Chapter VI: Section 21: When Heraclitus of Ephesus, moved thereto by his view (3)

The second and the third arguments busy themselves to show that there are unmistakable differences between ideas which have their origin in the "brisk acting" of objects without and ideas of memory or imagination. The two classes are shown to be distinct, and it is very properly held that ideas of different kinds should not be confounded. But the statement, that ideas may be divided into two classes, is a very different one from the statement that the two classes differ in that one has external correlates and the other has not. One may admit all the distinctions which Locke makes in the field of ideas; and, it being once proved that such distinctions imply a world of "real" things in relation to certain ideas, may grant very readily that these ideas have corresponding to them "real" things, or that ideas caused by "real" things differ by such and such marks from other ideas. But, until it be proved that the marks in question do give a right to infer "real" things, it should not be assumed that any given class of ideas is caused by "real" things. What is to be discovered is assumed. And it is assumed here, as above, because Locke could not keep distinct the two classes of things. He is capable of saying, "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," when the whole dispute is over the question whether there be a "real" sun toward which "real" eyes may be turned. How does he know that he is turning his eyes toward the sun? Does he not see it up there? Is he not "actually looking upon it?" His error is too plain to overlook. But if one could doubt his confusion of the two suns, the apparent and the "real," his illustration from the diagrams used in mathematical demonstration would lay the doubt once for all. "Real" lines exist, "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." The English is not as bad as the reasoning.

The fourth argument is derived from the fact that one sense supports the testimony of another. "He that sees a fire may, if he doubt whether it be anything more than a bare fancy, feel it too." A bare fancy, Locke is sure, would not cause such acute pain. This comes back to the second and third arguments and may be criticized in the same way. If one could refer to a single observation of the fact that "real" things do not accompany ideas of the fancy and that they do accompany ideas of a different class, the argument would be unobjectionable. Wanting this observation, or something to take its place, nothing is proved. And as to the senses helping each other to "real" things, if each sense only gives the idea appropriate to it, it is not easy to see how two together prove more than one alone. In this section, too, Locke is assuming that "real" things belong to the world of things immediately perceived. He can, he says, make what characters he pleases on the paper before him, but once having made them, cannot choose but see them as they are. "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." That is, the ideas which he concludes not to be ideas of imagination are the things "which continue to affect the senses," or the "real" things. There is little wonder that this author believed in "real" things.

SEC. 32. Excellent work has been done by Berkeley in distinguishing samenesses. His treatment of sameness in sense third I have already quoted. His discussion of the infinite divisibility of finite lines,[57] a matter of which I shall speak more fully later, again brings out sense third. Almost his whole philosophy consists in the endeavor to keep clearly in mind the significance of sense seventh, and to develop what it implies. On the other hand, he has fallen into the error of confusing sense first and sense sixth, and of using this confusion to silence an objection to his doctrine.

[57] "A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,"
§§ 123-132. Ed. Fraser, Vol. I, pp. 220-225.

He takes up in the "Principles," for the purpose of refuting it, the objection that his doctrine makes things every moment annihilated and created anew.[58] This, he argues, "will not be found reasonably charged on the principles we have premised, so as in truth to make any objection at all against our notions. For, though we hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing else but ideas which cannot exist unperceived; yet we may not hence conclude they have no existence except only while they are perceived by us, since there may be some other spirit that perceives them though we do not. Wherever bodies are said to have no existence without the mind, I would not be understood to mean this or that particular mind, but all minds whatsoever. It does not therefore follow from the foregoing principles that bodies are annihilated and created every moment, or exist not at all during the intervals between our perception of them."

[58] §§ 45-48, pp. 178-180.

To the reader of Mill it is clear enough that Berkeley is not content to assume potential existence as an integral part of the life history of an object. It seems odd that he should not do so, as he has himself pointed out the double sense of the word exist.[59] However, he demands actual existence. Any lapse in the actual existence of the immediate object seems to him a destruction of the object. He has the common feeling that it is contrary to nature that things should be destroyed and created from moment to moment. They must exist continuously. They evidently do not actually exist continuously in the one mind. So he assumes that, during the periods of their absence from one mind, they must exist in another: otherwise they could not be said to exist at all.

[59] "Principles," §3, p. 157.

Of course, all this assumes that the objects in one mind are identically (sense first) the objects in another. If they be recognized as two distinct things, belonging to different worlds--worlds so different that what is in one can enter the other only through its representative--the whole argument is seen to be fallacious. One can no more make a consistent whole of elements taken from two different consciousnesses, than one can piece out a grief with a smell. The attempt is the result of overlooking the duality implied in sameness in sense sixth.

SEC. 33. There is a clear and forcible passage in John Stuart Mill's "System of Logic," in which he distinguishes certain samenesses from certain others. It is to be regretted that he dismissed the subject with so slight an examination, for it could not but have gained by a careful analysis at the hands of this keen man. I quote more particularly to bring out what Mill has to say about sameness in sense second.

"While speaking of resemblance, it is necessary to take notice of an ambiguity of language, against which scarcely any one is sufficiently on his guard. Resemblance, when it exists in the highest degree of all, amounting to undistinguishableness, is often called identity, and the two similar things are said to be the same. I say often, not always; for we do not say that two visible objects, two persons, for instance, are the same, because they are so much alike that one might be mistaken for the other: but we constantly use this mode of expression when speaking of feelings; as when I say that the sight of any object gives me the _same_ sensation or emotion to-day that it did yesterday, or the _same_ which it gives to some other person. This is evidently an incorrect application of the word _same_; for the feeling which I had yesterday is gone, never to return; what I have to-day is another feeling, exactly like the former, perhaps, but distinct from it; and it is evident that two different persons cannot be experiencing the same feeling, in the sense in which we say that they are both sitting at the same table. By a similar ambiguity we say, that two persons are ill of the _same_ disease; that two persons hold the _same_ office; not in the sense in which we say that they are engaged in the same adventure, or sailing in the same ship, but in the sense that they fill offices exactly similar, though, perhaps, in distant places. Great confusion of ideas is often produced, and many fallacies engendered, in otherwise enlightened understandings, by not being sufficiently alive to the fact (in itself not always to be avoided), that they use the same name to express ideas so different as those of identity and undistinguishable resemblance."[60]

[60] "A System of Logic," Book I, Chap. III, § 11, N. Y., 1882,
p. 62.

It will be seen that Mill here draws a line between sameness in sense first and the samenesses in which there is an element of duality. He also draws attention to the fact--a fact to which I have already referred--that successive mental elements, considered in themselves, are more likely to be confounded than material things, though these last may be quite as closely similar. Language shows how men overlook the duality of two similar feelings which differ only in time. They may speak of two similar objects as the same, as they frequently do, and yet they will not usually lose the sense of their twoness. They say _these_ objects are the same. But when they compare a feeling experienced to-day with one experienced yesterday, they say _this_ is the same feeling I had yesterday. There is nothing in the language used to indicate duality at all.

I have said that, in the extract given, a line is drawn between samenesses which imply duality and the sameness which does not; and yet such illustrations are used to represent the latter as a man, a table, and a ship--objects which are the same in sense third as well as in sense first, and which consequently imply duality, in some sense of the word. But, if one is not considering single members of the chain of experiences which, taken together, we call a man, but is considering the whole group as a unit, this difficulty disappears. This is evidently what Mill has in mind, and he cannot be taxed with inconsistency. One may, however, object to the statement that it is an improper use of the word same to speak of things merely similar as the same. The word has many meanings, and we can hardly say that any one of them is illegitimate. It is merely illegitimate to confound them. And one should not take quite literally the description of resemblance in the highest degree as "amounting to undistinguishableness." Strict undistinguishableness removes all duality, and consequently makes impossible what we call resemblance or similarity. To be similar, things must be distinguished as two. Finally, one may object to a treatment of samenesses which merely groups them into two classes, when there are at least seven kinds that should, in the interests of clear thinking, be kept separate. It is only by carefully marking such distinctions that fallacious reasonings are to be avoided. As, however, this discussion of samenesses is merely a side issue where it occurs in the Logic, it would perhaps be unjust to blame Mill for not going into it more fully.

SEC. 34. At this point I leave the realms of the dead and emerge into the land of the living. The errors that I have been criticizing still live, and it would not be difficult to glean a goodly number of them from the authors of our day. I shall be moderate, and will content myself with one or two representative instances.

It would be surprising if as loose and incautious a reasoner as Mr. Herbert Spencer did not furnish some examples of confused samenesses. To certain of his errors in this direction I have briefly referred in the earlier part of my monograph. Here I shall treat of him a little more at length, though even here it is impossible to do justice to the subject, as that would involve my quoting and commenting upon at least a large part of the first division of the "First Principles." I shall take only the conclusion of the argument by which he establishes the existence of his "Unknowable," or "Inscrutable Power," or "Ultimate Cause," or "Unseen Reality," or "Absolute." This contains two confusions of no little significance. Mr. Spencer writes:

"Hence our firm belief in objective reality--a belief which metaphysical criticisms cannot for a moment shake. When we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us as existing externally, cannot be really known, but that we can know only certain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by the relativity of our thought, compelled to think of these in relation to a positive cause--the notion of a real existence which generated these impressions becomes nascent. If it be proved to us that every notion of a real existence which we can frame is utterly inconsistent with itself--that matter, however conceived by us, cannot be matter as it actually is, our conception, though transfigured, is not destroyed: there remains the sense of reality, dissociated as far as possible from those special forms under which it was before represented in thought. Though Philosophy condemns successively each attempted conception of the Absolute--though it proves to us that the Absolute is not this, nor that, nor that--though in obedience to it we negative, one after another, each idea as it arises; yet, as we cannot expel the entire contents of consciousness, there ever remains behind an element which passes into new shapes. The continual negation of each particular form and limit, simply results in the more or less complete abstraction of all forms and limits; and so ends in an indefinite consciousness of the unformed and unlimited.

"And here we come face to face with the ultimate difficulty--How can there possibly be constituted a consciousness of the unformed and unlimited, when, by its very nature, consciousness is possible only under forms and limits? If every consciousness of existence is a consciousness of existence as conditioned, then how, after the negation of conditions, can there be any residuum? Though not directly withdrawn by the withdrawal of its conditions, must not the raw material of consciousness be withdrawn by implication? Must it not vanish when the conditions of its existence vanish? That there must be a solution of this difficulty is manifest; since even those who would put it, do, as already shown, admit that we have some such consciousness; and the solution appears to be that above shadowed forth. Such consciousness is not, and cannot be, constituted by any single mental act; but is the product of many mental acts. In each concept there is an element which persists. It is alike impossible for this element to be absent from consciousness, and for it to be present in consciousness alone: either alternative involves unconsciousness--the one from the want of the substance; the other from the want of the form. But the persistence of this element under successive conditions, _necessitates_ a sense of it as distinguished from the conditions, and independent of them. The sense of a something that is conditioned in every thought, cannot be got rid of, because the something cannot be got rid of. How then must the sense of this something be constituted? Evidently by combining successive concepts deprived of their limits and conditions. We form this indefinite thought, as we form many of our definite thoughts, by the coalescence of a series of thoughts. Let me illustrate this: A large complex object, having attributes too numerous to be represented at once, is yet tolerably well conceived by the union of several representations, each standing for part of its attributes. On thinking of a piano, there first rises in imagination its visual appearance, to which are instantly added (though by separate mental acts) the ideas of its remote side and of its solid substance. A complete conception, however, involves the strings, the hammers, the dampers, the pedals; and while successively adding these to the conception, the attributes first thought of lapse more or less completely out of consciousness. Nevertheless, the whole group constitutes a representation of the piano. Now as in this case we form a definite concept of a special existence, by imposing limits and conditions in successive acts; so, in the converse case, by taking away the limits and conditions in successive acts, we form an indefinite notion of general existence. By fusing a series of states of consciousness, in each of which, as it arises, the limitations and conditions are abolished, there is produced a consciousness of something unconditioned. To speak more rigorously:--this consciousness is not the abstract of any one group of thoughts, ideas, or conceptions; but it is the abstract of _all_ thoughts, ideas, or conceptions. That which is common to them all, and cannot be got rid of, is what we predicate by the word existence. Dissociated as this becomes from each of its modes by the perpetual change of those modes, it remains as an indefinite consciousness of something constant under all modes--of being apart from its appearances. The distinction we feel between special and general existence, is the distinction between that which is changeable in us, and that which is unchangeable. The contrast between the Absolute and the Relative in our minds, is really the contrast between that mental element which exists absolutely, and those which exist relatively.

"By its very nature, therefore, this ultimate mental element is at once necessarily indefinite and necessarily indestructible. Our consciousness of the unconditioned being literally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw material of thought to which in thinking we give definite forms, it follows that an ever-present sense of real existence is the very basis of our intelligence. As we can in successive mental acts get rid of all particular conditions and replace them by others, but cannot get rid of that undifferentiated substance of consciousness which is conditioned anew in every thought; there ever remains with us a sense of that which exists persistently and independently of conditions. At the same time that by the laws of thought we are rigorously prevented from forming a conception of absolute existence; we are by the laws of thought equally prevented from ridding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute existence: this consciousness being, as we here see, the obverse of our self-consciousness. And since the only possible measure of relative validity among our beliefs, is the degree of their persistence in opposition to the efforts made to change them, it follows that this which persists at all times, under all circumstances, and cannot cease until consciousness ceases, has the highest validity of any.

"To sum up this somewhat too elaborate argument:--We have seen how in the very assertion that all our knowledge, properly so called, is Relative, there is involved the assertion that there exists a Non-relative. We have seen how, in each step of the argument by which this doctrine is established, the same assumption is made. We have seen how, from the very necessity of thinking in relations, it follows that the Relative is itself inconceivable, except as related to a real Non-relative. We have seen that unless a real Non-relative or Absolute be postulated, the Relative itself becomes absolute; and so brings the argument to a contradiction. And on contemplating the process of thought, we have equally seen how impossible it is to get rid of the consciousness of an actuality lying behind appearances; and how, from this impossibility, results our indestructible belief in that actuality."[61]

[61] "First Principles," Part 1, Chap. IV, § 26, N. Y., 1888,
pp. 93-97.

Such an extract as this is very tempting to the critic, but I shall try not to be drawn into criticisms which do not immediately concern my purpose in quoting. The points which chiefly interest me are Mr. Spencer's evident confusion of sameness in sense seventh with sameness in sense first, and of sameness in sense second with sameness in sense first. I shall begin with the first confusion.

Every careful reader of the extract given above must see that the Absolute with which Mr. Spencer's argument is concerned is an Absolute in consciousness. It is "an indefinite consciousness," "raw material of consciousness," an "indefinite thought," an "abstract of _all_ thoughts, ideas, or conceptions." It is the element of existence which is common to all these thoughts, ideas, or conceptions. If there could be any doubt as to the nature of this Absolute in which the argument results, it should be set at rest by the very emphatic statement that "our consciousness of the unconditioned" is "literally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw material of thought to which in thinking we give definite forms." It is this "undifferentiated substance of consciousness which is conditional anew in every thought" that remains with us as an Absolute through all forms of the conditioned.

Now this Absolute, the element of existence which accompanies all other elements in consciousness, is the only one with which the argument has at all concerned itself, and yet this is evidently not the Absolute in which the author is chiefly interested. There can be no good reason for calling this Absolute either Unknowable, Incomprehensible, or Inscrutable. It is not a "Power" for it is simply the element of existence, nor is it a "Reality," for the "abstract of _all_ thoughts, ideas, or conceptions" must be common to the unreal or imaginary as well as to the real. It is (mental) existence pure and simple. If the argument be good, this element is known completely and just as it is; indefinitely, it is true, but then it is indefinite, and if known definitely would not be known as it is. There is nothing farther about it to know. It is in no sense Unknowable. If the objection be to the use of the word "know" where the knowledge is indefinite, we should invent some word to apply to an indefinite consciousness; but such consciousness, if denied to be knowledge, should not be classed with ignorance. Moreover, as knowledge is of all degrees of definiteness, we should need a series of words to express the gradations. The series would be a long one.

But the Absolute which interests Mr. Spencer, and which throws that halo of the mysterious about his philosophy, is a something distinct from the Absolute in consciousness, and not known as it is. It is by no means that which is common to "impressions" made upon us, but the something assumed to make these impressions. It is "under," "apart from," and "behind" appearances and modes--which an Absolute, which is simply that which is common to appearances and modes, cannot be. Phenomena (the things immediately known) are only "a manifestation of some Power by which we are acted upon,"[62] and this Absolute cannot take its place among phenomena, as the former must. The two Absolutes are, indeed, quite distinct things: one of them, the one in consciousness, has been shown to exist; no argument is forthcoming to prove the existence of the other. Manifestly it is not immediately known, for then it would be a phenomenon, however indefinite. Upon what ground is it inferred? It is the old problem of Descartes and Locke.

[62] "First Principles." Chap. V, § 27, p. 99.

This problem Mr. Spencer solves in the same way as they, by assuming the "external" object to be given immediately; but there is this important difference, that whereas Descartes and Locke fall into the error from inadvertence, the author of the "First Principles" and the "Principles of Psychology" embraces it deliberately. The two earlier writers were sometimes able to recognize as two things a something in consciousness and an assumed something without. They confused them only now and then. Mr. Spencer has been unable to distinguish them with clearness at any time, and he elevates the confusion into a principle.

"The postulate with which metaphysical reasoning sets out, is that we are primarily conscious only of our sensations--that we certainly know we have these, and that if there be anything beyond these serving as cause for them, it can be known only by inference from them.

"I shall give much surprise to the metaphysical reader if I call in question this postulate; and the surprise will rise into astonishment if I distinctly deny it. Yet I must do this. Limiting the proposition to those epi-peripheral feelings produced in us by external objects (for these are alone in question) I see no alternative but to affirm that the thing primarily known, is not that a sensation has been experienced, but that there exists an outer object."[63]

[63] "Principles of Psychology," Part VII, Chap. VI, N. Y., 1883,
Vol. II, p. 369.

"The question here is--What does consciousness directly testify? And the direct testimony of consciousness is, that Time and Space are not within but without the mind; and so absolutely independent of it that they cannot be conceived to become non-existent even were the mind to become non-existent."[64]

[64] "First Principles," Part I, Chap. III, § 15, ed. cit. p. 49.

The moral of the first bit quoted would seem to be, unless we make the word "primarily" refer only to order in time, that one knows immediately what is beyond consciousness and mediately what is in it--a use of words satisfactory, I should think, to no one but Mr. Spencer. If, by "primarily" be meant "previously," and the two classes of being are known in just the same way, why distinguish between the classes? Moreover, in this case a thing would not be known "through" appearances, but before them. Upon the other supposition, to be sure, appearances would be known "through" it--a mode of speaking not in harmony with the language of the "First Principles." It seems a choice between Scylla and Charybdis.

The second extract makes consciousness "directly testify" not only to what is beyond its pale, but, putting on the spirit of prophecy, even to what does not belong to the present, but to a possible future. When we speak of consciousness as testifying to a sensation, we mean simply that the sensation is in consciousness. The word cannot be used in this sense in speaking of what is beyond consciousness. In what sense is it used? It would seem to mean, if it mean anything, that consciousness gives one the right to infer a something beyond--a right which thoughtful men believe should be established by proof. This proof, one cannot, of course, expect from a man who makes the thing beyond consciousness the thing "primarily" known. It would be more consistent in him to attempt a proof that there is something in consciousness.

This complete confusion in Mr. Spencer's mind of things in consciousness and things without, will explain why he keeps talking of his two Absolutes as if there were only one, as if this one were the one of which we are conscious, and yet as if this one were beyond consciousness. His pages swarm with illustrations which I might give. I shall give only the following: "Thus the consciousness of an Inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena, has been growing ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from its imperfections."[65] If Mr. Spencer ever comes to a consciousness that sameness in sense seventh is not sameness in sense first, he will find work before him in remodeling his doctrine.

[65] "First Principles," Part I, Chap. V, § 31, p. 108.

The second confusion upon which I wish to comment comes to the surface in a sentence occurring near the end of the lengthy extract quoted at the outset: "And since the only possible measure of relative validity among our beliefs, is the degree of their persistence in opposition to the efforts made to change them, it follows that this which persists at all times, under all circumstances, and cannot cease until consciousness ceases, has the highest validity of any."

Now that which, it has been argued, persists at all times and under all circumstances, is the "raw material of thought," the element of existence which is the "abstract of _all_ thoughts, ideas, or conceptions." It is merely that which they have in common, and can include none of those elements in which they differ. If, however, persistence mean anything, it means persistence in time. That which exists at this time and that which exists at that are not one, strictly speaking, but two. That is, they are not the same in sense first, but in some looser sense which will admit of duality. If, then, we are dealing with the Absolute, existence pure and simple, and are abstracting from all differences which may mark out _this_ existence from _that_, we must abstract from temporal distinctions too. If we do this, we can no longer speak of the Absolute as persisting. If we do not do this, something may persist, but it is no Absolute. Mental elements otherwise similar, but distinguished from each other by temporal differences are the same in sense second, not in sense first. The existence of which I am conscious to-day and the existence of which I was conscious yesterday are not the same existence in any sense save this. Yesterday's existence does not persist to-day; it is replaced by another. Mr. Spencer has evidently fallen into the error of those schoolmen who endeavored to abstract the element which several things have in common, but created unnecessary difficulties by making an incomplete abstraction and treating it as though it were complete. Other defects of this fallacious argument to prove our belief in the Absolute valid, I will not here discuss.

SEC. 35. I next take a few passages which will illustrate the confusion of samenesses first and seventh, from Dr. James McCosh's late work on "First and Fundamental Truths." They are selected from the chapter on "Our Intuition of Body by the Senses."[66]

[66] Part II, Book I, Chap. II.

"We are following the plainest dictates of consciousness, we avoid a thousand difficulties, and we get a solid ground on which to rest and to build, when we maintain that the mind in its first exercises acquires knowledge; not, indeed, scientific or arranged, not of qualities of objects and classes of objects, but still knowledge--the knowledge of things presenting themselves, and as they present themselves; which knowledge, individual and concrete, is the foundation of all other knowledge, abstract, general and deductive. In particular, the mind is so constituted as to attain a knowledge of body or of material objects. It may be difficult to ascertain the exact point or surface at which the mind and body come together and influence each other, in particular, how far into the body (Descartes without proof thought to be in the pineal gland), but it is certain that when they do meet mind knows body as having its essential properties of extension and resisting energy. It is through the bodily organism that the intelligence of man attains its knowledge of all material objects beyond. This is true of the infant mind; it is true also of the mature mind. We may assert something more than this regarding the organism. It is not only the medium through which we know all bodily objects beyond itself; it is itself an object primarily known; nay, I am inclined to think that, along with the objects immediately affecting it, it is the only object originally known. Intuitively man seems to know nothing beyond his own organism, and objects directly affecting it; in all further knowledge there is a process of inference proceeding on a gathered experience. This theory seems to me to explain all the facts, and it delivers us from many perplexities."[67]

[67] N. Y., 1889, pp. 62-63.

"In our primitive cognition of body there is involved a knowledge of Outness or Externality. We know the object perceived, be it the organism or the object affecting the organism, as not in the mind, but as out of the mind. In regard to some of the objects perceived by us, we may be in doubt as to whether they are in the organism or beyond it, but we are always sure that they are extra-mental."[68]

[68] Pp. 68-69.

"We know the Objects as Affecting Us. I have already said that we know them as independent of us. This is an important truth. But it is equally true and equally important that these objects are made known to us as somehow having an influence on us. The organic object is capable of affecting our minds, and the extra-organic object affects the organism which affects the mind. Upon this cognition are founded certain judgments as to the relations of the objects known to the knowing mind."[69]

[69] P. 70.

"But it will be vehemently urged that it is most preposterous to assert that we know all this by the senses. Upon this I remark that the phrase _by the senses_ is ambiguous. If by senses he meant the mere bodily organism--the eye, the ears, the nerves and the brain--I affirm that we know, and can know, nothing by this bodily part, which is a mere organ or instrument; that so far from knowing potency or extension, we do not know even color, or taste, or smell. But if by the senses he meant the mind exercised in sense-perception, summoned into activity by the organism, and contemplating cognitively the external world, then I maintain that we do know, and this intuitively, external objects as influencing us; that is, exercising powers in reference to us. I ask those who would doubt of this doctrine of what it is that they suppose the mind to be cognizant in sense-perception. If they say a mere sensation or impression in the mind, I reply that this is not consistent with the revelation of consciousness, which announces plainly that what we know is something extra-mental. If they say, with Kant, a mere phenomenon in the sense of appearance, then I reply that this, too, is inconsistent with consciousness, which declares that we know the thing."[70]

[70] Pp. 71 and 72.

The statements contained in these extracts are plainly in a state of civil war, and might be left, without foreign aid, to complete their own destruction. I shall first let them criticize each other.

(1) It is asserted that it may be difficult to ascertain the exact point or surface at which the mind and body come together and influence each other--in particular how far into the body--but that it is certain that _when they do meet_ mind knows body as having its essential properties of extension and resisting energy.

This knowledge is said to arise _when they meet_, be it marked, and not before.

(2) It is also asserted that it is _through the body_ that the mind attains its knowledge of _all_ material objects beyond.

This makes our knowledge of objects beyond the body mediate and not immediate. Why are objects beyond the body regarded as mediately known? No reason is suggested except that they are not themselves in contact with the mind, but only in contact with that which is in contact with the mind. It is then presumable that _any parts of the bodily organism which never themselves meet the mind (if there are any such) are not known immediately_, but only through the parts which do meet the mind. That is, they are known mediately, too. That there are, or at least may be, such parts, is directly inferrible from the statement that we do not know "how far into the body" mind and body come together.

(3) It is stated that the body is an object "primarily" known. It is regarded by the author as probable that, along with the objects immediately affecting it, it is the only object "originally" known. He thinks that man knows "intuitively" nothing beyond his own organism and objects directly affecting it.

But what is meant by the words "primarily," "originally," "intuitively"? If things not in direct contact with mind are not known immediately but through something else, and if the point or surface at which mind and body meet is at some uncertain distance from the surface of the body, surely the only material thing immediately known is that portion of the body in contact with mind, and not the whole body with the objects directly affecting it. Knowledge of these mediate objects must be due to a process of inference from what is directly experienced. _Things known "primarily," "originally" and "intuitively" are then known mediately and inferentially_--even in some cases so imperfectly known that it is not known what and where they are, whether in or beyond the body.

(4) The doctrine that we are conscious in sense-perception of a mere sensation or impression in the mind is answered by the statement that this is not consistent with the revelation of consciousness, which announces plainly that what we know is something extra-mental. Kant's phenomenalism is met by the claim that consciousness declares that we know the thing.

A thing known mediately, however, cannot be more certainly known than the thing known immediately, and from which its existence is inferred. _The immediate revelation of consciousness cannot do more than give as a knowledge of the point or surface at which mind and body meet._ It is only here that mind can directly know body "as having its essential properties of extension and resisting energy." _But so far from consciousness testifying to the extension and resistance of this part of the body, it does not, as Dr. McCosh admits, testify to this part of the body at all._ If it reveal nothing as to what it knows immediately, what can its statement as to what it knows mediately be worth? And if consciousness testifies that it knows immediately what Dr. McCosh has maintained to be mediately known, he must hold that its revelation is false and delusive. It certainly seems to me that my consciousness reveals the ink-stand before me as it does not reveal the part of my body with which the mind has "come together," since it does not even reveal whether this part be a point or a surface. If my knowledge of the ink-stand must rest upon my knowledge of this, and can have no greater certainty, my faith in the ink-stand must go. A tower cannot be more firm than its foundation.

So much for the consistency of the extracts themselves. I now turn to a criticism on a different basis. The difficulties connected with this inconsistent doctrine naturally arise out of the standpoint occupied by the author. He accepts as final, and as justifiable in metaphysics, the convenient psychological assumption that the group of sensations gained from an object is a something distinct from the object itself; that the object may be external to the organism, but that the mind, with its sensations, is, or may be treated as if it were, somewhere within the organism; that the sensations are gained from real things, but are not themselves real things, so that a world of sensations--things being abstracted--must be an unreal and phantom world.

Now, the man who has thus distinguished between things and sensations, if he regard the sensations as our only immediate representatives of the things, will find it difficult, without making an evidently gratuitous assumption somewhere, to prove his right to reach things at all. Dr. McCosh sees this difficulty, and so he assumes that consciousness reveals both sensations and things. He allows us "perceptions mingled with sensations."[71] Where are these mingled perceptions and sensations? In the mind. Where is the mind? In the body. In what body? The body perceived. Is this body perceived itself in the mind and mingled with sensations? No. It is then distinct from the mental percept--the perception of it is somewhere in it, but is not it. How do we know, then, that there is a body? We infer it from the percept; consciousness (the percept) "reveals" it. On what principle is it inferred? The question is a just one if the knowledge be not immediate. Our author does not even see that there is a question. The fact is that this doctrine seems to avoid the difficulties of a representative perception only while it is allowed to remain loose and vague. If things are not to be known representatively, they must either be themselves in consciousness--_and then they are not extra-mental_--or they must be directly known in some other way than as in consciousness, _and then consciousness does not reveal them and cannot be appealed to_. An appeal to consciousness, unless the thing itself is in consciousness, is fatal.

[71] Chap. III, p. 75.

But this discrimination between sensations and the thing causing the sensations, and the assumption that consciousness testifies to the two classes of things, does not seem to be borne out by the facts. Consciousness does not testify to the two classes. The common man thinks that he knows directly the things that he sees and feels, and the distinction between these things and his ideas of the things, or his sensations gathered from the things, arises only upon reflection and after a comparison of his experiences with those of other men. He sees the ink-stand in front of another man's body. He discovers that the other man sees the ink-stand--that is, has an experience like his own. He finds, after investigation, that this other man does not have the experience until after some influence has been conducted by the nerves to the brain. He accordingly concludes that the mind of this other man, and all that it _immediately_ knows, is situated somewhere in the brain. He thus distinguishes between the ink-stand and the representative of the ink-stand in the mind of the other man. This is precisely what Dr. McCosh has done, though he has preferred to use the word perception instead of sensation or impression. Having gone as far as this, the man in question reflects, if he be consistent, that his own case must be essentially similar to that of the man he is considering, and concludes that he, too, sees only (immediately, at least) some representative of the ink-stand, and not the thing itself. Dr. McCosh does not conclude this, because he is not consistent. But an ink-stand, a tree, a house, in the brain, cannot be very much like a real ink-stand, tree or house. Then one does not see things as they are, but is condemned to a phantom world. Having gone thus far, our common man is appalled at his own conclusions, as well he may be.

He may, however, be readily reassured, if one will point out to him the error in his argument. The whole argument began by assuming that he has evidence that some object is in front of his body and in front of the body of another man; that he has a body and so has the other man. If this knowledge be immediate, of course it may furnish the basis of an argument; but if it be not immediate, one has no right to begin with it, but should go back to what is immediate. Let us assume that it is immediate. What I am then conscious of is my own body, the other man's body and the object in relation to them. Upon this basis I argue to some representative of the object I immediately see, and I connect it with the man's brain. Does the man now see two objects or only one? If only one, which one? The one I refer to his brain, or the one I see? Does the one he sees seem to him to be in his brain? Probably he has not the least notion that it is connected with that organ. Am I, then, in his case? Do I also see only a copy of the object in my brain? And may this not be true, although I have no immediate knowledge of my brain and its relation to that object? But--and this is the important point--if all this be true, how about the position with which I started? My argument is based upon two real bodies and a real object. I see that I was wholly in error in supposing that I saw these and could reason from them. Then the reasoning is not good. Then the conclusion is not reliable, and it is not proved that I see immediately only an image in, or in some sort of contact with, my brain. The fallacious character of the argument is plain enough; where is the flaw? It lies in this:

I assume that I see the two bodies and the object immediately. Consciousness seems to reveal them. After granting the man opposite me a representative of that object I apply the same reasoning to myself, forgetting that I assumed at the outset that I see the real object. I can certainly not put the object I see in my brain, for the brain in any way I can be conceived to know it belongs to precisely the same class of things as this object, and they are beside each other in consciousness. The representative the other man has is a representative of the object in my consciousness, and not--at least, I have no evidence that it is--a representative of a something else of which my object is also a representative. And if the object of which I am immediately conscious is extended and without my body (immediately perceived), I may assume that the object in his consciousness is also extended and without the body in his consciousness. His representative of my object is not in the head I see, for his head as I see it is in my consciousness, if the object I see is, and any object in his consciousness is the same with any corresponding object in mine only in sense sixth--a sense of sameness which I have explained at length in the earlier part of my work. This reasoning is, it seems to me, clear enough and consistent enough, and should be plain to any one who will take the trouble to follow it carefully. It lands one in no such difficulties and inconsistencies as result from the doctrine I have been criticizing. Should it be said this is a form of Idealism, and at least abandons what is extra-mental, I answer, the name is a matter of taste and of little significance; what is important is that this doctrine does not found its reasoning upon an assumption which its conclusion declares to be false; nor does it maintain that what is immediately known is not extended, figured, external to the body, as it seems to be, but something quite different and dissimilar. It is in harmony with the revelation of consciousness. Should it still be objected that it makes no distinction between things and the sensations or impressions which represent them, I answer, one can object to things being regarded as complexes of sensations only as long as he separates sensations and things, making the former unlike the things and relegating them to a place (the brain) where the things are not, and to exist in which they must be very bad copies of the things indeed. The doctrine I advocate does not deny the things as perceived at all; it merely holds that consciousness does declare for the things, and not for a set of representatives much unlike them and said to exist in a place in which we are not conscious of perceiving anything. It objects to seeing double through an incomplete reflection upon what consciousness reveals.

Now it is very evident that Dr. McCosh, in his anxiety to prove an extra-mental world, is actuated by a desire to retain real things. He is under the impression that, unless the extra-mental is known, our knowledge is confined to shadows and unrealities. He combats the Idealist, because he supposes him to deny the body of which we are conscious; whereas, all that the Idealist is denying (if he be consistent with his principles) is the hypothetical representative of the body, assumed to exist within the body, and to which consciousness does not testify. It is this that is the unreality. The body to which the Idealist holds is the very body to which Dr. McCosh thinks consciousness testifies; but this body is not beyond consciousness, nor in any proper sense of the words extra-mental. The above argument for the extra-mental is consequently due to a misconception--to the misconception that the body revealed by consciousness is the extra-mental body, and that the only body left to an Idealist is an unreal phantom of this body, and distinct from it. And it is the attempt to make this body revealed by consciousness both in mind and out of mind that has occasioned the difficulties and inconsequences of the reasoning I have quoted. This attempt is due to a confusion of sameness in sense seventh with sameness in sense first. My excuse for so minute a criticism of this plainly untenable position is that we have here a representative instance of an error quite common, and indeed characteristic of a certain stage of reflection.

SEC. 36. The last confusion of samenesses that I shall discuss lies at the bottom of the common opinion on the infinite divisibility of space, and causes the antinomies which arise from it. The position I shall criticize is well set forth in Professor W. K. Clifford's popular lecture entitled "Of Boundaries in General."[72] From this I take a few passages which will suffice to illustrate his doctrine.

[72] "Seeing and Thinking," London, Macmillan & Co., 1879.

"Now the idea expressed by that word _continuous_ is one of extreme importance; it is the foundation of all exact science of things; and yet it is so very simple and elementary that it must have been almost the first clear idea that we got into our heads. It is only this: I cannot move this thing from one position to another, without making it go through an infinite number of intermediate positions. _Infinite_; it is a dreadful word, I know, until you find out that you are familiar with the thing which it expresses. In this place it means that between any two positions there is some intermediate position; between that and either of the others, again, there is some other intermediate; and so on _without any end_. Infinite means without any end. If you went on with that work of counting forever, you would never get any further than the beginning of it. At last you would only have two positions very close together, but not the same; and the whole process might be gone over again, beginning with those as many times as you like."

* * * * "When a point moves, it moves along some line; and you may say that it traces out or describes the line. To look at something definite, let us take the point where this boundary of red on paper is cut by the surface of water. I move all about together. Now you know that between any two positions of the point there is an infinite number of intermediate positions. Where are they all? Why, clearly, in the line along which the point moved. That line is the place where all such points are to be found."

* * * * "It seems a very natural thing to say that space is made up of points. I want you to examine very carefully what this means, and how far it is true. And let us first take the simplest case, and consider whether we may safely say that a line is made up of points. If you think of a very large number--say, a million--of points all in a row, the end ones being an inch apart; then this string of points is altogether a different thing from a line an inch long. For if you single out two points which are next one another, then there is no point of the series between them; but if you take two points on a line, however close together they may be, there is an infinite number of points between them. The two things are different _in kind_, not in degree."