rule
This faculty or habit consists essentially in combining ideas (particular or general), or objects and ideas, so as to form systems different from those occurring in actual experience. The whole has never been perceived, though all its elements have been perceived.
Any association of ideas may be called imaginary if it occurs in an order different from the order of experience. But the term Imagination is properly confined to novel combinations deliberately and consciously formed to serve some utility. It is thus distinguished from Reverie, in which no choice or control enters into the recollection.
We control our ideal associations by means of comparison, which is therefore what distinguishes imagination from reverie. For instance, if I see avase from which the handle has been broken off, I can imagine the handle restored, but to do this I must be able to compare the broken vase with a similar whole vase, or with the general idea 'whole vase.' The combination I form is novel, for I have never seen this particular vase in a whole state; if I had I should not be imagining it but recollecting it.
There are two principal distinctions to be noticed in imagination; one relates to the mode of forming the imaginary idea, the other to its use.
In the above case we form the whole by mechanical extension or addition. The process is as simple as nailing one piece of wood to another. But suppose the broken vase is of porcelain and the whole one of bronze, the restoration can still be made, but it is no mechanical junction of two previous ideas. It is a fusion of the material supplied by one idea with a form supplied by another. On the same principle a vase may be wholly designed from hints supplied by a score or more of vases, differing in material, in size, colour, decoration, and so forth. In these cases the new idea may be said to be totally different throughout its length from any other and from any object. Yet it is a combination of previous ideas. We do not create any absolutely new idea. This may be called imagination bytransfusion. The elements may be so well mixed that it is impossible to trace each back to its origin.
Transfusion may be further complicated by recompounding ideas already compound. This occurs, as we shall see, in forming the 'external world' of materialists and realists.
The two uses to which imaginary ideas are put are the Artistic and the Rational.
We have seen (x) that emotions may be excited by objects or ideas. Hence, agreeable emotions may be excited by suggesting the objects associated with the original agreeable feelings; and novel emotions may be excited by novel combinations of the ideas of experienced objects that have been signs of feelings. From this possibility has arisen that extensive province of activity calledArt, which consists in imagining novel combinations of things capable of exciting novel and pleasurable emotions (not feelings), and in finding means of suggesting such ideas to others. Some of these combinations are so subtle, and the emotions they excite so exquisite, that we value the artistic work at a great price, and rank the man who imagined it among the benefactors of his species.
Reason, or the Rational Imagination, does not appeal directly to the emotions. It serves the uses of life by enabling us to imagine what we have not yet experienced but may have to experience, and the quality aimed at is accuracy of intellectual ideation, not emotional pleasure. It is found by experience that an intellect well furnished with ideas may learnto combine them into pictures or preconceptions of the future, and the indirect utility of this accomplishment is very great. If it does not, like art, give immediate sentimental pleasure, it often enables us so to control events that we are brought into conditions affording more lasting satisfaction than many expensive works of art. Reason, then, is the imaginative faculty applied to the purpose of acquiring ideas of experience that has not yet taken place, and it is good in proportion to the similarity of the idea to the anticipated or unknown experience.
Although imagination is more important than generalisation, it has received little attention from metaphysicians. Their treatment of it is not uniform, but it generally exhibits two fundamental defects. They consider it an independent or ultimate faculty, that is, one incapable of resolution into anything more simple. We have seen that it is an application of comparison, and comparison depends on the coincidence of particular ideas.
Then they regard imagination only in its artistic uses, not perceiving that it is also the basis of reason. Reason they treat as generalisation—a vice that pervades all their systems. They put reason and art in essential opposition, whereas the difference between them is only specific—a difference of use.
Some metaphysicians confound imagination with mere recollection. 'It is,' says one of them, 'thefaculty representative of the phenomena both of the external and internal worlds.' But there is a great difference between the representation of what we have experienced actually, and the representation of a future and perhaps impossible event: the latter only is imaginative. 'There is no train of ideas,' says another, 'to which the term imagination may not be applied.' If a man at the end of the day calls to mind all the events of the day in a train of ideas, that is recollection, and would be very inappropriately termed imagination. According to a third, imagination has for its object the concrete as opposed to abstractions and generalities. This also is inexact. A traveller may describe in general the qualities of a foreign country or tribe of men, and we shall imagine that generality without a concrete picture. The power of imagining generalities and abstractions necessarily follows from the power of forming them in the first instance.
rule
The derivation of Reason as given in the preceding sections may be summed up thus:—the meeting of Minds gives Perception or primary experience; Attention selects therefrom objects of special interest to the observer; Memory retains impressions of these in the mental plasma, by which ideas of them are recollected though the originating mind be not present; community with divergence of imprint gives rise to Comparison; from this are derived Imagination and Generalisation; from imagination emerge Reason and Art.
Generalisation is thus only a collateral relation of reason, not its immediate parent nor in the direct line of descent. It is not essential to reason, but may enter as a subsidiary process into an argument. If the things we argue about are numerous it will bemore correct to generalise them and then argue from the general idea, than to argue from one concrete object to another. But innumerable inferences are drawn from one particular thing to another, and these involve no generalisation.
Reason is chiefly the art of predicting by means of the intellect what will occur to us in the future. Its use is to enable us to prepare for future events in so far as our resources permit. We never predict quite accurately, but general preconceptions are better than none at all. The same process by which we preconceive the future can be applied to the conception of what is actually taking place but not within our ken—as at the antipodes—and can be applied also to events that took place in the past and will never be experienced by us. It might be objected that as regards the past we can have no motive in imagining it, seeing we can never experience it. But a conception of the past is often a necessary condition of our conceiving the future, and is artistically interesting. It awakens pleasing emotions to be able to picture to ourselves, even imperfectly, states of the world and of society that have long been obsolete.
An investigation of the manner in which reason supplies us with ideas of the unknown, involves the consideration and arrangement of so many details that it may be regarded as a small science in itself—Dialectic.
A dialectician (logician in the narrower sense) is neither a grammarian nor an encyclopedia of the best information on every subject. His office consists in deciding whether certain theorems are arguments or not. AnArgumentis an act or product of rational imagination. Theorems which purport to be arguments, but are not, areFallacies.
A fallacy is not merely abadargument—it is no argument at all. Quite apart from fallacy there is a goodness and badness in arguments, but with this discrimination the dialectician (as such) has nothing to do. Only persons experienced in the matter are competent to decide between good and bad arguments. Hence when the quality of an argument is in question the dialectician takes no part in the debate: he is neither combatant nor umpire. He is at most an impartial president whose chief duty is to see that people do not debate about mere words and foregone conclusions. Granting that a theorem has the qualities of an argument, the dialectician is not competent to say that it is improper or too trivial to be discussed. He is not a judge of what people ought to be interested in.
From his better knowledge of what constitutes rational prediction, a dialectician may offer his services to disentangle and render explicit involved and partial arguments. Many people reason well who are yet unable to express themselves coherently. A dialecticianshould be able to reconstruct an argument from the slightest hint, as a naturalist imagines an animal from a single bone. In ordinary reasoning the arguments are seldom fully expressed, and the reasoners themselves are not always quite conscious of the premises from which they argue. All such suppressed and overlooked assumptions should be brought to light by dialectic, the aim of which is to render reason as self-conscious as possible.
Though a dialectician need not be an expert in any department of knowledge, he must know the facts on which an argument is built, otherwise he may be deceived by equivocal language. Reverting to the instance of the vase—the dialectician must have seen both the whole vase and the broken vase, but he need not have any opinion as to whether the proposed handle is the most suitable, or not. That must be left to those who are familiar with vases and who are interested in the restoration of the one in question.
The definition here given of the scope and office of dialectic may appear to some too modest. But in reality there is a great deal involved in it. Philosophers have been discussing Reason for twenty centuries or more, and have not produced a satisfactory definition of it. Consequently they cannot decide with any confidence whether a theorem is an argument or a fallacy. The cleverest of them give their sanction to theorems that are demonstrably fallacies.They are evidently judging more by ear than by rule. All this causes confusion of mind and waste of energy.
Dialectic takes its general idea of reason from the higher analysis of logic, and brings the general idea to bear on concrete arguments. A dialectician makes a collection of theorems for study just as a botanist makes a collection of plants. He sorts them out into convenient classes, separates the valid or useful from the erroneous and misleading, studies the relation of language to argument and the influence for good or ill that words have upon rational thought.
From the example of the vase cited above it will be seen that in every act of reason two principal things are requisite. There must be something wholly known (or comparatively well known) and something less well known, and the reasoning or argument consists in ideally completing the latter on the model of the former. If we would predict the coming of a future season of the year we must have a picture in the mind of all the seasons in the order in which they occur. If we would go straight to a place on the surface of the earth we must have a plan of the way in our imagination. If we would predict the effect of a drug on an animal body we must have previously noticed the effect it has produced—and so on. Neither the mind nor intellect supplies spontaneously any of these models; they are all formed out ofactual experience remembered and recollected. When they have been refined into extremely general ideas they are apt to be taken for innate tendencies of the intellect, as Kant erroneously thought. They are not so; all we know of the intellect is consistent with the belief that it begins with pure plasm without a trace of idea, and is absolutely indifferent to the imprints it may receive. Doctrines of innate ideas—innate forms of thought or categories—innate 'principles' of various kinds—are devices of metaphysicians to cover the weakness of their theories.
The two main parts of an argument divide naturally into four subdivisions. There is the thing argued about (corresponding to the broken vase); there is the ideal extension or restoration; in the model we reason from there are the parts corresponding to each of these. I propose to take terms for these four parts from one of the most important, formal and correct modes of reasoning—the application of a precedent or statute to a case in Law.
Every argument, whatever be the matter of it, consists in bringing aCaseunder aPrecedent, and applying to the case ideally the better knowledge possessed of the precedent. TheConclusion(also called Inference or Deduction) is the result of this application, and is always an addition to our stock of ideas.
A conclusion has never the same reality as actual experience. It is not 'true' in that sense, though it may be 'morally' true, that is, we are ready to act upon it without hesitation—to stake our life or fortune on it. As regards actual or experienced fact there can be no argument, since it is useless to 'predict' what we already know.
Academical logicians have a doctrine the reverse of this. They assert that their syllogisms yield conclusions that are always as certain as the premises. Grant their premises and you are obliged to accept their conclusions. This is so, because a regular syllogistic conclusion is simply a restating in other words of the information, or part of the information, already contained in the premises. If the syllogism has any use at all, it is merely as an aid to recollection;no new idea is generated by it. It is needless to insist on a fact so notorious as that ordinary rational conclusions—those that form the staple of our daily thought—are not by any means so certain as the data from which they are drawn. For example, the sky is red and lowering this evening, and we conclude therefrom that the weather will be bad to-morrow. There is no doubt about the present aspect of the sky, but much doubt about the inference.
The form of an act of reasoning or argumentation may be rendered plainer by a diagram.
S A represents the precedent. S is the Subject or body of the precedent; A (theApplicate) is one property, or a part, or a relation of S abstracted from the rest to illustrate a case. C is the case;Iis the conclusion (or inference).Iresults from imagining C to be associated with a property or relation similar to A. The sum of ourI's constitutes what we know of the world and man before we were born, of what is taking place in other parts of the world or universe, of what may take place in the future, and of the concealed and inaccessible parts of present objects. This is true not only of the results of our own reasoning but of what we have learned as verified knowledgefrom others, for the interpretation of language is, in the last analysis, a rational conclusion.
All the parts of an argument exist in the mind, but they are not always expressed in language. When treated dialectically the implicit members are expressed, and the terms arranged so as to show as clearly as possible the nature of the argument. The following are the points most necessary to be observed in constructing or analysing an argument.
(1) C must resemble S, for that is the basis of the argument. If C is not felt to be like S, or (as sometimes happens) is explicitly declared to be unlike S, there can be no conclusion. The precedent is not applicable to the case. A may, or may not, be associated with S; that is to say, a verbal negation may appear in the statement of the relation of S to A, but there must be no negation with respect to the relation of C to S.
The resemblance of C to S may, however, vary in degree from the faintest analogy to community of species. The difference between them may far outweigh their resemblance. There may even be no material likeness, but only a similarity of function, or position, or of any the most trivial attribute. Only it is to be observed that the kind and degree of resemblance between S and C determine the kind and degree of resemblance between A andI. We must not infer specifically unless the case is specificallylike the precedent. In all other instances we can only infer proportionally or by transfusion.
(2) None of the antecedents must be a verbal or identical proposition, that is, a proposition which merely substitutes one name or nominal phrase for another; nor must the case be merely the precedent expressed in other words, or the precedent a paraphrase of the case. In any of these circumstances one of the elements of the argument is wanting; we have two names for one thing or two propositions giving the same information.
(3) The precedent may (as has been already remarked) be a general idea, or may be an individual idea or object. If S A has occurred frequently it is certain to be generalised, and so may form a maxim, a law, a rule, an induction, &c. But one well-observed precedent is enough to suggest a conclusion, if there has been no experience to the contrary. There is therefore no dialectical difference between arguing from a general idea (class notion) to an individual or subordinate idea, and arguing from one individual to another. Comparison and inference occur in both.
(4) After separating A from S care should be taken that it is A and not S that is used to generateI. Examples are plentiful of theorems in which S and A change parts, which invalidates the conclusion. Other errors in stating theorems intended to bearguments will be noticed under the head of 'Fallacies.'
The following is an argument conformable to the above rules.
This square mode of stating the argument is adapted from the general type, and brings out the mutual relations of the compared parts better than the three-lined arrangement. The word 'therefore,' which usually introduces a logical conclusion, is ambiguous. It may mean that the antecedents are the causes of the fact mentioned in the conclusion, or merely that the antecedents are the reasons why we believe the conclusion. The former is the scientific 'therefore,' the latter is the purely dialectical. I shall generally omit the illative word, and print conclusions in italics, besides entering them invariably in the fourth compartment of the parallel when this arrangement is adopted.
An idea once generated in the intellect is not to be erased at pleasure. It can be obliterated only by the process of forgetting. If after we have formed a dialectical conclusion we meet with evidence that contradicts it, the only result of that evidence is to affix a mark of falsity to the conclusion, so that asoften as it is recollected the stigma is recollected too, and neutralises the effect of the idea. A negative or destructive argument is thus, plasmically speaking, a positive addition to the idea it seeks to efface. For the time being it renders the idea more conspicuous, as the wordCANCELLEDstamped in large letters across a document makes it more evident than it was before; but no doubt the stigmatising of an idea hastens the process of oblivion, for we thenceforth bestow less attention upon it. Stigmatic arguments are not another species, but merely the ordinary constructive arguments used for a particular purpose.
Suppose we have inferred from the general resemblance of the earth to the moon that the latter is inhabited, we stigmatise this belief by such an argument as—
There is an exception to the rule that argument is superfluous when the speaker has already verified the conclusion. It is when he is addressing a person who has not had the same experience as himself and who doubts his word. The speaker may then resort to arguments drawn from antecedents recognised by the hearer, if any such are applicable to the subject. But a fact may be truly reported though neither the witness nor a sceptical hearer can find dialecticalantecedents to prove it, for there may be no relation between the fact in question and any prior knowledge they possess, or they may not be able to find the relation.
This brings us again to that view of the intellect which represents it as artificial and limited by experience. Man is rational only on matters familiar to him; in utterly novel circumstances he is irrational, and must fall back for guidance on his general mental sentiment, or the advice of persons more experienced than himself.
It is allowable to imagine ourselves placed in circumstances not yet realised, or in possession of information not yet acquired, and to anticipate or rehearse the reasoning we should employ under the supposed conditions. Such arguments take in language a conditional or hypothetical phraseology.
The case may be entirely fictitious, but I cannot find a valid instance of a whole precedent being fictitious. Its dubiety turns on our knowledge or ignorance of the applicate. Has a subject such or such an attribute? Then it may be applied to illustratea certain case. 'If it is true that Damon and Pythias are inseparable,then Pythias must be in town, for I have just seen Damon.'
It is more often the case that is dubious. 'If Caius is a Europeanhe is white, for all Europeans are white.' 'If Damon is in townPythias is in town, for they are inseparable.' 'If I were youI should defer the voyage to the summer season, as I have always found winter travelling disagreeable.' But the word 'if' does not always mark a hypothetical thought. In the proposition, 'if children are neglected they will grow up ignorant,' we have a dogmatic or assertorial judgment—'neglected children grow up ignorant.' (Bain.)
The precedent may be suppressed in hypothetical as in dogmatic argument. 'If the crops are good, corn will be cheap' implies the unspoken precedent, 'good crops have been invariably followed by cheap corn.' 'If logic is useless it deserves to be neglected,' carries the mind to the more general thesis, 'all useless studies deserve to be neglected.' 'If Great Britain should be invaded the volunteers will be called out,' rests on the precedent judgment, 'it is the duty of the volunteer army to repel invaders.'
Arguments in which both applicate and case are hypothetical are so very dubious that they cannot be considered of any practical use. 'Ifopium is poisonous, andifthis substance is opium, you will be poisoned by taking this substance.'
The Aristotelian hypothetical is almost invariably a fallacy, sometimes on more than one account. It usually consists of—first, a conditional or doubtful statement; next, a solution of the doubt by means of positive information; finally and by way of inference the first statement is given without the doubt. Here is an example from Jevons: 'If the barometer is falling, bad weather is coming; but the barometer is falling; therefore bad weather is coming.'
Where did the information that the barometer is falling come from? If we knew it before uttering the first proposition, we were affecting an ignorance that did not exist. The second proposition takes away all occasion for argument; it is an amendment of the first proposition, and what we get from the theorem as a whole is acase, followed by a prediction for which there is no precedent justification. We are arguing in a circle.
'If Aristotle is right, slavery is a proper form of society; but slavery is not a proper form of society; therefore Aristotle is not right.' If we knew for certain (as the second proposition indicates) that slavery is not a proper form of society, what is the use or meaning of treating the question as hypothetical (as is done in the first)? If we acquired the information after uttering the first proposition, there was no occasion to go on with the argument; we should have said simply, 'Slavery is not a properform of society, though Aristotle said it was.' It is needless, except for verbal completeness, to say 'he was not right'—we havelogicallysaid so.
When two or more alternative data are presented, of which only one is valid or relevant to a proposed argument, but we know not at first which the valid datum is, we have thedilemma(trilemma,tetralemma, &c.) of logicians. In such conditions we have a double process to go through; we must first settle by observation or by an auxiliary argument which of the alternative data to select, and then work out the principal argument in the regular dogmatic form.
Suppose we have to determine dialectically the specific gravity of a piece of metal, but do not know whether it is gold or gun-metal. It is evident we must first somehow make up our mind as to its identity, and then proceed on the usual method of argumentation. The 'making up our mind' is probably itself an argument, and might be of this character—'A piece of yellow metal stamped with what appears to be a hall-mark, is more likely to be gold than gun-metal; this piece of metal has traces of such a stamp; so I concludeit is gold.' Then we proceed to the principal question—'The specific gravity of gold is 19·26; I have concluded that this object is gold; I conclude further thatit has a specific gravity of19·26.'
We may work out all the alternative conclusions first and fix on a datum afterwards, as in decidinghow we shall invest our money. 'If I put my money in Consols I shall have a small return with good security; if I buy Patagonian bonds I may have a large interest for a time, but the security is bad.' The next thing to settle is whether in our experience or on accepted principles small profit with good security is, or is not, to be preferred to large profit and bad security: having decided in favour of the former alternative, we now choose our investment dogmatically—'A good security with small profit is to be preferred; Consols are of this character;they are a suitable investment for me.'
We may be unable to decide for any of the alternative data, but we work out all the possible arguments as hypotheses, and so are prepared in a degree for all the possible events. A person is seen approaching our residence, but we cannot discern whether it is A. B., who is a bore, or C. D., who is an entertaining companion. We argue rapidly—'If it is A. B.I shall have a bad half-hour, for he always wearies me; if it is C. D.I shall have an agreeable distraction, for he is very amusing.'
According to the syllogists, the dilemmatic premises are a statement of alternative data and the choice of one of them, and the inference is the rejection of the remainder: or the rejection may be given as matter of fact and the selection as conclusion. In neither case have we argument.
From the moment we select a datum the remaining data are of no import to us, and they need not be mentioned. The selection of one datum is logically identical with the rejection of the rest, and this is therefore not a conclusion from that.—'Do you take tea or coffee?'—'Tea, please.'—'Then I conclude you do not take coffee.'—A person who would 'conclude' in this fashion would be justly deemed irrational. The choice of the tea is a fact, and the rejection of the coffee is the same fact otherwise expressed, so that the rejection cannot be a rational conclusion.—'My doctor sends me off every winter to Nice, Algiers, or Egypt; but I never go to Algiers or Egypt.'—There is no occasion to say, 'therefore you go to Nice'; that has been already announced as a matter of fact and is not susceptible of inference. For the sake of verbal emphasis we might remark, 'So it is to Nice you go', but this is not logically requisite.
Whately's examples of this kind of theorem are exactly of the model just given.—'Either the earth is eternal, or the work of chance, or the work of an intelligent Being; it is not eternal, nor the work of chance,thereforeit is the work of an intelligent Being.' This is put forward in all gravity as a specimen of reasoning. It is plain that if we know the premises as matters of fact, we also know the proposed conclusion as a matter of fact. There is no occasion to reason about it.
The Aristotelian hypothetical can be reduced to arithmetical subtraction. Suppose we put five balls into a bag and afterwards take out three without seeing the remainder: is the judgment that two balls remain in the bag a logical inference? No—it is matter of fact. Since we last perceived the objects they have undergone diminution, but that does not confer on what is left of them the imaginary character proper to a rational conclusion. What remains is as much fact—recollected but not imaginary fact—as before the subtraction.
Whately's next example is—'It is either spring, summer, autumn, or winter; but it is neither spring nor summer; therefore it is either autumn or winter.' This is aggravated fallacy. Not only is it mere subtraction, but the remainder isperceived—not recollected, as in the preceding case. The actual season of the year is a known fact, and is not rendered more certain by an inference drawn from the absence of some other season. Arguments have no validity as against matters of fact, and add nothing to their authority. Fact is above, and independent of, argument. The example just cited may be paralleled thus—'The cards in my hand are either spades, hearts, clubs, or diamonds; but they are neither spades nor hearts; therefore they are either clubs or diamonds'.—Iseethat they are either clubs or diamonds: the perceptual judgment renders the rational—imaginary—judgmentsuperfluous. Reason is intended to supplement experience—not to supersede it.
The purpose of debate is to determine the goodness or badness of an argument by general logical criticism and knowledge of the matter. This is not dialectic, but takes place after the dialectician has declared that a given theorem is valid argument. If then its conclusion is repugnant to us we may seek to stigmatise it—or remove a stigma as the case may be—by going behind the argument to the composition of the judgments that enter into it.
Let us take the case of Caesar being proved to be a tyrant in a society that punishes tyranny with death. There are two ways in which he may be saved or his punishment mitigated.
We are not bound to take the first precedent that is offered from which to generate a conclusion. We grant that Caesar resembles the general notion 'tyrant,' but we ask if he does not resemble in an equal or greater degree some other person or class in regard to whom capital punishment is no just treatment. Does he resemble a 'successful andpatriotic general'—a 'benevolent monarch'—a 'wise legislator'—a 'virtuous man'? All these resemblances are compatible with his being a tyrant in some senses of the word. Let us not condemn Caesar for what may be a merely technical offence—the usurpation of authority—if in other respects he is an admirable man. So an opportunity must be given to Caesar or his advocate to suggest other precedents, yielding a different conclusion, by which to complete our imperfect knowledge of the case. Socrates, when he was brought under the class 'perverters of youth'—which also yielded the conclusion 'death'—suggested as an amendment that he should be classed under 'national benefactors,' with the conclusion 'maintenance for life at the public expense.'
It is not enough that we can say of a case that it 'is' this or that, and so proceed to draw the conclusion bound up in that classification. 'Is' in the case means likeness to the precedent, and one 'is' is good only when no better can be found.
If after having weighed the alternative precedents it appears clear that Caesar resembles tyrants more than any other class of persons, the prospect looks bad for him. But there is still a chance of escaping the worst penalty. It turns on the meaning of the word 'all,' which in logic generally introduces a proposition to which no exception has been found—the misnamed and misleading 'universal.'
Logicians do not hesitate to say that in this connection it means 'all possible, known or unknown, past or future individuals of the class.' They suppose, or talk as if they supposed, that at some fixed date in our life we enter into possession of our general ideas, and that no subsequent experience can modify them. Hence the moment it is admitted that Caesar is a tyrant, he is supposed to come under the rule of a stereotyped general idea with inflexible consequences.
This is not quite so. 'All' does not mean 'all possible' but 'all known up to the present time,exclusive of the case under discussion.' Our general or average ideas are the plasmic product of the individuals we have actually known—not a unit more. And as that idea is liable to be modified by every new individual examined, it is possible that on examining Caesar we may find reason to change our general idea, to the extent at least of dividing it into two species, the tyrants who deserve death and the tyrants who deserve some milder punishment, and that we shall resolve to bring Caesar under the latter species. Thus if the idea threatens to hang Caesar, on the other hand Caesar may burst the idea, and his case establish itself as a new precedent. That is how general ideas multiply—by a sort of fission.
In the proposition 'tyrants deserve death' as first proposed, we are dealing with the old general idea,and—as regards all individuals except those from which it was drawn—the proposition is little more than a hypothesis. The idea is itself on trial. Until Caesar is examined we do not fully know how the general tyrant is in future to be defined. Our examination of Caesar is a part of our education on the subject of tyrants. In judging we learn, and the general idea which remainsafter Caesar is examinedis that by which he is to be judged.
If our idea of tyrant remains unshaken after the trial of Caesar, and if he is found to resemble that class more than any other, then—and not till then—are we compelled to pass on him the judgment associated with the definition of tyrant.
An argument based on a particular or solitary precedent is criticised on the same principles. We seek to prove either that the case is not sufficiently like the precedent to justify the application, or that the applicate is not a property of the precedent. If we make good either of these propositions, we prevent the suggested conclusion from being fastened on the case.
The syllogistic dialecticians do not admit alternative precedents or reconstruction of general ideas: their terms and figures are not adapted to express such notions. Hence they cannot evade a conclusion whose premises are correctly given. They have an axiom to the effect that a judgment must be absolutely true or absolutely false—a door must be openor shut, it cannot be ajar; every colour is white or black, it cannot be green or grey, and so on. Now in practical reasoning we may and constantly do admit premises and reject the conclusions they dialectically involve. We look at the question 'from another point of view.' This means that while admitting there is some ground for bringing a case under a certain precedent, we contend that on the whole it is preferable to bring it under another precedent with a different conclusion. The proposed handlemayfit the vase somehow, but we think another sort of handle will suit it better. Or—rather than accept an objectionable conclusion—we will divide our idea. This is degree in truth. And that is the elastic method on which we reason in actual affairs. Logicians give a false account of reason, and so their systems are neglected and their authority is never recognised in real debates.
rule
A Category is primarily a class of Judgments. Since arguments are composed of judgments, a category is also a class of arguments; that is to say, the argument follows the classification of the judgment. This is not the practice of syllogists, who have categories for judgments only, the arguments being classified according to verbal expression.
I distinguish six categories—two Natural and four Artificial. The judgments of a natural category concern experience presented in a synthesis whose composition is due to the noumenal mind; the categories corresponding to this definition are—
An artificial category is so called because the synthesis is formed by the subjective mind.
The first category of this kind is
which is an artificial arrangement of objects accordingto a figurative interpretation of certain appearances they present.
The second artificial category I will call
as it is an ideal cohesion of experiences never wholly perceived at once. These two categories are those chiefly responsible for the realistic mode of thought.
The third artificial category is that which is called in science causation, but it is only
that is, a series of phenomena sufficiently coherent to afford a basis for inference, but not necessarily or energically connected. Hume and others have conclusively proved that such phenomena are not causally related.
Finally there is
in the proper sense of the word, that is, the relation between energic mind and its effects. This is the category of human affairs generally, and of all the Cosmic that we explain by analogy with the Human. It is the only exhaustive explanation of phenomena, and so is the category which philosophy would substitute for the rest. When we can truly resolve things into effects analogous to human actions, we have reached the highest standpoint from which they can be viewed.Realisticanthropomorphism is the firstand rudest explanation of things:idealisticanthropomorphism is the last and most refined.
The artificial categories are all formed on analogies supplied by the natural, since the intellect is incapable of imagining anything absolutely original.
Each category may include judgments of other categories in a subordinate relation. Inherence and concretion enter to some extent as auxiliaries into all the others. A group category may be treated as an individual object for certain purposes, and an individual as a group of properties. In the one case a fictitious unity is created, in the other a real unity is imaginatively dissolved. But in general the categories are sufficiently distinct and may be considered as mutually exclusive. They will be separately analysed and exemplified.
The term category is used in common logic to signify the final classes into whichjudgmentscan be arranged. To this minor use only is the category applied. It does not either denote a classification ofargumentsor a distinct province of ideas whose origin and validity should be a matter of investigation. In Greek and modern logic arguments are distinguished solely by their verbal expression—never by the character of the judgment that enters into them. Treated in this superficial and haphazard way, the categories necessarily play a quite insignificant part in philosophy.
The oldest known set of categories is that quotedby Aristotle in his Metaphysic as being held by a sect of Pythagoreans. It consists of the following series of contraries—
Aristotle's own categories are the following:—
This list can be reduced to one half the number. Quantity, Quality, Posture, Condition are kinds ofAttributeorPropertyof the Substance. Place and Time are valid. Action and Passion are both referable to causation. Non-causal sequence or consecution (as day following night)—one of the commonest judgments—is not mentioned.
The Stoics reduced Aristotle's ten categories tofour—Substratum or Substance, the Essential Quality, Manner of being, and Relation.
Kaṇáda, a Hindu philosopher, has six categories—Substance, Quality, Action, Genus, Individuality, and Concretion or Co-inherence.
Plotinus was acquainted with the Aristotelian and Stoic lists and offers as his own:—(1) Fundamental forms of theIdeal—Being, Rest, Motion, Identity, Difference; (2) Categories of theSensible—Substance, Relation, Quality, Quantity, Motion.
Descartes recognised but two final categories, the Absolute and the Relative.
Kant has an elaborate scheme of categories, which he considered to be, not merely classes of judgments, but innate power of the mind by which we are moved to form the judgments. They are the following:—
Sir William Hamilton's categories were Being, Being by itself, and Being by accident.
Categories have also been proposed by Spinoza, Locke, Wolff, Leibnitz, Herbart, Mill, and others. No two of them are alike. They are not formed on any definite principle, but are individual opinions as to the most convenient way to classify judgments13.
An object being given by perception we develop our knowledge of it, first by narrowing our focus of attention so as to perceive parts and single attributes of the object; next by widening our attention so as to include several objects in one view. The first process is Analysis or Abstraction; it informs us what attributes co-inhere to constitute the object. The second is Synthesis or Grouping, by which we learn the relations of one thing to others. These operations comprise all we know about a thing, for it can have no attributes which are not either internal or external.
Practical analysis means cutting a thing to pieces or dissolving it, and this has a certain value because it multiplies objects. But it does not increase our knowledge of the first thing. On the contrary, by destroying a thing we render a knowledge of it impossible. The analysis which gives knowledge is Metaphysical Abstraction—an attention concentrated on the parts of a thing without destroying their connection with the other inherent parts. The metaphysical elements may be quite different from the mechanically divisible parts. They are generally a species of things which could not exist alone, such as red, blue, straight, curved, square, round, acid, sweet, insipid, fragrant, sharp, hot, heavy, dull, loud, bright, and a multitude of properties of that abstract kind.
For many of these—at least for the description of them—a comparison of two or more things is essential. A sound is heard to be loud by comparison with another which is low or soft; a knife is known to be blunt by experience of another more sharp, or the same knife in a sharper condition. But comparison does not alter the essential character of abstract attention—it serves merely as an incitement to it. Difference between qualities otherwise alike whets our attention to a finer discrimination.
The properties recognised by each sense are easily distinguished in the bulk from those of another sense.Colour is distinct from Figure in a more marked degree than red from blue or square from circular. Fine degrees of Sound may be difficult to discriminate, but not the difference between a sound and a smell or a taste.
Still broader contrasts give rise to an artificial but sometimes useful kind of attribution—the negative. When we do not know much concerning the positive characteristics of a thing, it is something to know that it hasnotthis or that property. What Thought is, positively, few people know, but they are able to say (with a little prompting) that it is un-extended, im-material, im-ponderable, and so forth. This comparison re-acts on the thing better known, and so we call visual objects 'extended' from their dissimilarity to thoughts. But for that there would have been no occasion to notice the abstract extension of visual objects. The term 'visual object' would have tacitly included extension. There must be great and general ignorance of a thing to excuse the negative attribution: it is not allowable to speak of plants as non-metals, or sheep as non-horses, but a large class of animals is called in-vertebrate. In this case the negative property serves to bar a possible inference that all animals are vertebrate, since those we know best are so.
The judgment in this category is a consciousness of the attributes making up a thing, or so much of itas interests us. 'Cleopatra's Needle is an obelisk of granite, about sixty-eight feet high, and is carved with hieroglyphics.' If we go on to say that it stands on the Thames Embankment, we shift into the category of association. The relation of an object to its place is different from that of one inherent attribute of the object to another, or to the whole.
The properties of a general idea are defined in this category. The synthesis is natural or noumenal, the artificiality of the idea consisting merely in the omission of some of the concrete properties. 'Garden rhubarb [in general] has broadly cordate leaves, strongly veined beneath; the footstalks are long, thick, and fleshy, with a channel above; its growth is exceedingly rapid.' These are properties inherent in a unity not of our making. The botanist changes into the category of sequence when he says, 'the stalks are used for tarts and made into jam.'
In a complicated object or general idea some of the judgments we treat as inherent may be inferences in other categories used subordinately. 'The ancient Persians had remarkably thin and weak skulls. They were good horsemen and archers, courageous and spirited in battle. They wore a tunic and trousers of leather.... They were quick and lively, keen-witted, capable of repartee, ingenious, and—for Orientals—far-sighted. They had fancy and imagination,a relish for poetry and art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination.' Some of these properties might have been perceived objectively, but not the possession of fancy and imagination, which could only be known by inference in causation—here used to complete a coherent unity. The historian employs causation as a principal category when he tells us that 'their bards did not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest and highest in our nature.' The thought implied in touching chords—the notion of will directing action—is a different judgment from the perception of an inherent permanent attribute.
The argument in this category consists in ideally completing an imperfect object by comparison with a similar object, or the idea of a similar object. Suppose we have studied thoroughly one or more rhubarb plants, and then see a plant with broadly cordate leaves, footstalks long, thick, and fleshy, and having a channel above. In the time at our disposal we cannot ascertain if its growth is exceedingly rapid, but we are justified in inferring that it is, and that the plant we are examining is in all other respects rhubarb. If the Egyptian obelisks we have seen were sculptured with hieroglyphics throughout their length, and we see an obelisk part of which is underground, it is a rational inference that that part also is sculptured.
We have proved that certain samples of aluminium have a specific gravity of 2·6, and then see a metal—of specific gravity unknown—which has all the other properties of aluminium: we may confidently infer that this metal also would, if tested, show a specific gravity of 2·6.
For purposes of reason it may be necessary to compare things that cannot be brought physically together. When this happens we generally compare them inidea, or the idea of one with the other as object. When great accuracy is required and the idea—which is always rather vague—cannot be relied on, we have recourse to mediate comparison.Standardsare employed. These are manageable or portable objects with which principal things are separately compared by way of effecting indirectly a comparison between them. Standards can only mediate comparisons betweenabstractproperties, for if they contained all the concrete properties of the compared objects they would, by supposition, be as unmanageable as the latter. We have standards for length in rules, scales, tapes, chains; the balance is a standard for weight. There are also scales for pitch of sound, varieties of colour, degree of light, heat, atmospheric pressure, and probably some others for special purposes.
Indirect comparison is not in itself inference; or if inference it is subordinate and preparatory to somemore important conclusion. A coin is weighed and concluded to belight, but this is only a datum in determining the more important question whether it is a forged coin or not.
In this category we widen the attention so as to include several objects in one act of perception.
The first result of this diffusion of attention is to lessen the brilliancy of objects. Our attention is a light which is intensified when narrowed and concentrated—enfeebled when dispersed over several objects. The observation of a group amounts practically to observing the objects in rapid succession. At a given moment we perceive only one thing well, or it may be only a small part of a thing, but we have a dull sense of other things adjacent, which we have just seen and may immediately see again in any order we please. That is all that is meant by perception of a group.
To distinguish this category properly from the next we must consider the group of objects as divested of depth or distance outwards. It is to be regarded asa flat surface standing a few feet from us, the objects in it having absolutely the dimensions they appear to have. This is in fact theirrealmagnitude, for the supposed real magnitude is a matter of theory, and means the perceptual magnitude taken under certain conditions of observation. The real magnitude is constantly changing, so for practical convenience in determining size, etc., we refer all objects to one condition of observation—that in which they can be touched as well as seen.
In metaphysic we are not obliged to recognise this convention. If an object a mile off appears to be an inch high, it is an inch high as really as if it were in a photograph or picture and materially represented of that height. The mystery of the change of size in objects is not explained or reasoned away by any device for overcoming some of its practical inconveniences. It depends on the degree of energy with which minds affect each other.
A group has properties which an object has not; or, if this be not strictly the case, we may say that the properties we look for in a group are not those we distinguish in a single object. The special properties of a group arepositions. It is unnecessary to say 'relative' positions, for position cannot be otherwise than relative. Position cannot be defined by reference to anything more simple. What is meant is intuitively known to everybody. But let us take a concrete example—aman with a horse and cart standing on a bridge. Each object in this group has a position towards the other objects. The bridge isoverthe river andunderthe cart; the cart isuponthe bridge andbehindthe horse; the man isinthe cart; the horse isbeforeandoutsideof the cart, it isnearone end of the bridge,farfrom the other, andbetweenthe two extremities. These are the principal positions in a natural group or association, by which is meant the objects we can see (or are supposed to see) simultaneously, and whose mutual positions we are considering.
The use of observing positions is the same as that which moves us to all rational study, namely, its value in prediction. We can reason from one object to another in a group just as we reason from one property to another in an object.
Suppose our perception of a landscape is interrupted for a moment, and when we next endeavour to perceive it we find we only perceive a portion of it, the rest being 'hidden' by an intervening object. As far as we are concerned the hidden part has been annihilated. We only remember what was there. But this recollection is also a preconception of what we may be able to cause to appear again, either by removing the obstructing object, by waiting till it has been removed, or by walking round and standing between it and the landscape.
If this be too close to mere recollection, we have pure reasoning when from the general appearance of a group we imagine generally some concealed part of it not before seen. A procession of people dressed in mourning is usually accompanied by a hearse: from perceiving the people only on a certain occasion we predict the hearse. The sound of a steam-whistle enables us to imagine a train in a certain locality, though fog or other obstruction may prevent our seeing it. The scent of flowers prepares us for finding them somewhere near us. From smoke we predict the nearness of a chimney. The trail of an animal is a clue to his position.
The judgment in this category is therefore a consciousness of position, such as those mentioned above. The argument is a completion of one association by comparison with another—the expectation of similarity in groups.
Movement.All judgments as tochangeof position in objects come under this category. It takes at least two things arranged in a group to produce the perception of movement. If there were but one thing in our field of observation we could not say whether it moved or not, for there would be nothing which it would pass, or leave, or approach. It would appear to stand still. There is, however, more in movement than depends on mere perception.
All movement is due to energy either in the observeror in the other mind acting upon his. Energy is not a generalisation of moving things, nor a property, nor a relation, though all these may be signs of energy. The most abstract idea of movement isMotion. It may be defined as a series of positions.
Number.If we treat a group as a large loose object we shall perceive in it certain properties not strictly positional. Number is one of these.
A group of three coins has not the same practical value as a group of six or sixty, and we are thus obliged to notice the difference and distinguish degrees of this property by names—hence Arithmetic.
Flat Spaceor space of two dimensions is another property of a group. Grouped objects have frequently intervals between them. Such intervals are negations of perception—interruptions or discontinuities of experience. But by abstraction we can reduce the objects bounding an interval to a geometrical line, and so give a sort of positive existence to the interval. Thus we talk of a hole or of darkness as if they were true objects, and measure them by standards of length.
If we abstract the boundary lines from a space we get the idea 'intervalness,' which is the right name for two-dimensioned space. This abstract idea is nearly the same as abstract size. Space is interval without bounds—size is object without contents. Space and size are equallynothingintrinsically or intheir own right, but they have been reached by different modes of refining away the positive qualities associated with them, and this difference of origin is slightly suggested by their names. Spaces have a use in perception similar torestsin music—they relieve the attention and give contrast and vigour to the next positive object.
This is the first of the artificial categories. It is an ideal treatment of an associated group to facilitate a certain kind of reasoning.
Reason—let me repeat—is the imaginary extension of experience by comparison with more complete experience of a similar kind. By reasoning in inherence we complete single objects; by inference in association we complete groups. These two categories demonstrate that a natural group consists of fragments of objects, and fragments of other natural groups which are possible but not yet developed. A hill is partly concealed by a house, the house partly concealed by a tree, the tree by a stone fence, the fence by a growth of ivy. A river disappears at a curve and is lost to view; we know from experience of otherrivers that under certain conditions we might perceive the river further on as a feature in several more landscapes. As we gaze at an association of objects these possible completions occur to us—not fully or definitely but sufficiently to convince us that the group might be developed into many other groups, and into a multitude of objects of forms different from those we actually perceive. By our hypothesis the observer has always been stationary, the objects have moved to and fro but not from near to far. Their real dimensions have remained unaltered, and nothing has occurred to suggest that they ever appear of other dimensions. In short we are gazing on a piece of stage-scenery.
But there is another element in perception. We and all other real (mental) beings are part of the cosmic force. We are co-creators of what we perceive—limited gods, not machine-men as the scientific people would have us believe. But for our power of affecting each other and our readiness to receive impressions from other minds, there would be no perception—no material objects. We (that is, all sentient beings) could, by unanimous resolution, annul the material creation—blot out the universe of objective things in a moment. United to and implied in this general power is the particular power of modifying our world without destroying it. We can redistribute the active and passive forces so as to produce other perceptualeffects than those present at a given moment. And we habitually do this to some extent. Within a limited scope our world is plastic as dough, and we knead it to any form we please. For example, we exert energy to change our place, and immediately the group before us breaks up and undergoes metamorphosis. Some objects disappear altogether, and entirely new objects present themselves. Some become smaller, others larger; some fractional forms fill out to completion, some integers undergo curtailment, others separate into several distinct objects. In a few minutes the first group has dissolved into a second, which may merge into a third, and so on indefinitely.
In contemplating these phenomena we discern a third form of completeness and incompleteness, distinct from those that enter into inherence and association. Hence a new type of reasoning—another category: the Perspective.
It will be convenient to suppose that the modifications to which it refers are solely due to the observing mind, as the most conspicuous and comprehensive really are, but some of the minor perspective changes are due to the noumenon of the object.
We have first to get a criterion of perspective perfection. What this shall be is to some extent a matter of convention. The standard I shall adopt is, that an object of a nature to be perceptible to all the senseswould be most perfect if within reach of touch. If it can be heard it is then heard at its loudest—this is correct enough for our purpose,—if it can be seen it is then seen at its largest and brightest. This is Perspective Completeness at the Tactual Range. It means the closest contact of noumenon and subject, compatible with clear definition in perception.
Now let us exert energy and disarrange a group. Those things that were or might have been tangible in the former position, are no longer so, but they may still be seen, heard, or even smelt. The bright colours have however somewhat faded, the size has shrunk, some of the details are lost. Here is a lapse from perspective completeness. It is indicated, not as in the first two categories by mechanical cutting away of mass and circumstance, but by deterioration all over the object. We seem to be thrown out of focus in relation to it, and the perspective degradation may increase until the object has dwindled to a speck and finally disappears altogether.
The judgment in this category consists in observing the kind and degree of degradation to which things are liable in perspection. In addition to change in size, brightness, detail and loudness, which have been already mentioned, occultation as in the second category can be used as an indirect datum. An object which eclipses another is invariably more perfect perspectively than the object eclipsed. Themotion of objects has also to be taken into account. As objects degrade their movements slacken, and recover power as the objects are restored.
By attending to all these indications and checking each by the rest, we have the elements of a fairly accurate inference as to comparative perspective condition. We have constant practice in this sort of thought with frequent opportunities of verifying our conclusions; penalties are annexed to failure and rewards to success. It is no wonder then that in the course of years we become expert in judging of perspective condition, so that when confronted with a natural group we can estimate almost instantly the degree in which each object falls short of perspective integrity.
The result of this practice is that on perceiving a natural group of many objects, we graduate them according to the perspective deterioration which each exhibits, and for greater precision we figure the perspective difference as an interval between the objects—an imaginary interval modelled on the true interval of association. The object on a distant horizon is visually as near as the ground we can touch by stooping, but in this imaginary group the former is placed at the far end of the line and the latter at the near end, and between them are ranged the other objects each at a point corresponding to what we suppose to be its perspective distance. That is howa landscape acquires depth. Space outwards is an ideal imitation of real lateral interval. It is the measure and expression of perspective defacement.
From what has been said it follows that the near objects will be relatively large, clear, and lively in motion, while the far will be small, dull, and slow, but this rule is liable to many exceptions which can only be learnt by experience.
On the analogy of the other forms of inference—which consist in completing imperfect things by reference to others more perfect—the essence of an argument in perspection is the power to imagine an object which is perspectively defective, brought up to the tactual range and displaying all the qualities it would possess in that position. This is done by comparing it with the idea of the same or a similar object experienced at the tactual range; and is done for an ulterior purpose, like all other intellectual operations. A great part of our material happiness consists in the exercise of the short senses (taste, touch and smell), and the chief use of perspective reasoning is to enable us to judge of the energy required to bring a distant object near for close perception. We have therefore to observe our energic fluctuations in conjunction with perspective change, if we would extract the utmost practical benefit from this category. The perspective inferences are none the less useful after we discover that they are notintuitions, and that the completeness we imaginatively assign to distant objects has no existence until we exert the corresponding energy.
A landscape being rendered perspective we can determine the perspective state of any new object that may enter it, by reference to the objects adjoining it, and this though the object be of a species quite unknown to us and which therefore, by itself, would afford no clue to its perspective distance.
The imaginary interval we place between objects of different perspective effacement, can be expressed in terms of exact lateral measurement. This is done by developing and measuring the associative groups represented in the perspective group. Supposing we wish to get an exact definition of the perspective condition of a mountain relative to a certain station, we can, from that station, develop all the natural groups up to the mountain (walk over the ground) and measure the lateral intervals and masses disclosed. The total measurements will be a definition of the mountain's perspective distance in terms of true associative distance. That is what we mean by saying a mountain is ten miles off. It is notreallyten miles off—it is not an inch off. But to render it tactually perfect we should have to expend an amount of energy equal to 17,600 times the energy required to move from one associative object to another a yard apart from it laterally. If we practisethe mileage scale in conjunction with the perspective indications, we may acquire the art of expressing in miles, though not measured, the distance of objects estimated from purely perspective data, but few can do this with any near approach to exactness14.