CHAPTER LXPHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

(For biographies of Zoologists, see the end of the chapter on Biology)

Zoology, Natural History: Batrachians

Definitions

Philosophers, says Plato, are “those who are able to grasp the eternal and immutable”; their pursuit is wisdom. The history of philosophy is, therefore, the history of the ideas which have animated successive generations of man; so that in the wide sense the investigation includes all knowledge; the natural as well as the moral sciences; and the Greeks, to whom the western world owes the direction of its thought, so understood it. The several divisions ofPhilosophy(Vol. 21, p. 440), as we reckon them, were all fused by Plato in a semi-religious synthesis, with resulting confusion. Aristotle, the encyclopaedist of the ancient world, saw that the several issues should be regarded as separate disciplines, and became the founder of the sciences of logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics. His “first philosophy,” or, as we should say, “first principles,” which stood as introductions to his separate special inquiries, gradually acquired the name metaphysics. In more recent times the natural sciences: biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, etc., have been regarded as outside the strict boundaries of the philosophic schools; and theology, is excluded on the ground that its subject matter is so extensive that it may be looked upon as a separate science. The main divisions of philosophy are:Epistemology(Vol. 9, p. 701), which is concerned with the nature and origin of knowledge, i. e., the possibility of knowledge in the abstract;Metaphysics(Vol. 18, p. 224), the science of being, often calledOntology(Vol. 20, p. 118), dealing, that is to say, with being as being; andPsychology(Vol. 22, p. 547), the science of mind, an analysis of what “mind” means.

Some Important Articles and Their Writers

Metaphysics and Logic

It will be of interest to the reader if, at this point, we enumerate some of the more important articles in the Britannica covering this field with the names of their authors. Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, professor of logic and metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh, wrote the general articlePhilosophy, which is a key to the whole subject, as well as the articlesMysticism(Vol. 19, p. 123),Scepticism(Vol. 24, p. 306),Scholasticism(Vol. 24, p. 346),Spinoza(Vol. 25, p. 687), and others. Of fundamental importance is the articleLogic(Vol. 16, p. 879), which would occupy 124 pages of this Guide. It is divided into two parts: the first, by Thomas Case, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, formerly professor of moral and metaphysical philosophy in that university, treats of the science generally, and examines in detail the processes of inference. The second, by H. W. Blunt, of Christ Church, Oxford, and formerly fellow of All Soul’s, gives a brilliant account of thehistoryof logic, that is, the history of the ideas which have been the basis of all attempts to regulate these processes of inference. This account is unique in that it is the firstcritical review of the types of logical theory that has been attempted. A lucid discussion of a most difficult subject is that given underMetaphysics(Vol. 18, p. 224); equivalent to 100 pages in this Guide by Professor Case, to whom, as one of the most distinguished of modern Aristotelians, the articleAristotle(Vol. 2, p. 501) was also assigned. The life and work ofPlatoare examined in a valuable article (Vol. 21, p. 808), the equivalent in length to 54 pages of this Guide, by the late Professor Lewis Campbell, of St. Andrews, one of the best known Platonists of the time.

Henry Sturt, author ofPersonal Idealismand many other books, is responsible for brilliant discussions ofUtilitarianism(Vol. 27, p. 820),Nominalism(Vol. 19, p. 735),Metempsychosis(Vol. 18, p. 259),Space and Time(Vol. 25, p. 525), etc. And F. C. S. Schiller, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who, under the wider, and historically more significant title “Humanism,” has further developed the pragmatic philosophy of William James, contributed the articles onPragmatism,Herbert Spencer, andNietzsche.

Psychology

The very important article onPsychology(Vol. 22, p. 54), equal to nearly 200 pages of this Guide was contributed by James Ward, professor of mental philosophy, Cambridge, who has devoted his whole life to psychological research. In addition toPsychologyhe also contributed the articlesHerbart(Vol. 13, p. 335), andNaturalism(Vol. 19, p. 274). James Sully, the well-known psychologist, former professor of the philosophy of the mind and logic, at University College, London, contributes the articleAesthetics(Vol. 1, p. 277). The articleEthics(Vol. 8, p. 808), equivalent to about 100 pages of this Guide, andWill(Vol. 28, p. 648), both of primary importance, were the work of the Rev. H. H. Williams, lecturer in philosophy, Hertford College, Oxford.

Very interesting articles areAssociation of Ideas(Vol. 2, p. 784),Dream(Vol. 8, p. 588),Instinct(Vol. 14, p. 648) and, very important,Weber’s Law(Vol. 28, p. 458), which expresses the relation between sensation and the stimulus which induces it.

Of recent years the psychology of crowds has received a good deal of attention; in fact, the need of an understanding of the phenomena attending it is of increasing importance in this age of universal suffrage. Interesting light is thrown upon the subject in the articlesSuggestion(Vol. 26, p. 48), by W. M. McDougall, Wilde reader in mental philosophy at Oxford;Imitation(Vol. 14, p. 332); andReligion(Vol. 23, p. 66). A line of inquiry of vital importance to the social body is examined in the articlesCriminology(Vol. 7, p. 464), by Major Griffith, for many years H. M. Inspector of Prisons, in which Lombroso’s theory of the possession by criminals of special anatomical and physiological characteristics is criticized, and the problem is shown to be one of abnormal psychology; see alsoCesare Lombroso(Vol. 16, p. 936). For discussions of other forms of abnormal psychology, see the chapterFor Physicians and Surgeonsin this Guide, and in particular the articleInsanity(Vol. 14, p. 597).

Psychical Research

Perhaps more popular, certainly more sensational, than the more legitimate branches of psychology, is that classed underPsychical Research(Vol. 22, p. 544). The title article was written by Andrew Lang, who wrotePoltergeist(Vol. 22, p. 14), as well as articles onSecond Sight(Vol. 24, p. 570),Apparitions(Vol. 2, p. 209), etc. The articleDivination(Vol. 8, p. 332) was written by Northcote Thomas, government anthropologist to Southern Nigeria, and author ofThought Transferenceandother books; and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, formerly principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, and secretary to the Society for Psychical Research, was responsible for the articleSpiritualism(Vol. 25, p. 705). Among the biographical articles in this section, interest will be felt in the biography of Daniel DunglasHome, the original of Robert Browning’s poem, “Sludge the Medium.”

Classification

We now may classify the principal subjects belonging to the main divisions of philosophy, the sciences of epistemology, metaphysics, and psychology. The wider phases of thought roughly belonging to the division of metaphysics are, in their historical order: Platonism (seePlato, Vol. 21, p. 808), and Aristotelianism (seeAristotle, Vol. 2, p. 501), the two great Greek systems of the classical period;Neoplatonism(Vol. 19, p. 372), the last school of pagan philosophy, which grew up mainly among the Greeks of Alexandria from the 3rd century A.D. onwards;Scholasticism(Vol. 24, p. 346), which gave expression to the most typical products of medieval thought;Idealism(Vol. 14, p. 281), the philosophy of the “absolute,” which, though it has given a tinge to philosophic thought from the days of Socrates to the present time, is in its self-conscious form a modern doctrine;Materialism(Vol. 17, p. 878), which regards all the facts of the universe as explainable in terms of matter and motion;Realism(Vol. 22, p. 941), which is a sort of half-way house between Idealism and Materialism;Pragmatism(Vol. 22, p. 246), the philosophy of the “real,” which expresses the reaction against the intellectualistic speculation that has characterized most of modern metaphysics.Logic(Vol. 16, p. 879), the art of reasoning, or, as Ueberweg expresses it, “the science of the regulative laws of thought,” clearly belongs to the division of epistemology. Aspects of psychology, since they depend essentially upon perceptions of the human mind in relation to itself or its environment, areEthics(Vol. 9, p. 808), or moral philosophy, the investigation of theories of good and evil; andAesthetics(Vol. 1, p. 277), the philosophy or science of the beautiful, of taste, or of the fine arts.

History of Thought Personal

The articles enumerated will give the reader a clear idea of the drift of thought currents throughout the course of history, and they will introduce him to the detailed discussions of the various systems which have been propounded by the little band of men who have contributed something vital to the treasury of thought. Each has been in and out of fashion at different times. In the Britannica the contributions to philosophic thought by the great philosophers are discussed in biographical articles, to which we now turn.

Breaking the Ground

The father of Greek philosophy and indeed of European thought wasThalesof Miletus (Vol. 26, p. 720), who founded theIonian School(Vol. 14, p. 731) at the end of the 7th century B.C. He first, as far as we know, sought to go behind the infinite multiplicity of phenomena in the hope of finding an all embracing infinite unity. This unity he decided was water.Heraclitus(Vol. 13, p. 309), the “dark philosopher,” nicknamed from his aristocratic prejudices “he who rails at the people,” later selected fire. The never ending fight between advocates of the “One” and the “Many” had therefore begun. Sophistry (seeSophists, Vol. 25, p. 418) has now an unpleasant connotation, inherited from the undisciplined reasonings of the schools of whichProtagoras(Vol. 22, p. 464),Gorgias(Vol. 12, p. 257),Parmenidesof Elea (Vol. 20, p. 851), andZeno, also of Elea (Vol. 28, p. 970), were leaders. The “science of the regulative laws of thought” had not yet been developed and fallacies were the rule rather than theexception. Protagoras, the first of the Sophists, in his celebrated essay on Truth, said that “Man is the measure of all things, of what is, that it is, and what is not, that it is not.” In other words, there is no such thing as objective truth. After nineteen-hundred years we are still seeking the answer to Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” Gorgias, in his equally famous work on Nature or on the Nonent (notbeing) maintained that “(a) nothing is, (b) that, if anything is, it cannot be known, (c) that, if anything is and can be known, it cannot be expressed in speech.” The paradoxes with which Zeno, the pupil and friend of Parmenides, adorned his arguments are proverbial. Who has not heard of Achilles and the tortoise? And it is a little curious that in quite modern times his sophisms have, after centuries of scornful neglect, been reinstated and made the basis of a mathematical renaissance by the German professor Weierstrass, who shows that we live in an unchanging world, and that the arrow, as Zeno paradoxically contended, is truly at rest at every moment of its flight (Vol. 28, p. 971).

The Socratic Schools

The teaching ofSocrates(Vol. 25, p. 331) was oral, and his philosophy is handed down to us in the refined and elaborated system whichPlato(Vol. 21, p. 808) developed in his dialogues. The “One” and the “Many” were united in the philosophy of Plato. To him we owe a debt which is simply incalculable, for, as is shown in the Britannica, “to whatever system of modern thought the student is inclined he will find his account in returning to this wellspring of European thought, in which all previous movements are absorbed, and from which all subsequent lines of reflection may be said to diverge.” The germs of all ideas, even of most Christian ones, are, as Jowett remarked, to be found in Plato. The teaching of Socrates bore fruit in strangely divers forms. Plato, his legitimate successor, and the expounder of his philosophy, has been referred to, but there were other very different developments. TheCynics(Vol. 7, p. 691), of whomDiogenes(Vol. 8, p. 281) is the notorious prototype, uncouthly preached the asceticism which was to become so fashionable in a later era; but, their central doctrine, “let man gain wisdom—or buy a rope,” contains more than a germ of truth. TheCyrenaics(Vol. 7, p. 703), underAristippus(Vol. 2, p. 497), starting from the two Socratic principles of virtue and happiness, differed from the Cynics in emphasizing the second. TheMegarians(Vol. 18, p. 77), the “friends of ideas,” as Plato called them, united the Socratic principles of virtue (as the source of knowledge) with the Eleatic doctrine (Vol. 9, p. 168) of the “One” as opposed to the “Many.” Their strength lay in the intellectual pre-eminence of their members, not so much in the doctrine, or combination of doctrines, which they inculcated.

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