Chapter XII (1)

Of The Logic Of Practice, Or Art; Including Morality And Policy.

§ 1. In the preceding chapters we have endeavored to characterize the present state of those among the branches of knowledge called Moral, which are sciences in the only proper sense of the term, that is, inquiries into the course of nature. It is customary, however, to include under the term moral knowledge, and even (though improperly) under that of moral science, an inquiry the results of which do not express themselves in the indicative, but in the imperative mood, or in periphrases equivalent to it; what is called the knowledge of duties; practical ethics, or morality.

Now, the imperative mood is the characteristic of art, as distinguished from science. Whatever speaks in rules, or precepts, not in assertions respecting matters of fact, is art; and ethics, or morality, is properly a portion of the art corresponding to the sciences of human nature and society.(287)

The Method, therefore, of Ethics, can be no other than that of Art, or Practice, in general; and the portion yet uncompleted of the task which we proposed to ourselves in the concluding Book, is to characterize the general Method of Art, as distinguished from Science.

§ 2. In all branches of practical business there are cases in which individuals are bound to conform their practice to a pre-established rule, while there are others in which it is part of their task to find or construct the rule by which they are to govern their conduct. The first, for example, is the case of a judge, under a definite written code. The judge is not called upon to determine what course would be intrinsically the most advisable in the particular case in hand, but only within what rule of law it falls; what the legislature has ordained to be done in the kind of case, and must therefore be presumed to have intended in the individual case. The method must here be wholly and exclusively one of ratiocination, or syllogism; and the process is obviously, what in our analysis of the syllogism we showed that all ratiocination is, namely the interpretation of a formula.

In order that our illustration of the opposite case may be taken from the same class of subjects as the former, we will suppose, in contrast with the situation of the judge, the position of the legislator. As the judge has laws for his guidance, so the legislator has rules, and maxims of policy; but it would be a manifest error to suppose that the legislator is bound by these maxims in the same manner as the judge is bound by the laws, and that all he has to do is to argue down from them to the particular case, as the judge does from the laws. The legislator is bound to take into consideration the reasons or grounds of the maxim; the judge has nothing to do with those of the law, except so far as a consideration of them may throw light upon the intention of the law-maker, where his words have left it doubtful. To the judge, the rule, once positively ascertained, is final; but the legislator, or other practitioner, who goes by rules rather than by their reasons, like the old-fashioned German tacticians who were vanquished by Napoleon, or the physician who preferred that his patients should die by rule rather than recover contrary to it, is rightly judged to be a mere pedant, and the slave of his formulas.

Now, the reasons of a maxim of policy, or of any other rule of art, can be no other than the theorems of the corresponding science.

The relation in which rules of art stand to doctrines of science may be thus characterized. The art proposes to itself an end to be attained, defines the end, and hands it over to the science. The science receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be studied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends it back to art with a theorem of the combination of circumstances by which it could be produced. Art then examines these combinations of circumstances, and according as any of them are or are not in human power, pronounces the end attainable or not. The only one of the premises, therefore, which Art supplies, is the original major premise, which asserts that the attainment of the given end is desirable. Science then lends to Art the proposition (obtained by a series of inductions or of deductions) that the performance of certain actions will attain the end. From these premises Art concludes that the performance of these actions is desirable, and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem into a rule or precept.

§ 3. It deserves particular notice, that the theorem or speculative truth is not ripe for being turned into a precept, until the whole, and not a part merely, of the operation which belongs to science, has been performed. Suppose that we have completed the scientific process only up to a certain point; have discovered that a particular cause will produce the desired effect, but have not ascertained all the negative conditions which are necessary, that is, all the circumstances which, if present, would prevent its production. If, in this imperfect state of the scientific theory, we attempt to frame a rule of art, we perform that operation prematurely. Whenever any counteracting cause, overlooked by the theorem, takes place, the rule will be at fault; we shall employ the means and the end will not follow. No arguing from or about the rule itself will then help us through the difficulty; there is nothing for it but to turn back and finish the scientific process which should have preceded the formation of the rule. We must re-open the investigation to inquire into the remainder of the conditions on which the effect depends; and only after we have ascertained the whole of these are we prepared to transform the completed law of the effect into a precept, in which those circumstances or combinations of circumstances which the science exhibits as conditions are prescribed as means.

It is true that, for the sake of convenience, rules must be formed from something less than this ideally perfect theory: in the first place, because the theory can seldom be made ideally perfect; and next, because, if all the counteracting contingencies, whether of frequent or of rare occurrence, were included, the rules would be too cumbrous to be apprehended and remembered by ordinary capacities, on the common occasions of life. The rules of art do not attempt to comprise more conditions than require to be attended to in ordinary cases; and are therefore always imperfect. In the manual arts, where the requisite conditions are not numerous, and where those which the rules do not specify are generally either plain to common observation or speedily learned from practice, rules may often be safely acted on by persons who know nothing more than the rule. But in the complicated affairs of life, and still more in those of states and societies, rules can not be relied on, without constantly referring back to the scientific laws on which they are founded. To know what are the practical contingencies which require a modification of the rule, or which are altogether exceptions to it, is to know what combinations of circumstances would interfere with, or entirely counteract, the consequences of those laws; and this can only be learned by a reference to the theoretic grounds of the rule.

By a wise practitioner, therefore, rules of conduct will only be considered as provisional. Being made for the most numerous cases, or for those of most ordinary occurrence, they point out the manner in which it will be least perilous to act, where time or means do not exist for analyzing the actual circumstances of the case, or where we can not trust our judgment in estimating them. But they do not at all supersede the propriety of going through, when circumstances permit, the scientific process requisite for framing a rule from the data of the particular case before us. At the same time, the common rule may very properly serve as an admonition that a certain mode of action has been found by ourselves and others to be well adapted to the cases of most common occurrence; so that if it be unsuitable to the case in hand, the reason of its being so will be likely to arise from some unusual circumstance.

§ 4. The error is therefore apparent of those who would deduce the line of conduct proper to particular cases from supposed universal practical maxims, overlooking the necessity of constantly referring back to the principles of the speculative science, in order to be sure of attaining even the specific end which the rules have in view. How much greater still, then, must the error be, of setting up such unbending principles, not merely as universal rules for attaining a given end, but as rules of conduct generally, without regard to the possibility, not only that some modifying cause may prevent the attainment of the given end by the means which the rule prescribes, but that success itself may conflict with some other end, which may possibly chance to be more desirable.

This is the habitual error of many of the political speculators whom I have characterized as the geometrical school; especially in France, where ratiocination from rules of practice forms the staple commodity of journalism and political oratory—a misapprehension of the functions of Deduction which has brought much discredit, in the estimation of other countries, upon the spirit of generalization so honorably characteristic of the French mind. The commonplaces of politics in France are large and sweeping practical maxims, from which, as ultimate premises, men reason downward to particular applications; and this they call being logical and consistent. For instance, they are perpetually arguing that such and such a measure ought to be adopted, because it is a consequence of the principle on which the form of government is founded; of the principle of legitimacy, or the principle of the sovereignty of the people. To which it may be answered, that if these be really practical principles, they must rest on speculative grounds; the sovereignty of the people, for example, must be a right foundation for government, because a government thus constituted tends to produce certain beneficial effects. Inasmuch, however, as no government produces all possible beneficial effects, but all are attended with more or fewer inconveniences, and since these can not usually be combated by means drawn from the very causes which produce them, it would be often a much stronger recommendation of some practical arrangement, that it does not follow from what is called the general principle of the government, than that it does. Under a government of legitimacy, the presumption is far rather in favor of institutions of popular origin; and in a democracy, in favor of arrangements tending to check the impetus of popular will. The line of augmentation so commonly mistaken in France for political philosophy, tends to the practical conclusion that we should exert our utmost efforts to aggravate, instead of alleviating, whatever are the characteristic imperfections of the system of institutions which we prefer, or under which we happen to live.

§ 5. The grounds, then, of every rule of art, are to be found in the theorems of science. An art, or a body of art, consists of the rules, together with as much of the speculative propositions as comprises the justification of those rules. The complete art of any matter includes a selection of such a portion from the science as is necessary to show on what conditions the effects, which the art aims at producing, depend. And Art in general, consists of the truths of Science, arranged in the most convenient order for practice, instead of the order which is the most convenient for thought. Science groups and arranges its truths, so as to enable us to take in at one view as much as possible of the general order of the universe. Art, though it must assume the same general laws, follows them only into such of their detailed consequences as have led to the formation of rules of conduct; and brings together from parts of the field of science most remote from one another, the truths relating to the production of the different and heterogeneous conditions necessary to each effect which the exigencies of practical life require to be produced.(288)

Science, therefore, following one cause to its various effects, while art traces one effect to its multiplied and diversified causes and conditions, there is need of a set of intermediate scientific truths, derived from the higher generalities of science, and destined to serve as the generalia or first principles of the various arts. The scientific operation of framing these intermediate principles, M. Comte characterizes as one of those results of philosophy which are reserved for futurity. The only complete example which he points out as actually realized, and which can be held up as a type to be imitated in more important matters, is the general theory of the art of Descriptive Geometry, as conceived by M. Monge. It is not, however, difficult to understand what the nature of these intermediate principles must generally be. After framing the most comprehensive possible conception of the end to be aimed at, that is, of the effect to be produced, and determining in the same comprehensive manner the set of conditions on which that effect depends, there remains to be taken, a general survey of the resources which can be commanded for realizing this set of conditions; and when the result of this survey has been embodied in the fewest and most extensive propositions possible, those propositions will express the general relation between the available means and the end, and will constitute the general scientific theory of the art, from which its practical methods will follow as corollaries.

§ 6. But though the reasonings which connect the end or purpose of every art with its means belong to the domain of Science, the definition of the end itself belongs exclusively to Art, and forms its peculiar province. Every art has one first principle, or general major premise, not borrowed from science; that which enunciates the object aimed at, and affirms it to be a desirable object. The builder’s art assumes that it is desirable to have buildings; architecture, as one of the fine arts, that it is desirable to have them beautiful or imposing. The hygienic and medical arts assume, the one that the preservation of health, the other that the cure of disease, are fitting and desirable ends. These are not propositions of science. Propositions of science assert a matter of fact: an existence, a co-existence, a succession, or a resemblance. The propositions now spoken of do not assert that any thing is, but enjoin or recommend that something should be. They are a class by themselves. A proposition of which the predicate is expressed by the words _ought_ or _should be_, is generically different from one which is expressed by _is_, or _will be_. It is true, that in the largest sense of the words, even these propositions assert something as a matter of fact. The fact affirmed in them is, that the conduct recommended excites in the speaker’s mind the feeling of approbation. This, however, does not go to the bottom of the matter; for the speaker’s approbation is no sufficient reason why other people should approve; nor ought it to be a conclusive reason even with himself. For the purposes of practice, every one must be required to justify his approbation; and for this there is need of general premises, determining what are the proper objects of approbation, and what the proper order of precedence among those objects.

These general premises, together with the principal conclusions which may be deduced from them, form (or rather might form) a body of doctrine, which is properly the Art of Life, in its three departments, Morality, Prudence or Policy, and Æsthetics; the Right, the Expedient, and the Beautiful or Noble, in human conduct and works. To this art (which, in the main, is unfortunately still to be created), all other arts are subordinate; since its principles are those which must determine whether the special aim of any particular art is worthy and desirable, and what is its place in the scale of desirable things. Every art is thus a joint result of laws of nature disclosed by science, and of the general principles of what has been called Teleology, or the Doctrine of Ends;(289) which, borrowing the language of the German metaphysicians, may also be termed, not improperly, the principles of Practical Reason.

A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision. In purely physical science, there is not much temptation to assume this ulterior office; but those who treat of human nature and society invariably claim it: they always undertake to say, not merely what is, but what ought to be. To entitle them to do this, a complete doctrine of Teleology is indispensable. A scientific theory, however perfect, of the subject-matter, considered merely as part of the order of nature, can in no degree serve as a substitute. In this respect the various subordinate arts afford a misleading analogy. In them there is seldom any visible necessity for justifying the end, since in general its desirableness is denied by nobody, and it is only when the question of precedence is to be decided between that end and some other, that the general principles of Teleology have to be called in; but a writer on Morals and Politics requires those principles at every step. The most elaborate and well-digested exposition of the laws of succession and co-existence among mental or social phenomena, and of their relation to one another as causes and effects, will be of no avail toward the art of Life or of Society, if the ends to be aimed at by that art are left to the vague suggestions of the _intellectus sibi permissus_, or are taken for granted without analysis or questioning.

§ 7. There is, then, a _philosophia prima_ peculiar to Art, as there is one which belongs to Science. There are not only first principles of Knowledge, but first principles of Conduct. There must be some standard by which to determine the goodness or badness, absolute and comparative, of ends, or objects of desire. And whatever that standard is, there can be but one; for if there were several ultimate principles of conduct, the same conduct might be approved by one of those principles and condemned by another; and there would be needed some more general principle, as umpire between them.

Accordingly, writers on Moral Philosophy have mostly felt the necessity not only of referring all rules of conduct, and all judgments of praise and blame, to principles, but of referring them to some one principle; some rule, or standard, with which all other rules of conduct were required to be consistent, and from which by ultimate consequence they could all be deduced. Those who have dispensed with the assumption of such a universal standard, have only been enabled to do so by supposing that a moral sense, or instinct, inherent in our constitution, informs us, both what principles of conduct we are bound to observe, and also in what order these should be subordinated to one another.

The theory of the foundations of morality is a subject which it would be out of place, in a work like this, to discuss at large, and which could not to any useful purpose be treated incidentally. I shall content myself, therefore, with saying, that the doctrine of intuitive moral principles, even if true, would provide only for that portion of the field of conduct which is properly called moral. For the remainder of the practice of life some general principle, or standard, must still be sought; and if that principle be rightly chosen, it will be found, I apprehend, to serve quite as well for the ultimate principle of Morality, as for that of Prudence, Policy, or Taste.

Without attempting in this place to justify my opinion, or even to define the kind of justification which it admits of, I merely declare my conviction, that the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient beings; in other words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate principle of Teleology.(290)

I do not mean to assert that the promotion of happiness should be itself the end of all actions, or even of all rules of action. It is the justification, and ought to be the controller, of all ends, but it is not itself the sole end. There are many virtuous actions, and even virtuous modes of action (though the cases are, I think, less frequent than is often supposed), by which happiness in the particular instance is sacrificed, more pain being produced than pleasure. But conduct of which this can be truly asserted, admits of justification only because it can be shown that, on the whole, more happiness will exist in the world, if feelings are cultivated which will make people, in certain cases, regardless of happiness. I fully admit that this is true; that the cultivation of an ideal nobleness of will and conduct should be to individual human beings an end, to which the specific pursuit either of their own happiness or of that of others (except so far as included in that idea) should, in any case of conflict, give way. But I hold that the very question, what constitutes this elevation of character, is itself to be decided by a reference to happiness as the standard. The character itself should be, to the individual, a paramount end, simply because the existence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near approach to it, in any abundance, would go farther than all things else toward making human life happy, both in the comparatively humble sense of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the higher meaning, of rendering life, not what it now is almost universally, puerile and insignificant, but such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have.

§ 8. With these remarks we must close this summary view of the application of the general logic of scientific inquiry to the moral and social departments of science. Notwithstanding the extreme generality of the principles of method which I have laid down (a generality which, I trust, is not, in this instance, synonymous with vagueness), I have indulged the hope that to some of those on whom the task will devolve of bringing those most important of all sciences into a more satisfactory state, these observations may be useful, both in removing erroneous, and in clearing up the true, conceptions of the means by which, on subjects of so high a degree of complication, truth can be attained. Should this hope be realized, what is probably destined to be the great intellectual achievement of the next two or three generations of European thinkers will have been in some degree forwarded.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

1 In the later editions of Archbishop Whately’s “Logic,” he states his
meaning to be, not that “rules” for the ascertainment of truths by
inductive investigation can not be laid down, or that they may not
be “of eminent service,” but that they “must always be comparatively
vague and general, and incapable of being built up into a regular
demonstrative theory like that of the Syllogism.” (Book iv., ch.
iv., § 3.) And he observes, that to devise a system for this
purpose, capable of being “brought into a scientific form,” would be
an achievement which “he must be more sanguine than scientific who
expects.” (Book iv., ch. ii., § 4.) To effect this, however, being
the express object of the portion of the present work which treats
of Induction, the words in the text are no overstatement of the
difference of opinion between Archbishop Whately and me on the
subject.

2 Now forming a chapter in his volume on “The Philosophy of
Discovery.”

3 Archbishop Whately.

4 I use these terms indiscriminately, because, for the purpose in
view, there is no need for making any distinction between them. But
metaphysicians usually restrict the name Intuition to the direct
knowledge we are supposed to have of things external to our minds,
and Consciousness to our knowledge of our own mental phenomena.

5 This important theory has of late been called in question by a
writer of deserved reputation, Mr. Samuel Bailey; but I do not
conceive that the grounds on which it has been admitted as an
established doctrine for a century past, have been at all shaken by
that gentleman’s objections. I have elsewhere said what appeared to
me necessary in reply to his arguments. (_Westminster Review_ for
October, 1842; reprinted in “Dissertations and Discussions,” vol.
ii.)

6 The view taken in the text, of the definition and purpose of Logic,
stands in marked opposition to that of the school of philosophy
which, in this country, is represented by the writings of Sir
William Hamilton and of his numerous pupils. Logic, as this school
conceives it, is “the Science of the Formal Laws of Thought;” a
definition framed for the express purpose of excluding, as
irrelevant to Logic, whatever relates to Belief and Disbelief, or to
the pursuit of truth as such, and restricting the science to that
very limited portion of its total province, which has reference to
the conditions, not of Truth, but of Consistency. What I have
thought it useful to say in opposition to this limitation of the
field of Logic, has been said at some length in a separate work,
first published in 1865, and entitled “An Examination of Sir William
Hamilton’s Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions
discussed in his Writings.” For the purposes of the present
Treatise, I am content that the justification of the larger
extension which I give to the domain of the science, should rest on
the sequel of the Treatise itself. Some remarks on the relation
which the Logic of Consistency bears to the Logic of Truth, and on
the place which that particular part occupies in the whole to which
it belongs, will be found in the present volume (Book II., chap.
iii., § 9).

_ 7 Computation or Logic_, chap. ii.

8 In the original “had, _or had not_.” These last words, as involving
a subtlety foreign to our present purpose, I have forborne to quote.

9 Vide infra, note at the end of § 3, book ii., chap. ii.

_ 10 Notare_, to mark; _con_notare, to mark _along with_; to mark one
thing _with_ or _in addition to_ another.

11 Archbishop Whately, who, in the later editions of his _Elements of
Logic_, aided in reviving the important distinction treated of in
the text, proposes the term “Attributive” as a substitute for
“Connotative” (p. 22, 9th edit.). The expression is, in itself,
appropriate; but as it has not the advantage of being connected with
any verb, of so markedly distinctive a character as “to connote,” it
is not, I think, fitted to supply the place of the word Connotative
in scientific use.

12 A writer who entitles his book _Philosophy; or, the Science of
Truth_, charges me in his very first page (referring at the foot of
it to this passage) with asserting that _general_ names have
properly no signification. And he repeats this statement many times
in the course of his volume, with comments, not at all flattering,
thereon. It is well to be now and then reminded to how great a
length perverse misquotation (for, strange as it appears, I do not
believe that the writer is dishonest) can sometimes go. It is a
warning to readers when they see an author accused, with volume and
page referred to, and the apparent guarantee of inverted commas, of
maintaining something more than commonly absurd, not to give
implicit credence to the assertion without verifying the reference.

13 “Take the familiar term Stone. It is applied to mineral and rocky
materials, to the kernels of fruit, to the accumulations in the
gall-bladder and in the kidney; while it is refused to polished
minerals (called gems), to rocks that have the cleavage suited for
roofing (slates), and to baked clay (bricks). It occurs in the
designation of the magnetic oxide of iron (loadstone), and not in
speaking of other metallic ores. Such a term is wholly unfit for
accurate reasoning, unless hedged round on every occasion by other
phrases; as building stone, precious stone, gall-stone, etc.
Moreover, the methods of definition are baffled for want of
sufficient community to ground upon. There is no quality uniformly
present in the cases where it is applied, and uniformly absent where
it is not applied; hence the definer would have to employ largely
the license of striking off existing applications, and taking in new
ones.”—BAIN, _Logic_, ii., 172.

14 Before quitting the subject of connotative names, it is proper to
observe, that the first writer who, in our times, has adopted from
the schoolmen the word _to connote_, Mr. James Mill, in his
_Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, employs it in a
signification different from that in which it is here used. He uses
the word in a sense co-extensive with its etymology, applying it to
every case in which a name, while pointing directly to one thing
(which is consequently termed its signification), includes also a
tacit reference to some other thing. In the case considered in the
text, that of concrete general names, his language and mine are the
converse of one another. Considering (very justly) the signification
of the name to lie in the attribute, he speaks of the word as
_noting_ the attribute, and _connoting_ the things possessing the
attribute. And he describes abstract names as being properly
concrete names with their connotation dropped; whereas, in my view,
it is the _de_notation which would be said to be dropped, what was
previously connoted becoming the whole signification.

In adopting a phraseology at variance with that which so high an
authority, and one which I am less likely than any other person to
undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I have been influenced by
the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express
the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the
attributes which are involved in its signification. This necessity
can scarcely be felt in its full force by any one who has not found
by experience how vain is the attempt to communicate clear ideas on
the philosophy of language without such a word. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say, that some of the most prevalent of the errors
with which logic has been infected, and a large part of the
cloudiness and confusion of ideas which have enveloped it, would, in
all probability, have been avoided, if a term had been in common use
to express exactly what I have signified by the term to connote. And
the schoolmen, to whom we are indebted for the greater part of our
logical language, gave us this also, and in this very sense. For
though some of their general expressions countenance the use of the
word in the more extensive and vague acceptation in which it is
taken by Mr. Mill, yet when they had to define it specifically as a
technical term, and to fix its meaning as such, with that admirable
precision which always characterizes their definitions, they clearly
explained that nothing was said to be connoted except _forms_, which
word may generally, in their writings, be understood as synonymous
with _attributes_.

Now, if the word _to connote_, so well suited to the purpose to
which they applied it, be diverted from that purpose by being taken
to fulfill another, for which it does not seem to me to be at all
required; I am unable to find any expression to replace it, but such
as are commonly employed in a sense so much more general, that it
would be useless attempting to associate them peculiarly with this
precise idea. Such are the words, to involve, to imply, etc. By
employing these, I should fail of attaining the object for which
alone the name is needed, namely, to distinguish this particular
kind of involving and implying from all other kinds, and to assure
to it the degree of habitual attention which its importance demands.

15 Professor Bain (_Logic_, i., 56) thinks that negative names are not
names of all things whatever except those denoted by the correlative
positive name, but only for all things of some particular class:
_not-white_, for instance, he deems not to be a name for every thing
in nature except white things, but only for every _colored_ thing
other than white. In this case, however, as in all others, the test
of what a name denotes is what it can be predicated of: and we can
certainly predicate of a sound, or a smell, that it is not white.
The affirmation and the negation of the same attribute can not but
divide the whole field of predication between them.

16 Or rather, all objects except itself and the percipient mind; for,
as we shall see hereafter, to ascribe any attribute to an object,
necessarily implies a mind to perceive it.

The simple and clear explanation given in the text, of relation and
relative names, a subject so long the opprobrium of metaphysics, was
given (as far as I know) for the first time, by Mr. James Mill, in
his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind.

17 On the preceding passage Professor Bain remarks (Logic, i., 265):
“The Categories do not seem to have been intended as a
classification of Namable Things, in the sense of ‘an enumeration of
all kinds of Things which are capable of being made predicates, or
of having any thing predicated of them.’ They seem to have been
rather intended as a generalization of predicates; an analysis of
the final import of predication. Viewed in this light, they are not
open to the objections offered by Mr. Mill. The proper question to
ask is not—In what Category are we to place sensations or other
feelings or states of mind? but, Under what Categories can we
predicate regarding states of mind? Take, for example, Hope. When we
say that it is a state of mind, we predicate Substance: we may also
describe how great it is (Quantity), what is the quality of it,
pleasurable or painful (Quality), what it has reference to
(Relation). Aristotle seems to have framed the Categories on the
plan—Here is an individual; what is the final analysis of all that
we can predicate about him?”

This is doubtless a true statement of the leading idea in the
classification. The Category Οὐσία was certainly understood by
Aristotle to be a general name for all possible answers to the
question Quid sit? when asked respecting a concrete individual; as
the other Categories are names comprehending all possible answers to
the questions Quantum sit? Quale sit? etc. In Aristotle’s
conception, therefore, the Categories may not have been a
classification of Things; but they were soon converted into one by
his Scholastic followers, who certainly regarded and treated them as
a classification of Things, and carried them out as such, dividing
down the Category Substance as a naturalist might do, into the
different classes of physical or metaphysical objects as
distinguished from attributes, and the other Categories into the
principal varieties of quantity, quality, relation, etc. It is,
therefore, a just subject of complaint against them, that they had
no Category of Feeling. Feeling is assuredly predicable as a summum
genus, of every particular kind of feeling, for instance, as in Mr.
Bain’s example, of Hope: but it can not be brought within any of the
Categories as interpreted either by Aristotle or by his followers.

_ 18 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i., p. 40.

_ 19 Discussions on Philosophy_, etc. Appendix I., pp. 643, 644.

20 It is to be regretted that Sir William Hamilton, though he often
strenuously insists on this doctrine, and though, in the passage
quoted, he states it with a comprehensiveness and force which leave
nothing to be desired, did not consistently adhere to his own
doctrine, but maintained along with it opinions with which it is
utterly irreconcilable. See the third and other chapters of _An
Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_.

21 “Nous savons qu’il existe quelque chose hors de nous, parceque nous
ne pouvons expliquer nos perceptions sans les rattacher à des causes
distinctes de nous mêmes; nous savons de plus que ces causes, dont
nous ne connaissons pas d’ailleurs l’essence, produisent les effets
les plus variables, les plus divers, et même les plus contraires,
selon qu’elles rencontrent telle nature ou telle disposition du
sujet. Mais savons-nous quelque chose de plus? et même, vu le
caractère indéterminé des causes que nous concevons dans les corps,
y a-t-il quelque chose de plus à savoir? Y a-t-il lieu de nous
enquérir si nous percevons les choses telles qu’elles sont? Non
évidemment.... Je ne dis pas que le problème est insoluble, _je dis
qu’il est absurde et enferme une contradiction_. Nous _ne savons pas
ce que ces causes sont en elles-mêmes_, et la raison nous défend de
chercher à le connaître: mais il est bien évident _à priori_,
qu’_elles ne sont pas en elles-mêmes ce qu’elles sont par rapport à
nous_, puisque la présence du sujet modifie nécessairement leur
action. Supprimez tout sujet sentant, il est certain que ces causes
agiraient encore puisqu’elles continueraient d’exister; mais elles
agiraient autrement; elles seraient encore des qualités et des
propriétés, mais qui ne ressembleraient à rien de ce que nous
connaissons. Le feu ne manifesterait plus aucune des propriétés que
nous lui connaissons: que serait-il? C’est ce que nous ne saurons
jamais. _C’est d’ailleurs peut-être un problème qui ne répugne pas
seulement à la nature de notre esprit, mais à l’essence même des
choses._ Quand même en effet on supprimerait par le pensée tous les
sujets sentants, il faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne
manifesterait ses propriétés autrement qu’en relation avec un sujet
quelconque, et dans ce cas _ses propriétés ne seraient encore que
relatives_: en sorte qu’il me paraît fort raisonnable d’admettre que
les propriétés déterminées des corps n’existent pas indépendamment
d’un sujet quelconque, et que quand on demande si les propriétés de
la matiere sont telles que nous les percevons, il faudrait voir
auparavant si elles sont en tant que déterminées, et dans quel sens
il est vrai de dire qu’elles sont.”—_Cours d’Histoire de la
Philosophie Morale au 18me siècle_, 8me leçon.

22 An attempt, indeed, has been made by Reid and others, to establish
that although some of the properties we ascribe to objects exist
only in our sensations, others exist in the things themselves, being
such as can not possibly be copies of any impression upon the
senses; and they ask, from what sensations our notions of extension
and figure have been derived? The gauntlet thrown down by Reid was
taken up by Brown, who, applying greater powers of analysis than had
previously been applied to the notions of extension and figure,
pointed out that the sensations from which those notions are
derived, are sensations of touch, combined with sensations of a
class previously too little adverted to by metaphysicians, those
which have their seat in our muscular frame. His analysis, which was
adopted and followed up by James Mill, has been further and greatly
improved upon in Professor Bain’s profound work, _The Senses and the
Intellect_, and in the chapters on “Perception” of a work of eminent
analytic power, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s _Principles of Psychology_.

On this point M. Cousin may again be cited in favor of the better
doctrine. M. Cousin recognizes, in opposition to Reid, the essential
subjectivity of our conceptions of what are called the primary
qualities of matter, as extension, solidity, etc., equally with
those of color, heat, and the remainder of the so-called secondary
qualities.—_Cours_, ut supra, 9me leçon.

23 This doctrine, which is the most complete form of the philosophical
theory known as the Relativity of Human Knowledge, has, since the
recent revival in this country of an active interest in metaphysical
speculation, been the subject of a greatly increased amount of
discussion and controversy; and dissentients have manifested
themselves in considerably greater number than I had any knowledge
of when the passage in the text was written. The doctrine has been
attacked from two sides. Some thinkers, among whom are the late
Professor Ferrier, in his _Institutes of Metaphysic_, and Professor
John Grote, in his _Exploratio Philosophica_, appear to deny
altogether the reality of Noumena, or Things in themselves—of an
unknowable substratum or support for the sensations which we
experience, and which, according to the theory, constitute all our
knowledge of an external world. It seems to me, however, that in
Professor Grote’s case at least, the denial of Noumena is only
apparent, and that he does not essentially differ from the other
class of objectors, including Mr. Bailey in his valuable _Letters on
the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, and (in spite of the striking
passage quoted in the text) also Sir William Hamilton, who contend
for a direct knowledge by the human mind of more than the
sensations—of certain attributes or properties as they exist not in
us, but in the Things themselves.

With the first of these opinions, that which denies Noumena, I have,
as a metaphysician, no quarrel; but, whether it be true or false, it
is irrelevant to Logic. And since all the forms of language are in
contradiction to it, nothing but confusion could result from its
unnecessary introduction into a treatise, every essential doctrine
of which could stand equally well with the opposite and accredited
opinion. The other and rival doctrine, that of a direct perception
or intuitive knowledge of the outward object as it is in itself,
considered as distinct from the sensations we receive from it, is of
far greater practical moment. But even this question, depending on
the nature and laws of Intuitive Knowledge, is not within the
province of Logic. For the grounds of my own opinion concerning it,
I must content myself with referring to a work already mentioned—_An
Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_; several chapters
of which are devoted to a full discussion of the questions and
theories relating to the supposed direct perception of external
objects.

24 Professor Bain (_Logic_, i., 49) defines attributes as “points of
community among classes.” This definition expresses well one point
of view, but is liable to the objection that it applies only to the
attributes of classes; though an object, unique in its kind, may be
said to have attributes. Moreover, the definition is not ultimate,
since the points of community themselves admit of, and require,
further analysis; and Mr. Bain does analyze them into resemblances
in the sensations, or other states of consciousness excited by the
object.

_ 25 Analysis of the Human Mind_, i., 126 et seq.

_ 26 Logic_, i., 85.

27 Instead of Universal and Particular as applied to propositions,
Professor Bain proposes (_Logic_, i., 81) the terms Total and
Partial; reserving the former pair of terms for their inductive
meaning, “the contrast between a general proposition and the
particulars or individuals that we derive it from.” This change in
nomenclature would be attended with the further advantage, that
Singular propositions, which in the Syllogism follow the same rules
as Universal, would be included along with them in the same class,
that of Total predications. It is not the Subject’s denoting many
things or only one, that is of importance in reasoning, it is that
the assertion is made of the whole or a part only of what the
Subject denotes. The words Universal and Particular, however, are so
familiar and so well understood in both the senses mentioned by Mr.
Bain, that the double meaning does not produce any material
inconvenience.

28 It may, however, be considered as equivalent to a universal
proposition with a different predicate, viz.: “All wine is good
_quâ_ wine,” or “is good in respect of the qualities which
constitute it wine.”

_ 29 Logic_, i., 82.

30 Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of Discovery_, p. 242) questions this
statement, and asks, “Are we to say that a mole can not dig the
ground, except he has an idea of the ground, and of the snout and
paws with which he digs it?” I do not know what passes in a mole’s
mind, nor what amount of mental apprehension may or may not
accompany his instinctive actions. But a human being does not use a
spade by instinct; and he certainly could not use it unless he had
knowledge of a spade, and of the earth which he uses it upon.

31 Professor Bain remarks, in qualification of the statement in the
text (_Logic_, i., 50), that the word Class has two meanings; “the
class definite, and the class indefinite. The class definite is an
enumeration of actual individuals, as the Peers of the Realm, the
oceans of the globe, the known planets.... The class indefinite is
unenumerated. Such classes are stars, planets, gold-bearing rocks,
men, poets, virtuous.... In this last acceptation of the word, class
name and general name are identical. The class name denotes an
indefinite number of individuals, and connotes the points of
community or likeness.”

The theory controverted in the text, tacitly supposes all classes to
be _definite_. I have assumed them to be indefinite; because, for
the purposes of Logic, definite classes, as such, are almost
useless; though often serviceable as means of abridged expression.
(Vide infra, book iii., chap. ii.)

32 “From hence also this may be deduced, that the first truths were
arbitrarily made by those that first of all imposed names upon
things, or received them from the imposition of others. For it is
true (for example) that _man is a living creature_, but it is for
this reason, that it pleased men to impose both these names on the
same thing.”—_Computation or Logic_, chap. iii., sect. 8.

33 “Men are subject to err not only in affirming and denying, but also
in perception, and in silent cogitation.... Tacit errors, or the
errors of sense and cogitation, are made by passing from one
imagination to the imagination of another different thing; or by
feigning that to be past, or future, which never was, nor ever shall
be; as when by seeing the image of the sun in water, we imagine the
sun itself to be there; or by seeing swords, that there has been, or
shall be, fighting, because it used to be so for the most part; or
when from promises we feign the mind of the promiser to be such and
such; or, lastly, when from any sign we vainly imagine something to
be signified which is not. And errors of this sort are common to all
things that have sense.”—_Computation or Logic_, chap. v., sect. 1.

34 Chap. iii., sect 3.

35 To the preceding statement it has been objected, that “we naturally
construe the subject of a proposition in its extension, and the
predicate (which therefore may be an adjective) in its intension
(connotation): and that consequently co-existence of attributes does
not, any more than the opposite theory of equation of groups,
correspond with the living processes of thought and language.” I
acknowledge the distinction here drawn, which, indeed, I had myself
laid down and exemplified a few pages back (p. 77). But though it is
true that we naturally “construe the subject of a proposition in its
extension,” this extension, or in other words, the extent of the
class denoted by the name, is not apprehended or indicated directly.
It is both apprehended and indicated solely through the attributes.
In the “living processes of thought and language” the extension,
though in this case really thought of (which in the case of the
predicate it is not), is thought of only through the medium of what
my acute and courteous critic terms the “intension.”

For further illustrations of this subject, see _Examination of Sir
William Hamilton’s Philosophy_, chap. xxii.

36 Professor Bain, in his _Logic_ (i., 256), excludes Existence from
the list, considering it as a mere name. All propositions, he says,
which predicate mere existence “are more or less abbreviated, or
elliptical: when fully expressed they fall under either co-existence
or succession. When we say there _exists_ a conspiracy for a
particular purpose, we mean that at the present time a body of men
have formed themselves into a society for a particular object; which
is a complex affirmation, resolvable into propositions of
co-existence and succession (as causation). The assertion that the
dodo does not exist, points to the fact that this animal, once known
in a certain place, has disappeared or become extinct; is no longer
associated with the locality: all which may be better stated without
the use of the verb ‘exist.’ There is a debated question—Does an
ether exist? but the concrete form would be this—‘Are heat and light
and other radiant influences propagated by an ethereal medium
diffused in space;’ which is a proposition of causation. In like
manner the question of the Existence of a Deity can not be discussed
in that form. It is properly a question as to the First _Cause_ of
the Universe, and as to the continued exertion of that Cause in
providential superintendence.” (i., 407.)

Mr. Bain thinks it “fictitious and unmeaning language” to carry up
the classification of Nature to one _summum genus_, Being, or that
which Exists; since nothing can be perceived or apprehended but by
way of contrast with something else (of which important truth, under
the name of Law of Relativity, he has been in our time the principal
expounder and champion), and we have no other class to oppose to
Being, or fact to contrast with Existence.

I accept fully Mr. Bain’s Law of Relativity, but I do not understand
by it that to enable us to apprehend or be conscious of any fact, it
is necessary that we should contrast it with some other positive
fact. The antithesis necessary to consciousness need not, I
conceive, be an antithesis between two positives; it may be between
one positive and its negative. Hobbes was undoubtedly right when he
said that a single sensation indefinitely prolonged would cease to
be felt at all; but simple intermission, without other change, would
restore it to consciousness. In order to be conscious of heat, it is
not necessary that we should pass to it from cold; it suffices that
we should pass to it from a state of no sensation, or from a
sensation of some other kind. The relative opposite of Being,
considered as a summum genus, is Nonentity, or Nothing; and we have,
now and then, occasion to consider and discuss things merely in
contrast with Nonentity.

I grant that the _decision_ of questions of Existence usually if not
always depends on a previous question of either Causation or
Co-existence. But Existence is nevertheless a different thing from
Causation or Co-existence, and can be predicated apart from them.
The meaning of the abstract name Existence, and the connotation of
the concrete name Being, consist, like the meaning of all other
names, in sensations or states of consciousness: their peculiarity
is that to exist, is to excite, or be capable of exciting, _any_
sensations or states of consciousness: no matter what, but it is
indispensable that there should be some. It was from overlooking
this that Hegel, finding that Being is an abstraction reached by
thinking away all particular attributes, arrived at the
self-contradictory proposition on which he founded all his
philosophy, that Being is the same as Nothing. It is really the name
of Something, taken in the most comprehensive sense of the word.

37 Book iv., chap. vii.

_ 38 Logic_, i., 103–105.

39 The doctrines which prevented the real meaning of Essences from
being understood, had not assumed so settled a shape in the time of
Aristotle and his immediate followers, as was afterward given to
them by the Realists of the Middle Ages. Aristotle himself (in his
Treatise on the Categories) expressly denies that the δεύτεραι
οὔσιαι, or Substantiæ Secundæ, inhere in a subject. They are only,
he says, predicated of it.