Chapter XX: Part 20

“The effective certainty that the mathematical laws of number, of figure and of motion are at the base of physical phenomena, and the inductive belief that they are equally at the base of chemical and of biological phenomena induce me to note here a view upon the relation that must be found between subjective phenomena and objective phenomena, that is to say upon the relation that causes the subject to draw from the object a science and laws. The nervous substance, which is the organ of all intelligence, is made up of material elements which arrive with their conditions; and when this substance becomes capable of thinking, it passes under the conditions proper to the elements that form it; which results in (_se traduit par_) a science and its laws. The material work that takes place in the brain while it fulfils its office, is, as is known, a work of nutrition, which consists of a chemical exchange of molecules. Every chemical action is, in turn, equivalent to a certain quantity of heat; and again, this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity of motion. Thus thought, no matter how we represent to ourselves the relation to nervous substance, is connected with mathematical modes of which it becomes conscious when it becomes luminous. Not that I would in any way have it understood that thought is but an equivalent of heat or of motion. Far from that, equivalence is not identity; and whenever we change from one degree to another in the natural and scientific order we meet a new unknown which is the characteristic of this degree. The induction that leads us to connect thought with mathematical conditions, leads us also to connect it with physical, chemical, and biological conditions, of which it is necessarily participant. Finally, when, at the highest point, it arrives face to face with itself, it studies itself experimentally like the rest, and forms its own doctrine. If it attempts to go out metaphysically into space, it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself. If, on the contrary, it makes the same attempt towards nature from which it emanates, then the ways open, science is established, and positive philosophy appears. The material constitution of the nervous substance is the point of junction between the human mind and laws or general facts. If I had been younger, I should have made a work of this view, not a paragraph; but old age must hasten.”

I have translated more than was necessary so as to give the “view” as a whole. Does it not contain the answer to your question, “What is the origin of the _a priori_”?

Though Littré solved your “basic problem of philosophy” he did not attach so much importance to this solution as you do because his philosophy is based upon a generalisation from all facts and not upon any one fact, however important it may be.

“Positive Philosophy is the conception of the world that results from the systematised ensemble of the positive sciences” and does not depend upon the solution of any psychological problem, although it recognises the importance of all psychological facts.

Your originality lies in your application of Littré’s discovery.

The reader has his choice between Littré’s positivism and your neo-Kantism, but if he side with you he must at least thank Littré for the solution on which your philosophy is based.

You say that “Comtean Positivism, especially as it is represented by Littré, consists mainly if not exclusively of the doctrine to ‘let metaphysics alone.’” Is this fair to the man that solved your “basic problem of philosophy” in a paragraph?

Positivism as represented by Littré gives due importance to the subjective element. He recognised that three essentials were necessary to the completion of Comte’s philosophy: a political economy, a cerebral theory, and what, for want of a better name he termed the subjective theory of humanity. This last comprised ethics, æsthetics, and psychology. Speaking of a confusion that obscures the whole discussion relative to psychology, he says: “_Cerebral theory_, _mental_ or _psychological theory_ are taken in two very different senses, which are never distinguished. These terms signify sometimes the organic conditions under which intelligence manifests itself, sometimes the formal conditions under which the intellect operates. As soon as these two significations are separated we perceive the means of settling the debate as to the place of psychology; for to the question: Where should these two orders be studied? it will be answered that the first should be studied in anatomy, physiology, zoölogy, the evolution of ages, pathology, it belongs therefore without contest to biology; but it will be answered that the second should be studied in the total development of history and in the application to all the modes of cognition; it belongs incontestably to philosophy. Thus there are two psychologies, one biological, the other philosophical, one relating to the individual man, the other to the collective man, one furnishing what is necessary in order to pass from biology to sociology, the other examining the subjective instrument by the light of all positive knowledge. But this complement of philosophy I do not call psychology, I call it the _subject-theory_ of _humanity_; because while including psychology, it includes much more.” That is to say; ethics and æsthetics.... “In the order of the positive method it is at first by means of the object that human knowledge is built up, and we end with the subject.” “The theory of the subject is the indispensable complement of the theory of the object.”

Of positive philosophy Littré says: “While it constructs the series of the partial philosophies and thus embraces all objective knowledge, it constructs at the same time the series of effective methods and thus embraces all logical power. I borrow this expression from M. Comte, who so happily named these effective methods the logical powers of the human mind. When it has terminated its first series it is found to have also terminated the second. Thus the ensemble of the methods represents the function of the subject; the ensemble of the partial philosophies, the function of the object.”

Is this what you call a “one-sided philosophy”?

You say that Littré is the worst kind of a metaphysician because he maintains that we can know nothing about first and final causes; I quote him to show his position: “Positive philosophy is at the same time a system that comprises all that is known of the world, of man and of society, and a general method including all the ways by which things have been learned. What is beyond, either, materially, the depths (fond) of boundless space, or, intellectually, the endless enchainment of causes, is absolutely inaccessible to the human mind. But inaccessible does not mean null or non-existent. Immensity, both material and intellectual, holds by a narrow tie to what we know and becomes by this alliance a positive idea of the same order; I mean to say that by touching and bordering it, this immensity appears in its double character, reality and inaccessibility. It is an ocean that washes our shore, and for which we have neither bark nor sail, but whose clear vision is as salutary as it is formidable.” _Aug. Comte et la Phil. Pos._, 2d Ed., p. 519.

As Littré had found this shore encumbered with the wrecks of expeditions that had started out in search of first causes and final causes, it is no wonder that he was a little timid. His metaphor needs explanation in the light of other passages, otherwise it might seem to discourage pursuit of the unknown. He did not discountenance hypotheses but he was very much afraid of our inclination to take guesses for truth; and this, by the way, is the reason why he is not appreciated in this country, where we are so fond of guessing. What he really did was to discourage those navigators who would go in search of the Jumping-off-place, for the best that can befall them is to come back to where they started. The men that know the earth is round are the only men that find new worlds.

In answer to your statement that Littré’s philosophy “is an inventory rather than a plan to guide science in its further evolution” I will only repeat in his words, what he has shown so well, that “positive philosophy is the ensemble of human knowledge, disposed according to a certain order which enables us to grasp its connections and its unity, and to draw from it the general directions for each part and for the whole.”

You say that “Littré rejects the evolution theory and its attempts to explain ethics.” I quote him from _La Philosophie Positive_, March, 1880: “Positive philosophy does not deny the evolution of ethics; far from doing so, it maintained and inculcated this evolution long before the utilitarian doctrine made it its ethical pivot.”.... “General morality, born of the gradual culture of the sentimental basis of the human soul under the social protection of progressive centres, is entirely disinterested, and this is what makes its purity and its force.”

In your philosophy you have a god and a religion, in his we have the same things, but as they are so different from what is generally understood by these terms, we use others. Here are some of the _Paroles de Philosophie Positive_: “In the eyes of history, there are no false religions, there are only incomplete religions which make their way through time and perfect themselves.... The definition of religion is taken from its office, which is: to put education, and consequently moral life, en rapport with the conception of the world at each phase of humanity. Whoever examines this definition will find that it satisfies all the conditions of religion, either in the past, the present, or the future. It will be perceived that theology is not inherent in the religious idea. It was not always there in the past; for we cannot give the name of theology to primordial fetichism, which addressed its worship to neighboring objects, nor to the religions that adore natural agents, such as air, wind, night, dawn; it is with polytheism that theology begins. As for the future, general science, conceiving the world differently from the way in which it was conceived during the reigns of the successive religions, takes an office equivalent to the religious office, and must in its turn place education and moral life in accord with the universe as it appears to us.”.... “We do not outrage the old doctrine, whose past is glorious and venerable; but there is a public for which it is a dead letter; and it is to this public that we address ourselves and for this public that we labor.”

Is this not aspiration to be in unison with “the order of the world,” which you call God? And when Littré traces this aspiration back to its organic origin is he not explaining what you affirm?

Our philosophies are not perfect, but we must apply them, such as they are, to the needs of the day. The most pressing of all these needs, in my opinion, is unity of action among those who are animated with the new spirit.

Let us pull together.

Very truly yours,

LOUIS BELROSE, JR.

ÉMILE LITTRÉ’S POSITIVISM.

An editor cannot make it a rule to accept criticisms of considerable length which have reference to a remark incidentally made in a book review. The present case, however, although it belongs in this category, is of a peculiar nature. First, the remark on Littré was made by the editor himself, and accordingly he feels personally responsible for it; secondly, it contains a brief delineation of Littré’s character as a man and as a philosopher in the way in which he is usually regarded by the most prominent historians of philosophy. Mr. Belrose presents Littré in quite a new light and quotes passages in corroboration of his conception of Littré which are perhaps not generally known, for they are buried in articles of the positivistic journal _La Philosophie Positive_, and this journal enjoyed neither a long life nor a large circulation; nor is it to be had in any of the libraries accessible to me. Seventeen editorial articles were republished in bookform, (_La Science. Au point de vue philosophique, par_ É. LITTRÉ. Paris, 1873), but the article “The Three Philosophies” is not among them.

If Mr. Belrose’s conception of Littré proves to be true, I shall not only gladly correct my own wrong view of Littré, but I wish also to call attention to the fact that he has been misrepresented by almost all and certainly by the best and most painstaking philosophical historians.

I cannot however in the main points accede to Mr. Belrose’s view and will have to sustain my former opinion that M. Littré was an agnostic. He made it a matter of principle to suspend his opinion on some of the most fundamental philosophical problems, which he considered as inaccessible. His positivism, accordingly, differs _toto cœlo_ from the positivism presented in _The Monist_. His philosophy, like that of Comte, is so far as I understand it, a policy of let-metaphysics-alone. It gives up the struggle with metaphysics as a hopeless undertaking. Therefore, I should say, Littré’s positivism has not conquered metaphysics, and although it lets metaphysics alone, metaphysics plays an important part in it. Littré is an agnostic and like every agnostic that believes in the unknowable, a metaphysician without knowing it.

The doctrine of the three stages of knowledge, viz., the theological, metaphysical, and positive stages, appears to me of less importance. The doctrine of the three stages is at the same time not properly a Comtean idea; Comte adopted it from Turgot, the great statesman and one of the greatest men as a thinker and also as a character that ever lived and who is too little appreciated as such.

The main doctrine of Comte’s positivism is the doctrine that first and final causes cannot be known, and we must abandon our search for them; that human knowledge is limited to the middle, while the two ends are inaccessible. These insoluble questions, he declares, have made no progress from the beginning. Mr. Lewes in his book “Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences” expresses this agnosticism in the following words (p. 31): “Our province is to study her [nature’s] laws, to trace her processes, and, thankful that we can so far penetrate the divine significance of the universe, be content—as Locke wisely and modestly says—to sit down in quiet ignorance of all _transcendent_[61] subjects.”

This idea has so far as I am aware never been given up by Littré; it remained the basis of his belief in the unknowable and his works abound in expressions that concerning the main problems of life, “the positive philosophy will neither assert nor deny anything.”

Littré concludes the last article of his volume “La Science” with the following words:

“Le domaine ultérieur est celui des choses qui ne peuvent
pas être connues. La science positive professe de n’y rien
nier, de n’y rien affirmer; en un mot, elle ne connaît pas
l’inconnaissable, mais elle en constate l’existence. Là est la
philosophie suprême; aller plus loin est chimérique, aller moin
loin est déserter notre destinée.”

This quotation alone, I think, settles the first main point at issue.

Now I maintain that Comte’s view of causation where he refers to first and final causes is fundamentally wrong; causation is transformation and causality is the formula under which we comprehend the changes of matter and energy that take place. The expressions first and final causes are misnomers (see “Fundamental Problems,” the chapter The Problem of Causality). First cause is either the starting point of a series of some longer chain of causes and effects, or as the term is generally applied or rather misapplied, stands for the last ground or reason, i. e. the answer given to the ultimate question why?, which is the most general _raison d’être_ that would explain and contain all the other and less general _raisons d’être_ regarding the nature of existence. The term final cause, again, means either the last cause in a series of causes or (and so it is generally used) it is a misnomer for purpose; and the final cause supposed to be inaccessible to human comprehension is the purpose of the existence of the world at large. I object to there being three kinds of causes. There is one kind of causality only, and the causes of this causality in all the causal processes with which we are confronted are perfectly intelligible.

The problem of the first cause of the origin of our world, viz. the solar system and the milky way, was attacked first by Kant and later by Laplace, and the latter, without knowing of Kant’s solution, solved it in the main in the same way. All recent investigations stand upon this Kant-Laplace hypothesis so called, having added corrections only as to details. Shall we declare that these labors are vain and gratuitous efforts of vague speculations? Littré says, with reference to such speculations, concerning the past and future states of the world (le monde):

“La dissémination primordiale de la matière qui devait le
composer, la dissémination future de la matière qui le compose,
dépassant toute expérience, dépassent toute conjecture.”

If I misunderstand Littré, it appears to me a pardonable mistake.

Yet is not the problem as to the origin of the world at large, why matter and energy exist at all, insolvable? Littré says that the positive cosmogonies, such as the doctrine of evolution do not touch the absolute; they have nothing to do with first and final causes. He says: “Les cosmogonies positives la [i. e. la place des cosmogonies religieuses] remplissent, non pas qu’elles aient la prétention ni le pouvoir de pénétrer dans l’absolu et d’embrasser, les causes premières et finales.”—l. c., p. 560.

That kind of causality which is sometimes called “ontological,” having reference to the existence, not of single things as transformations from other things, but of the world at large and formulated in such questions as how did the universe itself, the world as a whole, originate, is properly speaking no causality, it is not a question concerning a cause, but concerning a _raison d’être_. However without haggling about the words cause and _raison d’être_, this ontological causality so called is by no means beyond human comprehension. The ontological question has found a very definite answer in the formulation of the law of the conservation of matter and energy; which declares that existence at large did not originate, the total amount of matter as well as of energy existed always and will exist always. It has not been created; it is uncreatable and indestructible; it is eternal.

Littré is quite explicit in declaring that the positive philosophy lets alone all theological and metaphysical problems. It is neither atheistic nor theistic, and does not side with either materialism or spiritualism. He says:

“Ni spiritualiste, ni matérialiste, la philosophie positive
écarte de la science générale les débats que la science
particulière a depuis long temps et à son grand profit
rejetés.”—Preface d’un disciple in Comte’s “Course de Phil.
pos.” p. xxvii.

Littré characterises as the main object of the positive philosophy, “to give to philosophy the positive method of the sciences, to the sciences the idea of the unity of philosophy.” He says: “Ainsi fut accompli ce qu’on doit appeler l’œuvre philosophique du dix-neuvième siècle, donner à la philosophie la méthode positive des sciences, aux sciences l’idée d’ensemble de la philosophie.” Preface, p. viii.

I am in perfect agreement with Littré that this is the object of positivism; but, if I understand Littré correctly, I disagree from his conception of the positive method. He limits the positive method to what he calls “experience,” and excludes every notion of the _a priori_. Littré apparently misunderstood the proper meaning of Kant’s idea of the _a priori_, for he used as a matter of course the _a priori_ method wherever it was indispensable, so for instance in mathematics and in the application of mathematics.

Mr. Belrose says:

[Littré] “solved your basic problem of philosophy [i. e. what is the origin of the _a priori_] in a paragraph.”

The problem of the _a priori_ reasoning is the question “Why can we know certain things before we have tested them by experiment? Man has not arrived by experience but by pure reasoning at the conclusion that the sum of the angles of every plane triangle has 180 degrees. How is he justified in declaring _a priori_ that the angles of a certain plane triangle make up 180 degrees, although he has not measured them?” This problem is the fundamental problem of the scientific or positive method; it is the same problem which Mr. Charles S. Peirce discusses in his article (see pp. 321 et seqq. of the present number of _The Monist_), for the problem of apriority is identical with the question of necessity.

Littré has, so far as I know, never discussed the problem of apriority and necessity. He has simply rejected the idea of the _a priori_ as the method of a false metaphysics, which is incompatible with the _a posteriori_ method of positive science. The passage quoted by Mr. Belrose most certainly does _not_ contain a solution of the problem. Littré declares therein that every chemical action is equivalent to a certain quantity of heat; and again this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity of motion. Thus, he says, thought is connected with mathematical modes of which it becomes conscious. Thought, he adds, is not an equivalent of heat or motion, for equivalence is not identity, but it is connected with mathematical conditions. This means that that kind of brain-action which represents conscious thought, depends upon definite proportions. But what in all the world has this idea to do with the problem of apriority? The phrase “mathematical modes” (which is misleading in this passage) is an unfortunate expression for “proportions” and we must add that Littré is mistaken when he says that the nervous substance when it becomes luminous, becomes conscious of these mathematical modes with which it is connected. Aside from “luminous” being simply an allegorical expression for conscious, it is wrong to say that the nervous substance becomes conscious of the mathematical modes of heat as they are proportioned in the brain. A sentient being knows through sensation nothing about the mechanism or the mechanical proportions of its own sentient structure. Sensation is the act of a becoming conscious not of the sentient structure itself but of the meaning which this sentient structure has acquired, and a consciousness of the mathematical modes which according to Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences ought to be the beginning of knowledge develops at a very late period. Any explanation of the origin of _a priori_, be it ever so brief, would lead us too far away from the points of our controversy. It is sufficient here to point out that the passage quoted by Mr. Belrose, contains no solution of the problem of our knowledge and certitude of mathematical, arithmetical, and other purely formal laws. On the contrary, this very passage is replete with error; it is a misstatement of facts and does not even bring to light the difficulties of the problem.

Littré was prejudiced against the _a priori_, and his prejudice induced him to underrate its importance. I read in one of Littré’s passages quoted by Mr. Belrose:

“If it [thought] attempts to go out metaphysically into space,
it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns
in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself.”

The _a priori_ method of thought subjectively combining its own elements, is by no means a turning in a circle without issue so that in the end it will fall back upon itself. The _a priori_ method of thought subjectively combining its own elements is employed by arithmetic, mathematics, and logic, and we are confronted with the astonishing fact that rules, or formulas, or calculations which were made by pure thought subjectively combining its own elements, are applicable and hold good as reliable guides in our experiments. If there were no _a priori_, how could we foretell or, what is more still, how could we predetermine the course of nature? The _a priori_ has been wrongly employed by the so-called metaphysical philosophers to give us information about the substance and essence of the world. But the misapplication of the _a priori_ is no reason for denouncing it as radically wrong.

The existence of the _a priori_ is an undeniable fact. Kant was right in recognising it in its sweeping importance, yet he was wrong in his interpretation of the _a priori_, which according to his transcendentalism was based exclusively upon a peculiarity of the mind and not upon the nature of things. The positivists in France did not only object to the wrong interpretation of the transcendentalists but also denied the existence of the _a priori_. Accepting the principle that every knowledge must ultimately be a statement of facts, the question How is the _a priori_ to be based upon facts? became in my conception of philosophy the burning problem which was next in order as a conciliation between Kant and Comte.

The French positivists, foremost among them Comte and Littré, have not given us an explanation of what is true and false in the theological and metaphysical notions of first and final causes, of the _a priori_ of God, of substance, of force, etc.; they have simply abandoned the investigation of these ideas which are after all the most important tools in the household of the human mind for scientific and ethical purposes; and thus they have, in spite of their positivism in questions of detail, retained the metaphysical method of _a priori_ reasoning which is quite legitimate in the formal science but out of place concerning facts. Take for instance the following argument concerning the materiality of things:

“Là, c’est à dire dans les sciences positives, on ne connaît
aucune propriété sans matière, non point parce que, _a priori_,
on y a l’idée préconçue qu’il n’existe aucune substance
spirituelle indépendante, mais parce que, _a posteriori_,
on n’a jamais rencontré la gravitation sans corps pesant,
la chaleur sans corps chaud, l’électricité sans corps
électrique, l’affinité sans substances de combinaison, la
vie, la sensibilité, la pensée, sans être vivant, sentant et
pensant.”—_La Science_, p. 307.

I do not mean to say that there are immaterial or spiritual substances, but I should say that any purely _a posteriori_ argument in favor of their non-existence is insufficient. Would Littré mean that a Zulu should declare that ice cannot exist because he has never seen water frozen as hard as a stone? Any amount of experience, i. e. all _a posteriori_ evidence, is in parts and will out of itself never acquire universal validity.

How strongly Littré is still implicated in the metaphysical method of applying _a priori_ ideas to _a posteriori_ experiences can be learned from the following statement:

“Le monde est constitué par la matière et par les forces de
la matière: la matière dont l’origine et l’essence nous sont
inaccessible; les forces qui sont immanentes à la matière. Au
delà de ces deux termes, matière et force, la science positive
ne connaît rien.” Preface, p. ix.

The metaphysical ideas, matter and force, are _a priori_ notions of mystical entities or things in themselves, and thus it appears natural that experience should know nothing of them. But real matter and actual force are not unknowable existences. They can be known. We know something of them and positive science is engaged in broadening and deepening this knowledge. Says Littré:

“Les propriétés physiques sont manifestes en toute substance,
dans quelque état qu’elle soit, isolée ou non isolée, et
s’exercent sur les masses; les propriétés, n’apparaissent
qu’entre deux substances, ont besoin de la binarité et
s’exercent sur les molécules; enfin les propriétés vitales
dépassant la binarité, ne sont compatibles qu’avec un état
moléculaire plus composé.” Preface, p. x.

One of the fundamental principles of positivism, as I conceive it, is the definition of knowledge as a description of facts or of their properties. We call certain properties of the facts (i. e. the objects of our experience) matter and others force. When we say that we do or do not know a certain phenomenon we mean that we have or have not as yet succeeded in placing them properly in that system of thought-symbols of which our mind consists. Yet there is no sense in speaking of matter and force as being unknowable while the properties of matter and force are said to be manifest and appearing under certain conditions.

I have presented the main reasons why I still hold that there is a radical difference between Littré’s view of positivism and my own. Littré is an agnostic and he was an agnostic before that name had been invented. His objection to metaphysicism consists in the doctrine not that the object of metaphysics is a chimerical non-existence, but that the object of metaphysics exists yet it cannot be known. Thus Littré is as much a metaphysician as those philosophers whom he censures for their metaphysical views. He does not censure them for believing that the metaphysical exists, but for believing that it is knowable and attempting to investigate its nature.

As to the hierarchy of the sciences I shall simply quote a few extracts from Eugen Dühring’s criticism of Comte. Dühring says (_Krit. Gesch. der Phil._, p. 486):

“If Comte’s _positivism_ were nothing more than what we have
here laid down, its main contents would, strange enough,
consist in _negativity_. The criticism of a certain kind of
metaphysics, viz. of an ontology phantastical to a greater or
lesser extent, would form its most significant character. The
other element which consists in presenting a hierarchy and
unitary conjunction of some of the sciences which are called
positive in the usual sense of the term, cannot pretend to
be philosophy in the higher sense of the word or even to be
useful for science. A general view of knowledge, whether it
consists of six or sixty volumes, does not add the least iota
to the contents of our knowledge.... We cannot expect that a
specialist should be pleased with a hierarchical sketch of his
science, especially if the delineations are filled out with
details of which he would be a better judge.”

It is true, and I concur in this with the French positivists, that a positive philosophy must be a systematic arrangement of knowledge. But I conceive it to be the philosopher’s work, not to take an inventory of the sciences, but to define the fundamental concepts of scientific enquiry and to elucidate the methods of cognition. Such fundamental concepts are the ideas, truth and criterion of truth, cause and effect, mind, thought, knowledge, ethics, etc. Concepts are the tools of thought and the practice of using them correctly has to be learned.

Positivism is not the original invention of a world-system, but the systematising of statements of facts so as to produce a world-system. The old philosophers gave us first a world-system, from which and in accord with which they defined their views of truth, cognition, cause, etc. They began to build their philosophy from the top down. Positivism begins from the bottom and is building up to the top with the assistance of the special sciences. A positive philosophy is inseparable from, but it cannot be replaced by, the sciences. The field of philosophy is to superintend the method and the plan of building, so as to compare the details and bear in mind the unity of the whole. In this sense Dühring says in criticising Comte (p. 486):

“However, concerning the form of the connections of methodical
reflections, something can be done. Yet it must be possible
to separate everything of such a kind and also new insights,
so as to constitute a special branch of knowledge. Otherwise
they will escape the specialists’ attention.... Not only Comte
but all philosophers given to the idea of systematisation and
construction of particular knowledge have made attempts in
this direction which at most may range as sketches or popular
presentations in a higher sense.”

Concerning Littré’s view of Comte’s religious vagaries Dühring says (p. 483):

“His [Comte’s] biographer, the Academician Littré of Paris,
and also Stuart Mill are right in considering ‘The Course of
Positive Philosophy’ as the main and fundamental work which is
decisive as a contribution of his and a source of instruction
to the world. However, they are very one-sided when they
overlook that the philosopher even in his vagaries exhibited a
universality of mind which remains superior to the standpoint
of either Littré or Mill.”

I agree with Mr. Belrose that Comte’s religion as he conceived it consists of vagaries, but the main idea of developing the religions of the past which, as Littré says, are not false but only incomplete religions, into a religion that shall be in accord with the science of our day is no vagary, but a great and an important ideal.

Far be it from me to belittle Littré because I disagree from him in some fundamental questions. He was in his time, he is still, and will remain for ever a star of first magnitude in our philosophical galaxy. That which I consider as his errors does not detract from his greatness. Were not Kant’s mistakes in a similar way closely interwoven with his greatest merits? It is flattering to me that Mr. Belrose finds an agreement between his master’s and my views concerning the basic problem of philosophy, but I cannot discover it. Yet I gladly acknowledge that there exists an agreement of aim, and this agreement of aim which finds its truest expression in the word “positivistic” is perhaps of greater importance than the agreement of views.

P. C.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Italics are not mine.

OBSERVATIONS ON SOME POINTS IN JAMES’S PSYCHOLOGY.[62]

In calling attention to some objections to the views advanced by Professor James on the subjects of Belief, Emotion, and Will, it is only justice to myself to express the admiration I feel for his work as a whole. The thoroughly scientific spirit which pervades it, the author’s candor in admitting and his skill in surmounting difficulties, his learning and his originality, his aptness in illustration, and the energy and vivacity of his style combine to make it full of interest as well as instruction. It is because it should be, and doubtless will be widely influential, that it is important that any doubtful positions assumed in it should be subjected to a careful examination.

I shall endeavor to avoid any misrepresentation of the views which I combat, but space will not allow me to do full justice to the arguments by which they are supported, if such a thing is possible for an antagonist. For this, I must refer the interested reader to the original book. If what I have to say should have the effect of increasing the number of its readers, I shall not have written altogether in vain, whether I succeed or fail in setting the truth in a clearer light.

I. BELIEF.

Professor James entitles the chapter devoted to this subject “The Perception of Reality,” and defines belief to be “the mental state or function of cognising reality.” He explains that, “As used in the following pages, ‘Belief’ will mean every degree of assurance, including the highest possible certainty and conviction” (Vol. II, p. 283).

According to this definition, erroneous beliefs, such, for instance, as the belief that the earth is flat, stationary, and the centre of the universe, or the delusion of an insane man that he is Jesus Christ, are cognitions of reality. Professor James would probably say that they are realities to the mind entertaining them, and it is true that the feeling of belief is the same, whether the thing believed be true or false. I think, however, that it is more customary to use the verb which he employs in connection with beliefs which agree with the objective facts, and that the “feeling” or “sense” of reality would be a better term than “perception” or “cognition.”

This, however, is not, to my mind, the most serious objection to the definition. Although Professor James does not use the word “knowledge” in this connection, it seems evident, from the passage quoted above, and from what he says elsewhere, that he considers all kinds, as well as all degrees of certainty to be beliefs. It seems to me evident, on the other hand, that many of our cognitions of reality are not properly called beliefs. As an instance, I will quote the illustration with which he opens the discussion of “The Various Orders of Reality” (p. 287).

“Suppose a new-born mind, entirely blank and waiting for
experience to begin. Suppose that it begins in the form of a
visual impression (whether faint or vivid is immaterial) of a
lighted candle against a dark background, and nothing else, so
that whilst this image lasts it constitutes the entire universe
to the mind in question. Suppose, moreover (to simplify the
hypothesis), that the candle is only imaginary, and that no
‘original’ of it is recognised by us psychologists outside.
Will this hallucinatory candle be believed in, will it have a
real existence for the mind?

“What possible sense (for that mind) would a suspicion have
that the candle is not real? What would doubt or disbelief
of it imply? When _we_, the onlooking psychologists, say the
candle is unreal, we mean something quite definite, viz.
that there is a world known to _us_ which _is_ real, and to
which we perceive that the candle does not belong; it belongs
exclusively to that individual mind, has no status anywhere
else, etc. It exists, to be sure, in a fashion, for it forms
the content of that mind’s hallucination; but the hallucination
itself, though unquestionably it is a sort of existing fact,
has no knowledge of _other_ facts; and since those _other_
facts are the realities _par excellence_ for us, and the only
things we believe in, the candle is simply outside of our
reality and belief altogether.

“By the hypothesis, however, the mind which sees the candle
can spin no such considerations as these about it, for of
other facts, actual or possible, it has no inkling whatever.
That candle is its all, its absolute. Its entire faculty of
attention is absorbed by it. It _is_, it is _that_; it is
_there_; no other possible candle, or quality of this candle,
no other possible place, or possible object in the place, no
alternative, in short, suggests itself as even conceivable;
so how can the mind help believing the candle real? The
supposition that it might possibly not do so is, under the
supposed conditions, unintelligible.”

I readily grant that it is, under the supposed circumstances, unintelligible that the candle should be thought to be unreal, but it seems to me equally so that it should be believed to be real. What does Professor James mean by a belief in the reality of the candle under such conditions? Nothing more than that the mind is conscious of a sensation which we know, but it does not, is like that produced by the sight of a candle. This sensation is certainly a reality, and the only possible reality to that mind. Professor James must, then, be understood as maintaining that a sensation, pure and simple, is a belief in an object exciting the sensation. If, for instance, the first consciousness of the supposed mind were the odor of a rose, or the whistle of a locomotive, he must admit that the mind would believe in the rose or the locomotive. If I have a headache, or am hungry or tired, I not only have beliefs about these sensations, but the headache, the hunger, the weariness, are themselves beliefs. Now I submit that this is contrary to all ordinary use of language. It is, perhaps, impossible for an adult, with his mind full of memories of past experiences, to have a sensation without some sort of a belief about it, but although the sensation and the belief may be inseparable, they are not indistinguishable, and, as a matter of fact, every one does distinguish between his sensations and his beliefs about them. I do not think it would be quite correct to say even of an adult who had never seen or heard of a candle, that, on seeing one for the first time, he would believe in the reality of the candle, although doubtless he would believe he saw something real—a real flame, for instance.

If it be admitted that sensations are entitled to be called beliefs, it seems impossible to stop short of the conclusion that all states of consciousness are beliefs.

Emotions and volitions are as much realities as sensations, and are known as such by the mind that experiences them. That memory and imagination involve belief, is too evident to need discussion. But if this be the case, the chapter on belief could have been very greatly abbreviated—need not in fact, contain more than four words. To say that all consciousness is belief would perhaps simplify matters, but it would not advance our knowledge very much, nor would it accord with the ordinary use of the word, which has reference to a particular kind of consciousness, which every one knows, however hard he may find its definition.

It seems to me, therefore, that Professor James’s definition of belief is defective in two ways. There are beliefs which are not cognitions of reality, and there are cognitions of reality which are not beliefs. Especially in regard to the latter class, I think that the definition confuses a distinction that is real and important, between different kinds of knowledge. We know our sensations, emotions and volitions in a way which differs not only in degree but in kind from any usual, or, I think, legitimate sense of the word “Belief.”

Perhaps it would be the safer course to rest content with pointing out the objections to the author’s definition without laying myself open to retaliation by attempting one of my own, but it does not seem to me impossible to give one which will include all that is understood by the term and nothing more. I should say that belief is the sense or feeling of relation between mental objects. That we have belief whenever we have this feeling, seems to me too plain to require argument, and I am unable, after a good deal of reflection, to call to mind any belief that is not included in the definition. If I see, or imagine that I see a lighted candle, it may excite in my mind a great variety of beliefs, as, that the flame is hot, that the light and heat are caused by the chemical union of oxygen with carbon and hydrogen, that the material of which the candle is composed is wax, paraffine or tallow, that it has a cotton wick, that it is of a certain size, weight, and color, and so on indefinitely. All of these are evidently ideas of relation. To say “flame,” or “hot” does not express a belief, unless something else is understood, but to say “flame is hot” does so. If I say that the color red is equal to the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, I fail to express a belief because the mind perceives no relation between the objects, and the answer to such a statement would be, not that it is or is not true, but that it has no meaning. The only cases which occur to me in which it might be plausibly argued that a belief did not involve the feeling of relation are such impersonal expressions as “it rains,” or, “it is cold.” The exception, however, is only apparent, arising from the erroneous idea that everything which is implied in language must be expressed. When we say, “it rains,” we mean, “rain is falling.” In either form of language, the thought conveyed is that of the relation of the drops of water and their motion. The stock-broker, with his prearranged code, may communicate the ideas of a long sentence in a single word, or the Freemason may do the same to the initiated by a gesture. In such a case, it would be absurd to contend that no relation is felt or communicated because there is no formal subject or predicate.

Whatever may be thought of the sufficiency of my definition, I risk the assertion that it includes all beliefs that can be affirmed, denied or doubted. We never question our sensations, emotions or volitions—we have them, are aware of them, and that is the end of the matter. It is the relations of our sensations to each other, and to our pleasures and pains, our choices and rejections, that involve us in all sorts of perplexities. The whole question of the grounds of belief in general, and the truth or falsehood of particular beliefs is a question of relations. It is, then, in the sense indicated above that I shall use the word hereafter.

Having settled the definition, it may be worth while to consider for a moment whether this feeling of relation, which can only be known by experience, is enough like any other mental states to be classed with them. On this point Professor James says: “_In its inner nature, belief, or the sense of reality, is a sort of feeling more allied to the emotions than to anything else._ Mr. Bagehot distinctly calls it the ‘emotion’ of conviction. I just now spoke of it as acquiescence. It resembles more than anything else what in the psychology of volition we know as consent. Consent is recognised by all to be a manifestation of our active nature. It would naturally be described by such terms as ‘willingness’ or the ‘turning of our disposition.’ What characterises both consent and belief is the cessation of theoretic agitation through the advent of an idea which is inwardly stable, and fills the mind solidly to the exclusion of contradictory ideas. When this is the case, motor effects are apt to follow. Hence the states of consent and belief, characterised by repose on the purely intellectual side, are both intimately connected with subsequent practical activity. This inward stability of the mind’s content is as characteristic of disbelief as of belief. But we shall presently see that we never disbelieve anything except for the reason that we believe something else that contradicts the first thing. Disbelief is thus an incidental complication to belief, and need not be considered by itself.” (P. 283).

I am unable to satisfy myself whether, in the above passage, Professor James has in mind the feeling of belief or other feelings which often accompany it. The “cessation of theoretic agitation,” “willingness,” “turning of our disposition,” are accompanied by feelings which I should say are not only like, but identical with emotion. In the case of old, confirmed beliefs, however, theoretic agitation ceased, and the turning of the disposition occurred, if at all, long ago, and I am unable to recognise anything resembling emotion in my belief that two and two make four, that cows eat grass, that iron is a metal, and many others that might be mentioned. Nor do these beliefs, at the present time, give rise to motor effects, which, so far as I am able to see, only result from such beliefs as are, directly or indirectly, associated with emotion. If such beliefs as I have mentioned are not purely intellectual, as distinguished from emotional phenomena, I should be at a loss to know where the distinction is to be made between “the head” and “the heart.” The sense of relation seems to me to be the most purely intellectual of all the mental functions, and, although it may give rise to all sorts of emotions, the more settled, undisturbed and unquestioning the belief, the less likely is it to give rise to any but the feeling of calm, which seems to me to be the antithesis of emotion. I should say that belief is a feeling _sui generis_, without enough analogy with any other to justify classing them together.

I have already quoted the illustration with which Professor James opens the discussion of the subject of Reality. After quoting from Spinoza, to the same effect, the supposed case of a horse with wings imagined to be real in the absence of any contradictory thought, he goes on to say: “The sense that anything we think of is unreal can only come, then, when that thing is contradicted by some other thing of which we think. _Any object which remains uncontradicted is ipso facto believed and posited as absolute reality._” (P. 288). Elsewhere he says:

“... _all propositions, whether attributive or existential, are
believed through the very fact of being conceived, unless they
clash with other propositions believed at the same time, by
affirming that their terms are the same as the terms of those
other propositions._” (P. 290).

This, I think, is stated too strongly, at least, in the latter quotation. A proposition that is uncontradicted will be believed, but it is not necessary that the contradictory proposition should be believed in order that the first may fail of belief. I believe nothing, at present, contradictory of the proposition that it is now raining in Boston. I think it not improbable that such may be the case, but at the same time the contrary proposition is present to my mind, that it may not be raining in Boston, and the result is the state of mind which Professor James very properly regards as the opposite of belief—doubt. But supposing that a proposition is presented to the mind, which, being for the time uncontradicted, is believed, and that subsequently another, contrary proposition is presented, is it certain that the latter will be disbelieved? May not a state of doubt replace belief in this case also? Or supposing that two propositions, which have been believed independently, are brought into juxtaposition in such a way as to show that they are inconsistent, how are we to determine which if either, shall be believed? Professor James seems to teach that it is a matter of choice.

“That we can at any moment think of the same thing which
at any former moment we thought of is the ultimate law of
our intellectual constitution. But when we now think of it
incompatibly with our other ways of thinking of it, then we
must choose which way to stand by, for we cannot continue to
think of it in two contradictory ways at once. _The whole
distinction of real and unreal, the whole psychology of
belief, disbelief and doubt, is thus grounded on two mental
facts—first, that we are liable to think differently of the
same; and second, that when we have done so, we can choose
which way of thinking to adhere to and which to disregard._[63]
The subjects adhered to become real subjects, the attributes
adhered to real attributes, the existence adhered to real
existence; while the subjects disregarded become imaginary
subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and
the existence disregarded an existence in no man’s land, in the
limbo ‘where footless fancies dwell.’” (P. 290).

The doctrine that belief is, in the last analysis, a matter of choice is a prominent feature of Professor James’s teaching, to which I shall have occasion to refer again. It seems to me to involve him in some inconsistencies. For the present, it should be noted that he admits the reality of every mental object in its proper relations.

“If I merely dream of a horse with wings, my horse interferes
with nothing else and has not to be contradicted. That horse,
its wings, and its place are all equally real. That horse
exists no otherwise than as winged, and is moreover really
there, for that place exists no otherwise than as the place
of that horse, and claims as yet no connection with the other
places of the world. But if with this horse I make an inroad
into the _world otherwise known_, and say, for example, ‘That
is my old mare Maggie, having grown a pair of wings where
she stands in her stall,’ the whole case is altered; for now
the horse and place are identified with a horse and place
otherwise known, and _what_ is known of the latter objects is
incompatible with what is perceived of the former. ‘Maggie
in her stall with wings! Never!’ The wings are unreal, then,
visionary. I have dreamed a lie about Maggie in her stall.” (P.
289).