No More Learning

This inability, thought Feuerbach, inheres rather in the conception which man makes to himself of things : the general conceptions in which philosophy thinks are no doubt incapable of understanding the real nature of the individual thing. Therefore Feuerbach now inverts the Hegelian system, and the result is a nominalistic materialism. The actual reality is the individual known to the senses; everything universal, everything mental or spiritual, is but an illusion of the individual. Mind or spirit is " Nature in its otherness. " In this way Feuerbach gives his purely anthropological explanation of religion. Man regards his own generic nature — what he wishes to be himself — as God.
This " theory of the wish," is to free humanity from all supersti tion and its evil consequences, after the same fashion as the theory of Epicurus (cf. above, p. 188). The epistemology of this " philoso phy of the future " can be only sensualism ; its ethics only eudse- mouism: the impulse to happiness is the principle of morals, and the sympathetic participation in the happiness of another is the fundamental ethical feeling.
After materialism had shown so illustrious a metaphysical pedi gree, others employed for its advantage the anthropological mode of argument which had been in use in French literature since Lamettrie, and which seemed to become still stronger through the progress of physiology. Feuerbach had taught : man is what he eats (ist teas er isst) ! And so once more the dependence of the mind upon the body was interpreted as a materialising of the psychical activity ; thinking and willing were to be regarded as secretions of the brain, similar to the secretions of other organs. A companion for this theory appeared in the guise of a purely sensualistio theory of knowledge, as it was developed by Czolbe independently of metaphysical assumptions; although at a later time Czolbe himself reached a view of the world which bordered closely upon materialism. For, since he regarded knowledge as a copy of the actual, he came ultimately to ascribe to ideas themselves spatial extension, and, in general, to regard space at the supporter of all attributes, giving it the place of Spinoza's substance.
So the materialistic mode of thought began to spread in Germany also, among physicians and natural scientists, and this condition of affairs came to light at the convention of natural scientists at Got
642 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pari VLL
tingen in 1864. The contradiction between the inferences of natural science and the " needs of the heart " (Gemiith) became the theme of a controversy which was continued in writing also, in which Carl Vogt championed the absolute sovereignty of the mechanical view of the world, while Rudolph Wagner, on the contrary, professed to gaiu at the bounds of human knowledge the possibility for a faith that rescued the soul and its immortality. This effort,1 which with extreme unaptness was termed " book-keeping by double entry," had subsequently its chief effect in creating among natural scientists who saw through the one-sidedness of materialism, but could not befriend the teleology of idealism, a growing inclination toward Kant, into whose thing-in-itself they thought the needs of the heart and soul might be permitted to make their escape. When, then, in 1860, Kuno Fischer's brilliant exposition of the critical philosophy ap peared, then began the "return to Kant" which was afterwards destined to degenerate into literary-historical micrology. To the natural-science temper, out of which it arose, Albert Lange's History
of Materialism, gave expression.
Many misunderstandings, to be sure, accompanied this move
ment when even great natural scientists like Helmholtz* confused transcendental idealism with Locke's theory of signs and doctrine of primary and secondary qualities. Another misunderstanding appeared somewhat later, when a conspicuous school of theology, under the leadership of Ritschl, adopted the doctrine of the " thing- in-itself," in a form analogous to the position of English agnosticism.
The philosophical revival of Kantianism, which has permeated the second half of the century, especially since Otto Liebmann's impressive book, Kant and the Epigones (1865), presents a great variety of views, in which we find repeated all shades of the oppos ing interpretations which Kant's theory met at its first appearance The empirical and the rationalistic conceptions of knowledge and experience have come again into conflict, and their historical, as well as their systematic, adjustment has been the ultimate ground of the pragmatic necessity which has brought about gradually a return to Fichte. To-day there is once more an idealistic metaphysics in process of formation, as the chief representative of which we may regard Rudolf Eucken.
i It is not without interest to note the fact that this motif was not far removed from the French materialists. Of Cabanis and of Broussais we have expression*. made at the close of their life, which are in this spirit, and even of a mystical tendency.
* Cf. H. Helmholtz, Phyttologische Optik, 26, and, especially. The Fact* of Ptrception (Berlin, 1879).
1 44. ] Controvert! /
over the Soul: Lotze. 643
Hut in all these forms, this Neo-Kantiau movement, with' its earnest work upon the problem of knowledge, has had the result of rendering the superficial metaphysics of materialism evidently inad equate and impossible, and hence has led to its rejection. Even where Kant's doctrine was given an entirely empirical, and indeed positivistic turn, or even in the fantastic reasonings of so-called " solipsism," the thought of regarding consciousness as an accessory function of matter was rejected as an absurdity. Rather we find the opposite one-sided view that primary reality is to be ascribed only to inner perception, in contrast with outer perception.
Materialism was thus overcome in science; it lives in popular expo sitions, such as Buchner's " Force and Matter " (Kraft und Stoff), or in the more refined form of Strauss's " Old and New Faith " ' (Alter und neuer Olaube); it lives on also as theory of life in just those circles which love to enjoy the " results of science " from the most agreeable hand. For this superficial culture, materialism has found its characteristic exposition in Haeckel's works and his so-called u monism. "
For psychology as science, however, it became necessary to re nounce the conception of a soul-substance for the basis as well as fur the goal of its investigation, and as a science of the laws of the psychical life "to build only upon inner or outer experience. So we came by our psychology without a soul," which is free from all metaphysical assumptions — or means to be.
7. A deeper reconciliation of the above antitheses was given by Istttc from the fundamental thoughts of German idealism. The vital and formative activity which constitutes the spiritual essence
of all this real world has as its end, the good. The mechanism of nature is the regular form in which this activity works in the realisation of its end. Natural science has doubtless no other prin ciple than that of the mechanical, causal connection, and this principle is held to apply to organisms also; but the beginnings of metaphysics, like those of logic, lie only in ethics. In carrying out this teleologiail idealism, motifs from all the great systems of German philosophy accord to a new, harmonious work; every individual real entity has its essential nature only in the living relations in which it stands to other real entities; and these relations which constitute the con
nected whole of the universe are possible only if all that is, is grounded as a partial reality in a substantial unity, and if thus all
> The evidence of descent (mm the Hegelian dialectic ia Keen al«n in this, the noat ingenious form which materialism can And, — I. Kiiapp'x Jlrrht*phil<>»»- phir (1867) might perhaps be classed with it, — (or all higher forma of mental life are treated aa the attiring of nature to go beyond herself.
644 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Part Vlt
that takes place between individuals is to be apprehended as pur poseful realisation of a common life goal. By the powerful uni versality with which he mastered the material of facts and the forms of scientific elaboration in all the special disciplines Lotze was specially fitted to carry out fully this fundamental metaphysical thought, and in this respect, also, his personality as well as what he taught, joins worthily on to the preceding epoch. His own attitude is best characterised by its conception of knowledge as a vital and purposive interaction between the soul and the other " substances. " The " reaction " of the soul is combined with the excitation which proceeds from " things. " On the one side, the soul develops its own nature in the forms of perception, and in the general truths which come to consciousness with immediate clearness and evidence on the occasion of the stimulus from things; on the other hand, the partici pation of the subject makes the world of ideas a phenomenal appear ance. But this appearance or phenomenal manifestation, as the purposive inner life, is by no means mere illusion. It is rather a realm of worths or values, in which the good is realising itself. The coming to actual reality of this world of consciousness is the most important result of the interaction of substances. It is the ulti mate and truest meaning of the world-process. From these funda mental thoughts, Lotze, in his Logic, has conceived the series of forms of thought as a systematic whole, which develops out of the problems or tasks of thinking. In his Metaphysics, he has developed
/ and defined his view of the world with fineness and acuteness in his treatment of conceptions, and with most careful consideration in all directions. The view is that of teleological idealism. The third part of the system, the ethics, has unfortunately not been completed in this more rigorous form. As a substitute, we have the convic tions of the philosopher and his mature comprehension of life and history presented in the fine and thoughtful expositions of the Microcosmus.
8. Another way of escape from the difficulties of the natural- science treatment of the psychical life was chosen by Fechner. He would look upon body and soul as the modes of phenomenal mani festation — completely separated and different in kind, but in constant correspondence with each other — of one and the same unknown reality ; and follows out this thought in the direction, that every physical connection has a mental series or system of connections corresponding to although the latter are known through percep tion only in the case of our own selves. As the sensations which correspond to the excitation of particular parts of the nervous sys tem, present themselves as surface waves in the total wave of oui
it,
S 44. ] Controversy over the Soul : Fechner. 645
individual consciousness, so we may conceive that the consciousness of a single person is in turn but the surface wave of a more general consciousness, — say that of the planetary mind: and if we continue this line, we come ultimately to the assumption of a universal total- ctmsciousness in Ood, to which the universal causal connection of the atoms corresponds. Moreover, according to Fechner, the connection of inner and outer experience in our consciousness makes it possible to investigate the laws of this correspondence. The science of this is psycho-physics. It is the first problem of this science to find out ■method* for measuring psychical quantities, in order to obtain laws that may be formulated mathematically. Fechner brings forward principally the method of just perceptible differences, which defines as the unit of mass the smallest difference that is still perceptible between intensities of sensation, and assumes this to be equal everywhere and in all cases.
On the basis of this assumption, which to be sure is quite arbi trary, it seemed possible to give a mathematical formulation to the so-called " Weber-Fechner law. " This was stated as follows : The intensities of different sensations are to each other as the logarithms of the intensities of their stimuli. The hope was thus awakened by Fechner that through the indirect measurement of psychical
magnitudes a mathematical statement could be given by scientific methods for the psycho-physical, perhaps even for the psychological laws, and in spite of the numerous and serious objections which it encountered, this hope has had great success in promoting experi mental study during the past decades in many laboratories estab lished for this purpose. Yet it cannot be said that the outcome for a new and deeper comprehension of the mental life has kept pace with the activity of experimentation. 1
The revival of the Spinozistic parallelism has likewise met greater and greater difficulties. With Fechner it was dogmatically intended since he claimed complete metaphysical reality for the contents of sense-perception. " He called "this view the "day view," and set it over against the night view of the phenomenalism which is found
in natural science and philosophy. Others, on the contrary, con ceived the parallelism in a more critical fashion, assuming that mind and body, with all their states and activities, are only the different manifestations of one and the same real unity. Hut as a result of the vigorous discussions which this question has awak-
• With reference to controversies upon these polnu, it in simplest to refer to Fechner himself, Revision der Hauptpunkle der Pnychnphytik (Leipa. 1802). In addition we may refer especially to H. MiliisurberK, Vthtr Anfi/abt* und MethodfH drr /ty-A. Joyi* (Leipa. 1891) [ PiycAo/oyfe, 1W00J.
646 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Part VII.
ened,1 it has become increasingly evident that such a parallelism is untenable in any form.
This is seen in the case of the investigator who has been most active in the extension of psycho-physical study, Wilhelm Wundt. He has gone on in the development of his thought from a " Physio
logical Psychology " to a " System of Philosophy. " This latter . work regards the world as an interconnected whole of active ewdi- vidualities which are to be conceived in terms of will. Wundt employs
in his metaphysics the conception of activity without a substrate, which we have met in Fichte and Fortlage, and limits the applica tion of the conception of substance to the theories of natural science. The interaction between the activities of these wills produces in organic beings higher unities of will, and at the same time, various stages of central consciousness; but the idea of an absolute world- will and world-consciousness, which arises from these premises in accordance with a regulative principle of our thought, lies beyond the bounds of the capacity of human knowledge.
9. Voluntarism has thus grown stronger and stronger, especially in its more general interpretation, and has combated the intel- lectualism which was regarded as a typical feature in the most brilliant period of German neo-humanism. As a result of this con flict we find emerging the same problem as to the relative primacy of the will or the intellect which occupied so vigorously the dia lectical acuteness of the scholastics (cf. above, § 26). That this problem actually arose from the antagonistic development within the system of idealism was seen most clearly by Ednard von Hart- mann. His "Philosophy of the Unconscious " proceeds from a synthesis of Hegel, on the one hand, with Schopenhauer and the later thought of Schelling, on the other. Its purpose was to bring together once more the rational and irrational lines of idealism. Hartmann attempts by this means to ascribe to the one World-Spirit both will and idea (the logical element), as codrdinated and inter related attributes. In calling the absolute spirit the " Unconscious,'' Hartmann attributes to the concept of consciousness an ambiguity like that which Schopenhauer ascribed to the will ; for the activities of the " Unconscious " are functions of will and ideation which are indeed not given in any empirical consciousness, but yet presuppose some other consciousness if we are to think of them at all. This
1 A critical survey of the literature on the question is given by E. Busse in the Philos. Abhandlungen zur Sigwart's 70. Qeburtstag (Tubingen, 1900). Cf. also especially the investigation by H. Rickert in the same volume. [Cf. also tin- am. by Erhardt, Busse, Paulsen, KBnig, and Wentscher, in Zeitschr. f. Phiiu$. . Vols 114-117, and A. K. Rogers, in Univ. of Chicago Cont. to Phil. , 1899. 1
over the Sovl : Hartmann. 647
§44. ] Controversy
higher consciousness, which is called Unconscious, and is to form the common ground of life in all conscious individuals, Hartmann seeks
to exhibit as the active essence in all processes of the natural and psychical life ; it takes the place of Schopenhauer's and Schelling's / Will in Nature, and likewise of the vital force of former physi- ology and the " Entelechies " of the System of Development. The
Unconscious unfolds itself above all in the teleological inter-rela tions of organic life. In this respect Hartmann has controverted materialism very efficiently, since his theory everywhere points to the unitary mental or spiritual ground of things. To this end he employed a wealth of knowledge in the fields of natural science, and that too in the most fortunate manner, although it was an illu sion to suppose that he was winning his "speculative results by the inductive methods of natural science. " At all events, the interest which he borrowed from the natural sciences in combination with an attractive and sometimes brilliant exposition, contributed much to the extraordinary," though transient, success of the " Philosophy of the Unconscious ; its greatest attractiveness lay in the treatment of pessimism (cf. below, § 46), and along this line it was followed by a train of popular philosophical literature which was for the most part of very inferior quality.
Hartmann himself made extensive historical studies, and with their aid extended his fundamental metaphysical thoughts to the fields of ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion ; then he pro ceeded to work out a rigorous dialectic system in his Theory of the Categories. This is the most systematic work of a constructive char acter in the field of abstract concepts which has appeared during the last decades in Germany, — a work which has been supplemented by a historical and critical basis in his History of Metaphysics. 1
The Theory of the Categories, which is no doubt Hartmann's main work from a scientific standpoint, seeks to gain a common formal basis for the disciplines of philosophy by tracing all the relating principles employed by the intellect, whether in perception or in reflection, through the subjective ideal field of the theory of knowl edge, the objective real field of the philosophy of nature, and the metaphysical realm. In the fineness of its dialectical references, and in the wealth of interesting outlooks upon the fields of reality, it presents a unique counterpart to Hegel's Logic. As Hegel devel oped dialectically the whole process in which the Idea changes over into Nature, in which the concept leaves itself and becomes "other," so Hartmann shows, in the case of every category, the transforma-
' OttekiekU der NetaphytUt (2 ptrta, Leips. 1899-1800).
648 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Part VIL
tion which the "logical" experiences by its relation to the "non- logical " element of reality, which arises from the Will. Here, too, the world appears as divided within itself, as the conflict of Reason against will.
§ 45. Nature and History.
The dualism of the Kantian Weltanschauung is reflected in the science of the nineteenth century by the peculiar tension in the rela tion between science of Nature and science of mind. At no earlier time has this antithesis been so current as respects both material and methods, as in ours; and from this circumstance a number of promising new shiftings have arisen. If from the domain of mental science we take, as has been shown, the contested province of psychol ogy, we then have remaining over against " Nature," what corre sponds still more to Kantian thought — the social life and its historical
in its full extent in all directions. The thinking of natural science, pressing forward in its vigorous career of annex ation, from the nature of the case easily found points in the social phenomena as it had previously found in the psychological, where it might set the levers of its mode of consideration, so that a struggle became necessary upon this field, similar to that which had takes place on account of the soul ; and thus the earlier antithesis culmi nated in that between natural science and historical science.
1. The first form in which the struggle between the natural science and the historical Weltanschauung was fought out, was the successful opposing of the Revolution Philosophy by the French Traditionalism. After St. Martin and de Maistre had set forth the Revolution as the judgment of God upon unbelieving mankind, de Bonald proceeded to oppose to the social theories of the eighteenth century, which he too held responsible for the horrors of the Reign of Terror, the theory of the clerical-legitimist Restoration. Unschooled in abstract thought, a dilettante, especially in his predilection for etymology, he was in fluential by the warmth of his presentation and by the weight of the principle which he defended. It was the mistake of the Enlighten ment, he taught, to suppose that the reason could from its own re sources find out truth and organise society, and to leave to the liking of individuals the shaping of their social life. But in truth all intellect tual and spiritual life of man is a product of historical tradition. For it is rooted in language. Language, however (and just here Condil- lacism is most vigorously opposed), was given man by God as the first revelation ; the divine " Word " is the source of all truth. Human knowledge is always only a participating in this truth ; it grows out of conscience, in which we make that which holds universally, our
development
i 45. ]
own. But the bearer of the tradition of the divine word is the Church : her teaching is the God-given, universal reason, propagated on through the centuries as the great tree on which all the genuine fruits of human knowledge ripen. And therefore this revelation is the only possible foundation of society. The arrogance of the indi viduals who have rebelled against this has found its expiation in the dissolution of society, and it is now in point to build society once more upon the eternal basis : this was also the thought which held loosely together the obscure and strange fancies of Ballanche,
2. The philosophical factor in this church-political theory was, that the generic reason realising itself in the historical development of society was recognised as the ground of the intellectual and spir itual life of individuals: if the theological views were distracted from this Traditionalism, the reader found himself hard by Hegel's conception of the Objective Spirit. Hence it was extremely humor ous when Victor Cousin, while adopting German philosophy on just this side, to a certain extent took from the Ultra-montanes the cream of their milk. Eclecticism also taught a universal reason, and was
not disinclined to see in it something similar to the Scottish "com mon sense," to which, however, it still did not deny a metaphysical basis, fashioned according to Schelling and Hegel. When, there fore, Lamennais, who at the beginning had been a traditionalist and had then passed through the school of the German philosophy, treated the doctrine of Ideas in his Esquisse cPune Philosophie, he could fully retain the above theory of the conscience, so far as its real content was concerned.
Quite another form was assumed by the doctrine of Objective Spirit, where it was apprehended purely psychologically and empiri cally. In the mental life of the individual, numerous processes go on, which rest solely upon the fact that the individual never exists at all except as member of a psychical interconnected whole. This interacting and overreaching life, into which each one grows, and by virtue of which he is what he is, evinces itself not by conformity to natural laws, as do the general forms of the psychical processes : it is rather of a historical character, and the general mind which lies at the basis of individual life expresses itself objectively in language, in customs and morals, and in public institutions. Individual psy chology must be broadened to a social psychology by a study of these. This principle has been propounded by Ixuarus and Steintkal, and the eminently historical character which this must have when car
ried out they have indicated by the otherwise less fortunate name of VOOcerpsychologie [Folk or Comparative Psychology].
Nature and History : Traditionalism. 649
3. One must take into account the fundamental social thought of
650 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Part VIL
Traditionalism to understand the religious colouring which is char acteristic of French socialism since St. Simon, in contrast with the social-political theories of the last century. St. Simon's theory, however, stands not only under the pressure of the religious zeal which was growing to become a new social and political power, but also in lively relations to German philosophy, and indeed to its dialectic. All this passed over to his disciple, Auguste Comte. whose thought passed through an extremely peculiar course of development.
He aims at nothing more or less than a complete reform of human society. He, too, regards it as an evident conclusion that with the Revolution, the Enlightenment, which was its cause, has become bankrupt. Like the Traditionalists, he fixes the responsibility for this upon the independence of individuals, upon free investigation and autonomy in the conduct of life. From these follow anarchy of opinions and anarchy of public life. The salvation of society is to be sought only in the dominance of scientific knowledge. We must find once more, and along securer lines, that subordination of all the activities of life beneath a universally valid principle which was approximately attained in the grand but premature catholic sys tem of the Middle Ages. In place of theology we must set positive science, which tolerates freedom of faith as little as theology toler ated it in the Middle Ages. This Romantic element determined Comte's theory throughout It is shown not only in his philosophy of history by his enthusiastic portrayal of the mediaeval system of society, not only in his projected "Religion of Humanity" and its cultus, but above all in his demand for a concurrent spiritual and secular authority for the new social order. The new form of the social order was to proceed from the creative activity of the pouvoir spirituel, and Comte made fantastic attempts toward this by estab lishing his " Western Committee. " As he thought of himself as the chairman of this committee, so he trusted to himself the establish ment of the new teaching. But the positive philosophy on which the new social order was to arise was nothing other than the ordered system of the positive sciences.
Comte's projected positive system of the sciences first of all pushes Hume's and Condillac's conception to the farthest point. Not only is human knowledge assigned for its province to the reciprocal rela tions of phenomena, but there is nothing absolute whatever, that might lie unknown, as it were, at the basis of phenomena The only absolute principle is, that aU is relative. To talk of first causes or ultimate ends of things has no rational sense. But this relativism
(or, as it has later been termed. " correlativism ") is forfeited at once
Nature and History : Comte. 651
to the universalistic claim of the thinking of mathematical natural science, when science is assigned the task of explaining all these relations from the point of view that in addition to individual facts we must discover and establish also the order of these facts as they repeat themselves in time and space. This order we may call "gen eral fact," but nothing more. Thus positivism seeks by "laws" — this is Comte'8 usual name for general facts — not to explain the particular facts, but only to establish their recurrence. From this is supposed to come foresight for the future, as the practical outcome of science, — savoir pour prevoir, — although such foresight is quite
unintelligible and unjustifiable under his presuppositions.
This con ception of Comte's has found assent not only with philosophers like
C. Giiring, who appropriated it especially for his theory of causality, but also to some degree among natural scientists, particularly with the representatives of mechanics, such as Kirchhoff and Mach. Their tendency is to exclude the conception of efficient agency from the scientific theory of nature, and to reach the elimination of " force " on the"basis of a mere " description " or discovery of the most ade quate image. " This has been attempted by H. Hertz in his Prin ciples of Mechanics. Similar thoughts have"been spun out into the unspeakably tedious terminologies of his Empirio-Criticism," by Rirhard Avenarius, who has employed the generalisations of an ab stract dialectic, and seeks to demonstrate all philosophical conceptions of the world to be needless variations of one original world-concep-
tion of pure experience, which is to be once more restored.
4. Phenomena, according to Comte, both individual and general, are in part simple, in part more or less complicated. Knowledge of
the simpler must precede that of the more complex. For this reason he arranges the sciences in a hierarchy which proceeds step by step
from the simple to the complex. Mathematics is followed astronomy, then by physics, chemistry, biology which includes psychology, and finally by " sociology. " This relation, nevertheless, is not to be conceived as if every following discipline was supposed to be deduced from the preceding discipline or disciplines; it merely presupposes these in the sense that their more complicated facta include within themselves the more elementary facts; the completely new facts add their own peculiar combination and nature t<> those more elementary facts. So, for example, biology presupposes
physical and chemiial processes, but the fact of life is something completely new, and incapable of deduction from these processes; it is a fact which must be verified by biological observation. Such, too, is the relation of sociology to the five preceding disciplines.
5 **•]
Following this principle Comte's social statics declines with charac
by
652 Philosophy of the- Nineteenth -Century. [Part VtL
teristic emphasis to derive sociality from the individual, as was done in the Enlightenment philosophy. The social nature is an original fact, and the first social phenomenon is the family. Still more inde pendent is his social dynamics, which without psychological explana tion sets itself the task of discovering the natural law of the history of society. Comte finds this in the principle of the three stages, which society necessarily passes through (an apercu, which had been antici pated by d'Alembert and Turgot as well as by Hegel and Cousin). Intellectually, man passes out of the theological phase, through the metaphysical, over into the positive. In the first he explains phe nomena by supernatural powers and beings thought in anthropo morphic guise, in the second by general concepts [e. g. force, etc. ] which he constructs as the essence working behind phenomena ; in the positive stage he comprehends the particular only by the actually demonstrable conditions, from which it follows according to a law verifiable experimentally. To this universal law of the mental life are subject all special processes into which the same divides, and likewise the movement of human history as a whole. Moreover, the intellectual process is accompanied by a corresponding course of development in the external organisation of society, which passes out of the priestly, warlike condition, through the rule of the jurists (ligistes), to the " industrial " stage.
The very circumstantial philosophy of history which Comte here carries out, interesting in particular points, but on the whole com pletely arbitrary and often distorted by ignorance and prejudice, is to be estimated solely as a construction undertaken for his reforma tory purpose. The victory of the positive view of the world, and at the same time of the industrial order of life, is the goal of the his torical development of European peoples. At this goal "the great Thought, viz. : positive philosophy, will be wedded with the great Power, the proletariate. " '
But as if the law of the circuit of the three phases was to be first verified in the case of its author, Comte in the last ("subjective") period of his thinking fell back into the theological stage, making mankind as Orand-Hre the object of a religious veneration or wor ship, as whose high priest he imitated the whole apparatus of worship of the saints, with a positivist remodelling. Among these phantastic products of the imagination the history of philosophy can at most consider only the motive which guided Comte in his later course. He best set this forth in the General View of Positivism, which is
1 Cf. on Comte, among recent works, Tschitscherin, Philosopkischc For schungen, tr. from the Russian (Heidelberg, 1899). ■. '■• ' ■; .
§ 48. ]
Nature and History : Oomte. 653
reprinted in the first volume of the Positive Polity. This shows him turning aside from the outspoken individualism which had shown itself in his earlier conviction that positive science as such would be sufficient to bring about the reform of society. He has now seen that the positive philosophy may indeed teach how the new order of things is to appear, but that the work of bringing about this new order can be achieved only by the "affective principle" — the feeling.
Whereas he had formerly taught that the specifically human, as it develops in history, is to be sought in the predominance of the in telligence over the feelings, it is from the predominance of the heart over the intellect that he now expects the fulfilment of his hopes which he formulates as Vamour pour principe, Vordre pour base, le progris pour but. 1 And since Gall has shown that the preeminence of heart over intellect is a fundamental characteristic of the brain of woman, Comte bases on this his worship of woman, which he would
make an essential constituent in the religion of humanity. He who had begun with the proud announcement of a positivist papacy ended with an appeal to the proletariate and the emancipation of woman.
5. It is in accord with the practical, i. e. political, ends which Comte followed, that in history also general facts or laws appeared to him more important than particular facts. He believed that in the realm of history a foresight (pr£voyance) should guide and direct action. But apart from this theory and in spite of the one- sidedness of his education along the lines of mathematics and natu ral science, Comte was yet sufficiently broad-minded to understand and to preserve the distinctive character of the different disciplines, and as he had already attempted to secure for biology its own dis tinctive methods, he expressly claimed for his sociology the "his torical method. '' In the biological field the series of successive phenomena in a race of animals is only an external evolution which does not alter or concern the permanent character of the race (hence, Comte was throughout an opponent of Lamarck's theory). In sociology we have to do with an actual transformation of the human race. This has been brought about through the changing vicissi tudes of generations and the persisting cumulation of definite life processes which has been made possible thereby. The historical method is to return to general facts, and thus observation is to be guided by theory, so that historical investigation will yield only a construction based upon a philosophy of history. It was thus per
haps not quite in Comte's meaning, but nevertheless it was a con
of his teaching, when the effort was made here and there ' " Lore for the principle, order (or the bub, progreaa for the end. "
sequence
654 PMlotophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pa. bt vii.
to raise history to the plane of a natural science. John Stuart MiU called attention to this in his methodology. Schopenhauer had denied to history the character of a science on the ground that it teaches only the particular and nothing of the universal. This defect seemed now to be remedied in that the effort was made to press forward beyond the description of particular events to the general facts. The most impressive attempt of this sort was made by Comte's English disciple, Thomas Buckle. In his History of Civilisation in England (1857), Buckle denned the task of historical science as that of seeking the natural laws of the life of a people. For this purpose Buckle found in those slow changes of the social conditions which are recorded in the statistical tables, much more usable and exact material than in the recital of particular events to which the old chronicle forms of historical writing had been limited
Here the proper sense of the antithesis is disclosed : on the one hand the life of the masses with the changes taking place conform ably to general law — on the other hand the independent value of that which presents itself but once, and is determined within itself. In this respect the essence of the historical view of the world has been by no one so deeply apprehended, and so forcibly and warmly presented, as by Carlyle, who worked himself free from the phi losophy of enlightenment by the assistance of the German idealism, and laboured unweariedly for the recognition of the archetypal and creative personalities of history, — for the comprehension and ven eration of " heroes. "
In these two extremes are seen anew the great antitheses in the conception of the world which were already prevalent in the Renais sance, but which had not at that time attained so clear and methodi cal an expression. We distinguished in that period a historical century, and a century of natural science, in the sense that the new investigation of nature emerged from the conflict of traditions as the most valuable outcome (cf. Part IV. ). From the victory of the methods and conceptions of natural science resulted the great meta physical systems, and as their sequence the unhistorical mode of thought characteristic of the Enlightenment In opposition to this the German philosophy set its historical view of the world. It is to be noted that the almost complete counterpart of this antithesis is found in the psychological realm in the antithesis between Intellec- tualism and Voluntarism. On this account the attempt which has been made during the last decade to introduce the so-called scien tific ' method into history, is not in accord with the development of
' [Xaturwissensrhiiftlirhf. In English the term '-science" is so commonly used as the equivalent of "natural science" that the confusion objected to in
f 45. ]
Nature and Hittory : Carlyle, Marx. 655
psychology during our century. It is indeed not the great histo rians who have fallen victims to this mistake, but here and there some who have either been too weak to stand against the watch words of the day, or have made use of them for popular effect. In this so-called scientific ' treatment of historical structures or pro cesses the misuse of comparisons and analogies is especially unde' sirable — as if it were a genuine insight to call society an organism ; or as if the effect of one people upon another could be designated as endosmose and exosmose !
The introduction of natural-science modes of thought into history has not been limited to this postulate of method which seeks to as certain the laws of the historical process ; it has also had an influ ence upon the contents. At the time when Feuerbach's Materialism, which was a degenerate product of the Hegelian dialectic (cf. above, § 44, 6), was yet in its vigour, Marx and Engels created socialism. '*
materialistic philosophy of history, in which motives from Hegel and from Comte cross in peculiar manner. The meaning of history they too find in the " processes of social life. " This collective life, how- ever, is essentially of an economic nature. The determining forces in all social conditions are the economic relations ; they form the ultimate motives for all activities. Their change and their develop ment are the only conditioning forces for public life and politics, and likewise for science and religion. All the different activities of civilisation are thus only offshoots of the economic life, and all history should be economic history.
6. If history has had to defend its autonomy against the destruction of the boundary lines which delimit it from the sciences, the natural science of the nineteenth century has conversely contained an emi nently historical factor which has attained a commanding influence, viz. the ewAiitionanj motive. In fact we find the natural science of to-day
in its general theories, as well as in its particular investigations, de termined by two great principles which apparently stand in opposition to each other, but which in truth reciprocally supplement each other, viz. the principle of the conservation of energy and that of evolution.
The former has been found by Robert Mayer, Joule, and Helm- holtz to be the only form in which the axiom of causality can be used by the physical theory of to-day. The epistemological postulate that there is nothing new in nature, but that every following phenomenon
the text la all the more likely to occur. Of coarse the author is objecting not tn scientific methods, but tn the assumption that the scientific method for natural science is the proper scientific iiwUkkI for history. ]
1 [But cf. on this. Kant, Critique nf Judgment, 166. Cf. also Lapie in Her de Met. el it la Morale, May, 1896. 1
656 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pakt VIL
is only a transformation of that which precedes, was formulated bj Descartes as the law of the Conservation of Motion (cf. above, p. 41 J ), by Leibniz as the law of Conservation of Force (p. 421), by Kant as that of the Conservation of Substance (pp. 645 f. ). The discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, and the distinction between the concepts of kinetic and potential energy, made possible the formula tion that the sum of energy in nature is quantitatively unchangeable, and only qualitatively changeable, and that in every material system which is regarded as complete or closed within itself, the spatial distribution and direction of the kinetic and potential energy at any time is absolutely determined by the law just stated. It is not to be overlooked that in this statement the exclusion of other than mate rial forces from the explanation of nature is made still more sharply than with Descartes ; on the other hand, however, signs are already multiplying that a return to the dynamic conception of matter has been thereby introduced, such a conception as was demanded by Leibniz, Kant, and Schelling (cf. above, § 38, 7).
7. The principle of evolution had many lines of preparation in modern thought. In philosophic form it had been projected by Leibniz and Schelling, although as a relation between concepts, and not as a process taking place in time (so with Aristotle ; cf. § 13) ; and among Schelling's disciples it was Oken who began to regard the ascending of classes and species in the realm of organic life as a pro cess in time. With the aid of comparative morphology, to which also Goethe's studies had contributed, Oken dared that " adventure " in the " archaeology of nature " of which Kant had spoken (p. 665). All organisms are regarded as variously formed "protoplasm" schleim), and the higher have proceeded from the lower by an increasing multiplication of protoplasmic vesicles. At the same time (1809), in his Philosophie Zoologique, Lamarck gave the first system atic exposition of the theory of descent. He explained the relation ship of organisms by descent from a common original form, and their differences, in part by the direct effect of environment, and in part by the indirect effect of environment which operates by calling for a greater use of some organs and a less use of others. This use modifies structures, and the modifications in structure are inherited The variations in species which become stable were thus explained by the alternating influences of heredity and adaptation. To these factors of explanation Charles Darwin added the decisive factor of natural selection. Organisms tend to increase at a far higher rate than the available means of nutrition. Hence the struggle for exist ence. Those plants or animals which vary in a direction that favours them in this struggle will survive.
(Ur-
§ 45. ] Nature and History : Darwin. 657
The presuppositions of the theory, therefore, are the two princi ples of heredity and variability; an additional element was the
assumption of great periods of time for the accumulation of indefi nitely small deviations, an assumption which was made possible by contemporaneous geological investigations.
This biological hypothesis at once gained more general signifi cance in that it promised a purely mechanical explanation of the adaptations or purposive elements which constitute the problems of organic life, and it was believed that thereby the necessity of the progress of nature to higher and higher forms had been understood. The " purposive " had been mechanically explained in the sense of
that which is capable of survival — that of that which can main tain and propagate itself — and was supposed that the same explanation could be applied to everything else which appears pur
posive in other relations, especially to that which purposive in normative respect. So the theory of selection following Darwin's own suggestions was very soon applied on many sides to psychology, sociology, ethics, and history, and was pressed by zealous adherents as the only scientific method. Few were dear on the point that nature uxu thereby placed under a category of history, and that this category had experienced an essential change for such an applica tion. For the evolutionary theory of natural science, including the theory of natural selection, can indeed explain alteration but not
progress; cannot give the rational ground for regarding the result of the development as a "higher," that is, a more valuable form.
8. In its most universal extent the principle of evolution had already been proclaimed before Darwin by his countryman Herbert Spencer, and had been made the fundamental conception of the tat ter's System of Synthetic Philosophy, in which many threads of
English philosophy are brought together. He proceeds from agnos ticism in so far as he declares the Absolute, the Unconditioned, the Unitary Being, whieh he also fain to call Force, to be unknowable. Religion and philosophy have laboured in vain to conceive this in definite ideas for us by the very nature of the case incapable of determination. Human knowledge limited to an interpretation of phenomena, that is, to the manifestations of the Unknowable. Philosophy has only the task of generalising the results of the particular sciences, and putting these generalised results together into the simplest and most complete totality possible.
The fundamental distinction in phenomena Spencer designates as that of the "vivid" and the "faint" manifestations of the Un knowable, i. e. of impressions and ideas. This indicates an attach ment to Hume which not fortunate (cf. above, 453). From this
is
it
is is
p.
is
is
it
is,
;
it
a
658 Philosophy of the nineteenth Century. [Past VII
starting-point, although Spencer rightly rejects the reproach of
material: -in. he ret introduces a turn in his view of the world which _ directs preeminent interest to the character of physical phenomena. For an examination of all the particular sciences is supposed to
yield the result that the fundamental form in which the Absolute manifests itself is evolution. And by evolution Spencer under stands — following a suggestion of the scientist, von Baer — the tendency of all natural structures to pass over from the homoge neous to the heterogeneous. This active variation in which the ever-active force manifests itself consists in two processes, which in cooperation with each other constitute evolution, and which Spencer designates as differentiation and integration. On the one band, bv virtue of the plurality of effects which belong to every cause, the simple passes into a manifold ; it differentiates and individualises itself: it divides and determines itself by virtue of the fulness of relations into which it enters. On the other hand, the thus sepa rated individual phenomena come together again to form firm com pounds and functional systems, and through these integrations new unities arise which are higher, richer, and more finely articulated than the original. So the animal organism is a higher unity than the cell ; society is a higher " individual " than a single man.
This schema is now applied by Spencer to all material and spir itual processes, and with tireless labour he has sought to enforce it in the case of the facts of all the particular sciences. Physics and chemistry are refractory; they stand under the law of the conser vation of energy. But astropbysical theory shows the differentia tion of the original gas into the suns and the peripheral structures of the planets with their satellites, and likewise the corresponding integration in the articulated and ordered system of motion which all these bodies maintain. It is, however, in biology and sociology that the system attains full unfolding. Life is regarded by Spencer as a progressive adaptation of inner to outer relations. From this the individualising growth of a single organism is explained, and from the necessary variations of the latter according to the method
\ of the theory of selection is explained the alteration of species. Social life also in its wh^le historical course is nothing other than
the progressive adaptation of raan to his natural and plastic environ ment. The perfecting which the race wins thereby rests upon the dying out of the unfit and upon the survival of the fit functions. From the standpoint of this doctrine Spencer seeks also to decide the old strife between rationalism and empiricism upon both the logical and ethical fields. As against the associational psychology he admits that there are for the individual immediately evident
i 45. ] Nature and Hiitory : Spencer. 659
principles, and truths which are innate in the sense that they cannot be explained by the experience of the individual. But the strength with which these judgments assert themselves so that consciousness finds it impossible to deny them, rests upon the fact that they are the intellectual and emotional habits acquired by the race, which have proved themselves to be adapted to further the race, and have maintained themselves on this ground. The a priori is everywhere an evolutionary product of heredity. So in particular for morals, everything in the form of intelligent feeling and modes of will sur vives which is adapted to further the self-preservation and develop ment of the individual, of society, and of the race.
Finally every particular development reaches its natural end when a condition of equilibrium has been gained in which the inner rela tions are everywhere completely adapted to the outer, so that the capacity for further articulation and variation has been exhausted. It is, therefore, only by external influence that such a system can be destroyed and disturbed, so that its individual parts may enter into new processes of evolution. On the contrary Spencer strives against the assumption of the possibility that the whole universe, with all the particular systems which it contains, can ever come to a perfect and therefore permanent condition of equilibrium. He thus con tradicts those investigators who have regarded as theoretically possi ble such a distribution of energies as to exclude all alterations ; this is due ultimately to the fact that Spencer regards the Unknowable as the ever self-manifesting force, and regards evolution itself as the most universal law of the manifestation of the Unknowable.
y. Taken all in all Spencer's development of the principle of evolution is throughout of a cosmological character, and in this is shown just the alteration in this controlling principle which is due to the prevalence of natural science in our century. This is Been
most clearly by comparing Hegel and Spencer. With the former, evolution is the nature of the self-revealing spirit ; with the latter, it is the law of the successive manifestations of an unknowable force. To speak in Hegel's language (cf. p. 611). the subject lias again become substance. In fact the Unknowable of Spencer resembles most that "indifference of real and ideal" which Schel- ling designated as the Absolute. This analogy would lead us to expect that the cosmological form of the principle of evolution will not be the final one, and that the historical standpoint and method, as the appropriate home of this principle, will give the permanent
form which it will take in philosophy. In England itself, and still more in America, a decided turn toward Hegel is to be noticed since the impressive book of Hutchinson Stirling and Wallace's excellent
666 PhUotophjf of the Smeteentk Century. [Put VII
introduction of Hegel's logic. In Germany, Kudo Fischer's exposi tion of Hegel's doctrine, which is now just reaching completion, will dissipate prejudices which hare hitherto stood in the war of its just valuation, and by stripping off the terminology which has become foreign to us, will cause this great system of e vol n tion to appear in full clearness.
The same tendency to win back the historical form for the thought of evolution is found in the logical and epistemological efforts which have as their goal what Dilthey has denoted with a fortunate expres sion, a "critique of the historical reason. r The aim is to break through that one-sidedness which has attached to logic since its Greek origins, and which prescribes as the goal and norm of logical laws in their formal aspect the relation of the universal to the par ticular (cf. $ 12), and for the content and material of those laws the knowledge of nature. Under these presuppositions stand not only the extreme of mathematical logic (cf. § 44, 4), but also the impor tant works of John Stuart Mill and Stanley Jevons, which are to be characterised essentially as the logical theory of natural science. Over against this, the elaborations of logical science by Lotze and Sigwart, especially in the tatter's second edition, show a much more universal stamp, and in connection with the movement of historical idealism which has its attachments to the Fichtean view of the world (cf. § 44, 6), a deeper comprehension of the logical forms of histori
/ cal science is on the way ; such, for example, as we find in Rickert's investigations regarding the limitations of the concepts of natural science. 1
S 46. The Problem of Values.
While the end of the century finds us in the yet unadjusted strife between the historical and the natural-science standards, we see just in this continuation of an inherited antithesis how little the philoso phy of this period has been able to win a real progress in its princi ples. Its great and varied industry has been rather at the periphery, and in the work of adjusting relations with the special sciences, while the central development falls prey to a certain stagnation which must be simply put up with as a fact easily comprehensible historically. The exhaustion of metaphysical energy and the high tide of empirical interests give a completely satisfactory explana tion. For this reason we can readily understand that the philoso phy of the nineteenth century shows a rich development along the bounding provinces in which it comes in contact with the empirical disciplines, as in psychology, philosophy of nature, anthropology,
» H. Kickert, Grenzen der naturwisaentchaftlichen Begrifsbitdvng, 1896,
9 48.