Chapter VIII: Part 8

Philosophic thought, says M. Lannes, presents, in Russia, in its past history, a very poor condition. Philosophy does not exist, unless that name be given to such moral precepts, or domestic recommendations as we find in “the instruction” of a Vladimir Monomaque or in the “Domostroï.” The Russian mind was easily guarded against the liberties of thought, regarding science and philosophy with contempt and holy dread. There, as during the Middle Ages in the rest of Europe, the end to attain, to which all others were subordinated, was the safety of the soul. It was only with Peter the Great that thought took a freer flight, notwithstanding the restrictions that it had still to support. The Little Russians were the first to turn towards western instruction. In order to meet the Jesuits, who appeared in Russia about the middle of the 16th century, with the arms they used, scholastic philosophy was introduced into the college of Pierre Mohila, at Kief. Aristotle was taken as guide and the teaching was in Latin. Under Alexis Mikhaïlovitch, rational, natural, and moral philosophy began to be taught in a formal manner at the Academy of Moscow. Peter the Great ordered an important place to be given to rhetoric and dialectics, and the mention of logic, psychology, and metaphysics in the programme of the Academy. In 1755 logic, metaphysics, and morality entered into the teaching of philosophy at the University. In the 18th century two currents of ideas manifested themselves, of which some are connected with mysticism, others with the influence of French philosophy. The former became associated, through Novikof and Schwartz, with free-masonry, which was regarded as a means of acquiring a knowledge of God, of nature, and of man, of becoming a better Christian, a better citizen, and a better family head. Novikof and Schwartz founded the “Society of the Friends of Instruction,” and through their zeal a mass of moral and religious books were published for distribution in places of instruction. The influence of the French “philosophers” of the 18th century was preponderant in Russia in the second half of the 18th century. Voltaire enjoyed the greatest favor, and his renown was universal. Freethought penetrated the middle classes, and even conservative and religious men denied miracles in the course of history, considered religion as a political instrument, and attacked the ignorance and cupidity of the clergy. On the happening of the French revolution Catherine was frightened and took rigorous measures against those who wished to use freedom of thought.

Questions of pedagogy held a great place in the thoughts of Catherine. She confided the care of pedagogic reforms to Betski, who showed that true education is that which unites the development of the body, of the mind, and of the heart; but the moral element ought to have the first place. Alexander I. re-established philosophic liberalism and sought to excite interest in social, economic, and political questions. The university of Moscow was reorganised, and one of the faculties included dogmatic and moral theology, theoretical and practical philosophy, natural, political and popular rights. Philosophy also established itself in the new universities of Kharkof, Kazan, and Petersburg. But minds were possessed with more living ideas and various tendencies, political, moral, religious, sceptical, led to the establishment of numerous secret societies whose starting point was the masonic alliance. About 1816, Schröder had introduced into the foreign lodges a spirit of cosmopolitan humanity. Fessler saw in the lodges a means of moral education, the basis of civic education. In order to be received as a mason, it was necessary to pass through certain “consecrations,” to obtain certain “degrees of knowledge.” Among those “consecrated” by Fessler was Spéranski who, notwithstanding his mysticism, was imbued with the principles of the Revolution. On the reaction under Prince Galitzyn, the minister of public instruction, science was given a mystical end, and religion was declared to be the supreme science. The sciences which could do injury to religion, as geology, were either discarded, or directed to be taught according to the spirit of Holy Scripture. As to philosophy, the teaching of moral philosophy, which does not separate morality from the faith, was alone allowed. The treatises of the Kantian Jacob were forbidden, as containing scandalous theories. In general, in the universities, during the first year of the nineteenth century the objects of philosophic study were somewhat vague. The utility of the sciences, of education, of the individual characters of peoples, enthusiastic discourses on free will, on the rights of reason, on the spirit and forces of nature. Fessler and Vellanski introduced the German philosophy and principally that of Schelling, which became in some sort the lever which put in movement ideas on the independence and the nationality of civilisation. The most ardent champion of Schelling’s doctrine was Odoievski, whose external personality marks curiously the idea entertained of philosophy and philosophers between 1820 and 1845. A philosopher was represented as a sort of romantic Faust, leading a kind of life different from common mortals. If he occupied himself with physical sciences, the philosopher was regarded as the equal of a sorcerer with terrible powers. M. Lannes concludes his present article with a sketch of the life and philosophy of Galitch, who on his return to St. Petersburg from a three years tour through Europe wrote a dissertation on philosophy, in which he explained the development of beings by the double action of _activity_ and _passivity_, the one being cause, the other product. In 1819 Galitch taught in the University logic, psychology, and metaphysics, and later he received authority to teach the history of philosophy, to which he gave an _eclectic_ character, in accordance with the instructions of his hierarchical superiors. In his _esoteric_ teaching he initiated his friends into the philosophy of Schelling. In that year he published a “History of Philosophic Systems,” the appearance of which was a rare novelty in the Russian Scientific World. He subsequently published several other works, but the manuscript of one on the “Philosophy of the History of Humanity,” which cost him much labor was destroyed by fire. The merit of Galitch is to have wished to establish in Russia philosophy _as science_. He assigned to the study of philosophy the whole encyclopedia of the sciences, but true philosophic knowledge is the knowledge of the unity from which external phenomena flow. M. Lannes gives an analysis of Galitch’s “Picture of Man,” where, before M. Renouvier, he says of freedom, “it can itself begin an entire series of phenomena, which are then linked together in the relations of dependence, that is to say are the necessary acts of a voluntary principle.” Galitch deserves to occupy a small place in the general history of the philosophy of humanity. If there existed before him a science of the relations of the soul and the body, he was at least one of the first to elaborate a programme of what is called to-day _comparative psychology_.

M. Regnaud finds the sources of the philosophy of India in India itself, as they appear in all their simplicity and primitive character in the Rig-Veda, the very ancient collection of liturgical hymns of the Brahmans. The whole doctrine implied by both the Vedic cult and the text of the hymns is resumed in a verse of the Rig Veda. “Each day the same liquid rises and descends; the rains vivify the earth, the fires of the sacrifice vivify the sky.” The libations destined to feed the fire of sacrifice and which consisted of inflammable liquids, such as the _ghrita_ or clarified butter, were poured out each time that the sacrifice was celebrated into the atmosphere (or the sky) whose life they maintained, in like manner as liquid and solid foods sustain the life of man. The whole religious conception of the Vedic epoch consists then in the idea of an endless _circulus_, of a perpetual exchange of the elements of life, in an immense body which is the universe, whose arterial centre is the sacrifice, and the fire the motor, the distributer, and so to say the brain. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)

Ω.

REVUE DE L’HYPNOTISME. April, 1891. No. 10. 5th YEAR.

CONTENTS:

(1) ACCOUCHEMENT DANS L’HYPNOTISME. By _Dr. Fraipont_ and _M.
J. Delbœuf_. (2) ACCOUCHEMENT PENDANT LE SOMMEIL HYPNOTIQUE.
By _Dr. M. G. Kingsbury_. (3) MEMOIRE RELATIF A CERTAINES
RADIATIONS PERQUES PAR LESSENSITIFS. By _Baron de Reichembach_.
(4) DISCUSSIONS ET POLEMIQUE: La Nutrition dans l’hypnotisme.
By _Gilles de la Tourette_ and _H. Cathelineau_. (5) RECUEIL
DE FAITS: Contribution à l’application de la thérapeutique
suggestive. By _Dr. P. Van Velsen_. Huit observations
d’accouchement sans douleur sous l’influence de l’hypnotisme.
By _Dr. Marie Dobrovosky_. REVUE BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE.

Dr. Fraipont terminates his interesting memoir with the remark that save under very exceptional circumstances, as when the subject is very sensitive or has before suffered a sort of trance, hypnotism can scarcely have any practical importance in accouchment. M. Delbœuf refers in a postscript to the case of a patient described in his writings by the initial J..., and states that her accouchment confirms him in his view of the rôle of the brain, which he regards as a moderating and inhibiting organ, and consequently in the opinion expressed by him in the _Revue Philosophique_ as to the essence of freedom, which he regards as having an arresting and not an inciting effect.

MM. de la Fourette and Cathelineau confirm the conclusion drawn from researches made by them for Professor Charcot, that nutrition is affected during the hypnotic sleep, and therefore that hypnotism is a pathological condition. (Paris: 170 Rue Saint-Antoine.)

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 9 and 10.

CONTENTS:

GOETHES VERHAELTNISS ZU SPINOZA UND SEINE PHILOSOPHISCHE
WELTANSCHAUUNG. By _G. Schneege_. I.

WILHELM WUNDT’S “SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE.” By _Johannes
Volkelt_. I.

RECENSIONEN: (1) A. Fouillée, L’Avenir de la métaphysique
fondée sur l’expérience. By _C. Schaarschmidt_. (2) Th. von
Varnbüler, Widerlegung der Kritik der reinen Vernunft. By
_E. König_. (3) Bericht über neuere Erscheinungen aus dem
Gebiete der Geschichte der Æsthetik. By _E. Kühnemann_. (4)
C. Baeumker, Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen
Philosophie. By _P. Natorp_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Johannes Volkelt continues his review of Wilhelm Wundt’s “System of Philosophy.” Prof. C. Schaarschmidt criticises Fouillée’s view of a future metaphysics as based upon experience, from the Kantian standpoint. Dr. E. König explains with sufficient strength the futility of Varnbüler in his bold attempt of refuting Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and Dr. Paul Natorp, the editor, devotes an article to Prof. Clemens Baeumker’s book “Das Problem der Materie in der Griechischen Philosophie,” in which the author sets forth that the problem of matter is not a limited problem, but the sum total of all those questions which have reference to the existence of some cause of sensory phenomena which in its nature is different from consciousness. The problems of psycho-physics and of the theory of cognition are modern and were unknown to the ancients. Their standpoint remained throughout that of realism. A résumé of the views of Greek philosophers from Thales down to the New Platonists follows.

The leading article is devoted to Goethe’s relation to Spinoza and his philosophical world-conception.

Goethe’s philosophical and religious opinions are naturally of the greatest interest, because Goethe, the child of nature in the highest sense of the word, represents a genius not such as our great contemporary Cesare Lombroso conceives him to be, i. e. a species of the abnormal man and a kind of insane person, but such as genius is conceived by the layman, i. e. an abnormally normal man, a man whose excellencies lie in a rare harmony of highly developed perfections—not in eccentricities. Goethe’s eccentricities were not worse or more extended than those of average people, but he had more sense, more humor, more depth, and more spirit. Well, Goethe as a son of man and as a type of an unusually perfect man was a poet, a philosopher, a scientist, an historian, an artist, a man of the world, and a man of practical life, all in one, and the opinions of this man in the religio-philosophical field show at least that they accord with man as a child of nature.

Goethe’s philosophical views were strongly influenced by Spinoza yet not so as if Spinoza had impressed his view upon Goethe. Goethe happened to read Spinoza’s “Ethics” while still immature in mind and felt himself powerfully attracted by the spirit of the book. “What I may have read out of or into that work,” he writes, “I could give no account. Yet I found a pacification of my passions. A great and free vista upon the sensual and moral world seemed to open before my eyes. That strange sentence ‘_He who loves God must not demand of God to love him in return_,’ with all its premises and conclusions filled all my thoughts. To be unselfish in everything and most so in love and friendship was my highest delight, my maxim, my practice, so that the bold expression of later years ‘If I love thee, it is none of thy business’ came right from my heart. In addition to this, it must be recognised that the most intimate combinations result from contraries. The all-pervading calmness of Spinoza contrasted with my excited aspirations, his mathematical method was a counterpart of my poetical thoughts and habits.” In Spinoza’s doctrine of necessity Goethe found comfort concerning man’s dependence upon the outer world which caused him so much pain. It is probable that the famous sentence of the liberation from passions through a clear comprehension of them was very sympathetic to Goethe, for it is a characteristic feature of his poetry that they were confessions as well as liberations of all that moved and disturbed him. As soon as Goethe was able to give to himself a clear account concerning that which had affected his soul and as soon as he could give a poetical form to it so that it became something independent and outside of him, he gained, in the sense of Spinoza’s doctrine of liberation from passions, the peace and liberty of his soul. Yet Spinoza’s doctrine of necessity was a metaphysical conception. Goethe transferred it into the domains of practical ethics, thus giving rise to his idea of resignation. Goethe writes in the beginning of the sixteenth book of “Wahrheit und Dichtung”: “Our physical as well as our social life, customs, habits, worldly wisdom, philosophy, religion, even many incidental events, everything demands of us that we should resign ourselves. So many things which most intrinsically belong to us we are not allowed to develop. That of the outer world which we want as a complement of our nature is taken away and many things which are foreign to us and disagreeable are thrown upon us. We are deprived of everything that we have with difficulty acquired, of everything that is friendly and before we fully comprehend it we find ourselves obliged _to surrender our very personality_, first piecemeal and finally in its entirety.” Professor Schneege says that Goethe’s practice of resignation gave him solace when he felt low-spirited concerning the limits of human willing and wishing and hoping, and his resignation was as a matter of principle a total resignation. A partial resignation leads to the pessimistic outcry “All is vanity,” yet the total resignation affords an inner peace and produces that “air of peace,” _die Friedensluft_ as Goethe calls it, which surrounds us when reading Spinoza.

One of Goethe’s maxims is quite Spinozistic. Goethe says (_Max. und Refl. Abth._ v.): “He who declares himself to be free will feel himself at once dependent but he who dares to declare himself dependent, feels himself free.”

Goethe rejected the idea of a personal and transcendent Deity which was urged so strongly upon him by Lavater. Rejecting Lavater’s view, he says (_Wahrh. und Dicht._ xiv.): “I assured him in accord with my Realism which is inborn as well as acquired that since it had pleased God and Nature to make me as I am, I must remain so.” The expression “God and Nature” savors strongly of Spinoza’s “Deus sive natura.”

According to Eckermann (_Gesp. m. G._ ii, p. 169) Holbach’s _Systéme de la nature_ had also made a strong impression upon Goethe. Nevertheless he was dissatisfied with the spirit of French materialism. He says: “How empty and hollow is this sad atheistic twilight, in which the earth with all its forms and the heaven with all its stars disappear. Matter only is said to exist, being in motion from eternity to eternity, thus producing to the right and to the left without further ado all the innumerable phenomena of being.” Goethe’s view of “God and nature,” did not deny the Deity as such, but identified both in the sense of Spinoza. In this sense Goethe interpreted the sentence: _Qui deum amat conari not potest, ut Deus ipsum contra amet—si homo id conaretur, cuperet ergo ut Deus quem amat, non esset Deus_. The latter idea, “if a man wished that God should love him in return, he would wish that God be not God” is a corollary only to the impersonal conception of Spinoza’s non-anthropomorphised Deity. We cannot and we must not think of God as a human being who like a monarch makes favorites of those who are faithful not so much to the divine laws of ethics but to God personally.

Goethe agreed in his views of Spinoza with Herder, who in a letter to Jacobi writes: “The πρὼτον ψεῦδος, my dear Jacobi, in all anti-spinozistic systems is that God is supposed to be the great _ens entium_, the cause of all phenomena, a cypher, an abstract idea which we have formulated. However, that is not so according to Spinoza; God is to him the most real and active unity which says to itself ‘I am that I am, and shall be in all the changes of my phenomena that which I shall be.’ What you mean, my dear fellows, by an existence outside of the world, I do not understand. If God does not exist in the world, and indeed, everywhere unlimited in his totality and entirety, he does not exist at all. The limitation of personality does not belong to the infinite being, since a person originates with us by limitation as a kind of _modus_ or as an aggregate of beings whose activity is endowed with the illusion of unity.” A modification of Spinoza’s view consists in the recognition of the creative activity which Herder attributes to God. In another letter to Jacobi, Herder writes: “You wish God in the shape of man like a friend who thinks of you. Consider that in that case he must think humanly of you. If he is partial to you he will be partial against others. Explain to me why you need him to be human. He speaks to you, he affects you through all noble men who are his organs and most so through his organ of organs, the core of his spiritual creation, his only begotten. I must confess that this philosophy makes me exceedingly happy. Goethe has read Spinoza since your departure and it is a test case to me that he has conceived him exactly as I do.”

Herder was a clergyman and he held the highest position of his church, being Superintendent General. Would the protestant state churches of to-day either in England or in Germany have room for a man like Herder?

Goethe concurred with Herder, that the idea of an extramundane Deity has no sense, an outside God is powerless and an immanent God alone is a reality. He puts in the mouth of Faust the following lines:

“The God that in my breast is owned
Can deeply stir the inner sources.
The God above my powers enthroned
He cannot change external forces.”

_Faust I, Scene 4, Tr. Bayard Taylor._

Spinoza makes a difference between _natura naturans_ and _natura naturata_. A similar contrast is made by Goethe in the following lines which are found among the _Zahme Xenien_, Part vii.

“Life dwells in each celestial body
And on its self-selected roads
It likes to travel with the others.
There are in our earth’s deep abodes
The forces, shrouded now in night
And rising up again to light
If with eternal repetition
Some circles infinitely roam,
If thousand stones in strong construction
Together build life’s glorious dome,
Then through all things is pleasure thrilling,
The great, the little, both are blessed,
_Yet all this yearning, all this striving_
_In God the Lord, is eternal rest_.”[26]

According to Schneege, Goethe was an agnostic. Faust says:

“Mysterious even in open day
Nature retains her veil, despite our clamors.
That which she doth not willingly display,
Cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.”

_I, 1. Tr. Bayard Taylor._

This quotation however expresses Faust’s despair and not Goethe’s philosophical view. It is true that Goethe has made a few utterances which savor of agnosticism, but most of them are expressive of the idea that we can never be through with our wisdom; every new solution proposes new problems.

“_Will mich jedoch des Worts nicht schämen:_
_Wir tasten ewig an Problemen._”

_Zahme Xenien_, vii.

[Will not be ashamed of the confession:
We are dealing with problems without intercession.]

How little Goethe was in accord with the view of modern agnosticism or phenomenalism, that we know the outside of nature only and not her inside, can be learned from his opposition to Haller’s famous lines:

“Nature’s Within from mortal mind
Must ever lie concealed.
Thrice blessed e’en he, to whom she has
Her outer shell revealed.”

In answer to the agnostic sentiment of the famous naturalist, Goethe answered with the following verses (quoted in the translation given in “Fundamental Problems,” p. 142):

“_Nature’s ‘within’ from mortal mind_”
Philistine, sayest thou,
“_Must ever lie concealed?_”
To me, my friend, and to my kind
Repeat this not. We trow
Where’er we are that we
Within must always be.

“_Thrice blessed e’en he to whom she has_
_Her outer shell revealed?_”
This saying sixty years I heard
Repeated o’er and o’er,
And in my soul I cursed the word,
Yet secretly I swore.
Some thousand thousand times or more
Unto myself I witness bore:
Gladly gives Nature all her store,
She knows not kernel, knows not shell,
For she is all in one.
But thou,
Examine thou thine own self well
whether thou art kernel or art shell.

We ought to bear in mind that Goethe was no philosopher in the strict sense of the word and did not attempt to have a system that should be free from contradictions. So we read in one place: “Man is not born to solve the problem of the world, but to seek for the limit of the incomprehensible and then to remain within the limits of the comprehensible,” and in another place “Man must hold fast to the belief that what seems incomprehensible is comprehensible, for otherwise he would cease to investigate.”

The idea of evolution was the basis of Goethe’s idea of immortality. Here also he remains in accord with Herder who had proposed in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind” his views of the development of beings by degrees. Goethe wrote from Rome (See “Herder’s Nachlass,” ed. Düntzer, Frankfort, 1756, i, p. 17.): “How much I enjoy Herder’s ‘Ideas,’ I can scarcely express. Since I expect no Messiah, this [viz. the prospect of further evolution] is to me the dearest Gospel.”

Goethe’s idea of the soul is not clearly worked out in its philosophical aspect. He speaks of souls as of monads and believes in a migration of the soul. “I am sure,” Goethe said to Falk, “I have been here some thousand times and expect to come again some thousand times.”

Goethe was very decided in practical and ethical respects. Goethe deviated from Spinoza by introducing a strong trait of individualism into Spinoza’s cosmism.

“_Zweck sein selbst ist jegliches Thier._”[27]

[Every creature has its purpose in itself.]

And man is the last product of constantly higher evolving Nature—_das letzte Product der sich immer steigernden Natur_. Nature’s intention according to Goethe’s view is to produce constantly more perfect creatures. He says: “Imagine Nature standing as a gamester before the roulette table constantly shouting _au double_. With all she has won through all the phases of her activity she continues to play on into infinity. Stone, plant, animal, everything is risked in such hazarding ventures again and again, and who can tell whether man himself is not but a venture for a higher aim.” Death was to Goethe no destruction but a dissolution. A destruction or annihilation appeared as an impossibility to him. And his idea of immortality was not one of existence after death but of a continued activity. In the year 1825 Goethe declared to Chancellor von Müller (“Gespräche m.d. Kanzler von Müller,” p. 99), that he should not know what to do with an immortality in which he would not find new tasks to do and new difficulties to conquer. (Heidelberg: Georg Weiss.)

κρς.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. No. 4.

CONTENTS:

ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER KOMPLEXIONEN UND RELATIONEN. By _E.
Meinong_.

WUNDT’S ANTIKRITIK. By _C. Stumpf_.

UEBER DIE UNTERSCHIEDSEMPFINDLICHKEIT FUER KLEINE ZEITGROESSEN.
Eine vorläufige Mitteilung. By _F. Schumann_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Professor A. Meinong discusses Ch. v. Ehrenfels’s article “Ueber Gestaltqualitäten”[28] adding the results of his own investigations suggested to him by this essay. Ehrenfels starts from Professor Mach’s consideration of figure and melody (see Mach’s _Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen_) and proposes the question, What are figure and melody in themselves? Are they merely a combination of elements or are they something in contradistinction to their elements, something entirely new? Melodies and figures, says Ehrenfels, can be so transposed that not any one of their original elements will remain. Thus the similarity of figures in space as well as of tones is something different from the similarity of their elements; they must be something different than their mere sum. This is “the figure-quality” or _Gestaltsqualität_, and Ehrenfels distinguishes between two kinds, (1) those of time (2) those of space, which he calls (1) _Tongestalten_ and (2) _Raumgestalten_. In addition to these are discussed the figure-qualities of sensations and of inner apperception. Ehrenfels proposes the psychological question whether these figure-qualities are immediately given together with their foundations or whether they must be considered as the product of a special activity, and he decides in favor of the former possibility. Professor Meinong whose work has been in similar lines, refers to his article “Phantasievorstellung und Phantasie”[29] and criticises the term “figure-quality,” proposing in its stead the words _fundierend_ and _fundiert_, using the German term _Fundament_ as a correlative expression of “relation.” There is no relation without complexity and psychological experience has actually to deal with complex facts only. Melody and figure are names for the totality of the foundations including their “founded” contents.

It may be that we are unduly prejudiced in favor of our own terminology, but it seems to us that the expression “form” will prove to be the most appropriate word. Form is neither quality nor quantity, but form can produce qualities. Let the same qualities, say of chemical elements, combine in different forms, and we shall obtain substances with different qualities. Figure and melody are special kinds of form. Forms consist in and originate through combination, and the unity produced through a special form-combination is actually something new, as much so as if it were a special-creation act. This wonderful power of form makes the study of form all-important in all branches of science. A neglect of the study of form will lead either to materialism when matter and motion are conceived as the only quality-producing factors, or to agnosticism as soon as a deeper inquiry proves that matter and motion are not sufficient to explain the most essential properties of the objects of investigation. We cannot judge from the present article how much Ehrenfels and Meinong are in sympathy with our standpoint, but we can see that their efforts are in the same direction.

The second article is a rejoinder by Prof. C. Stumpf of Munich to Prof. W. Wundt’s reply to his critic. Professor Stumpf complains of Wundt that he ignored the points raised in his criticism and that his “Antikritik” consisted only of “a chain of distortions and insinuations.”

F. Schumann publishes his results regarding sensibility for the difference between smallest quantities of time. He employed a chronograph modified in two respects from Wundt’s chronograph. First he replaced the expensive chronometer by a treading-wheel and introduced Pfeil’s time-marker, which, as he thinks, is handier as well as more precise than Wundt’s time-marker. Schumann’s results agree with the results of Professor Mach showing a maximum of 0.3-0.4 seconds, the relation of the perceptible difference to the normal time being in different persons only 0.022. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.)

κρς.

PHILOSOPHISCHES JAHRBUCH. Vol. IV. No. 3.

CONTENTS:

ENTHAELT DIE CHEMISCH-PHYSIKALISCHE ATOMTHEORIE WIDERSPRUECHE?
By _S. J. Linsmeier_.

NOCH EINMAL ZU PLATON’S TIMAEUS p. 51 E-p. 52 B. By _Clemens
Baeumker_.

DAS GESETZ VON DER ERHALTUNG DES LEBENS. (Zusatz der
Redaction.) By _W. Frye_.

DIE LOGISCHEN GAENGE DES DENKENS. By _Dr. G. Grupp_.

W. WUNDT’S SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE. By _C. Gutberlet_.

RECENSIONEN UND REFERATE.

The publishers and editors of _The Monist_ are not Roman Catholics and we suppose that the majority of our readers are not either. But all the more it appears to us necessary to state as a matter of justice that the Roman Catholic publications (i. e. those which avowedly and confessedly represent Roman Catholic thought) are far superior to their analogous Protestant contemporaries. The latter are debating their particular sectarianisms and do not seem to be interested in the progress of their times. They do not heed the discoveries of science or the views of philosophers, they live in a world of their own. It is different with Roman Catholics. The present magazine proves that they have thinkers among them who keep abreast of the time. It is true that there is more discipline in the camp of Roman Catholics which shuts their champions out from free enquiry in a certain direction concerning some fundamental tenets, but with all this discipline goes along a broad-mindedness in attacking the different problems of modern science and philosophy and bringing them into harmony with the Roman Catholic faith.

The _Philosophisches Jahrbuch_ is published by the _Görres-Gesellschaft_ and edited by Dr. Const. Gutberlet. Jacob Joseph Görres is the well-known champion of the Catholic Church (1776-1848)—a restless spirit who began his public career as an enthusiastic defender of the French Revolution for the propagation of which he published a fanatical journal _Das rothe Blatt_. With the rise of Napoleon he despaired of the cause of liberty, but he took courage again in the war of independence (1813-1815). In his journal _Der Rheinische Merkur_ he denounced bitterly those Germans who still held to the French; he recommended his countrymen to have more love for their language, customs, and traditions and exhorted the princes to stand united against the common foe and re-institute the empire. The war over he was persecuted by the Prussian government on account of his renewed interests in revolutionary affairs (he had published in 1820 a pamphlet “Germany and the Revolution”) and showing a decided inclination to mysticism (“Emanuel Schwedenborg, his Visions and his Relation to the Church,” 1827) he joined the Ultramontane party in the conviction that his ideals could be realised in the Roman Catholic Church. The rest of his life he remained faithful to Rome and was the most active, the most vigorous, and also the ablest defender of Roman Catholic views and interests. The present magazine is a Quarterly conducted with scholarship and tact, although as a matter of course not without that prejudice which necessarily results from the principle of giving all thoughts into captivity under a special and foredetermined faith. The last volume (vol. iii) is rich in interesting articles. Prof. Dr. Hayd, strange enough, defends the liberty of investigating the authority of faith, which the editor, however, without rejecting the idea off-hand considers as bold (_gewagt_). There are articles on the freedom of will, on the infinite number of possibilities, mongolian cosmology, Pascal’s position toward scepticism, analogies between cognition of God and cognition of nature with special reference to Kant’s criticism of the evidences of the existence of God. The present number of vol. iv contains an article on the chemico-physical theory of atoms. The question is proposed whether or not this theory contains contradictions. The author starts from Dalton’s Definition, whom he regards together with Wallaston as the founder of modern atomism. The four weightiest objections are considered, but the author arrives at the conclusion that all of them are based upon misconceptions. He sums up: “Chemists and Physicists do not repudiate eyes and senses when proposing and defending the atomistic theory. On the contrary they use for their view and build it upon an exceedingly richer material of observation than is employed by their antagonists.... This denial of the validity of the most important objections, however, does not imply that the atomistic theory is without difficulties, gaps, unexplained details, etc. It is not as yet so certain a fact as for instance the heliocentric world-conception. It is an hypothesis still and will have to remain such for quite a long time. Yet we can confidently assert that the difficulties are by far less than those offered to the acceptance of the Copernican hypothesis at the time of the first condemnation of Galileo (1616) which were solved afterward by Galileo in the year 1632. We have further to state that the atomistic theory has been developed more and more since Dalton, the number and the importance of the explanations offered in it have constantly increased.”

Dr. Frye of Jena discusses Preyer’s latest view of “The Self-Gubernation of Life—_Die Selbststeuerung des Lebens_” which appeared in a recent number of the _Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift_ (Berlin). Preyer considers his newly discovered law as a corollary to the conservation of matter and energy and maintains that the total amount of life in the world is as much constant as are matter and energy. Living mass (_Mz_) plus inanimate mass (_Mn_) are constant (_C_); _Mz_ + _Mn_ = _C_. So far scientists will agree, but Preyer adds that each separate item is constant for itself. He declares that “the total amount of protoplasm in the world remains unchanged in quantity.” It is hardly probable that Preyer’s view will be adopted by science.

Dr. Grupp discusses the logical paths of thought, and the editor, Professor Dr. Gutberlet explains and criticises Wundt’s System of Philosophy.

One of the most valuable features for Catholic readers must be considered the book reviews. Here the thoughts of the most advanced thinkers are as it were digested for the Catholic world. The material is carefully sifted but the exposition of heretic opinions is not evaded. The criticisms from the pen of Dr. Gutberlet are often trenchant and should not be left unheeded by the adversaries of the Church. (Fulda: Verlag der Fuldaer Aktien-Druckerei.)

κρς.

RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. July and August, 1891.

CONTENTS:

LA SCIENZA DELL’EDUCAZIONE NELLE SCUOLE E NELLE RIVISTE
ITALIANE. By _F. Cicchitti-Suriani_.

LA FILOSOFIA DI EMPEDOCLE. By _S. Ferrari_.

SCIENZE FILOSOFICHE E SOCIALI: RELAZIONE SUL CONCORSO AI PREMII
MINISTERIALI. By _A. Chiappelli_.

ALCUNE CONSIDERAZIONI SULL’ECLETTISMO. By _L. Ferri_.

BIBLIOGRAFIA, ETC.

_The Science of Education in Italian Schools and in Italian Reviews._ Every nation is said to possess a peculiar physiognomy of its own, through which it is distinguished from every other nation; and consequently any nation will adopt a system of education that is best suited to its own national genius, to its racial, religious, and historical traditions. This may be true in a purely practical sense; but on the other hand, education, theoretically, as science or pedagogics, passes the narrow limits of any state or form of government, and ought to be ruled by principles and general laws common to the entire human family. Historically, ever since the 16th century, the educational movements in Italy have been directly called forth by the Catholic revival and reaction during and immediately following the period of the renaissance. Such was the origin of the _Filippini_, _Ignorantelli_, _Barnabiti_, _Ignaziani_, _Calasanziadi_, _Somaschi_, and of many other religious teaching-bodies that have made Italy until recently a bustling arena of ecclesiastical educational systems.

_The Philosophy of Empedocles._ This first instalment of Signor Ferrari’s studies deals with the cosmological ideas of the great Agrigentine poet-philosophers. From the formation of the first elements to the highest functions of the human soul throughout, we perceive that everything is governed by the same laws, and that which is best, all happiness in fact, is only found in unity and harmony, evil and pain in disagreement and in separation. The law of evolution, in the modern sense of the word, prevails everywhere in the physical system of Empedocles. Yet his philosophy did not exclusively consist in mechanical evolution. To his cosmological doctrines were added moral and religious tenets, which, however, are not evolved continuously with the former. (Rome. Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane di G. Balbi—160 Via Cavour, 162.)

γνλν.

VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII. Vol. II. No. 4. May, 1891.

CONTENTS:

ETHICS OF LIFE AND OF THE FREE IDEAL. By _K. Ventzel_. (In
this article the writer explains and criticises the well-known
ethical theories of the late French thinker M. Guyau.)

THE PESSIMIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE: CRITICISM, POSITIVISM. By
_E. de Roberti_.

RELIGIOUS METAPHYSICS OF THE MOSLEM ORIENT. (Conclusion.) By
_S. Umanetz_.

LETTERS ON COUNT TOLSTOÏ’S BOOK. “On Life.” (Conclusion.) By
_A. Kozloff_.

(The writer concludes his letters to Mr. N. N. with remarks
to the effect that count Tolstoï’s philosophy in all its
aspects and phases is manifestly characterized by a principle
of _dualism_. In the development of this general principle
through the different phases of his system and in his theory of
knowledge this dualism might assume the name of rationalism,
in metaphysics, that of idealism, and in ethics the name of
ascetical, quietistic eudemonism.

ON DETERMINISM IN CONNECTION WITH MATHEMATICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
By _N. Shishkin_. Lecture delivered before the Moscow
Psychological Society. February, 1891.

THE DOMAIN AND LIMITS OF SUGGESTION. By _N. Bajenoff_. Lecture
delivered at the annual session of the Moscow Psychological
Society. January, 1891.

ANENT THE FICTIONS OF PROFESSED CHRISTIANITY. By _Vladimir
Solovieff_.

(This article has appeared in an English translation in _The
Open Court_, Nos. 206 and 208, under the title “Christianity:
Its Spirit and its Errors.” It is a remarkable contribution
to the literature of to-day. Professor Nicolas von Grote of
Moscow writes about its author: “Vladimir Solovieff is at
present, besides the Count Tolstoï, our most eminent thinker;
he is a distinguished philosopher as well as theologian....
You Americans should be familiar with his works on religious
and ecclesiastical ‘questions’.” Vladimir Solovieff is the
author of the following works: “The Religious Foundations of
Life,” “The Dogmatic Development of the Church,” “Judaism and
the Christian Question.” (These titles are translated from the
Russian.) Other writings of his are “L’idée russe,” “La Russie
et l’église universelle,” “Geschichte der Theokratie.”)

SPECIAL DEPARTMENT. (1) Hegel’s Ontology. A Posthumous
Dissertation. By _N. P. H. Platonoff_. (2) The Influence of
fatigue upon the intuition of special relations. By _Nik.
Marün_. (3) Fundamental moments in the evolution of the new
philosophy. Main tendencies of the new philosophy. Empiricism
and Naturalism. Bacon and Hobbes. By _N. Grote_. (Moscow.)

γνλν.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Specially translated for _The Monist_.

[27] _Metamorphose der Thiere._

[28] _Vierteljahrsschr. f. wissensch. Phil._ 1890. 3, p. 249-292.

[29] _Zeitschrift für Phil. n. philos. Kritik._ Vol. 95, p. 173. 1889.

VOL. II. JANUARY, 1892. NO. 2.

THE MONIST.

MENTAL EVOLUTION.

AN OLD SPECULATION IN A NEW LIGHT.

The theory of organic evolution, now generally accepted, needs to be supplemented by a theory of mental evolution. On a superficial examination of the matter the necessity for such a supplementary theory does not perhaps strike one as obvious, the mental seeming naturally to arise out of the organic and to be part of one continuous development. But closer investigation and a more rigid and exact treatment bring to light certain important and peculiar features, and disclose the necessity of some such hypothesis as it is my purpose to set forth briefly in the following pages.

By organic evolution I mean the natural development, whether by “selection” alone or by this in co-operation with other natural processes, of the organisms which live upon the surface of this earth; and by mental evolution I mean the natural development of the mental faculties in at least the higher animals among these organisms. Now with regard to organic evolution there is no common and general agreement in respect of the first origin of primitive life on the earth. Some evolutionists believe that the living was somewhen, somehow, and somewhere evolved from the not-living. Others do not feel justified in holding this view, and deem it wiser to restrict their speculations as to natural genesis within the limits of the organic. So too at the other end of the developmental curve; there is no common and general agreement as to the evolution of the mental faculties or spiritual being of man. Some evolutionists believe that both in body and in mind, man is the product of natural development; others do not feel justified in holding this view, and retain unshaken the conviction that man in his spiritual essence is no part nor product of the common elements of nature. Seeing then that on either side there is want of agreement, on the one hand as to the origin of life, on the other as to the origin of man, I shall deal for the most part with that large area concerning which there is a more unanimous consensus of opinion, and in the main confine my speculations within the field of mental evolution in animals, ranging, say, from the amœba to the dog.

Few will be found to deny or even to question the fact that our dumb companions and four-footed friends have mental faculties which enable them accurately to adjust their actions to the varied circumstances in the midst of which their lives are passed. Even if we see cause to hesitate, as I myself hesitate, before we ascribe to them self-consciousness and reason, in the narrower sense in which this word is used; still we must acknowledge that their instincts are powerful, their intelligence wonderfully keen and active; and that they are capable of strong emotional feeling both of affection and of antipathy. Should we so welcome them as our companions and friends if we regarded them as unconscious, insentient automata? But when we turn to the other end of the scale of life, to the amœba and all the myriad minutiae that swarm in ponds and stagnant pools, we are wont to speak with less confidence. Their consciousness, if so we can call it, is of so simple an order, their sentience of so low a grade, that we can hardly with any accuracy use the phrase “mental faculties” with reference to organisms so lowly. We feel uncertain whether in their case unconscious automatism does not after all pretty accurately express the facts. At any rate it would trouble us little or not at all if some one proved their automatism to-morrow. And yet, on the theory of evolution, out of such lowly beginnings have sprung the sagacity and affectionate devotion of the dog. But if the amœba and his tribe are insentient automata, at what stage of the development did consciousness creep in? And whence came it? Or put what is fundamentally the same question in another way. In the common course of generation the dog is developed from a minute egg-cell, one hundredth of an inch or less in diameter, with which a yet more minute sperm has entered into fertile union. Supplied with shelter, warmth, and nutriment by that maternal self-sacrifice which is a deeply significant fact of organic progress, this little speck of living stuff passes, by a process strictly continuous, though profoundly modified by the catastrophe of birth, into the dog with its wealth of intelligence and affection. It is surely impossible without extravagance to speak of the fertilised ovum as conscious. Where then in the continuous process of development does consciousness come in? How, and whence? We are not nowadays to be put off with the ambiguous assertion that consciousness and intelligence are “potentially” present in the germ. We ask: What is _actually_ present therein as the basis of this potentiality? Or are we told that consciousness dawns at or shortly after the catastrophe of birth? Then again we ask: Whence comes this dawning consciousness, and by what means does it become associated with the puppy’s brain? In yet another form does a question of like general implication suggest itself. Granted that in the ovum there is present something which we may call the germ of consciousness somehow associated with the protoplasmic material of which that ovum is constituted. How comes it that, in the adult dog, consciousness is associated with the brain? Why is the association of consciousness concentrated, so to speak, in this one tissue of the many which arise during the differentiation of development? That the association is so concentrated or specialised is now generally admitted to be the fact. We speak indeed of the skin, the palate, the nose, the eye, the ear, as each in its kind sensitive. But none the less we believe that the seat of consciousness is the brain or some part of it. Only when the nerves running inwards from skin, palate, nose, eye, or ear, have conveyed their appropriate stimuli to the brain, does that organ tingle with the accompaniment of consciousness. There and there only does consciousness “emerge”; not in peripheral sense-organ or ingoing nerve. But why? How comes it that there is this peculiar association of consciousness with the functioning of a particular organ?

Perhaps we are told that consciousness is the special product of brain-tissue. But let us note that the word “product” is here used in an unwonted sense. We are not likely, it is to be hoped, to fall into the crude and demonstrably false materialism expressed in the formula, “as the liver secretes bile, so does the brain secrete consciousness.” Consciousness being immaterial, the second and fourth terms are incommensurable, and the formula is sheer nonsense. Nor are we likely (though here there is greater danger) to fall into the more subtle error of regarding consciousness as a mode of energy. “Granted,” says Professor Tyndall, “that a definite thought and a definite molecular action of the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one to the other: the chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.” Consciousness is something _sui generis_. It is neither matter nor energy. It may accompany the transformations of energy in the dog’s brain; but to the category of these transformations of energy it does not, and, for any clear thinker, can not belong. And if we are told that the word “product” is used in the sense implied by Professor Huxley when he speaks of phenomena of consciousness being “called into existence” by physical processes; then we must again ask whence they are called into existence. We do not now speak of matter or energy being called into existence from a shadowy nowhere. When a cloud is called into existence on a mountain peak we know that the material particles have only assumed a new form. When the electrical current is called into existence or generated as we phrase it, we know that we are dealing with one of the many transformations of energy. And when phenomena of consciousness are said to be called into existence, we have a right to ask: Do you mean, by this phrase, creation _ex nihilo_? Or do you mean, origin by transformation? And if the latter, transformation of what?

Having thus opened up these several questions, all of like implication, let us now endeavor to set forth the answer which seems most philosophical and most closely in accordance with scientific analogies. And to this end let us consider the living dog. His frame is pulsating with life and restless activity, and somehow associated with the transformations of energy in that brain of his there is consciousness—or what in the dog is the analogue of that consciousness with which alone I can claim any acquaintance at first hand, my own. Were his skin and the walls of his skull as transparent as glass; did the molecular vibrations of his brain lie open to the keenest scrutiny of the physical investigator; could we trace in detail all the varied and orderly transformations of energy of which that brain is the theatre; the accompanying consciousness would still be beyond our reach. _We_ might follow the changes of energy; he alone would feel the states of consciousness. But suppose that the dog dies. His body lies before us stiff with the _rigor mortis_. If we had weighed it previous to death, and if we were to weigh it again after death, the scales would give us no information of the departure of anything material. All signs of consciousness, however, are gone. And could we see through skin and skull into the brain, which during life was the theatre of so complex and orderly a sequence of transformations of energy, we should find that it was still and motionless. It is true that we cannot actually do this. But we know that, whereas, during life, the functional action of the brain gives rise to certain material products, at death the production of these substances ceases. We are therefore justified in saying that, omitting minor qualifications, the orderly transformations of energy in the brain and the concomitant consciousness cease together at death. Closely associated during life, varying together in health and sickness, ceasing together at death, what is the nature of their connection?

On the hypothesis of scientific monism it is believed that they are different aspects of the same phenomena: that what objectively to the physical investigator are transformations of energy in the brain, are subjectively to the dog states of consciousness? Let us look into this hypothesis. Let us see whither it will lead us; and if it will in any way help us over some of our difficulties. But first let us pay a moment’s attention to the impatient exclamation which some may feel inclined to interpose, that this assumption of the ultimate identity of brain-energy and consciousness, the two being respectively the objective and subjective aspects of the same occurrences, does not in the least do away with the mystery of the matter. That the same two occurrences should have different aspects, objective and subjective, is, it will be said, just as mysterious as that two separate existences energy and consciousness should be associated together. Of course it is. I should be shallow and pretentious indeed if my object were by any _hocus pocus_ to attempt to hide the so-called mystery. _All_ ultimate facts are mysterious. The fall of a stone to the ground is to-day as mysterious as it was in the days before Newton; the phenomena of life, as mysterious as in the days before Darwin. Our advances in science and in thought may do away with minor mysteries, but they leave the great ultimate facts of nature as mysterious as before. The end of our explanations is always to bring us face to face with the inexplicable. Not, therefore, in any hope of doing away with an ultimate mystery do I suggest that we look into and follow out some implications of this so called identity hypothesis.