitute reality? In Mr. Salter’s analysis, all the facts of the world are mysterious. Why a thing is as it is and is not other than it is, is mysterious. He utterly fails to understand why the power of perceiving colors is linked with the particular group of sensations he calls his eye, and why it should not just as well be linked with some other group or no group at all.

Why do I see with my eye? Why do I not see with my hand or with the hairs of my head, or why do I not eat with my elbow, instead of my mouth? Why do not stones fall upwards? Why do not magnets point towards the East? Why do not the planets move about Jupiter or Saturn? Mr. Salter’s question makes a jumble of the whole universe.

It is not the object of science or philosophy to find out why things are not what they are, but to find out what they are. In this inquiry the why and wherefore, properly understood, will evolve themselves.

Science simply concerns itself with the connection of the groups of sensations which the idealist, and for that matter every one else, calls reality. It cannot concern itself with anything else. All other things are artificial and self-made existences. Nothing exists but reality and the connections of reality. To seek for any other connections than those that exist is absurd and futile. And to seek for any other causes or cause of relations than such as really are is also futile. Before we speak of the knowledge of a thing we must analyse and define our notion of knowledge, and before we speak of the cause of a thing we must analyse and define our notion of cause. In our view, the relation which Mr. Salter doubts, is so intimately and inextricably one, that the causal relation disappears. Neither is the cause of the other. We may, for the purposes of inquiry, start from either as our general concept, but we should never go so far as utterly to expel from reality the other. True science and philosophy are neither idealistic nor materialistic, but _real_. The two positions are extreme positions, and each is useful only as a safeguard against the errors of the others. Reality is reality; that is the main thing. Whether it is idealistic or materialistic is of minor consequence. Besides reality there is nothing; its negation is non-existence.

We do not wish in these criticisms to repudiate all that is in Mr. Salter’s book. A great many of its reflections are helpful and suggestive. We may refer, for example, to the passages in which the body is regarded as a gradually decreasing wall of separation between that part of reality which is known subjectively and that part which is known objectively. This is really a unitary view. We believe, however, that if Mr. Salter would carefully analyse the notions of knowledge, explanation, cause, effect, and, therefore, the notion of reality, he would not push his philosophy to the mysterious extreme at which it finally arrives, and he would absolutely reject such unscientific conceptions as supersensible realism, metaphysical realism, and supersensible or transcendental causes. These render the reading of his book as a philosophical help unsatisfactory, and leave the mind even more confused and perplexed than it was before. However, all discussions of this sort have their value, and Mr. Salter’s book possesses a virtue which few other philosophical productions can boast of: it is very short. The author’s pleasant style will also add to the pleasure of its perusal, and if read critically the book will evoke much helpful thought.

T. J. MCCORMACK.

A REVIEW OF THE SYSTEMS OF ETHICS FOUNDED ON THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. By _C. M. Williams_. New York and London: Macmillan & Co. 1893.

This is a book, the perusal of which will leave the earnest student of moral science full of disappointment. Not at all that it manifests any lack of ability or information. On the contrary, it is at once clearly and entertainingly written, and at the same time packed with notes and comments that are full of interest and instruction.

The course of the book may be briefly stated. The first part, comprising nearly half of its six hundred pages, is devoted to the statement of the ethical doctrines maintained by thirteen prominent writers, whose views have been formed more or less under the influence of the theory of evolution, viz.: Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, Spencer, Fiske, Rolph, Baratt, Stephen, Carneri, Höffding, Gizycki, Alexander, and Paul Ree. The rest of the book is the review of our author. This review is conducted under the topical heads: The Concepts of Evolution; Intelligence and End; The Will; Thought, Feeling, and Will in Evolution; Egoism and Altruism in Evolution; Conscience; Moral Progress in History; The Results of Ethical Inquiry on an Evolutional Basis; and The Ideal and the Way of Its Attainment.

These are all topics of great interest and importance, and the author has brought to the consideration of them a mind fully stored and entirely competent. But we look in vain for that discourse and criticism which above all other matters relating to moral science those who are interested in human welfare crave from those who tender their reflections upon ethical topics.

The great need of moral science is the discovery and certification of its basis. It is a need that far transcends the scope of mere moral science, for upon its right determination depends the right determination of a multitude of questions that deeply involve the welfare of humanity. It is a need that is not merely crying to be supplied. It is absolutely wailing. Could it only be rightly determined, mankind would fast enough orient itself in the course of evolution and with undissipated energy work out its best possible development. But undiscovered or uncertified it balks all process, save only that mechanical, halting, stumbling process that has hitherto obtained; a process that is, as all may observe, one that has little if any inward coördination, but is full of inability and cross-purposes. Since it was the professed purpose of our author to review a number of the more prominent systems of ethics, which he esteems to be founded on the theory of evolution, his failure to notice and to comment upon so conspicuous a feature of moral science would naturally lead a reader, unversed in the works noticed, to suppose that those works had altogether slighted this topic. Such is, however, not the case. With the exception of perhaps Darwin and Wallace, all the writers reviewed by our author have given more or less attention to this matter, and they have left us in no doubt as to the positions which they severally hold. Most of them are Hedonists of one sort or another. Haeckel, Carneri, Rolph, and Alexander are, we believe, the only exceptions.

But a more serious criticism upon the work under notice is suggested by its very title. That title as much as says that the various works which are reviewed by our author are “founded” upon the theory of evolution, at least in so far as their ethical doctrines are concerned.

Now, what is the theory of evolution? What is its essential nature? Does not its very form consist in the affirmation of an eternal secular mutation, in which there is no discontinuity whatever? It says that existence in sum and in every detail is eternal and continuous process. It uncompromisingly forbids all suppositions of any absolute beginning, or of any absolute end, or of any absolutely final adjustment. Hence, no system of ethics can with truth be said to be “founded” upon the theory of evolution that ignores or forgets this essential character of it. Now, when we turn to the consideration of the various “systems” which our author supposes to be “founded” upon the theory of evolution, we find them, one and all, occupied more or less with suppositions of ends. All are forecasting some “ideal” condition, which, being attained, all chances of retrogression will be foreclosed and all possibilities of betterment will be exhausted. In other words, they suppose an attainment of death, or rather an attainment of a death-in-life more utterly horrible than any actual death can possibly be. The very first condition for an ethics that will be truly evolutional must be the fit and full recognition of a boundless horizon to evolution in morals as well as in all else. Emerson perceived the truth when he said in “The Sphynx”:

“Profounder, profounder Man’s spirit must dive; To his aye rolling orb No goal will arrive. The heavens that now draw him With sweetness untold, Once found; for _new_ heavens He spurneth the old.”

And at present, the most serious efforts to establish a truly clear-sighted ethics of evolution, with an unequivocal disavowal of any and all Hedonism, is made by the editors of _The Monist_. It, indeed, is the key-note of the missionary work that characterises all the publications of The Open Court Publishing Co.

Any truly evolutional ethics must show itself a doctrine that applies just as well to regress as to progress. Evolution is too often confounded with progress, but degeneration is just as truly evolutional as is the contrary movement, and, looking the facts of existence in the face, mankind has no assurance of any unchangeable course of betterment. The principles of morals are, however, not dependent upon the benign action of nature. When the earth’s stock of fuel shall become exhausted, or when the ice age returns, or when the sun grows cold, there will be no alteration thereby in the moral law. Good and evil must and will be the same under all circumstances, and no system of ethics is nor can be anything but a temporary makeshift, that does not as well fit the _diastoles_ as it does the _systoles_ of existence. We must look for a doctrine that shall inform the conduct of men not only for the fore part of the day, when all is jubilant and bounding and man asks only for some good task to do, but also for the evening and night, when man grows weary and craves for rest; for not only youth and maturity, but for waning strength, old age, and death; for not only the progressive era of cosmic history, but for the periods when natural conditions may disfavor mankind, when, say, man may gradually be so reduced in resources that the same will barely suffice for simple life-preservation; when under the stress of natural conditions the human intellect, in the course of generations, becomes step by step eliminated; when indeed humanity itself tends perhaps slowly, but with certainty, towards permanent extinction.

They who complacently protest that the theory of evolution leaves the domain of moral science substantially unaffected are surely in great default either in their comprehension of the nature and implications of that theory, or in their powers of circumspection, while those who suppose that moral science becomes evolutional simply because of a little application of that theory to some of the subordinate questions that are involved, show themselves in a plight as bad as the others if not worse.

Our author notices without dissent, and even with seeming concurrence, the various remarks made by many of the writers reviewed by him in discredit of teleology.

Since as we have before protested the theory of evolution forbids all suppositions of any ends that are absolutely final, it of course follows that teleology is in the strictness of its meaning inadmissible, even in ethics. But in dismissing teleology, let us not pour out the child with the bath. However it ought to be with the interpretation of the order of nature as a speculative exercise, something that is analogous to teleology is an absolute necessity if ethics is to be anything more than a curious study of human practise. The universe may manifest no purpose, design or secular tendency, but man is and can be nothing but a miserable estray on the ocean of existence unless he sails on a course, instead of merely drifting. To do this he must take something by which to steer, and any plausible stability is better than no bearings whatever. At any rate man is insuperably drawn to thus mark out his course. If the theory of evolution forbids him to suppose any ends that are absolutely final, it does not prevent him from ascertaining directions. Indeed evolution affords him data of the very first importance for that behoof. Instead of ends we have aims and if ethics is to become that counsel and guide to humanity, which we yearn for so anxiously, it must ascertain and certify that single paramount aim to which all other tendencies are naturally subsidiary. Teleology, or rather the determination of the aim of evolution, must prepare the foundation before any evolutional ethics that is worthy the name can be established.

Again our author with considerable debate notices the remarks of the writers reviewed by him on the old question of free will and necessity,—but like the positing of some end or aim to be subserved, free will is one of the presuppositions of ethics. When man begins to debate the possibility of rightly ascertaining the true end or aim for his pursuit, or when he begins to moot the question of free will, he is debating not any question of ethics proper, but only whether such a science is possible. Unless conditions and events are functions, as well of man’s personality as of his environment; unless persons count for something in the variations of the course of nature, it is altogether vain and idle to be troubled with questions of morality.

Free will and somewhat to be achieved are principles which whether well or ill founded, ethics proper must take for granted before it has or can have any _raison d’être_. As for free will, however the metaphysicians may have stumbled over their own feet, the common sense of mankind has never wavered. As a practical question (and ethics is pre-eminently a matter of practice) this question is not an open one.

But on the question of what is the true paramount aim for man to pursue, the decision that shall finally satisfy man is yet to be made. The best proof that no satisfactory answer has yet been made is the fact that we are still seeking an answer. As with regard to the needful prime condition for a truly evolutional ethics we found wisdom in the poetical insight, so again in this exigency we personally find the most profound ethical philosophy in that same insight.

“’Tis Life of which our nerves are scant. ’Tis Life, not death for which we pant, More Life, and fuller that we want.”

FRANCIS C. RUSSELL.

DER PESSIMISMUS IM LICHTE EINER HÖHEREN WELTAUFFASSUNG. By _Dr. J. Friedländer_ and _Dr. M. Berendt_. Berlin W.: S. Gerstmann. 1893.

The authors’ aim is the refutation of pessimism and the foundation of a higher world-conception. This latter is a pantheism spiritualised by moral ideals and contrasted to Darwinism and materialism. Natural science is said to be the surrounding walls of the new view, furnishing (1) negative truths of criticism and (2) a knowledge of the positive features of nature. The negative truths are: the impossibility of the existence of a personal God, of the efficiency of prayer, of miracles, of the immortality of the soul, of the separate existence of souls without bodies. The positive results of natural science are the unity of nature, the indestructibility of nature, the harmony of the All, the indivisibility of nature, the irrefragable necessity of natural processes according to immutable laws, and the freedom or independence of nature, as having its cause in itself, uncreated and uninfluenced by any extramundane being.