# Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Philosophical Remains (1883)/An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness

Philosophical Remains, Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier (1883 ed., Vol. 3). (E. L. Lushington, & A. Grant, Eds.) Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. pp. 1-258
AN INTRODUCTION
to the
PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
Among the fables of the East there is a story which runs thus: A certain young man inherited from his forefathers a very wonderful lamp, which for generations had been the ornament of his family, and from which he now derived his livelihood, as they, in former times, had done. Its virtues were of such a nature that, while by its means all his reasonable wants were supplied, a check was, at the same time, imposed upon any extravagant exercise of its beneficence. Once a-day, and no oftener, might its services be called into requisition. It consisted of twelve branches, and as soon as these were lighted, twelve dervishes appeared, each of whom, after performing ​sundry circumvolutions, threw him a small piece of money, and vanished. Thus was the young man provided every day with means sufficient for his daily subsistence; and his desires being moderate, he for a long time considered this a bountiful provision, and remained satisfied with the good which he enjoyed upon such easy terms.
By degrees, however, when he reflected upon his situation, his heart became disturbed by the stirrings of avarice and ambition, and a restless desire to know more of the extraordinary source from whence his comforts flowed. He was unwilling to die, like his ancestors, and transmit the lamp to his posterity, without at least making the attempt to probe his way into its profounder mysteries. He suspected that he was merely skimming the surface of a sea of inexhaustible riches, the depths of which he was sure the lamp might be made to open up to him, if he but understood and could give full effect to the secret of its working. And then, if this discovery were made, what earthly potentate would be able to vie with him in magnificence and power!
Accordingly, being filled with these aspiring thoughts, and eager to learn, if possible, the whole secret of the lamp, he repaired with it to the abode of a magician, who was famous for all kinds of recondite knowledge. The old man, when he beheld the lamp, perceived at a glance its surprising virtues, and his eyes sparkled at the sight. But when again he turned to the young man, his looks became ​suddenly overcast, and he thus cautioned him in the Words of long experienced wisdom. "Be contented with thy lot, my son," said he, "and with the good thou now enjoyest. The ordinary favours of the lamp enable thee to live in comfort, and to discharge correctly all the duties of thy station. What more wouldst thou have? Take it, therefore, home with thee again, and employ it as heretofore. But seek not to call forth, or pry into its more extraordinary properties, lest some evil befall thee, and the attempt be for ever fatal to thy peace."
But the young man would not be thwarted in his project. The counsel of the magician only served to whet his curiosity by showing it to be not unfounded, and to confirm him in his determination to unravel, I possible, and at whatever hazard, the mysterious powers of his treasure. The old man, therefore, finding that he would not be gainsaid, at length yielded to his entreaties, and by his art compelled the lamp to render up the deeper secrets of its nature. The twelve branches being lighted, the twelve dervishes made their appearance, and commenced their usual gyrations, which, however, were speedily cut short by the magician, who, seizing his staff, smote them to the earth, where they instantly became transformed into heaps of gold and silver, and rubies and diamonds. The young man gazed on the spectacle with bewilderment, which soon settled into delight. Now, thought he, I am rich beyond the wealth of kings, there is not a desire of my heart which may not ​now be gratified. Eager, therefore, to experiment at home, he hastily seized the lamp, and bade adieu to the magician, who, turning from him with the simple word "beware," left him to his fate.
No sooner was he alone, than he lighted the lamp, and repeated what he believed to be the other steps of the process he had just witnessed; but, lo! with what a different result. He had not remarked that the magician held his staff in his left hand when he smote the genii; and as he naturally made use of his right, the effect produced was by no means the same. On the contrary, instead of being changed into heaps of treasure beneath his strokes, the dervishes became transformed into vindictive demons, and handled the incautious experimenter so roughly, that they left him lying half dead on the ground, with the lamp in fragments by his side.
Reader! this lamp is typical of thy natural understanding. Thou hast a light within thee sufficient to enlighten thy path in all the avocations of thy daily life, and to supply thee with everything needful to thy welfare and success upon earth. Therefore be not too inquisitive about it. Whatever thy calling be, whether lofty or low, tend thy lamp with care and moderation, and it will never fail thee. It is a sacred thing; and perhaps thy wisest part is to let it shine unquestioned.
Take example from the tranquil ongoings of creation. There is no self-interrogation here: and yet how glorious and manifold are the results! There ​is no reflex process passing within the trees of the forest, when, drinking in life at their hidden roots, they dazzle thine eyes with beauty elaborated in darkness. Is this because there is no reason spread abroad through the kingdoms of nature? If thou thinkest so, go and be convinced of the contrary by beholding the geometry of the bee when she builds her honeyed cells. Here is reason, but reason going at once to its point, reason working out its end in a natural and straightforward line. It turns not back to question, and ask the meaning of itself. It entangles its employer in no perplexities, it weaves for him no web of matted sophistries; but how peaceful are its operations, and how perfect are its effects! Go thou, and do likewise.
Next turn to those who, thwarting the natural evolution of their powers, have turned round upon themselves, and questioned the light by which their spirits saw, and what a different spectacle is presented to thee here! What ravelled crossings, and what a breaking-up of the easy and natural mechanism of thought! For them the holy fire of their early inspiration is burnt out; and what is on the altar in its place? Perhaps a fire holier and more precious than the first; the light of an unconsuming and unlimited freedom, self-achieved, and higher than that which man was born to. But more probably the altar is overthrown, and the phantoms of scepticism, fatalism, materialism, or idealism, are haunting the ground whereon it stood, while the man lies prostrate ​beneath their blows. Wilt thou not take warning from his fate?
Thou, like other created things, wert born a child of nature, and for long her inevitable instincts were thy only guides. Art thou willing to remain still under her fostering care; wilt thou, for ever, derive all thy inspiration from her; and be quickened by her breath, as the budding woods are quickened by the breath of spring? Be so, and in thy choice be active, be contented, and be happy.
But art thou one who believes that thy true strength consists, in every instance, in being a rebel against the bondage of nature; that all her fetters, however flowery, must be broken asunder; and that all her lessons, however pleasing, must be scattered to the winds, if man would be emphatically man? Then thou art already a philosopher indeed, and all these words are vain as addressed to thee. Thou hast now found thy true self, where alone it is to be found, in opposition to the dominion and the dictates of nature, and thou wilt own her guardianship no more. Her laws and thy laws now no longer agree, but stand opposed to each other in direct and irreconcilable hostility. Nature works beautifully, but blindly and without reflection. Thou must work, it may be with pain and difficulty, but, at the same time, with a seeing soul, and a full consciousness of what thou art about. Nature fills thy heart with passions, and tells it to find its happiness in giving way to them. But, out of consciousness, conscience ​has germinated; and thou sayest unto thyself, that passion is to be trodden under foot. In the midst of thy afflictions, nature lends thee no support, no comfort except the advice that thou shouldst yield to them. Obey her dictates, and thou shalt sink into the dust; but listen to thyself, and even in the heart of suffering, thou shalt rise up into higher action. Further, art thou determined to follow out this opposition between nature and thyself, and, for practical as well as speculative ends, to look down into the foundations on which it rests? Then it will be idle to seek any longer to deter thee from penetrating into the "holy cave, the haunt obscure of old philosophy," to have thine eyes unscaled, and the innermost mysteries of thy "lamp" revealed to thee. Thou hast chosen thy part; and, for the chance of freedom and enlightenment, art willing to run the risk of having thy soul shaken, and thy peace overthrown, by the creations of thy own understanding, which may possibly be transmuted into phantom demons to bewilder and confound thee. Still pause for a moment at the threshold, and before entering carry with thee this reflection: that thy only chance of safety lies in the faithfulness and completeness of thy observations. Think of the fate of the young man who observed imperfectly, and, dreading an analogous doom, pass over no fact which philosophy may set before thee, however trivial and insignificant it may, at first sight, appear. Do thou note well and remember in which hand the magician holds his staff. ​
CHAPTER II.
In resorting to philosophy, therefore, there is no safety except in the closeness and completeness of our observations; and let it be added, that there is no danger except in the reverse. Push speculation to its uttermost limits, and error is impossible, if we have attended rigidly to the facts which philosophy reveals to us: overlook perhaps but a single fact, and our reason, otherwise our faithful minister, and truly a heap of untold treasure, may be converted into a brood of fiends to baffle and destroy us.
The whole history of science shows that it is inattention to the phenomena manifested, and nothing else, which, in all ages, has been the fruitful mother of errors in the philosophy of man. Entirely in consequence of this kind of neglect have philosophical systems become vitiated. A taint enters into them by reason of the exclusion of certain essential particulars: and when the peccant humour breaks out, as it is sure to do sooner or later, it is strange that this incipient symptom of a cure is often mistaken for the worst form of the disease. Never was such a taint ​more conspicuously brought to light, never was such a mistake as to its nature more strikingly illustrated, than in the instances of Locke and Hume. Locke, founding on the partial principle of an older philosophy, "Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu," banished all original notions from the mind. Hume, following in the footsteps of the approved doctrine, took up the notion of cause and effect, and demonstrated that this relation could not be perceived by sense, that it never was in sense, and that consequently the notion of it could not possibly have any place in intelligence. In fact, he proved the notion of cause and effect to be a nonentity. But all moral reasoning, or reasoning respecting matters of fact, rests upon the notion of cause and effect: therefore all moral reasoning rests upon a notion which is a nonentity; and by the same consequence is a nonentity itself. Thus Hume, following fairly out the premises of Locke, struck a blow which paralysed man's nature in its most vital function. Like Samson carrying the gates of Gaza, he lifted human reason absolutely off its hinges; and who is there that shall put it on again upon the principles of the then dominant philosophy?
But what was the issue of all this? what was the good consequence that ensued from it? Was it that the conclusion of Hume was true? Far from it. Hume himself never dreamt it to be so, never wished that it should be thought so. Such an intention would have been at variance with the whole spirit of ​his philosophy — the object of which was to expose, in all its magnitude, the vice of the prevailing doctrines of his times. Is this, says he, your boasted philosophy? Behold, then, what its consequences amount to! And his reductio, designed, as it was, to act back upon this philosophy, and to confound it, was certainly most triumphant. If Hume did not rectify the errors of his predecessors, he at any rate brought them clearly to light; and these errors consisted in the omission of certain phenomena, by which man was curtailed of his real proportions, and emptied of his true self. Take another instance. What has involved the doctrine of perception in so much perplexity, except the uncertainty and fluctuation which prevail respecting its facts? Without speculating one word on the subject, let us look for a moment to the facts of the question, let us see in what a state they stand, and how they have been dealt with by two of our most illustrious philosophers. At the time of Hume three facts were admitted in the prevailing doctrine of perception, and understood to stand exactly upon the same level with regard to their certainty. First, the object (i.e., the external world perceived). Second, the image, impression, representation, or whatever else it may be called, of this. Third, the subject (i.e., the mind of man perceiving). Hume embraced the second of these as a fact immediately given; but displaced the other two as mediate and hypothetical. Reid, on the other hand, rejected the second as mediate and hypothetical, ​and maintained the first and third to be facts immediately given. So that between the two philosophers the whole three were at once admitted as facts, and rejected as hypotheses. Which is right and which is wrong cannot be decided here. Probably Hume is not so much in the wrong, nor Reid so much in the right, as they are generally imagined to be; for it is certain that common sense repudiates the conclusion of the latter, just as much as it does that of the former. The subject and object, mind and matter, supposing them to exist, are certainly given in one indivisible simultaneous fact constituting immediate perception. This is what the natural understanding maintains. This is the fact of representation, the second in our series: a synthesis perhaps of the other two facts; but nevertheless, according to the testimony of common sense, a distinct and undeniable fact, just as much as they are distinct and undeniable facts. This is the fact which Hume admits, and which Reid, however, rejects — his rejection of it being indeed the very lever by which he imagines himself at once to have replaced the other two facts in their original position, and to have displaced the conclusions by means of which Hume was supposed to have dislodged them. Common sense, therefore, is not more enlisted on the side of Reid, than on the side of Hume; and the truth is, the question remains as much open to question as ever. But the issue to which these philosophers have brought it, proves that there must have been some flaw in the original ​observation of the facts of perception. The great discrepancy between them, and the fact that neither of them has brought the question to any satisfactory termination, notwithstanding the thorough and sifting manner in which they have discussed and exhausted all the materials before them, can only be accounted for upon this ground. They have certainly made it apparent that the phenomena of perception have never been correctly observed, or faithfully stated: and that is the good which they have done.
But the danger accruing from inattention on the part of man, to the facts revealed to him in the study of himself, is to be seen in its strongest light when reflected from the surface of his moral and practical life. Man takes to pieces only to reconstruct; and he can only reconstruct a thing out of the materials into which he has analysed it. When, therefore, after having analysed himself, he seeks to build himself up again (such a task is self-education), he can only work with the divided elements which he has found. He has nothing else under his hand. Therefore, when any element has escaped him in the analysis, it will also escape him, and not be combined, in the synthesis: and so far he will go forth into the world again shorn of a portion of himself; and if the neglect has involved any important ingredient of his constitution, he will go forth a mutilated skeleton. Such things have often happened in the history of mankind. Speculative inquirers, who, in analysing man (i.e., themselves), or man's actions ​(i.e., their own), have found no morality, no honour, no religion therein, have seldom, in putting the same together again, placed any of these elements in their own breasts as practical men. And after a time it is the tendency of these omissions, and of this influence of theory upon practice, to operate on a wider scale, and pervade the heart of the whole people among whom such things occur, particularly among its well-educated ranks — witness France towards the end of the last century, with its host of economists, calculators, and atheists, who emptied the universe of morality, and set up expediency in its stead.
"Arouse man," says Schelling, "to the consciousness of what he is, and he will soon learn to be what he ought." It may be added, teach him to think himself something which he is not, and no power in heaven or in earth will long keep him from framing himself practically in conformity with his theoretical pattern, or from becoming that which he ought not to be. Speculative opinion always acts vitally upon practical character, particularly when it acts upon masses of men and long generations. Theory is the source out of which practice flows. The Hindoo beholds himself, as he conceives, whirling, with all other things, within the eddies of a gigantic fatalism. So far he is a speculator merely. But trace out his philosophy into his actual life, and see how supine he is in conduct and in soul. All his activities are dead. His very personality is really gone, because he looks upon it as gone. He has really ​no freedom of action, because he believes himself to have none. He views himself but as "dust in the wind" and viewing himself thus, he becomes, in practice, the worthless thing which in theory he dreams himself to be. Fatalism, too, has ever been the creed of usurpers; and they have ever made it their apology also in their strivings after more tyrannical rule. Did conscience for a moment cross the path of these scourges of the earth, it was brushed aside with the salving dogma that man is but a machine in the hands of a higher power. Napoleon, in his own eyes, was but a phantom of terror shaped on the battle-field, by the winds of circumstance, out of the thunder-smoke of his own desolating wars; and, with this reflection, his enslaving arm was loosed more fiercely than before. Finally, through inattention to the true phenomena of man, we may be misled into all the errors of Rochefoucauld. And here our errors will not stop at their theoretical stage. In order to prove our creed to be correct, we must, and will ere long, make our own characters correspond with his model of man, believing it to be the true one.
Such and so great is the peril to which we are exposed in our practical characters, as well as in our speculative beliefs, from any oversight committed in studying the phenomena of ourselves. There is no call upon any man to observe these phenomena. Sufficient in general for his day are the troubles thereof, without this additional source of perplexity. ​But if he must study them, let him study them faithfully, and without curtailment. If he will bring himself before the judgment-seat of his own soul, he is bound to bring himself thither unmutilated and entire, in order that he may depart from thence greater and better, and not less perfect than he came. He is not entitled to pass over without notice any fact which may be exhibited to him there, for he cannot tell how much may depend upon it, and whether consequences, mighty to change the whole aspect of his future self, may not be slumbering unsuspected in this insignificant germ. Let him note all things faithfully; for although, like the young man in the fable of the lamp, he may be unable to divine at first the great results which are dependent on the minutest facts, he may at any rate take a lesson from his fate, and, when studying at the feet of philosophy, may observe correctly in which hand that magician holds his staff. ​
CHAPTER III.
But, inasmuch as our observation must not be put forth vaguely or at random, but must be directed by some principle of method, the question comes to be, In what way are the true facts of man's being to be sought for and obtained? There is a science called the "science of the human mind," the object of which is to collect and systematise the phenomena of man's moral and intellectual nature. If this science accomplishes the end proposed, its method must be the very one which we ought to make use of. But if it should appear that this science carries in its very conception such a radical defect that all the true and distinctive phenomena of man necessarily elude its grasp, and that it is for ever doomed to fall short of the end it designs to compass, then our adoption of its method could only lead us to the poorest and most unsatisfactory results. That such is its real character will, it is believed, become apparent as we proceed.
The human mind, not to speak it profanely, is like the goose that laid golden eggs. The metaphysician ​resembles the analytic poulterer who slew it to get at them in a lump, and found nothing for his pains. Leave the mind to its own natural workings, as manifested in the imagination of the poet, the fire and rapid combinations of the orator, the memory of the mathematician, the gigantic activities and never-failing resources of the warrior and statesman, or even the manifold powers put forth in everyday life by the most ordinary of men; and what can be more wonderful and precious than its productions? Cut into it metaphysically, with a view of grasping the embryo truth, and of ascertaining the process by which all these bright results are elaborated in the womb, and every trace of "what has been" vanishes beneath the knife; the breathing realities are dead, and lifeless abstractions are in their place; the divinity has left its shrine, and the devotee worships at a deserted altar; the fire from heaven is lost in chaotic darkness, and the godlike is nothing but an empty name. Look at thought, and feeling, and passion, as they glow on the pages of Shakespeare. Golden eggs, indeed! Look at the same as they stagnate on the dissecting-table of Dr Brown, and marvel at the change. Behold how shapeless and extinct they have become!
Man is a "living soul;" but science has been trained among the dead. Man is a free agent; but science has taken her lessons from dependent things, the inheritors and transmitters of an activity, gigantic indeed, but which is not their own. What then will ​she do when brought face to face with such a novelty, such an anomaly as he? Instead of conforming herself to him, she will naturally seek to bend him down in obedience to the early principles she has imbibed. She has subdued all things to herself; and now she will endeavour to end by putting man, too, under her feet. Like a treacherous warrior, who, after having conquered the whole world in his country's cause, returns to enslave the land that gave him birth, Science, coming home laden with the spoils of the universe, will turn her arms against him whose banner she bore, and in whose service she fought and triumphed. By benumbing a vitality she cannot grasp, and by denying or passing by, blindly or in perplexity, a freedom she can neither realise nor explain, she will do her best to bring him under the dominion of the well-known laws which the rest of the universe obeys. But all her efforts ever have been, and ever shall be, unavailing. She may indeed play with words, and pass before us a plausible rotation of "faculties." She may introduce the causal nexus into thought, and call the result "association." But the man himself is not to be found in this "calculating machine." He, with all his true phenomena, has burst alive from under her petrific hand, and leaves her grasping "airy nothings," not even the shadow of that which she is striving to comprehend; for, though she can soar the solar height, and gaze unblinded on the stars, man soars higher still, and, in his lofty region, she ​has got waxen wings, that fall to pieces in the blaze of the brighter sun of human freedom.
These things are spoken of physical science; but they apply equally to the science of the human mind, because this science is truly and strictly physical in its method and conditions, and, to express it in general terms, in the tone it assumes, and the position it occupies, when looking at the phenomena of man. As has been already hinted, it is not wonderful that man, when endeavouring to comprehend and take the measure of himself, should, in the first instance at least, have adopted the tone and method of the physical sciences, and occupied a position analogous to that in which they stand. The great spectacle of the universe is the first to attract the awakening intelligence of man; and hence the earliest speculators were naturalists merely. And what is here true in the history of the race, is true also in the history of the individual. Every man looks at nature, and, consciously or unconsciously, registers her appearances long before he turns his eyes upon himself. Thus a certain method, and certain conditions, of inquiry, are fixed; what is considered the proper and pertinent business of science is determined, before man turns his attention to himself. And when he does thus turn it, nothing can be more natural, or indeed inevitable, than that he should look at the new object altogether by the light of the old method, and of his previously-acquired conception of science. But man not having been taken into account when these ​conceptions were first formed, and when this method was fixed, the question comes to be, How does this application of them answer when man forms the object of research? For it is at least possible that, in his case, the usual mode of scientific procedure may misgive.
It is unfair to condemn anything unheard. It is idle and unreasonable to charge any science with futility without at least endeavouring to substantiate the charge, and to point out the causes of its failure. Let us, then, run a parallel between the procedure of science as applied to nature, and the procedure of science as applied to man, and see whether, in the latter case, science does not occupy a position of such a nature, that if she maintains it, all the true phenomena for which she is looking necessarily become invisible; and if she deserts it, she forgoes her own existence. For, be it observed, that the "science of the human mind" claims to be a science only in so far as it can follow the analogy of the natural sciences, and, consequently, if its inability to do this to any real purpose be proved, it must relinquish all pretensions to the name.
In the first place, then, what is the proper business and procedure of the natural sciences? This may be stated almost in one word. It is to mark, register, and classify the changes which take place among the objects constituting the material universe. These objects change, and they do nothing more.
In the second place, what is the proper business and procedure of science in its application to man? ​Here science adopts precisely the same views, and follows precisely the same method. Man objectises himself as "the human mind," and declares that the only fact, or at least that the sum total of all the facts appertaining to this object, is that it is visited by certain changes constituting its varieties of "feeling," "passion," "states of mind," or by whatever other name they may be called, and that the only legitimate business of science here is to observe these changes and classify them.
CHAPTER IV.
In order, therefore, to make sure that the requisitions demanded in the preceding chapter are complied with, let us suppose the following dialogue to take place between an "inquirer" into "the human mind," and an inhabitant of some planet different from ours; a person who can bring to the discussion neither ignorant prejudices nor learned prepossessions, and whose information respecting the subject in hand does not outrun the language in which it is conveyed.
The universe, commences the metaphysician, is ​divided into two distinct orders of existence, mind and matter. Matter is known by its changes alone, mind also is known only by its changes. Thus, continues he, for all scientific purposes, the analogy between the two is complete, and science in both cases is practicable only by noting these changes and the order in which they recur.
"But may I ask," interposes the foreign interlocutor, "to whom these changes are known?"
"To me, the inquirer, to be sure!" answers the metaphysician.
"Then," rejoins the other," ought you not, logically speaking, to say that your universe resolves itself into three distinct orders of existence: 1st, Mind; 2d, Matter; and 3d, This which you call 'me,' to whom the changes of the other two are known; and when sciences of the first and second are complete, ​does not a science, or some knowledge, at least, of the third still remain a desideratum?"
"Not at all," replies the inquirer, "for 'I' and 'mind' are identical. The observed and the observer, the knowing subject and the known object, are here one and the same: and whatever is a science of the one is a science of the other also."
"Then you get out of one error only to be convicted of another. You set out with saying that mind, like matter, was visited by various changes, and that this was all; you said that changing was its only fact, or was, at least, the general complementary expression of the whole of its facts. So far I perfectly understood the analogy between mind and matter, and considered it complete. I also saw plainly that any principles of science applicable to the one object would likewise be applicable to the other. But when you are questioned as to whom these changes are known, you answer 'to me.' When further interrogated, you will not admit this 'me' to be a third existence different from the other two, but you identify it with mind; that is to say, you make mind take cognisance of its own changes. And in doing this, you depart entirely from your first position, which was, that mind did nothing more than change. You now, in contradiction to your first statement, tell me that this is not all. You tell me that moreover it is aware of its own changes; and in telling me this, you bring forward a fact connected with mind altogether new. For to change and to be cognisant of change; for a ​thing to be in a particular state, and to be aware that it is in this state, is surely not one and the same fact, but two totally distinct and separate facts. In proof of which witness the case of matter; or perhaps matter also does something more than change; perhaps matter too has a 'me,' which is identical with it, and cognisant of its changes. Has it so? Do you identify your 'me' with matter likewise, and do you make matter take notice of its own changes? And do you thus still preserve entire the analogy between mind and matter?"
"No."
"Then the parallel is at an end. So far as the mere fact of change in either case is concerned, this parallel remains perfect, and if you confine your attention to this fact, it is not to be denied that analogous sciences of the two objects may be established upon exactly the same principles. But when you depart from this fact, as you have been forced to do by a criticism which goes no deeper than the mere surface of the language you make use of; and when you take your stand upon another fact which is to be found in the one object, while the opposite of it is to be found in the other object; the analogy between them becomes, in that point, completely violated. And this violation carries along with it, as shall be shown, the total subversion of any similarity between the two methods of inquiry which might have resulted from it, supposing it to have been preserved unbroken. You have been brought, by the very ​language you employ, to signalise a most important distinction between mind and matter. You inform me that both of them change; but that while one of them takes no cognisance of its changes, the other does. You tell me that in the case of matter the object known is different from the subject knowing, but that in the case of mind the object known is the same as the subject knowing. Disregarding, then, the fact of change as it takes place in either object, let us attend a little more minutely to this latter fact. It is carelessly slurred over in ordinary metaphysics; but it is certain, that our attention as psychologists ought to be chiefly directed, if not exclusively confined to it, inasmuch as a true knowledge of any object is to be obtained by marking the point in which it differs from other things, and not the point in which it agrees with them. We have found in mind a fact which is peculiar to it; and this is, not that it changes, but that it takes cognisance of its changes. It now remains to be seen what effect this new fact will have upon your 'science of the human mind.'"
"First of all," says the metaphysical inquirer, "allow me to make one remark. I neglected to mention that mind is essentially rational. It is endowed with reason or intelligence. Now, does not this endowment necessarily imply that mind must be conscious of its various changes, and may not the matter in this way be relieved of every difficulty?"
"To expose fully," replies the other disputant, "the ​insufficiency of this view, would require a separate discussion, involving the real, and not the mere logical bearings of the question. This is what we are not at liberty to go into at present We are confining ourselves as much as possible to the mere language of metaphysical inquiry; I, therefore, content myself with answering, that if by reason is meant conscious or reflective reason, and if this is held to be identical with mind, of course, in that case, mind is necessarily conscious of its own changes. But such reason is not one phenomenon but two phenomena, which admit of very easy discrimination, and which are often to be found actually discriminated both in ourselves and in the universe around us. Reason, taken singly, and viewed by its own light, is a mere 'state of mind' in which there is nothing, any more than there is in the 'states of matter,' to countenance the presumption that it should take cognisance of its own operation; a priori, there is no more ground for supposing that 'reason,' 'feeling,' 'passion,' and 'states of mind' whatsoever, should be conscious of themselves, than that thunder and lightning, and all the changes of the atmosphere should. Mind, endow it with as much reason as you please, is still perfectly conceivable as existing in all its varying moods, without being, at the same time, at all conscious of them. Many creatures are rational without being conscious; therefore human consciousness can never be explained out of human reason."
"All I suppose, then, that can be said about the ​matter," replies the inquirer, "is, that human consciousness is a fact known from experience."
"Exactly so," rejoins the other; "and now we have reached the point of the question, and I wish you to observe particularly the effect which this fact has upon 'the human mind,' and the 'science of the human mind.' The results of our arguments shall be summed up and concluded in a few words."
"Matter is not 'I.' I know it only by its changes. It is an object to me, objicitur mihi. This is intelligible enough, or is at least known from experience, and a science of it is perfectly practicable, because it is really an object to me. Suppose, then, that 'mind' also is not I, but that I have some mode of becoming acquainted with its phenomena or changes just as I have of becoming acquainted with those of matter. This, too, is perfectly conceivable. Here, also, I have an object. Aliquod objicitur mihi: and of this I can frame a science upon intelligible grounds. But I can attribute no consciousness to this object. The consciousness is in myself. But suppose I vest myself in this object I thus identify myself with mind, and realise consciousness as a fact of mind, but in the meantime what becomes of mind as an object? It has vanished in the process. An object can be conceived only as that which may possibly become an object to something else. Now what can mind become ​an object to? Not to me, for I am it, and not something else. Not to something else without being again denuded of consciousness; for this other being could only mark its changes as I did, and not endow it with consciousness without vesting in it its own personality, as I had done. Perhaps you imagine that the synthesis of 'I' and 'mind' may be resolved; and that thus the latter may again be made the object of your research. Do you maintain that the synthesis may be resolved in the first place really? Then you adopt our first supposition when we supposed that 'mind' was not 'I.' In this case 'mind' is left with all its changing phenomena, its emotions, passions, &c., and the consciousness of them remains vested in that which is called 'I,' and thus 'mind' is divested of its most important fact. Or, in the second place, do you suppose the synthesis resolved ideally? But, in this case too, it will be found that the fact of consciousness clings on the one side of the inquiring subject ('I'), and cannot be conceived on the side of the object inquired into ('mind'), unless the synthesis of the subject and object which was ideally resolved be again ideally restored. The conclusion of this is, that if the synthesis of 'I' and 'mind' be resolved either really or ideally, consciousness vanishes from 'mind,' and if it be maintained entire, 'mind' becomes inconceivable as an object of research. Finally, are you driven to the admission that mind is an object, only in a fictitious sense; then here indeed you speak the truth. That ​which is called 'I' is a living reality, and though mind were annihilated, it would remain a repository of given facts. But that which is called mind is truly an object only in a fictitious sense, and being so is, therefore, only a fictitious object, and consequently the science of it is also a fiction and an imposture."
"How, then, do you propose to establish a science of ourselves?"
CHAPTER V.
In the foregoing dialogue it was shown that language itself, and consequently that the very nature of thought, render impracticable anything like a true and real science of the human mind. It appeared that if mind be conceived of as an object of research, its vital distinguishing and fundamental phenomenon, namely, consciousness, necessarily becomes invisible, inasmuch as it adheres tenaciously to the side of the inquiring subject; and that if it be again invested with this phenomenon, it becomes from that moment inconceivable as an object. In the first case, a science of it is nugatory, because it cannot see or lay hold of its principal and peculiar phenomenon. In the second case, it is impossible, because it has no object to work upon. We are now going to tread still more deeply into the realities of the subject.
In the preceding chapter the question was put, whether reason or intelligence, considered as the essential endowment of mind, was not sufficient to explain away every difficulty involved in the consideration, ​that while one kind of existence (matter) changed, without being aware of its changes, another kind of existence (mind) also changed; and, moreover, took account to itself of its changes, or was cognisant of them. In virtue of what does this difference exist between them? In virtue of what does this cognisance take place in the one case and not in the other? It is answered, in virtue of reason present in the one instance, and absent in the other. But this is not so plain, so simple, or so sure as it appears. We now address ourselves to the examination of this question and answer, as the subject we had in hand in the foregoing chapter did not permit us to discuss them fully in that place.
Leaving man out of the survey, let us look abroad into the universe around us, and consider what is presented to us there. In mineral, in vegetable, and in animal nature, we behold life in the greatest possible vigour and variety. Active processes are everywhere going on; and throughout the length and breadth of creation there is a constant succession of changes. The whole earth is, indeed, teeming with every form and every colour of existence; and that enjoyment is there too, who can doubt when spring is in the air, and the lark singing in the cloud?
Here, then, we have a creation brimful of activity and life, and no pause in all its vigorous and multifarious ongoings. What is there, then, in man which is not to be found here also, and even in greater and more perfect abundance? Is it ​intelligence? Is it reason? You answer that it is. But if by reason is meant (and nothing else can be meant by it) the power of adapting means to the production of ends, skill and success in scientific contrivances, or in the beautiful creations of art, then the exclusive appropriation of reason to man is at once negatived and put to shame by the facts which nature displays. For how far is human intelligence left behind in many things by the sagacity of brutes, and by the works which they accomplish! What human geometer can build like a bird its airy cradle, or like the bee her waxen cells? And in exquisite workmanship, how much do natures still more inanimate than these transcend all that can be accomplished even by the wisest of men? "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Perhaps you may say that these things are entirely passive and unintelligent in themselves, and that in reality it is not they, but the Creator, who brings about all the wonders we behold; that the presiding and directing reason is not in them, but in Him. And this may readily be admitted; but, in return, it may be asked home, Is man's reason vested in the Creator too?
Do you answer Yes? Then look what the consequences are. You still leave man a being fearfully and wonderfully made. He may still be something more than what many of his species at this moment are, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. He ​may still be a scientific builder of houses and of ships, a builder and a destroyer of cities. He may still subdue to his dominion the beasts of the field, and raise himself to be a ruler over his fellow-men. The reason within him is not his own, yet in virtue of it he may perform works inconceivably wonderful and great. But, with all this, what is he, and what sort of his? Truly the activity of a spoke in an unresting wheel. Nothing connected with him is really his. His actions are not his own. Another power lives and works within him, and he is its machine. You have placed man completely within nature's domain, and embraced him under the law of causality. Hence his freedom is gone, together with all the works of freedom; and, in freedom's train, morality and responsibility are also fled.
Do you answer No to the question just put? Do you say that man's reason is his own, and is not to be referred to any other being? Then I ask you why, and on what grounds do you make this answer? Why, in one instance, do you sign away the reason from the immediate agent, the animal, and fix it upon the Creator, and why in another instance do you confine and attribute it to the immediate agent, the man? Why should the engineer have the absolute credit of his work? and why should not the beaver and the bee? Do you answer that man exhibits reason in a higher, and animals in a lower degree; and that therefore his reason is really his ​own? But what sort of an answer, what sort of an inference, is this? Is it more intelligible that the reason of any being should be its own absolutely, when manifested in a high degree, than when manifested in a low degree? or is the converse not much the more intelligible proposition? If one man has a hundred thousand pounds in his coffers, and another a hundred pence, would you conclude that the former sum was the man's own, because it was so large, and that the latter sum was not the man's own, because it was so small; or would you not be disposed to draw the very opposite conclusion? Besides, the question is not one of degree at all. We ask, Why is the reason of man said to belong to him absolutely as his own, and why is the reason put forth by animals not said to belong to them in the least?
As it is vain, then, to attempt to answer this question by attending to the manifestations of reason itself, as displayed either in man or in the other objects of the universe, we must leave the fact of reason altogether, it being a property possessed in common, both by him and by them, and one which carries in it intrinsically no evidence to proclaim the very different tenures by which it is held in the one case and in the other; and we must look out for some other fact which is the peculiar possession of man; some fact which may be shown to fall in with his reason, and give it a different turn from the course which it takes in its progress through the ​other creatures of the universe, thus making it attributable to himself, and thereby rendering him a free, a moral, and an accountable agent. If we can discover such a fact as this, we shall be able, out of it, to answer the question with which we are engaged. Let us, then, look abroad into the universe once more, and there, throughout "all that it inherit," mark, if we can, the absence of some fact which is to be found conspicuously present in man.
Continuing, then, our survey of the universe, we behold works of all kinds, and of surpassing beauty, carried on. Mighty machinery is everywhere at work; and on all sides we witness marvellous manifestations of life, of power, and of reason. The sun performs his revolution in the sky, and keeps his appointed pathway with unwearied and unerring foot, while the seasons depend upon his shining. The ant builds her populous cities among the fallen forest-leaves, collects her stores, and fills her granaries with incomparable foresight. Each living creature guards itself from danger, and provides for its wants with infallible certainty and skill. They can foresee the very secrets of the heavens, and betake themselves to places of shelter with the thunder in their quaking hearts long before the bolt falls which shatters the green palaces of the woods. But still verily "there is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen: the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. The depth saith, It is not in me; ​and the sea saith, It is not with me." And this path which is "kept close from the fowls of the air," and, with one exception, from the "eyes of all living" is no other than the path of consciousness.
What effect has the absence of consciousness upon the universe? Does it empty the universe of existence? Far from it. Nature is still thriving, and overflowing with life throughout all her kingdoms. Does it empty the universe of intelligence? Far from it. The same exquisite adaptation of means to ends is to be witnessed as heretofore, the same well-regulated processes, the same infallible results, and the same unerring sagacities. But still, with all this, it is what may be termed but a one-sided universe. Under one view it is filled to the brim with life and light; under another view it is lying within the very blackest shadow of darkness and of death. The first view is a true one, because all the creatures it contains are, indeed, alive, and, revelling in existence, put forth the most wonderful manifestations of reason. The second view is also a true one, because none of these creatures (man excepted) know that they exist; no notion of themselves accompanies their existence and its various changes, neither do they take any account to themselves of the reason which is operating within them: it is reserved for man to live this double life. To exist, and to be conscious of existence; to be rational, and to know that he is so.
But what do we mean precisely by the word ​consciousness, and upon what ground do we refuse to attribute consciousness to the animal creation? In the first place, by consciousness we mean the notion of self; that notion of self, and that self-reference, which in man generally, though by no means invariably, accompanies his sensations, passions, emotions, play of reason, or states of mind whatsoever. In the second place, how is it known that animals do not possess this consciousness? This is chiefly known from the fact that certain results or effects in man may be distinctly observed and traced growing out of this consciousness or self-reference on his part; and these results not making their appearance in the animal creation, it is fairly to be inferred that the root out of which they spring is wanting in the animal creation too. The most important of these are conscience, morality, and responsibility, which may be shown to be based in consciousness, and necessary sequents thereof. It will be admitted that animals have no conscience or moral sense, therefore if it can be shown that this has its distinct origin in consciousness—that consciousness in its simplest act contains the seeds of a nascent morality, which must come to maturity—it must also be concluded that animals have no consciousness either. Or if they have, deep and dreadful indeed is the condemnation they merit, having the foundation laid, and yet no superstructure erected thereupon; the seed sown, and yet the field altogether barren. Wherever we behold corn growing, we conclude that ​corn has been planted; and wherever we behold none, we are entitled to infer that the conditions upon which corn grows have been awanting—namely, that the sowing of it has never taken place. There are other reasons besides these; but as it will probably be universally admitted that animals do not possess the notion of self, and are incapable of any sort of self-reference, it seems unnecessary to argue this point at any greater length.
We have found, then, the fact of consciousness prominently visible in man, and nowhere apparent in any other being inhabiting the universe around him. Let us now pause upon this fact, and, availing ourselves of its assistance, let us sum up very shortly the results to which it has conducted us. The first question put was, whether man, being endowed with reason, is not, on that account, necessarily cognisant of his powers; whether in virtue of it he does not necessarily form the notion of self, and become capable of self-reference; and, in short, whether reason ought not to be regarded as the essential and characteristic property by which he may be best discriminated from the other occupants of the earth. A review of the universe around us then showed us that other creatures besides man were endowed with copious stores of reason, and that their works were as rational and as wonderful as his. So far, therefore, as mere reason on either side was concerned, they and he were found to stand exactly upon the same footing. The facts themselves forbade that he ​should appropriate it exclusively to himself. But here the argument was interrupted by the statement that the reason of animals is not their own. This was rebutted by the question: Is man's reason, then, his own? Was the answer No? then freedom, morality, and responsibility were struck dead, and other consequences followed, too appalling to be thought of. Was the answer Yes? then some reason for this answer was demanded, and must be given, for it contradicts the other statement with regard to the reason of animals, in which it was declared that this power was not their own. To find, then, a satisfactory reason of fact for this answer, we again looked forth over the life-fraught fields of creation. We there still beheld reason operating on a great and marvellous scale, and yet at the same time we found no consciousness thereof. This, then, plainly proved that the presence of reason by no means necessarily implied a cognisance of reason in the creature manifesting it. It proved that man, like other beings, might easily have been endowed with reason, without at the same time becoming aware of his endowment, or blending with it the notion of himself. The first question, then, is completely answered. It does not follow that man must necessarily take cognisance of his operations, and refer his actions to himself because he is rational, for all the other creatures around are also rational, without taking any such cognisance, or making any such reference; neither can reason be pointed out as his peculiar or distinguishing ​characteristic, for it is manifested by all other beings as well as by him.
But when we turned from the universe to man, we found in him, besides reason, another fact, a phenomenon peculiarly his own—namely, the fact of consciousness. This, and this alone, is the fact which marks man off from all other things with a line of distinct and deep-drawn demarcation. This is the fact, out of which the second question which occupied us is to be answered. This is the fact, which reason falling in with, and doubling upon in man, becomes from that moment absolutely his own. This is the fact which bears us out in attributing our reason and all our actions to ourselves. By means of it we absolutely create for ourselves a personality to which we justly refer, and for which we lawfully claim, all our faculties, and all our doings. It is upon this fact, and not upon the fact of his reason, that civilised man has built himself up to be all that we now know and behold him to be. Freedom, law, morality, and religion have all their origin in this fact. In a word, it is in virtue of it that we are free, moral, social, and responsible beings.
On the other hand, look at the effect which the absence of this fact has upon the animal creation. Reason enters into the creatures there, just as it does into man, but not meeting with this fact, it merely impels them to accomplish their ends under the law of causality, and then running out, it leaves them just as it found them. They cannot detain it, or ​profit by its presence, or claim it as their own; indeed their reason cannot be their own, because, wanting this fact, they also necessarily want, and cannot create for themselves, a personality to which to refer it. In fine, because the fact of consciousness is not present within them, they continue for ever to be the mere machines they were born, without freedom, without morality, without law, and without responsibility.
Our present limits compel us to be satisfied with having briefly indicated these consequences, which result from the fact of consciousness; but we shall treat more fully of them hereafter. Our first and great aim has been to signalise and bring prominently forward this fact, as κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν, the psychological fact, the human phenomenon, neglecting the objects of it, namely, the passions, emotions, and all the other paraphernalia of "the human mind," which, if they are psychological facts at all, are so only in a very secondary and indirect manner. And now, to round this part of our discussion back to the allegory with which we commenced it, let us remark, in conclusion, that this is the fact, upon an attentive observation of which our whole safety and success as philosophers hinge; and from a neglect of which, consequences most fatal to our intellectual peace may ensue. This is that minute and apparently unimportant fact upon which the most awful and momentous results are dependent. To pass it by carelessly (and thus it is too frequently passed by), ​is to mistake the left hand of the magician for the right, and to bring down upon our heads evils analogous to those which befell the unfortunate experimentalist who committed this error. To note it well is to observe faithfully in which hand the staff of the magician is held, and to realise glorious consequences similar to those which would have been the fortune of the young man, had his observations of the facts connected with his lamp been correct and complete. Let us, therefore, confine our attention to this fact, and examine it with care. Thus we shall be led into extensive fields of novelty and truth; and shall escape from the censorious imputation of the Roman satirist, who exclaims, in words that at once point out the true method of psychological research, and stigmatise the dreary and intolerable mill-round monotony of customary metaphysics,
" Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo! Sed præcedenti spectatur mantica tergo."
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
We intended at the outset that these papers should be as little of a controversial character as possible. But a mature consideration of the state in which psychology, or the science of man, stands throughout Europe generally, and in this country in particular, leads us to deviate considerably from our original plan. We find, too, that we cannot clear out a way for the introduction of our own doctrines, without displacing, or at least endeavouring to displace, to a very great extent, the opinions usually held on the subject we are treating of. And, besides all this, we are sensible that, without having gone far enough, or completely made good our point, we have yet committed ourselves so far already in our previous strictures on the prevailing doctrine of "Mind," that there is no drawing back for us now. We must either be prepared to corroborate and illustrate our ​argument by many additional explanatory statements, or to incur the stigma of leaving it very incomplete, and, as many may think, very inconclusive. In order, therefore, to escape the latter of these alternatives, we will do our best to embrace and comply with the former of them. Such being our reasons, we now nail our colours to the mast, and prepare ourselves for a good deal of polemical discussion on the subject of "the human mind." And the first point to be determined is: What is the exact question at issue?
That man is a creature who displays many manifestations of reason, adapting means to the production of ends in a vast variety of ways; that he is also susceptible of a great diversity of sensations, emotions, passions, &c., which, in one form or another, keep appearing, disappearing, and reappearing within him, with few intermissions, during his transit from the cradle to the grave, is a fact which no one will dispute. This, then, is admitted equally by the ordinary metaphysician and by us. Further, the metaphysician postulates, or lays down, "mind" and not "body," as the substance in which these phenomena inhere; and this may readily enough be admitted to him. "Mind," no doubt, is merely an hypothesis, and violates one of the fundamental axioms of science, that, namely, which has been called the principle of philosophical parsimony:
Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem
But the metaphysician does not stop here. He will not be satisfied with this admission. He goes much further, and demands a much greater ​concession. By "mind" he does not mean merely to express the aggregate of the "states;" that is, of the sensations, feelings, &c., which the human being may or may not be conscious of; but, somehow or other, he blends and intertwines consciousness (or the notion of self, self-reference) with these "states," and considers this fact as their necessary, essential, invariable, or inextricable accompaniment. He thus vests in mind, besides its own states, passions, sensations, &c., the fact of the consciousness of these, and the being to whom that consciousness belongs; thus constituting "mind" into the man, and making the one of these terms convertible with the other.
Now here it is that we beg leave to enter our protest. We object most strongly to this doctrine as one which introduces into psychology a "confusion worse confounded;" as one which, if allowed to prevail, must end in obliterating everything like science, morality, and even man himself, as far as his true and peculiar character is concerned; substituting in place of him a machine, an automaton, of which the law of causality composes and regulates the puppet-strings.
This, then, is the precise point at issue between us: The metaphysician wishes to make "mind" constitute and monopolise the whole man; we refuse to admit that "mind" constitutes any part of the true and real man whatsoever. The metaphysician confounds the consciousness of a "state of mind," and the being to whom this consciousness belongs, with ​the "state of mind" itself. Our great object is to keep these two distinctly and vividly asunder. This distinction is one which, as shall soon be shown, is constantly made both by common sense and by common language, a consideration which throws the presumption of truth strongly in our favour. It is one which appears to us to constitute the great leading principle upon which the whole of psychology hinges, one without the strict observance of which any science of ourselves is altogether impossible or null.
We are still, then, quite willing to vest in "mind" all the "states" of mind. But the fact of the consciousness of these states, the notion of himself as the person to whom this consciousness belongs, we insist in vesting in the man, or in that being who calls himself "I;" and in this little word expresses compendiously all the facts which really and truly belong to him. The question in dispute, and which has to be decided between the metaphysician and ourselves, may be thus worded: He wishes to give everything unto "mind," while we wish to give unto mind the things which are mind's, and unto man the things which are man's. If we can succeed in making good our point, psychology will be considerably lightened—lightened of a useless and unmarketable cargo which has kept her almost lockfast for many generations, and which she ought never to have taken on board; for our very first act will be to fling "mind" with all its lumber overboard, and, busying ​ourselves exclusively with the man and his facts, we shall see whether the science will not float them. But our first problem is to vindicate and make good the distinction we have pointed out.
Before going further, let us make use of an illustration, which will, perhaps, be of some preliminary assistance in rendering our meaning, together with the point at issue, still more distinct and manifest to the reader. The mountains, let us say, which the eye beholds are the objects of its vision. In the same way the passions, sensations, "states of mind," &c., which the man is, or may be, conscious of, are the objects of his consciousness, of his conscious self. But no one ever supposes that the fact of vision is the same as the objects of vision. The former appertains to the eye; the latter constitute the mountains seen. The objects of vision may exist and do exist without the fact of vision, and do not create or enforce this fact as their necessary and invariable accompaniment. To make no discrimination between these two things would be confessedly in the highest degree absurd. It is just the same with regard to the fact of consciousness and the objects of consciousness. The fact of consciousness belongs to the man himself, to that being which calls itself "I;" and this, truly speaking, is all that belongs to him. The objects of consciousness, namely, man's passions, sensations, &c., are not, properly speaking, his at all. The fact and notion of self do not necessarily or always accompany them. They may be referred to "mind," or to what you ​please. They are indeed within the man's control, and it is his duty to control them. But this is not because they are himself, but only because they are not himself; because they are obscurations of himself. You may call them the false man if you choose; but if they were the true man, where would be the truthfulness of that mighty truth which says that the man waxes just in proportion as he makes his passions and his sensual feelings wane? How could this be the case if the man himself were identical with his passions and his desires? Can a creature live and thrive by suspending its own animation? Is it conceivable that a being should increase and strengthen in proportion as it is weakened and diminished? To return to our illustration: the point of it is this—the objects of consciousness, namely, the passions, emotions, &c., and Reason itself, might perfectly well exist (and in animals do exist) without any one being conscious of them, or combining with them the notion of self, just as the objects of vision exist without any eye perceiving them: and the fact of consciousness, or the fact that a being is conscious of these states, is just as distinct from the states themselves as the fact that the eye does behold mountains is distinct from the mountains which it beholds. These two things, then, the fact and the object, are in both cases distinctly separate. In the case of the eye and its objects they are never confounded; but in the case of consciousness and its objects we venture to affirm that the metaphysician has invariably ​confounded them. Our great primary aim is to remedy this confusion; to establish the fact of consciousness (and the being to whom it belongs) as something quite aloof from, and transcending, the objects of consciousness, namely, mind and all its states, and then to confine our science entirely to the elucidation of this fact, which will be found to be pregnant with many other facts, and with many mighty results, neglecting the objects of it as of little importance or of none.
There is one ground, however, still left open to the metaphysician, which he may consider his impregnable stronghold or inner fortress, and which, if he can maintain it, will certainly enable him to set our strictures at defiance, and successfully to defend his tenets against all our objections. We are quite willing that he should intrench himself in this strong citadel, and, with his permission, we will place him fairly within it with our own hands, to stand or to fall. The metaphysician, fully admitting the distinction we have been insisting on, may say, "But this discrimination is itself a mere analysis of mind. The 'state' of which the being is conscious is mind; and the fact of consciousness, with the being to whom it belongs, is also mind. In a word, both terms or factors of the analysis are mind. Mind in a state of dualism perhaps; two minds, if you choose to call them so; but still susceptible of synthesis, still capable of having the one of them added to the other of them; and hence, though two, still capable of being ​united, and of being viewed in the amalgamation of one. Therefore," continues he, "mind, view it as you please, analyse it, or make what discriminations within it you like, is still rightly to be regarded as constituting the real and complete man, and as monopolising the whole of that which is truly he."
If this argument be valid, we must own ourselves completely foiled, and the fight is done. For if it be true that the distinction we are contending for be merely a dead analytical discrimination, and not a real and wonder-working antithesis, a vital antagonism in human nature which, practically operating, brings about all the good and evil of man and of society; and which, working ceaselessly throughout all time, as well as in the individual breast, increases in energy the longer it maintains itself, marking distinctly the progress of the species, and advancing it on and on from that which it once was to that which it now is, and to that which it shall yet be: if it be not, we say, a distinction of this kind, but merely an inoperative "analysis of mind," then we give it up as virtually void, as altogether insignificant, and unworthy of a further thought.
But our whole system proceeds upon the reality and vitality of this distinction. It founds itself not upon any principle arising out of an analysis of mind; not upon any distinction made within mind; but upon a real antithesis to be established between what belongs, or may be admitted to belong to mind, and what does not and cannot belong to it; and ​therefore we will not yield up this distinction by owning it to be analytical at all. We allow the metaphysician to take all man's passions, sensations, emotions, states, or whatever else he may choose to call them, and refer them to "mind," making this the object of his research. But when he attempts to lay hands on the fact of consciousness, and to make "mind" usurp this fact together with the being to whom this fact belongs, we exclaim, "Hold! hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther; here shall thy weak hypothesis be stayed." If he resists, the question must be put to the proof. Can the fact of consciousness, together with the man himself, be conceived of as vested in the object called "mind," as well as the sensations, passions, &c., which have been admitted to be vested therein? or must not this fact and the man himself be held transcendent to this object, and incapable of being objectified, or conceived of as an object at all? Unless we can make out this latter point, we shall fail in realising, in its truth and purity, the only fact with which, in our opinion, as we have already said, psychology ought to busy itself, namely, the fact of consciousness.
We have now, then, brought the question to its narrowest possible point. Can the fact of consciousness, together with our conscious selves, be conceived of as vested in the object called "the human mind"? It was to prove the negative side of this question, and thereby to support a conclusion which forms the very life and keystone of our system, that the ​argument contained in a former part of this discussion was intended; and the reader may, perhaps, be now placed in a situation which will enable him to perceive its drift more clearly. We will recapitulate it very shortly, and in somewhat different words from those formerly used.
An object is that which is either really or ideally different from ourselves; or in other words, is either different in itself, or is conceived of as different by us. Suppose, now, that the metaphysician makes use of the expression of common sense and ordinary language, "my mind." He here certainly appears, at first sight, to lay down a real discrimination between himself and his mind. Whatever he may intend to say, he clearly says that there are two of them, namely, his mind and himself, the "I" (call it the ego), possessing it. In this case, "mind" may contain what it likes, but the consciousness of what it contains certainly remains with the ego. In this case mind is really destitute of consciousness. Does the metaphysician disclaim this view of the matter? Does he say that mind is really himself, and is only ideally an object to him. Then we answer, that in this case mind is ideally divested of consciousness, and if the metaphysician thinks otherwise, he imposes upon himself. For how can he make it contain consciousness without first of all ideally replacing within it himself, the ego which he had ideally severed from it. But if he does make this reinvestment, mind (his object) at once vanishes from the ​scene; for none of us can attribute consciousness directly to another; we can only attribute it directly to another by becoming it, and if we become it, it ceases to be another; it becomes we, that is to say, nothing but the ego is left, and we have no object either ideally or really before us. The dilemma to which the philosophers of mind are reduced is this: unless they attribute consciousness to mind, they leave out of view the most important and characteristic phenomenon of man; and if they attribute consciousness to mind, they annihilate the object of their research, in so far as the whole extent of this fact is concerned.
CHAPTER II.
One of the fundamental and soundest canons of philosophy is this: never violently to subvert, but to follow gently through all its windings, any fact submitted to us by common sense, and never harshly to obliterate the language in which any such fact is expressed, or precipitately to substitute in place of it another expression drawn probably from some mushroom theory, and more consonant, as we may think, with truth, because apparently of a more cultivated cast. The presumption is, that the first expressions are right, and truly denote the fact; and that the secondary language, if much opposed to these, is the offspring of a philosophy erroneously reflective. In short, if we neglect the canon pointed out, the risk of our missing the real facts and running into false speculation is extreme. For common sense, being instinctive or nearly so, rarely errs; and its expressions, not being matured by reflection, generally contain within them, though under very obscure forms, much of the deep truth and wisdom of revelations. What though its facts and its language may often be ​to us, like the mirage to travellers in the desert, for a time an illusive and disappointing thing? Still let us persevere in the pursuit. The natural mirage is often the most benign provision which Heaven, in its mercy, could call up before the eyes of the wanderers through barren wastes. Ceaselessly holding out to them the promise of blessed gratification, it thus attracts onwards and onwards, till at length they really reach the true and water-flowing oasis, those steps which, but for this timely and continual attraction, would have sunk down and perished in despair amid the unmeasurable sands. And spread over the surface of common life there is a moral mirage analogous to this, and equally attractive to the philosopher thirsting after truth. In pursuing it we may be often disappointed and at fault, but let us follow it in faithful hope, and it will lead us on and on unto the true and living waters at last. If we accept in a sincere and faithful spirit the facts and expressions of common sense, and refrain from tampering unduly with their simplicity, we shall perhaps find, like those fortunate ones of old who, opening hospitable doors to poor wearied wayfarers, unwittingly entertained angels, that we are harbouring the divinest truths of philosophy in the guise of these homely symbols.
It is comparatively an easy task to exclude such facts and such expressions from our consideration, and then within closed doors to arrive at conclusions at variance with common sense. But this is not the true business of philosophy. True philosophy, ​meditating a far higher aim and a far more difficult task than this, throws wide her portals to the entrance of all comers, come disguised and unpromising as they may. In other words, she accepts, as given, the great and indestructible convictions of our race, and the language in which these are expressed: and in place of denying or obliterating them, she endeavours rationally to explain and justify them; recovering by reflection steps taken in the spontaneous strength of nature by powers little more than instinctive, and seeing in clear light the operation of principles which, in their primary acts, work in almost total darkness.
Common sense, then, is the problem of philosophy, and is plainly not to be solved by being set aside, but just as little is it to be solved by being taken for granted, or in other words, by being allowed to remain in the primary forms in which it is presented to our notice. A problem and its solution are evidently not one and the same thing; and hence, common sense, the problem of philosophy, is by no means identical, in the first instance at least, with the solution which philosophy has to supply (a consideration which those would do well to remember who talk of the "philosophy of common sense," thus confounding together the problem and the solution). It is only after the solution has been effected that they can be looked upon as identical with each other. How then is this solution to be realised? How is the conversion of common sense into philosophy to be brought about? We answer, by accepting completely and ​faithfully the facts and expressions of common sense as given in their primitive obscurity, and then by construing them without violence, without addition, and without diminution into clearer and more intelligible forms.
In observance and exemplification, then, of this rule, let us now take up an expression frequently made use of by common sense, and which, in the preceding chapter, we had occasion to bring forward, that expression, to wit, constantly in the mouth of every one, "my mind," or let it be "my emotion," "my sensation," or any similar mode of speech; and let us ask, What does a man, thus talking the ordinary language of common life, precisely mean when he employs these expressions? The metaphysician will tell us that he does not mean what he says. We affirm that he does mean what he says. The metaphysician will tell us that he does not really make, or intend to make, any discrimination or sundering between himself and his "mind;" or we should rather say his "state of mind." We affirm that he both intends to make such a separation, and does make it. The metaphysician declares that by the expression "my emotion" the man merely means that there is one of them, namely, "emotion," that this is himself (the being he calls "I"), and contains and expresses every fact which this latter word denotes; and in making this averment the metaphysician roughly subverts and obliterates the language of the man. We, however, reverencing the canon we have just laid ​down, refrain from doing this gross violence to his expressions, because, if we were guilty of it, we should consider ourselves upon the point of falling into great errors, and of confounding a most essential distinction which has not escaped the primitive and almost instinctive good sense of all mankind, the genus metaphysicorum excepted. This tribe will not admit that in using the expression, for instance, "my sensations," the man regards himself as standing aloof from his sensations: or at any rate they hold that such a view on the part of the man is an erroneous one. They will not allow that the man himself and the fact of consciousness stand on the outside of the sphere of the "states of mind" experienced: but they fetter him down within the circle of these states, and make him and consciousness identical with them.
In opposition to this, the ordinary psychological doctrine, we, for our part, prefer to adhere to the language of common sense; believing that this represents the facts faithfully and truly, while the formulas of metaphysics misrepresent them grievously. We affirm that the natural man, in using the words "my mind," expresses and intends to express what is, and what he feels to be, the fact—namely, that his conscious self, that which he calls "I" (ego), is not to be confounded, and cannot be confounded, with his "mind," or the "states of mind," which are its objects. Let Us observe, he merely views "mind," and uses this word, as a term expressing the aggregate or general assemblage of these states, and connects with ​it no hypothesis respecting its substance. On the other hand, to the ego he never thinks of applying the epithet "my." And why not? Simply because it is he; and if mind also was he, he never would dream of applying the word "my" to it either. The ego is he, not something which he possesses. He therefore never attempts to objectify it, because it will not admit of this. But he can talk rightly and intelligibly of "my sensations;" that is to say, he can tell us that this ego is visited by various sensations, because he feels that the ego, that is, himself, is different from these sensations. At any rate, he never, of his own accord, confounds himself and his sensations or states of mind together. He never, in his natural state, uses the word "mind" as convertible with the word "I;" and if he did so, he would not be intelligible to his species. They would never know that he meant himself; and simply for this reason, that the fact of self-reference or consciousness is not contained or expressed in the word "mind," and cannot, indeed, be denoted by any word in the third person. It has been reserved for the "metaphysics of mind" to introduce into thought and language a confusion which man's natural understanding has always steered clear of.
We have found, then, that this distinction between the man himself (that called ego) and the states of mind which he is conscious of, obtains in the language of common sense, and we do not feel ourselves entitled to subvert or to neglect it. But to leave it ​precisely as we found it, would be to turn it to no account whatsoever, and would allow the metaphysician still to triumph in our failure to accomplish what we have declared to be the true end and business of philosophy. The distinction is espoused by common sense, and is thrown out on the very surface of ordinary language: therefore the presumption that it is correct is in its favour; but it still remains to be philosophically vindicated and made good. Let us, then, accept it faithfully as given; and gently construing it into a clearer form, let us see whether every fact connected with it under its philosophic aspect will not prove it to be the most important and valid of all possible discriminations.
To mark this distinction, this conviction and expression of common sense, by a philosophical formula, let us suppose a line terminating in two opposite poles. In the one of these we will vest "mind," that is, the whole assemblage of the various states or changes experienced—all the feelings, passions, sensations, &c., of man; and in the other of them we will vest the fact of consciousness, and the man himself calling himself "I." Now we admit, in the first instance, that these two poles are mere postulates, and that our postulation of them can only be justified and made good that they are mutually repulsive; by the fact that there is a reciprocal antithesis or antagonism between them, and between all that each of them contains: or, in other words, we must be borne out by the fact, that an increase of ​intensity at the one pole is always compensated by a corresponding decrease of intensity at the other pole, and vice versa. For if, on the contrary, it should appear that these two poles agree and act so harmoniously together, that the vividness experienced at the one pole (say that in which sensation, &c., reside) is answered by, a proportional vividness at the opposite pole of consciousness; and that a depression at this latter pole again takes place in accordance with a diminished intensity at the former pole: in short, if it should appear that these two poles, instead of mutually extinguishing, mutually strengthen each other's light, then we must own that the antithesis we are endeavouring to establish is virtually void and erroneous; that sensation and consciousness are really identical, and that the two poles are in fact not two, but only one. In a word, we will own that the distinction we have been all along fighting for does not exist, and that the ordinary doctrine of psychology upon this head is faultless, and beyond dispute.
This point, however, is not to be settled by speculation, or by abstract reasoning. What says the fact? The fact is notorious to every one except metaphysicians, who have seldom paid much attention to this or any other fact, that the degree of our consciousness or self-reference always exists in an inverse ratio to the degree of intensity of any of our sensation's, passions, emotions, &c.; and that consciousness is never so effectually depressed, or, perhaps, we ​may say, never so totally obliterated within us, as when we are highly transported by the vividness of any sensation, or absorbed in the violence of any passion. While, on the other hand, returning consciousness, or increasing self-reference, has always the effect of deadening the sensation and suspending the passion, until at length, when it reaches its ultimatum, the sensation or passion becomes totally extinct. This is decidedly the fact, and there is no denying it. Look at a human being immersed in the swinish gratifications of sense. See here how completely the man is lost in the animal. Swallowed up in the pleasurable sensations of his palate, he is oblivious of everything else, and consciousness sinks into abeyance for a time. The sensation at the one pole monopolises him, and therefore the consciousness at the other pole does not come into play. He does not think of himself; he does not combine the notion of himself with the sensation, the enjoyment of which is enslaving him. Again, look at another man shaken by wrath, as a tree is shaken by the wind. Here, too, the passion reigns paramount, and everything else is forgotten. Consciousness is extinguished; and hence the expression of the poet, Ira brevis furor est—"Rage is a brief insanity"—is strictly and pathologically true; because consciousness, the condition upon which all sanity depends, is for the time absent from the man. Hence, too, the ordinary phrase, that rage transports ​a man out of himself, is closely and philosophically correct. Properly interpreted, it means that the man is taken completely out of the pole where consciousness abides, and vested entirely in the opposite pole where passion dwells; or rather we should say that as a man he is extinct, and lives only as a machine. In both of these cases the men lose their personality. They are played upon by a foreign agency.
"Infortunati nimium as si mala norint!"
CHAPTER III.
What then is the precise effect of our argument against the prevailing doctrine of the "human mind"? If the word "mind" be used merely to express the general group or assemblage of passions, emotions, intellectual states, and other modifications of being, which both man and the animal creation are subject to, we have no objections whatever to the use of the term. If it should further please the metaphysician to lay down "mind" as a distinct entity to which these various states or changes are to be referred, we shall not trouble ourselves with quarrelling with this hypothesis either. All we say is, that the man himself, and the true and proper facts of the man's nature, are not to be found here. In the case of animals, we shall admit that "mind," that is, some particular modification of passion, sensation, reason, and so forth, constitutes, and is convertible while it lasts with the true and proper being of the animal subject to that change; because here there is nothing over and above the ruling passion of the time. There is no distinction made ​between it (the state) experienced, and itself (the animal) experiencing. The animal is wholly monopolised by the passion. The two are identical. The animal does not stand aloof in any degree from the influence to which it is subject. There is not in addition to the passion, or whatever the state of mind may be, a consciousness or reference to self of that particular state. In short, there is no self at all in the case. There is nothing but a machine, or thing agitated and usurped by a kind of tyrannous agency, just as a reed is shaken by the wind. The study, then, of the laws and facts of passion, sensation, reason, &c., in animals might be a rational and legitimate enough pursuit; because, in their case, there is no fact of a more important and peculiar character for us to attend to. These phenomena might be said to constitute the proper facts of animal psychology.
The total absorption of the creature in the particular change or "state" experienced, which we have just noticed as the great fact occurring in the animal creation, sometimes occurs in the case of man also; and when it does take place in him, he and they are to be considered exactly upon a par. But it is the characteristic peculiarity of man's nature that this monopolisation of him by some prevailing "state of mind" does not always, or indeed often, happen. In his case there is generally something over and above the change by which he is visited, and this unabsorbed something is the fact of consciousness, the ​notion and the reality of himself as the person experiencing the change. This fact is that which controls and makes him independent of the state experienced; and in the event of the state running into excess, it leaves him not the excuse or apology (which animals have) that he was its victim and its slave. This phenomenon stands conspicuously aloof, and beside it stands man conspicuously aloof from all the various modifications of being by which he may be visited. This phenomenon is the great and leading fact of human psychology. And we now affirm that the inquirer who should neglect it after it had been brought up before him, and should still keep studying "the human mind," would be guilty of the grossest dereliction of his duty as a philosopher, and would follow a course altogether irrelevant; inasmuch as, passing by the phenomenon peculiar to man, he would be busying himself at the best (supposing "mind" to be something more than hypothesis) with facts which man possesses in common with other creatures, and which must of course be, therefore, far inferior in importance and scientific value to the anomalous fact exclusively his. In studying "the human mind," we encounter, whichever way we turn, mere counterfeit, or else irrelevant phenomena, instead of falling in with the true and peculiar phenomena of man; or shall we say that consciousness, like the apples in the gardens of the Hesperides, grows on the boughs of humanity, and grows nowhere else, and that while it is the practical ​duty of all men, as well as the great aim of philosophy, to grasp and realise this rare and precious fact, it has ever been the practice of "the human mind," like the dragon of old, to guard this phenomena from the scrutiny of mankind; to keep them ignorant or oblivious of its existence; to beat them back from its avenues into the mazes of practical as well as speculative error, by raising its blinding and deceitful aspect against any hand that would pluck the golden fruitage.
Does the reader still desire to be informed with the most precise distinctness why the fact of consciousness, and we ourselves, cannot be conceived of as properly and entirely vested in "mind"? Then let him attend once more to the fact, when we repeat what we have already stated: perilling our whole doctrine upon the truth of our statement as fact, and renouncing speculation altogether. In a former part of this discussion we illustrated the distinction between the objects of consciousness (the passions, namely, and all the other changes or modifications we experience) and the fact of consciousness, by the analogous distinction subsisting between the objects of vision and the fact of vision. It was plain that the objects of vision might exist, and did exist, without giving birth to, or being in any way accompanied by, the fact of vision; and in the same way it was apparent that the objects of consciousness by no means brought along with them the fact of consciousness as their necessary and invariable ​accompaniment. But we have now to observe that this illustration is not strong enough, and that the two terms of it are not sufficiently contrasted for our purpose. Or, in other words, we now remark that in the case of consciousness and its objects, the rupture or antagonism between the two is far stronger and more striking than in the case of vision and its objects. It is not the tendency of the objects of vision, on the one hand, to quench the vision which regards them; it is not, on the other hand, the tendency of the fact of vision to obliterate the objects at which it looks. Therefore, though the fact of vision and the objects of vision are distinctly separate, yet their disunion is not so complete as that of the fact of consciousness and the objects of consciousness, the natural tendency of which is, on both sides, to act precisely in the manner spoken of, and between which a struggle of the kind pointed out constantly subsists. This, then, we proclaim to be the fact (and upon this fact we ground the essential distinction or antithesis between mind, i.e., the complement of the objects of consciousness, and the fact of consciousness itself), that mind, in all its states, without a single exception, so far from facilitating or bringing about the development of consciousness, actually exerts itself unceasingly and powerfully to prevent consciousness from coming into existence, and to extinguish it when it has come into operation. The fact, as we have said before, is notorious, that the more any state of mind (a sensation or whatever ​else it may be) is developed, the less is there a consciousness or reference to self of that state of mind; and this fact proves how essentially the two are opposed to each other; because if they agreed, or acted in concert with one another, it would necessarily follow that an increase in the one of them would be attended by a corresponding increase in the other of them. How, then, can we possibly include, or conceive of as included, under "mind," a fact or act which it is the tendency of "mind" in all its states to suppress?
Is it here objected that unless these states of mind existed, consciousness would never come into operation, and that therefore it falls to be considered as dependent upon them? In this objection the premises are perfectly true, but the inference is altogether false. It is true that man's consciousness would not develop itself unless certain varieties of sensation, reason, &c., became manifest within him; but it does not by any means follow from this that consciousness is the natural sequent or harmonious accompaniment of these. The fact is, that consciousness does not come into operation in consequence of these states, but in spite of them: it does not come into play to increase and foster these states, but only actively to suspend, control, or put a stop to them. This, then, is the reason why consciousness cannot develop itself without their previous manifestation; namely, because unless they existed there would be nothing for it to combat, to weaken, ​or to destroy. Its occupation or office would be gone. There would be nothing for it to exert itself against. Its antagonist force not having been given, there would be no occasion for its existence. This force (the power existing at what we have called the mental pole) does not create consciousness, but as soon as this force comes into play, consciousness creates itself, and, by creating itself, suspends or diminishes the energy existing at that pole. This fact, showing that consciousness is in nothing passive, but is ab origine essentially active, places us upon the strongest position which, as philosophers fighting for human freedom, we can possibly occupy; and it is only by the maintenance of this position that man's liberty can ever be philosophically vindicated and made good. In truth, possessing this fact, we hold in our hands the profoundest truth in all psychology, the most awful and sublime truth connected with the nature of man. Our present mention of it is necessarily very brief and obscure: but we will do our best to clear it up and expound it fully when we come to discuss the problem: How does consciousness come into operation? We will then start man free. We will show that he brings himself into existence, not indeed as a being, but as a human being; not as an existence, but as an existence calling itself "I," by an act of absolute and essential freedom. We will empty his true and real being of all passivity whatsoever, in opposition to those doctrines of a false, inert, and contradictory ​philosophy, which, making him at first, and in his earliest stage, the passive recipient of the natural effluences of things, the involuntary effect of some foreign cause, seeks afterwards to engraft freedom upon him; a vain, impracticable, and necessarily unsuccessful endeavour, as the whole history of philosophy, from first to last, has shown.
We are now able to render a distinct answer to the question: What is the precise effect of our argument on the subject of the human mind? Its precise effect and bearing is to turn us to the study of fact—of a clear and a peculiar fact—from the contemplation of an object which is either an hypothesis, or else no object at all (not even an hypothesis but a contradiction), or else an irrelevant object of research, and one which cannot by any conceivability contain the fact which it is our business to investigate. Even granting the human mind to be a real object, still we affirm that our argument, and the state of the fact, show the necessity of our realising and viewing consciousness as something altogether distinct from and independent of it, inasmuch as it is the tendency of every modification of mind to keep this fact or act in abeyance under their supremacy so long as that supremacy continues; and, therefore, it never can be the true and relevant business of philosophy to attend to this object (however real) when engaged in the study of man; because in doing so, philosophy would necessarily miss and overlook the leading, proper, and peculiar phenomenon of his being. The fact of ​consciousness, expressed in the word "I," and its accompanying facts, such as the direct and vital antithesis subsisting between it and passion, sensation, &c., these are the only facts which psychology ought to regard. This science ought to discard from its direct consideration every fact which is not peculiarly man's. It ought to turn away its attention from the facts subsisting at what we have called the sensitive, passionate, and rational pole of humanity; because these facts are not, properly speaking, the true and absolute property of humanity at all; and it ought to confine its regards exclusively to the pole in which consciousness is vested; and, above all things, it ought to have nothing to do with speculations concerning any transcendent substance (mind, for instance) in which these phenomena may be imagined to inhere.
Let us conclude this chapter by shortly summing up our whole argument and its results, dividing our conclusions into two distinct heads: 1st, concerning the "science of the human mind;" and 2d, concerning the "human mind" itself.
In the first place, does the science of the human mind profess to follow the analogy of the natural sciences? It does. Then it must conform itself to the conditions upon which they depend. Now, the primary condition upon which the natural sciences depend and proceed, is the distinction between a subject and an object; or, in other words, between a Being inquiring, and a Being inquired into. ​Without such a discrimination they could not move a step. Very well: man in studying himself follows the same method. He divides himself into subject and object. There is himself, the subject inquiring, and there is "the human mind," the object inquired into. There is here then, at the outset, distinctly two. The principal condition of the inquiry demands that there shall be two. We will suppose then the science of the "object inquired into" to be complete. And now we turn to the man, and say, "Give us a science of the subject inquiring." He answers that he has already done so; that, in this case, the subject and object are identical; and in saying this is it not plain that he violates the very condition upon which his science professed to proceed and to depend, namely, the distinction between subject and object? He now gives up this distinction. He confounds the two together. He makes one of them: and the total confusion and obliteration of his science is the consequence. [Does he again recur to the distinction? then we keep probing him with one or other horn of our dilemma, which we will thus express for the behoof of the "philosophers of mind." Do you, in your science of man, profess to lay down and to found upon the distinction between the subject (yourselves) and the object (the human mind), or do you not? If you do, then we affirm that while studying the object you necessarily keep back in the subject the most important fact connected with man, namely, the fact of consciousness; and that you cannot place ​this fact in the object of your research without doing away the distinction upon which you founded. But if you do away this distinction, you renounce and disregard the vital and indispensable condition upon which physical science depends: and what, then, becomes of your science as a research conducted, as you profess it to be, upon the principles of physical investigation? You may, indeed, still endeavour to accommodate your research to the spirit of physical inquiry by talking of a subject-object; but this is a wretched subterfuge, and the word you here make use of must ever carry a contradiction upon its very front. You talk of what is just as inconceivable to physical science as a square circle or a circular square. By "subject," physical science understands that which is not an "object," but something opposed to an object, and by "object," that which is not a "subject," but something opposed to a subject: and can form no conception of these two as identical. But by "subject-object" you mean a subject which becomes an object—i.e., its own object. But this is inconceivable, or, at any rate, is only conceivable on this ground, that the subject keeps back in itself, itself and the consciousness of what is passing in the object; because if it invests itself, and the fact of consciousness in the object, the object from that moment ceases to be an object, and becomes reconverted into a subject, that is, into one's self without an object. This, at least, is quite plain: that in talking of a subject-object, you abandon the essential distinction ​upon which the physical sciences found: and the ruin of your science as a physical research (that is, as a legitimate research in the only sense in which you have declared a research can be legitimate) is the result.
The difficulties, then, in the way of the establishment of a science of "the human mind," are insuperable. Its weakness and futility are of a twofold character. It starts with an hypothesis, and yet cannot maintain this hypothesis, or remain consistent with it for a single moment. Man makes a hypothetical object of himself, and calls this "the human mind;" and then, in order to invest it with a certain essential phenomenon, he is compelled every instant to unmake it as an object, and to convert back again into a subject, that is, into himself—a confusion of the most perplexing kind—a confusion which, so long as it is persisted in, must render everything like a science of man altogether hopeless. Such being the state of things, it is indeed no wonder that despair should have settled down upon the present condition, the prospect, and the retrospect of psychological research.
In the second place, let us say one or two words on the subject of "the human mind," itself, before we have done with it. Let us suppose it to be not an hypothesis, but a reality. We will further suppose that all the forms, states, or modifications of this real substance have been separately enumerated and classified in distinct orders; and now we will imagine ​the question put, Would not a science of this kind, and of this substance, be still worth something? Would it not, in fact, be the true science of human nature? We answer, No. Whatever might be its value in other respects, we aver that, as a science of man, it would be altogether worthless and false. And for this reason, because the object of our research here not only does not contain the proper and peculiar fact of man, namely, the fact of consciousness, but it contains, as we have seen, an order of phenomena which tend unceasingly to overcloud, keep down, and extinguish this fact. In studying this object, therefore, with the view of constructing a science of man out of our examination of it, we should be following a course doubly vicious and misleading. We should not only be studying facts among which consciousness is not to be found, but we should be studying and attaching a scientific value to facts—esteeming them, too, to be characteristic of man's proper nature, facts which actually rise up as obstacles to prevent consciousness (that is, his proper nature and peculiar fact) from coming into manifestation. If, then, we would establish a true science of man, there is no other course open to us than this, to abandon, in the first instance, every consideration of "the human mind," whether it be an hypothesis and a reality, together with all its phenomena, and then to confine our attention closely and devoutly to the examination of the great and anomalous fact of human consciousness. ​And truly this fact is well worthy of our regard, and one which will worthily reward our pains. It is a fact of most surpassing wonder; a fact prolific in sublime results. Standing aloof as much as possible from our acquired and inveterate habits of thought; divesting ourselves as much as possible of our natural prepossessions, and of that familiarity which has blunted the edge of astonishment, let us consider what we know to be the fact; namely, that existence, combined with intelligence and passion in many instances, but unaccompanied by any other fact, is the general rule of creation. Knowing this, would it not be but an easy step for us to conclude that it is also the universal rule of creation? and would not such a conclusion be a step naturally taken? Finding this, and nothing more than this, to be the great fact "in heaven and on earth, and in the waters under the earth," would it not be rational to conclude that it admitted of no exception? Such, certainly, would be the natural inference, and in it there would be nothing at all surprising. But suppose that when it was on the point of being drawn, there suddenly, and for the first time, started up in a single Being, a fact at variance with this whole analogy of creation, and contradicting this otherwise universal rule; we ask, would not this be a fact attractive and wonderful indeed? Would not every attempt to bring this Being under the great general rule of the universe be at once, and most properly, abandoned? Would not this new fact be held exclusively worthy of scientific ​consideration, as the feature which distinguished its possessor with the utmost clearness from all other creatures, and as that which would be sure to lead the observer to a knowledge of the true and essential character of the being manifesting it? Would not, in fine, a world entirely new be here opened up to research? And now, if we would really behold such a fact, we have but to turn to ourselves, and ponder over the fact of consciousness; for consciousness is precisely that marvellous, that unexampled fact which we have been here supposing and shadowing forth.
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
What is philosophy? Look at man struggling against the fatalistic logic of physics, and thou shalt best know what philosophy is. In the hands of physical science man lies bound hand and foot, and the iron of necessity is driven into the innermost recesses of his being; but philosophy proclaims him to be free, and rends away the fetters from his limbs like stubble-withs. Physical science, placing man entirely under the dominion of the law of causality, engulfs his moral being in the tomb; but philosophy bursts his scientific cerements, and brings him forth out of "the house of bondage" into the land of perfect liberty.
If we look into the realities of our own condition, and of nature as it operates around us, we shall be convinced of the justness of this view. We shall see that the essential character of philosophy is best ​to be caught in contrast with the character of physics; just as man is best read in the antagonism which prevails between him and nature as she exists both without him and within him; this strife conducing in the former case to his natural, and in the latter to his moral aggrandisement.
Without a figure, the whole universe may be said to be inspired. A power not its own drives its throbbing pulses. All things are dependent on one another; each of them is because something else has been. Nowhere is there to be found an original, but everywhere an inherited activity. Nature throughout all her vicissitudes is the true type of hereditary and inviolable succession. The oak dies in the forest-solitudes, having deposited the insignia of its strength in an acorn, from which springs a new oak that neither exceeds nor falls short of the stated measure of its birthright. The whole present world is but a vast tradition. All the effects composing the universe now before us were slumbering, ages ago, in their embryo causes. And now, amid the derivative movements of this unpausing machinery, what becomes of man? Is he too the mere creature of traditionary forces?
Yes; man in his earlier stages violates not the universal analogy, but lives and breathes in the general inspiration of nature. At his birth he is indeed wholly nature's child; for no living creature is born an alien from the jurisdiction of that mighty mother. Powerless and passive, he floats entranced ​amid her teeming floods. She shapes his passions and desires, and he, disputing not her guardianship, puts his neck beneath their yoke. All that he is, he is without his own co-operation: his reason and his appetites come to him from her hand, he accepts them unconsciously, and goes forth in quest of his gratifications in blind obedience to the force that drives him. All the germs that nature has planted in his breast owe their growth to her breath, and, unfolding themselves beneath it, they flourish in blessedness—for a time.
Hence this view of human life being the first to present itself to observation, the genius of physical science has ever been foremost to attempt to fix the position of man in the scale of the universe, and to read to him his doom. She tells thee, O man! that thou art but an animal of a higher and more intelligent class; a mere link, though perhaps a bright one, in the uninterrupted chain of creation. No clog art thou, she says, in the revolutions of the blind and mighty wheel. She lays her hand upon thee, and thou, falling into her ranks, goest to swell the legions of dependent things, the leader, it may be, but not the antagonist of nature. She bends thee down under the law of causality, and, standing in her muster-roll, thou art forced to acknowledge that law as the sovereign of thy soul. The stars obey it in their whirling courses, why shouldst not thou? She either makes thee a mere tabula rasa, to be written upon by the pens of external things—an educt of ​their impressions; or else, endowing thee with certain innate capacities, she teaches thee that all thy peculiar developments are merely evolved under a necessary law out of germs that were born within thee, are but the fruits of seeds thou broughtest into the world with thee already sown. But whatever she makes of thee, thou art no more thine own master, according to her report, than the woods that burst into bud beneath an influence they cannot control, or than the sea rolling in the wind.
Such is the award of physical science with respect to man; and, confined to his birth and the earliest periods of his life, her estimate of him is true. When contemplated during the first stages of his existence, Hamlet's pipe breathed upon by another's breath, and fingered by another's touch, and giving out sounds of discord or of harmony according to the will of the blower, is not merely a type, but is the actual reality of man.
But these are remote and visionary contemplations. Turning from man in his cradle, let us observe the actual condition of our living selves.
We are all born, as we have said, both in our external and our internal fittings up, within the domain and jurisdiction of nature; and nature, to our opening life, is a paradise of sweets.
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
But the nascent fierceness which adds but new graces to the sportive beauty of the tiger-cub, condemns ​the monster of maturer years to the savage solitudes of his forest-lair, and the graceful passions of childhood naturally grow up in the man into demons of misery and blood. As life advances, the garden of nature becomes more and more a howling wilderness, and nature's passions and indulgences blacken her own shining skies: and before our course is run, life, under her guidance, has become a spectacle of greater ghastliness than death itself.
Nature prompts a purely epicurean creed, and the logic of physical science binds it down upon the understandings of men; for suppose that we should turn and fight against the force that drives us. But how can we? says the logic of physics. We are in everything at the mercy of a foreign causality, and how can we resist its sway? We are drifting before the breath of nature, and can the wave turn against the gale that is impelling it, and refuse to flow? Drift on, then, thou epicurean, thou child of nature, passive in thy theory and thy practice, and sheathed in what appears to be an irrefragable logic, and see where thy creed will land thee!
But perhaps man has been armed by nature with weapons wherewith to fight against the natural powers that are seeking to enslave him. As if nature would give man arms to be employed against herself; as if she would lift with her own hands the yoke of bondage from his neck. And even supposing that nature were thus to assist him, would she not be merely removing him from the conduct of one ​blind and faithless guide, to place him under that of another equally blind, and probably equally faithless? Having been misled in so many instances in obeying nature, we may well be suspicious of all her dictates.
We have also been prated to about a moral sense born within us, and this, too, by physical science—by the science that founds its whole procedure upon the law of causality, as if this law did not obliterate the very life of duty, and render it an unmeaning word. This moral sense, it is said, impels us to virtue, if its sanctions be listened to, or lets us run to crime if they be disregarded. But what impels us to listen to the voice of this monitor, or to turn away from it with a deaf ear? Still, according to physical science, it can be nothing but the force of a natural and foreign causality. Nowhere, O man! throughout the whole range of thy moral and intellectual being can physical science allow thee a single point whereon to rest the lever of thy own free co-operation. The moral power which she allows thee is at the same time a natural endowment; and being so, must of course, like other natural growths, wax or wane under laws immutable and independent of thy control. Thou art still, then, a dependent thing, entirely at the mercy of foreign causes, and having no security against any power that may make thee its instrument.
What, then, is to be done? This: Let us spurn from us the creed of nature, together with the fatalistic logic by which it is upheld. If we admit the ​logic we must admit the creed, and if we admit the creed we must admit the logic; but let us tear both of them in pieces, and scatter their fragments to the winds. The creed of nature concludes simply for enjoyment; but the truer creed of human life, a creed which says little about happiness, was uttered soon after the foundations of the world were laid, and has been proved and perpetuated by the experience of six thousand years. "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou cultivate the earth;" and, it may be added, in a bitterer sweat shalt thou till, oh man! as long as life lasts, the harsher soil of thy own tumultuous and almost ungovernable heart.
This creed is none of nature's prompting, but is the issue of a veritable contest now set on foot between man and her. But how is this creed to be supported? How can we rationally make good the fact that we are fighting all life long more or less against the powers of nature? We have flung aside the logic of physics; where shall we look for props?
CHAPTER II.
But at what point shall Philosophy commence unwinding the coils of fatalism from around man? At the very outermost folds. To redeem man's moral being from slavery, and to circulate through it the air of liberty by which alone it lives, is the great end of philosophy; but it were vain to attempt the accomplishment of this end, unless the folds of necessity be first of all loosened at the very circumference or surface of his ordinary character as a simply percipient being. Make man, ab origine, like wax beneath the seal, the passive recipient of the impressions of external things, and a slave he must remain for ever in all the phenomena he may manifest throughout the whole course of his career. If there be bondage in his common consciousness, it must necessarily pass into his moral conscience. Unless our first and simplest consciousness be an act of freedom, our moral being is a bondsman all its life. True philosophy will accept of no half measures, no compromise between the passivity and the activity of man. We must commence, then, by liberating our ordinary ​consciousness from the control or domineering action of outward objects. Thus commencing at the very circumference of man, we shall clear out an enlarged atmosphere of freedom around that true and sacred centre of his personality—his character, namely, as a moral and accountable agent.
In returning, then, to the fact of consciousness, we may remark that hitherto we have been chiefly occupied in opening out a way for ourselves, and have hardly advanced beyond the mere threshold or out-works of psychology. Regarding this fact as the great, and indeed, properly speaking, as the only fact of our science, we have done our best to separate it from any admixture of foreign elements, and, in particular, to free it from that huge encumbrance which, since the commencement of science, has kept it weighed down in obscure and vaporous abysses—the human mind, with all its facts, which are elements of a fatalistic, and therefore of an unphiosophic.al character. Imperfectly, indeed, but to the best of our ability, we have raised it up out of the depths where it has lain so long, and, blowing aside from it the mist of ages, we have endeavoured to realise it in all its purity and independence, and to make it stand forth as the most prominent, signal, and distinguishing phenomenon of humanity. But in doing this we have done little more than establish the fact that consciousness does come into operation. We still expect to be able to make its character and significance more and more plain as we advance, and now ​beg to call the attention of the reader to three other problems, which may be said to constitute the very vitals of the science of ourselves. These are, first, When does consciousness come into operation? Second, How does consciousness come into operation? And third, What are the consequences of its coming into operation? The discussion of these three problems will, it is thought, sufficiently exhaust this Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness.
CHAPTER III.
The first question with which we are to be engaged is this: When does consciousness come into operation? And we ask, first of all, Is man born conscious, or is he conscious during several (be their number greater or less) of the earlier months, we may say years, of his existence? We answer, No: for if he were, then he would remember, or at least some individuals of the species would remember, the day of their birth and the first year or years of their infancy. People in general recollect that of which they were conscious. But perhaps it may be objected that a man, or that many men, may forget, and often do forget, events of which they were conscious. True; but it is absolutely impossible, and at variance with universal experience, that everybody should forget that of which everybody was conscious. If the whole human race were conscious at the day of their birth, and during their earliest childhood, it is altogether inconceivable but that some of them at least should remember those days and their events. But no one possesses any such remembrance; and therefore the inference is ​irresistible that man is not born conscious, and does not become conscious until some considerable period after his birth. Let this conclusion then be noted, for we may require to make some use of it hereafter.
If, then, man is not conscious at his birth, or until some time after it has elapsed, at what period of his life does consciousness manifest itself? To ascertain this period we must seek for some vital sign of the existence of consciousness. It is possible that, before the true and real consciousness of the human being displays itself, there are within him certain obscure prefigurations or anticipations of the dawning phenomenon; and therefore it may not be practicable to fix in the precisest and strictest manner its absolute point of commencement. Still, compared with the actual rise and development of consciousness, these dim and uncertain preludes of it are even more faint and indistinct than are the first feeble rays which the sun sends up before him, compared with the glory which fills heaven and earth when the great luminary himself bursts above the sea. This parallel is certainly not perfect, because the sun, though below the horizon, nevertheless exists; but an unapparent consciousness is zero, or no consciousness at all. Consciousness, no doubt, keeps ever gaining in distinctness, but there is certainly a period when it is an absolute blank, and then there is an epoch at which it exists and comes forth distinctly into the light; an epoch so remarkable that it may be assumed and fixed as the definite period when the true existence ​and vital manifestation of consciousness commences. Our business now is to point out and illustrate this epoch.
It is a well-known fact that children, for some time after they acquire the use of language, speak of themselves in the third person, calling themselves John, Tom, or whatever else their names may be. Some speak thus for a longer, others for a shorter period; but all of them invariably speak for a certain time after this fashion. What does this prove, and how is it to be accounted for?
In the first place, it proves that they have not yet acquired the notion of their own personality. Whatever their intellectual or rational state may in other respects be, they have not combined with it the conception of self. In other words, it proves that as yet they are unconscious. They as yet exist merely for others, not for themselves.
In the second place, how is the origin of the language, such as it is, which the child makes use of, to be explained? It is to be accounted for upon exactly the same principle, whatever this may be, as that which enables the parrot to be taught to speak. This principle may be called imitation, which may be viewed as a modification of the great law of association, which again is to be considered as an illustration of the still greater law of cause and effect; and under any or all of these views it is not to be conceived that intelligence is by any means absent from the process. The child and the parrot hear those ​around them applying various names to different objects, and, being imitative animals, acting under the law of causality, they apply these names in the same manner: and now mark most particularly the curious part of the process, how they follow the same rule when speaking of themselves. They hear people calling them by their own names in the third person, and not having any notion of themselves, not having realised their own personality, they have nothing else for it than to adhere, in this case too, to their old principle of imitation, and to do towards themselves just what others do towards them; that is to say, when speaking of themselves they are unavoidably forced to designate themselves by a word in the third person; or, in other words, to speak of themselves as if they were not themselves.
So long, then, as this state of things continues, the human being is to be regarded as leading altogether mere animal life, as living completely under the dominion and within the domain of nature. The law of its whole being is the law of causality. Its sensations, feelings of every kind, and all its exercises of reason, are mere effects, which again in their turn are capable of becoming causes. It cannot be said to be without "mind," if by the attribution of "mind" to it we mean that it is subject to various sensations, passions, desires, &c.; but it certainly is without consciousness, or that notion of self, that realisation of its own personality, which, in the subsequent stages of its existence, accompanies these modifications of ​its being. It is still entirely the creature of instinct, which may be exactly and completely defined as unconscious reason.
It is true that the child at this stage of its existence often puts on the semblance of the intensest selfishness; but to call it selfish, in the proper sense of the word, would be to apply to it a complete misnomer. This would imply that it stood upon moral ground, whereas its being rests as yet upon no moral foundations at all. We indeed have a moral soil beneath our feet. And this is the origin of our mistake. In us, conduct similar to the child's would be really selfish, because we occupy a moral ground, and have realised our own personality; and hence, forgetting the different wounds upon which we and it stand, we transfer over upon it, through a mistaken analogy, or rather upon a false hypothesis, language which would serve to characterise its conduct, only provided it stood in the same situation with us, and like us possessed the notion and reality of itself. The child is driven to the gratification of its desires (prior to consciousness) at whatever cost, and whatever the consequences may be, just as an animal or a machine is impelled to accomplish the work for which it was designed; and the desire dies only when gratified, or when its natural force is spent, or when supplanted by some other desire equally blind and equally out of its control. How can we affix the epithet selfish, or any other term indicating either blame or praise, to a creature which as ​yet is not a self at all, either in thought, in word, or deed? For let it be particularly noted that the notion of self is a great deal more than a mere notion,—that is to say, it possesses far more than a mere logical value and contents—it is absolutely genetic or creative. Thinking oneself "I" makes oneself "I;" and it is only by thinking himself "I" that a man can make himself "I; or, in other words, change an unconscious thing into that which is now a conscious self. Nothing else will or can do it. So long as a Being does not think itself "I," it does not and cannot become "I." No other being, no being except itself, can make it "I." More, however, of this hereafter.
But now mark the moment when the child pronounces the word "I," and knows what this expression means. Here is a new and most important step taken. Let no one regard this step as insignificant, or treat our mention of it lightly and superciliously; for, to say the least of it, it is a step the like of which in magnitude and wonder the human being never yet took, and never shall take again, throughout the whole course of his rational and immortal career. We have read in fable of Circæan charms, which changed men into brutes; but here in this little monosyllable is contained a truer and more potent charm, the spell of an inverted and unfabulous enchantment, which converts the feral into the human being. The origination of this little monosyllable lifts man out of the natural into the moral universe. ​It places him, indeed, upon a perilous pre-eminence, being the assertion of nothing less than his own absolute independence. He is now no longer a paradisiacal creature of blind and unconscious good. He has fallen from that estate by this very assertion of his independence; but, in compensation for this, he is now a conscious and a moral creature, knowing evil from good, and able to choose the latter even when he embraces the former; and this small word of one letter, and it alone, is the talisman which has effected these mighty changes—which has struck from his being the fetters of the law of causality, and given him to breathe the spacious atmosphere of absolute freedom; thus rendering him a moral and accountable agent, by making him the first cause or complete originator of all his actions.
If we reflect for a moment upon the origin and application of the word "I," as used by the child, we shall see what a remarkable contrast exists between this term and any other expression which he employs; and how strikingly different its origin is from that of all these expressions. We have already stated that the child's employment of language previous to his use of the word "I," may be accounted for upon the principle of imitation, or that at any rate it falls to be considered as a mere illustration of the general law of cause and effect. He hears other people applying certain sounds to designate certain objects; and when these objects or similar ones are presented, or in any way recalled, to him, the ​consequence is, that he utters the same sounds in connection with their presence. All this takes place, very naturally, under the common law of association. But neither association, nor the principle of imitation, nor any conceivable modification of the law of cause and effect, will account for the child's use of the word "I." In originating and using this term, he reverses, or runs counter to all these laws, and more particularly performs a process diametrically opposed to any act of imitation. Take an illustration of this: A child hears another person call a certain object "a table;" well, the power of imitation naturally leads him to call the same thing, and any similar thing, "a table." Suppose, next, that the child hears this person apply to himself the word "I:" In this case, too, the power of imitation would naturally (that is to say, letting it operate here in the same way as it did in the case of the table) lead the child to call that man "I." But is this what the child does? No. As soon as he becomes conscious, he ceases, so far at least as the word "I" is concerned, to be an imitator. He still applies the word "table" to the objects to which other people apply that term; and in this he imitates them. But with regard to the word "I," he applies this expression to a thing totally different from that which he hears all other people applying it to. They apply it to themselves, but he does not apply it to them, but to himself; and in this he is not an imitator, but the absolute originator of a new notion, upon which he now, and henceforth, takes up ​his stand, and which leads him on in the career of a destiny most momentous, and altogether anomalous and new.
In opposition to this view is it objected that in the use of the word "I" the child may still be considered an imitative creature, inasmuch as he merely applies to himself a word which he hears other people applying to themselves, having borrowed this application of it from them? Oh! vain and short-sighted objection! As if this very fact did not necessarily imply and prove that he has first of all originated within himself the notion expressed by the word "I" (namely, the notion of his conscious self), and thereby, and thereby only, has become capable of comprehending what they mean by it. In the use and understanding of this word every man must be altogether original. No person can teach to another its true meaning and right application; for this reason, that no two human beings ever use it, or ever can use it, in the same sense or apply it to the same being: a true but astounding paradox, which may be thus forcibly expressed. Every one rightly calls himself by a name which no other person can call him by without being convicted of the most outrageous and almost inconceivable insanity. The word "I" in my mouth as applied to you would prove me to be a madman. The word "I" in your mouth as applied to me would prove you to be the same. Therefore, I cannot by any conceivability teach you what it means, nor can you teach me. We must ​both of us originate it first of all independently for ourselves, and then we can understand one another. This may be put to the actual test if any one is curious to prove it. Let any man teach a parrot to say "I" (it meaning thereby itself), and we pledge ourselves to unwrite all that we have written upon this topic.
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
To enter at length into a discussion concerning the multifarious theories that have been propounded respecting the fact of perception would be an endless and unnecessary labour. But as the problem we are about to be engaged with has much in common with these speculations, and as its solution has been retarded by the assumption of various false facts which have invariably been permitted to mingle with them, we must, in a few words, strike at the root of these spurious facts, and, employing a more accurate observation, we will then bring forward, purified from all irrelevant admixture, that great question of psychology, How, or in what circumstances, does Consciousness come into operation?
"Perception," says Dr Brown, "is a state of mind which is induced directly or indirectly by its external cause, as any other feeling is induced by its ​particular antecedent. If the external cause or object be absent, the consequent feeling, direct or indirect, which we term perception, will not be induced, precisely as any other feeling will not arise without its peculiar antecedent. The relation of cause and effect, in short, is exactly the same in perception as in all the other mental phenomena, a relation of invariable sequence of one change after another change."
This doctrine, which explains the phenomena of perception by placing them under the law of causality, is maintained, we believe, in one form or another, by every philosopher who has theorised on the subject, from Aristotle, down through his scholastic followers, past the occasionalists and pre-established harmonists, and onwards to Dr Brown, who is merely to be considered as one of its most explicit expounders. One and all of them assume that the ​great law of cause and effect is as little violated in the intercourse which takes place between the external universe and man, as it is in the catenation of the objects themselves constituting that universe. Have we, then, any fault to find with this doctrine, supported as it is by such a host of authorities? and if we have, what is it? We answer that, in our apprehension, it places Dr Brown and all the philosophers who embrace it in a very extraordinary dilemma, which we now proceed to point out.
If by "perception" Dr Brown understands "sensation," and nothing more than sensation, then we admit his statement of the fact to be correct, and his doctrine to be without a flaw. Sensation (the smell of a rose, for example) is certainly "a state" which is "induced by its external cause," namely, by the rose. This is certainly a simple and ordinary instance of sequence, a mere illustration of the common law of cause and effect, and not a whit more extraordinary than any other exemplification of that great law. We admit, then, that here the phenomenon is correctly observed and stated, that the law of causality embraces sensation, and adequately accounts for its origin. Where, then, does our objection lie? It lies in this, that the origin of sensation is not the true and pertinent problem requiring solution, but is a most frivolous and irrelevant question. We thus, then, fix for Dr Brown and many other philosophers the first horn of our dilemma. If by "perception" they understand "sensation" merely, ​they no doubt hit the true facts and their true explanation, but then they entirely miss, as we shall see, the question properly at issue, and, instead of grappling with it, they explain to us that which stands in need of no explanation.
But by "perception" Dr Brown and other philosophers probably understand something more than "sensation." If so, what is the additional fact they understand by it? When we have found it, we will then fix for them the other horn of our dilemma.
When animals and young children are sentient, there is in them, as we have all along seen, nothing more than sensation. The state of being into which they are cast is simple and single. It is merely a certain effect following a certain cause. There is in it nothing whatsoever of a reflex character. A particular sensation is, in their case, given or induced by its particular external cause, and nothing more is given. Indeed, what more could we rationally expect the fragrant particles of a rose to give than the sensation of the smell of a rose? Here, then, the state into which the sentient creature is thrown begins, continues, and ends, in simple and mixed sensation, and that is all that can be said about it.
But when we ourselves are sentient, we find the state of the fact to be widely different from this. We find that our sentient condition is not, as is the case in children and animals, a monopoly of sensation, but that here a new fact is evolved, over and above the sensation, which makes the phenomenon ​a much more complicated and extraordinary one. This new and anomalous phenomenon which accompanies our sensations, but which is, at the same time, completely distinct from them, is the fact of our own personality, the fact and the notion denoted by the word "I." Surely no one will maintain that this realisation of self, in conjunction with our sensations, and as distinguished from the objects causing them, is the same fact as these sensations themselves. In man, then, there is the notion and the reality of himself, as well as the sensation that passes through him. In other words, he is not only sentient, like other animals, but, unlike them, he is sentient with a consciousness, or reference to self, of sensation; two very different, and, as we have already seen, and shall see still further, mutually repugnant and antithetical states of existence.
This consciousness of sensation, then, is the other fact contained in perception; and it is an inquiry into the nature and origin of this fact, and of it alone, that forms the true and proper problem of psychology when we are busied with the phenomena of perception; because it is this fact, and not the fact of sensation, which constitutes man's peculiar and distinctive characteristic, and lies as the foundation-stone of all the grander structures of his moral and intellectual being.
We now then ask: Have Dr Brown and other philosophers entertained the problem as to the origin and import of this fact—the fact, namely, of ​consciousness as distinguished from the fact of sensation, passion, &c.; and have they thus grappled with the true question at issue? We answer: That if they have, then have they grossly falsified the facts of the case. For it is not the fact that the consciousness of sensation is "induced, either directly or indirectly, by its external cause," or by any cause whatsoever. Sensation, no doubt, is induced by its external cause, but consciousness is altogether exempt from the law of causality, as we shall very shortly prove by a reference to experience itself. In fine, then, the dilemma to which Dr Brown, and, we believe, all other theorists on the subject of perception, may be reduced, stands thus: Are they, primo loco, right in their facts? then they are wrong in the question they take up. Or, secundo loco, do they hit the right question? then they falsify, ab initio, the facts upon which its solution depends. In other words, in so far as their statement of facts is true, they take up a wrong question, inasmuch as they explain to us the origin of our sensations when they ought to be explaining to us the origin of our consciousness of sensations, or the notion of self which accompanies them. Or, again, supposing that they take up the right question; then their statement of facts is false, inasmuch as their assumption that our consciousness of sensation falls under the law of causality is totally unfounded, and may be disproved by an appeal to a stricter and more accurate observation.
CHAPTER II.
We have already had occasion to establish and illustrate the radical distinction between consciousness on the one hand, and sensation on the other, or any other of those "states of mind," as they are called, of which we are cognisant. We showed that consciousness is not only distinct from any of these states, but is diametrically opposed, or placed in a direct antithesis, to them all. Thus, taking for an example, as we have hitherto done, the smell of a rose, it appears that so long as the sensation occasioned by this object remains moderate, consciousness, or the realisation of self in union with the feeling, comes into play without any violent effort. But, suppose the sensation is increased until we almost
"Die of a rose, in aromatic pain,"
​We now avail ourselves of the assistance of this antagonism, which has thus been established as fact by experience, in order to displace the false fact generally, we might say universally, assumed in our current metaphysics—namely, that consciousness, or the fact and notion denoted by the word "I," comes into manifestation at the bidding, and under the influence, of the objects which induce the sensations accompanying it.
One fact admitted on all hands is, that our sensations are caused by certain objects presented to our senses; another fact assumed on all hands is, that our consciousness of sensations falls under the same law, and is likewise induced by the presence of these objects. But consciousness and sensation are each other's opposites, and exist as thesis and antithesis; therefore, according to this doctrine, we find two contradictory effects attributed at the same moment to the same cause, and referred to the same origin, just as if we were to affirm that the same object is at the same moment and in the same place the cause at once of light and of the absence of light, or that the sun at one and the same instant both ripens fruit and prevents it from ripening. To illustrate this by our former example (for a variety of illustrations adds nothing to the clearness of an exposition), let us suppose a sentient being to experience the smell of a rose. So long as this being's state is simply sentient, its sensation is absorbing, effective, and complete; but as soon as consciousness, or the realisation of self, ​blends with this feeling, it from that moment becomes weaker and less perfect. It is no longer pure and unalloyed, and consequently its integrity is violated, and its strength in some degree impaired; yet, according to our ordinary psychologists, the same object, namely, the rose, which induces the strength of the sensation, also brings along with it that suspension or weakening of the sensation which consciousness is. We are called upon to believe that the same cause at the same moment both produces and destroys a particular effect, a creed too contradictory and unintelligible to be easily embraced when thus plainly exposed. If a particular object induce a particular sensation, surely the suspension of that sensation, or, in other words, the consciousness which impairs it, and prevents it from being all-absorbing, cannot be induced by the same cause. And, besides, if our consciousness depended on our sensations, passions, or any other of our "states of mind," would not its light kindle, and its energy wax in proportion as these were brightened and increased? We have seen, however, that the reverse of this is the case, and that consciousness never burns more faintly than during man's most vivid paroxysms of sensation and of passion.
CHAPTER III.
The earliest speculators among mankind were, as we have before remarked, mere naturalists or physici. They looked at everything and conceived everything under the law of cause and effect. After a time, when speculation began to be directed upon man, or became what is now termed "metaphysical," this law still continued to be regarded as supreme, and the spirit of the old method was carried on into the new research. But as no instance of causality could be conceived without the existence of a thing operated on, as well as of a thing operating, they were forced to postulate something in man (either physical or hyperphysical) for the objects of external nature to act upon. Thus, in order to allow the law of causality an intelligible sphere of operation, and at the same time to lift man out of the mire of a gross materialism, they devised or assumed a certain spiritualised or attenuated substance called "mind," endowed with certain passive susceptibilities as well as with various active powers; and this hypothetical substance, together with all the false facts and foolish problems it brings along with it, has been ​permitted to maintain its place, almost without challenge, in all our schools of philosophy down to the present hour; so completely has psychological science in general taken the colour and imbibed the spirit of physical research.
" Ut multis nota est naturæ causa latentis;
At sua qui noscat pectora rarus adest"
It is time, however, that this substance, and the doctrines and facts taught in connection with it, were tested in a more rigorous and critical spirit, not, indeed, upon their own account, but on account of those greater and more important truths whose places they have usurped. How, then, do we propose testing this substance? In this way. The word "mind" is exceedingly remote and ambiguous, and denotes—nobody knows what. Let us then substitute in place of it that much plainer expression which everybody makes use of, and in some degree, at least, understands—the expression "I" or "me;" and let us see how mind, with its facts and doctrines, will fare when this simple, unpretending, and unhypothetical word is employed in its place.
​Does the philosopher of mind, giving up this point, maintain that the proposition quoted has, at any rate, a true and intelligible application to us in our grown or advanced condition? Then we tell him that, in that case, the affirmation or dogma is altogether premature; because, before it can be admitted, he is bound to explain to us how the particular Being given and contemplated, which was not "I" or "me" at first, became converted into "me." Before any subsequent averment connected with this "me" can be listened to, it is first of all incumbent upon him, we say, to point out to us how this conversion is brought about; to explain to us the origin and significance of this "I," the circumstances out of which it arose; for, as we have already said, the particular Being which now appropriates it was certainly not sent into the world a born or ready-made "I."
Suppose, then, that the metaphysician should say that this Being becomes "I" under the law of causality, and beneath the action of the external objects which produce impressions upon it, then we would like to know how it happened that these outward objects, which induced the human Being's sensations at the very first, did not cause him to become "I" then. When he was first born he was just as sensitive as he ever was afterwards, no doubt more so, but for long his sensations continued pure and unalloyed. Alter a time, however, they were found to be combined with the notion and reality of self, a ​new notion and reality altogether. The human Being has now become ego; from a thing he has become a person. But what new circumstances were there in his sensations, or their exciting causes, by which they brought about this new fact and phasis of existence? The metaphysician cannot answer us. He must admit that the sensations and their causes remain, after the manifestation of the ego, precisely what they were before it came into existence, and, therefore, that they can never account for its origin.
But we have already, in the preceding chapter, disproved still more effectually the fact that the ego comes into existence in consequence of the influence of external objects. We there showed that consciousness not only does not manifest itself in obedience to their action, but that it actually tends to be suppressed and obliterated thereby. Now consciousness is the very essence and origin of the ego; consciousness creates the ego; without consciousness no man would be" I." Therefore the ego is also exempt from the influence of outward objects, and manifests itself, and maintains its place, not in consequence, but in spite of them. Consciousness develops and preserves itself by refusing to take part or identify itself with the sensation, passion, or whatever it may be that is striving to enslave the man; and the ego, which is but the more personal and vital expression of consciousness, exists merely by refusing to imbibe the impressions of external things. Thus, so far is it from being true that outward objects take effect ​upon me, that "I," in truth, only am by resisting and refusing to be impressed by their action.
When an effect or impression is produced on any substance, whether it be motion, as in the case of a struck billiard-ball, or sensation, as in the case of animals and men, the substance impressed is either conscious of the impression, as is the case with men, or unconscious of it, as is the case with animals and billiard-balls. If it be unconscious of the impression, then, being filled and monopolised by the same, it never rises above it, but, yielding to its influence, it becomes altogether the slave of the law of causality, or of the force that is working on it. But if this substance be conscious of the impression made upon it, then it is absolutely necessary, in the eye of reason, that a portion of this being should stand aloof from the impression, should be exempt from the action of the object causing it; in short, should resist, repel, and deny it in the exercise of a free activity; otherwise, like animals and inferior things, being completely absorbed and monopolised by the influence present to it, it would no more be able to become conscious of it than a leaf can comprehend the gale in which it is drifting along, or the tiger the passion which impels him to slake his burning heart in blood. It is obvious that the point in man at which he becomes aware of his impressions must be free from these impressions, and must stand out of their sphere, otherwise it would be swallowed up by them, and nothing save the impressions would ​remain. But man is not made up of mere impressions—passions, sensations, "states of mind," or whatever they may be. He is not engulfed and borne along in their vortices. There is a point from which he looks down upon them all, and knows himself to be free. He stands within a circle more impregnable than enchanter's ring; a circle which, however much they may assault it, they cannot overpass; and this point or circle of freedom, this true life of humanity, is that which, in the case of each man, is "I."
This view disposes of a question which has been ever regarded as forming the opprobrium of metaphysics. We allude to the problem respecting the mode and nature of the intercourse which takes place between the external universe and man, or, as metaphysicians say, "Mind." This question is now given up, not because it has been solved, not because it is regarded as too contemptible and irrelevant to be entertained by speculative philosophy, but (pro pudor!) because it is considered insoluble, inscrutable, and beyond the limits of the human faculties. Oh, ye metaphysicians! ye blind leaders of the blind! How long will ye be of seeing and understanding that there is no communication at all between man in his true Being and the universe that surrounds him, or that, if there be any, it is the communication of non-communication? Know ye not that ye are what ye are only on account of the antagonism between you and it; that ye perceive things only by resisting their impressions, by denying them, not in ​word only, but also in vital deed; that your refusal to be acted upon by them constitutes your very personality and your very perception of them; that this perception arises not in consequence of the union, but in consequence of the disunion between yourselves and matter; and, in fine, that your consciousness, even in its simplest acts, so far from being in harmony and keeping with the constitution of nature, is the commencement of that grand disruption between yourselves and the world, which perhaps ye will know more about before ye die?
Of all difficult entails to be broken through, the most difficult is the entail of false facts and erroneous opinions. If, however, the foregoing observations be attended to, we trust we have done something to cut off speculators yet unborn from their inheritances of error. Of all the false facts involved in the "science of the human mind," the greatest is this, that, starting from the assumption of "mind" as a given substance, we are thereby led to believe that the ego or central and peculiar point of humanity comes into the world ready-made. In opposition to this belief, the true fact is that the ego does not thus come into the world, but that the being which is now "I" was not "I" at first, but became "I" after a time and after a process, which it is the business of the philosopher to explain. Various other fictitious facts spring out of this tap-root of error. Thus, if we start from mind as a given substance, we, of course, are compelled to make this, in the first ​instance, passive, and only active through a species of reaction. But the ego is never passive. Its being is pure act. To hold it passive is to hold it annihilated. It is for ever acting against the fatalistic forces of nature. Its free and antagonist power shows itself equally to the eye of reflection in our simplest perceptive as in our highest moral acts. It lives and has a being only in so far as it refuses to bow under the yoke of causality; and whenever it bends beneath that yoke, its life and all its results are gone.
CHAPTER IV.
The Cartesian philosophy is said to commence by inculcating a species of wide and deep-searching scepticism; and its fundamental and favourite tenet is that Cogito, ergo sum, which is now so universally decried. But abandoning altogether its written dogmas and formulas, let us only return upon them after we have looked forth for ourselves into the realities of things.
When a man sees and thinks a mountain, it is obvious that his thought does not create the mountain. Here, then, the thought and the reality are not identical; nor does the one grow out of the other. The two can be separated, and, in point of fact, stand apart, and are quite distinct. In this case, then, it requires some degree of faith to believe that the notion and the reality correspond. It is evident that there is a sort of flaw between them which nothing but the cement of Faith can solder; a gap which no scientific ingenuity has ever been able to bridge; in short, that here there is a chink in the armour of reason which scepticism may take advantage of if it ​chooses; for the reality of the mountain being independent of the notion of the mountain, the notion may also be independent of the reality, and, for anything that can be shown to the contrary, may have been induced by some other cause. In short, the notion, even when the mountain appears present before us, may possibly exist without any corresponding reality, for it clearly does not create that reality.
In looking out, then, for a sure and certain foundation for science, we must not build upon any tenet in which a distinction between our thought and its corresponding reality is set forth (as, for example, upon any proposition expressing the real existence of an external world), for here scepticism might assail us, possibly with success; but we must seek for some subject of experience, between the notion of which and the reality of which there is no flaw, distinction, or interval whatsoever. We must seek for some instance in which the thought of a certain reality actually creates that reality; and if we can find such an instance, we shall then possess an inconcussum quid which will resist for ever all the assaults of scepticism.
But no instance of this kind is to be found, as we have seen, by attaching our thoughts to the objects of the universe around us. Our thinking them does not make them realities. If they are realities, they are not so in consequence of our thoughts; and if they are not realities, unreal they will remain in ​spite of our thoughts. Let us turn from the universe, then, and look to ourselves, "I." Now here is an instance in which there is no distinction or sundering between the notion and the reality. The two are coincident and identical, or rather, we should say, the one (that is, the notion "I ") creates and enforces the other (that is, the reality "I "); or, at any rate, this appears to be the best way of logically exhibiting the two. Between the notion and the reality in this case scepticism can find no conceivable entrance for the minutest point of its spear. Let any man consult his own experience whether, the notion "I" being given, the reality "I" must not also necessarily be present; and also whether, the reality being present, the notion must not also accompany it. Let him try to destroy or maintain the one without also destroying or maintaining the other, and see whether he can succeed. Succeed he easily may in the case of any other notion and reality. The word mountain, for instance, denotes both a notion and a reality. But the notion may exist perfectly well without the reality, and the reality without the notion. The notion "I," however, cannot exist without the reality "I," and the reality cannot exist without the notion I," as any one may satisfy himself by the slightest reflection.
Here, then, we have found the instance we were seeking for. What is the notion "I"? It is consciousness or the notion of self. What is the reality "I"? It is simply "I." Connect the two together ​in a genesis which makes the one arise out of the other, and you have the famous fundamental position of the Cartesian philosophy, Cogito, ergo sum, a formula which is worthy of respect, for this reason, if for no other, that by it the attention of psychologists was first distinctly directed to the only known instance in which a notion and a reality are identical and coincident, in which a thought is the same as a thing.
But, by means of the dogma, Cogito, ergo sum, was it not the design of Descartes to prove his own existence? Take our word for it, no such miserable intention ever entered into his head. His great object, in the first place, was emphatically to signalise the very singular and altogether anomalous phenomenon we have spoken of, namely, the identity in man of thought and reality, and then to found upon this point as on a rock which no conceivable scepticism could shake; and, in the second place, he attempted to point out the genesis of the ego, in so far as it admitted of logical exposition. Cogito, ergo sum, I am conscious, therefore I am; that is, consciousness, or the notion of "I," takes place in a particular Being, and the reality of "I" is the immediate result. The ergo here does not denote a mere logical inference from the fact of consciousness, but it points to a genetic or creative power in that act.
​"No," replies Descartes; "I did not create myself, in so far as my mere existence is concerned. But, in so far as I am an ego, or an existence as a self, I certainly did create myself. By becoming conscious, I, in one sense, actually created myself."
"But," says the other, "must you not have existed before you could become conscious, and in order to become conscious?"
"Certainly," answers Descartes, "some sort of being must have existed before my consciousness, but it was only after consciousness that that being became I."
"Do you then cease to be whenever you cease to be conscious?"
CHAPTER V.
But though we have seen that consciousness is the genesis or origin of the ego, and that without the former the latter has no existence, we have yet to throw somewhat more light on consciousness itself, and the circumstances in which it arises.
Let thyself float back, oh reader! as far as thou canst in obscure memory into thy golden days of infancy, when the light of thy young life, rising out of unknown depths, scattered away death from before its path, beyond the very limits of thought; even as the sun beats off the darkness of night into regions lying out of the visible boundaries of space. In those days thy light was single and without reflection. Thou wert one with nature, and, blending with her bosom, thou didst drink in inspiration from her thousand breasts. Thy consciousness was faint in the extreme, for as yet thou hadst but slightly awakened to thyself; and thy sensations and desires were nearly all-absorbing. Carry thyself back still farther into days yet more "dark with excess of light," and thou shalt behold, through the visionary ​mists, an earlier time, when thy consciousness was altogether null; a time when the discrimination of thy sensations into subject and object, which seems so ordinary and inevitable a process to thee now, had not taken place, but when thyself and nature were enveloped and fused together in a glowing and indiscriminate synthesis. In these days thy state was indeed blessed, but it was the blessedness of bondage. The earth flattered thee, and the smiling heavens flattered thee into forgetfulness. Thou wert nature's favourite, but at the same time her fettered slave.
But thy destiny was to be free; to free thyself; to break asunder the chains of nature, to oppose thy will and thy strength to the universe, both without thee and within thee, to tread earth and the passions of earth beneath thy feet; and thy first step towards this great consummation was to dissolve the strong, primary, and natural synthesis of sensation. In the course of time, then, that which was originally one in the great unity of nature, became two beneath the first exercise of a reflective analysis. Thy sensation was now divided into subject and object; that is, thyself and the universe around thee. Now, for the first time, wert thou "I."
Wouldst thou re-examine thy sensation as it exists in its primary synthetic state? Then look at it; what is it but a pure unmixed sensation, a sensation, and nothing more? Wouldst thou behold it, in thy own secondary analysis of it? then, lo! how a new element, altogether transcending mere sensation, is ​presented to thee, the element or act of negation; that is, as we shall show, of freedom.
Sensation in man is found to be, first of all, a unity, and at this time there is no ego or non-ego at all in the case; but afterwards it becomes a duality, and then there is an ego and a non-ego. But, in the latter case, it is obvious that very different circumstances are connected with sensation, and very different elements are found along with it, than are found in it when it is a unity: there is, for instance, the fact of negation, the non which is interposed between the subject and the object; and there are also, of course, any other facts into which this one may resolve itself.
Moreover, it is evident that, but for this act of negation or division, there would be no ego, or non-ego. Take away this element, and the sensation is restored to its first unity, in which these, being undiscriminated, were virtually non-existent. For it is obvious that, unless a man discriminates himself as "I" from other things, he does not exist as "I." The ego and the non-ego, then, only are by being discriminated, or by the one of them being denied (not in thought or word only, but in a primary and vital act) of the other. But consciousness also is the discrimination between the ego and the non-ego; or, in other words, consciousness resolves itself, in its clearest form, into an act of negation.
In order, then, to throw the strongest light we can on consciousness, we must ascertain the value and ​import, and, if possible, the origin of this act of negation, this fundamental energy and vital condition upon which the peculiar being of humanity depends. And, first of all, we must beg the reader (a point we have had occasion to press upon him before) to banish from his mind the notion that this negation is a mere logical power, or form, consisting of a thought and a word. Let him endeavour to realise such a conception of it as will exhibit it to him as a vital and energetic deed by which he brings himself into existence, not indeed as a Being, but as that which he calls "I." Let him consider that, unless this deed of negation were practised by him he himself would not be here; a particular Being would, indeed, be here: but it is only by denying or distinguishing itself from other things that that being becomes a self—himself. Unless this discrimination took place, the Being would remain lost and swallowed up in the identity or uniformity of the universe. It would be only for others, not for itself. Self, in its case, would not emerge.
Am I, then, to say that "I" have been endowed by some other Being with this power of sundering myself, during sensation, from the objects causing it; am I to say that this capability has been given "me"? Given me! Why, I was not "I" until after this power was exerted; how then could it have been given "me"? There was no "me" to give it to. I became "I" only by exercising it; and after it had been exerted, what would be the advantage of ​supposing it given to me then, I having it already? If, then, I suppose this power given to "me" before it is exerted, I suppose it given to that which does not as yet exist to receive it; and if I suppose it given to me after it is exerted, after I have become "I," I make myself the receiver of a very superfluous and unnecessary gift.
​A particular Being becomes "I" in consequence of exercising this act of negation. But this act must be that Being's own; otherwise, supposing it to be the act of another Being, it would be that other Being which would become I, and not the particular Being spoken of. But it was this particular Being, and no other, which was supposed to become I, and therefore the act by which it became so must have been its own; that is, it must have been an act of pure and absolute freedom.
PART V.
CHAPTER I.
The question of Liberty and Necessity has been more perplexed and impeded in its solution by the confounding of a peculiar and very important distinction, than by all the other mistakes and oversights burdened upon it besides. The distinction to which we allude is one which ought to be constantly kept in mind, and followed out as a clue throughout the whole philosophy of man; the distinction, namely, between one's existence for others, and one's existence for oneself; or, in other words, the distinction between unconscious and conscious existence. This distinction, we remark, is very commonly confounded; that is to say, the separate species of existence specified, instead of being regarded as two, are generally regarded as only one; and the consequence is, that all the subsequent conclusions of psychology are more or less perplexed and vitiated by this radical ​entanglement, and more particularly is the great question just mentioned involved in obscurity thereby, and, to all appearance, doomed to revolve in the weary rounds of endless and barren speculation. We have already, in various parts of this discussion, endeavoured to establish a complete distinction between these two kinds of being; and now, with a view of throwing some light on the intricate question of Liberty and Necessity, not derived from reasoning, but from immediate fact, we proceed to illustrate and enforce this discrimination more strenuously than ever.
What, then, is our existence for others; and in what respect is it to be taken into account in a scientific estimate of ourselves? A little reflection will explain to us what it is, together with all its actual or possible accompaniments.
It will be admitted that except in man there is no consciousness anywhere throughout the universe. If, therefore, man were deprived of consciousness, the whole universe, and all that dwell therein, would be destitute of that act. Let us suppose, then, that this deprivation actually takes place, and let us ask, What difference would it make in the general aspect and condition of things? As far as the objects of the external universe, animals and so forth, are concerned, it would confessedly make none; for all these are without consciousness at any rate, and therefore cannot be affected by its absence. The stupendous machinery of nature would move round precisely as ​heretofore. But what difference would the absence of consciousness make in the condition of man? Little or none, we reply, in the eyes of a spectator ab extra. In the eyes of a Being different from man, and who regards him, we shall suppose, from some other sphere, man's ongoings without consciousness would be the same, or nearly the same, as they were with consciousness. Such a Being would occupy precisely the same position towards the unconscious man as the conscious man at present holds towards the unconscious objects of creation; that is to say, man would still exist for this Being, and for him would evolve all his varied phenomena. We are not to suppose that man in this case would be cut off from any of those sources of inspiration which make him a rational, a passionate, a sentient, and an imaginative creature. On the contrary, by reason of the very absence of consciousness, the flood-gates of his being would stand wider than before, and let in upon him stronger and deeper currents of inspiration. He would still be visited by all his manifold sensations, and by all the effects they bring along with them; he would still be the creature of pleasure and of pain; his emotions and desires would be the same as ever, or even more overwhelming; he would still be the inspired slave of all his soft and all his sanguinary passions; for, observe, we are not supposing him deprived of any of these states of being, but only of the consciousness, or reference to self, of them—only of that notion and reality of self which generally accompanies them; a partial curtailment perfectly ​conceivable, and one which sometimes actually takes place; for instance, in that abnormal condition of humanity denominated somnambulism. In the case we are supposing, then, man's reason or intelligence would still be left to him. He would still be a mathematician like the bee, and like the beaver a builder of cities. He might still, too, have a language and a literature of a certain kind, though destitute, of course, of all allusions and expressions of a conscious or personal character. But the "Goddess" or the "Muse" might and would still infuse into his heart the gift of song; and then an unconscious Homer, blind in soul as well as blind insight, filled by the transmitted power of some foreign afflatus, might have sung the wrath of an unconscious Achilles, and the war waged against Troy by heroic somnambulists from Greece. For poetry represents the derivative and unconscious, just as philosophy represents the free and conscious, elements of humanity; and is itself, according to every notion of it entertained and expressed from the earliest times down to the present, an inspired or fatalistic development, as is evident from the fact, that all great poets, in the exercise of their art, have ever referred away their power from themselves to the "God," the "Goddess," the "Muse," or some similar source of inspiration always foreign to themselves. "Est Deus," says the poet,
"Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."
" Fallor? an et nobis redeunt in carmina vires,
Ingeniumque mihi munere veris adest?"
The sublimest works of intelligence, then, are quite possible, and may be easily conceived to be executed without any consciousness of them on the part of the apparent and immediate agent. Suppose man to be actuated throughout his whole nature by the might of some foreign agency; and he may realise the most stupendous operations, and yet remain in darkness, and incognisant of them all the while. A cognisance of these operations certainly does not necessarily go hand in hand with their performance. What is there in the workings of human passion that consciousness should necessarily accompany it, any more than it does the tossings of the stormy sea? What is there in the radiant emotions which issue forth in song, that consciousness should naturally and necessarily accompany them, any more than it does the warblings and the dazzling verdure of the sun-lit woods? What is there in the exercise of reason, that consciousness should inevitably go along with it, any more than it accompanies the mechanic skill with which the spider spreads his claggy snares? There ​is obviously nothing. The divorce, then, between consciousness, and all these powers and operations, may be conceived as perfectly complete; and this conception is all that is here necessary for the purposes of our coming argument.
Existence, then, together with all the powers and operations just indicated, might be truly predicated of man, even in his unconscious state. And even more than this might be affirmed of him. We could not, indeed, with propriety, say (the reason of which will appear by-and-by) that man, without consciousness, would be invested in any degree with a moral character. Yet even here, according to the moral philosophy of Paley and his school, in which morality is expounded as the mere adaptation of means to ends in the production of the social welfare, which adaptation might be perfectly well effected without any consciousness on the part of man, just as bees and other animals adapt means to ends without being aware of what they are about; according to this view, man, although unconscious, would still be a moral creature. Neither, without consciousness, would man possess laws in the proper sense of the word; but here, too, according to the Hobbesian doctrines which make law to consist in the domination or supremacy of force, and the power of a supreme magistrate all that is necessary to constitute it, man might, in every respect, be considered a finished legislator, and a creature living under laws.
But it is time to turn these preliminary ​observations to some account. Let us now, then, ask, depriving man of consciousness, What is it we actually leave him, and what is it we actually deprive him of? We leave him all that we have said. We leave him existence, and the performance of many operations, the greatest, as well as the most insignificant. But the existence thus left to him, together with all its phenomena, is, we beg it may be observed, only one species of existence. It is a peculiar kind of existence which must be noted well, and discriminated from existence of another species which we are about to mention. In a word, it is existence merely for others. This is what we leave man when we suppose him divested of consciousness.
And now we again ask, depriving man of consciousness, What do we really deprive him of? and we answer, that we totally deprive him of existence for himself; that is, we deprive him of that kind of existence in which alone he has any share, interest, or concern; or, in other words, by emptying him of consciousness, we take away from him altogether his personality, or his true and proper being. For of what importance is it to him that he should exist for others, and, for them, should evolve the most marvellous phenomena, if he exists not for himself, and takes no account of the various manifestations he displays? What reality can such a species of existence have for him? Obviously none. What can it avail a man to be and to act, if he remains all the while without consciousness of his Being and ​his actions? In short, divested of consciousness, is it not plain that a man is no longer "I," or self, and, in such circumstances, must not his existence, together with all its ongoings, be, in so far as he is concerned, absolutely zero, or a blank?
Thus existence becomes discriminated into two distinct species, which, though they may be found together, as they usually are in man, are yet perfectly separate and distinguishable; existence, namely, for others, and existence for oneself. Recapitulating what we have said, this distinction may be established and explained thus, in a very few words: Deprive man of consciousness, and in one sense you do not deprive him of existence, or of any of the vigorous manifestations and operations of existence. In one sense, that is, for others, he exists just as much as ever. But in another sense, you do deprive him of existence as soon as you divest him of consciousness. In this latter sense he now ceases to exist; that is, he exists no longer for himself. He is no longer that which was "I," or self. He has lost his personality. He takes no account of his existence, and therefore his existence, as far as he is concerned, is virtually and actually null. But if there were only one species, and one notion of existence, it is impossible that man, when denuded of consciousness, should both exist and not exist, as we have shown he does: If existence were of one kind only, it would be impossible to reconcile this contradiction, which is yet seen to be perfectly true, ​and an undeniable matter of fact. The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable and irresistible, that existence is not of one, but of two kinds; existence, to wit, for others, and existence for ourselves; and that a creature may possess the former without possessing the latter, and that, though it should lose the latter by losing consciousness, it may yet retain the former, and "live and breathe and have a being in the eyes of others."
Does some one here remark that consciousness is not our existence, but is merely the knowledge of our existence? Then we beg such a person to consider what would become of his existence, with respect to him, if he were deprived of the knowledge of it. Would it not be, in so far as he was concerned, precisely on the footing of a nonentity? One's knowledge, therefore, or consciousness of existence, is far more than mere consciousness of existence. It is the actual ground of a species of existence itself. It constitutes existence for oneself, or personal existence; for without this consciousness a man would possess no personality, and each man's personality is his true and proper being.
Having divided existence, then, into two distinct kinds, the next question is, To what account do we propose turning the discrimination? If it is of no practical use in removing difficulties and in throwing light upon the obscurer phenomena of man, it is worthless, and must be discarded as a barren and mere hair-splitting refinement. What application, ​then, has it to the subjects we are engaged in discussing; and, in particular, what assistance does it afford us in clearing up the great fact of Human Liberty, that key-stone in the arch of humanity, without which all our peculiar attributes, morality, responsibility, law, and justice, loosened from their mighty span would fall from their places, and disappear for ever in the blind abysses of Necessity?
In availing ourselves, then, of the assistance of this distinction, and in applying it to our purposes, the first circumstance connected with it which attracts our attention is the following fact, deserving, we may be permitted to say, of very emphatic notice; that while the one of these species of existence precedes the act of consciousness, the other of them follows that act. Our existence for others is antecedent, but our existence for ourselves is subsequent to the act of consciousness. Before a child is conscious, it exists for others; but it exists for itself only after it is conscious. Prior to consciousness, or in the absence of that act, man is a one-sided phantasmagoria; vivid on the side towards others with all the colours, the vigorous ongoings, the accomplishments, and the reality of existence; but on the other side, the side where he himself should be, but is not yet, what is there? a blank; utter nothingness. But, posterior to consciousness, and in consequence of it, this vacuity is filled up, new scenery is unfolded, and a new reality is erected on the blank side behind the radiant pageant. The man himself is now there. ​The one-sided existence has become doubled. He no longer exists merely for others; he exists also for himself, a very different and, for him, a much more important matter.
Existence for oneself, then, personal existence, or, in other words, that species of Being which alone properly concerns man, is found not to precede, but to follow the act of consciousness; therefore the next fact of humanity to which we beg to call very particular attention is this: that man, properly speaking, acts before he exists; for consciousness is, as we have already shown, and will show still further, a pure act, and partakes in no degree of the nature of a passion. At the same time, the proof that consciousness is of this character will convince us that it cannot have its origin in the first-mentioned and given species of existence, which we have called existence for others, or existence without consciousness. But this is not the place for that proof. It will be attempted by-and-by.
This fact, that man acts before he truly and properly exists, may perhaps at first sight appear rather startling, and maybe conceived to be at direct variance with what are called "the laws of human thought;" for it may be said that these laws compel us to conceive man in Being before we can conceive him in act. But if it should be really found to be thus at variance with these laws, our only answer is, that facts are "stubborn things," and that we do not care one straw for the laws of human thought when ​they contradict the facts of experience; and a fact of experience we maintain it to be (let people conceive or not as they please or can), that man's true Being follows and arises out of man's act, that man, properly speaking, cannot be said to be until he acts; that consciousness is an act, and that our proper existence, being identical and convertible with our personality, which results from consciousness, is not the antecedent but the consequent of that act.
Need we say anything further in enforcement and illustration of this very extraordinary fact? Every man will admit that his true Being is that which for him is "I." Now suppose no man had ever thought himself "I," would he ever have become "I," or possessed a proper personal Being? Certainly not. It is only after thinking oneself "I," and in consequence of thinking oneself "I," that one becomes "I." But thinking oneself "I" is an act, the act of consciousness. Therefore the act of consciousness is anterior to the existence of man, therefore man is in Act before he is truly and properly in Being; or, in other words, he performs an act before he has an existence (i.e., a standing out) for himself.
CHAPTER II.
Man's existence for others, his unconscious existence, is immediately given; his existence for himself, his conscious personal existence, the reality ego, is not immediately given, but is realised through an act. Thus a radical distinction between these two sorts of existence is established, the one being found to precede, and the other to follow that act. The Necessitarian, however, takes no note of this distinction. He breaks down the line of demarcation between them. He runs the two species of existence into one; and the Libertarian, usually acquiescing in this want of discrimination, places in his adversary's hand the only weapon with which he might successfully have combated him. Disagreeing widely in their conclusions, they yet agree so far in their premises, that both of them postulate, in an unqualified manner, man's existence, as a substratum for his actions. On this account, therefore, it must be confessed that the victory, in point of logic, has always been on the side of the Necessitarian, however much common sense and moral principle may have rebelled ​against his conclusions. For a given or compulsatory existence can never be free in any of its acts. It can merely serve to conduct the activity transmitted to it from other quarters; and the peculiar inflections, whatever these may be, whether to evil or to good, which it may appear to give to that activity, cannot be owing to any original or underived power it possesses, but must depend upon its natural construction, just as a prism has no power in itself to refract this way or that the rays of light which pass through it, but is determined to this refraction by the particular angles into which, without being consulted, it was at first cut by the hand of its artificer. In point of fact, the activity of such a being is no activity at all, but pure passivity; for a derivative act is not properly action, but passion. In merely receiving and passing on an act, a creature is not an agent, but a patient. Such a creature, bringing nothing original into the field, cannot, in any sense, be said either to operate or co-operate. All its doings being derivative, are done for it or necessitated; therefore it is free in nothing, and, by the same consequence, must remain devoid of morality and responsibility.
The usual reasoning on this subject, therefore, being utterly fatal to the cause of Human Liberty, we have endeavoured, in the foregoing chapter, to lay the groundwork of a new line of argument; the only argument by which, in our opinion, the conclusions of the Necessitarian can be met and disproved. ​In clearing away the weeds by which the premises of the question were overgrown, and in bringing them under our close and immediate inspection, we found that these premises, when viewed and tested as facts (as all premises ought to be, if we would ascertain their exact truth and value), are directly the reverse of those usually laid down, and allowed to pass current. We found, in a word, that an act is the substratum of man's proper existence, and not vice versâ.
But this draws the controversy respecting Liberty and Necessity to its extremest or narrowest point. For it may here be asked, and indeed must be asked, Whence comes this act? We have divided man's existence into two distinct species, one of which—that, namely, which we may now call his natural existence—was found to be given and to precede the act of consciousness. Now, does not this act naturally spring out of that existence? Is it not dependent upon it? Is it not a mere development from a seed sown in man's natural being; and does it not unfold itself, after a time, like any other natural germ or faculty of humanity? We answer, No. It comes into operation after a very different fashion. It is an act of pure will ; for precisely between the two species of existence we have indicated, Human will comes into play, and has its proper place of abode; and this new phenomenon, lying in the very roots of the act of Consciousness, dislocates the whole natural machinery of man, gives a new and underived ​turn to his development, and completely overthrows, with regard to him, the whole law and doctrine of causality; for Will (as contradistinguished from, and opposed to, wish or desire) is either a word of no meaning and intelligibility at all, or else it betokens a primary absolute commencement, an underivative act. But as the Necessitarian may admit the former of these alternatives, and may hold Will, when applied to man, to be an unmeaning word, it will be proper to postpone any discussion on that subject at present; and, without involving ourselves in what, after all, might be a mere skirmish of words, to do our best to go more simply and clearly to work, by addressing ourselves as much as possible to facts, or the realities of things.
But lest it should be urged that man, although perhaps really free, is yet incompetent to form a true and adequate conception of Liberty, and that, therefore, his freedom must, in any event, be for him as though it were not; lest this should be urged, we deem it incumbent upon us, before proceeding to establish Human Freedom as fact, to endeavour to delineate a faithful and correct representation of it; in short, to place before our readers such a conception as would be Liberty if it were actualised or realised in fact. Before showing that Liberty is actual, we must show on what grounds it is possible.
The ordinary conception of liberty, as a capacity bestowed upon a given or created being, of choosing and following any one of two or more courses of action, ​is no conception at all, but is an inconceivability. It is, in truth, so worthless and shallow as hardly to be worthy of mention. On account, however, of the place which it holds in ordinary philosophical discourse, we must contribute a few words to its exposure. It arises out of a miserable attempt to effect a compromise between liberty and necessity; and the result is a direct and glaring contradiction. This doctrine endeavours to hold forth an act, as at once original and yet derived, as given and yet not compulsatory or necessitated, as free and yet caused. No wonder that human liberty, embodied in an act of this kind, should halt upon both feet, and harbour in the dingiest lurking-places of a perplexed and vacillating metaphysic, a thing not to be scrutinized too narrowly.
But since we are examining it, let us do so as closely and narrowly as possible. What, then, does this conception of liberty amount to, and what does it set forth? There is, in the first place, the being in question—man—a derivative creature, we are told, from the alpha to the omega of his existence. In the next place, there is the power with which he is said to be invested, of choosing between two or more lines of conduct. In virtue of this power, he is at first indifferent, or equally open to all these courses. He must follow one of them, but is not constrained to follow any one of them in particular, and precisely in this indetermination it is said that human liberty consists. In the third place, when the choice ​is made, there is the practical following out of the course fixed upon. Such are the three elements usually noted in the process. But, allowing the dust occasioned by this language to subside, let us see whether nothing has escaped us in the confusion. We observe, then, that the power of choice said to be given is, at first, undetermined; that, indeed, it is on this openness or want of determination that the essence of the liberty here described is placed. But while this indetermination continues, the power of choice of course remains inoperative. Before any of the courses laid down can be followed, this power must be determined to the particular course fixed on; that is to say, an act of determination (the choice itself) must intervene between the undetermined power of choice, and the course chosen. Here, then, we have a new element an element seldom specifically or rigidly noted in the usual analysis of the process. The statement now stands thus: 1st, The given being; 2d, The undetermined power to choose, the power as yet open to several courses of conduct; 3d, The act of determinate choice, the power now adstricted to one course; 4th, The actual performance itself. Now the third element of this statement, the one usually passed over without notice, is the only step which we would raise any question about. We ask, What adstricted the power to the course selected? Whence comes this act of determination? Is it, too, given, or is it not? If it is, then what becomes of human freedom? The act ​of determination being given or derivative, the being in question was of course determined to the conduct adopted, not by an original act, but was determined thereto out of the source from whence his act of determination proceeded. It was therefore absurd to talk, as we at first did, of several courses having been open to him. In truth, his act of determination being derived, or compulsatory, no course was ever open to him except the one which he followed, and was necessitated to follow in obedience to that act. On the other hand, is this act of determination not given or enforced? Then here has a new and underived act started into light, one which plays an important part, and forms an essential ingredient in his composition; and what now becomes of the assumption upon which this modified conception of liberty proceeded, namely, that man is throughout a derivative creature? The conclusion is, that human liberty is impossible and inconceivable if we start with the assumption that man is, in everything, a given or derivative being; just as, on the other hand, the conception that man is altogether a derivative being is impossible if we start with the assumption that he is free.
But our present object is to realise, if possible, a correct notion of human liberty. Nothing, then, we remark, can be more ineffectual than the attempt to conceive liberty as a power of choice, resting in a state of indetermination to two or more actions; because this state would continue for ever, and nothing ​would be the result, unless an act of determination took place in favour of some one of these actions; so that, between the undetermined power and the action itself, an act of determination always intervenes; and therefore the question comes to be, not, Whence comes man's undetermined power of choosing? but, Whence comes his act of particular choice or determination? Is it derivative? can it be traced out of him up into some foreign source? Then of course his liberty vanishes. Is it not derivative? Then his liberty stands good, but is no longer found to consist in a state of indetermination to several courses of action. It must be conceived of as an underived or absolutely self-grounded act of determination in favour of one.
Thus, then, the conception of liberty is reduced to some degree of distinctness and tangibility. If there be such a thing as human liberty it must be identical with an absolutely original or underived act; and the conception of the one of these must be the same as the conception of the other of them. But it is still our business to show in what way the conception of such an act is possible.
It is palpably impossible to conceive liberty, or an underived act, as arising out of man's natural or given existence. According to our very conception of this species of existence, all the activity put forth out of it is of a derivative or transmitted character. As we have already said, such kind of activity is not activity at all, but passivity. Not being originated ​absolutely by the creature who apparently exerts it, every particle of it falls to be refunded back out of this creature into the source from whence it really comes; and this clearly leaves the being in question a mere passive creature throughout, and, at any rate, incapable of putting forth a primary and underived act.
But though it is impossible for us to conceive an underived act put forth out of man's natural existence, there is yet nothing to prevent us from conceiving an act of this kind put forth against man's natural or given existence. If we consider it well, we shall be satisfied that it is only on this ground that the conception of an underived act is possible; and, moreover, we shall see that, on this ground, the conception of such an act is inevitable.
For if we suppose an act of antagonism to take place against the whole of man's given existence, against all that man is born, it is impossible that this act itself can be given or derivative; for the supposition is, that this act is opposed to all the given or derivative in man, and is nothing, except in so far as it is thus opposed. If, therefore, it were itself derivative, being no longer the opposite of the derivative, it would be a nonentity; or it would be a suicidal act exterminating itself. Therefore, if we are to form a conception at all of such an antagonist act, we must conceive it as absolutely primary and underived; and, on the other hand, if we would frame a true conception of human liberty, or an ​underived act, we can only conceive it as the antagonist act we have been describing; we must conceive it is an act opposing or resisting everything in man which is given, passive, natural, or born.
CHAPTER III.
For an answer to this question we must refer ourselves to observation and experience. But observation and experience have already decided the point. Consciousness itself is the actualisation of the conception we have been describing. Lying between the two species of human existence discriminated at the commencement of this paper, consciousness is an act of antagonism against the one of them, and has the other of them for its result. A glance at the very surface of man showed it to be a matter of general notoriety, that sensation and the consciousness of sensation, passion and the consciousness of passion, never coexist in an equal degree of intensity. We found the great law connected with them to be this; not that they grew with each other's growth and strengthened with each other's strength, but, on the contrary, that each of them gained just in proportion as the other lost. Wherever a passion was observed to be carried to its greatest excess, a total absence or cessation of consciousness was noticed to be the result, and the man lost his personality. When ​consciousness began to reassert itself, and to regain its place, the passion, in its turn, began to give way, and, becoming diminished or suspended, the man recovered his personality. The same was observed to be the case with regard to sensation. A sensation is notoriously most absorbing when the least consciousness of it has place; and, therefore, is not the conclusion legitimate that it would be still more effective, that it would be all-absorbing, provided no consciousness of it interfered to dissolve the charm? And does not all this prove that consciousness is an act of antagonism against the modifications of man's natural being, and that, indeed, it has no office, character, or conceivability at all, unless of this antagonist and negative description?
But this act has, as it were, two sides, and although single, it fulfils a double office. We have still to show, more clearly than we have yet done, how this act, breaking up the great natural unities of sensation and of passion, at once displaces the various modifications of man's given existence, and, by a necessary consequence, places the being which was not given, namely, the "I" of humanity, the true and proper being of every man "who cometh into the world." This discussion will lead us into more minute and practical details than any we have yet encountered.
The earliest modifications of man's natural being are termed "sensations." These sensations are, like all the other changes of man's given existence, purely passive in their character. They are states of ​suffering, whether the suffering be of pleasure or of pain, or of an indifferent cast. There is obviously nothing original or active connected with them. There is nothing in them except their own given contents, and these are entirely derivative. In the smell of a rose, for instance, there is nothing present except the smell of a rose. In a word, let us turn and twist, increase or diminish any sensation as we please, we can twist and turn it into nothing except the particular sensation which it is.
Let us suppose, then, a particular sensation to be impressed upon any of man's organs of sense; let us suppose it propagated forward along the nerves; let us trace it forth unto the brain; let us admit Hartley's or any other philosopher's "vibrations," "elastic medium," or "animal spirits," to be facts; and finally, let us suppose it, through the intervention of the one or other of these, landed and safely lodged in what metaphysicians are pleased to term the "mind;" still we maintain that, in spite of this circuitous operation, the man would remain utterly unconscious, and would not, in consequence of it, have any existence as "I" (the only kind of existence which properly concerns him), nor would the external object have any existence as an object for him. He would not perceive it, although sentient of it; the reason of which is, that perception implies an "I" and a "not I" a subject and object; and a subject and object involve a duality; and a duality presupposes an act of discrimination. But no act of ​discrimination, no act of any kind, is involved in sensation; therefore man might continue to undergo sensations until doomsday without ever becoming "I," and without ever perceiving an external universe.
How then does man become "I"? how does he become percipient of an external universe? We answer, Not through sensation, but by and through an act of discrimination, or virtual negation. This negation is not, and need not be, expressed in words. It is a silent but deep deed, making each man an individual person; and it is enough if the reality of it be present, even although the expression and distinct conception of it should be absent. But if the reality were actually absent, then there would be a difference indeed. If "no," in thought and in deed, were taken out of the world, man would never become "I," and, for him, the external universe would remain a nonentity. Sensation, passion, &c., would continue as strong and violent as ever, but consciousness would depart; man and nature, "I" and "not I," ​subject and object, lapsing into one, and everything merging in a great unity, would be as though they were not. Indeed, the consequences of the disappearance of this small and apparently insignificant element are altogether incalculable.
An illustrative view will help to render our meaning more distinct, and our statement more convincing. Let us suppose man to be visited by particular sensations of sight, of smell, of touch; and let us suppose these induced by the presence of a rose. Now, it is evident that in this process the rose contributes nothing except the particular sensations mentioned. It does not contribute the element of negation. Yet without the element of negation the rose could never be an object to the man (and unless it were an object to him, he of course would never perceive it); neither without this element could the man ever become "I." For let us suppose this element to be absolutely withdrawn, to have no place in the process, then "I" and the rose, the subject and object, being undiscriminated, a virtual identification of them would prevail. But an identification of the subject and object, of the Being knowing and the Being known, would render perception, consciousness, knowledge inconceivable; for these depend upon a setting asunder of subject and object, of "I" and "not I." But a setting asunder of subject and object depends upon a discrimination laid down between them. But a discrimination laid down between them implies the presence of the element of ​negation; that is to say, knowledge, consciousness, perception, depend upon the restoration of the element we supposed withdrawn, and are inconceivable and impossible without it. It is therefore evident that if man, in sensation, were virtually identified with the object, were the same as it, he would never perceive it; it would never be an object to him, and just as little would he be "I." But the only way in which this virtual identification is to be avoided is by and through an implied discrimination. Then only do the "I" and "not I" emerge, and become the "I" and the "not I." But an implied discrimination involves an act of negation, either implicitly or explicitly. Therefore an act of negation, actual or virtual, is the fundamental act of humanity, is the condition upon which consciousness and knowledge depend, is the act which makes the universe an object to us, is the ground and the placer of the "I" and the "not I."
Do metaphysicians still desire information with respect to the "nature of the connection," the "mode of communication," which subsists between matter and what they term "mind"? or do they continue to regard this question as altogether insoluble? About "mind" we profess to know nothing. But if they will discard this hypothetical substance, and consent to put up with the simple word and reality "I" instead of it, we think we can throw some light on what takes place between matter and "me," and that the foregoing observations have already done so. ​The point at which all preceding philosophers have confessed the hiatus to be insurmountable, the hitch to be inscrutably perplexing, was not the point at which the impression was communicated to the organ of sense, was not the point where the organ communicated the impression to the nerves, was not the point where the nerves transmitted it to the brain, but was the point where the brain, or ultimate corporeal tissue, conveyed it to the "mind." Here lay the gap which no philosophy ever yet intelligibly cleared; here brooded the mist which no breath of science ever yet succeeded in dispersing. But, repudiating the hypothesis of "mind." let us use the word, and attend to the reality "I," and we shall see how the vapours will vanish, how the prospect will brighten, and how the hiatus will be spanned by the bridge of a comprehensible fact. In the first place, in order to render this fact the more palpable, let us suppose, what is not the case, that the "I" is immediately given, comes into the world ready-made, and that a sensation, after being duly impressed upon its appropriate organ of sense, and carried along the nerves into the brain, is thence conveyed into this "I." But we have just seen that, along with this transmission of sensation, there is no negation conveyed to this "I." There is nothing transmitted to it except the sensation. But we have also just seen that without a negation, virtually present at least, there could be no "I" in the case. This supposed "I," therefore, could not be a true and real "I." Its ​ground is yet wanting. In point of fact it may be considered to lapse into "mind," and to be as worthless and unphilosophical as that spurious substance which we have been labouring to get rid of. Throwing this "I," therefore, aside, let us turn back, and supposing, what is the case, that the "I" is not immediately given, let us follow forth the progress of a sensation once more. A particular impression is made upon an organ of sense in man, and what is the result? Sensation. Carry it on into the nerves, into the brain, what is the result? Mere sensation. Is there no consciousness? As yet there is none. But have we traced the sensation through its whole course? No: if we follow it onwards we find that somewhere or other it encounters an act of negation, a "no" gets implicated in the process, and then, and then only, does consciousness arise, then only does man start into being as "I," then only do subject and object stand asunder. We have already proved, we trust with sufficient distinctness, that this act must be present, either actually or virtually, before man can be "I," and before the external universe can be an object to him, that is, before he can perceive it, and therefore we need not say anything more upon this point. But does "the philosopher of mind" now ask us to redeem our pledge, and to inform him distinctly what it is that takes place between "matter" and "me" (matter presenting itself, as it always does, in the shape of a sensation)? then we beg to inform him that all that takes place between them is ​an act of negation, in virtue of which they are what they are; and that this act constitutes that link (or rather unlink) between body and mind, if we must call the "I" by that name, which many philosophers have sought for, and which many more have declined the search of out of despair of ever finding it.
We must here guard our readers against a delusive view of this subject which may be easily taken up. It may still, perhaps, be conceived that "mind," or the "I," is immediately given, is sent into the world, as we have said, ready-made, and that it puts forth this act of negation out of the resources of its natural being. Such a doctrine borrows its support, as we have already hinted, from what are called "the laws of human thoughts," but is utterly discountenanced by facts; that is to say, by the sources themselves from whence these laws are professedly, although, as it appears, incorrectly deduced. This doctrine directly reverses the truth of facts and the real order of things. It furnishes us with a notable instance of that species of misconception and logical transposition technically called a hysteron-proteron; in vulgar language, it places the cart before the horse. For, as we have all along seen, the being "I" arises out of this act of negation, and therefore this act of negation cannot arise out of the being "I." All the evidence We can collect on the subject, every ray of light that falls upon it, proves and reveals it to be a fact, that the act of negation precedes the being "I," is the ​very condition or constituent ground upon which it rests, and therefore the being "I" cannot possibly precede or be given anterior to this act of negation. We may say, if we please, that this act of negation is the act "I," but not that it arises out of the being "I," because the whole testimony of facts discountenances such a conclusion, and goes to establish the very reverse. The perfect truth is, that man acts I before he is I, that is to say, he acts before he truly is; his act precedes and realises his being—a direct reversal of the ordinary doctrine, but a most important one, as far as the establishment of human liberty is concerned; because, in making man's existence to depend upon his act, and in showing his act to be absolutely original and underived, an act of antagonism against the derivative modifications of his given nature, we encircle him with an atmosphere of liberty, and invest him with a moral character and the dread attribute of responsibility, which of course would disappear if man, at every step, moved in the preordained footprints of fate, and were not, in some respect or other, unconditionally free. And move in these footprints he must, the bondsman of necessity in all things, if it be true that his real and proper substantive existence precedes and gives rise to his acts.
If this act of negation never took place, the sphere of sensation would be enlarged. The sensation would reign absorbing, undisputed, and supreme; or, in other words, man would, in every case, be ​monopolised by the passive state into which he had been cast. The whole of his being would be usurped by the passive modification into which circumstances had moulded it. But the act of negation or consciousness puts an end to this monopoly. Its presence displaces the sensation to a certain extent, however small that extent may be. An antagonism is now commenced against passion (for all sensation is passion), and who can say where this antagonism is to stop? (We shall show, in its proper place, that all morality centres in this antagonism.) The great unity of sensation, that is, the state which prevailed anterior to the dualisation of subject and object, is broken up, and man's sensations and other passive states of existence never again possess the entireness of their first unalloyed condition, that entireness which they possessed in his infantine years, that wholeness and singleness which was theirs before the act of negation broke the universe asunder into the world of man and the world of nature.
This, then, proves that consciousness, or the act of negation, is not the harmonious accompaniment and dependent, but is the antagonist and the violator of sensation. Let us endeavour once more to show that this act, from its very character, must be underived and free. The proof is as follows. Sensation is a given or derivative state. It has, therefore, from the first a particular positive character. But this act is nothing in itself; it has no positive character; it is merely the opposite, the entire opposite of sensation. ​But if it were given and derived as well as sensation, it would not be the entire opposite of sensation. It would agree with sensation in this, that both of them would be given. But it agrees with the sensation in nothing. It is thoroughly opposed to it. It is pure action, while the sensation is pure passion. The sensation is passive, and is opposed to consciousness because it is derivative. Consciousness is action, and is opposed to sensation because it is not derivative. If consciousness were a given state it would not be action at all; it would be nothing but passion. It would be merely one passion contending with another passion. But it is impossible to conceive any passion or given state of Being without some positive character besides its antagonist character. But this act of negation has no positive character, has no character at all except of this antagonist description. Besides, it is opposed to every passion. If consciousness coexist with any passion, we have seen that it displaces it to a certain degree. Therefore, if consciousness were itself a passive or derivative state it would be suicidal, it would prevent itself from coming into manifestation. But passing by this reductio ad absurdum, we maintain that consciousness meets the given, the derivative in man, at every point, that it only manifests itself by doing so; and therefore we must conclude that it is not itself derivative, but is an absolutely original act; or, in other words, an act of perfect freedom.
CHAPTER II.
Are we then to hold that man does not become "I" by compulsion, that he is not constrained to become "I"? We must hold this doctrine. No man is forced or necessitated to become "I." All the necessitated part of his Being leans the other way, and tends to prevent him from becoming "I." He becomes "I" by fighting against the necessitated part of his nature. "I" embraces and expresses the sum and substance of his freedom, of his resistance. He becomes "I" with his own consent, through the concurrence and operation of his own will.
​Without employing the word "will," then, let us look forth into the realities of man, and perhaps we shall fall in with the reality of it when we are never thinking of the word, or troubling ourselves about it; perhaps we shall encounter the phenomenon itself, when the expression of it is the last thing in our thoughts; perhaps we shall find it to be something very different from what we suspected; perhaps we shall find that it exists in deeper regions, presides over a wider sphere, and comes into earlier play than we had any notion of.
​Now the natural man, man as he is born, is clearly placed entirely under the dominion of this law. He is, as we have often said, a mere passive creature throughout. He dons the sensations and the passions that come to him, and bends before them like a sapling in the wind. But it is by no means so obvious that the conscious man, the man become "I," is also placed under jurisdiction of this law.
The "I" stands in a direct antithesis to the natural man; it is realised through consciousness, an act of antagonism against his passive modifications. Are we then to suppose that this "I" stands completely under the law of causality, or of virtual surrender, that the man entirely assents, and offers no resistance to the passive states into which he may be cast? then, in this case, no act of antagonism taking place, consciousness, of course, disappears, and the "I" becomes extinct. If, therefore, consciousness and the "I" become extinct beneath the law of causality, their appearance and realisation cannot depend upon that law, but must be brought about by a direct violation of the law of causality. If the "I" disappears in consequence of the law of causality, it must manifest itself (if it manifests itself at all) in spite of that law. If the law of virtual assent is its death, nothing but the law of actual dissent (the opposite of causality) can give it life.
Here, then, in the realisation of the "I," we find a counter-law established to the law of causality. The law of causality is the law of assent, and upon this ​law man's natural being and all its modifications depend. But the life of the "I" depends upon the law of dissent, of resistance to all his natural or derivative states. And if the one of these laws, the law of assent, is known by the name of causality, the other of them, the law of dissent, which, in man, clashes with the law of causality at every point, is, or ought to be, known by the designation of will; and this will, this law of dissent, which embodies itself in an act of antagonism against the states which depend upon the law of causality, and which may therefore be called the law of freedom, as the other is the law of bondage, is the ground-law of humanity, and lies at the bottom of the whole operation of consciousness, at the roots, of the existence of the "I." Much more might be said concerning these two great laws, which may be best studied and understood in their opposition or conflict with one another.
PART VI.
CHAPTER I.
Philosophy has long ceased to be considered a valid and practical discipline of life. And why? Simply because she commences by assuming that man, like other natural things, is a passive creature, ready-made to her hand; and thus she catches from her object the same inertness which she attributes to him. But why does philosophy found on the assumption that man is a being who comes before her ready shaped, hewn out of the quarries of nature, fashioned into form, and with all his lineaments made distinct, by other hands than his own? She does so in imitation of the physical sciences; and thus the inert and lifeless character of modern philosophy is ultimately attributable to her having degenerated into the status of a physical science.
But is there no method by which vigour may yet be propelled into the moribund limbs of philosophy; ​and by which, from being a dead system of theory, she may be renovated into a living discipline of practice? There is, if we will but reflect and understand that the course of procedure proper to the physical sciences—namely, the assumption that their, objects and the facts appertaining to these objects lie before them ready-made—is utterly inadmissible in true philosophy, is totally at variance with the scope and spirit of a science which professes to deal fairly with the phenomena of Man. Let us endeavour to point out and illustrate the deep-seated contradistinction between philosophical and physical science, for the purpose, more particularly, of getting light thrown upon the moral character of our species.
​But when man is occupied in the study of the phenomena of his own natural being, or, in other words, is philosophising, the case is very materially altered. Here his contemplation of these phenomena does add a new phenomenon to the list already under his inspection: it adds, namely, the new and anomalous phenomenon that he is contemplating these phenomena. To the old phenomena presented to him in his given or ready-made being, for instance, his sensations, passions, rational and other states, which he is regarding, there is added the supervision of these states; and this is itself a new phenomenon belonging to him. The very fact that man contemplates or makes a study of the facts of his being, is itself a fact which must be taken into account; for it is one of his phenomena just as much as any other fact connected with him is. In carrying forth the physical sciences, man very properly takes no note of his contemplation of their objects; because this contemplation does not add, as we have said, any new fact to the complement of phenomena connected with these objects. Therefore, in sinking this fact, he does not suppress any fact to which they can lay claim. But in philosophising, that is, in constructing a science of himself, man cannot suppress this fact without obliterating one of his own phenomena; bemuse man's contemplation of his own phenomena is itself a new and separate phenomenon added to the given phenomena which he is contemplating.
Here, then, we have a most radical distinction laid ​down between physics and philosophy. In ourselves, as well as in nature, a certain given series of phenomena is presented to our observation, but in studying the objects of nature, we add no new phenomenon to the phenomena already there; whereas, on the contrary, in studying ourselves we do add a new phenomenon to the other phenomena of our being; we add, to wit, the fact that we are thus studying ourselves. Be this new phenomenon important or unimportant, it is, at any rate, evident that in it is violated the analogy between physics and philosophy, between the study of man and the study of nature. For what can be a greater or more vital distinction between two sciences or disciplines than this; that while the one contributes nothing to the making of its own facts, but finds them all (to use a very familiar colloquism) cut and dried beneath its hand, the other creates, in part at least, its own facts, supplies to a certain extent, and by its own free efforts, as we shall see, the very materials out of which it is constructed?
But the parallel between physics and philosophy, although radically violated by this new fact, is not totally subverted; and our popular philosophy has preferred to follow out the track where the parallel partially holds good. It is obvious that two courses of procedure are open to her choice. Either, following the analogy of the natural sciences, which of themselves add no new fact to their objects, she may attend exclusively to the phenomena which she finds in man, but which she has no hand in contributing; ​or else, breaking loose from that analogy, she may direct her attention to the novel and unparalleled phenomenon which she, of herself, has added to her object, and which we have already described. Of these two courses, philosophy has chosen to adopt the former—and what has been the result? Surely all the ready-made phenomena of man have been, by this time, sufficiently explored. Philosophers, undisturbed, have pondered over his passions; unmoved they have watched and weighed his emotions. His affections, his rational states, his sensations, and all the other ingredients and modifications of his natural framework have been rigidly scrutinised and classified by them; and, after all, what have they made of it? what sort of a picture have their researches presented to our observation? Not the picture of a man; but the representation of an automaton, that is what it cannot help being; a phantom dreaming what it cannot but dream; an engine performing what it must perform; an incarnate reverie; a weathercock shifting helplessly in the winds of sensibility; a wretched association machine, through which ideas pass linked together by laws over which the machine has no control; anything, in short, except that free and self-sustained centre of underived, and therefore responsible activity, which we call Man.
If such, therefore, be the false representation of man which philosophy invariably and inevitably pictures forth whenever she makes common cause with the natural sciences, we have plainly no other course ​left than to turn philosophy aside from following their analogy, and to guide her footsteps upon a new line and different method of inquiry. Let us, then, turn away the attention of philosophy from the facts which she does not contribute to her object (viz., the ready-made phenomena of man); and let us direct it upon the new fact which she does contribute thereto, and let us see whether greater truth and a more practical satisfaction will not now attend her investigations.
The great and only fact which philosophy, of herself, adds to the other phenomena of man, and which nothing but philosophy can add, is, as we have said, the fact that man does philosophise. The fact that man philosophises is (so often as it takes place) as much a human phenomenon as the phenomenon, for instance, of passion is, and therefore cannot legitimately be overlooked by an impartial and true philosophy. At the same time, it is plain that philosophy creates and brings along with her this fact of man; in other words, does not find it in him ready made to her hand; because, if man did not philosophise, the fact that he philosophises would, it is evident, have no manner of existence whatsoever. What, then, does this fact which philosophy herself contributes to philosophy and to man, contain, embody, and set forth, and what are the consequences resulting from it?
The act of philosophising is the act of systematically contemplating our own natural or given ​phenomena. But the act of contemplating our own phenomena unsystematically, is no other than our old friend, the act of consciousness; therefore the only distinction between philosophy and consciousness is, that the former is with system, and the latter without it. Thus, in attending to the fact which philosophy brings along with her, we find that consciousness and philosophy become identified; that philosophy is a systematic or studied consciousness, and that consciousness is an unsystematic or unstudied philosophy. But what do we here mean by the words systematic and unsystematic? These words signify only a greater and a less degree of clearness, expansion, strength, and exaltation. Philosophy possesses these in the higher degree, our ordinary consciousness in the lower degree. Thus philosophy is but a clear, an expanded, a strong, and an exalted consciousness; while, on the other hand, consciousness is an obscurer, a narrower, a weaker, and a less exalted philosophy. Consciousness is philosophy nascent; philosophy is consciousness in full bloom and blow. The difference between them is only one of degree, and not one of kind; and thus all conscious men are to a certain extent philosophers, although they may not know it.
But what comes of this? Whither do these observations tend? With what purport do we point out, thus particularly, the identity in kind between philosophy and the act of consciousness? Reader! if thou hast eyes to see, thou canst not fail to perceive (and ​we pray thee mark it well) that it is precisely in this identity of philosophy and consciousness that the merely theoretical character of philosophy disappears, while, at this very point, her ever-living character, as a practical disciplinarian of life, bursts forth into the strongest light. For consciousness is no dream, no theory; it is no lesson taught in the schools, and confined within their walls; it is not a system remote from the practical pursuits and interests of humanity; but it has its proper place of abode upon the working theatre of living men. It is a real, and often a bitter struggle on the part of each of us against the fatalistic forces of our nature, which are at all times seeking to enslave us. The causality of nature, both without us, and especially within us, strikes deep roots, and works with a deep intent. The whole scheme and intention of nature, as evolved in the causal nexus of creation, tend to prevent one and all of us from becoming conscious, or, in other words, from realising our own personality. First come our sensations, and these monopolise the infant man; that is to say, they so fill him that there is no room left for his personality to stand beside them; and if it does attempt to rise, they tend to overbear it, and certainly for a time they succeed. Next come the passions, a train of even more overwhelming sway, and of still more flattering aspect; and now there is even less chance than before of our ever becoming personal beings. The causal, or enslaving powers of nature, are multiplying upon us. These passions, like our sensations, ​monopolise the man, and cannot endure that anything should infringe their dominion. So far from helping to realise our personality, they do everything in their power to keep it aloof or in abeyance, and to lull man into oblivion—of himself. So far from coming into life, our personality tends to disappear, and, like water torn and beaten into invisible mist by the force of a whirlwind, it often entirely vanishes beneath the tread of the passions. Then comes reason; and perhaps you imagine that reason elevates us to the rank of personal beings. But looking at reason in itself that is, considering it as a straight, and not as a reflex act, what has reason done, or what can reason do for man (we speak of kind, and not of degree, for man may have a higher degree of it than animals), which she has not also done for beavers and for bees, creatures which, though rational, are yet not personal beings? Without some other power to act as supervisor of reason, this faculty would have worked in man just as it works in animals: that is to say, it would have operated within him merely as a power of adapting means to ends, without lending him any assistance towards the realisation of his own personality. Indeed, being, like our other natural modifications, a state of monopoly of the man, it would, like them, have tended to keep down the establishment of his personal being.
Such are the chief powers that enter into league to enslave us, and to bind us down under the causal ​nexus, the moment we are born. By imposing their agency upon us, they prevent us from exercising our own. By filling us with them, they prevent us from becoming ourselves. They do all they can to withhold each of us from becoming "I." They throw every obstacle they can in the way of our becoming conscious beings; they strive, by every possible contrivance, to keep down our personality. They would fain have each of us to take all our activity from them, instead of becoming, each man for himself, a new centre of free and independent action.
But, strong as these powers are, and actively as they exert themselves to fulfil their tendencies with respect to man, they do not succeed for ever in rendering human personality a non-existent thing. After a time man proves too strong for them; he rises up against them, and shakes their shackles from his hands and feet. He puts forth (obscurely and unsystematically, no doubt), but still he puts forth a particular kind of act, which thwarts and sets at nought the whole causal domination of nature. Out of the working of this act is evolved man in his character of a free, personal, and moral being. This act is itself man; it is man acting, and man in act precedes, as we have seen, man in being, that is, in true and proper being. Nature and her powers have now no constraining hold over him; he stands out of her jurisdiction. In this act he has taken himself out of her hands into his own; he has made himself his own master. In this act he has displaced his sensations, ​and his sensations no longer monopolise him; they have no longer the complete mastery over him. In this act he has thrust his passions from their place, and his passions have lost their supreme ascendancy. And now what is this particular kind of act? What is it but the act of consciousness, the act of becoming "I," the act of placing ourselves in the room which sensation and passion have been made to vacate? This act may be obscure in the extreme, but still it is an act of the most practical kind, both in itself and in its results; and this is what we are here particularly desirous of having noted. For what act can be more vitally practical than the act by which we realise our existence as free personal beings? and what act can be attended by a more practical result than the act by which we look our passions in the face, and, in the very act of looking at them, look them down?
Now, if consciousness be an act of such mighty and practical efficiency in real life, what must not the practical might and authority of philosophy be? Philosophy is consciousness sublimed. If, therefore, the lower and obscurer form of this act can work such real wonders and such great results, what may we not expect from it in its highest and clearest potence? If our unsystematic and undisciplined consciousness be thus practical in its results (and practical to a most momentous extent it is), how much more vitally and effectively practical must not our systematic and tutored consciousness, namely, philosophy, be? ​Consciousness when enlightened and expanded is identical with philosophy. And what is consciousness enlightened and expanded? It is, as we have already seen, an act of practical antagonism put forth against the modifications of the whole natural man: and what then is philosophy but an act of practical antagonism put forth against the modifications of the whole natural man? But further, what is this act of antagonism, when it, too, is enlightened and explained? What is it but an act of freedom—an act of resistance, by which we free ourselves from the causal bondage of nature—from all the natural laws and conditions under which we were born; and what then is philosophy but an act of the highest, the most essential, and the most practical freedom? But further, what is this act of freedom when it also is cleared up and explained? It turns out to be Human Will; for the refusal to submit to the modifications of the whole natural man must be grounded on a law opposed to the law under which these modifications develop themselves, namely, the causal law, and this opposing law is the law called human will: and what then is philosophy but pure and indomitable will? or, in other words, the most practical of all conceivable acts, inasmuch as will is the absolute source and fountainhead of all real activity. And, finally, let us ask again, what is this act of antagonism against the natural states of humanity? what is this act in which we sacrifice our sensations, passions, and desires, that is, our false selves, upon the shrine of our true selves? ​what is this act in which Freedom and Will are embodied to defeat all the enslaving powers of darkness that are incessantly beleaguering us? what is it but morality of the highest, noblest, and most active kind? and, therefore, what is human philosophy, ultimately, but another name for human virtue of the most practical and exalted character?
Such are the stops by which we vindicate the title of philosophy to the rank of a real and practical discipline of humanity. To sum up: we commenced by noticing, what cannot fail to present itself to the observation of every one, the inert and unreal character of our modern philosophy, metaphysical philosophy as it is called; and we suspected, indeed we felt assured, that this character arose from our adopting, in philosophy, the method of the physical sciences. We, therefore, tore philosophy away from the analogy of physics, and in direct violation of their procedure we made her contemplate a fact which she herself created, and contributed to her object, a fact which she did not find there; the fact, namely, that an act of philosophising was taking place. But the consideration of this fact or act brought us to perceive the identity between consciousness and philosophy, and then the perception of this identity led us at once to note the truly practical character of philosophy. For consciousness is an act of the most vitally real and practical character (we have yet to see more fully how it makes us moral beings). It is κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν the great practical act of humanity—the ​act by which man becomes man in the first instance, and by the incessant performance of which he preserves his moral status, and prevents himself from falling back into the causal bondage of nature, which is at all times too ready to reclaim him; and, therefore, philosophy, which is but a higher phase of consciousness, is seen to be an act of a still higher practical character. Now, the whole of this vindication of the practical character of philosophy is evidently based upon her abandonment of the physical method, upon her turning away from the given facts of man to the contemplation of a fact which is not given in his natural being, but which philosophy herself contributes to her own construction and to man, namely, the act itself of philosophising, or, in simple language, the act of consciousness. This fact cannot possibly be given: for we have seen that all the given facts of man's being necessarily tend to suppress it; and therefore (as we have also seen) it is, and must be a free and underived, and not in any conceivable sense a ready-made fact of humanity.
CHAPTER II.
Philosophy, then, has a practical as well as a theoretical side; besides being a system of speculative truth, it is a real and effective discipline of humanity. It is the point of conciliation in which life, knowledge, and virtue meet. In it, fact and duty, or, that which is, and that which ought to be, are blended into one identity. But the practical character of philosophy, the active part which it plays throughout human concerns, has yet to be more fully and distinctly elucidated.
The great principle which we have all along been ​labouring to bring out—namely, that human consciousness is, in every instance, an act of antagonism against some one or other of the given modifications of our natural existence—finds its strongest confirmation when we turn to the contemplation of the moral character of man. We have hitherto been considering consciousness chiefly in its relation to those modifications of our nature which are impressed upon us from without. We here found, that consciousness, when deeply scrutinised, is an act of opposition put forth against our sensations; that our sensations are invaded and impaired by an act of resistance which breaks up their monopolising dominion, and in the room of the sensation thus partially displaced, realises man's personality, a new centre of activity known to each individual by the name "I," a word which, when rightly construed, stands as the exponent of our violation of the causal nexus of nature, and of our consequent emancipation therefrom. The complex antithetical phenomenon in which this opposition ​manifests itself, we found to be the fact of perception. We have now to consider consciousness in its relation to those modifications of our nature which assail us from within; and here it will be found, that just as all perception originates in the antagonism between consciousness and our sensations, so all morality originates in the antagonism between consciousness and the passions, desires, or inclinations of the natural man.
​Thus we shall follow out a clue which has been too often, if not always, lost hold of in the labyrinths of philosophy, a clue, the loss of which has made inquirers represent man as if he lived in distinct sections, and were an inorganic agglutination of several natures, the percipient, the intellectual, and the moral, with separate principles regulating each. This clue consists in our tracing the principle of our moral agency back into the very principle in virtue of which we become percipient beings; and in showing that in both cases it is the same act which is exerted—an act, namely, of freedom or antagonism against the caused or derivative modifications of our nature. Thus, to use the language of a foreign writer, we shall at least make the attempt to cut our scientific system out of one piece, and to marshal the frittered divisions of philosophy into that organic wholeness which belongs to the great original of which they profess, and of which they ought to be the faithful copy; we mean man himself. In particular, we trust that the discovery (if such it may be called) of the principle we have just mentioned, may lead the reflective reader to perceive the inseparable connection between psychology and moral philosophy (we should rather say their essential sameness), together with the futility of all those mistaken attempts which have been often made to break down ​their organic unity into the two distinct departments of "intellectual" and "moral" science.
Another consideration connected with this principle is, that instead of being led by it to do what many philosophers, in order to preserve their consistency, have done—instead of being led by it to observe in morality nothing but the features of a higher self-love, and a more refined sensuality, together with the absence of free-will; we are, on the contrary, led by it to note, even in the simplest act of perception, an incipient self-sacrifice, the presence of a dawning will struggling to break forth, and the aspect of an infant morality beginning to develop itself. This consideration we can only indicate thus briefly; for we must now hurry on to our point.
We are aware of the attempts which have been made to invest our emotions with the stamp and attribute of morality; but, in addition to the testimony of our own experience, we have the highest authority for holding that none of the natural feelings or modifications of the human heart partake in any degree of a moral character. We are told by revelation, and the eye of reason recognises the truth of the averment, that love itself, that is, natural love, a feeling which certainly must bear the impress of morality if any of our emotions do so—we are told by revelation in emphatic terms that such love has no moral value or significance whatsoever. "If ye love them," says our Saviour, "which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the ​same?" To love those who love us is natural love; and can any words quash and confound the claim of such love to rank as a moral excellence or as a moral development more effectually than these?
"But," continues the same Divine Teacher, "I say unto you, Love your enemies;" obviously meaning, that in this kind of love, as contradistinguished from the other, a new and higher element is to be found, the element of morality, and that this kind of love is a state worthy of approbation and reward, which the other is not. Here, then, we find a discrimination laid down between two kinds of love—love of friends and love of enemies; and the hinge upon which this discrimination turns is, that the character of morality is denied to the former of these, while it is acceded to the latter. But now comes the question, Why is the one of these kinds of love said to be a moral state or act, and why is the other not admitted to be so? To answer this question we must look into the respective characters and ingredients of these two kinds of love.
Natural love, that is, our love of our friends, is a mere affair of temperament, and in entertaining it, we are just as passive as our bodies are when exposed to the warmth of a cheerful fire. It lies completely under the causal law; and precisely as any other natural effect is produced by its cause, it is generated and entailed upon us by the love which our friends bear towards us. It comes upon us unsought. It costs us nothing. No thanks to us for ​entertaining it. It is, in every sense of the word, a passion; that is to say, nothing of an active character mingles with the modification into which we have been moulded. And hence, in harbouring such love, we make no approach towards rising into the dignity of free and moral beings.
But the character and groundwork of the other species of love—of our love, namely, of our enemies—is widely different from this. Let us ask what is the exact meaning of the precept, "Love your enemies?" Does it mean, love them with a natural love, love them as you love your friends? Does it mean, make your love spring up towards those that hate you, just in the same way, and by the same natural process as it springs up towards those that love you? If it means this, then we are bold enough to say, that it plainly and palpably inculcates an impracticability; for we are sure that no man can love his enemies with the same direct natural love as he loves his friends withal; if he ever does love them, it can only be after he has passed himself through some intermediate act which is not to be found in the natural emotion of love. Besides, in reducing this kind of love to the level of a natural feeling, it would be left as completely stripped of its character of morality as the other species is. But Christianity does not degrade this kind of love to the level of a passion, neither does it in this, or in any other case, inculcate an impracticable act or condition of humanity. What, then, ​is the meaning of the precept, Love your enemies? What sort of practice or discipline does this text, in the first instance at least, enforce? What but this? act against your natural hatred of them, resist the anger you naturally entertain towards them, quell and subjugate the boiling indignation of your heart. Whatever subsequent progress a man may make, under the assistance of divine grace, towards entertaining a positive love of his enemies, this negative step must unquestionably take the precedence; and most assuredly such assistance will not be vouchsafed to him, unless he first of all take the initiative by putting forth this act of resistance against that derivative modification of his heart, which, in the shape of hatred, springs up within him under the breath of injury and injustice, just as naturally as noxious reptiles are generated amid the foul air of a charnel-house.
The groundwork, then, of our love of our enemies, the feature which principally characterises it, and the condition which renders it practicable, is an act of resistance exerted against our natural hatred of them; and this it is which gives to that kind of love its moral complexion. Thus, we see that this kind of love, so far from arising out of the cherishing or entertaining of a natural passion, does, on the contrary, owe its being to the sacrifice of one of the strongest passive modifications of our nature; and we will venture to affirm that, without this sacrificial act, the love of our enemies is neither practicable nor ​conceivable; and if this act does not embody the whole of such love, it at any rate forms a very important element in its composition. In virtue of the tone and active character given to it by this element, the love of our enemies may be called moral love, in contradistinction to the love of our friends, which, on account of its purely passive character, we have called natural love.
And let it not be thought that this act is one of inconsiderable moment. It is, indeed, a mighty act, in the putting forth of which man is in nowise passive. In this act he directly thwarts, mortifies, and sacrifices one of the strongest susceptibilities of his nature. He transacts it in the freedom of an original activity, and, most assuredly, nature lends him no helping hand towards its performance. On the contrary, she endeavours to obstruct it by every means in her power. The voice of human nature cries, "By all means, trample your enemies beneath your feet." "No," says the Gospel of Christ, "rather tread down into the dust that hatred which impels you to crush them."
But now comes another question, What is it that, in this instance, gives a supreme and irreversible sanction to the voice of the Gospel, rendering this resistance of our natural hatred of our enemies right, and our non-resistance of that hatred wrong?
We have but to admit that freedom, or, in other words, emancipation from the thraldom of a foreign causality, a causality which, ever since the Fall of ​Man, must be admitted to unfold itself in each individual's case, in a dark tissue of unqualified evil; we have but to admit that the working out of this freedom is the great end of man, and constitutes his true self; and we have also but to admit that whatever conduces to the accomplishment of this end is right; and the question just broached easily resolves itself. For, supposing man not to be originally free, let us ask how is the end of human liberty to be attained? Is it to be attained by passively imbibing the various impressions forced upon us from without? Is it to be attained by yielding ourselves up in pliant obedience to the manifold modifications which stamp their moulds upon us from within? Unquestionably not. All these impressions and modifications constitute the very badges of our slavery. They are the very trophies of the causal conquests of nature planted by her on the ground where the true man ought to have stood, but where he fell. Now, since human freedom, the great end of man, is thus contravened by these passive conditions and susceptibilities of his nature, therefore it is that they are wrong. And, by the same rule, an act of resistance put forth against them is right, inasmuch as an act of this kind contributes, every tune it is exerted, to the accomplishment of that great end.
Now, looking to our hatred of our enemies, we see that this is a natural passion which is most strongly forced upon us by the tyranny of the causal law; therefore it tends to obliterate and counteract our ​freedom. But our freedom constitutes our true and moral selves; it is the very essence of our proper personality: therefore, to entertain, to yield to this passion, is wrong, is moral death, is the extinction of our freedom, of our moral being, however much it may give life to the natural man. And, by the same consequence, to resist this passion, to act against it, to sacrifice it, is right, is free and moral life, however much this act may give the death-stroke to our natural feelings and desires.
But how shall we, or how do we, or how can we, act against our hatred of our enemies? We answer, simply by becoming conscious of it. By turning upon it a reflective eye (a process by no means agreeable to our natural heart), we force it to faint and fade away before our glance. In this act we turn the tables (so to speak) upon the passion, whatever it may be, that is possessing us. Instead of its possessing us, we now possess it. Instead of our being in its hands, it is now in our hands. Instead of its being our master, we have now become its; and thus is the first step of our moral advancement taken; thus is enacted the first act of that great drama in which demons are transformed into men. In this act of consciousness, founded, as we have elsewhere seen, upon will, and by which man becomes transmuted from a natural into a moral being, we perceive the prelude or dawning of that still higher regeneration which Christianity imparts, and which advances man onwards from the precincts of ​morality into the purer and loftier regions of religion. We will venture to affirm that this consciousness, or act of antagonism, is the ground or condition, in virtue of which that still higher dispensation is enabled to take effect upon us, and this we shall endeavour to make out in its proper place. In the meantime to return to our point
In the absence of consciousness, the passion (of hatred, for instance) reigns and ranges unalloyed, and goes forth to the fulfilment of its natural issues, unbridled and supreme. But the moment consciousness comes into play against it, the colours of the passion become less vivid, and its sway less despotic. It is to a certain extent dethroned and sacrificed even upon the first appearance of consciousness; and if this antagonist manfully maintain its place, the sceptre of passion is at length completely wrested from her hands: and thus consciousness is a moral act, is the foundation-stone of our moral character and existence.
If the reader should be doubtful of the truth and soundness of this doctrine, namely, that consciousness (whether viewed in its own unsystematic form, or in the systematic shape which it assumes when it becomes philosophy) is an act which of itself tends to put down the passions, these great, if not sole, sources of human wickedness; perhaps he will be willing to embrace it when he finds it enforced by the powerful authority of Dr Chalmers.
"Let there be an attempt," says he, "on the part ​of the mind to study the phenomena of anger, and its attention is thereby transferred from the cause of the affection to the affection itself; and, so soon as its thoughts are withdrawn from the cause, the affection, as if deprived of its needful aliment, dies away from the field of observation. There might be heat and indignancy enough in the spirit, so long as it broods over the affront by which they have originated. But whenever it proposes, instead of looking outwardly at the injustice, to look inwardly at the consequent irritation, it instantly becomes cool."
We have marked certain of these words in italics, because in them Dr Chalmers appears to account for the disappearance of anger before the eye of consciousness in a way somewhat different from ours. He seems to say that it dies away because "deprived of its needful aliment," whereas we hold that it dies away in consequence of the antagonist act of consciousness which comes against it, displacing and sacrificing it. But, whatever our respective theories may be, and whichever of us may be in the right, we agree in the main point, namely, as to the fact that anger does vanish away in the presence of consciousness; and therefore this act acquires (whatever theory we may hold respecting it) a moral character and significance, and the exercise of it becomes an imperative duty; for what passion presides over a wider field of human evil and of human wickedness than the passion of human wrath? and, therefore, ​what act can be of greater importance than the act which overthrows and puts an end to its domineering tyranny?
The process by which man becomes metamorphosed from a natural into a moral being, is precisely the same in every other case: it is invariably founded on a sacrifice or mortification of some one or other of his natural desires, a sacrifice which is involved in his very consciousness of them whenever that consciousness is real and clear. We have seen that moral love is based on the sacrifice of natural hatred. In the same way, generosity, if it would embody any morality at all, must be founded on the mortification of avarice or some other selfish passion. Frugality, likewise, to deserve the name of a virtue, must be founded on the sacrifice of our natural passion of extravagance or ostentatious profusion. Temperance, too, if it would claim for itself a moral title, must found on the restraint imposed upon our gross and gluttonous sensualities. In short, before any condition of humanity can be admitted to rank as a moral state, it must be based on the suppression, in whole or in part, of its opposite. And, finally, courage, if it would come before us invested with a moral grandeur, must have its origin in the unremitting and watchful suppression of fear. Let us speak more particularly of Courage and Fear.
What is natural courage? It is a passion or endowment possessed in common by men and by animals. It is a mere quality of temperament. It ​urges men and animals into the teeth of danger. But the bravest animals and the bravest men (we mean such as are emboldened by mere natural courage) are still liable to panic. The game-cock, when he has once turned tail, cannot be induced to renew the fight; and the hearts of men, inspired by mere animal courage, have at times quailed and sunk within them, and, in the hour of need, this kind of courage has been found to be a treacherous passion.
But what is moral courage? What is it but the consciousness of Fear? Here it is that the struggle and the triumph of humanity are to be found. Natural courage faces danger, and perhaps carries itself triumphantly through it, perhaps not. But moral courage faces fear, and in the very act of facing it puts it down: and this is the kind of courage in which we would have men put their trust; for if fear be vanquished, what becomes of danger? It dwindles into the very shadow of a shade. It is a historical fact (to mention which will not be out of place here), that nothing but the intense consciousness of his own natural cowardice made the great Duke of Marlborough the irresistible hero that he was. This morally brave man was always greatly agitated upon going into action, and used to say, "This little body trembles at what this great soul is about to perform." About this great soul we know nothing, and therefore pass it over as a mere figure of speech. But the trembling of "this little body," that is, the cowardice of the natural man, or, in other ​words, his want of courage, in so far as courage is a mere affair of nerves, was a fact conspicuous to all. Equally conspicuous and undeniable was the antagonism put forth against this nervous bodily trepidation. And what was this antagonism? What but the struggle between consciousness and cowardice? a struggle by and through which the latter was dragged into light and vanquished; and then the hero went forth into the thickest ranks of danger, strong in the consciousness of his own weakness, and as if out of very spite of the natural coward that wished to hold him back, and who rode shaking in his saddle as he drove into the hottest of the fight. Natural courage, depending upon temperament, will quail at times, and prove faithless to its trust; the strongest nerves will often shake, in the hour of danger, like an aspen in the gale; but what conceivable terrors can daunt that fortitude (though merely of a negative character), that indomitable discipline, wherewith a man, by a stern and deliberate consciousness of his own heart's frailty, meets, crushes, and subjugates, at every turn, and in its remotest hold, the entire passion of fear?
PART VII.
CHAPTER I.
The argument, in the foregoing part of our discussion (in which we showed that morality is grounded in an antagonism carried on between our nature and our consciousness), is obviously founded on the assumption that man is born in weakness and depravity. We need hardly, nowadays, insist on the natural sinfulness of the human heart, which we are told by our own, and by all recorded experience, as well as by a higher authority than that of man, is desperately wicked, and runneth to evil continually. Deplorable as this fact is, deplorably also and profusely has it been lamented. We are not now, therefore, going to swell this deluge of lamentations. Instead of doing so, let us rather endeavour to review dispassionately the fact of our naturally depraved condition, in order to ascertain, if possible, the precise bearing which it has on the development and ​destiny of our species, and at the same time to carry ourselves still deeper into the philosophy of human consciousness.
To do good and sin not, is the great end of man; and, accordingly, we find him at his first creation stored with every provision for well-doing. But that this is his great end can only be admitted with the qualification that it is to do good freely; for every being which is forced to perform its allotted task is a mere tool or machine, whether the work it performs be a work of good or a work of evil. If, therefore, man does good by the compulsion of others, or under the constraining force of his own natural biases, he is but an automaton, and deserves no more credit for his actings than a machine of this kind does; just as he is also an automaton if he be driven into courses of evil by outward forces which he cannot resist, or by the uncontrollable springs of his own natural framework. But man will be admitted, by all right thinkers, to be not a mere automaton. But then, according to the same thinkers, man is a created being; and, therefore, the question comes to be, how can a created being be other than an automaton? Creation implies predetermination, and predetermination implies that all the springs and biases of the created being tend one way (the way predetermined), and that it has no power of its own to turn them into any other than this one channel, whatever it may be. How, then, is it possible for such a being to do either good or evil freely, or to act ​otherwise than it was born and predetermined to act? In other words, the great problem to be worked out is, How is man to come to accomplish voluntarily the great end (of doing good, of well-doing) which he originally accomplished under compulsion, or in obedience to the springs of his natural constitution?
We undertake to show that the living demonstration of this great problem is to be found in the actual history of our race; that the whole circuit of humanity, from the creation of the world until the day when man's final account shall be closed, revolves for no other purpose than to bring human nature to do freely the very same work which it originally performed without freedom; and that this problem could not possibly have been worked out by any other steps than those actually taken to resolve it. This shall be made apparent, by our showing, that in the actual development of the consciousness of our species, two distinct practical stages or articulations are to be noted: the first being an act of antagonism put forth by man against his paradisiacal or perfect nature, bringing along with it the Fall (this is consciousness in its antagonism against good); the second being an act of antagonism put forth by man against his present or fallen nature, issuing in the Redemption of the world through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the restoration of man to the primitive condition of perfection which he had abjured (this is consciousness in its antagonism against evil). The practical solution of the problem of Human ​Liberty, will be seen to be given in the development of these two grand epochs of consciousness.
In the first place, then, let us contemplate man in his paradisiacal state. Here we find him created perfect by an all-perfect God, and living in the garden of Eden, surrounded by everything that can minister to his comfort and delight. Truly the lines are fallen to him in pleasant places; and, following his natural biases, his whole being runs along these lines in channels of pure happiness and unalloyed good; good nameless, indeed, and inconceivable, because as yet uncontrasted with evil, but therefore, on that very account, all the more perfect and complete. He lies absorbed and entranced in his own happiness and perfection; and no consciousness, be it observed, interferes to break up their blessed monopoly of him. He lives, indeed, under the strictest command that this jarring act be kept aloof. He has no personality: the personality of the paradisiacal man is in the bosom of his Creator.
Now, however enviable this state of things may have been, it is obvious that, so long as it continued, no conceivable advance could be made towards the realisation of human liberty. Without a personality, without a self, to which his conduct might be referred, it is plain that man could not possess any real or intelligible freedom. All his doings must, in this case, fall to be refunded back out of him into the great Being who created him, and out of whom they really proceeded: and thus man must be left a mere ​machine, inspired and actuated throughout by the divine energies.
But, upon the slightest reflection, it is equally obvious that man could not possibly realise his own personality without being guilty of an evil act, an act not referable unto God, a Being out of whom no evil thing can come; an act in which the injunctions of the Creator must be disobeyed and set at nought: He could not, we say, realise his own personality without sinning; because his personality is realised through the act of consciousness; and the act of consciousness is, as we have all along seen, an act of antagonism put forth against whatsoever state or modification of humanity it comes in contact with. Man's paradisiacal condition, therefore, being one of supreme goodness and perfection, could not but be deteriorated by the presence of consciousness. Consciousness, if it is to come into play here, must be an act of antagonism against this state of perfect holiness, an act displacing it, and breaking up its monopoly, in order to make room for the independent and rebellious "I." In other words, it must be an act curtailing and subverting good, and therefore, of necessity, an evil act. Let us say, then, that this act was really performed, that man thereby realised his own personality: and what do we record in such a statement but the fact of man's "first disobedience" and his Fall?
The realisation of the first man's personality being thus identical with his fall, and his fall being brought ​about by a free act, an act not out of, but against God; let us now ask how man stands in relation to the great problem, the working out of which we are superintending, Human Liberty. Has the Fall brought along with it the complete realisation of his freedom? By no means. He has certainly realised his own personality by becoming conscious of good. He has thus opposed himself to good, and performed an act which he was not forced or predetermined by his Maker to perform. He has thus taken one step towards the attainment of Liberty: one step, and that is all. The paradisiacal man has evolved one epoch in the development of human consciousness; and has thus carried us on one stage in the practical solution of the problem we are speaking of. Being born good and perfect, he has developed the antagonism of consciousness against goodness and perfection; and thus he has emancipated the human race from the causality of goodness and perfection.
But this antagonism against good, though it freed the human race from the causality of holiness, laid it at the same time under the subjection of a new and far bitterer causality, the causality of sin. For the consciousness of good, or, in other words, an act of antagonism against good, is itself but another name for sin or evil: and thus evil is evolved out of the very act in which man becomes conscious of good. And this is the causality under which we, the children of Adam, find ourselves placed. As he was born the child of goodness and of God, so are we, ​through his act, born children of sin and of the devil.
Therefore the evolution of the second epoch in the practical development of consciousness devolves upon us, the fallen children of Humanity. Just as the paradisiacal man advanced us one stage towards liberty, by developing in a free act the antagonism of consciousness against the good under which he was born; so is it incumbent upon us to complete the process by developing the practical antagonism of consciousness against the evil of our natural condition. As Adam, in the first epoch of consciousness, worked himself out of good into evil by a free act, so have we, who live in the second epoch of consciousness, to work ourselves back out of evil into good by another act of the same kind; repeating precisely the same process which he went through, only repeating it in an inverted order. He, being born under the causality of good, transferred himself over by a free act (the antagonism of consciousness against good) to the causality of evil, and thus proved that he was not forced to the performance of good. We, on the other hand, who are born under the causality of evil, have to transfer ourselves back by another free act, the antagonism of consciousness against evil, into the old causality of good; and thus prove that we are not forced to the commission of evil. Adam broke up the first causality—the causality of good; and emancipated our humanity therefrom, in making it thus violate the natural laws and ​conditions of its birth. But in doing so he laid it under a second and dire causality, the causality of sin; and this is the causality under which we are born. Whenever, therefore, we too have trampled on the laws and conditions of our natural selves; have striven, by an act of resistance against evil, to return into the bosom of good, to replace ourselves under the old causality of holiness, to take up such a position that the influences of Christianity may be enabled to tell upon our hearts, in short, have violated our causality just as Adam violated his; then may the problem of human liberty be said to be practically resolved, for there are no conceivable kinds of causality except those of evil and of good, and both of these shall have then been broken through in the historical development of our species.
And here, let it be observed, that although, in putting forth this act of resistance against evil, we return under the old causality of good, and thus make ourselves obedient to its influences, yet the relation in which we stand towards that causality is very different from the relation in which the first man stood towards it. He had good forced upon him; we have forced ourselves upon it by a voluntary submission; and in this kind of submission true freedom consists; because, in making it, the initiative movement originates in our own wills, in an act of resistance put forth against the evil that encounters us in our natural selves, whichever way we turn; and thus, instead of this kind of causality exercising a strictly causal force ​upon us, we, properly speaking, are the cause by which it is induced to visit and operate upon us at all. "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force:" that is to say, it does not take them by force; it does not force itself causally upon us. On the contrary, we must force ourselves upon it by our own efforts, and, as it were, wring from an All-merciful God that grace which even He cannot and will not grant, except to our own most earnest importunities.
Would we now look back into the history of our kind, in order to gather instances of that real operation of consciousness which we have been speaking of? Then what was the whole of the enlightened jurisprudence, and all the high philosophy of antiquity, but so many indications of consciousness in its practical antagonism against human depravity? What is justice, that source and concentration of all law? Is it a natural growth or endowment of humanity? Has it, in its first origin, a positive character of its own? No; there is no such thing as natural or born justice among men. Justice is nothing but the consciousness of our own natural injustice, this consciousness being, in its very essence, an act of resistance against the same. Do the promptings of nature teach us to give every man his due? No; the promptings of nature teach us to keep to ourselves all that we can lay our hands upon; therefore it is only by acting against the promptings of nature ​that we can deal justly towards our fellow-men. But we cannot act against these promptings without being conscious of them, neither can we be conscious of them without acting against them to a greater or a less extent; and thus consciousness, or an act of antagonism put forth against our natural selfishness, lies at the root of the great principle upon which all justice depends, the principle suum cuique tribuendi. Therefore, in every nation of antiquity in which wise and righteous laws prevailed, they prevailed not in consequence of any natural sense or principle of justice among men, but solely in consequence of the act of consciousness, which exposed to them the injustice and selfish passions of their own hearts, and, in the very exposure, got the better of them.
If we look, too, to the highest sects of ancient philosophy, what do we behold but the development of consciousness in its antagonism against evil, and an earnest striving after something better than anything that is born within us? What was the whole theoretical and practical Stoicism of antiquity? Was it apathy, in the modern sense of that word, that this high philosophy inculcated? Great philosophers have told us that it was so. But oh! doctrine lamentably inverted, traduced, and misunderstood! The "apathy" of ancient Stoicism was no apathy in our sense of the word; it was no inertness, no sluggish insensibility, no avoidance of passion, and no folding of the hands to sleep. But it was the direct reverse of all this. It was, and it inculcated, an eternal war ​to be waged by the sleepless consciousness of every man against the indestructible demon passions of his own heart. The ἀπάθεια of Stoicism was an energetic acting against passion; and, if our word apathy means this, let us make use of it in characterising that philosophy. But we apprehend that our word apathy signifies an indifference, a passiveness, a listless torpidity of character, which either avoids the presence of the passions, or feels it not; in short, an unconsciousness of passion, a state diametrically opposed to the apathy of Stoicism, which consists in the most vital consciousness of the passions, and their consequent subjugation thereby. It has been thought, too, that Stoicism aimed at the annihilation of the passions; but it is much truer to say, that it took the strife between them and consciousness, as the focus of its philosophy; it found true manhood concentrated in this strife, and it merely placed true manhood where it found it, for it saw clearly that the only real moral life of humanity is breathed up out of that seething and tempestuous struggle.
The passions are sure to be ever with us. Do what we will,
" They pitch their tents before us as we move,
Our hourly neighbours."
Therefore, the only question comes to be, Are we to yield to them, or are we to give them battle and resist them? And Stoicism is of opinion that we should give them battle. Her voice is all for war; because, in yielding to them, our consciousness, or the act ​which constitutes our peculiar attribute, and brings along with it our proper and personal existence, is obliterated or curtailed.
The Epicureans sailed upon another tack. The Stoics sought to reproduce good, by first overthrowing evil; the only method, certainly, by which such a reproduction is practicable. They sought to build the Virtues upon the suppression of the Vices, the only foundation which experience tells us is not liable to be swept away. But their opponents in philosophy went more directly to work. They aimed at the same end, the reproduction of good, without, however, adopting the same means of securing it; that is to say, without ever troubling themselves about evil at all. They sought to give birth to Love without having first laid strong bonds upon Hatred. They strove to establish Justice on her throne, without having first deposed and overthrown Injustice. They sought to call forth Charity and Generosity, without having first of all beaten down the hydra-heads of Selfishness. In short, they endeavoured to bring forward, in a direct manner, all the amiable qualities (as they were supposed to be) of the human heart, without having gone through the intermediate process of displacing and vanquishing their opposites through the act of consciousness. And the consequence was just what might have been expected. These amiable children of nature, so long as all things went as they wished, were angels; but, in the hour of trial, they became the ​worst of fiends. Long as the sun shone, their love basked beautiful beneath it, and wore smiles of eternal constancy; but when the storm arose, then Hatred, which had been overlooked by Consciousness, arose also, and the place of Love knew it no more. Justice worked well so long as every one got what he himself wanted. But no sooner were the desires of any man thwarted, than Injustice, which Consciousness had laid no restraint upon, stretched out her hand and snatched the gratification of them; while Justice (to employ Lord Bacon's metaphor) went back into the wilderness, and put forth nothing but the blood-red blossoms of Revenge. Generosity and Charity, so long as they were uncrossed and put to no real sacrifice, played their parts to perfection; but so soon as any unpleasant occasion for their exercise arose, then the selfish passions, of which Consciousness had taken no note, broke loose, and Chanty and Generosity were swept away by an avalanche of demons.
Such has invariably been the fate of all those Epicurean attempts to bring forward and cultivate Good as a natural growth of the human heart, instead of first of all endeavouring to realise it as the mere extirpation of evil; and hence we see the necessity of adopting the latter method of procedure. Every attempt to establish or lay hold of good by leaving evil out of our account, by avoiding it, by remaining unconscious of it, by not bringing it home to ourselves, ​must necessarily be a failure; and, sooner or later, a day of fearful retribution is sure to come, for the passions are real madmen, and consciousness is their only keeper; but man's born amiabilities are but painted masks, which (if consciousness has never occupied its post) are liable to be torn away from the face of his natural corruption, in any dark hour in which the passions may choose to break up from the dungeons of the heart.
CHAPTER II.
Neither overrating nor underrating the pretensions of philosophy, let us now, as our final task, demonstrate the entire harmony between her and the scheme of Christian revelation. Philosophy has done much for man, but she cannot do everything for him; she cannot convert a struggling act (consciousness in its antagonism against evil)—she cannot convert this act into a permanent and glorified substance. She can give the strife, but she cannot give the repose. This Christianity alone can give. But neither can Christianity do everything for man. She, too, demands her prerequisites; she demands a true consciousness on the part of man of the condition in which he stands. In other words, she demands, on man's own part, a perception of his own want or need of her divine support. This support she can give him, but she cannot give him a sense of his own need of it. This philosophy must supply. Here, therefore, Christianity accepts the assistance of philosophy; true though it be, that the latter, even in her highest and most exhaustive flight, only brings man up to the ​point at which religion spreads her wings, and carries him on to a higher and more transcendent elevation. Her apex is the basis of Christianity. The highest round in the ladder of philosophy is the lowest in the scale of Christian grace. All that true philosophy can do, or professes to do, is merely to pass man through the preparatory discipline of rendering him conscious of evil, that is, of the only thing of which he can be really conscious on this earth; and thus to place him in such a position as may enable the influences of loftier truth, and of more substantial good, to take due effect upon his heart. The discipline of philosophy is essentially destructive, that of Christianity is essentially constructive. The latter busies herself in the positive reproduction of good; but only after philosophy has, to a certain extent, prepared the ground for her, by putting forth the act of consciousness, and by thus executing her own negative task, which consists in the resistance of evil. Christianity re-impresses us with the positive image of God which we had lost through the Fall; but philosophy, in the act of consciousness, must first, to a greater or a less extent, have commenced a defacement of the features of the devil stamped upon our natural hearts, before we can take on, in the least degree, the impress of that divine signature.
Such, we do not fear to say, is the preliminary discipline of man, which Christianity demands at the hands of philosophy. But there are people who imagine that the foundation-stone of the whole ​Christian scheme consists in this: that man can, and must, do nothing for himself. Therefore, let us speak a few words in refutation of this paralysing doctrine.
Do not the Scriptures themselves say, "Ask, and it shall be given unto you"? Here, then, we find asking made the condition of our receiving; and hence it is plain that we are not to receive this asking; for supposing that we do receive it, then this can only be because we have complied with the condition annexed to our receiving it; or, in other words, it can only be because we have practised an anterior asking in order to obtain the asking which has been vouchsafed to us. Therefore this asking must ultimately, according to the very first requisitions of Christianity, fall to be considered as our own act; and now, then, we put the question to those who maintain the doctrine just, stated: Must we not "ask," must not this "asking" be our own deed, and do you call this doing nothing for ourselves? In the same way does not the Gospel say, "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you"? evidently holding forth seeking as the condition of our finding, and knocking as the condition upon which "it shall be opened." And, now, must not this "seeking" and this "knocking" be done by ourselves? and if they must, what becomes of the doctrine that man can do nothing, and must attempt to do nothing, for himself?
This doctrine that we can do nothing for ourselves is based upon an evident oversight and confusion of thought in the mind of the espousers of it. "Attempt ​no toil of your own; say these inert disciplinarians of humanity, "but seek ye the kingdom of heaven in the revealed word of God, and there ye shall find it with all its blessings." True; but these teachers overlook the fact that there are two distinct questions, and two distinct tasks, involved in this precept of "seeking the kingdom of heaven." To some people, the injunction, "Seek for it faithfully, and ye shall find it in the Scriptures," may be sufficient. But others, again (and we believe the generality of men are in this predicament), may require, first of all, to be informed about a very different matter, and may be unable to rest satisfied until they have obtained this information: they may demand, namely, an answer to a new question, But where shall we find the seeking of the kingdom of heaven? Before finding itself, we must know how, and where, and in what war, we are to find the seeking of it; for that is the great secret which eludes and baffles our researches.
The only answer that can be given to these querists is, You must find the seeking of it in yourselves. The Bible reveals to us the kingdom of heaven itself; but philosophy it is that leads us to the discovery of our own search after it. To this discovery philosophy leads us, by teaching us to know ourselves, by teaching us what we really are. And what does philosophy teach us respecting ourselves? Does she teach us that we stand in a harmonious relation towards the universe around us; towards the universe ​within us; towards the world of our own passions and desires; towards the strength or the weaknesses (be they which they may) of our own flesh and blood? And does she thus show us that the life of man here below is a life of blessedness and repose? No! on the contrary, she shows us that our very act of consciousness, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, all the natural laws and conditions under which we are born, stand in a relation of diametrical discord towards each other: that we are made up of passions and susceptibilities, every one of which is thwarted and condemned in our very consciousness of it: that "there is a law in our members" (the causal law) "warring against the law in our minds" (the law of will, of freedom, of consciousness); and that the war between these two laws is one which no truce, brought about by human diplomacy, can ever still. For though consciousness may act against evil, yet it can never change the mere resistance of evil into a positive body of good. Consciousness may resist wrath, but it cannot convert this resistance of wrath into a positive peaceful-mindedness. Consciousness may resist hatred, but this act cannot transmute the resistance of hatred into positive and substantial love. Consciousness may resist selfishness, but it cannot convert this resistance of selfishness into a decided and abiding spirit of charity. This conversion cannot be effected by consciousness or by philosophy, it must be effected by the intervention of a higher power, building, ​however, on the groundwork which consciousness lays in its antagonism against evil; and this is what philosophy herself teaches unto man. She shows him, that so long as our consciousness and our passions merely are in the field, although it is true that our regeneration must commence in their strife, yet that these elements meet together only in a bitter and interminable struggle, and do not embody of themselves any positive issues of good. Thus is he led by the very strife which philosophy reveals to him, tearing his being asunder, to feel the necessity under which he lies of obtaining strength, support, and repose, from a higher source: thus is he led by philosophy to discover, in the bitter strife between consciousness and his passions, his own importunate seeking of the kingdom of heaven, as the only means through whose intervention his struggling and toilsome acts may be embodied and perpetuated in glorious and triumphant substances his resistance of hatred changed by Divine grace into Christian love, and all his other resistances of evil (mere negative qualities) transmuted by the power of a celestial alchemy into positive and substantial virtues.
CHAPTER II.
We will now conclude, by recapitulating very shortly the chief points of our whole discussion.
I. Our first inquiry regarded the method to be adopted, and the proper position to be occupied when contemplating the phenomena of man, and, out of that contemplation, endeavouring to construct a science of ourselves. The method hitherto employed in psychological research we found to be in the highest degree objectionable. It is this: the fact, or act of consciousness, was regarded as the mere medium through which the phenomena, or "states of mind," the proper facts of psychology, as they were thought to be, were observed. Thus consciousness was the point which was looked from, and not the point which was looked at. The phenomena looked at were our sensations, passions, emotions, intellectual states, &c., which might certainly have existed without consciousness, although, indeed, they could not have been known except through that act. The phenomenon looked from, although tacitly recognised, was in reality passed over without ​observation; and thus consciousness, the great fact of humanity, together with all its grounds and consequences, has been altogether overlooked in the study of man; while, in consequence of this oversight, his freedom, will, morality, in short, all his peculiar attributes, have invariably crumbled into pieces whenever he has attempted to handle them scientifically.
We trace this erroneous method, this false position, this neglect of the fact of consciousness, entirely to the attempts of our scientific men to establish a complete analogy between psychological and physical research; and, to follow the error to its fountainhead, we boldly trace it up to a latitude of interpretation given to the fundamental canon of the Baconian philosophy: "Homo, naturæ minister et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit quantum de naturæ ordine re vel mente observaverit, nec amplius scit aut potest."
​We do not, indeed, assert that this maxim, even when taken in its utmost latitude, contains anything which is absolutely false; but we hope to show that, in its application to the science of man, and as a fundamental rule of psychology, it falls very far short of the whole truth, and is of a very misleading tendency. If it has acted like fanners upon the physical sciences, it has certainly fallen like an extinguisher upon philosophy.
The method laid down in this canon as the only true foundation of science, is the method of observation. The question then comes to be: Can this method be properly applied to the phenomena of man, in exactly the same sense as it is applied to the phenomena of nature? The disciples of Lord Bacon tell us that it can, and must, if we would construct a true science of ourselves; but, in opposition to their opinion, we undertake to show that, in the case of man, circumstances are evolved, which render his observation of his own phenomena of a totally different character from his observation of the phenomena of nature. Let us, then, illustrate the method of observation, first, in its application to nature; and, secondly, in its application to man.
We will call nature and her phenomena B, and we will call the observer A. Now, it is first to be remarked, that in A there is developed the fact of A's observation of B: but the proper and sole business of A being to observe the phenomena of B, and A's observation of the phenomena of B not being a ​fact belonging to B, it, of course, does not call for any notice whatsoever from A. It would be altogether irrelevant for A, when observing the phenomena of B, to observe the fact of his own observation of these phenomena. Therefore, in the natural sciences, the fact of A's observation of B is the point looked from, and cannot become the point looked at, without a departure being made from the proper procedure of physics. These sciences, then, are founded entirely on the method of simple observation. Observatio simplex is all that is here practised, and is all that is here necessary; and, whenever it shall have been put forth in its fullest extent, the science of B, or nature, may be considered complete.
Let us now try how the same method of simple or physical observation works in its application to psychology. We will call man and his phenomena A; and, as man is here the observer as well as the observed, we must call the observer A too.
Now, it is obvious that in A (man observed) there are plenty of phenomena present, his sensations, "states of mind," &c., and that A (man observing) may construct a sort of science out of these by simply observing them, just as he constructed the natural sciences by observing the phenomena of B. And this is precisely what our ordinary psychologists have done, adhering to the Baconian canon. But the slightest reflection will show us that such a science of man must necessarily be a false one, ​inasmuch as it leaves out of view one of his most important phenomena. For, as the preceding case of A and B, so now in the case of A and A, there is developed the fact of A's observation of A. But this fact, which in the case of A and B was very properly overlooked, and was merely considered as the point to be looked from, cannot here be legitimately overlooked, but insists most peremptorily upon being made the point to be looked at; for the two A's are not really two, but one and the same; and, therefore, A's observation of the phenomena of A is itself a new phenomenon of A, calling for a new observation. Thus, while physical observation is simple, philosophical or psychological observation is double. It is observatio duplex: the observation of observation, observatio observationis. Now, we maintain that the disciples of the Baconian school have never recognised this distinction, or rather have never employed any other than the method of single observation, in studying the phenomena of man. They have been too eager to observe everything ever to have thought of duly observing the fact of observation itself. This phenomenon, by which everything else was brought under observation, was itself allowed an immunity from observation; and entirely to this laxness or neglect are, in our opinion, to be attributed all the errors that have vitiated, and all the obstructions that have retarded the science of ourselves.
The distinction which we have just pointed out ​between these two kinds of observation, the single and the double, the physical and the psychological, is radical and profound. The method to be pursued in studying nature, and the method to be pursued in studying man, can now no longer be regarded as the same. The physical method observes, but the psychological method swings itself higher than this, and observes observation. Thus psychology, or philosophy properly so called, commences precisely at the point where physical science ends. When the phenomena of nature have been observed and classified, the science of nature is ended. But when the phenomena of man, his feelings, intellectual, and other states, have been observed and classified, true psychology has yet to begin; we have yet to observe our observation of these phenomena, this fact constituting, in our opinion, the only true and all-comprehensive fact which the science of man has to deal with; and only after it has been taken up and faithfully observed, can philosophy be said to have commenced.
Further, the divergence which, in consequence of this distinction, takes place at their very first step, between psychological and physical science, is prodigious. In constructing the physical sciences, man occupies the position of a mere observer. It is true that his observation of the phenomena of nature is an act, and that so far he is an agent as well as an observer; but as this act belongs to himself, and as he has here no business with any phenomena except ​those belonging to nature, he cannot legitimately take any notice of this agency. But in constructing a science of himself man occupies more than the position of a mere observer, for his observation of his own phenomena is an act, and as this act belongs to himself whom he is studying, he is bound to notice it; and, moreover, as this act of observation must be performed before it can be observed, man is thus compelled to be an agent before he is an observer; or, in other words, must himself act or create the great phenomenon which he is to observe. This is what he never does in the case of the physical sciences; the phenomena here observed are entirely attributable to nature. Man has nothing to do with their creation. In physics, therefore, man is, as we have said, a mere observer. But in philosophy he has first of all to observe his own phenomena (this he does in the free act of his ordinary consciousness): he thus creates by his own agency a new fact, the fact, namely, of his observation of these phenomena; and then he has to subject this new fact to a new and systematic observation, which may be called the reflective or philosophic consciousness.
The observation of our own natural phenomena (observatio simplex) is the act of consciousness; the observation of the observation of our own phenomena (observatio duplex), or, in other words, the observation of consciousness, is philosophy. Such are our leading views on the subject of the method ​of psychology, as contradistinguished from the method of physical science.
II. The act of consciousness, or the fact of our observation of our own natural modifications, having been thus pointed out as the great phenomena to be observed in psychology, we next turned our attention to the contents and origin of this act, subdividing our inquiry into three distinct questions: When does consciousness come into manifestation? How does it come into manifestation? and, What are the consequences of its coming into manifestation?
III. In discussing the question, When does Consciousness come into manifestation? we found that man is not born conscious; and that therefore consciousness is not a given or ready-made fact of humanity. In looking for some sign of its manifestation, we found that it has come into operation whenever the human being has pronounced the word "I," knowing what this expression means. This word is a highly curious one, and quite an anomaly, inasmuch as its true meaning is utterly incommunicable by one being to another, endow the latter with as high a degree of intelligence as you please. Its origin cannot be explained by imitation or association. Its meaning cannot be taught by any conceivable process; but must be originated absolutely by the being using it. This is not the case with any other form of speech. For instance, if it be asked what is a table? a person may point to one and say, ​"that is a table." But if it be asked, what does "I" mean? and if the same person were to point to himself and say, "this is 'I'," this would convey quite a wrong meaning unless the inquirer, before putting the question, had originated within himself the notion "I," for it would lead him to suppose, and to call that other person "I." This is a strange paradox, but a true one; that a person would be considered mad, unless he applied to himself a particular name, which if any other person were to apply to him, he would be considered mad.
Neither are we to suppose that this word "I" is a generic word, equally applicable to us all, like the word "man"; for, if it were, then we should all be able to call each other "I," just as we can all call each other with propriety "man."
Further, the consideration of this question, by conducting us to inquiries of a higher interest, and of a real significance, enables us to get rid of most or all of the absurd and unsatisfactory speculations connected with that unreal substance which nobody knows anything about, called "mind." If mind exists at all, it exists as much when man is born as it ever does afterwards; therefore, in the development of mind, no new form of humanity is evolved. But no man is born "I "; yet, after a time, every man becomes "I." Here, then, is a new form of humanity displayed; and, therefore, the great question is, What is the genesis of this new form of man? What are the facts of its origin? How does it come ​into manifestation? Leave "mind" alone, ye metaphysicians, and answer us that.
IV. It is obvious that the new form of humanity, called "I," is evolved out of the act of consciousness; and this brings us to the second problem of our inquiry, How is the act itself of consciousness evolved? A severe scrutiny of the act of consciousness showed us, that this act, or, in other words, that our observation of our own phenomena, is to a certain extent a displacement or suspension of them; that these phenomena (our sensations, passions, and other modifications) are naturally of a monopolising tendency; that is to say, they tend to keep us unconscious, to engross us with themselves: while, on the contrary, consciousness or our observation of them, is of a contrary tendency, and operates to render us unsentient, unpassionate, &c. We found, from considering facts, that consciousness on the one hand, and all our natural modifications on the other, existed in an inverse ratio to one another; that wherever the natural modification is plus, the consciousness of it is minus, and vice versa. We thus found that the great law regulating the relationship between the conscious man (the "I ") and the natural man was the law of antagonism; and thus consciousness ​was found to be an act of antagonism; or (in order to render our deduction more distinct) we shall rather say was found to be evolved out of an act of antagonism put forth against the modifications of the natural man.
But out of what is this act of antagonism evolved? What are its grounds? Let us consider what it is put forth against. All man's natural modifications are derivative, and this act is put forth against all these natural modifications, there is not one of them which is not more or less impaired by its presence. It cannot, therefore, be itself derivative, for if it were, it would be an acting against itself, which is absurd. Being, therefore, an act which opposes all that is derivative in man, it cannot be itself derivative, but must be underived; that is, must be an absolutely original, primary, and free act. This act of antagonism, therefore, is an act of freedom; or, we shall rather say, is evolved out of freedom. Its ground and origin is freedom.
But what are the explanatory grounds of freedom? We have but to ascertain what is the great law of bondage throughout the universe, and, in its opposite, we shall find the law or grounds of freedom. The law of bondage throughout the universe is the law of cause and effect. In the violation, then, of this ​law, true freedom must consist. In virtue of what, then, do we violate this law of bondage or causality? In virtue of our human will, which refuses to submit to the modifications which it would impose upon us. Human will thus forms the ground of freedom, and deeper than this we cannot sink. We sum up our deduction thus: The "I" is evolved out of the act of consciousness, the act of consciousness is evolved out of an act of antagonism put forth against all the derivative modifications of our being: This act of antagonism is evolved out of freedom; and freedom is evolved out of will; and thus we make will the lowest foundation-stone of humanity.
Thus have we resolved, though we fear very imperfectly, the great problem, How does Consciousness come into operation? the law of antagonism, established by facts, between the natural and the conscious man, being the principle upon which the whole solution rests.
V. In discussing the consequences of the act of consciousness, we endeavoured to show how this act at once displaces our sensations, and, in the vacant room, places the reality called "I," which, but for this active displacement of the sensations, would have had no sort of existence. We showed that the complex phenomenon in which this displacing and placing is embodied, is perception. The "I," therefore, is a consequence of the act of consciousness; and a brighter phase of it is presented when the state which the act of consciousness encounters and ​displaces is a passion instead of being a sensation. We showed that morality originates in the antagonism here put forth. But we have already expressed ourselves as succinctly and clearly as we are able on these points; and, therefore, we now desist from adding any more touches to this very imperfect Outline of the Philosophy of Human Consciousness.
* ↑ In order to show that the accompanying dialogue is not directed against imaginary errors in science, and also with the view of rendering the scope of our observations more obvious and clear, we will quote one or two specimens of the current metaphysical language of the day. The whole substance of Dr Brown's philosophy and scientific method is contained in the following passage:—"That which perceives," says he (namely, mind), "is a part of nature as truly as the objects of perception which act on it, and as a part of nature is itself an object of investigation purely physical. It is known to us only in the successive changes which constitute the variety of our feelings; but the regular sequence of these changes admits of being traced, like the regularity which we are capable of discovering in the successive organic changes of our bodily frame."—(Physiology of the Mind, p 1, 2.) "There is," says Dr Cook of St Andrews, "a mental constitution, through which we communicate with the world around us."—(Synopsis of Lectures, p. 4.) We could quote a hundred other instances of this kind of language, but these two are sufficient for our purpose. Now, what is the obvious and irresistible inference which such language as this forces upon us? or, rather, what is the plain meaning of the words we have quoted? It is this, that we possess a mind just as we possess a body; that is to say, that man consists of three elements, mind, body, and himself possessing both. This view of the subject may be disclaimed and protested against in words, but still it continues virtually to form the leading idea of the whole of our popular psychology. We may, indeed, be told that "mind" and ourselves are identical, but this statement is never acted upon to any real purpose, this fact is never sifted with any degree of attention. If it were, then "mind" would be altogether annihilated as an object of investigation. This is what we have endeavoured to make out in the chapter which this note accompanies.
* ↑ Of course it is not merely meant that mind is not an object of sense. Far more than this: it is altogether inconceivable as an object of thought.
* ↑ Job xxviii. 7, 8, 14.
* ↑ That is, Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity; or, in other words, unless it should appear that the phenomena observed cannot possibly inhere in any already admitted entity. Dugald Stewart's reasoning on this subject is curious, not because the argument, or that which it regards, is of the smallest interest or importance in itself, but as exhibiting the grossest misconception of the question that ever was palmed off upon an unwary reader. "Matter" must be owned to be the first in the field. We are conversant and intimate with it long before we know anything about "mind." When the immaterialist or mentalist, then, comes forward, it is his business either to displace matter entirely, substituting "mind" in the place of it; or else to rear up alongside of it, this, the antagonist entity for which he contends. If he attempts the former, he involves himself in a mere play of words. If he maintains that all the material phenomena are in fact mental phenomena, he does nothing but quibble. The author of the 'Natural History of Enthusiasm' has grievously mistaken the potency of this position. [See The physical (!) theory of another life, p. 14.] It is plain, we say, that in this case the immaterialist resolves himself into a mere innovator upon the ordinary language of men. He merely gives the name of "mental" to that which other people have chosen to call "material." The thing remains precisely what it was. If, on the other hand, he embraces the Latter of the alternatives offered to him, and, without supplanting matter, maintains "mind" to be co-ordinate with it, then he is bound to show a necessity for his "multiplication of entities." He is bound to prove that the phenomena with which he is dealing are incompatible with, or cannot possibly inhere in, the entity already in the field. But how is such a proof possible or even conceivable? Let us see what the immaterialist makes of it. It is his object to prove by reasoning that a certain series of phenomena cannot inhere in a certain admitted substance "matter," and must therefore be referred to a different substance "mind." Now all reasoning is either a priori or a posteriori. If he reasons in the former of these ways, he forms a priori such a conception of matter that it would involve a contradiction to suppose that the phenomena occasioning the dispute should inhere in it; he first of all fixes for himself a notion of matter, as of something with which certain phenomena are incompatible, something in which they cannot inhere; and then from this conception he deduces the inference that these phenomena are incompatible with matter, or cannot inhere in it—a petitio principii almost too glaring to require notice. Or does he reason upon this question a posteriori? In this case he professes to found upon no a priori conception of matter, but to be guided entirely by experience. But experience can only inform us what phenomena do or do not inhere in any particular substance; and can tell us nothing about their abstract compatibility or incompatibility with it. We may afterwards infer such compatibility or incompatibility if we please, but we must first of all know what the fact is, or else we may be abstractly arguing a point one way, while the facts go to establish it in the opposite way. In reasoning, therefore, from experience, the question is not, Can certain phenomena inhere in a particular substance, or can they not? but we must first of all ask and determine this: Do they inhere in it, or do they not? And this, then, now comes to be the question with which the immaterialist, reasoning a posteriori, has to busy himself. Is the negative side of this question to be admitted to him without proof? Are we to permit him to take for granted that these phenomena do not inhere in matter? Most assuredly not. He must prove this to be the case, or else he accomplishes nothing; and yet how is it possible for him to prove it? He can only prove it by showing the phenomena to be incompatible with matter; for if he once admits the phenomena to be compatible with matter, then his postulatum of mind is at once disqualified from being advanced. He has given up the attempt to make manifest that necessity for "mind," which it was incumbent upon him to show. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to the very life of his argument that he should stickle for the incompatibility of these phenomena with matter. To prove that these phenomena do not inhere in matter, he must show that they cannot inhere in it: This is the only line of argument which is open to him. But then how is he to make good this latter point? We have already seen the inevitable and powerless perplexity in which he Lands himself in attempting it. He must, as before, adopt one of two courses. He must either recur to his old a priori trick of framing for himself, first of all such a conception of matter, that it would be contradictory to suppose the phenomena capable of inhering in it, and then of deducing their incompatibility or contradictoriness from this conception—a mode of proof which certainly shows that the phenomena cannot inhere in his conception of matter, but which by no means proves that they cannot inhere in matter itself. Or he may follow, as before, an a posteriori course. But here, too, we have already shown that such a procedure is impossible, without his taking for granted the very point in dispute. We have already shown that, in adhering to experience, the immaterialist must first of all go and ascertain the fact respecting these phenomena—do they inhere in matter, or do they not—before he is entitled to predicate that they cannot inhere in it, lest while he is steering his argument in one direction, the fact should be giving him the lie in another. We sum up our statement thus: He wishes to prove that certain phenomena cannot inhere in matter. In proving this he is brought to postulate the fact that these phenomena do not inhere in matter; and then, when pressed for a proof of this latter fact, he can only make it good by reasserting that they cannot inhere in matter, in support of which he is again forced to recur to his old statement that they do not inhere in matter, an instance of circular reasoning of the most perfect kind imaginable. Thus the immaterialist has not given us, and cannot possibly give as, any argument at all upon the subject He has not given us the proof which the "necessity" of the case called for, and which, in admitting the principle of parsimony, he pledged himself to give as the only ground upon which his postulation of a new substance could be justified. He has, after all, merely supplied us with the statement that certain phenomena do not inhere in matter, which is quite sufficiently met on the part of the materialist, by the counter statement that these phenomena do inhere in matter. In struggling to supply us with more than this, his reason is strangled in the trammels of an inexorable petitio principii, from which it cannot shake itself loose: while the materialist looks on perfectly quiescent. All this, however, Mr Stewart totally misconceives. He speaks as if the materialist (of course we mean such as understand and represent the argument rightly) took, or were called upon to take, an active part in this discussion. He imagines that the onus probandi, the task of proving the phenomena to inhere in matter, and of disproving "mind," lay upon his shoulders. He talks of the "scheme of materialism" ('Elements,' p. 4), as if the scheme of materialism, supposing that there is one, did not exist, merely because the scheme of immaterialism cannot, as we have seen, bring itself into existence. If the immaterialist cannot (as we have proved he cannot, logically) set up the entity of mind as a habitation for certain houseless phenomena, will he not permit the materialist charitably to give them shelter in the existing entity of matter? Surely this is a stretch of philosophical intolerance, on the part of the immaterialist, not to be endured. He cannot house these phenomena himself, nor will he permit others to house them. Before concluding this note, which has already run too far, we may point out to the logical student another instance of Mr Stewart's vicious logic contained in the paragraph referred to. We will be short "Mind and matter," says he, "considered as objects of human study, are essentially different," that is, are different in their essence. Now turn to the last line of this paragraph, and read: "We are totally ignorant of the essence of either." That is to say, being totally ignorant of the essence of two things, we are yet authorised in saying that these two things are essentially different, or different in their essence. Now, difference being in the opinion of most people the condition of knowledge, or, in other words, our knowledge of a thing being based upon the difference observed between it and other things, and our ignorance of a thing being generally the consequence of its real or apparent identity with other things, it appears to us that our ignorance of the essence of these two things (if it did not altogether disqualify us from speaking) should rather have induced us to say that they were essentially the same; or, at any rate, could never justify us in predicating their essential difference as Mr Stewart has done. If we know nothing at all about their essence, how can we either affirm or deny anything with respect to that essence? (From all that we have here said, it will not be inferred by any rational thinker that we are a materialist, and just as little that we are an immaterialist. In point of fact we are neither; and if the reader does not understand how this can be, we can only explain it by repeating that we regard the whole question in itself as silly and frivolous in the extreme, and only worthy of notice as marking certain curious windings of thought in the history of logic.
* ↑ Dr Chalmers has a long chapter in his Moral Philosophy (Chap. II.) on the effect which consciousness has in obliterating the state or mind upon which it turns its eye. But to what account does he turn his observation of this fact? He merely notices it as attaching a peculiar difficulty to the study of the phenomena of mind. It does indeed. It attaches so peculiar a difficulty to the study of these phenomena, that we wonder the Doctor was not led by this consideration to perceive that these phenomena were no longer the real and important facts of the science; but that the fact of consciousness, together with the consequences it brought along with it, and nothing else, truly was so. Again, on the other hand, this fact attaches so peculiar a facility to the study of morality, that we are surprised the Doctor did not avail himself of its assistance in explaining the laws and character of duty. But how does Dr Chalmers "get quit of this difficulty"? If the phenomena of mind disappear as soon as consciousness looks at them, how do you think he obviates the obstacle in the way of science? Why, by emptying human nature of consciousness altogether; or, as he informs us, "by adopting Dr Thomas Brown's view of consciousness who makes this act to be," as Dr Chalmers says, "a brief act of memory." Whether this means that consciousness is a short act of memory, or an act of memory following shortly after the "state" remembered, we are at a loss to say; but at any rate, we here have consciousness converted into memory. For we presume that there is no difference in kind, no distinction at all between an act of memory which is brief, and an act of memory which is not brief. Thus consciousness is obliterated. Man is deprived of the notion of himself. He no longer is a self at all, or capable of any self-reference. From having been a person, he becomes a mere thing; and is left existing and going through various acts of intelligence, just like the animals around him, which exist and perform many intelligent acts without being aware of their existence, without possessing any personality, or taking any account to themselves of their accomplishments.
* ↑ 'Religio Medici,' § 15.
* ↑ It will not do to say that man is capable of forming the notion expressed by the word "I," in consequence of the reason with which he has been endowed, and that the parrot and other animals are not thus capable of forming it in consequence of their inferior degree of intelligence. We have treated of this point at some length in the first part of our discussion. Let us now, however, make one remark on the subject It is plain that an increase or a deficiency of reason can only cause the creature in which it operates to accomplish its ends with greater or less exactness and perfection. Reason in itself runs straight, however much its volume may be augmented. Is it said that this consciousness, this self-reference, this reflex fact denoted by the word "I," is merely a peculiar inflection which reason takes in man, and which it does not take in animals? True; but the smallest attention shows us that reason only takes this peculiar inflection in consequence of falling in with the fact of consciousness: so that instead of reason accounting for consciousness, instead of consciousness being the derivative of reason, we find that it is consciousness which meets reason, and gives it that peculiar turn we have spoken of, rendering it and all its works referable to ourselves. It is not, then, reason which gives rise to consciousness, but it is the prior existence of consciousness which makes reason human reason.
* ↑ 'Physiology of the Mind,' p. 125-6.
* ↑ We are aware that Dr Brown and others have endeavoured to teach the doctrine of causation as a simple relation of antecedence and consequence, emptying our notion of cause of the idea of efficiency, that is, of the element which constitutes its very essence. But, unlike Hume, who adopted the same views and never swerved from them, but carried them forth into all their consequences, they never remain consistent with themselves for ten consecutive pages. They keep constantly resuming the idea they profess to have abjured; as, for instance, in their admission with respect to the efficiency or power of the Divine will. Therefore, their doctrine, whatever it may be, does not in any degree affect the line of argument followed out in the text, addressed though that argument is to those who entertain the common notion of causation, as, no doubt, Dr Brown himself did, however different a one he may have professed.
* ↑ P. 69.
* ↑ "The false facts of metaphysics" ought to form no inconsiderable chapter in the history of philosophy. Those specified are but a few of them; but they are all that we have room for at present. To state, almost in one wont, the fundamental error we have noticed in the text we should say, that the whole perversion and falsity of the philosophy of man are owing to our commencing with a substance, "mind," and not with an act, the act or fact of consciousness.
* ↑ Hence the truth of the common saying, Poeta nascitur, non fit; an adage which is directly reversed in the cue of the philosopher, Philosophus fit, non nascitur.
* ↑ Miltoni Poemata. Elegia quinta. In adventum Veris.
* ↑ The statement that we become acquainted with the existence of an external world through, and in consequence of, our sensations, besides its falsehood, embodies perhaps the boldest petitio principii upon record. How are we assured of the reality of an external world? asks the philosophy of scepticism. Through the senses, answers the philosophy of faith. But are not the senses themselves a part of the external universe? and is not this answer, therefore, equivalent to saying that we become assured of the reality of the external universe through the external universe? or, in other words, is not this solution of the question a direct taking-for-granted of the very matter in dispute? It may be frivolous to raise such a question, but it is certainly far more frivolous to resolve it in this manner, the manner usually practised by our Scottish philosophers.
* ↑ ὕστερον πρότερον—a last-first.
* ↑ Some curious considerations present themselves in connection with this subject. Human compositions may be divided into two great classes. In the first, the commencement is made from feelings, ideas, or realities. These beget and clothe themselves in words. These precede the words. The workers in this order are, in poetry, the true poets. But the words having been employed and established, it is found that these of themselves give birth to feelings and ideas which may be extracted out of them without recourse being had to any other source. Hence a second class of composers arises, in whom words precede ideas — a class who, instead of construing ideas into words, construe words into ideas, and these again into other words. This class commence with words, making these feel and think for them. Of this class are the poetasters, the authors of odes to "Imagination," "Hope," &c., which are merely written because such words as "hope," "imagination," &c, have been established. These are the employers of the hereditary language of poetry. In philosophy the case is precisely the same. An Aristotle, a Leibnitz, or a Kant, having come by certain realities of humanity, through an original exertion, and not through the instrumentality of words, makes use of a certain kind of phraseology to denote these realities. An inferior generation of philosophers, finding this phraseology made to their hand, adopt it; and, without looking for the realities themselves independently of the words, they endeavour to lay hold of the realities solely through the words; they seek to extract the realities out of the words, and, consequently, their labours are in a different subject-matter, as dead and worthless as those of the poetaster. Both classes of imitators work in an inverted order. They seek the living among the dead: that is, they seek it where it never can be found. Let us ask whether one inevitable result, one disadvantage of the possession of a highly cultivated language, is not this: that, being fraught with numberless associations, it enables poetasters and false philosophers to abound, inasmuch as it enables them to make words stand in place of things and do the business of thoughts?
* ↑ Above, p. 113.
* ↑ Sir James Mackintosh, and others, have attempted to establish a distinction between "mental" and "moral" science, founded on an alleged difference between fact and duty. They state, that it is the office of the former science to teach us what is (quid est), and that it is the office of the latter to teach us what ought to be (quid oportet). But this discrimination vanishes into nought upon the slightest reflection; it either incessantly confounds and obliterates itself, or else it renders moral science an unreal and nugatory pursuit. For, let us ask, does the quid oportet ever become the quid est? does what ought to be ever pass into what is, or, in other words, is duty ever realised as fact? If it is, then the distinction is at an end. The oportet has taken upon itself the character of the est. Duty, in becoming practical, has become a fact. It no longer merely points out something which ought to be, it also embodies something which is. And thus it is transformed into the very other member of the discrimination from which it was originally contradistinguished; and thus the distinction is rendered utterly void; while "mental" and "moral" science, if we must affix these epithets to philosophy, lapse into one. On the other band, does the quid oportet never, in any degree, become the quid est, does duty never pass into fact? Then is the science of morals a visionary, a baseless, and an aimless science, a mere querulous hankering after what can never be. In this case, there is plainly no real or substantial science, except the science of facts, the Science which teaches us the quid est. To talk now of a science of the quid oportet, would be to make use of unmeaning words.
* ↑ "You may understand," says S. T. Coleridge, "by insect, life in sections." By this he means that each insect has several centres of vitality, and not merely one; or that it has no organic unity, or at least no such decided organic unity as that which man possesses.
* ↑ 'Moral Philosophy,' pp. 62, 63.
* ↑ Lord Bacon calls revenge a species of wild justice.
* ↑ Our leading tenet may be thus contrasted with those of some other systems in a very few words. The Lockian School teaches, that man becomes conscious, or "I," in consequence of his sensations, passions, and other modifications; the Platonic and Kantian Schools teach that man becomes "I," not in consequence, but by occasion, of his sensations, passions, &c.; and this is true, but not the whole truth. According to our doctrine, man becomes "I," or a conscious Being, in spite of his sensations, passions, &c. Sensation, &c., exist for the purpose of keeping down consciousness, and consciousness exists for the purpose of keeping down sensation, &c. &c.