CHAPTER II

LATER VIEWS

(_a_) LEIBNITZ

To minds of a certain type works such as those of Gassendi are irritating. They continually arouse the question ‘Is this philosophy?’ and cause a vague unrest which it is difficult to assign to any one feature or characteristic. It is in fact due to the way in which Gassendi and men of his class stop short of the goal for which they seem bound, stop short of the unity which is demanded by our aesthetic nature. Their reason for so doing is a conscientious recognition that they have not succeeded in making their universe truly a One. No unity of the type required was possible until the objective sphere of experience was united to the subjective by such recognition of unity as Kant was able to reach. The influence of Kant will be considered when we come to Lotze: the point is introduced here because we have in Leibnitz, as compared with Gassendi, a most significant point of difference, the logical element.

Gassendi follows the tradition of his school. His logic is a book of canons. We feel that when it is closed its power is at an end. In Leibnitz, on the contrary, the logical principles are the essence of a logical aspect of all things, and analysis and synthesis as applied to things are so intimately related to the forms of judgment that it would seem as though we might say of the world of Leibnitz that it is a translation of logic into ontology.

There is still some doubt apparent in the literature of philosophy as to whether Leibnitz is to be called an idealist or a realist. This is due probably to the way in which the suppressed logic of Leibnitz gives his realism an idealistic character. What Leibnitz actually does is to talk of a world of real objects whose whole existence depends upon their being given, as though that fact of being given were not in itself as important a characteristic of things as any other. Leibnitz is therefore clear on the point that there are realities and on the individual worth of each separate reality; but in so far as he inadequately recognises the point of contact between self and not-self, he naturally fails to give sufficient consideration to its significance. The origin of this error on the part of Leibnitz is to be found in the fact that he comes to his world of objects with a conceptual attitude—a desire to analyse, and consequently a tendency to say what a thing is without asking _how_ it is.

At this point the reader will perhaps pause, recalling the words of Lotze: ‘_What_ things are is thus not incomprehensible to us, for that which is in them they exhibit in their outer manifestation; _how_ they can exist and can manifest themselves anyhow is the universal enigma.’ It would seem then that we ask too much in demanding from Leibnitz more information as to _how_ the thing becomes. But it is not because Leibnitz gives us no answer that we complain; it is because his answer is given from a prejudicial standpoint. Spinoza had dissipated the individual: his assertion ‘omnis determinatio est negatio’ left the logical activities of the mind with no focus and deprived conception of its material. Leibnitz, as compared with Spinoza, seems to restore to us our real world. It may not be very hard, or very solid, or very matter of fact—it may indeed be ‘idealistic’ in a sense—but it is at any rate pluralistic and active. Where then is the ground for complaint?

In his treatment of the doctrine of induction Leibnitz shows that he wholly underrated the philosophic value of the moment of perception. The consequence of this is that he is capable of treating as a subjective construction what he has never shown to be subjective in its nature: he invades the whole region of the not-self with an army of notions whose success depends entirely on accurate information as to the character of the opposing realities. In spite of the appearance of remaining within the legitimate sphere of analysis, and evolving in the closed cell of the monad a mental panorama of reflected Being, Leibnitz really does no such thing; he goes forth into the world of syntheses, and absorbs the advantages of experience without acknowledgment or appreciation.

If it is ever possible to keep two parallel lines of Reality and unite them in a pre-established harmony, it must at least be done with the clear recognition that all the predicates of reality are only predicates of experiences, that the experiences may be real, but the reality may, none the less, remain aloof, a thing-in-itself. This would only be possible after an analytic of experience: it is _not_ possible if the basis of the position is no more than analytic forms of judgment, because the judgment and the mental machinery employed in it all presuppose a given.

To justify Leibnitz in treating the world of physics as he did we require from him some analysis of the given. We assert that he did not furnish this, that in place of analysing the given he treated it as knowable deductively, as an existence to which we can dictate what it must be. He thus gets beyond Gassendi very rapidly, but not very securely. The preponderance given to logic promises us a more penetrative insight into experience as a subjective construction based upon real activities: we hope for just that element which was lacking in Gassendi, a deeper comprehension of the extent to which the understanding makes nature; but in this we are disappointed, for the logical standpoint gives us nothing but categories that we vainly and uncritically re-apply to a world of objects already manufactured and passed without question.

Further attention must be given to this point, because it is the centre of our discussion of the relations between Gassendi and Leibnitz. This can be shown if we return to those categories of experience which are implicit in Gassendi’s work.

The category of substance (_v._ p. 264) is used by Gassendi as a form for the classification of what are commonly called ‘things’; it includes also those objects to which experience testifies that they are ‘outer.’ Gassendi goes so far as to ignore anything that falls beyond the focus of experience: that which the thing does is the actuality of it, and therefore the same as that which the thing is. But it does not follow that my limitations are limitations of the given: the more a writer insists that the being of a thing is the same as its doing, the more strictly is he compelled to admit that the existence of all things is a matter of relations, and in a relation only those capacities can be developed for which _both_ the terms are qualified.

In this connexion it is necessary to remember that the post-Kantian philosopher usually works on a method the inverse of that which the pre-Kantian naturally took. _Now_ it would be natural to regard the whole _X_ as the given from which _A_ and _B_ might be analytically eliminated. _Then_ it was more natural to start with _A_ and _B_ and regard _X_ as the resultant of their relations. The consequence is that the philosopher is compelled to work with terms never completely defined. Spinoza provides for this incomplete exhaustion of the relatum in the case of God: the infinite with infinite possibilities stands over against the other term of the relation as something transcendent and overlapping. If we have in place of a monism a pluralism of reals, every real entity must have these same characteristics so long as it is presupposed as a possibility of relations and not merely regarded as the explicit recognition of what out of the relation is nothing.

Atomism is, on the face of it, a theory of real ultimates capable of relation and composition. As objects they have no right to such qualities as are regarded as peculiarly subjective. It will therefore not be possible to assert that the atoms as such have any power of appreciating the relations in which they stand: their ‘elective affinities’ must be inner states, but not perceptions. Gassendi often speaks as though the analogy between attraction in the magnet and the animal was a ground for speculation: he does not use it as a proof that perception has rudimentary forms below the level of animal life. In converting the atom into the monad Leibnitz commits himself to a position he cannot defend, for he asserts that powers or qualities found in aggregates are also found in simple bodies, and thereby destroys at a blow the value of organisation as the ground of functions.

The notion of ‘organism’ is used by Leibnitz in a purely occasionalistic manner. He is obviously prepared to recognise degrees of organisation as connected in some manner with degrees of functioning power, and graduates his scale of real things in the form of a scale of substances in which new and higher powers are correlated with complexity of structure. But the fact of being organised was never given by Leibnitz due importance and rank among the perceptual facts which make up the world of physics. The reason for this is to be found in the work of Leibnitz as a whole.

Criticism of Leibnitz seems at present to be in vogue. A glance at contemporary literature will show us science and philosophy are both in arms against him. It will be sufficient if we note here a few salient points.

We have already noted that the atomism of Leibnitz differs from that of Gassendi in so far as the former suffuses his whole doctrine with a logical tone and colours it with rationalism. The result is that facts are ignored in the interests of forms of thought. Hence (1) the law of continuity combined with the notion of substance enables Leibnitz to pass from perceived perceptions out to unperceived perceptions, without recognising that thought can thus overrun its material in _any_ direction and must curb its tendencies within the limits of the given. (2) The monad is an atom qualified by irrelevant adjectives. The logical process which begins in stripping off predicates from a subject leaves the subject bare: it does not follow that there can be in nature a substance stripped of qualities. The monad which we are thus wrongly led to think of as simple, appears on reflection to require to be complex. We are always tempted to think that our ultimate element must be capable of entering into all relations, and therefore be itself simple and indeterminate. On the contrary, the possibility of relations is, from the point of view of the thing, not a negative but a positive quality, and that which can enter into all relations, like a man capable of occupying any post, must be ‘highly qualified.’ The intensive quality of the monad may have appeared to Leibnitz to anticipate this difficulty. It is however difficult to conceive how inner or outer qualities are of use to beings whose actuality is not affected though all relations are destroyed.

The last word on Leibnitz must be a recognition of his genius with a confession of his failure. If he could have reduced his thought to a system it would have been chastened to its advantage. As it is, different lines of thought perpetually open up, and no one of them is fully worked out. For this reason we find flaws and chasms in the structure: matter is one thing physically (prima materia) and another thing psychically: continuity of kind as in the derivation of consciousness from petites perceptions is linked with discontinuity of being in the real world: subjective idealism is perpetually breached by that going-beyond-itself which is the one thing their rationalistic author has denied the monads.

But if the whole fails to exhibit cohesion it has never lacked inspiration and the power to inspire. This I attribute to one quality which it exhibits,—the grasp of unity as required for the being and the understanding of a world. This unity Leibnitz does not attain: his pluralism produces want of unity both in the world as an objective existent and in our thoughts as a reconstruction of it; but he never loses sight of it as a guiding principle, and is only prevented from working it out by the notions of substance and of concepts by which he was incessantly hampered.

As the thought of a unity is the thought of a whole which implicitly contains many parts capable of being themselves brought into prominence, so the thought of the world as a unity has an implicit content whose nature is irrelevant so far as the unity is concerned. There has for so long been a rooted tendency to confine unity to material unity that it may not be out of place to elaborate this point.

The unity of the individual is not affected by the diverse nature of its parts. The possibility of self-unification may be grounded in one or more characteristics. It may be asserted that I could not be a unity unless I had a nervous organism so developed as to have one supreme centre. To this the reply is that the genesis of a unitary being may thus lie in a condition which must first be fulfilled, but the unity, when there is unity, includes its plurality without reference to anything but the possibility of co-operation. A human organism is a unity whose parts are different: not only is a heart not a liver, but one corpuscle is not another: yet the reality of the unity cannot be denied. The fact is that when we speak of a unity we must hold it over against a plurality, and all we require of the parts of a unity is that they should not be capable of collapsing one into another: they must retain what we require of them, namely the power to fill out the whole to which we refer the unity.

Thus ultimate identity of nature, if it meant identity of being, would ruin both concepts, of unity and of plurality: if it does not mean identity of being it means nothing, for two ‘identical’ natures must always differ by one simple quality, that of not being each other.

Many of these points Leibnitz adumbrates. He seems, however, never to have grasped the relation of conceptual unification to the unity of the perceptually given world. In a word, the idea of unity ran away with him in the form of continuity or persistence of identical natures: a reference to experience as perceptual knowledge of the world around us would have shown that unity is not translatable through substance into being (giving an ultimate One in kind), but only through co-operation into cohesion. It is useless to assert that unity of nature is presupposed in unity of action: that heart and liver are not different but only distinct, being really qualified to belong to the unity by virtue of unity of nature. This is pure inversion: it is from the effects that we must judge the nature: kinds are only subdivisions of the unity which is not material but formal, which embraces all kinds in the unity of co-operation constituting the organism of nature.

(_b_) LOTZE

The philosophy of Leibnitz appears both disjointed and distorted. Lotze gives us a far more systematic view of things, and the advance he makes is considerable.

Among the advantages which he enjoyed over his predecessors, that of inheriting the results of Kant’s labours must necessarily be ranked high. With Kant the opposing tendencies of rationalism and sensationalism were to some extent reconciled: the perceptual order regained the importance rationalism had striven to take from it, and the conceptual order lost none of its significance as organisation of our inner conscious life. Kant gave to his followers two main points: primarily, the necessity for a point of contact between the knower and that which was destined to be known: secondarily, the necessity of recognising that the origin of the object is to be looked for in a relation. This second point implies that henceforth the term ‘object’ must be taken in a new sense: it can no longer denote that which is given for consciousness, but only that which is given in consciousness as being outer.

This view of the object is however not satisfactory if we confuse the idea of a reality capable of relations with the idea of qualities as potential or germinal relations. So far as concerns the distinction of substantia phenomenon from its ground, Kant seems to have allowed this confusion to arise. He clearly thinks of our conscious life as a vessel filled from the greater vessel of the Universe: our limitations are the reason why there is a surplus of being over and above the known. The distinction of Being (Beënt) from Existent does not save the situation: for Being cannot be thought of as relationless being, and is therefore either merely undiscovered existence or pure nothing.

It would not be necessary to labour this point if it were not that our thought naturally inclines to regard development as an unfolding of a unitary existence. Whether the thinker regards development as ultimately timeless, or believes that all development is in a real time, he rarely if ever gets to the idea that continuity of development is not the same as unity of being. It is however not less a ‘rational’ dogma to assert that the seed is the plant than to assert that all development is timeless, more geometrico. The crux in either case is the regress to the Whole. But in the case of the plant our statement does not really concern the whole plant but the whole life-history of the plant, and obviously omits for its own purposes the continuous natural synthesis involved in the real development expressed in the perceptual order. But if we cannot fix the plant as a Whole, on account of its _length_, so to speak, in respect of time, we feel we can fix the Universe as a Whole because it is always itself. To properly combat this view requires more digression than is here justifiable. I merely state that there is primarily the notorious difficulty of saying the Universe is at all (of course if it is a _Universe_ we beg the question of its unity by naming it thus), and secondly, that our right to omit the element of real time is very dubious. If we do not omit it, we come to the other view, that all things are a co-existent unity which maintains itself by perpetual re-adjustment of its parts, and moves on from state to state through time. It would be easy at this point to say progresses rather than moves, but there is no need to beg the question as to whether the movement is for better or for worse.

Kant’s analysis of the object, then, we regard as faulty in so far as it implies that ‘we only know phenomena.’ We consider that the phrase appearance of the real should be abolished, and our world should be called not an appearance of reality but the real as it appears. None the less the work of Kant leaves its abiding effect in the impossibility of going back to naïve realism; and not acknowledging that the percipient mind is a real factor in the process of appearing, is in fact the complementary element which allows the real to express itself in the terms of knowledge.

Lotze’s philosophy interests us in many ways: the form and matter of the _Mikrokosmus_ in particular challenge comparison with the _Syntagma_ of Gassendi. We now desire to see especially how the details are handled in the light of the progress made between the days of Gassendi and Lotze. For in a sense Lotze returns to the standpoint of Gassendi: he eliminates in many ways the rationalistic elements which Leibnitz had introduced, and his line of thought can in the main be regarded as continuing that of Gassendi. Leibnitz had tried to ‘unite Democritus and Spinoza’: subsequent workers had to eliminate the Spinozistic element, and thus free from its encumbrances the Democritian line of development.

The atoms of Democritus were meant to be physical points. The elaboration of the idea of ‘points’ into a theory of physical, metaphysical, and mathematical points was retrograde. The mathematical points are not points in any relevant sense, and the metaphysical points are physical points interpreted through the concept of mathematical points. The idea that they must be indivisible for thought is irrelevant, because they are perceptual entities. We may think of any unit as twice its own half, but it does not follow that the perceptual datum can be given as a plurality: if, on the contrary, it is never so given we are right in declaring it to be indivisible, _i.e._ a real unit.

Granted that the atom is a real unit, the question arises, How are we to interpret this reality? Our reality as a whole will naturally be regarded as the sum of its parts, allowing that it is not a mere aggregation but rather an organic totality. Consequently we shall expect the characteristics predicated of the totality to be predicated of the parts. Now Lotze’s idea of the totality is coloured with the notion that our aesthetic demands are a reality, and the necessity of regarding the Universe as a whole is not to be divided from the necessity of regarding it as a whole of a certain kind. He therefore finally concludes that the atom is unextended, because this hypothesis alone enables us to regard it as animated throughout.[127] This however, besides being highly conjectural, seems also unnecessary. We have already been told that atoms do not require to be homogeneous, but may enter into composition equally well if they are heterogeneous.[128] From this it has been correctly deduced that unity does not imply identity in the elements: unity is the form in which we interpret the cohesion of heterogeneous elements through elective affinity in any single apparent whole. It is therefore clearly possible that different natures may so combine that the resultant has a nature which belongs to none of its parts. The emergence of this new functional value is dependent on the recognition of something more than mechanical relations. The something more which is thus required is provided by substituting chemical for mechanical laws.

The influence of chemistry upon constructive thought is extremely important for this one reason, that it forces into recognition the fact that, regarded as we must regard it from the point of view of its _doing_, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Man is thus no more to be regarded as a machine. Lotze rightly recognises that vitality is grounded in a synthesis of co-operating elements: it is not a separate entity to be imported into a mechanical organism at birth and exported at death. It is out of this aspect of functional activity as dependent on organisation that Lotze gets the right to some of his most pregnant assertions, such _e.g._ as the assertion that the soul _is_ where it _acts_. He formulates it most definitely when he opposes the idea that Life is something permanent, ‘a higher force’ controlling the changes of the body. On the contrary, he says, life and death are not opposed realities: ‘for why should we not from this phenomenon (_i.e._ of corruption) rather draw the other conclusion, that the activity of life can last only so long as the chemical composition of the body yields the necessary conditions and that the corruption of death is nothing else than a disturbance of that composition which has now become visible, but by which perhaps long since, though less obviously, the conditions of life have been affected?’[129]

The phraseology of this passage clearly indicates that we are to regard the ‘composition’ as the ‘condition of life.’ On another page[130] Lotze states this more definitely. He speaks of life as maintaining itself through ‘motive shocks,’ which are ‘yielded by the processes of constant forming and reforming’: it is like burning coal, developed ‘not through what it was or through what it is to be, but through the motion of the transition itself.’ There is therefore no longer any room for a ‘vital force’: ‘in the living body every chemical change that takes place sets to work forces not before in existence and brings others to a pause; thus at each moment there is laid for subsequent development a new foundation, such as gives occasion sometimes for a continuance of prior states, sometimes for an evolution into new ones, sometimes by a combination of both, for expansion into a far fuller manifestation of character and activity.’[131]

These passages show clearly the view taken of life. We may now enquire into its degrees and their relation. In the inorganic sphere we have no development and no power of self-maintenance.[132] Plant and animal life are of one kind in this respect: they exhibit reactions which may be described as expressions of their natural conation toward self-preservation. But animal life is distinguished by sentiency and human life by the presence of mental powers. We might then expect a scale of the form _a_, _a_ + _b_, _a_ + _b_ + _c_; but what we are actually given is a scale of the form _a_, _x_(= _a_ + _b_), _y_(= _x_ + _c_). This form of the scale implies that each stage is more than the lower stage plus a quantitative addition: it is emphatically a _new_ stage.

Lotze denies that we can construct the scale upward: we cannot start from the lower form and deduce the higher form from a consideration of the possible combination of elements. On the contrary, mental life forms a new datum: our culture ‘shows the interval between the two spheres of existence [animal and human] to be so vast that apparently the addition of a wholly new germ of development is absolutely necessary to explain the superiority of human culture.’[133] Mind is thus set over against soul, but ‘we cannot return to the naïveté of conception that sees in psychic life and mind two different and separate entities.’[133] We must not think of body, soul, and mind as three entities of independent value: our only reason for distinguishing one from the other in the highest unity, that of man, is the fact that they are given separately in the universe, that animals have sentience without mind, and plants have living bodies without either.[134] A real connexion for these must therefore be found, ‘for, in whatever reason may consist, it is clear that the soul cannot receive the gift of a new faculty, unless it be so grounded in its constitution that it either must of necessity be evolved from it, or else might be evolved should favourable conditions supervene.’[135]

The ‘new faculty’ is not a new entity. A psychic substance Lotze rejects: such a phrase implies the reification of what is only given as a group of unique reactions, a living content that ‘by its own specific nature directly acquires the capacity to act and be acted on,’ and so masquerades as a substance for ‘the unwary thinker.’ But the idea of a group of reactions has its dangers also. We may be led to ignore the agent itself, whereas ‘we cannot make _mind_ equivalent to the infinitive _to think_, but feel that it must be _that which thinks_; the essence of things cannot be either existence or activity; it must be that which exists and that which acts.’[136]

This doctrine of mind shows clearly the three phases of Lotze’s philosophic thinking, namely the occasionalistic, the idealistic, and the realistic. It will be necessary to make a few remarks on these separately.

(1) Crude occasionalism is self-condemned by its abstractness. Over against a world in itself purely material stands the purely psychical: their unity of action is a parallelism of simultaneous action: the ground of the coincidences is in a third nature. This line of thought may be regarded as wholly antiquated, and its many faults require no resurrection. Among others, it overlooked the fact that a given simultaneity of action is normally a proof of reciprocity unless we have some a priori reasons for assuming reciprocity impossible. In that case we modify our view in the direction of a pre-established harmony. This gives us a certain degree of concreteness in so far as we reduce our sphere of enquiry to the actually given agents: ultimate questions however bring us to a third factor, the creative activity in whose Will we ground all unity of action. But here still the whole necessity of an explanation lies in the presuppositions with which we approach our subject; and this presupposition is, in these cases, the belief that substances are in themselves opposed to relations.

The occasionalism which Lotze offers us is still further modified by continuing the process which makes the view concrete. To do this it is necessary to merge the abstractions into a more and more comprehensive unity. The differences in the given must first of all be modified so that we no longer oppose one kind of being to another: then the unifying agency must be vested in the totality thus formed, so that we are able to account for all relatedness or reciprocity of action as possible when the totality admits of it, and impossible when it does not so admit of it.

I consider that Lotze makes a great advance on the position of Leibnitz in many respects, but principally in those directions in which his scientific training made him a more judicious and comprehensive thinker. The effect of scientific training is obvious in—(1) those elements of thought which are due to biological and chemical studies; (2) in the truly scientific unwillingness to blur distinctions, and call the higher the same as the lower, or the lower itself ‘potentially’ a higher form; and (3) in the concept of unity, as somehow requiring to be expressed in terms of action and not substance. But while progress is manifest in these points, the results cannot be of permanent value unless the principles which are used bring us safely to the end.

(2) In occasionalism proper all action, looked at by itself, is disjointed. In the doctrine of Leibnitz it is so connected as to form chains of parallel activities. The series of actions start from points that have a fixed amount of separation, and they maintain this separation throughout. But we refuse to accept this parallelism as ultimate: we do not want to think of one rail as merely accompanying another, but of two rails as so accompanying each other that they form what we rightly call _one_ railway line. The unity we require is not approximation, rather the maintenance of the distance is essential to it. If our lines converge when produced ‘ever so far,’ they cannot serve our purpose: they destroy their own reality by destroying their significance. And as our rails cease to be a railway line if they converge, so our self and our not-self can only come to insignificance and unreality if they lose their distance and merge.

This metaphor, though quite a legitimate adaptation of Leibnitz’s idea of the two clocks, is not perhaps very clear. It is intended to make thinkable the notion of a unity which holds together a plurality in such a way as does not contradict the plurality, but rather insists on the plurality as the one thing essential to the unity. This I take to be the proper meaning of unity if taken concretely or in direct relation to a content which it makes no attempt to annihilate.

It seems to me that in his advance from Occasionalism Lotze reached an idealism which was not compatible with the fundamental idea of the occasionalistic phase of thought. That fundamental idea is that activity of one kind cannot become activity of another kind: lines of activity do not cross: material activity is never mental activity. To this fundamental idea Occasionalism was itself faithless more than once when it tried to run the lines back to that ‘ever so far,’ in which they might be thought to have met. To carry material actuality back to abstract points and mental activity back to the point at which it is at least so abstract as to have lost its conscious characteristics, is to yield up our clear convictions to the illusions of an indefinite perspective. So crude an error cannot rashly be attributed to Lotze: whatever his errors are they cannot but be refined, subtle, and significant. Yet that his occasionalism is modified by strong idealism cannot be denied, and it may be that the idealism completes without improving the occasionalism.

As there is a danger that the following remarks may be due to a misunderstanding of Lotze, I shall not attempt to pad out my interpretation of his thought with selected quotations: if the general impression is wrong the selection of definite phrases out of a book is only the addition of insult to injury. I state my own view and leave it to the reader to consult Lotze.

The vice of every system of philosophy is always some degree of abstraction. From the multitude of abstract points of view we trust we are slowly arriving at a concrete view which shall do justice to reality as we live it. Usually the abstract view is patently an intrusion of the influences of study: thought naturally occupies a predominant place in a system which its author has had to think out: less frequently it is an intrusion of temperament, or a mere reaction from the tyranny of the abstract thinker to a full-blooded view of things. In Spinoza we recognise the retiring thinker: in Leibnitz we see the effect of mathematical and logical thought mixed with the busy life of the man of affairs, and the influence of relations in which caution and impenetrability are of first importance. In Lotze we have equally the effects of scientific training, relieved however of any barrier to frankness, and united with a strong ethical and aesthetical tendency.

The ethical temperament, if that term may be used, is on its psychological side prone to believe: the aesthetical is prone to value form: the combination of the two makes possible a transcendent point of view which grasps at form with a strong psychological conviction that it must have real active value. The remarkable passage in which Lotze pleads for the animation of nature is a shock to the reader in its betrayal of new and startling elements in the author’s idea of a constructive philosophy. Apart from the particular point, which we do not intend to discuss, the passage is the first awakening of antagonism in a critical reader who will at once proceed to ask whether the whole construction is built on this foundation. He will, I think, find that it is.

The crucial point in the idealism of Lotze is the possibility of constructing and defending the unity of the Whole. The beginning is made from the Kantian element, the phenomenal character of the matter of thought. Kant’s view is modified in so far as the doing which we know is related to the being, the that-which-does, in an intimate way, such as does not hold of noumena and phenomena: from this it follows that the appearance is the life of the real rather than its output, the actual doing rather than the product of its work. It follows also from the Kantian element that our construction of reality is itself reality, real doing, though not creative activity. In this concrete point of view is involved the idea that our feelings, cravings, and inspirations are reality, which is the justification for demanding that reality should be presented as satisfying that craving. As we have a craving for unity and form we can assert that Reality is both one and formed. We see the force of the argument: we ask, what is its value?

To begin with—what is this craving? Is it ever universal, and if not, does the craving for unity in particular spheres justify an advance to a universal unity? The personal element is so manifest here that if consciousness cannot be shown to have that craving as part of its own nature the whole position is endangered. And it must be granted that consciousness has not got it quâ consciousness. To get it at all we must take consciousness as intimately bound up with impulse, will, and individual purpose, and each of these elements, while it enriches the notion of consciousness, draws me further away from the concept of a Whole. I cannot admit that impulse proceeds wholly from consciousness, or that will is entirely guided by reason, or that the unity I desire is capable of projection away from my individual scope to a hyper-individual Whole.

Reflection on the history of thought confirms the belief that ultimate unity is generally made acceptable by withdrawing oneself from the immediate conditions of life. Tradition ascribes this character to the philosopher, and the history of philosophy is a record of attempts to reach the higher truth by climbing down. Lotze gives us a fruitful idea in the notion of a whole whose parts are unified by reciprocal action. But here again he seems to have overstrained his parallel, which I take to be human society. In his war against abstractions he notes the hypostatising tendency expressed in such phrases as ‘the mind of the people,’ ‘the spirit of the times.’ He does not however seem to have fully estimated the value of these indications or seen how far they show that a generalisation expressed in a general term may be the sign of a real conceptual unity which in spite of its reality is not capable of action or reaction. Now, if unity lies in significance, does not the unity of anything partake essentially of the nature of concepts or ideas? And if so, is not the unity the one point about things of which nothing can be said in respect of action or reaction? This, I think, must be allowed, and the consequence follows that in a world of action and reaction unity must be irrelevant.

The point can be stated more clearly and directly, but I have put it in this form because that is the line of argument which Lotze suggests, and which seems to me to apply to him most aptly because it is the inversion of his own progress. The simpler and clearer way is to assert that the unity of the Whole implies a consciousness for which the Whole is a unity. This leads us to the idea of a God. But if God is outside our whole there must conceivably be a ‘higher unity’ giving a whole which comprises God. Either therefore the Whole is not truly the Whole or there is an infinite progress of wholes constituted by presentation to a unifying agency which is merged with them in ever higher and higher wholes.

We now seem to have reached a reductio ad absurdum. As stated, it is such a reductio; but the absurdity consists in the inner contradiction due to calling that the Whole which we at the same time do not make all inclusive. This contradiction indicates that the thought movement has become involved in itself. At the same time there emerges an idea which is fruitful and which was partially expressed in the doctrine of monads. The monad is a unity: the ruling monad is also a unity: this latter unity includes plurality, and is therefore properly a unity: the mere monad as simple nature ought not to be called a unity at all. Now, leaving out other implications of the term monad, we may say that the idea of progressive wholes comprehending at each stage the lower wholes, is justifiable. We associate with development range of adaptation, and increased range of adaptation is the objective manifestation of increased organisation of either physical or psychical powers. At each stage the being comprehends a wider plurality, and the scale of being is capable of gradation on this basis.

But is there _any_ unity which is not unity for a mind? If we say no, there is no course open but to set over against our Whole a mind for which it is one. This would be a finite God. Not being able to comprehend a world that sums itself any more than a series of feelings that sum themselves, I am unable to see how a pantheistic solution helps us. On the contrary, if I conceived unity to be necessary to the existence of the world, I should deduce from that unity the being of God, and admit that the unity was not only known but also felt and willed, but I could not admit that the world was the same as God, and therefore should not admit that the will was omnipotent. Thus the mere assertion of unity seems to lead us back into a transcendental dualism.

The conclusion of the whole matter is that unity is meaningless unless that which is unified is unified by some mind. In the first instance the unity will be that of _my_ mind, and we must start from that.

Now I take it that in my mind unity is the product of purpose. I do not consciously unify, but I do consciously subordinate: the tendency is to think in what respects the one is many rather than how the many can be one. This is due to the primacy of our practical life, in which the end is given with all its plurality implicit. In action this is obvious: the end is first and the discovery of means subserves it. In the world of things it may be less evident, but that which I call function is ultimately the power to fulfil my end or purpose, and the object as I know it is the manifestation in perception of the thing that has the function. What it is to itself I cannot know and need not ask.

It seems to me futile to speak of all existence as animated, or talk of the ‘experience of the atoms’ as Lotze does, if the nature of the whole cannot be determined. It is only as parts of a whole that the parts have any claim to these qualities, and if we fail to construct our whole so as to get a new edition of the old doctrine of a world soul (which Lotze confessedly aims to do) the consequences dependent on that proof must fail also.

Human society, coming last, seems the culminating point of all development, and a revelation of the significance of all lower forms of life. In it we have the fullest exhibition of reciprocal activity. But its unity is dependent on mind, and only a spurious analogy can enable us to regard the universe as a society. If we are not tempted to think of the material world as _associated_ atoms, we may yet feel an inclination to regard it as teleologically designed; we should then have formal unity of purpose among diverse actions. But here again it seems impossible to show that there is one supreme end, unless the whole is a unity; or that the whole is a unity, unless there is a supreme end. These ideas are so far implicated that a plurality of being necessitates a plurality of ends. It is equally wrong to reject or to accept teleology as usually advocated. The ethical view is right in emphasising the fact that there are ends in the world. But these ends arise with consciousness, are brought by us into the world, and take their place as forces because our mind directs our action. The hierarchy of ends is the ideal counterpart of the hierarchy of wholes, and each whole which exists for a mind is dominated by an end. But that there should be an end of ends seems unnecessary: we do not seek to unify ends, we seek to multiply them in their diversity: the progress of society is a perpetual production of minds which become more concrete in every generation, each one more capable of interpreting through itself the end for its society, and thereby increasing the number of ends that are efficient factors in life. Self-preservation is the root from which spring all ends, and if the higher organism of society seems to have its need of preservation and its end we must not forget that its existence depends largely on the extent to which individuals realise themselves by negation. Is it conceivable that for the end of ends negation is equally necessary? Leibnitz thought so when he limited the existent to the compossible. We too may think so if we admit that our totality has emerged from a crowd of possible totalities by a species of selection. If we are not prepared to sublimate our conceptions in this way but return to the world of unfulfilled purposes and unsatisfied desires, let us bravely acknowledge that _all_ things need not work together for good, that for such adjustment as we do achieve or help others to achieve we are grateful each to each, and each to all; but at the same time

‘could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits, and then Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?’

(3) In addition to these points of view we have in Lotze what may be called a realistic element. To explain this is, I think, impossible: to explain it away is unjustifiable. It is in opposition to Panlogism that Lotze retains ‘nuclei,’ irreducible elements, in his system of experience. This is the Leibnitzian factor retained against the Spinozistic trend: it is also the Democritean element preserved through Leibnitz for succeeding writers. No definition of these nuclei is forthcoming: they are primarily reached from the standpoint that all determination is not negation; that thought is a system of relations, but reality includes over and above relations the relata.

To define these nuclei is impossible, because thought in its progress moves away from the immediate point of contact given in sensation, moves away from the stimulus in which they are revealed, and in working up its material ignores existence in order to concentrate itself upon significance. The nuclei are in this sense the irrational factors.

It is not necessary here to do more than draw attention to this point. The preservation of these nuclei is of course one of the ways in which Lotze defends the content of common consciousness against such idealistic systems as seem to him to dissolve reality into the thin air of pure thought. His general attitude toward this point must be understood by reference to Kant’s views as expressed in the _Critique of Pure Reason_. We must also bear in mind the fact that pluralism grounds itself in some measure on the impenetrability of the individual consciousness, an idea which leads us to think of individual minds as being to themselves more than they can ever be to others. Hence the monad with its dual existence, as it is in itself and as it is in other monads in which it is represented. Hence, too, in more refined forms, the idea that to be perfectly intelligible is not to be thought but to be thinkable, an idea expressed by Lotze when he speaks of knowledge as a relation which would be destroyed if the thinker could _be_ that which is thought, and wholly absorbing into himself the object, exhaust not only the intelligibility but also the being of that which is known.

Criticism of this view would lead us to consider the claims of a higher unity. This criticism will not be attempted, for it is our immediate purpose to accept Lotze as he is, and only indicate how he remains in the mean position between the extremes of an idealism for which thought seems to exhaust being and a realism for which thought seems to confront an object only partly intelligible. The peculiar difficulty which Lotze creates for us lies in the extent to which the idealism is carried. For the nuclei certainly seem to be no more than nuclei of sensations, and it is only in so far as these have a peculiar unity which is given to us by the supersensible ground of objects, and not given by us to objects, that they maintain the character of being more than phenomena. They cannot be ‘matter’ in the crude sense, and if they are the matter of thought they seem to be ultimately subjective affections in a sense that makes it difficult to resist a progress toward pure idealism. Lotze’s refusal to make the advance must be ascribed to his idea of the worth of the individual, which is so bound up with the notion of consciousness that it becomes necessary to re-interpret the idea of the nuclei on the analogy of the individual consciousness as non-spatial units that maintain themselves in a unity of co-operation without fusion.

The revulsion which invariably follows excessive systematisation seems to indicate that if ever a ‘stable equilibrium’ is attained by thought, it will have more of the character of the mean position than of either extreme. For this reason a peculiar interest attaches to the line of thought whose last great representative is Lotze. It may seem at first sight paradoxical that realism should emerge finally as idealistic; but, from the first, atomism combines with realism an idealistic element, and the preponderance of idealism finally is a natural result due to the character of our progress in the realm of thought.

Seeley has pointed out the way in which History has gradually refined its content. At first it is a complicated mass such as we find it in the times of Livy or Pliny: from this mass various elements detach themselves and evolve into independence: natural history, for example, and political economy are branches that have struck root and grow for themselves, related to rather than dependent on the residuum which now takes the place of the original whole. In a similar way the progress of the sciences has slowly depleted philosophy of its original content and at the same time defined its central elements and true scope. A comparison between such a magnum opus as that of Gassendi and the worth of a modern philosopher shows the effect of progressive specialisation. It suggests also the question, What is to be ultimately the real matter of philosophy in the strict sense?

The answer must be, in a sense, what it has always been, that philosophy co-ordinates and systematises the results of the special sciences. There is however a strong and not unjustifiable tendency to think that the peculiar function of philosophy is the explanation of the possibility of the objects with which the sciences deal: in other words, philosophy is epistemology. In any case it seems clear that the duty of systematisation which falls upon philosophy in no wise compels the philosopher to unify his construction beyond the point which his material will admit. That is to say, the emphasis must be on co-ordination rather than systematisation, and philosophy mistakes its function if it in any way undertakes to dictate results to the special sciences, as it has notoriously done in some cases. We must, it seems, come back to the view of philosophy as a dialectic of results, a sifting of ends. Above all things, it must follow whithersoever the wind carries it, and not pre-determine its haven in the face of all the forces upon which it relies for progress.

Philosophy is then more than mere epistemology. But the epistemological problem is undoubtedly its own peculiar centre. Upon the decision of the nature of reality it centres its vital energies, and on this point we seem to-day to have arrived at a temporary decision that ‘idealism based on realism’ is the position which must be accepted for the present, though we may hope it is not the last standpoint.

The reason why no further progress is possible is that as yet the ‘nucleus,’ as Lotze understood it, remains unresolved. However much may be done to show that objects are ideal, that the ultimate is a unit ideal in its character, the fact remains that the unity characteristic of an existent thing is always a unity whose actuality does not come from the subjective side. It need not be disputed that a thing is a complex of universals; but this cannot blind us to the fact that the reason for any one object being _this particular_ complex is to be found in a determination _of_ our activity which comes to us, in perception, and does not go forth from us.

The realistic element then must not be overlooked or ignored. But to advocate realism is not to advocate materialism in any form. This may be taken as self-evident. The formula, ‘no object without a subject,’ is the last word on that point. But neither is the advocacy of an idealism based on realism any ground for reaching a monism on the idealistic side. In one of its aspects, the formula quoted above means no unity without a consciousness for which the unity exists. And while materialism generates its peculiar monism by ignoring this, idealism advances to its monism by an equal denial of the truth of the formula only obscured by greater subtlety. For extreme idealism expresses the unity of the whole under the form of thought unifying itself, which involves the presentation of thought to thought, or a thought that thinks itself. It is only in default of an attempt to work out this idea that it seems plausible. On further consideration it becomes a regress to infinity just as much as the constitution of a whole by presentation to the mind of God proved an infinite process. The question of the reality of time is the inner point which wrecks idealism of this type. For the assertion of timeless thought is a deduction from the concept of what _such a totality_ would be _if there were_ such a totality. In experience however we find a sequence of events which is not a mere logical interdependence, but an actual order. Time may, and I think we are safe in saying must, be regarded as subjective; but order in time implies over and above the subjective form an extra-subjective determination.

These subjects are large, and deserve further elaboration. For the present I only desire to indicate some of the reasons which seem to force one back from the extremes to a middle course of some kind. To define that middle course properly, it would be necessary to write a metaphysic. Gassendi would help but little, for two obvious reasons: he has no epistemology, and his idealistic tendencies are too embryonic, as they were bound to be so long as he could neither estimate the significance of the possibility of objects nor make up his mind as to the nature of time and space. As I have indicated above, criticism finds him an easy victim from this point of attack. His weaknesses are apparent; the interesting point about his work is the way in which it defines problems still unsolved.

If we look in modern philosophy for a match to Gassendi, we shall probably find the nearest approach to one in G. H. Lewes. His ‘Reasoned Realism’ is very much akin to ‘Empirical Realism,’ as used above of Gassendi (_v._ _Problems of Life and Mind_, I. 176). Spencer’s position is defined by Lewes as ‘Transfigured Realism’ (p. 192), ‘for that theory professes to be a theory of Perception, and declares Perception to be symbolical; whereas, according to the Principles here expounded, Perception being the resultant of two factors, internal and external, the conclusion deduced is that the object thus felt exists precisely as it is felt: existing for us only in Feeling, its reality is what we feel.... Perception, because it is a resultant, not a symbol, does not alter the Real: on the contrary, the object only _is_ to us what we feel it to be—it exists in that relation.’ Lewes’ language is somewhat inaccurate: a few lines lower he says, ‘this particular thing in this particular relation is what it is in this relation, _i.e._ what it is felt to be.’ Here ‘thing’ is put in place of ‘object,’ and which of the two terms should be used I cannot say: if Lewes meant ‘thing,’ the position is very like Gassendi’s; shall we say ‘no better than Gassendi’s’? If he means that ‘thing’ and ‘object’ are identical (except in so far as the thing has _more_ relations than it realises with us), the position is one that Gassendi might have endorsed: for that the real is the existent which reveals itself to the senses, and has more reality (in its unrelated self) than our senses are adequate to, is just what he tries to say.

But we cannot extend to Lewes the consideration which Gassendi deserves on account of his disadvantages. When Lewes says ‘the object thus felt exists precisely as it is felt,’ he is simply refunding into both terms of the relation the product of their relatedness: he might just as well say that hydrogen and oxygen have each of them all the properties of water. It may be true that perception does not, as a process, alter, that is vitiate, reality; but that statement leaves it open to us to regard the perception as a development of the real grounds of perception and, as such, a process vital to the real. In trying to get away from the notion that being phenomenal is being unreal, Lewes has fallen into the other pit and proves that perception has no real ground: for if reality does not develope in perception, its indifference amounts to nonexistence. With Lewes perception seems to be a relation in which both terms are indifferent, and that is not conceivable. If perception involves a subjective advance from mere sensation to definite apprehension, it must also involve an objective advance from the mere stimulus to the true object.

Gassendi would be in principle nearer to Lewes than to Spencer on the question of perception. It is interesting to think over the points of resemblance between the _Synthetic_ Philosophy and the _Syntagma_ Philosophicum. The scheme is so similar: the matter so different. The progress of two centuries is condensed in their differences. But the critical question of the nature of the object-in-itself seems to receive an answer from Spencer less acceptable than that of Gassendi. We are however precluded from discussion upon details by a primary difference which completely swamps all similarity. This consists in the deductive character of Spencer’s synthetic philosophy. In contrast to this Gassendi’s method is reductive. It is indeed true that Spencer gives away his deduction by omitting that most important element, the transition from inorganic to organic: on consideration however it will be clear that the deduction has really failed to vitally connect _any_ higher stage with a lower. If the deduction were really successful at any point the evolutionary doctrine could have passed from a method to a theory, and attained that intuitive insight which, as Leibnitz foresaw, would make it _prophetic_. Spencer was overweighted with the possibilities of a doctrine of Force: Gassendi was saved from that, possibly by absence of temptation.

We cannot afford to overlook in modern philosophy the recognition which scholasticism is receiving. The best scholastic philosophy was marked by a firm grasp on certain ultimate points and by clear if somewhat formal definitions. Its relation to religion put it in close contact with the deepest thought of all ages, while it tended to keep aloof the encroaching sciences. While therefore it erred in dogmatically asserting itself as an authority in spheres over which its formulae had no jurisdiction either by nature or origin, it at the same time retained intact, by force of circumstances, what modern philosophy is striving to redeem from the grasp of an apparently all-victorious science. The points which it thus retained, uncritically but resolutely, were the reality of the spiritual and the necessity of a creator.

The creative factor we still must have. The concept of God is one of those concepts which successive ages refine. But however much we refine the idea, it cannot be wholly refined away. The elimination of sensuous and imaginative elements is only a purification: as culture advances, the construction which we put upon the idea advances from the crudeness of anthropomorphism to other forms which correspond to the higher mental level of the race. And as at one extreme the concept of God, so at the other the concept of matter is perpetually refined and re-edited. But neither seems as yet to have reached the vanishing point, and however comprehensive our scheme of development, it retains the three movements of a given which developes, a form of development which implies more than mere mechanism, and a mind without which the development cannot have come to its recognition.

The first is the matter. The second is the possibility of being intelligible, which must be reluctantly allowed. The third is mind. As regards the second, it must not be over-emphasised at present. To assert that the given is purely intelligible overlooks faults; to assert that it is intelligence, leads to confusion. For while it might be called ‘intelligible’ through and through, if we had any knowledge of a mind for which it was thus intelligible, in the absence of such knowledge we have to confess that what is not given to our intelligence as intelligence is as much an unintelligible as though there were no such mind. And this limitation to which the absence of any omniscience which we can show forces us, leaves an irrational element which is foreign to us, however much we prophesy its final elimination.

The attempt to remove this from the ethical side is premature. The ethical import of the whole is not a valid ground for universal statements, so long as the whole is not given as such. A view which makes the whole a self-revelation of a Divine mind moves in a circle, constructing the concept of that mind to support its own correlative, the Whole viewed as a One intelligible and ethical in character. It is sounder to regard ethical characteristics as not ‘cosmic,’ else our will and our thought must be regarded as identical with that which we attribute to God, whereas Spinoza’s determination of the voluntas and cognitio Dei as only negatively determinable, must be regarded as the true logical position.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Gassendi says Epicurus was neither ‘Primus nec solus qui Atomos defenderit.’ Others are Moschus—‘de quo Empiricus et Strabo etiam ante bellum Troianum’—Leucippus, Democritus, Metrodorus, Ecphantus, Pythagoreus, Empedocles, Heracleitus, Plato (qui Empedoclis instar, elementa composuit ex particulis prae exilitate inconspicuis), Xenocrates, Asclepiades, Heraclides, Diodorus, Artemidorus, Mnesitheus, alii’ (VI. 160). Truly a cloud of witnesses.

[2] For Leucippus _v._ Burnet, _Early Greek Philosophy_.

[3] Wallace, _Epicureanism_, p. 6.

[4] _Ibid._ p. 16.

[5] Usually called ‘free-will,’ but see p. 230, Note on Declination.

[6] _v._ Note, p. 239.

[7] W. Wallace, _Epicureanism_.

[8] The following anecdote given by Sorbière illustrates Gassendi’s love of first-hand evidence: ‘ut suspicionem autem prorsus amoliretur quam de canali Cholidocho habuerat, quem Chylodochum dicere maluerat, equos, in quibus omnino deficit, introspicere voluit. Et memini offendisse me aliquando euntem cum Martello, saeviente admodum hieme, ad loca illa in quae deportari solent viarum purgamenta et trahi equorum cadavera quae plura, soluto pretio aperiri jussit’ (Gassendi, _Op. Omnia_, vol. I., Preface).

[9] F. Bouillier, _Histoire de la Philosophie Cartésienne_, quoted by Thomas, p. 14. Thomas also quotes the following address to the ‘Lords of Mount Parnassus,’ written by Boileau, which gives some interesting sidelights on the opinions with which the _Exercitationes_ were received: ‘Supplient humblement les maîtres ès arts, proffesseurs régens de l’Université de Paris; disant qu’il est de notorieté publique que c’est le sublime et incomparable Aristote qui est sans conteste le premier fondateur des quatre premiers éléments, le feu, l’air, l’eau et la terre ...; et quoique pendant plusieurs siècles il ait été maintenu d’un commun consentement dans une paisible possession de tous ses droits, néanmoins depuis quelques années en-çà, deux particulières, nommées la Raison et l’Expérience, se sont liguées ensemble pour s’ériger un trône sur les ruines de son autorité; et pour parvenir plus adroitement à leurs fins ont excité certains esprits fâcheux, qui sous les noms de Cartistes et de Gassendistes ont commencé à secouer le joug du seigneur Aristote.... Ce consideré, Nosseigneurs, il vous plaise ordonner ... que Gassendi, Descartes, Rohant, etc., et leurs adhérents seront conduits à Athènes et condamnés d’y faire amende honorable devant tout la Grèce....’ (p. 9.)

[10] Gassendi was one of the first after the revival of letters who treated the literature of philosophy in a lively way. His writings of this kind, though too laudatory and somewhat diffuse, have great merit. They abound in those anecdotal details, natural yet not obvious reflexions, and vivacious turns of thought which made Gibbon style him, with some extravagance certainly, though it was true enough up to Gassendi’s time: ‘Le meilleur philosophe des litterateurs et le meilleur litterateur des philosophes’ (_Encycl. Britt._, ‘Gassendi,’ vol. X.). Ritter (_Geschichte der Philosophie_, X. 544), speaking of Gassendi’s encyclopaedic knowledge, says, ‘Nicht ohne Grund hat Bayle von ihm gesagt, er sei unter den Philologen der grösste Philosoph, unter den Philosophen der grösste Philolog gewesen,’ which looks like the prototype of Gibbon’s remark.

[11] I. 31. ‘objectum, seu tanquam scopus Intellectui propositus sit Verum: objectum, seu scopus Voluntati propositus sit Bonum.’

[12] I. 31. ‘Quanquam et quia Regulae huiusmodi generales sunt, ideo inservire intellectui non modo ad scientiam naturae, sed etiam ad omnem omnino cognitionem possunt.’

[13] I. 33. ‘nam simul ac res nominatur, obversari nobis in mente experimur illarum imagines, in quas veluti intuamur.’

[14] ‘C’est en s’appuyant sur ces déclarations, d’ailleurs formelles, que les logiciens de Port-Royal et beaucoup de critiques à leur suite, ont rangé Gassendi parmi les sensualistes. Nous verrons bientôt ce qu’il faut penser de ce jugement lorsque, nous plaçant non plus au point de vue psychologique, nous étudierons de plus près la formation de nos connaissons, et chercherons à déterminer avec plus de précision le rôle exact des deux facteurs dont elles dépendent: l’expérience et la raison’ (P. Félix Thomas, _La Philosophie de Gassendi_ (Paris, 1889), p. 38). _v._ p. 13, note.

[15] I. 54. ‘impressa quaedam animo rei definitio’: ‘nisi talem quampiam _animo deformatam_ habeamus.’

[16] I. 67.

[17] I. 68.

[18] I. 69. ‘non criterium, est enim potius crites.’

[19] I. 81. This equals the distinction of τεκμήριον and σημεῖον.

[20] Cp. Ritter, _Geschichte der Philosophie_, X. 545-555.

[21] I. 84.

[22] How is this to be understood? In a letter to Valerius (VI. 151, dated 1642) Gassendi says: ‘id ipsum est quod alii dicunt nihil esse in Intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu; insinuaturque interim ut in sensu praefuerint quae videntur nunquam transisse per sensum.’ In respect of God he says: ‘quas habemus species huiusmodi rerum, non esse absque analogia ad res, ut corporeas sic sensu perceptas.’ This seems to interpret the formula as meaning ‘all human thought is sensuous,’ which is hardly half-way to Condillac.

[23] _v._ p. 4.

[24] Gassendi uses this example to explain the distinction between logica utens and docens. To learn to count is merely to learn a method, good enough in itself but useless by itself, and only acquired in order that it may be applied to things. To go on with thought-processes in abstraction is like multiplying a number by itself ad infinitum; the result is _true_ but _true of nothing_: hence he insists on the return to experience as being a process of verification. The inner significance of mathematical reasoning does not seem to have struck Gassendi; he merely sees that the assertion ‘twice two is four’ means that if two things have been given me twice I _ought_ to have four; whether I have or not is a contingent fact that requires immediate experience for its verification. In both cases, mathematics and logic, we seem primarily to work with ideas divorced from things; but does this divorce extend to the ideas which are intuitively guaranteed? Gassendi apparently thinks it does, for even the idea of God is ‘verified’ in the content of experience.

[25] Cp. p. xi.

[26] I. 138.

[27] I. 141. ‘Nam fatendum est quidem convinci demonstrationi non posse, non esse mundos praeter hunc alios: quando profitemur potuisse et posse adhuc condere Deum alios innumerabileis.... At vero tueri aliunde plureis mundos reipsa esse, praeter rationem omnino est.’

[28] I. 155.

[29] ‘Plerique ... fatentur esse vim quandam per totum mundum sic diffusam parteisque eius continentem cuiusmodi in Animali est Anima.’

[30] This is Gassendi’s interpretation of Plato’s phrase, νοῦς μὲν ἐν ψυχῇ, ψυχήν δὲ ἐν σώματι (_Timaeus_, 30 B). ‘Stallbaum,’ says Archer-Hind (_Timaeus_, p. 93), ‘following the misty light of neo-platonic inspiration, says of ψυχή, media est inter corpora atque mentem.’ In _Timaeus_, 36 E, we are told God constructed body within soul: hence νοῦς, ψυχή, and σῶμα were conceived as each including the other, like three concentric circles, with νοῦς comprehending ψυχή, ψυχή comprehending σῶμα. The relation of this to the view that ‘νοῦς is simply the activity of ψυχή according to her own proper nature’ (Archer-Hind), is obvious if not orthodox: for νοῦς can think ψυχή but not vice versa, includes but is not included by ψυχή.

[31] Cf. p. 226.

[32] ‘It might almost be supposed that the following lines were written by one of our own contemporaries: they are, however, extracted from a chapter of Avicenna on the origin of mountains. This author was born in the tenth century. Mountains may be due to two causes. Either they are effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting for itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard. The winds and waters disintegrate the one, but leave the other intact. Most of the eminences of the earth have had this latter origin. It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size. But that water has been the main cause of these effects is proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and other animals on many mountains’ (_The Intellectual Development of Europe_, Draper, I. 410). Gassendi at least affects a knowledge of Avicenna, and frequently refers to him.

[33] Gassendi would allow both the assertions, namely—(1) Reality is wider than Thought; (2) Thought is wider than Reality. The former is correct, because knowledge is a relation, and there is no a priori reason why all the existent should be in that relation. Since the relation does not constitute the being of anything, that may be which is not thus related; in other words, the knowable may include the unknown (not unknowable) as well as the known. The latter is also correct, because we may outrun our data and assert our subjective (imaginative) constructions as real.

[34] It is perhaps necessary to point out that subjective does not mean ‘mental’: there is no ‘mentalism’ at this stage of the history of thought: the subjective is ‘the work of the mind,’ and is practically always limited to the work of the _Imagination_. This is why we find so much confusion in the interpretation of philosophies which belong to this period of transition. It is frequently the case that the work of the mind as reason is considered unimpeachable, while the work of the mind as imagination is the source of constructions which may be, as we still say, ‘put upon’ things. The phrase here means that an imaginative construction is not necessarily _more_ than imaginative. It seems strange that after his comprehension of the futility of abstract counting (p. 712) Gassendi should not have avoided this error. But Space, in spite of being a substance, so combines plurality and unity (for many spaces are one space) that Gassendi lost his way.

[35] This is a definite logical principle derived from Epicurus, _v._ p. 3, Canon iii.

[36] Space, then, is perceived by sense in so far as it is given with body. The question might be asked, Would an animal, having sense only, perceive space? I imagine Gassendi would have no answer to that: the a priori objectivity of space and the possibility of a sensitive organism that did not think would both be endangered by its discussion.

[37] I. 220. Gassendi quotes from the _Confessions_: ‘Si nemo ex me quaerat quid sit Tempus, scio: si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.’

[38] I. 223. ‘Jam vero neque Epicurus videtur posse dicere esse diem, noctemque aut longam aut brevem ab eo tempore quod cogitatione ipsi affingimus.’ The reference is to Diogenes Laertius, x. Cp. I. 222. ‘Videntur porro Stoici melius quam ipse Epicurus sensisse, reputantes Tempus tale incorporeum, quod per se esse intelligatur, non tale quod accidat rebus, eo sensu ut Tempus non foret, si res non essent, quae eo durarent, aut nisi etiam nostra mens durare ipsas cogitaret.’

[39] I. 223. ‘Appositum est magis comparare Tempus cum Lucernae flamma, cuius esse ita in fluxu consistit, ut quovis momento alia ac alia sit, et nusquam sit amplius quaecumque ante fuit, nusquam adhuc sit, quaecumque est futura.’

[40] I. 224. ‘Ut Locus secundum se totum est illimitatus, sic Tempus secundum se totum nec principium nec finem habet.’

The syntax here shows that we must not call Time a Whole, but say, ‘time regarded as a whole.’

[41] _Ibid._ ‘Ut quodlibet Temporis momentum idem est in omnibus locis—ita quaelibet Loci portio omnibus temporibus subest.’

[42] His reference to Posidonius must therefore be read as meaning that the present is a piece of real Time, a quantity of duration forming a unit, not a ‘saddle-back’ of time; and the whole is therefore an infinite multiplication of finite parts. In Time atomism finds a particularly intractable item.

[43] If it were not so far from Gassendi’s general position, this point would deserve further consideration. Modern psychology utilizes this distinction of quality and quantity in order to correlate the time-reference contained in an act of memory with the time-expanse of the experience remembered. This line of thought is entirely useless for the explanation of Gassendi, because it is not the nature of thought but the nature of real time that he is trying to explain. His position therefore leaves him with an existence that has a Time but no times, the whole without the parts. Timeless thought may or may not be more intelligible, but it is certainly not Gassendi’s present topic.

[44] I. 234.

[45] Atomi proinde non puncta sed tenuissima corpuscula sunt praeditique adeo tantula magnitudine quae sit principium et quasi radix magnitudinis omnium corporum.

[46] Inane vero solum locum discriminationemque ministrat.

[47] I. 335. ‘Atomi ob sui cuiusque figuram ac molem aut liberiores, solutioresque sint et sese facilius ab irretientibus extricent faciliusque vias inveniant quibus per corpus discurrentes inque haerentiores partes impingentes motum imprimant.’

[48] I. 337. ‘Planius ergo dici videtur cum in unaquaque re principium actionis et motus sit pars illa mobilissima, actuosissimaque et quasi flos totius materiae quae et ipsa sit quam Formam solent dicere, et haberi possit quasi tenuissima contextura subtilissimarum, mobilissimarumque Atomorum; ideo primam causam moventem in Physicis rebus esse Atomos: quod dum ipsae per se, et juxta vim a suo authore ab initio usque acceptam moventur, motum omnibus rebus praebeant sintque adeo omnium quae in Natura sunt motuum, origo, principium et causa.’

This quotation shows that Gassendi is confused. Motion in _bodies_ he attributes to the perpetual interaction of their parts, which is possible, because some are finer than others. But the original motion is in the Atom, which, as we have seen, being what it is cannot have motion. To Gassendi this difficulty seems to be overcome by saying God gave the motion to the Atoms. Gassendi’s atom is an ultimate, not only in the sense of being the last in analysis, but also as the point at which physical explanation collapses.

[49] I. 340.

[50] I. 346.

[51] Cp. I. 266. ‘Praeter hanc substantiam seu identitatem mavis seu similitudinem dicere, attribuantur Atomis qualitates quaedam, sive accidentia, quorum, ut jam ante insinuavimus, alia sunt Inseparabilia, ἀχώριστα (sic enim Plutarchus), et Lucretio Conjuncta vulgo Propria appellitentur; alia separabilia, et Lucretio Eventa, vulgo accidentia communia dicantur: ideo sciendum est, agi heic non de separabilibus, eventisve, qualia sunt concursus, connexio, positio, ordo, etc., sed de inseparabilibus, conjunctisve, seu dicere malis, proprietatibus’ [_e.g._ magnitude, figure, weight].

[52] I. 374.

[53] _I.e._ implanted by God ab initio.

[54] I. 387.

[55] The difference between ‘potestate’ and ‘potentia’ should be noticed.

[56] ‘Pythagoras, Plato, Aristoteles apud Plutarchum fecere sonum incorporeum.’ This was due to their considering the configuration of the air the essence of sound: they took figure ‘profunditatis expertem,’ or abstractly.

[57] I. 426.

[58] The English word ‘vision’ has exactly the double meaning (act of seeing, thing seen) which expresses the problem that troubled the ancients.

[59] Nehemiah Grew, whose investigations developed the idea of sex in plants, was born in 1628, and did not publish his work until 1681. It is improbable that Gassendi had an accurate knowledge of the subject, though possibly it was ‘in the air.’

[60] ‘Perspicit abunde sagacitas tua, quo dicere sensu cum Sapiente potuerim “nihil esse sub sole novum.” Quare et lubens tibi subscribo dum argumentaris nova esse omnia, ob continentem, quae in rebus observitatur, mutationem’ (_Ep. L. Valesio_, 1647, vi. 264).

[61] This must be taken with a limitation. The actual ultimate is not the atom but the ‘semina rerum,’ _i.e._ atoms qualified to enter into any combination of a given kind. The process of Generation is ‘assimilation,’ or reunion of like with like, a process of selection as well as combination.

[62] I. 468. ‘Respondent potestatem materiae respectu Formae duplicem esse, unam eductivam, quatenus forma potest vi agentis ex illa educi: aliam receptivam quatenus potest eandem forman ex se eductam recipere: sicque materiam utraque hac potentia formam continere. Ac primum continere aliquid eductivâ potentiâ nihil aliud est quam habere actu in se, quod possit exinde educi. Ita crumena, in qua sunt actu decem aurei, dicetur illos continere eductivâ potentiâ, quatenus inde educi possint: nam alioquin, nisi actu in se haberet, ii ex ea educi non possent, neque crumena dici posset continere eductivâ potentiâ.’

[63] ‘Quamobrem calor quidem et frigus conferre interdum ad maturiorem coitionem indurationemque possunt aliquid, at debet esse praeterea vis quaedam lapidifica, quam et seminalem dicere nihil vetat ... est praeterea vis seminalis quae ex preparata materia tam plantam quam pullum delineet: ita quo lapides formentur debet omnino praeter calorem aliudve agens extrinsecum esse interior quaedam vis quae conformationem moliatur et seminalis censeri possit’ (II. 114).

[64] ‘videri esse in magnete ac ferro vim quandam analogam sensui: id nempe propter attractionem haud absimilem Animali. Nam ut Animal specie quadam objecti externi perculsum, ipsum statim appetit, et ad illud rapitur: ita minor magnes ac ferrum quamprimum maioris sive potentioris magnetis specie percellitur, appetitu quodam rapitur ad ipsum. Certe ut sensibile objectum non.... Et ut objectum sensibile per immissam speciem convertit trahitque ad se animam quae vi sua corpus quantumvis crassum una versus objectum transfert: ita et magnes per transfusam speciem videtur ad se convertere trahereque ipsam quasi animam (seu florem substantiae) ferri, quae sua vi totam ferri massam versus magnetem una abripiat.... Quare ut hoc modo subingressa speciei corpuscula in substantiam animae (partisve sentientis ipsius) illam ita sollicitant ut non sine quodam impetu in objectum feratur: ita videntur corpuscula speciei magnetis subingressa ferri quasi animam, ipsius corpuscula sic evolvere et in magnetem convertere ut hac ratione sollicitata impetum vegetum in magnetem concipiat et quod amplius est etiam parem speciem illico diffundat.’

[65] II. 144.

[66] We now speak of animated pictures as well as animated nature!

[67] II. 231.

[68] I say ‘in some degree intellectual’ without forgetting that the tendency of much of our modern psychological writing is to go beyond what we should ordinarily call intellectual phenomena. In spite of this, and in spite of our ‘animal psychology’ (which is largely engaged in proving its own possibility) and our treatment of subconscious phenomena, not to mention our phrenology and our analysis of adolescence, we have not yet got to the point at which we could speak of an active principle which did nothing but control digestion, as a ‘soul.’

[69] This would not be admissible in all cases. Some thought that the possession of Anima constituted a degree of dignity which could not be attributed to all creatures, an opinion which was due to the tendency to confuse the Anima Mundi with God, and a consequent repugnance to including in the Anima Mundi beings not worthy of the heaven of the elect. Hence the term Anima came to mean soul in the sense in which it is used in the phrase, ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die.’ For that class of thinker animals must be automata.

[70] Cp. with the account of Epicurus the following remarks by Gassendi (II. 248-250): ‘Epicurus probably made the atoms of the soul round: he does not seem to have said what they were so much as what they were _not_: Lucretius says “fugiens nil corporis aufert,” which dematerialises the concept: “ad haec memorant Plutarchus et alii Epicurum non fecisse simplicem Animae naturam sed esse voluisse κρᾶμα ἐκ τεσσάρων, ἐκ ποιοῦ πυρώδους, ἐκ ποιοῦ ἀερώδους, ἐκ ποιοῦ πνευματικοῦ, ἐκ τετάρτου τινὸς ἀκατανομάστου ὃ ἦν αὐτῷ αἰσθητικόν[*] (Stob. _Ecl. Phys._ p. 798), temperatum quid ex quibusdam quattuor nempe ex quodam igneo, ex quodam aereo, ex quodam flatuoso, ex quarto quodam innominato quod ipsi est sentiendi vis”: the four mix in such a way as to produce a one (inde fiat una quaedam substantia). We see from this passage (1) that the matter is defined so as to be practically immaterial; (2) that a substance is introduced simply to explain that which the others do not explain, sentience; (3) there is no suggestion of direct perception of a soul: it is an inference, relying mainly on an induction from the data of a living and a dead body by a method of differences. The Logic of the argument is curious. It is said, a dead body is not lighter than a living body, hence the soul has no weight: a dead body does not feel, hence the soul is that which has feeling, etc. These two arguments alone would prove (1) that there was no soul, or else that it stayed in the body, and (2) that death is loss of feeling—not of a soul that feels. The assumption of the soul made these “proofs” pass muster; but it is obvious that it would change the position very little indeed if we left out the soul as it is and confined ourselves to what it does.’

[*] Gass. sic. τοῦτο δ’ ἦν Ritter et Preller 384.

[71] II. 250. ‘Principio vero distinguendum inter Animam Hominis Animaliumque aliorum est: et cum operosior res sit circa Animam Hominis, ideo videtur prius dicendum de caeterorum Anima, ut de qua Mentis immortalis experte et philosophari liberius, et falli minore cum periculo liceat.’ It should be noted (1) that Gassendi expressly says he will take for examination the Anima, ‘quae sit in perfecto, sanguineo, respiranteque animali,’ and what is said of this will be true of all; (2) that Gassendi obviously thinks that what is said about the Anima not conjoined with Mens will be true of the composite Anima and mind. In both cases therefore the difference is in the function, not the substance, for, as nothing is subtracted in lower forms, so nothing is added in the higher.

[72] II. 281. _I.e._ because if we could say at such and such a time that the offspring is without the anima, and then afterwards that it now has the Anima, the soul must be educed from nothing. The whole passage is very interesting, but too long to quote. Writing in 1629 to ‘D. Thomae Fieno, in Inclyta Louaniensi Academia, Professori Medico Primario,’ Gassendi speaks as though he had already made up his mind on the point. At first, he says, I thought the child derived its Anima from the parent, being only an offshoot, like the cutting from a tree (juvabat me exemplum rami resecti ex salice). But this clashed with the testimony of the Scriptures, while it was supported by the evidences of heredity; so the only solution was to acknowledge that the Anima was twofold, and say the Anima sensitiva is ex parente, the Anima rationalis was created and ‘poured in’ by God, ‘statim atque decisione facta, seu foetus seu seminis, rationalis Anima Parentis seu foetum seu semen informare desineret’ (VI. 19). This statement is at once more orthodox and dogmatic than that in the _Syntagma_. The real reason for distinguishing the being of the Anima rationalis is the need for a position that will combine the facts of heredity with the truth of immortality.

[73] Cp. with Gassendi’s words what Lotze says in his _Outlines of Psychology_ (§ 81): ‘At the place where, and at the moment when, the germ of an organic being is formed amid the coherent system of the physical course of nature, this fact furnishes the incitement or moving reason which induces the all-comprehending One to beget from himself, as a supplement to such physical fact, the soul belonging to this organism.’

[74] Alteratio, cp. Stoic., ἑτεροίωσις.

[75] II. 330.

[76] non aliquid immitti, sed remitti potius repellive videtur: spiritus nempe nervis contentus. Bernier translates this by ‘rebondissement.’

[77] περὶ ψυχῆς 424_a_: ἡ μὲν αἴσθησις ἐστι τὸ δεκτικὸν τῶν αἰσθητῶν εἰδῶν ἄνευ τῆς ὕλης.

[78] This is the passage quoted by Masson (_v._ p. 117). Clearly it has a different meaning in its context from that which Masson gives it by taking it out of that context.

[79] _Met._ 1072. b. 20.

[80] II. 398.

[81] II. 405.

[82] II. 440.

[83] This is not the question of opposition between the sun as it is and as it appears, but of the limits to imaginative reproduction.

[84] II. 450.

[85] II. 447. ‘videtur mens nostra, seu Rationalis anima donec degit in corpore, non aliis uti speciebus quam iis quas corpus subministrat, quaeque in Phantasia resident: ac tum dumtaxat pari cum Angelis conditione evadere, cum excedenti a corpore, ac Angelorum instar futurae separatae, Deus indit species eiusmodi rerum, quas nosse eius interest, sive ignoratae in corpore fuerint, sive eae sint quarum cognitarum meminisse sit opus.’ It is therefore a bare soul that arrives in Heaven, and Gassendi at least means that only in Heaven can we have an actus purus.

[86] Si notiora et manifestiora sunt, alicui ergo facultati cognoscenti eiusmodi sunt, dici enim quid notum, dici manifestum nisi respectu eius cui innotescat manifestaturque, non potest.

[87] Cp. Bradley, _Ethical Studies_, on Lust.

[88] Thomas: _Gassendi_, p. 194.

[89] II. 505.

[90] II. 520.

[91] Max Müller, _Science of Language_, II. 382: ‘And this, better than anything else, will, I think, explain the strong objection which comparative philologists feel to what I called the Bow-wow and the Pooh-pooh theories, names which, I am sorry to see, have given great offence, but in framing which, I can honestly say, I thought more of Epicurus than of living writers, and meant no offence to either.’ _Ibid._ 398: ‘Even Epicurus, who is reported to have said that in the first formation of language men acted unconsciously, moved by nature ... admitted that this would only account for one half the language, and that some agreement must have taken place before language really began.’ The ‘reported to have said’ refers us to Proclus ad Plat. _Crat._ p. 9: ὁ γὰρ Ἐπίκουρος ἔλεγεν ὅτι οὐχι ἐπιστημόνως οὗτοι ἔθεντο τὰ ὀνόματα, ἀλλὰ φυσικῶς κινούμενοι, ὡς οἱ βήσσοντες καὶ πταίροντες καὶ μυκώμενοι καὶ ὑλακτοῦντες καὶ στενάζοντες.

[92] II. 551.

[93] This is one of the finest passages in Gassendi. The chemists, he says, would laugh at a surgeon who said the body could only be divided as far as anatomy divides it: they would say ‘_we_ can divide still further’; but ‘quemadmodum sit tibi chirurgus ineptus ... sic ipse videaris futurus ineptus ... ineptus, inquam, ipsi Naturae.’ Even this more penetrating analysis cannot get to the bottom of things: ‘utcunque ergo nactus sis huiuscemodi quod dissolvat agens, non magis tamen nactus es agens quod ab eo secreta compingat, quam chirurgus ille organum quod parteis scalpello secretas adunet. Atqui est praeterea in Natura agens quod compingat coadunetque.’

(adunare is Gassendi’s technical term for the producing of unity by composition: it really denotes more than compingere, indicating the view of the result as a whole, while compingere remains at the point of view of the parts as being welded together.)

[94] II. 558. ‘neque intellectus, tanquam praeeunte face destitutus penetrare suo acumine potest in illorum substantiam.’

‘Sensibus destituimur quibus praeeuntibus Intellectus sua acutie principia huiuscemodi deprehendat, assequatur, prolustret, introspiciat’ (559).

[95] II. 557.

[96] ‘nullo non sacculo Natura illud homini insusurret aut potius inclamet,

‘Tecum habita et noris quam sit tibi curta suppellex.’

But ‘nihil sit desperandum de humani ingenii sagacitate,’ II. 560.

[97] II. 695.

[98] With this idea of the plebeian mind seeking praeter lucrum nihil there is a close parallel in Ruskin, _Crown of Wild Olive_, § 32: ‘In every nation there are a vast class who are ill-educated, cowardly, and more or less stupid. And with these people just as certainly the fee is first and the work second, as with brave people the work is first and the fee second.’

[99] ‘non voluit Epicurus tranquillitatem esse quasi merum torporem, sed voluit potius esse statum in quo omnes vitae actiones placide simul et jucunde peragerentur’ (II. 716).

[100] This is meant purely metaphorically: it has however been suggested that Epicurus’ mode of life was a ‘dietetic experiment.’

[101] II. 729-730.

[102] II. 770.

[103] II. 795. ‘Itaque quicquid sit de illa seu suppositione seu fictione status, in quo seu Epicurus seu alii vixisse aliquando dicunt primos homines, tam esse profecto videtur ipsa societas hominum, quam illorum est origo antiqua: ac non eo quidem solum modo quo bruta generis eiusdem sociabilia inter se sunt, verum illo etiam, quo quatenus sunt et intelligentes et ratione praediti, agnoscunt non posse ullam inter se societatem esse securam nisi ea conventionibus pactisque mutuis constabiliatur.’

[104] Voigt (_Jus. Nat._ vol. ii. 661) distinguishes Jus civile, Jus gentium, and Jus naturale as the systems which applied respectively to the citizen, the freeman, and the man. In the earlier stages of its recognition it was an independent international private law which, as such, regulated intercourse between peregrins, or between peregrins and citizens, on the basis of their common libertas.

[105] Ulpian speaks of a jus naturale common to man and lower animals, which is substantially instinct. This is said to be a law of nature not referred to by any other jurist. The idea of jus naturale was not peculiar to Ulpian. Gaius and Justinian equate Jus naturale and jus gentium; but while the jus gentium is more natural than the civile, it is far from identical with the naturale. The jus naturale is essentially a speculative element. Its most noticeable features are: ‘(1) its potential universal applicability to all men; (2) among all peoples; (3) at all times; and (4) its correspondence with the innate conviction of right.’ It included among its propositions (1) recognitions of claims of blood; (2) duty and faithfulness to engagements; (3) apportionment according to equity; (4) voluntatis ratio. (For these facts see Voigt, quoted in the _Encycl. Brit._, _loc. cit._) It will be obvious from these notes on the character of the jus naturale that it was eminently fitted for becoming the basis of a universal ethic.

[106] Merito vero quasi prima secundum naturam habetur lex illa, quod tibi fieri non vult, alteri ne feceris: quippe ea omneis leges societatis sic continet ut nemo violet alienum jus, nisi quia legem hanc violat.... Manifestum quoque est finem societatis esse in eo, ut cuique suo jure frui, absque impedimento liceat: ... debet in illis constans et perpetua voluntas tribuendi (hoc est conservandi atque reponendi) suum cuique jus, reperiri: ideo residere in ipsis Publicam, communemve justitiam quasi tutricem ac vindicem juris cuiusque singularis. If this is fully realised it follows supervacaneam publicam illam fore.... Finally, vir vere justus non ob intentas a legibus poenas, quas exacturus magistratus sit, sed ipsiusmet Justitiae amore reverentiaque colit, et legibus etiam magistratibusque sublatis prorsus culturus est.

[107] _Op. cit._ 277.

[108] _v._ _Encycl. Britt._ vol. 20, p. 696 (tenth ed.).

[109] ‘neque enim est cur putemus solam justitiam esse constantem atque perpetuam voluntatem, ut _Jurisconsulti_ definiunt’ (VI. 113).

[110] _v._ p. 237.

[111] II. 840. ‘illi naturae lumini quo nos liberos esse experimur.’

[112] ‘Cumque Aristoteles propterea admitteret solum, ut verum, complexum eiusmodi duarum disjunctivarum enunciationum, aut erit cras bellum navale aut non erit: Epicurus quoque hoc solum complexum admisit, ut verum, aut vivet cras Hermarchus aut non vivet: pervidit enim, si alteram disjunctionum veram esse admitteret, fore ut necesse esset vivere cras Hermarchum, aut necesse non vivere: “nulla autem est,” inquit _in natura_ talis necessitas’ (II. 837).

[113] I. 316. ‘Sed demus fuisse talem materiam seu Atomorum temere volitantium infinitatem, annon difficultas est semper quomodo in tanta illa laxitate, et infinitate spatiorum tot Atomi convenerint ut illico potuerint se tam valide revincire, tam concinne disponere, absque revinciente et disponente causa? Nam quod animalia quidem adeo exquisite formentur, id habent ex seminibus ad certas formas comparatis: Atomi vero illa non se habuere ut semina: quatenus comparata magis ad gignendum Mundum, quam ad quidvis aliud non fuere.’ This passage deserves particular attention, because it shows how Gassendi sees that the necessity for going below determinate to indeterminate matter is one with the necessity for postulating a Creator: the Atom being nothing _may_ be everything, but it _need_ not be anything: the necessity falls outside the Atom as such.

[114] The justification of faith is somewhat over-subtle: ‘jam vero ista quae per sensus comprehenduntur occasiones sunt quae nos ad formandum de Deo Anticipationem inducunt. Cum sit autem duplex potissimum sensus, auditus scilicet et visus,’ etc. (I. 292). To auditus pertains the anticipatio which arises from hearing about God, _i.e._ from authority, primarily the authority of the Bible. It should be noted that this knowledge of God is an intuition, like that which grasps axiomatic truths. In both cases belief is due to ‘seeing’ (intuiting) the necessity of the conjunction of ideas expressed in the words: it is therefore relative to the individual’s development. This argument is two-edged: for we can either say ‘idiots do not comprehend God,’ or, ‘those who do not comprehend God are idiots’ [ut quantumcunque aliqui hominum _mutili_ aut nascantur aut fiunt, hoc non obstat quin homines dicantur habere ab ipsa natura suorum membrorum integritatem ita quantumvis aliqui aut nascantur aut fiant _Athei_, etc., I. 290.]

[115] I. 331. ‘Ad alia ut accedam, tametsi nos Deus sinit res nostras agere: non minus idcirco illi curae sumus. Quippe qui naturâ sumus liberi, idcirco nos, quae maxima ipsius benignitas est, frui patitur libertate nostra, ac nos interea procul dubio versus meliora dirigit. Etenim vices parentis gerit,’ etc.

[116] _E.g._ nec ratione loci for regione loci in the passage quoted, p. 236.

[117] Quoted below, p. 236.

[118] _v._ p. xliv.

[119] Thomas (_op. cit._ p. 24) gives two reasons for the neglect into which Gassendi fell. The first, quoted from Brucker, is that Gassendi was too modest: his manner was so hesitating that it failed to win the confidence of the reader. The other is want of clearness and conciseness in the exposition. I think the true reason is rather to be found in the fact that the necessity of getting down to nature was not yet fully recognised, and the ideas of system and subjectivity were more akin to the spirit of the times than those of content and empirical classification. Thomas is certainly right in saying that Gassendi was as much damaged by his friends as his foes: Epicurus in one way, and Bernier in another, combined to damage his prospects.

[120] See p. 305.

[121] I take the phrase from Kant.

[122] ‘I shall not therefore be surprised if some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasm of Malebranche.... He asserts an absolute external world, which I deny’ (the Second Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous).

[123] On this point Gassendi in his correspondence diverged into humour with a translation of duo quaedam epigrammata ex Anthologia: I quote the second:

‘Ex Atomis Epicurus ait consistere Mundum, Alcime, quippe putans his nihil esse minus. At si novisset Diophantum, constituisset Ex ipso potius, qui minor est Atomis. Aut alia ex Atomis texens, ipsas potuisset Ex Diophanto Atomos composuisse prius.’

(VI. 160.)

[124] This question of the relations and comparative values of the monistic and pluralistic ideals, of the One Being and the being at one, is too big to be discussed incidentally. It has been touched upon by Mr. F. C. S. Schiller in _The Riddles of the Sphinx_ (p. 353): ‘We may reasonably conclude then that monism is a failure, that by assuming _unity_ at the outset it incapacitates itself for the task of explaining phenomenal _plurality_, and _a fortiori_ for the still higher task of really _uniting_ the Many in a significant _union_’; p. 355: ‘And Leibnitz might well take for granted that as the Many _do_ interact, they must be _capable of interacting_, and that it was unnecessary to demonstrate that what actually existed was also capable of existing.’

[125] In a letter to Valesius (VI. 111, dated 1641) Gassendi distinguishes two kinds of philosophy, (1) quam appellare τῶν φαινομένων, seu Historicam soleo, (2) qua intimae rerum naturae proprietatesque cognoscantur: ... haec est quam Deo totam concedo.

[126] Cp. Lotze, _Mikrokosmus_, I. 237, ‘a constantly renewed cement.’

[127] _Mikrokosmus_, III. ch. iv. Engl. Tran. p. 360.

[128] _Ibid._ p. 35.

[129] _Mikrokosmus_, III. ch. iv. Engl. Tran. p. 52.

[130] _Ibid._ p. 74.

[131] _Ibid._ p. 83.

[132] _Ibid._ p. 79.

[133] _Mikrokosmus_, III. ch. iv. Engl. Tran. p. 532.

[134] _Ibid._ p. 535.

[135] _Ibid._ p. 536.

[136] _Ibid._ p. 548.

INDEX

Activity, 162.

Analysis, value of, 178.

Anima, 106 (_v._ Soul). Rationalis, 142.

Animals, how classified, 99.

Appetitus, 153.

Atoms: as described by Democritus, xxi. as hyper-sensuous, xxxii, 52. how different, 64.

Atomism, xvii. its origins, xix. of Democritus, xx-xxii. as philosophy, xxiv, 255, 274. its revival, 245. in Leibnitz, 276.

Attraction, 62, 119.

Avicenna, 30 n., 176.

Bacon, 11.

Causality, 57.

Cause, efficient, 55.

Chymici, 24, 51. their elements, 177. criticism of, 178.

Clifford, W. K., 117.

Compositio, 136.

Copernicus, 29.

Courage, 203.

Cupiditas, 157.

_Declination_, xxxi. note on, 230.

_Democritus._ his doctrine, xx-xxiii. referred to, 52.

Descartes, xxxix. his logic, 11. relation to Gassendi, 251.

Empiricism, Gassendi’s relation to, 12, 251.

Epicurus, xvii. relation to atomism, xviii. life and teaching, xxv-xxxvi. Logic, xxvii, 3. Physics, xxx. Psychology, xxxiii, 109, 121. on imagines, 77. on origin of laws, 204. referred to, 52, 56, 101, 104, 167 n., 185, 198, 225, 231.

Eternity, 46.

Experience: meaning of, 251, 253.

Faculties: nature of, 69, 115.

Gassendi: his times, xxxix, 246. character, xxxix. life, xl-xlv. Logic, 1. Physics, 19. on plurality of worlds, 22. on World Soul, 23, 140. on theories of the Universe, 28. use of categories, 29, 35, 257, 264. on space, 34. time, 40. eternity, 46. matter, 49. the atom, 52-64. efficient causes, 55. pure causality, 57. local motion, 60. attraction, 62, 119. qualities, 66. nature of faculties, 69, 115. gravity, 72. light, 74. visible species (imagines), 76. Generation or Becoming, 83. magnet, 92, 115, 119. plants, 95. classification of animals, 99. teleology, 100. de anima, 106. the human soul, 111. origin of soul, 113. perception, 115, 123. sensation, 116, 121. mind-stuff theory, 118. his scale of Being, 127, 263. imagination, 129. simple apprehension, 135. compositio, 136. Ratio Sensitiva, 137. intellectus, 142. appetitus, 153. cupiditas, 157. pleasure-pain, 157. activity (vis motrix), 162. vocal sounds, 165. nature of life, 168. identity and continuity, 169. temperament, 174. value of analysis, 178. summum bonum, 184. classes of goods, 191. virtue defined, 196. prudence, 200. courage, 203. temperance, 204. justice, 204. jus civile, 206. jus naturale, 207. jus gentium, 209. natural laws, 210. liberty, 218. predestination, 221. God, 224.

_Gassendi._ his position defined, 248. character of his work, 256. the concept of motion, 261.

Generation, 83.

God, 224. relation to time, 47. first cause, 56.

Guyau, quoted, 230.

Identity, 169.

Imagination, 13, 129.

Intellectus, 142.

Jus, civile, 206; naturale, 207; gentium, 209.

Justice, 204.

Kant: his ethics in relation to Gassendi, 214. his influence, 274, 279.

Leibnitz: his logical standpoint, 271. relation to Gassendi, 273. defective idea of an organism, 275. idea of unity, 277.

Leucippus, xvii. development of his atomism, xviii-xx.

Liberty, 218.

Life, defined, 168.

Light: nature of, 74.

Logic. of Epicurus, xxvii, 3. of Gassendi, 1.

_Lotze._ his aesthetic standpoint, 283. doing opposed to being, 284. three moments of his philosophy, 287. occasionalism, 287. idealism, 288.

_Lucretius_, xvii. on the soul, xxxiii, 121. quoted, 23, 109 n., 226, 237.

Magnet, 92, 115, 119.

Masson, John, quoted, 117, 230.

Materialism, 249.

Matter, 49.

Mind-stuff, 118.

Motion. as general principle, 261. local motion, 60. vis motrix, 162.

Natural laws, 210.

Nature, view of, 20.

Occasionalism, 288.

Perception, 115, 123.

Plants, 95.

Plato, Timaeus, quoted, 25.

Posidonius, quoted, 45, 46.

Potentiality, 266.

Potestas, 72.

Predestination, 221.

Prudence, 200.

Pythagoras, on the World Soul, 25.

Qualities, 66.

Quality: opposed to quantity, 267.

Quantity: category of, 268. relation to quality, 66.

Ratio, kinds of, 137.

Relation, category of, 265.

Sensation, 116, 121.

Signa, 10.

Soul, 106. human, 111. origin of, 113. and body, 263.

Space, 34.

Species (visible), 76.

Speech, 165.

Substance, category of, 264, 272.

Summum bonum, 184.

Teleology, 100.

Temperament, 174.

Temperance, 204.

Thomas, P. Felix, quoted, xv, xliii, 4, 160, 213.

Time, 40.

Timeless, meaning of, 46.

Ueberweg, quoted, 248.

Unity, 257, 277. in Lotze, 291.

Virtue, 196.

Wallace, Epicureanism, quoted, xxvi, xxxv, 104.

World Soul, 23, 140.

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