Sketch of A Philosophy
Part I, II, III, IV.
CHAPTER III.
CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS RELATION TO PURE
INTELLIGENCE OR UNDISTURBED INTUITION.
It is often maintained that consciousness, taken as it naturally
expresses itself, is an infallible criterion of truth. Such maxims as
"falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," have been applied to consciousness;
and in a word, it is often maintained that if the affirmation of
consciousness are to be subjected to criticism, our case is hopeless,
for we have no other criterion to go by that is not more open to
suspicion.
Now, doubtless the legitimate authority of consciousness is very
great; but, at the same time, it is certain that it bases all its
deliverances upon the "I," the "me," the "EGO," and is, indeed,
precisely the EGO expressing itself in thought. Plainly, therefore, it
would not be safe to assume, previously to inquiry, that the
affirmation of consciousness are always, and objectively as well as
subjectively, infallible; for, undoubtedly, the EGO itself is not
universally trustworthy in an intellectual point of view. On the
contrary, as has been already hinted, the EGO tends inordinately to
assert itself. It is also averse to law. We ought not, therefore, to
take for granted that it will represent other things, all of which are
expressions of law, as they really are. We ought not, somnolently, to
accept consciousness as universally trustworthy, and to hold it to be
an organ of ultimate truth in every field in which we may bring it into
play, though possibly it may pretend to give us information as to what
is there. Consciousness, as it exists in us, may possibly be a
provisional form of intelligence merely, beautifully adapted, perhaps,
to the uses of this life, and most excellent and trustworthy when so
applied; and yet, possibly, it may not be excellent and trustworthy
universally,-as, for instance, when applied to matters of mere
speculation, which lie wholly out of the way of our calling in this
world, and on which consciousness was never designed to instruct us.
Something of this kind there seems, at all events, good reason to
suspect; for in all that relates to common life consciousness is above
reproach. But it is no less certain that when we apply it to some
transcendental themes, it throws the process of thinking into
perplexity. Contradictions refusing to be reconciled inevitably emerge;
and consciousness is obliged to record against itself as an organ of
truth the sad sentence of felo de se.
Such are those contradictory solutions of all the great problems in
philosophy which Kant has signalized under the name of the paralogisms
and antinomies of pure reason. To us they are only the antilogies of
consciousness. But they are at present exerting such a powerful
influence in prescribing limits to belief, and, indeed, in denouncing
the pursuit of all that has hitherto been held to constitute
philosophy, that if we could arrive at a right understanding of them it
would be well worth the pains; especially if it should come out that
silence may be happily made with regard to them, and important truth be
cleared of the embarrassments into which they throw it. Now, by our
becoming acquainted with what we are disposed to call the structure of
consciousness, we think that this may be accomplished. Let us then
bestow here a few words on the structure of consciousness.
For this, however, we are not prepared, if we proceed to the
enquiry under misconceptions of the nature of Reality, whether material
or mental, or both. Now, that we shall do this is probable; for it is
not blank ignorance,-it is misconceptions, now, in every field, that
prevent knowledge. A discovery, now, is usually no more than a
correction. These remarks apply to consciousness. We cannot think of it
otherwise than as a special function of some kind of Reality, either
material or mental; and it is manifestly desirable that we should not
think of it under misconception as to what matter or what mind is. Yet,
if we be not on our guard, it is most likely that we shall do both. As
to matter, for instance-the least atom or element of matter, are we not
given to thinking of it as if it were something very small and very
solid, like a millet seed or a very small shot, consisting nothing or
more space, with attractions and repulsions on the outside? And as to
mind or spirit, do we not usually rest satisfied with simply holding it
to be something quite different from matter? In a word, in order to
attain a conception of mind or spirit, do we not take our departure
from a certain conception of matter? If then that conception is a
complete misconception; and if we reach a conception of mind at all,
what can it be but a double-deep misconception?
Such a conception of the material element as has just been stated
stands in need of being radically reformed, or rather, indeed, of being
discharged altogether. The conception of a small ball of continuous or
solid matter which suddenly stops at the periphery, where there is
nothing beyond, is a state of things which violates the law of
continuity to the utmost, and which is of no use whatever for
explaining the phenomena of physics and chemistry. It also gives rise
to the notion of an action in distance, a misconception which is beset
with all kinds of difficulties, yet which, if it is admitted at all,
must be admitted to be a fact in physics. It only gratifies the demand
of the imagination for a definite form for everything. But in order to
find a basis for natural philosophy which can prove in any degree
satisfactory to reason, we must disregard this demand. Instead of
thinking of an atom or element of matter as a small shot, we must think
of it as a centre of force, with isodynamic boundaries indeed, which
are definite forms, but with a field of action so extensive that no
limits can be assigned to it. Its isodynamic boundaries may give it,
with respect to light, a visible form, with regard to contact with
other matter like itself, an inpenetrable or palpable form, and so
on-thus giving imagery so far, and satisfying the imagination so far;
but as to the entire sphere of its possible being and acting, it would
not be safe to affirm that it is less extensive than the universe
itself. With regard to gravitation, for instance, who will venture to
affirm otherwise? Now, gravitation is one of the eminent endowments of
the material element.
By such a conception of matter as I have here proposed, following
Boscovich and others, the way is also paved for a conception of mind or
spirit also. For spirit is obviously a centre of force, or rather, let
us say, a centre of power, inasmuch as, in the spiritual Being, it is
no longer the vis inertia merely that we have to do with, that is, the
ability to rest as it is resting, or to drive as it is driven. Spirit
is characterized by the vis voluntatis, self directive power seeing its
own way.
But let us not forget that in the present day the existence of mind
or spirit as a reality, which may possibly exist in a state of
separation from matter, is very often boldly denied. The favourite view
of the present day is, that mental phenomena are related to bodily
structures as functions merely are to their organs. It is said that the
brain secretes thought just as the liver secretes bile. But it is right
to remark, that between these two views, though Materialism invokes the
aid of both, there is a notable difference. No doubt the liver
functions, and the result of that functioning, when normal, is bile.
But the functioning is one thing, and the bile is another; and bile,
though a product of the functioning of the liver, is no less
substantial than the liver itself; and it the mind be related to the
brain as bile is to the liver, then in the brain there must be produced
a thinking substance. Now, of this substance, whatever its nature
besides, it may be confidently affirmed, that in order that it may be
capable of thinking, it must not remain in the molecular state, or its
particles in juxtaposition merely, like those of the brain itself. It
must be completely unified. It must be a true unity. There is nothing,
so far as we can see, that is more indispensable to all the phenomena
of thought than the unity of the thinking substance or principle. This
materialistic illustration, then, which appeals to the liver to explain
the phenomena of the brain, when followed out with accuracy, leads to a
view which is not materially different from the world - old doctrine of
an undecomposable or indestructible, and therefore immortal soul in
man. That it should place the brain in the position of the mother and
nurse of the soul, instead of assigning some higher origin to our
immortal part, if an evil at all, is fully compensated by this
scientific advantage, that it explains how the mind should always be
co-ordinate in endowment and energy with the brain to which it owen its
being, and how in its actual functioning at any time it should always
correspond with the state of the currents of nervous energy which
actuate the brain at that time.
The determined materialist therefore, when considerate, does not go
so far as to say that mental phenomena are secretions of the brain. He
says only that they are functions, thus leaving the materialistic
hypothesis in a less definite, and, therefore, a less palpably
erroneous form. But it is one of the first principles of natural
philosophy, that the mere functioning or acting of that which is itself
a purely mechanical apparatus can only issue in a merely mechanical
resultant, This, the general theorem of the composition of forces,
which is the very basis of mechanical science, secures. For all the
motions and pressures applied or combined in any mechanical system the
science of mechanics either accounts, or holds itself accountable, and
that as motions and pressures, and not other things. The resultant may,
indeed, display great variety in the forms of the motions and pressures
of which it consists-a variety not to be found in the component forces.
The Rectilinear (gravitation, impact) may give in its resultant the
Reciprocating (heat), or a mode of motion in which both the rectilinear
and the reciprocating are combined (electricity), and vice versa. But
any one of these modes of force is just as truly mechanical as any
other, and as far distant from thought and feeling. And all of them are
utterly incompatible with that liberty or self-directive power of which
every one is intimately conscious as an attribute of the Principle
which thinks and acts within himself.
In order to impart a scientific character to the materialistic
hypothesis as to the relation between mind and matter, it is necessary
to assume that every element of matter, or at least the organic
elements, carry always along with them an aura of the spiritual. Nor
that only. It is necessary to assume, further, that in the focus of the
mind-producing organic action of the brain, these auras become
confluent into a true unity of some kind; for of that (whatever it may
be) which is the basis of mental phenomena, unity, as has been already
stated, cannot but be a most indefeasible characteristic. But here
again, by this other change, on the materialistic hypothesis, we are
thrown back on the old doctrine of a soul in the body. And, indeed, it
is well that on this, or on some similar belief, we should be always
thrown back; for without some such ground to go upon, philosophy is not
worth the pursuit, or rather the conception of a philosophy is a
mistake. Without some such ground philosophy is a thing that one ought
not to waste time upon. In that case, let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we cease to exist.
But what of consciousness, its genesis, structure, and conditions
of existence? That is the theme that we proposed for inquiry here.
Now, here, in answer, we may immediately say that consciousness is
obviously the reflex or foil or doubling of simple perception. It
therefore belongs to the sphere of Perception.
But what shall we say of perception, and of knowledge which is its
orderly aggregate retained in the mind?
Shall we say that it is something so altogether singular and, SUI
GENERIS, that it is impossible to conceive it as in the least degree
resembling anything else at all-not even that which is perceived and
known. Or, on the contrary, shall we say that being and knowing are in
their ground one and the same thing?
These views differ from each other toto caelo, and yet both of them
have been, and still are extensively entertained. Now, surely there is
comfort in this. They are so wide asunder that the truth is sure to be
found within their embrace. It must lie somewhere between them. Keeping
both in mind then, let us endeavour to discover the truth.
And for this purpose, let us postulate as existing what men in
general believe to exist, namely, God, the world, and the soul. Or; if
this be objected to, let us postulate the existence of infinite and of
finite Being merely. Or; if this be still objected to, let us postulate
the existence of Being merely. Or; if even this be objected to,
inasmuch as it may be said that being is but a name for power when
viewed as existing statically, then let us content ourselves with
postulating as the only beings and things in existence, various powers
or potentialities distributed so that they may possibly exist in
relation with each other, their numbers and kinds being left to be as
they may happen to be, without any assumption by us on these heads. Let
us only assume distributed existence, its elements such that there is a
relation between them. Is it possible to assume a more modest basis for
our investigation than this?
And yet, already, have we not possibly here a product of mental
analysis merely, rather than a conception of that which exists? Are we
safe in looking at beings or things on the hand, and at relation on the
other, as if these were really two things distinct from one another?
May not the beings or things be such as to secure and provide in their
very existence for their relations with each other also? Yes; such a
provision seems implied in the very idea of that whose destiny from the
first is to constitute a cosmos. For; an element which is to be
essentially cosmical, must not only be essentially real-it must be
essentially relational also. Our hypothesis, then, so far simplifies
itself. We do not assume beings or things on the one hand, and relation
imposed upon them on the other hand. We only assume beings or things
distributed so as to leave or have a relation or relations, subsisting
in and among themselves, that is, some property or properties which are
given when the Beings or things themselves are given, and which makes
them to be such that they reach from one to another, placing the whole
in a relation of reciprocity.
Self-Manifesting
Power
Let us, then, take a survey of the known properties of things in
general, with a view to discover wether there be any property which is
universal, and which is at the same time essentially relational, that
is, such as serves to unite all Beings and things into a whole or
system.
And here gravitation at once suggests itself; but no sooner
suggested than it must obviously be given up. Gravitation holds good
universally in reference to the material world alone.
But if not gravitation, may not light, then, be the cosmical bond
which we are in search of? Light is an effluence, or influence, or
both, so extensive that it is commonly believed that it brings the
fixed stars into relationship with one another; and it is certain that
it brings them into relation with our eyes at distances so great that
there is no evidence of gravitation operating to the same distances,
but rather the reserve. May not light, then, be the universal or
cosmical principle of relationship which we are now seeking? But no;
light will not answer,-at least when considered as a physical
phenomenon, that is, as a mode of motion propagated in the universal
ether; for that motion may cease.
At any rate, there is darkness as well as light. In a word, light,
taking the word in its physical meaning, is only a contingent
phenomenon. If the whole universe were in a state of perfect repose
there could be no light.
SELF-MANIFESTING-POWER.
But though not as a mechanical action, may not light be a symbol of
what we are seeking-the copy in space and time of something which lies
deeper somewhere in the nature of things? This is worthy of inquiry;
and to this inquiry the progress of our thought invites. We remark,
then, that the function of light is to make manifest, or, more shortly,
to manifest. Now, are we not here already within hail of what we are
seeking? We are certainly in the same field as that of perception and
consciousness. And may we not safely say of Beings and Things in
general, that they manifest themselves not merely in virtue of that
motion which the æther propagates, but in virtue of a property which
attaches to their very substance as destined to constitute a cosmos?
May we not say that all Being is essentially relational in this
respect, at least, that it is self-manifesting to other Being-not,
indeed, as outwardly perceptible object to all other Being-not as
outwardly perceptible object to such defective recipients of
self-manifesting power as we ourselves are-but self-manifesting,
inwardly or outwardly, or in some way or other and more or less, to all
other Beings and things, and perfectly self-manifesting to a Being who
possesses perfect perceptivity, such as God. Yes; self-manifesting
power is an essential attribute of everything-that exists. This is
proved by the very conditions under which alone existence can be
admitted by us. In forming a notion of any Reality, however much we may
strip it of all its other properties, we must leave it in possession of
possible perceptibility, or a self-manifesting power. The moment we
deprive reality of possible perceptibility it can be held as a Reality
no longer.
But here, let it also be remembered that this objectivity is such
as to imply at the same time a corresponding receptivity. The one
property is, indeed, the complement of the other, or rather they are as
face and back of the same mode of action. Self extensiveness,
impressiveness, self-manifesting power, or perceptibility, on the one
hand, and impressibility, receptivity, or perceptivity on the other,
are always co-ordinate.
Moreover, this view of Being, which is thus given internally as one
of the necessities of pure though when bestowing itself on pure Being,
is fully verified by external observation-not indeed as direct
observation in all cases, but as legitimate reasoning from what may be
observed. Observation warrants the inference that every being and
thing, all reality, be what it may, is a self-manifesting or an
extensively impressive potentiality. When, even with regard to
ourselves, we take into account the many impediments that are in the
way, the extent to which the universe manifests itself to us is
altogether wonderful. Thus, though we are localized in space in a small
planetary orbit, though the æther comes between us and distant objects
with its alternate fits of light and darkness, and though the
percipient mind in the present form of our Being is enclosed in a
material framework, necessitating a peculiar apparatus (that of the
senses) to prevent our being wholly blinded by the overpowering
impressiveness or immediate glare of our organic environment which
wholly takes possession of our perceptivity, still Nature manifests
herself to us in a vastness which transcends the reach of our minds.
The self-manifesting power also, which is the counterpart of this,
that, namely, of mind to matter, is very certain. From the fact which
has just been mentioned, indeed, that is, the enclosure of the mind in
a frame, into which it is in a manner fused, and in which it is
dynamically bound, the sphere of the minds self-manifesting power
outwardly is not so extensive. Its normal mode of manifesting itself
outwardly is through the body, and by the use of the bodily organs. The
embodied mind, the minds eye within the encephalon, is like a mariners
compass in the hold of an iron ship. The action of the organism is so
overpowering as to render equivocal, beyond the confines of the bodily
frame, all evidence of the action of an outwardly self-manifesting
power in the mind within. Testimonies have, indeed, been given in all
ages and nations, and are extensively given in our day, to the effect
that a mind, at least when it is energetic (and especially when
possessed of a special art also), when bestowing itself in the form of
some special volition or outward discharge of its own power, can
manifest itself somehow directly to others so as to control these
others and mould them into a perfect parallelism with itself. Many
phenomena of unconscious imitation, of sympathy and of antipathy also,
are difficult to explain except on the supposition of such a
self-manifesting power in the mind as transcends the organization, and
is caught otherwise than by the external senses. But normally,
doubtless it is in and through the organization and its movements, as
observed and interpreted by the senses, the instincts, and experience,
that mind manifests itself in the present form of our being. And all
the so-called biological phenomena just referred to, and especially
such an interpretation of them as that now given, are disputed. Since,
then, we can afford to let them pass, we need not insist upon them.
Suffice it to say, that within the limits of the organization, the
self-manifesting power of the mind to the organism is intense. Not a
thought, however abstract, but it affects the brain, nay, even the
blood, and that perhaps in the whole of its course down to the renal
arteries. Not a thought that has bearings upon human well being,
whether our own or that of others, but it tends to embody itself in a
special organic rhythm of emotion. Not a volition, but it tends to
bring into action the muscles towards which it is directed. And thus
Nature, though merely material, has come, in every region where
civilized men reside, to be impressed by forms which indicate mental
action, and, indeed, to be clothed in the vestments of humanity.
Similarly, looking to reality in its purely material state, where
distinct perception, by general consent, no longer exists, still, to
what a wonderful extent do we not find self-manifesting power, or the
extensiveness of centralized being and the corresponding reality
surviving! It is generally believed in science that every atom of
matter manifests itself to every other atom, all awaking in each
reciprocal discovery-not, indeed, as existing and posited in space, for
that would be awaking perception, but as mobile in space. Nothing less
than this is implied in the reciprocal tendency which all atoms are
universally believed to excite in each other to move towards each
other, or, as it is commonly said, to attract each other. And if there
be, as has of late been more than suspected, an universal repulsiveness
between the elements of material nature co-ordinate or even more
extensive than their mutual attractions, this would be a still further
verification of our view. Attractions and repulsions are not, indeed,
perceptions, neither are they instincts, nor are they justly designated
by any name which is appropriated to mental action solely. But it is
important to remark here, that such affections of matter are not wholly
diverse from certain affections of mind. Thus, with regard to the
familiar phenomena of love and hatred, or rather of desire and aversion
in the mental sphere, if the virtue of consciousness or sensibility
were to go out of them, what would remain but tendencies to move
towards or away from other objects-in a word, attractions and
repulsions? And as to the phenomenon of perception itself in the same
circumstances, that is, in the absence of sensibility, what would
remain but some reciprocally assimilative action such as we see in the
phenomena of electric induction, &c.? But to adduce such analogies
in this place is to anticipate.
But in this place let us claim the readers assent to the fact,
which there is abundant evidence to support, and nothing at all to
contradict, that self-manifesting power of some kind, and a
corresponding impressibility or receptivity, is possessed, more or
less, by every kind of substance; in other words, that every reality,
be what it may in particular, is at once an extensively aggressive or
impressive and an impressible or receptive being or thing. Thus it is
that in awarding existence to individualized objects in different
regions of space, or in anticipation of such a distribution of
substance, there has been provided, in the very constitution of
substance, the condition that it shall constitute a Cosmos, or at least
an universe-a whole, and not a multitude merely. What the specific
character of this reciprocal action between all beings and things we
need not as yet inquire. For our present purpose it is sufficient to
regard it merely as a self-manifesting power. And having done so, we
have made our first step towards the discovery of the genesis and
structure of consciousness.
And now, as a second step, let us apply this universal attribute of
self-manifesting power and the corresponding receptivity to various
orders of individualized beings, and mark the phenomena which must
result in the different cases.
But how, it may be asked, can we, with such extreme parsimony of
postulates as we are now observing, obtain different orders of beings
at all? To this it is to be answered, that nothing certainly can be
more parsimonious than to assume that the realities which are in the
cosmos, though they are each truly individualized, differ only in this,
that they consist of different quantities or intensities of substance,
and are merely centres of force possessing different degrees of
potentiality, some greater, some less,- that is, some more fully, some
less fully endowed. Yet this suffices us.
These endowments, moreover we can as yet view only in their
relation to the cosmical self-manifesting power of objects distributed
in space, and their corresponding impressibility. But this point of
view is sufficient for our present purpose. It arranges at once all the
beings and things in the universe into three orders:-
- 1. Those whose individual potentiality is so feeble that what is
external to themselves impresses them thoroughly, and fixes them
permanently, so that their action is cosmically stereotyped, and
continues the same from age to age.
- 2. Those whose proper or inner potentiality is so much greater,
that while they are receiving impressions from without, and yielding to
these impressions, and becoming fixed by them so far, they at the same
time remain centrally, so to speak, unimpressed and competent to act
from within.
- 3. Those which as to their potentiality hold an intermediate
position, and by intensely impressive objects, are liable to be
thoroughly impressed and stereotyped, while, under more moderate
impressions, they remain centrally more or less active and free.
Now, it will afterwards fully appear that the first of these three
orders gives us the ætherial and the material elements and the
molecular sphere of being. But this we may here pass by, for there is
no question as to atoms with regard to consciousness. Their modes of
reciprocal manifestation produce quite other phenomena. We have here to
consider the phenomena of self-manifestation only as they place into
the second and third orders; and these ought plainly to be considered
together, since the third is merely the link by which the second is
united to the first, and the law of continuity maintained throughout
all the three.
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
And what shall we say of that centre of force, or central force in
the second and third orders, which either always or generally remains
unfixed from without and in possession of its own potentiality-its own
selfhood? To this the answer is the same as to the question, What do we
mean by potentiality when we thing of it in itself? and what is it, let
us ask, but the power of producing or of resisting change-a self-caused
changefulness or resistance to change? And what is this in familiar
language but life? And when viewed, not in reference to motion merely,
or change in space and time merely, but in reference to thought as
well, what is it but will? And when we take a view, as to
self-manifesting power and impressibility, of the whole of such a
living and willing Being-that is, of a Being which, though truly an
unity, is yet fixed and impressed externally, so to speak, by the
self-manifesting power of its surroundings, while yet it continues
within free and self-changeful from moment to moment, and at the same
time essentially self-manifesting, of course, like all things else in
both spheres of action, what are we to expect in these circumstances
but that Being shall be doubly self-manifesting! that is,
self-manifesting to self; in other words, conscious of self, or
self-conscious?
Such, according to our views, must be and is the condition of Being
in general, and of the individual in particular, in which
self-consciousness manifests itself, and by which that individual is
put in possession of the pronoun of the first person. It implies
quantity or intensity of reality, along with a true unity in the
individual. And this it is which, according to our philosophy,
constitutes a spirit or mind, that is, a Being in which, along with a
certain amount of fixation of regard determined from without, there is
also a certain amount of flow, or of that which is undetermined and
free to determine itself by a self-determining power within. Grant
this, and then, while it exists thus potentially determinable, but not
yet determined, there may be, within the compass of the composite
mental frame described, action and reaction, whence, in virtue of the
self-manifesting power common to all Being, there will result, within
the compass of a Being which is an unity, a manifestation of Being to
Being-that is, there will result a manifestation of a Being to
himself-that is, self-consciousness, the "I am" or "I," which implies
"I am."
Here we have the steed at the starting-post, uneasy during the
moment of detention, but eager for the race. And unhappy the creature
that will not start, but only curves and whips himself round and round
for ever in the small circle of I,-I, -I, me,-me,-me,-in mere
self-consciousness.
ATTENTION. GENIUS.
What has now been described is obviously the function of
self-consciousness in its culmination form, in its purest state-that
state in which the percipient has succeeded in blinding himself to all
his surroundings, and has for the moment become the universe to
himself. Now, such a state is not normal to any Being who is a member
in the universe. What is normal is, that each being a member of the
universe should give his mind more or less to the object which surround
him, and which are at the time presenting themselves to him-that is,
that he should fix his consciousness more or less upon them. Now, when
this is done, self-consciousness is modified into the well-known and
all-important state of mind named ATTENTION. And the well-being of a
mind consists in its ability to attend to external objects as it will,
or to bestow itself otherwise as it ought. It is this which constitutes
self-command-the highest of all commands.
Attention, however, in all its most fruitful forms of existence, is
rather a continued acquiescence than a sustained volition. That kind of
application which is not only a fountain for recollections and
abstractions, but for new views in connection with its object-that kind
of application, in short, which constitutes Genius, could never be
acquired by any effort of will, however intense, or by any degree of
forced attention, however sustained. It is rather a yielding to a charm
in some object, and a spontaneous brooding upon that object, until out
of the egg there comes of its own accord, a feathered fowl. It is more
a phenomenon of self-forgetfulness than of self-command. Cosmically
considered, it is indeed strength; but in him who has genius viewed as
an individual there is always too much reason to apprehend that it will
be associated with notable personal weaknesses or defects.
In purely psychical beings attention is of course constitutional.
It constitutes all the provision that they have for their safety. It is
then a state of watching ever ready to become emotional, as alarm, and
to issue in a rapid retreat from the alarming object; and this retreat
is often so well regulated, and yet so blindly done, as to look like a
merely physical repulsion.
And, indeed, a large view of Nature leads us to infer that there is
a complete series of guiding relations operating between all
individualized objects in the universe. It appears to commence in
universal gravitation, or rather perhaps in that still more extensive
world-isolating action, or cosmical repulsion, by which the fixed stars
are kept from falling in upon each other. Then receiving continual
accessions of guiding power, as the beings in which it exists are more
richly endowed, it gives the wonderful instincts of the lower animals;
and ultimately, in ourselves, it gives distinct perception with its
normally accompanying feelings. Whether it be not too bold to say, with
the admirable Leibnitz, that perceptivity and its correlative
perceptibility are co-extensive with the whole sphere of individualized
being, may be a question; but it would be certainly more unwarrantable
on the other hand to affirm that there can be no kind of vision or
guidance from without, between one object and another, except that one
particular kind which is known to us as perception.
In alarm with its reciprocal mode of action,-namely, appetite or
attraction towards objects which are congenial,-we have what seems to
constitute the entire mental action of hosts of sentient creatures low
in the scale of animated nature. Most insects, certainly, cannot
possess anything better than a very general and indistinct vision of an
object; and yet that vision, such as it may be, is very effective for
their conservation. When the object seen is an entomologist, for
instance, approaching with a view to capture, each species of insect
has its own moment of taking wing so definitely marked, that instead of
anything mental, the resultant motion looks more like a simple
repulsion, according to some law of the distance. That the action is
not merely mechanical, however, not a result of ann incident force
merely, is proved by the mistakes which these exquisitely psychical
beings so often commit. Thus objects of the most dissimilar nature,
nay, a shadow as well as the object of which it is the shadow, when it
comes within a certain distance of them, or over them, will cause them
to be off; and this certainly indicates that, not a merely physical
repulsion, but alarm, accompanying defective vision, is the cause of
their flight.
PERCEPTION. INTUITION.
But in man the issue is very different. The self-manifesting power
of the external object, does, indeed, tend to fix the inner activity of
the percipient, so far as to invite attention to that object. But that
self-manifesting power from without is, at the same time, met by the
self-manifesting power of the percipient himself, acting in a direction
quite opposite. Thus the impression which is being produced by the
object presenting, is resisted and stop, and, in a word, defined to the
percipient. The two self-manifesting powers directly meet, and there
results that phenomenon which is properly expressed by saying that the
subject perceives the object. The self-manifesting power of the object
reaches to the percipient, and impresses him it may possibly be in to
the very core of his Being. He seizes and holds the object as the
reality that it is, though he cannot at once know it as it is. Even in
the midst of his somatic environments, indeed, though at first sight
they seem as if they must render all external perception impossible,
the percipient in one moment attains to a perception of the object
presenting in its true appearance, that is, as presented to him in
terms of light or sound, resistance, motion, rest, &c. That
absolute moment is, indeed, developed into many moments in time,
implied in the successive stages of somatic perception, involved in the
elastic action of the media of light and sound, and the inertia of the
apparatus of the senses. But these media and mechanisms, if they are
the appointed means, are also the resistances in the telegraphic wire
which retard the free diffusion of object-self-manifesting. If by means
of the senses only in the embodied state the mind can normally perceive
external objects, it would, in the free state, according to our views,
do so simply and in a moment, in virtue of the extensiveness, and the
corresponding self-manifesting power of the objects presenting. The
varied apparatus of the senses are, in our philosophy, merely so many
schemata for securing, to a certain extent, transparency between the
external world and the perceiving mind. In perception, it is the object
itself that is perceived, and not any image of it. How that object
comes to be perceived, not merely as object or reality, but as marked
by its own features, we cannot now set forth. That will appear when we
reach the cosmical law of Assimilation.
MEMORY. IDEA.
And yet it was necessary to allude to this law of assimilation
here, because this law, while it implies that the external object shall
assimilate the mind to itself, and thus compass a state of perception
in that mind, also implies that the mind shall store um within itself
states that are expressive of bygone perception, and when no object is
presenting itself, or when the mind is not otherwise engaged, shall
assimilate its nascent states to its former states, and thus tend to
reproduce them. Moreover, these former states are obviously to be
expected to be but faint when compared with actual perceptions. But
unless they are confused they cannot but be truly representative of the
external objects that impressed them. Further, since they are products
of the law if Assimilation they might be accurately designated
"assimilations." But plainly, they are those phenomena which are
already familiarly known under the names of mental imagery and idea,
the material of memory, of imagination, and of thinking in general.
IDEA WITHOUT MEMORY.
Now, such imagery might possibly be produced in the mind, though at
the time of perception the mind was giving itself wholly to the object
presenting, or was wholly absorbed by that object. In other words,
distinct impressions might possibly have been made on the perceptivity
of the mind in the absence of consciousness of what was going on at the
time. But if they have been made on the mind any how, they may revisit
it; only, they cannot recall the moment of their acquisition or any of
those circumstances which have entered into the conscious experience of
life. They can only make their apparition in the mind in a dream-like
light, and without giving any account of themselves. They must
resemble, in this respect, constitutional or abiding impressions - the
laws of belief, or the principle of common sense - in reference to
which there can be no place for memory since their objects or causes
are always present.
But in men in general this total absorption of the mind in an
object presenting is a rare case. Normally, it is in part only, of if
wholly, then very transiently only, that the proper potentiality, the
inner activity or life of man as a percipient, is wholly fixed by an
object of perception. Somewhat within is usually left free and
undetermined from without. But though free, it is not stripped of its
self-manifesting power. Nay, when thus stimulated it may be expected to
be in possession of that power in the highest degree. In what way or
ways then, let us ask, will this inner activity manifest itself? Now,
to this the answer cannot but be manifold. Here, a highly endowed
self-manifesting power exists and acts in a field which is so
extensive, and in which it must itself be so desultory and
reciprocating in its action that a great variety of results must be
possible. On these it would be wholly unsuitable to enter here in
detail.
PERSONALITY.
But among many phenomena we may certainly conclude that the
self-possessed potentiality or spiritual changefulness and causality of
the mind, belonging, as it does, to a Being which, amid all its
changes, is still one and the same, must tend to manifest itself to
itself at the moment of every change. A moment in time is not like a
point in space. It has, and cannot but have, a beginning, a middle, and
an end, however momentary, and while one moment is departing, the next
is coming; and thus, in virtue of the minds essential life and
changefulness, there must result within the mind a continually
recurring manifestation of self to self. And in what point of view will
it regard itself in the first instance? Doubtless as often at any rate
as that power is for the moment opposed, it will regard itself as a
potentiality to which freedom or self-determining power belongs; more
shortly, there must be a continually recurring manifestation of self to
self as a Being possessing power. Now, is not this precisely what every
man means when he uses the all-important syllables, "I," "me,"
"myself?" Not that we are to suppose that the ego could attain to a
knowledge of itself without the practice secured to it by the varied
presentation of the non-ego. The attempt to discover what knowledge the
mind could attain if it were placed in other circumstances than those
in which it constitutionally exists, is hopeless. We merely affirm
that, given to the mind those supports and stimuli which it enjoys as a
member in the cosmos, it attains, through its own intuitional power, to
a knowledge of itself as an ego.
But if the preceding views be admitted, we have circumvented
consciousness. We have laid hold of it in its very citadel. If the
preceding views be admitted, it follows that the possible consciousity
of a Being, or its capacity for being conscious, or of having a
subjective cognition of anything, depends upon its possessing (at that
time, at least), a living spark of liberty or of free self-manifesting
power. And that this is, in reality, the uniform condition or "the
constant" in consciousness, is proved by the constantly recurring
presence of the pronoun of the first person in every mental experience
from which that pronoun is not designedly excluded.
The simplest affirmation of consciousness, then, is the
manifestation of self to self as a potentiality capable, now of a
statical, now of a dynamical state. This we express in the propositions
"I am," for the statical, "I will," for the dynamical.
JOY AND SADNESS.
After this comes the manifestation of self to self, as existing in
either of two states differing as to well being or ill being. First, it
may exist in the full and free play of its own intrinsic activity
without either exertion or resistance, or, secondly, it may exist in a
state of suppressed activity, that is, as thrown into embarrassment or
held in arrest, and capable only if acting by exertion. And
corresponding to these two states of consciousness there are the
expressions, "I am joyful," "I am sad."
SIGHT AND FEELING.
But the self-manifesting power of the ego does not terminate in
itself, so as to manifest to itself nothing but self and its own
intimate states. Like self-manifesting power in general, that of the
ego is extensive, and it meets the non-ego in the self-manifesting
power of the latter. Hence two other states. According as the resulting
impress is clear and distinct, in direction, from the ego, and such as
can give independent play to the mental activity, or, on the other
hand, as is confused or rather fused into the embodied ego itself, the
language of consciousness is, in the first case, "I see," and in the
second, "I feel."
OUR THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
Such, according to our philosophy, is the genesis, and such are the
conditions of the existence and of the functioning of consciousness.
And we conceive that if we are right we have determined something that
is of importance in philosophy. Descartes postulated "cogito." The
Scottish philosophers merely appeal to consciousness, asserting its
supreme authority, but without attempting to give any account of it at
all. And the German philosophers, even Hegel, with all his
determination to get at the root of things and establish a system of
absolute purism, sets out with "I think" as the omnipresent element in
all mental action; nay, he assumes thought to be the type of all
cosmical action. We set out with something much simpler, nay, with that
which is the very simplest of all knowable things, that which is the
common property of all individualized objects, ætherial as well as
mental, that which must be possessed by them every one, if all taken
together are to constitute a system or cosmos. We set out merely with
the self-manifesting power of being, that without which it cannot be
thought of as a reality. And having investigated what its mode of
functioning must be in Beings which are possessed of a certain amount
of potentiality, at least while they exist as members in the cosmos, we
have found that it must give rise in the individual to a
self-manifestation of self-in other words, to self-consciousness and
consciousness in general.
And now we are in a condition to inquire into the value of
consciousness as a truth-imparting-faculty, and to ascertain perhaps,
or at any rate to suggest, whether there may not possibly be a simpler
state of intellectual action in which the non-ego alone shall take an
active part, and which therefore will be objectively trustworthy in a
higher degree.
The condition necessary to the existence of consciousness in the
ordinary meaning of the term, we have found to be a proper potentiality
in the individual so great, that it is not all engaged or fixed by the
object presenting, but remains centrally, so to speak, unimpressed or
free, that is, in possession of its own proper changefulness; and it is
to the development of the mind into this dualized mode of action that
consciousness attaches. Thus, when the light of the morning streams in
at the window, the stimulus awakes the reposing mind of the healthy
sleeper into consciousness, and with regard to any object to which his
eye or his ear may be open, he says, "I see it, I hear it," I think
this or that about it. Here we have the mind acting normally in
consciousness. And this plainly cannot but be of the greatest value to
the individual; because along with whatever else it gives, it gives
also himself, and therefore puts him immediately up to any danger or
any benefit which the object presenting may bring along with it. But
this very fact (that consciousness seems to be a conservative function)
assists in suggesting the inquiry, whether, while one may still
continue in the waking state, a perception of objects may not be
attainable from which all egotistical reflection on the part of the
observer shall vanish, and the "it" only remain, that is, the object as
it is, in terms of a pure knowledge of it? To ask for more,-to ask, for
instance, a knowledge of "the object as it is in itself,"-is either to
imply that knowing and being may be one and the same thing; or it is to
speak nonsense. But it is a fair question whether, besides and beyond
every-day consciousness, there may not be a state of vision from which
the subjective element has for the time vanished, or at any rate is on
the eve of vanishing, so that the entire mental action shall belong to
the object, and purely represent it?
SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS.
Let us approach this inquiry. And here, in the very first place, it
would be desirable if we could identify the two phases of the dualized
mode of action which we have described with familiar names. The first
is that in which, in virtue of the self-manifesting power of its
environments, or of its own former states, the mental activity is
impressed by that which is not itself as actually in play, and by being
so impressed affirms the existence of that which is impressing it. The
second is that in which, in virtue of its own intrinsic power and
liberty, it may ramble among its environments, fixing on this, and
neglecting that, as it pleases, being obliged meanwhile to affirm only
itself. Now, do these, our two typical modes of mental action,
correspond to any that are well known and which have appropriate names?
Yes; is not the former, let us ask, precisely that which is well known
as the SYNTHETIC ACTION of the mind-that in which the mind exists and
acts as a member in the universe, striking with this object or idea, or
with that, as it may happen to present itself, and so affirming it? And
is not the latter precisely that which is known as the ANALYTIC ACTION
of the mind-that in which the mind exists and acts as an universe
itself, or at any rate an universe to itself, affirming its own
existence independently of that of the outward universe, or even in
opposition to it? These agreements with well-ascertained phenomena will
not be disputed.
We may say, then, that the existence of consciousness depends on
the development of the mental action in the individual into a
synthetico-analytic rhythm. And it has appeared that the condition
necessary to such a development is that the mind shall be normally
affected, on the one hand, as a member in the universe, and so far
fixed, while on the other hand it is not wholly engaged or fixed by
that which is other than itself, but continues to a certain extent
free, that is, in possession of its own proper potentiality, and a
spectator of itself as well as its surroundings.
SYNTHESIS, ITS VALUE.
Now, in this mental rhythm, supposing all to be correct from the
first, that which is of the greatest value to knowledge is obviously
the synthetic phase; for it is in this phase that the perceptivity of
the mind strikes with the perceptibility of the object, whether real or
ideal; and it is in this phase that the two become united by that bond
which constitutes "affirmation," which is the well-known condition of
all knowledge. And if there were no impediments in the way of a simple
perception of things as they are, there would be no need, in order to
perfect knowledge, of any other phase of mental action, but simply
this, the synthetic. And indeed, such a state of mental action seems to
exist to a wonderful extent in those animated species which are
denizens of the world along with man but of whose privileges it forms
no part that they should enjoy the most precious but dangerous gift of
liberty. The bee is a master of the calculus without knowing it, and
without one thought about integrals constructs its cells accordingly. A
chick, instead of pecking or grasping at the moon like a child, is in
full possession, the day it leaves the egg, of the true distances of
objects, as well as of the true nature of objects which are in relation
to its own well-being. Given a particle of food within that horizon
which the mother thinks safe, and permits her little one to range over,
and within the eyesight of the chick, and that chick immediately
discriminates both as to where and what that particles is, and runs
right up to it, seizes and swallows it. In a word, throughout the
animal kingdom generally, as soon as the organization of the individual
is adequate to accomplish the functions which the knowledge demands,
there is to be observed already a perfection of knowledge-in-use
compared with which applied human science in its most advanced state is
no better than laborious bungling. But in order to secure such a state
of things, and thus to enter simply and beautifully into the system of
the cosmos, it follows either that there must be sacrificed that which
to all men worthy of the name is the most precious of all things,
namely, liberty, or else, that over-potentiality, which is the source
of liberty, shall, on the presentation of objects, be capable of
adopting or falling into a state of complete fixation and repose
(which, doubtless, the presentation of an object tends to induce), so
that the whole mind may give itself to the object purely as a
percipient, and act, or rather exist, purely as an intuitional agent.
Now, such a condition of mind, if it be at all attainable, is obviously
exceptional, and difficult to be attained. It implies in the mind
synthetic action only. But, in all cases of ordinary consciousness, the
analytical phase of mental action subsists along with the synthetic.
ANALYSIS, ITS EVIL.
Analysis is obviously the functioning of the free activity in the
intellectual sphere, that is, when the mind is dealing with an object
of some kind or other which is distinct from itself. It is a different,
but not a wholly different mode of functioning from synthesis. Thus,
when an object inexorably presents itself, the mind, though insisting
on indulgence in its analytic phase, cannot refuse to strike with that
object or idea altogether-it cannot choose but hold or affirm that
object more or less. But inasmuch as every affirmation by the mind of
something else than itself is necessarily a limitation of its own
liberty, which is its very life, all such affirmations exist in
opposition to its own interest as a thing of life. And, therefore, the
mind, in so far as it acts out of a regard to its own volitional
nature, endeavours to shake itself free from every such affirmation.
And when it cannot do so altogether, it seeks to modify that
affirmation, to restrict its sphere, to change its form, and, in a
word, ultimately to substitute, if it can, a negative for a positive
view of it, that is, to deny what it at first affirmed.
Let it not be inferred from this, however, that the discovery of
the realities which surround us, and a belief in them, will come to an
end. In denial, no less than in affirmation, there is the maintenance
or admission of some determinate relation between the mind and the
object denied. No better in negative than in affirmative propositions
does the liberty-loving activity of the mind succeed in emancipating
itself altogether from cosmical relations. The proposition binds,
whatever its form. And so long as the individual mind thinks in
propositions (which it cannot avoid doing if it think at all) it cannot
be its own universe, and merely the critic and the questioner of any
other universe which other people may possibly suppose to exist. It
must believe. It must exist in relation with much that is other than
self, or at any rate, with much which can be construed as self, only by
a manifest perversion of common sense. (Fichte.)
THE ANTILOGIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
But here, from this twofold functioning in consciousness, from this
synthetico-analytical rhythm of mental action which is normal to the
waking state in man, a phenomenon tends to result which is of the
greatest interest, and which has been productive of the most fatal
effect in philosophy. Thought, when applied to objects which are
transcendent, according as one or other of these two phases takes the
lead, tends to issue in uttering contradictions. Moreover, these
contradictions have been looked upon as of co-ordinate authority. And
hence, being set off the one against the other, the object to which
they relate has been excluded from the sphere of philosophy, even as
that which cannot be, or at any rate that which cannot be reached in a
manner satisfactory to intelligence. These contradictions Kant has
developed with great scientific beauty. But, happily for the interests
of philosophy, though he named them the antinomies of pure reason, and
though he could not see what was wrong, yet he felt that something was
wrong, and he would not succumb to them. In the face of all the
dogmatic contradictions which the dialectic of such transcendent themes
implied, he affirmed the being of a God whom it is reasonable and
therefore right to worship, of design in nature implying a Creator, of
liberty in man implying responsibility, and such a state of things here
as implies a hereafter. These great truths Kant found firmly resting in
human intelligence on a basis which was quite secure, and to which,
rather unfortunately perhaps, he gave the name of "the practical
reason." And more lately Sir W. Hamilton has endeavoured to remove the
reproach of a break or rather, indeed, a break-down in the philosophy
of Kant in this field, by regarding these contradictions as the product
of a mental impotency, which, while giving both as true, gives them
also in such a relation to each other that one of them must be true
(though the dialectic cannot say which), and therefore possibly that
set which all sound philosophers, along with common sense itself,
affirm.
Now, both the philosopher of Konigsberg and he of Edinburgh were
led to their respective hypotheses by regarding the contradictions
which emerge during the logical manipulation of the leading ideas in
philosophy and theology as of equal moment and authority, and such that
each, when compared with the other, completely neutralizes it. Herein
is their grand mistake. In point of fact, the two conclusions which
contradict each other do not stand on the same basis at all. They are
not like two rays of the same Kind of incident light, which, after
pursuing different routes, on being thrown upon the same screen,
interfere with each other and produce darkness. They are rather like
the electro-magnetic phenomenon, half the movement in which is always
at right angles, or around the other. Instead of being really entitled
to such a name as antinomies of reason, they are merely antilogies of
consciousness-the one the development of the analytic phase of mental
action, the other the manifestation of the synthetic. The analytic,
which is ever driving towards zero, is merely the contre coup of the
synthetic, which, left to itself, inevitably affirms the universe,
though as yet it known no details. The seemingly paradoxical equation,
in which much deep thinking, ancient and modern, oriental and
occidental, is brought into its most articulate form, namely, "pure
being = nothing," is not a homogeneous, not a simultaneous equation.
And to build the universe of things on such a basis is to build on a
merely subjective phenomenon, difficult to be reached even in human
consciousness, and peculiar perhaps to man. Still, inasmuch as it is to
be found in consciousness, and truly represents in its purest and most
abstract form the rhythm or "process" of consciousness, it is a symbol
of value, and cannot but serve as a key by which nature may be partly
opened, and obscurely formulated to a certain extent. (Hegel).
ANALYSIS, ITS GOOD.
But after these remarks, which seem to be only in disparagement of
analysis as an intellectual power, it may with seeming justice be asked
whether then we hold analysis to be the enemy of all cosmical truth,
and essentially a destroyer of all but self? Now to this we say, No. It
is only when analysis acts abusively, only when it takes possession of
the whole field of inquiry and careers over it, that it is so. Is
analysis then in the mind, it may be further asked, merely to interfere
with and to limit discovery? To this we say, No, again. The analytic
function of the mind is the true self-conservative principle. It has
for its aim the highest of all aims, the conservation of the conscious
self, the maintenance of a self-possessed changefulness within (which
is life and liberty) in circumstances which, if not thus resisted, tend
to fit the whole mind as a stereotype of nature, to reduce the universe
of thought to mere instinct and memory. But this function it can
accomplish only as acting in sisterhood in the mind when the mind is
acting synthetically-that is, intuitively or as an open perceptivity.
Now this analysis can and does, nay, cannot but do. And hence the
analytic phase of the minds action becomes no less valuable in the
intellectual than it is in the volitional sphere of mental life. For as
in the volitional sphere it is the safeguard of liberty, so is it in
the intellectual sphere the safeguard against wholesale error. In the
interest of its own liberty and life, it is so parsimonious of belief,
so reluctant to be bound, that it scrutinizes everything before it
consents to strike with it and to hold it for true. It delights in
"suspending the judgment," which the Pyrrhonist holds to be the very
principle of philosophy. While the SYNTHETIC HABIT of the mind lays
hold of objects "EN MASSE," the ANALYTIC PRACTIC consents to close with
them only in minima. Happily its own intrinsic activity calls upon it
to shift its ground very rapidly from one minim of intuition to
another; and its native love of rambling, and the personal interest
which it has more or less in almost everything, disposes it to exercise
a selective attention ("Abstraction") among them. And thus such
minutiae as are admitted increase in number in the mind. In reference
to one object after another given by synthesis, analysis, having
attempted in vain to deny and reject, given in, and begins to affirm
what it at first attempted to deny. And analysis ultimately becoming
fatigued, and the synthetic phase (which is always imminent and
spontaneous) supervening and taking possession of the whole field, the
entire object given at first comes to be held again, not as a multitude
of minutiae, but in its unity, its totality.*
Has all this long-sustained application to the object, then, this
exhaustive analysis of it, been useless? Has all this labor been mere
waste, except in so far as happly being the spontaneous play of the
activity? -
"Labor ipse voluptas."
This it is in an eminent degree. But no, as to analysis. To the
human mind in its embodied state such work is indispensable. Analysis
is the only condition of clear and distinct perception. In fact,
Nature, as she is received at first by the embodied mind, is received
merely a glare. Her first telling upon the mind is as a crowd of
sensations merely. In order to render nature intelligible, analysis is
altogether indispensable. To this fact our organization in its every
detail, and every one of the senses, is a witness. It is expressly in
order that they may be able to effect analysis that they have been
constructed. They give everything in the veriest minima, each minim on
the tip of a nervelet.
This is not all, indeed, that their structure gives. In thus
awaking manifold sensations, the senses also transmit new force from
the cosmos into the mind. And by this the mind is rendered more
powerful than it was when asleep, and, consequently, it is more fully
bent on acting as a power, and therefore in bestowing itself on the
analysis of the object which causes the aggregate of sensations.
And what holds in reference to the objects of the senses holds in
reference to objects generally. All impressions made on the embodied
mind are at first of the nature of a glare merely. They present
themselves to ignorance, and it is analysis that enables us to chip the
shell of that ignorance, and to see clearly and distinctly over and
into, and before and behind, and so to clear the way for a full
understanding of the object. Meanwhile synthesis which, as has been
already stated, is always spontaneous and imminent, is always ready as
soon as and as often as analysis intermits, to restore to the object,
now clear and distinct, its primal unity again. If, then, we have much
to say against analysis as a dangerous gift to Beings whose well being
consists, not in isolating themselves, but in closing with their true
relations in the cosmos, so that they fulfill their mission and attain
their destiny, we have also much to say in its favour as a protection
against imposition, an the safeguard of liberty, and, in a word, of all
that adds dignity to humanity.
But let us not refrain any longer from asking whether there is
reason to conclude that this structure of mental functioning, which we
thus hold to represent and explain the phenomena of consciousness, is
permanent and unalterable, or whether there may not be some other form
of intellectual functioning that is more simple. In treatises on the
philosophy of mind in general, consciousness is regarded as the
constant in all thought, and the universal criterion of truth. Its
antilogies are indeed admitted, and are granted to be insuperable; but
they are therefore insisted on as indications of the shortness of our
intellectual lether, and evidence of the impossibility of our carrying
up knowledge into any of the great questions of philosophy, or, indeed,
beyond the sphere of sensuous experience. The great points of
philosophy we are told to abandon or to relegate to the domain of
faith; while with regard to faith the general impression is, that
however necessary it may be for man, both with reference to this world
and the next, yet it is not so respectable as knowledge.
Are the antilogies of consciousness, then, let us ask, ultimate
teachings of intelligence from which we cannot escape, which we cannot
explain, and to which we must blindly submit? To this we answer No;
there is much as to these phenomena which is full of hope. Thus, is not
that mood which we have found to give consciousness, an expanded, nay,
we might say a dichotomized mode of mental functioning? On the one
aspect it is cosmical, on the other it is personal; on the one aspect
it is systemic, on the other it is individual; on the one it is passive
or receptive merely, on the other it is active or aggressive. Looking
for something analogous to it far down the stream of Being, we are
reminded of the polarized state as compared with the non-polarized. And
still father down, we are reminded of the flower with its blossom fully
expanded to the sunbeam, as compared with the flower when closed in the
absence of the sun. Both phases of mental action do indeed agree when
viewed in reference to the intellectual sphere, in having as their
common ground the same property, perceptivity, namely, or the faculty
of intuition. But the one of them, the personal, or analytic, is always
playing itself off against the other, is always selecting, neglecting,
or denying, or only tacitly assenting; while the other, the cosmical
the relational, the synthetico, is always spontaneously, openly,
indiscriminately, universally, affirming.
Now, does not such an antithetic, nay, somewhat contradictory, mode
of action in an agent which nevertheless is all the while a true unity,
lead us to expect that surely that agent must be capable of another
mode of mental functioning also, in which both these phases have lapsed
into an unity, in which the analytic shall be sheathed, as it were, or
concentrated in the synthetic, and all personal interest hushed in the
harmony of the universe? And of such a state of things have we not a
repetition in that condition of the organization by which sleep is
induced? Thus, in the waking state, the muscular, or rather the
myo-cerebro-neural system, exists in a state of tension and antithesis.
But such a state cannot exist without intermission. Fatigue and the
periodicity of planetary life demand another state alternating with
this the these and antithetic, - a lapse, namely, or falling away from
that state of tension and balanced opposition into the folded rhythm to
which sleep is proper.
And here the interesting inquiry presents itself, Suppose such a
state of simple intellectual repose, lucidity, or perspection, to
exist, and the object presenting, whether real or ideal, to be
withdrawn, what will the state of mind be then? Will not all mental
action consist in intuition pure and simple? Will not the presentation
of objects to the mind be responded to by a simple and steady
perception of them? Will not things be seen immediately, instinctively,
and known as they are,-though still of course in terms of knowledge,
and not otherwise?
Now, it is well known that the philosophers of India, with somewhat
general consent, as also some of those of Europe, maintain that, by a
long cultivated discipline of contemplation, it is possible to bring to
a state of rest the usually ceaseless activity and changefulness of the
mind, and to command such perfect repose that the soul is absorbed in
vision, and mirrors the universe, at the time, namely, when in their
own beautiful language, the pride of the "I am" is subdued. And without
maintaining that such a state of simple and impersonal perception is
ever reached in the actual experience, at least, of the Anglo-Saxon
mind, may it not be fairly regarded as a limit? And, as a limit, may it
not be fairly used in metaphysical inquiries, as limits are used by
mathematicians in physical inquiries? It is certainly no small
consolation to think that mental action, when existing in its limit as
pure perspectivity or intuitive mental action,- when, in a word,
reduced to unity, like the mind itself to which it belongs,-gives no
paralogisms or antilogies, but, on the contrary, when directed to the
sphere of cosmology and natural theology, gives successively Creator
and creature, liberty and necessity, and all the stamina of the
Catholic philosophy of humanity, without reserve or distraction. If the
view which has been here advanced as to the structure of consciousness
be accepted, the contradictions of these great truths, which may be
elicited in thought, are not given by the mind when acting as a
disinterested intuitional Being, or a cosmical intelligence. They are
emitted by it when acting as a personal or private Beings \only,
playing the part of an universe to itself. They ought therefore to keep
silence. Nor should they in the privacy of the mind be permitted to
disturb a higher vision.
THE SOLUTION OF THE ANTILOGIES.
According to the view here advocated, it follows that if the mind
could be recalled into such a state of repose, that, while the minds
eye still open, it should not move, but be fixed-should not act from
out of itself, but remain wholly and merely receptive of the objects
presenting; if the mind could be brought to function wholly as an
intuitional capacity or perceptivity, the analytical power having
sheathed itself in the intuitional;-then every intuitional would be
given precisely according to the stuff, and would be truly expressive
of that stuff as it actually exists.
Thus, since the mind is itself Substance, Being or Reality, if it
have intuition of this, with no accompanying activity to disturb and
change this intuition, it will simply affirm Being or Existence. Nor
this incidentally merely. Since its own Being is imminent to its own
intuition, its affirmation of Being must be imminent also and
unavoidable. Being must haunt the mind. Existence must be an universal
category. Non-existence cannot be conceived,-except analytically as the
denial of existence.
Moreover, intuition, when thus wholly pure and simple, and
undisturbed by the mental activity or by variety of objects, must give
Being merely, nothing more and nothing else. The conception of a
beginning or of an end cannot, in this case, arise; for these
conceptions are functions of the mental activity or changefulness. They
cannot exist previously to the perception of change, they can only be
coeval with it. Neither can this internal and elementary intuition of
Being, if still quite pure, find any other limits for Being, as it
affirms Being. The pure intuition which it has is a preluding for the
affirmation of an infinite, an absolute Being, if such a Being exists
and presents himself. It may, indeed, be thought that it must imply an
affirmation of such a Being, though he do not present himself, and
therefore though possibly he do not exist. But no; that which the mind
affirms, in virtue of its own Being merely, does not amount to this. It
is properly conceived, as a preluding or preparation merely for the
holding of such a Being if he present himself. To affirm such a Being
on a purely subjective ground (as Fichte) is an act of usurpation. The
self-manifesting power of the mind to itself secures, in virtue of its
own Being, the intuition of Being, in general, as an abiding and
inevitable conviction, but it sanctions nothing more.
But intuition cannot remain for any appreciable time in a state so
simple and elementary as this. The percipient, being a finite member in
the cosmos, cannot but have the limitations of his own Being soon
present upon him. And say that they are, what then? Plainly his state
of intuition has been discovered but that this Being which he holds is
limited-if nothing has been introduced to alter the nature of his
intuition, then the form which his now existing state of intuition
shall take must be this, the affirmation of "Being," accompanied by
that of "room for more," that is, Being and vacancy (RAUM), the latter
retaining all the character of pure Being, all its simplicity and
boundlessness, all except its substantiality; so that not without a
show of truth one may maintain, as Hegel has done the paradox, pure
Being = Nothing; for the first differentiation of pure intuition gives
Nothing as the complement of Being, the possibility of more Being, that
is, Being-coming=Becoming!!!
But even in obtaining this first differentiation the personal
activity has been brought into play. The absolute (supposing that the
absolute Being does not manifest himself) has passed into a dream. The
mind, now in possession of finite Being and vacuum, is already
expecting-already preluding the cosmos. For, far from respecting the
law of parsimony, as Hamilton or even Newton insists upon it, nature
rejoices in concurrent causes, and delights in pre-exercitations,
preparations, and preludings. She never repeats herself; except when
her conditions of existence are the same. She ever aims at variety. But
she is always beautifully consistent with herself, and never ushers
anything into existence without first paving the way for it. The
"anticipations of the mind" which Bacon was for putting down
altogether, though, in the ignorant, they be always far too rank and
manifold, are yet the only mine from which the true interpretation of
nature can be obtained. Merely to "observe" while, at the same time, no
ideas shall be allowed to develop themselves within, is merely
impossible; or, if possible, then only to a fool. But to return---
Elementary intuition, so far as we have followed it in giving Being
and vacancy, has given nothing which savors of a contradiction. The
same is true of the mental activity, the analytic power, when we regard
it also as acting alone. This power indeed gives a set of intuitions
which is quite parallel to that given by the mind when considered as a
percipient merely, and which are equally valid. There is, however, a
marked difference between them. Since, in the point of view in which we
now come to regard it, the mind is no longer a manifestation of Being
merely but of Power and action, it gives in intuition, no longer the
statical, but the dynamical view of things. It preludes the
self-existent, not as the Infinite, but as the Almighty. And just as
the first differentiation of the intuition of Being as Being, gave
Being with room for more, that is Being and Space, so the first
differentiation of the intuition of Being as Power or changefulness,
gives Change and "room for more change"-that is, duration or time.
Moreover, this new intuition is given with the same characteristic as
that of Space-that is, as mere time, pure time, beginningless, endless
time. In a word, in holding time as elementary intuition gives it, the
mind is anticipating and preluding eternity.
Whether, therefore, we look to the mind acting as pure intellect,
the EGO being hushed in it, or look to the EGO, if to that alone, we
find nothing whatever to forbid the manifestation to the mind of an
Infinite, an absolute Being, inhabiting eternity, if such a Being
really manifest himself; rather have we found the mind framed expressly
for responding to the existence of such a Being. Nay, we have found
that, if such a Being do not exist and manifest himself so that the
mind may be filled by the manifestation, then is the mind no better
than an hollow lie-whispering thing.
But the result is widely different when we bring to bear on the
absolute and infinite Being both functions of the mind simultaneously,
or in such rapid succession as to seem simultaneous-that is, both the
purely intuitional, cosmical, or impersonal perceptivity of the mind,
and its active or personal power acting in its perceptive capacity, In
that case contradictions inevitably set in. In fact, the very use of
the personal activity in the intellectual sphere, is to render clear
and distinct to the embodied mind an object which the senses give
merely as a glare. Now, to render an object clear and distinct is to
differentiate that object from something else, is to define it, and
consequently to limit it. And hence the mischance which happens when
the mind, in its active or analytic phase, is allowed to play upon that
which is simple, continuous, boundless. It cannot but destroy its
character and give birth to a brood of contradictions.
Thus, if I, in the simple exercise of perceptivity, or mentally
acting in cosmical synthesis, reduce my intuition to as pure and simple
a state as possible-if I exclude from my regard all individual
realities, and, in a word, everything that I can, there remains to me
the pure intuition of vacuity, and it presents itself to me as
boundless and continuous; and so long as I contemplate it in perfect
intellectual repose, it preserves its continuity, its boundlessness.
The intuition continues true to that of which it is the intuition.
But as soon as I lose my intellectual repose, the moment that my
mental activity begins to act within me, and the EGO is awoke, that
EGO, alarmed perhaps for being lost in the boundless vast contemplated,
proceeds to explore, and in keeping with its own finitude, it assigns a
positivity, a limit, nay, a form to vacuity; it conceives it as space,
nay, as a vast sphere with self in the centre! Now, this done, the EGO,
the activity, the analytic phase of mental action, is, for the moment,
satisfied. But with this state of things the mind as a whole, is
satisfied but for a moment. Forthwith the purely intuitional, the
impersonal, or cosmical perceptivity of the mind, that is, the
synthetic phase of mental action, spontaneously resumes. And of this
the consequence is, that space is re-affirmed as existing beyond the
boundary which the mind in its analytic phase had imposed upon it. Thus
it is held as boundless again. But do matters rest here? no, the EGO is
as active and as imposing as ever. It resumes and prescribes a second
boundary adapted to the new conditions of the intuition, that is, a
boundary more remote than the first. Then, by the again recurring
synthetic phase boundlessness is given again; and after that, by the
alternating analytic phase, a boundary still father removed; and so on
as long as we please. And here it is most worthy of remark, that the
analytical phase, the action of the EGO being of course always the most
interesting and the most intimate to the thinker, ever tends to have
the last word, that is, the thinker tends to give a boundary to the
infinite, and so to deny infinity. Here, then, have we, in consequence
of bringing ordinary consciousness into a field for which it was not
designed, and for which it is not adapted, not only a succession of
contradictions, but a tendency to the wrong one as the last.
It is some consolation that the result which is obtained is of
great value as supplying a method of measuring the forms and movements
of the cosmos, that is, in giving a basis for the Calculus.
The same series of mental phenomena recur when we reverse the
process, and instead of aiming at the comprehension of all space, take
a small portion of space and propose to ourselves to reduce it to zero.
The act of primary intuition or synthesis with which we set out,
reproduces, after every alternate phase of analysis, a portion of space
which was the primary datum. If the form of the analysis was bisection
the successive portions of space obtained will be less and less, and
bear such designations as a half, a half of a half, and so on. But
then, in consequence of the spontaneousness or imminence of the
synthetic or intuitional phase of the minds action, a portion of space,
under some denomination or other, will be posited as often as another
act of analysis or cutting down threatens its extinction. And this
process, too, in consequence of the vivaciousness of the personal
activity, we may carry on as long as we please. And hence the seeming
as if any portion of space, however small, could be cut or divided to
all eternity, and yet some space remain.
It is the same with time as with space. Under a similar
manipulation by consciousness time is lost as pure time, as all time.
Analysis shapes even eternity into a form of which it can lay hold. It
prescribes a boundary, a beginning, or an end to it. But this it cannot
do always; for the personal activity, though very vivacious, is liable
to exhaustion and requires repose, in order to be recruited for another
act. And thus simple intuition finds room for intervening, and the
boundlessness of the original intuition is restored. For my own part, I
think it is easier in reference to time to rest in the simple intuition
than it is in reference to space. Nothing appears to me to be so
certain as eternity. If, indeed, I am not content with the intuition,
if I proceed to "conceive" it, that is, to make it the object of
analysis as well as of synthesis, I lose it. In that case I cannot but
think both a beginning of time and an end of time, and my conception,
however earnestly bent on discovering a harmony between eternity and
time, never gets beyond a compromise, nay, a mixture in thought which,
when looked into, is no better than a contradiction.
After the intuition of Being and its companion space, and that of
Action, or change, and its companion time, there comes in logical order
that which is at once the logical synthesis and the real source of
both, namely, Power or Potentiality. And in reference to this, which is
the most important of all things, and, indeed, the basis of everything,
we obtain by our method a development which is perfectly analogous to
that which we have had in reference to Being and Action.
The mind in its simply synthetic phase, that is, when reposing in
its pure perceptivity, and as often as it obtains the glance of its own
potentiality when in this state of intuition, has an intuition of pure
power, all power. What it gets is a true preluding and a
pre-exercitation for receiving the impress of Omnipotence or absolute
power, all-subduing power. Moreover, the mind, when acting as an
intuitional being, though in its analytic phase, provided only that it
holds by what itself in this phase gives, gives the same result-only in
this case the power is given as in action, that is, as absolute,
all-embracing, irresistible causation. The mind, in either phase when
taken by itself, gives nothing finite, nothing limiting or limited. But
when the analytic action of the mind applies itself to the datum of the
synthetic or the simply intuitional action of the mind, it cannot but
define and limit it. Absolute Power or Self-subsisting causation is in
that case obliged to admit an antecedent cause and a consequent cause,
that is, an effect. And thus, what we ultimately obtain in
consciousness, is an alternation of cause and effect in a beginningless
and endless series. The elemental intuition or glance (proper to the
reposing intelligence) of Absolute Power, that which is cause within
itself and to itself, that is, the preluding in the soul of the
doctrine of an Almighty Will, which is the preparation for receiving or
believing in such a Power, if He manifest himself, is secularized into
a form of thought which is indeed a beautiful adaptation of the
doctrine of cause, in so far as the creation is concerned, but which is
no longer answerable to the whole of Reality.
And thus we are in a position to appreciate the philosophy of
Hamilton, which is the latest theory of disarming the antilogies of
reason - enemies to discovery, these antilogies-which, under able
generalship, such as that of Herbert Spencer, still threaten to turn
philosophy out of doors. Sir William admits that these antilogies
result from an imbecility or impotence of mind. But he maintains that
no detriment comes from this fact to those theological and cosmological
ideas, about which chiefly philosophy is conversant, for when the
antilogies are reduced to their most categorical terms, the one always
denies what the other affirms; whence it follows that, while both are
"inconceivable," "incomprehensible." "unthinkable," still one or other
must be true; and therefore it is open to inquire, or at least to
believe either the one or the other, provided it commend itself to
belief on adequate evidence derived from some other source than the
dialectic movement of consciousness.
It forms no part of my plan to estimate the views of others. But it
is impossible to avoid observing in passing that Hamiltons views, at
least in their bearings on the great questions in philosophy, are not
materially different from those of Kant. In both there is much to
commend and to admire. But Hamilton, far from discovering and
acknowledging a harmony in the great thinkers who have gone before him,
has left it open no less than Kant for some future Fichte, or
Schelling, or Hegel, to look upon his labors with the same contempt
that he looks on theirs.
But there is a harmony, that reign among all great thinkers, and
not a little of it, as appears to me, is to be found in the views of
consciousness that have been here advanced. If cut into slips, might
not these pages be mostly distributed under such labels as Kant,
Schelling, Hegel, Hickok, Calderwood, with Leibnitz and Cousin
everywhere, and Dr Reid, above all? Of the last, the founder of the
Scottish Philosophy, I am in nowise ashamed, as my master; though in
the higher regions of philosophy he has been of late spoken of, and in
his own country too, as being as helpless as "a whale in a field of
clover." But this was by one who said of Philosophy that it was more
proper that it should be reasoned than that it should be true! Those,
therefore, who are bent on work and not on play, need not mind much
what he has said. Very different is the judgment passed upon Reid by
the illustrious founder of the Eclectic Philosophy. Referring to the
thoroughgoing scepticism which had emerged from the views of Locke and
Berkeley, through the handling of Hume, Cousin says, "The human race
had lost its titles to philosophy, and Reid restored them." And again,
"Reid is incontestably one of the most critically acquainted
(connoisseurs) with human nature that has ever been, and along with
Kant, the first metaphysician of the eighteenth century."* But since
then the Scottish Philosophy has not thrived in Scotland. It went to
the Continent for its health, and it became so strong that it worked
wonders there. Now, however, it is high time for it to be taken home
again. Common sense, the spontaneous intuition, the ineradicable
convictions of mankind, are as necessarily the basis of the science of
mind as minerals are of mineralogy or plants of botany. And there is
wanted still in order to the true science of the human mind, not a mere
enumeration of the principle of common sense, and a vindication of
their authority indeed, but an orderly digest of them in their
positions of natural relationship, and their genesis from one another,
or from some principle or principles which are still higher, more
general, or more common.
