No More Learning

It is impossible to speak too highly of the
single-minded purpose with which he carried out this task, in spite
of inherent and extraneous difficulties. He continued to work,
without haste and without rest, publishing First Principles in
1862, Principles of Biology (two volumes) in 1864—7, Prin-
ciples of Psychology (two volumes) in 1870—2, Principles of
Sociology (three volumes) in 1876—96 and Principles of Ethics
(two volumes) in 1879–92. Besides these he designed a series
of charts of Descriptive Sociology, which were compiled by his
assistants, until the work had to be suspended from lack of funds ;
and he also produced smaller works on Education (1861), The
Classification of the Sciences (1864), The Study of Sociology
(1872), The Man versus The State (1884) and Factors of Organic
Evolution (1887). Thus, his perseverance enabled him to complete
his scheme : except, indeed, that he omitted the detailed treat-
ment of inorganic evolution, and thus gained the incidental
advantage of avoiding the awkward problem of the origin of life.
And he produced a considerable amount of subsidiary writing,
including an Autobiography (published in 1904, the year after his
death), which contains a minute and elaborate account of his life,
character and work.
Spencer's idea of philosophy is a system of completely
coordinated knowledge—the sciences consisting of knowledge
partially coordinated. In this sense his system is synthetic. It


## p. 29 (#59) ##############################################

1]
The Unknowable
29
is a scheme in which everything is to find its place, and is to
be seen as a resultant of a single principle. His elaboration of
this scheme approaches completeness, and, in this respect, his
system stands by itself: no other English thinker since Bacon
and Hobbes had even attempted anything so vast. The system
itself fitted in admirably, also, with the scientific conceptions of the
early Darwinians, and thus obtained wide currency in all English-
speaking countries and, to a less extent, on the continent of
Europe. Darwin hailed him as 'our great philosopher,' for he
made evolution a universal solvent and not merely a means for
explaining the different forms of plants and animals. At the same
time, the support which it received from modern science seemed
to give Spencer's philosophy a more secure position than that
of those speculative systems of which the English mind tended
to be suspicious.
The view of philosophy as science further coordinated brings
Spencer's doctrine into line with positivism. He did not, however,
entirely ignore the question of the nature of ultimate reality.
Perhaps, he was not much interested in questions of the kind, and
he had certainly small acquaintance with previous speculation
regarding them. But he had great skill in adapting current
doctrines to his uses; and he found what he needed in the doctrine
of the relativity of knowledge set forth by Hamilton and Mansel.
On this he based his doctrine of the limits of knowledge. But
he found, as others have found, that it was necessary to recognise
something which lay beyond the sphere of exact knowledge.
Hamilton had called this the sphere of belief; Spencer says that
we have an indefinite consciousness of what he nevertheless calls
the unknowable. The nature of this indefinite consciousness is
not explained by him; yet, its object is not treated by him, as one
would expect it to be, as a mere blank; it is said to be “growing
clearer'; the unknowable is constantly referred to as a power,
and it is even asserted that it makes for the happiness of
mankind. These inconsistencies soften his paradox that religion
and science can be reconciled by assigning to the latter the
region of the knowable and restricting the former to the un-
knowable. On his view, all that we know consists of mani-
festations of the inscrutable power behind phenomena ; and
these manifestations depend ultimately upon a single first prin-
ciple—the persistence of force. Spencer's interpretation of this
principle is somewhat flexible and has been attacked by mathe-
maticians and physicists as loose and unscientific. Nevertheless,


## p. 30 (#60) ##############################################

30
Philosophers
[ch.
Spencer holds that from it every other scientific principle must be
deduced-even the law of evolution itself. He has provided a
'formula,' or, rather, definition, of evolution. He defines it as
an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during
which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a
definite coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion
undergoes a parallel transformation.
All phenomena of whatever kind are subject to this law. It is
throughout conceived as a law of progress, which will issue in
a highest state establishing the extremest multiformity and most
complete moving equilibrium. ' But this stage, also, cannot be
permanent; and Spencer contemplates the history of the universe
as a succession of cycles—'alternate eras of evolution and dis-
solution. '
Spencer displayed much ingenuity in fitting organic, mental
and social facts into this mechanical framework.
His early
training as an engineer seems to have influenced his ideas. He
built a system as he might have built a bridge. It was a problem
of strains and of the adaptation of material. Regarded thus, the
whole problem was mechanical and had to be solved in terms
of matter and motion. His purpose was, as he says, 'to interpret
the phenomena of life, mind, and society in terms of matter,
motion, and force. ' Hence, life, mind and society are treated as
stages of increasing complexity in phenomena of the same kind,
and-80 far as this treatment is adhered to—the characteristic
functions of each stage are left unexplained. But the method
of treatment is supplemented by another in which the facts are
dealt with more directly. This is seen especially in psychology,
where the subjective aspect' is recognised with only a suggestion
of an attempt to deduce it from the objective aspect. Spencer
was a keen observer and fertile in his reflections on what he
observed. His power of coordinating facts may, perhaps, be seen
at its best in his Psychology and Sociology. His generalisations
may be often unsound; but, if we compare these works with
earlier and then with later treatises on the same subjects, it
is not possible to deny the great stimulus to thought which
they gave.
Spencer himself set the greatest store upon his work on ethics.
To it, he said, all his other work led up; and this induced him to
issue the first part of it-called The Data of Ethics—out of due
order and before his Sociology was completed. The first part is
undoubtedly the most instructive section of the book as ultimately
6


## p. 31 (#61) ##############################################

1]
Spencer's Individualism
31
finished. The facts of morality are regarded as belonging to the
same order of evolution as the facts dealt with in previous
volumes, being only more special and complicated ; full con-
sideration is given to their biological, sociological and psycho-
logical aspects ; the respective rights of egoism and of altruism
are defended ; and the ethics of evolution is distinguished from
the utilitarian ethics not by having some other ultimate end than
happiness but by its different method and working criterion.
Where the author fails is in giving any adequate proof for his assump-
tion that evolution tends to greatest happiness—an assumption
upon which his ethical theory depends. And, like all the ex-
ponents of the ethics of evolution who have followed him, he
does not distinguish clearly between the historical process
explained by the law of evolution and the ground of its authority
for conduct—if such authority be claimed for it. He finds the
standard for right conduct in what he calls 'absolute ethics,'
by which he means a description of the conduct of fully-evolved
man in fully-evolved surroundings. In this state, there will be
complete adaptation between the individual and his environment;
so that, even if action is still possible, no choice of better or worse
will remain. The system of absolute ethics is worked out in the
succeeding parts of the work, but with very meagre success.
Indeed, at the end, the author is fain to admit that evolution had
not helped him to the extent he had anticipated.
In his ethical, and still more in his political, writings we see
the supreme value set by Spencer on the individual, and the
very restricted functions which he allowed to the state or other
organised community of individuals. The point is not, perhaps,
easy to reconcile with the doctrine of evolution as otherwise
expounded by him. But there were two things which seem to
have been more fundamental in his thought than evolution itself.
One of these has been already referred to as the group of ideas
which may be described as mechanism and which is exhibited
both in the basis and in the plan of his whole structure. The
other is his strong bias towards individualism. If the former may
plausibly be connected with his training as an engineer, the
origin of the latter may, with still greater probability, be traced
to the doctrines current in that circle of liberalism in which he
was nurtured. He wrote political essays and a political treatise
(Social Statics) before his mind seems to have been attracted
by the conception of evolution ; and, although, in some points,
he afterwards modified the teaching of that treatise, its essential


## p. 32 (#62) ##############################################

32
[CH.
Philosophers
ideas and its spirit characterise his latest writings on political
theory. It showed ingenuity rather than insight on his part to
bring them within the grasp of the evolution doctrine ; but, in
spite of many criticisms, he held steadfastly to his doctrine of
what has been called 'administrative nihilism. '
6
No other writer rivalled Spencer's attempt at a reconstruc-
tion of the whole range of human thought. But many of his
contemporaries preceded or followed him in applying the new
doctrine of evolution to the problems of life, mind and society.
Some of these were men of science, who felt that an instrument
had been put into their hands for extending its frontiers ; others
were primarily interested in moral and political questions, or in
philosophy generally, and evolution seemed to provide them with
a key to old difficulties and a new view of the unity of reality.
Darwin himself, though he never posed as a philosopher, was
aware of the revolutionary effect which his researches had upon
men's views of the universe as a whole; what was more im-
portant, he made a number of shrewd and suggestive observations
on morals and on psychology in his Descent of Man and, also,
in his later volume The Expression of the Emotions. But his
contributions were only incidental to his biological work. Others,
writing under the intellectual influence which he originated, were
concerned more directly with problems of philosophy.
Among these writers the first place may be given to George
Henry Lewes, although, in his earlier works, he was influenced
by Comte, not by Darwin. Lewes was a man of marvellous
literary versatility as essayist, novelist, biographer and expositor
of popular science. This versatility also marks his work in
philosophy. At first Comte's influence was supreme. His philo-
sophical publications began with The Biographical History of
Philosophy (1845–6), a slight and inaccurate attempt to cover
a vast field, and apparently designed to show that the field
was not worth the tillage ; later editions of this work, however,
not only greatly increased its extent and removed many blemishes
but showed the author's ability to appreciate other points of
view than that from which he had started. After an interval,
he produced books entitled Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences
(1853) and Aristotle : a chapter from the history of science (1864).
But, for a long time, Lewes had been at work on investigations
of a more constructive and original kind, partly philosophical and
partly scientific, the results of which were not fully published at


## p. 33 (#63) ##############################################

1]
George Henry Lewes
33
the time of his death in 1878. These results were contained in
Problems of Life and Mind, the first two volumes of which,
entitled The Foundations of a Creed, appeared in 1874–5, and
the fifth and final volume in 1879. In this work the author has
advanced far from his early Comtism, and it shows, in many
respects, a much more adequate comprehension of philosophical
problems than can be found in Spencer, whose knowledge of
the history of thought was limited and sketchy, and whose
criticisms of other philosophers were nearly always external-in
the worst sense of the word. But Lewes had fitted himself for
writing, not only by original researches in physiology and related
branches of science, but, also, by a considerable and sympathetic
study of modern philosophy. He is thus able to appeal to other
readers than those who have limited their intellectual enquiries
to a predetermined range. He rejected as 'metempirical' what lay
beyond possible experience; but he would not, like Spencer, affect
;
to derive comfort from the unknowable. There was room for
metaphysics, he thought, as the science of the highest generalities,
or the codification of the most abstract laws of cause, and he
sought to transform it by reducing it to the method of science.
In working out this aim, he relied on and illustrated the dis-
tinction between immediate experience or 'feeling' and the
symbols or conceptual constructions used for its codification.
He also criticised the current mechanical interpretation of organic
processes, holding that sensibility was inherent in nervous sub-
stance. And he was one of the first to emphasise the importance
of the social factor in the development of mind and to exhibit
its working. He defended the conception of the 'general mind,
not as expressing a separate entity, but as a symbol ; and, for him,
the individual mind, also, was a symbol. The problems with which
he dealt were partly general-enquiries into knowledge, truth
and certitude-partly psychophysical and psychological. His
Problems shows the prolonged and eager reflection of an active
mind. In it the multifarious writings of many years were reduced
and expanded. But it may be doubted whether the reduction
was carried far enough. There is a good deal of repetition, but
hardly a central argument; the separate discussions are often
important and suggestive ; but the fundamental position re-
garding subject and object does not seem to be adequately
defended or even made perfectly clear. Lewes had more philo-
sophical insight than Spencer, but he had not the latter's
architectonic genius.
-
E. L. XIV.
CH. I.
3


## p. 34 (#64) ##############################################

34
Philosophers
[CH.
>
cause.
Thomas Henry Huxley, the distinguished zoologist and advocate
of Darwinism, made many incursions into philosophy, and always
with effect. From his youth he had studied its problems un-
systematically; he had a way of going straight to the point in
any discussion; and, judged by a literary standard, he was a great
master of expository and argumentative prose. Apart from his
special work in science, he had an important influence upon
English thought through his numerous addresses and essays on
topics of science, philosophy, religion and politics. Among the
most important of his papers relevant here are those entitled “The
Physical Basis of Life’(1868), and 'On the Hypothesis that Animals
are Automata' (1874), along with a monograph on Hume (1879)
and the Romanes lecture Ethics and Evolution (1893) Huxley
is credited with the invention of the term 'agnosticism' to describe
his philosophical position : it expresses his attitude towards certain
traditional questions without giving any clear delimitation of the
frontiers of the knowable. He regards consciousness as a collateral
effect of certain physical causes, and only an effect-never, also, a
But, on the other hand, he holds that matter is only
a symbol, and that all physical phenomena can be analysed into
states of consciousness. This leaves mental facts in the peculiar
position of being collateral effects of something that, after all, is
only a symbol for a mental fact; and the contradiction, or apparent
contradiction, is left without remark. His contributions to ethics
are still more remarkable. In a paper entitled Science and Morals'
(1888), he concluded that the safety of morality lay'in a real and
living belief in that fixed order of nature which sends social dis-
organisation on the track of immorality. His Romanes lecture
reveals a different tone. In it, the moral order is contrasted with the
cosmic order; evolution shows constant struggle; instead of looking
to it for moral guidance, he 'repudiates the gladiatorial theory of
existence. ' He saw that the facts of historical process did not
constitute validity for moral conduct; and his plain language com-
pelled others to see it also. But he exaggerated the opposition
between them and did not leave room for the influence of moral
ideas as a factor in the historical process.
Another man of science, William Kingdon Clifford, professor
of mathematics in London, dealt in occasional essays with some
central points in the theory of knowledge, ethics and religion.
In these essays he aimed at an interpretation of life in the light of
the new science. There was insight as well as courage in all he
wrote, and it was conveyed in a brilliant style. But his work was
a
a


## p. 35 (#65) ##############################################

1]
Influence of Evolutionary Thought 35
cut short by his early death in 1879, and his contributions to
philosophy remain suggestions only.
It was natural that men of science with a philosophical turn of
mind should be among the first to work out the more general
consequences of the theory of evolution. But the wide range
which the theory might cover was fairly obvious, and was seen by
others who approached philosophy from the point of view of studies
other than the natural sciences. Foremost among these was
Leslie Stephen, a man of letters keenly interested in the moral
sciences. The portion of his writings which bear upon philosophy
.
is small only in relation to his total literary output. His History
of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876) places the
philosophers and moralists in their due position in the whole
literary activity of the period, and is penetrating and usually just
in its estimate of their work. A further stage of the same history
-The English Utilitarians (1900)—was completed towards the
end of his life. His own independent contribution is given in The
Science of Ethics (1882). After Spencer's Data, this is the first
book which worked out an ethical view determined by the theory
of evolution. As such it is significant. The author had sat at the
feet of John Stuart Mill; he had eagerly welcomed Darwin as an
ally of the empirical and utilitarian creed; but he came to see that
more extensive changes were necessary. Spencer's compromise
between hedonism and evolutionism failed to satisfy him, and he
found the ethical bearing of evolution better expressed by the
conception of social vitality than by that of pleasure. The great
merit of the work consists in its presentation of the social content
of morality in the individual mind as well as in the community;
but it does not sufficiently recognise the distinction between the
historical process traced by the evolution theory and the ethical
validity which evolution is assumed to possess.
The transformation of the biological sciences by the theory of
evolution was connected with a wider movement, which consisted
in the greatly extended use of the historical method in explaining
the nature of things. This applies chiefly to the social sciences.
It is to be remembered that both Darwin and Wallace owed the
suggestion of their hypothesis of natural selection to a work on
social theory. The underlying doctrine was, simply, that facts were
to be understood by tracing their origins and historical connections.
How far this historical understanding could take the enquirer
3-2


## p. 36 (#66) ##############################################

36
[CH.
Philosophers
a
became the point at issue between what inay be called the evolu-
tion philosophy and its critics : it may be expressed in the question
whether or not origin determines validity. It was only gradually,
however, that the point of controversy became clear; and, mean-
while, the application of the historical method vastly aided the
understanding of the social order. In this reference, the treatise
entitled Ancient Law (1861) by Sir Henry Maine marks an epoch in
the study of law and institutions, and it had a much wider influence
upon thought generally by furthering the use of the method which
it employed. An early example of the application of the same
method in economics may be found in the series of essays by Thomas
Edward Cliffe Leslie, republished as Essays in Political Economy
(1888); and the historical side of economics has subsequently
been exhaustively worked.
Walter Bagehot’s Physics and Politics (1869) is still more closely
connected with the doctrine of evolution. It is described on the title-
page as 'thoughts on the application of the principles of natural
selection and inheritance to political society. ' Luminous and sug-
gestive though these studies are, it cannot be said that the influence
of the theory of evolution expresses the leading characteristic of
Bagehot’s mind, especially as shown in his other political and
economic works—The English Constitution (1867), Lombard
Street (1873), and Economic Studies (1880). It was his insight
into the actual forces, especially the human forces, at work that
chiefly distinguished his treatment. Whereas even Mill looked
upon economic and political processes as due to the composition
of a few simple forces such as desire of wealth and aversion
from labour, Bagehot knew the actual men who were doing the
work, and he recognised the complexity of their motives and the
degree in which they were influenced by habit, tradition and
imitation. In this way he gave a great impulse to realistic study,
as contrasted with the abstract method of the older economics and
politics.
6
VII. HENRY SIDGWICK AND SHADWORTH HODGSON
These writers had not much in common beyond the two points
which have led to their being placed together here. They both
saw that evolution was not an 'open sesame' to the secrets of
philosophy, and neither owed allegiance to the idealist movement
which rose to prominence in their time. They were probably


## p. 37 (#67) ##############################################

1]
Henry Sidgwick
37
the ablest and most influential writers who made independent
advances on lines more closely connected with the older English
tradition.
Sidgwick taught philosophy for many years at Cambridge, and
held the chair of moral philosophy there from 1883 until 1900, the
year of his death. His reputation as a philosophical writer was
made by his first book, The Methods of Ethics (1874). He after-
wards published treatises on a similar scale on political economy
and on politics ; and, after his death, various occasional articles
were issued in collected form, and a considerable series of books
was compiled from his manuscripts, dealing with general philosophy,
with contemporary ethical systems and with political constitutions.
Within certain limits, Sidgwick may be regarded as a follower of
John Stuart Mill, at least in ethics, politics and economics. In
these subjects he took Mill's views as the basis of his own criticisms
and reflections, and he accepted the utilitarian criterion. At the
same time, he gave much more weight than Mill had done to the
intellectualist tradition in philosophy. He saw that the empirical
philosophy was based on conceptions which it was unable to justify
by its customary method of tracing their origin in experience.
This did not lead, however, to any agreement with Kant's analysis
of knowledge. He was an adverse and somewhat unsympathetic
critic of the Kantian theory. He inclined, rather, to a return to
the 'natural realism' of Thomas Reid, on the question of the
knowledge of external reality; and his ethical doctrine includes
a synthesis of the views of Clarke and Butler with those of
Mill.
His first book remains his most striking contribution to philo-
sophy and the most accurate index of his philosophical attitude.
In spite of his utilitarian sympathies, its starting-point and most
fundamental ideas show the influence of a different type of thought.
He starts with the fundamental notion of ought'or duty, and argues
that enquiries into its origin in our consciousness do not affect its
validity. The knowledge that there is something right or rational
to be done depends, in the last resort, upon an intuition or imme-
diate view of what is right or reasonable. All the old arguments
of the utilitarians are swept away; the analysis of conduct into
pursuit of pleasure is shown not only to be itself incorrect, but to
be irreconcilable with the acceptance of general happiness as the
ethical end. His own utilitarianism is based upon a new synthesis
of intuitionism and empiricism. Here enters his central doctrine
of the 'axioms of the practical reason. ' These do not prescribe
6


## p. 38 (#68) ##############################################

38
[CH.
Philosophers
any concrete end as good—that has to be determined in another
way; but they are formal principles eternally valid whatever the
nature of goodness may prove to be. To these formal principles
are given the names prudence, benevolence and justice; but
they include much less than is usually covered by these terms and
may, perhaps, be adequately summed up in the statement that
neither the time at which, nor the person by whom, a good is
enjoyed affects the degree of its goodness. From the distinction
and yet equal validity of the axioms of prudence and benevolence,
Sidgwick's ethical theory terminates in a doctrine of the dualism
of the practical reason. ' It would appear, however, that this
dualism really arises from the ambiguity of the term prudence,
which may mean either regard for one's own good on the whole
or (what is not the same thing) the principle that 'hereafter as
such is neither less nor more valuable than now. Only the latter
has a claim to be regarded as an absolute ethical principle;
and it is not inconsistent with the axiom of benevolence. The
other side of his utilitarianism—the reduction of goodness to
terms of pleasure-is carried out by analysing conscious life into
its elements and showing that each in its turn (except pleasure),
when taken alone, cannot be regarded as ultimate good. This
analytic method is characteristic of Sidgwick's thinking, as it was
of that of most of his predecessors—intuitionist as well as empirical.
It rests on the assumption that the nature of a thing can be com-
pletely ascertained by examination of the separate elements into
which it can be distinguished by reflection-an assumption which
was definitely discarded by the contemporary school of idealists,
and on which the evolutionist writers also do not seem to have
relied.
As was natural, therefore, Sidgwick did not produce a system
of philosophy. He made many suggestions towards construction,
but, in the main, his work was critical. He was severely critical of
the attempts at speculative construction made in his day, and he
carried on some controversies in which his subtlety and wit had
full play: neither Spencer nor Green was his match in dialectics.
It was not, however, of systems and theories only that he was
a great critic. His powers are seen at their highest when he
analysed and described the moral opinions of ordinary men, not as
they are reflectively set down in philosophical books, but as they
are expressed in life, compact of reason and tradition, fused by
emotion and desire. The third book of his Methods of Ethics
consists, in large part, of an examination of the morality of


## p. 39 (#69) ##############################################

1]
Shadworth Hodgson
39
commonsense. It is an elucidation and sifting of the ideas under
which men act, often without clear consciousness of them; and it
shows the sympathetic apprehension of a mind which shares the
thoughts it describes and can yet see them in perspective and sum
up their significance. Both the excellence of the matter and the
distinction of the style should give at least this portion of his
work a permanent place in literature.
Shadworth Hodgson's life was an example of rare devotion to
philosophy. He had no profession and filled no public office, but
spent his time in systematic reflection and writing; and his long
life gave him the opportunity of reviewing, confirming and im-
proving upon his first thoughts. There were two periods in his
activity. In the former of these he published three books: Time
and Space in 1865, The Theory of Practice in 1870 and The
Philosophy of Reflection in 1878. Shortly thereafter he was
instrumental in founding the Aristotelian Society for the sys-
tematic study of philosophy,' and he remained its president for
fourteen years. This led to contact with other minds who looked
at the same subjects from different points of view. He read many
papers to the society, which were published in pamphlet form and
in its Proceedings, and he built up his own system afresh in the
light of familiar criticism. It took final form in The Metaphysic
of Experience, a work of four volumes published in 1898.
As an analysis of experience, Hodgson's philosophy falls into
line with a characteristic English tradition. It agrees with this
tradition, also, in taking the simple feeling as the ultimate datum
of experience.
But, even here, and wherever there is experience,
there is a distinction to be drawn—not the traditional distinction
between subject and object, but that between consciousness and
its object. Always, there are two aspects in any bit of experience
that of the object itself and that of the awareness of it or the sub-
jective aspect; and these two are connected by the relation of
knowledge. The sciences are concerned with the objective aspect
only; philosophy has to deal with the subjective aspect, or the
conscious process which is fundamental and common to all the
variety of objects. Beyond this conscious reference there is nothing.
The mirage of absolute existence, wholly apart from knowledge,
is a common-sense prejudice. ' Consciousness is commensurate
with being; all existence has a subjective aspect. But this
doctrine, he holds, is misinterpreted when mind and body are
supposed to interact or when mental and bodily facts are regarded


## p. 40 (#70) ##############################################

40
[CH.
Philosophers
!
2
as parallel aspects of the same substance. In psychology, Hodgson
may be called a materialist, unfit as that name would be to
describe his philosophical attitude. Ideas do not determine one
another, nor does desire cause volition; the only real condition
known to us is matter. And yet matter itself is a composite exist-
ence; it can be analysed into empirical percepts; and, therefore,
it is itself conditioned by something which is not material : the
very term existence implies relativity to some sort of consciousness
or other. This is the conclusion of the general analysis of ex-
perience. Of the unseen world which lies beyond the material
part of the world we cannot, he contends, have any speculative
knowledge. But the ethical judgment and our own moral nature
bring us into practical relation with that unseen world and thus
permit a positive, although not a speculative, knowledge of it. In
this way, in the final issue of his philosophy as well as in its
fundamental positions, Hodgson regards himself as correcting and
completing the work of Kant.
VIII. IDEALISTS
a
The latter half of the nineteenth century was marked by the
work of a number of writers who were influenced by the specu-
lations which, in Germany, had turned the results of Kant's
criticism into a direction which he had not anticipated. This
influence, which they shared, and their constant controversy with
current empirical philosophy united these writers into what may be
termed a school; and this school is sometimes described as neo-
Kantian, more commonly as Hegelian or neo-Hegelian. But its
members describe it simply as idealism, though it is an idealism of
a form new in English thought. Before them, Kant's speculative
successors had not obtained currency in England, unless, perhaps,
in a slight measure, through some of the utterances of Coleridge ;
and the powerful influence of Hamilton's criticism had been
almost sufficient to put a ban on what he called 'the philosophy of
the unconditioned. '
The first important work of the new movement was The Insti-
tutes of Metaphysic (1854) by James Frederick Ferrier, professor
at St Andrews. Before this date he had written a number
of philosophical articles, and in particular a series of papers
entitled The Philosophy of Consciousness,' which showed the
trend of his thinking. After his death these were collected
and published together along with a series of lectures as
>


## p. 41 (#71) ##############################################

1]
The English Idealists
41
Lectures on Greek Philosophy and other philosophical remains
(1866). As a historian of philosophy, Ferrier did not pretend
to exceptional research; but he had a remarkable power of
entering into the mind of earlier thinkers and of giving a living
presentation of their views. The history of philosophy was,
for him, no mere record of discarded systems, but 'philosophy
itself taking its time. ' He was a sympathetic student, also, of
the German philosophers banned by his friend Hamilton. It is
difficult to trace any direct influence of Hegel upon his own
doctrine, and, indeed, he said that he could not understand Hegel.
But, both his earlier and his later writings have an affinity with
Fichte-especially in their central doctrine: the stress laid on
self-consciousness, and its distinction from the ‘mental states' with
which the psychologist is concerned. This doctrine connects him
with Berkeley, also. He was one of the first to appreciate the
true nature of Berkeley's thought, as not a mere transition-stage
between Locke and Hume, but as a discovery of the spiritual
nature of reality. The philosophy which he worked out in The
Institutes of Metaphysic is, however, strikingly original. He
claimed that it was 'Scottish to the core. ' But it is very different
from the traditional Scottish philosophy. It disclaims all connec-
tion with psychology. He even formulates a false and psychological
theorem as the counterpart of each true and metaphysical theorem.
And this reiterated opposition, it must be confessed, grows a little
wearisome and can be excused only by the backward state of
psychology, and its confusion with philosophy, at the time when
the book was written. Further, the Scottish philosophy relied on
intuition or immediate apprehension of reality ; Ferrier's method
is that of rational deduction from a first principle. Philosophy is
reasoned truth,' he says ; but ‘it is more proper that philosophy
should be reasoned, than that it should be true. Unfortunately,
he takes Spinoza's method as his model, though he does not follow
the model in all details. There is no array of definitions, axioms
and postulates, but only propositions, each deduced from the
preceding. Thus, a heavy weight is thrown on the first proposi-
tion of the series. This is the primary law or condition of all
knowledge, and is stated in the words, ‘Along with whatever any
intelligence knows it must, as the ground or condition of its
knowledge, have some cognisance of itself. ' What follows is little
more than the elaboration of this statement. Ferrier has not only
an epistemology, or theory of knowledge, but also an agnoiology, or
theory of ignorance, the main doctrine of which is that we can


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42
Philosophers
[CH.
1
3
only be ignorant of what can possibly be known. Hence, in his
ontology, or theory of being, he reaches the conclusion that
absolute existence is ‘a supreme and infinite and everlasting mind
in synthesis with all things. ' Ferrier's writings had, and continue
to have, a considerable reputation, yet a reputation bardly commen-
surate with their philosophical insight and perfect style. Perhaps
the formalism of his method counteracted the lucidity of the
thought. Soon after his death (1864) English philosophy came
under the influence of the more comprehensive genius of Hegel.
The first English work directly due to the influence of Hegel
was The Secret of Hegel (1865) by James Hutchison Stirling.
Educated as a physician, he first heard of Hegel in accidental
conversation. Hegel was described as the reconciler of philo-
sophy and religion, and Stirling, fascinated by the thought,
soon afterwards threw up his practice, settled for some years
on the continent-in Germany and in France and devoted
himself with ardour to philosophical study, especially to the
mastery of Hegel's system. He returned to publish the results
of his work; and, although he wrote many books afterwards
especially an important Text-book to Kant (1881)The Secret
of Hegel remains his greatest work. It consists of transla-
tion, commentary, introduction and original discourse ; and it
shows the process by which the author approached and grappled
with his subject. Sometimes it is as difficult as its original; more
frequently, it illuminates Hegel both by a persistent effort of thought
and by occasional flashes of insight. Its style is characteristic.
Altogether lacking in the placid flow of the academic commentator,
and suggesting the influence of Carlyle, it is irregular, but
forceful and imaginative, a fit medium for the thinking which it
expressed. What Stirling meant by the 'secret' of Hegel was
presumably the relation of Hegel's philosophy to that of Kant.
In Hegel's construction he found a method and point of view
which justified the fundamental ideas of religion, and, at the same
time, made clear the one-sidedness of the conceptions of the 'age
of enlightenment,' at the end of which Kant stood, still hampered
by its negations and abstractions. And Stirling's favourite and
most lively criticisms were directed against the apostles of the
enlightenment and their followers of the nineteenth century.
Stirling was first in the field, and, although cut off from any
academic position, he continued to exercise a strong intellectual
influence. Independently of him, and soon after he began to
publish, the influence of Hegel was shown by a number of other


## p. 43 (#73) ##############################################

1]
Thomas Hill Green
43
6
writers, most of whom were connected with Oxford or Glasgow.
Like Stirling, they brought out the ideas in Kant which pointed to
Hegel's view; but, on the other hand, most of them paid little
attention to, or altogether disregarded, the details of the Hegelian
method. Of these writers one of the earliest and, in some respects,
the most important, was Thomas Hill Green, professor of moral
philosophy at Oxford. His work was constructive in aim and, to
a large extent, in achievement; and it was inspired by a belief in
the importance of right-thinking for life. The latter characteristic
Green shared with most of the writers who sympathised with his
philosophical views, and it accounted for much of the enthusiasm
with which these views were received. His constructive work, how-
ever, was preceded by a very thorough criticism. He saw that it
was necessary, first of all, to expose the assumptions and inconsis-
tencies underlying the systems of Mill and Spencer, and that these
systems were really based upon the philosophy of Hume. Green's
dissection of the latter appeared, in 1874, in the form of two
elaborate 'introductions' to a new edition of Hume's Treatise.
This work, as he confesses, was 'an irksome labour. ' He deals at
length with Locke and Hume, more shortly with Berkeley and
some of the moralists ; and he follows these writers from point to
point of their argument with unwearying, though sometimes weari-
some, persistence. But he was an unsympathetic critic. Locke
and Hume were rather careless of the niceties of terminology, and
some of the contradictions which he finds are, perhaps, only verbal
and might have been avoided by a change of expression. Enough
remain, however, amply to justify his accusation that their thought
was full of incoherences; and, if these had been brought into
clearer relief, and distinguished from merely verbal inconsisten-
cies, the effectiveness of his criticism might have been increased.
But he did succeed in showing that the philosophy based on the
abstraction of feeling, in regard to morals, no less than to nature,
was with Hume played out. He appealed to ‘Englishmen under
five-and-twenty' to close their Mill and Spencer and open their
Kant and Hegel; and this appeal marks an epoch in English
thought in the nineteenth century.
In the years following the 'introductions' to Hume, Green pub-
lished some occasional articles on philosophical topics. He, also,
exerted a great influence by his academic lectures—the more im-
portant of which are printed in his collected Works (three volumes,
1885–8). His greatest book, Prolegomena to Ethics, appeared in
1883, the year after his death. This book does not profess to be a


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44
Philosophers
[CH.
a
6
1
system either of metaphysics or of ethics ; but it supplies the
groundwork for such a system. It is a vindication of the spiritual
nature of the world and of man. Neither nature nor man can be
constructed out of the sensations or feelings which formed the
data of the empirical philosophers. Our knowledge 'presupposes'
that there is a connected world to be known. The relations in-
volved, and inexplicable on empirical methods, can be understood
only as implying the action of mind. "The action of one self-con-
ditioning and self-determining mind' is, therefore, a postulate of
all knowledge, and our knowledge is a 'reproduction of this
activity in or as the mind of man. In the same way, our moral
activity is a reproduction in us of the one eternal mind. Under
all the limitations of organic life and of the time-process generally,
the mind of man carries with it the characteristic, inexplicable on
the theory of naturalism, of 'being an object to itself. ' This
position is not to be established by deductive or inductive methods ;
in this sense it cannot be proved. But it is a point of view from
which—and from which alone—we can understand both the world
and ourselves and see how it is that we are and do what we
consciously are and do. ' In the later books of his Prolegomena
this doctrine is applied to the interpretation of the history of the
moral life and of moral ideas ; and this portion of his work shows
his powers as a writer at their best. In other writings the same
conception is applied to social and religious questions. It is
conspicuous in his Lectures on the Principles of Political
Obligation, where he maintains that will, not force, is the basis
of the state, and gives a fresh reading to the doctrine of the
'general will. '
In his metaphysics, Green does not follow the method of Hegel's
dialectic; and in his reading of history there is no trace of the
Hegelian theory that development in time follows the same stages
as logical development. The gradual steps by which the realisa-
tion of reason or of self is brought about in the time-process are
not investigated. Only, it is assumed that the process is purposive,
that history is the reproduction of the eternal mind. How it
comes about that error and moral evil affect the process is not
explained, and the metaphor of 'reproduction, as well as the
whole relation of the time-process to eternal reality, is left
somewhat vague.
Of the numerous writers who represent a type of thought
similar to Green's in origin and outlook only a few can be men-
tioned here. In 1874, the year in which Green's 'introductions' to


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1]
Edward Caird
45
Hume were published, there appeared, also, The Logic of Hegel,
translated from the latter's Encyclopaedia by William Wallace,
who afterwards succeeded to Green's chair of moral philosophy at
Oxford. A second edition of this work, in which the introductory
matter was considerably extended, was issued in 1892; and this
was followed, in 1894, by Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, and, in
1898 (after the author's death), by Lectures and Essays on Natural
Theology and Ethics. Wallace devoted himself more directly
than his associates to the elucidation of Hegel's thought; but it
may be doubted whether he himself adhered any more closely
than they did to the details of the dialectic. The prolegomena
and introductory essays, by which his translations were prefaced,
are not merely explanatory of difficulties. They have often the
character of original interpretations; they approach the subject
from different points of view and show a rare power of selecting
essential factors. Wallace had wide intellectual sympathies and
found matter of agreement with philosophers of different schools;
but all, in his hands, led towards a central idealism. His work
consisted in pointing out the various avenues of approach to
the temple of idealism, rather than in unveiling its mysteries.
In An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (1880), John
Caird, principal of the university of Glasgow, produced a work,
original in manner, but essentially Hegelian in doctrine. A similar
character marked all the work of his younger brother, Edward
Caird, professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, and afterwards
master of Balliol college, Oxford. The influence of Edward
Caird rivalled that of his friend Green, and their teaching was in
fundamental agreement. Caird, however, had a facility of literary
expression such as Green did not possess ; he was, also, more
inclined to attack questions by the method of tracing the historical
development of thought. His first important work was A Critical
Account of the Philosophy of Kant (1877), which was superseded
by The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (two volumes,
1889). This work is a triumph of philosophical exposition and
criticism. Based upon a mastery of the whole range of Kantian
scholarship, it brings into relief the leading ideas by which Kant
himself was guided, and, through criticism of his arguments, gives
an interpretation of it as tending, when consistently worked out,
towards a system of speculative idealism. A brilliant and sympa-
thetic exposition is contained in his monograph on Hegel (1883).
His Gifford lectures, The Evolution of Religion (1893), deal less
than his other works with the criticism of philosophers; they are


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46
[CH.
Philosophers
6
a study of the nature of religion, especially as exhibited in the
development of the Christian faith.
The writings of Francis Herbert Bradley are so important for
the understanding of English idealism in the nineteenth century
that it seems necessary to make some reference here to the work
of a writer still living. His achievement has been differently
viewed: sometimes as being the finest exposition of idealism,
sometimes as marking its dissolution. His first philosophical
work, Ethical Studies, appeared in 1876, about the same date
as the first books of Green and Caird. It is full of brilliant
criticism of conventional ethical ideas. The manner was different;
but the doctrine seemed to agree with that which was beginning
to be taught in the lecture-rooms. Here, also, 'self-realisation,'
that is, the realisation of the 'true self,' was the watchword.
His Principles of Logic, published in 1883, broke new ground
and showed, also, a development of the dialectical manner. The
inadequacy of the particular,' the implication of the universal'
in all knowledge, were familiar enough, but the defects of empirical
logic had never been exposed with such depth of insight, such
subtlety of reasoning, such severity of phrase. The work was a
triumph for the idealist theory of knowledge. It is noteworthy
that these two books have never been reprinted in England,
presumably because the author became more or less dissatisfied
with their teaching. There is, at least, a difference of emphasis
in the teaching of his next and greatest work, Appearance and
Reality (1893), which has been allowed to pass through several
editions.
This remarkable book has probably exerted more influence
upon philosophical thinking in English-speaking countries than
any other treatise of the last thirty years. But no summary can
convey a clear idea of its teaching. The conceptions of popular
thought and of metaphysics alike are in it subjected to detailed,
relentless criticism. Even the distinction, within the book, between
the chapters devoted to appearance and those described as
reality' seems artificial, for everything is found to be riddled
with contradictions. And these contradictions all belong to our
thought because it is relational Green had held that experience
requires relations, and had argued thence to the need for a relating
mind as the principle of reality. Bradley, too, insists that for
thought what is not relative is nothing' but he draws the very
different conclusion that our experience, where relational, is
not true. ' Of this doctrine all the brilliant disquisitions that
>
6


## p. 47 (#77) ##############################################

1]
Alexander Campbell Fraser
47
follow are applications, with the exception of the author's own
assertions about the absolute, which, being relational, must
be affected by the same vice of contradiction. If his argument
about relations is valid, the idealism of Green and Caird falls to
the ground. His method is more akin to Hegel's than theirs was;
but he also ignores the Hegelian triad; he does not attempt any
consecutive evolution of the categories ; even his doctrine of
degrees of reality' is more Spinozistic than Hegelian. As a
whole, the book is a great original achievement—a highly abstract
dialectical exercise, in which the validity of every argument
depends upon the fundamental "position that relations neces-
sarily involve contradiction. A later book, Essays on Truth and
Reality (1914), deals in great part with controversies which
belong to the twentieth century; without deserting the positions
of the earlier work, it is less purely negative in its tendency and
more devoted to the discovery of elements of truth than to the
exposure of contradictions,
IX. OTHER WRITERS
In the latter part of the nineteenth century there were other
philosophical tendencies at work than those already mentioned.
There were idealist writers whose idealism was of a different type,
resembling Berkeley's rather than Hegel's, and who are sometimes
called personal idealists; there was a movement of reaction from
the type of idealism last described in the direction of philosophical
realism or naturalism; and there were the first indications of the
new movements of thought which have characterised the early
years of the twentieth century.
Among the writers classed as personal idealists may be counted
Alexander Campbell Fraser. His philosophical career, as student,
professor and thinker, began before the Victorian era and lasted
into the present reign. He was a pupil of Hamilton at Edinburgh,
was for ten years professor of philosophy in New college there and
succeeded to the university chair on Hamilton's death in 1856.
His first book, Essays in Philosophy, was published in 1856,
his last, a small monograph entitled Berkeley and Spiritual
Realism, in 1908. Apart from minor works, among which special
mention should be made of his monographs on Locke (1890) and
Berkeley (1881), he is best known as the editor of the standard


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48
[CH.
Philosophers
editions of Berkeley's Works (1871) and of Locke's Essay (1894),
and as the author of Gifford lectures The Philosophy of Theism
(1896). He also wrote an interesting and valuable account of his
life and views entitled Biographia Philosophica (1904).
For a great many years, Fraser, Caird and Bain powerfully
affected philosophical thought in Scotland through their university
teaching. Owing to the position of philosophy in the academic
curriculum, their influence upon the wider intellectual life of the
country was almost equally great, though less easy to trace with any
exactness. Froin Bain, his pupils learned precision in thinking and
an interest in psychology as a science, together with, perhaps, a
somewhat limited comprehension of metaphysical problems. Caird
gave an insight into the history of thought and provided a point of
view from which the world and man's life might be understood; many
of his pupils have shown in their writings that they had learned
his great language and were able to develop and apply his ideas.
Fraser did not teach a system or found a school; he awakened and
stimulated thought, without controlling its direction; he called
forth in his hearers a sense of the mysteries of existence, and he
encouraged in many the spirit of reflection. He had no system;
but his thought was essentially constructive, though the construc-
tion was based on an almost Humean scepticism. On one point,
however, he never yielded to sceptical analysis—the reality of the
self as conscious activity. He found the same thought in Berkeley,
and he may almost be said to have rediscovered Berkeley for
modern readers. Of the world beyond self he could find no theory
which could be satisfactorily established by strict reasoning. But
he saw (as Hume saw in his first work) that science has its
assumptions as well as theology. In particular, he looked upon
the postulate of uniformity as an act of moral faith in the
rationality of the universe, and it was as a 'venture of faith' that
he interpreted the universe as grounded in the reason and good-
ness of God.
a
The reaction from idealism is most strikingly illustrated in the
writings of Robert Adamson. The most learned of his contemporary
philosophers, bis earlier works are written from the standpoint of a
neo-Hegelian idealism. These works are a small volume On the
Philosophy of Kant (1879), a monograph on Fichte (1861), and an
article on logic (1882), long afterwards (1911) republished in book
form. The fundamental opposition of philosophical doctrines he
regarded as 'the opposition between Hegelianism on the one hand


## p. 49 (#79) ##############################################

1]
Robert Adamson
49
and scientific naturalism or realism on the other'; and he rejected
the latter doctrine because its explanation of thought as the pro-
duct of antecedent conditions was incompetent to explain thought
as self-consciousness. The problem which he set himself was to
re-think from the former point of view the new material con-
cerning nature, mind and history provided by modern science.
He came gradually to the opinion that this could not be done-
that idealism was inadequate. His posthumously published
lectures The Development of Modern Philosophy (1903) show
that he was engaged in working out a reconstruction from the
point of view which he had at first held incompetent—that of
realism. But his suggestions do not point to a theory of mechanism
or materialism. Although mind has come into being, it is as
essential as nature: both are partial manifestations of reality.
But he had not an opportunity fully to work out his constructive
theory or to examine its adequacy and coherence.
The new tendencies which distinguish more recent philosophy
illustrate also the increasing reaction of the literature of the
United States of America upon English thought. The theory
known as pragmatism is definitely of trans-Atlantic origin, and
forms of what is called the new realism seem to have been started
independently in the United States and in this country. The
latter theory is, largely, a revival of older views : both the natural
realism of Reid and the scholastic doctrine of the reality of
universals appear to have contributed to its formation. Prag-
matism is a more original doctrine; but its seeds also lie in the
past: it has been connected with the prevailingly practical tone
of much English thought; and more definite anticipations of its
leading idea might be found in some of the later English writers
of the nineteenth century.
E. L. XIV.
CH. I.
4


## p. 50 (#80) ##############################################

CHAPTER II
HISTORIANS, BIOGRAPHERS AND POLITICAL
ORATORS
A. WRITERS ON MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY
a
In a comparison of English historical literature in the nineteenth
with that in the eighteenth century, nothing is more striking than
the advance and the expansion of the study of the national past.
As was remarked in an earlier volume? , Hume’s was the first history
of England by a native historian worthy to be classed as literature;
and, after him, the subject fell largely into the hands of professed
political or ecclesiastical partisans. Robertson's History of
Scotland is not wholly exempt from such a charge ; Smollett's
continuation of Hume is certainly open to it; and no other
work in the field of national history can be said to have been
produced in the course of the century which has survived it
except as material for subsequent use. A reason for the un-
productiveness, on this head, of the closing years of the eighteenth
century, and the early years of its successor, might, of course, be
sought in the great national struggle against the French revolution
and the conquering power to which it gave birth. This struggle
finds its counterpart in the endeavours of the romanticists to
break up the literary and artistic solidarity of classicism, and to
trace the diversity of actual life in the specific features presenting
themselves in national, provincial or local institutions, forms of
government, social ways and manners. Scott, more than any other
writer in verse or prose, by his incomparable historical novels,
taught English historians to reproduce in their works the atmo-
sphere of the times and the colouring of the localities which they
desired to recall. The lesson was reinforced by two different
currents of studies and interests. The first was a result of the
1 For writers on ancient history and early ecclesiastical history, see, ante, vol. xi,
chap. xiv.
?