II.

RECENT GERMAN WORKS IN PSYCHOLOGY.

A well-known alienist, Professor Pelman of Bonn, in a recently published work, advanced the assertion that the literary taste of the day pointed to a considerable decline of the intellectual health of the present generation. To him who assumes with Pelman some causal foundation of this state of affairs, it is indeed an alarming sight to pass in review the show windows of our great book centres Leipsic and Berlin and to discover the great number of editions that the products of the literature of a certain class are passing through.

Among the books that are at present all the vogue, Tolstoï’s “Kreutzer Sonata” stands in the front rank. Numberless articles in the newspapers and the magazines have already made this wonderful work the subject of discussion, both from the æsthetical and from the moral point of view. Now comes a physician, who discusses the psychological aspect of the story, and discusses it in a manner which must claim our interest and to which in the main points it emphasises we cannot deny our assent.

Dr. H. BECK has published at the house of Rauert and Rocco of Leipsic, a brochure bearing the title _Des Grafen Leo Tolstoï Kreutzer Sonate vom Standpunkte des Irrenarztes_, and arrives on the basis of a careful analysis at the result that Tosdnischew is a decidedly neuropathical character. Now as Tolstoï, on his own express declaration in his concluding remarks, places his own views in Tosdnischew’s mouth, this judgment respecting the principal character of the story also holds good in great measure of its author. Generally, indeed, Beck is very considerate towards Tolstoï’s person, in the expression of his opinions; but he is nevertheless very plainly outspoken when he says at the conclusion of his little book: “Let us characterise this monstrous product, the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ as that which it appears to every person of sound sentiments—as the emanation, namely, of a diseased brain, of a degenerated Psyche.”

The Munich physician Dr. Puschmann, who in the year 1873 in a special treatise represented Richard Wagner, then still alive, as psychically diseased, has thus found, as we see, in a certain sense a successor in Dr. Beck. But while Puschmann’s pamphlet, having been occasioned by certain conditions of affairs in Munich, was written in a hostile spirit, and while the little book of Beck’s makes no secret of its author’s aversion to Tolstoï and his works, a notorious representative of unhealthy “young Germany,” the novelist Wilhelm Walloth, meets at other hands with an uncommonly tender treatment. There is indeed nothing remarkable in this, for if anyone is in need of tender treatment it is a man who is sick. But it is very remarkable that the diseased state of a nervous system should be accredited to the writer Walloth as a great poetic excellence.

G. LUDWIGS, the author of the treatise _Wilhelm Walloth_, Leipsic, 1891, Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, had in so far the advantage of Puschmann and Beck, that he was not placed under the necessity of originally demonstrating what the actual state of the nervous system of his hero was, from his works. This condition had already been established by expert physicians in a much talked of trial before the District Court of Leipsic for circulating obscene publications. Ludwigs was able therefore to proceed immediately with his problem of ascertaining the extent to which a diseased state of the nervous system had effect in Walloth’s novels and poems. His discussion of this last question possesses great interest for the psychologist, although the reader will find considerable difficulty in accommodating his thoughts to Ludwigs’s occasionally very singular style. Setting aside the odd expressions of Ludwigs, we may say that there is exhibited in a pre-eminent degree in the writings of Walloth, first, what the physicians call hyperæsthesia, and by this is meant not only an excessive sensitiveness of the senses but also—a condition that is connected with the last—an extraordinary intensity of the emotional activity. Secondly, are found numberless bold associations of ideas which are much better known to the physician than to the æsthetician.

Unfortunately Walloth is not the only one of the representatives of “young Germany,” in whose works the characters of disease appear in such intensity, and the circumstance that books of this class are bought in such numbers and read in still greater, places the tastes and sentiments of a large portion of the educated German public in a questionable light.

If we turn our glance away from the sensational phenomena of literature to the phenomena of ordinary life, which are not uncommonly enacted in the halls of justice, it is in first rank the incorrigible swindlers and sharpers that excite our attention. We have received on this subject from Dr. ANTON DELBRUECK, a physician of a Swiss insane asylum, an interesting little work bearing the title _Die pathologische Lüge und die psychisch abnormen Schwindler_, Stuttgart, 1891, Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. In this book the author makes an investigation of the gradual transition of a normal psychological process into processes exhibiting pathological symptoms, and shows, in so doing, by ample material, that in every kind of intentional deception the consciousness of intention can exhibit very different degrees of intensity and can imperceptibly sink in a succession of cases to zero. As a matter of course, Delbrück’s treatise is primarily of interest to medical experts and lawyers, but it will also be of interest in a secondary degree to all circles that devote their attention to psychological studies generally, particularly so to educators who have not infrequently to do with pathological lies, as G. Stanley Hall quite recently pointed out in a very instructive article in _The America Journal of Psychology_ on the lying of children, and as is developed in the work of Dr. Sollier, before mentioned in _The Monist_, entitled _La psychologie de l’idiot et l’imbécile_, which is also to be had in a very good German edition, translated by Paul Brie, under the title _Der Idiot und der Imbecille_, published by Leopold Voss of Hamburg.

In the German edition of Sollier’s book Professor Pelman, whom we have above mentioned, has written an introduction in which he speaks of the work in words of praise similar to those expressed by Lucien Arréat in _The Monist_. “Sollier,” says he, “has put us into the possession of a psychology of mental imbecility, in a completeness in which hitherto it was not at our disposal.” Then follows another passage which we will also quote, as it forms an important supplement to the remarks of Arréat. It is this: “Imbecility had remained the step-child of the science of psychiatry and has not by any means met with the consideration which in view of its social importance is due to it. If we go through the works, as great in number as they are in voluminousness, which have been published in the style of Lombroso on criminals and their peculiar characteristics, we shall be unable to escape the impression produced in our minds that the characteristics of imbeciles portrayed by Sollier recur point for point in the typical criminal. Here as there, the same insufficiency of all ethical development, the same frivolity, and the same incapacity for being of use in society exist. That which in Sollier’s explanation decides the whole anthropological position of the imbecile—his anti-social, society-hostile attitude—is emphasised by all writers as the characteristic trait common to all criminals, and the description of imbeciles and criminals coincides as completely in this respect as if the same individual had sat for both pictures. The conclusions that follow from this can only enlist new adherents in the ranks of the anthropological school, and this result also I should place to the profit-account of the present book.”

However profitable and necessary employment with the diseased states of the human soul may be, personally at least it is an unpleasant subject for us, and we are glad therefore that we may abandon this domain for the present letter.

The occasion of this is afforded by a valuable gift from Prof. W. PREYER, formerly of Jena, now of Berlin. Professor Preyer has presented us with a rather large volume bearing the title _Wissenschaftliche Briefe von Gustav Theodor Fechner und W. Preyer. Nebst einem Briefweschsel zwischen K. von Vierordt und Fechner sewie mehreren Beilagen. Mit dem Bildnisse Fechner’s und vier Holzschnitten_. Hamburg und Leipsic, 1890. Verlag von Leopold Voss. The work contains a correspondence extending from the year 1873 to the year 1883, in which the two distinguished scientists discuss (chiefly) myo-physical and psycho-physical questions, and will be of great interest to many readers of _The Monist_, especially as it makes its appearance simultaneously with the issuing of a new edition of Fechner’s _Elemente der Psychophysik_ by Wilhelm Wundt.

The much fought over and much disputed province of psycho-physics has also been entered on by a younger psychologist, who has already acquired a considerable name,—by Hugo Münsterberg, docent at the university of Freiburg in Baden. In his _Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie_, which are published in parts at indefinite periods by Mohr of Freiburg in Baden—three parts have already been published—Münsterberg raises, in the first place, a vigorous protest against Wundt; repudiating on the basis of the results of independent experiment the apperception hypothesis which has been propounded by the scientist mentioned, and producing proof that all kinds of so-called apperception are reducible to associations of the representative activity. Secondly, he offers us in the third part a new foundation on which to base psycho-physics. It is, of course, impossible, in so difficult a subject, to reproduce briefly yet clearly the developments to which Münsterberg devotes one hundred and twenty-two pages. But we will at least supply a few hints with regard to what this new foundation of psycho-physics is.

In the first place, Münsterberg rejects the notion that prevails with Fechner and his school, that a powerful sensation is a multiple of a weaker one, by which the first can be measured. The stronger sensation is, says he, in comparison with the weaker one something wholly new; for, accurately considered, the intensity of a sensation is also of a qualitative nature. However, we are not by any means at liberty to infer from this that the measurement of psychical quantities is impossible. To appreciate this, it is first requisite that we should get clear ideas with respect to the psychological foundation of our physical measurements. The only foundation of these last is our muscular feeling, to this extent, that all measurement is founded on the measurement of quantities of space, time, and mass, and any estimate of the latter is only possible on the basis of the muscular feeling that enters as a factor in the conceptions involved. All physical measurement rests on the establishment, and therefore reproduction, of _like_ muscular sensations; on exactly the same foundation rests also all measurement of psychical quantities, of intensities of sensation, and since this foundation is the same, for this very reason the same justification is due to the measurement of psychical intensity as is due to physical measurements. This is the foundation on which the psycho-physics of Münsterberg is raised, which for a fuller view must be studied in the third part of the “Beiträge” itself.

CHR. UFER.

Altenburg, November, 1891.

DIVERSE TOPICS.

THE CLERGY’S DUTY OF ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN WORLD-CONCEPTIONS.

A late number of the _Gegenwart_ of Berlin (Vol. xl, No. 30) contained an article by Mr. Eugene Schiffer, a German justice, on the subject “World-Conception and the Office of Judge,” in which attention was called to the fact that the performance of duties, not only in the pulpit but in all the professions, and preëminently in the dispensation of justice through the courts, depends upon and stands in a more or less close connection with some definite world-conception; thus showing that religion of some kind forms and must form the background of the practical life of society. He says:

“The Church demands of its disciples as an indispensable condition of serving her the confession of a certain world-conception; she requires that every one who intends to take upon himself her rights and duties, should in his inmost heart agree with her concerning the contents of her faith, especially concerning the dogmas on eschatology, on God and world, body and soul, the origin and end of things; and this is but a matter of course, for the essential part and also the foundation of her activity lie in these very doctrines and in their propagation. It is a hard and a severe demand. Although on the one hand the morally free fulfilment of her requests contains the germ of an harmonious development of life and promises an extraordinary concentration and elevation of all faculties, it leads on the other hand to serious conflicts, of which the pages of history not less than the experiences of our daily life exhibit innumerable and sad instances. We recollect the terrible spiritual struggles in the souls of those who commenced to doubt, and the outcome is generally a pitiful catastrophe, either submission and hypocrisy with the weak, or tribulation, renunciation, and ruin with those who thought higher of truth than of their worldly emoluments.

“Most of the other professions and trades know nothing of the indispensability of a certain world-conception. The merchant, the mechanic, the lawyer, the soldier, the teacher, the laborer, can upon the whole think concerning these highest problems of life as they please. An inner and ideal conflict between their views and their calling seems definitely excluded. Outer and practical conditions—such as administrative injunctions of a certain kind, the aspiration of progress, the ambition to be better off, etc.—may sometimes produce conflicts.

“Yet this character of indifference concerning a general world-conception which is found in the secular professions and trades does not bear the stamp of permanence. For ultimately the entire doing and achieving of every thinking man, so far as it rises above the mere vegetative functions, is intimately connected with that common world-conception which everywhere influences and guides him. This is unnoticeable so long as the harmony of the connection remains undisturbed, but it manifests itself in consciousness as soon as its harmony is threatened through some important change of any of its parts. Even to-day a deep-going change is preparing itself; even now the struggle about the world-conception is fought more severely and more bitterly than ever and a new doctrine goes far enough to uncover the ultimate roots of our civilisation, of our position in life, of our calling; it attacks and shakes the present world-conception.

“This implies the possibility of a conflict between the old and the new faith even outside the pale of the church, and this conflict may influence the choice of a calling. This possibility has become an imminent probability concerning the office of judge, especially the judge of a criminal court.

“The dispensation of justice rests to a great extent upon the presupposition of guilt and the criminal law of to-day is almost throughout built upon this idea of guilt. It is true that this view has not always been taken. The Greek law and the old Germanic law interfered even in the gravest cases exclusively on account of the objective state of things without taking into consideration the criminal intent of the defendant. But this view was superseded in the former case by the Roman, in the latter by the canonical law, both requiring the conception of a moral and a subjective guilt, and at present the criminal law of every civilised nation (with the sole exception of the Chinese who threaten with capital punishment him who accidentally kills no less than the intentional murderer) rests upon the foundation of a belief in guilt.

“But there is no room for guilt in the materialistic world-conception. Everything that happens, the activity of the human soul included is to be explained according to mechanical principles and thus the view that man’s will is not free is proposed as one of its fundamental doctrines. While in this way there is no possibility left that a man might have acted differently than he actually did, this view takes away his responsibility. And this movement which either cancels or weakens the momentum of guilt, has taken hold of the minds of men far beyond the circle of decided materialists.

“The foundation of our criminal law stands or falls with the idea of guilt. With it stands and falls also the office of the judge, whose duty is the dispensation and utilisation of justice. He who does not believe in the possibility of guilt cannot without inconsistency pronounce any one guilty. He who as a matter of principle or at least within certain not well defined limits denies the freedom of the human will can no longer serve as a judge, certainly not as a criminal judge.”

Justice Eugene Schiffer is a conservative man. He demands that for the protection of the old world-conception the office of judge should be carefully guarded against such intruders as are not in sympathy with the present world-conception. He says:

“Exactly as the church, in order to preserve herself and to guard against her theology being diluted into a watery philosophy of religion, is bound not to separate the conditions of her life from a definite world-conception, so also justice, in order to deserve its name, should oblige its servants to take a definite position toward the ultimate world-problems.... He who does not accept in his conviction the moral foundations of a certain calling, must not choose it, or if he has chosen it, he must renounce it—or he must in his profession act against his conviction—unless he risks being discharged from his office on account of a neglect of duties.”

We agree with Justice Schiffer in one most important point, viz., the intimate connection of religion with practical life and of our world-conception with all our doing and achieving. But we differ from him in another no less important point, viz., in the proposition to prevent the present world-conception from undergoing a further growth and higher evolution. His proposition is nothing less than to make humanity and all its institutions stationary.

Everything that exists has a natural right to defend its existence, and so has the present world-conception. But that which grows and develops out of the conditions of the present existence has also a natural right to attain existence. The ideal world of the “is to be” is not a non-existence, as it might appear to the unknowing, but a germ existence, and if there is no room for both the actual existence of the present state and the germ existence of a new state, a struggle will ensue. There are at present and always have been many spurious world-conceptions which if they overcame the present world-conception would lead humanity backward to the beginning of civilisation. Indeed most propositions of reform are reversals which would undo the results of evolution and reduce mankind to primitive conditions. The fermenting minds of those who still hope to cure all the ills and woes of society by one stroke, have not yet outgrown the idea of the perfection, nobility, and happiness of the so-called original state of nature,

“When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”

Yet among all the plans of reform there is one which is correct, answering the wants of the time; and among all the world-conceptions which struggle to exist there is also one which is the legitimate outcome of the present world-conception. It is the present world-conception enlarged through additional experience and purified of certain errors. And it is an often repeated occurrence in history that the old and the new, father and son, have to fight with each other. The heir apparent either does not know that he is the child of his antagonist, or the latter the defendant of the present state does not know that he fights with his own son. This often repeated fact has found a mythological expression in the old Teutonic song of Hildebrand meeting in combat his son Hadubrand, a legend which in similar versions appears again in other Aryan sagas, the best known of which is the tale of Rustem’s struggle with Sohrab in Firdus’s great Iranian epic.

Can the struggle between the old and the new world-conception be avoided? No, it cannot and should not, for the new has to prove its legitimacy by showing its intrinsic strength; it must show that it has the power to exist. The struggle cannot be avoided, but the bitterness, the severity, the barbarity of the struggle can be avoided. Let Hildebrand and Hadubrand measure swords in a spiritual encounter, let the vanquished ideas yield to the stronger ideas, and they will prepare the gradual change of an evolution instead of the sudden rupture of a revolution.

Freedom of thought is always the best soil for a peaceful evolution but any system that binds the consciences of men and ties their ideas down to the average level of a certain age will be as dangerous as a boiler without a valve. There are periods of instability in history when the strengthening of the conservative spirit by imposing fetters upon the consciences of men appears useful and almost a condition for the development of some kind of a civilisation. This found expression in the historic legends of Lycurgus and Solon, binding their countrymen by oath not to alter the laws of the state. But these periods are after all ephemeral, and we ought to know by this time that we cannot bid the sun stand still or check the spirit of progress and the growth of mankind. There are nations which develop slowly because they rush into innovations, but there are other nations which have gone to the wall because of over-conservatism through which they were induced to suppress the freedom of thought and to deny the right of doubting the absolute validity of the prevailing world-conception.

The proposition of Justice Schiffer to bind the conscience of the judge by an oath of allegiance to that world-conception which is at present recognised as orthodox, is actually a law in the constitution of the church, and conflicts in the consciences of clergymen are of a common occurrence. The opinion that a clergyman who has ceased to believe in certain dogmas of his church has to resign this position is very common among freethinkers as well as orthodox believers. At first sight this seems to be the only choice left to a man of honesty and a lover of truth. I held this opinion myself for a long time. There is nevertheless another view of the subject which caused me to change my opinion entirely, and I am glad to perceive that such a man as Mr. Moncure D. Conway who held himself a position in the church and having grown more and more liberal has retired from active service, declares most emphatically that a clergyman who has grown liberal should not resign but stay in the church and wait till the church forces him to leave his position. This is an honest course, a clergyman has a right to pursue it and he will thereby open the eyes of his fellow-men; he will further the interests of mankind, and people will thus be enabled to judge better whether or not it is just to impose these burdens upon the pastors of the church.

Let us consider the case more closely. First, the oath which a young clergyman gives at his ordination is a promissory oath, and like all promissory oaths it holds good on the supposition that all the main conditions remain the same. If a man promises and binds himself by an oath to start to-morrow morning on a journey he does so on the supposition that it will be possible. So far as he can foresee it is possible, but incidents may happen which will make it impossible to-morrow. A promissory oath will be a weight on the conscience if it has to be broken, but it has no legal force. Thus soldiers swear an oath of allegiance to their king, and under ordinary circumstances there will be no cause for doubt as to the propriety of remaining faithful to the oath. But many cases of great perplexity will appear when a civil war splits a nation in twain so that brother stands against brother and faithfulness to the king may be the most degrading felony toward one’s highest and holiest ideals, perhaps also toward one’s bodily parents and nearest kin. Who does not recollect the sad end of Ludwig II, king of Bavaria. When the mind of the unfortunate monarch was too much deranged to leave him in possession of his royal power, a commission of several authorised men went to the castle where he resided to place him under the care of a physician. The king refused to receive the commission and ordered his faithful guards by whom he was surrounded to seize the commission, gouge out their eyes and treat them otherwise in the most outrageous way. The commission not being protected were for a moment in great danger, but happily the guards perceiving the seriousness of the situation did not execute the king’s orders and we might say,—broke their oath.

Did they really break their oath? No, they did not, for when they were sworn to obey their sovereign master and lord, it was supposed that the king was and would remain in his right mind. He became insane and this changed the situation entirely.

The oath of allegiance which the ministers of a church swear at their ordination is made in the bona fide conviction on both sides,—the church on the one side and the man that takes orders on the other side,—that the dogmas to which he pledges his troth are the truth. The oath holds good so long as a minister believes that the dogmas of the church are the truth; it still holds good so long as he considers it possible that they may be true. But the oath to believe them ceases to bind in the sense in which it was demanded as soon as a minister sees clearly that they are not true and that their truth is an actual impossibility. It ranks in the same category as the oath of allegiance to a sovereign who has become insane.

But the case is more complex still. If promissory oaths have no legal force because in certain cases a man would have to act against the letter of the oath, have these oaths no binding power whatever, as soon as a minister recognises the incongruity of the church belief with truth? I should say that they have a binding power, yet this binding power must be sought not in the letter but in the spirit of the oath.

One of the most prominent of juridical authorities, Prof. Rudolf von Jhering, has written a book entitled “Der Zweck im Recht.” He finds that all laws, all wills, all decrees have a purpose, and this purpose is their spirit. There are laws worded so badly that obedience to the letter of the law would under certain and unforeseen circumstances enforce exactly the contrary of that which the law was made for. Instances of this kind are of not an uncommon occurrence especially with regard to wills; testators and their legal advisors being often unable to formulate their intentions in a logical shape. Jhering maintains that a judge in construing a will, a decree, or a law has to find out the intention and purpose of the testator, the magistrate that gave the decree, or the legislator, and it is this intention or purpose with which his decisions have to agree. Supposing however that this purpose of a will or a law is wrong in itself or nonsensical, a judge has to construe it so that it will have sense. If the purpose is criminal the whole transaction is illegal, if it is irrational or illogical, it has to be interpreted so as to make it rational and logical. If it has reference to antiquated views, customs or institutions it has to be adapted to the corresponding modern views and to existing conditions.

An instance from practical life will explain the last point. There are many institutions in Northern Germany which were founded as cloisters or monasteries. The nuns and monks have been engaged partly in teaching,

## partly in attending to the sick, and in other useful purposes. The funds

of these institutions exist still, and serve now those purposes directly which they have served formerly indirectly through the service of nuns and monks. Most of them are employed for the maintenance of schools, some of them as hospitals, others as homes for unmarried daughters of government officials or for homeless aristocratic ladies without means, etc. These changes have been wrought by history as the natural consequence of new conditions. Many of them were made in actual violation of the letter of the testators’ will; yet they were made bona fide with the intention to remain faithful to its spirit? The question is not what a testator intended his will to be half a millennium ago, but what he would intend it to be in the living present, knowing all the changes which the progress of the times have wrought and having progressed with the times.

Before we answer the question, What is the purpose of the minister’s oath? we should first see clearly, what is the purpose of the church. Is the purpose of the church really to be sought in the propaganda of some absurd dogmas? Or does not rather the preaching of these dogmas itself serve a purpose?

The dogmas of Christianity were some time ago supposed to be the indispensable instruments of ethical instruction. All the churches are educational institutions to inculcate the moral ought on the basis of a popular world-conception. The church of England for instance is a national institute and it is not true that one church party has the right to impose its religious conception upon the rest of the nation. When the church was founded some crude notions were taken to be absolute truths and no man can at the present time be required to believe these crudities. All institutions are conservative but most conservative are the courts of justice and the church. The conservatism of jurisprudence is characterised in the saying which appears to be its leading principle _fiat justicia et pereat mundus_. Jurisprudence too often forgets that the dispensation of justice serves the purpose of sustaining life, of promoting the general welfare and enhancing the prosperity of the community; it overlooks the spirit and clings to the letter.

Our justices are inclined to believe that if a new world-conception arises, (which by the bye will as we believe not be materialistic nor will it destroy the idea of moral responsibility, although it may change our views about guilt,) their whole system of jurisprudence will break down. They are afraid of a _pereat justicia et vivat mundus_. Justice Schiffer is not at all anxious to prove the truth of the old world-conception, he is satisfied with proving that the new world-conception is incompatible with the old view of justice. Criminal law means punishment and punishment presupposes the idea of guilt. He argues:

“The question remains whether the conflict between the new and the old world-conception could be avoided by adapting our views of justice to the new world-conception; yet this question is to be denied, for the notions of guilt and punishment belong to each other according to logical, ethical, and moral principles. To punish without assuming guilt is as nonsensical as it is immoral.”

It would lead us too far here to show that moral responsibility still subsists on the supposition of a strict determinism and that the criminal law with its punishments will not be abolished in the future. Yet there is no doubt that our views of punishment will have to be changed; indeed they have changed and how much they have changed, can be learned by a comparison of an execution of to-day with one of a few hundred years ago. The idea of punishment in the sense of inflicting pain as a retribution has gone and it has gone forever. There is no more burning of the criminal with hot irons, or twitching with hot tongs, or tearing out his tongue, or stretching on the wheel. The criminal is executed with as little pain to him as possible. Why this change? Because a new world-conception has entirely altered our views of punishment and it is going to alter them still more. Penology is not to be based upon sentimentality as some so-called philanthropists intend to do; nevertheless it is to and it will become humane because we have abandoned the old conception of guilt which as Justice Schiffer correctly states was a fundamental idea in the old jurisprudence, and this antiquated conception of guilt has partly but not as yet entirely been overcome.

The church is in a position similar to that of the criminal law courts. A change of our world-conception has set in and the church is not as yet adapted to the change. The church having found it necessary for its purpose of preaching ethics to insist on the belief in a world-conception which demonstrates a moral world order, now attempts to perpetuate certain errors of our ancestors’ conception of this moral world-order.

The oath of a clergyman having been asked and given bona fide on the supposition that the dogmas of the church were the truth, holds good still, but it must be construed as in similar cases a judge would have to construe a faulty will or an ill-worded law. It has to be construed in the spirit and not in the letter.

Clergymen who have grown liberal should not leave the church. It is their duty to stay in the church and to make their influence felt to broaden the spirit of the church. If the church removes them from their position, they yield to the authority at present in power, but they should not yield without a struggle, to be conducted on their part modestly but firmly, with reverence toward their authorities, with tact and decency, but fearlessly and bravely, for they are fighting not only for their personal interests but for the progress of mankind, they are fighting for the holiest treasures of the church—for truth.

The abolition of these burdens on the consciences of the clergy would be a natural consequence of repeated struggles. Let a pastor be bound to respect his church authorities, to obey them in all matters of administration, let him be bound to revere the ecclesiastical traditions of which he should never speak lightly, but do not prescribe to him a belief of any kind. Pledge him to serve the truth, to speak the truth and to live the truth; and that simple pledge will have more weight than the requirement to believe dogmas which, his superiors know but too well can no longer be believed literally but must be taken _cum grano salis_.

Christ says concerning the observances insisted upon by the Scribes and Pharisees: “They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne: and lay them upon men’s shoulders.” This passage is applicable also to the present system of ordination. Christ’s saying is read in the churches and it is, as most of his words are, as new to-day as it was at his time, but who thinks of its application to our present system of burdening the consciences of men?

P. C.

A COMMENT BY PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER CONCERNING THE DISCUSSION ON EVOLUTION AND LANGUAGE.

_To the Editor of The Monist:_

I must thank you and Professor Romanes for the frank and searching criticism to which you have both subjected my article on “Thought and Language,” published in _The Monist_. You have shown that you care for truth and not for victory, and you have carefully abstained from any personal remarks which are so apt to embitter scientific controversy and in consequence to render its chief object, the discovery of more truth, illusory. We all have the same object, we all want to know what is true—why then should we not all work together, listen to friendly criticism, accept useful advice, confess our mistakes, and work as hard as we can in the special field allotted to each of us.

As soon as I find a little more leisure, I shall not fail to reply fully to both your articles. At present I only write to you to defend myself against an undeserved charge brought against me by Professor Romanes. I had said that Professor Romanes had no right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority. Professor Romanes replies that he never mentioned Mr. Herbert Spencer at all, that it would have been well for me, if, before condemning his supposed treatment of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Noiré, I had looked at his Index. This is a serious charge. It would show a want of accuracy unpardonable in a scholar. It is true, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s name does not occur in the Index. But on p. 230 we read: “So here again we meet with additional proof, were any required, of the folly of regarding the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.” Now it is well known that it is Mr. Herbert Spencer who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition. I have shown that the facts of language are against Mr. Herbert Spencer, but I should not therefore think it right to charge him with folly. This will show that if I wrote without Index, I did not write without book.

Yours truly,

F. MAX MÜLLER.

Oxford, Oct. 28, 1891.

BOOK REVIEWS.

SYNOPTIKER. APOSTELGESCHICHTE. Bearbeitet von Professor _H. J. Holzmann_. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Freiburg, i. B.: Akademische Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. C. B. Mohr. 1892.

This book is the first volume of the “Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament” edited by the Professors H. Holtzmann, R. A. Lipsius, P. W. Schmiedel, and H. v. Soden.

No better man could have been selected for the first part of this great work than Prof. H. J. Holtzmann, who is not only a theologian of most comprehensive scholarship but also has devoted his energies to this special subject. He has lectured regularly for a number of years at the university of Strassburg six or eight times weekly on the synoptic gospels and three times weekly on the Acts. The principle of his method has been laid down in a former work of his, viz. “Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament.” The present book contains an enormously voluminous material condensed into a comparatively small space of 448 pp. large octavo. The author being a theologian his attitude toward his subject is naturally reverent, paying an unreserved homage to the greatness of Jesus. Yet at the same time his investigations are strictly scientific and in accordance with the rules of criticism as employed in any historical investigation. It is no exaggeration to consider Professor Holtzmann’s work as representative in the highest degree; it embraces the most complete knowledge at present attainable and that too in a most concise form as a practical handbook with parallel tables and indexes of reference for students of the New Testament.

The author first formulates “the synoptic problem,” which has been solved after innumerable vain attempts by the so-called “Marcus-Hypothesis,” which is at present considered as satisfactory, because it alone fulfils every condition and explains all the difficulties. Holtzmann regards the figure of Christ as historical. The impression of his powerful personality was a living presence in the first congregation at Jerusalem. But all the interest centred in his words. The words of their Lord were faithfully preserved by oral tradition. Sentences so short and yet so pregnant with meaning as “Blessed are the peacemakers,” or “Ye are the salt of the earth,” “But let your communication be, Yea, yea: Nay, nay, etc.,” are so impressive that whoever has heard them once, will never forget them. The interest in the word was soon complemented by an interest in facts and events which was much later followed by an interest in dogma. The first differences among the Christians originated through the mission among the heathens. The gentile Christian became indifferent concerning the Jewish traditions and clung with all his religious enthusiasm to the Christ as his saviour. Christianity became a cosmic religion while the Jewish Christians still looked upon Christ as the Messiah of the people of Israel. The Jewish view of Christianity is represented by Matthew, the gentile view by Luke. Mark however does not show any development of dogma. According to Papias, the Apostle St. Peter had whenever it became necessary for an explanation of the words of Christ, occasionally told certain events of the life of Jesus; which were afterwards written down by Mark. We find in Mark, Matthew, and Luke the same building stones, but how differently arranged! Mark shows evidence of relating real facts of history, he begins with John the Baptist, tells us how Jesus became baptised, how he preached the kingdom of God; according to Mark, Jesus does not declare himself as the Messiah from the beginning. His activity grows by degrees, his disciples increase, he heals the sick, and it is from the mouth of these that he was first proclaimed as the Messiah. He becomes a power among the people and makes himself offensive to the authorities who consider him as dangerous and attempt to take his life. Jesus forbids those whom he heals to proclaim that he is the Messiah. He sends out his disciples not to preach him as the Messiah, but to proclaim the kingdom. At last in Peter the idea dawns that prompts him to declare: “Thou art the Christ.” Yielding before the persecution of his enemies, Jesus travels North and East and here he accustoms himself to the idea of a suffering son of man. His self-confidence increases and he travels courageously to Jerusalem where, as he could foresee, he would meet his fate. The drama of his life culminates in his word “ἐγώ εἰμι” (1462) in which he reveals his self-consciousness as being the Messiah. Being triumphantly hailed in Jerusalem by people of Galilee and such as believed in him he hastened his doom. It is not likely that Jesus could have publicly been held to be the Messiah for any length of time, for the Roman police was wont to suppress such movements without discrimination. They did not stop to investigate the case as to the character or motive of the movement whether or not it was purely religious or political. They never tolerated any “son of David” or “king of Israel” who held any influence over large masses of the people.

While Mark still preserves the development of Jesus’s messianic consciousness, Luke as well as Matthew have entirely obliterated it. According to Mark, Jesus proclaims the kingdom; Matthew and Luke make him preach his person. They make Jesus proclaim himself as the Messiah from the very beginning and his command not to speak it out openly given to those whom he healed and also to his disciples has no sense here. Matthew has a liking for cabalistic numbers, there are three times seven generations the names of which are not without doing violence to historical facts adjusted to the pattern, there are three temptations, seven parables, etc. Throughout we notice reflection, purposive selection of the material, and artificial adjustment to a plan. The book has a tendency to show that Jesus was the King of Israel predicted by the prophets and in the psalms. Luke on the other hand has also a dogmatic programme. It is the gospel of gentile Christianity as founded by Paul.

The critical school finds adversaries among theologians as well as unchristian thinkers, both of whom are apt to speak of fraud when religious books are written with certain dogmatic tendencies. Professor Holtzmann objects to such a view of the development of Christianity. He says that a religion which did not rouse sufficient enthusiasm to develop a religious poetry would be very poor and lifeless. Even the apocrypha of the New Testament are evidence of the vigor of the new religion, although we must be aware of the fact that the Church showed good judgment when adopting its canon to accept those which were full of moral meaning and to reject those which were mere myth without any deeper significance.

We have given this abstract of one part of Holtzmann’s work with the omission of all the learned by-work for those not familiar with theological investigation. Similar results are obtained by an inquiry into the origin of the Acts. The apostles were the first and living representatives of the Christ. Out of the interest in the apostles’ words grew an interest in their actions and lives, and there are a great many writings of this subject preserved. One only has been received into the canon.

It is impossible to follow Professor Holtzmann into the details of his work, but we can warmly recommend it as the best compendium existing, not only for the student of theology but for everybody who is interested in the results of the scientific criticism of the synoptic gospels and the Acts.[51]

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SCHRIFTEN DER GESELLSCHAFT FUER PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG. Heft 2. Ueber Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie. By _Hugo Münsterberg_. Leipsic: Ambr. Abel. 1891.

In this monograph Professor Münsterberg prepares the way for greater and more important work. His aim is to define the province of psychology and to investigate the methods which have to be employed. Psychology is not philosophy; accordingly the consideration whether there is a reality of an outside world does not belong here. The psychologist is not bound to wait till this and other metaphysical questions are decided with certainty; the reality of the outside world has simply to be assumed together with its cognisability.

What means ‘to explain’? “To explain means simply to render clear that which is not clear or to reduce the unknown to the known, the complex to the simple (p. 104).... It is an indispensable presupposition of any natural science to consider nature as being capable of explanation (_erklärbar_), and this presupposition means that natural processes can be perfectly separated into most simple mechanical processes. This presumption can be realised to-day only on the basis of the atom-conception. It is accordingly not an experience, but a postulate of natural science to derive the whole material world-process from the mechanism of atoms. A description becomes an explanation in the measure in which it approaches this aim” (p. 105). The question is, whether in psychology, description can be supplanted by explanation, whether laws can be stated instead of mere rules.

Professor Münsterberg takes that ground in psychology which as it appears to us is the only tenable ground, viz. that feelings are not motions and cannot be explained as converted physical processes. Professor Münsterberg says: “A sensation, a feeling, a will can never fill even the very smallest space. What is extended in space can never itself be a state of consciousness. To the psychologist this distinction is now a matter of course, so much so that it is difficult to call to one’s mind how much trouble it cost to acquire this insight. The object of psychology accordingly can never be an object in space, it can never be a process of motion, accordingly, even brain-irritation can under no circumstances ever become the object of psychology” (p. 97). Psychology has to investigate the psychical phenomena of the individual consciousness (p. 102), it has to separate it into its elements, i. e. those ingredients which are no longer divisible; which being done, psychology searches for the rules for the combinations of these psychical elements and shows us the different complex contents which are formed in this way by the elements up to that totality of single combinations which is given us as the contents of our spiritual personality (p. 103).

“The question is, (1) Are there psychological processes in us, the development of which presents itself with immediate certainty as necessary, and (2) can we reduce all the individual and with them all the spiritual phenomena to such spiritual processes recognised as necessary? The first question can be affirmed, although only in a limited sense, and the second question must be unequivocally denied, thus making an immediate explanation of psychical phenomena impossible” (p. 107). The first question is to be affirmed in a limited sense, because “if certain premises are thought, the conclusion, it appears to us as a necessity, can be thought thus and not otherwise” (p. 108). But this is “a logical and not a psychological necessity.” To actually think the conclusion depends upon the will to think it. The will actually existing, the logical necessity becomes a psychological, for “the connection between the willing and the willed (_zwischen Willen und Gewolltem_) always appears to us as necessary.... Where there is inner will there is an inner necessity.” Now, in order to make explanations in the physical world, we supplement that which has been actually observed with not-observed connections. But we cannot, according to Münsterberg, in an analogous way supplement in the world of psychical phenomena the conscious states with any other kind of states which are not conscious, thus referring our spiritual life and acts of will to unconscious processes, for “the very nature of psychical states is consciousness, i. e. a state of being conscious. _Ihr Sein ist das bewusst-sein...._ A state of consciousness, says Münsterberg, which is not conscious, is comparable not to a body which is not perceived, but to one which does not exist. Accordingly unconscious psychical phenomena do not exist. All psychical phenomena are directly given and the reduction of their combinations in a certain way through hypothetical psychological supplements is once for all excluded” (p. 110).

We agree in all the main positions with Professor Münsterberg, but in the last mentioned point we disagree. Professor Münsterberg limits psychical states or feelings to states of consciousness without considering that there are subconscious and even unconscious feelings. By consciousness we understand those feelings alone which are concentrated so as to be connected with the ego, i. e. the present centre of consciousness. We assume that even the spinal ganglions of the brainless frog are feeling if the skin is irritated, but this feeling can never become conscious, it can no more be telegraphed to the central station so as to become co-ordinated with other feelings which are registered in the brain. The objection may be raised, We do not know whether the ganglion is feeling; and I should answer, I call feeling anything that is of the same nature as the elements of which consciousness consists, and we have all reasons to assume that there is such an elementary psychical accompaniment of the ganglionic irritations, and that consciousness rises from many such elements through their co-ordinate combination in the brain. Isolated feelings are never conscious, and consciousness is a co-operative system of feeling. This distinction between consciousness and feeling is a mere matter of terminology. If we find another terminology more practical we are willing to surrender ours. Yet such a distinction between consciousness and feeling seems to be necessary for a proper description of the psychical facts. The assumption of subconscious states and even of unconscious feelings is a great help in explaining the phenomena of consciousness. But unless we are grossly mistaken, our disagreement is merely apparent, for Professor Münsterberg, rejecting the idea of a psychological explanation, believes in the parallelism of psychical and physical phenomena. “The physical acts” (he says on p. 125) “reducible to mechanical axioms can be explained through causation, the psychical acts follow one another without inner necessity. If we connect both, we are enabled to transfer the necessity-connection of the physical upon the psychical and offer thus an explanation where otherwise description only was possible.” But in doing this, have we not supplemented those psychical elements which appear as conscious states by other psychical elements which have not entered into that combination which makes them actually conscious? It is an hypothetical addition for the sake of explanation, a _Hilfsconstruction_ just as much as the supposition of the existence of atoms or electric currents or other physical phenomena which are not directly observed, but indirectly in their effects only.

Supplements are necessary for explanation wherever the immediate facts do not contain all the elements of a certain process. If an observable phenomenon has not its conditions in observable facts we hypothetically assume unobservable facts as its causes. But we may incidentally remark that description and explanation are not different in kind, but in degree. Explanation is an exhaustive description set forth in its greatest possible simplicity. An exhaustive description enumerates all the determinative factors of a process and it drops everything that is of no account, so that information is imparted with the greatest economy as well as completeness. An exhaustive description is a reliable guide to preascertain the outcome of a process, and reveals in this way the identity in the change, the continuity of the process and the conservation of matter and energy in their transformations, or, in other words, it reveals the necessity of the result. There is perhaps no natural science in which the processes can be exhaustively described without hypothetical supplements and so the science of psychology forms no exception to the general rule.

The aim of psychology in its wider sense will be “to separate all the contents of consciousness into their elements, to state their laws of combination, and to seek in an empirical way for the diverse elementary psychical contents, their correspondent physiological irritations, in order to explain in this way mediately from the coexistence and succession of physiological irritations the purely psychological laws of combinations which as such are unexplainable” (p. 127).

Our objection to this view resembles much some of the objections which Professor Münsterberg himself makes when speaking of the availability of the mathematical method so-called. He says: “Measuring and counting of psychological phenomena have been made repeatedly, directly as well as indirectly, and it has been proved that mathematics can be applied to psychology.... Nevertheless it would be a misuse of the word if we named these numerical descriptions an ‘application of the mathematical method.’ If an historian of literature counts the poems and dramas of authors, if he also calculates how long it took them to write their literary products, who would call his work a mathematical history of literature? Even astronomy would be no mathematical science if we counted only the stars in the sky.” If the aim of psychological explanation were as Professor Münsterberg here asserts to be reached through the explanation of physiological states only, we should say, that the physiological method were alone admissible in psychology, a principle to which our author rightly objects. Psychical states sometimes demand a physiological explanation, and we cannot understand psychology without having a certain amount of physiological knowledge. Nevertheless, the explanation of psychical states and the necessity of certain connections must be understood mainly from the psychical elements themselves. Psychical elements, i. e. feelings, as has been explained on other occasions, have acquired and constantly do acquire meaning. This meaning which appears in sensation-symbols and thought-symbols and which is different in the different forms of feeling (correspondent to different forms of nervous action), creates a new domain,—the domain of spirit,—and thus psychical states are changed into spiritual facts. Suppose for instance that a merchant receives his mail; he opens a letter containing some important news which sets at once all his nerves into irritation, makes him neglectful of all other things in order to attend with great haste to one special affair. How can we explain this instance, or any other spiritual act through a consideration of physiological conditions. Is it not the meaning alone which special sense-impressions convey that produces the extraordinary effects? The physiologist would as little be able to detect this meaning through an analysis of the sense-impressions, as an electrician would be to understand the import of a telegram when measuring the strength of the electric current in the telegraph wires. The combinations of the purely psychical states may after all not be quite unexplainable, while their physiological concomitants are in many cases insufficient to account for spiritual interconnections.

In discussing the methods of psychology Professor Münsterberg rejects the speculative and the mathematical methods; he claims a great importance (and we agree with him) for self-observation. But self-observation is no easy task; it requires a high degree of training. “He who does not understand botany cannot make observations of plant-life. The same things which call into play certain associations in the botanist are also seen by the layman, but they remain unobserved. Self-observation is in a similar way ... not without its presuppositions; it is dependent upon a rich store of ready associations” (p. 164).

Psychological investigations under natural conditions are classified by Münsterberg according to their objects, as those of the normal man, the child, the savage, the insane, the animal, etc. In experimental psychology, psychopetal, psychofugal, and psychocentral processes are distinguished. For psycho-physiological investigations we have besides, (1) the immediate experiment in the laboratory, (2) the method of anatomy, (3) of comparative anatomy, (4) and of physiology. Professor Münsterberg concludes with an appeal to institute special professorships of psychology, which is at present a mere branch of philosophy. It takes all the energy of one man to keep abreast with the progress of psychological investigation. “No medical man, no lawyer, no theologian, or educator should enter into practical life without having passed an examination in psychology ... the growing generation of children, the sick, the criminal, and the comfort-seeking souls of mankind have to suffer if teachers, physicians, judges, and preachers are ignoramuses in the matter of human soul-life.... But here also the gods have placed sweat before virtue.”

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LA PHILOSOPHIE DU SIÈCLE. By _E. de Roberty_. Paris: Félix Alcan.

The author of the present work, which forms a volume of the Library of Contemporary Philosophy, is one of those disciples of the founder of French positivism who, while following in his footsteps to a certain point, do not hesitate to diverge from the beaten track when they think their leader has gone astray in his philosophic quest. M. de Roberty speaks of Comte with reverence as his first guide and his best master, and he finds in the very contradictions of the Master the germ of his own conception of the general trend of philosophic development.

The fundamental thesis of the present work is that the three contemporaneous philosophic systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, are merely varieties of a single species, as strictly parallel manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general hypotheses. The basic identity of the thought of this century is shown by the ever increasing convergence of the great leading ideas, as exhibited in the prevailing theories of knowledge, by the preponderance of relativism, and of agnosticism. It reveals itself, especially in the similar conceptions formed by the most varied systems, not only of the essential characters of philosophy, its method, and the ends it ought to pursue, but also of the scientific laws which govern its evolution. We cannot follow the author through his discussion of all these points and we must therefore restrict ourselves to the most salient features of his argument.

Modern philosophy is represented by three principal schools: Criticism which originated with Kant, Positivism founded by Comte, and Evolutionism introduced by Spencer. These three systems had a common ancestry, that of sensualism. The critical philosophy is the legitimate heir of sensuous idealism, and the positive philosophy the immediate descendant of sensuous materialism. The evolution philosophy is itself rooted in sensualism, but it is really a conciliator of the two great philosophies which preceded it, Criticism and Positivism. This conclusion, which appears to us just, is supported by various considerations to which reference here is not necessary. M. de Roberty bears testimony to the influence of the philosophy of Kant over the development of the evolutionist conception, which could be applied to society only by giving an apparent universality to the mechanical hypothesis. This was accomplished by Spencer, as it had been done to some extent by Comte. The popularity of the evolution philosophy is explained by the author as due to its admixture of agnosticism with a monism which captivates the masses “by the audacious assertion that it has raised all veils and resolved all enigmas.” Kant, Comte, and Spencer have equally seized this characteristic trait of the genius of our century. They each treat, says M. de Roberty, of the most transcendent problems of metaphysics, and place them carefully under the cover of the experimental method. Let us add that they are each different expressions of that genius, which marks the progress of the mental evolution of mankind.

The second part of M. de Roberty’s work deals in the first place with the conceptions of philosophy, its nature and its end, framed by the three great modern systems. The confusion generally made between philosophy and science is first pointed out, the evil of which arises from the fact that allowance is not made for the progress of scientific knowledge. The author is strongly inclined to favor the idea of the general equivalence of science and philosophy, in the sense that every effect is identified with its cause. But as the effect is always modified with its cause, neither the content not the general conception of philosophy can remain unchangeable. Philosophy becomes thus the co-ordination of the sciences in view of their general and abstract finality—by which is meant simply the last term of an evolution—a conception of the world.

In what do the conceptions of philosophy held by the criticist, the positivist, and the evolutionist, differ from that formulated by M. de Roberty? He affirms that they all entertain certain errors of method derived chiefly from ancient metaphysics. The prototype is found in Kant, who says that philosophy is a system of universal acquirements formed of abstract notions, and that it has for its aim the passage of our understanding from sensible to suprasensible knowledge. The latter is the _a priori_, the permanent and verifiable hypothesis, for each of them. It is the transcendental element which all modern philosophy has derived from the past, and which forms the bond of alliance between faith and knowledge. Of the three postulates of Spencer, the universal hypothesis is in the first, an Unknowable Force. The other two belong to psychology, proving that the English evolutionist, like Comte, confounds science with philosophy, which to him, as to his predecessors, is a simple theory of knowledge.

Philosophy is a method which conducts to a conception of the world. But, says M. de Roberty, modern philosophies fail in that they deal with hypotheses. Now, although hypothesis is the soul of the special sciences, for philosophy it must always be a purely mental recreation. To render valid the universal hypothesis constructed by philosophers, it would be necessary that the sum of the final truths of science should include the sum of the phenomena which constitute nature.

We cannot follow the author through his ingenious criticisms of Spencer’s great synthetic formula, to which he devotes the twelfth chapter of the present work, and which he characterises as the perfect type of the universal unverifiable hypothesis. Nor can we do more than give a passing glance at his views of the psychology of the three modern systems of philosophy. He affirms that the metaphysical transformation by criticism of psychology into philosophy left hardly anything to the special science. To positivism is due the conception of psychology as forming an integral part of biology, which has led to the important psycho-physical experiments of the present day. But the biological analysis of the individual should be followed by social analysis, the study of mental manifestations in society, in connection with which should be created a special concrete science to embrace the higher psychology, as pointed out by the author in his work “La Sociologie.” Science, art, and industry are a projection into the external world of the thinking, feeling, acting subject, and psychology ought also to be thus projected by fusion with biology, or with biology and sociology, which it is necessary to study if we would discover psychic laws.

In the chapter on the Supremacy of Science, the author affirms that the philosophy which will result from the progress of psychology and sociology will present a striking contrast with all known metaphysical forms, but it will always remain a world-conception, and it will have to submit to the law of correlation which explains the character and destinies of its predecessor. Agnosticism, which invites men to bend before the _Deus ignotus_ of all religions, marks the fatal termination of ancient anthropomorphism, influenced by a progressive knowledge, and thus appears as the final integration of all theology. It also represents, however, the condition of incognisance to which the opposite state will succeed when the cycle of abstract sciences is completed and a really scientific psychology formed. Then hypotheses as to universal causes will receive their psychological solution, and it will remain for philosophy only to confront and co-ordinate them with the general results of other sciences. Having arrived at this point M. de Roberty formulates the conclusion that Philosophy and Science are terms which connote two principle _species_ in the vast _genus_ designated by the single term _knowledge_. The most marked trait of future philosophy will be the distinction of these two species, as their confusion was the most general character of the philosophy of the past. Philosophy and science will then be perfectly identified, but the identity will be general and not specific. Thus philosophy will not be positive in the sense of Comte, it will never _completely_ identify itself with science.

In his last chapter, entitled “The Intellectual Series,” M. de Roberty continues his criticism of the views of Comte as to the law of the evolution of philosophy. He shows that, so far from this being the most general law of intellectual evolution, and therefore the supreme law of all social phenomena, philosophy is only one of three intermediate terms, the others being art and industry, by the aid of which the evolution of scientific ideas acts on the ensemble of the social evolution. The intellectual evolution is the direct consequence of the social fact, but the social evolution is subject to the laws of intellectual evolution, which embrace four great classes of conceptions, answering to the four well recognised groups of facts known as science, philosophy, art, and industry. We have here the same series of special evolutions as those supposed by Comte, with the important change, however, marked by the inversion of the first two members of the series. In this relation, the author affirms that Comte’s law of the three states is false so far as concerns the evolution of the sciences, and is of very secondary importance as regards the evolution of philosophy and the two succeeding evolutions.

The author concludes his work with a criticism intended to show that the principal defects of Comte’s system arise from the confusion previously insisted on in relation to the first terms of the intellectual series, science and philosophy. That confusion is exhibited in the statement that among the ancients philosophy was developed before science and art. M. de Roberty, moreover, declares Comte’s theory that the industrial development is the point of departure of modern civilisation, leads to a complete subversion of the logical and historical. Instead of the useful or the proper being, as that theory would require, the foundation of the good and this, in its turn, the germ of the true, the true is the foundation of the beautiful, and of the good and the useful. But the true is more complex than supposed by Comte. It possesses at least two aspects, science and philosophy, which may be really distinguished, although the line which separates them is yet undetermined.

We have given a summary of M. de Roberty’s general argument, instead of referring to particular propositions which may be open to criticism, because his work appears to us a very valuable contribution towards the elucidation of the important question as to the position of philosophy in relation to science. We shall look with much interest for the appearance of the author’s two further works which he announces as supplementary to the present one. That on Agnosticism is already in the press. The subject of the other work is Monism, which M. de Roberty characterises as “the chimerical pursuit which has essayed, through the ages, to fix the so-called unity of things, the extra or supralogical identity of phenomena.” This hypothetical monism of philosophy is dealt with incidentally in the present work. The “supralogical identity of phenomena” is a different kind of monism from that of _The Monist_.

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UEBER BEWEGUNGSEMPFINDUNGEN. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doctorwürde vorgelegt der hohen philosophischen Facultät der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität zu Freiburg i. B. By _Edmund Burke Delabarre_ of Massachusetts. Freiburg in Baden: Hch. Epstein, 1891.

Dr. Edmund Burke Delabarre introduces himself to the world of science with an excellent monograph on motion-sensations, based upon careful observations which were made in Professor Münsterberg’s psychological laboratory at Freiburg i. B. The subject of the dissertation is of great importance and there is much confusion prevalent at present even among the most prominent authorities. It appears to us that Dr. Delabarre has adopted the right view and he certainly defends it with great ability. Professor Wundt rejects in his Physiological Psychology all the theory of the so-called “muscle-sense” and admits that there is some truth in the three explanations devised as an explanation of our consciousness of performed motions, which thus would be a complex of (1) pressure-sensations, (2) specific muscle-sensations, and (3) innervation-sensations. This third kind of sensations is of a very hypothetical nature. The term signifies that, when muscles are innervated we are supposed to have a direct sensation of the innervation in the central nerve-organs; and this view is objected to by Münsterberg, who says that “a brain irritation which is not accompanied with centripetal effects or central after-effects of former muscular activity has its physiological consequences but excites no conscious states.” Thus, according to Dr. Delabarre, without the motion of the sense-organs, i. e. muscular activity, there is no consciousness; all consciousness derives its data from the periphery. Dr. Delabarre goes over the whole field of the literature of the subject and weighs all pros and cons. He finds that all cases are intelligible without the supposition of central innervation-sensations. He admits that the term muscle-sense is vague, but he believes that the term having been generally introduced may be retained. He defines it as that complex of sensations which results from muscular activity.

The second part of the dissertation contains the reports of the experiments, describing the instruments used and the methods employed.

We are informed that Dr. Delabarre has been appointed to the chair of psychology in Brown University.

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LE NIHILISME SCIENTIFIQUE. I. Dialogue entre le Doctor Oudèn et L’Etudiant Ti son Neveu. Rapporté par _P. Van Bemmelen_. Leide: E. J. Brill, 1891.

Dr. Oudèn’s nephew thus summarises the scientific, or rather “philosophic” views of his uncle: “There is no God, but there is the world. In this world there are neither souls, nor mind, nor life; there is only matter and its elementary forces. Nevertheless these forces do not exist; there is only movement, the sole function of matter, which is inert. In its turn, matter has no reality; it is composed of geometrical points which are susceptible of movement. But as there is neither time nor space, there is no movement.” Nothingness is thus reached, but beyond is illusion, the _maja_ of the Hindoos, which explains all our conceptions of nature including that of our own being. This scientific _maja_ is not the semblance of a real world, but that of a world which does not exist, so that illusion and nothingness are the same thing. From which it follows that there is no illusion and no mind to be deceived! Mr. Van Bemmelen’s opuscule is an ingenious _jeu d’esprit_, evidently intended to exhibit a certain phase of speculation as a _reductio ad absurdum_.

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DIRITTO SOCIALE TENTATIVO IN BOZZA. Dell’Avv. _Pietro Pellegrini_. Borga a Mozzano. 1891.

There is no denying the activity of the statesmen and scholars of modern Italy in the cause of radical, social reconstruction and, as remarked by a recent traveller in Italy, in the “building up again a Commonwealth, founded on high principles of right and equality.” “Diritto Sociale,” in Italian jurisprudence, of course, relates to municipal and positive law, in its social-economical and social-political aspects. But, in a country with the municipal and political traditions of Italy, this “Diritto Sociale,” even in modern times, exhibits a tendency to crystallise into a kind of concrete, social religion. The Avvocato Signor Pietro Pellegrini, the learned author of this book, appears to feel deeply concerning the present condition of this branch of jurisprudence in Italy.

In his preface the author says, that during the present century legal science has not made any very substantial progress; that the revolution of the last century, while asserting the famous rights of man, forgot the rights of juridic persons, of corporations, and law became an _individualista_—or, individualiser. On the strength of his juridic personality man thereupon engaged in a struggle for his rights on the vast social field, but he found himself alone—an individual and nothing more. As such, he could not form a juridic, social organism, but he merely sought to adapt himself to an actual, external juridic organisation, differing but slightly from old-time despotism. On this basis the State still continues to create municipal and positive laws, more or less adapts them to the facts of reality, arbitrarily creating juridic persons and administrative bodies, such as the _mandamenti_, _circondarii_, _provincie_ of the modern Italian kingdom—all of which are only hybrid administrative _entia_, that do not in the least satisfy a number of local public needs; and therefore, there is no harmony between individual men and the juridic persons, between the public administrative entia and the State, and there is bloody war among the States themselves.

The ultimate cause of all this conflict is to be ascribed to the individualism of the law, in not recognising organic, juridic relations; and this, moreover, necessarily called forth the reaction of an exaggerated socialism.... Person has a much wider significance than individual; person cannot be isolated, individual, because, juridically, person implies an exchange of relations with others; hence, juridic persons ought to enjoy a greater legal authority than they actually enjoy in our modern jurisprudence. The _plasma sociale_, or the original social mould, is developed by degrees into a vital, practically real, organism, endowed with a physical body, that needs the material means of nutrition, in order to live, to preserve, and develop itself. These, however, do not exist; because nature furnishes only sufficient means to preserve man in a purely savage, animal condition. But, at least, there exist the sources, or fountain-heads, from which it is possible to derive the desired nutritive materials; on condition of molding or transforming those fountain-heads, and of assuming their efficacious, practical direction. In the individualised or individual system there takes place a struggle among the individuals for the possession of that nourishment, in which case, however, the sources themselves are appropriated rather than the nutritive materials they contain. Such is the exclusive nature of the social means of nutrition, present and future, through which a large number of individuals will be at the mercy of a few, while the notorious “rights of man,” remain powerless....

The rights emanating from the organic concept of personality, together with the physico-economical laws of the fountain-heads of social nourishment, spontaneously furnish the equitable distribution of the nutritive materials to each organic member, so that there is no monopolising of those natural fountain-heads, but a normal nutrition of all the organs, according to their needs, and their actual capacity as juridically displayed....

Those fountain-heads, besides being limited, are scattered through space, because it is impossible to unite or concentrate them on any

## particular point of the globe. Hence this _plasma sociale_ or social

mold is distributed through space according to imperative laws, that result from the combined capacities of the respective juridic, that is, social persons, with the capacities of the respective sources of social nourishment—of different municipal organisations, of cities, townships, and villages. All these are pre-eminently juridic and social persons, each one possessing its peculiar functions, that cannot be exercised by other persons. The present work contains a lengthy but valuable introduction in four chapters, discussing the general concept of law; and thereupon the book is divided into three parts, in which are explained the principles and development of positive law in its respectively civil-social, social-economical, and social-political aspects. This work, throughout, presents a number of equally important and novel points of view, through which the author’s concept of an organic municipal and social law everywhere becomes the surest means of creating unity and harmony, not only within the general department of law, but also within the sphere of practical legislation.

γνλν.

AN OUTLINE OF LOCKE’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. By _Mattoon Monroe Curtis_, M. A. Leipsic: Gustav Fock, 1890.

This excellent study was presented to the University of Leipsic as the Inaugural Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and it is well deserving of publication, if for no other reason than the need of such a work. There appears to have been hitherto no complete account of Locke’s System of Ethics, which does not even find a place in Mackintosh’s “Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy.” The author has not been able to discover any trace of the treatise on Ethics which Locke proposed to write, but his published works “abound in ethical observation and severally took their rise from ethical considerations,” so that there is no deficiency of materials from which to ascertain his ideas on that subject.

Mr. Curtis very justly remarks that it is important to ascertain an author’s views before criticising them, a truism which is not always acted on, as indeed was the case with Locke’s own critics. He does not, however, profess to criticise but, as the title of his work shows, to give an outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy. In his Preface he states that his author adopted the Stoic division of Philosophy into Physics, Ethics, and Logic. The object of Ethics, is described by Locke, in his noted “Essay,” as the seeking out of those rules and measures of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practice them. The end of this, is not bare speculation, and the knowledge of truth; but _right_, and a conduct suitable to it. In the application of its principles Locke may be said to have gone further than any of his predecessors and of most of his successors. As pointed out by Mr. Curtis, he maintains that the institutions of government, religion, and education are, in essence, ethical and that all are parts of a system which must be based upon, and be in harmony with, the fundamental physiological and psychological principles of human nature. This follows from Locke’s principle that the Individual, and not the Family, is the real social unit. Man is a rational, social, religious, and political being, and, therefore, “in the individual is contained, potentially, all institutionalism.”

It must be noticed, however, that to Locke the moral dynamic in human society is the concept of God. He regards this idea “as a natural, formal, necessary and transcendental principle at the root of human nature and institutions, and consistently declares that the denial of it dissolves all,” as it alone gives a sufficient explanation and sanction to the principles of morality. This brings us to the very foundation of ethics. All depends, however, on our conception of God. Locke maintained that duty “cannot be understood without a law, nor a law be known or supposed without a law giver, or without reward or punishment.” His conception of God, therefore, was that of a law-giver, and he believed that the existence of God could be demonstrated not only by teleological argument, but also by psychological proof drawn from the being and nature of man. Locke was so thoroughly convinced of the dependence of morality on the existence of God, that, notwithstanding his general liberality of thought, he excluded atheists from toleration. He writes: “Promises and Covenants, and Oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an Atheist.”

It would be a mistake to suppose that, because Locke believed morality to be founded in our conception of God, he considered the moral law referable simply to the divine will, and therefore to be arbitrary and changeable. So far from this, he regarded the moral law as eternal and immutable, and affirmed that its cardinal principles could be discovered and laid hold of by the light of nature. As says Pfleiderer, when speaking of Locke and Wolff, “Locke also considers a supernatural revelation to be possible, and to have actually taken place in Christianity, but he insists as strongly as Wolff does, and even more logically, that this revelation must not in any way contradict the natural revelation given us by God in our reason.” Locke expressly declares, that the reason _is_ natural revelation, while revelation is natural reason enlarged. The latter he regarded as necessary because, although reason is sufficient for the virtuous, penalties must be relied upon for influencing the multitude; and in revelation the doctrine of immortality with future rewards and punishments is made known. Whether this revelation is true or false, the fear of future punishment has undoubtedly had a restraining influence over the vicious. But reason would not be sufficient for the virtuous without an inclination natural or acquired, to virtue. It is a question of disposition, and this will be virtuous or vicious, according to the conditions under which the individual has come into being and been “educated,” in the fullest sense of this term. Reason forms part of these conditions which, so far as they are not purely objective, are dependent on or referable to human nature; as, indeed, must be the supposed revelation of enlarged natural reason.

In relation to the ethical life, Locke declares that happiness is the only idea which reason takes up out of the sphere of pleasure and pain, and yet that if we aim directly at happiness, we shall miss it. What then has to be done is to seek out “the rules and measures of human actions which lead to happiness.” This is the office of ethics, the end of which is virtue, and thus happiness and virtue are one. With Locke moral

## actions are only those that depend “upon the choice of an understanding

and free agent.” The agent here intended is, as pointed out by Mr. Curtis, the man, and not the will. Locke says that the proper question in connection with freedom, is not “whether the will be free, but whether the man be free.” The will is determined by the mind, and liberty is “a power to act, or not to act, according as the mind directs.” In his “Thoughts concerning Education” Locke affirms that “the result of our judgment, upon examination, is what ultimately determines the man, who could not be free, if his will were determined by anything but his own desire, guided by his own judgment.” The position of Locke is, says the author, that of Plato and Kant: Reason is given as the governor of the will, by its sway to constitute it good. Thence we may rightly conclude, that those who are not governed by reason have not true freedom.

We have not space to consider the views entertained by Locke on Institutional Ethics, beyond referring to his doctrine that property rights are given only by labor, and not by occupation, and that labor is the source of all values. The latter doctrine cannot now be accepted as sound, whatever may be said as to the former, but Locke deservedly holds a high place as a political economist. He seems indeed to have been a kind of universal genius. Mr. Curtis refers to the remark made of him “that no philosopher since Aristotle has made and recorded so many valuable observations, or given so great a stimulus to human thought.” Any fresh light that can be thrown on the opinions entertained by so profound a thinker, especially on the important question of ethics, is of value and hence we welcome the present work as an acceptable addition to philosophic literature.

Ω.

* * * * *

N. B.—Owing to lack of space, reviews of a number of new works have been crowded out of the present number of _The Monist_; among which the following will appear in No. 3: _Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems in der Philosophie seit Kant_, by Dr. Edmund Koenig; _Spinoza’s Erkenntnisslehre in ihrer Beziehung sur modernen Naturwissenschaft und Philosophie_, by Dr. Martin Berendt and Dr. Julius Friedländer; _Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie_, by Dr. Th. Ziehen; _Handbook of Psychology_, by J. M. Baldwin; _An Essay on Reasoning_, by Edward T. Dixon; _Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe_, by Hübbe-Schleiden; _Die Bedeutung der theologischen Vorstellungen für die Ethik_, by Wilhelm Paszkowski; and _Einleitung in das Alte Testament_, by Prof. C. H. Cornill.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] A companion work on the Old Testament has been written by Professor Cornill. We shall review it in our next number.

PERIODICALS.

VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[52] Vol. II. No. 6. September, 1891.

CONTENTS:

POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. By _B. Tchitcherin_.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN THEOCRACY IN THE FIFTH CENTURY. The Cosmic Views of St. Augustine in his Genesis. By _Prince E. Trubetzkoi_.

ETHICS OF LIFE AND OF THE FREE IDEAL (conclusion). By _K. N. Ventzel_.

OPINIONS CONCERNING L. N. TOLSTOÏ. By _N. Strachoff_.

FROM THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. By _Vladimir Solovieff_.

SPECIAL PART: (1) Fundamental Moments in the Evolution of the New Philosophy. Metaphysical Philosophy: Descartes and Occasionalists. By _N. Grote_. (2) Measurableness of the Simplest Mental Acts. By _E. Tchelpanoff_.

CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. Review of Philosophical Periodicals. Book Reviews.

APPENDIX: 1) Recent Publications. 2) Transactions of the Moscow Psychological Society.

_Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science._ This article is made up of extracts from a lengthy competitory dissertation presented by the author to the Moscow Psychological Society. The writer points out the fallacy of the “fundamental law” of the Comtist philosophy—the supposed gradual evolution of human thought through three successive phases,—the theological, metaphysical, and positive stage of development. The writer contends, that the so-called “positive stage,” as conceived by Comte, is really neither positive, nor even scientific, if we examine its main foundations. As all the world knows, Comte was not satisfied with the results of the particular sciences, but wished to effect their comprehensive unity. The writer lays stress on the fact that Comte failed to perceive the inward contradiction of his whole system. His followers, in order to overcome this difficulty, were compelled to advance still another step. Despite the teaching of Comte, they recognised in mathematics the whole of a science that derived its principles from experience. This is shown by Littré in his criticism of the system of Comte (_Aug. Comte et la Philosophie positive_, page 567), where Littré refers himself to the analysis of Stuart Mill in his Logic. The author, in order to reach a definite and satisfactory solution of this important problem, in his next, concluding article, will investigate the nature and alleged solidity of the mathematical principle.

_The Philosophy of the Christian Clergy in the Fifth Century._ In analysing the whole literary activity of St. Augustine, we observe, in the evolution of his doctrine, three stages, that closely correspond to his own personal struggle against the three heresies of his time—Manicheism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. Yet all of these three stages are characterised by one and the same principle—the ideal unity of the Christian churches. This ideal aspiration reveals itself as a kind of constructive principle of the universe; as the supreme principle of a social organisation of humanity, as the substance and contents of subjective, human freedom. The Bishop of Hippona,—after thus having developed the several aspects of his doctrine against the heresies,—sums up, and concentrates his teaching, in its widest bearings, against the heathen. Here this Christian ideal attains its fullest and final expression, and is formulated as a _Civitas Dei_, as the unity of a universal, divine Sovereignty.

_Ethics of Life and of the Free Ideal._ In concluding his exhaustive reflections on the subject of Guyau’s system of ethics, in which the writer frequently has occasion to cite the critical parallel views of A. Fouillé and of other English and Russian philosophers, Mr. Ventzel remarks, that his aim has been, not only to introduce M. Guyau’s system of ethics to his Russian readers, but also and mainly to show the relations of this system of ethics to moral obligation. The writer wishes to say in conclusion a few words about Guyau’s relation to ethical sanction. Guyau rejected any moral sanction, in the strict sense of the word, that was distinguished or detached from social sanctions, as such. In this sense he conceives moral sanction and moral obligation in his Ethics of Life, in his _Equisse d’une Morale_. If life, of itself, creates an obligation to work, simply, on the strength of our capacity to work, in such case life also will create its own ethical sanction. Even when generously giving itself away, life will without fail, again and again, find itself. No matter how it be cut short, life will preserve a vivid consciousness of its fulness and significance and will reappear in some other place and under other conditions; for, truly, nothing in this world lives and works in vain.

_Opinions Concerning Leon N. Tolstoï._ Mr. Strachoff’s psychological study would doubtless possess an additional interest to western readers if the writer had really given an exclusively Russian estimate of Tolstoï’s character and intellectual activity. In this respect, however, we must not expect to find any very marked deviation from the well-known current views of the reading public of other nations. “The main cause,” Mr. Strachoff observes, “why people are incensed against Tolstoï, is to be found in the fact, that, of all men, Tolstoï has most widely deviated from universally received ethical notions, and that he antagonises his century, even in certain delicate problems, that will always be the dearest to mankind. You cannot help feeling this, when you listen to the clamour, reproach, and vituperation, that have been raised against him throughout the civilised world. For the rest, it seems rather odd, that, at the close of the nineteenth century, there should have risen such a number of deadly foes against an inoffensive writer and thinker like Tolstoï; and yet, long ago, we had been accustomed to the intemperate utterances of a host of enraged freethinkers, whom we have endured with patience and meekness. Why, accordingly, have we all of a sudden lost our patient tolerance, and why are we almost ready to start a systematic persecution against the thoughts and words of a book like the _Vasnaya Polyana_ (Clear Field)?... It must be admitted, that there is a certain originality in his writings. Every line possesses a freshness and novelty that are entirely his own; and yet his language is tame, and the subjects even more common than in other writers. He frequently describes the birth and death of very plain people. He tells us how these same people amuse themselves, eat, drink, and dance on feast-days, cut the hay, go to church, to confession, and so forth. Occasionally he tells how a jealous husband kills his wife,—a fact, that has been told in so many other literatures. But in anything he relates, he has the art of throwing a strong, clear light upon his subject, so that it seems to us, as if those time-worn scenes were seen and heard for the first time. In this consists the real originality of Tolstoï’s art. And he is the same in his ethical teachings. They strike us by their directness, vigor, sincerity; and for this very reason they powerfully arouse our love and our yearning for those deep, spiritual cravings that invite man to lead a higher life—“to live a god-like life.” Here also, at times, it appears to us, that we hear about those lofty aspirations for the first time; but when you pay close attention, you will find that his doctrine is really based on the ethics of the past, and you meet with traits of that self-same Christian doctrine with which you have been familiar from early childhood.”

_From the Philosophy of History._ Mr. Solovieff, this time also, has chosen a title that scarcely conveys a definite idea of the aim and contents of his article, which describes the specific relations of the Christian idea to the historical evolution and political ideal of the nations of antiquity. (Moscow, 1891)

γνλν.

MIND. October, 1891. No. LXIV.

CONTENTS:

BELIEF. By _G. F. Stout_.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. (II.) By _H. R. Marshall_.

THE FESTAL ORIGIN OF HUMAN SPEECH. By _J. Donovan_.

INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. By _L. T. Hobhouse_.

DISCUSSION: (1) Dr. Münsterberg and Experimental Psychology. By _E. B. Titchener_. (2) On the Origin of Music. By _H. Spencer_.

VALEDICTORY.

Under “Belief” Mr. Stout includes every mode and degree of assent or dissent. To disbelieve a proposition is to believe its contradictory. Doubt is belief in a disjunctive judgment. In a former article he dealt with the “Genesis of the Cognition of Physical Reality.” He now treats of the various kinds of real existence; as follows. _The Real in Sensation._ The real as immediately apprehended in sensation must not be confounded with the percipient mind. Sensation as such is real in so far as it limits and controls the movement of attention, by restricting the range of subjective selection. _The Real in Judgments of Comparison._ In and through the peculiar movement of attention in endeavoring to keep it fixed on _A_ in the very act of fixing it on _B_, the points of agreement and difference between _A_ and _B_ gradually emerge into clear consciousness. _Objective Attributes of Presentation._ Dr. Pikler’s theory of the psychology of Objective Existence fails to distinguish between the phenomena which are merely observed by voluntary attention and those which are actually produced by it. The act of introspection modifies more or less the mental processes which it examines. Their pre-existing strength and mode of operation can be ascertained only by elimination of the peculiar reinforcement or enfeeblement which they acquire by emergence into distinct consciousness. _The Objectivity of Space and Spatial Relations._ Although we can produce change of place by moving our bodies, according to our will, this freedom of selective selection has rigid limits imposed on it by the very nature of space. This control imposed on our freedom by the nature of the object constitutes its objectivity. The constant possibility of transition from one position to another is apprehended as inherent in the very nature of space independently of our will. Whenever I distinctly attend to the nature of a spatial limit, I must of necessity admit that space is boundless. What has been said about the objectivity of space in general applies _mutatis mutandis_ to the objectivity of space-relations as treated by the geometrician. The psychological conditions of my subjective certitude lie ultimately in the impassable barriers, arising from the very nature of space, which confine the freedom of my constructive movement. _Reality in the Association of Ideas._ Association is a cause of belief. If certain contents of consciousness have once been copresented in a certain relation to each other, the reproduction of the one tends to bring about the reproduction of the other in the same relation in which they were originally copresented. A comparatively feeble association may command belief merely from the absence of counter-associations. This is the basis of Bain’s doctrine of primitive credulity. _Subconscious Conditions of Belief._ The presentations which successively emerge into the forms of consciousness are only fragmentary portions of the total mental system. Many, if not most, of our beliefs depend on the operation of subconscious elements which, in massive combination, co-operate to support a certain connection of ideas which appears in consciousness as an object of attention. But such massive support may arise from the connexion of the belief with practical interests or æsthetic enjoyments, or with some powerful organic sensation. _Apperception and Belief._ Ideal combinations may be separable or inseparable according as this or that apperceptive system happens to be predominant. This is best seen in its pathological exaggeration in the case of suggestible patients. Under normal conditions the necessary alternation of different apperceptive masses produces a corresponding variation in the conditions of belief. _The Real in the Products of Constructive Imagination._ The work of imagination either imposes an illusion on the mind, or it does not. In both cases there is a certain reference to reality. Illusion is a temporary and often more or less imperfect belief in the product of constructive imagination; a belief which can be indirectly produced or dissipated at will. _The Real as Physical Resistance._ In the experience of the irregular interruption of otherwise continuous series of muscular sensation, which, apart from this restriction, are producible at will, we apprehend real existence. The reality, however together with that of sensation as such, being communicated to the interpretations which we are constrained to put both upon sensations and their order, gives rise by a very complex process to the presentation of a physical world. _Conclusion._ The law of conflict is the psychological counterpart of the logical law of contradiction.

In the present paper Mr. Marshall examines in detail his thesis that Pleasure and Pain are determined by the relations between the amount of

## activity in, and the nutritive conditions of the organ which determines

the conscious content (_Mind_ No. 63). He states the psychological conditions for Pleasure to be: “A content which appears normally at regular intervals will tend to be indifferent. If it appear with hypernormal intensity or frequency suddenly in the course of the normal regularity, it will for a relatively short time appear as pleasurable, but this pleasurableness will soon fall away into indifference.” The psychological condition of Pain is said to be: “If a content which has already often appeared in consciousness appear with unusual frequency or exceptional intensity, it will ordinarily be accompanied at first by pleasure, which usually will wane until the content appears indifferent. If the hypernormal stimulus continue (except as after described) the content will become painful, and this pain will increase in amount, and having reached a maximum will decrease gradually until it disappears, but in general with it will also gradually disappear the content itself, not to reappear in consciousness for a considerable time, if ever. In some cases, however, if the content be not over intense, we may look for a gradual decrease of the pain felt at the beginning until a condition of indifference is reached.” Time is an essential factor in the process of organic repair. For each organ there will be a certain time after action has ceased at which recurrent activity will be most effective. Here we have the physical basis of the gratifications obtained through rhythms. There is also a relation of rhythm to pain. The throbbing of acute pain, so far as it is not directly traceable to _pressures_ of blood-supply, is probably indirectly traceable to the _rhythm_ of blood-supply. Turning to Psychology proper, the laws of Pleasure-Pain may be stated in terms of Attention. Pleasure, as involving the use of stored force, implies a continuance of activity in the organ of pleasurable content, and therefore a tendency to continuance of Attention upon that content. Pain, on the other hand, implies a tendency to cessation of activity in the organ of the painful content, and therefore the disappearance of the content. The notion that pleasure is mere absence of pain is denied by this theory, which accounts for the connexion, in a broad way, between Pleasure and Pain and activities respectively advantageous and disadvantageous. In relation to Ethics this theory teaches that the _act_ of will, _per se_, is pleasurable as the outcome of the conditions of opposition which are anterior to the will-act. Further, action in the direction of the greatest desire is the most pleasant action. But this does not show that the effect of habit may not be such as to lead to

## action against the strongest desire and away from the greatest pleasure.

Further, the object of desire, whilst it may be, is not necessarily the attainment of pleasure.

A scrutiny of the psychological aspect of musical pleasure, says Mr. Donovan, will lead to the conviction that its origin required simpler psychological machinery than the origin of speech, which was possible only through the aid of that machinery. The ear is superior to the eye in respect of their relative contributions toward making up our mental life and activity. The superiority of the ear rests on its functional passivity. This allowed auditory impressions to force themselves into consciousness in season and out of season. The facts of history and ethnology which may be given a new aspect when regarded in the light of the analysis of music cover a very wide field, beginning with the first and rudest vestiges of communal sympathy and tribal glorification, and extending up to the national song or epic. It is peculiar to man to give expression to communal interest in a way which has nothing to do with life-caring instincts. That interest finds its first and rudest expression in bodily play-excitement: (1) bodily play-movements in imitation of actions, (2) rhythmic beating, (3) some approach to song, and (4) some degree of communal interest, display themselves as the most constant elements of all festal celebrations. If we start from the generally-accepted explanations of play-movements in animals, and grasp the ultimate reason why play-excitement became infused with the communal spirit, there will be no difficulty in tracing evidence of this spirit even where they are most hidden by accompanying habits. Success in a common enterprise tends to preserve it. The natural modes of expression of the communal elation follow, i. e. the bodily play-movements in imitation of the successful actions and the rhythmic beating. These movements give to consciousness preservative elements of sensation. Every step of tonal development was made in order to prove the effectiveness of the elements of sensation which could preserve the content of consciousness springing out of play-excitement and communal elation. The attention-drawing power a musical tone possessed was enhanced by the conditions of its production which ensured repetition in a persistent temporal succession. Animals’ excited cries were both before and after the stimulating rhythmic beating—produced tones. The same excitement which impelled to these cries also impelled to rhythmic beating, and thus produced a persistent auditory model for the cries. The philologist says that roots are elements of words which analysis can reduce no further. The psychologist can trace them back to the musical tones which became reproductive agents of the vague presentative elements of actions as they had been repeatedly held together in consciousness by the psychological machinery of nascent musical pleasure.

In a previous article (_Mind_, No. 62) Mr. Hobhouse aimed at proving that all reasoning involved generalisation from observed facts, and that all such generalisation could be shown to proceed on a definite principle. There are two main ways in which Induction and Deduction may be distinguished. First we may distinguish the assertion of a universal from its application. The application of a universal to a particular case is represented by the syllogism in which the major is a general judgment and the minor a particular judgment of perception. When two judgments are compared they are found to be (1) Tautologous—the same assertion of the same fact. (2) Different statements of the same fact. (3) Assertions of different facts. A judgment expresses a relation between two terms, and hence two judgments may be said to assert the same fact when they assert the same relation between the same terms. But if either of the terms or the relation differs, then they assert different facts. Generalisation involves a universal principle connecting different facts. Syllogism does not. Syllogism appears as simply the opposite side of generalisation. In the latter we assert a universal for the first time, in the former we apply a universal already asserted. But in both we are dealing with the same relation of universal and particular. Whether we assert or apply our universal, the same ultimate logical fact, expressed in the axiom of Induction, is at the bottom of the process. But a different distinction may be drawn between Induction and Deduction. The whole process of bringing particular facts under universals by observation of similar particulars may be called Induction, while the combination of several universals in a chain of reasoning is called Deduction. In the first, Generalisation, we assert a universal on the ground of a

## particular, or a particular on the ground of a similar particular. In

the second, Construction, we assert a relation between two universals on the ground of the relation of each to one or more intermediate relations. Construction involves generalisation at every step, and is a true reasoning process. The nature of the generalisation may be shown by the typical Deductive axiom. If, where two terms are in any way related to a third, a relation between the two is observed, then when any other two terms are similarly related to any third, the relation between these two will be similar to that observed between the first two. The simplest construction on which others rest is that of two relations to the same type, and this axiom applies to relations so understood. The axioms postulated by Reasoning lay down the conditions under which facts not presented may be known to exist, and they are thus distinguished from those principles called the “Laws of Thought.”

Mr. Titchener severely criticises Dr. Münsterberg’s experimental psychology, pointing out various errors, and concludes that “whether the theories of the _Beiträge_ stand or fall, their experimental foundation has very little positive worth.”

In reply to the criticisms in _Mind_, No. 63, Mr. H. Spencer points out that Dr. Wallaschek has overlooked a passage in which the former recognises rhythm as an essential component of music. He does not coincide with Dr. Wallaschek’s view, however, since it regards music as acquiring its essential character by a trait which it has in common with other things, instead of by a trait which it has apart from other thing. It is from the emotional element of speech that music is evolved—not from its intellectual element.

After referring to the fact that harmony, as ordinarily understood and as spoken of by him, is concerned with the fundamental tones and ignores the overtones, Mr. Spencer states that he cannot accept Prof. Cattell’s view that harmony has been developed from melody. To establish the evolution of the one from the other, there must be found some identifiable transitions between the combinations of tones constituting _timbre_, which do not constitute harmony to our perception, and those combinations of tones which do constitute harmony to our perception.

In his Valedictory on retiring from the Editorship of _Mind_, Professor Robertson refers to the establishment of the _Review_ in 1876, on the initiative of Professor Bain, by whom it has since been sustained, and he mentions that most of the experimental research has been contributed by the American hands “that have been or are now organising psychological laboratories over all the breadth of their own land.” (London: Williams and Norgate.)

Ω.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1891. Vol. II. No. I.

CONTENTS:

THE UNITY OF THE ETHICS OF ANCIENT GREECE. By Prof. _Leopold Schmidt_.

THE PROBLEM OF UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. By _Felix Adler_, Ph. D.

THE THEORY OF PUNISHMENT. By Rev. _Hastings Rashdall_.

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF OUR TIME. By Prof. _Henry C. Adams_.

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME. By Dr. _Ferdinand Tönnies_.

THE ETHICAL TEACHING OF SOPHOKLES. By Prof. _Arthur Fairbanks_.

THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND. By Prof. _J. Platter_.

DISCUSSIONS.

Prof. Schmidt’s article is a reply to a criticism of his work on the ethics of the ancient Greeks which had appeared in the _International Journal of Ethics_.

Dr. Adler’s article is the introductory lecture of his course on Moral Instruction before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth. He refers first to the difficulty in the way of combining moral and religious instruction in the public schools arising from the difference in religious belief of the tax payers, and to the devices suggested to circumvent the difficulty. The first of these devices is that Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews, shall formulate a common platform of belief. There are two obvious objections to this proposal. It would leave out of account the party of the agnostics and be a gross injustice to them, and it would never content the really religious minds of any denomination. It would be acceptable only to the comparatively small class of so-called rationalists or theists pure and simple, and they have no right under the specious plea of reconciling the various creeds, in effect, to force their own creed upon the rest of the community. The second device is that religious and moral instruction combined shall be given in the public schools by persons of the several denominations. The high authority of Germany is invoked in favor of that system but Dr. Adler states that the example of Germany cannot be quoted as a precedent owing to the relation between the state and the schools in that country. The system, moreover is not a happy one as, agreeably to Professor Smith’s propositions that scientific instruction must be unsectarian and religious instruction must be sectarian, the latter ought to have no place in state schools, at least in a country where the separation of church and state is complete. To the third arrangement proposed, that each sect should build its own schools, and draw upon the fund supplied by taxation according to the number of children which it educates, there are two objections. Owing to the power of sects and their influence, direct and indirect, the rules and regulations prescribed by the state for the schools to conform to would not be enforced. And secondly, the purpose for which the public school exists would be defeated, as the sectarian schools tend to prevent the growth of that national unit which it is the very business of the public school to create and foster. The correct answer to the question as to the way in which to impart moral instruction so as to satisfy all parties will be the solution of the problem of unsectarian moral education. The answer is: It is the business of the moral instructor in the school to deliver to his pupil the subject matter of morality, but not to deal with the sanctions of it; to give his pupils a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong, but not to enter into the question why the right should be done and the wrong avoided. The conscience can be enlightened, strengthened, and always without once raising the question why. Professor Adler, it appears to us, overlooks the intimate connection between the two questions of what is wrong, and why is it wrong. With the “why,” which is the moral sanction so-called, he excludes the criterion of right and wrong and confines himself to conventional morality. Professor Adler proposes, that the material for the moral lessons should be “the stock of moral truths accepted by all good men.” This would be a very simple solution of the ethical problem. Mankind need no longer remain in doubt as to what good and bad is. We have only to accept the propositions of “all good men.” But where is the judge that shall decide who are to be considered as good men? Either Professor Adler considers his own views of moral goodness as authoritative and ultimate or his reasoning moves in a vicious circle.

Professor Tönnies and the Rev. Hastings Rashdall discuss punishment as a preventive of crime. Professor Adams finds that the genius of invention established the factory system replacing the old domestic system of industry. The change of a society based upon tools into a society based upon machinery means that the worker has lost control over the conditions of labor which he now tries to regain. Arthur Fairbanks says that according to the ethics of Sophokles, conscience was sense of conformity to an æsthetic ideal. J. Platter of Zürich rejects Henry George’s theory as “nonsense.” (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut Street.)

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RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1891.

CONTENTS:

L’IMMAGINAZIONE NELLE SUE RELAZIONI NORMALI E MORBOSE COLLA SENSIBILITA. By _L. Ambrosi_.

L’ORIGINE INDIANA DEL PITAGORISMO SECONDO L. VON SCHRÖDER. By _P. D’Ercole_.

LUIGI VIVES, PEDAGOGISTA DEL RINASCIMENTO. By _A. Piazzi_.

LA FILOSOFIA DI EMPEDOCLE. By _S. Ferrari_.

_Imagination in its normal and diseased relations to sensibility._ The writer calls our attention to the endless variety of different and apparently contradictory things that are usually attributed to the faculty of imagination. To some this faculty of the human mind is the main cause of human errors, and with Montaigne they call it “la folle du logis”; but to others, imagination plays a rather important part in the discovery of great scientific theories. All unanimously admit, that imagination lends fuel to the flames of all kinds of evil passions; but on the other hand it cannot be denied, that imagination sustains the will in every work of great stress, or great sacrifice, by the vivid representation of an expected final success. All human votaries and possessors of this fleeting, inconstant mental faculty are by turns “happy, unhappy, sane, sick, wealthy or poor; it makes us believe, doubt, or deny reason; it makes fools and sages.” (Pascal, _Pensées_, Art. 3, § 3). Yet how can the psychologist reconcile all this; how can he find the different circumstances, through which one and the same cause produces such an endless variety and discrepancy of facts? Several psychologists, who have tried to follow the flights of imagination throughout all its different manifestations by the sole aid of style and language, have been poets rather than true philosophers. Such was Delille in his poem _l’Imagination_; and such was even Professor Mantegazza himself, in that chapter of his _Physiology of Pleasure_, which he has dedicated to the “Gioie della fantasia,” where he describes this faculty with far more enthusiasm than scientific precision. Bonstetten, in his _Recherches sur la nature et lois de l’imagination_, Genève, 1807, is supposed to have been the first to give a minute and exclusively psychological analysis of imagination; but his investigations seem to prove, that a delicate subject of this kind, like certain volatile essences, evaporates at the moment we wish to analyse it, and cannot be defined by any strict scientific formulas and classifications. And yet, if we really wish to study the psychology of imagination, we must not be frightened by these difficulties, or regard them as insurmountable. We may not be able to reduce all these varied phenomena to very definite and limited categories, but it does not follow from this, that we have only to make a simple, empirical registration of these phenomena. As Michaut observes (_L’Imagination_, Introduction): “Wherever we find a general element, there also we shall find room for science.” Despite the inconstancy of the phenomena, it remains true, that also in the facts of imagination there is something constant and regular; that they are subject to laws, which might be probably severed from the phenomena, and be reduced to a certain unity and uniformity, without forgetting, at the same time, that this fleeting and delicate subject is not always reducible to absolutely strict classification.

How are we, accordingly, to obtain that harmony and unity of view, that will unite and group all those diversified manifestations? Mind cannot be conceived as a collection of different states, but we have to assume, that within the Psyche there is something substantial; there is unity, constancy in its energy; and that this side of its being is also the principle of its transitory actions. We recognise therefore the existence of two distinct sources of spiritual energy, that will better make us understand the diversity of its products: on the one side, the soul itself, with the formal laws of its simple being, and, on the other side, the power or force of its sensible representations,—of its reactions. This distinction, applied to the present problem, will on the one hand cause us to consider images as the products of an activity of an inferior order, called psyche soul, but we shall behold on the other, that same soul, when it has freed itself from the tyranny of the senses, itself becoming properly what is called mind, its emancipation rising to the higher function of arranging and organising the images produced by the aid of the senses. Hence follows, that the relations of either conflict or harmony which these products of the soul have among each other, and to mind proper, will serve as a criterion of a classification, in which we have to take note: (1) of the reciprocal action between sensations and images; (2) of that between images and images; (in both of which instances the power of the products possesses an advantage over the power of mind;) and (3) of the action of mind upon images. By this road it will be possible to follow all the phases of the evolution of mind from the moment when overcome by obstinate images it is reduced to a life of disorder, incoherency, or, as it were, to death of mind, until the moment when in its own turn mind takes hold of the numerous images by which it is besieged, and by subjecting them to its own laws—to laws of unity and harmony—it creates out of that disorderly chaos of images the wonderful synthesis of science and works of art. From that instant we behold mind rise through a series of intermediate stages, from abject servitude to the loftiest heights of freedom, from a state of humiliating impotency to an unhampered display of its true, inward activity,—from folly to genius. In other words, it is chiefly this psychic activity, in all its different stages of development and power, that must be our guiding criterion in the study of the phases and phenomena of imagination.

The writer, thereupon, seeks to explain the nature of this psychic

## activity in its application to images. He briefly investigates the

origin of images, their immediate derivation from the sensations, and their intimate reciprocal connection, by virtue of which the one cannot be produced without the other; and whence there arise many different relations, that not only explain, but even enable us to classify a large number of facts relating to this mental faculty. The writer concludes with some general remarks on the diseases of imagination.

_The Hindu Origin of Pythagorism according to L. von Schroeder._ This article was suggested by Dr. L. v. Schroeder’s monograph: _Pythagoras und die Inder. Eine Untersuchung über die Herkunft und Abstammung der Pythagorischen Lehren_. The discussion about the local origin of Pythagorism began with the ancients themselves, is being continued in our own time, and, from the nature of the subject itself, bids fair to be protracted for an indefinite period still. In recent times this arduous problem has invaded the domain of comparative ethnology, comparative religion, philology, in brief, of all the historical sciences, receiving, doubtless, striking and copious illustrations from all these, yet at the risk of almost losing sight of itself. In Pythagorism, as in certain other products of the human mind, it is difficult to discriminate with absolute historical certainty between “mine” and “thine.” The real solution of the problem may perhaps be found in the original unity of the evolution of the Indo-European mind. The writer, however, views the problem simply as one of comparative religion and the history of philosophy. The ancients advocated the Italic, or Tyrrhenian origin of the Pythagorean system, and among modern Italians, Vico and Gioberti have done the same. The Chinese origin was defended by Gladisch. The third, the Egyptian origin, also dates from antiquity, and in modern times has been ardently defended by Roth. The fourth, the supposed Hellenic origin, has had the greatest number of followers, and has been ably championed by Dr. Edw. Zeller in his work, _Die Philosophie der Griechen_. As regards the last, the alleged Hindu origin, this was suggested of course by the numerous striking analogies found between Hindu and Pythagorean doctrine. Still, all that has been said on the subject by Schroeder, Max Müller, Weber, and others, has failed to thoroughly convince the writer. In his next article he promises to show, that everything has induced him to believe that the Hindus themselves rather borrowed their doctrine of transmigration from the philosophical system of Pythagoras.

_Luigi Vives. A Pedagogist of the Renaissance._ The interesting subject of this article is probably to this day but little understood or appreciated by the pedagogists of northern Europe. To this day, many among them seem ignorant of the fact, or, perhaps, are unwilling to frankly admit, that along with the Catholic revival, and the intellectual renaissance of the Latin nations, there was initiated the tradition of really humane pedagogics, founded on the nature of man, and, in its aim and workings, vastly superior to the educational systems of the nations beyond the Alps. It was an earnest, liberal, refining educational system, that professed an affectionate regard for youth. It banished corporal punishment, and addressed itself directly to the heart and the intelligence. The Jesuit maxim: “debetur pueris maxima reverentia,” still recalls the original spirit of this humane system of education. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to maintain, that, in the spirit of the time, it also aimed at the _beautiful_ in education. It was a declared enemy to any thought, speech or action in _bad form_. To the subject of this article, the Spanish bishop of Valencia, Louis Vives, is due the honor of having been one of the most ardent and successful promoters of this new educational system, and to have been the Jean Jacques Rousseau of his time. Vives was born in the year 1492, and died in the year 1540. He had studied at the University of Paris, and was an intimate friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam. He is moreover the author of a number of valuable educational works. Bishop Vives, however, must also be regarded as a clergyman, who in his practical career would at times find it difficult to reconcile his broad-minded scholastic ideals with the duties of his calling, and with the exaggerated ascetical tendencies by which he was surrounded. As a matter of fact, in a short time the church is seen practically to override all this liberal educational movement of the renaissance. Within the college- and convent-walls, in the Latin countries, the humane paternal pedagogics of the renaissance soon and easily degenerated into oppressive, injurious, personal surveillance, and an odious theocratic tyranny. With all our sincere admiration for the work initiated by men like Louis Vives, we must nevertheless maintain, that all, or nearly all, the ecclesiastic educational systems of the Latin countries during the following centuries, can scarcely lay valid claims to a place within the pale of true pedagogical science.

_The Philosophy of Empedocles._ In this concluding article the writer exhaustively discusses the religious tenets and ethical precepts of Empedocles, as both appear in the Proëmium, in the third book on Physics, and in the poem of the “καθαρμοί”—or expiatory atonements.

_Bibliography._ In this department we notice a lengthy review of Prof. E. Dal Pozzo di Mombello’s _Lectures on Monism_, delivered at the University of Perugia. In this number are also contained the _Bollettino Pedagogico Filosofico_, _Critical Notices_, and _Recent Publications_. (Rome. Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane. 1891.)

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REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. November, 1891. No. II.

CONTENTS:

LES ORIGINES DE NOTRE STRUCTURE INTELLECTUELLE ET CÉRÉBRALE. I. Le Kantisme. By _A. Fouillée_.

DU RÔLE DE LA VOLONTÉ DANS LA CROYANCE. By _J. J. Gourd_.

In discussing the part of the will played in belief, M. J. J. Gourd considers our belief in an ultra-phenomenal reality which he calls “metaphysical belief.” “All thought,” he says, “involves a relation, viz. a relation between subject and object. Every relation presupposes a comparison of its terms and this comparison is not established if the subject and object belong to different worlds. The subject is undoubtedly found in consciousness, the object must be there also. All the ingenious arguments to escape this conclusion are vain. Accordingly, one may well believe in the truth of the metaphysical belief, but this belief is not true.”

M. G. Tarde, the great criminologist and an opponent of Professor Lombroso’s school reviews the penological and criminological literature of recent times in France, Italy, and Belgium.

Alfred Fouillée revises in the article on “the origin of our intellectual and cerebral structure” several solutions of the problem of the nature of thought-forms, especially Kant’s view of the _a priori_. Strongly influenced by Schopenhauer, he makes of the great pessimist’s will-theory quite an original and peculiar application and finds that the question of “_idées-forces_” is also at the bottom of the question of the origin of ideas. In comparing the origin of ideas to the origin of solar systems, he says: “Ideas are the condensation of that which exists everywhere in a nebulous state into luminous centres and conscious focuses. Sensation is desire.” And he sums up his view in the sentence: “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu et voluntate.” (Paris: Félix Alcan.)

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ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. No. 5.

CONTENTS:

DIE SINNE DER VERBRECHER. By _C. Lombroso_ and _S. Ottolenghi_. (Mit 4 Figuren.)

UEBER VERGLEICHUNGEN VON TONDISTANZEN. By _Gustav Engel_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Cesare Lombroso and his assistant S. Ottolenghi communicate the results of their investigations of the senses of born criminals in a similar way as the former of the two had done in his “Studies in Criminal Anthropology,” _The Monist_, Vol. i, No. 2, p. 177 et sqq. Our authors say: “Since the days of the famous Greek sage who said that nothing came into the intellect save through the gateway of the senses, it could be foreseen that a study of the senses would become the gateway to ethics.” And, it is a fact recognised for some time but not as yet proved by exact methods that a lack of moral sense is often accompanied with an obtusity of the sense-organs. Dr. Azam’s famous Felida showed an entire absence of the moral sense when she was in a state of analgesia; Romanes has pointed out that the sensitiveness to pain is greater in tame animals than in wild beasts, this is especially noticeable in the dog. It is noteworthy also that savage peoples are almost insensible to pain while civilisation often increases sensibility till it becomes hyperæsthesia.

Obtusity of the sense-organs in criminals should not be confounded however with the anæsthesia of criminals, because the rarity of laterality, the absence of isolated insensible places, the lack of motory anomalies, etc., exclude the supposition of hysteria.

Our authors found among 15 criminal boys between 10 and 14 years no less than ten cases of absolute analgesia, which proves that this symptom cannot be the effect of alcoholism, syphilis, marasmus, or overwork of a special trade.

Several anecdotes are told about the insensibility to pain. An old thief had his leg amputated with the greatest apathy: the operation done, he took the limb into his hand and joked about it. An inveterate murderer, his penal servitude being ended, was dismissed out of the bagnio of the island S. He asked the warden to be retained, because he did not know how to get food and shelter. His demand being refused, he opened his bowels with the handle of a spoon, went to bed as usual, and died without even a sigh. Mandrin, a criminal, shortly before his execution allowed himself to be cut in eight places without giving a sign of pain; criminal R. flayed the skin of his face with a piece of glass. In the penitentiary at Chatham during the years 1871 and 1872, 841 voluntary wounds and injuries were made. Among them 27 convicts had mutilated some limb, and in 17 cases the limb had to be amputated.

This obtusity of the sensory organs in criminals is supposed to be of a cortical origin and being similar to the phenomena of savage life is interpreted as atavism. Criminals show deficiencies in the senses of touch, smell, taste, and hearing, but not of sight. And this is analogous to the savage in whom the sense of sight is naturally very strong, and no criminal could execute numerous thefts or escape the arm of justice without a high development of the sense of sight.

In the second article on comparisons of tone-distances Gustav Engel, Professor at the Royal High-school of Music in Berlin, takes occasion to explain his views of the subject with reference to the severe criticism of C. Stumpf on Carl Lorenz’s theory. Wilhelm Wundt had taken

## part in the discussion in favor of Lorenz. The subject of the article

lies in the border-land between the physiology of hearing and music; and Professor Engel comes to the conclusion that affinity of tones, i. e. the interval-sense in a melodious succession does not lead to the same accuracy and reliability of hearing as their concord. He objects to the idea of an arithmetical difference as proposed by Lorenz and Wundt, and proves it through the fact that the Pythagorean tierce in the unaccompanied scale makes a less noticeable disturbance than in a concord, while the approximately pure tierce (which is too low only by a small fracture of a comma) is excellent in the concord while it causes a slight disturbance in the melody. Musical intervals are not identical with the geometrical intervals, yet they are based upon them as a selection made among innumerable possibilities for certain purposes. Their acceptance is established only in harmonic music, but this fact too adds some difficulties to the investigations made in this field, for if two tones sound together, we can no longer distinguish them separately, as would be required for the investigation; and if we let the one succeed the other their geometrical relation is no longer discerned with the same precision. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

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VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 3 and 4.

CONTENTS of No. 3:

PSYCHISCHE UND PHYSISCHE ACTIVITÄT. By _H. Höffding_.

UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. (Achter Artikel.) By _A. Marty_.

ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DER MATHEMATIK. By _Chr. v. Ehrenfels_.

DER FOLGERUNGSCALCUL UND DIE INHALTSLOGIK. By _E. G. Husserl_.

CONTENTS of No. 4:

DIE GESETZMÄSSIGKEIT DER PHYSISCHEN ACTIVITÄT. By _H. Höffding_.

ETHNOLOGIE UND ÆSTHETIK. By _E. Grosse_.

UEBER DIE FORTSCHREITENDE ENTWICKLUNG DES MENSCHENGESCHLECHTS. (Erster Artikel.) By _F. Rosenberger_.

UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. (Neunter Artikel). By _A. Marty_.

UEBER FERNWIRKUNG UND ANORMALE. WAHRNEHMUNGSFÄKHIGKEIT. Methodologische Randglossen. By _M. Offner_.

Prof. H. Höffding’s article on psychical and physical activity is an answer to a criticism by Professor Kroman. Professor Höffding had proposed, concerning the relation of the psychical to the physical, a theory which he called the “identity hypothesis,” according to which the physical and psychical activities are not different in their nature but only in their phenomenal appearance. K. Kroman, a countryman and colleague of H. Höffding—both are professors at the University of Copenhagen—rejected in his recent work “Logic and Psychology” the identity hypothesis and characterised it as “Duplicism,” a name against which Höffding protests. Kroman’s objections are as follows: _a_) Natural science knows of no reason to conceive of the relation of the psychical to the material in the way expressed by the identity-hypothesis. _b_) On the basis of the identity-hypothesis it remains unexplained how we can know anything about the external world. _c_) It is inexplicable how an identity can obtain of two so different things as are the bodily multiplicity and the psychical unity. Professor Höffding investigates these three objections separately and comes to the conclusion that his identity-hypothesis shows the relation between the psychical and material nature in a clear and simple light. It excludes on the one hand materialism and on the other hand spiritualism. The question whether either phenomenon, spirit or matter, represents the absolute nature of existence, cannot, according to Höffding, be answered. It appears to us that Professor Höffding’s position is sound in all main points and may be considered as that view which is most prevalent among modern psychologists. However, concerning the question whether spirit or matter represents the absolute nature of existence, we refer the reader to the editorial article “Are there Things in Themselves?” section XII, “The Oneness of Subjectivity and Objectivity.” In our opinion the question itself is illegitimate. Neither the subjectivity of spirit, nor the objectivity of matter represents the absolute nature of existence; both together form the nature of existence; and we omit here the word “absolute” purposely. The question as to which abstract, matter or spirit, represents the absolute nature of existence seems to us similar to the question which of the two terms _A_ and _B_ represents in the relation _A:B_ the absolute nature of the relation. The obvious answer is neither.

The eighth article of A. Marty of Prague on Language-reflex is mainly of a controversial nature directed against L. Tobler’s article on the origin of language in the _Zeitschrift für Völker-Psychologie_. By Nativism, Marty understands the theory that certain involuntary articulate sounds are associated with certain ideas, while the so-called empirical theory attempts to explain the origin of the first words without such innate mechanical relations between sounds and concepts. Marty represents the empirical solution of the problem and objects to the extreme nativism, but he grants that Tobler’s modified nativism approaches very much to his own position.

The longest article of the present number (63 pp.) is an essay full of valuable hints by Chr. v. Ehrenfels on the Philosophy of Mathematics. The epistemological basis of mathematics demands a psychological investigation of its contents. Accordingly the author proposes to present a psychological characterisation of the number-conceptions, from which he derives some conclusions concerning the theory of cognition. He investigates the origin of the unity conception which is generally defined as “positing a unit” or as “conceiving as a unit.” We usually believe that we abstract numbers directly from the objects, when we look for instance at one house with two doors and five windows. But this process of abstraction is not quite so direct as it seems. The number-conception is not taken from external observation, but carried into the same; yet this is done involuntarily and inadvertently so that it appears as if they were _eo ipso_ contained in it.

What is the origin of the concepts “unity” and “multiplicity”? Two methods present themselves: 1) The concentration of attention and (2) the act of bringing into relation. The former produces a unity and, when successively directed to several objects, a series of units. The latter appears to be required by the consideration that the conception of a number is conditioned by acts of distinguishing. The number “two” requires two acts of distinguishing, “three” requires three, “four” requires six and the number _n_ requires _n_/2(_n_-1) acts of distinguishing. This explains why we can have clear and direct conceptions only of very low figures. The idea that a combination of both methods will explain the facts is by no means excluded. But there is a third source which may be used to explain the unity conception, viz. inner experience. “The unity of consciousness,” Ehrenfels says, “has been misused in philosophy to demonstrate the substantiality, simplicity, and indestructibility of the soul.” Nevertheless there is some truth in the unity idea, for the present psychical phenomena present themselves in a peculiar amalgamation, which admits of a comparison between two elements while it erects a barrier between the _ego_ and the _tu_. Our psychical contents will always appear to us as a unit; and on this basis we might declare that the unity conception is derived from this source. [Here Ehrenfels does not see that the concentration of attention is practically the same as the unity of consciousness, for attention means consciousness, and concentration produces unity.]

Number-conceptions originate by counting. We disjoin things; for instance, we throw a number of apples into a basket, or we let the finger slide over the division lines of a measuring stick naming each unit while proceeding in the act. From such processes the function of counting can be abstracted while the details are neglected as unimportant. Most of the higher numbers are never directly but only indirectly realised. So for instance twenty is to many that number which will be reached by counting up to twenty, yet the single units of the number are lost sight of entirely. Such number-conceptions belong to the class of “indirect concepts” which represent objects not through marks belonging to the object itself, but originating through its relation to other objects. The basis of such indirect concepts had been called by Ehrenfels _Gestaltsqualitäten_, i. e. figure qualities, and by Meinong _fundierte Inhalte_ or founded contents. Thus indirect conceptions are parts contingent upon some such basis.

Number-conceptions are not always clearly thought out and there are some helps to represent higher or more complex numbers. Thus we can think of ten as represented by the outside and inside corners of a pentagram, twelve as the edges of a cube, etc., and common among all nations is the usage of the fingers to represent numbers up to ten. Such helps are quite different from indirect number-conceptions and may be called figurative number-conceptions.

That there are mathematical conceptions of magnitudes which have no objective analogon is quite natural, for there is even in an indirect conception no warrant for its objective reality; and we ought to consider how many word- and idea-combinations are possible without their possessing some analogous reality. Yet the so-called irrational cannot properly be called a number, it is the demand of a number which in fractions can sufficiently for certain purposes but never fully be realised.

Negative numbers always presuppose a contrast and such conditions arise naturally wherever the fundamental ideas imply two opposite directions, for instance past and future in time, credit and debit in business, etc. It is a matter of course that there are in reality as little either positive or negative numbers, as there are positive or negative colors or sounds.

Concerning the necessity idea, Ehrenfels says: “Nobody will consider it as possible that five plus seven will in some cases make any other number than twelve. We are confident that the same addition will under all circumstances yield the same sum.” Ehrenfels grants the psychical certitude of this but not the mathematical, and thinks that on this point there is a difference of opinion allowable. Here we disagree from Ehrenfels and refer the reader to former articles on kindred subjects in _The Monist_, especially the article on “The Origin of Thought-forms,” Vol. II, p. 111. We must bear in mind that in mathematics we are moving in a realm of pure forms and the statement 7 + 5 = 12 is, as the Germans express it, _eindeutig bestimmt_, i. e. it is determined exhaustively in one and the only one possible way. The numbers 7 and 5 being rigid, their sum and their product will also be rigid.

This difference of opinion may be contingent upon a difference of the conception of the _a priori_. Ehrenfels defines as “a priori” such judgments which having come into our possession, are readily accepted without proof. We follow Grassmann in rejecting the acceptance of anything without proof, including the idea of mathematical axioms. The _a priori_ in our terminology becomes identical with that which pertains to formal thought: and it would make no difference whether the instance presented is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2 or extremely complex as are the differential calculus and logarithms. Accordingly we disagree also from Ehrenfels when he finds even in such additions as for instance 825 + 217 = 1042 vestiges of an _a posteriori_ character. The employment of the logarithms accordingly appears to Ehrenfels also _aposterioristic_ because the fruits of other peoples’ labors are utilised!

Concerning John Stuart Mill’s view of the subject, Ehrenfels says that “it is still deeply entangled in the errors of that conception which it so bitterly opposes, viz. in the formalism of the old purely _a priori_ conception. For only he who adheres to the view that all mathematics are deduced from a few axioms can think of attributing to those axioms the highest degree of plausibility which is assumed for them on the ground of comprehensive deduction.” We agree with Ehrenfels’s objection to Mill, but we cannot agree with his view that mathematics derives any elements from _a posteriori_ elements, although we grant that quite new departments are created simply by a different employment of certain functions. Accordingly mathematics cannot be derived from a few axioms only but is the products of certain functions.

Ehrenfels calls attention to the fact that the mathematician operating with symbols often forgets entirely what he has to think of in connection with these symbols. “This is not strange,” he adds, “for thoughtless word-combinations present analogous instances, yet it is strange that the result almost without exception comes out right; _es stimmt!_” We object here; operations with mathematical symbols are not thoughtless combinations, at least, they are not meaningless. They are operations not with things, but with symbols representing certain relations among things. When gamblers play with chips representing real money, they need not think during the game of the value represented by a chip, and yet when the account is made, the result attained with the assistance of the chips will come out right. There is no reason to wonder at it. Chips like mathematical symbols might in a certain sense be called thoughtless, for certainly they do not think; but they are not thoughtless in the sense that they are meaningless, that nothing is thought by them.

Ehrenfels apparently sees a problem where there is none and this is closely connected with another point. He looks upon the mathematician’s inability of thinking out in every respect the objective meaning of mathematical symbols as a shortcoming of man’s intellect. While it appears that we cannot think anything by many mathematical symbols (for instance by _a⁰ = 1_) except the symbol itself, the enormous success of mathematical thought is evidence that they must have some definite meaning although it is to be excogitated only by those beings who will transgress the average intelligence of to-day, the first germs of whose existence are the mathematical geniuses of the present generation. It appears to us that undoubtedly every mathematical symbol has a definite meaning, representing the result of some function. That the result will sometimes be unattainable or unrealisable, that especially all operations with zero make the whole calculation indefinite (which naturally arises from the nature of zero) does not alter the truth of this proposition in the least.

We have to make one additional remark. The peculiarity of mathematics that we do not throughout our operations think out the meaning of the symbols is not a shortcoming of our intelligence, but the strength of mathematical science. The advantage of all the formal sciences and especially of mathematics consists in this that we _need not_ think out every detail, but that we can, through the assistance of mathematical symbols, perform the most intricate operations with machine-like exactness. The economy of thought produced in this way is not a deficiency of man’s mind, but a virtue.

Prof. H. Höffding (in No. 4) insists upon the causal law as being indispensable in psychology. There are some people and among others his colleague Professor Kroman who regard moral motives as an exception. “Yet,” says Professor Höffding, “should the decisive moment of a decision not be determined by the causal law, the will could never be determined through a reflection on the possible effects of the action and thus every reason would be missing to attribute to man any responsibility.”

E. Grosse expatiates on the proposition to apply the comparative method of ethnology to æsthetics. Ferd. Rosenberger proposes the following programme: “Knowledge is power; activity based upon such power is the cause of happiness. Therefore with the increase of knowledge, there is an increase of happiness, successful activity however is impossible without virtue. Therefore we conclude that an increase of happiness will be accompanied with an increase of virtue.” A. Marty in this his ninth article blames Steinthal for having misrepresented the eighteenth century theories of the origin of language.

M. Offner reviews Dr. Charles Richet’s reports of his telepathic experiments, but the reviewer cannot assent to Richet’s opinion “that these facts possess a strange coincidence and that they are, probably, the result of a relation and not of pure chance.” (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)

κρς.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 1 and 2.

CONTENTS:

ZUM BEGRIFF DER UNBEWUSSTEN VORSTELLUNG. By _E. v. Hartmann_.

UEBER DAS GEBET. EIN RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHISCHES FRAGMENT. Sendschreiben an Herrn E. Renan in Paris. By _M. J. Monrad_.

WERKE ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DES SOCIALEN LEBENS UND DER GESCHICHTE. Erster Artikel (H. Spencer, Sociologie, Bd. III). By _F. Tönnies_.

RECENSIONEN: H. Münsterberg, Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie No. 3. Neue Grundlegung der Psychophysik. By _Th. Ziehen_. W. Enoch Der Begriff der Wahrnehmung. By _P. Natorp_. Ch. Bénard. L’esthétique d’Aristote et de ses successeurs. By _A. Döring_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

The well-known philosopher Edward von Hartmann defines his position with reference to the idea of an unconscious representation. Granting that there are no unconscious sensations, perceptions, conceptions or memories, because feeling either is conscious or not at all, he introduces the idea of unconscious representations again as the most adequate determination. He says, “Either we must renounce all speaking and thinking of non-sensual objects or we must be satisfied with using figurative expressions.”

M. J. Monrad, a Norwegian, argues, in the second article against M. E. Renan’s theory of prayer, whom he had visited some years ago in Paris, that prayer has after all an effect upon the objective world and it is not limited to a merely subjective and psychological influence. Monrad presupposes a belief in God, prayer bringing the individual in unison with God, changes the will of the individual into a co-ordinate willing of God and thus renders the individual a co-worker of God. This, however, should not be conceived to take place by magic and in contradiction to nature, but through nature, man using the laws of nature.

F. Tönnies of Kiel gives an exposition of Mr. Spencer’s social views which are, briefly expressed, “the final victory of society over the state.” Professor Tönnies answers that “we all want a higher civilisation, but the development of a higher civilisation is not conditioned by the final victory of society over the state. On the contrary, it may be said that it depends upon a victory of the state over society in so far as public rights will supersede private rights.... The truth is that state and society are contingent, the one upon the other and also limiting each other.” (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)

κρς.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._ In the Russian language.

VOL. II. APRIL, 1892. NO. 3.

THE MONIST.

THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY EXAMINED.

In _The Monist_ for January, 1891, I endeavored to show what elementary ideas ought to enter into our view of the universe. I may mention that on those considerations I had already grounded a cosmical theory, and from it had deduced a considerable number of consequences capable of being compared with experience. This Comparison is now in progress, but under existing circumstances must occupy many years.

I propose here to examine the common belief that every single fact in the universe is precisely determined by law. It must not be supposed that this is a doctrine accepted everywhere and at all times by all rational men. Its first advocate appears to have been Democritus the atomist, who was led to it, as we are informed, by reflecting upon the “impenetrability, translation, and impact of matter (ἀντιτυπία καὶ φορὰ καὶ πληγὴ τῆς ὕλης).” That is to say, having restricted his attention to a field where no influence other than mechanical constraint could possibly come before his notice, he straightway jumped to the conclusion that throughout the universe that was the sole principle of action,—a style of reasoning so usual in our day with men not unreflecting as to be more than excusable in the infancy of thought. But Epicurus, in revising the atomic doctrine and repairing its defences, found himself obliged to suppose that atoms swerve from their courses by spontaneous chance; and thereby he conferred upon the theory life and entelechy. For we now see clearly that the peculiar function of the molecular hypothesis in physics is to open an entry for the calculus of probabilities. Already, the prince of philosophers had repeatedly and emphatically condemned the dictum of Democritus (especially in the “Physics,” Book II, chapters iv, v, vi), holding that events come to pass in three ways, namely, (1) by external compulsion, or the action of efficient causes, (2) by virtue of an inward nature, or the influence of final causes, and (3) irregularly without definite cause, but just by absolute chance; and this doctrine is of the inmost essence of Aristotelianism. It affords, at any rate, a valuable enumeration of the possible ways in which anything can be supposed to have come about. The freedom of the will, too, was admitted both by Aristotle and by Epicurus. But the Stoa, which in every department seized upon the most tangible, hard, and lifeless element, and blindly denied the existence of every other, which, for example, impugned the validity of the inductive method and wished to fill its place with the _reductio ad absurdum_, very naturally became the one school of ancient philosophy to stand by a strict necessitarianism, thus returning to the single principle of Democritus that Epicurus had been unable to swallow. Necessitarianism and materialism with the Stoics went hand in hand, as by affinity they should. At the revival of learning, Stoicism met with considerable favor, partly because it departed just enough from Aristotle to give it the spice of novelty, and partly because its superficialities well adapted it for acceptance by students of literature and art who wanted their philosophy drawn mild. Afterwards, the great discoveries in mechanics inspired the hope that mechanical principles might suffice to explain the universe; and though without logical justification, this hope has since been continually stimulated by subsequent advances in physics. Nevertheless, the doctrine was in too evident conflict with the freedom of the will and with miracles to be generally acceptable, at first. But meantime there arose that most widely spread of philosophical blunders, the notion that associationalism belongs intrinsically to the materialistic family of doctrines; and thus was evolved the theory of motives; and libertarianism became weakened. At present, historical criticism has almost exploded the miracles, great and small; so that the doctrine of necessity has never been in so great vogue as now.

The proposition in question is that the state of things existing at any time, together with certain immutable laws, completely determine the state of things at every other time (for a limitation to _future_ time is indefensible). Thus, given the state of the universe in the original nebula, and given the laws of mechanics, a sufficiently powerful mind could deduce from these data the precise form of every curlicue of every letter I am now writing.

Whoever holds that every act of the will as well as every idea of the mind is under the rigid governance of a necessity co-ordinated with that of the physical world, will logically be carried to the proposition that minds are part of the physical world in such a sense that the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens according to immutable attractions and repulsions. In that case, that instantaneous state of things from which every other state of things is calculable consists in the positions and velocities of all the particles at any instant. This, the usual and most logical form of necessitarianism, is called the mechanical philosophy.

When I have asked thinking men what reason they had to believe that every fact in the universe is precisely determined by law, the first answer has usually been that the proposition is a “presupposition” or postulate of scientific reasoning. Well, if that is the best that can be said for it, the belief is doomed. Suppose it be “postulated”: that does not make it true, nor so much as afford the slightest rational motive for yielding it any credence. It is as if a man should come to borrow money, and when asked for his security, should reply he “postulated” the loan. To “postulate” a proposition is no more than to hope it is true. There are, indeed, practical emergencies in which we act upon assumptions of certain propositions as true, because if they are not so, it can make no difference how we act. But all such propositions I take to be hypotheses of individual facts. For it is manifest that no universal principle can in its universality be compromised in a special case or can be requisite for the validity of any ordinary inference. To say, for instance, that the demonstration by Archimedes of the property of the lever would fall to the ground if men were endowed with free-will, is extravagant; yet this is implied by those who make a proposition incompatible with the freedom of the will the postulate of all inference. Considering, too, that the conclusions of science make no pretence to being more than probable, and considering that a probable inference can at most only suppose something to be most frequently, or otherwise approximately, true, but never that anything is precisely true without exception throughout the universe, we see how far this proposition in truth is from being so postulated.

But the whole notion of a postulate being involved in reasoning appertains to a by-gone and false conception of logic. Non-deductive, or ampliative inference is of three kinds: induction, hypothesis, and analogy. If there be any other modes, they must be extremely unusual and highly complicated, and may be assumed with little doubt to be of the same nature as those enumerated. For induction, hypothesis, and analogy, as far as their ampliative character goes, that is, so far as they conclude something not implied in the premises, depend upon one principle and involve the same procedure. All are essentially inferences from sampling. Suppose a ship arrives in Liverpool laden with wheat in bulk. Suppose that by some machinery the whole cargo be stirred up with great thoroughness. Suppose that twenty-seven thimblefuls be taken equally from the forward, midships, and aft parts, from the starboard, centre, and larboard parts, and from the top, half depth, and lower parts of her hold, and that these being mixed and the grains counted, four fifths of the latter are found to be of quality _A_. Then we infer, experientially and provisionally, that approximately four fifths of all the grain in the cargo is of the same quality. I say we infer this _experimentally_ and _provisionally_. By saying that we infer it _experientially_, I mean that our conclusion makes no pretension to knowledge of wheat-in-itself, our ἀλήθεια, as the derivation of that word implies, has nothing to do with _latent_ wheat. We are dealing only with the matter of possible experience,—experience in the full acceptation of the term as something not merely affecting the senses but also as the subject of thought. If there be any wheat hidden on the ship, so that it can neither turn up in the sample nor be heard of subsequently from purchasers,—or if it be half-hidden, so that it may, indeed, turn up, but is less likely to do so than the rest,—or if it can affect our senses and our pockets, but from some strange cause or causelessness cannot be reasoned about,—all such wheat is to be excluded (or have only its proportional weight) in calculating that true proportion of quality _A_, to which our inference seeks to approximate. By saying that we draw the inference _provisionally_, I mean that we do not hold that we have reached any assigned degree of approximation as yet, but only hold that if our experience be indefinitely extended, and if every fact of whatever nature, as fast as it presents itself, be duly applied, according to the inductive method, in correcting the inferred ratio, then our approximation will become indefinitely close in the long run; that is to say, close to the experience _to come_ (not merely close by the exhaustion of a finite collection) so that if experience in general is to fluctuate irregularly to and fro, in a manner to deprive the ratio sought of all definite value, we shall be able to find out approximately within what limits it fluctuates, and if, after having one definite value, it changes and assumes another, we shall be able to find that out, and in short, whatever may be the variations of this ratio in experience, experience indefinitely extended will enable us to detect them, so as to predict rightly, at last, what its ultimate value may be, if it have any ultimate value, or what the ultimate law of succession of values may be, if there be any such ultimate law, or that it ultimately fluctuates irregularly within certain limits, if it do so ultimately fluctuate. Now our inference, claiming to be no more than thus experiential and provisional, manifestly involves no postulate whatever.

For what is a postulate? It is the formulation of a material fact which we are not entitled to assume as a premise, but the truth of which is requisite to the validity of an inference. Any fact, then, which might be supposed postulated, must either be such that it would ultimately present itself in experience, or not. If it will present itself, we need not postulate it now in our provisional inference, since we shall ultimately be entitled to use it as a premise. But if it never would present itself in experience, our conclusion is valid but for the possibility of this fact being otherwise than assumed, that is, it is valid as far as possible experience goes, and that is all that we claim. Thus, every postulate is cut off, either by the provisionality or by the experientiality of our inference. For instance, it has been said that induction postulates that, if an indefinite succession of samples be drawn, examined, and thrown back each before the next is drawn, then in the long run every grain will be drawn as often as any other, that is to say postulates that the ratio of the numbers of times in which any two are drawn will indefinitely approximate to unity. But no such postulate is made; for if, on the one hand, we are to have no other experience of the wheat than from such drawings, it is the ratio that presents itself in those drawings and not the ratio which belongs to the wheat in its latent existence that we are endeavoring to determine; while if, on the other hand, there is some other mode by which the wheat is to come under our knowledge, equivalent to another kind of sampling, so that after all our care in stirring up the wheat, some experiential grains will present themselves in the first sampling operation more often than others in the long run, this very singular fact will be sure to get discovered by the inductive method, which must avail itself of every sort of experience; and our inference, which was only provisional, corrects itself at last. Again, it has been said, that induction postulates that under like circumstances like events will happen, and that this postulate is at bottom the same as the principle of universal causation. But this is a blunder, or _bevue_, due to thinking exclusively of inductions where the concluded ratio is either 1 or 0. If any such proposition were postulated, it would be that under like circumstances (the circumstances of drawing the different samples) different events occur in the same proportions in all the different sets,—a proposition which is false and even absurd. But in truth no such thing is postulated, the experiential character of the inference reducing the condition of validity to this, that if a certain result does not occur, the opposite result will be manifested, a condition assured by the provisionality of the inference. But it may be asked whether it is not conceivable that every instance of a certain class destined to be ever employed as a datum of induction should have one character, while every instance destined not to be so employed should have the opposite character. The answer is that in that case, the instances excluded from being subjects of reasoning would not be experienced in the full sense of the word, but would be among these _latent_ individuals of which our conclusion does not pretend to speak.

To this account of the rationale of induction I know of but one objection worth mention: it is that I thus fail to deduce the full degree of force which this mode of inference in fact possesses; that according to my view, no matter how thorough and elaborate the stirring and mixing process had been, the examination of a single handful of grain would not give me any assurance, sufficient to risk money upon, that the next handful would not greatly modify the concluded value of the ratio under inquiry, while, in fact, the assurance would be very high that this ratio was not greatly in error. If the true ratio of grains of quality _A_ were 0.80 and the handful contained a thousand grains, nine such handfuls out of every ten would contain from 780 to 820 grains of quality _A_. The answer to this is that the calculation given is correct when we know that the units of this handful and the quality inquired into have the normal independence of one another, if for instance the stirring has been complete and the character sampled for has been settled upon in advance of the examination of the sample. But in so far as these conditions are not known to be complied with, the above figures cease to be applicable. Random sampling and predesignation of the character sampled for should always be striven after in inductive reasoning, but when they cannot be attained, so long as it is conducted honestly, the inference retains some value. When we cannot ascertain how the sampling has been done or the sample-character selected, induction still has the essential validity which my present account of it shows it to have.

I do not think a man who combines a willingness to be convinced with a power of appreciating an argument upon a difficult subject can resist the reasons which have been given to show that the principle of universal necessity cannot be defended as being a postulate of reasoning. But then the question immediately arises whether it is not proved to be true, or at least rendered highly probable, by observation of nature.

Still, this question ought not long to arrest a person accustomed to reflect upon the force of scientific reasoning. For the essence of the necessitarian position is that certain continuous quantities have certain exact values. Now, how can observation determine the value of such a quantity with a probable error absolutely _nil_? To one who is behind the scenes, and knows that the most refined comparisons of masses, lengths, and angles, far surpassing in precision all other measurements, yet fall behind the accuracy of bank-accounts, and that the ordinary determinations of physical constants, such as appear from month to month in the journals, are about on a par with an upholsterer’s measurements of carpets and curtains, the idea of mathematical exactitude being demonstrated in the laboratory will appear simply ridiculous. There is a recognised method of estimating the probable magnitudes of errors in physics,—the method of least squares. It is universally admitted that this method makes the errors smaller than they really are; yet even according to that theory an error indefinitely small is indefinitely improbable; so that any statement to the effect that a certain continuous quantity has a certain exact value, if well-founded at all, must be founded on something other than observation.

Still, I am obliged to admit that this rule is subject to a certain qualification. Namely, it only applies to continuous[53] quantity. Now, certain kinds of continuous quantity are discontinuous at one or at two limits, and for such limits the rule must be modified. Thus, the length of a line cannot be less than zero. Suppose, then, the question arises how long a line a certain person had drawn from a marked point on a piece of paper. If no line at all can be seen, the observed length is zero; and the only conclusion this observation warrants is that the length of the line is less than the smallest length visible with the optical power employed. But indirect observations,—for example, that the person supposed to have drawn the line was never within fifty feet of the paper,—may make it probable that no line at all was made, so that the concluded length will be strictly zero. In like manner, experience no doubt would warrant the conclusion that there is absolutely _no_ indigo in a given ear of wheat, and absolutely _no_ attar in a given lichen. But such inferences can only be rendered valid by positive experiential evidence, direct or remote, and cannot rest upon a mere inability to detect the quantity in question. We have reason to think there is no indigo in the wheat, because we have remarked that wherever indigo is produced it is produced in considerable quantities, to mention only one argument. We have reason to think there is no attar in the lichen, because essential oils seem to be in general peculiar to single species, if the question had been whether there was iron in the wheat or the lichen, though chemical analysis should fail to detect its presence, we should think some of it probably was there, since iron is almost everywhere. Without any such information, one way or the other, we could only abstain from any opinion as to the presence of the substance in question. It cannot, I conceive, be maintained that we are in any _better_ position than this in regard to the presence of the element of chance or spontaneous departures from law in nature.

Those observations which are generally adduced in favor of mechanical causation simply prove that there is an element of regularity in nature, and have no bearing whatever upon the question of whether such regularity is exact and universal, or not. Nay, in regard to this _exactitude_, all observation is directly _opposed_ to it; and the most that can be said is that a good deal of this observation can be explained away. Try to verify any law of nature, and you will find that the more precise your observations, the more certain they will be to show irregular departures from the law. We are accustomed to ascribe these, and I do not say wrongly, to errors of observation; yet we cannot usually account for such errors in any antecedently probable way. Trace their causes back far enough, and you will be forced to admit they are always due to arbitrary determination, or chance.

But it may be asked whether if there were an element of real chance in the universe it must not occasionally be productive of signal effects such as could not pass unobserved. In answer to this question, without stopping to point out that there is an abundance of great events which one might be tempted to suppose were of that nature, it will be simplest to remark that physicists hold that the particles of gases are moving about irregularly, substantially as if by real chance, and that by the principles of probabilities there must occasionally happen to be concentrations of heat in the gases contrary to the second law of thermodynamics, and these concentrations, occurring in explosive mixtures, must sometimes have tremendous effects. Here, then, is in substance the very situation supposed; yet no phenomena ever have resulted which we are forced to attribute to such chance concentration of heat, or which anybody, wise or foolish, has ever dreamed of accounting for in that manner.

In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that anybody, not in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of science, can maintain that the precise and universal conformity of facts to law is clearly proved, or even rendered particularly probable, by any observations hitherto made. In this way, the determined advocate of exact regularity will soon find himself driven to _a priori_ reasons to support his thesis. These received such a sockdologer from Stuart Mill in his Examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems to me to denote a high degree of imperviousness to reason; so that I shall pass them by with little notice.

To say that we cannot help believing a given proposition is no argument, but it is a conclusive fact if it be true; and with the substitution of “I” for “we,” it is true in the mouths of several classes of minds, the blindly passionate, the unreflecting and ignorant, and the person who has overwhelming evidence before his eyes. But that which has been inconceivable to-day has often turned out indisputable on the morrow. Inability to conceive is only a stage through which every man must pass in regard to a number of beliefs,—unless endowed with extraordinary obstinacy and obtuseness. His understanding is enslaved to some blind compulsion which a vigorous mind is pretty sure soon to cast off.

Some seek to back up the _a priori_ position with empirical arguments. They say that the exact regularity of the world is a natural belief, and that natural beliefs have generally been confirmed by experience. There is some reason in this. Natural beliefs, however, if they generally have a foundation of truth, also require correction and purification from natural illusions. The principles of mechanics are undoubtedly natural beliefs; but, for all that, the early formulations of them were exceedingly erroneous. The general approximation to truth in natural beliefs is, in fact, a case of the general adaptation of genetic products to recognisable utilities or ends. Now, the adaptations of nature, beautiful and often marvellous as they verily are, are never found to be quite perfect; so that the argument is quite _against_ the absolute exactitude of any natural belief, including that of the principle of causation.

Another argument, or convenient commonplace, is that absolute chance is _inconceivable_. This word has eight current significations. The Century Dictionary enumerates six. Those who talk like this will hardly be persuaded to say in what sense they mean that chance is inconceivable. Should they do so, it would easily be shown either that they have no sufficient reason for the statement or that the inconceivability is of a kind which does not prove that chance is non-existent.

Another _a priori_ argument is that chance is unintelligible; that is to say, while it may perhaps be conceivable, it does not disclose to the eye of reason the how or why of things; and since a hypothesis can only be justified so far as it renders some phenomenon intelligible, we never can have any right to suppose absolute chance to enter into the production of anything in nature. This argument may be considered in connection with two others. Namely, instead of going so far as to say that the supposition of chance can _never_ properly be used to explain any observed fact, it may be alleged merely that no facts are known which such a supposition could in any way help in explaining. Or again, the allegation being still further weakened, it may be said that since departures from law are not unmistakably observed, chance is not a _vera causa_, and ought not unnecessarily to be introduced into a hypothesis.

These are no mean arguments, and require us to examine the matter a little more closely. Come, my superior opponent, let me learn from your wisdom. It seems to me that every throw of sixes with a pair of dice is a manifest instance of chance.

“While you would hold a throw of deuce-ace to be brought about by necessity?” [The opponent’s supposed remarks are placed in quotation marks.]

Clearly one throw is as much chance as another.

“Do you think throws of dice are of a different nature from other events?”

I see that I must say that _all_ the diversity and specificalness of events is attributable to chance.

“Would you, then, deny that there is any regularity in the world?”

That is clearly undeniable. I must acknowledge there is an approximate regularity, and that every event is influenced by it. But the diversification, specificalness, and irregularity of things I suppose is chance. A throw of sixes appears to me a case in which this element is

## particularly obtrusive.

“If you reflect more deeply, you will come to see that _chance_ is only a name for a cause that is unknown to us.”

Do you mean that we have no idea whatever what kind of causes could bring about a throw of sixes?

“On the contrary, each die moves under the influence of precise mechanical laws.”

But it appears to me that it is not these _laws_ which made the die turn up sixes; for these laws act just the same when other throws come up. The chance lies in the diversity of throws; and this diversity cannot be due to laws which are immutable.

“The diversity is due to the diverse circumstances under which the laws act. The dice lie differently in the box, and the motion given to the box is different. These are the unknown causes which produce the throws, and to which we give the name of chance; not the mechanical law which regulates the operation of these causes. You see you are already beginning to think more clearly about this subject.”

Does the operation of mechanical law not increase the diversity?

“Properly not. You must know that the instantaneous state of a system of particles is defined by six times as many numbers as there are

## particles, three for the co-ordinates of each particle’s position, and

three more for the components of its velocity. This number of numbers, which expresses the amount of diversity in the system, remains the same at all times. There may be, to be sure, some kind of relation between the co-ordinates and component velocities of the different particles, by means of which the state of the system might be expressed by a smaller number of numbers. But, if this is the case, a precisely corresponding relationship must exist between the co-ordinates and component velocities at any other time, though it may doubtless be a relation less obvious to us. Thus, the intrinsic complexity of the system is the same at all times.”

Very well, my obliging opponent, we have now reached an issue. You think all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were introduced in one dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, and that the variety and complication of nature has always been just as much as it is now. But I, for my part, think that the diversification, the specification, has been continually taking place. Should you condescend to ask me why I so think, I should give my reasons as follows:

1) Question any science which deals with the course of time. Consider the life of an individual animal or plant, or of a mind. Glance at the history of states, of institutions, of language, of ideas. Examine the successions of forms shown by paleontology, the history of the globe as set forth in geology, of what the astronomer is able to make out concerning the changes of stellar systems. Everywhere the main fact is growth and increasing complexity. Death and corruption are mere accidents or secondary phenomena. Among some of the lower organisms, it is a moot point with biologists whether there be anything which ought to be called death. Races, at any rate, do not die out except under unfavorable circumstances. From these broad and ubiquitous facts we may fairly infer, by the most unexceptionable logic, that there is probably in nature some agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased; and that consequently the rule of mechanical necessity meets in some way with interference.

2) By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained within narrow bounds by law, producing infinitesimal departures from law continually, and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account for all the variety and diversity of the universe, in the only sense in which the really _sui generis_ and new can be said to be accounted for. The ordinary view has to admit the inexhaustible multitudinous variety of the world, has to admit that its mechanical law cannot account for this in the least, that variety can spring only from spontaneity, and yet denies without any evidence or reason the existence of this spontaneity, or else shoves it back to the beginning of time and supposes it dead ever since. The superior logic of my view appears to me not easily controverted.

3) When I ask the necessitarian how he would explain the diversity and irregularity of the universe, he replies to me out of the treasury of his wisdom that irregularity is something which from the nature of things we must not seek to explain. Abashed at this, I seek to cover my confusion by asking how he would explain the uniformity and regularity of the universe, whereupon he tells me that the laws of nature are immutable and ultimate facts, and no account is to be given of them. But my hypothesis of spontaneity does explain irregularity, in a certain sense; that is, it explains the general fact of irregularity, though not, of course, what each lawless event is to be. At the same time, by thus loosening the bond of necessity, it gives room for the influence of another kind of causation, such as seems to be operative in the mind in the formation of associations, and enables us to understand how the uniformity of nature could have been brought about. That single events should be hard and unintelligible, logic will permit without difficulty: we do not expect to make the shock of a personally experienced earthquake appear natural and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic does expect things _general_ to be understandable. To say that there is a universal law, and that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, the why and wherefore of which can never be inquired into, at this a sound logic will revolt; and will pass over at once to a method of philosophising which does not thus barricade the road of discovery.

4) Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of making the whole

## action of the mind a part of the physical universe. Our notion that

we decide what we are going to do, if as the necessitarian says, it has been calculable since the earliest times, is reduced to illusion. Indeed, consciousness in general thus becomes a mere illusory aspect of a material system. What we call red, green, and violet are in reality only different rates of vibration. The sole reality is the distribution of qualities of matter in space and time. Brain-matter is protoplasm in a certain degree and kind of complication,—a certain arrangement of mechanical particles. Its feeling is but an inward aspect, a phantom. For, from the positions and velocities of the particles at any one instant, and the knowledge of the immutable forces, the positions at all other times are calculable; so that the universe of space, time, and matter is a rounded system uninterfered with from elsewhere. But from the state of feeling at any instant, there is no reason to suppose the states of feeling at all other instants are thus exactly calculable; so that feeling is, as I said, a mere fragmentary and illusive aspect of the universe. This is the way, then, that necessitarianism has to make up its accounts. It enters consciousness under the head of sundries, as a forgotten trifle; its scheme of the universe would be more satisfactory if this little fact could be dropped out of sight. On the other hand, by supposing the rigid exactitude of causation to yield, I care not how little,—be it but by a strictly infinitesimal amount,—we gain room to insert mind into our scheme, and to put it into the place where it is needed, into the position which, as the sole self-intelligible thing, it is entitled to occupy, that of the fountain of existence; and in so doing we resolve the problem of the connection of soul and body.

5) But I must leave undeveloped the chief of my reasons, and can only adumbrate it. The hypothesis of chance-spontaneity is one whose inevitable consequences are capable of being traced out with mathematical precision into considerable detail. Much of this I have done and find the consequences to agree with observed facts to an extent which seems to me remarkable. But the matter and methods of reasoning are novel, and I have no right to promise that other mathematicians shall find my deductions as satisfactory as I myself do, so that the strongest reason for my belief must for the present remain a private reason of my own, and cannot influence others. I mention it to explain my own position; and partly to indicate to future mathematical speculators a veritable goldmine, should time and circumstances and the abridger of all joys prevent my opening it to the world.

If now I, in my turn, inquire of the necessitarian why he prefers to suppose that all specification goes back to the beginning of things, he will answer me with one of those last three arguments which I left unanswered.

First, he may say that chance is a thing absolutely unintelligible, and therefore that we never can be entitled to make such a supposition. But does not this objection smack of naïve impudence? It is not mine, it is his own conception of the universe which leads abruptly up to hard, ultimate, inexplicable, immutable law, on the one hand, and to inexplicable specification and diversification of circumstances on the other. My view, on the contrary, hypothetises nothing at all, unless it be hypothesis to say that all specification came about in some sense, and is not to be accepted as unaccountable. To undertake to account for anything by saying boldly that it is due to chance would, indeed, be futile. But this I do not do. I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle of generalisation, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has produced all regularities. The mechanical philosopher leaves the whole specification of the world utterly unaccounted for, which is pretty nearly as bad as to boldly attribute it to chance. I attribute it altogether to chance, it is true, but to chance in the form of a spontaneity which is to some degree regular. It seems to me clear at any rate that one of these two positions must be taken, or else specification must be supposed due to a spontaneity which develops itself in a certain and not in a chance way, by an objective logic like that of Hegel. This last way I leave as an open possibility, for the present; for it is as much opposed to the necessitarian scheme of existence as my own theory is.

Secondly the necessitarian may say there are, at any rate, no observed phenomena which the hypothesis of chance could aid in explaining. In reply, I point first to the phenomenon of growth and developing complexity, which appears to be universal, and which though it may possibly be an affair of mechanism perhaps, certainly presents all the appearance of increasing diversification. Then, there is variety itself, beyond comparison the most obtrusive character of the universe: no mechanism can account for this. Then, there is the very fact the necessitarian most insists upon, the regularity of the universe which for him serves only to block the road of inquiry. Then, there are the regular relationships between the laws of nature,—similarities and comparative characters, which appeal to our intelligence as its cousins, and call upon us for a reason. Finally, there is consciousness, feeling, a patent fact enough, but a very inconvenient one to the mechanical philosopher.

Thirdly, the necessitarian may say that chance is not a _vera causa_, that we cannot know positively there is any such element in the universe. But the doctrine of the _vera causa_ has nothing to do with elementary conceptions. Pushed to that extreme, it at once cuts off belief in the existence of a material universe; and without that necessitarianism could hardly maintain its ground. Besides, variety is a fact which must be admitted; and the theory of chance merely consists in supposing this diversification does not antedate all time. Moreover, the avoidance of hypotheses involving causes nowhere positively known to act—is only a recommendation of logic, not a positive command. It cannot be formulated in any precise terms without at once betraying its untenable character,—I mean as rigid rule, for as a recommendation it is wholesome enough.

I believe I have thus subjected to fair examination all the important reasons for adhering to the theory of universal necessity, and have shown their nullity. I earnestly beg that whoever may detect any flaw in my reasoning will point it out to me, either privately or publicly; for if I am wrong, it much concerns me to be set right speedily. If my argument remains unrefuted, it will be time, I think, to doubt the absolute truth of the principle of universal law; and when once such a doubt has obtained a living root in any man’s mind, my cause with him, I am persuaded, is gained.

C. S. PEIRCE.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] _Continuous_ is not exactly the right word, but I let it go to avoid a long and irrelevant discussion.

PSYCHICAL MONISM.

In modern thought, ever since Descartes introduced into the conception of all-comprising nature that perplexing distinction between thinking and extended substance, the problem of reconciling so radical a dualism has formed the main task of those who have busied themselves with philosophical interpretation.

In the light of the Cartesian system there seemed to exist two entirely disparate, independent worlds; the one in individual consciousness, the other outside of it; the one made of mental, the other of material stuff.

How to conceive these two antithetical worlds, as interdependent constituents of one and the same unitary nature is, after many discarded attempts, still the principal endeavor of systematic thinking.

Every student of philosophy knows how Descartes himself ascribed the evident concordance and intercommunication of the two worlds to the miraculous decree and intervention of the Deity; how Spinoza sought to overcome the distracting dilemma by proving that the two substances are but attributes of one single absolute substance; how Leibnitz made both realms, that of inwardness and that of outwardness, form a consistent universe and keep consonant time by means of a divinely pre-established harmony; and how numbers of less illustrious devices likewise failed to gain general acceptance.

A more important part in the development of modern thought was played by those other attempts, which strove to reach a monistic interpretation by showing that nature in all its manifestations is constituted, either solely by mind and its original endowments; or, on the contrary, solely by matter and its original endowments. Thinkers versed in physical science felt inclined to look upon the material world as the matrix of all natural occurrences; while those versed in psychical science were apt to conceive the mental world as containing within itself all there is of nature.

The physical hypothesis has proved its eminent efficiency by leading to a vastly more correct and faithful knowledge of the perceptible universe than had ever been previously attained.

Still, from the psychical standpoint it became nevertheless evident beyond contention, that all so-called qualities of matter, all that in any way enters into our perception of it, is composed of nothing but mental constituents. And this means simply, that, whatever we are actually conscious of, must of necessity form part of our own consciousness, and not of anything outside of it.

As to the truth of this fundamental psychological conception there is no longer any dispute among philosophers. But there remains to be solved the all-important question, whether or not there exists outside this consciousness of ours, either beyond its peripheral, perceptual range, or beyond its central, conceptual sphere, another world which it merely symbolically reveals. And in case such another extra-conscious world is found actually to exist, how it comes to constitute, together with the world of consciousness, that unitary system of being of which we mentally and bodily seem to form part.

Professor Dewey in a series of articles in _Mind_ (Nos. 41, 42, 49, 57) and in one recently published in this journal (Vol. II, No. 1) advocates—more profoundly and consistently than has been done before by any Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian—the view, that consciousness itself intuits all phenomena of nature by force of its own intrinsic activity, imparting to them their significance as knowledge by discriminating their specific position and value within its own all-comprising organic totality of being. He believes thus in no other world than that of self-consciousness; asserting that neither its perceptual nor its conceptual content are significative of any reality beyond.

The editor, though an ardent defender of cosmic Monism, is by no means a convert to such purely psychical monism. He maintains, on the contrary, in the same issue of _The Monist_ (p. 85), that, “The mental picture of a tree becomes a symbol for a special object outside of us, and is projected to the place where experience has taught us to expect that object.” Consequently, the mental picture refers as knowledge to something outside of us, to something not forming part of our consciousness.

The present writer believes likewise, that the perceptual tree is merely a mental symbol signalising an extra-mental, sense-stimulating existent; and that the value of this symbol as knowledge consists altogether in its implication of the existence of an entity subsisting outside our own being and its consciousness, and having power to affect our sensibility in definite more or less recognised ways.

The editor and the present writer assert then, that the content of perceptual consciousness forms merely a symbolical representation of a corresponding reality subsisting outside consciousness; while Professor Dewey acknowledges as really existent only self-consciousness, and nothing outside of it, either peripherically stimulating the senses, or centrally imparting universality to individual intelligence.

The former view frankly admits duality in nature, so far as conscious and extra-conscious existence are concerned. And in order to overcome this dualism of _ordo idearum_ and _ordo rerum_—essentially the same dualism as bequeathed to us by Descartes—it has to show how the world within consciousness with its “mental picture,” and the world “outside of us” containing the existent symbolically represented; how these totally disparate worlds come to constitute a unitary nature, whose divers modes of existence are throughout interdependently connected.

It is clear that the reality symbolised by the “mental picture”—if any such reality actually exists—can be known to us solely as thus mentally symbolised, and not known to us in any way as it subsists extra-mentally “outside of us,” as it subsists in itself when not thus symbolically represented by our casual and intermittent perception of it.

The mental picture being a mere representative symbol must needs differ _toto genere_ from the non-mental existent symbolised thereby. We know only what as mental representation is forming part of our consciousness. We cannot possibly know anything we are not conscious of. The entity “outside of us,” the “thing in itself”—if it at all exists—is therefore as such of necessity unknown to us. This confession of ontological ignorance is unavoidably involved in the acceptance of a symbolised reality “outside of us.”

The complex and prodigious difficulties in the way of a monistic interpretation, when we start with the dualistic presupposition of a conscious and an extra-conscious world, are all effectively circumvented, as soon as with Professor Dewey we deny altogether the existence of a world of “things-in-themselves” or sense-affecting existents, and roundly assert that consciousness as such constitutes, comprises, and has direct knowledge of ultimate reality; that it is in fact itself the absolute all-sufficient and all-efficient entity.

To understand the philosophical strength and influence of a position so strangely at variance with that of current common sense, which holds as self-evident the existence of body as well as mind, we have somewhat to probe its deep-laid foundations in the history of modern thought.

It was rendered plausible through Descartes’s, Locke’s, Berkeley’s, and Hume’s philosophical argumentation, that what we are consciously aware of, what is actually present to us as perception or “idea,” and therewith as the world at large, is altogether made up of a more or less complex combination of our own actual and remembered sensations.

The conscious content itself was thus necessarily held to constitute the exclusive object of philosophical research. And by starting with sensations as its primordial elements, and taking all “ideas,” or facts of memory, to be but faint reproductions of such elements, it became the task of investigators “of the human mind” to analyse the given content of consciousness into these its assumed elements, and to discover the “laws” or general ways of their combination.

Proud of its purely experiential method, concerned about nothing but what is actually found present in consciousness, this mode of philosophising disclaimed, in consequence, all knowledge of any “power” giving rise from without to sensorial “impressions” and their order of conscious emergence. And it ignored likewise the existence of any “power” combining and systematising them from within; and, moreover, of any entity for whom the sensorially constituted experience had intelligent significance.

Such nominalistic, sensorial idealism has until lately reigned supreme in English philosophy. Previous to the new departure introduced by it philosophical interpretation had always followed the method of conceptual evolution, carried on according to the rules of formal or deductive logic. It took some widely inclusive, ready-made concepts as its starting points or major premises, and extracted therefrom all knowledge that seemed to be implicitly contained in them.

Even Kant in his younger days had no idea that valid knowledge or truth could possibly be attained in any other way than by logically deducing it from ready-made premises. At a later period he learned from Hume to distinguish between what he termed analytical and synthetical propositions, and what had been called by the former thinker connection between vivid impressions or matter of fact on the one side, and connection between their faint copies or the so-called ideas on the other side.

The discovery on the part of Kant, that our knowledge of the actual connection of matters of facts has in every instance to be learned from direct experience and cannot be ratiocinatively deduced from ready-made general notions, was a complete revelation to him. It changed his entire way of thinking, and became the starting-point of his system of critical or transcendental philosophy. He saw clearly, that, if all instructive cognition is gained, and has always been gained, solely by means of actual experience, if it has been synthetically built up bit by bit as directly given to us, without our being able to construct a valid system of knowledge transcending in any way actual experience; that reason then as a knowledge-constituting faculty is impotent, and that metaphysics, as the science of a realm of intelligible existence, must be ever more rejected as a pure illusion.

Kant’s thought, like that of most of our own rationalistic thinkers, was however predominantly swayed by the belief in an intelligible world, the veritable home of man’s spiritual being, where it eternally abideth in close communion with a supreme creative intelligence. After a brief attack of Humian scepticism, the theologically trained, though rationally wide-awake and profound thinker, set out to examine the faculties of reason with a view to discover a philosophically legitimate ingress into that cherished realm of intelligible subsistence. Hitherto reason had been effectively used in philosophy only as an analytic instrument. Real knowledge being, however, as proved by Hume, a matter of synthesis, it would evidently be making proper way toward a rationally conceived intelligible world, if it could be proved that reason is itself in possession of synthetical powers.

After many years of profound meditation in this direction, Kant gave its results to the philosophical world. He had become convinced that mathematical truth, instead of being analytically derived as hitherto believed, is on the contrary built up synthetically by intelligence itself, and this without the aid of externally imparted experience; that intelligence is therefore efficient to form synthetical propositions _a priori_. It followed, as a matter of course, that time and space in which mathematical figurations take shape, are not conditions of existence outside of us, but original forms of our own perceptive faculty, and that intelligence by dint of its synthetical powers constructs mathematical figurations within these perceptual forms. And finally the conclusion was reached that time and space, the empty forms of perception, being themselves wholly deficient of any kind of activity, it must be intelligence alone which possesses synthetical efficiency, which exercises in fact whatever activity is operative in the conscious world.

But though Kant enthroned intelligence as the creator of pure mathematics, and endowed it with the exclusive gift of synthetical efficiency, he did not see his way to constitute it also the creator of the sense-given material that comes experientially to fill the empty and passive forms of perception. Against all denunciations of his system as purely idealistic, he insisted that there exists outside our being and its consciousness a world of things-in-themselves, having power to affect our sensibility, so that time and space, its receptive forms, become filled with experiential, though wholly unsynthetised material.

Reluctantly, though in faithful adherence to the unbiassed results of his investigation, he was at last led to declare that intelligence or reason as an instrument of knowledge—called by him theoretical reason in contradistinction to practical reason, conceived as the leading principle of moral conduct;—that such theoretical reason has power only over sensorially given material, and is incapable of attaining knowledge of the intelligible sphere.

Still Kant regarded his so-called categories or synthetical functions of reason as modes of activity, belonging not only to individual reason, but to reason in general. And on the strength of this realistic generalisation he attributed to them the power of imparting necessity to synthetical propositions, such propositions—otherwise merely subjective or empirical—being rendered thereby objective or universally valid. He showed, moreover, that the relation of every kind of knowledge to a common centre of all-inclusive awareness,—that this “synthetic unity of apperception” as he called it,—presupposes an intelligible ego, whose veritable nature becomes however nowise manifest within our time-and-space-conditioned experience. And he taught that an all-comprehending intelligible being had to be hypostatised in order to complete the totality of rational knowledge.

Thus, instead of giving us a monistic philosophy, Kant’s theoretical speculations disclosed, on the contrary, a tripartite world. At the centre the non-manifest intelligible ego in communion with a supernatural sphere, and conceived as the veritable bearer of the synthetical reason. In the median and only known region the synthetical reason itself, constructing and cognising nature, by synthetically elaborating the chaotic manifold in time and space. And at the periphery, beyond our own being and its perception, an unknowable realm of things-in-themselves affecting our sensibility.

So complex an appearance did existence assume under Kant’s critical inspection. Contemplative man, however, never ceases to hanker after a monistic world-conception. Though individualised, he feels himself one with universal being, and strenuously strives to understand how those bonds of union are established, and what part he in verity is playing in this stupendous drama of being and becoming.

To most philosophers, before Kant, knowledge seemed to be given to us ready-made, first conceptually as innate ideas or universal notions; and then perceptually as the finished image of an outside world.

Kant has exerted, and still exerts, a controlling influence over thinkers by having systematically demonstrated, that not only knowledge, but nature itself as we know it, is constructed by powers inherent in our own being. He taught that we ourselves, by force of our combining and ordering intellectual organisation, fashion out of meaningless sense-material the wondrous world we know. And, moreover, that by force of our intelligible being we have power to bend the otherwise rigorously mechanical course of nature in compliance with moral injunctions.

No wonder that so inspiriting a philosophy electrified to new vigor and valiant self-reliance the dogmatically slumbering life of German thought. And it was Fichte, above all other followers of Kant, who by his fervent exposition kindled in crowds of hearers the vivifying spark of this “new philosophy” of all-efficient intelligence.

Fichte is the real father of such psychical monism as has recently found so proficient an expounder in Professor Dewey. Fichte understood, what Kant failed to see, that the “dynamical idealism” of nature-constituting reason involves, not merely the _elaboration_ of sense-given material, but the _out and out production_ within consciousness of the entire world of perception. For perception undeniably takes place within our own being, and must therefore be, as regards matter as well as form, the outcome of powers inherent in ourselves. Between a consistent dream and the apperception of reality the difference lies merely in our feeling, in the latter instance, compelled in a peculiar manner to perceive what we perceive. But this feeling of compulsion is likewise a constituent of our own consciousness, and, moreover, under the influence of hallucinations even this test of reality fails us.

According to Fichte’s matured thought, our being consists altogether in intellectual activity, an activity rendering explicit by means of self-consciousness what it already implicitly contains. And it is universal being that becomes thus self-conscious in us. Infinite reason, constituting a system of ideas, a spiritual organisation, is the fount and origin of all existence, its own self-revelation becoming manifest in finite beings.

Thus, by force of logical consistency, was eliminated from Kantian transcendentalism the world of things-in-themselves as superfluous to all-constituting intelligence. And the unification of individual self-consciousness with universal intelligence was established by considering individual self-consciousness as partaking in the self-revealing activity of universal intelligence.

Hegel elaborated systematically the psychical or idealistic monism thus foreshadowed in Fichte’s later writings. Philosophical interpretation turns principally upon the source and import of consciousness. And from the recognition of the fact, that all constituents of perception form part of this consciousness of ours, it obviously follows that objects, and indeed the entire objective world realised in perception and solely as perception; that the realisation of this entire world of perceptual objects is in verity realisation of a world contained in our own being or subject. Subject and object are therefore, from this point of view, at bottom identical; the objective world—our human bodies included—being a self-revelation of our all-comprehending subject. Mind as well as matter, that which we call mental and that which we call material, are thus mere abstract terms denoting the subjective and objective sides of one and the same reality.

This reality transcendental idealism declares to be “intellectual

## activity.” It is intellectual activity which—from its point of view—is

revealing itself in the conscious content, becoming thus self-conscious. This process of recognition of one’s self as subject-object, as the unitary essence and completion of both, is what Hegel calls the “Idea.” And with him theoretical or logical self-recognition and practical or ethical self-realization coincide as “Absolute Idea.” For to think absolute truth and to will its realisation are but two sides of one and the same activity. Thought, intelligence, reason, knowing itself as in every sense veritable being is thus the absolute One and All.

Such out and out psychical monism is the legitimate outcome of a conception which takes the content of consciousness to be ultimate reality, signifying nothing beyond itself; and which then constitutes a spiritually conceived entity, called thought, intelligence, or reason, as the originator and bearer of such consciousness.

After a period of glorious triumph the Hegelian philosophy of self-evolving intelligence became a general laughing-stock at home and abroad. This ignominious fate overtook it, first in consequence of its fawning prostitution by the master himself to the reactionary service of Church and State; and then also in consequence of the ridiculous “pyrotechnical” abuse of its dialectical method by the “Young-Hegelians.”

However, by “going back to Kant,” the teachings of transcendental idealism have in our time once more gained the ascendency, and have succeeded not only in conquering materialism, but also in invading and almost supplanting English experientialism.

In Germany, after a season of complete estrangement between science and philosophy, a re-approachment was effected by the Neo-Kantian movement. It originated principally in the recognition on the part of science, that sense-perception is above all a psychical and not a purely physiological process, a mental not a material fact; that therefore the effort to arrive at a correct “theory of knowledge” is by no means a vain endeavor, and that psychics as well as physics deserves a place in the hierarchy of sciences.

In England and America the Neo-Kantian movement owed, on the other hand, its success, above all, to such theistic rationalism as found popular expression in “Robert Elsmere.” In Professor Caird’s words it is said to afford a means for the “vindication of the religious consciousness.” And this it accomplishes “by an objective or absolute synthesis,” which establishes “the indivisible unity of the intelligence and the intelligible world,” “the unity of man as spiritual with an absolute spirit.”

Dr. Hutchison Sterling’s “Secret of Hegel” gave the first effective impulse to this transcendental mode of thinking among university men of a speculative turn. The late Thomas Hill Green of Oxford and Prof. Edward Caird of Glasgow became its foremost exponents, and made numerous converts. The former by elaborately disclosing, by force of Kant’s principle of synthetical reason, the insufficiency of the sensorial experientialism generally accepted in England since Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The latter by consistently developing the idealistic and transcendental implications of this same principle of synthetical reason.

As repeatedly noticed, and never to be lost sight of, transcendental idealism derives its convincing force from the undeniable truth, that whatever we are directly aware of forms part of our own consciousness. This involves the indivisible unity of such fact as we are directly conscious of and the faculty through which we are conscious of it. This unity of the realising self and the realised world, of object and subject as content of consciousness; or rather the unity of the objective and subjective factors of it, this subject-object oneness of conscious states and occurrences is an irrefutable truth, from which one has to start, whatever direction one may take. You assert, then, that that which exists thus interblended as consciousness is itself ultimate reality, and you will encounter but little difficulty in deducing therefrom a pretty plausible psychical monism. For the power through which and as which this ultimate reality exists is then immanent in us individually. And when this power is conceived as intelligence or spirit, and the world at large as existing solely as content of this spirit’s consciousness, or indeed as such consciousness itself, it is clear that our own self-and-world-awareness must be—according to this view—identical in essence with the spiritual power which is ultimate and universal Reality.

In self-consciousness, when regarded as a totality of all actual and potential awareness, our feelings as well as the perceptual objects composed of them constitute an organically completed order. They all stand in definite and interdependent relations to our unitary being. This all-comprising being has time and space as modes of gradual self-realisation, but is not—according to transcendentalism—itself in time and space. And this is undeniably true, so far at least as the being that combines all transient events of experience into a unitary system of permanent knowledge cannot possibly itself form part of the ephemeral flux of conscious states experienced by it.

Still the multifold individuations of the ultimate reality into separate personal self-consciousnesses and deciduous bodily organisms forms the great, if not insuperable, obstacle in the way of psychical monism. If, on the one hand, we take with Green and Professor Caird individual self-consciousness as a “reproduction,” and not as a mere phase of universal consciousness; and on the other hand admit a natural and gradual development “of man as an animal organism,” instead of proving such natural development to be a misconception of our time and space bound recognition, we are far from having as yet succeeded in establishing a consistent psychical monism on Kantian lines. His tripartite world remains ununified.

To achieve its unification is, however, after a profound study and appreciation of the difficulties to be encountered, the arduous task Professor Dewey has courageously undertaken. To accomplish his purpose he has to show how individual consciousness proves itself to be ultimate reality, and as such identical with universal consciousness; how man, appearing among other perceptible objects in multifold individuated specimens as a gradually developed organism, is nevertheless in reality a complete, all-comprising entity, not essentially subject to time, space, or numerical limitations. And he has to make clear how all conscious content, including the external world as well as the feeling and thinking subject, has no other existence and significance than in and for consciousness.

Professor Dewey maintains that individual consciousness is in reality one with universal consciousness, because it comprehends within itself subject-and-object-consciousness; the abiding consciousness of oneself as an ever-changing individual, and that of the world at large, though figured in transient groups of sensations. This being so, that which is thus the bearer and realiser of all being and becoming in nature, cannot itself form part of this becoming, but must—according to Professor Dewey’s view—be eternal and absolute. The all-comprehending consciousness—and there is no existence outside of it—is thus identical with universal intelligence, identical with that eternally active intelligence which is everlastingly creating the organic synthesis of all being and becoming.

“Consciousness the ultimate fact reveals itself as reason.” Sensations have no self-existence, no meaning in themselves. They exist only as intellectually apprehended and for intelligence alone. It is from intellectual interpretation that they receive their entire significance. On solicitation of sensations the ideal content of universal intelligence becomes partially and interruptedly revealed to individual consciousness. The sole office of sensations is to give in us occasion to this self-realisation of the eternal content of intelligence.

Professor Dewey establishes his psychical monism by discovering self-consciousness as the Absolute, the One and All. Individual idealism or so-called solipsism, such as expounded by Fichte in his earlier writings from the side of intellect, and in the writings of English experientialists from the side of sensation, this individual idealism presents itself likewise as a psychical monism, but as an absurdly narrow one. Professor Dewey points out how it fails to understand that by constituting mind, as such, the ego or subject for which all experience exists, it artificially divides our unitary consciousness into two separate constituents, and takes the subjective constituent to be the bearer and realiser of the objective constituent; while in reality both constituents are but elements of consciousness in general; are in fact completely unified in eternal and absolute consciousness.

Now it is perfectly true, that during conscious awareness object and subject-consciousness are inextricably interblended so as to constitute a unified experience. It is true also, that the veritable subject that thus consciously experiences, and that furthermore imparts intelligent meaning to such experience, cannot itself form part of these its own fragmentary and transient moments of awareness. Comprehending them all, it must evidently be an enduring, at least a relatively persistent being. It is undoubtedly to such a persistent being or subject that experience gradually accrues, and in whom it is all retained and organised into more or less systematic order.

But is there the least warrant for assuming that this persistent subject, weaving thus intelligent experience out of its transient conscious states, is itself “consciousness” or “intelligence”?

Intelligent consciousness is very obviously only one of the functions of the persistent subject, and by no means its being or essence. And the experience accruing to it, that at least of the external world, bears nowise the characteristics of Platonic reminiscence, does nowise consist in self-revelation, in the becoming explicitly aware of what already implicitly existed within itself. We may indeed say, that our emotions, when aroused, constitute such self-revelation. But, for instance, yonder visual figuration, consisting of nothing but colored forms, though intelligently interpreted as a landscape with plains, woods, and creeks; interpreted thus by the aid of no end of former experience; this landscape now perceived by me for the first time was certainly not implicitly immanent in my consciousness previous to all my individual experience. Its conscious realisation does assuredly not render explicit as objective experience what for ever has been an organic member of my self-consciousness. What is immanent in my being—not in my consciousness—is the sensorial faculty of symbolically picturing whatever sense-affecting agent is placed before me. The conscious picture itself is an evanescent phenomenon, having no steadfast existence or reality.

To assert—as is usually done by transcendentalists and by Professor Dewey among them—that our individual experience, when—as mostly occurs—not actually conscious to ourselves, exists then nevertheless as conscious content of a universal being; to venture such an utterly gratuitous assertion, even when merely hypothetically advanced, transcends all legitimate inference from given facts. When declared to be positively justified by given facts, it all too obviously betrays the theological bias by which it is inspired, the set purpose of vindicating the religious consciousness which has faith in “the unity of man as spiritual with an absolute spirit.”

Through consciousness we indeed become aware of the divers faculties of our being, together with their functionally accruing experience. All this, however, rises into conscious awareness only at times, when casually awakened. To give to the vast system of consciously latent being and experience the name of “consciousness,” to call that “consciousness” whose principal distinction is to constitute a persistent subject with an organised system of experience abiding for the most part in extra-conscious latency; to do this only because all this extra-conscious existence may and does at times become more or less conscious; this is surely committing the fatal error of denoting a state of things by its outright opposite.

There is no denying that most of the content of our being is usually not present in consciousness. Consequently, abiding thus outside consciousness, it cannot possibly form part of consciousness either individual or universal.

Nothing could be more to the point than Professor Dewey’s statement, that “only a living actual fact (let us say existent instead of fact) can preserve within its unity that organic system of differences in virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being.” There is not the least doubt that the subject, who at times is conscious of more or less of his experience, is exactly such an existent as here described. But consciousness, though the medium in which and through which everything is realised, is itself but an intermittent function of that living actual subject which preserves within its unity the organic system of differences in virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being. The consciousness of the subject conveys information to it only interruptedly and in broken bits. These become organically unified into a more or less consistent totality of experience. But this process of unification takes place, not in the dream like stuff which makes up consciousness, but in the persistent, extra-conscious matrix whence our ever lapsing, ever renewed moment of conscious awareness emerges ready-made.

The subject capable of thought and feeling becomes thinkingly and feelingly manifest to _itself_, when its functions through which consciousness arises are in operation; becomes manifest as bodily active to _other sentient beings also_, when its functions through which such

## activity arises are in operation.

But if the real nature of the experiencing subject is not self-consciousness or intelligence, what then can it be?

Idealists, and with them Professor Dewey, become such by believing that the perceptually realised objects are themselves veritable reality, and not mere symbols of extra-conscious reality. Now can they in all sincerity bring themselves to believe that a baby—to use one of Professor Dewey’s illustrations—which experiences a sensation, say a pain caused by the prick of a pin, that this pain-experiencing baby is no other than that colored form within the perceptual consciousness of may be half a dozen spectators; and that it is the perceptual pin within the consciousness of each of them that has pricked the baby and caused the pain?

Does the pain-experiencing baby derive its existence from the fact that the intellect of the spectator interprets the perceptual form within his consciousness to signify a baby, which has forever implicitly formed part of the organic content of his own self-consciousness?

Surely the pain experienced by the baby is not experienced by the perceptually realised baby, not by the baby existing as interpreted perception in the consciousness of him who perceives it. The pain experienced by the baby does nowise form part of the consciousness of the perceiver. Consequently and incontestably, the subject that experiences the sensation, that experiences in fact any kind of feeling or thought, is itself an extra-conscious being, a being only casually and symbolically realised in consciousness.

And if the perceptual baby is merely a conscious symbol signalising an extra-conscious existent, then all perceptual existence, all that constitutes what we perceptually realise as nature, symbolises likewise an extra-conscious reality, a reality that has power so to affect our sensibility as to arouse in us perceptual representations of itself and its characteristics.

The matter stands then exactly as denied by Professor Dewey. It is indeed the “baby thing-in-itself which is affected,” and it is “a world thing-in-itself which calls forth the sensation.” It is not, as maintained by Professor Dewey the baby known to him as his own perception which experiences the sensation by having been pricked within the beholder’s consciousness by a perceptually constituted pin.

But if the entity, which affects the beholder’s sensibility and awakens in him the percept of a baby, exists in verity outside his, the beholder’s, consciousness, and is known to him only as thus symbolically pictured by his own percept; such sense-affecting entity is, on the other hand, nowise to be construed as the unknowable “First Cause,” nowise as that protean Persistent Force, which Mr. Spencer imagines capable of assuming every kind of mental or material appearance.

The so-called material or physical modes which constitute in the beholder the perceptually realised baby, and the so-called immaterial or mental modes which are experienced by the baby as his sensations and emotions; these material and mental modes are in no sense the manifestation of an “Absolute Force” or “inscrutable Power,” as our Spencerians would lead us religiously, and almost theologically to believe.[54]

The material modes that constitute the perceptually realised baby are awakened in the beholder by a definite sense-affecting existent, which is thus revealing not only its bare presence, but most vividly and minutely also its perceptible and distinguishing characteristics. And in the same manner it makes also known that it is interdependently connected with the vast system of sense-affecting entities, that constitutes nature in general.

All reality is interdependently conditioned. The “Unconditioned Reality” of the Hamiltons, Mansels, and Spencers, has nowhere any existence, either in consciousness or outside of it. It is altogether a fictitious, superfluous, and most misleading conception.

As regards the mental modes experienced by the baby, they are evidently exclusively his own affections as a highly and most specifically organised being, and not by any means are they modes of appearance of that most empty abstraction “The Unknowable,” that has with so many believers usurped the throne of their former anthropomorphic Deity.

This coiled up thing over there, is it a rope or a snake? I see it move, and my intellect interprets it to be a snake. Surely the significance of the interpretation does not consist in my realising what was already implicitly contained in my consciousness, but in knowing that in contact with the being out there, which forms no part whatever of myself though perceptually realised by me, I shall become affected in certain additional ways taught by former experience.

Will any unbiassed and competent judge assert that the far-fetched idealistic interpretation is more in accordance with what we really experience, than the very simple one here given?

No doubt the immediate object of physical observation is not the thing-in-itself, but its perceptual realisation. It is such, however, only as symbolical representation of something subsisting outside consciousness, only as a conscious affection awakened with compulsory force in the observer from without. The observer offers his diversely differentiated and delicately attuned sensibilities to the outside world and carefully notices its specific modes of reaction upon definite modes of stimulation. This in truth is the method of scientific observation, from which all conclusions regarding the characteristics of nature are drawn.

The conscious subject phylogenetically evolved in constant interaction with the medium in which he lives and moves and has his being, possesses realising faculties so adjusted as to correctly subserve his needs in relation to such a medium. He then furthermore uses these faculties in order to gain a fuller and more accurate knowledge of further perceptible characteristics of this same medium.

A monistic interpretation of nature cannot possibly be reached by assuming consciousness or intelligence to be ultimate reality, and as such the One and All. It can be reached only by recognising that consciousness is a function of subjects that stand in definite relations to the rest of nature, and have power along with the other constituents of nature so to affect the sensibility of other sentient beings as to cause to arise therein the symbolical representation of themselves.

Systematised experience consists in the organised totality of such symbolical representations. And this organised totality of experience exists as potential possession of the subject in extra-conscious latency, in what we figuratively call memory. Emerging on occasion into consciousness it reproduces more or less faithfully the order and connection of the manifold that constitutes the sense-affecting universe.

In highly developed sentient subjects self-realisation or the “inner life,” which arises from the activity of their emotional and above all their social nature, gains predominant influence over their sensual and perceptual experience, urging them so to transform the given aspect of the outer world as to render it subservient to the aspirations of that inner life.

EDMUND MONTGOMERY.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Mr. Spencer grapples with the problem of ultimate reality from three different and widely divergent standpoints. First, by assuming that our out and out conditioned nature and knowledge presupposes the existence of an “Unconditioned Reality,” he arrives at the conception of an “Absolute Cause.” Second, by attributing—in keeping with the principle of the Conservation of Energy, all physical and psychical activity to the interconvertible play of modes of force, he arrives at the conception of an “Absolute Force,” whence all these manifest modes proceed; hinting, moreover, that, as our experience of force-manifestation is of a psychical nature, the “Absolute Force” may rather be conceived as psychical than as physical. Third, besides explaining at times that the psychical and physical modes, instead of being interconvertible, are only two different aspects of one and the same reality—and contrary to his assumption of the interconvertibility of psychical and physical modes proceeding from an Absolute Force, he advocates in his _Transfigured Realism_ the view, that our perceptual consciousness figures representatively the corresponding characteristics of a world of things-in-themselves. No wonder that Spencerians are getting somewhat mixed, as the saying is.

THE CONSERVATION OF SPIRIT AND THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

The consideration of the relation that subsists between body and mind is a topic that has led to several theories, one of which has found favor with many on account of its supposed monistic implications. Dr. Carus in his work “The Soul of Man” seems to adopt that theory, and his method of explaining the matter is one of notable superiority. He says:

“Matter and mind (the elements of feeling) are to be considered as one—not the same, but one. They are as inseparable as are the two sides of a sheet of paper. If we look at it from the mind side its activity represents itself as elements of feeling and all kinds and degrees of actual feelings. If we look at it from the matter side its activity represents itself as motions or as all kinds of potential and kinetic energy.”

This doctrine of a double-faced unity has no doubt been favored because it has seemed the best and perhaps the only refuge available against the various forms of dualism. Still this same doctrine is very far from inducing that final pacification of mind which we rightly expect from a competent theory. It is open to the charge of being arbitrary, and it brings no access of insight.

The expressions of those whom we must suppose to be well affected towards any doctrine that gives promise of a monistic issue show this to be the case. Thus Tyndall says:

“I do not think that he (i. e. the materialist) is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and his molecular motions explain everything. In reality they explain nothing. The utmost that he can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. _The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the prehistoric ages._”

And Huxley protests that,

“How anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is _just as unaccountable_ as the appearance of the Djinn when Alladin rubbed his lamp.”

In truth those who might be expected to speak with considerable reserve in regard to the inabilities of human attainment have emphasised without due sobriety the insuperable aspects of the problem. The past history of culture should have counseled caution, especially in view of the certainty that consciousness is _somehow_ dependent upon nerve action.

It is submitted that the recent progress of science should induce a hopeful temper of mind on this question. Not only have physiology and psychology brought to light more results in the last decades than in centuries past, but in positive monism and formal thought philosophy has also attained to a clearness of method which will prove beneficial to all special investigations. A clear and concise statement of the new positivism is found in the chapter Form and Formal Thought of “Fundamental Problems” by Dr. Carus. Any one who has watched the development of the algebra of thought and the philosophy of logic, will naturally expect signal aid towards the solution of the world-questions from a proper consideration of form and the laws of form. In Dr. Carus’s book and especially in the above mentioned chapter will be found a most popular exposition of that subject.

Those who hold that form and formal thought is the very constituted means by which our information with respect to real existence may be improved, ought to regard it a decided step towards the solution of any hitherto apparently inexplicable problem, if we only but find ourselves able to _formulate_ an idea or process that mediates between the known and the unknown, and represents to our insight how it is possible to think of a phenomenon in accordance with notions that yield perceptible imagery.

Riemann in what has been well characterised as his “stupendous” essay on “The hypotheses that lie at the basis of geometry” remarks:

“We are quite at liberty to suppose that the metric relations of space in the infinitely small do not conform to the hypotheses of geometry; _and we ought in fact to suppose it if we can thereby obtain a simpler explanation of phenomena_.”

So also Jevons in his “Principles of Science” commenting on “The Character of the Experimentalist” refers to the audacity of speculation that characterised Faraday and that was the leading of his efforts towards some of his most brilliant discoveries. He says:

“We have only to notice the profound conviction in the unity of natural laws, the active powers of inference and imagination, _the unbounded license of theorising_.”

Theory must precede experiment. We must formulate before we can verify. The words of Faraday: “Let us encourage ourselves by a little more imagination prior to experiment,” shows us the method he followed.

Recent developments in connection with the study of electricity supply us with at least an analogy that may instruct us as to how we may _suppose_ the appearance of consciousness as a result of nerve action.

The nature of electricity has long been an unformulated thesis. That it may be produced by the motion of matter is proved by every dynamo in operation: indeed the oldest experiments in static electricity are to the same effect.

At the present time it seems to be an acceptable doctrine or at least a good working hypothesis that electricity and magnetism are manifestations of that once hypothetical medium called _the ether_.

Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald in his opening address before Section A of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888 made these very important remarks:

“In a presidential address on the borderlands of the known, delivered from this chair, the great Clerk Maxwell spoke of it as an undecided question whether electro-magnetic phenomena are due to direct action at a distance or are due to the action of an intervening medium. The year 1888 will ever be memorable as the year in which this great question has been experimentally _settled_ by Hertz in Germany. Henceforth I hope no learner will fail to be impressed with the theory—_hypothesis no longer_—that electro-magnetic actions are due to a medium pervading all known space.”

That the ether really exists: that it is a proved fact and that it is the substantial basis out of which electricity and magnetism arises, are pretensions too momentous to remain unchallenged if they lacked good evidence in their favor. Yet instead of awakening dissent among the critical hosts of science, these utterances of Professor Fitzgerald have not only been received as voicing the convictions of the scientific world but they are confirmed from time to time by the sometimes tacit and sometimes express assent of all who discourse upon the matters involved.

Prof. Oliver Lodge, one of the leading scientific men of England and an acknowledged authority upon the subject has recently published a work entitled “Modern Views of Electricity.” In his preface he says:

“Few things in physical science appear to me more certain than that what has so long been called electricity is a form or rather a mode of manifestation of the ether.”

He supposes the ether as a compound of two constituents corresponding to positive and negative electricity. Each of these constituents has affinities, cohesions, or entanglements with the various kinds of matter, which affinities, cohesions, or entanglements are greater or less according to the kind of matter involved, so that by the motions of certain sorts of matter under proper conditions the two constituents of the ether are torn apart or separated, or in the language of dynamics, strained. But at the same time these constituents also tend with unceasing persistence to reunite and saturate one another into a state of absolute neutrality. Separate, these constituents show an existence and an energy towards one another. United neither of them shows any existence at all nor any efficacy whatever. They are as though they did not exist.

It is of small moment to the present purpose whether or not this electrical theory is well grounded. In either case its very formulation supplies us with a suggestion as to how it is possible to think of consciousness as a product of nerve action.

Just as the ether is supposed as the substantial basis out of which in consequence of the motion of matter electricity and magnetism becomes manifest, so may we suppose an analogous (perhaps the same) basis surrounding and permeating all things, and out of which in consequence of nerve action, consciousness becomes manifest.

Why may we not suppose this consciousness basis, (which suppose we name spirit,) to be the ultimate substance which being variously modified by energy manifests in one case the phenomena of mind, in another the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, etc., and then again in a third case that phenomenon, mass, or inertia, which is the essential attribute of matter?

As with the ether in the absence of any cause that separates it so that electricity and magnetism become manifest, so spirit may be supposed to be utterly without manifestation and neutral until nerve action modifies its condition, when like electricity in the one case, so here, consciousness becomes manifest.

Why may we not imagine spirit as composed of two constituents corresponding to feeling and volition which united saturate one another into neutrality, but which separated by nerve action manifest feeling that tends to pass into volition, or volition that tends to pass into feeling? This would be in accordance with the phenomena if of reflex

## action which is supposed to be the elementary type of mentality.

This is in harmony with the views of the author of “The Soul of Man,” for he, although for other reasons, also explains the origin of consciousness from tension. He says:

“Consciousness is an intensified state of feeling caused through tension. It lies between a want and its satisfaction. Satisfaction not being immediately attainable, feelings are no longer in a state of equilibrium, and it is this tension which concentrates and intensifies feeling into consciousness.

“It appears that consciousness never arises without a certain tension. Days spent in an idyllic life flow away almost unconsciously; there is little friction, there are no problems to be solved; there are no unsatisfied wants, or if there are any, they are quickly and easily attended to. There is no need of consciousness, there is not much tension to call it into play, so life passes dreamlike as a tale that is told. The more life is burdened with problems that demand a man’s full care and deliberation, and the stronger are his attempts to solve the problems of his situation, the more intense will his consciousness be.

“It appears to me very doubtful whether conscious beings could exist in a world—if such a world were possible at all—where the struggle for existence was unknown; for it is the struggle for existence that presents the first and most imperative problems to living and feeling beings.”

Spirit or the elementary basis of consciousness considered as a quantity, would on this supposition remain the same, but the forms of its manifestations would change. There would be more or less straining of spirit and accordingly more or less manifestation of consciousness. Or to formulate it in one sentence, we would have to postulate _the conservation of spirit_.

Such a supposition or some similar supposition if tolerable would bring our ideas into some sort of accord with scientific customs of explanation, and would extricate our minds from that state of utter stultification into which they are cast whenever they are confronted with the relations of body and mind.

FRANCIS C. RUSSELL.

ON CRIMINAL SUGGESTION.

A widely known criminal trial has brought before thoughtful minds, on both sides of the water, this question, viz.: Whether a subject in a hypnotic condition possesses any free will, and whether in such a state, it is possible to transform him into a criminal or at least, for the time being into becoming an accomplice in crime! It is not the first time that this question has been agitated; indeed at the very beginning of Mesmerism, as it was then called, this idea was brought forward.

It was clearly formulated by Dr. Charpignon, whose own opinion nevertheless is, that it was “much easier to restore moral rectitude to a somnambulist who had fallen therefrom, than to pervert the integrity of character of a woman of high moral standing.” In 1866 Dr. Liébeault, in his work on, “Sleep and Kindred States of Being,” of which at that time there were but six copies sold, coincides entirely with this opinion. The passage is too noticeable, not to be quoted in its entirety. (P. 524.)

“We may postulate, as a first principle, that a subject during the state of magnetic sleep, is at the mercy of the hypnotiser. I have made experiments that have confirmed me in this opinion; I have many a time, removed the hats of such persons, searched their pockets, drawn off the rings from their fingers, untied their shoes, etc., ... without their having noticed the action at all, or having made the least resistance, the isolation into which I had thrown them, being the cause of this absence of all consciousness....

“How very grave, the possibilities, are which may ensue from this state of being, we may readily conceive! What I have advanced here, is the result of certain experiments which I made upon a young girl, who, while being very intelligent in her natural waking condition, became during hypnotic sleep the most cross-grained and wilful person I had ever had to deal with. Nevertheless I always ended by mastering her will. I was able to excite in her mind the most criminal resolves; I roused her passions to a high degree. I was able to cause her to fall into a violent rage with a person, to fly out upon her with a knife in her hand; having displaced in her mind the sentiment of friendship, still armed with that instrument, I sent her to stab her best friend, whom I told her she saw in front of her; she obeyed, the knife burying itself in the wall opposite. I almost prevailed upon another young girl, who was however less under the influence, to kill her own mother, and though she wept, she actually prepared to do the deed.

“After all, it has been known for a fact, that a man, who, up to that moment, was of sound mind, hearing a voice continually repeating: ‘Kill your wife. Kill your children’—has obeyed this command, incited thereto by an irresistible impulse; and shall the hypnotic subject already predisposed to hallucination, escape this same involuntary impulse? I am firmly convinced, after having made many other experiments, that a subject to whom is suggested the commission of any bad action, will carry out the crime after his awakening, by reason of what has now become in him a fixed idea. The most moral will become vitiated, the highest-minded perverted.

“If it has already been found possible to reform a woman of loose morals and bring her to abandon entirely her evil courses, why cannot the reverse be effected and by the same means? It would be in the power of the magnetiser to suggest to his subject, not only to become a tale-bearer, a calumniator, a thief, dissolute, etc., at some period subsequent to the magnetic sleep, but, he might use him, for example, as the instrument of his personal vengeance and the poor dreamer, unmindful of the primary incitement to the criminal action, would commit on another’s account, instead of on his own, the evil deed, prompted and forced on thereto, by the irresistible suggestion and will, imposed upon him by another person. And when the crime shall have been consummated, where shall he find the medical jurist, who can hold up to Justice, the torch which is to throw the Light of Truth upon the act, and challenge the innocency of a man, who, up to the moment of the crime never exhibited the slightest sign of insanity, had shown every mark of a sound mind and yet, when convicted of the dreadful deed, states with every apparent sign of good faith, that he has committed it of his own accord? And who can tell whether such cases have not already taken place.”

These momentous words passed unnoticed. At that time, the world did not believe in Hypnotism. M. M. Richot and Charcot restored it to a place of honor. The School of the Salpêtrière made its advent, and saw in Hypnotism a pathological condition. Simultaneously with this school of thought, there arose the rival one at Nancy, which following its leader, Dr. Liébeault, saw in hypnotism, only a psychological phenomenon. One of the masters in this school, M. Liégeois, Professor of the Faculty of Law, in 1884, in his pamphlet on “Hypnotic Suggestion, in relation to Civil and Criminal Law” also propounded to the public this idea of criminal suggestion.

M. Liégeois, like M. Liébeault, did not confine himself merely to theory. He went on to demonstrate and prove his thesis by conclusive experiments.

Strange to say, the Salpêtrière took issue on this point, adopting and defending the opposite opinion.

I would now ask permission to raise my own voice in this debate, and I am the more emboldened so to do, inasmuch as my own personal observations and the study which I have brought to bear on this matter, have caused me to pass, so to speak, from one rival camp to the other. The thesis upheld by the School at Nancy, while it found in me at first an adherent, finds me to-day an adversary.

Just a word about myself to the readers of _The Monist_.

I have always been a believer in Magnetism. At the outset, and until towards 1875, merely on the faith of books, later, because I had been present at one or two more or less public exhibitions. And it appears singular enough, that though thus imperfectly trained in the knowledge of it, I should have explained, as I did in 1869, the ecstasies and the stigmata of the celebrated Louise Lateau, as coming simply from auto-suggestion; and that even to-day, there should be neither jot nor tittle to subtract from what I then wrote, regarding it.

I only began practising magnetism at the commencement of 1886. I was returning from a visit to the Salpêtrière whither I had been attracted by my doubts on this very transference of thought and from which I returned with my doubts intensified. I have already recounted, in a series of articles, that appeared in less than a year in the _Revue Philosophique_ (“Upon Memory in Hypnotic Subjects”; “On the influence of Imitation and Education in Somnambulism, as exhibited in the so-called hypnotic sleep”; etc.) my experiences, observations, and inductions. Not to speak of my contributions to the Magazines, and notably to the _Revue de l’Hypnotisme_, I introduced hypnotism into the science course of the Royal Academy of Belgium by means of two works. One, on the “Origin,” the other on the “Extent of the Curative Effects of Hypnotism” (1887-1890). Besides many other polemical writings in favor of the liberty of holding public exhibitions (“Letters to M. Chiriar, Representative,” 1888. “Magnetisers and Physicians,” 1890). I related at length what M. Charcot and his pupils had shown me in Paris, as well as what M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois, had let me witness at Nancy (“A Visit to the Salpêtrière,” 1886—“A Visit to the School at Nancy,” 1889).

At the time then, that I took upon myself to hypnotise, I firmly believed that the subject became the property of the magnetiser; passing over, as of no importance, the manifest resistances that I met with at every point and in every form on the part of subjects, who, in all other respects I found perfectly adapted to such experiments; as for instance, one who permitted his tongue to be pierced with a large darning needle by my sceptical colleague, Dr. Masius; and to be burned several times, both with a red hot iron and by thermocautery, by my colleague, the surgeon Von Winiwarter, both these experiments having reference to the curative effects of hypnotism. Thus, adhering entirely to the belief of M. M. Liébeault and Beaunis, at the close of 1886 (“A Visit to the Salpêtrière”) I wrote these words:

“M. Beaunis’s statement is perfectly exact. The somnambulist, in the hands of the hypnotiser, is less than the _corpse_, which the perfect disciple of Loyola should resemble. He is a slave, with no will other than that of his ruler, and in order to fulfil the commands laid upon him, he will push precaution, prudence, cunning, dissimulation and falsehood, to their extremest limits. He will open and shut doors noiselessly, walk in his stockings; will listen and watch, with what keen sight, what acute hearing! He will remember anything and everything you want him to, will forget all you desire him to forget. He will, in good faith, accuse a perfectly innocent man before a Court of justice. He will have seen everything, that in reality he has never seen, if you command him so to do; he will have heard, what he never could have heard and done everything that he never could have done. He will swear by his Household Gods, that he has acted throughout, of his own free will, without any external pressure, will invent motives if need be, and will completely protect and cover his hypnotiser.

“Theoretically, such a power is the most dangerous thing on the face of the earth! I believe though, that practically, with the exception of what might relate to physical or moral abuses or tampering with testamentary wills, there is actually little or no danger. It appears to me the fear of this has been unduly exaggerated.”

In a foot-note of mine, while mentioning with highest praise the memoir of M. Liégeois, I added further: “I do not express any alarm that I cannot show a good reason for.” Among other reasons, I pondered on the difficulty, say rather, the impossibility there is, of obtaining from the subject an absolute abnegation of will-power, whilst at the same time we allow him to retain the necessary free will to cope with any unforeseen accidents which might occur to compromise the fulfilment of the thought and action suggested.

Two or three months later I should not have expressed myself thus; and hence the remarks that accompany the experiments related in my articles on Hypnotic Consciousness, _Revue Philosophique_, Feb., March, 1887, experiments which took place about a year previous to this (see the note to the contributed articles, Feb. 1887, p. 119). It may there be noticed that my assent is tempered by certain marked reservations. I was even then opposing practice to theory, i. e. I narrowed down these apprehensions of danger to two legitimate causes of alarm, viz. attempts against morals, and tampering with testamentary wills.

Upon these two points I am still of the same opinion, with this exception, that what I then feared probable, I now regard as exceedingly problematic. I mean to say, that a villain who was contemplating the perpetration of a crime, would not easily find an accomplice in a subject of good moral standing. And in any case, I still think as I thought then, that such an accomplice would not only be inapt, but compromising. It is this latter point, I wish to demonstrate to you, by the following criticism upon an experiment never before published.

At the end of May, of last year, I was passing through Nancy with some friends, among whom was Dr. L. Frédéricq, Professor of Physiology at the University of Liège. We were spending the evening at M. Beaunis’s house together with M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois. Naturally this question of Criminal Suggestion came upon the _tapis_ and was discussed in all its phases, without advancing one step towards its solution. We made an engagement to meet at the hospital on the following day, where M. Bernheim invited me to be present at an experiment, which he maintained would convince me. I will relate at length the occurrence, for in such cases, the slightest details may acquire very great importance.

M. Bernheim threw into the magnetic sleep a great, tall fellow, quite easily influenced, and whose illness did not prevent him from walking about in the ward.

“Presently, when you have waked up, you will go and steal an orange from the patient that you see over there, in that bed opposite. Remember that what you are going to do is very wrong; it is strictly forbidden by honesty and by the law, and you will run the risk of being punished.” The man is waked. He appears to be collecting his thoughts. He rubs his forehead, he is visibly meditating something.

“What is the matter with you? What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“Nothing.”

“You seem preoccupied.”

“Well, yes, I have to do something.”

“What?”

“I am not obliged to render you an account of my actions.”

“Ah! one would almost say you were meditating some mischief, where are you going?”

“That’s no business of yours.”

“Oh! very well then, I shall watch you and follow you.”

I follow him; he walks towards his companion’s bed, glances at the orange, then leaning up against the window, he calls me to admire some cherries growing on a potted plant. He keeps quite still. Why? Simply because I had told him that I intended to watch him, _otherwise my presence would not have troubled him in the least_. During this time, M. Bernheim had acquainted the other patient with the intended proceeding, he nevertheless having heard the whole transaction. “I do not think he will do it,” said he to the Doctor, “he is one of my mates and he wouldn’t steal from me.” I walk away and join the group of persons present. I say to M. Beaunis, that this experiment will prove nothing, he answers me by a gesture of surprise. The subject, as soon as he sees me go away and _thinks that I am not watching him any more_, stretches out his hand, seizes the orange that is behind his mate’s pillow, _the latter meanwhile looking full at him_. A score for M. Bernheim, but one also for M. Delbœuf! I should need twenty pages at least of commentary on this experiment. But I shall only allow myself to point out the essential points.

This hypnotised subject then, or to speak more correctly, this man to whom a thought has been suggested, after I had warned him that I was watching him, and from whom I never took my eye, goes with the unerringness, so to speak, “of the falling stone,” to carry out the suggested action, not however without a certain distrust of me, and this only, because he had been forewarned. And moreover in his dim consciousness, it is I alone, whom he is watching in that clumsy fashion, in order to seize upon some momentary forgetfulness on my part. He has never noticed at all, that his mate is intently watching him and following his every movement with open eyes; so he steals the orange from under his very nose! Let us not forget that it was M. Bernheim the house physician, who suggested to him to take the orange. But M. Frédéricq himself would equally well have fulfilled that command, even preceded as it was by the little homily, recorded above. Why should he have disobliged M. Bernheim? But indeed, the logic of my opponents is very weak. If, say they, a somnambulist resists criminal suggestion, it is because he is not a susceptible subject, or, that the experiment has been ill conducted, or, that the suggestion has not been strong enough. At that rate, it is useless to continue experimenting, if failure is always to be explained away. On my side, I might with equal reason, argue, that they had been dealing with some licentious mind, as yet all unknowing its inner self, or with a born criminal or a latent thief; and though I object to this kind of argument, it would often prove to be more legitimate reasoning than theirs. Who among us is absolutely virtuous? How many actions which the law calls criminal have we committed, or might we commit, under the pressure of circumstances, without a shadow of remorse? But let us further examine this experiment.

Our subject then put the orange in his trousers’ pocket which stuck out very noticeably. This man might be a criminal, but he was not a dissembler. Looking him straight in the face I said: “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing, I have just done my errand.”

“You have stolen!”

“What nonsense!”

“What have you got in your pocket?”

“Nothing” (notice the absurdity of this reply).

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing!”

“What do you call that?”

“Why! it’s an orange! it’s a very fine orange! _Ma foi!_ I can’t imagine how it came there!”

M. Bernheim intervenes: “You took it from a fellow-patient, from a comrade! That was very wrong.”

“Yes, that’s so, but I wanted it. Look! did you ever see such a fine orange? I took a fancy to it and I determined to have it. Besides, _he hadn’t seen it_(!) It’s not stealing when it isn’t missed.”

Then I asked: “What is that you said?”

“Why, yes, it is not stealing to take what nobody misses,” answers he, with a scarce perceptible cunning and significant wink.

A few minutes later, after we had ceased noticing him, he came up to M. Frédéricq of his own accord laughingly told him that he was in the habit of abstracting tobacco from his companions on this same ground, that if they never missed it, it was not stealing. “It is all in fun, you know!”

I conclude therefore, that this subject had in him latent tendencies to theft, or if you prefer it, to pilfering. And dare any of us, honestly confess to himself that we have not, deep down in ourselves, the germs of any such vices? Who among the most upright of us, does not consider himself perfectly entitled to defraud the government, or to get the better of a Railway Company, or quietly to appropriate an object which he may casually find?

M. Liégeois will very likely say to me: “We will grant that this experiment has not fulfilled the desired requirements; the subject has not very high moral qualities, and he juggled a little. But here now, are some experiments absolutely unimpeachable.” Thereupon M. Liégeois relates the histories of Miss E..., of N..., of Mme. G..., and of Mme. C... Here are the facts as collated by him in the Gouffe trial.

_First narrative._ M. Liégeois believed that he had produced in Miss E... such absolute automatism, so complete an annihilation of moral sense and of all liberty of action, that he caused her, without moving a muscle, to place the muzzle of a revolver close to her mother and fire upon her. The youthful criminal appeared completely awake and far calmer than were the witnesses of this scene. (Take notice of this.) Her mother, immediately reproaching her and telling her that she might have killed her, Miss E... answers smiling, with a great deal of common sense: “I have not killed you, since you are speaking to me now.”—“Is any one likely to believe that this is merely pretence and acting,” adds M. Liégeois, “that a daughter will amuse herself by firing at her mother with a revolver, _which she does not know is not loaded_, simply to deceive the public?”

Well, shall I say it? The hypothesis of simulation, the simulation which is practised in the hypnotic state appears to me to be the only plausible explanation. The calm, smiling attitude of Miss E... is an unanswerable proof of this. I have no doubt that if in a dream she had seen herself firing at her mother, she would have suffered as in a terrible nightmare.

Lately, it was in the beginning of January, I dreamed I was present at a sale of paintings. Among others exposed for sale, there was a long picture, nineteen or twenty feet high and less than three feet wide, representing the assumption of some saint. Hardly had the auctioneer mentioned the price, 6,000 francs, than I made a sign of assent. It is knocked down to me. I start for home with my purchase, but on the way I am seized with remorse. Where shall I hang the religious picture? And even if I find a place for it on the staircase what will it look like in my house, with its old black frame and its extraordinary dimensions? And what a price to have paid, at such a moment when the house bills are pouring in! In the midst of these reflections, I woke up, my heart was beating tumultuously and during the remainder of the night I continued under the most disagreeable impressions. In spite of my knowing that I was awake and reasoning with myself, congratulating myself that it was nothing but a dream, the enormity of my absurd action weighed upon my mind and I kept continually dreading the reproaches of my family, when they should learn the stupid bargain I had made. How widely different is this mental distress from the placid, smiling condition of Miss E... and how naturally one is brought to suppose that during the hypnotic state the subject is not even under the sway of the ordinary illusions of dreamland.

M. Liégeois affirms that Miss E... _was not aware that the pistol was not loaded_. I do not believe it. Upon what grounds are we to infer that a somnambulist is an imbecile? You and I, and everybody would easily surmise that M. Liégeois’s revolver was not loaded! Then why should not Miss E... surmise the same? Is it not for the very reason that he handed it to her, to fire at her mother, that she would opine as much? Might she not have gathered this from the attitude of the spectators, full of expectancy unmixed by any apprehension? and might she not have wished to astonish them by her docility and _sang-froid_? All sorts of suppositions are both rational and possible. Besides all this, somnambulists who are absorbed in the work in hand, generally speaking, show a quicker and surer perspicuity; their sensibilities are finer, their quickness, their memory, overstep the ordinary limits as exhibited in their normal state. Do we not hear of scholars, who in the hypnotic sleep, learn their lessons in a very short time and write their essays admirably? I have recorded in the _Revue Philosophique_, August, 1886, some facts about a subject, upon whom I experimented before one of my classes.

“The experiment I am about to give an account of might serve very well as the explanation of many a miracle. B.[55] is in the hypnotic sleep. We wish to give him some peculiar order, which he shall execute, after he is awake, at a special signal. The signal is to be a knock given by me on the desk; the action, to carry a glass of water (a carafe of water and glass being on a chair) to the student Eucher. He does not know any of the fifteen students present, nor has he yet heard their names. The pupils take their places, without any special order, some standing, some sitting. B. is awakened. We chat a little. I give the signal. B. rises, fills a glass, and _without the slightest sign of hesitation_, carries it to the student mentioned before, who was sitting on one of the back benches, beside a fellow student. We looked at each other with stupefaction. The intention of the experiment had been, to see how he would obey an obscure command. There were in my audience, certain persons, with leanings toward belief in second-sight. This result seemed to overthrow all my convictions. I again throw him into the sleep, and I command him to carry a glass of water to the student Gérard; we are all standing, awaiting with impatient curiosity what will take place. B. fills the glass and this time sends a questioning look over all the spectators, presents the glass first to one, then to another, and finally I had to point out the student Gérard, to whom he brought the water and made him drink it. I again put him to sleep, and asked him to whom he carried the first glass of water. To M. Eucher—Did you know him? No—How did you recognise him?—By his attitude, he looked as if he wanted to hide away.”

And this is how the mystery was solved. We had unconsciously prepared the scene, and it was this preparation which betrayed us. But it is none the less a remarkable example of the perspicuity shown by somnambulists. This goes to prove that hypnosis, instead of dulling the understanding, sharpens it.

The second of M. Liégeois’s experiments appears to me quite as open to suspicion, and exactly for the same reasons.

“I offered N. a white powder, of the nature of which he is ignorant; I said to him: ‘Pay great attention to what I am about to tell you. This paper contains arsenic. You will go presently to such a street to your Aunt’s Mme. M. _who is here now_. You will take a glass of water, carefully dissolve the arsenic in it and then you will offer it to your Aunt.’ ‘Yes Sir’—That evening I received the following note from Mme. M.: ‘Mme. M. begs leave to inform M. Liégeois that the experiment succeeded perfectly. Her nephew offered her the poison.’ The criminal remembered nothing about it, and it was very difficult to persuade him that he had indeed wished to poison an Aunt for whom he had a deep affection. The automatism had been complete.”

I cannot help seeing here an erroneous line of reasoning. They conclude, from the absence of all remembrance, that the somnambulist is an automaton, and from this they go on to deduce that he swallows everything that is said to him. But, since he listens to the voice of his hypnotiser; since he knows that to accomplish the behest, he must do things that have not been expressly pointed out, though they are understood in the execution of the deed:—such as to get the water from a well or pump—why do they not allow that he is able also to reflect upon the nature of the deed which he is told to do? Why is it that N..., who is aware that he is being used in an experiment, cannot say to himself during his hypnotic state, that this is only an experiment, that the paper does not contain arsenic, that M. Liégeois never would really want him to poison his aunt, _his aunt who is present at the time, and who hears every word_?

I repeat again, a hypnotic subject is not an idiot—quite the reverse. All the precaution which M. Liégeois takes to render the experiments reliable and conclusive, turns against the proof desired. Can you imagine the poisoner, Dr. Castaing, saying to his servant before Hypolite Ballet, whom he intended to kill, “Here is some poisoned wine, you will presently give it to the sick man, whom you see over there in that bed.” If he had done this, he would not have been condemned to lose his head, but they would simply have shut him up in a lunatic asylum. And, as far as that goes, the servant might easily, without any suspicion being attached to the action, have given the poison to Hypolite Ballet, and the latter have drunk it.

But we have dallied long enough over these absurd suppositions. Let us pass on now to the third narrative:

M. Liégeois caused Mme. G... to fire at M. P..., an ex-magistrate. In order to show clearly that the revolver was loaded, M. Liégeois fired a shot in the garden and came in, showing a piece of card-board, through which the ball had passed. “With absolute unconsciousness and perfect docility Mme. G... advances to M. P... and fires. Being questioned on the spot by the Chief Magistrate (who was present at the _séance_) she avows the crime with entire indifference. She has killed M. P... _because he was not pleasing to her_(!) They can arrest her; she knows quite well what awaits her. If they take away her life, she will pass into the other world like her victim, whom she sees stretched out, and bathed in his own blood. They ask her whether it was not I who suggested to her the idea of the murder. She denies it, and says she did it spontaneously; that she alone is guilty; she is resigned to her fate, she will accept without complaint the consequences of her deed.”

The more I meditate to-day upon these experiments, the less they appear to me to prove what it is desired they should. This perfect tranquillity of Mme. G..., her generosity in not inculpating M. Liégeois; her resignation to the fate that awaits her, establish entirely the fact that she is present in mind and knowledge of events; and just because of this very attitude, that she possesses her full presence of mind. She never dreamed for an instant that she would really kill M. P.... She plays her part conscientiously, she faithfully recites a lesson which she has learned by heart and with which she intermingles side play of her own, childish tricks, as for instance, saying that _her victim had displeased her_. Let us recall to mind the patient who stole an orange, _because it was a fine one_. That Mme. G.... sees M. P.... bathed in his own blood, is more than doubtful. I can produce numberless proofs of facts that go to prove that fictitious somnambulists are not dupes of the illusions suggested to them; their calmness proves this. That it is possible to make them commit an action dangerous to themselves or to others, I am not prepared to deny. I will explain myself later upon this point. But from this state, to that of criminal participation, there is an incalculable distance.

That the somnambulist repeats a lesson that he has learned, is shown forth by M. Liégeois’s fourth narrative.

“Mme. C.... was to give some arsenic in a liquid to M. D.... who was thirsty. But M. D.... asked a question that I had not foreseen; he asked what was in the glass. With a frankness that precluded all idea of simulation Mme. C.... answered ‘Arsenic.’

“I was then obliged to amend my suggestion, and I said: ‘If you are asked what is in the glass, say it is sweetened water.’

“Mme. C.... answered the question the second time, ‘Sweetened water.’

“Very courageously M. D.... swallowed the supposed poison. Questioned by the Chief Magistrate Mme. C. remembers nothing; she had seen nothing, done nothing, given no drink to any one. She does not know what they are talking about.”

Again all this is proof to me, that Mme. C. feels that she is being told to perform an innocent action. It would have been interesting to have awakened her in the middle of the act, to see whether she would have remembered her thoughts, just at the moment when she was giving the drink to M. D.... I am not sure but that she would have answered like Miss E... that she had no doubt the poison was imaginary, and the scene prearranged.

We have seen M. D... ask an unforeseen question, which upset the carrying out of the crime. We have witnessed M. Bernheim’s patient steal an orange under the nose of its proprietor, who was looking at him. Admitting, therefore, that all had been foreseen, that M. Liégeois had warned Mme. C... of all the possible questions that might be put to her; that M. Bernheim had strongly recommended his subject to commit his theft secretly, and that every possible detail had been perfectly carried out—should we have even then a faithful transcript of a crime? Can we have the unerring certitude from these occurrences, that a subject in the hypnotic sleep, a bona fide somnambulist will allow himself to be used as an accomplice by a veritable criminal?

* * * * *

In the preceding paragraphs, I carefully analysed the slightest details invalidating experiments, in which the hypnotic subject acts the part of a criminal, in a fictitious crime. I was able to show, that in all these tests, there had been certain suspicious traits suggesting doubt as to the complete illusion of the actor therein, and I finally added: Supposing that everything had worked smoothly, i. e. that everything had been foreseen and that the subject had not been tripped up anywhere, are we authorised in maintaining that a subject thus far unimpeachable as regards a fictitious crime, would accomplish this same deed in reality? I answer, No.

In order to justify this denial, it will be necessary for us to enter into the Psychology of Hypnosis.

A person in the hypnotic sleep, as well as in the natural sleep, is not so absolutely withdrawn from the real world about him as is generally supposed. The hypnotic subject even less so, than the sleeper, for the former remains in intelligent communication with his magnetiser. If the latter tells him to take a book from a table upon which is an inkstand, some boxes, a statuette, he will pick up the book and not any of the other objects. If he is enjoined to walk straight before him in a room encumbered with chairs he will manage to avoid them, and even if the illusion is pushed further he may knock up against them, but the action will be done quite cautiously. And this is why, in public séances, he never hurts himself, in spite of the wildness and apparent excitement of his movements. This is also the reason, that in experiments intended to demonstrate this absolute automatism, the preparation for the proposed crime, the attitude of the spectators, while the subject is carrying out his part, the integrity of the person who is suggesting the action, the calmness of the intended victim; all these things, render the suggestion less illusive than even an ordinary dream would be.

M. Liégeois asks this question at the conclusion of his first narrative: “Where is the spectator, who could believe that this scene was only a melodrama with clever acting; and that a daughter for her amusement, and solely to deceive an audience, would fire an unloaded revolver at her mother?” To this I answer: And why should she not play her part in this melodrama, when she sees M. Liégeois devise it, her mother lend her co-operation, and the audience watch it with curiosity and interest?

Here again we find the same fallacy in the argument: Because a subject does not reveal what is going on within himself, and only puts into visible speech what is suggested to him, it is taken for granted that he is going through a mental process identical with that of his magnetiser. But allow me to ask in my turn: Will it be easily credited, that a daughter, would, deliberately and without a trace of feeling, shoot at her mother, unless, she fully believed the action would have no serious consequences, and that the person who had suggested this impious deed, was only requiring her to act a part?

Hypnotic subjects do not take long to realise that they are being used as tests in experiments. Some are always gracious in responding to them, many end by refusing to lend themselves to be used in such fashion, especially in public séances. All these details go far to prove that in hypnosis, the subjects retain, at least a partial independence.

If a sleeper, who dreamed he was murdering his mother, should behold her terrified, beseeching, invoking the pity of her son, calling for help to the horrified spectators, he would feel that he was induced to commit this deed by some sort of motive, which, absurd or unlikely though it might be, would still be the controlling power; in a word, the dream would be in reality a kind of incoherent and unreal drama, though composed of very real elements, in which horror would play a very present part. But if he should see his ostensible victim smiling and conversing with him amidst a company animated only by a sentiment of curiosity, he might well suspect, even in his sleep, that what he sees and what he is doing, is a pure delusion. And this is exactly what he would say to himself, should it come into his head to fire upon a _magistrate_, and for the reason _that his looks displeased him_.

These prearranged scenes fail in verisimilitude and no more deceive the actors in them, than they do the spectators or the author.

To this you may object: But, if the pistol had been loaded, Miss E. would have shot her mother! This rests upon the supposition that the mother and the spectators, still believed it to be unloaded, otherwise, their terror alone, would have been quite sufficient to call back the subject to the reality. And even with this assumption, this murder-test would have borne a greater resemblance to a simple homicide from imprudence. By this I mean to say, that so far as the spectators, the victim, and the assassin were concerned, the act would not have been changed in its character, simply because the magnetiser, had by mistake, given a loaded instead of an unloaded pistol to the subject. I need hardly remark that a real crime would never be perpetrated in this manner.

Thoroughly convinced though I was, of the impossibility of making experiments that would entirely fathom this question, circumstances nevertheless, allowed me once more to make a test which is well adapted to show that it is not as easy as some may think, to transform an hypnotic subject into a murderous automaton.

J... is that excellent somnambulist to whom my experiments have given a certain notoriety. It is she together with her sister, whom I made use of in my studies on “Memory in Hypnosis,” on “Imitation,” and “Hypnotic Consciousness.” She it is, who three several times allowed herself to be experimented upon by blistering on corresponding parts of the body; and notably in one case where in accordance with suggestion no inflammation took place.[56] She is tall, robust, intelligent, industrious, healthy. She is now married and has had a child. The _accouchement_ took place in the hypnotic sleep. The case being in the hands of M. Fraipont, Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Liège; and never was the power of hypnotism more remarkably exhibited.[57] In the case of this patient there remained no trace of remembrance whatever, after awakening.

I have gone into these details merely to show the reader that no better subject could have been found for my purpose. I have in another place (see _Revue Philosophique_, article on “Hypnotic Consciousness”) pointed out certain traits in her case, which at my _début_, were strongly calculated to make me a believer in the absolute servility of the hypnotic subject; traits which I shall subsequently recall to your attention and comment upon.

To judge more fairly of the value of the experiment, I must further state, that J. is both resolute and courageous. During several summers she remained in the country in the environs of Seraing in attendance upon my wife who was in ill-health, and in whose room she slept. After the summer vacation it often happened that she spent the whole night alone with her. At the head of the bed hung a six-barrelled revolver, loaded; a precaution that we had taken on account of the well-known strikes which took place in 1886, amongst the workmen of the numerous factories in our neighborhood.

In the summer of 1887 I happened to be absent. A man came one night, prowling round the garden and fumbling at the lock of the door, which he even tried to force. The barking of the dogs wakened J., she opened the window, perceived the man, took the revolver and went down into the hall watching for the moment in which to fire at the nocturnal visitor. The man hearing the noise slipped away with celerity. And the same year that this occurrence took place, J. slept on the first floor with her loaded revolver hanging on a nail beside her bed.

The 24th Feb. 1888, without communicating my intentions to anybody except to my daughter, and that only at the very moment of beginning the experiment, I discharged the revolver. It was six o’clock in the evening. A young lady, (herself an hypnotic subject,) and my daughter, were seated at a table, cutting out articles from a newspaper, which they afterwards tied up in bundles. I called J. and at the moment she opened the door, I hypnotised her by a motion. I said to her in an agitated tone—“Here are some thieves, who are carrying off papers.”—J. came quickly forward and turning towards me said: “No sir, they are playing with them—Why sure enough they are taking them.” Then she walked resolutely up to them and tore the papers out of their hands, put them on the table in front of her and in an imperious tone said: “Don’t you touch them any more.”

I—“You are never going to let those knaves remain in the house—run and fetch the revolver” (it was in the adjoining room). J. ran without hesitation. She returned holding the weapon in her hand and stood on the threshold. “Fire,” cried I.

“Sir, we must not kill them.”

“Thieves? Why certainly!”

“No sir! I will not kill them.”

“You must.”

“I won’t do it.” And she walked backwards still holding the revolver, I following her and energetically reiterating my command. “I won’t. I won’t do it. I will not murder.” She then placed the revolver on the floor but _cautiously_. She continued to go backwards, I, meanwhile insisting and following her. “I will not do it.”—Having come to a dead stand in the corner of the room, she repulsed me violently and I thought it prudent to awaken her, upon which she came to herself smiling in her usual pleasant manner. She remembered, however, nothing whatever, although at the sight of the revolver lying on the floor, she seemed to have a kind of vague recollection. She did not seem at all discomposed in manner. If this scene had taken place in a dream, she would certainly have exhibited more excitement.

This is what we may term conclusive evidence, that is to say if ever negative evidence can be called so. Let us comment now upon these facts.

It will be noticed that J. is not the dupe of the hallucination to which she has been subjected. She does not take either of the young ladies for thieves, nor the newspapers for valuable papers. Her first answer is very significant—“No sir, they are playing with them.” Besides which her expression, her attitude, the manner in which she looked at the two reputed thieves, and tore the newspapers out of their hands, had something so keenly observant, so prepared, so theatrical, that both my witnesses and myself could not possibly believe her actions ingenuous. I have often questioned her about the illusions that I suggested to her. I asked her for example, if, when I appeared to her under another aspect, for instance under the appearance of a young man, with clustering locks and a black beard, she ever perceived anything of my real resemblance. She invariably answered, that she saw my actual person, as it were in a cloud, behind the figure which I had called up before her mental vision. It is very probable that she recognised my daughter and her friend in the persons whom I pointed out as the robbers. I might have assured myself of this by causing her to recall her thoughts at the time. I am aware that the opponents of this opinion challenge, and not unreasonably, tests made in this manner because they have doubts about the suggestion.

If then the facts were such as are related, J. was playing a rôle not perhaps strictly in accordance with the rules of ordinary acting, knowing that she was reciting a part, but feeling nevertheless that she had a certain part to play and must enter into the spirit of it.

It is incontrovertible that the hypnotic subject really does play his

## part in precisely this fashion. When, for example, you extend his arm and

defy him to put it down he seems to make an effort to lower it, but in reality he does not bring the required muscles into play at all. If you bid him keep his hand open, he never dreams of using the flexor muscles. Again, if the spectators try to change the position of either hand or arm, they meet with energetic resistance.

You will ask me how it was that J. did not carry out her acting all through? Why, after she had gone for the revolver with such deliberation, she did not fire it? It was because, the action being so rapid in its development, she had no time for reflection; she must have thought and she actually did believe, that the revolver was loaded as it always was. This is proved by the precaution with which she handled it and put it on the floor. It is evident that she thought it was a dangerous game. If I had known how the affair would terminate, I would have taken the pistol and told her that I would fire myself, in order to see what her thought and action would have been. But notwithstanding all this, supposing she had fired could we have concluded from this, that she really had latent murderous tendencies? We could not have drawn any legitimate conclusions even yet. For if, as we have just stated, J. was not entirely withdrawn from her actual surroundings, she might naturally suppose that I was only joking, and that I should never make her fire on my own child, and on this account she need not feel any anxiety in fulfilling the order that I had given her.

The problem is a serious one. It is also a psychological problem. I have already partially disclosed the solution which I myself am led to give to it, and I can best translate my thoughts by these words and in the following formula: Persons in hypnosis will only execute acts similar to those they would naturally perform in dreams. I have asked a number of persons, among others, those connected with the law, whether they had ever dreamt they committed murders or robberies, and up to the present time all have answered in the negative. And yet, lawyers interrogate criminals, and it would be quite within the realm of possibility through one of those duplications of personality which I pointed out in my work on “Sleep and Dreams,”[58] that they should take up for an instant the rôle of an assassin. This is not an impossible supposition. Does it ever happen that the novelist or the actor, in portraying or impersonating an infamous character, the creation of his imagination, does so identify himself for the nonce, with his own invention, that even in sleep, for a brief space, he incorporates himself, so to speak, into the fictitious personage he has evoked. There are some very curious investigations to make on this subject. But even if any positive facts could be gathered from this, we should still be left in doubt, as to whether by post-hypnotic suggestion the subject would continue to carry out the same rôle.

Doubtless, an anatomist may dream that he is dissecting a body, but could we produce an hypnotic condition such as to make him use the knife as freely upon a living body? Can I make a butcher believe that a child is a sheep? I consider the thing to be perfectly feasible, yet my thesis is not at all weakened by this concession. We will take it for granted that, animated by evil designs you proceed to hypnotise beforehand, the anatomist and the butcher, and then bring them at a given moment to the victim! And let us further imagine that the combination succeeds perfectly. How will you manage to veil in deepest secrecy all your previous manœuvres and cast a semblance of likelihood over the culpability of your accomplices?

Will not the old adage, _Cui bono_, be quoted against you? In order to insure perfect impunity, you would have to overcome such an accumulation of material _impedimenta_, the lightest of which would suffice to dissipate all apprehensions in the minds of those in whom chimerical fears have not entirely obliterated their common sense. It is therefore evident that in so far as we know now, from experiments intended to test this theory and these possibilities of Criminal Suggestion, no positive results can be obtained. These criminal actions, so appositely named—Laboratory Crimes—bear no resemblance to actual ones.

If this debate is ever to be closed it can only be before a Criminal Court when a Troppman, a Pranzini, or an Eyraud, shall have been the operator, and it shall have been clearly shown, what interest the assassin had in making use of a so-called, unconscious and automatic accomplice. Then only, shall we be able to appreciate to what degree hypnotism may become a dangerous enemy to society at large. And even then, we shall have to remind ourselves that all our medicines are poisons and that they have the power of destroying even more surely, than that of healing.

Thus the problem is still unsolved.

Here is a story told me by Dr. Liébeault. He, or perhaps it was M. Bernheim, or both together, hypnotised a workman and told him to steal a couple of little plaster figures, that were used as ornaments on the mantel-piece in a house where he was working. He did so. The affair had been forgotten for some time because the suggestion had not been carried out on the spot. About three months after the occurrence, this same workman was arrested for stealing a pair of trousers from the front of a shop. Upon which the previous hypnotic suggestion was remembered.

My opinion is that the workman—and how many there are of the same calibre—had a very slight regard for _meum and tuum_. This reminds us of that hospital patient, whom we saw pilfering the tobacco from his comrades, and I do not think it was at all necessary to have thrown the workman into the hypnotic sleep in order to make him steal the statuettes. But from another point of view, this experiment, which did not prove anything, might give rise to party arguments from those who deem it desirable to maintain that it was the initiatory suggestion that first gave this man the taste for stealing.

To sum up in a few words this portion of my investigation; the result of my experiments and of my analyses is this: that the experiments of my opponents prove nothing.

For the present I shall confine myself to this purely negative conclusion.

But there are other grounds besides experiments on which we may examine this question. We can do so by careful observation and minute analysis of the actions of hypnotised persons.

I have said before that the degree of morality observable in the dreams of the subject, gives the measure of what may be expected from him during hypnosis.

According to my opinion, hypnotism is less powerful in inciting to

## actions of grave moral import, than the corrupting influence of word or

example, the love of gold, or the excitement of the passions.

All truly scientific experiments have brought into prominence the analogy between physiological and incited dreams, and to-day we may say that this is the doctrine of the future. Thus if an hypnotic subject admits without opposition that he is made of sugar, or of glass, that he feels he is melting in the rain, or being broken to atoms by the awkwardness of the bystanders; if he thinks he is a lamp, or allows himself to be trundled along like a wheelbarrow; if such a subject, I repeat, refuses to steal a purse, or to receive an embrace, the conclusion forces itself upon one that the hypnotic subject has more power over himself than some persons would wish us to believe; in spite of his docility, there are some things he absolutely refuses to do.

If then, reasoning by analogy has ever been legitimate, it is surely so in this case, when the inference can be drawn that the man who refuses to give a blow will refuse to use a knife; and that the woman who refuses to give a token of affection will certainly refuse to allow of serious tampering with morals.

Let us then pay close attention to what observation may teach us.

I shall hope to be able to demonstrate by actual facts, that persons in an hypnotic condition, preserve at least a sufficient portion of their intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to prevent them from committing deeds that neither their conscience nor their habits approve of.

J. DELBŒUF.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] A lad of about 15, very bright. Has been one of Donato’s subjects. Very susceptible and having been hypnotised in a great many public séances.

[56] See my pamphlet on _The Origin of Curative Effects in Hypnotism_.

[57] See _Revue de L’Hypnotisme_. April, 1891.

[58] _Sleep and Dreams_, p. 24 et seqq. (Paris: Félix Alcan).

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE