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

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"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."

But not only is the earth an indefinitely multiple object, but so is the rock; nay, even the smallest grain of sand. Suppose the rock to be a rod in diameter; microscope magnifying two and a half millions of diameters would make its apparent magnitude as large as the earth. It is thus only a question of relative distance from the person conceiving, and this reduces it to the mere sensuous image of the retina. Remove the earth to the distance of the moon, and our conception of it would, upon these principles, become quite adequate. But if our conception of the moon be held inadequate, then must that of the rock or the grain of sand be equally inadequate.

Whatever occupies space is continuous and discrete; i. e., may be divided into parts. It is hence a question of relativity whether the image or picture of it correspond to it.

The legitimate conclusion is that all our conceptions are symbolic, and if that property invalidates their reliability, it follows that we have no reliable knowledge of things perceived, whether great or small.

Mathematical knowledge is conversant with pure lines, points, and surfaces; hence it must rest on inconceivables.

But Mr. Spencer would by no means concede that we do not know the shape of the earth, its size, and many other inconceivable things about it. Conception is thus no criterion of knowledge, and all built upon this doctrine falls to the ground.

But he applies it to the questions of the divisibility of matter : "If we say that matter is infinitely divisible, we commit ourselves to a supposition not realizable in thought. We can bisect and rebisect a body, and continually repeating the act until we reduce its parts to a size no longer physically divisible, may then mentally continue the process without limit."

Setting aside conceivability as indifferent to our knowledge or thinking, we have the following solution of this point:

We do not have to test this in imagination to verify it; and this very truth must be evident to him who says that the progress must be "continued without limit." For if we examine the general conditions under which any such "infinite progress" is possible, we find them to rest upon the presupposition of a real infinite, thus:

Infinite Progress.

Mephistopheles says of Faust, whom he finds grumbling at the littleness of man's mind:

"Verachte nur Vernunft und Wissenchaft, Des Menschen allerh?chste Kraft! Und h?tt'er sich auch nicht dem Teufel ?bergeben, Er m?sste doch zu Grunde gehen."

Thus the scientific man can baffle all attacks from the religious standpoint; nay, he can even elicit the most unbounded approval, while he saps the entire structure of Christianity.

These revelations profess to make known the nature of the Absolute. They call the Absolute "Him," "Infinite," "Self-created," "Self-existent," "Personal," and ascribe to this "Him" attributes implying profound mediation. All definite forms of religion, all definite theology, must at once be discarded according to Spencer's principle. Self-consciousness, even, is regarded as impossible by him : "Clearly a true cognition of self implies a state in which the knowing and known are one, in which subject and object are identified; and this Mr. Mansel rightly holds to be the annihilation of both." He considers it a degradation to apply personality to God: "Is it not possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion?" And again he holds that the mere "negation of absolute knowing contains more religion than all dogmatic theology." "All religions are envelopes of truth, which reveal to the lower and conceal to the higher." "Objective and subjective things are alike inscrutable in their substance and genesis." "Ultimate religious and scientific ideas alike turn out to be mere symbols of the actual, and not cognitions of it." "We come to the negative result that the reality existing behind all appearances must ever be unknown."

Hence his talk about essence is purely gratuitous, for there is not shown the need of one.

A dialectical consideration of essence and phenomenon will result as follows:

Essence and Phenomenon.

This latter point is the important result, and may-be stated in a less strict and more popular form thus: The real world is said to be in a state of change--origination and decay. Things pass away and others come in their places. Under this change, however, there is a permanent called Essence.

To manifest or reveal is to make known; and hence to speak of the "manifestation of a hidden and inscrutable essence" is to speak of the making known of an unknowable.

Mr. Spencer goes on; no hypothesis of the universe is possible--creation not conceivable, for that would be something out of nothing--self-existence not conceivable, for that involves unlimited past time.

Hence is inexplicable.

If the subsuming process ends in an unknown, then all the subsuming has resulted in nothing; for to subsume something under an unknown does not explain it.

he says: "A thought involves relation, difference and likeness; whatever does not present each of them does not admit of cognition. And hence we may say that the unconditioned as presenting none of these, is trebly unthinkable." And yet he says, : "The relative is itself inconceivable except as related to a real non-relative."

We will leave this infinite self-contradiction thus developed, and turn to the positions established concerning the knowable. They concern the nature of Force, Matter and Motion, and the predicates set up are "persistence," "indestructibility" and similar.

THE KNOWABLE.

Although in the first part "conceivability" was shown to be utterly inadequate as a test of truth; that with it we could not even establish that the earth is round, or that space is infinitely continuous, yet here Mr. Spencer finds that inconceivability is the most convenient of all positive proofs.

The first example to be noticed is his proof of the compressibility of matter : "It is an established mechanical truth that if a body moving at a given velocity, strikes an equal body at rest in such wise that the two move on together, their joint velocity will be but half that of the striking body. Now it is a law of which the negative is inconceivable, that in passing from any one degree of magnitude to another all intermediate degrees must be passed through. Or in the case before us, a body moving at velocity 4, cannot, by collision, be reduced to velocity 2, without passing through all velocities between 4 and 2. But were matter truly solid--were its units absolutely incompressible and in unbroken contact--this 'law of continuity, as it is called, would be broken in every case of collision. For when, of two such units, one moving at velocity 4 strikes another at rest, the striking unit must have its velocity 4 instantaneously reduced to velocity 2; must pass from velocity 4 to velocity 2 without any lapse of time, and without passing through intermediate velocities; must be moving with velocities 4 and 2 at the same instant, which is impossible." On page 57 he acknowledges that any transition from one rate of motion to another is inconceivable; hence it does not help the matter to "pass through intermediate velocities." It is just as great a contradiction and just as inconceivable that velocity 4 should become velocity 3.9999+, as it is that it should become velocity 2; for no change whatever of the motion can be thought without having two motions in one time. Motion, in fact, is the synthesis of place and time, and cannot be comprehended except as their unity. The argument here quoted is only adduced by Mr. S. for the purpose of antithesis to other arguments on the other side as weak as itself.

On page 247, our author asserts that the first law of motion "is in our day being merged in the more general one, that motion, like matter, is indestructible." It is interesting to observe that this so-called "First law of motion" rests on no better basis than very crude reflection.

"When not influenced by external forces, a moving body will go on in a straight line with a uniform velocity," is Spencer's statement of it.

This abstract, supposed law has necessitated much scaffolding in Natural Philosophy that is otherwise entirely unnecessary; it contradicts the idea of momentum, and is thus refuted:

We come, finally, to consider the central point of this system:

THE CORRELATION OF FORCES.

It will be observed here that he is endeavoring to solve the First Antinomy of Kant, and that his argument in this place differs from Kant's proof of the "Antithesis" in this, that while Kant proves that "The world has no beginning," etc., by the impossibility of the origination of anything in a "void time," that Mr. Spencer proves the same thing by asserting it to be a "positive result of our mental structure," and then proceeds to show that this is a sort of "inability" which has a subjective explanation; it is, according to him, merely the "substance of consciousness" objectified and regarded as the law of reality.

We shall next find him involved with Kant's Third Antinomy.

The doctrine of the correlation is stated in the following passages:

On p. 294 he supports the doctrine that "motion takes the direction of the least resistance," mentally as well as physically.

Here are some of the inferences to be drawn from the passages quoted:

After this, what are we to say of the following? : "Notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary, there will probably have arisen in not a few minds the conviction that the solutions which have been given, along with those to be derived from them, are essentially materialistic. Let none persist in these misconceptions." : "Their implications are no more materialistic than they are spiritualistic, and no more spiritualistic than they are materialistic."

If we hold these positions by the side of Kant's Third Antinomy, we shall see that they all belong to the proof of the "Antithesis," viz: "There is no freedom, but everything in the world happens according to the laws of nature." The "Thesis," viz: "That a causality of freedom is necessary to account fully for the phenomena of the world," he has not anywhere supported. We find, in fact, only those thinkers who have in some measure mastered the third phase of culture in thought, standing upon the basis presented by Kant in the Thesis. The chief point in the Thesis may be stated as follows: 1. If everything that happens presupposes a previous condition, 2. This previous condition cannot be a permanent ; for, if so, its consequence, or the effect, would have always existed. Thus the previous condition must be a thing which has happened. 3. With this the whole law of causality collapses; for since each cause is an effect, its determining power escapes into a higher member of the series, and, unless the law changes, wholly vanishes; there result an indefinite series of effects with no cause; each member of the series is a dependent, has its being in another, which again has its being in another, and hence cannot support the subsequent term.

The Antinomy thus reduced gives:

On page 282 we learn that, "The solar heat is the final source of the force manifested by society." "It is based on animal and vegetable products, and these in turn are dependent on the light and heat of the sun."

As an episode in this somewhat abstract discussion, it may be diverting to notice the question of priority of discovery, touched upon in the following note : "Until I recently consulted his 'Outlines of Astronomy' on another question, I was not aware that, so far back as 1833, Sir John Herschel had enunciated the doctrine that 'the sun's rays are the ultimate source of almost every motion which takes place on the surface of the earth.' He expressly includes all geologic, meteorologic, and vital actions; as also those which we produce by the combustion of coal. The late George Stephenson appears to have been wrongly credited with this last idea."

"As I rode through the Schwartzwald, I said to myself: That little fire which glows starlike across the dark-growing moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy lost horseshoe--is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the whole universe, or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was primarily kindled at the sun; is fed by air that circulates from beyond Noah's deluge, from beyond the Dog star; it is a little ganglion, or nervous centre in the great vital system of immensity."

We have, finally, to consider the correlation theory in connection with equilibrium.

If two forces are equal and opposed, which will give way?

And the correlation theory results in showing that force cannot be, unless self-originated.

That self-determination is the inevitable result, no matter what hypothesis be assumed, is also evident. Taking all counter-hypotheses and generalizing them, we have this analysis:

But it is "negative unity" of these two sides, and hence an individual. The pure universal whose negative relation to itself as determiner makes the particular, completes itself to individuality through this act.

Since its pure universality is the substrate of its determination, and at the same time a self-related activity , it at once becomes its own object.

Its activity --a pure negativity--turned to itself as object, dissolves the particular in the universal, and thus continually realizes its subjectivity.

Hence these two sides of the negative unity are more properly subject and object, and since they are identical we may name the result "self-consciousness."

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