Read Ebook: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy Vol. I Nos. 1-4 1867 by Various Harris William Torrey Editor

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TO THE READER.

For the reason that a journal devoted exclusively to the interests of Speculative Philosophy is a rare phenomenon in the English language, some words may reasonably be expected from the Editors upon the scope and design of the present undertaking.

There is no need, it is presumed, to speak of the immense religious movements now going on in this country and in England. The tendency to break with the traditional, and to accept only what bears for the soul its own justification, is widely active, and can end only in the demand that Reason shall find and establish a philosophical basis for all those great ideas which are taught as religious dogmas. Thus it is that side by side with the naturalism of such men as Renan, a school of mystics is beginning to spring up who prefer to ignore utterly all historical wrappages, and cleave only to the speculative kernel itself. The vortex between the traditional faith and the intellectual conviction cannot be closed by renouncing the latter, but only by deepening it to speculative insight.

Likewise it will be acknowledged that the national consciousness has moved forward on to a new platform during the last few years. The idea underlying our form of government had hitherto developed only one of its essential phases--that of brittle individualism--in which national unity seemed an external mechanism, soon to be entirely dispensed with, and the enterprise of the private man or of the corporation substituted for it. Now we have arrived at the consciousness of the other essential phase, and each individual recognizes his substantial side to be the State as such. The freedom of the citizen does not consist in the mere Arbitrary, but in the realization of the rational conviction which finds expression in established law. That this new phase of national life demands to be digested and comprehended, is a further occasion for the cultivation of the Speculative.

More significant still is the scientific revolution, working out especially in the domain of physics. The day of simple empiricism is past, and with the doctrine of "Correlation of forces" there has arisen a stage of reflection that deepens rapidly into the purely speculative. For the further elucidation of this important point the two following articles have been prepared. It is hoped that the first one will answer more definitely the question now arising in the mind of the reader, "What is this Speculative Knowing of which you speak?" and that the second one will show whither Natural Science is fast hastening.

With regard to the pretensions of this Journal, its editors know well how much its literary conduct will deserve censure and need apology. They hope that the substance will make up in some degree for deficiencies in form; and, moreover, they expect to improve in this respect through experience and the kind criticisms of friends.

THE SPECULATIVE.

This most admirable description is fully endorsed by Aristotle, and firmly established in a two-fold manner:

Though great diversity is found in respect to form and systematic exposition among the great philosophers, yet there is the most complete unanimity, not only with respect to the transcendency of the Speculative, but also with reference to the content of its knowing. If the reader of different systems of Philosophy has in himself achieved some degree of Speculative culture, he will at every step be delighted and confirmed at the agreement of what, to the ordinary reader, seem irreconcilable statements.

Not only do speculative writers agree among themselves as to the nature of things, and the destiny of man and the world, but their results furnish us in the form of pure thought what the artist has wrought out in the form of beauty. Whether one tests architecture, sculpture, painting, music or poetry, it is all the same. Goethe has said:

"As all Nature's thousand changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdoms ranges One sole meaning, still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene, through time and season, Stands for aye in loveliness."

While it is one of the most inspiring things connected with Speculative Philosophy to discover that the "Open Secret of the Universe" has been read by so many, and to see, under various expressions, the same meaning; yet it is the highest problem of Speculative Philosophy to seize a method that is adequate to the expression of the "Secret;" for its own method of genetic development must be the only adequate one. Hence it is that we can classify philosophic systems by their success in seizing the content which is common to Art and Religion, as well as to Philosophy, in such a manner as to allow its free evolution; to have as little in the method that is merely formal, or extraneous to the idea itself. The rigid formalism of Spinoza--though manipulated by a dear speculative spirit--is inadequate to the unfolding of its content; for how could the mathematical method, which is that of quantity or external determinations alone, ever suffice to unfold those first principles which attain to the quantitative only in their result?

In this, the profoundest of subjects, we always find in Plato light for the way. Although he has not given us complete examples, yet he has pointed out the road of the true Speculative method in a way not to be mistaken. Instead of setting out with first principles presupposed as true, by which all is to be established, , he asserts that the first starting points must be removed as inadequate. We begin with the immediate, which is utterly insufficient, and exhibits itself as such. We ascend to a more adequate, by removing the first hypothesis; and this process repeats itself until we come to the first principle, which of course bears its own evidence in this, that it is absolutely universal and absolutely determined at the same time; in other words it is the self-determining, the "self-moved," as Plato and Aristotle call it. It is its own other, and hence it is the true infinite, for it is not limited but continued by its other.

The Speculative has insight into the constitution of the positive out of the negative. "That which has the form of Being," says Hegel, "is the self-related;" but relation of all kinds is negation, and hence whatever has the form of being and is a positive somewhat, is a self-related negative. Those three stages of culture in knowing, talked of by Plato and Spinoza, may be characterized in a new way by their relation to this concept.

The first stage of consciousness--that of immediate or sensuous knowing--seizes objects by themselves--isolatedly--without their relations; each seems to have validity in and for itself, and to be wholly positive and real. The negative is the mere absence of the real thing; and it utterly ignores it in its scientific activity.

But the second stage traces relations, and finds that things do not exist in immediate independence, but that each is related to others, and it comes to say that "Were a grain of sand to be destroyed, the universe would collapse." It is a necessary consequent to the previous stage, for the reason that so soon as the first stage gets over its childish engrossment with the novelty of variety, and attempts to seize the individual thing, it finds its characteristic marks or properties. But these consist invariably of relations to other things, and it learns that these properties, without which the thing could have no distinct existence, are the very destruction of its independence, since they are its complications with other things.

To suppose that this may be made so plain that one shall see it at first sight, would be the height of absurdity. Doubtless far clearer expositions can be made of this than those found in Plato or Proclus, or even in Fichte and Hegel; but any and every exposition must incur the same difficulty, viz: The one who masters it must undergo a thorough change in his innermost. The "Palingenesia" of the intellect is as essential as the "regeneration of the heart," and is at bottom the same thing, as the mystics teach us.

But this great difference is obvious superficially: In religious regeneration it seems the yielding up of the self to an alien, though beneficent, power, while in philosophy it seems the complete identification of one's self with it.

He, then, who would ascend into the thought of the best thinkers the world has seen, must spare no pains to elevate his thinking to the plane of pure thought. The completest discipline for this may be found in Hegel's Logic. Let one not despair, though he seem to be baffled seventy and seven times; his earnest and vigorous assault is repaid by surprisingly increased strength of mental acumen which he will be assured of, if he tries his powers on lower planes after his attack has failed on the highest thought.

Thus, too, the plant is negative to the inorganic--it assimilates it; the animal is negative to the vegetable world.

HERBERT SPENCER.

During the past twenty years a revolution has been working in physical science. Within the last ten it has come to the surface, and is now rapidly spreading into all departments of mental activity.

Although its centre is to be found in the doctrine of the "Correlation of Forces," it would be a narrow view that counted only the expounders of this doctrine, numerous as they are; the spirit of this movement inspires a heterogeneous multitude--Carpenter, Grove, Mayer, Faraday, Thompson, Tyndall and Helmholtz; Herbert Spencer, Stuart Mill, Buckle, Draper, Lewes, Lecky, Max M?ller, Marsh, Liebig, Darwin and Agassiz; these names, selected at random, are suggested on account of the extensive circulation of their books. Every day the press announces some new name in this field of research.

What is the character of the old which is displaced, and of the new which gets established?

"I see that all these complications of society are artificial," adds Rousseau; "man has made them; they are not good, and let us tear them down and make anew." These utterances echo all over France and Europe. "The state is merely a machine by which the few exploiter the many"--"off with crowns!" Thereupon they snatch off the crown of poor Louis, and his head follows with it. "Reason" is enthroned and dethroned. Thirty years of war satiates at length this negative second period, and the third phase begins. Its characteristic is to be constructive, not to accept the heritage of the past with passivity, nor wantonly to destroy, but to realize itself in the world of objectivity--the world of laws and institutions.

The first appearance of the second phase of consciousness is characterized by the grossest inconsistencies. It says in general, : "The immediate, only, is true; what we know by our senses, alone has reality; all is matter and force." But in this utterance it is unconscious that matter and force are purely general concepts, and not objects of immediate consciousness. What we see and feel is not matter or force in general, but only some special form. The self-refutation of this phase may be exhibited as follows:

The decline of this period of science results from the perception of the contradiction involved. Kant was the first to show this; his labors in this field may be summed up thus:

At once the popular side of this doctrine began to take effect. "We know only phenomena; the true object in itself we do not know."

This doctrine of phenomenal knowing was outgrown in Germany at the commencement of the present century. In 1791--ten years after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason--the deep spirit of Fichte began to generalize Kant's labors, and soon he announced the legitimate results of the doctrine. Schelling and Hegel completed the work of transforming what Kant had left in a negative state, into an affirmative system of truth. The following is an outline of the refutation of Kantian scepticism:

An obvious corollary from this is, that by the self-determination of mind in pure thinking we shall find the fundamental laws of all phenomena.

Though the Kantian doctrine soon gave place in Germany to deeper insights, it found its way slowly to other countries. Comte and Sir Wm. Hamilton have made the negative results very widely known--the former, in natural science; the latter, in literature and philosophy. Most of the writers named at the beginning are more or less imbued with Comte's doctrines, while a few follow Hamilton. For rhetorical purposes, the Hamiltonian statement is far superior to all others; for practical purposes, the Comtian. The physicist wishing to give his undivided attention to empirical observation, desires an excuse for neglecting pure thinking; he therefore refers to the well-known result of philosophy, that we cannot know anything of ultimate causes--we are limited to phenomena and laws. Although it must be conceded that this consolation is somewhat similar to that of the ostrich, who cunningly conceals his head in the sand when annoyed by the hunters, yet great benefit has thereby accrued to science through the undivided zeal of the investigators thus consoled.

Thus modern science, commencing with the close of the metaphysical epoch, has three stages or phases:

In the sensuous knowing, we have crude, undigested masses all co-ordinated; each is in and for itself, and perfectly valid without the others. But as soon as reflection enters, dissolution is at work. Each is thought in sharp contrast with the rest; contradictions arise on every hand. The third stage finds its way out of these quarrelsome abstractions, and arrives at a synthetic unity, at a system, wherein the antagonisms are seen to form an organism.

Force is an arrogant category and will not be co-ordinated with matter; if admitted, we are led to a pure dynamism. This will become evident as follows:

From this, two corollaries are to be drawn: That matter is merely a name for various forces, as resistance, attraction and repulsion, etc. That force is no ultimate category, but, upon reflection, is seen to rest upon law as a deeper category .

From the nature of the category of force we see that whoever adopts it as the ultimate, embarks on an ocean of dualism, and instead of "seeing everywhere the one and all" as did Xenophanes, he will see everywhere the self opposed, the contradictory.

The crisis which science has now reached is of this nature. The second stage is at its commencement with the great bulk of scientific men.

Now that the body of scientific men are turned in this direction, we behold a vast upheaval towards philosophic thought; and this is entirely unlike the isolated phenomenon of a single group of men lifted above the surrounding darkness of their age into clearness. We do not have such a phenomenon in our time; it is the spirit of the nineteenth century to move by masses.

The persistence and sincerity, so generally prevailing among these correlationists, we have occasion to admire in Herbert Spencer. He seems to be always ready to sacrifice his individual interest for truth, and is bold and fearless in uttering, what he believes it to be.

For critical consideration no better division can be found than that adopted in the "First Principles" by Mr. Spencer himself, to wit: 1st, the unknowable, 2nd, the knowable. Accordingly, let us examine first his theory of

THE UNKNOWABLE.

When one says that he knows that he knows nothing, he asserts knowledge and denies it in the same sentence. If one says "all knowledge is relative," as Spencer does, he of course asserts that his knowledge of the fact is relative and not absolute. If a distinct content is asserted of ignorance, the same contradiction occurs.

The perception of this principle by the later German philosophers at once led them out of the Kantian nightmare, into positive truth. The principle may be applied in general to any subjective scepticism. The following is a general scheme that will apply to all particular instances:

In this we discover that the mistake on the part of the sceptic consists in taking self-conscious intelligence as something one-sided or subjective, whereas it must be, according to its very definition, subject and object in one, and thus universal.

The difficulty underlying this stage of consciousness is that the mind has not been cultivated to a clear separation of the imagination from the thinking. As Sir Wm. Hamilton remarks, "Vagueness and confusion are produced by the confounding of objects so different as the images of sense and the unpicturable notions of intelligence."

Indeed the great "law of the conditioned" so much boasted of by that philosopher himself and his disciples, vanishes at once when the mentioned confusion is avoided. Applied to space it results as follows:

If the result attained by pure thought is correct, space is infinite, and if so, it cannot be imagined. If, however, it should be found possible to compass it by imagination, it must be conceded that there really is a contradiction in the intelligence. That the result of such an attempt coincides with our anticipations we have Hamilton's testimony--"imagination sinks exhausted."

Therefore, instead of this result contradicting the first, as Hamilton supposes, it really confirms it.

Herbert Spencer, however, not only betrays unconsciousness of this distinction, but employs it in far grosser and self-destructive applications. On page 25, he says: "When on the sea shore we note how the hulls of distant vessels are hidden below the horizon, and how of still remoter vessels only the uppermost sails are visible, we realize with tolerable clearness the slight curvature of that portion of the sea's surface which lies before us. But when we seek in imagination to follow out this curved surface as it actually exists, slowly bending round until all its meridians meet in a point eight thousand miles below our feet, we find ourselves utterly baffled. We cannot conceive in its real form and magnitude even that small segment of our globe which extends a hundred miles on every side of us, much less the globe as a whole. The piece of rock on which we stand can be mentally represented with something like completeness; we find ourselves able to think of its top, its sides, and its under surface at the same time, or so nearly at the same time that they seem all present in consciousness together; and so we can form what we call a conception of the rock, but to do the like with the earth we find impossible." "We form of the earth not a conception properly so-called, but only a symbolic conception."

Conception here is held to be adequate when it is formed of an object of a given size; when the object is above that size the conception thereof becomes symbolical. Here we do not have the exact limit stated, though we have an example given which is conceivable, and another which is not.

"We must predicate nothing of objects too great or too multitudinous to be mentally represented, or we must make our predications by means of extremely inadequate representations of such objects, mere symbols of them."

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