No More Learning

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
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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. ] Problem of Values : Utilitarianism. 661
philosophy of history, philosophy of law and philosophy of reli'- gion, while on the contrary it makes the impression of an eclectic and dependent attitude in the fundamental disciplines. Surely this is the inevitable consequence of the fact that it suffers from the repressive wealth of traditions which have attained complete histori cal consciousness.
It is in accord with this that no earlier time has seen such a luxuriant and fruitful growth in the study of the history of philosophy. But there is need of a new central reconstruction if philosophy is to meet in satisfactory manner the wants which in recent time come once more for satisfaction from the general con sciousness and from the special sciences. 1
The direction in which the solution of this problem is to be sought is determined on the one hand by the predominance of that volun tarism which extends from psychology into'general metaphysical theories (§ 44), and on the other by the circumstance that the two forms of the principle of evolution (§ 45), viz. the historical and that of natural science, are distinguished from each other by their different attitudes toward the determinations of value. In addition the mighty upward sweep in the conditions of life which Europeans
have experienced in this century has worked at once destructively and constructively upon general convictions. Civilisation, caught in this movement of rapid enhancement and extension, is urged on by a deeper demand for comprehension of itself, and from the problem of civilisation which made its appearance in the Enlightenment (cf. f 37) a movement has developed for which the " transformation and re-valuation of all values" (Umtcertung aUer Werthe) has become the watchword.
1. The characteristic trait in this is that in the foreground of all ethical considerations the relation of the individual to society stands
'That the Catholic Church has sought to solve this problem by a revival of TbomUtn is well known, and does not need to be further set forth here. Nor on this account do we need to cite the1 numerous Tliomists (mostly Jesuits) in Italy,
Prance. Germany. Belgium, and Holland. In theory they represent no new principles, but at most seek to build out the old doctrine in details so that it may appear in some maimer adapted to modern knowledge, in particular to modern science of nature. But the freer tendencies of Catholic philosophy, which are usually called Ontoltigirm. have created nothing new and fruitful. They attach themselves for the moot part to the 1'latonism of Malebranche, and point back to Angnstine, so that the antagonism which we noted in the Middle Ages and in the
Renaissance is repeated again (cf. pp. 364, 416. ) The finest presentation of i >i>tolr>gism was found in the Italian*, Rosmini and Giobertl ; the former gave It a enrt of psychological basis ,- the latter a purely metaphysical form (L'enU rrni rrtiMUnte). In Germany GUnther introduced into it certain elements of the idealistic speculations, especially of Fichte's doctrine ; in France, Gratry fmm this standpoint combats especially the eclecticism of Cousin, and in this eclecticism he combats HegelianUm and the "pantheism" which he finds in both (cf. tltude tur la Sophistique Contemponine, tettre a M. Vaektrot,
Parte, 1861).
662 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Past VH
forth in much more conscious and explicit form than ever before, — whether in the positive form that the subordination of the individual to society is presented and grounded in some manner as the norm of all valuation, or whether it be in the negative form that the resist ance of the individual to the oppressing weight of the species is praised and justified.
The first form is that which has been transmitted from the phi losophy of the Revolution and from Utilitarianism, especially in the stamp given to it by Bentham (cf. p. 522). This Utilitarianism goes through the popular literature of the century as a broad stream in which the standard of the public good is taken as a matter of course without deep analysis of its meaning. It is characterised for the most part by limiting its care " for the greatest happiness of the greatest number " to man's earthly welfare ; the mental and spiritual goods are not indeed denied, but the measure of all valuation is found in the degree of pleasure or pain which a circumstance, a relation, an act, or a disposition may call forth. Theoretically, this doctrine rests on the unfortunate inference of the associational chology, that because every satisfied desire is accompanied with pleasure the expectation of the pleasure therefore, the ultimate motive of all willing, and every particular object willed and valued only as means for gaining this pleasure. This formal eudsemonism was earlier forced either to regard the altruistic impulses as equally original with the egoistic, or to make them proceed from the egoistic through the experiences which the individual undergoes in social life. In contrast with this the noteworthy transformation which Utili tarianism has experienced in recent time consists in its combination with the principle of evolution, as has already been mentioned in the case of Spencer's doctrine (cf. 45, 8). The valuation of altruism from the standpoint of social ethics appears according to this new point of view to be the result of the process of evolution, inasmuch as only those social groups have maintained themselves in the struggle for existence whose individual members have achieved tltruistic thought and action in relatively high degree. 1 The history of morals struggle of values or "ideals," from which we may part explain the relativity of historical systems of morals, and part their converging development to a universal human ethics. These fundamental thoughts of evolutionary ethics have been car ried out in many detailed expositions among their representatives
Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution, London, 1895, has attempted to determine the nature of religion sociologically by considering the part which ideas of the
supernatural have played in this evolutionary process — genuinely English undertaking.
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§46. ] Problem of Value* : Bentham. 663
may be mentioned, in France, Fouillee, in Germany, Paul Kee, whose evolutionary theory of conscience excited attention for a time, and G. H. Schneider.
[Before passing to the continental representatives of Utilitarian ism it will be instructive to consider more fully the changes which have been effected in British theories both within and without the so-called Utilitarian school. ' These changes affect the standard of value, the motives to which ethical appeal is made, and the relation which the individual is conceived to sustain to the social body ; their nature shows the influence of the close relation which ethical theory in England has always sustained to social and political conditions.
During the century England has seen an almost continuous effort toward social and political reform. This movement has aimed at an extension of political privilege, and at making possible a higher standard of living for the less fortunate members of society. ' It has thus been democratic in so far as it has insisted upon the widest par ticipation in the goods of civilisation ; but by emphasising not merely material comforts, but also political rights, social justice, and educa tional opportunities, it has tended to measure human welfare, not so much in terms of feeling as in terms of " dignity " and fulness of life or "self-realisation. " The movement along these two direc- tions has been due in part to the influence of German idealism as transmitted through Coleridge, Carlyle, and later through Green and others, but the immanent forces of social progress have had a deci sive influence in the same direction.
As has been pointed out (pp. 51. 3 f. ), a general tendency of British theory has been to unite a social standard or criterion of moral value with an individualistic, and even egoistic theory of motives. This seemed the more possible to Bentham, because in the individualistic language of his day the community was defined as a " fictitious body composed of individual persons who are considered as constituting, as it were, its members. " The interest of the community, then, "is the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it. "
Hence it might seem that one way to promote the interest of the community would be for every man to seek his own interest. If, however, it should be necessary to bring pressure to l>ear upon the individual in order to keep him from interfering with the interests of others, Bentham conceived that the principal reliance should be placed upon what he called the four sanctions, which he specified as the physical, political, moral, and religious, meaning by these the
1 The material from this point to the paragraph numbered " 2 " on p. 070 has been added by the translator.
664 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pakt VII
pleasures and pains derived from physical sources, from the penal ties of law, from public opinion, or from belief in divine rewards and punishments. It is for pain and pleasure alone " to point oat what we aught to do, as well as to determine what we shall do," and the ambiguity in the terms " pain " and " pleasure," according to which they mean in the one case pleasure or pain of the community, and in the other case pleasure or pain of the agent, permits Benthain to suppose that he is maintaining a consistent hedonistic theory. But there were two other important qualifications in this hedonistic and individualistic theory. In the first place he intimates that the indi vidual may seek public pleasure as well as private,V thus giving the theoretical statement of the principle which governed his own life, directed as it was toward the public interest. In the next place, the maxim which Bentham used to interpret the phrase, " greatest good of the greatest number," was, " everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one. " This, while apparently a principle of extreme individualism, was really a recognition of individual rights, and was based upon fairness rather than upon a purely hedonistic standpoint. It is thus essentially a social principle, and a demand that the pleasure which "determines what we should do" shall be not merely a maximum, but a particular kind of pleasure, regulated not by con siderations of quantity, but by principles of fairness and justice. A further inadequacy of Bentham's theory to account for Bentham's practice appears in his famous definition that in estimating pleasures and pains we must consider quantity only, — " push-pin is as good as poetry. " But Bentham's own activity, if not primarily directed toward poetry, was at least as little directed toward push-pin for himself or for others. His whole life-work was given toward pro moting legislative and social reform, toward securing Tights and justice; and although he had little appreciation of certain of the finer values of art and culture, he was at least as little as his suc cessor, Mill, to be explained by the hedonistic formula.
The theoretical individualism of the hedonistic standard for meas uring the values of human life and the motives for moral action found vigorous and successful opposition in the Work of Coleridge and C'arlyle. The former exerted his influence primarily in the religious field, and in special opposition to the theories of motive and obligation propounded by Paley (p. 514, above), which had wide currency in educational and religious ciroles. According to Paley, the only difference between prudence and duty is that in the^one we
:. >"Snch pleasures seek, if private be thy end. If ft ■be 'pablkv'' : etc. Cf
J. Dewey, Study of Ethics.
. "■••. »" ' •:
a'. :.
-•
f 46. ] Problem of Value* : Coleridge, Carlyle. 665
consider the gain or loss in the present world ; in the other, we con sider also gain or loss in the world to come. Obligation, according to Paley, meaus to be urged by a violent motive, resulting from the command of another. Against these positions Coleridge urged that while man as a mere animal, or as a being endowed merely with " understanding," may know only motives which spring from the calculations of pleasures and pains, man as rational may hear another voice and respond to higher appeals. It is, in fact, in just this distinction that we find the difference between prudence and true morality. The written works of Coleridge were few and fragmen tary, but his personal influence upon the literary, religious, and philosophical thought of his own and the succeeding period, in both
Britain and America, has been powerful and far-reaching.
The criticism of Carlyle was directed against " Benthamism. " Its individualism of motive seemed to Carlyle adapted to aggravate
rather than to heal the disease of the age. The economic develop ment had been steadily in the direction of greater individualism. It had substituted the wage-system for the older personal relation. What Carlyle felt to be needed was the deeper sense of social unity, a stronger feeling of responsibility. Now the pursuit of happiness is essentially an individualising force, — "the man who goes about pothering and uproaring for his happiness, he is not the man that will help us to get our knaves and dastards arrested ; no, he is rather on the way to increase the number — by at least one unit. " A true social organisation can be secured only if the individualistic and commercial theory of interests is abandoned. This leads at once to the other point of Carlyle's attack, — measurement of value in terms of pleasure and happiness. Instead of" a " greatest happiness prin ciple,'* a "greatest nobleness principle must be substituted. Man cannot be satisfied with the results"of attempts to give him pleasure if these aim simply at pleasure. Man's unhappiness comes of his greatness ; it is because there is an infinite in him which he cannot quite bury under the finite. The shoe-black also has a soul quite other than his stomach, and would require for his permanent satis faction and saturation God's Infinite Universe. " It is to the heroes that we must look for our ideals of human life. It is in work rather than in pleasure that the end of human life is to be achieved.
It was in the thought of John Stuart Mill that the fusion of utili tarian and idealistic principles found its most instructive illustration. The social philosophy of Comte and a personal character actuated by high ideals of duty and ardent for the promotion of public welfare conspired with the influences already named to secure this result.
Educated by his father, James Mill, in the principles of association*!
686 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century [Part VII
psychology, associated with Ricardo, the representative of an indi vidualistic economic theory, and with Bentham, he inherited thus a theory of human nature and a method of analysis from which he never completely freed himself ; but on the other hand he introduced into the scheme a new content which led him to transcend the hedo nistic position. 1 First as regards the object of desire. It had been the position of the associationalists that the individual desires originally pleasure, and pleasure only. This is the only intrinsic good. It was held that other objects, however, might become associated with the individual's happiness, and thus become independent objects of desire. In this theory it would be the purpose of moral trainiug so to associate the public good with the private good of the individual that he would come to desire the public welfare. Taught by his own experience that such external associations had no permanent motive power, Mill was led to reject this theory, and to state the hedonist! ' paradox that to find pleasure one must not consciously seek it Of greater significance for our present purpose is Mill's theory of the motives to moral action. On the one hand he retains so much of the eighteenth century atomistic view of conduct as to affirm that " the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the morality of the agent. " He still retains the doctrine of the external sanctions without stating explicitly that however useful these may be to control the non-moral or immoral, until other motives get a foothold, they are not moral motives. But on the other hand he lays far greater stress upon the " internal " sanctions of duty. This feeling of duty, in turn, though strengthened by edu
cation and association, has as its ultimate foundation the " social feelings of mankind. " It is because man naturally " never conceives himself otherwise, than as a member of a body " that the interest of the community is the interest of the individual. The principle of sympathy which had served alternately as a means of psychological analysis and as a term for the broader social impulse, was given its most important place as that on which rests " the possibility of any cultivation of goodness and nobleness and the hope of their ultimate entire ascendency. "
Finally, Mill transcends the hedonistic criterion of value. While maintaining that the mental pleasures are superior to the bodily
on purely quantitative grounds, he asserts that, quite apart from questions of quantity, some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and valuable than others. The test for pleasure,
1 In addition to the Utilitarianism, the Autobiography, the essays on Bentham •nul Coleridge and On Liberty are of special interest.
pleasures
i 44. J Problem of Values : Mill, Spencer. 667
whether we seek to measure its intensity or its quality, must in any case be subjective; and the question as to which of two pleasures is the better must be decided by those who have had experience of both Instead, therefore, of using pleasure as the standard for value, Mill, like Plato, would appeal to " experience and wisdom and reason" as judges. Instead of pleasure as standard, we have rather a standard for pleasure. If, then, we ask what thes° " com petent judges " will assign as the highest values, we may find differ ent names, such as love of liberty and love of«power, etc. , but the most " appropriate appellation is the sense of dignity. " " It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied ; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. " And in the fur ther development of this principle of valuation Mill even goes beyond Carlyle's position by declaring that to do without happiness is now done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind, and often has to be done voluntarily by the hero or the martyr, who in sacrificing his own happiness for that of others displays the " high est virtue which can be found in man. "
A similar conflict between hedonistic and other standards of value is evident in the ethical system of Herbert Spencer. On the one
hand, following the tradition of a hedonistic
maintains that life is good or bad according as it does or does not bring a surplus of agreeable feeling. The only alternative to this test is to reverse the hypothesis and suppose that pain is good and pleasure is bad. No other standard of value can be admitted. This position is fortified by the biological law that if creatures should find pleasure in what is hurtful, and pain in what is advan tageous, they would soon cease to exist. On the other hand, Spen cer propounds also a standard of value which does not easily conform to the test of pleasure and pain. According to this standard the highest conduct is that which conduces to " the great est breadth, length, and completeness of life"; the highest stage in evolution is that reached when "conduct simultaneously achieves the greatest totality of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men. " The subjective standard of pleasurable feeling and the objective standard of fulness of life are thus set over against each ocher. The attempt is made to bring them together by showing that the bio logical development has necessarily brought about a harmony between pleasure and progress, but on the other hand it is admitted that a condition of progress involves a lack of adaptation between the individual and the environment. It would therefore seem that, however well-suited pleasure might be as a test for the static indi vidual, it cannot be regarded as a test of value for the guidance of
psychology, Spencer
668 Phtlotofhy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pabt VII
a progressive being. Henoe Spencer maintains that the perfect application of his test supposes an ideal humanity. A consistent hedonism would require that the test of such an ideal humanity be solely the continuity and intensity of pleasurable feeling attained, but the numerous recognitions of more objective fac tors make it improbable that Spencer would regard merely sen tient beings deprived of all active faculties as the highest type of evolution.
The employment by Spencer of the principles of evolution as affording a moral standard leads to an interesting complication of the problems considered under § 45 with the problem of the indi vidual in relation to society. On the one hand, as already noted (p. 662), the social sentiments and related moral principles are regarded by Spencer as finding their basis in the evolutionary pro cess. These social qualities subserve the welfare of the family or species, and aid it in the struggle for existence. On the other hand, it is maintained that the fundamental law of progress is that " each individual shall take the consequences of his own nature and actions: survival of the fittest being the result. " Among gregarious creatures the freedom of each to act has to be restricted by the pro vision that it shall not interfere with similar freedom on the part of others. Progress is therefore dependent upon giving the greatest possible scope to individual freedom. With Bentham and Mill the maxim "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one" had represented a socialising of the criterion and ideal. In Spen cer's opinion this represents an undue emphasis upon equality; from this to communism the step is only one from theory to prac tice. " Inequality is the primordial idea suggested " by evolution ; equality, as suggested in the need of restriction, is secondary.
From this individualistic interpretation of evolution Spencer opposes not only communism in property, but the assumption by the State of any functions beyond that of securing "justice" to the indi vidual. The State should keep the individual from interfering with the freedom of other individuals. The State is thus essentially negative in its significance. Man in his corporate capacity may not realise a positive moral value in the pursuit of common good. But while agreeing thus with the views of Gundling and von Humboldt (cf. p. 520), Spencer insists that, in denying the possibility of reach ing positive values through the State, he aims to secure these values more efficiently by voluntary and private action. " Beneficence " belongs to the family virtues ; " justice " to the State. 1
1 Cf. Ethics, Vol. U. , The Man vs. the State, and Essays, VoL lit-
-
§ 4«. ] Problem of Valut* : Huxley, Green.
The relation of evolutionary processes to the problem of moral values has been most sharply formulated by Huxley. 1 In opposi tion to certain philosophical writers who find in the evolutionary process a moral standard, Huxley points out with great vigour and incisiveness the distinction between the "cosmic process" and the "ethical process. " The attempt to find in the "cosmic pro cess" an ethical standard is based upon the ambiguity in the phrase " survival of the fittest. " Fittest, it is scarcely necessary to say, is not synonymous with ethically best. If the temperature of the earth should be reduced, the survival of the fittest would mean a return to lichens and diatoms.
The ethical process must find its standard not in the cosmic pro cess, but in the moral ideals of man. Its principle is not that of the survival of the fittest, but that of fitting as many as possible to survive. The duty of man is not to conform to the cosmic pro cess, but to combat it. In a sense it may be admitted that the moral
process is a part of the cosmic process, but the important point is that the moral process cannot take its standards from the non-moral ]>arts of the cosmic process, and the theory of government which Spencer would derive from this is characterised by Huxley as "administrative nihilism. " '
The opposition to an ethical theory based upon the conceptions of natural science, has received its most thorough-going expression in the work of T. H. Green. Previous English sympathisers with German idealism had for the most part appropriated results without attempting for themselves the " labour of the notion. " Believing that current theories of evolution and ethics were repeating the fallacies of Hume in another form, Green set himself the task of criticising those fallacies and of re-stating the conditions under which any experience, and especially any moral experience, is possible. The central, fundamental, and determining conception is found in self-consciousness. Questions as to freedom, desire, and ideals must be stated in terras of self-consciousness, and not in physical concepts, if they are to be intelligible. Nor can self- consciousness be explained in terms of the unconscious, or as developing from the unconscious. It seems rather to be compre hensible only as the reproduction in man of an eternal conscious ness. This has an important bearing on the determination of the moral ideal. In the fint place it requires that the end or ideal shall always be some desirable state of self. In this it seems to
1 In hU Romanes lecture, 1803. Reprinted m Evolution and Ethic*, 18M. Cf. J. Itowey. Evolution and Ethic*, Mooist, VIII. 321 ft.
1 Critique* and Addrt—e*.
tf70 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Part VT1.
approach hedonism, but whereas hedonism holds that pleasure makes a state or an object desirable, Green insists that the pleasure follows the attainment of desire, and that what a being desires is determined by the nature of the being. Man desires the full realisation of him self, and " in it alone he can satisfy himself. " The good is"therefore a personal good. It is also a common or social good. Without society, no persons. " While therefore it may not be possible to state definitely the specific characteristics of the " best state of man," history shows that man has bettered himself through insti tutions and habits which make the welfare of all the welfare of each, and through the arts which make nature the friend of man.