Chapter V: Section 21: When Heraclitus of Ephesus, moved thereto by his view (2)

The Nominalistic doctrine that only individuals have real existence, and that the universal, whatever it may be, is to be sought in the mind, distinguishes between the spheres of being and denies to one what it allows to another. Of the extreme nominalistic position, that the only true universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to several distinct objects, I shall not here speak. I have discussed this wholly untenable view elsewhere.[46] But the more reasonable Nominalism, the conceptualistic, is worthy of examination here. In so far as it holds that the mind can form a concept, which shall consist of the element or elements several objects have in common, we have no quarrel with it. Here we find a true universal, obtained by discarding differences which distinguish objects from one another. We obtain by this that mental core common to several similar mental objects. If, however, we distinguish between mental objects and "real" things corresponding to them, we have evidently two distinct fields to consider. When we say a number of objects in consciousness are alike, we are simply pointing out the fact that they contain a universal element as well as individual differences. Can we say that a number of "real" objects are alike? If so, what do we mean in saying it? If there is nothing to prevent us from calling them individuals, there would seem to be nothing to prevent us from affirming that they are "really" alike. Does likeness ever mean anything except sameness in difference? Is not, then, the element in which several objects resemble each other a universal element, whether the objects be mental or "real?" What else does universal mean? The excuse for speaking ceases when language ceases to be significant. One does not in the least explain the similarity, or sameness in the fourth sense, of a number of "real" objects, by assuming a universal in a quite different world--one which could not possibly exist in the world of the objects. This solution of the problem is Platonic. The element which twenty real objects have in common must be a "real" element, or it cannot be a constituent part of each object. If it is not a constituent part of each object, it is absurd to speak of the objects as having it in common. If they have nothing in common, it is absurd to say that they are alike. Twenty similar objects must have a universal element, to whatever sphere of being they belong; and this element must belong to the same sphere as the objects. A mental universal is the same with a "real" universal only in sense seventh, and it can furnish no explanation of the likeness of "real" things.

[46] See my "Conception of the Infinite," Ch. VI (J. B. Lippincott
Co., Philadelphia). It is but fair to state that my criticism of
Realism in this volume is directed against the "_ante rem_" Realism.
I did not have the Moderate Realism in mind, and what I said will not
apply to it.

In the light of the foregoing analysis a goodly number of the scholastic arguments regarding universals are easily seen to contain errors. The Anselmic view of genera and species as universal substances,[47] for instance, makes an abstraction a thing and distinguishes it from other things. It fails to keep it abstract. The doctrine attributed to William of Champeaux, by Abelard, that universals are essentially and wholly present in each of their individuals, in which latter there is no diversity of essence, but only variety through accidents,[48] is tenable or not according to the sense in which the words are taken. The word "wholly" is an awkward one, and would incline one to the view that William regarded the universal as a thing, a concrete, which may be in this place or that. If this were his opinion, and it is perhaps more reasonable to believe that it was, the objection of Abelard, that this would necessitate the same thing's being in different places at the same time, would hold good. If the essence of humanity be wholly in Socrates, it must be where Socrates is. It cannot, then, be somewhere else in Plato. Manifestly humanity, so regarded, is not a universal at all. It is "this humanity" or "that humanity," _i. e._, this or that occurrence of humanity; and two occurrences of a quality or group of qualities are two individuals. The word "in" I have shown to be ambiguous. Any element, regarded as, in one sense, _in_ an individual, retains the local flavor which makes universality impossible. But if William meant nothing more by his statement than that the element common to the individuals is a constituent part of each, and that there is in it no distinction which will allow us to put it part here and part there, the polemic of Abelard is not justifiable. Whatever he may have intended to say, there can be no mistake as to the meaning of the following sentence from Robert Pulleyn: "The species is the whole substance of individuals, and the whole species is the same in each individual: therefore the species is one substance, but its individuals many persons, and these many persons are that one substance."[49] The dialectician represented as saying this, ought to have been a prey to profound melancholy; his samenesses are clearly in deplorable confusion. He makes his universal an individual, and then imposes upon it duties which no individual can fulfil with credit. It is to be one and yet not one: distinct from something else, and yet identical with it. It is to be a universal and not a universal. It is by no means to be envied. The conceptualistic position of Abelard, that we may gain a subjective universal by abstraction, but that only individuals exist in reality, is open to the objections that I advanced in discussing Nominalism. The position is supported[50] by the argument that we may abstract the form from the substantial subject to which it is united, and consider it separately, while in nature there is no such abstraction, the form and the subject forming a united whole. To this one may answer, as I have indicated above, that, whatever it may be united with, the form in the several individuals is in some sense the same, or the individuals would not be alike, and the concept would be of no service in representing it. What is meant by such sameness? Is it anything but sameness in sense fourth? When several objects are the same in sense fourth, is not the element common to them a universal? Why make this conceptualistic discrimination between things in mind and "real" things?

[47] Hauréau. _Philos. Scholastique._ Paris, 1872. I, p. 281.

[48] _Historia Calamitatum_, quoted by Hauréau. I, p. 324.

[49] _Species est tota substantia individuorum, totaque species
eademque in singulis reperitur individuis: itaque species una est
substantia, ejus vero individua multæ personæ, et hæ multæ personæ
sunt illa una substantia._ (_Sentent._, p. I, c. III.)--Quoted by
Hauréau, I, p. 328.

[50] Hauréau, I, 380-381. The argument is taken from the _De
Intellectibus_.

Finally, in passing from scholasticism, I would suggest that it is conducive to clearness in thinking to bear in mind that when Albert, or Thomas, or Duns, declares in favor of all three kinds of universal, _ante rem_, _in re_, and _post rem_, he is declaring for three things and not one. He is not at all in the position of the old Platonic Realist; but is rather, if I may so express it, a kind of triple Aristotelian. One may perfectly well hold to all three universals, by putting one in the mind of God, one in things, and one in a human mind; but an individual may be given this three-fold existence quite as well as a universal. In the old Realism the problem of the universal called into existence a new sphere of being. Here a new sphere of being, assumed upon extraneous grounds, furnishes one more universal. The universals in the mind of God are not assumed as the object of the general name applied to twenty "real" objects. The object of this name is the _in re_. The _ante rem_ universal cannot, then, be gotten as Plato got it. In this distinction between the different spheres of being we have an advance in reflection; but as I have said, on this new ground the individual may demand its rights. The _ante rem_ Realism of the great scholastics of the thirteenth century should not be confounded with that of an earlier period. It is not open to the same objections. But on the other hand, it has not the same excuse for existence. It is a historical relic.

SEC. 29. The first of the moderns to whom I shall refer is Descartes. There are certain passages in the Meditations which will well illustrate the efforts made by this remarkable man in the direction of accurate analysis, as also the errors into which he fell through a confusion of the kinds of sameness. I shall quote from the second and third Meditations:

"Let us now accordingly consider the things which are commonly thought the easiest of all to know, and which are thought also to be the most distinctly known, that is, the bodies that we touch and see; not indeed bodies in general, for these general notions are usually a little more confused: but let us consider a single one of them. Let us take, for example, this bit of wax; it has just been taken from the hive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still keeps something of the odor of the flowers from which it has been gathered; its color, its figure, its size, are apparent; it is hard, it is cold, it is easily handled, and if struck it gives a sound. In a word, everything that can make a body distinctly known is found in this one. But notice, while I speak, it is placed near the fire; what remained of savor and odor disappears, its color changes, its figure is lost, its size increases, it becomes liquid, grows hot, one can scarcely handle it, and when struck it no longer gives a sound. Does the same wax remain after this change? One must admit that it does; no one doubts it; no one judges otherwise. What then was it that was known with so much distinctness in this bit of wax? Certainly nothing that I perceived by means of the senses, for all the things which fall under taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing, are changed, and yet the same wax remains. Perhaps it was what I think now, namely, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, the agreeable odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body which a little before appeared to my senses under these forms, and which now appears to them under others. But to speak precisely, what do I imagine when I think it in this way? Let us consider it attentively, and abstracting all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. Surely nothing remains but something extended, flexible and mutable. But what is that, flexible and mutable? Is it not that I imagine that this bit of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square and of changing from square to triangular? No, it is certainly not that, for I think it capable of an infinite number of similar changes; but I could not run through this infinite number by my imagination, and consequently this conception that I have of the wax is not due to the faculty of imagination. But what now is this extension? Is it not also unknown? For it becomes greater when the wax melts, greater when it boils, and still greater when the heat increases, and I could not conceive clearly and truly what wax is, if I did not think that even this bit that we are considering is capable of receiving more varieties of extension than I have ever imagined. It must then be admitted that I could not comprehend by imagination even what this bit of wax is, and that only my understanding can comprehend it. I say this particular bit of wax; for as for wax in general, it is still more evident. But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainly the same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning. But, what is important to note here is, that my perception is not a sensation of sight, nor of touch, nor an act of the imagination, and it has never been this, although it may have seemed so before; but it is merely an intuition (_inspection_) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is at present, according as my attention is directed more or less to the elements in it, and of which it is composed.

"However, I cannot be too much surprised when I consider the weakness of my mind and its proneness to be carried insensibly into error. For even when I consider all this in my own mind, and without using language, the words arrest me, and I am almost deceived by the terms in common use; for we say that we see the same wax if it be present, and not that we judge that it is the same, from its having the same color and figure; whence I might be tempted to conclude that one knows the wax by the sight of the eyes, and not merely by the intuition of the mind, were it not that, in looking from a window at men passing in the street, I say that I see men, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from this window except hats and cloaks which might cover machines moved by springs? But I judge that they are men, and thus comprehend only by the power of judging, which is in my mind, what I thought I saw with my eyes."[51]

[51] Méditation Deuxième.--Ed. Simon, Paris, 1860, pp. 76-78.

In this extract the author attempts to distinguish between what
is thought and what is perceived by the senses or imagined. Had
he remained within the sphere of the immediately known, one could
not have objected to such a distinction. Sameness in sense third
is something highly complex, implying that elaboration of mental
elements which we call thought. It is quite just to distinguish
the notion "a bit of wax" from any single sense experience or
picture of the imagination. In doing this Descartes was searching
for sameness in sense third. But when he leaves the sphere of
consciousness, and assumes that what remains the same in the bit
of wax is something distinct from the sum total of experiences, as
men are distinct from their garments, he falls into error. It is
against this that the criticism in the text is directed.

What Descartes is feeling for in this is sameness in sense third. When we use the words "a bit of wax," we do not have in mind a single experience. The wax in a solid and the wax in a liquid state is to us the same wax. I have pointed out what the word same, so used, means. It means that these two experiences are recognized as belonging to the one group or series of experiences; and the wax, completely known, is the sum total of the series. Descartes saw very well that the two experiences under discussion are not strictly identical (the same in sense first), and he saw also that they are very unlike. He naturally asked, In what then are they the same? or, what is there that is here the same? And, instead of accepting the fact that such a sameness as this cannot be reduced to one of the others, he solved the problem by passing from the experiences, the "hats and cloaks," to a "real" thing underlying. In other words, to explain the sameness of two experiences of a bit of wax, sameness in sense third, he assumed "real" wax, which is the same with the experiences which represent it only in sense seventh. This real wax, or something in it, he supposes to remain the same on two occasions. It is this to which he makes the mind refer when it calls the wax the same. But when a man advances statements about a bit of wax, his information rests ultimately upon his experiences, if it be grounded at all. From the experience one infers the "real" thing, and not _vice versa_. No one knew this better than Descartes, with his fundamental principle of the certainty of consciousness and the uncertainty of what is "external." He got his "real" world by a process of reasoning, and put it in a realm wholly cut off from direct observation. This being the case, one cannot but wonder at his inconsistency in the present instance. Is one to remain in doubt whether a piece of wax felt to be hard, and then melted before the fire, is the same, until one has had some means of discovering that the same "real" wax is present on the two occasions? How is one to find out whether "real" wax is ever present unless he infer its presence from some experience? And how is one to know that the same "real" wax is present on two occasions unless he infer it from the fact that what is directly perceived on the two occasions is the same in some sense of the word? Whatever sameness there is rests ultimately for its evidence upon the experiences. There is nothing else to judge from. The reasoning, which would base the sameness of what is experienced upon the sameness of a corresponding "real" thing, when the sameness of this latter is to be inferred from the former, reminds one of the stupid argument, still occasionally met with, which would infer a God from data of consciousness, and then found a belief in the veracity of consciousness upon the goodness of God. One may believe, if one please, that, when we have two distinct experiences so connected that we call them two perceptions of the same wax, there is in some way connected with them a bit of "real" wax which remains in some sense the same. But one should never suppose that any given experienced wax is proved the same by reference to this. It is judged the same upon observation.

Descartes then was inconsistent with his own principles when he made this jump to a new sphere of being. The sameness of the experienced object is ultimate; the only pertinent question is, what does it mean? It means, as I have said, that the wax hard and the wax soft are the same in sense third. But sameness in sense third admits of wide dissimilarities in the experiences it unites into the notion of the one object. Descartes looked for a sameness without these dissimilarities. He would reduce sense third to sense first, or, perhaps, to sense second. To do this he must go behind the experiences to a "real" thing, which is to remain the same as a proxy for what is evidently variable. This makeshift is only satisfactory to one who overlooks, or allows to fall into the background, the plain fact that representative and thing represented are two separate things and not to be confused; that is, who confuses sameness in sense first with sameness in sense seventh. Descartes distinguished carefully between ideas and external things, but he sometimes overlooked the distinction. "But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainly the same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning." How ambiguous! is it the same in sense first or sense seventh? The sentence following would indicate sense seventh, but the spirit of the whole discussion would argue for sense first. One must delude oneself into believing that one can get at "real" wax directly, in some way or other, or one cannot think of making it an ultimate ground of reasoning. Descartes, like so many others, would seem to have vibrated between a clear consciousness that ideas and "real" things are distinct, belonging to different worlds, and a confused belief that they belong to the one world, and that "real" things are open to direct observation.

I shall take still another extract from this author. It contains similar errors.

"Now, among these ideas, some appear to me to be inborn, others to be foreign and to come from without, and still others to be made and invented by myself. For, as to the faculty of conceiving that which, in general, one calls a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it appears to me that I do not get that from any other source than my own nature; but if now I hear a sound, if I see the sun, if I feel the heat, up to the present I have judged that these sensations proceed from things which exist without me; and lastly, it seems to me that syrens, hippogriffs, and all similar chimeras are fictions and inventions of my mind. But perhaps I can persuade myself, that all these ideas belong to the class of those that I call foreign, and that come to me from without, or that they are all innate, or else that they are all created by myself; for I have not yet clearly discovered their true source. And my chief duty here is to consider, touching those which seem to come from objects without me, what reasons I have for thinking them like their objects.

"The first of the reasons is that I seem to be taught to do so by nature; and the second, that I perceive that these ideas are not dependent upon my will; for often they present themselves to me in spite of me, as now, whether I wish it or not, I feel heat, and consequently am persuaded that this sensation or idea of heat is produced in me by something different from me, to wit: by the heat of the fire by which I am sitting. And I cannot see that anything is more reasonable than to judge that this external object emits and impresses upon me its resemblance rather than anything else.

"Now I must see if these reasons are sufficiently strong and convincing. When I say that I seem to be taught so by nature, I mean merely by this word nature a certain inclination which leads me to believe it, and not a natural light which gives me certain knowledge that it is true. But these two ways of speaking are very different, for I cannot doubt anything that the natural light shows me to be true, as it has just shown me that from the fact of my doubting I may infer my existence; inasmuch as I have not in me any other faculty or power of distinguishing the true from the false to teach me that what this light shows me to be true is not true, and in which I may have as much confidence as in it. But as concerns inclinations which also seem to me natural, I have often remarked, when it has been a question of choice between virtues and vices, that they do not less incline to evil than to good; it follows that I have no more reason to follow them when the true and the false are in question. And as for the other reason, which is that these ideas must come from without, since they are not dependent on my will, I do not find it more convincing. For while these inclinations of which I have just spoken are in me, notwithstanding that they are not always in harmony with my will, perhaps there is in me some faculty or power capable of producing these ideas without the aid of external things, although it is yet unknown to me; as indeed it has always seemed to me up to this time that when I sleep they are thus formed in me without the aid of the objects they represent. Finally, even should I admit that they are caused by these objects, it does not necessarily follow that they must be like them. On the contrary, I have often remarked in many instances, that there is a great difference between an object and its idea: as, for example, I find in me two very different ideas of the sun; the one has its source in the senses, and should be placed in the class of those which I have said above come from without, and from this it seems to me very small; the other has it origin in astronomical reasonings, that is to say, in certain notions which are inborn, or else formed in some way or other by myself, and from this it seems to me many times greater than the whole earth. Surely, these two ideas which I have of the sun cannot both be like the same sun; and reason convinces me that the one which is derived directly from its appearance is the one which is most unlike it. All of which proves to me that, up to this hour, it has not been by a sure and premeditated judgment, but merely by a blind and rash impulse, that I have been led to believe that there are things without me, and different from my being, which, by the organs of my senses, or by whatever other means, convey to me their ideas or images, and impress upon me their resemblances."[52]

[52] Méditation Troisième, pp. 83-85.

From the earlier portions of this extract one may see how clearly Descartes distinguished between the idea, or the thing immediately known, and the external thing which he assumed as corresponding to the idea; from the latter part one may see how he sometimes confounded them. He finds that he may doubt whether ideas have any external correlatives; and, granting that they have, whether the two resemble each other at all. All this would imply that "external" things are completely cut off from observation. And yet he states with _naïveté_ that he has "often remarked in many instances that there is a great difference between an object and its idea." Now, if this can really be remarked in many instances, the doubt as to the existence of objects would seem to be groundless. How can it be remarked? On this point Descartes is silent. He has evidently fallen back upon the popular notion that under favorable circumstances one can get a look at a "real" thing, just as it is. The "reason" which convinces him that the astronomer's notion of the sun is the true notion is nothing but this. It could certainly not be deduced from his only argument for the existence of external things--the veracity of God. How does he know, that in giving us several different ideas of the sun, God has chosen to have this one only resemble it? It is a pure assumption. Reason is of service when one has something to go upon; but in the absence of premises it will not carry one far. This assumption is an illustration of what I had occasion to remark upon in criticizing Pyrrho; of the fact that, from the series of possible perceptions which we group together as one object, we are apt to select one, to us for some reason the most satisfactory one, and to regard it as more truly representing the object than the others. Descartes has followed this impulse, and made this perception the best representative of the "real" object. Had he always distinguished sameness in sense first from sameness in sense seventh, he would have seen how purely gratuitous is his assumption.

The statement, too, that two different ideas of the sun cannot both resemble the same sun, shows how little he comprehended what it meant by the word same when used in the third sense. If by the sun we mean a whole series of possible perceptions, perhaps quite unlike each other, but all united and related in certain ways, there is nothing to prevent very dissimilar things from being like the same sun. Each of them need only resemble a single link in the series. By the words "the same sun" Descartes meant the same in sense first, but this sins against the proper meaning of the term. The difficulty is self-created.

Descartes' sun reminds me of Berkeley's moon. This latter writer clearly perceived that there may be multiplicity and diversity where one attributes sameness in sense third. Note the following:

"But for a fuller explication of this point, and to show that the immediate objects of sight are not so much as the ideas or resemblances of things placed at a distance, it is requisite that we look nearer into the matter, and carefully observe what is meant in common discourse when one says that which he sees is at a distance from him. Suppose, for example, that looking at the moon I should say it were fifty or sixty semidiameters of the earth distant from me. Let us see what moon this is spoken of. It is plain it cannot be the visible moon, or anything like the visible moon, or that I see--which is only a round, luminous plain, of about thirty visible points in diameter. For, in case I am carried from the place where I stand directly toward the moon, it is manifest the object varies still as I go on; and, by the time that I am advanced fifty or sixty semidiameters of the earth, I shall be so far from being near a small, round, luminous flat that I shall perceive nothing like it--this object having long since disappeared, and, if I would recover it, it must be by going back to the earth from whence I set out."[53]

[53] "Essay towards a New Theory of Vision." Sec. 44. Works: ed.
Fraser. Oxford 1871. Vol. I, p. 53.

So much for dissimilar experiences of the same object. And Berkeley is not impelled to assume an external something to explain how the object can be the same under the circumstances. The case, he finds, stands thus:

"Having of a long time experienced certain ideas perceivable by touch--as distance, tangible figure, and solidity--to have been connected with certain ideas of sight, I do, upon perceiving these ideas of sight, forthwith conclude what tangible ideas are, by the wonted ordinary course of nature, like to follow. Looking at an object, I perceive a certain visible figure and color, with some degree of faintness and other circumstances, which, from what I have formerly observed, determine me to think that if I advance forward so many paces, miles, etc., I shall be affected with such and such ideas of touch."[54]

[54] _Ibid._, § 45.

And need one ask a clearer illustration of sameness in sense third than the case of the coach, which occurs in the following section:

"Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive along the street; I look through the casement and see it; I walk out and enter into it. Thus, common speech would incline one to think I heard, saw, and touched the same thing, to wit, the coach. It is, nevertheless, certain the ideas intromitted by each sense are widely different and distinct from each other; but, having been observed constantly to go together, they are spoken of as one and the same thing."

SEC. 30. It would be easy to select from Spinoza, that master of reasonings apparently very exact but really very loose, many good instances of confused samenesses. I shall confine myself to a single one, his argument to prove that every substance is necessarily infinite. It is the eighth proposition in Part I of the Ethics.

"There cannot be more than one substance with the same attribute, and this exists of its own nature. It belongs, then, to its nature to exist either as finite or as infinite. But it cannot be finite, for then it would have to be limited by another of the same kind, which would also necessarily exist; there would then be two substances with the same attribute, which is absurd. It is, therefore, infinite."[55]

[55] _Substantia unius attributi non nisi unica existit, et ad
ipsius naturam pertinet existere. Erit ergo de ipsius natura vel
finita vel infinita existere. At non finita. Nam deberet terminari
ab alia eiusdem naturæ, quæ etiam necessario deberet existere;
adeoque darentur duæ substantiæ eiusdem attributi, quod est
absurdum. Existit ergo infinita_; q. e. d.--_Ethices, Pars prima;
VIII. Omnis substantia est necessario infinita._ Leipzig, 1875,
p. 84.

Among its defects this argument includes a confusion of sameness in sense fourth with sameness in sense first. Attribute Spinoza has defined as that which is conceived as the essence of substance. Mode is a modification of substance. Two substances, he has argued, cannot be distinguished from each other by their modifications, for substance is prior to its modifications, and we may set these aside and consider it as it is in itself. Substances cannot then, be distinguished except by their attributes; and if the attribute be the same, how can we say that there are two substances? There cannot, consequently, be two substances with the same attribute.

But, the argument continues, since there cannot be two substances with the same attribute, every substance must be infinite; for, to be finite, a thing must be limited by something: and nothing can be limited except by a thing of the same kind (for example, a material thing cannot be limited by a thought). But if a thing be limited by another thing of the same kind, the thing limited and the thing limiting have the same attribute. It follows that they are not two things, but one. The thing in question is not limited but infinite.

In criticizing this, I may call attention, in passing, to the highly disputable and gratuitously assumed premise, that, to be finite, a thing must be limited by _something_. If this be denied, the ground of the reasoning is removed; while, if it be granted, no argument is needed to prove that something is infinite, for one has only said in other words that all limits must be limits within something. The question is begged at once. With this, however, I am not concerned. What interests me is this: The argument assumes a limited thing and a something beyond it, and then asserts that they are one. But two things of the same kind in different places, or marked as different by distinctions of any sort, are readily distinguished as two. To come to the concrete, extension conceived as on this side of a point and extension conceived as beyond the point are not extension simply, but "this" extension and "that" extension. They are the same only in sense fourth, not in sense first. We have here not merely the attribute extension, but the further elements "this" and "that." The conclusion, then, that what we started out with is infinite, is wholly unwarranted. It is not this that is infinite, but this with something else which is to some degree like it, although not wholly so. That is to say, the thing assumed as finite can only be proved to be infinite by confounding two samenesses. The thing proved to be infinite is a new object including it and what it is assumed to presuppose. If it be not permissible to make this distinction between the object assumed as finite, for the sake of the argument, and the object which is proved to be infinite, it is also not permissible to assert that an object to be finite "would have to be limited by another of the same kind." If the two are one, these words are meaningless. If they are not one, one cannot conclude from the argument that every substance is necessarily infinite, but only that something is necessarily infinite, a conclusion already given in the single premise that what is limited must be limited by something of the same kind. As a matter of fact, Spinoza retains in his argument not only the attribute, but the mode, the "this" and the "beyond this;" and then he overlooks the mode and considers merely the attribute, which gives him strict identity. This procedure we have met before in the dispute concerning universals.

SEC. 31. In the former part of my monograph I have mentioned Locke's confusion of sameness in sense seventh with sameness in sense first. I shall now quote a few sections from the "Essay concerning Human Understanding" to show how significant his error is, and to what an extent it is responsible for his position regarding ideas, things, and substance. My extracts are from the eleventh chapter of the fourth book, entitled "Of our Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things." Locke argues as follows:[56]

[56] Locke's Essays, Philadelphia, 1846, p. 415, _et seq._

"The knowledge of our own being we have by intuition. The existence of a God reason clearly makes known to us, as has been shown.

"The knowledge of the existence of any other thing we can have only by sensation: for there being no necessary connection of real existence with any idea a man hath in his memory, nor of any other existence but that of God, with the existence of any particular man; no particular man can know the existence of any other being, but only when by actual operating upon him it makes itself perceived by him. For the having the idea of anything in our mind no more proves the existence of that thing, than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world, or the visions of a dream make thereby a true history.

"It is therefore the actual receiving of ideas from without, that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know that something doth exist at that time without us, which causes that idea in us, though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does it: for it takes not from the certainty of our senses, and the ideas we receive by them, that we know not the manner wherein they are produced, _v. g._, whilst I write this I have, by the paper affecting my eyes, that idea produced in my mind which, whatever object causes, I call white; by which I know that that quality or accident (_i. e._, whose appearance before my eyes always causes that idea) doth really exist, and hath a being without me. And of this, the greatest assurance I can possibly have, and to which my faculties can attain, is the testimony of my eyes, which are the proper and sole judges of this thing, whose testimony I have reason to rely on as so certain, that I can no more doubt, whilst I write this, that I see white and black, and that something really exists that causes that sensation in me, than that I write or move my hand: which is a certainty as great as human nature is capable of, concerning the existence of anything but a man's self alone, and of God.

"The notice we have by our senses of the existing of things without us, though it be not altogether so certain as our intuitive knowledge, or the deductions of our reason, employed about the clear abstract ideas of our own minds; yet it is an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge. If we persuade ourselves that our faculties act and inform us right, concerning the existence of those objects that affect them, it cannot pass for an ill-grounded confidence: for I think nobody can, in earnest, be so sceptical as to be uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees and feels. At least, he that can doubt so far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts) will never have any controversy with me; since he can never be sure I say anything contrary to his own opinion. As to myself, I think God has given me assurance enough of the existence of things without me; since by their different application I can produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great concernment of my present state. This is certain, the confidence that our faculties do not herein deceive us is the greatest assurance we are capable of, concerning the existence of material beings. For we cannot act anything but by our faculties; nor talk of knowledge itself, but by the helps of those faculties which are fitted to apprehend even what knowledge is. But besides the assurance we have from our senses themselves, that they do not err in the information they give us, of the existence of things without us, when they are affected by them, we are farther confirmed in this assurance by other concurrent reasons.

"First, it is plain those perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses: because those that want the organs of any sense never can have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in their minds. This is too evident to be doubted: and therefore we cannot but be assured that they come in by the organs of that sense, and no other way. The organs themselves, it is plain, do not produce them; for then the eyes of a man in the dark would produce colors, and his nose smell roses in the winter: but we see nobody gets the relish of a pine apple till he goes to the Indies, where it is, and tastes it.

"Secondly, because sometimes I find that I cannot avoid the having those ideas produced in my mind. For though when my eyes are shut, or windows fast, I can at pleasure recall to my mind the ideas of light, or the sun, which former sensations had lodged in my memory; so I can at pleasure lay by that idea, and take into my view that of the smell of a rose, or taste of sugar. But if I turn my eyes at noon towards the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the light, or sun, then produces in me. So that there is a manifest difference between the ideas laid up in my memory (over which, if they were there only, I should have constantly the same power to dispose of them, and lay them by at pleasure), and those which force themselves upon me, and I cannot avoid having. And therefore it must needs be some exterior cause, and the brisk acting of some objects without me, whose efficacy I cannot resist, that produces those ideas in my mind, whether I will or no. Besides, there is nobody who doth not perceive the difference in himself between contemplating the sun, as he hath the idea of it in his memory, and actually looking upon it; of which two his perception is so distinct, that few of his ideas are more distinguishable one from another. And therefore, he hath certain knowledge, that they are not both memory, or the actions of his mind, and fancies only within him; but that actual seeing hath a cause without.

"Thirdly, add to this, that many of those ideas are produced in us with pain, which afterward we remember without the least offense. Thus the pain of heat or cold, when the idea of it is revived in our minds, gives us no disturbance; which, when felt, was very troublesome, and is again when actually repeated; which is occasioned by the disorder the external object causes in our bodies when applied to it. And we remember the pains of hunger, thirst, or the headache, without any pain at all; which would either never disturb us, or else constantly do it, as often as we thought of it, were there nothing more but ideas floating in our minds, and appearances entertaining our fancies, without the real existence of things affecting us from abroad. The same may be said of pleasure accompanying several actual sensations, and though mathematical demonstrations depend not upon sense, yet the examining them by diagrams gives great credit to the evidence of our sight, and seems to give it a certainty approaching to that of demonstration itself. For it would be very strange that a man should allow it for an undeniable truth, that two angles of a figure, which he measures by lines and angles of a diagram, should be bigger one than the other; and yet doubt of the existence of those lines and angles, which by looking on he makes use of to measure that by.

"Fourthly, our senses in many cases bear witness to the truth of each other's report, concerning the existence of sensible things without us. He that sees a fire may, if he doubt whether it be anything more than a bare fancy, feel it too; and be convinced by putting his hand in it: which certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain by a bare idea or phantom, unless that the pain, be a fancy too, which yet he cannot, when the burn is well, by raising the idea of it, bring upon himself again.

"Thus I see, whilst I write this, I can change the appearance of the paper: and by designing the letters tell beforehand what new idea it shall exhibit the very next moment, by barely drawing my pen over it: which will neither appear (let me fancy as much as I will), if my hands stand still; or though I move my pen, if my eyes be shut: nor, when those characters are once made on the paper, can I choose afterward but see them as they are: that is, have the ideas of such letters as I have made. Whence it is manifest, that they are not barely the sport and play of my own imagination, when I find that the characters that were made at the pleasure of my own thought, do not obey them; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall fancy it; but continue to affect the senses constantly and regularly, according to the figures I made them. To which if we will add, that the sight of those shall, from another man, draw such sounds as I beforehand design they shall stand for; there will be little reason left to doubt that those words I write do really exist without me, when they cause a long series of regular sounds to affect my ears, which could not be the effect of my imagination, nor could my memory retain them in that order."

This is quite a long citation, but I have given it at length because it may stand as the type of by far the greater part of the objections urged against Idealism, and because a better instance of the confusion of two samenesses could scarcely be desired. Notice how constantly it is assumed that the thing given in perception is the "real" thing, a thing which is, nevertheless, characterized as distinct from, and the cause of, the idea.

At the outset Locke distinguishes well enough between the idea and the "external" thing. The having the idea of any thing in the mind, he declares, no more proves the existence of that thing than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world. It is only the receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of things as causes of the ideas. It would seem quite fair here to ask how we know that some ideas come from without? Of course, if the realm of the "without" were open to inspection, the question could be answered at once. But it is not open to inspection--certainly not to a consistent Lockian. How, then, may I distinguish ideas coming from without from other ideas? No ideas are perceived until they are what Locke would call "within."

The appeal to the testimony of the eyes needs examination. To what eyes does one appeal? The immediately known or idea-eyes, or the "external" organs whose existence is the matter of dispute? Surely not to the last, for it is only as a result of the argument that we may assume these at all. And what hand is it so certain that I move in writing? The complex of ideas immediately known, or the something beyond, whose existence is to be established? If it be the latter, all discussion is unnecessary. If, on the other hand, the eyes and the hand concerned are ideas, it is not clear how the appeal to them can be of any service. Does a sense give anything but sensations? And if the very sense organ as immediately known be a group of sensations, how can the testimony of a sense land one in a world beyond that of sensations? And the argument that God has given me assurance of the existence of things without me, since by applying them to myself I can produce in myself pain and pleasure, presupposes that I can apply such things to myself and know that I am doing so. If this be the fact, it is trifling to discuss whether things I move to and fro exist. If, however, it is still to be proved that there are such things, and that they are moved to and fro, the argument is wholly baseless. Locke here makes appeal to the common experience that certain objects applied to the body cause pleasure, and certain others pain; a fact which no reasonable man would think of denying or questioning, as it is matter of daily observation. But in such experiences, all that is immediately evident is that an object immediately perceived (Locke's idea) is applied to another object immediately perceived (idea) with a resulting (idea) pain. Whether or not certain duplicates of the things immediately known are brought into a peculiar conjunction at the same time is wholly problematic, and would seem to remain so until some evidence be advanced of the existence of such duplicates. This argument on the part of our author shows most clearly that for the time being he lost the distinction between ideas and "real" things. They are the same in sense seventh; he assumed them to be the same in sense first. He falls into this error again and again.

The general appeal to the testimony of the senses is followed by four special arguments. According to the first of these, it is plain that perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses, "because those that want the organs of any sense never can have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in their minds." This is supposed to prove that they come in by the organs of that sense, and in no other way. But here again one may ask, What is meant by the organs of any sense? If the "real" external organ be meant, one may object that its existence has not yet been proved. If the organ immediately known be meant, one has only called attention to the fact that certain ideas are a _sine qua non_ to the existence of certain other ideas. How this tends to prove the existence of something distinct from ideas is not apparent. Locke's impulse in this argument finds its source in our common experience that bodily organs immediately perceived are proved by observation to be prerequisites to the experiencing of ideas. We see a given object in a certain relation to a normal human body, and we infer an idea of the object connected with that body. We say the man has an idea of the object, and can only infer the object itself. We connect the idea with some particular part of his body, and regard this as the medium through which he gains the idea. All this is reasonable enough. It is well to remember, however, that in all this the "real" object is not observed to play any part. The object which I certainly see in relation to the body which I certainly see is what Locke would call an idea. The man's body is an idea. The idea which I assume the man to have is to me, if I remain within the sphere of the observable, an idea of the (idea) object I see. If I am to get any "real" object at all it is not by reference to observation or experience. If I am to get it by inference, some ground must be furnished for inference. Again Locke has confounded the observable with the "real." It is only on this ground that the appeal to the sense organ has any force.