Chapter XVI: Appendix: C (1)

SUMMARY OF RESULTS.

Those who deny a general doctrine enunciated by Mayer as the basis of his reasonings, habitually assumed by Faraday {315} as a guiding principle in drawing his conclusions, distinctly held by Helmholtz, and tacitly implied by Sir John Herschel—those, I say, who deny this general doctrine and even deride it, should be prepared with clear and strong reasons for doing this. Having been attacked, not in the most temperate manner, for enunciating this doctrine and its necessary implications in a specific form, I have demanded such reasons. Observe the responses to the demand.

1. The _British Quarterly_ Reviewer quoted for my instruction the _dictum_ of Professor Tait, that “Natural Philosophy is an experimental, and not an intuitive science. No _à priori_ reasoning can conduct us demonstratively to a single physical truth.” Thereupon I inquired what Professor Tait meant “by speaking of ‘physical _axioms_,’ and by saying that the cultured are enabled ‘to see _at once_ their _necessary_ truth?’” . . . No reply.

2. Instead of an answer to the question, how this intuition of necessity can be alleged by Professor Tait consistently with his other doctrine, the Reviewer quotes, as though it disposed of my question, Professor Tait’s statement that “as the properties of matter might have been such as to render a totally different set of laws axiomatic, _these laws_ [of motion] _must be considered as resting_ _on convictions drawn from observation_ _and experiment, and not on intuitive_ _perception._” Whereupon I inquired how Professor Tait knows that “the properties of matter _might have been_” other {316} than they are. I asked how it happened that his intuition concerning things _as they are not_, is so certain that, by inference from it, he discredits our intuitions concerning things _as they_ _are_ . . . No reply: Professor Tait told, _à propos_ of my question, a story of which no one could discover the application; but, otherwise, declined to answer. Nor was any answer given by his disciple.

3. Further, I asked how it happened that Professor Tait accepted as bases for Physics, Newton’s Laws of Motion; which were illustrated but not _proved_ by Newton, and of which no _proofs_ are supplied by Professor Tait, in the _Treatise on Natural Philosophy_. I went on to examine what conceivable _a posteriori_ warrant there can be if there is no warrant _a priori_; and I pointed out that neither from terrestrial nor from celestial phenomena can the First Law of Motion be deduced without a _petitio principii_ . . . No reply: the Reviewer characterized my reasoning as “utterly erroneous” (therein differing entirely from two {317} eminent authorities who read it in proof); but beyond so characterizing it he said nothing.

4. To my assertion that Newton gave no
proof of the Laws of Motion, the Reviewer
rejoined that “the whole of the _Principia_
was the proof.” On which my comment was
that Newton called them “axioms,” and that
axioms are not commonly supposed to be
proved by deductions from them . . . The Reviewer quotes
from one of Newton’s
letters a passage
showing that though
he called the Laws
of Motion “axioms,”
he regarded them as
principles “made
general by induction;”
and that therefore he
could not have regarded
them as _a priori_.

5. In rejoinder, I pointed out that whatever conception Newton may have had of these “axioms,” he explicitly and distinctly excluded them from the class of “hypotheses.” Hence I inferred that he did not regard the whole of the {318} _Principia_ as the proof, which the Reviewer says it is; since an assumption made at the outset, to be afterwards justified by the results of assuming it, is an “hypothesis” . . . No reply.

6. Authority aside, I examined on its merits the assertion that the Laws of Motion are, or can be, proved true by the ascertained truth of astronomical predictions; and showed that the process of verification itself assumed those Laws. No reply.

7. To make still clearer the fact that ultimate physical truths are, and must be, accepted as _a priori_, I pointed out that in every experiment the physicist tacitly assumes a relation between cause and effect, such that, if one unit of cause produces its unit of effect, two units of the cause will produce two units of the effect; and I argued that this general assumption included the special assumption asserted in the Second Law of Motion. . . . No reply: that is to say, no endeavour to show the untruth of this statement, but a quibble based on my omission of the word “proportionality” in places where it was implied, though not stated.

8. Attention was drawn to a passage {319} from Sir John Herschel’s _Discourse on the_ _Study of Natural Philosophy_, in which the “proportionality of the effect to its cause in all cases of _direct unimpeded_ action” is included by him among “the characters of that relation which we intend by cause and effect;” and in which this assumption of proportionality is set down as one _preceding_ physical exploration, and not as one to be established by it . . . No reply.

9. Lastly, a challenge to prove this proportionality. “It is required to establish the truth that there is proportionality between causes and effects, _by a process which nowhere assumes_ that if one unit of force produces a certain unit of effect, two units of such force will produce two units of such effect.” . . . No reply.

Thus on all these essential points my three mathematical opponents allow judgment to go against them by default. The attention of readers has been drawn off from the main issues by the discussion of side issues. Fundamental questions have been evaded, and new questions of subordinate kinds raised.

What is the implication? One who is able to reach and to carry the central position of his antagonist, does not spend his strength on small outposts. If he declines to assault the stronghold, it must be because he sees it to be impregnable.

* * * * *

The trouble I have thus taken to meet criticisms and dissipate misapprehensions, I have taken because the attack {320} made on the special doctrine defended, is part of an attack on the ultimate doctrine underlying the deductive part of _First Principles_—the doctrine that the quantity of existence is unchangeable. I agree with Sir W. Hamilton that our consciousness of the necessity of causation, results from the impossibility of conceiving the totality of Being to increase or decrease. The proportionality of cause and effect is an implication: denial of it involves the assertion that some quantity of cause has disappeared without effect, or some quantity of effect has arisen without cause. I have asserted the _a priori_ character of the Second Law of Motion, _under the abstract form in which it is expressed_, simply because this, too, is an implication, somewhat more remote, of the same ultimate truth. And my sole reason for insisting on the validity of these intuitions, is that, on the hypothesis of Evolution, absolute uniformities in things have produced absolute uniformities in thoughts; and that necessary thoughts represent infinitely-larger accumulations of experiences than are formed by the observations, experiments, and reasonings of any single life.

ENDNOTES TO _REPLIES TO CRITICISMS_.

[24] _Principles of Psychology_, Second Edition, § 425, note.

[25] _Le Sentiment Religieux_, par A. Grotz. Paris, J. Cherbuliez, 1870.

[26] Instead of describing me as misunderstanding Kant on this point, Dr. Hodgson should have described Kant as having, in successive sentences, so changed the meanings of the words he uses, as to make either interpretation possible. At the outset of his _Critique of Pure Reason_, he says:—“The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation, is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition, is called _phænomenon_. That which in the phænomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its _matter_;” [here, remembering the definition just given of phenomenon, objective existence is manifestly referred to] “but that which effects that the content of the phænomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its _form_” [so that _form_, as here applied, refers to objective existence]. “But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation.” [In which sentence the word _form_ obviously refers to subjective existence.] At the outset, the ‘phenomenon’ and the ‘sensation’ are distinguished as objective and subjective respectively; and then, in the closing sentences, the _form_ is spoken of in connexion first with the one and then with the other, as though they were the same.

[27] See _Fraser’s Magazine_ for May, 1873.

[28] _First Principles_, § 26.

[29] _Ibid._ § 76 (1st ed.)

[30] Compare _Principles of Psychology_, §§ 88, 95, 391, 401, 406.

[31] _First Principles_, §§ 39–45.

[32] _Principles of Psychology_, part vii.

[33] _Social Statics_, chap. iii.

[34] _Principles of Psychology_, § 531.

[35] _First Principles_, § 34.

[36] Only after the foregoing paragraphs were written, did the remark of a distinguished friend show me how certain words were misconstrued by the reviewer in a way that had never occurred to me as possible. In the passage referred to, I have said that sound-waves “finally die away in generating thermal undulations that radiate into space;” meaning, of course, that the force embodied in the sound-waves is finally _exhausted_ in generating thermal undulations. In common speech, the dying-away of a prolonged sound, as that of a church-bell, includes its gradual diminution as well as its final cessation. But rather than suppose I gave to the words this ordinary meaning, the reviewer supposes me to believe, not simply that the _longitudinal_ waves of air can pass, _without discontinuity_, into the _transverse_ waves of ether, but he also debits me with the belief that the one order of waves, having lengths measurable in feet, and rates expressed in hundreds per second, can, _by mere enfeeblement_, pass into the other order of waves, having lengths of some fifty thousand to the inch, and rates expressed in many billions per second! Why he preferred so to interpret my words, and that, too, in the face of contrary implications elsewhere (instance § 100), will, however, be manifest to every one who reads his criticisms.

[37] Other examples of these amenities of controversy, in which I decline to imitate my reviewer, have already been given. What occasions he supplies me for imitation, were I minded to take advantage of them, an instance will show. Pointing out an implication of certain reasonings of mine, he suggests that it is too absurd even for me to avow explicitly; saying:—“We scarcely think that even Mr. Spencer will venture to claim as a datum of consciousness the Second Law of Motion, with its attendant complexities of component velocities, &c.” Now any one who turns to Newton’s _Principia,_ will find that to the enunciation of the Second Law of Motion, nothing whatever is appended but an amplified re-statement—there is not even an illustration, much less a proof. And from this law, this axiom, this immediate intuition or “datum of consciousness,” Newton proceeds forthwith to draw those corollaries respecting the composition of forces which underlie all dynamics. What, then, must be thought of Newton, who explicitly assumes that which the reviewer thinks it absurd to assume implicitly?

[38] That I am certainly not singular in this view, is shown to me, even while I write, by the just-issued work of Prof. Jevons on the _Principles of Science: a Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method_. In vol. ii., p. 141, Prof. Jevons remarks respecting the law of variation of the attractive force, that it “is doubtless connected at this point with the primary properties of space itself, and is so far conformable to our necessary ideas.”

[39] See Essay on “The Genesis of Science,” in the _British Quarterly Review_ for July, 1854, p. 127.

[40] I do not say this at random. The reviewer, who has sought rather to make known than to conceal his identity, took his degree in 1868.

[41] It is true that in Newton’s time, “axiom” had not the same rigorously defined meaning as now; but it suffices for my argument that, _standing unproved_ as a basis for physical deductions, it bears just the same relation to them that a mathematical axiom does to mathematical deductions.

[42] The above letter, written after absence at Easter had involved a week’s delay, and written somewhat hurriedly to prevent the delay of a second week, was less carefully revised than it should have been. The words in square brackets, obviously implied by the reasoning, and specifically implied by the illustrations, were not in the letter as originally published.

[43] Here, in explaining the genesis of special space-intuitions, I have singled out a group of experiences which, in _Nature_, May 28, Mr. Hayward had chosen as illustrating the absurdity of supposing that the scientific conception of proportionality could be reached as alleged. He said:―

“It is hardly a parody of Mr. Collier’s remarks to say:—‘A child discovers that the greater the angle between his legs the greater the distance between his feet, an experience which implicates the notion of proportionality between the angle of a triangle and its opposite side;’ a preconception, as it appears to me, with just as good a basis as that whose formation Mr. Collier illustrates, but one which, as I need hardly add, is soon corrected by a conscious study of geometry or by actual measurement.”

I am indebted to Mr. Hayward for giving this instance. It conveniently serves two purposes. It serves to exemplify the connexion between the crude preconceptions unconsciously formed by earlier experiences, and the conceptions consciously evolved out of them by the help of later experiences, when the requisite powers of analysis and abstraction have been reached. And at the same time it serves to show the failure of my opponents to understand how, in the genesis of intelligence, the scientific conception of exact proportionality develops from the crude, vague, and inaccurate preconception. For while the notion of proportionality acquired by the child in Mr. Hayward’s example, is not true, it is an approximation towards one which _is_ true, and one which is reached when its more developed intelligence is brought critically to bear on the facts. Eventually it is discovered that the angle is not proportional to the subtending side, but to the subtending arc; and this is discovered _in the process of disentangling a simple relation from other relations which complicate and disguise it_. Between the angle and the arc there is exact proportionality, for the reason that only one set of directly-connected space-relations are concerned: the distance of the subtending arc from the subtended angle, remains constant—there is no change in the relation between the increasing angle and the increasing arc; and therefore the two vary together in direct proportion. But it is otherwise with the subtending side. The parts of this stand in different relations of distance from the subtended angle; and as the line is lengthened, each added part differs from the preceding parts in its distance from the angle. That is to say, one set of simple directly-connected geometrical relations, is here involved with another set; and the relation between the side and the angle is such that the law of relative increase involves the co-operation of two sets of factors. Now the distinguishing the true proportionality (between the angle and the arc) from the relation which simulates proportionality (between the angle and the side) is just that process of final development of exact conceptions, which I assert to be the finishing step of all the preceding development; and to be impossible in its absence. And the truth to which my assailants shut their eyes, is that, just as among these conceptions of space-relations, the conception of exact proportionality can be reached only by evolution from the crude notion of proportionality, formed before reasoning begins; so, among the force-relations, the conception of proportionality finally reached, when simple causes and their effects are disentangled by analytical intelligence, can be reached only by evolution of the crude notion of proportionality, established as a preconception by early experiences which reinforce ancestral experiences.

{321}

PROF. GREEN’S EXPLANATIONS.

[_From the_ Contemporary Review _for Feb. 1881. It would not have occurred to me to reproduce this essay, had it not been that there has lately been a reproduction of the essay to which it replies. But as Mr. Nettleship, in his editorial capacity, has given a permanent shape to Professor Green’s unscrupulous criticism, I am obliged to give a permanent shape to the pages which show its unscrupulousness._]

Dreary at best, metaphysical controversy becomes especially dreary when it runs into rejoinders and re-rejoinders; and hence I feel some hesitation in inflicting, even upon those readers of the _Contemporary_ who are interested in metaphysical questions, anything further concerning Prof. Green’s criticism, Mr. Hodgson’s reply to it, and Prof. Green’s explanations. Still, it appears to me that I can now hardly let the matter pass without saying something in justification of the views attacked by Prof. Green; or, rather, in disproof of the allegations he makes against them.

I did not, when Prof. Green’s two articles appeared, think it needful to notice them: my wish to avoid hindrance to my work, being supported partly by the thought that very few would read a discussion so difficult to follow, and partly by the thought that, of the few who did read it, most would be those whose knowledge of _The Principles of Psychology_ enabled them to see how unlike the argument {322} I have used is the representation of it given by Prof. Green, and how inapplicable his animadversions therefore are. This last belief was, I find, quite erroneous; and I ought to have known better than to form it. Experience might have shown me that readers habitually assume a critic’s version of an author’s statement to be the true version, and that they rarely take the trouble to see whether the meaning ascribed to a detached passage is the meaning which it bears when taken with the context. Moreover, I should have remembered that in the absence of disproofs it is habitually assumed that criticisms are valid; and that inability rather than pre-occupation prevents the author from replying. I ought not, therefore, to have been surprised to learn, as I did from the first paragraph of Mr. Hodgson’s article, that Prof. Green’s criticisms had met with considerable acceptance.

I am much indebted to Mr. Hodgson for undertaking the defence of my views; and after reading Prof. Green’s rejoinder, it seems to me that Mr. Hodgson’s chief allegations remain outstanding. I cannot here, of course, follow the controversy point by point. I propose to deal simply with the main issues.

* * * * *

At the close of his answer, Prof. Green refers to “two other misapprehensions of a more general nature, which he [Mr. Hodgson] alleges against me at the outset of his article.” Not admitting these, Prof. Green postpones replies for the present; though by what replies he can show his apprehensions to be true ones, I do not see. Further misapprehensions of a general nature, which stand as preliminaries to his criticisms, may here be instanced, as serving, I think, to show that those criticisms are misdirected.

From _The Principles of Psychology_ Prof. Green quotes the following sentences:―

“The relation between these, as antithetically opposed divisions of the {323} entire assemblage of manifestations of the Unknowable, was our datum. The fabric of conclusions built upon it must be unstable if this datum can be proved either untrue or doubtful. Should the idealist be right, the doctrine of evolution is a dream.”

And on these sentences he comments thus:―

“To those who have humbly accepted the doctrine of evolution as a valuable formulation of our knowledge of animal life, but at the same time think of themselves as ‘idealists,’ this statement may at first cause some uneasiness. On examination, however, they will find in the first place that when Mr. Spencer in such a connection speaks of the doctrine of evolution, he is thinking chiefly of its application to the explanation of knowledge—an application at least not necessarily admitted in the acceptance of it as a theory of animal life.”[44]

From which it appears that Prof. Green’s conception of Evolution is that popular conception in which it is identified with that set forth in _The Origin of Species_. That my conception of Evolution, referred to in the passage he quotes, is a widely different one, would have been perceived by him had he referred to the exposition of it contained in _First Principles_. My meaning in the passage he quotes is, that since Evolution, as I conceive it, is, under certain conditions, the result of that universal redistribution of matter and motion which is, and ever has been, going on; and since, during those phases of it which are distinguishable as astronomic and geologic, the implication is that no life, still less consciousness (under any such form as is known to us), existed; there is necessarily implied by the theory of Evolution, a mode of Being independent of, and antecedent to, the mode of Being we now call consciousness. And I implied that, consequently, this theory must be a dream, if either ideas are the only existences, or if, as Prof. Green appears to think, the object exists only by correlation with the subject. How necessary is this more general view as a basis for my psychological view, and how erroneous is a criticism which ignores it, will be seen on observing that by ignoring it, I am made to appear profoundly inconsistent where {324} otherwise there is no inconsistency. Prof. Green says that my doctrine―

“ascribes to the object, which in truth is nothing without the subject, an independent reality, and then supposes it gradually to produce certain qualities in the subject, of which the existence is in truth necessary to the possibility of those qualities in the object which are supposed to produce them.”[45]

On which my comment is that, ascribing, as I do, “an independent reality” to the object, and denying that the object is “nothing without the subject,” my doctrine, though wholly inconsistent with that of Professor Green, is wholly consistent with itself. Had he rightly conceived the doctrine of Transfigured Realism (_Prin. of Psy._ § 473), Prof. Green would have seen that while I hold that the qualities of object and subject, as present to consciousness, being resultants of the co-operation of object and subject, exist only through their co-operation, and, in common with all resultants, must be unlike their factors; yet that there pre-exist those factors, and that without them no resultants can exist.

Equally fundamental is another preliminary misconception which Prof. Green exhibits. He says―

“We should be sorry to believe that Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes regard the relation between consciousness and the world as corresponding to that between two bodies, of which one is inside the other; but apart from some such crude imagination it does not appear, &c.”

Now since I deliberately accept, and have expounded at great length, this view which Professor Green does not ascribe to me, because he would be “sorry to believe” I entertain such a “crude imagination”—since this view is everywhere posited by the doctrine of Psychological Evolution as I have set it forth; I am astonished at finding it supposed that I hold some other view. Considering that Parts II. III. and IV. of the _Principles of Psychology_ are occupied with tracing out mental Evolution as a result of converse between organism and environment; and {325} considering that throughout Part V. the interpretations, analytical instead of synthetical, pre-suppose from moment to moment a surrounding world and an included organism; I cannot imagine a stranger assumption than that I do not believe the relationship between consciousness and the world to be that of inclusion of the one by the other. I am aware that Prof. Green does not regard me as a coherent thinker; but I scarcely expected he would ascribe to me an incoherence so extreme that in Part VI. I abandon the fundamental assumption on which all the preceding parts stand, and adopt some other. And I should the less have expected so extreme an incoherence to be ascribed to me, considering that throughout Part VI. this same belief is tacitly implied as part of that realistic belief which it is the aim of its argument to explain and justify. Here, however, the fact of chief significance is, that as Professor Green would be “sorry to believe” I hold the view named, and refrains from ascribing to me so “crude an imagination,” it is to be concluded that his arguments are directed against some other view which he supposes me to hold. If so, one of two conclusions is inevitable. Either his criticisms are valid against this other view which he tacitly ascribes to me, or they are not. If he admits them to be invalid on the assumption that I hold this other view, the matter ends. If he holds them to be valid on the assumption that I hold this other view, then they must be invalid against the absolutely-different view which I actually hold; and again the matter ends.

Even were I to leave off here, I might, I think, say that the inapplicability of Prof. Green’s arguments is sufficiently shown; but it may be desirable to point out that beyond these general misapprehensions, by which they are vitiated, there are special misapprehensions. Much to my surprise, considering the careful preliminary explanation I have given, he has failed to understand the mental attitude assumed by me when describing the synthesis of experiences {326} against which he more especially urges his objections. In chapters entitled “Partial Differentiation of Subject and Object,” “Completed Differentiation of Subject and Object,” and “Developed Conception of the Object,” I have endeavoured, as these titles imply, to trace up the gradual establishment of this fundamental antithesis in a developing intelligence. It appeared to me, and still appears, that for coherent thinking there must be excluded at the outset, not only whatever implies acquired knowledge of objective existence, but also whatever implies acquired knowledge of subjective existence. At the close of the chapter preceding those just named, as well as in _First Principles_, where this process of differentiation was more briefly indicated, I recognized, and emphatically enlarged upon, the difficulty of carrying out such an inquiry: pointing out that in any attempts we make to observe the way in which subject and object become distinguished, we inevitably use those faculties and conceptions which have grown up while the differentiation of the two has been going on. In trying to discern the initial stages of the process, we carry with us all the products which belong to the final stage, and cannot free ourselves from them. In _First Principles_ (§ 43) I have pointed out that the words _impressions_ and _ideas_, the term _sensation_, the phrase _state of consciousness,_ severally involve large systems of beliefs; and that if we allow ourselves to recognize their connotations we inevitably reason circularly. And in the closing sentence of the chapter preceding those above named, I have said―

“Though in every illustration taken we shall have tacitly to posit an external existence, and in every reference to states of consciousness we shall have to posit an internal existence which has these states; yet, as before, we must ignore these implications.”

I should have thought that, with all these cautions before him, Prof. Green would not have fallen into the error of supposing that in the argument thereupon commenced, the phrase “states of consciousness” is used with all its ordinary implications. I should have thought that, as in {327} a note appended to the outset of the argument I have referred to the parallel argument in _First Principles_, where I have used the phrase “manifestations of existence” instead of “states of consciousness,” as the least objectionable; and as the argument in the _Psychology_ is definitely described in this note as a re-statement in a different form of the argument in _First Principles_; he would have seen that in the phrase “states of consciousness,” as used throughout this chapter, was to be included no more meaning than was included in the phrase “manifestations of existence.”[46] I should have thought he would have seen that the purpose of the chapter was passively to watch, with no greater intelligence than is implied in watching, how the manifestations or states, vivid and faint, comport themselves: excluding all thought of their meanings—all interpretations of them. Nevertheless, Prof. Green charges me with having, at the outset of the examination, invalidated my argument by implying, in the terms I use, certain products of developed consciousness.[47] He contends that my division of the “states of consciousness,” or, as I elsewhere term them, “manifestations of existence,” into vivid and faint, is vitiated from the first by including along with the vivid ones those faint ones needful to constitute them perceptions, in the ordinary sense of the word. Because, describing all I passively watch, I speak of a distant {328} head-land, of waves, of boats, &c, he actually supposes me to be speaking of those developed cognitions under which these are classed as such and such objects. What would he have me do? It is impossible to give any such account of the process as I have attempted, without using names for things and actions. The various manifestations, vivid and faint, which in the case described impose themselves on my receptivity, must be indicated in some way; and the words indicating them inevitably carry with them their respective connotations. What more can I do than warn the reader that all these connotations must be ignored, and that attention must be paid exclusively to the manifestations themselves, and the modes in which they comport themselves. At the stage described in this “partial differentiation,” while I suppose myself as yet unconscious of my own individuality and of a world as separate from it, the obvious implication is, that what I name “states of consciousness,” because this is the current term for them, are to have no interpretations whatever put upon them; but that their characters and modes of behaviour are to be observed, as they might be while yet there had been none of that organization of experiences which makes things known in the ordinary sense. It is true that, thus misinterpreting me in December, Prof. Green, writing again in March, puts into the mouth of an imagined advocate the true statement of my view;[48] though he (Prof. Green) then proceeds to deny that I can mean what this imagined advocate rightly says I mean: taking occasion to allege that I use the phrase “states of consciousness” “to give a philosophical character” to what would else seem “written too much after the fashion of a newspaper correspondent.”[49] Even, however, had he admitted that intended meaning which he sees, but denies, the rectification would have been somewhat unsatisfactory, coming three months after various {329} absurdities, based on his misinterpretation, had been ascribed to me.

But the most serious allegation made by Mr. Hodgson against Prof. Green, and which I here repeat, is that he habitually says I regard the object as constituted by “the aggregate of vivid states of consciousness,” in face of the conspicuous fact that I identify the object with the _nexus_ of this aggregate. In his defence Prof. Green says―

“If I had made any attempt to show that Mr. Spencer believes the object to be no more than an aggregate of vivid states of consciousness, Mr. Hodgson’s complaint, that I ignore certain passages in which a contrary persuasion is stated, would have been to the purpose.”

Let us look at the facts. Treating of the relation between my view and the idealistic and sceptical views, he imagines addresses made to me by Berkeley and Hume. “‘You agree with me,’ Berkeley might say, ‘that when we speak of the external world we are speaking of certain lively ideas connected in a certain manner;’”[50] and this identification of the world with ideas, I am tacitly represented as accepting. Again, Hume is supposed to say to me—“You agree with me that what we call the world is a series of impressions;”[51] and here, as before, I am supposed silently to acquiesce in this as a true statement of my view. Similarly throughout his argument, Prof. Green continually states or implies that the object is, in my belief, constituted by the vivid aggregate of states of consciousness. At the outset of his second article,[52] he says of me:—“He there” [in the _Principles of Psychology_] “identifies the object with a certain aggregate of vivid states of consciousness, which he makes out to be independent of another aggregate, consisting of faint states, and identified with the subject.” And admitting that he thus describes my view, he nevertheless alleges that he does not misrepresent me, because, as he says,[53] “there is scarcely a page of my article in {330} which Mr. Spencer’s conviction of the externality and independence of the object, in the various forms in which it is stated by him, is not referred to.” But what if it is referred to in the process of showing that the externality and independence of the object is utterly inconsistent with the conception of it as an aggregate of vivid states of consciousness? What if I am continually made to seem thus absolutely inconsistent, by omitting the fact that not the aggregate of vivid states itself is conceived by me as the object, but the _nexus_ binding it together?

A single brief example will typify Prof. Green’s general method of procedure. On page 40 of his first article he says—“And in the sequel the ‘separation of themselves’ on the part of states of consciousness ‘into two great aggregates, vivid and faint,’ is spoken of as a ‘differentiation between the antithetical existences we call object and subject.’ If words mean anything, then, Mr. Spencer plainly makes the ‘object’ an aggregate of conscious states.” But in the entire passage from which these words of mine are quoted, which he gives at the bottom of the page, a careful reader will observe a word (_omitted_ from Prof. Green’s quotation in the text), which quite changes the meaning. I have described the result, not as “a differentiation,” but as “a _partial_ differentiation.” Now, to use Prof. Green’s expression, “if words mean anything,” a partial differentiation cannot have the same sense as a complete differentiation. If the ‘’object’ has been already constituted by this partial differentiation, what does the ‘object’ become when the differentiation is completed? Clearly, “if words mean anything,” then, had Prof. Green not omitted the word “partial,” it would have been manifest that the aggregate of vivid states was _not_ alleged to be the object. The mode of treatment which we here see in little, exemplifies Prof. Green’s mode of treatment at large. Throughout his two articles he criticizes detached portions, and ascribes to them meanings {331} quite different from those which they have when joined with the rest.

With the simplicity of “a raw undergraduate” (to some of whose views Prof. Green compares some of mine) I had assumed that an argument running through three chapters would not be supposed to have its conclusion expressed in the first; but now, after the professorial lesson I have received, my simplicity will be decreased, and I shall be aware that a critic may deal with that which is avowedly partial, as though it were entire, and may treat as though it were already developed, a conception which the titles of the chapters before him show is yet but incipient.

Here I leave the matter, and if anything more is said, shall let it pass. Controversy must be cut short, or work must be left undone. I can but suggest that metaphysical readers will do well to make their own interpretations of my views, rather than to accept without inquiry all the interpretations offered them.

POSTSCRIPT.—From a note appended by Mr. Nettleship to his republished versions of Prof. Green’s articles, it appears that, after the foregoing pages were published by me, Prof. Green wrote to the editor of the _Contemporary Review_, saying:―

“While I cannot honestly retract anything in the substance of what I then wrote, there are expressions in the article which I very much regret, so far as they might be taken to imply want of personal respect for Mr. Spencer. For reasons sufficiently given in my reply to Mr. Hodgson, I cannot plead guilty to the charge of misrepresentation which Mr. Spencer repeats; but on reading my first article again in cold blood I found that I had allowed controversial heat to betray me into the use of language which was unbecoming—especially on the part of an unknown writer (not even then a ‘professor’) assailing a veteran philosopher. I make this acknowledgment merely for my own satisfaction, not under the impression that it can at all concern Mr. Spencer” (vol. i., p. 541).

Possibly some of Prof. Green’s adherents will ask how, after he has stated that he cannot honestly retract, and that {332} he is not guilty of misrepresentation, I can describe his criticism as unscrupulous. My reply is that a critic who persists in saying that which, on the face of it, is dishonest, and then avers that he cannot honestly do otherwise, does not thereby prove his honesty, but contrariwise. One who deliberately omits from his quotation the word “partial,” and then treats, as though it were complete, that which is avowedly incomplete—one who, in dealing with an argument which runs through three chapters, recognizes only the first of them—one who persists in thinking it proper to do this after the consequent distortions of statement have been pointed out to him; is one who, if not knowingly dishonest, is lacking in due perception of right and wrong in controversy. The only other possible supposition which occurs to me, is that such a proceeding is a natural sequence of the philosophy to which he adheres. Of course, if Being and non-Being are the same, then representation and misrepresentation are the same.

I may add that there is a curious kinship between the ideas implied by the letter above quoted and its implied sentiments. Prof. Green says that his apology for unbecoming language he makes merely for his “own satisfaction.” He does not calm his qualms of conscience by indicating his regret to those who read this unbecoming language; nor does he express his regret to me, against whom it was vented; but he expresses his regret to the editor of the _Contemporary Review_! So that a public insult to A is supposed to be cancelled by a private apology to B! Here is more Hegelian thinking; or rather, here is Hegelian feeling congruous with Hegelian thinking.

ENDNOTES TO _PROF. GREEN’S EXPLANATIONS_.

[44] _Contemporary Review_, December, 1877, p. 35.

[45] _Contemporary Review_, December, 1877, p. 37

[46] If I am asked why here I used the phrase “states of consciousness” rather than “manifestations of existence,” though I had previously preferred the last to the first, I give as my reason the desire to maintain continuity of language with the preceding chapter, “The Dynamics of Consciousness.” In that chapter an examination of consciousness had been made with the view of ascertaining what principle of cohesion determines our beliefs, as preliminary to observing how this principle operates in establishing the beliefs in subject and object. But on proceeding to do this, the phrase “state of consciousness” was supposed, like the phrase “manifestation of existence,” not to be used as anything more than a name by which to distinguish this or that form of being, as an undeveloped receptivity would become aware of it, while yet self and not-self were undistinguished.

[47] _Contemporary Review_, December, 1877, pp. 49, 50.

[48] _Contemporary Review_, March, 1878, p. 753.

[49] _Ibid._, March, 1878, p. 755.

[50] _Contemporary Review_, December, 1877, p. 44.

[51] _Ibid._, December, 1877, p. 44.

[52] _Ibid._, March, 1878, p. 745.

[53] _Ibid._, January, 1881, p. 115.

{333}

THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE.

[_First published in_ The Westminster Review _for October 1852._]

Commenting on the seeming incongruity between his father’s argumentative powers and his ignorance of formal logic, Tristram Shandy says:—“It was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society, that a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work after that fashion with them.” Sterne’s implied conclusion that a knowledge of the principles of reasoning neither makes, nor is essential to, a good reasoner, is doubtless true. Thus, too, is it with grammar. As Dr. Latham, condemning the usual school-drill in Lindley Murray, rightly remarks:—“Gross vulgarity is a fault to be prevented; but the proper prevention is to be got from habit—not rules.” Similarly, good composition is far less dependent on acquaintance with its laws, than on practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless. And where there exists any mental flaw—where there is a deficient verbal memory, or an inadequate sense of logical dependence, or but little perception of order, or a lack of constructive ingenuity; no amount of instruction will insure good writing. Nevertheless, _some_ result may be expected from a familiarity {334} with the principles of style. The endeavour to conform to laws may tell, though slowly. And if in no other way, yet, as facilitating revision, a knowledge of the thing to be achieved—a clear idea of what constitutes a beauty, and what a blemish—cannot fail to be of service.

* * * * *

No general theory of expression seems yet to have been enunciated. The maxims contained in works on composition and rhetoric, are presented in an unorganized form. Standing as isolated dogmas—as empirical generalizations, they are neither so clearly apprehended, nor so much respected, as they would be were they deduced from some simple first principle. We are told that “brevity is the soul of wit.” We hear styles condemned as verbose or involved. Blair says that every needless part of a sentence “interrupts the description and clogs the image;” and again, that “long sentences fatigue the reader’s attention.” It is remarked by Lord Kaimes that, “to give the utmost force to a period, it ought, if possible, to be closed with the word that makes the greatest figure.” Avoidance of parentheses, and the use of Saxon words in preference to those of Latin origin, are often insisted upon. But, however influential the precepts thus dogmatically expressed, they would be much more influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In this as in other cases, conviction is strengthened when we understand the _why_. And we may be sure that recognition of the general principle from which the rules of composition result, will not only bring them home to us with greater force, but will disclose other rules of like origin.

On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims, we may see implied in many of them, the importance of economizing the reader’s or hearer’s attention. To so present ideas that they may be apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the desideratum towards which most of the rules above quoted point. When we {335} condemn writing that is wordy, or confused, or intricate—when we praise this style as easy, and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously assume this desideratum as our standard of judgment. Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for conveying thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the result. A reader or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him, requires part of this power; to arrange and combine the images suggested by them requires a further part; and only that part which remains can be used for framing the thought expressed. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time and attention can be given to the contained idea; and the less vividly will that idea be conceived. How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say, “Leave the room,” is less expressive than to point to the door. Placing a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, “Do not speak.” A beck of the hand is better than, “Come here.” No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words. Again, it may be remarked that when oral language is employed, the strongest effects are produced by interjections, which condense entire sentences into syllables. And in other cases, where custom allows us to express thoughts by single words, as in _Beware_, _Heigho_, _Fudge_, much force would be lost by expanding them into specific propositions. Hence, carrying out the metaphor that {336} language is the vehicle of thought, we may say that in all cases the friction and inertia of the vehicle deduct from its efficiency; and that in composition, the chief thing to be done, is, to reduce the friction and inertia to the smallest amounts. Let us then inquire whether economy of the recipient’s attention is not the secret of effect, alike in the right choice and collocation of words, in the best arrangement of clauses in a sentence, in the proper order of its principal and subordinate propositions, in the judicious use of simile, metaphor, and other figures of speech, and even in the rhythmical sequence of syllables.

The greater forcibleness of Saxon English, or rather non-Latin English, first claims our attention. The several special reasons assignable for this may all be reduced to the general reason—economy. The most important of them is early association. A child’s vocabulary is almost wholly Saxon. He says, _I have_, not _I possess_—_I wish_, not _I desire_; he does not _reflect_, he _thinks_; he does not beg for _amusement_, but for _play_; he calls things _nice_ or _nasty_, not _pleasant_ or _disagreeable_. The synonyms learned in after years, never become so closely, so organically, connected with the ideas signified, as do these original words used in childhood; the association remains less strong. But in what does a strong association between a word and an idea differ from a weak one? Essentially in the greater ease and rapidity of the suggestive action. Both of two words, if they be strictly synonymous, eventually call up the same image. The expression—It is _acid_, must in the end give rise to the same thought as—It is _sour_; but because the term _acid_ was learnt later in life, and has not been so often followed by the ideal sensation symbolized, it does not so readily arouse that ideal sensation as the term _sour_. If we remember how slowly the meanings follow unfamiliar words in another language, and how increasing familiarity with them brings greater rapidity and ease of comprehension; and if we consider that the {337} like effect must have resulted from using the words of our mother tongue from childhood upwards; we shall clearly see that the earliest learnt and oftenest used words, will, other things equal, call up images with less loss of time and energy than their later learnt equivalents.

The further superiority possessed by Saxon English in its comparative brevity, obviously comes under the same generalization. If it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest number of words, then it must be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of syllables. If circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then so, too, must surplus articulations. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, is required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as all know, it is tiresome to listen to an indistinct speaker, or to read an ill-written manuscript; and if, as we cannot doubt, the fatigue is a cumulative result of the attention needed to catch successive syllables; it follows that attention is in such cases absorbed by each syllable. And this being so when the syllables are difficult of recognition, it will be so too, though in a less degree, when the recognition of them is easy. Hence, the shortness of Saxon words becomes a reason for their greater force. One qualification, however, must not be overlooked. A word which embodies the most important part of the idea to be conveyed, especially when emotion is to be produced, may often with advantage be a polysyllabic word. Thus it seems more forcible to say—“It is _magnificent_,” than—“It is _grand_.” The word _vast_ is not so powerful a one as _stupendous_. Calling a thing _nasty_ is not so effective as calling it _disgusting_. There seem to be several causes for this exceptional superiority of certain long words. We may ascribe it partly to the fact that a voluminous, mouth-filling epithet is, by its very size, suggestive of largeness or strength, as is shown by the pomposity of sesquipedalian verbiage; and when great power or {338} intensity has to be suggested, this association of ideas aids the effect. A further cause may be that a word of several syllables admits of more emphatic articulation; and as emphatic articulation is a sign of emotion, the unusual impressiveness of the thing named is implied by it. Yet another cause is that a long word (of which the latter syllables are generally inferred as soon as the first are spoken) allows the hearer’s consciousness more time to dwell on the quality predicated; and where, as in the above cases, it is to this predicated quality that the entire attention is called, an advantage results from keeping it before the mind for an appreciable interval. To make our generalization quite correct we must therefore say, that while in certain sentences expressing feeling, the word which more especially implies that feeling may often with advantage be a many-syllabled one; in the immense majority of cases, each word, serving but as a step to the idea embodied by the whole sentence, should, if possible, be a single syllable.

Once more, that frequent cause of strength in Saxon and other primitive words—their onomatopœia, may be similarly resolved into the more general cause. Both those directly imitative, as _splash_,_bang_, _whiz_, _roar_, &c., and those analogically imitative, as _rough_, _smooth_, _keen_, _blunt_, _thin_, _hard_, _crag_, &c., have a greater or less likeness to the things symbolized; and by making on the ears impressions allied to the ideas to be called up, they save part of the effort needed to call up such ideas, and leave more attention for the ideas themselves.

Economy of the recipient’s mental energy may be assigned, too, as a manifest cause for the superiority of specific over generic words. That concrete terms produce more vivid impressions than abstract ones, and should, when possible, be used instead, is a current maxim of composition. As Dr. Campbell says, “The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter; the more special {339} they are, the brighter.” When aiming at effect we should avoid such a sentence as:

―― When the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of their penal code will be severe.

And in place of it we should write:

―― When men delight in battles, bull-fights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack.

This superiority of specific expressions is clearly due to a saving of the effort required to translate words into thoughts. As we do not think in generals but in particulars—as, whenever any class of things is named, we represent it to ourselves by calling to mind individual members of the class; it follows that when a general word is used, the hearer or reader has to choose from his stock of images, one or more, by which he may figure to himself the whole group. In doing this, some delay must arise—some force be expended; and if, by employing a specific term, an appropriate image can be at once suggested, an economy is achieved, and a more vivid impression produced.