[u]Nothing is more common in conversation than for a talker to affirm that such and such a position must beuntrue"because it is inconceivable." The assertor ought in return to be asked one or two questions,e.g., "Do you mean inconceivable to yourself or to the generality of Mankind?" If the latter, "Is the contradictory also inconceivable?" Again, "Do you mean by the word inconceivable,unthinkableorunimaginable?" Few people clearly consider this last distinction. Further, "If unthinkable, is it absolutely so, or only very difficult to think?" And it seems likewise important to deliberate whether any position ought to be pronounced absolutely unthinkable, unless the human mind lies under a stern necessity of thinking and accepting its contradictory.[92]"Conceivable" and other like expressions are always relative to conceiving minds; and what appears either conceivable or inconceivable to one mind, may be the contrary to another. A painter not only conceives,—but draws a Centaur, and places him feeding on a wide plain or sloping hill side. But, can the Physiologist conceive such a monstrosity? The solution is easy; the painter thinks of his figure, the physiologist of the structure; and this example furnishes a good caution as to the use of similar words.From words we may pass to ideas. Take any conception involving the condition of Time or Space,—(those two optical tubes of our mind's perceiving eye),—and place it before the understanding; first as aFiniteand next as anInfinite. The result is a conflict of arguments, ending in a contradiction of all possibility thateitherway the conception can be true. Any one moderately acquainted with Kant's best-known work, is aware that, by thus treating the world's existence, he raises overwhelming difficulties against its beingeitherlimited or unlimited in extent;—eternalorhaving a commencement in duration;—(p. 338. Ed. Rosenkranz) yet, the worlddoesexist in fact. Kant goes on to subject other cosmological ideas to the same enigmatical reasoning, with the same consequences.Some readers of purely modern science, may illustrate this question of the "conceivable" by what has been written on that extraordinary riddle, the "fourdimensions of space." They will see opinionsproandconin an article by Professor Sylvester in Nature vol. 1. A note (p. 238) contains one conclusion of the Professor's, interesting ashisanswer to a question asked by us a few paragraphs back. He says, "If an Aristotle, or Descartes, or Kant assures me that he recognises God in the conscience, I accuse my own blindness if I fail to see with him.... I acknowledge two separate sources of authority,—the collective sense of mankind, and the illumination of privileged intellects." Plato then may have reallyseenmore than Lucretius—Coleridge more than Comte or Littré.[v]The advantages and defects of the optical structure of our human eyes have been carefully estimated by Helmholtz. He has also discussed the difficulties attending eyesight considered as a sensation and perception. Extracts from his clear yet popular Lectures are given in Additional Note B.[93]Proceedings of the Royal Institution.V. 456.[94]All theories of light require these immense numbers. Sir J. Herschel says there is no "mode of conceiving the subject which does not call upon us to admit the exertion of mechanical forces which may well be termed infinite." The numeration in the text is a rough and ready shape of statement at once intelligible. But it is interesting to view the subject more exactly.—Light travels in one second 192,000 miles. Each mile contains 63,360 inches, and in each inch are 39,000 waves of red light, calculated at theirmeanlength. Now, multiply these three sets of figures together, and we get a rate of 474,439,680,000,000 red waves per second. The mean length of a violet wave is the 1/57500th part of an inch; and by a like multiplication we find a product of 699,494,400,000,000 of violet light-strokes thrown upon the retina in each second. The phrase "millions of millions" is used in the text, because few people realize the idea of any arithmetical whole beyond a million.[95]"What we hear" writes Professor Max Müller "when listening to a chorus or a symphony is a commotion of elastic air, of which the wildest sea would give a very inadequate image. The lowest tone which the ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one second, the highest to about 4,000. Consider then what happens in aPrestowhen thousands of voices and instruments are simultaneously producing waves of air, each wave crossing the other, not only like the surface waves of the water, but like spherical bodies, and, as it would seem, without any perceptible disturbance; consider that each tone is accompanied by secondary tones, that each instrument has its peculiartimbre, due to secondary vibrations; and, lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which determine what we call harmony, and by certain traditions or habits which determine what we call melody—both these elements being absent in the songs of birds—that all this must be reflected like a microscopic photograph on the two small organs of hearing, and there excite not only perception, but perception followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, which we call either pleasure or pain; and it will be clear that we are surrounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to call miraculous, and yet disclosing to the genius of an Euler or a Newton laws which admit of the most minute mathematical determination."Science of Language, Second Series, p. 115.[96]There is a much more scientific mode of trying this experiment. A description of the instrument (Kaleidophone), and cuts of the figures produced, may be seen in Tyndall on Sound, pp. 132. seq.[97]There is reason for believing that a large proportion of animal eyes see much as ours do when in a normal state. Colour blindness is frequent in Man and occurs between red and green, yet a bull distinguishes the two like ahealthy, human being. He is allured by the sight of a green field, and lashes himself into fury when a red rag is waved before him.The eyes of insects are very far removed in structure from ours. A butterfly's compound eye contains 17,000 tubes, that of the Mordella beetle 25,000. Their perception of colours appears vivid and distinct. They resemble birds, reptiles, and other creatures in choosing for their lairs and resting-places objectscoloured like themselves. It is not difficult to mount one of these compound eyes, so as to look through it by aid of a lens placed in focus. Leeuwenhoeck looked through the eye of a dragon fly (made up of 12,544 tubes), "and viewed the steeple of a church which was 299 feet high, and 750 feet from the place where he stood. He could plainly see the steeple, though not apparently larger than the point of a fine needle. He also viewed a house in the same manner, and could discern the front, distinguish the doors and windows, and perceive whether they were open or shut." SeeInsect Miscellanies, p. 129.[98]Two points connected with colour admit of being easily experimented on, and deserve from their interest to be made the subjects of repeated observations.The first has relation to the question ofprimarycolours;—are they alike in man and inallthe lower animals?—In birds and reptiles there are anatomical reasons for believing the primaries to be red, yellow, and blue. But are they the same in our race?—may they not more probably be red, green, and violet? In this case yellow is the transition from red to green, blue from green to violet. As colour blindness consists in an insensibility to red, and as the outer circle of the field of vision is feeble in its reds, the number of experiments which might be suggested is evidently considerable.Let a person place two threads respectively red and green near the bridge of the nose, so as to be seen by the inner angle of the pupil only. If dexterously moved, both seem green;—if not, both will in time become black. Where the want of sensitive appreciation of red is great, the same result follows in every part of the field of sight. Thus reverend gentlemen in former times have been induced to wear scarlet hose under the impression that they had put on black silk; and in these railroad days many persons find themselves unable to distinguish between the safety and the danger signal lights. It seems strange indeed that any scientific advisers of railway Boards should have recommended for use the two colours, above all others, most likely to get confounded.The theory which supposes red, green, and violet to be Man's three primary colours is the hypothesis of our great countryman Dr. Thomas Young, and deserves much more consideration than was for a long time awarded it. If we may judge of his theory by his appreciation of pictures it must have been excellent;—the present writer saw with admiration in 1845 the grand series of Reynolds' portraits which Dr. Young had left behind him.The second topic of interest is the inquiry into the number and tone of subjective colours. A perfect theory of colour ought, of course, to embrace all possible human sensations of the kind. Now many persons are able to see in dreams a rich amber light far softer and more pure than any tint ever beheld by the Eye. It generally appears to irradiate Space, and silvery figures, most often the celestial orbs, float within it. A still more beautiful production of reflex energy exerted after tranquil rest is the blending of delicate green with a hyacinthine hue quite strange to this world, and indescribably lovely in its tender shadings off. By means of this subjective activity the experiments of Goethe and J. Müller may be varied almostad libitum. The easiest plan is on first waking to keep the eyelids steadily closed, and watch for the unbidden rise of tints. Persons of strong pictorial and poetic powers can, after some practice, control their appearance and succession; and much diversity may be produced by slightly separating the fringe of eyelashes and looking between the loosely pressed fingers. The remarkable point in these and similar experiments seems to be that we are thus enabled to gaze upon beauties more marvellous than the outward eye ever beheld—yet weseethem.Another and a painful source of knowledge on this subject consists in registering the visual impressions of persons bodily or mentally diseased. The difference between these and the normal impressions of healthy people would seem to arise from reflex action, the disordered sensory or mind reacting upon the optic apparatus; or, as it may be said, the centre of our being is through these aberrations made manifest in its control of the circumference.Now, it will be obvious to any reflective person how very important all information we can acquire respecting this central empire over the impressions of our sense-nerves may become when we try to estimate the conditions of human knowledge. If it be true that the Mind imposes laws of activity on the nervous system even when receiving impressions from it, then the necessity we are under ofthinkingin accordance with certain inly imposed laws receives a most striking illustration. And the inference from it carries ana fortioriprobability since our thoughts lie nearer to our mental centre than any of our sense-impressions.[99]Nerves of common feeling are acutely sensitive when divided, and the patient animal under a Majendie or a dentist utters a sharp shriek. The case is different with motor nerves, with those of the sympathetic system, and with (what is more to our purpose) nerves of sensation. It seems clear that mechanical injuries, or even touches, excite them in the direction of their own special functions. Auditory nerves feel a shock as a sound,—optic nerves receive it as a sudden and brilliant light. We are doubly assured from these effects of the true functions belonging to the several sets of nerves. Disease and injury are great discoverers of what ought to be healthy susceptibilities. In such cases, however, they prove also something more agreeable to think upon. They prove that suffering is confined within definite limits, and thateconomyof pain forms part of the universal design, for the sensitive animal as well as the sensitive man. If all our nerves shrank equally with equal tenderness, life would be a history of protracted agony. Yet one might have expected,primâ facie, that a fibre which telegraphs shapes and colours with their blendings, would eloquently tell the story of its own occasional anguish. And our whole nervous framework might have been conceived as an instrument of torture. It has not been so constituted.Per contra, the nerves of common feeling assert their own vocation.—"A brazen canstick turned" sets the teeth on edge, and troubles the skin with horripilation. Believers in ghosts—and also disbelievers—are aware that some sights"Make knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand on end."For extended information on this subject compare Additional Note C.[100]Aristotle so described it before Mr. Bain and other modern writers, "τὸ γὰρ ὁρατόν ἐστι χρῶμα," De Anima II. 7. 1. As Kampe carefully observes, "so ist die Farbe (nicht die gefärbten Körper) das Eigenthümliche des Gesichtssinns." See also his note, Erkenntnisstheorie des Aristoteles, p. 88.[w]Compare Helmholtz on "The Sensation of Sight,"Lectures, pp. 256, 7, and 259."We have already seen enough to answer the question whether it is possible to maintain the natural and innate conviction that the quality of our sensations, and especially our sensations of sight, give us a true impression of corresponding qualities in the outer world. It is clear that they do not. The question was really decided by Johannes Müller's deduction from well ascertained facts of the law of specific nervous energy. Whether the rays of the sun appear to us as colour, or as warmth, does not at all depend upon their own properties, but simply upon whether they excite the fibres of the optic nerve, or those of the skin. Pressure upon the eyeball, a feeble current of electricity passed through it, a narcotic drug carried to the retina by the blood, are capable of exciting the sensation of light just as well as the sunbeams. The most complete difference offered by our several sensations, that namely between those of sight, of hearing, of taste, of smell, and of touch—this deepest of all distinctions, so deep that it is impossible to draw any comparison of likeness, or unlikeness, between the sensations of colour and of musical tones—does not, as we now see, at all depend upon the nature of the external object, but solely upon the central connections of the nerves which are affected.... But not only uneducated persons, who are accustomed to trust blindly to their senses, even the educated, who know that their senses may be deceived, are inclined to demur to so complete a want of any closer correspondence in kind between actual objects and the sensations they produce than the law I have just expounded. For instance, natural philosophers long hesitated to admit the identity of the rays of light and of heat, and exhausted all possible means of escaping a conclusion which seemed to contradict the evidence of their senses."Another example is that of Goethe, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere. He was led to contradict Newton's theory of colours, because he could not persuade himself that white, which appears to our sensation as the purest manifestation of the brightest light, could be composed of darker colours. It was Newton's discovery of the composition of light that was the first germ of the modern doctrine of the true functions of the senses; and in the writings of his contemporary, Locke, were correctly laid down the most important principles on which the right interpretation of sensible qualities depends. But, however clearly we may feel that here lies the difficulty for a large number of people, I have never found the opposite conviction of certainty derived from the senses so distinctly expressed that it is possible to lay hold of the point of error: and the reason seems to me to lie in the fact that beneath the popular notions on the subject lie other and more fundamentally erroneous conceptions."[101]Is there, asks Idealistic Scepticism, any outside world at all?We have all of us always believed in the veritable existence of this outside world from our childhood. So have we believed always in our own real and continued personal existence. The unyielding objectivities concerning which our senses inform us—the identical Self which receives their information—are entities no man ordinarily thinks of calling in question.Let any one sit down and try to imagine himself a human animal let loose upon life without a firm belief in either of these two primary convictions. What could life be to him? to his descendants? to the world of men if similarly unbelieving? Yet what are the conditions or evidences of veracity upon which his and his fellows' present convictions must necessarily repose? Can he and others help believing them true? and why?—This "why" is a safe answer to the most plausible as well as the most refined objection against such primary beliefs as those premised by Natural Theology.[102]Cheselden's case is reported in the Philosophical Transactions for 1728, and also in his Anatomy. Respecting the point above quoted he is confirmed by Mr. Nunneley, "On the Organs of Vision," 1858.[103]See Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Human Physiology. Ed. 7. p. 713. § 635.[x]The following quaint apology for our senses at the expense of our understanding may be new to the majority of my readers:—"We have seen two notorious instances ofsensitive deception, which justifie the charge ofPetron. Arbiter.Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensusOppressâ ratione mentiuntur.And yet to speak properly, and to do oursensesright, simply they are not deceived, but only administer an occasion to our forwardunderstandingsto deceive themselves: and so though they are some way accessory to our delusion; yet the more principal faculties are theCapital offenders. Thus if theSensesrepresent theEarthasfixtandimmoveable; they give us the truth of theirSentiments: Tosenseit isso, and it would be deceit to present it otherwise. For (as we have shewn) though it domovein itself; itreststo us, who are carry'd with it.... But if hence our Understandings falsely deduct, that there is the same quality in theexternal impressor; 'tis, it iscriminal, oursenseisinnocent. When theEartingles, we really hear asound: If we judge it without us, it's the fallacy of ourJudgments. Theapparitionsof our frightedPhanciesare realsensibles: But if we translate them without the compass of our Brains, and apprehend them as external objects; it's the unwary rashness of ourUnderstandingdeludes us. And if our disaffected Palates resent nought but bitterness from our choicest viands, we truly tast the unpleasing quality, though falsely conceive it in that, which is no more then the occasion of its production. If any find fault with the novelty of the notion; the learned St.Austinstands ready to confute the charge: and they who revereAntiquity, will derive satisfaction from so venerable a suffrage. He tells us,Si quis remum frangi in aquâ opinatur, et, cumaufertur,integrari; non malum habet internuncium, sed malus est Judex. And onward to this purpose, The sense could not otherwise perceive it in thewater, neither ought it: For since theWateris one thing, and theAiranother; 'tis requisite and necessary, that thesenseshould be as different as themedium: Wherefore the Eye sees aright; if there be a mistake, 'tis the Judgement's the Deceiver. Elsewhere he saith, that our Eyes misinform us not, but faithfully transmit their resentment to the mind. And against theScepticks, That it's a piece of injustice to complain of oursenses, and to exact from them an account, which is beyond the sphear of their notice: and resolutely determines,Quicquid possunt videre oculi, verum vident. So that what we have said of thesenses deceptions, is rigidly to be charg'd only on our careless Understandings, misleading us through the ill management of sensible informations." Glanvill,Vanity of Dogmatizing. Chap. x. First Ed. p. 91, seq.The reader may like to consider how far Glanvill's apology for the senses is removed from the following propositions laid down by a recent writer just quoted who thus defends while he limits the veracity of sense-impressions:—"What we directly apprehend," writes Professor Helmholtz, "is not the immediate action of the external exciting cause upon the ends of our nerves, but only the changed condition of the nervous fibres which we call the state ofexcitationor functional activity." And further on:—"The simple rule for all illusions of sight is this:we always believe that we see such objects as would, under conditions of normal vision, produce the retinal image of which we are actually conscious. If these images are such as could not be produced by any normal kind of observation, we judge of them according to their nearest resemblance; and in forming this judgment, we more easily neglect the parts of sensation which are imperfectly than those which are perfectly apprehended. When more than one interpretation is possible, we usually waver involuntarily between them; but it is possible to end this uncertainty by bringing the idea of any of the possible interpretations we choose as vividly as possible before the mind by a conscious effort of the will." Helmholtz onThe Recent Progress of the Theory of Vision. pp. 230, 31 and p. 307.[104]Two acute reasoners, who will be alternately acquitted of madness by contending schools of thought, have arrived at conclusions very favourable to the sanity of idealizing men. In his first lecture at the Royal Institution, Professor Masson spoke in the following terms ofHumeandFichte. "There is the system of Nihilism, or, as it may be better called, Non-Substantialism. According to this system, the Phænomenal Cosmos, whether regarded as consisting of two parallel successions of phænomena (MindandMatter), or of only one (MindorMatter), resolves itself, on analysis, into an absolute Nothingness,—mere appearances with no credible substratum of Reality; a play of phantasms in a void. If there have been no positive or dogmatic Nihilists, yet both Hume for one purpose, and Fichte for another, have propounded Nihilism as the ultimate issue of all reasoning that does not start with someà prioripostulate."—Recent British Philosophy, p. 66. The reader will observe that to raise the question fully, we have spoken of the special form of Idealism to which Mr. Mill gives the first place in his description, (Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 8.) "According to one of the forms, the sensations which, in common parlance, we are said to receive from objects, are not only all that we can possibly know of the objects, but are all that we have any ground for believing to exist.——Those who hold this opinion are said to doubt or deny the existence of matter. They are sometimes called by the name Idealists, sometimes by that of Sceptics, according to the other opinions which they hold. They include the followers of Berkeley and those of Hume. Among recent thinkers, the acute and accomplished Professor Ferrier, though by a circuitous path, and expressing himself in a very different phraseology, seems to have arrived at essentially the same point of view. These philosophers maintain the Relativity of our knowledge in the most extreme form in which the doctrine can be understood, since they contend, not merely that all we can possibly know of anything is the manner in which it affects the human faculties, but that there is nothing else to be known; that affections of human or of some other minds are all that we can know to exist."Mr. Mill's own position will be found in his 11th Chapter. After defining Matter to be a "Permanent Possibility of Sensation," (p. 227) and explaining his definition, he writes in a note (p. 232), the following decisive sentences: "My able American critic, Dr. H. B. Smith, contends through several pages that these facts afford no proofs that objectsareexternal to us. I never pretended that they do. I am accounting for our conceiving, or representing to ourselves, the Permanent Possibilities as real objects external to us. I do not believe that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof."Mr. O'Hanlon's pamphlet entitled "A Criticism of John Stuart Mill's Pure Idealism; and an attempt to shew that, if logically carried out, it is Pure Nihilism," seems less known than it deserves to be. Mr. Mill noticed and answered it in his 3rd Edition—chiefly among the criticisms commencing p. 244.——Mr. O'Hanlon's early decease has given a painful interest to his promising labours. Some paragraphs from his now scarce pamphlet are placed at the end of Additional Note D, on "Pure Idealism."[105]On Hamilton.p. 6. Mill is thus echoed from across the broad Atlantic;—"The profoundest question of philosophy turns on the relation of Thought to Being, Mind to Matter, Subject to Object, or (in empiricistic phrase) Organism to Environment. Is the Organism purely the product of the Environment? Then we have Empiricism, Sensationalism, Materialism, whose motto is that of Destutt-Tracy,—"Penser c'est sentir." Is the Environment the product of the Organism? Then we have Transcendentalism, Egoism, Idealism, whose motto is that of Berkeley,—"Theesseof objects ispercipi." F. E. Abbot, inThe Index(American), for July 27, 1872.[106]Lord Macaulay has some pertinent and characteristic remarks concerning this topic in his literary estimate of Dr. Johnson. "How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature. The same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen of the middle ages. Those writers show so much acuteness and force of mind in arguing on their wretched data, that a modern reader is perpetually at a loss to comprehend how such minds came by such data. Not a flaw in the superstructure of the theory which they are rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet they are blind to the obvious unsoundness of the foundation. It is the same with some eminent lawyers. Their legal arguments are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest analogies and the most refined distinctions. The principles of their arbitrary science being once admitted, the statute-book and the reports being once assumed as the foundations of reasoning, these men must be allowed to be perfect masters of logic. But if a question arises as to the postulates on which their whole system rests, if they are called upon to vindicate the fundamental maxims of that system which they have passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk the language of savages or of children." (Essays, Ed. 1852. p. 175.) As to the schoolmen, any one who wishes to form a fair idea of their acuteness with little trouble to himself, may consult the "Synopsis Distinctionum" of H. L. Castanæus, a book found in most learned libraries.[y]See Additional NoteE.—The great interest of this subject for our purpose lies in the circumstance that the relation of Theory to Fact is in effect a question most closely akin to the one already mooted concerning the relation of our Sensations to our Perceptions (compare Additional Note B). These two questions are indeed so very similar as to be in the main identical. What we want to learn regarding both relations, is,first, theextentof the relativity to our human nature; in other words howmuch wehavementally putinto our Theories and Sensationsbeforewe treat them as Facts and Perceptions.Secondly, what reason we have for believinganyof our knowledge comprehended under either or both of these relativities (Perception and Fact) to be truebeyondour human sphere; and, above all, whether we are able to assert, on good grounds, that such and such parts of either kind of our knowledge are absolutely and immutably true?—If, for example, we ask—Is it thus true that there are real objects external to ourselves? "I do not believe," Mr. Mill has told us, "that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof." And a few lines further, "The view I take of externality, in the sense in which I acknowledge it as real, could not be more accurately expressed than in Professor Fraser's words." These are "For ourselves we can conceive only—(1) An externality to our present and transient experience inour ownpossible experience past and future, and (2) An externality to our own conscious experience, in the contemporaneous, as well as in the past or future experience ofother minds." (On Hamilton.p. 232, note.) This explanation, Mill had just before observed, is an externality in the only sense we need care about; and it means in plain words, that we possess no absolutely true but only some utilitarian knowledge of the real existence of an outside world. We must, however, and do care infinitely more for another kind of answer to quite another kind of question. Is the antithesis between Right and Wrong,—the Moral Imperative "Do this and live, transgress and die,"—absolutely and immutably true? If not, who would calculate profit and loss as they are calculated in the Gospel; who would or could believe in a Righteous that is to say, a Real and True God?Many minds, appalled by the vastness of these issues, and finding no satisfactory answer to questions of such infinite importance, have fallen back on the position of Dr. Newman in hisGrammar of Assent. But the unsatisfactory characteristic attaching to this position, is that there seems to be nolimitto such Assents, because there appears no Reasonable canon or maxim to explain, defend, and regulate them. To the far larger number of minds the problem states itself as a dilemma. There are exactly two alternatives open to Man. His choice lies between two contrasted positions—the most antagonistic conceivable, yet both resulting from one common supposed fact. Ignorance and impotence are the truest characters inscribed upon our Reason. Man must decide either for an unlimited Doubt such as that which Hume delineates, wide as the universal whole of our human Existence; or else yield the kind of Assent to which Dr. Newman invites as being the sole secure refuge for any soul driven by despair into a recoil from utter absence of belief and hope—the want of everything to trust and love. Now, let it be observed that an assent transcending reasonable proof is, in effect, a confession that Reason falls short of establishing those transcendental truths to which the mind has thus assented. And contrariwise, limitless Doubt making all else uncertain, affirms with unmistakeable decisiveness the impotence of human Reason.—"The observation of human blindness and weakness," says Hume, "is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." Hence, we see that Hume's conclusion is identical with that underlying a position directly antagonistic to his own, and in this respectles extrêmes se touchent.It follows, then, with equal clearness, that any Dilemma which restricts human choice to the two alternatives above stated, rests upon a denial that Man's Reason can guide Mankind to truth—(and by consequence that he can ever feel after and find his God);—whilst, conversely, this same denial, if posited as a basis of speculation, permits no human choice beyond the two horns of a Dilemma thus made necessarily imperative upon us all.Neither alternative, however, can be accepted by the Natural Theologian, nor can he possibly receive any such Dilemma as founded in Truth or Reason. On the one hand the Superhuman, and Supernatural lie outside his science which has for its sphere Nature, including Man's Nature; and which steadily endeavours to attain the true interpretation and evidence yielded by both Natures, to a belief extending beyond their present territory and fluent conditions. On the other hand, his science becomes impossible if unlimited Doubt is the sole dreary prospect open to the philosophic inquirer. And with his science all other sciences must perish. Doubt saps the foundations of them all; common-sense facts, scientific theories, and practical every-day beliefs, are all impartially shewn to be baseless. So far as our realities are concerned"We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep."Science is therefore an alien from Man's world; the soul an outcast amid her own:—"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,In doubt and great perplexity,A little before moon-rise hears the lowMoan of an unknown sea;"And knows not if it be thunder or a soundOf stones thrown down, or one deep cryOf great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have foundA new land, but I die.'""Not for this," says the same reflective poet—"Not for thisWas common clay ta'en from the common earth,Moulded by God, and tempered with the tearsOf angels to the perfect shape of man."Let it be observed in conclusion, that the mode in which common-sense people are accustomed to treat the primary tenets of most sciences, and the validity of their own ordinary beliefs, may be placed in curious contrast with their attitude towards the proofs of Natural Theology. In the former case, acceptance is easy and wholesale; in the latter, every mind seems to bristle with objections. Now there are evidently thousands whomustsurrender their judgments to the demands of a present and pressing utility, and must take upon trust a multitude of maxims which they can never hope to investigate. The difficulties necessarily involved in each and all of these easy acceptations thus remain unsuspected, and cannot therefore be placed side by side with the difficulties of Theism.But, next arises a serious question. How far can a similar facility of wholesale acceptance and a similar absence of comparison with deeper truths, be considered a philosophic or even a fair procedure in the case of men and women whothinkthemselves into Atheism?[z]Neither can it be too often repeated that practical truth involves an enormous amount of speculative difficulty, and is received as the daily basis of human action in the face of doubts, which speculatively considered are absolutely insoluble. There is (as will appear in Chapter IV.) reason to extend this remark beyond what is commonly called practical truth far into the realm of speculative knowledge, or to speak more exactly, of all knowledge whatsoever. Suppose, for instance, the continuity of our inward power of receiving sense-impressions, of knowing, and reasoning; (our personal Identity) is a groundless belief;—Suppose too that our sense-impressions are reflections from self-created shadows and not from objective realities;—wherecan any knowledge be truly subsistent save in that place of exile now generally termed "the Unknowable"? Compare Additional Notes A and B appended to this present Chapter.[107]La Philosophie en France. IX. p. 66.[108]First Principles, p. 108.[109]Lay Sermon delivered on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1866; in the collected vol. pp. 19, 20.[110]Essays I. p. 190.[111]Ibid. p. 211.[aa]Mr. Herbert Spencer has been freely criticized by Americans, in part as not being sufficiently thorough—in part as being untrue to his own position. A few quotations will be found in Additional NoteF, on "The Unknowable."[ab]The paragraph, taken in its entireness, is pervaded with the vivid sense of a Moral Law which can neither change nor perish—a Law at once human and Divine. This strong protest is both in thought and expression a complete contrast to the ordinary tone of Mr. Mill's disquisitions, attempered as they generally are between benevolence and expediency. Instead of pondering the Utilities of a race which, comparatively speaking, began to exist yesterday, it appeals with decisive sternness, once and for ever, to the Immutable and the Absolute. It reminds one of a torch-bearing Prometheus pitted against the selfish despot of a new and morally enfeebled Olympus. See Additional Note G.[112]This sentence contains two propositions; the question of speculative perplexity has been treated in this Chapter—that of reasonable necessity is reserved for our next.[113]On Hamilton, p. 242.[114]Mill on Hamilton, p. 232, note.[115]Ibid. p. 233, note.[116]Ibid. p. 227.[117]British Association Report, 1870. lxxvii. lxxxiv.[118]The remark above made respecting a "living laboratory" will be readily understood by every one who remembers the great mistakes committed, some years ago, in treating the stomach as a mere chemical workshop;—forgetful of its all-important endowment,—vitality. That oversight has been alluded to here because it may yield a lesson to Psychologists; for may not a far higher kind of endowment in like manner be forgotten when men materialize the principles one and all on which is conditioned the transforming power of mental assimilation?[119]Lay Sermons, p. 160.[120]And of more than one as we shall see hereafter. Its point will be best understood upon a perusal of Additional Notes F and I.[121]All these quotations will be found between pp. 332 and 360 of the Treatise. Ed. 1817.[122]Compare Mr. Green's Introduction to Hume'sTreatise on Human Nature, Vol. I., pp. 263, seq., where he discusses the bearing of this subject upon Hume's doctrine of Cause and Effect.[123]He sums up in the words of Goethe, thus given in the translation of his lectures from which we have quoted—"Woe! woe!Thou hast destroyedThe beautiful worldWith powerful fist;In ruin 'tis hurled,By the blow of a demigod shattered.The scatteredFragments into the void we carry,DeploringThe beauty perished beyond restoring."
[u]Nothing is more common in conversation than for a talker to affirm that such and such a position must beuntrue"because it is inconceivable." The assertor ought in return to be asked one or two questions,e.g., "Do you mean inconceivable to yourself or to the generality of Mankind?" If the latter, "Is the contradictory also inconceivable?" Again, "Do you mean by the word inconceivable,unthinkableorunimaginable?" Few people clearly consider this last distinction. Further, "If unthinkable, is it absolutely so, or only very difficult to think?" And it seems likewise important to deliberate whether any position ought to be pronounced absolutely unthinkable, unless the human mind lies under a stern necessity of thinking and accepting its contradictory.
[u]Nothing is more common in conversation than for a talker to affirm that such and such a position must beuntrue"because it is inconceivable." The assertor ought in return to be asked one or two questions,e.g., "Do you mean inconceivable to yourself or to the generality of Mankind?" If the latter, "Is the contradictory also inconceivable?" Again, "Do you mean by the word inconceivable,unthinkableorunimaginable?" Few people clearly consider this last distinction. Further, "If unthinkable, is it absolutely so, or only very difficult to think?" And it seems likewise important to deliberate whether any position ought to be pronounced absolutely unthinkable, unless the human mind lies under a stern necessity of thinking and accepting its contradictory.
[92]"Conceivable" and other like expressions are always relative to conceiving minds; and what appears either conceivable or inconceivable to one mind, may be the contrary to another. A painter not only conceives,—but draws a Centaur, and places him feeding on a wide plain or sloping hill side. But, can the Physiologist conceive such a monstrosity? The solution is easy; the painter thinks of his figure, the physiologist of the structure; and this example furnishes a good caution as to the use of similar words.From words we may pass to ideas. Take any conception involving the condition of Time or Space,—(those two optical tubes of our mind's perceiving eye),—and place it before the understanding; first as aFiniteand next as anInfinite. The result is a conflict of arguments, ending in a contradiction of all possibility thateitherway the conception can be true. Any one moderately acquainted with Kant's best-known work, is aware that, by thus treating the world's existence, he raises overwhelming difficulties against its beingeitherlimited or unlimited in extent;—eternalorhaving a commencement in duration;—(p. 338. Ed. Rosenkranz) yet, the worlddoesexist in fact. Kant goes on to subject other cosmological ideas to the same enigmatical reasoning, with the same consequences.Some readers of purely modern science, may illustrate this question of the "conceivable" by what has been written on that extraordinary riddle, the "fourdimensions of space." They will see opinionsproandconin an article by Professor Sylvester in Nature vol. 1. A note (p. 238) contains one conclusion of the Professor's, interesting ashisanswer to a question asked by us a few paragraphs back. He says, "If an Aristotle, or Descartes, or Kant assures me that he recognises God in the conscience, I accuse my own blindness if I fail to see with him.... I acknowledge two separate sources of authority,—the collective sense of mankind, and the illumination of privileged intellects." Plato then may have reallyseenmore than Lucretius—Coleridge more than Comte or Littré.
[92]"Conceivable" and other like expressions are always relative to conceiving minds; and what appears either conceivable or inconceivable to one mind, may be the contrary to another. A painter not only conceives,—but draws a Centaur, and places him feeding on a wide plain or sloping hill side. But, can the Physiologist conceive such a monstrosity? The solution is easy; the painter thinks of his figure, the physiologist of the structure; and this example furnishes a good caution as to the use of similar words.
From words we may pass to ideas. Take any conception involving the condition of Time or Space,—(those two optical tubes of our mind's perceiving eye),—and place it before the understanding; first as aFiniteand next as anInfinite. The result is a conflict of arguments, ending in a contradiction of all possibility thateitherway the conception can be true. Any one moderately acquainted with Kant's best-known work, is aware that, by thus treating the world's existence, he raises overwhelming difficulties against its beingeitherlimited or unlimited in extent;—eternalorhaving a commencement in duration;—(p. 338. Ed. Rosenkranz) yet, the worlddoesexist in fact. Kant goes on to subject other cosmological ideas to the same enigmatical reasoning, with the same consequences.
Some readers of purely modern science, may illustrate this question of the "conceivable" by what has been written on that extraordinary riddle, the "fourdimensions of space." They will see opinionsproandconin an article by Professor Sylvester in Nature vol. 1. A note (p. 238) contains one conclusion of the Professor's, interesting ashisanswer to a question asked by us a few paragraphs back. He says, "If an Aristotle, or Descartes, or Kant assures me that he recognises God in the conscience, I accuse my own blindness if I fail to see with him.... I acknowledge two separate sources of authority,—the collective sense of mankind, and the illumination of privileged intellects." Plato then may have reallyseenmore than Lucretius—Coleridge more than Comte or Littré.
[v]The advantages and defects of the optical structure of our human eyes have been carefully estimated by Helmholtz. He has also discussed the difficulties attending eyesight considered as a sensation and perception. Extracts from his clear yet popular Lectures are given in Additional Note B.
[v]The advantages and defects of the optical structure of our human eyes have been carefully estimated by Helmholtz. He has also discussed the difficulties attending eyesight considered as a sensation and perception. Extracts from his clear yet popular Lectures are given in Additional Note B.
[93]Proceedings of the Royal Institution.V. 456.
[93]Proceedings of the Royal Institution.V. 456.
[94]All theories of light require these immense numbers. Sir J. Herschel says there is no "mode of conceiving the subject which does not call upon us to admit the exertion of mechanical forces which may well be termed infinite." The numeration in the text is a rough and ready shape of statement at once intelligible. But it is interesting to view the subject more exactly.—Light travels in one second 192,000 miles. Each mile contains 63,360 inches, and in each inch are 39,000 waves of red light, calculated at theirmeanlength. Now, multiply these three sets of figures together, and we get a rate of 474,439,680,000,000 red waves per second. The mean length of a violet wave is the 1/57500th part of an inch; and by a like multiplication we find a product of 699,494,400,000,000 of violet light-strokes thrown upon the retina in each second. The phrase "millions of millions" is used in the text, because few people realize the idea of any arithmetical whole beyond a million.
[94]All theories of light require these immense numbers. Sir J. Herschel says there is no "mode of conceiving the subject which does not call upon us to admit the exertion of mechanical forces which may well be termed infinite." The numeration in the text is a rough and ready shape of statement at once intelligible. But it is interesting to view the subject more exactly.—Light travels in one second 192,000 miles. Each mile contains 63,360 inches, and in each inch are 39,000 waves of red light, calculated at theirmeanlength. Now, multiply these three sets of figures together, and we get a rate of 474,439,680,000,000 red waves per second. The mean length of a violet wave is the 1/57500th part of an inch; and by a like multiplication we find a product of 699,494,400,000,000 of violet light-strokes thrown upon the retina in each second. The phrase "millions of millions" is used in the text, because few people realize the idea of any arithmetical whole beyond a million.
[95]"What we hear" writes Professor Max Müller "when listening to a chorus or a symphony is a commotion of elastic air, of which the wildest sea would give a very inadequate image. The lowest tone which the ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one second, the highest to about 4,000. Consider then what happens in aPrestowhen thousands of voices and instruments are simultaneously producing waves of air, each wave crossing the other, not only like the surface waves of the water, but like spherical bodies, and, as it would seem, without any perceptible disturbance; consider that each tone is accompanied by secondary tones, that each instrument has its peculiartimbre, due to secondary vibrations; and, lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which determine what we call harmony, and by certain traditions or habits which determine what we call melody—both these elements being absent in the songs of birds—that all this must be reflected like a microscopic photograph on the two small organs of hearing, and there excite not only perception, but perception followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, which we call either pleasure or pain; and it will be clear that we are surrounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to call miraculous, and yet disclosing to the genius of an Euler or a Newton laws which admit of the most minute mathematical determination."Science of Language, Second Series, p. 115.
[95]"What we hear" writes Professor Max Müller "when listening to a chorus or a symphony is a commotion of elastic air, of which the wildest sea would give a very inadequate image. The lowest tone which the ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one second, the highest to about 4,000. Consider then what happens in aPrestowhen thousands of voices and instruments are simultaneously producing waves of air, each wave crossing the other, not only like the surface waves of the water, but like spherical bodies, and, as it would seem, without any perceptible disturbance; consider that each tone is accompanied by secondary tones, that each instrument has its peculiartimbre, due to secondary vibrations; and, lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which determine what we call harmony, and by certain traditions or habits which determine what we call melody—both these elements being absent in the songs of birds—that all this must be reflected like a microscopic photograph on the two small organs of hearing, and there excite not only perception, but perception followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, which we call either pleasure or pain; and it will be clear that we are surrounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to call miraculous, and yet disclosing to the genius of an Euler or a Newton laws which admit of the most minute mathematical determination."Science of Language, Second Series, p. 115.
[96]There is a much more scientific mode of trying this experiment. A description of the instrument (Kaleidophone), and cuts of the figures produced, may be seen in Tyndall on Sound, pp. 132. seq.
[96]There is a much more scientific mode of trying this experiment. A description of the instrument (Kaleidophone), and cuts of the figures produced, may be seen in Tyndall on Sound, pp. 132. seq.
[97]There is reason for believing that a large proportion of animal eyes see much as ours do when in a normal state. Colour blindness is frequent in Man and occurs between red and green, yet a bull distinguishes the two like ahealthy, human being. He is allured by the sight of a green field, and lashes himself into fury when a red rag is waved before him.The eyes of insects are very far removed in structure from ours. A butterfly's compound eye contains 17,000 tubes, that of the Mordella beetle 25,000. Their perception of colours appears vivid and distinct. They resemble birds, reptiles, and other creatures in choosing for their lairs and resting-places objectscoloured like themselves. It is not difficult to mount one of these compound eyes, so as to look through it by aid of a lens placed in focus. Leeuwenhoeck looked through the eye of a dragon fly (made up of 12,544 tubes), "and viewed the steeple of a church which was 299 feet high, and 750 feet from the place where he stood. He could plainly see the steeple, though not apparently larger than the point of a fine needle. He also viewed a house in the same manner, and could discern the front, distinguish the doors and windows, and perceive whether they were open or shut." SeeInsect Miscellanies, p. 129.
[97]There is reason for believing that a large proportion of animal eyes see much as ours do when in a normal state. Colour blindness is frequent in Man and occurs between red and green, yet a bull distinguishes the two like ahealthy, human being. He is allured by the sight of a green field, and lashes himself into fury when a red rag is waved before him.
The eyes of insects are very far removed in structure from ours. A butterfly's compound eye contains 17,000 tubes, that of the Mordella beetle 25,000. Their perception of colours appears vivid and distinct. They resemble birds, reptiles, and other creatures in choosing for their lairs and resting-places objectscoloured like themselves. It is not difficult to mount one of these compound eyes, so as to look through it by aid of a lens placed in focus. Leeuwenhoeck looked through the eye of a dragon fly (made up of 12,544 tubes), "and viewed the steeple of a church which was 299 feet high, and 750 feet from the place where he stood. He could plainly see the steeple, though not apparently larger than the point of a fine needle. He also viewed a house in the same manner, and could discern the front, distinguish the doors and windows, and perceive whether they were open or shut." SeeInsect Miscellanies, p. 129.
[98]Two points connected with colour admit of being easily experimented on, and deserve from their interest to be made the subjects of repeated observations.The first has relation to the question ofprimarycolours;—are they alike in man and inallthe lower animals?—In birds and reptiles there are anatomical reasons for believing the primaries to be red, yellow, and blue. But are they the same in our race?—may they not more probably be red, green, and violet? In this case yellow is the transition from red to green, blue from green to violet. As colour blindness consists in an insensibility to red, and as the outer circle of the field of vision is feeble in its reds, the number of experiments which might be suggested is evidently considerable.Let a person place two threads respectively red and green near the bridge of the nose, so as to be seen by the inner angle of the pupil only. If dexterously moved, both seem green;—if not, both will in time become black. Where the want of sensitive appreciation of red is great, the same result follows in every part of the field of sight. Thus reverend gentlemen in former times have been induced to wear scarlet hose under the impression that they had put on black silk; and in these railroad days many persons find themselves unable to distinguish between the safety and the danger signal lights. It seems strange indeed that any scientific advisers of railway Boards should have recommended for use the two colours, above all others, most likely to get confounded.The theory which supposes red, green, and violet to be Man's three primary colours is the hypothesis of our great countryman Dr. Thomas Young, and deserves much more consideration than was for a long time awarded it. If we may judge of his theory by his appreciation of pictures it must have been excellent;—the present writer saw with admiration in 1845 the grand series of Reynolds' portraits which Dr. Young had left behind him.The second topic of interest is the inquiry into the number and tone of subjective colours. A perfect theory of colour ought, of course, to embrace all possible human sensations of the kind. Now many persons are able to see in dreams a rich amber light far softer and more pure than any tint ever beheld by the Eye. It generally appears to irradiate Space, and silvery figures, most often the celestial orbs, float within it. A still more beautiful production of reflex energy exerted after tranquil rest is the blending of delicate green with a hyacinthine hue quite strange to this world, and indescribably lovely in its tender shadings off. By means of this subjective activity the experiments of Goethe and J. Müller may be varied almostad libitum. The easiest plan is on first waking to keep the eyelids steadily closed, and watch for the unbidden rise of tints. Persons of strong pictorial and poetic powers can, after some practice, control their appearance and succession; and much diversity may be produced by slightly separating the fringe of eyelashes and looking between the loosely pressed fingers. The remarkable point in these and similar experiments seems to be that we are thus enabled to gaze upon beauties more marvellous than the outward eye ever beheld—yet weseethem.Another and a painful source of knowledge on this subject consists in registering the visual impressions of persons bodily or mentally diseased. The difference between these and the normal impressions of healthy people would seem to arise from reflex action, the disordered sensory or mind reacting upon the optic apparatus; or, as it may be said, the centre of our being is through these aberrations made manifest in its control of the circumference.Now, it will be obvious to any reflective person how very important all information we can acquire respecting this central empire over the impressions of our sense-nerves may become when we try to estimate the conditions of human knowledge. If it be true that the Mind imposes laws of activity on the nervous system even when receiving impressions from it, then the necessity we are under ofthinkingin accordance with certain inly imposed laws receives a most striking illustration. And the inference from it carries ana fortioriprobability since our thoughts lie nearer to our mental centre than any of our sense-impressions.
[98]Two points connected with colour admit of being easily experimented on, and deserve from their interest to be made the subjects of repeated observations.
The first has relation to the question ofprimarycolours;—are they alike in man and inallthe lower animals?—In birds and reptiles there are anatomical reasons for believing the primaries to be red, yellow, and blue. But are they the same in our race?—may they not more probably be red, green, and violet? In this case yellow is the transition from red to green, blue from green to violet. As colour blindness consists in an insensibility to red, and as the outer circle of the field of vision is feeble in its reds, the number of experiments which might be suggested is evidently considerable.
Let a person place two threads respectively red and green near the bridge of the nose, so as to be seen by the inner angle of the pupil only. If dexterously moved, both seem green;—if not, both will in time become black. Where the want of sensitive appreciation of red is great, the same result follows in every part of the field of sight. Thus reverend gentlemen in former times have been induced to wear scarlet hose under the impression that they had put on black silk; and in these railroad days many persons find themselves unable to distinguish between the safety and the danger signal lights. It seems strange indeed that any scientific advisers of railway Boards should have recommended for use the two colours, above all others, most likely to get confounded.
The theory which supposes red, green, and violet to be Man's three primary colours is the hypothesis of our great countryman Dr. Thomas Young, and deserves much more consideration than was for a long time awarded it. If we may judge of his theory by his appreciation of pictures it must have been excellent;—the present writer saw with admiration in 1845 the grand series of Reynolds' portraits which Dr. Young had left behind him.
The second topic of interest is the inquiry into the number and tone of subjective colours. A perfect theory of colour ought, of course, to embrace all possible human sensations of the kind. Now many persons are able to see in dreams a rich amber light far softer and more pure than any tint ever beheld by the Eye. It generally appears to irradiate Space, and silvery figures, most often the celestial orbs, float within it. A still more beautiful production of reflex energy exerted after tranquil rest is the blending of delicate green with a hyacinthine hue quite strange to this world, and indescribably lovely in its tender shadings off. By means of this subjective activity the experiments of Goethe and J. Müller may be varied almostad libitum. The easiest plan is on first waking to keep the eyelids steadily closed, and watch for the unbidden rise of tints. Persons of strong pictorial and poetic powers can, after some practice, control their appearance and succession; and much diversity may be produced by slightly separating the fringe of eyelashes and looking between the loosely pressed fingers. The remarkable point in these and similar experiments seems to be that we are thus enabled to gaze upon beauties more marvellous than the outward eye ever beheld—yet weseethem.
Another and a painful source of knowledge on this subject consists in registering the visual impressions of persons bodily or mentally diseased. The difference between these and the normal impressions of healthy people would seem to arise from reflex action, the disordered sensory or mind reacting upon the optic apparatus; or, as it may be said, the centre of our being is through these aberrations made manifest in its control of the circumference.
Now, it will be obvious to any reflective person how very important all information we can acquire respecting this central empire over the impressions of our sense-nerves may become when we try to estimate the conditions of human knowledge. If it be true that the Mind imposes laws of activity on the nervous system even when receiving impressions from it, then the necessity we are under ofthinkingin accordance with certain inly imposed laws receives a most striking illustration. And the inference from it carries ana fortioriprobability since our thoughts lie nearer to our mental centre than any of our sense-impressions.
[99]Nerves of common feeling are acutely sensitive when divided, and the patient animal under a Majendie or a dentist utters a sharp shriek. The case is different with motor nerves, with those of the sympathetic system, and with (what is more to our purpose) nerves of sensation. It seems clear that mechanical injuries, or even touches, excite them in the direction of their own special functions. Auditory nerves feel a shock as a sound,—optic nerves receive it as a sudden and brilliant light. We are doubly assured from these effects of the true functions belonging to the several sets of nerves. Disease and injury are great discoverers of what ought to be healthy susceptibilities. In such cases, however, they prove also something more agreeable to think upon. They prove that suffering is confined within definite limits, and thateconomyof pain forms part of the universal design, for the sensitive animal as well as the sensitive man. If all our nerves shrank equally with equal tenderness, life would be a history of protracted agony. Yet one might have expected,primâ facie, that a fibre which telegraphs shapes and colours with their blendings, would eloquently tell the story of its own occasional anguish. And our whole nervous framework might have been conceived as an instrument of torture. It has not been so constituted.Per contra, the nerves of common feeling assert their own vocation.—"A brazen canstick turned" sets the teeth on edge, and troubles the skin with horripilation. Believers in ghosts—and also disbelievers—are aware that some sights"Make knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand on end."For extended information on this subject compare Additional Note C.
[99]Nerves of common feeling are acutely sensitive when divided, and the patient animal under a Majendie or a dentist utters a sharp shriek. The case is different with motor nerves, with those of the sympathetic system, and with (what is more to our purpose) nerves of sensation. It seems clear that mechanical injuries, or even touches, excite them in the direction of their own special functions. Auditory nerves feel a shock as a sound,—optic nerves receive it as a sudden and brilliant light. We are doubly assured from these effects of the true functions belonging to the several sets of nerves. Disease and injury are great discoverers of what ought to be healthy susceptibilities. In such cases, however, they prove also something more agreeable to think upon. They prove that suffering is confined within definite limits, and thateconomyof pain forms part of the universal design, for the sensitive animal as well as the sensitive man. If all our nerves shrank equally with equal tenderness, life would be a history of protracted agony. Yet one might have expected,primâ facie, that a fibre which telegraphs shapes and colours with their blendings, would eloquently tell the story of its own occasional anguish. And our whole nervous framework might have been conceived as an instrument of torture. It has not been so constituted.
Per contra, the nerves of common feeling assert their own vocation.—"A brazen canstick turned" sets the teeth on edge, and troubles the skin with horripilation. Believers in ghosts—and also disbelievers—are aware that some sights
"Make knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand on end."
"Make knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand on end."
"Make knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end."
For extended information on this subject compare Additional Note C.
[100]Aristotle so described it before Mr. Bain and other modern writers, "τὸ γὰρ ὁρατόν ἐστι χρῶμα," De Anima II. 7. 1. As Kampe carefully observes, "so ist die Farbe (nicht die gefärbten Körper) das Eigenthümliche des Gesichtssinns." See also his note, Erkenntnisstheorie des Aristoteles, p. 88.
[100]Aristotle so described it before Mr. Bain and other modern writers, "τὸ γὰρ ὁρατόν ἐστι χρῶμα," De Anima II. 7. 1. As Kampe carefully observes, "so ist die Farbe (nicht die gefärbten Körper) das Eigenthümliche des Gesichtssinns." See also his note, Erkenntnisstheorie des Aristoteles, p. 88.
[w]Compare Helmholtz on "The Sensation of Sight,"Lectures, pp. 256, 7, and 259."We have already seen enough to answer the question whether it is possible to maintain the natural and innate conviction that the quality of our sensations, and especially our sensations of sight, give us a true impression of corresponding qualities in the outer world. It is clear that they do not. The question was really decided by Johannes Müller's deduction from well ascertained facts of the law of specific nervous energy. Whether the rays of the sun appear to us as colour, or as warmth, does not at all depend upon their own properties, but simply upon whether they excite the fibres of the optic nerve, or those of the skin. Pressure upon the eyeball, a feeble current of electricity passed through it, a narcotic drug carried to the retina by the blood, are capable of exciting the sensation of light just as well as the sunbeams. The most complete difference offered by our several sensations, that namely between those of sight, of hearing, of taste, of smell, and of touch—this deepest of all distinctions, so deep that it is impossible to draw any comparison of likeness, or unlikeness, between the sensations of colour and of musical tones—does not, as we now see, at all depend upon the nature of the external object, but solely upon the central connections of the nerves which are affected.... But not only uneducated persons, who are accustomed to trust blindly to their senses, even the educated, who know that their senses may be deceived, are inclined to demur to so complete a want of any closer correspondence in kind between actual objects and the sensations they produce than the law I have just expounded. For instance, natural philosophers long hesitated to admit the identity of the rays of light and of heat, and exhausted all possible means of escaping a conclusion which seemed to contradict the evidence of their senses."Another example is that of Goethe, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere. He was led to contradict Newton's theory of colours, because he could not persuade himself that white, which appears to our sensation as the purest manifestation of the brightest light, could be composed of darker colours. It was Newton's discovery of the composition of light that was the first germ of the modern doctrine of the true functions of the senses; and in the writings of his contemporary, Locke, were correctly laid down the most important principles on which the right interpretation of sensible qualities depends. But, however clearly we may feel that here lies the difficulty for a large number of people, I have never found the opposite conviction of certainty derived from the senses so distinctly expressed that it is possible to lay hold of the point of error: and the reason seems to me to lie in the fact that beneath the popular notions on the subject lie other and more fundamentally erroneous conceptions."
[w]Compare Helmholtz on "The Sensation of Sight,"Lectures, pp. 256, 7, and 259.
"We have already seen enough to answer the question whether it is possible to maintain the natural and innate conviction that the quality of our sensations, and especially our sensations of sight, give us a true impression of corresponding qualities in the outer world. It is clear that they do not. The question was really decided by Johannes Müller's deduction from well ascertained facts of the law of specific nervous energy. Whether the rays of the sun appear to us as colour, or as warmth, does not at all depend upon their own properties, but simply upon whether they excite the fibres of the optic nerve, or those of the skin. Pressure upon the eyeball, a feeble current of electricity passed through it, a narcotic drug carried to the retina by the blood, are capable of exciting the sensation of light just as well as the sunbeams. The most complete difference offered by our several sensations, that namely between those of sight, of hearing, of taste, of smell, and of touch—this deepest of all distinctions, so deep that it is impossible to draw any comparison of likeness, or unlikeness, between the sensations of colour and of musical tones—does not, as we now see, at all depend upon the nature of the external object, but solely upon the central connections of the nerves which are affected.... But not only uneducated persons, who are accustomed to trust blindly to their senses, even the educated, who know that their senses may be deceived, are inclined to demur to so complete a want of any closer correspondence in kind between actual objects and the sensations they produce than the law I have just expounded. For instance, natural philosophers long hesitated to admit the identity of the rays of light and of heat, and exhausted all possible means of escaping a conclusion which seemed to contradict the evidence of their senses.
"Another example is that of Goethe, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere. He was led to contradict Newton's theory of colours, because he could not persuade himself that white, which appears to our sensation as the purest manifestation of the brightest light, could be composed of darker colours. It was Newton's discovery of the composition of light that was the first germ of the modern doctrine of the true functions of the senses; and in the writings of his contemporary, Locke, were correctly laid down the most important principles on which the right interpretation of sensible qualities depends. But, however clearly we may feel that here lies the difficulty for a large number of people, I have never found the opposite conviction of certainty derived from the senses so distinctly expressed that it is possible to lay hold of the point of error: and the reason seems to me to lie in the fact that beneath the popular notions on the subject lie other and more fundamentally erroneous conceptions."
[101]Is there, asks Idealistic Scepticism, any outside world at all?We have all of us always believed in the veritable existence of this outside world from our childhood. So have we believed always in our own real and continued personal existence. The unyielding objectivities concerning which our senses inform us—the identical Self which receives their information—are entities no man ordinarily thinks of calling in question.Let any one sit down and try to imagine himself a human animal let loose upon life without a firm belief in either of these two primary convictions. What could life be to him? to his descendants? to the world of men if similarly unbelieving? Yet what are the conditions or evidences of veracity upon which his and his fellows' present convictions must necessarily repose? Can he and others help believing them true? and why?—This "why" is a safe answer to the most plausible as well as the most refined objection against such primary beliefs as those premised by Natural Theology.
[101]Is there, asks Idealistic Scepticism, any outside world at all?
We have all of us always believed in the veritable existence of this outside world from our childhood. So have we believed always in our own real and continued personal existence. The unyielding objectivities concerning which our senses inform us—the identical Self which receives their information—are entities no man ordinarily thinks of calling in question.
Let any one sit down and try to imagine himself a human animal let loose upon life without a firm belief in either of these two primary convictions. What could life be to him? to his descendants? to the world of men if similarly unbelieving? Yet what are the conditions or evidences of veracity upon which his and his fellows' present convictions must necessarily repose? Can he and others help believing them true? and why?—This "why" is a safe answer to the most plausible as well as the most refined objection against such primary beliefs as those premised by Natural Theology.
[102]Cheselden's case is reported in the Philosophical Transactions for 1728, and also in his Anatomy. Respecting the point above quoted he is confirmed by Mr. Nunneley, "On the Organs of Vision," 1858.
[102]Cheselden's case is reported in the Philosophical Transactions for 1728, and also in his Anatomy. Respecting the point above quoted he is confirmed by Mr. Nunneley, "On the Organs of Vision," 1858.
[103]See Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Human Physiology. Ed. 7. p. 713. § 635.
[103]See Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Human Physiology. Ed. 7. p. 713. § 635.
[x]The following quaint apology for our senses at the expense of our understanding may be new to the majority of my readers:—"We have seen two notorious instances ofsensitive deception, which justifie the charge ofPetron. Arbiter.Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensusOppressâ ratione mentiuntur.And yet to speak properly, and to do oursensesright, simply they are not deceived, but only administer an occasion to our forwardunderstandingsto deceive themselves: and so though they are some way accessory to our delusion; yet the more principal faculties are theCapital offenders. Thus if theSensesrepresent theEarthasfixtandimmoveable; they give us the truth of theirSentiments: Tosenseit isso, and it would be deceit to present it otherwise. For (as we have shewn) though it domovein itself; itreststo us, who are carry'd with it.... But if hence our Understandings falsely deduct, that there is the same quality in theexternal impressor; 'tis, it iscriminal, oursenseisinnocent. When theEartingles, we really hear asound: If we judge it without us, it's the fallacy of ourJudgments. Theapparitionsof our frightedPhanciesare realsensibles: But if we translate them without the compass of our Brains, and apprehend them as external objects; it's the unwary rashness of ourUnderstandingdeludes us. And if our disaffected Palates resent nought but bitterness from our choicest viands, we truly tast the unpleasing quality, though falsely conceive it in that, which is no more then the occasion of its production. If any find fault with the novelty of the notion; the learned St.Austinstands ready to confute the charge: and they who revereAntiquity, will derive satisfaction from so venerable a suffrage. He tells us,Si quis remum frangi in aquâ opinatur, et, cumaufertur,integrari; non malum habet internuncium, sed malus est Judex. And onward to this purpose, The sense could not otherwise perceive it in thewater, neither ought it: For since theWateris one thing, and theAiranother; 'tis requisite and necessary, that thesenseshould be as different as themedium: Wherefore the Eye sees aright; if there be a mistake, 'tis the Judgement's the Deceiver. Elsewhere he saith, that our Eyes misinform us not, but faithfully transmit their resentment to the mind. And against theScepticks, That it's a piece of injustice to complain of oursenses, and to exact from them an account, which is beyond the sphear of their notice: and resolutely determines,Quicquid possunt videre oculi, verum vident. So that what we have said of thesenses deceptions, is rigidly to be charg'd only on our careless Understandings, misleading us through the ill management of sensible informations." Glanvill,Vanity of Dogmatizing. Chap. x. First Ed. p. 91, seq.The reader may like to consider how far Glanvill's apology for the senses is removed from the following propositions laid down by a recent writer just quoted who thus defends while he limits the veracity of sense-impressions:—"What we directly apprehend," writes Professor Helmholtz, "is not the immediate action of the external exciting cause upon the ends of our nerves, but only the changed condition of the nervous fibres which we call the state ofexcitationor functional activity." And further on:—"The simple rule for all illusions of sight is this:we always believe that we see such objects as would, under conditions of normal vision, produce the retinal image of which we are actually conscious. If these images are such as could not be produced by any normal kind of observation, we judge of them according to their nearest resemblance; and in forming this judgment, we more easily neglect the parts of sensation which are imperfectly than those which are perfectly apprehended. When more than one interpretation is possible, we usually waver involuntarily between them; but it is possible to end this uncertainty by bringing the idea of any of the possible interpretations we choose as vividly as possible before the mind by a conscious effort of the will." Helmholtz onThe Recent Progress of the Theory of Vision. pp. 230, 31 and p. 307.
[x]The following quaint apology for our senses at the expense of our understanding may be new to the majority of my readers:—
"We have seen two notorious instances ofsensitive deception, which justifie the charge ofPetron. Arbiter.
Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensusOppressâ ratione mentiuntur.
Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensusOppressâ ratione mentiuntur.
Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensus
Oppressâ ratione mentiuntur.
And yet to speak properly, and to do oursensesright, simply they are not deceived, but only administer an occasion to our forwardunderstandingsto deceive themselves: and so though they are some way accessory to our delusion; yet the more principal faculties are theCapital offenders. Thus if theSensesrepresent theEarthasfixtandimmoveable; they give us the truth of theirSentiments: Tosenseit isso, and it would be deceit to present it otherwise. For (as we have shewn) though it domovein itself; itreststo us, who are carry'd with it.... But if hence our Understandings falsely deduct, that there is the same quality in theexternal impressor; 'tis, it iscriminal, oursenseisinnocent. When theEartingles, we really hear asound: If we judge it without us, it's the fallacy of ourJudgments. Theapparitionsof our frightedPhanciesare realsensibles: But if we translate them without the compass of our Brains, and apprehend them as external objects; it's the unwary rashness of ourUnderstandingdeludes us. And if our disaffected Palates resent nought but bitterness from our choicest viands, we truly tast the unpleasing quality, though falsely conceive it in that, which is no more then the occasion of its production. If any find fault with the novelty of the notion; the learned St.Austinstands ready to confute the charge: and they who revereAntiquity, will derive satisfaction from so venerable a suffrage. He tells us,Si quis remum frangi in aquâ opinatur, et, cumaufertur,integrari; non malum habet internuncium, sed malus est Judex. And onward to this purpose, The sense could not otherwise perceive it in thewater, neither ought it: For since theWateris one thing, and theAiranother; 'tis requisite and necessary, that thesenseshould be as different as themedium: Wherefore the Eye sees aright; if there be a mistake, 'tis the Judgement's the Deceiver. Elsewhere he saith, that our Eyes misinform us not, but faithfully transmit their resentment to the mind. And against theScepticks, That it's a piece of injustice to complain of oursenses, and to exact from them an account, which is beyond the sphear of their notice: and resolutely determines,Quicquid possunt videre oculi, verum vident. So that what we have said of thesenses deceptions, is rigidly to be charg'd only on our careless Understandings, misleading us through the ill management of sensible informations." Glanvill,Vanity of Dogmatizing. Chap. x. First Ed. p. 91, seq.
The reader may like to consider how far Glanvill's apology for the senses is removed from the following propositions laid down by a recent writer just quoted who thus defends while he limits the veracity of sense-impressions:—
"What we directly apprehend," writes Professor Helmholtz, "is not the immediate action of the external exciting cause upon the ends of our nerves, but only the changed condition of the nervous fibres which we call the state ofexcitationor functional activity." And further on:—"The simple rule for all illusions of sight is this:we always believe that we see such objects as would, under conditions of normal vision, produce the retinal image of which we are actually conscious. If these images are such as could not be produced by any normal kind of observation, we judge of them according to their nearest resemblance; and in forming this judgment, we more easily neglect the parts of sensation which are imperfectly than those which are perfectly apprehended. When more than one interpretation is possible, we usually waver involuntarily between them; but it is possible to end this uncertainty by bringing the idea of any of the possible interpretations we choose as vividly as possible before the mind by a conscious effort of the will." Helmholtz onThe Recent Progress of the Theory of Vision. pp. 230, 31 and p. 307.
[104]Two acute reasoners, who will be alternately acquitted of madness by contending schools of thought, have arrived at conclusions very favourable to the sanity of idealizing men. In his first lecture at the Royal Institution, Professor Masson spoke in the following terms ofHumeandFichte. "There is the system of Nihilism, or, as it may be better called, Non-Substantialism. According to this system, the Phænomenal Cosmos, whether regarded as consisting of two parallel successions of phænomena (MindandMatter), or of only one (MindorMatter), resolves itself, on analysis, into an absolute Nothingness,—mere appearances with no credible substratum of Reality; a play of phantasms in a void. If there have been no positive or dogmatic Nihilists, yet both Hume for one purpose, and Fichte for another, have propounded Nihilism as the ultimate issue of all reasoning that does not start with someà prioripostulate."—Recent British Philosophy, p. 66. The reader will observe that to raise the question fully, we have spoken of the special form of Idealism to which Mr. Mill gives the first place in his description, (Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 8.) "According to one of the forms, the sensations which, in common parlance, we are said to receive from objects, are not only all that we can possibly know of the objects, but are all that we have any ground for believing to exist.——Those who hold this opinion are said to doubt or deny the existence of matter. They are sometimes called by the name Idealists, sometimes by that of Sceptics, according to the other opinions which they hold. They include the followers of Berkeley and those of Hume. Among recent thinkers, the acute and accomplished Professor Ferrier, though by a circuitous path, and expressing himself in a very different phraseology, seems to have arrived at essentially the same point of view. These philosophers maintain the Relativity of our knowledge in the most extreme form in which the doctrine can be understood, since they contend, not merely that all we can possibly know of anything is the manner in which it affects the human faculties, but that there is nothing else to be known; that affections of human or of some other minds are all that we can know to exist."Mr. Mill's own position will be found in his 11th Chapter. After defining Matter to be a "Permanent Possibility of Sensation," (p. 227) and explaining his definition, he writes in a note (p. 232), the following decisive sentences: "My able American critic, Dr. H. B. Smith, contends through several pages that these facts afford no proofs that objectsareexternal to us. I never pretended that they do. I am accounting for our conceiving, or representing to ourselves, the Permanent Possibilities as real objects external to us. I do not believe that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof."Mr. O'Hanlon's pamphlet entitled "A Criticism of John Stuart Mill's Pure Idealism; and an attempt to shew that, if logically carried out, it is Pure Nihilism," seems less known than it deserves to be. Mr. Mill noticed and answered it in his 3rd Edition—chiefly among the criticisms commencing p. 244.——Mr. O'Hanlon's early decease has given a painful interest to his promising labours. Some paragraphs from his now scarce pamphlet are placed at the end of Additional Note D, on "Pure Idealism."
[104]Two acute reasoners, who will be alternately acquitted of madness by contending schools of thought, have arrived at conclusions very favourable to the sanity of idealizing men. In his first lecture at the Royal Institution, Professor Masson spoke in the following terms ofHumeandFichte. "There is the system of Nihilism, or, as it may be better called, Non-Substantialism. According to this system, the Phænomenal Cosmos, whether regarded as consisting of two parallel successions of phænomena (MindandMatter), or of only one (MindorMatter), resolves itself, on analysis, into an absolute Nothingness,—mere appearances with no credible substratum of Reality; a play of phantasms in a void. If there have been no positive or dogmatic Nihilists, yet both Hume for one purpose, and Fichte for another, have propounded Nihilism as the ultimate issue of all reasoning that does not start with someà prioripostulate."—Recent British Philosophy, p. 66. The reader will observe that to raise the question fully, we have spoken of the special form of Idealism to which Mr. Mill gives the first place in his description, (Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 8.) "According to one of the forms, the sensations which, in common parlance, we are said to receive from objects, are not only all that we can possibly know of the objects, but are all that we have any ground for believing to exist.——Those who hold this opinion are said to doubt or deny the existence of matter. They are sometimes called by the name Idealists, sometimes by that of Sceptics, according to the other opinions which they hold. They include the followers of Berkeley and those of Hume. Among recent thinkers, the acute and accomplished Professor Ferrier, though by a circuitous path, and expressing himself in a very different phraseology, seems to have arrived at essentially the same point of view. These philosophers maintain the Relativity of our knowledge in the most extreme form in which the doctrine can be understood, since they contend, not merely that all we can possibly know of anything is the manner in which it affects the human faculties, but that there is nothing else to be known; that affections of human or of some other minds are all that we can know to exist."
Mr. Mill's own position will be found in his 11th Chapter. After defining Matter to be a "Permanent Possibility of Sensation," (p. 227) and explaining his definition, he writes in a note (p. 232), the following decisive sentences: "My able American critic, Dr. H. B. Smith, contends through several pages that these facts afford no proofs that objectsareexternal to us. I never pretended that they do. I am accounting for our conceiving, or representing to ourselves, the Permanent Possibilities as real objects external to us. I do not believe that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof."
Mr. O'Hanlon's pamphlet entitled "A Criticism of John Stuart Mill's Pure Idealism; and an attempt to shew that, if logically carried out, it is Pure Nihilism," seems less known than it deserves to be. Mr. Mill noticed and answered it in his 3rd Edition—chiefly among the criticisms commencing p. 244.——Mr. O'Hanlon's early decease has given a painful interest to his promising labours. Some paragraphs from his now scarce pamphlet are placed at the end of Additional Note D, on "Pure Idealism."
[105]On Hamilton.p. 6. Mill is thus echoed from across the broad Atlantic;—"The profoundest question of philosophy turns on the relation of Thought to Being, Mind to Matter, Subject to Object, or (in empiricistic phrase) Organism to Environment. Is the Organism purely the product of the Environment? Then we have Empiricism, Sensationalism, Materialism, whose motto is that of Destutt-Tracy,—"Penser c'est sentir." Is the Environment the product of the Organism? Then we have Transcendentalism, Egoism, Idealism, whose motto is that of Berkeley,—"Theesseof objects ispercipi." F. E. Abbot, inThe Index(American), for July 27, 1872.
[105]On Hamilton.p. 6. Mill is thus echoed from across the broad Atlantic;—"The profoundest question of philosophy turns on the relation of Thought to Being, Mind to Matter, Subject to Object, or (in empiricistic phrase) Organism to Environment. Is the Organism purely the product of the Environment? Then we have Empiricism, Sensationalism, Materialism, whose motto is that of Destutt-Tracy,—"Penser c'est sentir." Is the Environment the product of the Organism? Then we have Transcendentalism, Egoism, Idealism, whose motto is that of Berkeley,—"Theesseof objects ispercipi." F. E. Abbot, inThe Index(American), for July 27, 1872.
[106]Lord Macaulay has some pertinent and characteristic remarks concerning this topic in his literary estimate of Dr. Johnson. "How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature. The same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen of the middle ages. Those writers show so much acuteness and force of mind in arguing on their wretched data, that a modern reader is perpetually at a loss to comprehend how such minds came by such data. Not a flaw in the superstructure of the theory which they are rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet they are blind to the obvious unsoundness of the foundation. It is the same with some eminent lawyers. Their legal arguments are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest analogies and the most refined distinctions. The principles of their arbitrary science being once admitted, the statute-book and the reports being once assumed as the foundations of reasoning, these men must be allowed to be perfect masters of logic. But if a question arises as to the postulates on which their whole system rests, if they are called upon to vindicate the fundamental maxims of that system which they have passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk the language of savages or of children." (Essays, Ed. 1852. p. 175.) As to the schoolmen, any one who wishes to form a fair idea of their acuteness with little trouble to himself, may consult the "Synopsis Distinctionum" of H. L. Castanæus, a book found in most learned libraries.
[106]Lord Macaulay has some pertinent and characteristic remarks concerning this topic in his literary estimate of Dr. Johnson. "How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature. The same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen of the middle ages. Those writers show so much acuteness and force of mind in arguing on their wretched data, that a modern reader is perpetually at a loss to comprehend how such minds came by such data. Not a flaw in the superstructure of the theory which they are rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet they are blind to the obvious unsoundness of the foundation. It is the same with some eminent lawyers. Their legal arguments are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest analogies and the most refined distinctions. The principles of their arbitrary science being once admitted, the statute-book and the reports being once assumed as the foundations of reasoning, these men must be allowed to be perfect masters of logic. But if a question arises as to the postulates on which their whole system rests, if they are called upon to vindicate the fundamental maxims of that system which they have passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk the language of savages or of children." (Essays, Ed. 1852. p. 175.) As to the schoolmen, any one who wishes to form a fair idea of their acuteness with little trouble to himself, may consult the "Synopsis Distinctionum" of H. L. Castanæus, a book found in most learned libraries.
[y]See Additional NoteE.—The great interest of this subject for our purpose lies in the circumstance that the relation of Theory to Fact is in effect a question most closely akin to the one already mooted concerning the relation of our Sensations to our Perceptions (compare Additional Note B). These two questions are indeed so very similar as to be in the main identical. What we want to learn regarding both relations, is,first, theextentof the relativity to our human nature; in other words howmuch wehavementally putinto our Theories and Sensationsbeforewe treat them as Facts and Perceptions.Secondly, what reason we have for believinganyof our knowledge comprehended under either or both of these relativities (Perception and Fact) to be truebeyondour human sphere; and, above all, whether we are able to assert, on good grounds, that such and such parts of either kind of our knowledge are absolutely and immutably true?—If, for example, we ask—Is it thus true that there are real objects external to ourselves? "I do not believe," Mr. Mill has told us, "that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof." And a few lines further, "The view I take of externality, in the sense in which I acknowledge it as real, could not be more accurately expressed than in Professor Fraser's words." These are "For ourselves we can conceive only—(1) An externality to our present and transient experience inour ownpossible experience past and future, and (2) An externality to our own conscious experience, in the contemporaneous, as well as in the past or future experience ofother minds." (On Hamilton.p. 232, note.) This explanation, Mill had just before observed, is an externality in the only sense we need care about; and it means in plain words, that we possess no absolutely true but only some utilitarian knowledge of the real existence of an outside world. We must, however, and do care infinitely more for another kind of answer to quite another kind of question. Is the antithesis between Right and Wrong,—the Moral Imperative "Do this and live, transgress and die,"—absolutely and immutably true? If not, who would calculate profit and loss as they are calculated in the Gospel; who would or could believe in a Righteous that is to say, a Real and True God?Many minds, appalled by the vastness of these issues, and finding no satisfactory answer to questions of such infinite importance, have fallen back on the position of Dr. Newman in hisGrammar of Assent. But the unsatisfactory characteristic attaching to this position, is that there seems to be nolimitto such Assents, because there appears no Reasonable canon or maxim to explain, defend, and regulate them. To the far larger number of minds the problem states itself as a dilemma. There are exactly two alternatives open to Man. His choice lies between two contrasted positions—the most antagonistic conceivable, yet both resulting from one common supposed fact. Ignorance and impotence are the truest characters inscribed upon our Reason. Man must decide either for an unlimited Doubt such as that which Hume delineates, wide as the universal whole of our human Existence; or else yield the kind of Assent to which Dr. Newman invites as being the sole secure refuge for any soul driven by despair into a recoil from utter absence of belief and hope—the want of everything to trust and love. Now, let it be observed that an assent transcending reasonable proof is, in effect, a confession that Reason falls short of establishing those transcendental truths to which the mind has thus assented. And contrariwise, limitless Doubt making all else uncertain, affirms with unmistakeable decisiveness the impotence of human Reason.—"The observation of human blindness and weakness," says Hume, "is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." Hence, we see that Hume's conclusion is identical with that underlying a position directly antagonistic to his own, and in this respectles extrêmes se touchent.It follows, then, with equal clearness, that any Dilemma which restricts human choice to the two alternatives above stated, rests upon a denial that Man's Reason can guide Mankind to truth—(and by consequence that he can ever feel after and find his God);—whilst, conversely, this same denial, if posited as a basis of speculation, permits no human choice beyond the two horns of a Dilemma thus made necessarily imperative upon us all.Neither alternative, however, can be accepted by the Natural Theologian, nor can he possibly receive any such Dilemma as founded in Truth or Reason. On the one hand the Superhuman, and Supernatural lie outside his science which has for its sphere Nature, including Man's Nature; and which steadily endeavours to attain the true interpretation and evidence yielded by both Natures, to a belief extending beyond their present territory and fluent conditions. On the other hand, his science becomes impossible if unlimited Doubt is the sole dreary prospect open to the philosophic inquirer. And with his science all other sciences must perish. Doubt saps the foundations of them all; common-sense facts, scientific theories, and practical every-day beliefs, are all impartially shewn to be baseless. So far as our realities are concerned"We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep."Science is therefore an alien from Man's world; the soul an outcast amid her own:—"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,In doubt and great perplexity,A little before moon-rise hears the lowMoan of an unknown sea;"And knows not if it be thunder or a soundOf stones thrown down, or one deep cryOf great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have foundA new land, but I die.'""Not for this," says the same reflective poet—"Not for thisWas common clay ta'en from the common earth,Moulded by God, and tempered with the tearsOf angels to the perfect shape of man."Let it be observed in conclusion, that the mode in which common-sense people are accustomed to treat the primary tenets of most sciences, and the validity of their own ordinary beliefs, may be placed in curious contrast with their attitude towards the proofs of Natural Theology. In the former case, acceptance is easy and wholesale; in the latter, every mind seems to bristle with objections. Now there are evidently thousands whomustsurrender their judgments to the demands of a present and pressing utility, and must take upon trust a multitude of maxims which they can never hope to investigate. The difficulties necessarily involved in each and all of these easy acceptations thus remain unsuspected, and cannot therefore be placed side by side with the difficulties of Theism.But, next arises a serious question. How far can a similar facility of wholesale acceptance and a similar absence of comparison with deeper truths, be considered a philosophic or even a fair procedure in the case of men and women whothinkthemselves into Atheism?
[y]See Additional NoteE.—The great interest of this subject for our purpose lies in the circumstance that the relation of Theory to Fact is in effect a question most closely akin to the one already mooted concerning the relation of our Sensations to our Perceptions (compare Additional Note B). These two questions are indeed so very similar as to be in the main identical. What we want to learn regarding both relations, is,first, theextentof the relativity to our human nature; in other words howmuch wehavementally putinto our Theories and Sensationsbeforewe treat them as Facts and Perceptions.Secondly, what reason we have for believinganyof our knowledge comprehended under either or both of these relativities (Perception and Fact) to be truebeyondour human sphere; and, above all, whether we are able to assert, on good grounds, that such and such parts of either kind of our knowledge are absolutely and immutably true?—
If, for example, we ask—Is it thus true that there are real objects external to ourselves? "I do not believe," Mr. Mill has told us, "that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof." And a few lines further, "The view I take of externality, in the sense in which I acknowledge it as real, could not be more accurately expressed than in Professor Fraser's words." These are "For ourselves we can conceive only—(1) An externality to our present and transient experience inour ownpossible experience past and future, and (2) An externality to our own conscious experience, in the contemporaneous, as well as in the past or future experience ofother minds." (On Hamilton.p. 232, note.) This explanation, Mill had just before observed, is an externality in the only sense we need care about; and it means in plain words, that we possess no absolutely true but only some utilitarian knowledge of the real existence of an outside world. We must, however, and do care infinitely more for another kind of answer to quite another kind of question. Is the antithesis between Right and Wrong,—the Moral Imperative "Do this and live, transgress and die,"—absolutely and immutably true? If not, who would calculate profit and loss as they are calculated in the Gospel; who would or could believe in a Righteous that is to say, a Real and True God?
Many minds, appalled by the vastness of these issues, and finding no satisfactory answer to questions of such infinite importance, have fallen back on the position of Dr. Newman in hisGrammar of Assent. But the unsatisfactory characteristic attaching to this position, is that there seems to be nolimitto such Assents, because there appears no Reasonable canon or maxim to explain, defend, and regulate them. To the far larger number of minds the problem states itself as a dilemma. There are exactly two alternatives open to Man. His choice lies between two contrasted positions—the most antagonistic conceivable, yet both resulting from one common supposed fact. Ignorance and impotence are the truest characters inscribed upon our Reason. Man must decide either for an unlimited Doubt such as that which Hume delineates, wide as the universal whole of our human Existence; or else yield the kind of Assent to which Dr. Newman invites as being the sole secure refuge for any soul driven by despair into a recoil from utter absence of belief and hope—the want of everything to trust and love. Now, let it be observed that an assent transcending reasonable proof is, in effect, a confession that Reason falls short of establishing those transcendental truths to which the mind has thus assented. And contrariwise, limitless Doubt making all else uncertain, affirms with unmistakeable decisiveness the impotence of human Reason.—"The observation of human blindness and weakness," says Hume, "is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." Hence, we see that Hume's conclusion is identical with that underlying a position directly antagonistic to his own, and in this respectles extrêmes se touchent.
It follows, then, with equal clearness, that any Dilemma which restricts human choice to the two alternatives above stated, rests upon a denial that Man's Reason can guide Mankind to truth—(and by consequence that he can ever feel after and find his God);—whilst, conversely, this same denial, if posited as a basis of speculation, permits no human choice beyond the two horns of a Dilemma thus made necessarily imperative upon us all.
Neither alternative, however, can be accepted by the Natural Theologian, nor can he possibly receive any such Dilemma as founded in Truth or Reason. On the one hand the Superhuman, and Supernatural lie outside his science which has for its sphere Nature, including Man's Nature; and which steadily endeavours to attain the true interpretation and evidence yielded by both Natures, to a belief extending beyond their present territory and fluent conditions. On the other hand, his science becomes impossible if unlimited Doubt is the sole dreary prospect open to the philosophic inquirer. And with his science all other sciences must perish. Doubt saps the foundations of them all; common-sense facts, scientific theories, and practical every-day beliefs, are all impartially shewn to be baseless. So far as our realities are concerned
"We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep."
"We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep."
"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
Science is therefore an alien from Man's world; the soul an outcast amid her own:—
"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,In doubt and great perplexity,A little before moon-rise hears the lowMoan of an unknown sea;"And knows not if it be thunder or a soundOf stones thrown down, or one deep cryOf great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have foundA new land, but I die.'"
"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,In doubt and great perplexity,A little before moon-rise hears the lowMoan of an unknown sea;"And knows not if it be thunder or a soundOf stones thrown down, or one deep cryOf great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have foundA new land, but I die.'"
"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,In doubt and great perplexity,A little before moon-rise hears the lowMoan of an unknown sea;
"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A little before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea;
"And knows not if it be thunder or a soundOf stones thrown down, or one deep cryOf great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have foundA new land, but I die.'"
"And knows not if it be thunder or a sound
Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have found
A new land, but I die.'"
"Not for this," says the same reflective poet—
"Not for thisWas common clay ta'en from the common earth,Moulded by God, and tempered with the tearsOf angels to the perfect shape of man."
"Not for thisWas common clay ta'en from the common earth,Moulded by God, and tempered with the tearsOf angels to the perfect shape of man."
"Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man."
Let it be observed in conclusion, that the mode in which common-sense people are accustomed to treat the primary tenets of most sciences, and the validity of their own ordinary beliefs, may be placed in curious contrast with their attitude towards the proofs of Natural Theology. In the former case, acceptance is easy and wholesale; in the latter, every mind seems to bristle with objections. Now there are evidently thousands whomustsurrender their judgments to the demands of a present and pressing utility, and must take upon trust a multitude of maxims which they can never hope to investigate. The difficulties necessarily involved in each and all of these easy acceptations thus remain unsuspected, and cannot therefore be placed side by side with the difficulties of Theism.
But, next arises a serious question. How far can a similar facility of wholesale acceptance and a similar absence of comparison with deeper truths, be considered a philosophic or even a fair procedure in the case of men and women whothinkthemselves into Atheism?
[z]Neither can it be too often repeated that practical truth involves an enormous amount of speculative difficulty, and is received as the daily basis of human action in the face of doubts, which speculatively considered are absolutely insoluble. There is (as will appear in Chapter IV.) reason to extend this remark beyond what is commonly called practical truth far into the realm of speculative knowledge, or to speak more exactly, of all knowledge whatsoever. Suppose, for instance, the continuity of our inward power of receiving sense-impressions, of knowing, and reasoning; (our personal Identity) is a groundless belief;—Suppose too that our sense-impressions are reflections from self-created shadows and not from objective realities;—wherecan any knowledge be truly subsistent save in that place of exile now generally termed "the Unknowable"? Compare Additional Notes A and B appended to this present Chapter.
[z]Neither can it be too often repeated that practical truth involves an enormous amount of speculative difficulty, and is received as the daily basis of human action in the face of doubts, which speculatively considered are absolutely insoluble. There is (as will appear in Chapter IV.) reason to extend this remark beyond what is commonly called practical truth far into the realm of speculative knowledge, or to speak more exactly, of all knowledge whatsoever. Suppose, for instance, the continuity of our inward power of receiving sense-impressions, of knowing, and reasoning; (our personal Identity) is a groundless belief;—Suppose too that our sense-impressions are reflections from self-created shadows and not from objective realities;—wherecan any knowledge be truly subsistent save in that place of exile now generally termed "the Unknowable"? Compare Additional Notes A and B appended to this present Chapter.
[107]La Philosophie en France. IX. p. 66.
[107]La Philosophie en France. IX. p. 66.
[108]First Principles, p. 108.
[108]First Principles, p. 108.
[109]Lay Sermon delivered on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1866; in the collected vol. pp. 19, 20.
[109]Lay Sermon delivered on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1866; in the collected vol. pp. 19, 20.
[110]Essays I. p. 190.
[110]Essays I. p. 190.
[111]Ibid. p. 211.
[111]Ibid. p. 211.
[aa]Mr. Herbert Spencer has been freely criticized by Americans, in part as not being sufficiently thorough—in part as being untrue to his own position. A few quotations will be found in Additional NoteF, on "The Unknowable."
[aa]Mr. Herbert Spencer has been freely criticized by Americans, in part as not being sufficiently thorough—in part as being untrue to his own position. A few quotations will be found in Additional NoteF, on "The Unknowable."
[ab]The paragraph, taken in its entireness, is pervaded with the vivid sense of a Moral Law which can neither change nor perish—a Law at once human and Divine. This strong protest is both in thought and expression a complete contrast to the ordinary tone of Mr. Mill's disquisitions, attempered as they generally are between benevolence and expediency. Instead of pondering the Utilities of a race which, comparatively speaking, began to exist yesterday, it appeals with decisive sternness, once and for ever, to the Immutable and the Absolute. It reminds one of a torch-bearing Prometheus pitted against the selfish despot of a new and morally enfeebled Olympus. See Additional Note G.
[ab]The paragraph, taken in its entireness, is pervaded with the vivid sense of a Moral Law which can neither change nor perish—a Law at once human and Divine. This strong protest is both in thought and expression a complete contrast to the ordinary tone of Mr. Mill's disquisitions, attempered as they generally are between benevolence and expediency. Instead of pondering the Utilities of a race which, comparatively speaking, began to exist yesterday, it appeals with decisive sternness, once and for ever, to the Immutable and the Absolute. It reminds one of a torch-bearing Prometheus pitted against the selfish despot of a new and morally enfeebled Olympus. See Additional Note G.
[112]This sentence contains two propositions; the question of speculative perplexity has been treated in this Chapter—that of reasonable necessity is reserved for our next.
[112]This sentence contains two propositions; the question of speculative perplexity has been treated in this Chapter—that of reasonable necessity is reserved for our next.
[113]On Hamilton, p. 242.
[113]On Hamilton, p. 242.
[114]Mill on Hamilton, p. 232, note.
[114]Mill on Hamilton, p. 232, note.
[115]Ibid. p. 233, note.
[115]Ibid. p. 233, note.
[116]Ibid. p. 227.
[116]Ibid. p. 227.
[117]British Association Report, 1870. lxxvii. lxxxiv.
[117]British Association Report, 1870. lxxvii. lxxxiv.
[118]The remark above made respecting a "living laboratory" will be readily understood by every one who remembers the great mistakes committed, some years ago, in treating the stomach as a mere chemical workshop;—forgetful of its all-important endowment,—vitality. That oversight has been alluded to here because it may yield a lesson to Psychologists; for may not a far higher kind of endowment in like manner be forgotten when men materialize the principles one and all on which is conditioned the transforming power of mental assimilation?
[118]The remark above made respecting a "living laboratory" will be readily understood by every one who remembers the great mistakes committed, some years ago, in treating the stomach as a mere chemical workshop;—forgetful of its all-important endowment,—vitality. That oversight has been alluded to here because it may yield a lesson to Psychologists; for may not a far higher kind of endowment in like manner be forgotten when men materialize the principles one and all on which is conditioned the transforming power of mental assimilation?
[119]Lay Sermons, p. 160.
[119]Lay Sermons, p. 160.
[120]And of more than one as we shall see hereafter. Its point will be best understood upon a perusal of Additional Notes F and I.
[120]And of more than one as we shall see hereafter. Its point will be best understood upon a perusal of Additional Notes F and I.
[121]All these quotations will be found between pp. 332 and 360 of the Treatise. Ed. 1817.
[121]All these quotations will be found between pp. 332 and 360 of the Treatise. Ed. 1817.
[122]Compare Mr. Green's Introduction to Hume'sTreatise on Human Nature, Vol. I., pp. 263, seq., where he discusses the bearing of this subject upon Hume's doctrine of Cause and Effect.
[122]Compare Mr. Green's Introduction to Hume'sTreatise on Human Nature, Vol. I., pp. 263, seq., where he discusses the bearing of this subject upon Hume's doctrine of Cause and Effect.
[123]He sums up in the words of Goethe, thus given in the translation of his lectures from which we have quoted—"Woe! woe!Thou hast destroyedThe beautiful worldWith powerful fist;In ruin 'tis hurled,By the blow of a demigod shattered.The scatteredFragments into the void we carry,DeploringThe beauty perished beyond restoring."
[123]He sums up in the words of Goethe, thus given in the translation of his lectures from which we have quoted—
"Woe! woe!Thou hast destroyedThe beautiful worldWith powerful fist;In ruin 'tis hurled,By the blow of a demigod shattered.The scatteredFragments into the void we carry,DeploringThe beauty perished beyond restoring."
"Woe! woe!Thou hast destroyedThe beautiful worldWith powerful fist;In ruin 'tis hurled,By the blow of a demigod shattered.The scatteredFragments into the void we carry,DeploringThe beauty perished beyond restoring."
"Woe! woe!Thou hast destroyedThe beautiful worldWith powerful fist;In ruin 'tis hurled,By the blow of a demigod shattered.The scatteredFragments into the void we carry,DeploringThe beauty perished beyond restoring."
"Woe! woe!
Thou hast destroyed
The beautiful world
With powerful fist;
In ruin 'tis hurled,
By the blow of a demigod shattered.
The scattered
Fragments into the void we carry,
Deploring
The beauty perished beyond restoring."