- Sympathetic
Vibratory Physics - It's
a Musical Universe!
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- Sketch of A Philosophy
- Part I,
II, III,
IV.
-
- CHAPTER
III.
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-
- CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS RELATION TO PURE
INTELLIGENCE OR UNDISTURBED INTUITION.
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-
- 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.
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- 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.
-
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?
-
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.)
-
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.
-
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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