Sympathetic Vibratory Physics - It's a Musical Universe!

Sketch of A Philosophy

Part I, II, III, IV.

 

CHAPTER III.

 

 

CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS RELATION TO PURE INTELLIGENCE OR UNDISTURBED INTUITION.

 

 

It is often maintained that consciousness, taken as it naturally expresses itself, is an infallible criterion of truth. Such maxims as "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," have been applied to consciousness; and in a word, it is often maintained that if the affirmation of consciousness are to be subjected to criticism, our case is hopeless, for we have no other criterion to go by that is not more open to suspicion.

 

Now, doubtless the legitimate authority of consciousness is very great; but, at the same time, it is certain that it bases all its deliverances upon the "I," the "me," the "EGO," and is, indeed, precisely the EGO expressing itself in thought. Plainly, therefore, it would not be safe to assume, previously to inquiry, that the affirmation of consciousness are always, and objectively as well as subjectively, infallible; for, undoubtedly, the EGO itself is not universally trustworthy in an intellectual point of view. On the contrary, as has been already hinted, the EGO tends inordinately to assert itself. It is also averse to law. We ought not, therefore, to take for granted that it will represent other things, all of which are expressions of law, as they really are. We ought not, somnolently, to accept consciousness as universally trustworthy, and to hold it to be an organ of ultimate truth in every field in which we may bring it into play, though possibly it may pretend to give us information as to what is there. Consciousness, as it exists in us, may possibly be a provisional form of intelligence merely, beautifully adapted, perhaps, to the uses of this life, and most excellent and trustworthy when so applied; and yet, possibly, it may not be excellent and trustworthy universally,-as, for instance, when applied to matters of mere speculation, which lie wholly out of the way of our calling in this world, and on which consciousness was never designed to instruct us.

 

Something of this kind there seems, at all events, good reason to suspect; for in all that relates to common life consciousness is above reproach. But it is no less certain that when we apply it to some transcendental themes, it throws the process of thinking into perplexity. Contradictions refusing to be reconciled inevitably emerge; and consciousness is obliged to record against itself as an organ of truth the sad sentence of felo de se.

 

Such are those contradictory solutions of all the great problems in philosophy which Kant has signalized under the name of the paralogisms and antinomies of pure reason. To us they are only the antilogies of consciousness. But they are at present exerting such a powerful influence in prescribing limits to belief, and, indeed, in denouncing the pursuit of all that has hitherto been held to constitute philosophy, that if we could arrive at a right understanding of them it would be well worth the pains; especially if it should come out that silence may be happily made with regard to them, and important truth be cleared of the embarrassments into which they throw it. Now, by our becoming acquainted with what we are disposed to call the structure of consciousness, we think that this may be accomplished. Let us then bestow here a few words on the structure of consciousness.

 

For this, however, we are not prepared, if we proceed to the enquiry under misconceptions of the nature of Reality, whether material or mental, or both. Now, that we shall do this is probable; for it is not blank ignorance,-it is misconceptions, now, in every field, that prevent knowledge. A discovery, now, is usually no more than a correction. These remarks apply to consciousness. We cannot think of it otherwise than as a special function of some kind of Reality, either material or mental; and it is manifestly desirable that we should not think of it under misconception as to what matter or what mind is. Yet, if we be not on our guard, it is most likely that we shall do both. As to matter, for instance-the least atom or element of matter, are we not given to thinking of it as if it were something very small and very solid, like a millet seed or a very small shot, consisting nothing or more space, with attractions and repulsions on the outside? And as to mind or spirit, do we not usually rest satisfied with simply holding it to be something quite different from matter? In a word, in order to attain a conception of mind or spirit, do we not take our departure from a certain conception of matter? If then that conception is a complete misconception; and if we reach a conception of mind at all, what can it be but a double-deep misconception?

 

Such a conception of the material element as has just been stated stands in need of being radically reformed, or rather, indeed, of being discharged altogether. The conception of a small ball of continuous or solid matter which suddenly stops at the periphery, where there is nothing beyond, is a state of things which violates the law of continuity to the utmost, and which is of no use whatever for explaining the phenomena of physics and chemistry. It also gives rise to the notion of an action in distance, a misconception which is beset with all kinds of difficulties, yet which, if it is admitted at all, must be admitted to be a fact in physics. It only gratifies the demand of the imagination for a definite form for everything. But in order to find a basis for natural philosophy which can prove in any degree satisfactory to reason, we must disregard this demand. Instead of thinking of an atom or element of matter as a small shot, we must think of it as a centre of force, with isodynamic boundaries indeed, which are definite forms, but with a field of action so extensive that no limits can be assigned to it. Its isodynamic boundaries may give it, with respect to light, a visible form, with regard to contact with other matter like itself, an inpenetrable or palpable form, and so on-thus giving imagery so far, and satisfying the imagination so far; but as to the entire sphere of its possible being and acting, it would not be safe to affirm that it is less extensive than the universe itself. With regard to gravitation, for instance, who will venture to affirm otherwise? Now, gravitation is one of the eminent endowments of the material element.

 

By such a conception of matter as I have here proposed, following Boscovich and others, the way is also paved for a conception of mind or spirit also. For spirit is obviously a centre of force, or rather, let us say, a centre of power, inasmuch as, in the spiritual Being, it is no longer the vis inertia merely that we have to do with, that is, the ability to rest as it is resting, or to drive as it is driven. Spirit is characterized by the vis voluntatis, self directive power seeing its own way.

 

But let us not forget that in the present day the existence of mind or spirit as a reality, which may possibly exist in a state of separation from matter, is very often boldly denied. The favourite view of the present day is, that mental phenomena are related to bodily structures as functions merely are to their organs. It is said that the brain secretes thought just as the liver secretes bile. But it is right to remark, that between these two views, though Materialism invokes the aid of both, there is a notable difference. No doubt the liver functions, and the result of that functioning, when normal, is bile. But the functioning is one thing, and the bile is another; and bile, though a product of the functioning of the liver, is no less substantial than the liver itself; and it the mind be related to the brain as bile is to the liver, then in the brain there must be produced a thinking substance. Now, of this substance, whatever its nature besides, it may be confidently affirmed, that in order that it may be capable of thinking, it must not remain in the molecular state, or its particles in juxtaposition merely, like those of the brain itself. It must be completely unified. It must be a true unity. There is nothing, so far as we can see, that is more indispensable to all the phenomena of thought than the unity of the thinking substance or principle. This materialistic illustration, then, which appeals to the liver to explain the phenomena of the brain, when followed out with accuracy, leads to a view which is not materially different from the world - old doctrine of an undecomposable or indestructible, and therefore immortal soul in man. That it should place the brain in the position of the mother and nurse of the soul, instead of assigning some higher origin to our immortal part, if an evil at all, is fully compensated by this scientific advantage, that it explains how the mind should always be co-ordinate in endowment and energy with the brain to which it owen its being, and how in its actual functioning at any time it should always correspond with the state of the currents of nervous energy which actuate the brain at that time.

 

The determined materialist therefore, when considerate, does not go so far as to say that mental phenomena are secretions of the brain. He says only that they are functions, thus leaving the materialistic hypothesis in a less definite, and, therefore, a less palpably erroneous form. But it is one of the first principles of natural philosophy, that the mere functioning or acting of that which is itself a purely mechanical apparatus can only issue in a merely mechanical resultant, This, the general theorem of the composition of forces, which is the very basis of mechanical science, secures. For all the motions and pressures applied or combined in any mechanical system the science of mechanics either accounts, or holds itself accountable, and that as motions and pressures, and not other things. The resultant may, indeed, display great variety in the forms of the motions and pressures of which it consists-a variety not to be found in the component forces. The Rectilinear (gravitation, impact) may give in its resultant the Reciprocating (heat), or a mode of motion in which both the rectilinear and the reciprocating are combined (electricity), and vice versa. But any one of these modes of force is just as truly mechanical as any other, and as far distant from thought and feeling. And all of them are utterly incompatible with that liberty or self-directive power of which every one is intimately conscious as an attribute of the Principle which thinks and acts within himself.

 

In order to impart a scientific character to the materialistic hypothesis as to the relation between mind and matter, it is necessary to assume that every element of matter, or at least the organic elements, carry always along with them an aura of the spiritual. Nor that only. It is necessary to assume, further, that in the focus of the mind-producing organic action of the brain, these auras become confluent into a true unity of some kind; for of that (whatever it may be) which is the basis of mental phenomena, unity, as has been already stated, cannot but be a most indefeasible characteristic. But here again, by this other change, on the materialistic hypothesis, we are thrown back on the old doctrine of a soul in the body. And, indeed, it is well that on this, or on some similar belief, we should be always thrown back; for without some such ground to go upon, philosophy is not worth the pursuit, or rather the conception of a philosophy is a mistake. Without some such ground philosophy is a thing that one ought not to waste time upon. In that case, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we cease to exist.

 

But what of consciousness, its genesis, structure, and conditions of existence? That is the theme that we proposed for inquiry here.

 

Now, here, in answer, we may immediately say that consciousness is obviously the reflex or foil or doubling of simple perception. It therefore belongs to the sphere of Perception.

 

But what shall we say of perception, and of knowledge which is its orderly aggregate retained in the mind?

 

Shall we say that it is something so altogether singular and, SUI GENERIS, that it is impossible to conceive it as in the least degree resembling anything else at all-not even that which is perceived and known. Or, on the contrary, shall we say that being and knowing are in their ground one and the same thing?

 

These views differ from each other toto caelo, and yet both of them have been, and still are extensively entertained. Now, surely there is comfort in this. They are so wide asunder that the truth is sure to be found within their embrace. It must lie somewhere between them. Keeping both in mind then, let us endeavour to discover the truth.

 

And for this purpose, let us postulate as existing what men in general believe to exist, namely, God, the world, and the soul. Or; if this be objected to, let us postulate the existence of infinite and of finite Being merely. Or; if this be still objected to, let us postulate the existence of Being merely. Or; if even this be objected to, inasmuch as it may be said that being is but a name for power when viewed as existing statically, then let us content ourselves with postulating as the only beings and things in existence, various powers or potentialities distributed so that they may possibly exist in relation with each other, their numbers and kinds being left to be as they may happen to be, without any assumption by us on these heads. Let us only assume distributed existence, its elements such that there is a relation between them. Is it possible to assume a more modest basis for our investigation than this?

 

And yet, already, have we not possibly here a product of mental analysis merely, rather than a conception of that which exists? Are we safe in looking at beings or things on the hand, and at relation on the other, as if these were really two things distinct from one another? May not the beings or things be such as to secure and provide in their very existence for their relations with each other also? Yes; such a provision seems implied in the very idea of that whose destiny from the first is to constitute a cosmos. For; an element which is to be essentially cosmical, must not only be essentially real-it must be essentially relational also. Our hypothesis, then, so far simplifies itself. We do not assume beings or things on the one hand, and relation imposed upon them on the other hand. We only assume beings or things distributed so as to leave or have a relation or relations, subsisting in and among themselves, that is, some property or properties which are given when the Beings or things themselves are given, and which makes them to be such that they reach from one to another, placing the whole in a relation of reciprocity.

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Self-Manifesting Power

 

Let us, then, take a survey of the known properties of things in general, with a view to discover wether there be any property which is universal, and which is at the same time essentially relational, that is, such as serves to unite all Beings and things into a whole or system.

 

And here gravitation at once suggests itself; but no sooner suggested than it must obviously be given up. Gravitation holds good universally in reference to the material world alone.

 

But if not gravitation, may not light, then, be the cosmical bond which we are in search of? Light is an effluence, or influence, or both, so extensive that it is commonly believed that it brings the fixed stars into relationship with one another; and it is certain that it brings them into relation with our eyes at distances so great that there is no evidence of gravitation operating to the same distances, but rather the reserve. May not light, then, be the universal or cosmical principle of relationship which we are now seeking? But no; light will not answer,-at least when considered as a physical phenomenon, that is, as a mode of motion propagated in the universal ether; for that motion may cease.

 

At any rate, there is darkness as well as light. In a word, light, taking the word in its physical meaning, is only a contingent phenomenon. If the whole universe were in a state of perfect repose there could be no light.

 

SELF-MANIFESTING-POWER.

 

But though not as a mechanical action, may not light be a symbol of what we are seeking-the copy in space and time of something which lies deeper somewhere in the nature of things? This is worthy of inquiry; and to this inquiry the progress of our thought invites. We remark, then, that the function of light is to make manifest, or, more shortly, to manifest. Now, are we not here already within hail of what we are seeking? We are certainly in the same field as that of perception and consciousness. And may we not safely say of Beings and Things in general, that they manifest themselves not merely in virtue of that motion which the æther propagates, but in virtue of a property which attaches to their very substance as destined to constitute a cosmos? May we not say that all Being is essentially relational in this respect, at least, that it is self-manifesting to other Being-not, indeed, as outwardly perceptible object to all other Being-not as outwardly perceptible object to such defective recipients of self-manifesting power as we ourselves are-but self-manifesting, inwardly or outwardly, or in some way or other and more or less, to all other Beings and things, and perfectly self-manifesting to a Being who possesses perfect perceptivity, such as God. Yes; self-manifesting power is an essential attribute of everything-that exists. This is proved by the very conditions under which alone existence can be admitted by us. In forming a notion of any Reality, however much we may strip it of all its other properties, we must leave it in possession of possible perceptibility, or a self-manifesting power. The moment we deprive reality of possible perceptibility it can be held as a Reality no longer.

 

But here, let it also be remembered that this objectivity is such as to imply at the same time a corresponding receptivity. The one property is, indeed, the complement of the other, or rather they are as face and back of the same mode of action. Self extensiveness, impressiveness, self-manifesting power, or perceptibility, on the one hand, and impressibility, receptivity, or perceptivity on the other, are always co-ordinate.

 

Moreover, this view of Being, which is thus given internally as one of the necessities of pure though when bestowing itself on pure Being, is fully verified by external observation-not indeed as direct observation in all cases, but as legitimate reasoning from what may be observed. Observation warrants the inference that every being and thing, all reality, be what it may, is a self-manifesting or an extensively impressive potentiality. When, even with regard to ourselves, we take into account the many impediments that are in the way, the extent to which the universe manifests itself to us is altogether wonderful. Thus, though we are localized in space in a small planetary orbit, though the æther comes between us and distant objects with its alternate fits of light and darkness, and though the percipient mind in the present form of our Being is enclosed in a material framework, necessitating a peculiar apparatus (that of the senses) to prevent our being wholly blinded by the overpowering impressiveness or immediate glare of our organic environment which wholly takes possession of our perceptivity, still Nature manifests herself to us in a vastness which transcends the reach of our minds.

 

The self-manifesting power also, which is the counterpart of this, that, namely, of mind to matter, is very certain. From the fact which has just been mentioned, indeed, that is, the enclosure of the mind in a frame, into which it is in a manner fused, and in which it is dynamically bound, the sphere of the mind's self-manifesting power outwardly is not so extensive. Its normal mode of manifesting itself outwardly is through the body, and by the use of the bodily organs. The embodied mind, the mind's eye within the encephalon, is like a mariner's compass in the hold of an iron ship. The action of the organism is so overpowering as to render equivocal, beyond the confines of the bodily frame, all evidence of the action of an outwardly self-manifesting power in the mind within. Testimonies have, indeed, been given in all ages and nations, and are extensively given in our day, to the effect that a mind, at least when it is energetic (and especially when possessed of a special art also), when bestowing itself in the form of some special volition or outward discharge of its own power, can manifest itself somehow directly to others so as to control these others and mould them into a perfect parallelism with itself. Many phenomena of unconscious imitation, of sympathy and of antipathy also, are difficult to explain except on the supposition of such a self-manifesting power in the mind as transcends the organization, and is caught otherwise than by the external senses. But normally, doubtless it is in and through the organization and its movements, as observed and interpreted by the senses, the instincts, and experience, that mind manifests itself in the present form of our being. And all the so-called biological phenomena just referred to, and especially such an interpretation of them as that now given, are disputed. Since, then, we can afford to let them pass, we need not insist upon them.

 

Suffice it to say, that within the limits of the organization, the self-manifesting power of the mind to the organism is intense. Not a thought, however abstract, but it affects the brain, nay, even the blood, and that perhaps in the whole of its course down to the renal arteries. Not a thought that has bearings upon human well being, whether our own or that of others, but it tends to embody itself in a special organic rhythm of emotion. Not a volition, but it tends to bring into action the muscles towards which it is directed. And thus Nature, though merely material, has come, in every region where civilized men reside, to be impressed by forms which indicate mental action, and, indeed, to be clothed in the vestments of humanity.

 

Similarly, looking to reality in its purely material state, where distinct perception, by general consent, no longer exists, still, to what a wonderful extent do we not find self-manifesting power, or the extensiveness of centralized being and the corresponding reality surviving! It is generally believed in science that every atom of matter manifests itself to every other atom, all awaking in each reciprocal discovery-not, indeed, as existing and posited in space, for that would be awaking perception, but as mobile in space. Nothing less than this is implied in the reciprocal tendency which all atoms are universally believed to excite in each other to move towards each other, or, as it is commonly said, to attract each other. And if there be, as has of late been more than suspected, an universal repulsiveness between the elements of material nature co-ordinate or even more extensive than their mutual attractions, this would be a still further verification of our view. Attractions and repulsions are not, indeed, perceptions, neither are they instincts, nor are they justly designated by any name which is appropriated to mental action solely. But it is important to remark here, that such affections of matter are not wholly diverse from certain affections of mind. Thus, with regard to the familiar phenomena of love and hatred, or rather of desire and aversion in the mental sphere, if the virtue of consciousness or sensibility were to go out of them, what would remain but tendencies to move towards or away from other objects-in a word, attractions and repulsions? And as to the phenomenon of perception itself in the same circumstances, that is, in the absence of sensibility, what would remain but some reciprocally assimilative action such as we see in the phenomena of electric induction, &c.? But to adduce such analogies in this place is to anticipate.

 

But in this place let us claim the reader's assent to the fact, which there is abundant evidence to support, and nothing at all to contradict, that self-manifesting power of some kind, and a corresponding impressibility or receptivity, is possessed, more or less, by every kind of substance; in other words, that every reality, be what it may in particular, is at once an extensively aggressive or impressive and an impressible or receptive being or thing. Thus it is that in awarding existence to individualized objects in different regions of space, or in anticipation of such a distribution of substance, there has been provided, in the very constitution of substance, the condition that it shall constitute a Cosmos, or at least an universe-a whole, and not a multitude merely. What the specific character of this reciprocal action between all beings and things we need not as yet inquire. For our present purpose it is sufficient to regard it merely as a self-manifesting power. And having done so, we have made our first step towards the discovery of the genesis and structure of consciousness.

 

And now, as a second step, let us apply this universal attribute of self-manifesting power and the corresponding receptivity to various orders of individualized beings, and mark the phenomena which must result in the different cases.

 

But how, it may be asked, can we, with such extreme parsimony of postulates as we are now observing, obtain different orders of beings at all? To this it is to be answered, that nothing certainly can be more parsimonious than to assume that the realities which are in the cosmos, though they are each truly individualized, differ only in this, that they consist of different quantities or intensities of substance, and are merely centres of force possessing different degrees of potentiality, some greater, some less,- that is, some more fully, some less fully endowed. Yet this suffices us.

 

These endowments, moreover we can as yet view only in their relation to the cosmical self-manifesting power of objects distributed in space, and their corresponding impressibility. But this point of view is sufficient for our present purpose. It arranges at once all the beings and things in the universe into three orders:-

 

1. Those whose individual potentiality is so feeble that what is external to themselves impresses them thoroughly, and fixes them permanently, so that their action is cosmically stereotyped, and continues the same from age to age.

2. Those whose proper or inner potentiality is so much greater, that while they are receiving impressions from without, and yielding to these impressions, and becoming fixed by them so far, they at the same time remain centrally, so to speak, unimpressed and competent to act from within.

3. Those which as to their potentiality hold an intermediate position, and by intensely impressive objects, are liable to be thoroughly impressed and stereotyped, while, under more moderate impressions, they remain centrally more or less active and free.

 

Now, it will afterwards fully appear that the first of these three orders gives us the ætherial and the material elements and the molecular sphere of being. But this we may here pass by, for there is no question as to atoms with regard to consciousness. Their modes of reciprocal manifestation produce quite other phenomena. We have here to consider the phenomena of self-manifestation only as they place into the second and third orders; and these ought plainly to be considered together, since the third is merely the link by which the second is united to the first, and the law of continuity maintained throughout all the three.

 

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

And what shall we say of that centre of force, or central force in the second and third orders, which either always or generally remains unfixed from without and in possession of its own potentiality-its own selfhood? To this the answer is the same as to the question, What do we mean by potentiality when we thing of it in itself? and what is it, let us ask, but the power of producing or of resisting change-a self-caused changefulness or resistance to change? And what is this in familiar language but life? And when viewed, not in reference to motion merely, or change in space and time merely, but in reference to thought as well, what is it but will? And when we take a view, as to self-manifesting power and impressibility, of the whole of such a living and willing Being-that is, of a Being which, though truly an unity, is yet fixed and impressed externally, so to speak, by the self-manifesting power of its surroundings, while yet it continues within free and self-changeful from moment to moment, and at the same time essentially self-manifesting, of course, like all things else in both spheres of action, what are we to expect in these circumstances but that Being shall be doubly self-manifesting! that is, self-manifesting to self; in other words, conscious of self, or self-conscious?

 

Such, according to our views, must be and is the condition of Being in general, and of the individual in particular, in which self-consciousness manifests itself, and by which that individual is put in possession of the pronoun of the first person. It implies quantity or intensity of reality, along with a true unity in the individual. And this it is which, according to our philosophy, constitutes a spirit or mind, that is, a Being in which, along with a certain amount of fixation of regard determined from without, there is also a certain amount of flow, or of that which is undetermined and free to determine itself by a self-determining power within. Grant this, and then, while it exists thus potentially determinable, but not yet determined, there may be, within the compass of the composite mental frame described, action and reaction, whence, in virtue of the self-manifesting power common to all Being, there will result, within the compass of a Being which is an unity, a manifestation of Being to Being-that is, there will result a manifestation of a Being to himself-that is, self-consciousness, the "I am" or "I," which implies "I am."

 

Here we have the steed at the starting-post, uneasy during the moment of detention, but eager for the race. And unhappy the creature that will not start, but only curves and whips himself round and round for ever in the small circle of I,-I, -I, me,-me,-me,-in mere self-consciousness.

 

ATTENTION. GENIUS.

 

What has now been described is obviously the function of self-consciousness in its culmination form, in its purest state-that state in which the percipient has succeeded in blinding himself to all his surroundings, and has for the moment become the universe to himself. Now, such a state is not normal to any Being who is a member in the universe. What is normal is, that each being a member of the universe should give his mind more or less to the object which surround him, and which are at the time presenting themselves to him-that is, that he should fix his consciousness more or less upon them. Now, when this is done, self-consciousness is modified into the well-known and all-important state of mind named ATTENTION. And the well-being of a mind consists in its ability to attend to external objects as it will, or to bestow itself otherwise as it ought. It is this which constitutes self-command-the highest of all commands.

 

Attention, however, in all its most fruitful forms of existence, is rather a continued acquiescence than a sustained volition. That kind of application which is not only a fountain for recollections and abstractions, but for new views in connection with its object-that kind of application, in short, which constitutes Genius, could never be acquired by any effort of will, however intense, or by any degree of forced attention, however sustained. It is rather a yielding to a charm in some object, and a spontaneous brooding upon that object, until out of the egg there comes of its own accord, a feathered fowl. It is more a phenomenon of self-forgetfulness than of self-command. Cosmically considered, it is indeed strength; but in him who has genius viewed as an individual there is always too much reason to apprehend that it will be associated with notable personal weaknesses or defects.

 

In purely psychical beings attention is of course constitutional. It constitutes all the provision that they have for their safety. It is then a state of watching ever ready to become emotional, as alarm, and to issue in a rapid retreat from the alarming object; and this retreat is often so well regulated, and yet so blindly done, as to look like a merely physical repulsion.

 

And, indeed, a large view of Nature leads us to infer that there is a complete series of guiding relations operating between all individualized objects in the universe. It appears to commence in universal gravitation, or rather perhaps in that still more extensive world-isolating action, or cosmical repulsion, by which the fixed stars are kept from falling in upon each other. Then receiving continual accessions of guiding power, as the beings in which it exists are more richly endowed, it gives the wonderful instincts of the lower animals; and ultimately, in ourselves, it gives distinct perception with its normally accompanying feelings. Whether it be not too bold to say, with the admirable Leibnitz, that perceptivity and its correlative perceptibility are co-extensive with the whole sphere of individualized being, may be a question; but it would be certainly more unwarrantable on the other hand to affirm that there can be no kind of vision or guidance from without, between one object and another, except that one particular kind which is known to us as perception.

 

In alarm with its reciprocal mode of action,-namely, appetite or attraction towards objects which are congenial,-we have what seems to constitute the entire mental action of hosts of sentient creatures low in the scale of animated nature. Most insects, certainly, cannot possess anything better than a very general and indistinct vision of an object; and yet that vision, such as it may be, is very effective for their conservation. When the object seen is an entomologist, for instance, approaching with a view to capture, each species of insect has its own moment of taking wing so definitely marked, that instead of anything mental, the resultant motion looks more like a simple repulsion, according to some law of the distance. That the action is not merely mechanical, however, not a result of ann incident force merely, is proved by the mistakes which these exquisitely psychical beings so often commit. Thus objects of the most dissimilar nature, nay, a shadow as well as the object of which it is the shadow, when it comes within a certain distance of them, or over them, will cause them to be off; and this certainly indicates that, not a merely physical repulsion, but alarm, accompanying defective vision, is the cause of their flight.

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PERCEPTION. INTUITION.

 

But in man the issue is very different. The self-manifesting power of the external object, does, indeed, tend to fix the inner activity of the percipient, so far as to invite attention to that object. But that self-manifesting power from without is, at the same time, met by the self-manifesting power of the percipient himself, acting in a direction quite opposite. Thus the impression which is being produced by the object presenting, is resisted and stop, and, in a word, defined to the percipient. The two self-manifesting powers directly meet, and there results that phenomenon which is properly expressed by saying that the subject perceives the object. The self-manifesting power of the object reaches to the percipient, and impresses him it may possibly be in to the very core of his Being. He seizes and holds the object as the reality that it is, though he cannot at once know it as it is. Even in the midst of his somatic environments, indeed, though at first sight they seem as if they must render all external perception impossible, the percipient in one moment attains to a perception of the object presenting in its true appearance, that is, as presented to him in terms of light or sound, resistance, motion, rest, &c. That absolute moment is, indeed, developed into many moments in time, implied in the successive stages of somatic perception, involved in the elastic action of the media of light and sound, and the inertia of the apparatus of the senses. But these media and mechanisms, if they are the appointed means, are also the resistances in the telegraphic wire which retard the free diffusion of object-self-manifesting. If by means of the senses only in the embodied state the mind can normally perceive external objects, it would, in the free state, according to our views, do so simply and in a moment, in virtue of the extensiveness, and the corresponding self-manifesting power of the objects presenting. The varied apparatus of the senses are, in our philosophy, merely so many schemata for securing, to a certain extent, transparency between the external world and the perceiving mind. In perception, it is the object itself that is perceived, and not any image of it. How that object comes to be perceived, not merely as object or reality, but as marked by its own features, we cannot now set forth. That will appear when we reach the cosmical law of Assimilation.

 

MEMORY. IDEA.

 

And yet it was necessary to allude to this law of assimilation here, because this law, while it implies that the external object shall assimilate the mind to itself, and thus compass a state of perception in that mind, also implies that the mind shall store um within itself states that are expressive of bygone perception, and when no object is presenting itself, or when the mind is not otherwise engaged, shall assimilate its nascent states to its former states, and thus tend to reproduce them. Moreover, these former states are obviously to be expected to be but faint when compared with actual perceptions. But unless they are confused they cannot but be truly representative of the external objects that impressed them. Further, since they are products of the law if Assimilation they might be accurately designated "assimilations." But plainly, they are those phenomena which are already familiarly known under the names of mental imagery and idea, the material of memory, of imagination, and of thinking in general.

 

IDEA WITHOUT MEMORY.

 

Now, such imagery might possibly be produced in the mind, though at the time of perception the mind was giving itself wholly to the object presenting, or was wholly absorbed by that object. In other words, distinct impressions might possibly have been made on the perceptivity of the mind in the absence of consciousness of what was going on at the time. But if they have been made on the mind any how, they may revisit it; only, they cannot recall the moment of their acquisition or any of those circumstances which have entered into the conscious experience of life. They can only make their apparition in the mind in a dream-like light, and without giving any account of themselves. They must resemble, in this respect, constitutional or abiding impressions - the laws of belief, or the principle of common sense - in reference to which there can be no place for memory since their objects or causes are always present.

 

But in men in general this total absorption of the mind in an object presenting is a rare case. Normally, it is in part only, of if wholly, then very transiently only, that the proper potentiality, the inner activity or life of man as a percipient, is wholly fixed by an object of perception. Somewhat within is usually left free and undetermined from without. But though free, it is not stripped of its self-manifesting power. Nay, when thus stimulated it may be expected to be in possession of that power in the highest degree. In what way or ways then, let us ask, will this inner activity manifest itself? Now, to this the answer cannot but be manifold. Here, a highly endowed self-manifesting power exists and acts in a field which is so extensive, and in which it must itself be so desultory and reciprocating in its action that a great variety of results must be possible. On these it would be wholly unsuitable to enter here in detail.

 

PERSONALITY.

 

But among many phenomena we may certainly conclude that the self-possessed potentiality or spiritual changefulness and causality of the mind, belonging, as it does, to a Being which, amid all its changes, is still one and the same, must tend to manifest itself to itself at the moment of every change. A moment in time is not like a point in space. It has, and cannot but have, a beginning, a middle, and an end, however momentary, and while one moment is departing, the next is coming; and thus, in virtue of the mind's essential life and changefulness, there must result within the mind a continually recurring manifestation of self to self. And in what point of view will it regard itself in the first instance? Doubtless as often at any rate as that power is for the moment opposed, it will regard itself as a potentiality to which freedom or self-determining power belongs; more shortly, there must be a continually recurring manifestation of self to self as a Being possessing power. Now, is not this precisely what every man means when he uses the all-important syllables, "I," "me," "myself?" Not that we are to suppose that the ego could attain to a knowledge of itself without the practice secured to it by the varied presentation of the non-ego. The attempt to discover what knowledge the mind could attain if it were placed in other circumstances than those in which it constitutionally exists, is hopeless. We merely affirm that, given to the mind those supports and stimuli which it enjoys as a member in the cosmos, it attains, through its own intuitional power, to a knowledge of itself as an ego.

 

But if the preceding views be admitted, we have circumvented consciousness. We have laid hold of it in its very citadel. If the preceding views be admitted, it follows that the possible consciousity of a Being, or its capacity for being conscious, or of having a subjective cognition of anything, depends upon its possessing (at that time, at least), a living spark of liberty or of free self-manifesting power. And that this is, in reality, the uniform condition or "the constant" in consciousness, is proved by the constantly recurring presence of the pronoun of the first person in every mental experience from which that pronoun is not designedly excluded.

 

The simplest affirmation of consciousness, then, is the manifestation of self to self as a potentiality capable, now of a statical, now of a dynamical state. This we express in the propositions "I am," for the statical, "I will," for the dynamical.

 

JOY AND SADNESS.

 

After this comes the manifestation of self to self, as existing in either of two states differing as to well being or ill being. First, it may exist in the full and free play of its own intrinsic activity without either exertion or resistance, or, secondly, it may exist in a state of suppressed activity, that is, as thrown into embarrassment or held in arrest, and capable only if acting by exertion. And corresponding to these two states of consciousness there are the expressions, "I am joyful," "I am sad."

 

SIGHT AND FEELING.

 

But the self-manifesting power of the ego does not terminate in itself, so as to manifest to itself nothing but self and its own intimate states. Like self-manifesting power in general, that of the ego is extensive, and it meets the non-ego in the self-manifesting power of the latter. Hence two other states. According as the resulting impress is clear and distinct, in direction, from the ego, and such as can give independent play to the mental activity, or, on the other hand, as is confused or rather fused into the embodied ego itself, the language of consciousness is, in the first case, "I see," and in the second, "I feel."

 

OUR THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

 

Such, according to our philosophy, is the genesis, and such are the conditions of the existence and of the functioning of consciousness. And we conceive that if we are right we have determined something that is of importance in philosophy. Descartes postulated "cogito." The Scottish philosophers merely appeal to consciousness, asserting its supreme authority, but without attempting to give any account of it at all. And the German philosophers, even Hegel, with all his determination to get at the root of things and establish a system of absolute purism, sets out with "I think" as the omnipresent element in all mental action; nay, he assumes thought to be the type of all cosmical action. We set out with something much simpler, nay, with that which is the very simplest of all knowable things, that which is the common property of all individualized objects, ætherial as well as mental, that which must be possessed by them every one, if all taken together are to constitute a system or cosmos. We set out merely with the self-manifesting power of being, that without which it cannot be thought of as a reality. And having investigated what its mode of functioning must be in Beings which are possessed of a certain amount of potentiality, at least while they exist as members in the cosmos, we have found that it must give rise in the individual to a self-manifestation of self-in other words, to self-consciousness and consciousness in general.

 

And now we are in a condition to inquire into the value of consciousness as a truth-imparting-faculty, and to ascertain perhaps, or at any rate to suggest, whether there may not possibly be a simpler state of intellectual action in which the non-ego alone shall take an active part, and which therefore will be objectively trustworthy in a higher degree.

 

The condition necessary to the existence of consciousness in the ordinary meaning of the term, we have found to be a proper potentiality in the individual so great, that it is not all engaged or fixed by the object presenting, but remains centrally, so to speak, unimpressed or free, that is, in possession of its own proper changefulness; and it is to the development of the mind into this dualized mode of action that consciousness attaches. Thus, when the light of the morning streams in at the window, the stimulus awakes the reposing mind of the healthy sleeper into consciousness, and with regard to any object to which his eye or his ear may be open, he says, "I see it, I hear it," I think this or that about it. Here we have the mind acting normally in consciousness. And this plainly cannot but be of the greatest value to the individual; because along with whatever else it gives, it gives also himself, and therefore puts him immediately up to any danger or any benefit which the object presenting may bring along with it. But this very fact (that consciousness seems to be a conservative function) assists in suggesting the inquiry, whether, while one may still continue in the waking state, a perception of objects may not be attainable from which all egotistical reflection on the part of the observer shall vanish, and the "it" only remain, that is, the object as it is, in terms of a pure knowledge of it? To ask for more,-to ask, for instance, a knowledge of "the object as it is in itself,"-is either to imply that knowing and being may be one and the same thing; or it is to speak nonsense. But it is a fair question whether, besides and beyond every-day consciousness, there may not be a state of vision from which the subjective element has for the time vanished, or at any rate is on the eve of vanishing, so that the entire mental action shall belong to the object, and purely represent it?

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SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS.

 

Let us approach this inquiry. And here, in the very first place, it would be desirable if we could identify the two phases of the dualized mode of action which we have described with familiar names. The first is that in which, in virtue of the self-manifesting power of its environments, or of its own former states, the mental activity is impressed by that which is not itself as actually in play, and by being so impressed affirms the existence of that which is impressing it. The second is that in which, in virtue of its own intrinsic power and liberty, it may ramble among its environments, fixing on this, and neglecting that, as it pleases, being obliged meanwhile to affirm only itself. Now, do these, our two typical modes of mental action, correspond to any that are well known and which have appropriate names? Yes; is not the former, let us ask, precisely that which is well known as the SYNTHETIC ACTION of the mind-that in which the mind exists and acts as a member in the universe, striking with this object or idea, or with that, as it may happen to present itself, and so affirming it? And is not the latter precisely that which is known as the ANALYTIC ACTION of the mind-that in which the mind exists and acts as an universe itself, or at any rate an universe to itself, affirming its own existence independently of that of the outward universe, or even in opposition to it? These agreements with well-ascertained phenomena will not be disputed.

We may say, then, that the existence of consciousness depends on the development of the mental action in the individual into a synthetico-analytic rhythm. And it has appeared that the condition necessary to such a development is that the mind shall be normally affected, on the one hand, as a member in the universe, and so far fixed, while on the other hand it is not wholly engaged or fixed by that which is other than itself, but continues to a certain extent free, that is, in possession of its own proper potentiality, and a spectator of itself as well as its surroundings.

 

SYNTHESIS, ITS VALUE.

 

Now, in this mental rhythm, supposing all to be correct from the first, that which is of the greatest value to knowledge is obviously the synthetic phase; for it is in this phase that the perceptivity of the mind strikes with the perceptibility of the object, whether real or ideal; and it is in this phase that the two become united by that bond which constitutes "affirmation," which is the well-known condition of all knowledge. And if there were no impediments in the way of a simple perception of things as they are, there would be no need, in order to perfect knowledge, of any other phase of mental action, but simply this, the synthetic. And indeed, such a state of mental action seems to exist to a wonderful extent in those animated species which are denizens of the world along with man but of whose privileges it forms no part that they should enjoy the most precious but dangerous gift of liberty. The bee is a master of the calculus without knowing it, and without one thought about integrals constructs its cells accordingly. A chick, instead of pecking or grasping at the moon like a child, is in full possession, the day it leaves the egg, of the true distances of objects, as well as of the true nature of objects which are in relation to its own well-being. Given a particle of food within that horizon which the mother thinks safe, and permits her little one to range over, and within the eyesight of the chick, and that chick immediately discriminates both as to where and what that particles is, and runs right up to it, seizes and swallows it. In a word, throughout the animal kingdom generally, as soon as the organization of the individual is adequate to accomplish the functions which the knowledge demands, there is to be observed already a perfection of knowledge-in-use compared with which applied human science in its most advanced state is no better than laborious bungling. But in order to secure such a state of things, and thus to enter simply and beautifully into the system of the cosmos, it follows either that there must be sacrificed that which to all men worthy of the name is the most precious of all things, namely, liberty, or else, that over-potentiality, which is the source of liberty, shall, on the presentation of objects, be capable of adopting or falling into a state of complete fixation and repose (which, doubtless, the presentation of an object tends to induce), so that the whole mind may give itself to the object purely as a percipient, and act, or rather exist, purely as an intuitional agent. Now, such a condition of mind, if it be at all attainable, is obviously exceptional, and difficult to be attained. It implies in the mind synthetic action only. But, in all cases of ordinary consciousness, the analytical phase of mental action subsists along with the synthetic.

 

ANALYSIS, ITS EVIL.

 

Analysis is obviously the functioning of the free activity in the intellectual sphere, that is, when the mind is dealing with an object of some kind or other which is distinct from itself. It is a different, but not a wholly different mode of functioning from synthesis. Thus, when an object inexorably presents itself, the mind, though insisting on indulgence in its analytic phase, cannot refuse to strike with that object or idea altogether-it cannot choose but hold or affirm that object more or less. But inasmuch as every affirmation by the mind of something else than itself is necessarily a limitation of its own liberty, which is its very life, all such affirmations exist in opposition to its own interest as a thing of life. And, therefore, the mind, in so far as it acts out of a regard to its own volitional nature, endeavours to shake itself free from every such affirmation. And when it cannot do so altogether, it seeks to modify that affirmation, to restrict its sphere, to change its form, and, in a word, ultimately to substitute, if it can, a negative for a positive view of it, that is, to deny what it at first affirmed.

 

Let it not be inferred from this, however, that the discovery of the realities which surround us, and a belief in them, will come to an end. In denial, no less than in affirmation, there is the maintenance or admission of some determinate relation between the mind and the object denied. No better in negative than in affirmative propositions does the liberty-loving activity of the mind succeed in emancipating itself altogether from cosmical relations. The proposition binds, whatever its form. And so long as the individual mind thinks in propositions (which it cannot avoid doing if it think at all) it cannot be its own universe, and merely the critic and the questioner of any other universe which other people may possibly suppose to exist. It must believe. It must exist in relation with much that is other than self, or at any rate, with much which can be construed as self, only by a manifest perversion of common sense. (Fichte.)

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THE ANTILOGIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

 

But here, from this twofold functioning in consciousness, from this synthetico-analytical rhythm of mental action which is normal to the waking state in man, a phenomenon tends to result which is of the greatest interest, and which has been productive of the most fatal effect in philosophy. Thought, when applied to objects which are transcendent, according as one or other of these two phases takes the lead, tends to issue in uttering contradictions. Moreover, these contradictions have been looked upon as of co-ordinate authority. And hence, being set off the one against the other, the object to which they relate has been excluded from the sphere of philosophy, even as that which cannot be, or at any rate that which cannot be reached in a manner satisfactory to intelligence. These contradictions Kant has developed with great scientific beauty. But, happily for the interests of philosophy, though he named them the antinomies of pure reason, and though he could not see what was wrong, yet he felt that something was wrong, and he would not succumb to them. In the face of all the dogmatic contradictions which the dialectic of such transcendent themes implied, he affirmed the being of a God whom it is reasonable and therefore right to worship, of design in nature implying a Creator, of liberty in man implying responsibility, and such a state of things here as implies a hereafter. These great truths Kant found firmly resting in human intelligence on a basis which was quite secure, and to which, rather unfortunately perhaps, he gave the name of "the practical reason." And more lately Sir W. Hamilton has endeavoured to remove the reproach of a break or rather, indeed, a break-down in the philosophy of Kant in this field, by regarding these contradictions as the product of a mental impotency, which, while giving both as true, gives them also in such a relation to each other that one of them must be true (though the dialectic cannot say which), and therefore possibly that set which all sound philosophers, along with common sense itself, affirm.

 

Now, both the philosopher of Konigsberg and he of Edinburgh were led to their respective hypotheses by regarding the contradictions which emerge during the logical manipulation of the leading ideas in philosophy and theology as of equal moment and authority, and such that each, when compared with the other, completely neutralizes it. Herein is their grand mistake. In point of fact, the two conclusions which contradict each other do not stand on the same basis at all. They are not like two rays of the same Kind of incident light, which, after pursuing different routes, on being thrown upon the same screen, interfere with each other and produce darkness. They are rather like the electro-magnetic phenomenon, half the movement in which is always at right angles, or around the other. Instead of being really entitled to such a name as antinomies of reason, they are merely antilogies of consciousness-the one the development of the analytic phase of mental action, the other the manifestation of the synthetic. The analytic, which is ever driving towards zero, is merely the contre coup of the synthetic, which, left to itself, inevitably affirms the universe, though as yet it known no details. The seemingly paradoxical equation, in which much deep thinking, ancient and modern, oriental and occidental, is brought into its most articulate form, namely, "pure being = nothing," is not a homogeneous, not a simultaneous equation. And to build the universe of things on such a basis is to build on a merely subjective phenomenon, difficult to be reached even in human consciousness, and peculiar perhaps to man. Still, inasmuch as it is to be found in consciousness, and truly represents in its purest and most abstract form the rhythm or "process" of consciousness, it is a symbol of value, and cannot but serve as a key by which nature may be partly opened, and obscurely formulated to a certain extent. (Hegel).

 

ANALYSIS, ITS GOOD.

 

But after these remarks, which seem to be only in disparagement of analysis as an intellectual power, it may with seeming justice be asked whether then we hold analysis to be the enemy of all cosmical truth, and essentially a destroyer of all but self? Now to this we say, No. It is only when analysis acts abusively, only when it takes possession of the whole field of inquiry and careers over it, that it is so. Is analysis then in the mind, it may be further asked, merely to interfere with and to limit discovery? To this we say, No, again. The analytic function of the mind is the true self-conservative principle. It has for its aim the highest of all aims, the conservation of the conscious self, the maintenance of a self-possessed changefulness within (which is life and liberty) in circumstances which, if not thus resisted, tend to fit the whole mind as a stereotype of nature, to reduce the universe of thought to mere instinct and memory. But this function it can accomplish only as acting in sisterhood in the mind when the mind is acting synthetically-that is, intuitively or as an open perceptivity. Now this analysis can and does, nay, cannot but do. And hence the analytic phase of the mind's action becomes no less valuable in the intellectual than it is in the volitional sphere of mental life. For as in the volitional sphere it is the safeguard of liberty, so is it in the intellectual sphere the safeguard against wholesale error. In the interest of its own liberty and life, it is so parsimonious of belief, so reluctant to be bound, that it scrutinizes everything before it consents to strike with it and to hold it for true. It delights in "suspending the judgment," which the Pyrrhonist holds to be the very principle of philosophy. While the SYNTHETIC HABIT of the mind lays hold of objects "EN MASSE," the ANALYTIC PRACTIC consents to close with them only in minima. Happily its own intrinsic activity calls upon it to shift its ground very rapidly from one minim of intuition to another; and its native love of rambling, and the personal interest which it has more or less in almost everything, disposes it to exercise a selective attention ("Abstraction") among them. And thus such minutiae as are admitted increase in number in the mind. In reference to one object after another given by synthesis, analysis, having attempted in vain to deny and reject, given in, and begins to affirm what it at first attempted to deny. And analysis ultimately becoming fatigued, and the synthetic phase (which is always imminent and spontaneous) supervening and taking possession of the whole field, the entire object given at first comes to be held again, not as a multitude of minutiae, but in its unity, its totality.*

 

Has all this long-sustained application to the object, then, this exhaustive analysis of it, been useless? Has all this labor been mere waste, except in so far as happly being the spontaneous play of the activity? -

 

"Labor ipse voluptas."

 

 

This it is in an eminent degree. But no, as to analysis. To the human mind in its embodied state such work is indispensable. Analysis is the only condition of clear and distinct perception. In fact, Nature, as she is received at first by the embodied mind, is received merely a glare. Her first telling upon the mind is as a crowd of sensations merely. In order to render nature intelligible, analysis is altogether indispensable. To this fact our organization in its every detail, and every one of the senses, is a witness. It is expressly in order that they may be able to effect analysis that they have been constructed. They give everything in the veriest minima, each minim on the tip of a nervelet.

 

This is not all, indeed, that their structure gives. In thus awaking manifold sensations, the senses also transmit new force from the cosmos into the mind. And by this the mind is rendered more powerful than it was when asleep, and, consequently, it is more fully bent on acting as a power, and therefore in bestowing itself on the analysis of the object which causes the aggregate of sensations.

 

And what holds in reference to the objects of the senses holds in reference to objects generally. All impressions made on the embodied mind are at first of the nature of a glare merely. They present themselves to ignorance, and it is analysis that enables us to chip the shell of that ignorance, and to see clearly and distinctly over and into, and before and behind, and so to clear the way for a full understanding of the object. Meanwhile synthesis which, as has been already stated, is always spontaneous and imminent, is always ready as soon as and as often as analysis intermits, to restore to the object, now clear and distinct, its primal unity again. If, then, we have much to say against analysis as a dangerous gift to Beings whose well being consists, not in isolating themselves, but in closing with their true relations in the cosmos, so that they fulfill their mission and attain their destiny, we have also much to say in its favour as a protection against imposition, an the safeguard of liberty, and, in a word, of all that adds dignity to humanity.

 

But let us not refrain any longer from asking whether there is reason to conclude that this structure of mental functioning, which we thus hold to represent and explain the phenomena of consciousness, is permanent and unalterable, or whether there may not be some other form of intellectual functioning that is more simple. In treatises on the philosophy of mind in general, consciousness is regarded as the constant in all thought, and the universal criterion of truth. Its antilogies are indeed admitted, and are granted to be insuperable; but they are therefore insisted on as indications of the shortness of our intellectual lether, and evidence of the impossibility of our carrying up knowledge into any of the great questions of philosophy, or, indeed, beyond the sphere of sensuous experience. The great points of philosophy we are told to abandon or to relegate to the domain of faith; while with regard to faith the general impression is, that however necessary it may be for man, both with reference to this world and the next, yet it is not so respectable as knowledge.

 

Are the antilogies of consciousness, then, let us ask, ultimate teachings of intelligence from which we cannot escape, which we cannot explain, and to which we must blindly submit? To this we answer No; there is much as to these phenomena which is full of hope. Thus, is not that mood which we have found to give consciousness, an expanded, nay, we might say a dichotomized mode of mental functioning? On the one aspect it is cosmical, on the other it is personal; on the one aspect it is systemic, on the other it is individual; on the one it is passive or receptive merely, on the other it is active or aggressive. Looking for something analogous to it far down the stream of Being, we are reminded of the polarized state as compared with the non-polarized. And still father down, we are reminded of the flower with its blossom fully expanded to the sunbeam, as compared with the flower when closed in the absence of the sun. Both phases of mental action do indeed agree when viewed in reference to the intellectual sphere, in having as their common ground the same property, perceptivity, namely, or the faculty of intuition. But the one of them, the personal, or analytic, is always playing itself off against the other, is always selecting, neglecting, or denying, or only tacitly assenting; while the other, the cosmical the relational, the synthetico, is always spontaneously, openly, indiscriminately, universally, affirming.

 

Now, does not such an antithetic, nay, somewhat contradictory, mode of action in an agent which nevertheless is all the while a true unity, lead us to expect that surely that agent must be capable of another mode of mental functioning also, in which both these phases have lapsed into an unity, in which the analytic shall be sheathed, as it were, or concentrated in the synthetic, and all personal interest hushed in the harmony of the universe? And of such a state of things have we not a repetition in that condition of the organization by which sleep is induced? Thus, in the waking state, the muscular, or rather the myo-cerebro-neural system, exists in a state of tension and antithesis. But such a state cannot exist without intermission. Fatigue and the periodicity of planetary life demand another state alternating with this the these and antithetic, - a lapse, namely, or falling away from that state of tension and balanced opposition into the folded rhythm to which sleep is proper.

 

And here the interesting inquiry presents itself, Suppose such a state of simple intellectual repose, lucidity, or perspection, to exist, and the object presenting, whether real or ideal, to be withdrawn, what will the state of mind be then? Will not all mental action consist in intuition pure and simple? Will not the presentation of objects to the mind be responded to by a simple and steady perception of them? Will not things be seen immediately, instinctively, and known as they are,-though still of course in terms of knowledge, and not otherwise?

 

Now, it is well known that the philosophers of India, with somewhat general consent, as also some of those of Europe, maintain that, by a long cultivated discipline of contemplation, it is possible to bring to a state of rest the usually ceaseless activity and changefulness of the mind, and to command such perfect repose that the soul is absorbed in vision, and mirrors the universe, at the time, namely, when in their own beautiful language, the pride of the "I am" is subdued. And without maintaining that such a state of simple and impersonal perception is ever reached in the actual experience, at least, of the Anglo-Saxon mind, may it not be fairly regarded as a limit? And, as a limit, may it not be fairly used in metaphysical inquiries, as limits are used by mathematicians in physical inquiries? It is certainly no small consolation to think that mental action, when existing in its limit as pure perspectivity or intuitive mental action,- when, in a word, reduced to unity, like the mind itself to which it belongs,-gives no paralogisms or antilogies, but, on the contrary, when directed to the sphere of cosmology and natural theology, gives successively Creator and creature, liberty and necessity, and all the stamina of the Catholic philosophy of humanity, without reserve or distraction. If the view which has been here advanced as to the structure of consciousness be accepted, the contradictions of these great truths, which may be elicited in thought, are not given by the mind when acting as a disinterested intuitional Being, or a cosmical intelligence. They are emitted by it when acting as a personal or private Beings \only, playing the part of an universe to itself. They ought therefore to keep silence. Nor should they in the privacy of the mind be permitted to disturb a higher vision.

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THE SOLUTION OF THE ANTILOGIES.

 

 

According to the view here advocated, it follows that if the mind could be recalled into such a state of repose, that, while the mind's eye still open, it should not move, but be fixed-should not act from out of itself, but remain wholly and merely receptive of the objects presenting; if the mind could be brought to function wholly as an intuitional capacity or perceptivity, the analytical power having sheathed itself in the intuitional;-then every intuitional would be given precisely according to the stuff, and would be truly expressive of that stuff as it actually exists.

 

Thus, since the mind is itself Substance, Being or Reality, if it have intuition of this, with no accompanying activity to disturb and change this intuition, it will simply affirm Being or Existence. Nor this incidentally merely. Since its own Being is imminent to its own intuition, its affirmation of Being must be imminent also and unavoidable. Being must haunt the mind. Existence must be an universal category. Non-existence cannot be conceived,-except analytically as the denial of existence.

 

Moreover, intuition, when thus wholly pure and simple, and undisturbed by the mental activity or by variety of objects, must give Being merely, nothing more and nothing else. The conception of a beginning or of an end cannot, in this case, arise; for these conceptions are functions of the mental activity or changefulness. They cannot exist previously to the perception of change, they can only be coeval with it. Neither can this internal and elementary intuition of Being, if still quite pure, find any other limits for Being, as it affirms Being. The pure intuition which it has is a preluding for the affirmation of an infinite, an absolute Being, if such a Being exists and presents himself. It may, indeed, be thought that it must imply an affirmation of such a Being, though he do not present himself, and therefore though possibly he do not exist. But no; that which the mind affirms, in virtue of its own Being merely, does not amount to this. It is properly conceived, as a preluding or preparation merely for the holding of such a Being if he present himself. To affirm such a Being on a purely subjective ground (as Fichte) is an act of usurpation. The self-manifesting power of the mind to itself secures, in virtue of its own Being, the intuition of Being, in general, as an abiding and inevitable conviction, but it sanctions nothing more.

 

But intuition cannot remain for any appreciable time in a state so simple and elementary as this. The percipient, being a finite member in the cosmos, cannot but have the limitations of his own Being soon present upon him. And say that they are, what then? Plainly his state of intuition has been discovered but that this Being which he holds is limited-if nothing has been introduced to alter the nature of his intuition, then the form which his now existing state of intuition shall take must be this, the affirmation of "Being," accompanied by that of "room for more," that is, Being and vacancy (RAUM), the latter retaining all the character of pure Being, all its simplicity and boundlessness, all except its substantiality; so that not without a show of truth one may maintain, as Hegel has done the paradox, pure Being = Nothing; for the first differentiation of pure intuition gives Nothing as the complement of Being, the possibility of more Being, that is, Being-coming=Becoming!!!

 

But even in obtaining this first differentiation the personal activity has been brought into play. The absolute (supposing that the absolute Being does not manifest himself) has passed into a dream. The mind, now in possession of finite Being and vacuum, is already expecting-already preluding the cosmos. For, far from respecting the law of parsimony, as Hamilton or even Newton insists upon it, nature rejoices in concurrent causes, and delights in pre-exercitations, preparations, and preludings. She never repeats herself; except when her conditions of existence are the same. She ever aims at variety. But she is always beautifully consistent with herself, and never ushers anything into existence without first paving the way for it. The "anticipations of the mind" which Bacon was for putting down altogether, though, in the ignorant, they be always far too rank and manifold, are yet the only mine from which the true interpretation of nature can be obtained. Merely to "observe" while, at the same time, no ideas shall be allowed to develop themselves within, is merely impossible; or, if possible, then only to a fool. But to return---

 

Elementary intuition, so far as we have followed it in giving Being and vacancy, has given nothing which savors of a contradiction. The same is true of the mental activity, the analytic power, when we regard it also as acting alone. This power indeed gives a set of intuitions which is quite parallel to that given by the mind when considered as a percipient merely, and which are equally valid. There is, however, a marked difference between them. Since, in the point of view in which we now come to regard it, the mind is no longer a manifestation of Being merely but of Power and action, it gives in intuition, no longer the statical, but the dynamical view of things. It preludes the self-existent, not as the Infinite, but as the Almighty. And just as the first differentiation of the intuition of Being as Being, gave Being with room for more, that is Being and Space, so the first differentiation of the intuition of Being as Power or changefulness, gives Change and "room for more change"-that is, duration or time. Moreover, this new intuition is given with the same characteristic as that of Space-that is, as mere time, pure time, beginningless, endless time. In a word, in holding time as elementary intuition gives it, the mind is anticipating and preluding eternity.

 

Whether, therefore, we look to the mind acting as pure intellect, the EGO being hushed in it, or look to the EGO, if to that alone, we find nothing whatever to forbid the manifestation to the mind of an Infinite, an absolute Being, inhabiting eternity, if such a Being really manifest himself; rather have we found the mind framed expressly for responding to the existence of such a Being. Nay, we have found that, if such a Being do not exist and manifest himself so that the mind may be filled by the manifestation, then is the mind no better than an hollow lie-whispering thing.

 

But the result is widely different when we bring to bear on the absolute and infinite Being both functions of the mind simultaneously, or in such rapid succession as to seem simultaneous-that is, both the purely intuitional, cosmical, or impersonal perceptivity of the mind, and its active or personal power acting in its perceptive capacity, In that case contradictions inevitably set in. In fact, the very use of the personal activity in the intellectual sphere, is to render clear and distinct to the embodied mind an object which the senses give merely as a glare. Now, to render an object clear and distinct is to differentiate that object from something else, is to define it, and consequently to limit it. And hence the mischance which happens when the mind, in its active or analytic phase, is allowed to play upon that which is simple, continuous, boundless. It cannot but destroy its character and give birth to a brood of contradictions.

 

Thus, if I, in the simple exercise of perceptivity, or mentally acting in cosmical synthesis, reduce my intuition to as pure and simple a state as possible-if I exclude from my regard all individual realities, and, in a word, everything that I can, there remains to me the pure intuition of vacuity, and it presents itself to me as boundless and continuous; and so long as I contemplate it in perfect intellectual repose, it preserves its continuity, its boundlessness. The intuition continues true to that of which it is the intuition.

 

But as soon as I lose my intellectual repose, the moment that my mental activity begins to act within me, and the EGO is awoke, that EGO, alarmed perhaps for being lost in the boundless vast contemplated, proceeds to explore, and in keeping with its own finitude, it assigns a positivity, a limit, nay, a form to vacuity; it conceives it as space, nay, as a vast sphere with self in the centre! Now, this done, the EGO, the activity, the analytic phase of mental action, is, for the moment, satisfied. But with this state of things the mind as a whole, is satisfied but for a moment. Forthwith the purely intuitional, the impersonal, or cosmical perceptivity of the mind, that is, the synthetic phase of mental action, spontaneously resumes. And of this the consequence is, that space is re-affirmed as existing beyond the boundary which the mind in its analytic phase had imposed upon it. Thus it is held as boundless again. But do matters rest here? no, the EGO is as active and as imposing as ever. It resumes and prescribes a second boundary adapted to the new conditions of the intuition, that is, a boundary more remote than the first. Then, by the again recurring synthetic phase boundlessness is given again; and after that, by the alternating analytic phase, a boundary still father removed; and so on as long as we please. And here it is most worthy of remark, that the analytical phase, the action of the EGO being of course always the most interesting and the most intimate to the thinker, ever tends to have the last word, that is, the thinker tends to give a boundary to the infinite, and so to deny infinity. Here, then, have we, in consequence of bringing ordinary consciousness into a field for which it was not designed, and for which it is not adapted, not only a succession of contradictions, but a tendency to the wrong one as the last.

 

It is some consolation that the result which is obtained is of great value as supplying a method of measuring the forms and movements of the cosmos, that is, in giving a basis for the Calculus.

 

The same series of mental phenomena recur when we reverse the process, and instead of aiming at the comprehension of all space, take a small portion of space and propose to ourselves to reduce it to zero. The act of primary intuition or synthesis with which we set out, reproduces, after every alternate phase of analysis, a portion of space which was the primary datum. If the form of the analysis was bisection the successive portions of space obtained will be less and less, and bear such designations as a half, a half of a half, and so on. But then, in consequence of the spontaneousness or imminence of the synthetic or intuitional phase of the mind's action, a portion of space, under some denomination or other, will be posited as often as another act of analysis or cutting down threatens its extinction. And this process, too, in consequence of the vivaciousness of the personal activity, we may carry on as long as we please. And hence the seeming as if any portion of space, however small, could be cut or divided to all eternity, and yet some space remain.

 

It is the same with time as with space. Under a similar manipulation by consciousness time is lost as pure time, as all time. Analysis shapes even eternity into a form of which it can lay hold. It prescribes a boundary, a beginning, or an end to it. But this it cannot do always; for the personal activity, though very vivacious, is liable to exhaustion and requires repose, in order to be recruited for another act. And thus simple intuition finds room for intervening, and the boundlessness of the original intuition is restored. For my own part, I think it is easier in reference to time to rest in the simple intuition than it is in reference to space. Nothing appears to me to be so certain as eternity. If, indeed, I am not content with the intuition, if I proceed to "conceive" it, that is, to make it the object of analysis as well as of synthesis, I lose it. In that case I cannot but think both a beginning of time and an end of time, and my conception, however earnestly bent on discovering a harmony between eternity and time, never gets beyond a compromise, nay, a mixture in thought which, when looked into, is no better than a contradiction.

 

After the intuition of Being and its companion space, and that of Action, or change, and its companion time, there comes in logical order that which is at once the logical synthesis and the real source of both, namely, Power or Potentiality. And in reference to this, which is the most important of all things, and, indeed, the basis of everything, we obtain by our method a development which is perfectly analogous to that which we have had in reference to Being and Action.

 

The mind in its simply synthetic phase, that is, when reposing in its pure perceptivity, and as often as it obtains the glance of its own potentiality when in this state of intuition, has an intuition of pure power, all power. What it gets is a true preluding and a pre-exercitation for receiving the impress of Omnipotence or absolute power, all-subduing power. Moreover, the mind, when acting as an intuitional being, though in its analytic phase, provided only that it holds by what itself in this phase gives, gives the same result-only in this case the power is given as in action, that is, as absolute, all-embracing, irresistible causation. The mind, in either phase when taken by itself, gives nothing finite, nothing limiting or limited. But when the analytic action of the mind applies itself to the datum of the synthetic or the simply intuitional action of the mind, it cannot but define and limit it. Absolute Power or Self-subsisting causation is in that case obliged to admit an antecedent cause and a consequent cause, that is, an effect. And thus, what we ultimately obtain in consciousness, is an alternation of cause and effect in a beginningless and endless series. The elemental intuition or glance (proper to the reposing intelligence) of Absolute Power, that which is cause within itself and to itself, that is, the preluding in the soul of the doctrine of an Almighty Will, which is the preparation for receiving or believing in such a Power, if He manifest himself, is secularized into a form of thought which is indeed a beautiful adaptation of the doctrine of cause, in so far as the creation is concerned, but which is no longer answerable to the whole of Reality.

 

And thus we are in a position to appreciate the philosophy of Hamilton, which is the latest theory of disarming the antilogies of reason - enemies to discovery, these antilogies-which, under able generalship, such as that of Herbert Spencer, still threaten to turn philosophy out of doors. Sir William admits that these antilogies result from an imbecility or impotence of mind. But he maintains that no detriment comes from this fact to those theological and cosmological ideas, about which chiefly philosophy is conversant, for when the antilogies are reduced to their most categorical terms, the one always denies what the other affirms; whence it follows that, while both are "inconceivable," "incomprehensible." "unthinkable," still one or other must be true; and therefore it is open to inquire, or at least to believe either the one or the other, provided it commend itself to belief on adequate evidence derived from some other source than the dialectic movement of consciousness.

 

It forms no part of my plan to estimate the views of others. But it is impossible to avoid observing in passing that Hamilton's views, at least in their bearings on the great questions in philosophy, are not materially different from those of Kant. In both there is much to commend and to admire. But Hamilton, far from discovering and acknowledging a harmony in the great thinkers who have gone before him, has left it open no less than Kant for some future Fichte, or Schelling, or Hegel, to look upon his labors with the same contempt that he looks on theirs.

 

But there is a harmony, that reign among all great thinkers, and not a little of it, as appears to me, is to be found in the views of consciousness that have been here advanced. If cut into slips, might not these pages be mostly distributed under such labels as Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Hickok, Calderwood, with Leibnitz and Cousin everywhere, and Dr Reid, above all? Of the last, the founder of the Scottish Philosophy, I am in nowise ashamed, as my master; though in the higher regions of philosophy he has been of late spoken of, and in his own country too, as being as helpless as "a whale in a field of clover." But this was by one who said of Philosophy that it was more proper that it should be reasoned than that it should be true! Those, therefore, who are bent on work and not on play, need not mind much what he has said. Very different is the judgment passed upon Reid by the illustrious founder of the Eclectic Philosophy. Referring to the thoroughgoing scepticism which had emerged from the views of Locke and Berkeley, through the handling of Hume, Cousin says, "The human race had lost its titles to philosophy, and Reid restored them." And again, "Reid is incontestably one of the most critically acquainted (connoisseurs) with human nature that has ever been, and along with Kant, the first metaphysician of the eighteenth century."* But since then the Scottish Philosophy has not thrived in Scotland. It went to the Continent for its health, and it became so strong that it worked wonders there. Now, however, it is high time for it to be taken home again. Common sense, the spontaneous intuition, the ineradicable convictions of mankind, are as necessarily the basis of the science of mind as minerals are of mineralogy or plants of botany. And there is wanted still in order to the true science of the human mind, not a mere enumeration of the principle of common sense, and a vindication of their authority indeed, but an orderly digest of them in their positions of natural relationship, and their genesis from one another, or from some principle or principles which are still higher, more general, or more common.

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